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diff --git a/75587-0.txt b/75587-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ceeec9 --- /dev/null +++ b/75587-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6146 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75587 *** + + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. + + Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. + + + + + A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES + + + “Ὅσσ’ ἕλομεν, λιπόμεσθ’· ὅσα δ’ οὐχ ἕλομεν, φερόμεσθα.” + + + + + A CREEL OF IRISH + STORIES + + + BY + JANE BARLOW + AUTHOR OF “IRISH IDYLLS” + + + METHUEN & CO. + 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. + LONDON + 1897 + + + + + PRINTED BY + W. H. WHITE AND CO. LTD + RIVERSIDE PRESS + EDINBURGH + + + + + TO + + J. W. B. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + THE KEYS OF THE CHEST 1 + + A DESERTED CHILD 97 + + AN ACCOUNT SETTLED 125 + + M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP 155 + + THE SNAKES AND NORAH 185 + + THREE PINT MEASURES 211 + + THE SURREE AT MAHON’S 231 + + THE SHORTEST WAY 253 + + THE STAY-AT-HOMES 271 + + A PROUD WOMAN 299 + + + + +THE KEYS OF THE CHEST + + + + +THE KEYS OF THE CHEST + + +The little valley of Letterglas is a very green and very lonesome +place almost always, for snow seldom lies on it, and the few people +who come into it depart again even sooner and as tracelessly, so that +its much grass spreads from month to month uncovered and untrodden. +It runs westward—that is, towards the ocean—but never reaches the +shore, because a great grassy curtain intervenes, curved round the +end of it, and prolonged in the lower hill-ranges that bound it to +north and south. They are just swarded embankments of most simple +construction, with scarcely a fold to complicate the sweep of their +smooth green slopes, and the outline of their ridge against the +sky undulates as softly as young corn in a drowsy breeze. Only at +one point—about midway on the right hand looking westward—it is +suddenly broken by a sharp dip down and up again, making a gap like +an inverted Gothic arch. And this is called by everybody _the Nick +of Time_. I once asked the reason of a gossoon who was guiding me +over the opposite hills, but he replied: “Sure, what else would they +be callin’ it?” Nor have I ever yet lighted upon a more satisfactory +explanation. + +The effect of Letterglas’s solitude and verdure somehow seems to be +heightened if one notices its single visible sign of human handiwork. +This is a road-track, now all but quite grassed over, leading into +the valley from its open end, where the Clonmoragh highway passes, +and stopping aimlessly at the slope immediately below the Nick, +having first flung two or three zig-zag loops up the hillside. +A rust-eaten, handleless shovel, and the wreck of an overturned +wheelbarrow, still mark the point where the work was abandoned on a +misty morning in April, more than fifty springs ago; but the track +itself is now merely a most faint difference of shade in the sward, +which has crept back again indefatigably, even where the austere +road-metal had been thrown clattering down. + +A day before that misty morning, if anybody had climbed up and +had passed through the Nick of Time, in at which the new road was +to go, he would have found himself on a long level of fine-bladed +turf, stretching like a lofty causeway laid down atop of the +hill-embankment Everything else up there looked so softly smooth and +flecklessly green that the eye was at once caught by a big block of +stone, which stood just opposite the gap, at a few yards’ distance. +It was an oblong mass of blackish limestone, perhaps seven feet by +four, with a shape curiously symmetrical for a piece of Nature’s +rough-hewing; plumb-and-rule guided chisel could scarcely have made +its lines truer. That, and its solitariness, uncompanioned as far +as could be seen by so much as a single pebble, gave its aspect an +incongruity which prompted the question how it had come there; for +whose answer we must revert through unimaginable wastes of years to +the time when our last huge ice-sheet was scoring and grinding all +the country’s face on its slithering way to the western ocean. Then +it was that this big boulder dropped fortuitously through a small +rent in the isle-wide coverlid, and so being left behind did not +share in the final weltering plunge a few miles farther on, where +the stark folds slipped over the sea-cliffs like the counterpane +off a restless sleeper’s bed. Ever since that catastrophe it had +sat there looking rather like a rude unwieldy coffer or chest, +a portion—as in fact it had been—of the impedimenta carried and +lost by some Titanic traveller. The resemblance was increased by a +clean-cut horizontal crack, no doubt sustained when the mass came +_sogging_ heavily to earth, which ran all round it, a few inches +from the top, counterfeiting a lid. All the old ages that had passed +over it afterwards had wrought only slight changes in its aspect. As +the years went on, the dark peaty mould deepened a little about its +base, and dull golden and silvery lichen-circlets crept out here and +there like wraiths of the sun and moon beams that had touched it. +Otherwise it was unaltered, and for many a long century so were its +surroundings. + +But at last a new feature appeared among them; a very inobtrusive +one. Fifty years ago, anybody approaching the big stone from the Nick +of Time might have observed that a little footpath led up to it from +the contrary direction, and went no farther. A more inartificial path +could not well be: a simple product of steps going to and fro. You +might have supposed a sheep-walk, only that there were no fleeces +nibbling over Letterglas. Indeed, its most frequent passers-by being +such promiscuous wayfarers as the shadows of wings and clouds, it +was not easy to conjecture any plausible _raison d’être_ for this +track, which ran distinctly defined, though faintly, merely a crease +in the flowing sward mantle, not a seam worn threadbare, so to speak, +through to the brown earth. Certainly the rather gloomy-looking block +had no apparent attractions wherewith to invite resort, not even a +view, as it stood at the bottom of a very shallow dent in the green. +Yet there the path ended; and if you took a dozen steps to the brow +of the hill, you could trace the course of that pale thin line far +down the slopes; through the fenceless “mountainy land” first, and +then into two or three steep, dyke-girdled fields, before it was lost +among the round-topped trees which gathered about a rambling old +mansion-house. Whoever visited the big stone evidently thought it +worth while to come a long way. + +Such an humble and artless path has always a certain element +of romance about it, lacking in more pretentious thoroughfares +contracted for at so much a mile. They differ as does a brook from a +canal. Like the brook, which has wrought itself as it went along, +with and by its own purpose, the little footpath has some special +meaning and object, albeit perhaps a less obvious one. It is the +visible trail of a want or wish, though of what kind we may be +unaware, and with want or wish it will cease to exist, or soon after. +For the living green things will creep back and efface it speedily. +But meanwhile it seems half to keep and half to betray a secret: you +can only guess what has brought feet thither day by day to tread it +out. + + * * * * * + +Fifty years ago or more, you would have been likely enough any fine +morning to catch the chief maker of this particular path in the +act. If the years were, say, ten more, it would have proved to be +a very little little-girl, whose brown hair held both sunshine and +shadow, and whose hazel-green eyes were softly lit, and who in those +early days of hers always wore an ugly reddish checked pelisse, and +a broad-brimmed straw hat with velvet rosettes to match. This was +little Eileen Fitzmaurice, six or seven years old, who, ever since +she could recollect anything, and maybe some twelve months longer, +had lived with her mother and aunt at the Big House in Glendoula. As +you would, no doubt, never guess her errand up the side of Slieve +Ardgreine, I will at once explain that she was seeing after the +safety of her family plate. + +Although Eileen had herself no recollection of anywhere else than +this Glendoula, a valley much resembling its neighbour Letterglas, +but with its green dotted and chequered by a few cabins and fields, +she knew by hearsay that there was another place in the world, a most +wonderful place called Drumlough Castle or At Home, where “there +wouldn’t be as much as a wing of a cold chicken served in the parlour +without its silver dish under it, and as for the ould black sideboard +of an evenin’ there would be company in it, that now was somethin’ +worth lookin’ at; the full moon on a dark night was a joke to the big +salvers.” To be sure there were there other fine things innumerable, +which would have appealed quite as strongly to her imagination, if +they had had equal justice done to them; however, it was upon these +that Eileen’s informant always laid most stress, for she looked +back to her ancient home through the eyes of old Timothy Gabbett, +the lame butler, whose pride and affection had dwelt in his pantry +and plate-chest, enjoying their supreme moments before a gala-night +spectacle of snowy and crystal and lustrous argent gleams. + +Yet this paradise, of which old Timothy used to say mournfully, +“Ah, Miss Eileen, them was the rael times,” was haunted by lurking +shadows. Eileen never learned the true reason of their exile: how +wild Sir Gerald, her father, had been found one summer morning +entangled among the serpentine coils of the water-weeds at the end of +the lake, with his only son and heir dead in his arms, three-year-old +Jack, who, when told by the garden-boy Mick that the master was +looking for him high ways and low ways, had stumped off greatly +elated, with no foreboding of the method in which Sir Gerald had +resolved to settle his grievously involved affairs. She had been +too small a baby then to be conscious of her mother’s flight from +the memories of Drumlough, and the circumstances of their coming +to Glendoula remained for her in their original obscurity. But +she very quickly perceived that it was worse than useless to ask +questions on such subjects of anybody except old Timothy, and that +any allusion to his stories in the presence of her elders was a grave +misdemeanour, which made her invalid mother cry, and her melancholy +aunt scold; and Eileen would have desisted at a subtler hint. She +did not often wonder why this should be, because her world was so +full of mysteries that she generally accepted their existence as a +matter of course. There was just one of them, however, that exercised +her mind not a little, and that she sometimes vainly tried to get +cleared up. She wanted to know what had become of all those most +beautiful silver things that Timothy talked about—the great shining +salvers, the claret-jugs, the tankards and flagons, the piles “as +high as your head, Miss Eileen,” of plates with a polish on them “the +stars in the sky might be the betther of gettin’,” and the grand +potato-rings, and the frosted cake-baskets, and the tall _up-urny_, +which seemed to be a marvellous composition of lights and flowers. +Of all these resplendent objects, the only one, a few uninteresting +spoons and forks excepted, that apparently had moved with the family +to Glendoula, was an antique teapot of fantastic shape. It could +no longer be used for its proper purpose, owing to the infirmity of +its dragon-tail handle, but old Timothy turned it to account in his +own way. You would always have been warned that it was Quality—and +Quality was almost invariably either Dr M‘Clintock or Canon Roche—who +had called at Glendoula House had you seen Timothy hobbling to +answer the bell. For, having reconnoitred through the half-glass +back hall-door, it was his practice in such cases to equip himself +with the old teapot and a bit of “shammy,” that he might appear +rubbing up ostentatiously, and muttering a stereotyped apology: “Beg +your pardon, sir, but there does be such a terrible sight of silver +clanin’ in this house that I scarce git time to lay a bit out of me +hand.” All the while he felt more than half-conscious that it was a +poor and rather unseemly pretence; but he had not much invention, and +could devise no better expedient for the magnifying of his diminished +office and the upholding of the family’s fallen fortune. Nor was +he ready with any very satisfactory answers when Eileen questioned +him about the present bestowal of his treasures. Full well he +knew that they had long since gone to the Jews and other hopeless +destinations, and were by this time irrecognisably melted down, or, +more intolerable still, adorning alien boards, and subject to alien +powder and brushes. This knowledge gave him acute pangs, which made +his replies curt and vague. “Where are they now, Miss Eily? Ah, sure, +just put away somewheres safe; they’re not wanted these times, when +the poor misthress is seein’ no company; but it won’t be so one of +these days.... Ah no, Miss Eily darlint, I couldn’t be showin’ them +to you—sure, they’re not in this house at all.” And once he added: +“They’re just stored up handy, Miss Eily, waitin’ till you’re grown a +big enough lady to be ownin’ of them.” + +“Me?” said Eileen, startled. + +“Why, in coorse, Miss Eileen. Who else has anythin’ else to say to +thim after poor little Master Jack, that had a right to ha’ been Sir +John, gettin’ dhrown—bein’ took suddint, I mane, that way? Hiven be +good to the both of them. Ay, to be sure, honey, it’s all in a very +safe place waitin’ for you. And thank ’ee kindly for bringin’ me in +the grand little bunch of daisies—they smell iligant.” + +After learning this fact about her far-off proprietorship in the +hoarded plate, Eileen thought about it oftener than ever, though from +motives of delicacy she spoke about it seldomer, lest she should +appear unduly prying and eager on her own behalf. And for a long time +the more she pondered the matter, the less possible she found it to +excogitate any possible hiding-place. But at last she made a fateful +discovery. + + * * * * * + +It was one fine May morning when she went for an unusually long +ramble with Norah Kinsella, the housemaid. Norah—a tall, strong, +cheerful lass, far more active than rheumatic old nurse—thought +nothing of carrying her pet, little Miss Eileen, who at six years +old was still only “a light fairy of a crathur,” up and down steep +places, so that they could go all the farther. On this occasion they +climbed right up to the top of the hill behind the house, higher +than Eileen had ever been before; and one of the first things she +noticed was the great boulder-block. She never had seen a stone of +nearly so large a size, nor imagined one; and she did not now class +it with the small unshapely fragments and insignificant pebbles with +which she was familiar. Rather, it reminded her of the turf-stacks +that she had watched people building up carefully in the yard. Yet a +turf-stack it certainly was not. + +“Doesn’t it look like a great big box, Norah?” she said. + +“Ay, indeed does it, Miss Eily,” Norah said; “and a fine power of +things it ’ud hould inside of itself, too. Sure now, you could be +puttin’ away a one of them little houses down below there in it, or +very nearly.” + +“It must be extrornarly heavy, Norah,” Eileen said, patting the +sun-warmed side of the stone with her hand. “If that’s its lid, I +couldn’t lift it.” + +“Sorra a bit of you, honey, nor ten like you. Troth, ’twould take +ten strong men to give that a heft,” said Norah, making as if she +would prise it up with the flat of her hand. “Whativer was inside it +’ud have to stay there for you or for me, if it was silver or gould +itself—we’d ha’ ne’er a chance.” + +Her random words gave Eileen the shock of a new idea. Perhaps there +really might be silver, quantities of silver, in it. For why +should not this be the handy safe place that old Timothy meant? A +safer there could not well be, since it was so far removed from all +meddlers; and she almost thought that she did espy a bright twinkle +as she stared hard at the lid-like crack, which was just on a level +with her eyes. She discreetly said nothing about it to Norah, and her +pre-occupation with the subject made her so abstractedly silent on +their way home that Norah feared the walk must have been too long. +But, in fact, she was considering whether or no she should mention +her discovery to old Timothy. He might be vexed, she thought, at her +finding out what he had refused to tell her: still, she would have +liked to ask him whether her guess were right. The point needed much +deliberation, and remained undecided for many days. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile she chanced upon something that seemed to be an +independent corroboration of her own theory. By nature Eileen had +not particularly studious tastes, but solitariness had early driven +her to seek for company on the shelves in the long low-windowed +book-room. She did not find there much that was very congenial. +Sixty years ago juvenile literature was, as a rule, a solemn and +dreary thing; and Eileen’s meagre library was not even up to that +date, having for the most part belonged to the preceding generation. +The favourite authors of the day would appear to have been infested +with a mole-like fancy, which commonly led them to linger among +tombs and worms and epitaphs, seldom, indeed, stopping short at +those grisly precincts, or forbearing to light them up with a lurid +flare from the regions beyond, but, nevertheless, dwelling upon them +with a fond elaboration of detail. Accordingly, a few days after her +first ascent of Slieve Ardgreine, Eileen fished down from its shelf +a small, old dusty, half-calf volume, which was composed of several +short stories bound together. One of them, entitled _The Churchyard +Prattler_, related the experiences of a child, aged four, who, as +an appropriate and improving pastime, was sent out provided with a +string of his own length, and instructed to ascertain by measurement +how many of the graves in his cheerfully chosen playground were +shorter than himself. He was pictorially represented as attired in a +long bib and a broad-brimmed chimney-pot hat, and he moralised his +lively researches into the strains of a brief rime-doggerel hymn: + + “_Oft may be found + A grassy mound + By the yew-tree, + Much less than me; + It seems to cry: + Prepare to die!_” + +Another showed how a frivolous little girl, in a huge coal-scuttle +bonnet, had her sinful hankering after toys and such vanities rebuked +by being conducted past a series of attractive shop-windows, from +each of which she was bidden to select herself a present, until she +arrived at an undertaker’s establishment, where she was likewise +required to place an order. + +The last story in the volume, however, was of a very different type, +and upon it Eileen now alighted, instinctively judicious in her +skipping of its ghoulish companions. It was called _The Glittering +Hoard in the Coffer of Stone_; and the passage that most profoundly +impressed her ran as follows: “The flare of the scented torches +fell upon the vast coffer of dark stone, which stood in one corner +of the cavern. Its smooth sides were crusted here and there with +patches of lichen and grey moss, and it looked as if no hand had +touched it for many an age. But at a gesture from the Prince, six +gigantic black slaves raised up the massive slab which formed its +lid. As they did so, the foot of one of them slipped, and before he +could recover himself, the unwieldy weight slid down with a crash, +and was shattered into three fragments on the floor. Nobody heeded, +however, for the light that broke out of the open chest drew all +eyes thither. It was like a cistern filled with crystalline fire. +“Empty it, my son,” said the old Sultaness, and the Prince began to +lift out one by one the treasures it contained. Silver goblets there +were and flagons, great gilt bowls and ewers, filigree caskets set +with diamonds, chains of red gold, and ropes of milk-white pearls, +diadems and necklaces, armlets and girdles, whose pendant gems +dripped a many-coloured brilliance, as of flower-distained dew. At +the bottom of the chest lay a round golden buckler, studded with +knots of jewels, and a mighty sword in an ivory scabbard inlaid with +pale coral and amber: the hilt was carved out of a single lump of +apple-green chrysoprase. All these, strewn over the flagged floor, +shimmered and bickered under the glancing torch-gleams, until it +seemed as if a rippled and moon-lit sea lay there flashing around a +murky rock. The beholder could hardly realise that its uncouth bulk +had indeed been the receptacle of a treasure so richly wrought and +exquisite.” + +Eileen read and pored over this account with keen interest and +pleasure. From the first she drew a parallel between the two great +blocks of stone, so that the wealth disclosed by the one strengthened +her most splendid conjectures about the other. As she read, she +easily shifted the scene from the shadowy cavern to the sunny +hill-top, and imagined the grass all scattered over with shining +gear, which by some strange decree of fortune she was to look upon as +her own property. Silver dishes and jewelled diadems, the _up-urny_ +and the buckler, both these alike fascinatingly mysterious, sparkled +for her in the clear light of day. The only objects in the picture +that she shrank from reproducing were those six gigantic black men, +whose presence she felt to be an ugly blot upon the brightness. But +then she reflected that the lifters of the lid perhaps need not be +either black or gigantic. Dan Donnelly, and Christy Shanahan, and +Murtagh Reilly, would surely be strong and big enough to do it; +and they were all pleasant familiar faces, who said “Good mornin’ +to you kindly, Miss Eily,” or “The Lord love you,” with friendly +smiles, whenever they met her, and were in no wise alarming. So she +substituted them for the formidable figures, and could almost hear +old Murtagh saying, “Hup boyos! or what for was yous aitin’ all them +pitaties?” which was his usual exordium upon such strenuous occasions. + + * * * * * + +The next time that she went for a walk with Norah Kinsella, which +happened soon after this, in the continuance of old nurse’s +rheumatism, Eileen said, half-scared at her own temerity: “Let us +go up again to the big box”; and she felt happy when Norah at once +assented, tacitly accepting the fact that a box it was. Eileen wanted +to see whether she were tall enough to look in, supposing the lid +removed, and she found, to her gratification, that on tiptoe her +stature sufficed. + +It was some while longer, however, before she ventured to touch +upon it in conversation with old Timothy; nor did she then make any +point-blank statement. She introduced the subject allusively and +implicitly. “That _is_ an exceedingly safe place where you keep the +plate now, Timothy, isn’t it?” she said to him one day when she was +helping him to lay the table, by following him with a little sheaf of +spoons as he hobbled round it. Her brown frock was hidden beneath a +white cambric pinafore, and her large eyes glinted wistfully through +a soft cloud of hair. + +“It is so bedad, missy,” said the old man resignedly, “we’ve took +good care of that.” + +“How many people do _you_ think it would take to lift off the lid of +the chest?” said Eileen. + +“Is it the led, Miss Eily? Troth, now, they’d be bothered to do that +on us at all, if they was as many as they plased, and the kay of it +put away out of the raich of them—or the likes of them,” old Timothy +said, arbitrarily blackening her colourless term. + +“Oh, then, it’s locked?” said Eileen. + +“To be sure it is, Miss Eily. Why now, if it wasn’t, you might as +well be gad’rin’ the things together handy for villins to run away +wid thim convanient. But ah, sure, you’re innicent yet, Miss Eily, +and small blame to you, or you’d understand the raison of kays.” + +“So I do, Timothy,” said Eileen. “It’s villins. But I think I don’t +quite understand the reason of _them_.” + +She went away pondering. This locking of the chest compelled her +to modify somewhat the details of the opening scene. However, she +quickly re-arranged them completely to her satisfaction, and her +fondness for visiting the site of it did not diminish. About this +time she began to be allowed to ramble out unattended, for old nurse +went invalided home, and Eileen had acquired the character of a +quiet, sensible child, not apt to get into mischief. The use she made +of her liberty was a daily pilgrimage up to the big stone, where she +dreamed away many pleasant hours, largely occupied with plans for the +future, when she should have found that key. Sometimes she brought +the _Glittering Hoard_ book up with her, and read it there to whet +the edge of anticipation; but in general she was content to weave a +dazzling fabric out of the material supplied her by old Timothy’s +reminiscences. + +Should anybody hence infer that Eileen Fitzmaurice must have been +in her early youth an avaricious sort of person, he cannot be +flatly contradicted; for so she was, in a way. But in a way it +was. Her theories about the privileges of property were peculiar, +and restrictive. For instance, in her definition “my own” meant +merely “promptly transferable”; and the Paradise she supposed was +a place where everybody else would like everything that she had. +Here, the failure of her few possessions to please other people +not infrequently caused her disappointment; and she occasionally +thought scorn of herself for having only trifles to offer so scant +and paltry. Sometimes, indeed, it was nothing better than a bunch or +so of blackberries, perhaps wanting still several shades of their +mature glossy jet, which she had torn hands as well as frock in +extricating from among their barbed briers—the greediest child never +plucked with a more eager recklessness. When she could meet with +no friend who was imprudent or complaisant enough to accept these +spoils, she would, a little crestfallen and regretful, scatter them +on some walk or window-stool, in hopes that at least the small birds +might condescend to benefit thereby. She was all the more dependent +upon opportunities for bestowing such a tangible proof of her regard, +because she seldom had any for others of the less material kind. Her +mother was too drearily isolated by ill-health and despondency to +be within reach of caresses, while her aunt Geraldine was mostly +absent, inhabiting some remote volume, and seemed to be rather bored +by the people whom she encountered in her brief visits to the outer +world. The acquisition of the wonderful chest, however, would release +Eileen from these straitened circumstances, as its contents would +surely comprise what could not but give satisfaction to all. She +could scarcely believe that anybody, not even poor mamma, who only +pretended so badly to care about her presents of wild flowers and the +like, could really be indifferent to the set of six little silver +salt-cellars shaped like water-lilies, which old Timothy described +so fondly. It might be possible also to provide Aunt Geraldine with +something of which she should not say hurriedly, coming reluctantly +out of her book: “Oh, thank you, my dear child, but what use would it +be to _me_?” Then there were Norah Kinsella, and old nurse, and old +Timothy, and after them a small crowd of neighbours, very adequately +representing the population of Glendoula, so catholic being Eileen’s +good will that there was hardly a dresser in the hamlet on which +some brilliant object should fail to shine. And if anything remained +over after the distribution, she thought to herself that she would +leave it for the villins, who would no doubt be much disappointed, +supposing they ever did come to look and found nothing at all. Such +plans as these were commonly in her mind as she toiled up and trotted +down the smooth-swarded steps, where the thread-like track of her +footsteps slowly began to follow them. + + * * * * * + +Generally Eileen went to and fro quite alone beneath the spacious +domed skies, which seemed to make no more account of her than of +the rabbits, who played here and there on the side of the hill. +The rabbits evidently did not think much of her either, and hid +themselves when she came near without any great show of flurry or +fright, rather intimating by their demeanour that they had simply +no wish to make her acquaintance. But Eileen used to watch them +wistfully from their prescribed distance, and think to herself that +they looked enviably sociable and friendly together. Sometimes, too, +she wished that her tame robin would hop along with her farther than +to the end of the holly walk, but it never would; and one day the +black cat ate it, all except a fluff of heart-rending feathers, +no doubt to warn her that her desires were vain. For destiny had +assigned her little intercourse with her fellow-creatures. + +Once, however, she had a companion for a while. It was during her +seventh summer, when her cousin Pierce Wilmot spent his holidays at +Glendoula House. Just at first Eileen found this an experience as +alarming as it was novel. Breakfast and luncheon became such serious +ordeals when she had to confront a great-sized stranger—Pierce was +about double her age and much more than twice as big—concerning whom +the furtive glances she ventured upon gave her an impression of a +very black head, and eyebrows as dark and straight as if they had +been ruled with pen and ink. She thought he looked ferocious, and +privately inquired of Norah whether holidays were _many_ days. + +But on the second morning, after breakfast, this forbidding person +suddenly said to her: “Come along, little Bright-Eyes, and show +me everything.” At which address her terror culminated, and then, +as terrors sometimes do, toppled over into nothing at all. A few +minutes later they were going about together quite amicably out of +doors. Pierce was so immeasurably Eileen’s superior in age and all +its privileges that he had no need to assert his dignity by keeping +her at a distance—as the rabbits did—and they fraternised apace. +The July morning was still freshly fair, with a twinkling trail +of dew shifting along from blade to leaf up the sun-lit sward, as +the moon’s silver-spun wake shifts over a rippled water, and with +gossamer threads, that might have been ravelled out of a rainbow, +woven between furze and broom bushes, when Eileen and Pierce began +to ascend Slieve Ardgreine. For one of the first things she had to +show him was her stone chest. She took an especial pleasure in doing +so, because she very seldom had an opportunity of even talking about +it to anybody, the matter being, she felt, a family affair, which +she could not with propriety enter upon except to old confidential +Timothy, whose distaste for the subject she was bound to respect. + +“Why, _you’ll_ never get up there,” Pierce said with some +incredulity, when, in answer to his inquiry whither he was being +taken, Eileen pointed to the ridge above their heads, “_Were_ you +ever up so high?” he asked, doubtfully. + +Eileen would have been very sorry to let him perceive how absurd she +thought this curious misconception, and she only replied: “Every +fine day, if they don’t say the grass is too boggy altogether. And +old Murtagh says I skyte up as fast as his Cruiskeen going after a +rabbit.” + +On the way up, Eileen gave her companion, whose life seemed to +have been spent chiefly in towns, a good deal of information about +common natural objects. Some of this she had excogitated for herself +during her solitary rambles, and it appeared to surprise and amuse +him rather unaccountably. Her explanation, for instance, of how the +hedgehogs came and stuck themselves over with the withered spines of +the furze-bushes, that had dropped off mottled and grey. Among other +things she showed him two or three rabbit-holes; but here it was +Pierce who had new facts to impart. “So that’s where they sleep, is +it?” he said, “I always thought they hung themselves up like bats, +head downwards against a wall; at any rate, that’s how they manage in +Dublin.” + +“That _is_ funny,” said Eileen; “I don’t think they ever do here. And +I suppose they drop down when they awake?” + +“Oh, I rather fancy they never do awake,” said Pierce. + +“Never at all? Are you quite sure, now, that they’re not _dormouses_, +Pierce?” said Eileen wisely. + +“Am I sure that you’re not an elephant, Miss Eileen?” he said, +mimicking her. “But I can tell you that if I can borrow a gun, I’ll +soon teach your rabbits the same trick. Why, haven’t you ever been in +a poulterer’s shop”—Eileen never had—“and seen them hanging up?” + +“Oh,” said Eileen. She disliked guns and shooting, and moreover +became suddenly aware that she must have displayed a ridiculous +stupidity about Pierce’s joke. This made her turn disconcertedly +pink, so that Pierce was afraid he must have hurt her feelings, which +he had not meant to do. Therefore he was glad to find, when a few +minutes afterwards they reached the big stone, that she had evidently +quite forgotten any little vexation in the excitement of relating +its wonderful romance. He was careful to listen with such interest, +and seemingly so fully share all her sentiments, that she very soon +ventured upon confiding to him a particular anxiety which had of late +grown up in her mind. “Do you see what a small keyhole it has?” she +said, pointing to a little round orifice which occurred high up on +one side of the block, and the discovery of which had been to her +a source both of hopes and fears. “Only a tiny little _pinny_ key +would fit into it. Wouldn’t you think it would take a bigger one to +open a box like this?” As the hole barely admitted the tip of her +forefinger, it could not be considered roomy, but Pierce replied with +decision: “The largest box in the world might be opened with the +smallest key that ever was made”; and one of her haunting fears being +thus dispelled, she produced another, which took this form: “Well, +but supposing the people somehow _lost_ the key, then I suppose the +box couldn’t ever be opened again, even if the person that the things +in it were belonging to did live to be as much as twenty—old enough +to be let have them, you know?” And again Pierce could re-assure her. +“Why, there’d be nothing easier than to get another key made. One +takes an impression of the lock with cobbler’s wax; _I_ could do it +myself. So if they lose it on you, little Bright-Eyes, just send word +to me, and I’ll come and settle it for you.” Eileen looked grateful +and relieved. “It won’t be for a long while, but I’ll not forget,” +she said. + +As they returned down the hill she said: “I wonder whether there +is that very fine sort of sword in this chest too. I hope so, and +perhaps there may be, only old Timothy never told me. I must ask him +about it, and if there is one, Pierce, I’ll give it to you.” + +“And then I’d maybe kill you with it,” Pierce said, absently joking, +for just at that time he was speculating upon his chances of getting +a shot at the rabbits. But Eileen replied quite solemnly: “I don’t +believe you’d ever like to do that on purpose—at any rate, not unless +I growed up very detestfully nasty; and you’re too big to do anything +by accident.” And she proceeded home, much cheered by the event of +their walk. + + * * * * * + +Less satisfactory was the result of an interview which she had +shortly afterwards with old Timothy. For, in the first place, she +regretted to hear that “he couldn’t be sure, but he thought it +noways likely there would be a sword, or any such description of +an ould skiverin’ conthrivance, put up along with the good plate; +at all events, he never remimbered any talk of e’er a one—not to +his knowledge.” And still more mortifying than this, she quickly +perceived that the old butler had no liking for her cousin. What +Timothy said on the subject was exactly as follows:—“Goin’ out wid +Master Pierce, missy jewel? Och well, to be sure, he’s a fine young +gentleman, considherin’. If the night’s black enough, the baste’s +white enough, as Andy Goligher said, and he misdhrivin’ home the +wrong Kerry bullock.” An aphorism the application of which may seem +rather obscure to the undiscerning, but which Eileen quite clearly +understood as an intimation that of Master Pierce Timothy thought +poorly, and she was sorry for this, as she would have liked her old +and her new acquaintance to be friends. + +The grounds of Timothy’s prejudice, however, she did not guess. The +fact was that he had a few days before scowlingly from his pantry +window espied Master Pierce “discoorsin’ as plisant as anythin’” +with young Larry M‘Farlane, “that was sister’s son to ould Pather +Doran, and bad luck to _him_.” Now, maybe as many as a dozen years +ago, Timothy and Pather had differed in a discussion about the proper +season for sowing asparagus, and one of Pather’s arguments had been: +“That it was no great thanks to Timothy if he _had_ sted a goodish +while wid the Family, and he, you might say, tied to thim be the +leg like a strayin’ jackass.” Pather’s allusion was to the effects +of an accident, which, met with by Timothy on the cellar-stairs at +Drumlough Castle in his youth, had left him a hobbler for life; and +since the controversy Pather and he “weren’t spakin’.” Therefore, +now, if Master Pierce chose “to be great wid a one of that pack, +and to go sthreelin’ up the hill wid him after the rabbits,” it was +only natural that old Timothy should entertain no high opinion of so +indiscriminating a person. + +But his veiled disparagement did not check the progress of a real +friendship between the cousins, and when the end of Pierce’s holidays +came, Eileen thought they had not been nearly many enough. On the +regretful evening before he went, they paid a farewell visit to the +big boulder, and, standing by it, Eileen said forlornly: “Next time +I’ll only be myself.” + +“Perhaps I may be here again next summer,” Pierce said encouragingly. +He had already learned by experience that even twelve months are not +interminable. + +“I wish it would be next year always,” said Eileen. “For that’s the +time when people come back. The Widow Shanahan’s son’s coming home +from the States next year, please goodness; but she says she’ll not +be in this world then, so he might as well stop where he’s gettin’ +the fine wages. Norah says that she means that she’ll be dead. I +wonder who told her, or how she knows. _You_ don’t know how soon you +are going to die, Pierce, do you?” + +“Not I, nor anybody else,” said Pierce. + +“I wanted to give her her little silver jug,” said Eileen; “she’s +to have the little fat one that’s gilt inside and has two spouts, +because it’s the nicest, and she’s to be pitied, the dear knows, +Norah says, with one thing and the other. But if she goes and dies +first, I never can. Do you think she’d wait a while, if I told her +about it as a secret?” + +“She mightn’t be able,” said Pierce. + +“Ah, and then it would only tantinglise her,” said Eileen, “so I’d +better not. But I’m sorry.” + +“Don’t forget that you must send me word, if they lose the key, and +you want another,” Pierce said to change the subject. + +“I’ll remember,” said Eileen. “But I’ll have to keep on living for +ever so much longer before they’ll let me want it. You see, I’ll not +be twenty-one even next year, I should think.” + +“I should think not indeed, Miss Eileen,” said Pierce; “you’re no age +worth speaking of at all.” + +They were now descending the hill, and for some way Eileen mused +vainly about possible remedies for this deplorable state of affairs. +“I wish,” she said at length, “that a great many days would happen +all together sometimes—in bunches like the black and white currants, +instead of one by one and one by one: ever so long they last, when +there’s nobody here but me. One might get old pretty quick then. +Wouldn’t you like it better, Pierce?” + +“Well, no,” said Pierce. “If the days were used up that way, there’d +be so little time for doing anything. Mostly they’re short enough; +and there’s no hurry about getting old, as you call it—an old woman +of twenty—you’re a queer young person, Eileen.” + +“I was only thinking,” said Eileen, “that perhaps I mightn’t be able +to wait a great while, any more than the Widow Shanahan. And it would +be a pity if I wasn’t in this world when the chest is opened”; and +although Pierce replied: “Oh, nonsense; where else should you be?” +she continued to contemplate this contingency in sad silence as they +trotted down after their perch-long shadows over the sunny turf with +its jewelled embroideries of golden trefoil and pearly eyebright, and +dim amethystine thyme. But when they had just come to the gap in the +dyke, where you step across two flat stones into the highest field, +a somewhat consolatory thought struck her. It was: “Perhaps, then, +they’d give all those things to you, Pierce, and I’ve told you what +everybody’s to have, so mind you don’t forget.” + +She was so engrossed by the idea that she nearly tripped over the +unheeded stones, and her heir and executor, preventing her tumble, +said: “Oh, it will be all right, never fear; but meanwhile, little +Bright-Eyes, you’d better not break your neck. We’ll both of us have +grand times when I come with the key.” + + * * * * * + +Eileen had many of her long years, almost nine, in fact, during which +she might have forgotten Pierce and his promises, but she never did. +Only once in all that time did anything happen to remind her of +them, and that was on the Christmas after his visit, when Tom Roe, +the postman, brought the first letter that had ever been addressed +to Miss Eileen Fitzmaurice. Being opened hastily, it was found to +contain a little white cardboard box, within which lay among rosy +cloudlets of marvellous pink cotton-wool a tiny silver key, sent +to Eileen by her cousin Pierce—her affectionate cousin, Pierce’s +mother, who put up the packet for him, had written him down without +consulting him, as a matter of form. The gift filled Eileen with +gratitude and delight. Yet, in the course of the morning, her Aunt +Geraldine came upon her when she sat in the book-room window, eyeing +her new possession with a somewhat doubtful countenance. “I’m almost +afraid,” she said half-aloud, “that it isn’t quite long enough. And I +never did see a key with a pin in it before.” + +“Long enough for what?” said her Aunt Geraldine. “It seems to me to +be a very pretty little brooch, and it was exceedingly good-natured +of your cousin to think of sending you one.” + +“Oh yes, indeed, and it is very pretty, as pretty as can be,” +Eileen protested. She flushed distressfully at the implication of +ingratitude partly, and partly at this new view of the trinket, +which would involve the vanishing of its peculiar charm. “I was +only thinking,” she said, “that I have poked my finger farther +down the