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padding-top: .1em; padding-bottom: .1em;} + +.wd5 {width: 5%;} +.wd50 {width: 50%;} +.wd70 {width: 70%;} + + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + color: #A9A9A9; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: .5em;} + + +/* general placement and presentation */ +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} +.lsp {letter-spacing: 0.1em;} +.lsp2 {letter-spacing: 0.2em;} +.lht {line-height: 1.5em;} + + +/* Images */ +img {border: none; + max-width: 100%; + height: auto;} + +img.w100 {width: 100%; padding-top: 1em;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%;} + + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry {display: inline-block; font-size: 85%} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .indentq {text-indent: -3.5em;} + +/* large inline blocks don't split well on paged devices */ +.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block; margin-left: 4.5em;} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif;} + +.transnote p {text-indent: 0em;} + + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp50 {width: 50%;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75587 ***</div> + + +<div class="transnote"> +<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p> + +<p>Some minor changes to the text are noted at the <a href="#TN">end of the book.</a> +<span class="screenonly">These are indicated by a <ins class="corr">dashed blue</ins> underline.</span></p> +</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="cover" style="max-width: 50em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Original cover"> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<h1>A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES</h1> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="p4 p6b pfs85"> +“Ὅσσ’ ἕλομεν, λιπόμεσθ’· ὅσα δ’ οὐχ ἕλομεν, φερόμεσθα.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="p2 pfs180 lsp lht"> +A CREEL OF IRISH<br> +STORIES</p> + +<p class="p6 pfs70">BY</p> +<p class="pfs135 lsp">JANE BARLOW</p> +<p class="p2 pfs60">AUTHOR OF “IRISH IDYLLS”</p> + +<p class="p6 pfs100">METHUEN & CO.</p> +<p class="pfs90 lsp">36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.</p> +<p class="pfs90">LONDON</p> +<p class="pfs100">1897</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="p6 p6b pfs60"> +PRINTED BY<br> +W. H. WHITE AND CO. LTD<br> +RIVERSIDE PRESS<br> +EDINBURGH</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="p6 pfs70">TO</p> +<p class="p4b pfs120">J. W. B.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<h2 class="p4 nobreak fs120" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> + +<table class="autotable fs70 wd70"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr fs60">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE KEYS OF THE CHEST</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">A DESERTED CHILD</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">AN ACCOUNT SETTLED</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE SNAKES AND NORAH</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THREE PINT MEASURES</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE SURREE AT MAHON’S</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE SHORTEST WAY</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE STAY-AT-HOMES</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">A PROUD WOMAN</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[Pg 1]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="THE_KEYS_OF_THE_CHEST">THE KEYS OF THE CHEST</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120">THE KEYS OF THE CHEST</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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 <em>the Nick of Time</em>. I once asked +the reason of a gossoon who was guiding me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span> +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 <em>sogging</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span> +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 <i lang="fr">raison d’être</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> +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 <em>up-urny</em>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“Me?” said Eileen, startled.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t it look like a great big box, +Norah?” she said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Her random words gave Eileen the shock of +a new idea. Perhaps there really might be +silver, quantities of silver, in it. For why<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> +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 <cite>The +Churchyard Prattler</cite>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> +moralised his lively researches into the strains +of a brief rime-doggerel hymn:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="verse indentq">“<i>Oft may be found</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>A grassy mound</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>By the yew-tree,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Much less than me;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>It seems to cry:</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prepare to die!</i>”</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">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.</p> + +<p>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 <cite>The Glittering Hoard in the Coffer of +Stone</cite>; 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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 <em>up-urny</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>is</em> an exceedingly +safe place where you keep the plate now, Timothy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“It is so bedad, missy,” said the old man +resignedly, “we’ve took good care of that.”</p> + +<p>“How many people do <em>you</em> think it would +take to lift off the lid of the chest?” said +Eileen.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Oh, then, it’s locked?” said Eileen.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“So I do, Timothy,” said Eileen. “It’s +villins. But I think I don’t quite understand +the reason of <em>them</em>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span></p> + +<p>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 <cite>Glittering Hoard</cite> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span> +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 <em>me</em>?” 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span> +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 <ins class="corr" id="tn-27" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'little intercouse'"> +little intercourse</ins> with her fellow-creatures.</p> + +<p>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 <em>many</em> days.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Why, <em>you’ll</em> 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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span> +“<em>Were</em> you ever up so high?” he asked, +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span></p> + +<p>“That <em>is</em> funny,” said Eileen; “I don’t think +they ever do here. And I suppose they drop +down when they awake?