{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75587/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75587","id":"gutenberg_75587","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75587","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction","Short stories, English -- Irish authors"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n\n  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.\n\n\n\n\n                       A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES\n\n\n       \u201c\u1f4d\u03c3\u03c3\u2019 \u1f15\u03bb\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u03bb\u03b9\u03c0\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u2019\u00b7 \u1f45\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b4\u2019 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c7 \u1f15\u03bb\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                           A CREEL OF IRISH\n                               STORIES\n\n\n                                  BY\n                             JANE BARLOW\n                       AUTHOR OF \u201cIRISH IDYLLS\u201d\n\n\n                            METHUEN & CO.\n                        36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.\n                                LONDON\n                                 1897\n\n\n\n\n                              PRINTED BY\n                       W. H. WHITE AND CO. LTD\n                           RIVERSIDE PRESS\n                              EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n                                  TO\n\n                               J. W. B.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                             PAGE\n\n  THE KEYS OF THE CHEST         1\n\n  A DESERTED CHILD             97\n\n  AN ACCOUNT SETTLED          125\n\n  M\u2018NEILLS\u2019 TIGER-SHEEP       155\n\n  THE SNAKES AND NORAH        185\n\n  THREE PINT MEASURES         211\n\n  THE SURREE AT MAHON\u2019S       231\n\n  THE SHORTEST WAY            253\n\n  THE STAY-AT-HOMES           271\n\n  A PROUD WOMAN               299\n\n\n\n\nTHE KEYS OF THE CHEST\n\n\n\n\nTHE KEYS OF THE CHEST\n\n\nThe little valley of Letterglas is a very green and very lonesome\nplace almost always, for snow seldom lies on it, and the few people\nwho come into it depart again even sooner and as tracelessly, so that\nits much grass spreads from month to month uncovered and untrodden.\nIt runs westward\u2014that is, towards the ocean\u2014but never reaches the\nshore, because a great grassy curtain intervenes, curved round the\nend of it, and prolonged in the lower hill-ranges that bound it to\nnorth and south. They are just swarded embankments of most simple\nconstruction, with scarcely a fold to complicate the sweep of their\nsmooth green slopes, and the outline of their ridge against the\nsky undulates as softly as young corn in a drowsy breeze. Only at\none point\u2014about midway on the right hand looking westward\u2014it is\nsuddenly broken by a sharp dip down and up again, making a gap like\nan inverted Gothic arch. And this is called by everybody _the Nick\nof Time_. I once asked the reason of a gossoon who was guiding me\nover the opposite hills, but he replied: \u201cSure, what else would they\nbe callin\u2019 it?\u201d Nor have I ever yet lighted upon a more satisfactory\nexplanation.\n\nThe effect of Letterglas\u2019s solitude and verdure somehow seems to be\nheightened if one notices its single visible sign of human handiwork.\nThis is a road-track, now all but quite grassed over, leading into\nthe valley from its open end, where the Clonmoragh highway passes,\nand stopping aimlessly at the slope immediately below the Nick,\nhaving first flung two or three zig-zag loops up the hillside.\nA rust-eaten, handleless shovel, and the wreck of an overturned\nwheelbarrow, still mark the point where the work was abandoned on a\nmisty morning in April, more than fifty springs ago; but the track\nitself is now merely a most faint difference of shade in the sward,\nwhich has crept back again indefatigably, even where the austere\nroad-metal had been thrown clattering down.\n\nA day before that misty morning, if anybody had climbed up and\nhad passed through the Nick of Time, in at which the new road was\nto go, he would have found himself on a long level of fine-bladed\nturf, stretching like a lofty causeway laid down atop of the\nhill-embankment Everything else up there looked so softly smooth and\nflecklessly green that the eye was at once caught by a big block of\nstone, which stood just opposite the gap, at a few yards\u2019 distance.\nIt was an oblong mass of blackish limestone, perhaps seven feet by\nfour, with a shape curiously symmetrical for a piece of Nature\u2019s\nrough-hewing; plumb-and-rule guided chisel could scarcely have made\nits lines truer. That, and its solitariness, uncompanioned as far\nas could be seen by so much as a single pebble, gave its aspect an\nincongruity which prompted the question how it had come there; for\nwhose answer we must revert through unimaginable wastes of years to\nthe time when our last huge ice-sheet was scoring and grinding all\nthe country\u2019s face on its slithering way to the western ocean. Then\nit was that this big boulder dropped fortuitously through a small\nrent in the isle-wide coverlid, and so being left behind did not\nshare in the final weltering plunge a few miles farther on, where\nthe stark folds slipped over the sea-cliffs like the counterpane\noff a restless sleeper\u2019s bed. Ever since that catastrophe it had\nsat there looking rather like a rude unwieldy coffer or chest,\na portion\u2014as in fact it had been\u2014of the impedimenta carried and\nlost by some Titanic traveller. The resemblance was increased by a\nclean-cut horizontal crack, no doubt sustained when the mass came\n_sogging_ heavily to earth, which ran all round it, a few inches\nfrom the top, counterfeiting a lid. All the old ages that had passed\nover it afterwards had wrought only slight changes in its aspect. As\nthe years went on, the dark peaty mould deepened a little about its\nbase, and dull golden and silvery lichen-circlets crept out here and\nthere like wraiths of the sun and moon beams that had touched it.\nOtherwise it was unaltered, and for many a long century so were its\nsurroundings.\n\nBut at last a new feature appeared among them; a very inobtrusive\none. Fifty years ago, anybody approaching the big stone from the Nick\nof Time might have observed that a little footpath led up to it from\nthe contrary direction, and went no farther. A more inartificial path\ncould not well be: a simple product of steps going to and fro. You\nmight have supposed a sheep-walk, only that there were no fleeces\nnibbling over Letterglas. Indeed, its most frequent passers-by being\nsuch promiscuous wayfarers as the shadows of wings and clouds, it\nwas not easy to conjecture any plausible _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ for this\ntrack, which ran distinctly defined, though faintly, merely a crease\nin the flowing sward mantle, not a seam worn threadbare, so to speak,\nthrough to the brown earth. Certainly the rather gloomy-looking block\nhad no apparent attractions wherewith to invite resort, not even a\nview, as it stood at the bottom of a very shallow dent in the green.\nYet there the path ended; and if you took a dozen steps to the brow\nof the hill, you could trace the course of that pale thin line far\ndown the slopes; through the fenceless \u201cmountainy land\u201d first, and\nthen into two or three steep, dyke-girdled fields, before it was lost\namong the round-topped trees which gathered about a rambling old\nmansion-house. Whoever visited the big stone evidently thought it\nworth while to come a long way.\n\nSuch an humble and artless path has always a certain element\nof romance about it, lacking in more pretentious thoroughfares\ncontracted for at so much a mile. They differ as does a brook from a\ncanal. Like the brook, which has wrought itself as it went along,\nwith and by its own purpose, the little footpath has some special\nmeaning and object, albeit perhaps a less obvious one. It is the\nvisible trail of a want or wish, though of what kind we may be\nunaware, and with want or wish it will cease to exist, or soon after.\nFor the living green things will creep back and efface it speedily.\nBut meanwhile it seems half to keep and half to betray a secret: you\ncan only guess what has brought feet thither day by day to tread it\nout.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFifty years ago or more, you would have been likely enough any fine\nmorning to catch the chief maker of this particular path in the\nact. If the years were, say, ten more, it would have proved to be\na very little little-girl, whose brown hair held both sunshine and\nshadow, and whose hazel-green eyes were softly lit, and who in those\nearly days of hers always wore an ugly reddish checked pelisse, and\na broad-brimmed straw hat with velvet rosettes to match. This was\nlittle Eileen Fitzmaurice, six or seven years old, who, ever since\nshe could recollect anything, and maybe some twelve months longer,\nhad lived with her mother and aunt at the Big House in Glendoula. As\nyou would, no doubt, never guess her errand up the side of Slieve\nArdgreine, I will at once explain that she was seeing after the\nsafety of her family plate.