hole than this would reach; but, of course, if it’s a +brooch”—Aunt Geraldine had not stayed to hear her explanation; and +Eileen presently put away the little box in her drawer, feeling that +something had blunted the fine edge of her pleasure. + +Those nine long years passed by uneventfully. It seemed, indeed, +as if fewer things and fewer happened at Glendoula. In the Big +House life went on somewhat in the manner of a machine gradually +slowing down. Lady Fitzmaurice grew from season to season a little +more invalided and melancholy, her sister-in-law more abstracted +and apathetic, old Timothy stiffer and lamer in his gait. Even the +ancient grey parrot on his pole in the parlour sank deeplier into his +dotage, and only grimaced silently at Eileen when she tried to start +a conversation with him. Eileen herself was an exception, though +perhaps potentially rather than actually, the fresh spirit of youth +making less resistance than is commonly imagined for it against the +coercion of dreary external circumstances. Still her disposition was +naturally blithe and hopeful, and she would have been ready enough +with her: O brave new world! if any fair wind had borne the good ship +into her ken. But instead of that she was destined to see a woeful +wreck come drifting by. + + * * * * * + +It was gradually, by an aggregation of rumours, faint and vague +at first, that warnings of the black time impending stole into +Glendoula valley, much as the wan mists creep thither from seaward, +a mere smoke-wreath falling away down the purple-rifted shoulders +of Slieverossan, with the murk of a sky-enfolding cloud gathered up +opaquely behind them. Felix O’Riordan, returning from Clonmorragh +fair one July day, first brought authentic news of how “the quare +ugly blackness on the pitaties, the same that done destruction last +year on the crops away down in different parts of the counthry, was +desthroyin’ all before it now no farther off than Kilfintragh, just +at the back of the hills.” And through the rainy harvest weather +ensuing, reports of the like became as frequent as the unkindly +and chilly showers that drip-dripped unseasonably over the little +fields. Then fell a heavy thunderous night, with flickerings of +sheet-lightning fitfully casting an evil eye through the dark, and on +the morrow, when its pall lifted, there was grief and fear among the +neighbours at Glendoula, for the sober green ridges looked as if a +scorching breath had passed over them, and from their drooping haulms +and leaves came wafted the ill-auguring odour. + +After that the trouble throve and waxed like the most unmolested +weed. A man perhaps seldom tastes despair much cruder and sheerer +than when at the impatiently desired potato-digging he turns up +spadeful after spadeful, spadeful after spadeful, nothing but +dangling lumps of malodorous slime, nothing but that whatever, on to +the very end of the drill, where the wife stands watching him and +saying: “Ah, the Lord be good to us—have we ne’er a sound one in it +at all?” with the childer beside her looking on, piteously concerned +or piteously indifferent. Before Slieverossan had drawn down his +winter snow-hood, the dearth wrought by the ruined harvest was +finding its victims far and wide. Serious distress existed in the big +houses, where people were at their wit’s end to devise some agreeable +substitute for that empty dish on the dinner table. Savoury rice, +they tried, and stewed toast, and Yorkshire pudding, and many other +such things, but none of them satisfactorily filled the place of the +missing potato. There still remained a gap all-thing unbecoming at +their feast. It was a dreadful loss. But in the small houses people +were spared all worry of that sort at least, because when they had no +pitaties, they had nothing else to eat, bad or good, which made their +bill of fare a perfectly simple matter, thus illustrating, no doubt, +the providential law of compensation. + +Eileen’s mind, however, was not philosophic enough to show her this +aspect of the case, and what she did actually see and hear smote +her with sorrow and dismay. It seemed as if the way of her world, +hitherto a tranquil, sometimes rather tedious, one, had changed into +the path of a surging flood, whence cries of despair and beseeching +hands appealed to her vainly where she stood, secure herself and +helpless and remorseful. So little for anybody could she do, who +would fain have rescued them all. Even if she had commanded the +whole resources of the household, they would have been miserably +inadequate; but as it was, Aunt Geraldine said drearily that she +supposed it was no use giving to vagrants, and old Timothy, whose +inborn tendency towards “naygurliness,” had developed into a +vice-like clamp, which acted automatically at the pressure of a +petition, kept one watchful eye perpetually upon the hall-door, +and another on the little store-room across the passage. Only by +rare conjunctions of good luck with agility could Eileen elude his +vigilance so far as to fetch and carry between them unbeknownst. More +often than not, she arrived too late to do anything; and at best, +her stealthiest operations among the bread-crocks and biscuits were +pretty sure to bring the old man shuffling thither in defence of the +menaced commissariat. + +“Arrah now, Miss Eily, what work have you there, cuttin’ up the fresh +loaf? and the laws bless us all, but that’s the hunch! If there was a +slab of a brick wantin’ for repeerin’ the house-wall, you could make +a shift wid that.” + +“There’s a very decent poor man at the door,” Eileen might say, “who +looks as if he had been starving for a month of Sundays; and he has a +scrap of a baby with him; its mother died yesterday at Kilfintragh. +I must get it a piece of soft bread, and a drink of milk, if there’s +any left.” + +“And what for need you be destroyin’ a whole loaf for a crathur o’ +that size? Sure, I seen it comin’ past me window, sittin’ cocked up +like a kitten bewitched. I’ve some stale bits in the other crock ’ud +do it grand.” + +“Oh, those are nothing but little crumbs, only fit for the chickens.” + +“Musha, long life to it! And is it settin’ itself up to want betther +feedin’ than the chuckens? Well, now, I should suppose that what’s +good enough for them’s plenty good enough for it, when the most +differ between them is that sorra the use _it’s_ ever apt to be, +starved or no, except makin’ throuble for itself and other people.” + +“Well, if some babies had been fed like chickens, perhaps they +wouldn’t have grown up so fond of gabbling like old geese,” Eileen +might rejoin, inaudibly, so that the repartee should relieve her own +at no cost to Timothy’s feelings, as she escaped with her booty. + +But her raids were not by any means invariably so successful. +Sometimes she found that Timothy had forestalled her, and had swept +everything into an inaccessible locker; and sometimes there was +really nothing left to sweep. So then she had no resource save to +ensconce herself in the remotest backward-looking room, that she +might not hear the interchange of entreaty and denial, nor witness +the lingering withdrawal of the rejected suppliants, wandering away +disappointed out of sight, but not out of mind so soon, behind the +glossy-walled belt of laurels. + +For a like reason she shunned in those days what used to be a +favourite walk beyond the front gates along the quiet lane, with its +broad green banks softly on one side mounting up into amply spreading +grass-slopes, now haunted at its every turn by sorrowful spectres +that she had no charm to lay. Occasionally one of them would say to +her: “Ah, melady, the blessin’s of God on the sweet face of you, +and may you never know what it is to want the bit,” and this made +her feel herself all the more to be a sort of ravening locust. Her +own meals, indeed, those times, were partaken of grudgingly and of +necessity, after which, carrying everything she could lay hands on, +she hurried off to the end of the elm-grove, where a herd of small +children would be looking out for them with large eyes. But day by +day she thought her supplies seemed to dwindle, and the pinched +faces to multiply, and she was as powerless against that as if it +were the oncoming of night. One day in a week of black frost she +desperately sold her godmother’s cameo bracelet to a passing higgler +for a shilling, wherewith she bought out of a baker’s cart three +portly loaves; and the satisfaction which these caused to prevail +for a while, a short while, almost compelled her to think that she +would dispose in the same method of her silver key-brooch, her only +other ornament, the next time he came by. But always, having looked +at it for some minutes, she replaced it in its box without achieving +any resolve. The pencilled line, still legible on the lid, seemed to +protest against the transaction in the name of the dead summer that +lived with her brightest memories. + + * * * * * + +All this while the big boulder stone was lying out under the stars +and mists and shadow-shifting winds on the grassy ridge of Slieve +Ardgreine; and thither constantly travelled Eileen’s thoughts, +although her bodily pilgrimages to it had grown less frequent than +heretofore, since dripping tussocks and long, bedraggled skirts had +become a graver consideration. She had never lost her faith in it +and its contents. Nothing whatever had occurred to alter her opinion +about it, and the silence on the subject which various reasons +obliged her to maintain helped to ward off chances of disillusioning +enlightenment. Eileen’s sixteen years in lonely Glendoula had taught +her so very little either at first or second hand about other +Quality’s domestic arrangements, that for anything she could tell, it +might not be unusual to keep the family plate locked up in a large +stone chest out-of-doors. Therefore no antecedent improbability +cropped up to struggle with the existence of a long-cherished, +deep-rooted dream and desire. + +The one change that had here been wrought by those slow-footed, +empty-handed years was in the use she designed for her riches. This +change grew more radical under stress of the famishing winter. She no +longer could care to admire the beauty of the bright gleaming silver +things, nor to sort out from among them fastidiously appropriate +gifts for each—that indeed had become only too simple a process, +since everybody’s need was the same. Her sole wish now was to sell +all that she had straightway—she would have waited to make no pious +bargains about treasure in heaven—that she might satisfy the poor +with bread. But the more intensely her wishes concentrated themselves +upon that object, the more keenly she felt how far it was out of +reach. Four years and some months, jealously reckoned, still were +lacking to her of the age that would legally entitle her to enter +upon the possession of her property; and although she now knew +from other sources than old Timothy that some inheritance did then +await her, what could such a distant prospect avail in the face of +to-day’s direful necessity? Chafing sorely against the law’s delay +that set bars between the owner and her rights, Eileen wondered +sometimes whether the Lord Chancellor, whom she understood to rule +her destinies, might not under the circumstances be persuaded to +trust her with her fortune, now that she was sixteen and a half, just +to keep poor Denis Madden’s half-dozen orphans, and old Widow Flynn +and her blind daughter, and all the rest of the people from starving +completely. Once she actually ventured upon a remote hint at some +such possibility to her Aunt Geraldine, but lacking courage did not +approach the subject closely enough to make herself intelligible; a +failure for which her conscience often pricked her in the following +days. + + * * * * * + +More than ever on the morning when this incident befell: It was +mocking March weather, bright and calm and pitilessly cold, and +Eileen thought she would warm herself by running up to her big stone, +which she had not visited since the autumn. But before she reached +the first bend in the avenue young Larry M‘Farlane hastily met her, +and turned her aside into a shrubbery with a moving story about a +crippled blackbird which was fluttering there among the bushes. +“Unless some ould miscreant of a cat might be slinkin’ away under +the low branches this minyit, Miss Eileen, wid the crathur grabbed +in her mouth.” Larry had invented this little fiction on the spur of +the moment, the fact being that just round the turn, a few yards from +where he stopped Eileen, a heap of rags seemed to have fallen, as if +flung or blown down across the road. Its halt there had indeed been +so unpremeditated that only a remnant of the crust someone had begged +hard for up at the House a minute before was still gripped in a gaunt +hand. Coming upon this obstruction, young Larry, whose fare nowadays +did not conduce to athletic feats, found its removal quite beyond his +powers, and therefore ran on to seek help, when his meeting with Miss +Eileen converted his most urgent duty into the task of hindering her +from “gettin’ a quare fright along of the misfort’nit poor body.” +He accomplished it only in part. For he could not contrive but that +she should notice the gathering of a crowd in the avenue, and the +shrilling of shocked ejaculations, and then the bearing away with +slow solemnity, which apprised her of how near the cloaked shadow had +passed. + +Eileen gave up her expedition to the stone chest; its baffling +impenetrability seemed just then a cruel gibe of Fate, wiselier +ignored. Larry, for his part, temporarily lost sight of the errand +which had been bringing him up to the Big House: a commission he had +undertaken to execute for the postman. Thus it was not until the +evening, when the cold March twilight had faded, too tardily for +many people impatient to huddle away into oblivious sleep, that a +letter reached the thriftily-lit drawing-room, where Eileen and her +aunt were also getting through the interval before bed-time as best +they could, which was but dully. A letter was something of an event +in itself, and this one, unlike most of its predecessors, did not +collapse inanely into a listless “Oh, it’s only”—for it contained a +real piece of news. + +Glendoula was to have another visit from Pierce Wilmot. Pierce, +who had grown up a civil engineer, was now in charge of certain +road-making relief-works, which were about to come creeping +down Letterglas valley and up through the Nick of Time into the +neighbouring glen. The superintendence of these would bring +him to stay for a while near the place, and he hoped to renew +his acquaintance with his kinsfolk at the Big House. All the +establishment was more or less thrilled by the intelligence. It +seemed, of course, only natural that he should take up his quarters +there, and the prospect pleased on the whole. Lady Fitzmaurice, +even, and her sister-in-law were slightly cheered and roused; even +old Timothy, despite his prejudice, set about his polishing with a +revived zest, in anticipation of a visitor who might be expected to +appreciate “the differ between spoons that had a proper shine kep’ on +them, and ones that was as dingy as if you’d loaned them for stirrin’ +the Ould Fellow’s tay.” All the others, who remembered Master Pierce +as a fine friendly-spoken young gentleman, thought that it would be +a pleasant variety to set eyes on him again, and the rest were quite +ready to welcome him on that recommendation. Eileen alone looked +forward to his return somewhat doubtfully. She knew right well that +things could not be the same as they were in those very olden days; +and the differences might not be improvements. Suppose that she did +not like the grown-up Pierce, nor he her? Then her reminiscences, +she thought, would be superseded and spoiled. Still, she believed +herself, after all, to be glad that he was coming. + + * * * * * + +It was late on a wild bleak evening that Pierce arrived, after a +long open-air day of surveying and supervising. An additional +pair of candles illuminated the drawing-room in his honour, and +were burning clearly enough to show what manner of man he was at +four-and-twenty. He had not changed at all irrecognisably, being +still black and straight-browed, alert and rather resolute-looking, +as beseemed a person whose business consisted largely in the clearing +away of obstacles, by summarily forcible methods if need were. He +had done this figuratively upon occasion as well as literally since +his last visit to Glendoula. But the little girl who then used to +patter up and down that primitive path beside him was now much harder +to identify, having shot up so slender and tall. Also in Pierce’s +honour, Eileen had put on her best gown that evening, a fine white +muslin, sprinkled with a pattern of little lilac rose-bunches, +outlined in a cloud of black dots. It was not more than half a decade +lag of the latest Dublin fashions, but the six months’ growth since +its last wearing had certainly made its skirt a rather skimpy length, +as she noted with chagrin when putting it on. Some consolation was +found in fastening her deep embroidered collar with the silver +key. She had plaited her brown hair, darker now, yet keeping its +richness of latent gold, in an unusually elaborate Grecian-plait +to coil in a careful spiral knot at the back of her head. But +first it framed her face in satin-sleek bands, smoothed down low +on the delicate curve of the cheek, and then gathered up, leaving +on either side a loop discovering a shell-like ear. As pink as a +geranium-blossom one of them was that evening, the nipping cold and +her thin dress had tempted her to sit so near the fire; and her eyes +were as softly bright as ever, with such light as a sunbeam, questing +beneath leaf-lattices, may waken in a moss-brimmed nook of clearest +well-water. + +Pierce noticed all these things, and none of them, while he was +greeting his Aunt Geraldine; and he fell in love so simultaneously +that it would have been impossible to say whether his observations +came before or after. His habit was to be prompt and decided, and +with promptitude and decision did he grasp this new experience—of +which, nevertheless, an access of very unwonted diffidence and +irresolution seemed part and parcel. These set in immediately, as if +he had passed a vote of want of confidence against himself upon the +spot, and its effect was retrospective, throwing a slur alike upon +his present and his past. He wondered whether his cousin had not +thought him a peculiarly odious schoolboy. His old pet name for her +suddenly occurred to him as persistently appropriate, but the mere +remembrance of it made him feel so over-presumptuous that he almost +wished her to have forgotten it. In like manner he recollected, and +could not dare to remind her of, their climb up Slieve Ardgreine, or +their adventure with the strayed goats, and other episodes. He had +retained only just enough common-sense to understand that Eileen’s +silence all the evening upon this, and indeed every other topic, was +not intended for a rebuff; and the flow of his conversation with his +Aunt Geraldine was not a little impeded by a perpetual apprehension, +altogether superfluous, of her niece as a critic. + +Of course, he was not very long in recovering his presence of mind. +In a day or two he began to dispense with such hampering precautions, +but the sentiment that had suggested them continued in full force, +and did not cease to influence his behaviour. Less, perhaps, in +his dealings with Eileen than with the world at large, it made him +transpose himself, so to speak, into a softer key. He unlearned in a +single week some tricks of peremptoriness and self-assertion, which +the vicissitudes of one early set in authority had been teaching him +through several past years. For it was with him as if he had suddenly +discovered the existence of something precious and perishable, that +a touch might shatter or a breath destroy, and thereupon he grew +wonderfully sensitive to the wide-spreading intricacies of cause +and effect. How could he tell but that a rough word spoken anywhere +might set a-stirring peril-fraught vibrations to reach and threaten +the head that he loved? For her sake, he would have liked everything +to be on velvet, and he was always instinctively aiming at that end. +The most unskilled and incapable of the labourers whose efforts +he superintended found their miscellaneous inefficiency treated +with singular forbearance, even if it attained an egregiousness +characterised by their comrades as “a quare botch intirely,” and +driving their foreman to demand of various powers, celestial and +otherwise: What to glory the great gaby was at? During leisure +moments their lank and hollow-eyed gang were prone to pass the remark +that “the captain” was “a rael gintleman”; while up at the Big House +all the inmates accorded him all sorts of golden opinions. + +Eileen herself meanwhile was not in the least aware of what had +befallen him, but she had left off dreading any detriment to her +cherished memories, and his visit had undoubtedly brought an influx +of pleasure and interest to cheer her present day. She was so +unaccustomed to being made much of by relations that this kinsman’s +good nature impressed her as quite extraordinary, and so little used +to making much of herself that she never thought of attributing it to +anything except a special quality in Pierce, rather more likely, no +doubt, to be exercised in another person’s behalf than in her own. It +repeatedly surprised her to see that he remembered and acted upon her +opinions and wishes, as if they were really important—a new view of +them which she would have been slow to adopt. One morning he rode off +all the long way to Denismore and back to get her Alfred Tennyson’s +latest volume, and her delight in it was alloyed only by the +intrusive consideration of how much coarse meal the price of it would +have purchased. For her mind was still engrossingly pre-occupied with +the neighbours’ trouble. + + * * * * * + +The cloud of it had lifted a little since Pierce’s coming. Possible +wages loosened the famine-grip on such households as could send forth +a man to ply pick and shovel, instead of hopelessly lying abed “agin +the hunger”; and then a spell of more genial weather interposing +released everybody from the clutches of that other icy-fingered foe, +whose co-operation is so deadly. “For sure,” as old Christy Shanahan +had been known to remark in this connection, “to be starvin’ inside +and outside at the one time is more than any raisonable man can +stand at all, unless be good luck he was a graven image.” This dim +lightening of the prospect, however, rousing a stir of hope where +numb despair had begun to prevail, made the need of plans for a +timely rescue seem all the more urgent. One evening at dinner, Eileen +heard Pierce say that if the people could get food enough to ward off +the fever just until the potatoes—supposing there should be any—were +dug, they might do well enough; otherwise, it was a bad lookout. +And he added that it was hard to see how it could be managed, as +the road-making grant had nearly run short, and where else should +the money come from? At that Eileen had almost spoken her haunting +thought aloud, and it was: “the great chest full of silver.” And +though the unpropitious moment enjoined silence, therefrom dated the +designing of an enterprise so venturesome that the possibility of +carrying it out was a point upon which she hopefully and fearfully +changed her mind a dozen times daily for as many days. + +At last there came a brilliant, capriciously-lighted morning, with +its shine and shadow under the control of a shifting snow-drift, +which sailed at the wind’s will. It was a holiday, and Pierce +succeeded in setting out almost as soon as he wished on the early +walk he had planned with his cousin. What slight delay did intervene +was caused by the arrival, just as they were starting, of the Widow +Barry with a couple of eggs to sell on commission for her next door +neighbour—the Widow Shanahan, who “could get that far be no manner of +manes herself, the crathur.” + +“And they’re the last ones you’ll be takin’ off her, Miss Eileen, +she bid me tell you,” said Widow Barry. “For she’s after killin’ her +ould hin this mornin’, because it’s torminted she was to be seein’ it +mopin’ around starvin’ the same as a raisonable body, sorra a bit had +she to be throwin’ it this great while back whativer. ’Deed now, you +might as well be walkin’ along the shore of the say these times as +along be the dures down the street, for e’er a scrap of pitaty-parin’ +or anythin’ else you’d find lyin’ about. The crathur had to be +contintin’ itself wid whativer it could pick out of the ground, and +bedad I won’er it had the heart to think of layin’ e’er an odd egg +at all. So she took and wrung its neck this mornin’, and she said +the sup of broth ’ud keep the life in herself and poor Katty for a +day or so anyway. But och, Miss Eileen dear, it’ll be the weeny sup +entirely. For ’twas meself caught the crathur for her, and I declare +to goodness it wasn’t the weight in me hand of a little wisp of +hay. Sez I to her, the feathers on it ’ud be heavier be thimselves. +But sure she could do no betther; and if it boiled into the name of +broth even, it’d give them the notion they was aitin’ somethin’.” +In prospect of this repast, the sixpence that Pierce sent seemed +to him hardly more than an emphasising of a “strong distemper and a +weak relief”; but the Widow Barry, who went her way filled with a +gratitude to God and man, may have understood the situation better. + +And then the two young people set out on their rambles. They took +their old favourite route up Slieve Ardgreine, for the first time +since Pierce’s visit, on Eileen’s part, as the milder weather had +been “soft” too, turning the mossy nap of the turf into a treacherous +sponge, that squelched coldly over-shoes at the lightest footfall. +To-day, however, it might be traversed dry-shod, given a discreet +avoidance of extra vivid patches in the golden green; and a busy +thirsty breeze had left scarcely a dewdrop in the glazed cups of the +celandines and the pink-rimmed saucers of half-blown daisy-buds. Up +this daintily carpeted path Eileen picked her steps rather silently. +Her companion thought that she had been saddened by the incident of +the ill-faring fowl, but that was not the reason. What pre-occupied +her was the great venture which she appeared to be approaching more +or less in spite of herself. The very direction which their walk +was taking, at no choice of her own, was like a hand beckoning +imperiously. On the way up she hovered towards the verge of it, and +recoiled from it, and came stealing back to it again, oftener than +the flitting clouds furled and unfurled their shadow-mats at her +feet; and the big boulder, the stone plate-chest, hove in sight while +she was still wavering. Failure would be so very terrible to her. She +knew that if Pierce were shocked or indignant, or even amused, she +would be miserable indeed; and she could not by any means convince +herself that he would not be all these things. Yet, when they were +standing beside the tall, blackish shape together, just as in old +times—only it used to be the taller then—she felt desperately that, +chance what might, she must not go away without speaking the sentence +she had been mentally rehearsing all the week. It rang in her ears +like a clamorous bell, and made her deaf to any other speech, so +evidently that Pierce stopped in the middle of what he was beginning +to remark, as if she had interrupted him. Just at that moment the +sun swam out clear of a high-tossed drift, and sent a golden wave +sweeping widely up and down the hill-slopes. It broke against the +big stone, shining into Eileen’s face with all the dazzlement of +an April forenoon, and she accepted the omen as if it had been the +cordial clasp of some encouraging hand. Before the radiant rim had +slidden on many paces farther, she took heart of grace, and the +irrevocable word was spoken. + + * * * * * + +“There was one thing I wanted to ask you about, Pierce,” she said. +She had moved round to the opposite side of the chest, and was +looking at him across the lid, with eyes very bright and wistful +beneath her broad-brimmed straw hat, which had brown ribbons tied +in a bow under her chin. “I shouldn’t wonder if you thought it very +dreadful of me,” she continued; “but I really don’t think it is +myself. After all, I only want to use my own things, and that can be +no great harm; and if these don’t belong to me now, they don’t belong +to anybody, which is absurd. At any rate, it couldn’t possibly make +any difference worth speaking of to those people up at the office in +Dublin, and it would make all the difference in the world to the poor +people here; so ‘the right of it over-leps the wrong of it,’ as old +Murtagh Reilly used to say.” She was gradually arguing herself into +courage; still a mere shadow falling anywhere would have routed it. + +“I hope it is something truly appalling, or else I’ll be horribly +disappointed now,” Pierce replied, a little puzzled by this prologue, +but rather pleasantly so, because he liked her to consult him. +“You’ve raised my expectations cruelly.... But if you wish, I’ll +undertake not to think it very dreadful, nor dreadful in the least +degree,” he added, as after a short pause she seemed still to be +hesitating. He would have said that he had never made a safer promise. + +“Well, then,” said Eileen; “do you remember how you said one time +that you could easily get a key for this old chest of ours? Here’s +the keyhole, you see, all right. I’ve always kept it clear of moss. +And, I wonder, would you mind—if it didn’t give you a great deal of +trouble—getting one for me now? Without telling anybody else, I mean, +for of course they wouldn’t let me. I know I can have no legal right +to take anything out of it until I come of age; but that’s only the +_law_, and really when people are starving, one can’t be expected to +wait for years and years just on account of such nonsense. At the +best of times it seems a great pity to keep it lying here useless +for so long, but now it’s like locking up other people’s lives. If +I can’t get at it in time to do anything for them, I might as well +never have it at all—there’ll not be a soul left in Glendoula. You’ve +no idea how hateful it makes one feel. Sometimes it seems to me that +I’m nearly as bad as the wretches who go on carting off their wheat +and oats to sell in England. Only it isn’t my fault in reality, for +until you came I never had a chance of speaking to any possible +person about it. And then, Pierce, I was thinking that when we have +got this opened, you’d maybe help me to manage about selling the +silver. It must be worth a great deal of money: enough, at any rate, +to last while they are waiting for the potatoes; for we really had +very fine plate, I believe, though it mayn’t be quite so splendid as +old Timothy used to declare—he _is_ a little given to romancing. And, +of course, these times I don’t expect to find the yards of pearl and +ruby ropes that were in the _Glittering Hoard_! You do remember that +I told you, and that you promised about the key, don’t you, Pierce?” +she said anxiously, perplexed by his expression, for he was looking +hard at her with a sort of bewildered blank dismay, almost as if +something had frightened him—an effect which she had not included +among her many apprehensions. + +He was taken wholly unprepared, because during her irresolution +Eileen naturally had shunned the perilous subject, and he had himself +for the time being entirely forgotten the existence of that old +childish myth. But now he did indeed remember it, as clearly as if it +had happened yesterday, instead of all those long years ago. There +had stood the little girl eagerly telling him her absurd story, +to which he listened with amused forbearance, thinking to himself +that he must not vex her by incredulity, and carelessly noticing +how swiftly her small face flushed, and how brightly her large eyes +shone in the excitement of her narrative. And to-day the same thing +seemed coming to pass again—but with differences. For here unchanged +in the sunshine was the dark stone block with its yellow dappling of +lichen, and that same clear voice came to him across it, speaking so +much in earnest that the transparent flower-flush rose and the glance +brightened just as of old. But the small child had grown into a tall +maiden, and her voice was the one that gave meaning to all the other +sounds in his world, and her absurd story no longer amused him in the +least, seemed liker breaking his heart, seemed the pronouncing of +an evil spell, that blurred the light of his eyes, and conjured up +a web of black forebodings over the fair horizon of his future. If +the soft-aired spring morning had suddenly began to scowl and keen +around him, and sting him with frozen pellets, it would have faintly +shadowed forth the transition. A man’s mood, however, may fall from +one level to another in much less time than it takes to tell, and +Eileen thought his answer came quickly. + +“Don’t you know that you’re talking nonsense, Eileen?” he said. + +She had never heard him speak so sharply, almost roughly—not even +when he had seen his case of mathematical instruments dropped by +Hughey Brian into the bottomless bog-hole, nor when he had come +upon the Donnellys’ little goat tethered with the remnant of +an urgently-needed and long-sought measuring-line. And she was +immediately aware that the very worst had befallen. Her plan was +impracticable, and she had disgusted Pierce by proposing it. The +poor Glendoula people must starve, and her cousin, who had been so +good-natured, could never like her any more. Probably he considered +her request worthy of a dishonestly-minded idiot, and was deeply, +perhaps justly, offended at her suggestion that he should take part +in such a transaction. Certainly, he would not hear of the scheme, +so all her hopes were scattered like mist before a hurrying wind, +and there again loomed the grim trouble ahead, with its inexorable +face turned unveiled upon her. Just at that moment, however, it was +partially screened by the interposition of a still uglier one, which +would thrust itself between, asking and answering a question with the +same tormenting result: What must Pierce be thinking of her? He had +surely meant worse than “nonsense.” + +Amid this rude crowding in on her of disappointment jostling with +grief and mortification, Eileen clung half-consciously to the sense +that it behoved her by all means to retain the footing of her +self-possession, and she replied very gently: “Not exactly nonsense, +I think; but perhaps—I daresay it would be quite out of the question +to take these things now, and not even right. It seemed to me the +only way I could do any thing to help the people, but of course I +knew it mightn’t be possible at all. I don’t understand much about +the law. Don’t you think it’s getting rather cold up here? Perhaps +we’d be wiser to come back before the day clouds over.” + +This dignified composure seemed to Pierce as it were a seal set upon +his fear, the document of which her fantastic story had supplied, +and he dejectedly turned down the hill-path with her in silence. The +sullen-looking stone which they left behind them, a blot on the sunny +sward, might have been a little ancient altar to some unpropitious +God, whence they were taking home, sorrowfully, discomfortable +oracles. In truth, one of them had there said farewell to an old +hope, and the other struck up an acquaintance with a new fear; both +experiences apt to arouse pre-occupying meditations. Neither of the +cousins gave much heed to their surroundings as they went. The small +wild clouds flirted the sunshine about as if flocks of white wings +were flickering by; here and there they flung down the shadows which +make one marvel how their “little-seeming substance” can be the cause +of such deep purple stains. But now nobody marked them, nor the +far-off pipe of the plover, nor the fragrance of the basking herbage +underfoot. + +Thus they presently came to the gapped dyke leading into the first +field, and all the way neither of them had spoken a word. Now, at +that moment it happened that Eileen was looking very straight before +her, with her head held rather high, and her eyes steadily opened, +to give the tears a chance of going back the way they had come, and +walking warily as one who felt how even the quiver of an eyelash +might be fatal. Yet these precautions defeated themselves, for they +were the reason why she stumbled at the flat stepping-stones, so that +Pierce had to save her from falling just as he had done nearly nine +years before. This time, however, he did not let her go again with a +laugh. He held her close and said: “Oh, my darling, my sweetheart, +don’t be vexed, don’t be vexed. It will be all right, never fear. +We’ll pull them through—all of them—safely somehow. Don’t think about +that old silver any more; and you won’t mind what I said just now? +I’m a stupid brute, you see, sweetheart; but there’s nothing on earth +that I wouldn’t do for you.” + +While she listened to this statement, Eileen went through, in an +intensified form, an experience somewhat resembling that of the +bygone summer morning when the unknown Pierce had first spoken to +her: a sudden surging up of dread, that wave-like took her off her +feet for the instant, but only to lift her unharmed into a new +world, most beautifully strange, and shut out from all troubles +of the mere earth with the light that never was on land or sea. A +reflection of it in her eyes encouraged him to pursue that line +of argument, and he said a great deal more, all much to the same +purport, as they went down the steep green fields, where the +young bracken-fronds were uncoiling their flossy silken whorls +beneath last season’s weather-beaten brown plumes, and the golden +blossom-flakes were melting off the tall winter furzes; and then on +between the fledged boles of the elm-grove, and under the scented +shadow of the laurel-walk, until at the hall-door Eileen ran away +to make a solitary survey of the unexplored regions in which she +had wonderfully arrived. Just for the moment Pierce felt gratefully +disposed towards the big stone, which had, at all events, given him +his cue. + + * * * * * + +But later on that afternoon he spoke very bitterly to his Aunt +Geraldine, whom he found alone in the book-room. The hearing of +candid opinions is a privilege not uncommonly enjoyed by spinster +aunts. + +“You’ve kept her moping here all these years,” he said, “without +companions or amusement or occupation, till it’s no wonder that she +has taken up queer fancies. Why, it was enough to drive her—to make +anybody unlike other people. Surely you might have managed better for +her somehow.” + +“It really wouldn’t have been easy,” his aunt said, but meekly on the +defensive; “we always have had so little ready money, and then your +poor Aunt Gerald’s wretched health is another difficulty. Besides +that, I never noticed anything odd about Eileen. She always seems +contented and cheerful enough, and I thought she was a sensible +sort of child, and very quiet. Just once or twice, now that I +think of it, she has said something that rather puzzled me about a +plate-chest, but I had no idea she had any delusion of the kind.” + +“Yes, that’s just where it is; nobody has cared to look after her or +take any trouble about her,” Pierce said, wrathful and reproachful, +a little unreasonably; so fresh was his discovery that concern for +Eileen’s welfare ought to be the prime consideration in every rightly +ordered mind. He did not surmise, either, that he was upbraiding a +friend. Yet such was the case. For, from the very first evening, +their Aunt Geraldine had guessed whither things were tending, and +ever since had been watching their course, a melancholy sort of +Prospero, who was powerless to work any wonders, and whose joy at +nothing could be much, but who did feel some pleasure in the growing +likelihood that her favourite sister’s son would some day reign in +the wreck of the old place, and take charge of the person whom she +had always regarded half-pityingly, half-impatiently as “Eileen, +poor child.” Therefore the cropping up of this ominous obstacle was +a disappointment by which she felt so cast down that she had not +the spirit to rebut with any energy the accusation of contributory +negligence. + +Neither she nor Pierce had spoken of the circumstances that lent the +matter its menacing aspect, but they were uppermost in the mind of +each. What made Eileen’s futile story sound so warningly in their +ears was the remembered existence of that baneful spectre whose +mischief might be traced among the annals of the Fitzmaurice family, +as well in the notorious eccentricities which had preluded poor +Sir Gerald’s last desperate act, as in the more or less pronounced +oddities and deficiencies which had wrought the history of this +kinsman and the other into a tragedy with a grotesquer plot. + +“I can’t think what has put such a notion into her head,” Miss +Fitzmaurice said dejectedly. The workings of Eileen’s mind could +hardly indeed have been more remote from her observation if they +had gone on in a different planet. “But, after all, Pierce, if one +considers how young she is—scarcely more than a child.” + +“No reasonable child would believe anything so preposterous,” Pierce +replied with gloom. “A rough lump of a boulder with moss growing in +the cracks!” + +“And did you tell her so?” asked his aunt. + +“Well, no, not exactly; we began talking about something else, and +I thought I’d better see whether you knew anything about it; but +apparently you don’t,” said Pierce. + +“Oh, you must just laugh her out of it,” his aunt said, laughing +nervously herself, and had not any more helpful suggestion to offer. +Pierce left the interview dissatisfied and unreassured. + + * * * * * + +Towards sunsetting, however, he found himself once more on the summit +of Slieve Ardgreine. He had promised to go and see after Barney +Foyle, who had been “took bad wid the road-sickness” on the day +before, and as the Foyles’ cabin stood by the side of the Clonmoragh +road, his shortest route was up and down through the Nick of Time. +The sight of the solitary boulder, squatting there starkly black +amid the flushed western glow, made him realise his trouble with +much searching of heart. It seemed a symbol, or something more than +a symbol, a visible tangible embodiment of the obstruction which had +thrust itself into the clear path of his desires. Now, Pierce Wilmot +was alike by nature and training a person who could not, without +great and grudging reluctance, admit impediments to his progress +along the way wherein he would go; and in this case he felt more loth +than ever before. As he crossed the stretch of sward towards the gap, +he eyed the dark mass with a hot thrill of resentment, as if against +somebody who had wittingly baulked and baffled him. Yet withal it +was