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I rather fancy they never do awake,” +said Pierce.</p> + +<p>“Never at all? Are you quite sure, now, +that they’re not <em>dormouses</em>, Pierce?” said +Eileen wisely.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> +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 <em>pinny</em> 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 <em>lost</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> +takes an impression of the lock with cobbler’s +wax; <em>I</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Less satisfactory was the result of an interview +which she had shortly afterwards with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> +as plisant as anythin’” with young +Larry M‘Farlane, “that was sister’s son to ould +Pather Doran, and bad luck to <em>him</em>.” 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 <em>had</em> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> +boulder, and, standing by it, Eileen said forlornly: +“Next time I’ll only be myself.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I may be here again next summer,” +Pierce said encouragingly. He had already +learned by experience that even twelve months +are not interminable.</p> + +<p>“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. <em>You</em> don’t know +how soon you are going to die, Pierce, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Not I, nor anybody else,” said Pierce.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“She mightn’t be able,” said Pierce.</p> + +<p>“Ah, and then it would only tantinglise her,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> +said Eileen, “so I’d better not. But I’m +sorry.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t forget that you must send me word, +if they lose the key, and you want another,” +Pierce said to change the subject.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I should think not indeed, Miss Eileen,” said +Pierce; “you’re no age worth speaking of at all.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Long enough for what?” said her Aunt +Geraldine. “It seems to me to be a very +pretty little brooch, and it was exceedingly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> +good-natured of your cousin to think of +sending you one.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a very decent poor man at the door,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, those are nothing but little crumbs, only +fit for the chickens.”</p> + +<p>“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 <em>it’s</em> ever apt to be, +starved or no, except makin’ throuble for +itself and other people.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>All this while the big boulder stone was +lying out under the stars and mists and +shadow-shifting winds on the grassy ridge of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>More than ever on the morning when this +<ins class="corr" id="tn-49" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'incident befel'"> +incident befell</ins>: 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was late on a wild bleak evening that +Pierce arrived, after a long open-air day of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span></p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> +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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> +gradually arguing herself into courage; still +a mere shadow falling anywhere would have +routed it.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>law</em>, and +really when people are starving, one can’t be +expected to wait for years and years just on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> +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 <em>is</em> 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 <cite>Glittering Hoard</cite>! You do remember +that I told you, and that you promised +about the key, don’t you, Pierce?” she said<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know that you’re talking +nonsense, Eileen?” he said.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 <ins class="corr" id="tn-72" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'spinister aunts'"> +spinster aunts</ins>.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“No reasonable child would believe anything +so preposterous,” Pierce replied with +gloom. “A rough lump of a boulder with +moss growing in the cracks!”</p> + +<p>“And did you tell her so?” asked his aunt.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> +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 <em>stookawn</em>, 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t wonder if it was very apt to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I dunno where the great likeness is then,” +said old Reilly, who had not a taste for +instruction.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Have it your own way, lads,” said old +Reilly, sublimely abandoning the whole expanse +of the heavens to them with a comprehensive<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span> +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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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’——”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> +which he could invent himself no plausible +answer.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span></p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="verse indentq">“<i>Oh sunny blooms Slieve Cryan, where the gold boughs creep together,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>With honey on the high cliff in ten thousand bells of heather.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>For the morn that fears no morrow is there bliss in flower and bee,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>And in one heart sorrow, sorrow, for the hope that wafts to sea.</i>”</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“What was that, man? What is it?” he said, +pulling the sleeve of Paddy Murray, who was +nearest to him.</p> + +<p>“Somebody’s hurted for sartin,” declared +Paddy.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, we was intendin’ to get it done that +arly there’d ha’ been no fear of e’er a sowl<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span> +about; ’twas the fau’t of the divil of an ould +fog delayin’ us.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Och you may depind—half-a-dozen.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not kilt at all she is, I’m thinkin’. +The Docther’s apt to say she’ll be finely agin +prisently.”</p> + +<p>“Bedad now, you might ha’ more wit, man—Och, +it’s on’y poor Crazy Christy.”</p> + +<p>The sound, but not the sense, of this discussion +reached Pierce, and vaguely irritated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“<em>God?