\n\nAlthough Eileen had herself no recollection of anywhere else than\nthis Glendoula, a valley much resembling its neighbour Letterglas,\nbut with its green dotted and chequered by a few cabins and fields,\nshe knew by hearsay that there was another place in the world, a most\nwonderful place called Drumlough Castle or At Home, where \u201cthere\nwouldn\u2019t be as much as a wing of a cold chicken served in the parlour\nwithout its silver dish under it, and as for the ould black sideboard\nof an evenin\u2019 there would be company in it, that now was somethin\u2019\nworth lookin\u2019 at; the full moon on a dark night was a joke to the big\nsalvers.\u201d To be sure there were there other fine things innumerable,\nwhich would have appealed quite as strongly to her imagination, if\nthey had had equal justice done to them; however, it was upon these\nthat Eileen\u2019s informant always laid most stress, for she looked\nback to her ancient home through the eyes of old Timothy Gabbett,\nthe lame butler, whose pride and affection had dwelt in his pantry\nand plate-chest, enjoying their supreme moments before a gala-night\nspectacle of snowy and crystal and lustrous argent gleams.\n\nYet this paradise, of which old Timothy used to say mournfully,\n\u201cAh, Miss Eileen, them was the rael times,\u201d was haunted by lurking\nshadows. Eileen never learned the true reason of their exile: how\nwild Sir Gerald, her father, had been found one summer morning\nentangled among the serpentine coils of the water-weeds at the end of\nthe lake, with his only son and heir dead in his arms, three-year-old\nJack, who, when told by the garden-boy Mick that the master was\nlooking for him high ways and low ways, had stumped off greatly\nelated, with no foreboding of the method in which Sir Gerald had\nresolved to settle his grievously involved affairs. She had been\ntoo small a baby then to be conscious of her mother\u2019s flight from\nthe memories of Drumlough, and the circumstances of their coming\nto Glendoula remained for her in their original obscurity. But\nshe very quickly perceived that it was worse than useless to ask\nquestions on such subjects of anybody except old Timothy, and that\nany allusion to his stories in the presence of her elders was a grave\nmisdemeanour, which made her invalid mother cry, and her melancholy\naunt scold; and Eileen would have desisted at a subtler hint. She\ndid not often wonder why this should be, because her world was so\nfull of mysteries that she generally accepted their existence as a\nmatter of course. There was just one of them, however, that exercised\nher mind not a little, and that she sometimes vainly tried to get\ncleared up. She wanted to know what had become of all those most\nbeautiful silver things that Timothy talked about\u2014the great shining\nsalvers, the claret-jugs, the tankards and flagons, the piles \u201cas\nhigh as your head, Miss Eileen,\u201d of plates with a polish on them \u201cthe\nstars in the sky might be the betther of gettin\u2019,\u201d and the grand\npotato-rings, and the frosted cake-baskets, and the tall _up-urny_,\nwhich seemed to be a marvellous composition of lights and flowers.\nOf all these resplendent objects, the only one, a few uninteresting\nspoons and forks excepted, that apparently had moved with the family\nto Glendoula, was an antique teapot of fantastic shape. It could\nno longer be used for its proper purpose, owing to the infirmity of\nits dragon-tail handle, but old Timothy turned it to account in his\nown way. You would always have been warned that it was Quality\u2014and\nQuality was almost invariably either Dr M\u2018Clintock or Canon Roche\u2014who\nhad called at Glendoula House had you seen Timothy hobbling to\nanswer the bell. For, having reconnoitred through the half-glass\nback hall-door, it was his practice in such cases to equip himself\nwith the old teapot and a bit of \u201cshammy,\u201d that he might appear\nrubbing up ostentatiously, and muttering a stereotyped apology: \u201cBeg\nyour pardon, sir, but there does be such a terrible sight of silver\nclanin\u2019 in this house that I scarce git time to lay a bit out of me\nhand.\u201d All the while he felt more than half-conscious that it was a\npoor and rather unseemly pretence; but he had not much invention, and\ncould devise no better expedient for the magnifying of his diminished\noffice and the upholding of the family\u2019s fallen fortune. Nor was\nhe ready with any very satisfactory answers when Eileen questioned\nhim about the present bestowal of his treasures. Full well he\nknew that they had long since gone to the Jews and other hopeless\ndestinations, and were by this time irrecognisably melted down, or,\nmore intolerable still, adorning alien boards, and subject to alien\npowder and brushes. This knowledge gave him acute pangs, which made\nhis replies curt and vague. \u201cWhere are they now, Miss Eily? Ah, sure,\njust put away somewheres safe; they\u2019re not wanted these times, when\nthe poor misthress is seein\u2019 no company; but it won\u2019t be so one of\nthese days.... Ah no, Miss Eily darlint, I couldn\u2019t be showin\u2019 them\nto you\u2014sure, they\u2019re not in this house at all.\u201d And once he added:\n\u201cThey\u2019re just stored up handy, Miss Eily, waitin\u2019 till you\u2019re grown a\nbig enough lady to be ownin\u2019 of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cMe?\u201d said Eileen, startled.\n\n\u201cWhy, in coorse, Miss Eileen. Who else has anythin\u2019 else to say to\nthim after poor little Master Jack, that had a right to ha\u2019 been Sir\nJohn, gettin\u2019 dhrown\u2014bein\u2019 took suddint, I mane, that way? Hiven be\ngood to the both of them. Ay, to be sure, honey, it\u2019s all in a very\nsafe place waitin\u2019 for you. And thank \u2019ee kindly for bringin\u2019 me in\nthe grand little bunch of daisies\u2014they smell iligant.\u201d\n\nAfter learning this fact about her far-off proprietorship in the\nhoarded plate, Eileen thought about it oftener than ever, though from\nmotives of delicacy she spoke about it seldomer, lest she should\nappear unduly prying and eager on her own behalf. And for a long time\nthe more she pondered the matter, the less possible she found it to\nexcogitate any possible hiding-place. But at last she made a fateful\ndiscovery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was one fine May morning when she went for an unusually long\nramble with Norah Kinsella, the housemaid. Norah\u2014a tall, strong,\ncheerful lass, far more active than rheumatic old nurse\u2014thought\nnothing of carrying her pet, little Miss Eileen, who at six years\nold was still only \u201ca light fairy of a crathur,\u201d up and down steep\nplaces, so that they could go all the farther. On this occasion they\nclimbed right up to the top of the hill behind the house, higher\nthan Eileen had ever been before; and one of the first things she\nnoticed was the great boulder-block. She never had seen a stone of\nnearly so large a size, nor imagined one; and she did not now class\nit with the small unshapely fragments and insignificant pebbles with\nwhich she was familiar. Rather, it reminded her of the turf-stacks\nthat she had watched people building up carefully in the yard. Yet a\nturf-stack it certainly was not.\n\n\u201cDoesn\u2019t it look like a great big box, Norah?\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cAy, indeed does it, Miss Eily,\u201d Norah said; \u201cand a fine power of\nthings it \u2019ud hould inside of itself, too. Sure now, you could be\nputtin\u2019 away a one of them little houses down below there in it, or\nvery nearly.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt must be extrornarly heavy, Norah,\u201d Eileen said, patting the\nsun-warmed side of the stone with her hand. \u201cIf that\u2019s its lid, I\ncouldn\u2019t lift it.\u201d\n\n\u201cSorra a bit of you, honey, nor ten like you. Troth, \u2019twould take\nten strong men to give that a heft,\u201d said Norah, making as if she\nwould prise it up with the flat of her hand. \u201cWhativer was inside it\n\u2019ud have to stay there for you or for me, if it was silver or gould\nitself\u2014we\u2019d ha\u2019 ne\u2019er a chance.\u201d\n\nHer random words gave Eileen the shock of a new idea. Perhaps there\nreally might be silver, quantities of silver, in it. For why\nshould not this be the handy safe place that old Timothy meant? A\nsafer there could not well be, since it was so far removed from all\nmeddlers; and she almost thought that she did espy a bright twinkle\nas she stared hard at the lid-like crack, which was just on a level\nwith her eyes. She discreetly said nothing about it to Norah, and her\npre-occupation with the subject made her so abstractedly silent on\ntheir way home that Norah feared the walk must have been too long.\nBut, in fact, she was considering whether or no she should mention\nher discovery to old Timothy. He might be vexed, she thought, at her\nfinding out what he had refused to tell her: still, she would have\nliked to ask him whether her guess were right. The point needed much\ndeliberation, and remained undecided for many days.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMeanwhile she chanced upon something that seemed to be an\nindependent corroboration of her own theory. By nature Eileen had\nnot particularly studious tastes, but solitariness had early driven\nher to seek for company on the shelves in the long low-windowed\nbook-room. She did not find there much that was very congenial.\nSixty years ago juvenile literature was, as a rule, a solemn and\ndreary thing; and Eileen\u2019s meagre library was not even up to that\ndate, having for the most part belonged to the preceding generation.