for him so obviously nothing more than just an ordinary lump of +limestone, that in view of it Eileen’s quaint belief took a stronger +tinge of unreason. Nor did he possess, to soften it down, any +knowledge of how the seed had been sown in her mind, and had grown +up, fostered and never disturbed, through the long years of a lonely +childhood. So, for a few paces, his heart sank and sank, till it +reached depths where a poignant pity was the most endurable element +in his mood. + +But before he reached the Nick of Time, an idea that flashed across +him made him deviate several yards to the right, and walk up to the +big stone. He stood still beside it, reflecting for a while, and +then gave it a slight kick, as though to mark his arrival at some +definite conclusion. At that moment he was saying to himself: “In +any case it would be better out of this; and I’ll do it the first +thing to-morrow, by Jove I will! Then I’ll bring her up here, and the +chances are that when once she’s seen it in fragments she’ll never +give the matter another thought. There was that young fellow the +Barnards knew, who got rid of a curious hallucination in much the +same sort of way. They burned an old paper on which he had taken it +into his head that the safety of the whole world depended; and when +he found that nothing happened, he grew perfectly rational about it. +And so will she. For indeed she’s as sensible as anybody can be, +except just on that one point, which won’t signify an atom, if it’s +taken in time. It’s a good job the notion occurred to me. Ay, that’s +the kind of key I must get you, sweetheart—poor little Bright-Eyes. +However, I’ll take good care that she shan’t be vexed about it. So +there’ll be a short end of you, you old _stookawn_, and joy go with +you,” he said half-aloud, with a defiant flourish of his blackthorn +towards the big stone, which, as he turned his back upon it, flung a +long, murky shadow after him, like a scowl, over the sheeny grass. + + * * * * * + +The next morning did not smile upon anyone’s undertakings; rather, +it might be said to survey them unsympathetically through a blank, +expressionless mask. For Letterglas and all its neighbouring glens +were full of a white fog. It was not merely the soft mist that +clings about distant tree-clumps and cabin-clusters when the sun is +still low, and uncurls slowly, peeling off from round them, while +he climbs, giving one an impression that the landscape is a fragile +work of art, not yet quite finished careful unpacking out of delicate +cotton-wool wrappings. All the night through a vast white cloud +had been adrift thither from the westward, over seas, hanging low +always, and sometimes trailing on the very face of the water like a +huge disabled pinion. Beneath it the dim blue tide had crept to the +limitary foot of the cliffs, furtively, as if from an ambush; but the +wavering ribbon of weed and froth set no boundary for the thronging +vapour-masses, which passed on wafted inland through rifts and over +crests, till at length the escorting breeze dropped and left them +halted motionless, a crowd checked by invisible barriers. Round about +Glendoula they made all the valleys into one, spanning the ravines +with ghostly causeways and bridges, and levelling the peaks, lost +among aërial snowfields. The curd-white impenetrable wall looked at +a few yards’ distance so dense and solid that the thought of walking +through it almost took away one’s breath, and people about to emerge +from it loomed along with such dim, unsubstantial shapes that their +voices sounded startlingly loud and near. + +Yet, notwithstanding these obstructive conditions, work was going +on in Letterglas valley, where wheel-barrows trundled to and fro +invisibly, tilting out clattering loads, and picks swung unseen till +one stood close to the wielder’s elbow. Pierce, the inspector, had +made his way thither, gropingly, at an early hour, having a special +job in view, which he was anxious to get done as soon as might be. +But since a field of vision wider than the present was desirable for +his operations, he consulted the weather-wise among his men as to the +probability of the fog clearing off. In old Murtagh Reilly’s opinion, +which was highly esteemed upon such points, this might be expected to +take place before they were much older. + +“I wouldn’t wonder if it was very apt to be givin’ itself a heft +agin we’re done breakfast, your honour,” he said; “and once it fairly +gits a rise on it, it won’t be long streelin’ itself off out of your +way. It’s quare somewhiles to see the rate them mists ’ill be skytin’ +up the hillside at, and not a breath of win’ stirrin’ that ’ud +thrimble the feather of steam whiffin’ out of an ould kettle’s spout, +let alone liftin’ a big cloud fit to thatch a townland.” + +“Sure it’s the sun shinin’ on the wrong side of them does be drawin’ +them up,” said Christy Martin instructively, “like as if they was a +wet shirt shrinkin’ in front of the fire. The flannen’s a terror for +cocklin’ up into nothin’ if the hate’s too strong for it.” + +“I dunno where the great likeness is then,” said old Reilly, who had +not a taste for instruction. + +“Maybe there’s not, Christy,” said Christy’s brother Willy; “very +belike there is not. But all the same, you and me’d be glad enough +of a pinny for ivery time we’ve seen the sun comin’ out red on this +side, lookin’ the livin’ moral of a hot cinder burnin’ through a +blanket.” + +“Have it your own way, lads,” said old Reilly, sublimely abandoning +the whole expanse of the heavens to them with a comprehensive +flourish of his hand. “Howsomiver, your honour, if you was axin’ me, +I’d say this day’s apter than not to be takin’ up prisintly, or next +door to it, as thick as it is this instiant minyit.” + +Old Reilly seemed to have said truly, for by the time that everybody +rose from the sodded bank, on which some of them had been eating +slices of bread as they sat—others were in the same plight as John +O’Mahony, who remarked humorously that it saved a dale of throuble +to have your breakfast yisterday or else to-morra—there was a +perceptible curtailment in the flowing drapery of the hill-slopes, +and a thinning of its texture, paler shimmering brightness running +through it here and there, to show that the opaque folds might shake +out into diaphanous tissues of pearl and silver. + +Accordingly, a small knot of men by-and-by detached themselves from +the rest, and began to ascend towards the Nick of Time, whose gap +was still hidden by an ample curtain. Pierce was one of the party, +which carried up with it a supply of gritty black grains and sundry +coercive-looking tools. He invited Murtagh Reilly to accompany them, +but the old man cried off the expedition. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll stop +where I am,” he said, “for these times when there does be a notorious +curse on the counthry, and the hungry-grass growin’ over ivery inch +of it, troth it’s as much as a man’s life’s worth—and if that’s no +great things, it’s the most he has—to be settin’ his misfortnit fut +e’er a step further than he’s bound. But you’ve a plinty of the lads +along widout me, your honour.” + + * * * * * + +Just at the same time, Larry M‘Farlane also set off up the slope, +by a different route from the others, however, and with a different +goal. He was taking the shortest way to the Big House down at the +bottom of Glendoula. The fog there had begun to recede a little +earlier than in Letterglas, but still muffled things very closely, +making mysteries of the most familiar objects, and Larry, who, to +judge by his headlong bounds and plunges all the way, might have +been racing for at least his life, collided more than once with a +tree-trunk when he came among the plantations. And he reached the +house panting, only to run up against more hampering blocks of delay. +For in the kitchen was nobody except Mrs Dunlop, the cook, busied +with frizzling preparations for the breakfast, and all she could be +got to say was, “Aw, ax Mr Gabbett, Larry man; he’ll be apt to know +if she’s after goin’ out, and if she isn’t, she might be indures +yit.” And when he rushed on to the pantry, old Timothy, who had +overheard the voice of an unfavoured visitor, shot the bolt of the +door, and was long deaf to all thumps and calls. In fact, Larry, the +urgency of whose errand divided every minute infinitely, was turning +away in despair, when the old man shouted a surly, “What’s a-wantin?” +and he had to waste another tormenting interval before a churlish +chink opened. + +“Wantin’ to spake to Miss Eileen?” said old Timothy. “Then want’ll be +your master, me hayro of war, for I seen her goin’ out a while back. +So if that’s what all you had the prancin’ in the passage for, like a +cross-tempered carriage-horse kep’ standin’ in a could win’——” + +“Murther alive and wirrasthrew and bad luck to it,” Larry said, +“what’ll I do at all now? And which way did she go, Mr Gabbett? Was +it up Slieve Ardgreine she wint, do you suppose? For it’s biddin’ her +keep off goin’ up it I’d be.” + +“Well to be sure, and set you up. Yourself’s the great one to be +givin’ your orders. And how the mischief could I be tellin’ you where +she’s went, except be the sound of the hall-door clappin’? But I +dunno what’d take her sthreelin’ very far up the hill, unless she was +wishful to lose herself body and bones in the thick of the fog that +you might take and cut like the side of a rick. And if you’re from +the place where they’re workin’, sure you’d ha’ met her comin’ along, +supposin’ she’s gone that way.” + +“I might ha’ passed her by twinty times over unbeknownst, up about +the top of the fields, where you couldn’t see a goat’s horns and tail +together,” said Larry; “nor I wasn’t keepin’ along be the path the +most part of the way; I just slapped down the shortest I could. But +if I’d had the wit of an ould blind crow, I would ha’ sted on her own +path, and then I might ha’ stopped her. But I’ll be hard set now to +git a chance of findin’ her at all.” + +With that, Larry bolted away too hurriedly for any further questions, +thus frustrating the curiosity of old Timothy, left wondering “What +for in the nation the bosthoon would be warnin’ Miss Eileen off the +hill,” a riddle for which he could invent himself no plausible +answer. + + * * * * * + +Larry’s surmise was partly right, Eileen having in reality been +on her leisurely way up Slieve Ardgreine while he sped hot-foot +down it. She had slept little in the night, and would have almost +grudged that little, had it not been for the pleasantness of waking +to the recollection that she was not only dreaming. The last time +she did so, the silvery lines framing the shuttered window, though +but faint as yet, convinced her that it could not be too early +to get up. Rising, she was fascinated by the spectacle of one of +the snow-whitest and stillest fogs she had ever seen in the dozen +years or so during which she had been capable of meteorological +observations; and she stood looking on at it for some time. But when +the fabric of the spacious pavilion began to give ground a little +and sway to and fro, restoring glimpses of a substantial world and +shifting them away again, no longer contented with her watch from the +window, she determined to run out and survey more thoroughly this +rare aspect of things. On the way downstairs she stopped to tap at +her mother’s door, very softly—a velvet-suited bee would have made +more noise flying against it—hoping to be let in, and fearing to +rouse a sleeper. An answer did set out to her, but the feeble drowsy +voice failed to reach her, so she stole on cautiously, a little sorry +that she must put off her good morning until she should return. +Eileen was wearing a favourite blue and white mousseline-de-laine, +and had not forgotten to fasten its collar with her silver key. Over +her head she had thrown a grey woollen shawl, because the April +morning air was soft rather than warm. It was a somewhat shabby old +shawl, and Eileen vainly reflected that if she met anybody she could +just slip it off and be carrying it on her arm. + +Anybody might be coming down the hill home to his breakfast about +this time, and the long aisle of the elm-walk, where the straight +trunk columns showed themselves momentarily and vanished as the +mist-wreaths floated and melted through them, was weirdly alluring. +When Eileen had followed it to its end, she found another vista +opening before her out on the green slope, closed ever and anon, and +temptingly cleared again by capricious wafts of dimness. For as she +went there was setting in a general movement among all that great +gathering of vapours; their assembly was lingeringly breaking up; a +spectral city going to wrack. Vast cloaked and hooded shapes seemed +curtseying ceremoniously to one another from opposite sides of the +glens, while here and there some loftily towering pile might be seen +to betray the frailness of its structure by a shivering from top to +base like that of a sail in a veering wind. But hardly a breath was +stirring in Glendoula, so that the dispersion proceeded by very slow +degrees, with many fitful pauses. + +Eileen’s little footpath led her so closely in the wake of a +receding cloud-wave that she could watch the bracken-plumes emerge +frond by frond from its filmy borders, and descry the gold of the +furze-blossom glimmering through the white, before the sombre +branches became visible. On either hand, low trailing fleeces were +caught and carded into filaments on tussocks and bents and briers. +Farther up it seemed as if a spectral net cast over the hills were +being hauled in with torn meshes teased and tangled. And behind all +this shadowy shifting drifting there were vague motions of light, +hinted at by sudden wan shimmerings of the canopy that screened it. + +Eileen was always half intending to turn back, yet she went on and +on, sometimes noticing these things, and occasionally stopping to +gather a shrivelled dandelion bud, or a russet plantain head for +the old moping parrot in the parlour at home, until at last she +knew that she must have come near the stone chest. It had no bitter +associations for her now. Rather she would have looked upon it as +the auspicious starting-point whence she had fared to the highest +fortune. Even the failure of her scheme for producing a relief fund +did not any longer grieve her, for Pierce had undertaken that help +would be forthcoming, and to Pierce’s keeping she had transferred +herself, responsibilities and all, which she found a wonderful +ease to her mind. So light of heart, indeed, it made her that she +now began softly to sing a sorrowful little ditty, which she used +long ago to hear crooned by her poor old nurse, who had a turn for +sentiment: + + “_Oh sunny blooms Slieve Cryan, where the gold boughs creep + together, + With honey on the high cliff in ten thousand bells of heather. + For the morn that fears no morrow is there bliss in flower and + bee, + And in one heart sorrow, sorrow, for the hope that wafts to + sea._” + +But as she sang, in a voice small and sweet, of this heart sorrow, +she looked on before her with shining eyes, very sure of seeing all +she wanted to crown the moment’s gladness come presently to meet her +from among the shrouding white mists. + + * * * * * + +Hidden among them just then, not many yards away, half-a-dozen +people were at work around the big boulder, digging and boring, +with frequent mention in their discourse of needles and trains +and matches. Their operations were by this time, however, nearly +finished, and after the last of them, which was the kindling of a +lacklustre red flare with a sheet of grease-stained brown paper, +the whole party withdrew hastily through the Nick of Time, and +retreating some little distance down the slope on the other side, +stood still in apparent expectation of an event. It happened very +soon. First a fierce sharp-edged clatter, that crashed into a booming +roar, followed by a duller sound of rushing thuds, as if a scattered +flock of unwieldy birds had swooped down close at hand in headlong +flight. An abrupt silence succeeded, for few echoes gossip among the +Letterglas hills. It must have lasted unbroken for a long minute at +least. For the men had re-entered through the gap, where they found +the fog thickened by a sulphurous reek, and Pierce, making out amid +it the expected new vacant place, was considering how he would now +hurry home and fetch Eileen hither as soon as possible, that there +might be no further delay in the clearance of their pleasant path—“my +sweetheart,” he was saying to himself with a remorseful remembrance +of her sad eyes yesterday—when the air filled, the wide world +filled as if it could never empty again, with a shriek and a shriek +reiterated, shrill and wild, you could not have told whether man’s or +woman’s, hardly whether a human being’s, it was a skirl of such sheer +despair. Yet Pierce thought he recognised in it a name that snatched +away his breath. + +“What was that, man? What is it?” he said, pulling the sleeve of +Paddy Murray, who was nearest to him. + +“Somebody’s hurted for sartin,” declared Paddy. + +But this was probably a mistake. The fragment of the big stone that +had struck Eileen on the temple, seemingly had thereby opened for her +and shut the dark door, whose threshold the senses may not cross, all +in an instant, before the happiness could fade out of her face, or +the little bunch of carefully-gathered weeds drop from her hand. It +might, by the way, be feared that poor Polly would enjoy no more such +feasts henceforward to the end of his tedious days. + +Larry M‘Farlane it was, arrived with his belated warning, who had +raised the outcry on beholding this proof that his panic-stricken +hurry had been all bootless, and that the evil dream which had +possessed him ever since he casually overheard talk of Mr Pierce’s +project was come most terribly true. Some of the others now bade him +whisht and run for Dr Blake and Father O’Connor, who might both of +them very belike be below at Denroche’s cottages, where the Maddens +and young Joe Hanlon were mortal bad last night; though, for the +matther of that, it was aisy enough to see there’d be little anybody +could do here—goodness pity them all. But as there was nothing +else whatever that Pierce could do—he who used to be so ready with +resources—he fixed his mind upon their coming with a desperate grip, +while he stood by and waited idly. + + * * * * * + +He felt bewildered, chiefly by the sameness of most things, which +were unaccountably going on much as they had been doing a minute +before, when Eileen could have spoken to him. The white mists were +still curtseying to one another across wider spaces in the valley, +and the dim light behind them grew slowly stronger. There was a scent +of turf-smoke on the air from a fire which someone had lit under a +bank a little way down the hill. The very strokes of old Dan Heron’s +hammer continued to come up in a faint rap-tap from the roadside, +where he was breaking lumps of reddish sandstone; for Dan was so deaf +that he applied himself to his tasks with abstracted concentration, +and could not easily be interrupted. Evidently the news had not +penetrated to him. A murmur of voices was passing to and fro in a +knot of men gathered at a short distance. Pierce might have caught a +sentence now and then. + +“You’d a right to ha’ sent them word to keep out of it—you had so—the +way she’d niver ha’ come widin raich of harm.” + +“Sure, we was intendin’ to get it done that arly there’d ha’ been no +fear of e’er a sowl about; ’twas the fau’t of the divil of an ould +fog delayin’ us.” + +“Ah, now, but it’s the woful thing, however it come to happen. And +she the on’y one her poor mother has. Is anybody runnin’ down to tell +them?” + +“Och you may depind—half-a-dozen.” + +“Well, it’s a quare ugly world she’s took out of any way, the +crathur, God knows. ’Deed now, I do be wonderin’ somewhiles what He’s +at wid bringin’ the likes of her into such a place at all.” + +“And small blame to you to be wonderin’ that same, Jim, if it’s for +nothin’ betther than to take and knock the bit of life out of her, as +if it was a gossoon slingin’ stones at a little wran hoppin’ along in +the hedges.” + +“That’s no sort of talk. God be good to the crathur, she looks as if +no great harm was after happenin’ her any way.” + +“It’s not kilt at all she is, I’m thinkin’. The Docther’s apt to say +she’ll be finely agin prisently.” + +“Bedad now, you might ha’ more wit, man—Och, it’s on’y poor Crazy +Christy.” + +The sound, but not the sense, of this discussion reached Pierce, and +vaguely irritated him, because he thought it might prevent him from +hearing the approach of what he forced himself to imagine possible +assistance. But when Father O’Connor, not long afterwards, did come +up to him, it was with no more practical suggestion than: “God help +you.” + +“_God?_” said Pierce. “What on earth can God do? I think it has +killed her.” He put his question like one assuming some self-evident +proposition, and the kindly old man turned away from him with a shake +of the head, and no attempt to gainsay. + +The next voice to arouse Pierce’s attention was that of a youngish +woman, worn and weather-beaten, whose grey ragged shawl hooded black +wings of hair, and the dark eyes that often look out so full of cares +from such surroundings. He recognised her as Norah O’Neil, by birth +Kinsella, and she was saying: “So I thought maybe the Docther might +be up here, Mr Pierce—but sure it’s all one. There’s nobody can do a +hand’s turn for him or any of us now, on’y God. For himself’s lyin’ +dead too, sir, be the roadside down beyant the bridge. And, truth +to tell you, it’s quare set agin stirrin’ out he was this mornin’, +wishful he was to be lyin’ in his bed, for he said he felt cruel +wakely in himself altogether. But it’s losin’ the day’s wages I was +thinkin’ of, and settlin’ to call him all the lazy hounds I could +lay me tongue to—poor Mick, that was good to us ever—for ’fraid we’d +be starvin’ to-morra. So he went off wid himself. And the God that’s +above me knows well, on’y for the childer I wouldn’t ha’ said a word. +But, Mr Pierce, the faces of thim is gone to nothin’; there isn’t +a one of thim the width of the palm of your hand. And on’y for the +childer, to be lavin’ thim, God knows I’d liefer be lyin’ the way +Miss Eileen is this minyit, instead of her, the Saints in Heaven be +good to her, that’s the young crathur. Many’s the time I’ve carried +her up half-ways to this very place, when I wasn’t so much oulder +meself. For what else will I be doin’ all the rest of me life, but +remimberin’ the day I dhruv poor Mick out of the warm house to get +his death on the roadside, when all the while I knew in me heart he +wasn’t rightly able to stand on his feet. And he——” + +But Norah’s story was here jostled aside by Con Furlong, the foreman, +a stolid, business-like person, who wished to mention that the men +were all quitting their work, and to receive instructions about +paying for a couple of loads of stones that were just after coming +over from Smith’s place beyond Clonmoragh, where _he_ had never +ordered them. These details somehow helped Pierce to realise more +fully that he was to be still alive. Meanwhile the sun had found a +clear path earthward among the mists, and shone out through them with +all the glamour of dawn and splendour of high-noon, so that swift +lights strode hither and thither upon the hills, and the haze melted +into the deepening blue as fast as foam on a summer sea, until the +spring-day was golden over the whole countryside. It was just the +world and the weather for those grand times which, as Pierce now +suddenly remembered, he had promised that Eileen should have when he +came with the key. + + + + +A DESERTED CHILD + + + + +A DESERTED CHILD + + +The Round Lodge at Kilrath is so ornate a little structure, with +its pillared portico and fantastic pagoda-like roof, that it looks +as incongruous in the lonesome grass-lands, amongst which it is +solitarily set, as a single pelargonium or calceolaria would look +among their ragweed and thistles. Only the old people recollect how +it was built by way of being a gate-lodge on one of the new roads +which there was talk of young Mr Hall making at the time he came into +the property, but which, like many more of his schemes, were never +carried out. None of them, in fact, ever took a substantial form +except the Round Lodge, his promptness in this matter being caused +by a long-standing promise to his old nurse that if he succeeded to +the Kilrath estate she should have “a little house of her own.” As +his regard for the old woman was one of the few interests he had left +unshrivelled by the gambling fever that had fastened on him, he found +an eager pleasure in keeping his word to her, and travelled all the +way down from Dublin that he might be present at her induction into +her new abode. + +It was a moteless morning in early summer, when the curved masses +of the wood still had a misty softness of hue, and the green of the +fresh lawns looked as unwitherable as the domed blue above them. +The Round Lodge gleamed most spick and span within and without, +its brilliant tiles glowing, and the violet and amber panes in its +glass door richly staining the sunbeams that crowded into the little +porch. Mrs Moran, glancing round the cosy sitting-room with bright +quick eyes like a bird’s, felt herself happy indeed, though she only +_said_ she dared say she might make a shift to manage well enough, +once she had the things set to rights a bit herself in her own way; +which would have sounded faint praise to anybody who did not know +her. But when she was left there to her own devices, she became +subject to fits of forlorn “lonesomeness,” at intervals which grew +shorter day by day as the first gloss of ownership wore off. It did +so the more rapidly because the Round Lodge was so far out of the +way that she seldom had a visitor to whom she could exhibit her +possessions with proud disparagement. We all like to look at our +own happiness through other men’s eyes, a process by which it seems +to gain a sort of stereoscopic solidity. Her nearest acquaintances +were the old coachman and cook couple who lived as caretakers in +the gaunt, empty mansion two miles away; for though the village is +considerably closer by, a bit down the road after you turn out of the +boreen, anybody who supposes that Mrs Moran could have associated +on terms of intimacy with its inhabitants must be sadly to seek in +a knowledge of our finely shaded social distinctions. Mrs Dowling +alone, who was mistress of the post-office and shop, and who wore a +bonnet at Mass, might have been an appropriate crony, but she was at +this time “mortal bad wid the janders.” Hence the clear summer noons +and nights often strung themselves into a whole week without giving +Mrs Moran an opportunity of saying anything more to the purpose than +the occasional “Fine day, ma’am,” which even neighbours who are not +acquaintances must exchange when they meet. This was a dull state of +things, and made the hours wagged out by the bland-faced clock lag +and loiter strangely. Sometimes, if she had not recollected that she +was at last in the long-desired little house of her own, she would +have almost thought she had been in better places; and satisfaction +that has to be conjured up by an effort of memory comes cold and flat. + +A few perches to the westward of the Round Lodge a belt of timber +breaks the smooth sweep of the broad pastures that encircle it. If +you thread the narrow footpath between the delicate grey beech-trunks +for quite a long distance, you come to the edge of a high bank, +which overhangs a deep-sunken lane, a mere boreen joining two more +important thoroughfares. Thence the trees turn at right angles +to fringe the brink of this lane. Across it you look into a wild +country. The great Shangowragh bog rolls from the horizon almost to +your feet, and on the right hand, towards Lisconnel, spreads far +away, a spacious level that seems brown until you have called it so, +and then you see many other colours struggling duskily through, olive +and purple and red. To the left there is rougher ground, mottled +with grey-gleaming boulders and clumps of furze, and lifting itself +up lazily to a stony ridge. Beyond that rise darkly a pair of domed +mountain summits, the same that are seen more dimly from Lisconnel. +Here they have the aspect of two huge hooded heads, bowed over a +mysteriously folded hollow. When Mrs Moran came within view of this +landscape, she generally shrank back among the sheltering trunks, +and went home the way she had come. She said it made the flesh creep +upon her bones, and she wouldn’t stop where she’d have one of those +ugly black-lookin’ blocks of hills grimacin’ at her from mornin’ +till night, not if she was paid for it by the hour. The fact was +that she had lived all her life in the corner of a softly contoured +up-and-down county, where the little rounded grass hillocks and +frequent hedges make the countryside look as if it had been crumpled +into green bunches, and where the prospect seldom extends over more +than a few hawthorn-bounded fields at a time. So that these vast +stretches of wilderness were for her a new and startling revelation +of possibilities in Nature, which she was somewhat disposed to +resent. On the whole, though she would by no means have allowed it, +even to herself, the little house of her own was more or less a +disappointment, and disappointments that occur when one is verging +on threescore-and-ten have a discouraging air of finality. + +But with that first long summer at the Round Lodge, Mrs Moran’s +solitude was ended by the arrival there of her daughter-in-law, Mrs +Peter, and of her three grandchildren, Nannie and Biddy and Con. +Their coming was caused by a very tragical occurrence, and apart +from the melancholy circumstances, I doubt that it added to the old +woman’s contentment. She had long since made up her mind that she +would not like a bone in her son’s wife’s skin, and the prejudice +did not melt away upon acquaintance, while the children were rather +oppressive to her after her long holiday from such society. Since +the infancy of Mr George, now in the Lancers, she had scarcely seen +a child to speak to, in the grown-up Halls’ deserted nursery; and +she said aggrievedly that they _moidhered_ her, and that ne’er a one +of them featured their poor father. Nannie and Biddy, good-natured, +hot-tempered little girls, shocked her by their romps and quarrels; +and four-year-old Con, a small, melancholy child with a turn for +metaphysics, caused her some chagrin by his unthriving aspect; she +said that he looked like a hap’orth of soap after a week’s washin’, +wid the face on him no broader than a farthin’ herrin’. With all +their shortcomings, however, the young Morans were presently the +means of bringing a still less promising inmate to the Round Lodge. + +About this time Kilrath happened to be suffering from a visitation +of the Tinkers, who had established themselves as usual in the row +of deserted cottages at the end of the boreen. The Tinkers were +people who spent all the tolerably warm part of the year among the +benettled wall-rims of deserted cabins, and under the arches of +bridges, and in the hollows of old quarries, making progresses to and +from these quarters with the help of two donkey-carts. Most of the +party passed the heart of the winter in the less primitive shelter of +whatever Union workhouse was nearest when the first unbearably cold +night overtook them. Now and then a member of their confraternity +disappeared for a space into the more rigorous seclusion of some +county jail, but that was an accident of occurrence less common than +their temporary neighbours could have wished. For the Tinkers, it +is said, stole all before them. Middle-aged inhabitants of Kilrath +remembered when the band had filled only one cart; but of late years +they had over-flowed into a second, the owners of which were known +as the Young Tinkers. It was considered that the Young Tinkers were +collectively greater thieves of the world than the Ould, but that no +single individual could hold a candle for villainy to Luke Maguire, +the very ancient commander of the original vehicle. People wondered +sometimes that the Young and Ould Tinkers did not part company, and +take different routes, as their joint arrival at any camping-ground +was generally the signal for a frantic fight between the two +sections. However, they continued to stick together, which, as a +Kilrath housewife remarked, was “a rael charity, for if they took to +scatterin’ themselves over the whole countryside, like a flock of +turkeys in a stubble-field, she should suppose there wouldn’t be a +him or an egg to be had in it from one year’s end to the other.” + +So not long after the Peter Morans’ establishment at the Round +Lodge, the Tinkers sent to the door a deputation composed of a +woman and two children, all wildly ragged, and hung about with +samples of their flashing tinware in such profuse festoons that +their approach sounded, one may suppose, somewhat like the onset +of a mail-clad knight of old romance. Their call was but brief, +for their appearance did not favourably impress the two Mrs Morans, +who were afterwards careful to exhort Nannie and Biddy and Con +that they must on no account have anything to say to “them young +rapscallions,” if met with on their walks abroad. The little Morans, +who had been staring with all their eyes full of envious admiration +at their two contemporaries permitted freely to handle and clink +those resplendent and resonant cans, felt vaguely the existence of +compensations and complications in the scheme of things, when they +learned that these privileged persons were nevertheless to be shunned +as somehow inferior and reprehensible, and “not anyways fit company +for respectable people’s childer.” + +But on the next Saturday their mother went to shop in the village, +and up at the Round Lodge the children found the morning as long as +mornings can be when one is under seven, and the end of an hour is +out of sight. By the time that Nannie and Biddy and Con had finished +their midday dinner, they felt quite convinced that if their mother +meant ever to come back to them at all, she must now be somewhere +near at hand; and while their grandmother was busy washing up, they +slipped away to meet her along the path among the beeches. It was a +pleasant autumn day, with crisp leaf-drifts to scuffle underfoot, and +here and there a more or less ripe blackberry attainable, amusements +which drew them on until they reached the brink of the abrupt descent +into the boreen. They saw no sign of their mother coming, and the +bank looked so very high and steep that they could not even think +of climbing it. But while they strayed desultorily on the top, +somebody, swinging from clumps of weeds to handles of looped roots +in monkey-like fashion, came suddenly scrambling up it, and then +squatted down cross-legged under a sloe-bush. The new-comer seemed +to the children a very large person, being a well-grown girl of ten +or eleven. Her dress consisted of a brown skirt, which looked as if +it had once been a sack, with a man’s old jacket for a bodice, eked +out by a screed of greenish shawl. She was barefooted and bareheaded, +with a great shock of black hair making thick eaves over her brows, +under which her light-grey eyes shone like the gleam of pools caught +through dark-fledged boughs. This was Judy Flower, eldest daughter +of Jack Flower, head of the family of the Young Tinkers. Strictly +speaking, Jack’s surname was Murphy, but Jack’s father, who had +enjoyed some local renown as a wrestler, had been styled by his +admiring neighbours “The Flower of Clonmoyle,” and his children had +been spoken of as the Young Flowers, until the nickname hardened +into a patronymic, which Jack took with him when he sank into the +tinkering line. Judy’s mother, on the other hand, had real gipsies +among her ancestry, which was, perhaps, the reason why Judy sat +cross-legged, and had something weirdly Oriental in her aspect. + +The Moran children sidled away a few paces, eyeing her doubtfully; +but she took no notice of them, and began to eat a bunch of +remarkably large and ripe blackberries, evidently the remains of much +similar spoil, for her hands and lips were blue with juice-stains. +When she had finished them all but the last, which was also the +biggest and blackest, she suddenly held it out to Con, saying, +“There’s for you, young feller, and a grand one it is—a dewberry. +Stuff it in your mouth, and no more talk out of you.” She spoke in +a high-pitched gabble, and with a peremptoriness of manner modelled +upon that used by her elders to herself. Con was half-scared, and +Biddy plucked Nannie by the sleeve, whispering dismally, “Let’s go +home, she’s ugly-lookin’.” However, the plump-seeded, glossy berry +proved irresistible, and Con’s hesitation ended in a furtive grab. +Nannie, emboldened by this mark of confidence, came a step nearer to +Judy, and said, peering down the bank wistfully, for her gleanings by +the way had only served to whet her appetite, “There would be a dale +of berries in it over yonder?” Judy craned her neck round the bush, +and looked down the bank too, and then at the three small children, +who stood in a row. “Is it berries you’re after?” she said, “and is +it over there you’d be goin’? Whethen now, if you knew what all was +in it over there, ’tisn’t about berries you’d be talkin. Och no, +murdher alive, not indeed, bedad.” + +“Over where is it?” said Nannie, impressed and alarmed by the +redundancy of Judy’s asseverations. + +Judy pointed up the boreen, which just there turned sharply, and +under a roof of reddening boughs formed a vista, ended by the dark +mountain-wall. “Och if you was after seein’ the laste taste of a +sight of a one of them”—she said, with appalling vagueness. “Och +mercy on us all and more too, if you on’y was.” + +“What sort seein’?” said Nannie, with increasing anxiety. The row +had shortened itself considerably, the children had shrunk so close +together. + +“Crathurs,” said Judy. “Och my goodness the crathurs. Tiger-bastes, +and camel-horses, and mambolethses—rael frykful. I cudn’t tell you +the half-quarter of them. But the crathur of all the crathurs is the +big red snake that’s in it. Awful _he_ is. Och the dear help us, I +hope he’ll bide contint where he is, I hope he will. Wirrasthrew, if +he was to get hearin’ any sort of noise that ’ud wake of him out of +his sleep—whoo-oo, that’d be the bad job for us all.” + +The children stared at her round-eyed like a bunch of fascinated +little birds. + +“Well now, but it’s the terrible big red snake _he_ is,” Judy went on +contemplatively, “and the great hijjis lump of a black head he has +on him; it wouldn’t scarce fit in between them two bushes; and the +long len’th he is, that’d raich aisy to the far end of the boreen—and +he asleep up yonder, ready to wake every instant minute of time that +happens—and bould little children talkin’ of leppin’ down the high +banks after blackberries.” + +“We worn’t,” said Biddy, with a howl. + +“Where is he asleep at all?” said Nannie in a hoarse whisper. + +“Sure, up there in his black hole,” said Judy, pointing through +the trees, “wound himself up he has—round and round and +round-an’-round-an’-round”—she described a rapid eddy in the air with +her forefinger—“wid his big ugly head cocked in the middle, listenin’ +till he hears somethin’ to wake him up—and then, good gracious, is +it what’ll he do?” she said, replying to an interrogative gasp from +Nannie, “Murdher alive!” She ducked down until her shock-head nearly +touched the ground, and recoiled immediately to an erect sitting +posture with a jack-in-the-box-like spring. Then she elongated her +neck preternaturally, and twisting it from side to side, glared about +her with a ferocious goggle and grin. “That’s what he’ll do first,” +she said, “to find out what way the noise was comin’ wakenin’ of him. +And after that, he lets a couple of roars out of him, and he begins +to unrowl himself—round and round an’ round-an’-round—the wrong way. +And as soon as he’s stretched his len’th, out he’ll take wid himself +slitherin’ down the hill to us, and through the trees there he’ll +come smashin’ desthruction off of all before him. Ragin’ mad he’ll be +for bein’ woke up. Och the creels of him and the crawls of him,” said +Miss Judy, rocking herself to and fro, so that the withered leaves +on the thorny bush behind her fell over her like a shower of little +golden coins, “och the creels of him and the crawls of him, and the +roars of him and the bawls of him—there was never anything aquil to +it. ’Twould terrify the clouds out of the sky.... And mercy be among +us, what was that at all now? Was it him beginnin’? I dunno but I +heard him over yonder, like as if he was sayin’ _cruel_ to himsel, +‘Whoo-oo-o, let me be comin’ at them.’” + +This was too much for the fortitude of Biddy, a small fat child with +no great force of character, and she broke into an uncontrollable +roar, to the wrathful despair of Nannie, who shook her passionately, +saying, “Whisht, whisht, you little madwoman! do you want to have +us all destroyed?” Con, on the other hand, not less dismayed, flew +frantically at Judy with a snatched-up stick, confusing the causer +with the object of his terror. Judy herself rose to her feet, and +resorted to precipitate flight, not by reason of Con’s assault, but +because at this moment a voice called shrilly through the trees, “You +young miscreant there, what at all are you doin’ wid the childer?” +It was old Mrs Moran, who, alarmed by the stillness, had set out +in quest of her grandchildren. Judy, who had no wish to explain +the situation, sought to escape from it by a hasty retreat down +the boreen bank, but her attempt was unlucky. For in her hurried +swinging of herself over the edge, she trusted her weight to a tuft +of ragweed, whose roots ripped faithlessly out of the crumbling soil, +and let her drop amongst a scattering of earth and pebbles into the +middle of the lane, where she lay stunned and incapable for the +present of any further romancing. + +It was in this way that Judy Flower became an inmate of the Round +Lodge, being carried up there by Michael Kelly, a turf-cutter, who +appeared opportunely on the scene. He then tramped off several miles +to summon the doctor, observing as he started that there was likely +to be an Inquist to-morrow. But when the doctor came, he pronounced +the case one of merely slight concussion of the brain, and predicted +a rapid recovery, if the child were properly cared for, which Mrs +Moran resolved that she should be. “The crathur might stop where she +was for a few days at any rate, till she came round a bit.” + +The Tinkers themselves did not display much concern about the fate +of their youthful comrade. On the evening of the accident, two of +the women came to make inquiries at the Round Lodge, and their +report seemingly satisfied Judy’s family, for next morning the +whole party decamped, moving on in the