</em>” 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span> +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——”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span> +instructions about paying for a couple of loads +of stones that were just after coming over from +Smith’s place beyond Clonmoragh, where <em>he</em> +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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak lsp2" id="A_DESERTED_CHILD">A DESERTED CHILD</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp2">A DESERTED CHILD</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> +the way down from Dublin that he might be +present at her induction into her new abode.</p> + +<p>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 <em>said</em> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span> +occur when one is verging on threescore-and-ten +have a discouraging air of finality.</p> + +<p>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 <em>moidhered</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> +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 <ins class="corr" id="tn-110" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'at the the three'"> +at the three</ins> 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.”</p> + +<p>“Over where is it?” said Nannie, impressed +and alarmed by the redundancy of +Judy’s asseverations.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span> +them”—she said, with appalling vagueness. +“Och mercy on us all and more too, if you +on’y was.”</p> + +<p>“What sort seein’?” said Nannie, with increasing +anxiety. The row had shortened +itself considerably, the children had shrunk so +close together.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>he</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>The children stared at her round-eyed like +a bunch of fascinated little birds.</p> + +<p>“Well now, but it’s the terrible big red snake +<em>he</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span> +bould little children talkin’ of leppin’ down the +high banks after blackberries.”</p> + +<p>“We worn’t,” said Biddy, with a howl.</p> + +<p>“Where is he asleep at all?” said Nannie +in a hoarse whisper.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> +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’ <em>cruel</em> to +himsel, ‘Whoo-oo-o, let me be comin’ at them.’”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>It was in this way that Judy Flower became +an inmate of the Round Lodge, being carried +<ins class="corr" id="tn-114" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'up their by'"> +up there by</ins> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span> +frettin’ after Judy, for she’s apt to play plinty +more fool’s thricks yit, if that’s all ails you.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Under these discouraging circumstances, +aggravated by wild wind and rain, Mrs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span> +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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> +They’d be apt to put it out of that, after it +doin’ such a thing.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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; <em>some</em> time, of course, +but <em>other</em> certainly; and the opinion betrayed +itself on her countenance.</p> + +<p>“Well, and what way are you, Judy?” said Mrs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span> +Flower, pausing as she found herself observed; +“grandly you look to be set up in there, bedad.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no hurry whatsomever,” said Mrs +Moran rather stiffly. “Let alone that the child’s +noways fit to be streelin’ about the counthry.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“’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.”</p> + +<p>“Well, good-bye to you, Judy,” said her +mother. “I’ll not come near you, I’m that +muddy and wet.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> +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——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="AN_ACCOUNT_SETTLED">AN ACCOUNT SETTLED</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp">AN ACCOUNT SETTLED</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span></p> + +<p>“What at all’s gone wid the <ins class="corr" id="tn-129" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'rest of the the'"> +rest of the</ins> 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.”</p> + +<p>“Belike <em>they</em> niver put down the last person +had some,” suggested Tom, disassociating himself +from the transaction with prompt presence +of mind.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“Yourself’s after biddin’ me get Dan +Farrell’s,” Stevie replied.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span> +a couple of pound of them biscuits, or anythin’—the +way there’ll be no bother wid +change comin’ out of his note.”</p> + +<p>“Biscuits he didn’t get, I’ll take me living +oath,” said Stevie confidently.</p> + +<p>“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, <em>you</em>’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—</p> + +<p>“Troth and bedad, it’s nicely bogged a +man’ll be thrampin’ them roads after these +polthogues.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span> +Farrell’s account with the following entries, +which were purely efforts of imagination—</p> + +<table class="autotable fs70 wd50"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl tlht"></td> +<td class="tdr tlht wd5"><i>s.</i></td> +<td class="tdr tlht wd5"><i>d.</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl tlht">Extry male</td> +<td class="tdr tlht">2</td> +<td class="tdr tlht">3</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl tlht">Shuger</td> +<td class="tdr tlht">1</td> +<td class="tdr tlht">0</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl tlht">Other extrys</td> +<td class="tdr tlht">1</td> +<td class="tdr tlht">9</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p class="noindent">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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span> +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—</p> + +<p>“And if here isn’t one of the young Grogans +slingein’ along over the bridge.”</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span> +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—</p> + +<p>“And what way was the fair a’ Tuesday?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“But you’re after selling a couple?” said +Stevie.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, now, it’s you farmers that are the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, bedad,” Dan assented dejectedly, “will +you be steppin’ inside?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span></p> + +<p>“Musha, Sally, it’s a terrible sight of sugar +you seem to ha’ been usin’.”</p> + +<p>Upon this Stevie of course said—</p> + +<p>“And I’m sure <em>she</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“Won’erful fine talk you have,” said Sarah.