\nThe favourite authors of the day would appear to have been infested\nwith a mole-like fancy, which commonly led them to linger among\ntombs and worms and epitaphs, seldom, indeed, stopping short at\nthose grisly precincts, or forbearing to light them up with a lurid\nflare from the regions beyond, but, nevertheless, dwelling upon them\nwith a fond elaboration of detail. Accordingly, a few days after her\nfirst ascent of Slieve Ardgreine, Eileen fished down from its shelf\na small, old dusty, half-calf volume, which was composed of several\nshort stories bound together. One of them, entitled _The Churchyard\nPrattler_, related the experiences of a child, aged four, who, as\nan appropriate and improving pastime, was sent out provided with a\nstring of his own length, and instructed to ascertain by measurement\nhow many of the graves in his cheerfully chosen playground were\nshorter than himself. He was pictorially represented as attired in a\nlong bib and a broad-brimmed chimney-pot hat, and he moralised his\nlively researches into the strains of a brief rime-doggerel hymn:\n\n      \u201c_Oft may be found\n      A grassy mound\n      By the yew-tree,\n      Much less than me;\n      It seems to cry:\n      Prepare to die!_\u201d\n\nAnother showed how a frivolous little girl, in a huge coal-scuttle\nbonnet, had her sinful hankering after toys and such vanities rebuked\nby being conducted past a series of attractive shop-windows, from\neach of which she was bidden to select herself a present, until she\narrived at an undertaker\u2019s establishment, where she was likewise\nrequired to place an order.\n\nThe last story in the volume, however, was of a very different type,\nand upon it Eileen now alighted, instinctively judicious in her\nskipping of its ghoulish companions. It was called _The Glittering\nHoard in the Coffer of Stone_; and the passage that most profoundly\nimpressed her ran as follows: \u201cThe flare of the scented torches\nfell upon the vast coffer of dark stone, which stood in one corner\nof the cavern. Its smooth sides were crusted here and there with\npatches of lichen and grey moss, and it looked as if no hand had\ntouched it for many an age. But at a gesture from the Prince, six\ngigantic black slaves raised up the massive slab which formed its\nlid. As they did so, the foot of one of them slipped, and before he\ncould recover himself, the unwieldy weight slid down with a crash,\nand was shattered into three fragments on the floor. Nobody heeded,\nhowever, for the light that broke out of the open chest drew all\neyes thither. It was like a cistern filled with crystalline fire.\n\u201cEmpty it, my son,\u201d said the old Sultaness, and the Prince began to\nlift out one by one the treasures it contained. Silver goblets there\nwere and flagons, great gilt bowls and ewers, filigree caskets set\nwith diamonds, chains of red gold, and ropes of milk-white pearls,\ndiadems and necklaces, armlets and girdles, whose pendant gems\ndripped a many-coloured brilliance, as of flower-distained dew. At\nthe bottom of the chest lay a round golden buckler, studded with\nknots of jewels, and a mighty sword in an ivory scabbard inlaid with\npale coral and amber: the hilt was carved out of a single lump of\napple-green chrysoprase. All these, strewn over the flagged floor,\nshimmered and bickered under the glancing torch-gleams, until it\nseemed as if a rippled and moon-lit sea lay there flashing around a\nmurky rock. The beholder could hardly realise that its uncouth bulk\nhad indeed been the receptacle of a treasure so richly wrought and\nexquisite.\u201d\n\nEileen read and pored over this account with keen interest and\npleasure. From the first she drew a parallel between the two great\nblocks of stone, so that the wealth disclosed by the one strengthened\nher most splendid conjectures about the other. As she read, she\neasily shifted the scene from the shadowy cavern to the sunny\nhill-top, and imagined the grass all scattered over with shining\ngear, which by some strange decree of fortune she was to look upon as\nher own property. Silver dishes and jewelled diadems, the _up-urny_\nand the buckler, both these alike fascinatingly mysterious, sparkled\nfor her in the clear light of day. The only objects in the picture\nthat she shrank from reproducing were those six gigantic black men,\nwhose presence she felt to be an ugly blot upon the brightness. But\nthen she reflected that the lifters of the lid perhaps need not be\neither black or gigantic. Dan Donnelly, and Christy Shanahan, and\nMurtagh Reilly, would surely be strong and big enough to do it;\nand they were all pleasant familiar faces, who said \u201cGood mornin\u2019\nto you kindly, Miss Eily,\u201d or \u201cThe Lord love you,\u201d with friendly\nsmiles, whenever they met her, and were in no wise alarming. So she\nsubstituted them for the formidable figures, and could almost hear\nold Murtagh saying, \u201cHup boyos! or what for was yous aitin\u2019 all them\npitaties?\u201d which was his usual exordium upon such strenuous occasions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next time that she went for a walk with Norah Kinsella, which\nhappened soon after this, in the continuance of old nurse\u2019s\nrheumatism, Eileen said, half-scared at her own temerity: \u201cLet us\ngo up again to the big box\u201d; and she felt happy when Norah at once\nassented, tacitly accepting the fact that a box it was. Eileen wanted\nto see whether she were tall enough to look in, supposing the lid\nremoved, and she found, to her gratification, that on tiptoe her\nstature sufficed.\n\nIt was some while longer, however, before she ventured to touch\nupon it in conversation with old Timothy; nor did she then make any\npoint-blank statement. She introduced the subject allusively and\nimplicitly. \u201cThat _is_ an exceedingly safe place where you keep the\nplate now, Timothy, isn\u2019t it?\u201d she said to him one day when she was\nhelping him to lay the table, by following him with a little sheaf of\nspoons as he hobbled round it. Her brown frock was hidden beneath a\nwhite cambric pinafore, and her large eyes glinted wistfully through\na soft cloud of hair.\n\n\u201cIt is so bedad, missy,\u201d said the old man resignedly, \u201cwe\u2019ve took\ngood care of that.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow many people do _you_ think it would take to lift off the lid of\nthe chest?\u201d said Eileen.\n\n\u201cIs it the led, Miss Eily? Troth, now, they\u2019d be bothered to do that\non us at all, if they was as many as they plased, and the kay of it\nput away out of the raich of them\u2014or the likes of them,\u201d old Timothy\nsaid, arbitrarily blackening her colourless term.\n\n\u201cOh, then, it\u2019s locked?\u201d said Eileen.\n\n\u201cTo be sure it is, Miss Eily. Why now, if it wasn\u2019t, you might as\nwell be gad\u2019rin\u2019 the things together handy for villins to run away\nwid thim convanient. But ah, sure, you\u2019re innicent yet, Miss Eily,\nand small blame to you, or you\u2019d understand the raison of kays.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo I do, Timothy,\u201d said Eileen. \u201cIt\u2019s villins. But I think I don\u2019t\nquite understand the reason of _them_.\u201d\n\nShe went away pondering. This locking of the chest compelled her\nto modify somewhat the details of the opening scene. However, she\nquickly re-arranged them completely to her satisfaction, and her\nfondness for visiting the site of it did not diminish. About this\ntime she began to be allowed to ramble out unattended, for old nurse\nwent invalided home, and Eileen had acquired the character of a\nquiet, sensible child, not apt to get into mischief. The use she made\nof her liberty was a daily pilgrimage up to the big stone, where she\ndreamed away many pleasant hours, largely occupied with plans for the\nfuture, when she should have found that key. Sometimes she brought\nthe _Glittering Hoard_ book up with her, and read it there to whet\nthe edge of anticipation; but in general she was content to weave a\ndazzling fabric out of the material supplied her by old Timothy\u2019s\nreminiscences.\n\nShould anybody hence infer that Eileen Fitzmaurice must have been\nin her early youth an avaricious sort of person, he cannot be\nflatly contradicted; for so she was, in a way. But in a way it\nwas. Her theories about the privileges of property were peculiar,\nand restrictive. For instance, in her definition \u201cmy own\u201d meant\nmerely \u201cpromptly transferable\u201d; and the Paradise she supposed was\na place where everybody else would like everything that she had.\nHere, the failure of her few possessions to please other people\nnot infrequently caused her disappointment; and she occasionally\nthought scorn of herself for having only trifles to offer so scant\nand paltry. Sometimes, indeed, it was nothing better than a bunch or\nso of blackberries, perhaps wanting still several shades of their\nmature glossy jet, which she had torn hands as well as frock in\nextricating from among their barbed briers\u2014the greediest child never\nplucked with a more eager recklessness. When she could meet with\nno friend who was imprudent or complaisant enough to accept these\nspoils, she would, a little crestfallen and regretful, scatter them\non some walk or window-stool, in hopes that at least the small birds\nmight condescend to benefit thereby. She was all the more dependent\nupon opportunities for bestowing such a tangible proof of her regard,\nbecause she seldom had any for others of the less material kind. Her\nmother was too drearily isolated by ill-health and despondency to\nbe within reach of caresses, while her aunt Geraldine was mostly\nabsent, inhabiting some remote volume, and seemed to be rather bored\nby the people whom she encountered in her brief visits to the outer\nworld. The acquisition of the wonderful chest, however, would release\nEileen from these straitened circumstances, as its contents would\nsurely comprise what could not but give satisfaction to all. She\ncould scarcely believe that anybody, not even poor mamma, who only\npretended so badly to care about her presents of wild flowers and the\nlike, could really be indifferent to the set of six little silver\nsalt-cellars shaped like water-lilies, which old Timothy described\nso fondly. It might be possible also to provide Aunt Geraldine with\nsomething of which she should not say hurriedly, coming reluctantly\nout of her book: \u201cOh, thank you, my dear child, but what use would it\nbe to _me_?