direction of Castlebawn. But +it had happened that just at this time Judy’s mother was absent, +tramping the country on a professional tour, with a baby and a bunch +of tinware, and so heard nothing of what had befallen her daughter +until she rejoined the caravan at Castlebawn. They picked her up in +a dreary little back lane, where she awaited their coming, seated +on a broken-down mud wall. Her tin cans were nearly all slung about +her still, but she had nothing in her arms, for the baby had died of +bronchitis in the cold weather the week before, little to anybody +else’s regret, perhaps not even its own. But the event had disposed +Mrs Flower to take a tragical view of things, and therefore, when her +family equipage creaked near enough to admit a counting of black +and red heads, which showed that one was missing, she immediately +formed the gloomiest conclusions about the fate of the absentee. Nor +were the explanations she received particularly re-assuring. Little +Jimmy, her eldest boy, reported that Judy had fell off of the top of +somethin’, he didn’t rightly know what, and hadn’t come home since. +And his aunt Mrs Massey’s account of the matter ran: “Och, sure she’s +after givin’ herself a crack on the head, but the ould woman that +picked her up off the road was a dacint body, and she’s took her +in. She might get over it and do right enough yet. Anyway, the best +chance was to lave her where she is. It’s late we are, for the roads +is that heavy they’re nearly pullin’ the hoofs off of the misfort’nit +asses’ ould feet. How did she get the crack? Sure the on’y wonder is +she hasn’t broke her neck a dozen of times wid the way she climbs +over all before her. And so the baby’s died on you? Ah the crathur, +God be good to it! ’Deed now, it would be cruel knocked about in the +perishin’ weather. Belike it’s better off. Did you sell anythin’ at +all? Musha then, woman, you needn’t be frettin’ after Judy, for +she’s apt to play plinty more fool’s thricks yit, if that’s all ails +you.” + +Mrs Flower was, however, bent on not only fretting, but going to +see after and if possible repossess herself of Judy. She was ill +and miserable, and had been looking forward to the close of her +weariful, lonesome tramp, and a spell of easier days, jogging along +on wheels among familiar faces. But Judy was the eldest of her +children, and had perhaps never quite lost the glamour of a wonderful +new possession, which her mother could not contemplate in another +person’s keeping without a pang of jealousy. At any rate, she made up +her mind to resume her solitary way, and she kept her resolve despite +the disapproval of her family, of her gaunt-looking husband, who said +she’d a dale better stop wid the childer and him and mind them a bit, +and of the childer themselves, who, feeling mocked and defrauded by a +glimpse of comfort so speedily withdrawn, howled dismally and drummed +protests on the sides of their cart, as they saw the much-desired +wisp of black shawl recede fluttering down the wet street. + +Under these discouraging circumstances, aggravated by wild wind and +rain, Mrs Flower started on her doubtful quest. Four days she had to +trudge in solitude, and three nights she had to shelter as best she +could, the best being on two occasions no better than the lee-side +of a dyke and a clump of rustling furze-bushes. Such wide tracts +of bogland intervened between cabins where a night’s lodging may +generally be had for the asking, because the indwellers have little +else to bestow. But she consoled herself with the hope that on the +way back she should have her daughter’s company. She durst not now +face the possibility of “anythin’ havin’ happint Judy,” so that she +would after all return alone. That would have been to look recklessly +down a gulf of despair. So she allowed herself to doubt of nothing +except her chances of reaching her goal before she was perished +outright, or “took rael bad intirely.” When she came to the village +of Kilrath, a wannish gleam of prosperity flickered out on her, for +she succeeded in persuading Mrs Nally, the owner of a stray spare +penny, to buy a tin-mug, which was described as being “that iligant +and polished up, ’twould be a pleasure to drink anythin’ out of it, +if ’twas on’y a sup of ditch-water, and strong? Och goodness preserve +us, ma’am dear, you might take and batter it agin that wall there +the len’th of the day, and sorra a dint there’d be in it when you’d +done.” As she knew that the Round Lodge could not be very far off, +she expended the proceeds of this sale in purchasing a little flour +cake for Judy at the shop. It was richly yellowed with soda, and +showed three currants on its surface, which could not fail to tempt +the most delicate appetite. “And sure the bit of a crathur would be +finely agin now.” + +By the time that Mrs Flower came to the Round Lodge, the wintry dusk +had thickened so that the driving sleet-sheets were more felt than +seen. The leafless beech-grove was roaring in the wind with the voice +of a foam-fretted shore, and straining and swaying to the stress of +the blasts until it looked like an anchored cloud. She groped baffled +among the dripping trunks for a long while before she found a clue in +a line of red light to guide her across the dim grass-field, until +she stood under the porch of the Round Lodge. It was the Tinkers’ +habit to be stealthy in their movements, and she passed through the +coloured glass door unheard, and down the short passage to where +another door stood rather widely ajar, revealing an interior of +ruddily lit warmth, paradisiacal to anybody peering in very cold and +wet and hungry. Only Mrs Moran and Judy were in the kitchen, which +glowed all round its curved walls so that the room looked like a +cupful of light filched from the ebbing day. Judy, now convalescent, +installed in one of the fine new arm-chairs by the fire, with locks +clipped and combed, and wearing a neat lilac print frock and little +plaid shoulder-shawl, was wonderfully transformed in aspect. She was +eating a broad slice of buttered griddle-cake, and listening to a +long story, which Mrs Moran had drawn from her store of reminiscences +about the Quality she had lived with. While Mrs Flower watched, the +old woman got up and brought the girl something in a large mug. “It’s +a nice sup of buttermilk for you,” she said; “sup it up, honey, along +wid your cake. I declare now, you and I are great company together +intirely.” + +“Ay are we,” said Judy complacently; “and if I had me strip of +knittin’, I might be tryin’ did I remember the stitch you was showin’ +me. Sure none of them at home could do knittin’ no more than the +crows in the field. And what become of Miss Lily’s grey horse? +They’d be apt to put it out of that, after it doin’ such a thing.” + +Judy’s mother never heard the answer to that question, for she was +pre-occupied by a struggle towards a difficult resolve. When it was +formed at last, she turned to slip noiselessly away. “Sure she has +her chance there, me jewel,” she said to herself. “I’ll let her be.” +But she was not destined to depart uninterrupted. As she turned to +go, one of her cans swung, clanking against the door-edge, and Judy +had espied her before she could retreat. + +“Why, there’s me mammy!” Judy said. “It’s comin’ she’ll be to take me +home.” Her exclamation began jubilantly but ended in a minor cadence, +for her present quarters were in most ways very much to her mind, and +being still less vigorous than usual, made her feel all the more loth +to resume the rough faring upon which she looked back across this +brief novel experience of cosy chimney-corners and ample meals. It +struck her that her mammy might have arrived more appropriately some +other time; _some_ time, of course, but _other_ certainly; and the +opinion betrayed itself on her countenance. + +“Well, and what way are you, Judy?” said Mrs Flower, pausing as she +found herself observed; “grandly you look to be set up in there, +bedad.” + +“Oh, she’s doin’ finely?” said Mrs Moran. “You’d better step inside, +ma’am—if you’re Judy’s mother,” she added, though she could not +forbear a mistrustful glance from her visitor’s bedraggled rags +to her own clean boards and good bit of carpet. “It’s wet walkin’ +to-night.” + +“I dunno but I’d a right to stop where I am,” said Mrs Flower, +standing still. “Drippin’ I am, sure enough; the showers this day’d +drinch a water-eel. I was on’y trampin’ round wid the things; and as +for takin’ you along, Judy, ’deed for the matter of that, sorra the +hurry I’m in at all, unless them that have got you so be.” + +“There’s no hurry whatsomever,” said Mrs Moran rather stiffly. “Let +alone that the child’s noways fit to be streelin’ about the counthry.” + +“The saints above know I’ve no wish to be saddlin’ meself wid her,” +said Mrs Flower defiantly. “It’s just a livin’ torment she’d be to +me, and divil a hap’orth else.” + +“Well, to be sure, one’d ha’ thought you might ha’ found somethin’ +more agreeable to say of your own child,” said Mrs Moran, “even +supposin’ it isn’t convenient to have her along wid you these times.” + +“Convenient, is it?” said Mrs Flower. “Be jabers, it’s them that has +the rarin’ of the likes of her knows the throuble of it. Troth, you +might be tired bangin’ her about and givin’ her abuse from one day’s +end to the other, and get no good of her at the heel of the hunt.” + +“’Deed then, if you can conthrive nothin’ better to do wid her than +that, I’d a dale sooner she sted where she is,” said Mrs Moran, with +increasing sternness, and a change of mind about the propriety of +offering Mrs Flower a cup of tea. “She’s an unnatural crathur,” she +said to herself, “and all she cares for is to be shut of the child.” + +“Well, good-bye to you, Judy,” said her mother. “I’ll not come near +you, I’m that muddy and wet.” + +“But you’ll be comin’ back some time soon, mammy?” said Judy, who +had hitherto kept silence, somewhat shocked and affronted at her +mother’s disparagement, which was a new experience to her, as at home +Mrs Flower had been always wont to defend Judy’s character and extol +her, without much cause, “for lendin’ a great hand wid the childer,” +and other domestic virtues. Now, however, Judy was stricken with +remorse as she saw the familiar black shawl and weather-worn face +disappearing into a darkness which led towards the dreary noises of +the wild night. She got out of her arm-chair, and despite Mrs Moran’s +remonstrance, ran across the room and down the passage, hobblingly, +because she was still lame from her fall. When she reached the porch, +her mother, though close by, was almost swallowed up in the gloom, +which had superseded the last glimmers of twilight. Only in the +farthest west lingered a dull-red band, hardly more luminous than a +drift of the dead beech-leaves. Judy stood on the steps peering out, +with the hearth-glow behind her. “Stop a minute, mammy,” she called; +“I’m after forgettin’ to bid you good-bye or anythin’. And I’ll ax +herself inside to be wettin’ the tay——” + +Mrs Flower looked round, and halted for a moment. Then she shook +her fist menacingly at her daughter. “Be off and run in wid you out +of that, you young divil!” she shouted hoarsely. A gust of wind +intercepted and bore away the words, but her threatening gesture was +plain enough against the fading wraith of the sunset. And it was the +last that Judy ever saw of her unnatural mother. + + + + +AN ACCOUNT SETTLED + + + + +AN ACCOUNT SETTLED + + +One wet autumn evening, Mr Natty Grogan was taking stock and making +up his books with the assistance of his family. When thus occupied, +the young Grogans were wont to complain that he would be trotting +after them with dogs’ abuse from Billy to Jock, till you couldn’t +tell where to have him; while he used to declare that the lot of +them all together were more different kinds of fools than you’d find +anywhere else in the breadth of Ireland, and so was their mother +before them. She had died many years since and her husband was +reported to have remarked that the event would save him a couple +of shillings a week, anyway, for milk and chicken-broth. But it is +fair to observe that unfeeling speeches were likely enough to be put +into his mouth on this occasion—such was his character among his +neighbours. They said that his wife had been “a very dacint poor +woman, and a dale too good for any such an ould slieveen, and it was +a pity all the childer, except, maybe, Andy, took after himself.” + +For the present, however, popular disapproval of the Grogans was in +abeyance, as almost everybody else had gone to bed and to sleep, +so that Athcrum’s one wide street lay deserted and blank. It was a +very wet evening, and the whitewashed house-fronts had an ample dado +of mud splashes about their doors and lower windows, but they were +all now muffled up in darkness. The Grogans’ late sitting threw no +light on the outer gloom, for the battered shop-shutters were up, +and business proceeded in the little back room, whence old Natty lit +himself every now and then with a sweeling dip, to grope among his +stock-in-trade in the adjoining shop. He accompanied these researches +with dissatisfied grunts, rising occasionally into requests +wrathfully shouted to his family, for an explanation of what he found +or missed. They grimaced at one another, and sometimes whispered +together before they complied with his demands—Nannie and Tom and +Stevie, seated round the table, where the strong lamp-light flared +in their faces. Their father, peering in at them from murky recesses +behind the counter, half saw and half surmised these signals, which +did not soothe his irritation. + +“What at all’s gone wid the rest of the ten-pound tin of arrowroot +biscuits?” he called suddenly. “It was better than three parts full +last time I seen it, and, accordin’ to the accounts, there’s no right +to be anythin’ out of it since then, but ne’er an atom have you left +in it, on’y a dust of crumbs.” + +“Belike _they_ niver put down the last person had some,” suggested +Tom, disassociating himself from the transaction with prompt presence +of mind. + +“And why the mischief didn’t you? Am I keepin’ the pack of yous +foolin’ here to be slingin’ me goods about the parish, and not so +much as take the trouble to scrawm it down? There’s not an infant +child goin’ to school but ’d make a better offer at doin’ business.” + +“It’s very apt to ha’ been Mrs Moriarty,” said Nannie, choosing to +ignore this aspect of the matter; “she did be gettin’ them kind of +things the time the childer was sick. We can aisy charge them to her.” + +“Mrs Moriarty’s great-grandmother’s cat!” said her father. “You +might as well save yourself the trouble—and there’s none readier—of +chargin’ anythin’ to her these times. The people at the post-office +was tellin’ me this mornin’ that the last American letter come +for her, sorra the money-order was in it at all, except word of +the daughter bein’ in hospital, and the husband out of work. It’s +one while before she’ll be settlin her account. Howsome’er, charge +the biscuits to her, and don’t be makin’ too free wid allowin’ her +anythin’ else on credit. Whose bill’s that you’re makin’ out there, +Stevie?” + +“Yourself’s after biddin’ me get Dan Farrell’s,” Stevie replied. + +“Ay, did I? It’s the best chance we have to be gettin’ anythin’ +out of the man, and he wid his couple of bastes in at Kenmare fair +yisterday. If we don’t look out sharp, his story’ll be that the agent +took the price off him for rint. The divil mend the both of them for +a pair of thievin’ villins! Sure Widdy Rourke below was tellin’ me +she seen Dan diff’rint times comin’ out of Carmody’s as hearty as +anythin’; and when’s he had a glass from us at all? Ah, musha! long +life to him. A great notion he has to be spendin’ his ready money +at Carmody’s, and we to be givin’ him credit for everythin’ else he +happens to fancy. Plase the pigs, I’ll learn him the differ! What’s +the amount he’s owin’? Eighteen shillin’? Then just set him down a +couple of pound of them biscuits, or anythin’—the way there’ll be no +bother wid change comin’ out of his note.” + +“Biscuits he didn’t get, I’ll take me living oath,” said Stevie +confidently. + +“Keep your oaths till they’re axed for. ’Twas as apt to be biscuits +as anythin’. And I’ll tell you what it is, me young shaver, _you_’ll +step over to Farrell’s to-morra mornin’ and get the bill ped.” Old +Natty gave these commands in a triumphant tone, meaning them to be a +penalty for his son’s contumacious contradiction; and Stevie did say +grumblingly— + +“Troth and bedad, it’s nicely bogged a man’ll be thrampin’ them roads +after these polthogues.” + +But the young Grogans had a way of posing in aggrieved attitudes from +motives of policy, and the commission was really much to Stevie’s +mind, the office of collector being always in request among them, +because it was endowed with what they called their chances. These +consisted in a private lengthening of the bill by addition of sundry +fictitious items, the price of which the inventor pocketed. Thus, on +the present occasion, before Stevie went to bed he was careful to +supplement Dan Farrell’s account with the following entries, which +were purely efforts of imagination— + + _s._ _d._ + + Extry male 2 3 + Shuger 1 0 + Other extrys 1 9 + +Five shillings was an unusually large toll to levy in this way, but +Stevie knew his man, and had little fear of failing to extract it; +easy-going Dan would so certainly be loth to “get argufyin’ and +risin’ ructions.” + +Next morning, Stevie started betimes on his two-mile walk. The +raindrops had only just ceased pricking the wide, continuous puddle, +which lent a Venetian aspect to the main street, and sounds of +gurgling and dripping were audible all around, as if everything +were talking over the late downpour. When Stevie faced towards the +purple mountain range, in the direction of which lay Dan Farrell’s, +he saw the pale mists creeping along the ridges, and writhing up the +ravines, and swirling in the curved hollows, and the air had the +breath of autumnal chill that comes with rain in harvest time. Water +gleamed greyly from the furrows of every little field that he passed, +and he passed scores of them before he reached the river bridge, +where he was within a few perches of his goal. He might have taken a +shorter route, but it included a swampy patch and the passage of some +stepping-stones, for which he considered the state of affairs “too +soft altogether”; and he therefore kept upon comparatively dry land. +The dryness was very comparative indeed all over Dan Farrell’s little +holding, which occupied the entrance to a winding green glen, where +both stream and hillside curved suddenly, leaving a triangular bit of +level ground. During the past night, however, this had undergone an +abrupt change of contour, as the swollen river had flung an impetuous +arm across it, islanding its apex and rejoining the main stream, +turbid with melted clods and tangled with wisps of drowned green oats. + +When Stevie came to the bridge, Dan Farrell himself was standing up +to his knees in the soaked grain by the water’s edge and thinking of +his bad luck, without any presentiment that more was on its way. He +was a tall, black-bearded man, and had been a gaunt and grizzled one +ever since a virulent attack of rheumatism last spring had changed +him from middle-aged to elderly in a few racking weeks. This illness +had brought Sarah Tighe, his sister’s daughter, from her home in +Athcrum to nurse him and manage his forlorn household, for Dan had +lately been left a widower, and his four children were incapably +small. Sarah was now calling to him from the door to the effect that +he hadn’t as much sense as little Bobby, or else he’d come in out of +streeling through them oats, and they as wet as the waves of the say, +unless maybe he’d a mind to have himself bawling for the next month +with the pains in his bones. But Dan turned a bothered ear to her +warnings, until she added— + +“And if here isn’t one of the young Grogans slingein’ along over the +bridge.” + +Then the recollection of his growing account at the shop started out +from the misty background of his troubles, and took up a commanding +position in the forefront. He cast a glance of listless despondency +on the flooded field and turbulent river, and began to walk slowly up +the plashy furrow towards his house, set in motion by a vague sense +that it was more fitting for him than for his niece to receive young +Grogan. By the time he reached the door, Stevie was already there +talking to Sarah, a plump young woman, whose colouring suggested an +autumn hedgerow, with gleams of ruddy berries and black, and warm +brown leaves. She was naturally conversational and vivacious, but it +may be feared that her consciousness of Brian Mahony inside there +disapproving of the colloquy led her to carry it on with increased +animation. Had nobody been by to mind, Mr Stephen Grogan might have +received a welcome more in accordance with Sarah’s own private +opinion of him, which was low. When her uncle came up, she stood +demurely aside, and waited while his health was inquired after and +the weather bewailed. Then Stevie asked— + +“And what way was the fair a’ Tuesday?” + +“As bad as anythin’ at all,” said Dan, “onless you was to be payin’ +the dalers to take your bastes off you for a complimint.” + +“But you’re after selling a couple?” said Stevie. + +“Och, did I—and what’s four pound ten to git for a grand little +heifer, and she a rael dexter, if you was to be tired swearin’ agin +it? Worth three times the money she’d ha’ been to me, if I could ha’ +held on to her a sixmonth longer.” + +“Sure, now, it’s you farmers that are the rich people, makin’ +nothin’ of pound notes at that rate,” said Stevie, laughing with +a sort of uneasy jocularity. Dan knew quite well what was coming, +before the other went on, “So as I was passin’ this way, I just +looked in wid our bit of account, Misther Farrell; it’s been runnin’ +this good while now.” + +“Ay, bedad,” Dan assented dejectedly, “will you be steppin’ inside?” + +Inside reigned a brownish twilight, and the corners were all rounded +off with smoke-haze. One of them was occupied by Brian Mahony, a +neighbour of the Farrells, who, since Dan’s illness, had often come +in to lend him a hand. This morning he had undertaken the repairs of +a turf-creel. He was a powerful-looking young man, with a shock of +chestnut hair and tawny tufts and frills about his face, which just +then wore a glum expression, misliking the entrance of Stevie Grogan. +His dissatisfaction caused him to appear deeply absorbed in his task, +and to discuss it with the little Farrells, who stood around to watch +his splicing and weaving. They were unsuspectingly flattered by his +unusual disposition to consult them, and they favoured him with much +criticism and advice. + +“Sit you down, man, and warm yourself,” said Dan, taking the glazy +blue paper which young Grogan had extracted from a thin pocket-book +bound in black American cloth, and tied round with frayed strings +of pink tape. “I’m afeard we haven’t e’en a sup of anythin’ in the +house.” + +As Stevie seated himself near the circle of glowing sods, Dan carried +his bill over to the window, that the light of its one deep-set pane +might assist his somewhat feeble scholarship in spelling out the +items. Many of them baffled him completely, but the grand total of +one pound five shillings appeared with cruel distinctness, and caused +him serious dismay. He had been prepared for a sum that would make +a very large hole in one of his few precious notes, and even this +prospect was grievous. But the demand for a whole note, body and +bones, and some silver too, came as an unexpected stroke. His hands +shook as he held the paper to the light, obscured by the leaves of a +straggling geranium plant, and he felt bitterly convinced that he was +being cheated. Manners, however, would not permit him to enter any +protest beyond saying to his niece— + +“Musha, Sally, it’s a terrible sight of sugar you seem to ha’ been +usin’.” + +Upon this Stevie of course said— + +“And I’m sure _she_ doesn’t want it, anyway,”—smirking gallantly at +Sarah, who had sat down in the adjacent chimney-corner and taken up +her strip of lace-work. + +“Won’erful fine talk you have,” said Sarah. + +“And divil a word but the truth, talkin’ of you,” rejoined Stevie, +sidling a little nearer to her along his rickety-legged bench. + +Sarah replied by making a threatening demonstration with her needle, +which caused her frail thread to snap. + +“There now, you have it broke on me,” she said, “and sorra the bit of +you’s worth the throuble of tyin’ a knot.” + +“Ah now, don’t say so, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said insinuatingly. +“That’s an iligant little pattron you have been doin’, oncommon +tasty. We have some thread-lace edgin’ at our place that I declare +isn’t a ha’porth better, and it comes to as much as thruppence a +yard.” He intended the highest compliment, but did only plunge +himself the deeper into the depths of her disfavour by thus evening +her delicate point to his coarse, machine-made wares. She chose, +however, for the time being, to dissemble her wrath against him, +because she was angrier with Brian Mahony for his persistence in +evidently ignoring her flirtation, and keeping up an unconcerned +chatter addressed to the children. So she accepted Stevie’s offer +to join the broken thread for her, and was coquettishly derisive of +his clumsy-fingered failures, with much tittering and ostentatious +enjoyment of the situation; and, in like manner, Brian worked away at +the ragged-rimmed creel, and only desisted occasionally to scuffle +sportively with Jimmy or Biddy for the possession of a long supple +osier. Nobody could suppose him to care a thraneen what Sarah and the +chap from Grogan’s found so amusing. He had something else to do than +to be botherin’ his head about them. + +Meanwhile the master of the house was performing his part—a sad +one—in the small drama. He lifted a brown earthenware teapot out +of its niche in the mud wall projecting beside the hearth. Its +removal discovered the opening of another recess, whence he drew a +rough deal box with a broken lid. In this the Farrells apparently +stored miscellaneous valuables, for it contained a little roll of +bank-notes, a grey flannel bag with silver in it, an old prayer-book +that had belonged to Mrs Farrell, some spools of cotton, and so +forth. Dan slowly peeled off one of the begrimed Munster notes, and, +pre-occupied with regretful calculations, he forgot the shillings +which were due, and restored box and teapot to their places. Then he +laid down the note on the window-seat, spread out the bluish bill +beside it, and stood smoothing both bits of paper with the palm of +his hand. + +“There’s that,” he said. + +“Sure, I’ll be signin’ the resate,” said Stevie, jumping up with +alacrity, and producing his shiny black pocket-book and red chalk +pencil. But he came to a pause as he noticed the absence of the +silver. He looked interrogatively at Dan. The man’s careworn, +broken-down aspect, his lined face and tattered garments gave his +creditor a conscience-stricken twinge, and for an instant suggested +the possibility of renouncing that toll. Stevie, however, quickly +ascertained that this was too much to expect from himself; the sum +would come in just then too handily to be forgone, and he compromised +the matter by resolving to see that the Farrells were let off +easily in their next account. Future generosity is always easier +than present justice, especially when the postponed virtue can be +practised at somebody else’s expense. So— + +“There was thim five shillin’s comin’ to us,” said Stevie, continuing +to look at Dan. + +“Och, murder, tubbe sure there was. It’s meself’s the gaby,” said Dan +disconcertedly; and he went towards the niche to rectify his blunder, +but he was interrupted by his niece. + +“Sure I’ll fetch it out, Uncle Dan,” she said. “It’s throublesome for +you to be stoopin’. Mr Grogan can be puttin’ his name on the account.” + +She fumbled for a few moments in the box, and came over to the window +with a large silver coin in her hand. It was a crown-piece, which, +although it bore the stamp of the fourth George, still retained its +sturdy thickness and bold outlines unimpaired, as if it had changed +owners slowly. Around this she was wrapping a bit of crumpled, thin +paper, perceiving which her uncle said— + +“Sure, girl alive, I’ve got the note here right enough.” + +“But it’s my belief ’twas the dirtiest one you had that you sorted +out,” replied Sarah promptly. “Now _I_’ve found him a dacint clane +one; and I’m sure you’d a dale liefer be takin’ it wid you, Mr +Grogan?” + +“’Deed you may depind upon that, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said, with an +elated smirk; “and hard-set I’ll be to part wid it, when I consider +how you put yourself about to be pickin’ and choosin’ for me.” + +Here Brian Mahony abruptly threw down his creel and flung out of +the house, with a scowl which did not escape Sarah’s observation. +It did not please her, somehow, any better than his previous air +of unconcern, whence we may infer that her mood was capricious and +contrary. Stevie Grogan, at any rate, presently had reason to think +it so, and a flatness and tartness came over the conversation, not +inviting him to prolong his visit. After three snubs— + +“The day’s darkenin’ again,” he said, “and I’ll be getting along +afore there’s another plump of rain.” He took leave of Dan, who was +reflecting sorrowfully how much poorer a man the last half-hour had +made him, and went to the door, accompanied by Sarah. “Bedad!” he +said, glancing around, “I think the sthrame looks to have quieted +itself a goodish bit. I might be steppin’ across them stones, it +saves better than a mile when you get into the bog over yonder.” + +It is possible that Stevie was determined to adopt this course less +by the aspect of the river than by a glimpse which he at that moment +had had of Brian lounging moodily upon the bridge where he must +otherwise pass. But if that were the case, his plan failed of its +purpose. For as he walked through the tangled oats followed by Sarah, +who had bethought her of a message to give him for her mother, Brian +espied them, and immediately descended from the bridge and made for +the ford along the river’s bank. He could not resist the spell which +drew him to every opportunity of tormenting himself by witnessing +what his jealous mind regarded as Sarah’s marked preference for young +Grogan, and he sped so recklessly, stumbling and tripping over wisps +of weeds and grass, that he reached the stepping-stones just as the +others did. + +On this occasion, however, his feelings were not to be harrowed by +the display of much sentiment or facetiousness at leave-taking, as +it was drowned in a sudden burst of rain, which made Sarah pull her +fringed shawl into deep eaves over her face, and gasp out with ducked +head— + +“Och, mercy on us, here’s polthogues—I must run for me life, and +you’d best step out, Stevie Grogan, or you’ll be bogged entirely +before you get home.” + +Thus exhorted, Stevie began hurriedly to stride from stone to stone. +In one hand he held the shiny pocket-book, and with the other +he clutched the brim of his black felt hat, which a rising gust +momentarily threatened to whisk away. He was nearly half over, when +the wind came swooping past in a furious flurry, and at the same +time a thicker coil of the brown river-water broke on the stones, +making one on which he had just set his foot wobble violently. The +consequence was that he stumbled badly, only keeping his balance by +a headlong plunge forward with outspread arms; and not till he had +floundered on to the opposite bank did he perceive that his hat and +book were both missing. His hat, after a high-whirled flight, lit on +the rapid stream, and went skimming down it without let or hindrance, +while his more precious book described a parabolic curve in the air, +and dropped into the water near the place where Brian and Sarah +stood. For a moment it lay on the surface, and Brian, leaning over +at a dangerous angle, tried to reach it with his long osier rod. Upon +which Sarah, gripping him by the arm, pulled him back with all her +might, saying in an agonised tone: + +“Och, goodness gracious, man, get out of that, and let it be!” But +even as she spoke, the black cover, weighed down, no doubt, by the +filched crown-piece, sunk out of sight and was no more seen. A +few seconds later, however, the rough brown eddies a little lower +down became strewn with small flecks whiter than the creamy foam. +Evidently the strings and covers had collapsed, and let their frail +contents go to wrack. + +“Sure it’s every bit of it flitthered into laves,” said Sarah, +releasing Brian’s arm; “niver sight nor light of it he’ll get the +chance to lay eyes on agin, note or no note.” The tone in which she +announced this fact was both relieved and triumphant. As for the +owner of that perishing property, he stood on the opposite bank, +bareheaded in the pelting rain, discontented and woe-begone, an +object to move pity. But Sarah added: “And the divil’s cure to him, +the thievin’ slieveen. We’ve got the resate off him all right any +way.” + +Brian, on the contrary, now took off his own limp cloth cap, crumpled +it round a great shingle stone for ballast, and flung it across to +Stevie. + +“Clap that on your head, and be leggin’ it home wid you, if you’ll +take my advice,” he shouted against the wind; “you’ll get nothin’, +unless it’s your death of could, standin’ there in the rain. Belike +we might be some odd chance get the five shillin’ piece at the +bottom, when the river goes down, but them bits of papers is past +prayin’ for intirely.” This seemed obvious even to the unwillingly +convinced Stevie, and he started dolefully through the driving rain, +half-blinded by it and the descending peak of Brian’s too roomy cap. +The others raced home under much less trying circumstances, and were +speedily sheltered beneath Dan Farrell’s thatch. + +Sarah took her strip of lace-work, and sat down with it in the +brighter patch by the window. She was filling in the centre of a +fantastic blossom with a pattern which seemed to have been suggested +by the dewy web of some long-legged spinner hitched from blade point +to point. Brian Mahony fetched his creel and osiers out of the +corner, and stood opposite to her, busy with his coarse weaving. Now +and then he looked at her complacently as she stooped over her fine +stitches, and for some time neither of them spoke. At last Brian said— + +“That was a fine fright I’m after giving you down there, Sarah. You +have the sleeve nearly rieved out of my ould coat. Was it dhrowndin’ +meself you thought I’d be that you took such a hould of me?” + +“Dhrowndin’ himself? Frightenin’ me? Musha good gracious, what talk +has the man out of him at all?” Sarah said with shrill ejaculation. +“Bedad, if that was all that ailed the likes of you, I’d ha’ had +somethin’ better to be at than throublin’ myself to interfere wid +you. But afeared I was that you’d be hookin’ that chap’s ould book +ashore on us; thryin’ your best you were to do that fool’s thrick.” + +“And what for wouldn’t I be saving it if I could?” said Brian, partly +consoled for the unflattering explanation of his solicitude by the +animosity of her tone when she mentioned that chap; “sure, onst the +money was ped away, you were nothin’ the betther for it goin’ to +loss.” + +“That’s all you know about it,” said Sarah, with mysterious glee. She +glanced round to see whether her uncle by the hearth were listening, +and as he appeared to be half-asleep, she went on in a lower tone: +“Why, look here, Brian—sure that grand clane pound-note I let on to +be sortin’ out for him, ne’er a note it was at all, but just an ould +bit of the silver-paper pattron I had workin’ me lace from; when it’s +crumpled up and creased like, it looks the very moral of one, and the +great gomeral stuck it into his book widout takin’ the throuble of +unfoldin’ it, be good luck.” + +“And what at all did you do that for?” asked Brian after a puzzled +pause. + +“What for?” said Sarah, “sure in the first beginnin’ of it ’twas +just to be risin’ a laugh on him; that was all the notion I had. It +come in me head when I was lookin’ for the shillin’s, and seen the +thin paper there. But afterwards, when he tuk and put it up widout +mindin’, thinks I to myself, I’ll ha’ given him a good long thramp +over it anyway; it’s back he’ll be thrapesin’ to-morra or next day to +get the right one, in a fine fantigue. But now when he’s slung the +whole affair into the wather, so as nobody’ll be the wiser what was +in th’ ould pocket-book and what wasn’t, that’s the greatest chance +could ha’ happened, and we wid the resate signed and all, the way he +can’t say a word agin us. It’s as good as a pound saved to me uncle, +poor man, that’s annoyed enough wid his bit of harvest ruinated and +everythin’. And you doin’ your endeavours to destroy it all wid +fishin’ the book out; small blame to me if I’d pulled the fool’s arm +off of you, let alone your ould sleeve.” + +“It was no thing to go do,” said Brian gruffly, “to be playin’ them +sort of thricks.” + +“Sorra the ha’porth of harm was there in it,” Sarah replied airily; +“and considerin’ that whatever he got’s swallied up in the river, +’twould ha’ been a cruel pity if we’d gave him anythin’ betther.” + +“You’d a right to be sendin’ him the rael note now,” said Brian with +decision. + +“Saints above! Whethen now, I hope you’ll get your health until I +do,” said Sarah, with a shrillness subdued by her uncle’s proximity. +“That’d be a nice piece of foolery. Why, you sthookawn, the young +slieveen’s no worse off this minute than he would ha’ been if I was +after givin’ him a five-pound note to drop out of his hand.” + +“You got the resate off of him for nothin’ at all,” said Brian; “he’s +never been ped. And the river makes no differ. How would it, when he +hadn’t anythin’ of yours to lose in it?” + +“That’s just what I’m sayin’. It makes no odds to him; he’d ha’ lost +it whether or no. And for the matther of that, he’s been ped times +and again for anythin’ Uncle Dan ever got from them, poor man; for +them Grogans are notorious thieves, as everybody well knows. Me +sister was tellin’ us the other day, they charge three shillin’s a +pound for tay that’s on’y eighteen-pence in Dublin. It’s a charity +to let them have a taste of chatin’ for themselves. Not that we’re +chatin’ them at all at all, it so happens.” + +Brian listened quite unimpressed, having no turn for casuistry. +He now condescended, however, to urge an objection based upon the +expedient. + +“And what’ll your uncle say to it, when he finds he’s got a pound too +much?” + +“I was thinkin’ of that,” said Sarah, nowise disconcerted. “Belike +I could persuade him he miscounted them at the fair. But I dare say +’twould be better if I just slipt one off the roll, and kep’ it to +get odds and ends of things wid for him, accordin’ as they would be +wanted, and never let on about it. Och, no fear, but I’ll conthrive +one way or the other.” + +“Ay, bedad; it seems to me that you’re great at conthrivin’ and +schemin’,” said Brian bitterly. “I’ve as good a mind as ever I had in +me life to tell him the whole affair.” + +“And if you offer to do such a thing on me, you ould clashbag, you!” +Sarah said in a furious whisper, “sorra a word I’ll spake to you agin +as long as I live in the world.” + +“Faix, then, perhaps I won’t be throublin’ meself to ax you in a +hurry,” retorted Brian, “when the on’y talk people has out of them is +tellin’ lies and makin’ fools of everybody. My notion is, the fewer +words they spake to you, the luckier you’ll be.” + +“Plase yourself, and you’ll plase me,” said Sarah, with an assumption +of calm indifference, which would have been more successfully +achieved if she had not flushed to the scarlet of a frost-nipt brier +leaf, besides adding inconsistently, “I’d liefer hear the pigs +gruntin’ in the ould stye than to be listenin’ to some people gabbin’ +and blatherin’.” + +“And plenty good enough company they are, too, poor bastes, for the +likes of some I could name—and long sorry I’d be to stop anywheres I +wasn’t wanted, wastin’ me time mendin’ things, and gettin’ imperance +for it—and one while it’ll be afore you’ll have raison to complain +of me disturbin’ you,” said Brian, whose wrath had flared up even +more ruddily than hers. And thereupon he bolted away into the rain, +without waiting to borrow the loan of Dan’s hat. At which Sarah +through all her huff, stood somewhat aghast, knowing that for a man +to go out of doors bareheaded argues no ordinary perturbation of +spirit. + +After this there were many more wet days, and a few golden fine ones, +and the harvest was got in one way or the other, and the winter came, +and Sarah Tighe went home to live with her family at Athcrum, and +finished her fine lace border. But she and Brian did not meet again. +At last, one bright, frosty morning, not long before Christmas, +they ran against each other coming round the corner of the row in +which the little post-office stands. Sarah was so startled that for +a moment or two she halted, irresolute, ere she recollected that it +behoved her to flounce past him with up-tilted chin. She was just +proceeding to do so, when he twitched her shawl, and said, in an +expostulatory tone— + +“Och now, Sarah, is it cross wid me ye’re goin’ to be all this time?” + +“It isn’t me that’s cross wid anybody at all,” said Sarah, subsiding +lamentably from her dignified attitude. + +“Sure then,” said Brian, “I was on’y wantin’ to tell you what I’ve +done about that pound-note was owin’ to the Grogans. Sooner than that +you’d have anythin’—anythin’ quare-like on your conscience, I’ve +saved up, and sent it to th’ ould miscreant in a letter. So it can’t +come agin you now anyway. I’m just after postin’ it this minute.” + +“Och, murdher! and are you so?” said Sarah, with an accent of the +keenest regret. “And weren’t you the gomeral to not tell me that last +week?” + +“And I on’y droppin’ it in the letter-box this instiant of time?” +said Brian. “But at all events, what differ’d that have made?” + +“Differ enough,” said Sarah ruefully. “You see, the fact of the +matter was, when I come to considher, I didn’t know but the ould +naygur Grogan had a right to that pound-note after all; so last week, +when I sold me flounce of deep lace for thirty shillin’s, I got an +order, and put it in a cover, and sent it to ould Natty himself. I +wasn’t goin’ to let that young thief of the world, Stevie, be layin’ +one of his greasy fingers on it, anyhow; and even so I thought badly +enough of postin’ it away. For now the winter’s comin’ on us, there +was a dale of things I’d liefer ha’ done wid it.” + +“Begorra, that’s the very same way it was wid me just now,” said +Brian. + +“Maybe the post-mistress’d give it back to you, if you thried,” +suggested Sarah. “She couldn’t hardly ha’ done anythin’ wid the +letters yet.” + +“Sorra a thry I’ll thry,” said Brian, with decision. “Sure I wasn’t +manin’ to say that I begrudged it e’er a bit, Sally, when it was +settin’ things straight for you, acushla.” + +“Ah, but to think of payin’ them twyste over—that’s what distresses +me,” said Sarah, who did not, however, look inconsolable. “’Deed, +now, we managed it finely, Brian; I’m afeard that you and I are a +great pair of fools.” + +But Brian replied with complacent promptitude, “True for you, then, +Sally, machree; that’s just the way it is. Fools we are, very belike, +and a pair we are for sartin. Och now, honey, be aisy; sure ’twas +yourself said it. And maybe we’ll do all as well as if we’d had more +wit. It’s continted I am, anyway. Ay, bedad, a pair of fools—but them +Grogans are welcome to their couple of pounds.” + + + + +M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP + + + + +M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP + + +The feud between the Timothy O’Farrells and Neil M‘Neills at +Meenaclure was not of very long standing, for the dowager Mrs +O’Farrell and the elder Mrs M‘Neill, who had been by no means young +when it began, were still to the fore, and not yet even considered +to have attained “a great ould age intirely.” This seems a mere +mushroom-growth compared with some of our family quarrels, which +have been handed down from father to son through so many generations +that everybody regards them as a part of the established order of +things in the world of their parish. Still, to the younger people, +who had been but children at its birth, it seemed to have lasted a +long while, and their juniors would have found a different state of +affairs almost unthinkable. For them the origin of the enmity had +already begun to loom dimly through a mist of tradition, which would +tend as time went on to grow vaguer and falser, until at length +nobody would be left who could give a clear account of what it was +all about. So far, however, all the neighbours who were “any age to +speak of” knew the rights of the case well enough. And this is what +had happened. + +It was a cloudless midsummer evening, perhaps twenty years +back—nobody is over-particular about chronology at Meenaclure—and +all the dogs and children were away out on the wild land towards +the mountains, minding the sheep, to keep them from coming home and +eating up the crops. From April to October that was every year their +occupation, and a very engrossing one they found it. For the scraggy +little sheep of the district are endowed with an appetite for green +food worthy of any locust, added to a cleverness at taking fences +that would discredit no hunter; and this makes them a constant peril +to the painfully-tilled fields, whose produce they threaten like a +sort of visibly-embodied blight. Luckily, it is one whose ravages +can be averted by timely precautions; and therefore, as soon as +potatoes are _kibbed_, and oats sown, the sheep are driven off to +a discreet distance on the moors, whence they are prevented from +returning by a strong cordon of wary mongrels and active spalpeens. +The children of such places as Meenaclure find the sunnier half of +the year a season of perpetual school-vacation, when the longest days +are watched out to their last lingering glimmer among the tussocks +and boulders, so that the morning seems to have begun ages and ages +ago by the time one straggles home, three-parts asleep on one’s feet, +the flocks having already betaken themselves to completer repose, or, +recognising the unattainability of young green oats, having set their +nibbling mouths safely up the swarded hill-slopes. For that night the +fields may lie secure from marauding trespassers. + +On this particular day, however, owing to some remissness of the +young M‘Neills and their shrewd-visaged dog, who were all led away +by the excitement of a rabbit-hunt, one of the sheep under their +charge successfully eluded observation, and broke through the line, +with two comrades presently pattering after her. With a wiliness well +masked by her expression of meek fatuity, she slunk along unseen +in furzy folds of the broken ground, and late in the afternoon had +arrived near the forbidden pastures. There she lurked furtively for a +while, fully determined to hop over the fence of Timothy O’Farrell’s +oatfield, the very first moment that nobody seemed to be about. +This opportunity soon occurred, as the O’Farrells’ holding lies +somewhat apart in a slight hollow, which secludes it from the little +cabin-cluster standing a bit higher round a curve in the long green +glacis-like foot-slope of Slieve Gowran. + +Thus it came to pass that when Timothy O’Farrell returned from +turf-cutting on the bog with his sister Margaret and his brothers +Hugh and Patrick, the first thing they noticed was an object like a +movable grey boulder cropping up on the delicate sheeny surface of +their oat-patch. Whereupon: “Be the powers of smoke,” said Timothy, +“if there isn’t them bastes in it agin.” + +“Three of them, no less,” said Margaret. + +“M‘Neills’, you may bet your brogues,” said Hugh. + +“The divil doubt it,” said Timothy. Patrick, who was a youth of +action rather than speech, had already plunged head-foremost towards +the scene of the trespass. + +There were several reasons why doubts of the M‘Neills’ responsibility +in the matter should be relegated to the divil. In the first place, +the M‘Neills owned more sheep than anybody else at Meenaclure, +whereas the O’Farrells owned none; and secondly, the O’Farrells had +sown an unusually extensive patch of oats, while the M‘Neills had +planted potatoes only. The tendencies of this situation are obvious. +Again, the O’Farrells had more than once before undergone the like +inroads, and on these occasions Neil M‘Neill had not, Timothy +considered, shown by any means an adequate amount of penitence. +“Bedad, now,” Timothy reported to his family, “he was cool enough +over it. Maybe it’s _his_ notion of fine farmin’ to graze his bastes +on other people’s growin’ crops.” A deep-rooted sentiment of respect, +however, restrained him from uttering these sarcasms in public. For +Timothy, though the head and father of a family, had seen not many +more than a score of harvests; and Neil, a dozen years his senior, +enjoyed a high reputation among the neighbours as a very knowledgable +man altogether. After the second incursion, it is true, Timothy’s +wrath had so far overcrowed his awe as to make him “up and tell” Neil +M‘Neill that “if he didn’t mind his ould shows of sheep himself, he’d +be apt to find somebody that’d do it in a way he mightn’t like.” +Still, the affair went no farther, and Timothy had soon reverted to +his customary attitude of amicable veneration. But at this third +repetition of the offence his anger could not be expected to subside +so harmlessly. + +Pat’s shouts and flourishing gallop speedily routed the +conscious-stricken sheep, and two of them whisked up the hillside +like thistledown on a brisk breeze; but the third, who was the +ringleader, leaped the fence with so little judgment that she came +floundering against Timothy, who grasped her dexterously by the +hind-legs. + +Now, to catch a Slieve Gowran sheep alive in the open is a rare and +difficult feat—proverbially impossible, indeed, at Meenaclure; but +Timothy and his brethren were at a loss how they should best turn +this achievement of it to account. They felt that simply to let the +creature go again would be a flat and unprofitable result, yet what +else could they do with it? While they pondered, and their captive +impotently wriggled, Hugh suddenly had an inspiration. It came to +him at the sight of two large black pots, which stood beside a +smouldering fire against the white end-wall of their little house. +To an unenlightened observer, they might have suggested some gipsy +encampment, but Hugh knew they betokened that his mother had been +dyeing her yarn. The Widow O’Farrell was a great spinner, and a large +part of the wool shorn in the parish travelled over her whirring +wheel on its way to Fergus the weaver’s loom. A few old sacks lying +near the fire had contained the ingredients which she used according +to an immemorial recipe. From the mottled grey lichen, _crottal_, +which clothes our boulders with hues strangely like those of the +fleeces browsing among them, she extracted a warm tawny brown; a +flaky mass of the rusty black turf-soot supplied her with a strong +yellow, and the dull-red bog-ore boiled paradoxically into black. + +“Be aisy, will you, you little thief of the mischief,” Hugh said to +the sheep. “M‘Neills’ she is, sure enough; there’s the mark. Musha, +lads, let’s give her a dab or so of what’s left in the ould pots. +’Twould improve her apparance finely.” + +“Ay would it,” said Timothy. “She’s an unnathural ugly objic’ of +a crathur the way she is now. Bedad, they’ve a couple of barrels +desthroyed on us.” + +“A few odd sthrakes of the black and yella’d make her look iligant,” +said Hugh. “Do you take a hould of her, Tim. Och, man, don’t let her +away, but lift her aisy. Maggie, did you see e’er a sign of the stick +they had stirring the stuff wid? But it’s apt to be cool enough agin +now.” + +“Ah, boys dear, but it’s ragin’ mad M‘Neills ’ll be if you go for to +do such a thing,” Margaret said, half-scared, and blundering in her +flurry on a wrong note, as she at once perceived. For her brothers +promptly responded in a sort of fugal movement— + +“And sure who’s purvintin’ of them? They’re welcome, bedad, them, +or the likes of them. Is it ragin’? Maybe it’s raison they’ll have +before they’re a great while oulder, musha Moyah.” And they proceeded +with all the greater enthusiasm to carry out their design, which +became more ambitiously elaborate in the course of execution. + +Early next morning, while the mountain-shadow still threw a purple +cloak over the steep fields of Meenaclure, where all the dewdrops +were ready to twinkle as soon as a ray reached them, and when Mrs +Neil M‘Neill was preparing breakfast, which at this short-coming +summer season consisted chiefly of Indian meal, her eldest daughter +ran in to her with news. There was somethin’, Molly said, leppin’ +about in the pigstye. Now, the M‘Neills’ stye just then stood empty, +in the interval between the despatch of their last lean fat pig +to Letterkenny fair and the hoped-for fall in the market-price of +the wee springy which was to replace him. So Mrs Neil said, “Och, +blathers, child alive, what would there be in it at all?” + +“But it’s rustlin’ in the straw,—I heard it,—and duntin’ the door wid +its head like,” Molly persisted. + +“Sure then, run and see what it is, honey,” said her mother, who was +pre-occupied with a critical stage of her porridge; and a piece of +practical business on hand generally disposes us to adopt a sceptical +attitude towards marvels. “Maybe one of the hins might have fluttered +into it; but there’s apter to not be anythin’.” + +Molly, whose mood was not enterprising, reinforced her courage +with the company of Judy and Thady before she went to investigate; +and a minute afterwards she came rushing back uttering terrified +lamentations, whereof the burden seemed to be, “It’s a tiger-sheep.” +Her report could no longer be disregarded, and the rest of the family +were presently grouped round the low wall of the little lean-to +shed, which did really contain an inmate of extraordinary aspect. Its +form was that of a newly-shorn sheep, long-legged and lank-bodied +like others of its race, but in colouring altogether exceptional. +Boldly marked stripes of black and tawny yellow alternated all over +it, with a brilliant symmetry not surpassed by the natural history +chromograph which flamed on the wall of Rathflesk National School, +and which now recurred to little Molly’s mind in conjunction with +the fact that the wearer of the striated skin “was a cruel, savage, +wicked baste, that would be swallyin’ all before it,” whereupon she +had shrieked “Tiger-sheep!” and fled from ravening jaws. + +Her parents and grandparents, on the contrary, stood and surveyed +the phenomenon with almost unutterable wrath. Traces of a human hand +in its production were plain enough, for the beast had been fastened +into the stye by a rope round her neck, which was further ornamented +with long bracken-fronds and tufts of curiously-coloured wool, +studiously grotesque. In fact, had she been mercilessly endowed with +“the giftie,” she would no doubt have suffered from a mortification +as acute as was that of her owners, instead of trotting off quite +satisfied, when once she was released and at liberty to resume her +fastidious nibbling among the dewy tussocks. + +“That’s some divilment of the O’Farrells, and the back of me hand +to the whole of them!” said Neil M‘Neill, with clenched eyebrows. +“Themselves and their blamed impidence, and their stinkin’ brashes! +The ould woman’s niver done boilin’ them up for her wool. It’s +slung about her head I wish they were, sooner than to be used for +misthratin’ other people’s dacint bastes.” + +“’Deed now, thrue for you,” said his mother. “Sure wasn’t she tellin’ +me herself yesterday evenin’ she’d been busy all day gettin’ her +yarn dyed, agin she would be knittin’ the boys their socks? Gad’rin’ +the sut she said she was this good while. That’s the way they done +it—och, the vagabones!” + +“It’s a bad job,” said old Joe M‘Neill, shaking his despondent white +head. + +“I wouldn’t ever ha’ thought it of them,” said Mrs Neil. “On’y +them boys is that terrible wild; goodness forgive them, there’s no +demented notion they mayn’t take into their heads. But what at all +could we do for the misfort’nit crather? Sure it’s distressful to +see her goin’ about that scandalous figure. I can’t abide the sight +of her.” + +Our bogland dyes, however, are very fast, and for many a day that +summer Mrs Neil had to endure the apparition of the O’Farrells’ +victim, who of course became a painfully conspicuous object on the +hillside, where she roamed blissfully unaware of how her owners’ eyes +followed her with gloomy resentment, and of how their neighbours’ +children, catching up Molly’s cry, shouted one to another derisively, +“Och, look at M‘Neills’ tiger-sheep!” But long and long after the +parti-coloured fleece had vanished for good and all, the effects of +the outrage continued to make themselves felt in the social life of +Meenaclure, where it must be owned that the inhabitants are rather +prone to keep their grudges in the same time-proof wallet with their +gratitudes. And the grudges, somehow, often seem to lie atop. In this +case, moreover, the injury had an especial bitterness, because the +M‘Neills came of an old sheep-keeping class, whose little flock was +an inheritance handed down, dwindling, through many generations, and +whose main interests and activities had time out of mind turned upon +wool, so that everything connected with it had acquired in their eyes +the peculiar sanctity with which we often invest the materials and +implements belonging to our own craft. A chimney-sweep has probably +some feeling of disinterested regard for his bags and brushes. +Accordingly, sheep were to them a serious, almost solemn subject, +altogether unsuitable for a practical joke; and an insult offered to +them was felt to strike at the honour of the family. Small blame to +them, therefore, if, as the neighbours said, they were ragin’ mad +entirely, and turned a deaf ear to all pacific overtures. + +The O’Farrells, to do them justice, admitted upon reflection that +they had maybe gone a little beyond the beyonds, and were disposed to +be apologetic and conciliatory. But when old Mrs O’Farrell, one day +meeting the two smallest M‘Neills on the road, presented each of them +with a pale brown egg, which she had just found in the nest of her +speckled hen away down beside the river, the result merely was that +her gifts were smashed into an impromptu omelet before the M‘Neills’ +door, by the direction of the master of the house, who only wished +the ould sinner had been there herself to see the way he’d serve +that, or anythin’ else she’d have the impidence to be sendin’ into +his place. And later on, when the feathery gold of the O’Farrells’ +oatfield had been bound in stooks, and the hobbledehoy Pat was +despatched to inquire whether the M‘Neills might be wantin’ e’er a +thrifle of straw after the thrashin’ for darnin’ their bit of thatch, +the polite attention elicited nothing except a peremptory injunction +to “quit out of that.” + +In taking up this attitude, the M‘Neills had at first the support +of their neighbours’ sympathy, public opinion being that it was no +thing for the O’Farrells to go do. But as time went on, people began +to add occasionally that sure maybe they didn’t mean any such great +harm after all, and that they were only young boyoes, without as much +sense among the whole of them as would keep a duck waddling straight. +What was the use of being so stiff over a trifle? These magnanimous +sentiments were, no doubt, strengthened by the fact that in so small +a community as Meenaclure a permanent breach between any two families +could not but entail some inconveniences upon all the rest. It was +irksome, for instance, to bear in mind throughout a friendly chat +that at the casual mention of a neighbour’s name the person you +were talking to would look “as bitter as sut” and freeze into grim +dumbness; or to have to consider, should you wish for a loan of Widdy +O’Farrell’s market-basket, that you must by no means “let on” to her +your intention of carrying home in it Mrs M‘Neill’s grain of tea; +or to be called upon to choose between the company of Neil M‘Neill +and Hugh O’Farrell on the way home from the fair, because neither +of them, as the saying is, would look the same side of the road as +the other. Such obligations lay stumbling-blocks in our daily path, +and nip growths of good fellowship, and are generally embarrassing +and vexatious. However, Meenaclure had to put up with this state +of things for so many a long day that people learned to include it +unprotestingly among their necessary evils. + +Under these circumstances, it was of course only in the nature of +things that the little M‘Neills and O’Farrells, the smallest of whom +had not been born at the time of the quarrel, should always put out +their tongues at one another whenever they met. They regarded the +salutation, indeed, as a sort of ceremonial observance, which could +not be omitted without a sense of indecorum. Thus, one inclement +autumn, when Patrick O’Farrell was no longer a hobbledehoy, but +“as big a man as you’d meet goin’ most roads,” he went off to a +_rabble_, that is, a hiring-fair, at Letterkenny, and took service +for six months with a farmer away at Raphoe. On the day that he left +Meenaclure, he happened, just as he was setting out, to meet Molly +M‘Neill, who had by this time grown into “a tall slip of a girl going +on for sixteen,” and they duly exchanged the customary greeting, Pat +getting the better of her by at least half-an-inch of insult. But +when he returned on a soft April evening, it chanced again that one +of the first persons he fell in with was Molly. She was coming along +between the newly-clad hedges of a narrow lane, and when he caught +sight of her first he mistook her for his cousin, Norah O’Farrell, +she looked so much taller than his recollections. But, on perceiving +his error, he merely gave up his intention of saying, “Well, Norah, +and how’s yourself this great while?” and slunk past without making +any demonstration whatever. Molly would hardly have noticed it, +indeed, as when she saw him coming she began to minutely examine the +buds on the thorn-bushes, and did not lift an eyelash while they +were passing. Yet, as they went their several ways, Pat felt that +he had somehow shirked a duty; and Molly, for her part, could not +shake off a sense of having failed in loyalty to her family until +she had relieved her conscience by announcing at home that she was +“just after meetin’ that great _ugly_-lookin’ gomeral, Pat O’Farrell, +slingein’ down the road below Widdy Byrne’s.” + +The year which followed this spring was one of bad seasons and +hard fare at Meenaclure, and towards the end of it Pat O’Farrell +came reluctantly to perceive that he could best mend his own and +his family’s tattered fortunes by emigrating to the States. His +resolve, though regretted by all his neighbours, except of course the +M‘Neills, was considered sensible enough; and at the “convoy” which +assembled according to custom to see him off on his long journey +the general purport of conversation was to the effect that, bedad, +everybody’d be missing poor Pat, but sure himself was the fine clever +boy wouldn’t be any time gettin’ together the price of a little +place back again in the ould country. The M‘Neills alone were of the +opinion, expressed by Neil’s mother, that “the only pity was the rest +of the pack weren’t goin’ along wid Pat; unless, like enough, they’d +be more than the people out in those parts could put up wid all at +onst, the way they’d be landin’ them back on us like a bundle of ould +rubbish washin’ up agin wid the tide.” + +But surprise was the universal feeling when, about six months later, +it became known that Neil M‘Neill’s eldest child Molly had also made +up her mind to cross over the water. Her own family were foremost +among the wonderers; for Molly had always been considered rather +excessively timid and quiet—certainly the very last girl in the +parish whom one would have thought likely to make such a venture. +They half-believed that when it came to the point, “sorra a fut of +her would go”; and they much more than half hoped so, notwithstanding +that their rent had fallen into alarming arrears, and none of her +brethren were old enough to help. Molly, however, actually went, amid +lamentations and forebodings, both of her own and other people’s, +all alike unavailing to stop her. Mrs Timothy O’Farrell said she’d +be long sorry to have a daughter of hers streeling off to the ends +of the earth. And I think that Molly’s mother _was_ long sorry, poor +soul, through many a lonesome day and anxious night. + +After these two departures, things at Meenaclure took their wonted +course, a little more sadly and dully perhaps than heretofore. +Communications from abroad came rarely and scantily, for neither +of the absentees had much scholarship. Their sheep-herding summers +had greatly curtailed that, and it would have been difficult to say +whether Pat’s or Molly’s scrawls were the briefer or obscurer. But +not long after Molly M‘Neill had gone, one of Pat O’Farrell’s letters +contained an important piece of news—nothing less than that he was +“just about gettin’ married.” He did not go into particulars about +the match, merely describing the future Mrs Pat as the “best little +girl in or out of Ireland,” and opining that they mightn’t do too +badly. His family were not overjoyed at the event, which might be +considered to presage a falling off in remittances; and his mother +was much cast down thereby, her thoughts going to the tune of “my son +is my son till he gets him a wife.” Still, she was not so dispirited +as to be past finding some solace in an innuendo; and she almost +certainly designed one when she took occasion to remark just outside +the chapel door, where she had been telling the neighbours her news: +“But ah, sure, I don’t mind so long as he hasn’t took up wid one of +them black-headed girls I never can abide the looks of. And ’deed now +there’s no fear of that. Pat’s just the same notion as myself, I know +very well.” For Mrs Neil M‘Neill was standing well within earshot, +and, as everybody remembered, “there wasn’t a fair hair on the head +of e’er a one of her childer.” However, Mrs Neil proved equal to the +emergency, and remarked, addressing Katty Byrne, that “It was rael +queer the sort of omadhawns she’d heard tell of some girls, who, +belike, knew no better, bein’ content to take great lumberin’ louts +of fellers, wid the ugly-coloured hair on their heads like nothin’ +in the world except a bit of new thatch before it would be combed +straight.” + +She spoke without any presentiment that she would soon have to go +through much the same experience as old Mrs O’Farrell; but so it +was. For a week or two later came a letter from Molly stating that +she was “just after gettin’ married.” Her husband, who she said +was earning grand wages, bore the obnoxious name of O’Farrell, but +there was nothing strange in the coincidence, as the district about +Meenaclure abounds in Farrells and Neills, with and without prefixes +of O and Mac; and it seemed only natural to suppose a similar state +of things in New York. Nobody could deny that there were plenty of +O’Farrells very dacint people. So Molly’s mother mourned in private +over an event which seemed to set a seal upon the separation between +her daughter and herself; and in public was well pleased and very +proud, laying great stress upon the fact that Molly had sent the +money-order just as usual,—“Sorra a fear of little Molly forgettin’ +the ould people at all,”—and serenely scorning Mesdames O’Farrell’s +opinion that “when a girl had to thravel off that far after a +husband, it was the quare crooked stick of a one she’d be apt to pick +up.” + +After this Meenaclure received no very thrilling foreign news for +about a twelve-month. Then one fine Sunday, the Widdy O’Farrell was +to be seen sailing along Masswards, with her head held extremely +high in its stiff-frilled cap and dark blue hood, and with a swinging +sweep of her black homespun skirt, which betrayed an exultant stride. +All her family, indeed, wore a somewhat elated and consequential +air, which most of her neighbours allowed to be justifiable when she +explained that she had become the happy grandmother of her Pat’s fine +young son: the letter with the announcement had come last night. This +was indeed promotion, for her son Tim’s children were all girls. With +the congratulations upon so auspicious an event even old Mrs M‘Neill +could mingle only subdued murmurs about brats taking after their +fathers that weren’t good for much, the dear knows. However, she had +not long to wait for as good or better a right to strut chin in air, +since it was with a great-grandmother’s dignity that a few days later +she could inform everybody of the arrival of Molly’s boy. She would, +I believe, have found it very hard to forgive Molly if the child had +been merely a daughter. + +This rivalry, as it were, between the estranged families in the +matter of news from their non-resident members recurred with the +same equipoised result on more than one similar occasion, and was +extended even to less happy events. For instance, one time when Pat +wrote in great distraction, and a wilder scrawl than usual, that the +“three childer was dreadful bad wid the mumps, he doubted would they +get over it,” the next mail brought just such a report from Molly; +which was rather awkward for her mother and grandmother, who had been +going about passing the remark that “when childer got proper mindin’ +they never took anythin’ of the sort.” + +At length, however, when perhaps half-a-dozen years had gone by, the +balance of good fortune dipped decidedly towards the O’Farrells. +One autumn morning a letter came from Pat to say that he and his +family were coming home. He had saved up a tidy little bit of money, +and meant to try could he settle himself on a dacint little bit of +land; at any rate he would get a sight of the ould place and the +ould people. Great was the rejoicing of the O’Farrells. Whereas for +the M‘Neills at this time the meagre mail-bags contained no foreign +letter, no letter at all, bad or good, let alone one fraught with +such grand news. Molly’s mother, it is true, dreamt two nights +running that Molly had come home; but dreams are a sorry substitute +for a letter, especially when everybody knows, and some people +remind you, that they always go by contraries. So Mrs Neil fretted +and foreboded, and had not the heart to be sarcastic, no matter how +arrogantly the O’Farrells might comport themselves. + +Then the autumn days shrivelled and shrank, and one morning in late +November the word went round Meenaclure that the _Kaley_ that evening +would be up at Fergus the weaver’s. This meeting-place was always +popular, Fergus being a well-liked man, with a wide space round his +hearth. And this night’s conversazione promised to be particularly +enjoyable, as it had leaked out that Dan Farrell and Mrs Keogh and +Dinny O’Neill were concerned in what is at Meenaclure technically +termed “a join,” for the purpose of treating the kaleying company to +cups of tea. In fact, the materials for that refreshment, done up in +familiar purple paper parcels, lying on the window-seat, were obvious +to everybody who came into the room, though to have seemed aware of +them would have been a grave breach of manners. When all the company +were mustered, and the fire was burning its brightest, Fergus might +well look round his house with satisfaction, for so large an assembly +seldom came together, and universal harmony seemed to prevail. This +was not disturbed by the fact that several both of the Timothy +O’Farrells and Neil M‘Neills were present, as by this time everybody +thoroughly understood the situation, and the neighbours arranged +themselves as a matter of course in ways which precluded any awkward +juxtapositions of persons “who weren’t spakin’.” + +It was a showery evening, with a wafting to and fro of wide gusts, +which made the Widdy O’Farrell wonder more than once as she sat on +the form by the hearth, with the Widdy Byrne interposed buffer-wise +between her and old Joe M‘Neill. What she wondered was, whether +her poor Pat might be apt to be crossin’ over the say on such an +ugly wild night. Just as Mrs Keogh, with an eye on the lid-bobbing +kettle, was about to ask Fergus if he might happen to have e’er a +drop of hot water he could spare her—that being the orthodox preface +to tea-making on the occasion of a join—the house-door rattled +violently, and opened with a fling. As nobody appeared at it, this +was supposed to be simply the wind’s freak, and Fergus said to Mick +M‘Murdo, who sat next to it, “Musha, lad, be givin’ it a clap to +wid your fut.” But at that instant a voice was heard close outside, +calling as if to another person a little farther off, “Molly, Molly, +come along wid you; they’re all here right enough, and I wouldn’t be +keepin’ the door open on them.” Whereupon there was a quick patter +of approaching feet, followed by the entrance of two bundle-bearing +figures. As they advanced into the flickering light, it showed that +the figures were a man and a woman, and the bundles children; and in +another moment there rose up recognising shrieks and shouts of “Pat” +and “Molly,” and then everybody rushed together tumultuously across a +chasm of half-a-dozen years. + +“They tould us below at Widdy Byrne’s that we’d find yous all up +here,” said Pat O’Farrell, “so we left the baby there, and stepped +along. Och, mother, it’s younger you’re grown instead of oulder, and +that’s a fac.’” + +“And where’s the wife, Paudyeen agra?” said Pat’s mother; “or maybe +she sted below wid the child?” + +“And where’s himself, Molly jewel?” said Molly’s mother. “Sure you +didn’t come your lone?” + +“Why, here he is,” said Molly. “Pat, man, wasn’t you spakin’ to me +mother?” + +“Och, whethen now, and is it Pat O’Farrell?” his mother-in-law said +with a half-strangled gasp. + +“And who else would it be at all at all, only Pat?” said Molly, as if +propounding an unanswerable argument. + +“Mercy be among us all—and you niver let on—och, you rogue of the +world—you niver let on, Patsy avic, it was little Molly M‘Neill you’d +took up wid all the while,” said his mother. + +“Sure I was writin’ to you all about her times and agin,” Pat averred +stoutly. + +Perhaps things might have turned out differently if people had not +been delighted and taken by surprise. But as it was, how could a feud +be conducted with any propriety when Mrs Neil had unprotestingly been +hugged by Pat O’Farrell, and when old Joe M‘Neill and his wife and +daughter were already worshipping a very fat small two-year-old girl, +who unmistakably featured all the O’Farrells that ever walked? The +thing was impossible. + +For one moment, indeed, an unhappy resurrection seemed to be +threatened. It was when everybody had got into a circle round the +hearth, in expectation of the cups of tea, which were beginning to +clatter in the background, and when Pat O’Farrell, who was talking +over old times with Neil M‘Neill, suddenly gave his father-in-law +a great thump on the back, exclaiming with a chuckle, “Och, man, +and do you remimber your ould sheep that we got in the oats, and +gave a coloured wash to? Faix, but she was the comical objec’—‘the +tiger-sheep,’ the childer used to call her.” Whereupon all the rest +looked at one another with dismayed countenances, as if they had +caught sight of something uncanny. But their alarm was needless. +For Neil returned Pat’s thump promptly with interest, and replied, +“Haw, haw, haw! Bedad, and I do remimber her right well. Och now, +man alive, I’ll bet you me best brogues that wid all you’ve been +behouldin’ out there in the States you niver set eyes on e’er a +baste’d aquil her for quareness—haw, haw, haw!” And the whole company +took up the chorus, as if minded to make up on the spot all arrears +of laughter owing on that long unappreciated joke. Amid the sound of +which I have reason to believe that there fled away from Meenaclure +for ever the last haunting phantasm of the unchancy tiger-sheep. + + + + +THE SNAKES AND NORAH + + + + +THE SNAKES AND NORAH + + +The Kennys’ little farmstead was a somewhat amphibious one, occupying +the southern end of the isthmus which keeps the Atlantic foam from +riding into Lough Fintragh, a small, dark-watered nook niched in the +shadow of steep mountain slopes. Another murkier shadow brooded over +it in the opinion of the Kennys, who, like most of their neighbours, +at least half-believed that its recesses harboured a monstrous +in-dweller. Their thin white house stood fronting the seashore, with +a narrow grazing strip behind, while their yard and sheds lay along +the dwindling isthmus, which becomes a mere reef-like bar of boulders +and shingle before it again touches the mainland. In calm weather +Joe Kenny might see his unimposing ricks reflected from ridge to +butt, with gleams of ochre and amber and gold in both salt and fresh +water; but in stormy times, which came oftener, it might befall him +to witness a less pleasing spectacle of hay-wisps and straw-stooks +strewn bodily, floating and soaking on the wasteful waves. So he +was not surprised to find that this had happened when he walked out +one December morning after a wild night whose blustering had mingled +menace with his dreams. Despite its close-meshed roping and thick +fringe of dangling stone weights, the more exposed haystack had been +seriously wrecked and pillaged. “Och, bad cess to the ould win’ and +its whillaballoos!” said Joe, as he surveyed the distorted outlines, +and made a rueful estimate of the damage. “If I got the chance to +slit its bastely bellows for it, ’twould be apt to keep its huffin’ +and puffin’ quiet for one while—it would so.” This was not, however, +the limit of his losses. Presently he stood looking vexedly over the +door of a half-roofed shed, which contained a good deal of sea-water +and weed; also a very small red calf, and a large jelly-fish. The +calf was drowned dead, but the jelly-fish seemingly lived as much +as usual. “Eyah, get out wid you, you unnathural-lookin’ blob of a +baste!” said Joe, giving this unprofitable addition to his stock a +contumelious flick with his blackthorn. “There’s another good fifteen +shillin’s gone on me. I’d never ha’ thought ’twould ha’ tuk and +slopped over the wall that way. Sorra the bit of a Christmas box I’ll +be able to conthrive her this year, and that’s a fac’; and to-morra +fair day and all—weary on it!” + +“Her” was Rose O’Meara, Joe’s sweetheart; and since he had long +looked forward to the opportunity of the Christmas gift as likely +to bring about a favourable crisis in his courtship, the falling +through of his plan made him feel dejectedly out of humour, in which +unenjoyable mood he strolled on towards the pigstye. Traces of the +spent storm lay all around him. The tide had receded some way, but +the waves were fast by, still hissing and seething, and flinging +themselves down with hollow booms and thuds. They had evidently been +beating high against the yard-wall, for all along it they had left +great masses of brown sea-wrack tossed in bales and clumps, as if +loaded out of a cart; and these were connected by trails of green +and black weed, skeleton branches, shells, clotted froth, driftwood, +and other debris, all in an indescribable tangle. As Joe stumped +through it, he trucks his foot sharply against something hard, and +nearly tripped up. When he recovered his balance, he saw that the +obstruction was not the boulder which he had already execrated in +haste. It was a wooden box. In much excitement Joe picked it up, and +set it on the top of the wall for exacter scrutiny. The tides were +constantly sweeping in with miscellaneous fringes on the Kennys’ +demesne, but seldom did they bring anything that might not be justly +termed “quare ould rubbish.” During all the course of Joe’s life, +and he was not in his first youth, no waif had been washed up so +promising in appearance as this box. About ten inches square it was, +and made of a fine grained dark wood, which seemed to have been very +highly polished. The corners were clamped with bronze-like metal, +elaborately wrought, and plates of the same inlaid the keyhole and +hinges. So strong was the lock, that when he tried to wrench off the +lid he seemed to have a solid block in his hands, and it shut so +tightly that the lines of juncture were almost invisible. Its weight +was considerable enough to increase his conviction that it held +something very precious. + +Joe’s first impulse was to rush home with his prize, exhibit and +examine it. Immediately afterwards, however, it flashed across him +like an inspiration that here was Rose’s Christmas box; and upon +this followed a more leisurely resolve to keep it a secret until he +should present her with it intact on Christmas morning, still distant +three whole days. This course would cost him the repression of much +impatient curiosity, but it was recommended to him by a sense that +it would enhance the value of the gift. He would be making over to +Rose all the vague and wonderful possibilities of the treasure-trove, +which in his imagination were more splendid than any better-defined +object, as they loomed through a haze of unseen gold and jewels. +Disappointment had scanty room among his forecasts. “Sure, I’d a +right to give it to her just the way it is, wid anythin’ at all +inside it, for amn’t I axin’ her to take meself in a manner like +that, whether good, bad, or indiff’rint comes of it?