</p> + +<p>“And divil a word but the truth, talkin’ of +you,” rejoined Stevie, sidling a little nearer to +her along his rickety-legged bench.</p> + +<p>Sarah replied by making a threatening +demonstration with her needle, which caused +her frail thread to snap.</p> + +<p>“There now, you have it broke on me,” she +said, “and sorra the bit of you’s worth the +throuble of tyin’ a knot.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“There’s that,” he said.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span> +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—</p> + +<p>“There was thim five shillin’s comin’ to us,” +said Stevie, continuing to look at Dan.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“Sure, girl alive, I’ve got the note here right +enough.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s my belief ’twas the dirtiest one you +had that you sorted out,” replied Sarah<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span> +promptly. “Now <em>I</em>’ve found him a dacint +clane one; and I’m sure you’d a dale liefer +be takin’ it wid you, Mr Grogan?”</p> + +<p>“’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.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span> +stones, it saves better than a mile when you +get into the bog over yonder.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span> +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:</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span> +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—</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all you know about it,” said Sarah, +with mysterious glee. She glanced round to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“And what at all did you do that for?” +asked Brian after a puzzled pause.</p> + +<p>“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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“It was no thing to go do,” said Brian +gruffly, “to be playin’ them sort of thricks.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You’d a right to be sendin’ him the rael +note now,” said Brian with decision.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You got the resate off of him for nothin’ +at all,” said Brian; “he’s never been ped.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span> +And the river makes no differ. How would it, +when he hadn’t anythin’ of yours to lose in it?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Brian listened quite unimpressed, having no +turn for casuistry. He now condescended, +however, to urge an objection based upon +the expedient.</p> + +<p>“And what’ll your uncle say to it, when +he finds he’s got a pound too much?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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’.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“Och now, Sarah, is it cross wid me ye’re +goin’ to be all this time?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t me that’s cross wid anybody at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span> +all,” said Sarah, subsiding lamentably from +her dignified attitude.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“Begorra, that’s the very same way it was +wid me just now,” said Brian.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p> + +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="MNEILLS_TIGER-SHEEP">M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp">M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>kibbed</em>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Three of them, no less,” said Margaret.</p> + +<p>“M‘Neills’, you may bet your brogues,” said +Hugh.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>There were several reasons why doubts of +the M‘Neills’ responsibility in the matter should +be relegated to the divil. In the first place,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> +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 <em>his</em> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> +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, <em>crottal</em>, 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“But it’s rustlin’ in the straw,—I heard it,—and +duntin’ the door wid its head like,” +Molly persisted.</p> + +<p>“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’.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span> +instead of trotting off quite satisfied, when once +she was released and at liberty to resume her +fastidious nibbling among the dewy tussocks.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“’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!”</p> + +<p>“It’s a bad job,” said old Joe M‘Neill, shaking +his despondent white head.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span> +her goin’ about that scandalous figure. I can’t +abide the sight of her.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span> +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 <em>rabble</em>, +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span> +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 <em>ugly</em>-lookin’ +gomeral, Pat O’Farrell, slingein’ down the +road below Widdy Byrne’s.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span> +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 <em>was</em> long sorry, poor soul, through +many a lonesome day and anxious night.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>Then the autumn days shrivelled and +shrank, and one morning in late November +the word went round Meenaclure that the +<em>Kaley</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span> +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’.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.’”</p> + +<p>“And where’s the wife, Paudyeen agra?” +said Pat’s mother; “or maybe she sted below +wid the child?”</p> + +<p>“And where’s himself, Molly jewel?” said +Molly’s mother. “Sure you didn’t come your +lone?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span></p> + +<p>“Why, here he is,” said Molly. “Pat, man, +wasn’t you spakin’ to me mother?”</p> + +<p>“Och, whethen now, and is it Pat O’Farrell?” +his mother-in-law said with a half-strangled gasp.</p> + +<p>“And who else would it be at all at all, +only Pat?” said Molly, as if propounding an +unanswerable argument.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Sure I was writin’ to you all about her +times and agin,” Pat averred stoutly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span> +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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="THE_SNAKES_AND_NORAH">THE SNAKES AND NORAH</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp">THE SNAKES AND NORAH</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> +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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span></p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Look-a, Joe, at what I’m after findin’,” +he called jubilantly.</p> + +<p>“Findin’? Musha moyah! that’s fine +talkin’,” said Joe. “And where at all did +you find it, then?”</p> + +<p>“Where it was to be had,” said Tom, +promptly adjusting his tone to Joe’s, which +was offensive.