\u201d Then there were Norah Kinsella, and old nurse, and old\nTimothy, and after them a small crowd of neighbours, very adequately\nrepresenting the population of Glendoula, so catholic being Eileen\u2019s\ngood will that there was hardly a dresser in the hamlet on which\nsome brilliant object should fail to shine. And if anything remained\nover after the distribution, she thought to herself that she would\nleave it for the villins, who would no doubt be much disappointed,\nsupposing they ever did come to look and found nothing at all. Such\nplans as these were commonly in her mind as she toiled up and trotted\ndown the smooth-swarded steps, where the thread-like track of her\nfootsteps slowly began to follow them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGenerally Eileen went to and fro quite alone beneath the spacious\ndomed skies, which seemed to make no more account of her than of\nthe rabbits, who played here and there on the side of the hill.\nThe rabbits evidently did not think much of her either, and hid\nthemselves when she came near without any great show of flurry or\nfright, rather intimating by their demeanour that they had simply\nno wish to make her acquaintance. But Eileen used to watch them\nwistfully from their prescribed distance, and think to herself that\nthey looked enviably sociable and friendly together. Sometimes, too,\nshe wished that her tame robin would hop along with her farther than\nto the end of the holly walk, but it never would; and one day the\nblack cat ate it, all except a fluff of heart-rending feathers,\nno doubt to warn her that her desires were vain. For destiny had\nassigned her little intercourse with her fellow-creatures.\n\nOnce, however, she had a companion for a while. It was during her\nseventh summer, when her cousin Pierce Wilmot spent his holidays at\nGlendoula House. Just at first Eileen found this an experience as\nalarming as it was novel. Breakfast and luncheon became such serious\nordeals when she had to confront a great-sized stranger\u2014Pierce was\nabout double her age and much more than twice as big\u2014concerning whom\nthe furtive glances she ventured upon gave her an impression of a\nvery black head, and eyebrows as dark and straight as if they had\nbeen ruled with pen and ink. She thought he looked ferocious, and\nprivately inquired of Norah whether holidays were _many_ days.\n\nBut on the second morning, after breakfast, this forbidding person\nsuddenly said to her: \u201cCome along, little Bright-Eyes, and show\nme everything.\u201d At which address her terror culminated, and then,\nas terrors sometimes do, toppled over into nothing at all. A few\nminutes later they were going about together quite amicably out of\ndoors. Pierce was so immeasurably Eileen\u2019s superior in age and all\nits privileges that he had no need to assert his dignity by keeping\nher at a distance\u2014as the rabbits did\u2014and they fraternised apace.\nThe July morning was still freshly fair, with a twinkling trail\nof dew shifting along from blade to leaf up the sun-lit sward, as\nthe moon\u2019s silver-spun wake shifts over a rippled water, and with\ngossamer threads, that might have been ravelled out of a rainbow,\nwoven between furze and broom bushes, when Eileen and Pierce began\nto ascend Slieve Ardgreine. For one of the first things she had to\nshow him was her stone chest. She took an especial pleasure in doing\nso, because she very seldom had an opportunity of even talking about\nit to anybody, the matter being, she felt, a family affair, which\nshe could not with propriety enter upon except to old confidential\nTimothy, whose distaste for the subject she was bound to respect.\n\n\u201cWhy, _you\u2019ll_ never get up there,\u201d Pierce said with some\nincredulity, when, in answer to his inquiry whither he was being\ntaken, Eileen pointed to the ridge above their heads, \u201c_Were_ you\never up so high?\u201d he asked, doubtfully.\n\nEileen would have been very sorry to let him perceive how absurd she\nthought this curious misconception, and she only replied: \u201cEvery\nfine day, if they don\u2019t say the grass is too boggy altogether. And\nold Murtagh says I skyte up as fast as his Cruiskeen going after a\nrabbit.\u201d\n\nOn the way up, Eileen gave her companion, whose life seemed to\nhave been spent chiefly in towns, a good deal of information about\ncommon natural objects. Some of this she had excogitated for herself\nduring her solitary rambles, and it appeared to surprise and amuse\nhim rather unaccountably. Her explanation, for instance, of how the\nhedgehogs came and stuck themselves over with the withered spines of\nthe furze-bushes, that had dropped off mottled and grey. Among other\nthings she showed him two or three rabbit-holes; but here it was\nPierce who had new facts to impart. \u201cSo that\u2019s where they sleep, is\nit?\u201d he said, \u201cI always thought they hung themselves up like bats,\nhead downwards against a wall; at any rate, that\u2019s how they manage in\nDublin.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat _is_ funny,\u201d said Eileen; \u201cI don\u2019t think they ever do here. And\nI suppose they drop down when they awake?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, I rather fancy they never do awake,\u201d said Pierce.\n\n\u201cNever at all? Are you quite sure, now, that they\u2019re not _dormouses_,\nPierce?\u201d said Eileen wisely.\n\n\u201cAm I sure that you\u2019re not an elephant, Miss Eileen?\u201d he said,\nmimicking her. \u201cBut I can tell you that if I can borrow a gun, I\u2019ll\nsoon teach your rabbits the same trick. Why, haven\u2019t you ever been in\na poulterer\u2019s shop\u201d\u2014Eileen never had\u2014\u201cand seen them hanging up?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said Eileen. She disliked guns and shooting, and moreover\nbecame suddenly aware that she must have displayed a ridiculous\nstupidity about Pierce\u2019s joke. This made her turn disconcertedly\npink, so that Pierce was afraid he must have hurt her feelings, which\nhe had not meant to do. Therefore he was glad to find, when a few\nminutes afterwards they reached the big stone, that she had evidently\nquite forgotten any little vexation in the excitement of relating\nits wonderful romance. He was careful to listen with such interest,\nand seemingly so fully share all her sentiments, that she very soon\nventured upon confiding to him a particular anxiety which had of late\ngrown up in her mind. \u201cDo you see what a small keyhole it has?\u201d she\nsaid, pointing to a little round orifice which occurred high up on\none side of the block, and the discovery of which had been to her\na source both of hopes and fears. \u201cOnly a tiny little _pinny_ key\nwould fit into it. Wouldn\u2019t you think it would take a bigger one to\nopen a box like this?\u201d As the hole barely admitted the tip of her\nforefinger, it could not be considered roomy, but Pierce replied with\ndecision: \u201cThe largest box in the world might be opened with the\nsmallest key that ever was made\u201d; and one of her haunting fears being\nthus dispelled, she produced another, which took this form: \u201cWell,\nbut supposing the people somehow _lost_ the key, then I suppose the\nbox couldn\u2019t ever be opened again, even if the person that the things\nin it were belonging to did live to be as much as twenty\u2014old enough\nto be let have them, you know?\u201d And again Pierce could re-assure her.\n\u201cWhy, there\u2019d be nothing easier than to get another key made. One\ntakes an impression of the lock with cobbler\u2019s wax; _I_ could do it\nmyself. So if they lose it on you, little Bright-Eyes, just send word\nto me, and I\u2019ll come and settle it for you.\u201d Eileen looked grateful\nand relieved. \u201cIt won\u2019t be for a long while, but I\u2019ll not forget,\u201d\nshe said.\n\nAs they returned down the hill she said: \u201cI wonder whether there\nis that very fine sort of sword in this chest too. I hope so, and\nperhaps there may be, only old Timothy never told me. I must ask him\nabout it, and if there is one, Pierce, I\u2019ll give it to you.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then I\u2019d maybe kill you with it,\u201d Pierce said, absently joking,\nfor just at that time he was speculating upon his chances of getting\na shot at the rabbits. But Eileen replied quite solemnly: \u201cI don\u2019t\nbelieve you\u2019d ever like to do that on purpose\u2014at any rate, not unless\nI growed up very detestfully nasty; and you\u2019re too big to do anything\nby accident.\u201d And she proceeded home, much cheered by the event of\ntheir walk.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLess satisfactory was the result of an interview which she had\nshortly afterwards with old Timothy. For, in the first place, she\nregretted to hear that \u201che couldn\u2019t be sure, but he thought it\nnoways likely there would be a sword, or any such description of\nan ould skiverin\u2019 conthrivance, put up along with the good plate;\nat all events, he never remimbered any talk of e\u2019er a one\u2014not to\nhis knowledge.