—on’y it’s scarce +as apt, worse luck, to be any great things as the full of a grand +lookin’ box is. But she might understand ’twas as much as to say I’d +be wishful she had every chance of the best that I could git for +her, the crathur, if it was all the gold and silver and diamonds that +ever were dhrownded under the say-wather, and’d never think to be +lookin’ to reckon them, no more than if they were so many handfuls of +ould pebbles off of the strand.” Thus reflected Joe, who had a vein +of sentiment, which sometimes outran his powers of expression. And +thereupon, leaving the box atop of the wall, he went to look after +the pigs. He found them all surviving, though the storm had caused +some dilapidations in their abode, which obliged him to do a little +rough carpentry, and kept him hammering and thumping for several +minutes. And when he returned to the place where he had left the box, +the box was gone. + +He searched wildly for it among the litter on both sides of the +wall, and nowhere could it be seen. Yet at that hour what man or +mortal was there abroad to have stirred it? Then he thought that +the weeds looked wetter than they had been, and he said to himself +that “one of them waves must ha’ riz up permiscuous and swep’ it +off in a flurry while his back was turned; and a fine gomeral +he’d been to go lave it widin raich of such a thing happenin’ it.” +So as no more satisfactory explanation was forthcoming, he turned +homeward, empty-handed and crestfallen. But before he had taken many +steps, he saw sitting under the lee of the yard-wall Tom O’Meara, +Rose’s brother, who was generally recognised to be courting Mary +Kenny, Joe’s youngest sister. The O’Mearas lived a good step beyond +the other end of the isthmus, and Joe had begun to speculate what +so early a visit might signify, when the greater wonder abruptly +swallowed the less as he became aware that Tom had the twice-lost box +in his hands. + +“Look-a, Joe, at what I’m after findin’,” he called jubilantly. + +“Findin’? Musha moyah! that’s fine talkin’,” said Joe. “And where at +all did you find it, then?” + +“Where it was to be had,” said Tom, promptly adjusting his tone to +Joe’s, which was offensive. + +“Then it’s sitting atop of our wall there it was,” said Joe. +“Whethen, now, some people has little enough to do that they can’t +keep their hands off meddlin’ wid things they find sittin’ on other +people’s yard-walls.” + +“And suppose it was sittin’ on anybody’s ould wall,” said Tom, “what +else except a one of them rowlin’ waves set it sittin’ there wid +itself, and it all dhreepin’ wet out of the say? Be the same token +it’s quare if one person hasn’t got as good a right to be liftin’ it +off as another. Troth and bedad, I’d somethin’ betther to do than +to be standin’ star-gazin’ at it all day, waitin’ to ax lave of the +likes of yous.” + +“I’ll soon show you the sort of rowlin’ wave there was, me man, if +you don’t throuble yourself to be handin’ it over out of that, and I +after pickin’ it up this half-hour ago,” said Joe, with furious irony. + +“Come on wid you, come on!” Tom shouted, jumping to his feet with a +general flourish of defiance. At this point the dispute bade fair to +become an argument without words, and would probably have done so +had it not been that the two young men were the brothers of their +sisters. As it was, a sort of Roman-Sabine complication fettered and +handcuffed them. “Divil a thing else I was intendin’ to do wid it, +but bring it straight ways in to your sister Mary,” said Tom, “that +you need go for to be risin’ rows about the matter.” + +“It’s for Rose’s Christmas box; that’s what I think bad of,” said Joe. + +“Let’s halve it between the two of them, then, whatever it is,” said +Tom, feeling that a compromise was the utmost he could reasonably +expect from circumstances. + +And so it was arranged, rather weakly on Joe’s part, he being the +better man of the two, and well within his rights, if he had chosen +to claim the box unconditionally. The joint presentation should take +place, they agreed, on Christmas Eve, the next day but one, when +Rose O’Meara would be visiting the Kennys; and then Tom departed +whistling, with the pick he had come to borrow the loan of, while Joe +consoled himself as best he could for this arbitrary subtraction of +more than half the pleasure and romance from his morning’s find. + +Late on Christmas Eve, when the Kennys’ kitchen was full of glancing +firelight, and the widow Kenny, with her son and daughters and her +guests, Tom and Rose O’Meara, had all had their tea, Joe and Tom +were seen to often whisper and nudge one another, until at last +Joe got up and produced the box from its secret hiding-place. But +Tom hastened to forestall him as spokesman, placing considerable +confidence in his own perspicacity and grace of diction. He said— + +“See you here, Mary and Rose. This consarn’s a prisint the two of us +is after gettin’ the two of yous—I mane it was Joe found it aquilly +the same as me, that picked it up somethin’ later. And it’s he’s +givin’ the whole of his half of the whole of it to Rose; but he’s +nothin’ to say to the rest of it; and it’s meself that’s givin’ Mary +the half of the whole of the half—och no, botheration! it’s the whole +of the—it’s the other whole half of it—” + +“You’ve got it this time,” Joe remarked in a sarcastic aside. + +“—I’m givin’ Mary. So that’s the way of it, and when we’ve got the +lid prized off for yous, you’ll just have to regulate it between +yous, accordin’ to what there is inside.” + +“And if it’s all the gold and diamonds in the riches of the world,” +said Joe, “you’re kindly welcome to every grain of it, Rose jewel—ay, +bedad, are you.” + +“To the one half of it,” corrected Tom, with emphasis. But his +sister tapped him with the pot-stick, and said, “Whisht, you big +omadhawn, whisht.” + +“It’s a pity of such a thing to be knockin’ about and goin’ to loss,” +said Mary, rubbin’ her finger on the embossed metal-work; “and I +wonder what’s gone wid whatever crathur owned it. Under the salt say +he’s very apt to be lying this night—the Lord be good to him!” The +rustle of the waves climbing up the shingle outside seemed to swell +louder as she spoke. + +“For anythin’ we can tell, he might be takin’ a look in at us through +the windy there this minute to see what we’re doin’ wid it,” said Joe. + +Everybody’s eyes turned towards the dark little square of the window, +and Mary left off handling the box as suddenly as if it had become +red-hot. + +“Oh, blathers!” said Tom. “Just raich me the rippin’-chisel that’s +lyin’ on the windy-stool, Norah, and we’ll soon thry what it is at +all.” + +Norah, the elder sister, made a very long arm, and secured the tool +with as little approximation as might be to the deep-set panes. She +had neither sweetheart nor Christmas box, and was disposed to take a +rather languid and cynical view of affairs. + +“There’s apt not to be any great things in it, I’m thinkin’,” said +the widow Kenny from her elbow-chair by the hearth. The truth was +that she had been reflecting with some bitterness how not so many +years since Joe would have “come flourishin’ in to her wid any ould +thrifle of rubbish he might ha’ picked up outside,” whereas now he +had kept this valuable property silently in his possession for three +days, for the purpose of bestowing it upon the O’Mearas’ slip of a +girl. Consequently, Joe’s mother held aloof from the eager group +round the table, and uttered disparaging predictions of the event. +Tom and Mary did make a prudent attempt to fend off their collision +with the disappointment which might emerge from the mists ahead +by repeating, as the chisel wrestled with the stubborn hasps and +springs, “Sure, all the while belike there’s on’y some quare ould +stuff in it, no good to anybody.” Joe and Rose, on the contrary, +chose to run under crowded sail towards the possible wreck of their +hopes, and talked of sovereigns and bank-notes and jewels while the +lid creaked and resisted. + +But when at length it yielded with a final splinter, it disclosed +what no one had anticipated—namely, nothing. The box was quite +empty. Daintily lined with glossy satinwood, as if for the reception +of something delicate and precious, but bare as the palm of your +hand. There was not even so much vacant space as might have been +expected, for the sides were disproportionately thick. Very blank +faces exchanged notes with one another upon this result. Almost any +contents, however inappropriate and worthless, would have been their +“advantage to exclaim upon,” and more tolerable for that reason than +mere nullity, about which there was little to be said. Rose was the +first to rally from the general mortification, observing with forced +cheerfulness that “sure ’twould make an iligant sort of workbox, at +all ivints, and ’twas maybe just as handy there bein’ nothin’ in it, +because ’twould hould anythin’ you plased.” To which Mary rejoined, +dejectedly refusing to philosophise, “Bedad, then, you may keep it +yourself, girl alive, for the lid’s every atom all smashed into +smithereens.” + +The young people were not, however, with one exception, in the mood +for dwelling upon the dark side of things. Their depression caused by +the collapse of the Christmas box was superficial, and soon passed +away. When in course of the evening the two young men went out to +feed the pigs, Rose and Mary accompanied them to the back door, +where they all loitered so long that the patience waiting round the +empty trough must have been sorely tried. Sounds of their talking +and laughing came down the passage and were heard plainly in the +kitchen, whence Mrs Kenny had slipped up her ladder stairs to say +her rosary, so that Norah was for the time left quite alone. She +was decidedly out of humour, albeit by no means on account of the +others’ rapid reverse of fortune. Rather, we may apprehend, she had +viewed that incident as a not regrettable check to a tide of affairs +which was unduly sweeping all manner of good luck her neighbours’ +way, and unjustly leaving her high and dry. This grudging spirit had +forbidden her to appear interested in the examination of the box, but +now she could satisfy without betraying her curiosity. As she drew +her fingers aimlessly round its smooth inner surface, there was a +sudden snap and jerk, and out slid a secret drawer, which had been +concealed by a false bottom. It was filled with rose-pink wadding, +amongst which lay the coils of a long gold snake necklace. She lifted +it out amazedly, and held it up in the firelight, with jewelled head +gleaming and enamelled scales, a far finer piece of workmanship than +she knew, though the flash of brilliants and rubies assured even her +uninstructed eyes that she had come on something of much value. + +While she was still looking at it she heard steps returning up the +passage, and forthwith tried hastily to replace it in the box. But +at a clumsy touch the drawer flew back into its former invisibility, +and her flurried fumbling failed to press the lurking spring. Then, +as the steps came very near, she thrust her ornament into her pocket, +and moved away from the table on which the box stood. In doing so, +she was conscious only of a proud perversity which made her loth to +be found meddling with what she sullenly called “no consarn of mine.” +Presently, however, other motives for concealment grew clearer and +stronger. Of course, the longer she retained it the more difficult +would the restoring of it be. Her crossness made it impossible for +her to imagine a joke as a natural explanation of her conduct. +Moreover, a covetous wish to keep the beautiful thing for its own +sake sprang up, and had a swift growth. She said to herself that “she +didn’t see why she need have any call to be givin’ it up, after all. +Wasn’t she after findin’ it in the quare little slitherin’ tray, +and the rest of them wid no more notion of it bein’ there at all +than ould Sally the goat had? It might be lyin’ where it was till +the world’s end on’y for her? And sure, for the matter of that, the +ould box itself was no more a belongin’ of the lads to give away +than of any other body that might ha’ happened on it tossin’ about +the shore. So if it wasn’t theirs be rights, she thought she’d be a +fine fool to not keep what she’d got.” Sophistical arguments such as +these convinced her reason easily enough, but her conscience was less +amenable to them. They were reinforced by some further considerations +which possessed no ethical value at all, and which she had the grace +to be ashamed of putting into clearly outlined thoughts. She allowed +herself to have only a vague sense of grievance at the fact that +Rose and Mary had “presents, and people to be makin’ fools of them, +and all manner,” whereas none of these desirable things were bestowed +on her. Yet it formed a mental atmosphere which made the prospect of +yielding up her discovery seem incongruous and odious, in the same +way that a bitter wind blowing makes us loth to throw open our doors +and windows. + +“Cock them up to be gettin’ everythin’,” she said to herself, as she +sat in a corner with her hand in her pocket, and drew through her +fingers the cold, smooth coils, remembering how the gem-encrusted +head had blazed in the firelight. She wished that she could venture +to take it out and proudly display it as her property; but she was +far from daring to do so. On the contrary, she felt herself laden +with a guilty secret, and was presently beset by all the misgivings, +suspicions, and surmises which infest people who carry about such +a burden. Whenever anyone went near the box her heart thumped with +terror lest the drawer should be detected, and its rifled condition +somehow traced to her. Then she trembled to think that the lads +perhaps knew all the time of the necklace’s existence, and were +just reserving it for a grand surprise; or she imagined herself +letting it drop accidentally and being unable to account for her +possession of it. These speculations so pre-occupied her that she +was obliged to explain her absent-mindedness by declaring herself +“intirely disthracted wid the toothache”; upon which the condolences +and sympathy of the others aggravated her uneasiness with remorseful +gratitude. Her conscience nipped her shrewdly when Rose said, “Ah, +the crathur, I’ll run over to-morra early and bring you the bottle +ould Matt Farren gev me mother; it’s the grandest stuff at all for +the toothache,”—Rose whom she was defrauding of a share in that +golden marvel! At length she had resource to a plan which promised +her temporary relief from urgent fears and self-reproaches. This was +to hide away the necklace in some cranny of the rocks on the shore, +where, if it should be rediscovered, nothing would implicate her in +the matter. She said to herself, indeed, that they would have just +as much chance of finding it there as in the mysterious drawer; +but beneath that soothing reflection lay a resolve to minimise +the chance by choosing the most unlikely chink possible. Since the +evening was by this time far spent, and the O’Mearas had already +taken leave, she knew that she must hurry to execute her design +before Joe came in from seeing after the cattle, when the house would +be shut up. So she slipped quietly out of doors. + +It was a dark, gusty night, and the waves, still turbulent after +their late uproar, were clattering noisily up the shingly ridges of +the beach. As Norah ran along she could barely discern the glimmering +of pale grey stones and white foam-crests. She kept on by the lough +side of the isthmus, because the walking there was smoother, but when +she thought she had come a safe distance she stopped, intending to +cross over and seek a hiding-place for her spoil among a small chaos +of weeded boulders. Looking for a moment athwart the black water, she +saw a dim streak of light in the sky above it. The moon was glimpsing +out of an eastern cloud-rift, and throwing down a meagre web of rays, +which the unquiet dark surface caught fitfully and shredded into +the broken coils of a writhing silver serpent. Perhaps it was this, +or perhaps the golden snake-chain in her hands, that suggested the +thing, but at any rate Norah suddenly bethought her of the _Piast_. +For Lough Fintragh is haunted by the terror of one of these monsters, +a huge and grisly worm, dwelling down in the shadowy end of the +lake, where the water is said to have no bottom, and to wander in +labyrinthine caverns about the roots of the mountains. The creature +had not been very often seen, but Norah well knew what a direful fate +had overtaken every soul to whom its shag-maned, lurid-eyed head +and rood-length of livid scales had disastrously appeared. One of +its least appalling habits, ran report, was to glare fixedly at its +victim, until fascinated and distraught he leaped wildly into the +jaws gaping for their prey. In the lonesome, murmurous dimness by the +shore, Norah did not care to linger over such incidents, and she was +turning away quickly, when a shock of fright almost paralysed her. +Within a few yards of her feet she saw two reddish amber eyes glowing +through the gloom, and from the same place came a sound of something +in rustling, flapping motion. + +It was, in fact, only a harmless and rather bewildered seal, who, +during the past night’s turmoil, had somehow got into the lough, and +who now, instinctively aware of the rising tide, had set out eager +to quit the insipid fresh water for his strong-flavoured Atlantic +brine. But Norah naturally jumped to the conclusion that nothing less +fearsome than the _Piast_ itself was flopping towards her, and she +fled away before it in a headlong panic, which culminated a moment +afterwards when she ran against some large moving body. This, again, +was simply her brother Joe, returned from setting his friends on +their way; but Norah, with a wild shriek, gave herself up for lost, +and did actually come near putting an end to herself by tumbling +in frantic career over one stone, and striking her head violently +on another. She had to be carried home insensible, and Christmas +Day had come and gone before she found her way back gropingly to +consciousness. + +Meanwhile conjectures, of course, were rife as to the origin of her +mishap, and the antecedents of the “iligant gold snaky chain” that +she was grasping. “Sclutched that tight she had it in her sclenched +fist, we were hard set to wrench it out of her hand,” Mrs Kenny +volubly told her neighbours. The favourite theory held that she +“was after pickin’ it up on the shore, and would be skytin’ home wid +it in a hurry, not mindin’ where she was goin’, and that was the +way she got the ugly toss.” And when Norah had recovered from the +effects of it sufficiently to be asked for her own account of the +matter, she could throw but little light thereon. Her accident had +left, as so often happens, a strange misty gap in her memory, which +it was vain to scan. The space between her first sight of the box +and her blinding crash down on the shingle was all a confused blank. +However, two results of the affair emerged, and, though their cause +remained untraceable, had a distinct influence upon her future. One +of them was, that she would on no account permit the snake necklace +to be regarded as her property. She persistently asserted that it +belonged to Mary and Rose; and when Dr Mason, who had undertaken to +dispose of it in Dublin, remitted an incredible number of pounds, she +would hear of no arrangement save dividing them between her sister +and sister-in-law elect. The other had more important consequences +to the whole course of her life. It was an abiding dread of their +connecting isthmus, which had become so horrible a place to her +that never again would she cross over it, even when promised the +protection of the most stalwart escort. Now, as the isthmus is very +much the nearest way from the Kennys’ farm to any other habitations, +this peculiarity of Norah’s cut her off greatly from whatever +society the neighbourhood afforded, besides gaining her a reputation +for “quareness” not likely to increase her popularity. Probably, +therefore, it may have been part of the reason why the years as they +came and went that way found her rooted fast and growing into a +settled old maid. + +Those glowering yellow eyes being blurred out of her recollection, +the _Piast_ did not occur to her as the object of her fear. But some +people were not slow to connect it with the uncanny inhabitant of the +lough, and in process of time their various imaginations hardened +into a circumstantial narrative of an especially terrific appearance +of the monster. To this day, indeed, so current is the story, that +many a wayfarer along the bleak shingle strip goes the faster for +a doubt whether such an awful experience as befell Norah Kenny may +not be writhing towards him beneath the sunless waters of Lough +Fintragh. + + + + +THREE PINT MEASURES + + + + +THREE PINT MEASURES + + +The little stream which flows southward through Ballyhoy must be +one of the smallest contributions accepted anywhere by the sea, so +insignificant in quantity is the water trickling over the smoothed +stone step under the low arch on the shore. Yet the course of its +channel can be traced, when the tide is out, in gleaming sky-coloured +loops far across the mud-flats. As a rule the tide there _is_ out: +some of the neighbours indeed, have a theory, no doubt scientifically +untenable, that it comes in only about once a week. For this narrow +creek, cut off from the Bay by the great grassy sandbank of the North +Bull, is steadily silting up, so that its soundings grow shallower +every year, and rarer the occasions when we see a plain of sapphire +or mother-o’-pearl, threaded with paths of silver rippling, spread +all the way between us and the cliffs at purple Howth. It looks as +if the Bull would ultimately join the mainland without intermission. +Even now, at low water, the passage to and fro can be effected +fairly dry-shod by well-chosen routes. These are known to the cattle +who graze on the salt herbage among the bent-grown sandhills; and at +the fitting time and place, a procession red and white and black may +be watched making its way thence in single file towards the strip +of common-like pasture beside the sea-road. But the transit, if +undertaken by the unwary or ignorant, is beset with serious peril, +owing to sundry treacherous mud-holes, which lurk around. Their +smothering toils have in time past engulfed much vainly floundering +prey, both man and beast, and at the present day several of them +are called by the names of their respective victims—Byrne’s Hole, +Clancy’s Hole—obscurely commemorating tragedies not less piteous +perhaps than those of the Kelpie’s Flow and the Sands of Dee. + +I have never heard of any such disaster befalling a class of people +who might be supposed peculiarly liable to it, since so much of their +time is spent on the dangerous ground. All the shore from Ballyhoy to +Portbrendan is haunted by cockle-pickers, who come out from Dublin, +where they lodge among the Liberties or other purlieus, climbing +down into subterranean cellars, or perhaps mounting wide oaken stairs +to spacious upper chambers with the carven panels and mantelpieces +and ceilings of the past commenting ironically on the inartistic +rags and squalor and famine of to-day. They time their arrival to +correspond with low water, so that when you meet a batch of them +jogging along the road, you can infer the state of the tide from the +contents of the baskets they shoulder, according as these include a +heap of grey-fluted shells and a trail of brown seaweed, or nothing +except a dull tin measure and a grimy little pipe. Nobody ever sees +a cockle-picker apart from his or her basket, yet one of them would +be recognised without it, so constant is the type in the species. All +are neither young nor old, all are wind and weather-beaten, all are +short of stature, any original excess in height being compensated +for by a more pronounced stoop, and the garments of all reproduce +the tints of blackish mud and greenish slime as accurately as if +the wearers were animals whose existence depended upon the power of +going invisible. This is not the case, however. Unaggressive and +inoffensive in their habits, the cockle-pickers have no especial +enemies save the seasons’ difference, and the dwellers by the shore +regard their proceedings with hardly more suspicion than those of the +white sea-gull flocks which sprinkle the neighbouring dark fields, +when the lea is broken up and disturbed grubs abound. A favourite +fishery is the strand along by the Black Banks, a little to the +eastward of the Ballyhoy river; and on most days of the year sombre +figures are to be seen there, paddling and poking, barefooted, in the +mud, even when the pools have ice at the rim, and the green weed is +stiff instead of slimy. + +Very differently does the little Black Banks settlement view the +coming of some other visitors, who put in an appearance more seldom. +But the tinkers are quite used to cool receptions, and if they +went only where they were welcome, would find their journeys much +restricted. So as this nook offers them a camping-ground conveniently +accessible from the high road, they occasionally guide their jolting +donkey-cart down the shingly track, undeterred by the disapproving +eyes that watch them from the adjacent cabin-cluster. One row of +these has for some time past been standing roofless, a circumstance +which points it out as appropriate quarters for all manner of +vagrants, who have forfeited, if indeed they ever possessed, the +right to expect the luxury of thatch overhead. And here the tinkers +are wont to spend a few weeks every summer, seriously to the +discomfort of their temporary neighbours. It must be allowed that +they have righteously earned the evil repute which dogs them. Seven +ordinarily ingenious magpies would be less grievous to the owners +of hen-roosts and other portable property than a single tinker. +On many a night odours of savoury cooking, wafted from within the +ruined mud walls, have roused rueful suspicions in the proprietor +of some “grand young pullet” or “iligant fat duck,” which has been +mysteriously absent at the last feeding-time; and the stealthiness +wherewith a youthful tinker will creep in the small hours of the +morning, tin-mug in hand, to milk somebody else’s goat tethered +behind a rickety-boarded fence, would discredit no Blackfoot on the +hunting-trail. Also the tinker men drink and brawl, and the women +storm and screech, and the children interminably romp and quarrel, +while the whole confraternity use language so wildly bad that it is +“fit to rise the hair up off of your head,” as scandalised matrons +observe standing at their doors, and calling Biddy and Pat and +Larry and Rose to “come in out of that and not be listening to such +ungovernable talk.” And to atone for these causes of offence the +tinkers bring no social advantages, if you except now and then the +excitement of a stand-up fight between a couple of the men, who have +grown pugnacious over their whisky, or the thrilling spectacle of an +arrest, which sometimes occurs when the proceedings of the band have +come under the consideration of the constabulary in the whitewashed +barracks above at Ballyhoy. Dramatic incidents are, be it said, very +highly valued hereabouts; but the price of the tinker’s performance +is more than can be paid without repining. + +One day in the course of their last visit, it did seem as if they +were going to produce a satisfyingly strong sensation. It came about +in this way. Foxy Cullen, their recognised chief, had returned late +in the warm afternoon to the Black Banks from a tramp round the +district with a basket of tinware. He had not invidiously omitted to +call at the various “publics” which he passed, and the consequence +was that he now “had drink taken,” a state more perilously conducive +to rash and reprehensible acts than downright drunkenness. On the +present occasion, however, nothing more erratic suggested itself to +Foxy than an idea that he would before he went home “just step across +to the Bull and see what sort of a place at all it was over there.” +He had often wished to do that, and as the tide had gone black out, +leaving no water visibly intervening, save the river’s fine-drawn +thread, the opportunity appeared favourable. So he set down his +basket on the wayside sward, kept close-shaven by the goats, and +he called to his daughter Peg, whom he saw at hand, to come along +with him. Peg, a queer, monkey-like little figure in a scarlet print +frock, wore gleeful grins as she obeyed, for her ragged red-bearded +father was to her the flower and sum of things; and the pair walked +on over the grass until its daisies turned into sea-pinks, and until +the seaweedy shingle which succeeded them gave place to a breadth of +glistening mud. + +By the time they had got so far, Bill Duffy came round the turn +of the road, faring homewards with his load of cockles. Bill had +had good luck with his fishing that day, and had filled his basket +almost before the tide was at its lowest ebb, and it should perhaps +be accounted a prolongation of his luckiness that the shimmering tin +things in Foxy’s basket now beckoned to him from the sunny bank. He +concluded that some of the tinkers were about, but he saw nobody +near. The tinkers were slight acquaintances of his, and he had in +fact just been trying to negotiate the sale of some of his stock with +Mrs Foxy up at the roofless cabin. Unsuccessfully, for she told him +with regret that she was “stone broke, and until himself come home, +you might all as well be lookin’ to find a penny in a cockle-shell as +in her ould pocket.” To which Bill replied, “Och sure you don’t get +that on’y in an odd one or so,” and departed acquiescent. But this +derelict basketful of tinware proved to be a matter less easily dealt +with. At first indeed he seemed about to pass it by with merely a +casual glance, which, however, suddenly took on fixity and meaning, +as he stopped short and stood looking earnestly at the contents. +These were mostly tin pint measures, a dozen of them, maybe, all very +new and clean and shiny. + +Now it so happened that at this time Bill badly wanted such an +article. Anybody might have inferred as much from the dingy, +battered aspect of the little vessel lying atop of his blackish-grey +cockle-heap. In truth, ever since an accident which it had sustained +a good while ago, it could only by sheer courtesy be described as +a measure at all. For a dray-horse in Capel Street had set his +shaggy foot upon it, treatment which no bit of white metal could be +expected to endure, and it had accordingly collapsed into a great +dinge, rendering its capacity henceforth a question of intricate +calculations, far beyond the tether of Bill or his clients. This +unchancy distortion had only the night before lost him a customer, +a housewife who had “priced” his wares as he passed her half-door, +and showed every symptom of coming to terms, when an over-officious +friend nudged her elbow, observing “Laws bless us, woman, look at +what he’s be way of measurin’ them wid. Sure it wouldn’t hold a +skimpy handful, let alone a pint.” Bill protested that it held the +biggest pint in the County Dublin, and that he, inconsistently, +always allowed the half full of it over and above, to make up for any +possible deficiency; nevertheless the prudent matron transferred her +patronage to Mary Cassidy, who just then came by, and he was left in +the lurch with his damaged mug. But now, when he felt keenly alive +both to its shortcomings and to the difficulties of mustering the few +pence needed to replace it, here he was all at once confronted with +an assortment ready to his hand, nothing apparently interposing to +hinder him from acting on the principle that Heaven helps those who +help themselves. + +Bill Duffy was, as things go, at least indifferent honest; yet his +integrity made but a brief stand against the assault thus suddenly +sprung upon it. He cast a furtive glance around, and then, with a +rapid dive, clutched a measure, and thrust it over his shoulder down +deep among his cockles, which rattled clatteringly together to hide +the stealth. The next moment he started violently, and felt certain +that he was caught. For at no great distance there rose up a skirl +of shrieking shriller than had ever issued from sea-fowl’s throat, +and looking in the direction of the sound, he saw a small and gaudy +figure running towards him. It advanced in short rushes, now and +then stopping to dance up and down as if in an ecstasy of rage or +terror, but it screamed unintermittently, so that Bill could not be +sure whether or no he did hear basser shouts the while proceeding +from a point somewhat farther off. Presently, however, the note of +terror grew predominant enough to change his opinion about the cause +of the outcry, and set him off trotting to meet it. This red-frocked +screeching child turned out to be Peg Cullen, and the burden of her +lamentations was something unintelligible concerning “Daddy,” whose +bawls in the background here became, fortunately for him, so distinct +as to furnish an explanatory note. Foxy had evidently blundered +into a mud-hole, which was now, in conformity with its agreeable +custom, taking prompt steps to secure and secrete him. Bill rapidly +grasped the situation, and unhitching his heavy basket he detached +its long strap, and sped to the rescue, which, as Foxy was not yet +very deeply engaged, he found himself able to effect. A few frantic +plunges and desperate hauls set Foxy on firm ground, exceedingly miry +and alarmed, and quite sober; Peg left off screaming and dancing, and +they all returned to the road, stepping gingerly while they were on +the mud, but stamping boldly once they felt the dry sod under their +feet. + +When they came where the tinker’s basket was, Foxy fell to emptying +his black-oozing brogues, whilst Bill, case-hardened by much wading, +began to splice his strap, which had nearly marred all with symptoms +of fracture during the last critical tug. He had for the time being +forgotten all about the pint measure. By-and-by, however, Foxy, +flinging away the grass-wisp he had used to wipe off the mud, and +shuffling uncomfortably in his soaked boots, said with a dissatisfied +grunt, “Augh, bad luck to it for a deceptionable ould brash. I may go +now and get another sup of somethin’ or else it’s destroyed I’ll be +wid the could creeps in me bones agin mornin’; wud you take a glass, +man?” + +“Sure, no,” said Bill; “I’m shankin’ into town meself as soon as I +can get th’ ould strap mended.” + +“That’s not much of a concern you’ve got there,” said Foxy, pointing +to Bill’s old mug as it lay dinted side uppermost on his cockles; +“past mendin’ it is, I should say. Look-a, here’s a somethin’ better +quality you’d be welcome to.” He held out one of his measures +to Bill, who shrank back as if its glittering surface had been +incandescent with white-heat. The consciousness of what was hidden +in the depths of his basket seemed to scorch his face and dazzle his +eyes. + +“Och, not at all, thank ’ee,” he said; “sure this I have usin’ does +grand; it’s the handiest one I ever owned. And I have a couple or so +of spare ones lyin’ about at home if I would be wantin’ them. Och, +not at all.” + +“It’s a quare fancy you’d be havin’, then, to go about wid the likes +of that,” said Foxy. “Musha, man, how ready you are to make a lie and +tell it. Sure it’s no compliment to be takin’ such a trifle off me, +when I’ve got a basket full of them, and more-be-token I couldn’t +say how many quarts of the bastely black mud I mightn’t be after +swallyin’ down agin now if it wasn’t only for you lendin’ me a hand +out—bejabers it was the sizeablest cockle you ever landed. Bad cess +to the could wather, it’s at the bottom of every manner of mischief. +I’m steppin’ along for a drop of spirits, and I’ll lave the bit of a +mug wid you, whether or no.” He thrust it into Bill’s basket and went +off, followed jealously by Peg. + +For a moment Bill stood staring blankly after them, but then an idea +suggested itself, and hoisting his basket on his arm he started in +the opposite direction. + +At his goal, which was the tinker’s cabin, he found Mrs Foxy stooping +over her smoky driftwood fire, in a “quare ugly temper,” as her +family could have told him. “Whethen now and is it yourself botherin’ +back agin?” she said upon seeing him; “didn’t I tell you a while ago +as plain as I could spake that we weren’t wantin’ cockles to-day?” + +“Ah whisht, honey, and don’t be strikin’ up ahead of the fiddler,” +said Bill suavely. “Amn’t I just after meetin’ himself out there, and +he biddin’ me be bringin’ you up three pints for your suppers?” + +Mrs Foxy’s countenance cleared up. “Well, tubbe sure,” she said; +“it’s not often the man has the wit or the money left to do anythin’ +so raisonable wid this hour of the evenin’. But they’ll come in +oncommon handy, for it’s cleared out we are to-night intirely. What +all I have for the supper wouldn’t pacify a scutty wren.” + +The whole Cullen family looked on with a sense of brightened +prospects while Bill dropped the cockles resonantly into a tin +can. It is part of Fate’s irony towards the tinkers that, however +plentiful may be the lack of viands in their larder, they are always +abundantly provided with cooking utensils. He meted out his three +pints with a reckless liberality which convinced Mrs Foxy that her +husband must have ordered, and paid for, a couple of quarts at least. +And when he took his departure, he successfully accomplished the +stratagem, which had been the main object of his visit, by laying +down, unperceived, Foxy’s glowing gift upon a nettle-girt stone just +inside the threshold. This done, he went on his way greatly relieved +and self-conciliated. + +But he had not trudged many paces before scurrying feet pursued and +overtook him. Somebody had espied the purposely forgotten measure, +and had remarked: “Och, he’s after lavin’ his mug behind him”; upon +which somebody else rejoined: “’Deed, then, we’ve slathers of them +litterin’ about widout it, so there’s no good keepin’ it on the man. +Skyte after him wid it, Lizzie.” And Lizzie skyted, sped by a desire +to be but briefly absent from the scene of preparations for supper, +so that she tossed the mug into Bill’s basket with scant ceremony, +and was off again ere he well knew what had befallen. When it grew +clear, a leaden conviction dumped down on him that he might give +up setting his wits against Destiny. “Sure it was to be,” he said +to himself drearily, as he resumed his plodding, bent dejectedly +under a heavier weight than his moist basket. He resorted rather +frequently to this obvious truth, whence we may infer that his stock +of consolatory reflections was not extensive. + +When he came once more where the road crossed the river, he, +according to custom in warm weather, climbed down the grassy bank for +a drink. On this occasion, however, his first act was to take all +his three pint measures out of the basket and set them in a row—the +one he had been given, and the one he had stolen, and the battered +old one that had, in a manner, caused the whole difficulty. Bill +eyed them gloomily as they glinted in the long rays. “Troth, it’s +themselves are the iligant lookin’ collection,” he said to himself +with some resentment, “and a grand ould slieveen’s trick it was to +be thievin’ a poor man’s bit of property, and he all the time widin +two twos of dhrowndin’ dead, scarce a stone’s-throw away. Ay, bedad, +it was so. But, musha, it was to be.” As he mused mutteringly, he +picked up a mug at random and dipped it carelessly in the stream, +but something surprising followed. For the water it scooped up +straightway plashed out of it again, as if poured through a funnel. +Of course, Bill investigated the reason of this, and the result +was a discovery which lit up his face with a broad grin. Through +some defect in the soldering, the bottom of the vessel had almost +detached itself from the rim, and flapped out like a swing door at +the slightest touch. It could, clearly, hold nothing; and it was the +stolen mug—he recognised it by the handle. + +“Bless me ould bones, look at that now,” Bill said gleefully, +“you might all as well be axin’ wather to stop aisy in the holes +of me ould basket here. Sure it wouldn’t hould e’er a hap’orth of +anythin’ wet or dhry”—he dropped a handful of cockles into it, and +triumphantly watched them slip through and fall with tiny thuds on +the grass. “Ay, begorra, it’d ha’ never been a thraneen of use to man +or mortal; ne’er a brass bawbee was it worth all the time, glory be +to God.” + +He gloated over its dilapidations for a while longer, and at last +poked it in behind a stone under the arch, where, for aught I know, +it may remain to the present day. Then he gathered up the rest of his +effects, and finally resumed his interrupted journey Dublin-wards, +facing a sky where the sunset grew as golden as the light in a +crocus-cup. But he no longer muttered: “It was to be.” The burden of +his meditations was: “Bedad now, it’s a good job I happened to be +widin hearin’ of their roars, or else they might be lettin’ them yet. +And belike I wouldn’t ha’ been, if it wasn’t only be raison of me +stoppin’ to—to—to look at them pint mugs.” + + + + +THE SURREE AT MAHON’S + + + + +THE SURREE AT MAHON’S + + +Few people, I think, can ever have been impressed by the liveliness +of little Killymeen, set in its nook among the lonesome mountain +and moorland, its one humble street forming the nucleus of a sparse +cabin-sprinkling, which strews white flecks on the far sweeping +green folds hardly plentier than hailstones on a grass plot half a +sunny hour after a July thunderstorm. Yet to Bridget Doran, the girl +who had lately taken service with the Caseys up at the Quarry Farm, +it seemed a centre of fashion and gaiety, being, indeed, the most +considerable place she had seen in all her seventeen years. For they +had been spent up at Loughdrumesk, a hamlet fully ten miles deeper +among the wildest townlands, with only a rough cart-track threading +a black bog, and climbing endless shaggy slopes, and dropping over a +purple mountain shoulder to connect it with Killymeen. She had left +behind there, three months ago, her feeble old grandfather and alert +old grandmother, in a tiny, high-perched cabin, which felt a world +too wide for its other indwellers when this third of their lives had +gone. And since then there had been much travelling of thoughts to +and fro between it and the Casey’s prim whitewashed farmhouse at the +foot of Slieve Glasarna. At first Bridget’s had made the journey as +constantly as her grandmother’s, but she was young and busy and in a +new place, and as the weeks went on she became more engrossed with +what lay immediately before her. + +The Surree at Mahon’s, fixed for a day in Christmas week, was the +most exciting of the fresh prospects that unfolded themselves, and +was looked forward to with much pleased interest by Killymeen at +large. There had been no Surrees in the neighbourhood during a long +spell of bad times, but this year matters were looking brighter, and +old Barney Mahon, who had a thrifty turn and a commodious kitchen, +was encouraged to make a venture which promised fair profits at a +small risk. For a Surree, which has with quaint effect borrowed its +name from polite French, is a sort of subscription dance, little more +elaborate in its arrangements than are the kaleys, or conversazioni, +that beguile so many wintry hours in Donegal homes, when all the +dark out-of-doors hurtles and splashes with wind and rain, and the +neighbours drift into their places round some appointed hearth as +promiscuously as a wreath of dry leaves swept rustling together +by an aerial eddy. At a Surree each couple pay a shilling, but no +refreshment is expected save frugally-dispensed tea; and the fiddler +is content to scrape for a modest fee and his chances of small +coins from the dancers. Dark Hugh M‘Evoy, being Barney’s cousin, +was willing to supply the music for this occasion on specially +easy terms; and, in short, circumstances conspired to make it seem +desirable that Barney should meet the often-expressed wish of his +younger friends by announcing the first Surree of the season. + +It would be Bridget’s first taste of any formal dissipation, and Rose +Casey, her master’s niece, and Kate Duffy, his ploughman’s daughter, +who lived in the yard, set her expectation on tiptoe extremely by +their accounts of like entertainments. Kate and she were to go +together, as it is the custom to attend Surrees in couples. These +often are formed of a colleen with the boy who is “spakin’” to her, +but often also a brother and sister make a pair, or any other two +friends. Rose Casey was to marry Peter O’Donoghue at Shrovetide, +so she would, of course, go with him—a fact of which she made a +little parade to Bridget, who felt, however, perfectly content with +Kate’s escort: a sweetheart of her own would have seemed, indeed, an +alarming possession. Her mistress had advanced her a shilling out of +her quarter’s wages—a whole pound—and she had expended the sixpence +left after securing her admission to the Surree upon a splendid red +glass brooch, which made her think her equipment very complete. + +But just when everything seemed gliding most smoothly towards the +delightful goal, an obstacle suddenly cropped up and threatened +to overthrow all her plans with one disastrous jolt. On a certain +frost-spangled morning the postman brought to Bridget a letter, +whose contents agreed with her wishes as ill as a dash of vinegar +would have done with the thick cream which she was churning when the +mail arrived. Her grandmother wrote to say that “she thought bad of +Biddy to be trampin’ the long way her lone from Killymeen to their +place, and that old Bill Molloy was slippin’ over wid his pony and +a gatherin’ of eggs to the Magamore on next Thursday morning, and’d +give her a lift if she’d start along wid him when he would be goin’ +back. So Biddy had a right to ax lave of her mistress, and come home +wid ould Bill, who’d turn a bit out of his way to pick her up? and +real glad they’d be to set eyes on her again.” For Mrs Casey had +promised Biddy her choice of three days in Christmas week to spend +at home, dairy work being slack. Bridget had looked forward to the +holiday with a glow of pleasure, and meant to take it on the Friday, +which would be Christmas Eve, and the day after the Surree. But her +grandmother’s injunction was not compatible with this arrangement. + +“Sure I’d miss all the fun and everythin’ if I took off and went +wid ould Bill—I wish he and his baste of an ugly skewbald ’d keep +themselves out of botherin’ where they arn’t wanted,” she said, +half-crying, to her friends Rose and Kate, as she showed them the +letter in the kitchen. + +“Musha, good gracious,” said Rose, “you wouldn’t ever think of goin’? +Just bid the ould man step along wid himself, and say you’ll come on +Friday.” + +“But me grandmother’d be rale vexed if I done that, and he after +goin’ out of his road to call for me,” said Bridget doubtfully. + +“Well, then,” said Kate, “you might write and tell her not to send +him. This is only Tuesday; there’s plenty of time