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span> +they find sittin’ on other people’s yard-walls.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span> +straight ways in to your sister Mary,” said +Tom, “that you need go for to be risin’ rows +about the matter.”</p> + +<p>“It’s for Rose’s Christmas box; that’s what +I think bad of,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span> +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—</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“You’ve got it this time,” Joe remarked in +a sarcastic aside.</p> + +<p>“—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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“To the one half of it,” corrected Tom,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span> +with emphasis. But his sister tapped him +with the pot-stick, and said, “Whisht, you big +omadhawn, whisht.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span> +box, and was disposed to take a rather +languid and cynical view of affairs.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>The young people were not, however, with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span> +the golden snake-chain in her hands, that +suggested the thing, but at any rate Norah +suddenly bethought her of the <em>Piast</em>. 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.</p> + +<p>It was, in fact, only a harmless and rather +bewildered seal, who, during the past night’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span> +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 <em>Piast</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>Those glowering yellow eyes being blurred +out of her recollection, the <em>Piast</em> 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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak lsp2" id="THREE_PINT_MEASURES">THREE PINT MEASURES</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp2">THREE PINT MEASURES</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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 <em>is</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span> +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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span> +shingle which succeeded them gave place to +a breadth of glistening mud.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“Sure, no,” said Bill; “I’m shankin’ into +town meself as soon as I can get th’ ould strap +mended.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span> +handy, for it’s cleared out we are to-night +intirely. What all I have for the supper +wouldn’t pacify a scutty wren.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak lsp2" id="THE_SURREE_AT_MAHONS">THE SURREE AT MAHON’S</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp2">THE SURREE AT MAHON’S</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, to be sure,” said Rose, “and say me +aunt can’t spare you convanient afore Friday.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span> +until in the end <ins class="corr" id="tn-240" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'she produeed'"> +she produced</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i lang="fr">fiancée</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>Do not suppose that the Surree danced jigs.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span> +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—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="verse indent6"><i>A brown lough</i></div> + <div class="verse indent6"><i>Wid a white strand,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sorra the ship could sail around it,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>But I can hould it in my hand</i>;</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span></p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span> +I was afraid of me life to look round and +see.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span> +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 <i lang="fr">dénouement</i>, 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span> +for the moment Bridget Doran set eyes on +her she sprang at her and caught her in a +great hug—</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span> +two’d do but let yells at me, and run +away like scared turkeys.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span></p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="THE_SHORTEST_WAY">THE SHORTEST WAY</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp">THE SHORTEST WAY</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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.”</p> + +<p>“That I won’t, my man,” said Mr Rochfort, +“unless it can be done uncommonly smart, for +I’ve no time to waste.”</p> + +<p>“It’s as short as it’s long,” said Hugh. “But<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span> +you needn’t mind about <em>thim</em>”—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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“Just wait a bit, till I tell you.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, it’s making up for lost time now, +at all events,” said the District-Inspector, and +had to be stopped again.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“If I were you, Christie, I’d go home, out +of the rain,” replied the District-Inspector.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Ay did she, last Friday week in Shrole +Union; for the daughter that kep’ her out of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span> +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’.”</p> + +<p>“The unlucky devil,” said the District-Inspector.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span> +into the rowlin’ river, and meself after it—faix +would I, the Lord knows.’</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“It’s hard to say,” said the District-Inspector: +“but what <em>did</em> you do?”</p> + +<p>“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.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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—<em>glory be to God</em>.’ +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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span> +‘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.’</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span></p> + +<p>“But why should you have said more?” +asked the District-Inspector. “The bridge +is safe enough. Wasn’t the man sober?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“And are you certain that the bridge +hadn’t been mended?” said the District-Inspector.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span></p> + +<p>“But if you didn’t wait, how do you know +that he mayn’t have turned back?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a very curious case,” said the District-Inspector, +beginning instinctively to grope +about for precedents, and finding none.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Look,” said Hugh excitedly, standing up +straight and pointing towards the water.