\u201d And still more mortifying than this, she quickly\nperceived that the old butler had no liking for her cousin. What\nTimothy said on the subject was exactly as follows:\u2014\u201cGoin\u2019 out wid\nMaster Pierce, missy jewel? Och well, to be sure, he\u2019s a fine young\ngentleman, considherin\u2019. If the night\u2019s black enough, the baste\u2019s\nwhite enough, as Andy Goligher said, and he misdhrivin\u2019 home the\nwrong Kerry bullock.\u201d An aphorism the application of which may seem\nrather obscure to the undiscerning, but which Eileen quite clearly\nunderstood as an intimation that of Master Pierce Timothy thought\npoorly, and she was sorry for this, as she would have liked her old\nand her new acquaintance to be friends.\n\nThe grounds of Timothy\u2019s prejudice, however, she did not guess. The\nfact was that he had a few days before scowlingly from his pantry\nwindow espied Master Pierce \u201cdiscoorsin\u2019 as plisant as anythin\u2019\u201d\nwith young Larry M\u2018Farlane, \u201cthat was sister\u2019s son to ould Pather\nDoran, and bad luck to _him_.\u201d Now, maybe as many as a dozen years\nago, Timothy and Pather had differed in a discussion about the proper\nseason for sowing asparagus, and one of Pather\u2019s arguments had been:\n\u201cThat it was no great thanks to Timothy if he _had_ sted a goodish\nwhile wid the Family, and he, you might say, tied to thim be the\nleg like a strayin\u2019 jackass.\u201d Pather\u2019s allusion was to the effects\nof an accident, which, met with by Timothy on the cellar-stairs at\nDrumlough Castle in his youth, had left him a hobbler for life; and\nsince the controversy Pather and he \u201cweren\u2019t spakin\u2019.\u201d Therefore,\nnow, if Master Pierce chose \u201cto be great wid a one of that pack,\nand to go sthreelin\u2019 up the hill wid him after the rabbits,\u201d it was\nonly natural that old Timothy should entertain no high opinion of so\nindiscriminating a person.\n\nBut his veiled disparagement did not check the progress of a real\nfriendship between the cousins, and when the end of Pierce\u2019s holidays\ncame, Eileen thought they had not been nearly many enough. On the\nregretful evening before he went, they paid a farewell visit to the\nbig boulder, and, standing by it, Eileen said forlornly: \u201cNext time\nI\u2019ll only be myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps I may be here again next summer,\u201d Pierce said encouragingly.\nHe had already learned by experience that even twelve months are not\ninterminable.\n\n\u201cI wish it would be next year always,\u201d said Eileen. \u201cFor that\u2019s the\ntime when people come back. The Widow Shanahan\u2019s son\u2019s coming home\nfrom the States next year, please goodness; but she says she\u2019ll not\nbe in this world then, so he might as well stop where he\u2019s gettin\u2019\nthe fine wages. Norah says that she means that she\u2019ll be dead. I\nwonder who told her, or how she knows. _You_ don\u2019t know how soon you\nare going to die, Pierce, do you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot I, nor anybody else,\u201d said Pierce.\n\n\u201cI wanted to give her her little silver jug,\u201d said Eileen; \u201cshe\u2019s\nto have the little fat one that\u2019s gilt inside and has two spouts,\nbecause it\u2019s the nicest, and she\u2019s to be pitied, the dear knows,\nNorah says, with one thing and the other. But if she goes and dies\nfirst, I never can. Do you think she\u2019d wait a while, if I told her\nabout it as a secret?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe mightn\u2019t be able,\u201d said Pierce.\n\n\u201cAh, and then it would only tantinglise her,\u201d said Eileen, \u201cso I\u2019d\nbetter not. But I\u2019m sorry.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t forget that you must send me word, if they lose the key, and\nyou want another,\u201d Pierce said to change the subject.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll remember,\u201d said Eileen. \u201cBut I\u2019ll have to keep on living for\never so much longer before they\u2019ll let me want it. You see, I\u2019ll not\nbe twenty-one even next year, I should think.\u201d\n\n\u201cI should think not indeed, Miss Eileen,\u201d said Pierce; \u201cyou\u2019re no age\nworth speaking of at all.\u201d\n\nThey were now descending the hill, and for some way Eileen mused\nvainly about possible remedies for this deplorable state of affairs.\n\u201cI wish,\u201d she said at length, \u201cthat a great many days would happen\nall together sometimes\u2014in bunches like the black and white currants,\ninstead of one by one and one by one: ever so long they last, when\nthere\u2019s nobody here but me. One might get old pretty quick then.\nWouldn\u2019t you like it better, Pierce?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, no,\u201d said Pierce. \u201cIf the days were used up that way, there\u2019d\nbe so little time for doing anything. Mostly they\u2019re short enough;\nand there\u2019s no hurry about getting old, as you call it\u2014an old woman\nof twenty\u2014you\u2019re a queer young person, Eileen.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was only thinking,\u201d said Eileen, \u201cthat perhaps I mightn\u2019t be able\nto wait a great while, any more than the Widow Shanahan. And it would\nbe a pity if I wasn\u2019t in this world when the chest is opened\u201d; and\nalthough Pierce replied: \u201cOh, nonsense; where else should you be?\u201d\nshe continued to contemplate this contingency in sad silence as they\ntrotted down after their perch-long shadows over the sunny turf with\nits jewelled embroideries of golden trefoil and pearly eyebright, and\ndim amethystine thyme. But when they had just come to the gap in the\ndyke, where you step across two flat stones into the highest field,\na somewhat consolatory thought struck her. It was: \u201cPerhaps, then,\nthey\u2019d give all those things to you, Pierce, and I\u2019ve told you what\neverybody\u2019s to have, so mind you don\u2019t forget.\u201d\n\nShe was so engrossed by the idea that she nearly tripped over the\nunheeded stones, and her heir and executor, preventing her tumble,\nsaid: \u201cOh, it will be all right, never fear; but meanwhile, little\nBright-Eyes, you\u2019d better not break your neck. We\u2019ll both of us have\ngrand times when I come with the key.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEileen had many of her long years, almost nine, in fact, during which\nshe might have forgotten Pierce and his promises, but she never did.\nOnly once in all that time did anything happen to remind her of\nthem, and that was on the Christmas after his visit, when Tom Roe,\nthe postman, brought the first letter that had ever been addressed\nto Miss Eileen Fitzmaurice. Being opened hastily, it was found to\ncontain a little white cardboard box, within which lay among rosy\ncloudlets of marvellous pink cotton-wool a tiny silver key, sent\nto Eileen by her cousin Pierce\u2014her affectionate cousin, Pierce\u2019s\nmother, who put up the packet for him, had written him down without\nconsulting him, as a matter of form. The gift filled Eileen with\ngratitude and delight. Yet, in the course of the morning, her Aunt\nGeraldine came upon her when she sat in the book-room window, eyeing\nher new possession with a somewhat doubtful countenance. \u201cI\u2019m almost\nafraid,\u201d she said half-aloud, \u201cthat it isn\u2019t quite long enough. And I\nnever did see a key with a pin in it before.\u201d\n\n\u201cLong enough for what?\u201d said her Aunt Geraldine. \u201cIt seems to me to\nbe a very pretty little brooch, and it was exceedingly good-natured\nof your cousin to think of sending you one.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes, indeed, and it is very pretty, as pretty as can be,\u201d\nEileen protested. She flushed distressfully at the implication of\ningratitude partly, and partly at this new view of the trinket,\nwhich would involve the vanishing of its peculiar charm. \u201cI was\nonly thinking,\u201d she said, \u201cthat I have poked my finger farther\ndown the hole than this would reach; but, of course, if it\u2019s a\nbrooch\u201d\u2014Aunt Geraldine had not stayed to hear her explanation; and\nEileen presently put away the little box in her drawer, feeling that\nsomething had blunted the fine edge of her pleasure.\n\nThose nine long years passed by uneventfully. It seemed, indeed,\nas if fewer things and fewer happened at Glendoula. In the Big\nHouse life went on somewhat in the manner of a machine gradually\nslowing down. Lady Fitzmaurice grew from season to season a little\nmore invalided and melancholy, her sister-in-law more abstracted\nand apathetic, old Timothy stiffer and lamer in his gait. Even the\nancient grey parrot on his pole in the parlour sank deeplier into his\ndotage, and only grimaced silently at Eileen when she tried to start\na conversation with him. Eileen herself was an exception, though\nperhaps potentially rather than actually, the fresh spirit of youth\nmaking less resistance than is commonly imagined for it against the\ncoercion of dreary external circumstances. Still her disposition was\nnaturally blithe and hopeful, and she would have been ready enough\nwith her: O brave new world! if any fair wind had borne the good ship\ninto her ken. But instead of that she was destined to see a woeful\nwreck come drifting by.