yet, and I’ve a +stamp in me box this long while you’re welcome to.” + +“Ay, to be sure,” said Rose, “and say me aunt can’t spare you +convanient afore Friday.” + +“But,” said Bridget, looking disconcerted, “I’m after sendin’ her +word be Judy Flynn that I’d got lave to come any day at all this +week.” + +“Oh, botheration to it,” said Rose. “Then say you’re too bad with +a cowld, and couldn’t be thravellin’ that far. Bedad, I heard you +coughin’ this mornin’ fit to fall in pieces like the head of the +witherdy geranium there. Morebetoken, the red one in the windy +corner’s dhroppin’ itself into the pan of buttermilk where you’ve set +it; you’d better be movin’ it out of that.” + +“I have a heavy cowld on me sure enough,” said Bridget, coughing to +convince herself, but her disconcerted expression remained, and she +fidgetted about uneasily. “For the matter of writin’,” she said, “you +see the time I was gettin’ me schoolin’ I did be mostly mindin’ the +sheep, and I can make some sort of an offer at the readin’ if it’s +wrote pretty big, but writin’ oneself is quare nigglety work.” + +“Mercy on us, girl alive, if that’s all that ails you, I’ll write +a letter for you meself in a minyit and a half,” said Rose with +alacrity. “Bedad will I. Sure I’ve wrote to Peter times and again +when he was stoppin’ away at Manchester. So don’t bother your head +about it; lave the regulation of it to me. I’ve plenty of paper +meself, and Kate’ll give me her stamp.” + +Bridget agreed to this plan, though not without some qualms of +conscience, which made her refrain guiltily from inquiring about +the details of its execution, thereby giving Rose a free hand, +of which she availed herself without much scruple. She had an +imaginative turn of mind, and a taste for fiction, so her story grew +under her scratching pen until in the end she produced a letter +purporting to come not from Bridget, but from herself, and describing +Bridget’s indisposition as not a simple cold, but an attack of +“plussery-newmoney.” This formidable complaint would hinder her +from returning with Bill Molloy. “But she’ll come,” wrote Rose, “as +soon as ever she’s able. And that won’t be before Friday anyway, +if she overs it at all.” The last clause struck her as giving an +effective completeness to the composition, and she read it over with +a complacency which did not take into account how it might be spelled +out in the bleak little hillside cabin off away at Loughdrumesk. + +The evening of the Surree arrived in due course, and with it a +flutter of snow, swirling on rough and unruly blasts. Silver-white +threads and stitches had begun to embroider the purple folds of +Slieve Glasarna before the mists descended muffling and blurring; +and the paths crunched crisply under brogues, and made cold clutches +at bare feet by the time that the neighbours were approaching Barney +Mahon’s door. They remarked to one another that it was hardy weather, +and added that they were apt to have it “sevare,” which is some +degree worse than hardy. Few people, however, had been daunted into +staying at home, and there was much shaking of powder flakes out of +shawl-folds and off rough coat-sleeves at the entrance to Barney’s +lustily flickering room. + +When Rose and Kate and Bridget got there, which they did as soon as +ever they could finish “readying up” after tea, most of the company +had assembled, and dancing was about to begin. Rose’s temper was +somewhat ruffled because Peter O’Donoghue had not kept his promise +of coming to escort her. But his sisters now hastened to explain how +he had been delayed by the sudden illness of their calf. “Howane’er +the baste was comin’ round finely when they left,” they reported, +and Peter would be after them in no time. So his _fiancée_ was +appeased, and contented herself provisionally with Larry Sullivan for +a partner. “Faix, now, it’s on’y an odd turn the rest of us boys gets +wid you these times,” he said to her gallantly as the fiddler struck +up. “Ne’er a chance we have at all, unless when the luck keeps him +that’s luckier away.” + +Do not suppose that the Surree danced jigs. Later on in the +evening a couple might stand up and perform one while the others +were recovering their breath; but at the outset it was a vigorous +round dance that began to gyrate with a step which, though perhaps +not recognised in any academy, kept time to Hugh’s music with much +accuracy, and made light of the difficulties opposed by an uneven mud +floor. The crockery on the dresser jingled merrily to the rhythmical +beat of their feet; and each pair of bobbing heads that passed in +front of it, might be seen to make an abrupt dip down and up again. +This was caused by an unusually deep hollow which occurred in that +part of the floor, and Barney Mahon, looking on with the elders +from their circle round the hearth, observed it and said—“Begob, I +must see to having that houle filled up before next time, or else +somebody’ll be trippin’ up in it, and gettin’ a quare toss.” + +The other spectators sat well content with their share of the +entertainment. Pungently-puffing cutty pipes solaced the men, and +the women kept their knitting-needles twinkling; in fact, they +would almost as soon have left off breathing by way of rest and +relaxation. For further amusement they had the affairs of the +countryside to discuss, enlivened by an occasional anecdote or +riddle. Dan Goligher had just propounded one of the latter which +successfully puzzled everybody who had not heard it before— + + _A brown lough + Wid a white strand, + Sorra the ship could sail around it, + But I can hould it in my hand_; + +and he was triumphantly explaining, “Sure a cup of tea,” when two +people came bolting in at the door, which they forthwith began to +secure behind them, as if they were shutting out some deadly peril. +They said nothing, but their speechless hurry was more suggestive +than words. + +“Whethen now, Peter O’Donoghue and Ned Kinsella, what’s took you at +all to be flouncin’ in on the people that a-way?” said Barney Mahon, +somewhat affronted at their unceremonious entrance and dealings +with his fastenings and furniture. “That’s a great ould slammin’ of +the door you have—and what for would you be jammin’ the bench again +it, unless you’re intendin’ the next body that comes thro’ it to be +breakin’ his shins?” + +“Troth, I on’y hope it may—and its neck too, between us and harm—if +it’s offering to come in on us—I do so,” said Peter O’Donoghue, +panting. He left his comrade to finish barricading the door, and +pushed himself farther into the room, until several groups interposed +between him and the dangerous point. “After us it may be this minyit +of time,” he said. “Och, but that was the quare fright I got; the +saints look down upon us this night!” + +“It’s herself below at th’ ould gate there,” said Ned Kinsella, +who was calmer than Peter, though evidently much alarmed. “And +more-be-token it’s not inside she is this night, but sittin’ crouched +up on the bank be the path, and the grab she made at Peter going by; +’deed, I thought he’d never get his coat-tail wrenched out of her +ould hand.” + +“It might as well ha’ been caught in a rat-trap the way she held on,” +said Peter. “I give you me word me hair’s standin’ on end yet, fit to +rise me hat off the roof of me head. What wid that and the onnathural +screeches she let, I won’er you didn’t hear them here. And it’s my +belief she set off leggin’ after us—goodness preserve us—on’y I was +afraid of me life to look round and see.” + +These tidings spread general consternation among the company, as +under the circumstances they well might do. For only a few hundred +yards down the loaning lay an ancient burying-ground, with its +ruined chapel and weed-entangled tombstones, a place whose ghostly +reputation had long been established at Killymeen. In particular +the wraith of a little old woman was often to be seen of an evening +peering out through the rusty gate-bars, and sometimes stretching +forth a fearsome hand to pluck at the unwary passer-by. But her +appearance out on the roadside was a new development, and one which +made Peter and Ned’s report unpleasant hearing for people who would +presently be obliged to take that route home. The dance came to a +standstill, and in its stead a series of dismal ghost-stories began +to circle round the room. Perhaps the most gruesome of them was Nick +Carolan’s. He related how he had once lived in a place where there +was in the middle of the yard a deep well, out of which on certain +moon-lit nights a dark figure would emerge and go gliding round and +round it, making a wider and wider circuit, until she reached the +house, at whose door she rapped loudly as she passed by. And whenever +that happened there would be a death in the family before the +twelve-month was out as sure as fate. A general shudder followed this +_dénouement_, and old Mrs Linders made a particular application of it +by remarking gloomily that it was a poor case to have the likes of +such crathurs about; but Mrs Coleman, a comely matron, who continued +to sit by the fire unperturbed, said placidly in a pause, “Sorra a +bit of harm there’s in it this night I’m a-thinkin’. If the lads seen +anythin’, it’s apt to ha’ just been some poor body after missin’ her +way in the snow.” + +“Troth and bedad, then it was the quare body altogether,” Peter +asseverated, “and the hair of me head, as I was tellin’ you, +bristlin’ straight wid the dhread of her the first minyit I come nigh +the place.” + +“Ah, sure, some people’s as ready at that as a dog at cockin’ his +ears,” said Joey Nolan. “Maybe we’d a right to go look is there e’er +a one in it. Some crathur might be strayin’ about perishin’, and it +snowin’ again as thick as sheep’s wool.” + +“Begor you won’t persuade me to go foolin’ along wid you,” said +Peter; “I couldn’t be gettin’ my heels out of it fast enough. May +the saints have me sowl, but I thought I’d lose me life afore ever I +landed inside—and here I’ll stop. Nobody need be axin’ me, for divil +a fut I’ll stir.” + +“Good people are scarce,” Joe observed sarcastically; but Peter +went on in a half-complacent tone, “One while it’ll be afore I’m +the better of that frightenin’ I got. Every mortal bit of me’s in a +thrimble wid it yet.” + +“Musha, then, you gaby, can’t you whisht about it, instead of to be +tellin’ everybody the sort of ould polthroon you are?” Rose Casey +whispered to him fiercely, ready to cry with mortification as she +saw significant smiles passing round at the expense of her happily +unconscious betrothed. + +As she spoke, the door resounded with a heavy thump, which made +those who were standing next it hop back with a scarcely dignified +haste. Some of them tried to carry it off by pretending that they +were merely getting out of one another’s way, while some shrieked +unfeignedly, and above all ejaculations rose Peter O’Donoghue’s +voice, shrill with undissembled terror, saying: “Oh to goodness, +don’t open it for your lives. Run that other form again it, you +that are widin raich. Mercy be among us, she’s apt to have us all +destroyed.” + +“Arrah, now, will you be lettin’ us in out of that, you jackasses, +you?” shouted a voice reassuringly familiar and irate. It was young +Larry Sullivan, who had slipped out through the back door a few +minutes before, and whose impatience at being kept waiting had +nothing supernatural about it. Despite Peter’s remonstrances, the +door was thrown open, and disclosed Larry, standing tall against a +background of glimmering white, in a gloom which, when you looked +into it anywhere steadily, grew full of wandering flakes like +scattered bread-crumbs. Beside him appeared a smaller figure, whom +he pulled indoors along with him before anybody well had time for +terrific surmises, and whom the firelight showed to be a little old +woman, wrapped up in a powdered brown shawl. She was breathless and +bewildered and forlorn-looking, as she peered round from face to +face, all strange, all comfortless—but no! for the moment Bridget +Doran set eyes on her she sprang at her and caught her in a great hug— + +“Why, granny darlint, and is it yourself?” she said. “And how at all +did you come this night in the snow? It’s kilt you are entirely. You +can’t ever ha’ come wid ould Bill Molloy?” + +“Ah, honey, I thramped it,” said old Mrs Doran. “Sure I couldn’t rest +aisy, thinkin’ me little Biddy was took that bad away all her lone +among the strange people. But finely you’re looking, glory be to +goodness. ’Deed now me heart’s been fit to break frettin’ ever since +I got the letter this mornin’, sayin’ that belike you wouldn’t get +over it.” + +“An’ I to be dancin’ round like a zany bewitched, and you all the +while streelin’ through the snow,” said Bridget, with acute remorse. +“It’s sorry I am that I let anybody send you such owld lies. +But”—looking indignantly at Rose—“I only said to say that I had a +cowld.” + +“And I lost me way in the dark,” went on Mrs Doran plaintively, “and +what at all I’d ha’ done I dunno, on’y for the dacint boy coming by, +for nought else the other two’d do but let yells at me, and run away +like scared turkeys.” + +“Creepin’ along under the high bank she was, the crathur, when I met +her,” Larry meanwhile was telling the others, “and scarce able to +contind wid the blasts of the win’. And sez she to me, ‘For the love +of God, just stop to tell me am I anywhere near the Casey’s house?’ +And sez I to her, ‘Is it the Quarry Farm you’re wantin’?’ And sez +she to me, ‘Ay, it’s where my poor Katey’s little daughter Bridget +Doran’s in service, and dyin’ wid some manner of outlandish sickness: +It’s to her, I’m goin’,’ sez she. So sez I to her, if it was Bridget +Doran she was wantin’, I’d seen the girl three minyits ago, and ne’er +a sign of dyin’ on her whatsome’er, and I just brought her along +here. It’s perished and stupid the crathur is wid the cowld. You’d a +right to get her a cup of hot tay, and a warm at the fire,” concluded +Larry, thereupon bestirring himself to superintend the carrying out +of this prescription. And a little later he prompted his mother to +offer Mrs Doran a night’s lodging at their house close by, thus +entailing upon themselves more hospitality than they had foreseen. + +For of the Surree at Mahon’s all’s well that ends well could not +quite be said, as some of the guests were disposed to say prematurely +when the assembly was breaking up. To begin with, old Mrs Doran had +caught a very bad chill during her snowy wanderings, and now had a +severe illness which endangered her life, and obliged Bridget to +pay many an anxious and conscience-stricken hour as a fee for her +deceptive letter, while a difference which she had next morning with +Rose Casey about the unauthorised mendacity of its contents led to +a permanent cooling down of their friendship. Moreover, Rose, on +the very same day, spoke in such scathing terms to Peter O’Donoghue +with reference to his panic on the night before, that even his +impenetrable self-satisfaction was touched, and a violent falling out +ensued. The consequence was that no wedding took place at Shrovetide; +and the last time I had news from Killymeen “there was no talk of +it at all, at all,” so the breach may be considered final. In fact, +it is commonly supposed that he has some notion of transferring his +attentions to Bridget Doran. But I happen to know that the only +one among the boys she thinks anything of is Larry Sullivan, whom +she always remembers gratefully as the rescuer of her grandmother. +Whereas, if Larry fancies anyone, it is Kate Duffy. + +Whence it appears that some rather complicated cross currents in +the stream of life flowing through Killymeen have started from this +Surree at Mahon’s. + + + + +THE SHORTEST WAY + + + + +THE SHORTEST WAY + + +District-Inspector Rochfort had risen very early on that wet August +morning, to go trout-fishing along the Feltragh River. He hoped to +get a couple of hours at it before breakfast; so he was not best +pleased when Hugh Christie accosted him as he crossed the Ivy Bridge. +Hugh was looking over the wreathed parapet up the river, and did not +take his eyes off it; only put out a hand as Mr Rochfort passed, and +stopped him with a touch on the arm. Undoubtedly Hugh had queer ways. +His neighbours pronounced him to be “not all there,” which seemed an +inappropriate description of his peculiarities, as rather there was +more of him than of other people. But the more was something uncanny. +He now said, still watching the water: “I was thinkin’ the Sargint +might come by; howsome’er, sir, you’ll do as well.” + +“That I won’t, my man,” said Mr Rochfort, “unless it can be done +uncommonly smart, for I’ve no time to waste.” + +“It’s as short as it’s long,” said Hugh. “But you needn’t mind about +_thim_”—he pointed to the young man’s rod and creel—“there’ll be none +of that work till it’s gone down, and risin’ it’ll be yet awhile.” + +Mr Rochfort looked where Hugh was looking, and had reluctantly to +admit the truth of this. The river ran far below them, down in a +narrow steep-walled little glen, one of the many cracks that fissure +Lisvaughan’s wind-swept, limestone plain. Almost each of these +ravines has a stream in it, with a remnant of trees huddled together +for shelter from the storms, whose stress they dare not meet in the +open, and with ferns venturing out of the rock-clefts to droop ample +fronds over the boulders on the margin. It is thus with Feltragh +River, which rises in the moorland towards Shrole, and here, at the +Ivy Bridge, comes round a sharp turn down a very stony stair. On the +other side of the arch it broadens slightly, and a somewhat longer +reach of it is in view; but Hugh Christie was staring up-stream, +where the water rushed into sight abruptly within a pebble’s cast of +his station. Swirling and tumbling it came, thrusting thick glassy +strands between the boulders, or seething over the tallest of them +in creamy fleeces. A roar ascended from those rapids hollowly and +fitfully, so that the District-Inspector looked up and down the road +occasionally, thinking a heavy cart must be lumbering along. + +“There’s a strong current in it now,” said Hugh. “Man nor mortal +couldn’t stand agin it. ’Twould lift a dead cow, let alone—anything +else.” + +“You’ve chosen a good place for a drenching,” said the +District-Inspector, for the wind was driving its cold spray into +their faces; “but I don’t see what else is to be got by staying in +it.” And he was moving on, when Hugh said— + +“Just wait a bit, till I tell you.” + +Hugh’s clothes had a sodden appearance, as if they had given up +trying to get any wetter, and his brown beard was all in a silvery +mist of tiny drops; therefore he was not sensitive about the dampness +of the weather. But what he said, though the District-Inspector did +wait, was nothing more to the purpose than: “Last night was powerful +dark; but it didn’t settle to rain till goin’ on for one o’clock—not +to spake of, any way.” + +“Well, it’s making up for lost time now, at all events,” said the +District-Inspector, and had to be stopped again. + +“See here, Mr Rochfort, you’re newish to the place; but ax anybody—ax +his Riverence, or Mr Lennon at the public, or Sargint Moore—and every +one of them’ll say I was niver known to raise a hand to do murdher on +man or woman—or I might say child,” Hugh added after a pause, as if +he felt that he was making large demands upon credulity. + +“If I were you, Christie, I’d go home, out of the rain,” replied the +District-Inspector. + +“Och, no matther for that. I was goin’ to ax you, sir, did you +remember the McAuliffes—the widdy and her daughter: that was all of +them was in it, ever since you come to Lisvaughan.” + +“Who lived at Brierly’s cottages over yonder?” the District-Inspector +said, pointing towards the smooth-faced crag whose jut prevented +them from seeing any farther up the Feltragh River. “I believe I do +remember the old woman creeping to Mass—a little lame body; didn’t +she die the other day?” + +“Ay did she, last Friday week in Shrole Union; for the daughter that +kep’ her out of it went wid the fever in the spring, and her son +Dan that ped their rint in ’Sthralia, was niver sendin’ her a word +iver since. So she made up her mind he was dead too, and she didn’t +care what become of her after that; and she broke her heart fretting +in the Infirm’ry. But last night Dan landed home lookin’ for her, as +plased as anythin’.” + +“The unlucky devil,” said the District-Inspector. + +“You may say that,” said Hugh; “but there’s unluckier. Sure it was +meself met him a trifle down the road, and on’y for that, ’twould ha’ +been nobody’s doin’, and done all the same. And if it hadn’t been +that outrageous dark, I’d never ha’ seen a sight of him. But sure +up agin ourselves we foosthered on the path, and I wasn’t long then +doubtin’ who had the discourse out of him about the Divil and such. +So: ‘Is it after desthroyin’ you, I am, Dan?’ sez I. And sez he, ‘To +your sowl, if it’s yourself, Hughey Christie,’ he sez, for he and I +did be as thick as thieves in the ould times. And ‘Come a step along +wid me,’ sez he, ‘for I can’t be delayin’.’ ‘Sure where’s the hurry +at all?’ sez I, misdoubtin’ what might be in his mind, if he knew +no betther or worser. ‘Why, man,’ sez he, ‘isn’t it goin’ on for ten +year since I was at home? And like a living dhrame to me now I’m +thinkin’ I’m that near her agin.’ So sez I to myself, ‘The Divil’s +in it’; and sez I to himself, ‘Take care it isn’t too soon you’ll be +gettin’ there, since you couldn’t conthrive it any sooner.’ Sure now, +you’d ha’ supposed he’d ha’ had the wit to git a fright at that. But +all he said was, ‘Ah,—the sisther, poor Lizzie, the crathur; ’deed, +then, that was the great pity entirely, and a cruel loss to her for +sartin. But sure that’s the raisin of me comin’ home at all, thinkin’ +me mother’d be left too lonesome altogether. And what wid th’ ould +stame-boat bustin’ up in her ingines,’ sez he, ‘and meself takin’ bad +where they stopped for repeers, I’ve been twyste the time I’d a right +to on the way. She’ll be in dhread there’s somethin’ happint me. +Howane’er, sorra a much fear of that is there now, Hughey man, and +me, so to spake, at the door goin’ in to her, thanks be to goodness,’ +sez he. + +“And niver a word out of me head to that. But I declare to you, +sir, you might ha’ thought the river itself, that’s a dumb crathur, +was thryin’ its best to tell him, accordin’ to the quare mutterin’ +like it kep’ on wid down below. For stumpin’ up the Quarry Lane he +was, that’s the nearest road to his house; ’twas just turnin’ into +it I met him. Nor aisy it wouldn’t ha’ been any ways to git a word +into the talk he had, and it mostly all about what he’d saved in +’Sthralia, and the fine counthry it was, and the grand thing to ha’ +got away out of it. ‘But,’ sez he, ‘maybe I’d ha’ sted in it a while +longer, if I hadn’t been afeard me ould woman here’d get mopin’ and +frettin’ left all to herself, which I couldn’t abide the thoughts +of. For right well I was doin’ out there,’ sez he, ‘and in another +couple of years I’d ha’ had a goodish bit more to be bringin’ home +wid me.’ And, bedad, you could see the truth of that, because every +glimmer of light in the black of the night was shinin’ on the len’ths +of the gould watch-chain he had wearin’ on his weskit. ‘Howiver,’ he +sez, ‘I’ve plinty to be keepin’ her iligant, and what great matther +about anythin’ more, when herself’s the on’y mortal crathur I have +belongin’ to me in the width of the world? Sure, if I hadn’t her to +be spendin’ it on,’ sez he, ‘I’d as lief be slingin’ ivery blamed +ould pinny I own over the bank there into the rowlin’ river, and +meself after it—faix would I, the Lord knows.’ + +“Well now, sir, after his sayin’ that, wouldn’t tellin’ him ha’ been +as good as biddin’ him go dhrownd himself? I put it to you: wouldn’t +it now?” + +“It’s hard to say,” said the District-Inspector: “but what _did_ you +do?” + +“Stumpin’ along wid him I was, lettin’ on I was listenin’ to him, and +all the while I was makin’ no more sinse of it than if he’d been a +bullock I had dhrivin’ to market, that would be lettin’ a roar now +and agin, at the mischief knows what. For thinkin’ to meself I was +that unless I quitted foolin’ him, he’d be very prisintly walkin’ up +to his door, and one of the Duggans, that he niver set eyes on in his +life, shoutin’ to know who he was, and what he wanted, and tellin’ +him the Union was after buryin’ his mother on him. So at last I’d +twisted up me mind wid the notion I’d spake out the next time he said +anythin’, and if I did, that minyit he hit me a clout on the back, +and, ‘Och, Hughey, you bosthoon,’ sez he, ‘herself’ll be sittin’ this +instiant of time be the fire in there, and niver thinkin’ I’m comin’ +along a few perch down the ould road.’ + +“And sez I, ‘Tubbe sure, Dan, she’s thinkin’ no such thing at all’; +and, for that matther, what truer could I ha’ said? And as sure as +I’m alive, I’d ha’ gone on wid it, I would so, on’y ’twas just then +we come round the turn opposite them Brierly Cottages. You know, +sir, where they’re cocked up, across the river, fornint Fitzsimmons’ +lime-kiln, wid ne’er a handy way of gittin’ at them except be the +bridge; the next one above this it is—a wooden fut-bridge wid a +hand-rail. But not a sight of it could we see in the dark, or +anythin’ else, on’y the light burnin’ in the Duggans’ windy, the way +it used to be afore they come there. + +“And when Dan seen that, he let a sort of yell, and sez he, ‘There it +is—there’s her ould bit of a lamp lightin’ the same as it was ever, +and meself beholdin’ it agin—_glory be to God_.’ The Divil’s in it,” +Hugh said, with a fierce clutch at the dripping ivy-sprays. “If the +crathur hadn’t been so ready to be gloryin’ God, I’d ha’ found it +in me heart to ha’ tould him the whole thing straight out—goodness +help him!—but instead of that, I thought to be comin’ at it gradial. +So I sez to him, lettin’ on I wasn’t mindin’ what he’d said, ‘Is +it a star you’re lookin’ at?’ And sez he to me, ‘Musha, not at all, +man; it’s somethin’ a dale nearer than a one of thim.’ And, ‘There’s +things farther off than stars,’ sez I; and, ‘Belike there is,’ sez +he, ‘but I’m not apt to be throublin’ me head about them when me ould +woman’s waitin’ for me unbeknownst just across the sthrame. So I’ll +be sayin’ good-night to you kindly, Hughey, and skytin’ over. Where +at all’s the bridge? I can’t make out a stim before me. Ah, here it +is!’ sez he, ‘right enough in its own place.’ + +“And it’s the truth I’m tellin’ you, Mr Rochfort, the truth I’m +tellin’ you: not till the man was grabbin’ the rail wid one hand and +mine wid the other, biddin’ me good-night, did the recollection come +into me mind of anythin’ amiss. And then I dunno rightly how it was, +but the same time I got considherin’ the way ’twould be, supposin’ +I held me tongue for that minyit. For if I didn’t tell him the one +thing, nobody’d ever tell him the other, and ’twould save throuble in +a manner. Och, I dunno what come over me, but in the end all I sez to +him was, ‘You’ll have to be walkin’ cautious, Dan,’—God forgive me, +but for sure He won’t: that was every word I said.” + +“But why should you have said more?” asked the District-Inspector. +“The bridge is safe enough. Wasn’t the man sober?” + +“Safe enough, begorra!” said Hugh. “If there warn’t six fut smashed +slap out of the middle of it wid the big ash-tree buttin’ its head +through it, that was blown off the top of the bank in the storm the +night before last. Six fut clever and clane, and maybe six times six +fut under it to drop down on the river and the rocks.” + +“And you sent him over that in the dark?” said the +District-Inspector. “What on earth possessed you?” This question, +however, was merely a phrase, for he seemed to know the reason very +well. “Was he killed?” he demanded, with the inquest in his mind. +“Where’s the body lying?” + +“It’s that I’m watchin’ for,” said Hugh, his eyes still following +the rough white race below, “ever since I had light to see. He might +be comin’ by any minyit now. But until the river riz wid the rain a +couple of hours back, I doubt was there water enough to bring him; +there was no very great dale runnin’ in it before then. So I wouldn’t +think he could ha’ slipped past, and I not to notice.” + +“Do you mean to say,” said the District-Inspector, “that you went off +and left the unfortunate man there, without so much as ascertaining +whether he was dead or alive?” + +“Alive is it?” said Hugh. “Sure the wooden bridge is a good bit +higher than this one; but if I tuk a standin’ lep off of the ledge +here, it’s breakin’ me neck I’d be afore I knew where I was. And +the jagged lumps of big stones is terrible; he might be wedged in +between two of them. Och, no! for all the life’s left in him, poor +Dan’ll ha’ had a paicibler night of it up there than meself had here, +considherin’ quare things in the dark this long while. Ay will he, +for the sort of moanin’ and screeches there was in it now and again +was nothin’ on’y the win’, and the rain polthoguin’, I very well +know.” + +“And are you certain that the bridge hadn’t been mended?” said the +District-Inspector. + +“How could I help bein’ sartin sure? And I goin’ by it on’y a while +before, in the grey of the light, and Mrs Duggan herself bawlin’ +across to me that they were kilt thrampin’ half-a-mile or so afore +they could git over anywheres.” + +“But if you didn’t wait, how do you know that he mayn’t have turned +back?” + +“Wait? Bedad no, it’s runnin’ away down here I was, as fast as I +could pelt. But what was to turn him back, and he flourishin’ off wid +himself in the greatest hurry at all? You might ha’ thought it was +ten fine fortin’s he was goin’ after; and not a stim to see a step +before him wid. So if it isn’t a murdher, get me one. And that’s the +raison I was thinkin’ I’d a right to be mentionin’ it to yourself, +sir, or the Sargint.” + +“It’s a very curious case,” said the District-Inspector, beginning +instinctively to grope about for precedents, and finding none. + +“But murdher or no,” said Hugh, “I do be thinkin’ diff’rent ways +of it, and some of them’s bad. For I sez to meself, ‘In a fine +disthraction poor Dan’d ha’ been, when he heard tell of th’ ould +crathur breakin’ her heart in the House.’ And then again I sez to +meself, ‘And supposin’? Many’s the fine disthraction you’ve been in +yourself, me man, and niver tuk a lep into the river out of it.’ And +arter that agin sez I to meself, ‘But sure, if some one’d ha’ up and +shoved me over unbeknownst, so to spake, sorra the blame I’d ha’ +blamed him.’ However, since the day’s light’nin’ overhead, little +doubt I’ve had in me mind but that I’d liefer see him comin’ along +the road on his feet, disthracted or not disthracted; and that’s what +I’ll niver behould, if it was twyste as clear. Terrible clear it is +gettin’,” he said, glancing furtively up. + +The sky was all one floating, drifting greyness, dim and impenetrable +even in a place rather low on the east, where many invisible hands +seemed to be straining the vast web in devious directions, so that it +thinned and paled. But at this moment it rent there right through, +leaving a rift filled strangely with a liquid radiance of silver +light glowing into amber, which suddenly darted into the eyes of the +two men, and threw their shadows across the wet road, and set the +puddles on fire. + +“Look,” said Hugh excitedly, standing up straight and pointing +towards the water. + +A wave wider and wilder than the others was coming down the river, +with something lapt round in it that made a dark core to its turbid +brown. But this was borne along no farther than to the first ridged +step in the fleeting rapids. There it halted and lay still, while +the turmoil of water and foam fell away from about it in a flurry, +draining off through the interstices of the boulders, or pouring +over their veiled crests. It was the body of a man. One arm hung +down against the straight rock-ledge, and the face looked up to the +sun-gleam so naturally that when the next wave rushed by, weltering +on and on and on interminably over it, the District-Inspector gave a +gasp as if something had been taking his own breath. + +“There he is, the very way I tould you,” said Hugh. At the sound of +his voice the District-Inspector turned quickly, and, seeing that he +had stepped up on to the low, ivied parapet, made a grasp at him, but +was not in time to reach him. “Stop where you are, Dan, one instiant +yet,” Hugh shouted: “for here I am, too!” + + + + +THE STAY-AT-HOMES + + + + +THE STAY-AT-HOMES + + +On the 1st of March, last year, it might have been noticed that +people were continually going in and out of Letterowen Railway +Station; yet the number of passengers who arrived and departed by +train was certainly no larger than usual. The station is rather a new +feature in the village, children of smallish growth remembering a +time when its fine pink-washed gables, and brilliant flower-borders, +and curious turnstile did not exist; still it had been there long +enough for the charm of novelty to have been worn off, and that +was not the _comether_ which on this dusty-grey, east-windy March +Sunday drew thither so many visitors, who had no tickets to buy, nor +other official business to transact. What they dropped in to look +at was placarded upon the walls of the bare little waiting-rooms, +where Jim Neligan, the porter, had been busy with a paste brush the +evening before—so excessively so, indeed, being new to his post and +zealous, that the station-master had inquired sarcastically whether +he intended to paper the whole place over entirely, and if he didn’t +think he might as well stick on another layer atop of the first. But +the result of Jim’s lavishness was that wherever you turned there +were the thick black letters announcing a special cheap excursion +to Dublin on next Tuesday fortnight, which, as everybody well knew, +would be St Patrick’s Day. Peter Carroll, who helped to clean lamps +at the station, and his mother, who scrubbed floors there, had +spread the report of the advertisement overnight, and it sounded so +very remarkable that more people than not twirled the turnstile in +the course of the morning and came down the zig-zag path to see for +themselves. + +The inhabitants of Letterowen are not great travellers. Their railway +is only a branch of a branch line, and while most of them have not +gone farther along it than Brockenbeg Junction, seven miles north, +by no means few have never got even so far. It is a place where in +soft weather the platform frequently takes a pattern of bare feet, +and bare feet seldom set out on long journeys by rail. As for Dublin, +that had hitherto seemed a goal which remoteness and magnitude made +hardly accessible even to imagination. Letterowen folk considered +vaguely that it would need a sight of money and a powerful length of +time to bring you thither, and what might be expected to befall you +there was so hard to say that your return seemed misty indeed. Yet +here was a printed notice boldly promising—“To Dublin and back for +two shillings,” and going into circumstantial details about a train +departing at six in the morning and arriving at noon, and leaving +again at midnight. “Twenty-four hours for twenty-four pence,” it +ended epigrammatically, and some of its readers felt no manner of +doubt that each one of them would be an hour of rapture unalloyed. +Others were less confident. Old Dan Molloy had heard tell of there +being such thick fogs in Dublin most whiles that people “were as apt +to walk plump into the river as anywhere else, which was a terrible +dangerous thing.” And the Widow Loughlin had been told that “thim +quare excursion trains as often as not got shunted off into a siding +before they came to any place, and the crathurs in them did be left +there perishin’ for nobody knew how long.” Several of the neighbours +also wondered whether the people would have to be sitting in their +seats all the time she was stopping in Dublin station, for that +wouldn’t be very gay at all. Mr Farrell, the station-master, was +frequently called upon to clear up this or some similar perplexity, +and he generally did so satisfactorily, pointing out at the same time +that the terms were uncommonly reasonable. I do not think that they +struck most of his hearers in just that light. The opinion rather +inclined to be that they certainly offered a great deal for the +money, but that the money, as certainly, was a great deal to pay. For +pence are pennies at Letterowen. Thus the price specified for the +four-and-twenty hours had in some cases an effect not intended by the +company. + +“Four-and-twinty pence—goodness guide us; sure I would be four days +arnin’ meself that much at the weedin’ or stone-gatherin’ if I was on +full woman’s wages itself,” said Anne Reilly, who in slack seasons +often had to be content with half that amount; “and to go spind it +away between one mornin’ and the next, as if you could pick it up +handy along the side of the road. Musha, long life to them; I hope +they’ll be gettin’ their health till I do.” + +“And, mind you, the two shillin’s isn’t the whole of it—where’s your +bit of food comin’ from? Or is it starvin’ you’d go there and back +again?” said Anne’s niece, Katty M‘Grehan, meaning to discourage her +sister Maggie, whom she suspected of harbouring extravagant ideas, +which Maggie quite understood, and rejoined to, saying with some +heat: “Then is it aitin’ nothin’ at all a body’d be, supposin’ they +was sittin’ mopin’ at home? ’Twould be all the one thing to take it +along in the ould can. For the matter of that there’s nothin’ aisier.” + +“Nor wastefuller,” Katty said, sticking obdurately to her point, +with her worst suspicions confirmed. She wanted to save those two +shillings, having planned a treat for her crippled father, “the +crathur.” + +“Well, glory be to goodness, Jimmy,” old Mrs Walsh remarked to +her contemporary, James M‘Evilly, who, like herself, had listened +dispassionately to the little skirmish, “you and me is too ould and +ancient altogether for to be botherin’ about goin’ or stayin’—the +trees in the hedges is as apt to be thinkin’ of takin’ runs up the +road, and it saves a power of throuble.” + +This view of the situation prevailed more or less among the elders of +Letterowen, but not universally. Here and there an old body held an +alert and agile mind, which, according to circumstances, chafed at +its restraints, or made a shift to get about in spite of them. Such +was the case with Mrs Rea, whose age, never estimated at less than +“rale ould entirely,” is by some people asserted to be “every day of +ninety year.” She herself acquiesces cheerfully in any figure between +that and threescore and ten. Certain it is, at all events, that she +seems quite as active and vigorous as many of her much less venerable +neighbours. Still they were surprised when, a few days later, she was +amongst the first to announce that she intended to “thry her chance, +and see what sort of a place Dublin might be at all at all.” Behind +her back, they declared that it was “no thing for the ould crathur +to take upon herself to be doin’,” and that “she might very aisy +lose her life over it if she didn’t mind what she was at.” And some +of them called upon her in her house at the end of the post-office +row, fronting the railway embankment, for the express purpose of +remonstrating with her in scarcely less outspoken terms. “Ah, woman +dear,” they would say, “is it dotin’ you are, or what at all’s come +over you to put such a notion in your head? Sure it’s losin’ yourself +ten times you’ll be going that far, let alone breakin’ the ould bones +of you clamberin’ in and out of them high carriages, and up and down +them cruel steep stairs. Or else, ma’am, desthroyed you’ll surely +be in the streets, where they say an ould person creepin’ about is +as apt to get dhruv over as a weeny chucken that sets itself up to +be runnin’ under the people’s feet, and they coming out from Mass.” +But for all of these she had the same answer: “Well now, ma’am, if I +amn’t ould enough to take care of meself at this time of day, I dunno +when I’m likely to be.” To which piece of inconsequence they commonly +replied, “that them that was wilful’d go their own way,” and took +leave huffily, unconvincing and unconvinced. + +Their axiom was truer in Mrs Rea’s case than might have been +anticipated from her circumstances; for she was a solitary widow, +and the way that such persons go is often determined by quite other +considerations than their own wilfulness, especially if there be a +question of as much as two shillings involved. Mrs Rea, however, had +one son prospering in the States, and another long established as +under-gardener to very high-up quality in the county Sligo, and both +of them were “rale good lads to their mother,” which set her above +anything she or her neighbours would have called want. Just now, +moreover, her “odd few ould hens,” had been laying unusually well, +so that her railway fare was forthcoming with little difficulty. The +chief obstacle she encountered was public opinion, which, although +she thought as lightly of it as might be, she could not completely +disregard. It is impossible to set out on a great enterprise with an +unperturbed mind in the face of unanimous prophecies that you will +never come back alive; even if you do let on to consider them “all +blathers and nonsense.” So Mrs Rea, while dealing summarily with the +objections urged by her ordinary acquaintances, would condescend +to argue the matter at much length with her especial crony, Julia +Carroll. + +Julia disapproved of the project rather decidedly for her, she being +by no means an opinionated person. “’Deed, now, Joanna,” she said, +in the course of their first discussion, “supposin’ I had the chance +itself, which I havn’t, it’s long sorry I’d be to be settin’ off +on any such a deminted sthravade. Sure, woman alive, them that has +the age on them of you and me is bound to be travellin’ prisintly, +whether or no, far enough to contint anybody, unless it was the +Wanderin’ Jew. So where’s the sinse of tatterin’ about afore thin in +them racketin’ smoky trains? I declare to you, I hate the noise and +smell of them passin’ by there, goodness forgive me, and it only the +nathur of them after all.” + +“But bedad thin, Julia, that’s the very thing I was considherin’,” +said Mrs Rea. “For if it’s stuck down in the one place we’re to +be all the while till we’re took, we’ll get that disaccustomed to +everythin’ out of the way we won’t know what to do wid ourselves +anywheres else. So for that raison we’d a right to jaunt about now +and agin to diff’rint places the way we’ll be a thrifle used to what +we’re strange to, and not amazed and moidhered entirely wid the +quareness of it.” + +“Well, now, I’d never have that notion,” said Julia Carroll, “for +it’s the quare quareness and the sthrange sthrangeness I’ll be +throublin’ me head about when once I get the chance of goin’ the +road after some of them that’s wint afore me. Sure as long as there +was the ould people in it it might be the most outlandish place one +could