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span></p> + +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="THE_STAY-AT-HOMES">THE STAY-AT-HOMES</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp">THE STAY-AT-HOMES</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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 <em>comether</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span></p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span> +her meet me at the thrain. ’Twould be +pleasant to see a body one knew.”</p> + +<p>“Middlin’ pleasant it might be. But, saints +above, woman, you needn’t tell <em>me</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well, Dinny,” she said, recognising it +without turning her head, “and what’s the +best good news wid you?”</p> + +<p>“Och nothin’ at all, ma’am,” said Dinny.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Thank’ee kindly, ma’am,” Dinny said, +gloomily, “but divil a thrain I’ll be thravellin’ +in.”</p> + +<p>“Mercy on us all—what’s after happ’nin’ you, +man?” she said, whirling round in consternation.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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 +<ins class="corr" id="tn-287" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'negligable threats'"> +negligible threats</ins> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span> +stookawn of a gomeral on the townland, just +get me him that is?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“’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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Where’s yourself, lad?” said Mrs Rea.</p> + +<p>“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’.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Thus it came to pass that Denis Fitzpatrick +was after all one of the party who on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“And what’d ail him to be ragin’?” said +Norah, “or what call’d he have to be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if he knew, it’s a quare thing,” Mrs +Rea began.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Musha, thin, she’s not got very far yet, +that’s sartin. But, goodness help you, man<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“It was an onthruth she tould you,” said +Mrs Rea.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“What for would <em>I</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Bedad, Dinny, I’m thinkin’ it wint off to +Dublin along wid you,” she said. “Anyhow +it’s quit away surprisin’.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span></p> +<h2 class="p4 p4b nobreak" id="A_PROUD_WOMAN">A PROUD WOMAN</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span><br> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span></p> + +<p class="p2 p1b pfs120 lsp">A PROUD WOMAN</p> + +<p class="drop-capy">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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span> +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:—</p> + +<p class="smcap pfs120">The Sentrall Imporeom.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>“’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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span> +other things, and above which ran, large and +yellow, “<span class="smcap">General Emporium</span>.” “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’.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a>[306]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>So Mrs Daly philosophised; and when she +had finished I bought an orange, and went +on my way.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>Mrs Daly arrived with something evidently +on her mind. She was not likely, indeed, to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span> +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:—</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312"></a>[312]</span> +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’.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313"></a>[313]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span> +much throuble sortin’ him out. And then I +could bring him along back wid me as handy +as anythin’.”</p> + +<p>“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’.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“That was a spiteful trick,” I said. And +a reply came from without, as the speaker +departed over the slippery, wet flags:</p> + +<p>“What can you get from a hog but a grunt?” +said Mrs Daly.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315"></a>[315]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316"></a>[316]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span> +to such frugal fare, and hoping that the entertainment +might go off satisfactorily, despite Mrs +Daly’s refusal of my contributions to its success.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span> +whose flimsy boards fell asunder, strewing their +burdens around, while the sudden jerk flung the +old woman on the road.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“Bedad, now, that’ll be a loss to whatever +poor body owns it.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>He was pulling out a bank-note, but his aunt +waved it away superbly.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span></p> + +<p>“Speak for yourself, Mrs Daly,” I said. +“The person they belong to wouldn’t thank you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s so, sir,” said the stranger, who was obviously +divided between anxiety to do justice and +to avoid delay. “I wonder now would <em>you</em> have +the goodness to pass this on to the proper party?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320"></a>[320]</span> +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.”</p> + + +<p class="p4 p2b pfs90">THE END</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="p4 transnote"> +<a id="TN"></a> +<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p> + +<p>Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, +when a predominant preference was found in the original book.</p> + +<p>Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the +text, inconsistent or archaic usage, and dialect have been left +unchanged.</p> + +<p> +<a href="#tn-27">Pg 27</a>: ‘little intercouse’ replaced by ‘little intercourse’.<br> +<a href="#tn-49">Pg 49</a>: ‘incident befel’ replaced by ‘incident befell’.<br> +<a href="#tn-72">Pg 72</a>: ‘spinister aunts’ replaced by ‘spinster aunts’.<br> +<a href="#tn-110">Pg 110</a>: ‘at the the three’ replaced by ‘at the three’.<br> +<a href="#tn-114">Pg 114</a>: ‘up their by’ replaced by ‘up there by’.<br> +<a href="#tn-129">Pg 129</a>: ‘rest of the the’ replaced by ‘rest of the’.<br> +<a href="#tn-240">Pg 240</a>: ‘she produeed’ replaced by ‘she produced’.<br> +<a href="#tn-287">Pg 287</a>: ‘negligable threats’ replaced by ‘negligible threats’.</p> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75587 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75587-h/images/cover.jpg b/75587-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c433791 --- /dev/null +++ b/75587-h/images/cover.jpg |