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was gradually, by an aggregation of rumours, faint and vague\nat first, that warnings of the black time impending stole into\nGlendoula valley, much as the wan mists creep thither from seaward,\na mere smoke-wreath falling away down the purple-rifted shoulders\nof Slieverossan, with the murk of a sky-enfolding cloud gathered up\nopaquely behind them. Felix O\u2019Riordan, returning from Clonmorragh\nfair one July day, first brought authentic news of how \u201cthe quare\nugly blackness on the pitaties, the same that done destruction last\nyear on the crops away down in different parts of the counthry, was\ndesthroyin\u2019 all before it now no farther off than Kilfintragh, just\nat the back of the hills.\u201d And through the rainy harvest weather\nensuing, reports of the like became as frequent as the unkindly\nand chilly showers that drip-dripped unseasonably over the little\nfields. Then fell a heavy thunderous night, with flickerings of\nsheet-lightning fitfully casting an evil eye through the dark, and on\nthe morrow, when its pall lifted, there was grief and fear among the\nneighbours at Glendoula, for the sober green ridges looked as if a\nscorching breath had passed over them, and from their drooping haulms\nand leaves came wafted the ill-auguring odour.\n\nAfter that the trouble throve and waxed like the most unmolested\nweed. A man perhaps seldom tastes despair much cruder and sheerer\nthan when at the impatiently desired potato-digging he turns up\nspadeful after spadeful, spadeful after spadeful, nothing but\ndangling lumps of malodorous slime, nothing but that whatever, on to\nthe very end of the drill, where the wife stands watching him and\nsaying: \u201cAh, the Lord be good to us\u2014have we ne\u2019er a sound one in it\nat all?\u201d with the childer beside her looking on, piteously concerned\nor piteously indifferent. Before Slieverossan had drawn down his\nwinter snow-hood, the dearth wrought by the ruined harvest was\nfinding its victims far and wide. Serious distress existed in the big\nhouses, where people were at their wit\u2019s end to devise some agreeable\nsubstitute for that empty dish on the dinner table. Savoury rice,\nthey tried, and stewed toast, and Yorkshire pudding, and many other\nsuch things, but none of them satisfactorily filled the place of the\nmissing potato. There still remained a gap all-thing unbecoming at\ntheir feast. It was a dreadful loss. But in the small houses people\nwere spared all worry of that sort at least, because when they had no\npitaties, they had nothing else to eat, bad or good, which made their\nbill of fare a perfectly simple matter, thus illustrating, no doubt,\nthe providential law of compensation.\n\nEileen\u2019s mind, however, was not philosophic enough to show her this\naspect of the case, and what she did actually see and hear smote\nher with sorrow and dismay. It seemed as if the way of her world,\nhitherto a tranquil, sometimes rather tedious, one, had changed into\nthe path of a surging flood, whence cries of despair and beseeching\nhands appealed to her vainly where she stood, secure herself and\nhelpless and remorseful. So little for anybody could she do, who\nwould fain have rescued them all. Even if she had commanded the\nwhole resources of the household, they would have been miserably\ninadequate; but as it was, Aunt Geraldine said drearily that she\nsupposed it was no use giving to vagrants, and old Timothy, whose\ninborn tendency towards \u201cnaygurliness,\u201d had developed into a\nvice-like clamp, which acted automatically at the pressure of a\npetition, kept one watchful eye perpetually upon the hall-door,\nand another on the little store-room across the passage. Only by\nrare conjunctions of good luck with agility could Eileen elude his\nvigilance so far as to fetch and carry between them unbeknownst. More\noften than not, she arrived too late to do anything; and at best,\nher stealthiest operations among the bread-crocks and biscuits were\npretty sure to bring the old man shuffling thither in defence of the\nmenaced commissariat.\n\n\u201cArrah now, Miss Eily, what work have you there, cuttin\u2019 up the fresh\nloaf? and the laws bless us all, but that\u2019s the hunch! If there was a\nslab of a brick wantin\u2019 for repeerin\u2019 the house-wall, you could make\na shift wid that.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a very decent poor man at the door,\u201d Eileen might say, \u201cwho\nlooks as if he had been starving for a month of Sundays; and he has a\nscrap of a baby with him; its mother died yesterday at Kilfintragh.\nI must get it a piece of soft bread, and a drink of milk, if there\u2019s\nany left.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what for need you be destroyin\u2019 a whole loaf for a crathur o\u2019\nthat size? Sure, I seen it comin\u2019 past me window, sittin\u2019 cocked up\nlike a kitten bewitched. I\u2019ve some stale bits in the other crock \u2019ud\ndo it grand.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, those are nothing but little crumbs, only fit for the chickens.\u201d\n\n\u201cMusha, long life to it! And is it settin\u2019 itself up to want betther\nfeedin\u2019 than the chuckens? Well, now, I should suppose that what\u2019s\ngood enough for them\u2019s plenty good enough for it, when the most\ndiffer between them is that sorra the use _it\u2019s_ ever apt to be,\nstarved or no, except makin\u2019 throuble for itself and other people.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, if some babies had been fed like chickens, perhaps they\nwouldn\u2019t have grown up so fond of gabbling like old geese,\u201d Eileen\nmight rejoin, inaudibly, so that the repartee should relieve her own\nat no cost to Timothy\u2019s feelings, as she escaped with her booty.\n\nBut her raids were not by any means invariably so successful.\nSometimes she found that Timothy had forestalled her, and had swept\neverything into an inaccessible locker; and sometimes there was\nreally nothing left to sweep. So then she had no resource save to\nensconce herself in the remotest backward-looking room, that she\nmight not hear the interchange of entreaty and denial, nor witness\nthe lingering withdrawal of the rejected suppliants, wandering away\ndisappointed out of sight, but not out of mind so soon, behind the\nglossy-walled belt of laurels.\n\nFor a like reason she shunned in those days what used to be a\nfavourite walk beyond the front gates along the quiet lane, with its\nbroad green banks softly on one side mounting up into amply spreading\ngrass-slopes, now haunted at its every turn by sorrowful spectres\nthat she had no charm to lay. Occasionally one of them would say to\nher: \u201cAh, melady, the blessin\u2019s of God on the sweet face of you,\nand may you never know what it is to want the bit,\u201d and this made\nher feel herself all the more to be a sort of ravening locust. Her\nown meals, indeed, those times, were partaken of grudgingly and of\nnecessity, after which, carrying everything she could lay hands on,\nshe hurried off to the end of the elm-grove, where a herd of small\nchildren would be looking out for them with large eyes. But day by\nday she thought her supplies seemed to dwindle, and the pinched\nfaces to multiply, and she was as powerless against that as if it\nwere the oncoming of night. One day in a week of black frost she\ndesperately sold her godmother\u2019s cameo bracelet to a passing higgler\nfor a shilling, wherewith she bought out of a baker\u2019s cart three\nportly loaves; and the satisfaction which these caused to prevail\nfor a while, a short while, almost compelled her to think that she\nwould dispose in the same method of her silver key-brooch, her only\nother ornament, the next time he came by. But always, having looked\nat it for some minutes, she replaced it in its box without achieving\nany resolve. The pencilled line, still legible on the lid, seemed to\nprotest against the transaction in the name of the dead summer that\nlived with her brightest memories.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll this while the big boulder stone was lying out under the stars\nand mists and shadow-shifting winds on the grassy ridge of Slieve\nArdgreine; and thither constantly travelled Eileen\u2019s thoughts,\nalthough her bodily pilgrimages to it had grown less frequent than\nheretofore, since dripping tussocks and long, bedraggled skirts had\nbecome a graver consideration. She had never lost her faith in it\nand its contents. Nothing whatever had occurred to alter her opinion\nabout it, and the silence on the subject which various reasons\nobliged her to maintain helped to ward off chances of disillusioning\nenlightenment. Eileen\u2019s sixteen years in lonely Glendoula had taught\nher so very little either at first or second hand about other\nQuality\u2019s domestic arrangements, that for anything she could tell, it\nmight not be unusual to keep the family plate locked up in a large\nstone chest out-of-doors. Therefore no antecedent improbability\ncropped up to struggle with the existence of a long-cherished,\ndeep-rooted dream and desire.