consaive and I’d niver notice it, I’d be that took up wid +meetin’ them, nor you wouldn’t aither, Joanna. Morebetoken, I’m often +thinkin’ these times that the old place is the sthrangest of all +since they’re quit out of it—and no fear of gettin’ used to it, sorra +a fear!” + +“Maybe that’s very thrue for you,” said Mrs Rea. “But, talkin’ of the +ould people, there’s another raison I have. Do you remimber Biddy +Loughlin—thim that lived below the forge?” + +“In a manner I remember her, but which of them was Biddy I couldn’t +say for sure. They was only slips of girls the time they stopped +here, and we never had much doin’s or dalin’s wid them.” + +“Well, Biddy married a man of the name of Jackson that lives up there +in Dublin. Her aunt was telling me she heard from her last Christmas. +Keepin’ a fine little shop, they are, in some sthreet—I must ask her +the name—convenient to the railway station. So I was thinkin’ I’d +write her word when I was comin’, and maybe bid her meet me at the +thrain. ’Twould be pleasant to see a body one knew.” + +“Middlin’ pleasant it might be. But, saints above, woman, you needn’t +tell _me_ that you’re takin’ off up to Dublin for a sight of Biddy +Loughlin, that I believe you’d scarce know from her grandmother’s +ninth cousin, as the sayin’ is, if she walked into the room this +instiant minyit. For that is too onraisonable a raison altogether.” + +Mrs Rea looked rather defiantly conscience-stricken. “To spake the +moral thruth,” she said, “I wouldn’t wonder if all the while I wasn’t +goin’ for e’er a thing else except a bit of divarsion; and I dunno if +that’s any great sin.” “Sure not all,” Julia Carroll said, more from +politeness than conviction, for she was an ascetic both by nature and +training. “Only it’s the quare divarsion’d take me thravellin’ over +the counthry if I had a grand little room of me own to be stoppin’ +paiceable in.” She glanced covetously round her friend’s house, in +which they were talking. For Julia, having lagged superfluously long +behind her own generation, was wearing out the fag end of her days in +a grand-nephew’s family, where the tolerance she met with, though +good-natured enough, could not benumb her sense that only in this +world she filled up a place which, albeit cold and comfortless, could +with difficulty be spared to her. Therefore she looked wistfully +round Mrs Rea’s domain and said, “Very paiceable I’d stop in it, ay +would I.” + +“There’ll be a good few out of this goin’ on it besides me, you may +dipind,” said Mrs Rea, “Dinny Fitzpatrick is, for one, I know.” + +“Ah, poor Dinny’s a young chap, the crathur; where’d he get a +ha’porth of wit,” said Julia, this time with unintentional severity. +“And be the same token, there was his head went by the windy. Gettin’ +on for six o’clock it must be if he’s lavin’ work, and I’ve a right +to be steppin’ along wid meself.” + +“Is it wit?” said Mrs Rea; “the lad has plinty of that, according to +aught I ever seen of him. If there’s anything ails him, it’s bein’ +a thrifle ugly in his temper, as his father was before him. ’Deed, +them Fitzpatricks have the name of bein’ cross-tempered people—dacint +and cross-tempered. That’s the way he got quarrellin’ wid Norah +M‘Grehan, she he was spaking to a long while, just about the time +she took her situation in Dublin. And my belief is he has some notion +now of makin’ it up wid her, and that’s what’s startin’ him on the +excursion; for until he heard tell of it his mind was set on goin’ to +the Malahogue Races. I’d be glad if the two of them got frinds ag’in; +poor Norah’s a good-nathured little girl, the crathur, and all Dinny +wants is a bit of humourin’ to keep him plisant, and whativer the +raison may be, he’s mostly seemed as discontinted as an ould hin in a +shower of sleet ever since Norah quit.” + +Denis Fitzpatrick, whose clear-cut profile and rough tweed cap had +just crossed Mrs Rea’s greenish pane on his way up the dusk-dimmed +street, was a good-looking sturdy young fellow, with a countenance +which bore out her assertion that he had plenty of wit. She was +right, too, in her conjectures about the motive which lay at the +bottom of his plans for St Patrick’s Day. At that very moment, in +fact, he was considering how he might best ascertain Norah M‘Grehan’s +Dublin address without compromising his dignity by any direct +inquiries from her family, who had been stiff enough for some months +past. He thought he would ask ould Mrs Rea, who was likely to know, +and, failing her, Norah’s sister Maggie, as she looked several +degrees less forbiddingly upon him than Katty had done since the +falling out. + +But after all he need not have troubled himself with these +arrangements. On the afternoon of the Sunday before the holiday Mrs +Rea was happily busy over her fire when a long shadow fell in at her +door and ran up the wall. + +“Well, Dinny,” she said, recognising it without turning her head, +“and what’s the best good news wid you?” + +“Och nothin’ at all, ma’am,” said Dinny. + +“There couldn’t be less,” Mrs Rea said cheerfully; “I’m makin’ meself +a bit of griddle bread to take along in the thrain, and I’ll ha’ +plinty for you in it too, Dinny.” + +“Thank’ee kindly, ma’am,” Dinny said, gloomily, “but divil a thrain +I’ll be thravellin’ in.” + +“Mercy on us all—what’s after happ’nin’ you, man?” she said, whirling +round in consternation. + +“Sure because I’m claned out—stone broke,” said Dinny. “Didn’t I +put me half-crown on Black Knot, that was runnin’ yesterday for the +Balmarina Cup, and what’d suit the baste but to go break his ugly +neck at the first lep? It was Sargint Duffy himself bid me put every +penny I could on him, and he knows people that knows all manner. Two +pounds he had on him himself. The divil’s in it.” + +“You great, big, stupid ass, you,” said Mrs Rea. “Och, well now, +wouldn’t anybody think an infant child might have the sinse to keep +out of them ould barracks, where it’s bettin’ and foolery the len’th +of the day? And small blame, maybe, to the polis, that’s nothin’ +betther to do, and plinty of money to be pitchin’ under the horses’ +feet; but for the likes of you to go settin’ up to ruinate yourself! +Faix but you’re the quare fool.” Her genuine vexation at his mishap +came to the surface in a bubbling of wrath, while her plain speaking +was made all the more natural by the fact that it seemed to her only +the other day since six-foot Dinny stood scarcely as high as her +table, and that in Dinny’s recollections Mrs Rea had always been +a rather comical old personage, from whom desirable sugar-sticks +and cakes and negligible threats and reproaches were occasionally +forthcoming. “The grandest chance at all,” she said, “and everythin’ +settled—and Norah, the crathur. Och, now, Dinny Fitzpatrick, if +yourself’s not the most unchancy stookawn of a gomeral on the +townland, just get me him that is?” + +“I’ve raison to be greatly obligated to you, ma’am,” said Dinny; +“and the next time I want somebody to gab the hind leg off a dog, I +know where to be comin’ to.” So he went away in high indignation. +Whereupon Mrs Rea thought ruefully to herself, “Sure, maybe I’d no +right to be annoyin’ him, and he disappointed wid losin’ his holiday +and all, the mislucky bosthoon.” + +Annoyed him she had, however, so seriously, that next evening he had +twenty minds at least to make as if he did not hear her calling him +across the street, when he was going by from his work. Only that +there seemed to be a hoarse sort of despair in her “Dinny, man, +Dinny,” resentment would undoubtedly have got the better of him; but +as it was, he came over and asked what ailed her. + +Mrs Rea looked rather dreadful, for she had her head muffled in +two large shawls, one grey and one black, and had wisped round her +throat a white apron, which gave a curious conventual touch to her +appearance. She explained that she was destroyed with a very bad +cold, some sort of asthmy or influenzy she thought it must be, +it had come on so sudden, and her corroborative coughs were quite +alarmingly loud. “Ne’er a fut’ll I git out to-morra,” she said, “not +if the city of Dublin was just across the width of them two rails +there, instid of len’th-ways. And me writin’ word to poor Biddy +Loughlin I was comin’ at twelve o’clock. Lookin’ out for me she’ll +be.” + +“Sure you could aisy send her a message be some of them that’s +goin’,” said Dinny. “Art Walsh is, I know, and his sisther.” + +“’Deed but I wouldn’t like to be disthressin’ them to be wastin’ +their day runnin’ about after me messages,” Mrs Rea said, “nor I +wouldn’t like poor Biddy to be losin’ her time expectin’ me.” + +“Well, thin, I dunno how you can manage it,” said Dinny. “One thing +or the other you must do—send it or let it alone.” + +“Where’s yourself, lad?” said Mrs Rea. + +“And didn’t I tell you I hadn’t a penny to me name? Not unless it’s +borryin’ I was, and then where’d me wages be on Sathurday? I wouldn’t +mind if it was meself only, but I can’t be lavin’ the ould bodies at +home too short, and that’s the end of it. There’s no use talkin’.” + +“Och, you gaby, wasn’t I manin’ you to go on me own couple of +shillin’s in place of meself, and take me message? Supposin’ you’d +nought betther to do. It’s too late to be writin’ be the post, and if +Biddy doesn’t get word, as like as not she’ll be in a fine fantigue, +considherin’ I’m lost and sthrayed away; but when you tould her that +kilt wid a cowld was all I was, she’d know nothin’ ailed me. Quite +convanient she lives to the station, so ’twouldn’t delay you above +a minyit, and then all the rest of the while you could be seein’ +anybody else there was, and the sights of Dublin, and everythin’.” +Mrs Rea was so bent upon recommending her plan that she forgot her +hoarseness and bad cough. However, this signified little, as Dinny +was too well pleased with the project to be critical about symptoms. + +“I give you my word, Judy, woman,” she said, when shortly afterwards +relating the incident to her friend, “the eyes of him shone out of +his head at the notion like the two bright lamps in the tail end of +the thrains runnin’ by there on a black night.” + +Thus it came to pass that Denis Fitzpatrick was after all one of +the party who on the morrow made an early start from Letterowen. +It was a still, soft morning, discreetly hooded in grey, but with +an indefinable atmosphere abroad, as if the air were full of some +secrets that might be told when the sun got a little higher. Quite a +crowd of the neighbours were on the platform seeing the excursionists +off, some of them with rather envious eyes. And among those +malcontents was Maggie M‘Grehan, who felt herself aggrieved by her +failure to capture her railway fare, notwithstanding that she had the +prospect of a drive to the Malahogue Races for her holiday amusement +while her sister Katty looked after their bedridden father. Her mood +lightened, however, at the sight of Denis actually starting with the +rest, because, for reasons of her own, she had been considerably put +out by the stoppage of his expedition. + +Mrs Rea did not appear. Of course it would have been unwise of +her to venture out with her cold, although her violent cough had +wonderfully subsided. But she saw the train whisked by as she was +making herself very busy over cleaning up the inmost recesses of +her dresser; and her comment was, “Ah, well; sure ’twould ha’ been +a pity to stand in their way, the crathurs.” Her day after this +passed without noteworthy incidents until about tea-time, when, as +she and Julia Carroll were sitting quietly at the brightening fire +something unwelcome occurred. To all appearances, it was nothing +worse than the entrance of a pleasant-looking, dark-eyed girl, in a +becoming velvet-trimmed hat and neat cloth jacket; yet the tone of +the ejaculations with which Mrs Rea greeted her clearly betokened +an untoward event. “Och, glory be to goodness, is it yourself here, +Norah M‘Grehan? Whethen now, how did you come whatever? Isn’t the +childer at your place took sick, the way you couldn’t git lave at +all, so Katty was tellin’ me—the last time you wrote?” + +“But sure they’ve got finely now, and the misthress is takin’ them +out to Dalkey for a bit of a change. I wrote home word on Sathurday. +Didn’t they tell you?” + +“Deed no; I seen naither of them; and there I am after packing off +poor Dinny Fitzpatrick up to Dublin this mornin’ arly. Ragin’ he is +this minyit of time, you may depind, findin’ nobody in it.” + +“And what’d ail him to be ragin’?” said Norah, “or what call’d he +have to be thinkin’ of findin’ anybody? He knew as well as I did I +was comin’ down to-day. So off he wint, and joy go wid him and the +likes of him. Be good luck I’ll be out of it on the eleven o’clock +train to-night afore he’s back.” + +“Well, if he knew, it’s a quare thing,” Mrs Rea began. + +“Quarer it’d be if he didn’t,” Norah said, interrupting, “when he +heard it from Maggie last night. Katty was tellin’ me—for Maggie’s +off to the races—she seen her talkin’ to him outside, so she was +checkin’ her for havin’ anythin’ to say to him, not bein’ friendly +these times, since he took upon himself to give me impidence about +the Molloy’s party. And Maggie said he stopped her to ax would I be +comin’ home on the holiday, and she tould him as plain as she could +spake that I was. So that was the way of it, and the best thing could +happen.” + +“Well, well, well, but that bangs Banagher,” Mrs Rea said, not +disguising her chagrin. “What was he up to then at all? Troth now, +you might as aisy make an offer to count the grains of sugar meltin’ +in your tay as tell the contrariness and treachery there does be in +another body’s mind. But we’d betther just be sittin’ down; ’twill +be drawn be this time. Wait till I reach down a cup and saucer for +you, Norah alanna; it’s somethin’ to git a sight of you at all +evints.” + +It is to be feared that Norah did not find this tea a very lively +entertainment, although she talked away at a great rate, telling all +her Dublin news. Mrs Rea listened with only a divided attention, the +other half, and the largest, being occupied by the thought that after +all she might better have gone on the jaunt herself. A sacrifice +thrown away is generally an irritating and depressing subject for +meditation; and Mrs Rea’s seemed to have been worse than merely +wasted, as she said to herself that “all the good her stayin’ at +home had done anybody was only harm.” These reflections made her a +dull and silent hostess. Then, during a pause in the conversation, +Julia Carroll expressed her belief that she herself “as like as not +wouldn’t be dhrinkin’ tay anywheres by next St Patrick’s Day.” The +little old woman spoke in a hopeful tone, looking as if she saw many +pleasant possibilities in the conjecture; but a slip of a girl of +Norah’s age and experience could scarcely share that view, and the +remark did not tend to cheer her. + +However, when they had finished tea, Mrs Rea went out into the grey +dusk at the door to collect her hens with the few crumbs, and a +moment afterwards Norah, who was putting turf on the fire, heard a +sound that made her drop the sod out of her hand suddenly enough +to set the white ashes fluttering about like snow-flakes, while +the golden sparks darted up straight like shooting stars. It was +Mrs Rea exclaiming: “Och, mercy be among us! is it yourself, Dinny +Fitzpatrick? And what at all brought you back so soon, and how did +you conthrive to come?” To which the voice of Dinny replied: “Sure, +ma’am, when I got there I found there was nothin’ to be keepin’ me in +it whatsome’er, so one of the guards at the station was a dacint chap +from Youghal, and for the sixpence I had along wid me for a dhrink, +he let me come back on the two o’clock mail that stops next to +nowhere for man or baste, and that way I got home very handy. And was +you seein’ anythin’ to-day of Norah M‘Grehan? But, bedad, ’twould be +just of a piece wid the rest of it if she was on the road thravellin’ +back to Dublin agin now.” + +“Musha, thin, she’s not got very far yet, that’s sartin. But, +goodness help you, man alive, wouldn’t it ha’ been a dale more +sinsible to ha’ axed the question afore you took skytin’ the len’th +of the counthry, and nothin’ at the end of it?” + +“And, begorra, didn’t I ax it? Sure I knew there was some talk of her +comin’ home, so I axed her sisther Maggie last night, and no, sez +she, sorra a fut could she get lave.” + +“It was an onthruth she tould you,” said Mrs Rea. + +“Troth, now, I had me doubts it was, ever since the ould woman I seen +at her place in Dublin said she well remembered Norah writin’ home to +say she was goin’; and, if I’m not mistaken, it’s not the first ugly +turn that Maggie’s after doin’ agin us. But did you say, ma’am, that +Norah was above at her house?” + +“What for would _I_ go to be tellin’ lies on you? Sure, not at all, +but if you’ve a fancy to be standin’ on the one flure wid her, just +step your feet over the hins’ ould dish, and there you are.” + +Dinny stepped accordingly, and immediately afterwards found himself +shaking hands vehemently with Norah M‘Grehan, and inquiring what way +she was this long while. Norah replied that she must be running home +to her poor father and Katty, for she’d presently have to be settin’ +off again to catch the Dublin train. But Mrs Rea, bustling jubilantly +about the dresser, said, “Aisy now, honey. You’ll give the poor lad +time just to swallow his cup of tay, and then he’ll be all ready to +go along wid you.” + +While Dinny gulped down a very hot mixture of sugar chiefly and +grounds, Julia Carroll took the opportunity to draw from the events +of the day a moral in support of her favourite contention against +travelling about, pointing out what a sight of trouble it would have +saved if Dinny had “stopped paiceably at home, the way he needn’t ha’ +been scaldin’ and chokin’ himself for want of a few minutes to spake +to his frinds.” Mrs Rea, however, rejoined—“And supposin’ Norah had +took it into her head to stop paiceable where she was too, where’d +the both of them be this evenin’?” And although she answered readily +enough, “Sure, where Norah was, she wasn’t at home,” the argument +did not convince anybody. Certainly not Mrs Rea. For when Dinny had +just started with Norah he wheeled round suddenly to make a penitent +confession. “Och, murdher! Och, Mrs Rea, ma’am, I niver remimbered +it till this instant, but tellin’ you the thruth, I niver went +next or nigh the ould woman you bid me be bringin’ word you wasn’t +comin’—cliver and clane I forgot it, and went off straight to look +for the Square—Well now, wasn’t I the bosthoon?” + +“Sure, no matther,” Mrs Rea said, blandly. “It’s little Biddy +Loughlin’d be troublin’ her head about me goin’ or stayin’, for the +thruth is, there was niver much love or likin’ between any of us and +any of thim.” + +Dinny looked hard at her for a moment, “And another thing I +disremimbered,” he said, “was to be axin’ you after your terrible bad +cowld.” + +“Bedad, Dinny, I’m thinkin’ it wint off to Dublin along wid you,” she +said. “Anyhow it’s quit away surprisin’.” + +“It’s my belief, you’re a great ould rogue, ma’am, yourself and your +cowld,” said Dinny. “But I’d as lief I hadn’t lost thim two shillin’s +and everythin’ on you.” + +“Sure what matther at all?” Mrs Rea said again. “And who can tell +but I mightn’t get as good a chance next St Patrick’s Day, and be +travellin’ up to Dublin iligant after all? I wouldn’t wonder if I +was—there’s time enough.” + + + + +A PROUD WOMAN + + + + +A PROUD WOMAN + + +Peter Mackey, the Carrickcrum Doctor’s man, introduced me to Mrs +Daly one early summer morning, when her table was flecked with small +quivering shadows by the young beech-leaves. That such a ceremony was +required argued me a stranger to the place, for “ould Anne Daly” at +her stall had a speaking acquaintance with almost every passer-by. +Her rickety deal board stood at the cross-roads under the beech-tree +whose trunk was built into the wall behind the National School, where +she had a view of Carrickcrum’s street on either hand, and looked +up the road to the bridge, and down the road to the police barracks +as well. She was a picturesque figure in her black gown and bluish +apron; for her hair made white light beneath broad cap frills hooded +with a heavy grey shawl, and the brown eyes among their weather-worn +wrinkles still glanced as brightly as the waters of a bog-stream. Her +knitting-needles twinkled up at them, in and out of the dark, rough +stocking-leg that lengthened in her hands, as she sat perched on a +crippled chair, dexterously propped against the beech’s roots. Upon +the planks before her glowed a small heap of half-a-dozen oranges, +and as many pink sugar-sticks protruded from a white Delft jam-pot. +That was all her stock-in-trade, and even the golden dance over it +of the spangling sunbeams could not give it an opulent aspect. What +caught my eye at once, however, was a signboard nailed to the trunk +just above her head, bearing on a brilliant ultramarine ground, in +letters of fiery vermilion, the words:— + + THE SENTRALL IMPOREOM. + +The inscription somehow took my fancy, and I had scarcely beheld +it when I seemed to be reading in the catalogue of a certain art +exhibition: “No. 34. The Sentrall Imporeom, by Charles Hamilton, +price ——.” Whereupon followed a vision of the corresponding work—the +quaint old country woman presiding over her simple wares beneath +her leafy canopy and grandiloquent label, with perhaps a hint of +the village street in the distance to explain the situation. I +presaged “a hit,” and felt impatient to set about it at once. There +was a grass-patch over the way that would conveniently accommodate +my easel. Then I wondered who had put up the gaudy signboard, and +why; whether in pompous earnest, or intending a jest at the poor +little establishment: and what might be Mrs Daly’s sentiments on the +subject. So, with a design to elicit these, I remarked: “That’s a +fine piece of painting you have up there.” + +“’Deed now is it, sir?” Mrs Daly replied, darting a quick look at +me to ascertain whether my admiration was unfeigned, much as I +have seen her prove the soundness of her pears with the point of +her knitting-needle. It stood the test with effrontery, and she +proceeded: “That was Joe Lenihan. He done it last winter wid the bit +of paint he had over after finishin’ Mr Conroy’s new cart. Joe’s a +terrible handy boy. It’s got a nice apparence off it, to my mind, +and ne’er a harm at all that I can see; but, och! the Gaffneys were +ragin’ mad over it—them at the shop below there, sir.” She pointed +down the street, and I took a few steps backwards to get a glimpse +of its single plate-glass pane, which displayed groceries, hardware, +millinery, and other things, and above which ran, large and yellow, +“GENERAL EMPORIUM.” “Ragin’ they were,” Mrs Daly said in a tone that +was half-gratified and half-rueful. “Sure to this day they won’t +look the way I am. But I dunno what call they have to set themselves +up to be the only Imporum in the place, and they just ‘P. Gaffney,’ +sorra a hap’orth more, and plenty good enough, for them, until before +last Christmas they got a man over from Newtownbailey to do their +paintin’. There was nobody here aquil to it, I should suppose. So now +they’re of the opinion I had a right to ha’ hindered Joe of doin’ me +a Imporum as well, and I wid ne’er a notion he was plannin’ any such +a thing. Howsome’er, he made a very good job of it, sir, as you was +sayin’.” + +“It’s a fine morning, Mrs Daly,” someone said at my elbow, and, +turning round, I saw beside me a tall, respectable-looking young man +in a grey tweed suit. “I’m just after shooting old Mr Carbury dead +with the rook-rifle, and throwing him over the wall into the river +below at Reilly’s,” he said. + +“And is it yourself, Mr Ned? I never heard you comin’. Well now, but +you’re terrible wicked to go do the like of that,” Mrs Daly said, as +placidly as she had praised Joe Lenihan’s handiness. “It’s hangin’ +you they’ll be this time for sartin. So you’re off to the barracks?” + +“Straight,” said Mr Ned gravely, “and they needn’t offer to say it’s +manslaughter either, for it’s an awful murder. You might have heard +the shot. But to see him rolling down the river, over and over—I +didn’t wait till he sank, for it’s time I gave myself up on the +charge of committing a cold-blooded murder.” + +He strode away abruptly with an air of solemn fuss, and Mrs Daly +said, looking after him commiseratingly: “He’s a son of the Clancys +at Glen Farm. Asthray in his mind he is, the crathur, and scarce a +mornin’ but he comes by here on his way to the polis wid a story of +some quare villiny he’s after doin’. My belief is he dhrames them +in the night, and when he wakes up he can’t tell the differ as a +sinsible body would. Anyhow he niver harmed man or baste. But sure +the Sargint and all of them up there knows the way it is, and they +niver throuble their heads about his romancin’, or now and again they +put him up in the guard-room for a while, just to contint him. + +“Only one day be chance he landed in on them when there was nobody +in it except a young constable that was new to the place, and him he +had in a sarious consternation wid the slaughtherin’ he was tellin’ +him of. Fit to raise the counthryside he was before the other men +came home. It’s as good as a play to hear Joe Lenihan tellin’ it. +’Deed now, we’d maybe do betther to not be takin’ divarsion out of +the crathur’s vagaries, that’s to be pitied, the dear knows. But sure +your heart might be broke waitin’ for somethin’ to laugh at, if you +was to look black at everythin’ wid a grain of misfortin in it, for +that comes as nathural as the grounds in your cup of tay.” + +So Mrs Daly philosophised; and when she had finished I bought an +orange, and went on my way. + +This, however, was only the first of many visits to the Sentrall +Imporeum. My wish to paint it and its proprietress continued, and +she presently gave me a series of sittings, in the course of which +I learned a good deal about her character and affairs. Mrs Daly +lived close by, in a very miserable little shanty, windowless and +chimneyless, built against a sunken bank, so that its ragged thatch +was on a level with the roadway. How she lived seemed less obvious +than where, as although she owned three or four hens, and did some +coarse knitting while she sat all day at the table with its screed of +sweets and fruit, one would have estimated the combined profits of +these to fall far short of sufficiency for even her modest wants. Her +lameness debarred her from more active industries, she having been +crippled by an accident at the same disastrous period—about thirty +years before—when her husband died, and her son ’listed, and her +daughter married an emigrant to the States. + +Perhaps it should be reckoned as another disability that she was the +proudest woman in the parish, to whom an offer of assistance seemed +an insult, and who would accept nothing from her neighbours beyond +a most rigorous equity. For instance, Arthur Kelly, the struggling +farmer who owned the shed which she inhabited, would gladly have +allowed her to occupy it rent free, but was obliged every week +compunctiously to receive sixpence. + +I myself experienced the same sort of thing in my trivial dealings +with her. Small artifices, prompted by baffled speculations as to +how she made out a subsistence, all signally failed. If I contrived +one day to over-pay for a purchase, pleading want of change, on the +next the undesired pennies were sure to be awaiting me inevitably +and inexorably. She refused point-blank to sell me the crushed and +over-ripe gooseberries with a fancy for which I had been seized, and +she insisted upon taking a farthing apiece off the price of some +apples that were fully half-sound. In fact, I was soon compelled +to desist from practising any such stratagems, perceiving that our +sittings and conversations would otherwise abruptly end. But being +wise in time, I kept on good and improving terms with Mrs Daly, and +made my studies at the Sentrall Imporeum desultorily all through the +summer. Still, when it drew to a close, I was quite aware that our +friendliness had not brought me a step nearer venturing upon any +attempt to undermine her rigid principle of independence. + +This being so, I was not a little surprised when one wet evening at +tea-time Mrs Daly paid me a visit for the purpose of asking me to do +her a favour. The cottage I had taken that summer stands on the same +side of the road as her tiny cabin, but about half-a-mile farther +from Newtownbailey. It belongs to the brother-in-law of Peter Mackey, +Dr Kennedy’s man, which is how I came to hear of it, and it contains +no less than three rooms on the ground—literally ground—floor, +besides two little attics huddled up under the thatch. As it has a +strip of privet hedge in front, and a path three flag-stones long +leading to the door, and a hen-house leaned-to against one end, it +may be considered superior to the neighbouring residences, though +unsophisticated mud and straw are the main ingredients in its, +as well as in their, composition. With the help of loans from my +friend the Doctor, and some properties of my own, I had furnished +it in a style which I believe excited admiration on the whole. Yet +the establishment did not reach the standard of what was deemed +appropriate for “rael quality,” especially as I did for myself +single-handed, with only an old woman from next door to “ready up” +things in the morning; and my social standing was consequently always +regarded as an ambiguous and perplexing point at Carrickcrum. + +Mrs Daly arrived with something evidently on her mind. She was not +likely, indeed, to have undertaken that slow and painful hobble +through the pelting rain without some object; but she seemed to find +much difficulty in disclosing it. At last, however, having repeated +incredibly often that it was “a very soft night intirely,” she made +the following more pertinent statement:— + +“I’m after gettin’ a letter to-day from me brother Hugh’s son. That +was Hugh went out to the States I couldn’t tell you what ould ages +ago, and be all accounts he’s made the fine fortin in it. But the +time he went I was about gettin’ married, and he set his face agin +that altogether. No opinion he had of poor Andy, that wasn’t to say +very well to do, and maybe not over-steady. So he wouldn’t allow me +to be spakin’ to Andy at all, and he was wantin’ me to go out along +wid himself, for Hugh and I were always frinds. Infuriated he was +when he couldn’t persuade me; the last time I seen him, there was no +name bad enough for him to be callin’ poor Andy, and he up and tould +me that, as sure as he was alive, the next time he set eyes on me +’twould be beggin’ he’d find me, unless it was in the workhouse. And +sez I to him he might make his mind aisy that, whativer place he +might find me in, the on’y thing I’d be beggin’ of him’d be to keep +himself out of it. And we’ve niver been friendly since. Sorra the +letter I’ve wrote to him, nor he to me. But now there’s the young +chap writin’ me word from Queenstown that he’s crossed the wather to +see the ould counthry, and that before he wint his father bid him go +look up his Aunt Nan while he was at home. Sure, I scarce thought he +as much as knew where I was livin’ these times. So me nephew’s comin’ +to-morra on the train to Newtownbailey.... Well, now, you know me +house, sir? It isn’t too bad a little place at all, but you couldn’t +say it was very big.” + +You certainly could not say so, upon almost any scale of measurement, +or with any approximation to truth, I reflected; for I had seen its +tenant creeping in and out at its low black doorway, which would +hardly have made an imposing entrance to an average rabbit-burrow. + +“And I was thinkin’,” she continued, “that if the young fellow come +there, it might be apt to give him the notion I was livin’ in a +poorish sort of way—for the dear knows what quare big barracks of +places he’s maybe used to at home—and I’m no ways wishful he’d bring +back any such a story wid him to his father, after the talk he had +out of him about the workhouse and the beggin’. + +“And another thing is, Hugh’d say ’twas next door to it, me sellin’ +them hap’orths of sweets outside there; he would, sure enough, for +none of me family done the like ever. Och, I’d a dale liefer he’d ha’ +sted away; but I can’t put him off of comin’. And I was thinkin’—I +was thinkin’, sir....” But Mrs Daly’s further thoughts could not be +put into words without much stumbling and hesitation. “What I was +thinkin’ was, that if be any chance you were out paintin’ the way +you do mostly be, sir, after dinner-time to-morra, you’d be willin’, +maybe, to let me bring me nephew in here just for the couple of hours +he has to stop—comin’ on the half-past two train he is, and lavin’ on +the five—and loan me the fire to make him a cup of me own tay. For +then, sir, you see, he could niver say a word to anybody except that +I was livin’ rael dacint and comfortable—ay, bedad, it is so,” she +said, glancing wistfully round the ruddily-lighted room. “But it’s a +terrible dale to be axin’ you; and very belike ’twill be a pourin’ +wet day, and you not stirrin’ out,” she added, looking behind her as +if she had several minds to vanish away through the dim rain without +waiting for an answer. + +I lost no time in cordially assenting to her plan, and the sympathy +inspired by a sincere commiseration for her dilemma, caught as she +was between two scathing fires of pride, enabled me, I believe, to +convince her that I really expected to derive some benefit from the +proposed arrangement, as I pointed out how, only for her presence +there, the house would be left empty all the afternoon, a probable +prey to passing tramps. I mentioned also that, if I happened to +appear upon the scene, it might be in the character of her lodger. +These suggestions seemed to relieve her mind. But as she was turning +to go, a difficulty occurred to me. + +“How will your nephew find his way here, Mrs Daly?” I said. “If he +asks it, you know, they’ll direct him to the wrong place.” + +“Why, sir,” she said, “I was intindin’ to step over wid meself and +meet him at the Newtownbailey station. I’ll get him aisy enough, for +there does mostly be no such great throng on the platforrm”—(arrivals +generally averaged about three)—“that I’d have much throuble sortin’ +him out. And then I could bring him along back wid me as handy as +anythin’.” + +“It’s a long walk for you, though,” said I, for Newtownbailey is a +good two miles from Carrickcrum, and a mile was a mile indeed, at the +little old woman’s “gait o’ goin’.” + +“Sure I’m well used to it,” said she, “I do be thravellin’ it these +times every Saturday after me few sugar-sticks. At Gaffney’s here +I was gettin’ them for a great while, but ever since I set up the +Sentrall Imporum, they’re chargin’ me fi’pince a dozen, and that I +couldn’t afford. Ould Gaffney himself he sez to me the laste they +could do was to be puttin’ on a pinny to the price, now that I’d took +to keep such a grand place. But fourpince is all I have to pay at +Newtownbailey.” + +“That was a spiteful trick,” I said. And a reply came from without, +as the speaker departed over the slippery, wet flags: + +“What can you get from a hog but a grunt?” said Mrs Daly. + +The morrow was not wet, as she had foreboded, but rather sultry and +showery. In the morning, with the help of my friend the Doctor’s +wife, I made some preparations for my coming guest. Part of these +consisted in hanging up on my wall-hooks sundry warm woollen skirts +and bodices, and a fine lilac-ribboned cap, with respect to which I +cherished designs. Also I spread a table with the materials for a +tea, comprising a richly-speckled barn-brack, and a seed-cake pinkly +frosted. + +I meant to go a-sketching for the day, but had not yet started +when, about noon, I saw Mrs Daly toiling up to the door laden with +a large basket—come, no doubt, to make final arrangements, before +proceeding to fetch her nephew from the station. I was in the little +room adjoining the kitchen, and, as the door stood slightly ajar, I +could watch her unpack her basket. Evidently she had determined to +trespass upon my hospitality only to the extent of house-room, for +she produced several sods of turf, besides cups, saucers, and teapot +(which held a drop of milk), paper wisps of tea and sugar, and half +a loaf of bread. These being set on the table, I saw her, to my +mortification, remove from it the cakes and other eatables, and stow +them away carefully out of sight in a press. I noticed, too, that she +laid on the shelf along with them a pair of her knitted socks, which, +I conjectured—rightly, as I afterwards learned—were a present to me +and a peace-offering to her pride. I blamed myself for not having +foreseen this preliminary visit, and deferred my preparations until a +time when she would have no opportunity to cancel them. And at first +I thought of lingering behind, and re-arranging the tea-table when +she had gone; but upon reflection it seemed more forbearing to leave +her to her own devices; so I slipped away unobserved. + +The picture of the Sentrall Imporeom still lacked a few finishing +touches, which I had, fortunately, resolved to give it in the course +of that day; and I was at work down there towards three o’clock, +when Mrs Daly drove by on a car, sitting beside a well-dressed, +middle-aged man. She wore her fine Sunday shawl, whose ample folds of +cream and fawn colour could charitably cover many defects in a body’s +toilette, and she held up her head with an air of resolute dignity, +which grew almost defiant at sight of her residence and business +premises. She gave me a stately nod as she passed, turning then to +her companion with some remark which was, I fancied, explanatory +and apologetic. I watched them round the corner, regretting that +they were on their way to such frugal fare, and hoping that the +entertainment might go off satisfactorily, despite Mrs Daly’s refusal +of my contributions to its success. + +The afternoon slid by rapidly on the rollers of my work, which was +interrupted by the occurrence of more than one sharp thundery shower. +I was still struggling to catch the effect of a sunbeam blinking +Turneresquely on a little pile of shrivelled oranges, and snatched +away capriciously by shifting clouds, when the car re-appeared, +trotting back very fast with the same load as before. + +“Sure, me nephew,” Mrs Daly told me afterwards, “found himself so +comfortable up above there, and was in such an admiration of the +grand little room, that he sted talkin’ of all manner till he’d left +himself scarce betther than a short quarther of an hour to git his +thrain, so he bid the man dhrive for every cent he was worth. He’s +a queer, outlandish way of spakin’. And I sez to him I had some +shoppin’ to do in the village, so he was givin’ me a lift.” + +Just as the car passed between my easel and the beech, a fierce +flicker of lightning quivered through the boughs, causing the horse +to shy with a wide-sweeping swerve, which brought the car-wheel full +tilt against the rickety table, whose flimsy boards fell asunder, +strewing their burdens around, while the sudden jerk flung the old +woman on the road. + +For a moment I feared some damage more tragical than that sustained +by the ruined stall; but Mrs Daly picked herself up with great +promptitude, and without any apparent injury. Her presence of mind +was evidently unscathed, for she at once remarked, calmly surveying +the wreck— + +“Bedad, now, that’ll be a loss to whatever poor body owns it.” + +“I expect it will, indeed,” said her nephew, who looked much more +perturbed than she. “It’s considerable of a smash, anyway. But look +here, Aunt Anne, perhaps you’d have no objection to taking charge of +the dollars to make all square? Because, if you’re really none the +worse for your fall, I must be making tracks for the depôt, or I’ll +not get on the cars this evening at all; and I wouldn’t miss them for +a long figure, and that’s a fact.” + +He was pulling out a bank-note, but his aunt waved it away superbly. + +“Ah, no, lad; not be any manner of manes,” she said. “Sure, what +matter about it? They were on’y a thrash of ould sticks.” + +“Speak for yourself, Mrs Daly,” I said. “The person they belong to +wouldn’t thank you.” + +“That’s so, sir,” said the stranger, who was obviously divided +between anxiety to do justice and to avoid delay. “I wonder now would +_you_ have the goodness to pass this on to the proper party?” + +I assented to the proposal with an alacrity which, had it not been +for his own hurry, might have struck him as suspicious; whereupon he +handed me the note, and drove away. He had placed, I was gratified to +learn, ten pounds’ worth of confidence in me at first sight. + +Long and elaborate, however, were the arguments which I had to use +before Mrs Daly would permit me to execute his commission. They +were tedious to recapitulate, and the most effective of them was +probably the least logical—that, namely, which urged the exultation +to be presumed in the mean Gaffneys at her unretrieved disaster. +Her scruples yielded to a judicious insistence upon this, and she +suffered the making of her fortune. For her acquisition of ten pounds +was nothing less than that, as will be readily understood by anyone +who has tried to live, for any length of time, on the profits arising +from the sale of a dozen half-penny sugar-sticks. It enabled her to +rent a much superior dwelling with a window, and to invest in quite +a large assortment of miscellaneous goods for exhibition behind the +panes, besides adding to her stock of “chuckens”; and, according to +latest reports, she was doing grandly. But the Sentrall Imporeom no +longer exists. A few days after the accident, the gaudy blue-and-red +board was found to have been removed from the beech-trunk—a deed +with which the parodied Gaffneys were credited, and at which Mrs +Daly felt rather aggrieved, as she had wished to set it over her new +door, having given up the hardships of an open-air stall. However, +she has plenty of things to pride herself on these times. And, as she +moralised: “It’s the quare low-lived tricks people does be at by way +of settin’ themselves up.” + + +THE END + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + + Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, + when a predominant preference was found in the original book. + + Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the + text, inconsistent or archaic usage, and dialect have been left + unchanged. + + Pg 27: ‘little intercouse’ replaced by ‘little intercourse’. + Pg 49: ‘incident befel’ replaced by ‘incident befell’. + Pg 72: ‘spinister aunts’ replaced by ‘spinster aunts’. + Pg 110: ‘at the the three’ replaced by ‘at the three’. + Pg 114: ‘up their by’ replaced by ‘up there by’. + Pg 129: ‘rest of the the’ replaced by ‘rest of the’. + Pg 240: ‘she produeed’ replaced by ‘she produced’. + Pg 287: ‘negligable threats’ replaced by ‘negligible threats’. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75587 *** |