\n\nThe one change that had here been wrought by those slow-footed,\nempty-handed years was in the use she designed for her riches. This\nchange grew more radical under stress of the famishing winter. She no\nlonger could care to admire the beauty of the bright gleaming silver\nthings, nor to sort out from among them fastidiously appropriate\ngifts for each\u2014that indeed had become only too simple a process,\nsince everybody\u2019s need was the same. Her sole wish now was to sell\nall that she had straightway\u2014she would have waited to make no pious\nbargains about treasure in heaven\u2014that she might satisfy the poor\nwith bread. But the more intensely her wishes concentrated themselves\nupon that object, the more keenly she felt how far it was out of\nreach. Four years and some months, jealously reckoned, still were\nlacking to her of the age that would legally entitle her to enter\nupon the possession of her property; and although she now knew\nfrom other sources than old Timothy that some inheritance did then\nawait her, what could such a distant prospect avail in the face of\nto-day\u2019s direful necessity? Chafing sorely against the law\u2019s delay\nthat set bars between the owner and her rights, Eileen wondered\nsometimes whether the Lord Chancellor, whom she understood to rule\nher destinies, might not under the circumstances be persuaded to\ntrust her with her fortune, now that she was sixteen and a half, just\nto keep poor Denis Madden\u2019s half-dozen orphans, and old Widow Flynn\nand her blind daughter, and all the rest of the people from starving\ncompletely. Once she actually ventured upon a remote hint at some\nsuch possibility to her Aunt Geraldine, but lacking courage did not\napproach the subject closely enough to make herself intelligible; a\nfailure for which her conscience often pricked her in the following\ndays.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMore than ever on the morning when this incident befell: It was\nmocking March weather, bright and calm and pitilessly cold, and\nEileen thought she would warm herself by running up to her big stone,\nwhich she had not visited since the autumn. But before she reached\nthe first bend in the avenue young Larry M\u2018Farlane hastily met her,\nand turned her aside into a shrubbery with a moving story about a\ncrippled blackbird which was fluttering there among the bushes.\n\u201cUnless some ould miscreant of a cat might be slinkin\u2019 away under\nthe low branches this minyit, Miss Eileen, wid the crathur grabbed\nin her mouth.\u201d Larry had invented this little fiction on the spur of\nthe moment, the fact being that just round the turn, a few yards from\nwhere he stopped Eileen, a heap of rags seemed to have fallen, as if\nflung or blown down across the road. Its halt there had indeed been\nso unpremeditated that only a remnant of the crust someone had begged\nhard for up at the House a minute before was still gripped in a gaunt\nhand. Coming upon this obstruction, young Larry, whose fare nowadays\ndid not conduce to athletic feats, found its removal quite beyond his\npowers, and therefore ran on to seek help, when his meeting with Miss\nEileen converted his most urgent duty into the task of hindering her\nfrom \u201cgettin\u2019 a quare fright along of the misfort\u2019nit poor body.\u201d\nHe accomplished it only in part. For he could not contrive but that\nshe should notice the gathering of a crowd in the avenue, and the\nshrilling of shocked ejaculations, and then the bearing away with\nslow solemnity, which apprised her of how near the cloaked shadow had\npassed.\n\nEileen gave up her expedition to the stone chest; its baffling\nimpenetrability seemed just then a cruel gibe of Fate, wiselier\nignored. Larry, for his part, temporarily lost sight of the errand\nwhich had been bringing him up to the Big House: a commission he had\nundertaken to execute for the postman. Thus it was not until the\nevening, when the cold March twilight had faded, too tardily for\nmany people impatient to huddle away into oblivious sleep, that a\nletter reached the thriftily-lit drawing-room, where Eileen and her\naunt were also getting through the interval before bed-time as best\nthey could, which was but dully. A letter was something of an event\nin itself, and this one, unlike most of its predecessors, did not\ncollapse inanely into a listless \u201cOh, it\u2019s only\u201d\u2014for it contained a\nreal piece of news.\n\nGlendoula was to have another visit from Pierce Wilmot. Pierce,\nwho had grown up a civil engineer, was now in charge of certain\nroad-making relief-works, which were about to come creeping\ndown Letterglas valley and up through the Nick of Time into the\nneighbouring glen. The superintendence of these would bring\nhim to stay for a while near the place, and he hoped to renew\nhis acquaintance with his kinsfolk at the Big House. All the\nestablishment was more or less thrilled by the intelligence. It\nseemed, of course, only natural that he should take up his quarters\nthere, and the prospect pleased on the whole. Lady Fitzmaurice,\neven, and her sister-in-law were slightly cheered and roused; even\nold Timothy, despite his prejudice, set about his polishing with a\nrevived zest, in anticipation of a visitor who might be expected to\nappreciate \u201cthe differ between spoons that had a proper shine kep\u2019 on\nthem, and ones that was as dingy as if you\u2019d loaned them for stirrin\u2019\nthe Ould Fellow\u2019s tay.\u201d All the others, who remembered Master Pierce\nas a fine friendly-spoken young gentleman, thought that it would be\na pleasant variety to set eyes on him again, and the rest were quite\nready to welcome him on that recommendation. Eileen alone looked\nforward to his return somewhat doubtfully. She knew right well that\nthings could not be the same as they were in those very olden days;\nand the differences might not be improvements. Suppose that she did\nnot like the grown-up Pierce, nor he her? Then her reminiscences,\nshe thought, would be superseded and spoiled. Still, she believed\nherself, after all, to be glad that he was coming.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was late on a wild bleak evening that Pierce arrived, after a\nlong open-air day of surveying and supervising. An additional\npair of candles illuminated the drawing-room in his honour, and\nwere burning clearly enough to show what manner of man he was at\nfour-and-twenty. He had not changed at all irrecognisably, being\nstill black and straight-browed, alert and rather resolute-looking,\nas beseemed a person whose business consisted largely in the clearing\naway of obstacles, by summarily forcible methods if need were. He\nhad done this figuratively upon occasion as well as literally since\nhis last visit to Glendoula. But the little girl who then used to\npatter up and down that primitive path beside him was now much harder\nto identify, having shot up so slender and tall. Also in Pierce\u2019s\nhonour, Eileen had put on her best gown that evening, a fine white\nmuslin, sprinkled with a pattern of little lilac rose-bunches,\noutlined in a cloud of black dots. It was not more than half a decade\nlag of the latest Dublin fashions, but the six months\u2019 growth since\nits last wearing had certainly made its skirt a rather skimpy length,\nas she noted with chagrin when putting it on. Some consolation was\nfound in fastening her deep embroidered collar with the silver\nkey. She had plaited her brown hair, darker now, yet keeping its\nrichness of latent gold, in an unusually elaborate Grecian-plait\nto coil in a careful spiral knot at the back of her head. But\nfirst it framed her face in satin-sleek bands, smoothed down low\non the delicate curve of the cheek, and then gathered up, leaving\non either side a loop discovering a shell-like ear. As pink as a\ngeranium-blossom one of them was that evening, the nipping cold and\nher thin dress had tempted her to sit so near the fire; and her eyes\nwere as softly bright as ever, with such light as a sunbeam, questing\nbeneath leaf-lattices, may waken in a moss-brimmed nook of clearest\nwell-water.\n\nPierce noticed all these things, and none of them, while he was\ngreeting his Aunt Geraldine; and he fell in love so simultaneously\nthat it would have been impossible to say whether his observations\ncame before or after. His habit was to be prompt and decided, and\nwith promptitude and decision did he grasp this new experience\u2014of\nwhich, nevertheless, an access of very unwonted diffidence and\nirresolution seemed part and parcel. These set in immediately, as if\nhe had passed a vote of want of confidence against himself upon the\nspot, and its effect was retrospective, throwing a slur alike upon\nhis present and his past. He wondered whether his cousin had not\nthought him a peculiarly odious schoolboy. His old pet name for her\nsuddenly occurred to him as persistently appropriate, but the mere\nremembrance of it made him feel so over-presumptuous that he almost\nwished her to have forgotten it. In like manner he recollected, and\ncould not dare to remind her of, their climb up Slieve Ardgreine, or\ntheir adventure with the strayed goats, and other episodes. He had\nretained only just enough common-sense to understand that Eileen\u2019s\nsilence all the evening upon this, and indeed every other topic, was\nnot intended for a rebuff; and the flow of his conversation with his\nAunt Geraldine was not a little impeded by a perpetual apprehension,\naltogether superfluous, of her niece as a critic.\n\nOf course, he was not very long in recovering his presence of mind.\nIn a day or two he began to dispense with such hampering precautions,\nbut the sentiment that had suggested them continued in full force,\nand did not cease to influence his behaviour. Less, perhaps, in\nhis dealings with Eileen than with the world at large, it made him\ntranspose himself, so to speak, into a softer key. He unlearned in a\nsingle week some tricks of peremptoriness and self-assertion, which\nthe vicissitudes of one early set in authority had been teaching him\nthrough several past years. For it was with him as if he had suddenly\ndiscovered the existence of something precious and perishable, that\na touch might shatter or a breath destroy, and thereupon he grew\nwonderfully sensitive to the wide-spreading intricacies of cause\nand effect. How could he tell but that a rough word spoken anywhere\nmight set a-stirring peril-fraught vibrations to reach and threaten\nthe head that he loved? For her sake, he would have liked everything\nto be on velvet, and he was always instinctively aiming at that end.\nThe most unskilled and incapable of the labourers whose efforts\nhe superintended found their miscellaneous inefficiency treated\nwith singular forbearance, even if it attained an egregiousness\ncharacterised by their comrades as \u201ca quare botch intirely,\u201d and\ndriving their foreman to demand of various powers, celestial and\notherwise: What to glory the great gaby was at? During leisure\nmoments their lank and hollow-eyed gang were prone to pass the remark\nthat \u201cthe captain\u201d was \u201ca rael gintleman\u201d; while up at the Big House\nall the inmates accorded him all sorts of golden opinions.\n\nEileen herself meanwhile was not in the least aware of what had\nbefallen him, but she had left off dreading any detriment to her\ncherished memories, and his visit had undoubtedly brought an influx\nof pleasure and interest to cheer her present day. She was so\nunaccustomed to being made much of by relations that this kinsman\u2019s\ngood nature impressed her as quite extraordinary, and so little used\nto making much of herself that she never thought of attributing it to\nanything except a special quality in Pierce, rather more likely, no\ndoubt, to be exercised in another person\u2019s behalf than in her own. It\nrepeatedly surprised her to see that he remembered and acted upon her\nopinions and wishes, as if they were really important\u2014a new view of\nthem which she would have been slow to adopt. One morning he rode off\nall the long way to Denismore and back to get her Alfred Tennyson\u2019s\nlatest volume, and her delight in it was alloyed only by the\nintrusive consideration of how much coarse meal the price of it would\nhave purchased. For her mind was still engrossingly pre-occupied with\nthe neighbours\u2019 trouble.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe cloud of it had lifted a little since Pierce\u2019s coming. Possible\nwages loosened the famine-grip on such households as could send forth\na man to ply pick and shovel, instead of hopelessly lying abed \u201cagin\nthe hunger\u201d; and then a spell of more genial weather interposing\nreleased everybody from the clutches of that other icy-fingered foe,\nwhose co-operation is so deadly. \u201cFor sure,\u201d as old Christy Shanahan\nhad been known to remark in this connection, \u201cto be starvin\u2019 inside\nand outside at the one time is more than any raisonable man can\nstand at all, unless be good luck he was a graven image.\u201d This dim\nlightening of the prospect, however, rousing a stir of hope where\nnumb despair had begun to prevail, made the need of plans for a\ntimely rescue seem all the more urgent. One evening at dinner, Eileen\nheard Pierce say that if the people could get food enough to ward off\nthe fever just until the potatoes\u2014supposing there should be any\u2014were\ndug, they might do well enough; otherwise, it was a bad lookout.\nAnd he added that it was hard to see how it could be managed, as\nthe road-making grant had nearly run short, and where else should\nthe money come from? At that Eileen had almost spoken her haunting\nthought aloud, and it was: \u201cthe great chest full of silver.\u201d And\nthough the unpropitious moment enjoined silence, therefrom dated the\ndesigning of an enterprise so venturesome that the possibility of\ncarrying it out was a point upon which she hopefully and fearfully\nchanged her mind a dozen times daily for as many days.\n\nAt last there came a brilliant, capriciously-lighted morning, with\nits shine and shadow under the control of a shifting snow-drift,\nwhich sailed at the wind\u2019s will. It was a holiday, and Pierce\nsucceeded in setting out almost as soon as he wished on the early\nwalk he had planned with his cousin. What slight delay did intervene\nwas caused by the arrival, just as they were starting, of the Widow\nBarry with a couple of eggs to sell on commission for her next door\nneighbour\u2014the Widow Shanahan, who \u201ccould get that far be no manner of\nmanes herself, the crathur.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd they\u2019re the last ones you\u2019ll be takin\u2019 off her, Miss Eileen,\nshe bid me tell you,\u201d said Widow Barry. \u201cFor she\u2019s after killin\u2019 her\nould hin this mornin\u2019, because it\u2019s torminted she was to be seein\u2019 it\nmopin\u2019 around starvin\u2019 the same as a raisonable body, sorra a bit had\nshe to be throwin\u2019 it this great while back whativer. \u2019Deed now, you\nmight as well be walkin\u2019 along the shore of the say these times as\nalong be the dures down the street, for e\u2019er a scrap of pitaty-parin\u2019\nor anythin\u2019 else you\u2019d find lyin\u2019 about. The crathur had to be\ncontintin\u2019 itself wid whativer it could pick out of the ground, and\nbedad I won\u2019er it had the heart to think of layin\u2019 e\u2019er an odd egg\nat all. So she took and wrung its neck this mornin\u2019, and she said\nthe sup of broth \u2019ud keep the life in herself and poor Katty for a\nday or so anyway. But och, Miss Eileen dear, it\u2019ll be the weeny sup\nentirely. For \u2019twas meself caught the crathur for her, and I declare\nto goodness it wasn\u2019t the weight in me hand of a little wisp of\nhay. Sez I to her, the feathers on it \u2019ud be heavier be thimselves.\nBut sure she could do no betther; and if it boiled into the name of\nbroth even, it\u2019d give them the notion they was aitin\u2019 somethin\u2019.\u201d\nIn prospect of this repast, the sixpence that Pierce sent seemed\nto him hardly more than an emphasising of a \u201cstrong distemper and a\nweak relief\u201d; but the Widow Barry, who went her way filled with a\ngratitude to God and man, may have understood the situation better.\n\nAnd then the two young people set out on their rambles. They took\ntheir old favourite route up Slieve Ardgreine, for the first time\nsince Pierce\u2019s visit, on Eileen\u2019s part, as the milder weather had\nbeen \u201csoft\u201d too, turning the mossy nap of the turf into a treacherous\nsponge, that squelched coldly over-shoes at the lightest footfall.\nTo-day, however, it might be traversed dry-shod, given a discreet\navoidance of extra vivid patches in the golden green; and a busy\nthirsty breeze had left scarcely a dewdrop in the glazed cups of the\ncelandines and the pink-rimmed saucers of half-blown daisy-buds. Up\nthis daintily carpeted path Eileen picked her steps rather silently.\nHer companion thought that she had been saddened by the incident of\nthe ill-faring fowl, but that was not the reason. What pre-occupied\nher was the great venture which she appeared to be approaching more\nor less in spite of herself. The very direction which their walk\nwas taking, at no choice of her own, was like a hand beckoning\nimperiously. On the way up she hovered towards the verge of it, and\nrecoiled from it, and came stealing back to it again, oftener than\nthe flitting clouds furled and unfurled their shadow-mats at her\nfeet; and the big boulder, the stone plate-chest, hove in sight while\nshe was still wavering. Failure would be so very terrible to her. She\nknew that if Pierce were shocked or indignant, or even amused, she\nwould be miserable indeed; and she could not by any means convince\nherself that he would not be all these things. Yet, when they were\nstanding beside the tall, blackish shape together, just as in old\ntimes\u2014only it used to be the taller then\u2014she felt desperately that,\nchance what might, she must not go away without speaking the sentence\nshe had been mentally rehearsing all the week. It rang in her ears\nlike a clamorous bell, and made her deaf to any other speech, so\nevidently that Pierce stopped in the middle of what he was beginning\nto remark, as if she had interrupted him. Just at that moment the\nsun swam out clear of a high-tossed drift, and sent a golden wave\nsweeping widely up and down the hill-slopes. It broke against the\nbig stone, shining into Eileen\u2019s face with all the dazzlement of\nan April forenoon, and she accepted the omen as if it had been the\ncordial clasp of some encouraging hand. Before the radiant rim had\nslidden on many paces farther, she took heart of grace, and the\nirrevocable word was spoken.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cThere was one thing I wanted to ask you about, Pierce,\u201d she said.\nShe had moved round to the opposite side of the chest, and was\nlooking at him across the lid, with eyes very bright and wistful\nbeneath her broad-brimmed straw hat, which had brown ribbons tied\nin a bow under her chin. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t wonder if you thought it very\ndreadful of me,\u201d she continued; \u201cbut I really don\u2019t think it is\nmyself. After all, I only want to use my own things, and that can be\nno great harm; and if these don\u2019t belong to me now, they don\u2019t belong\nto anybody, which is absurd. At any rate, it couldn\u2019t possibly make\nany difference worth speaking of to those people up at the office in\nDublin, and it would make all the difference in the world to the poor\npeople here; so \u2018the right of it over-leps the wrong of it,\u2019 as old\nMurtagh Reilly used to say.\u201d She was gradually arguing herself into\ncourage; still a mere shadow falling anywhere would have routed it.\n\n\u201cI hope it is something truly appalling, or else I\u2019ll be horribly\ndisappointed now,\u201d Pierce replied, a little puzzled by this prologue,\nbut rather pleasantly so, because he liked her to consult him.\n\u201cYou\u2019ve raised my expectations cruelly.... But if you wish, I\u2019ll\nundertake not to think it very dreadful, nor dreadful in the least\ndegree,\u201d he added, as after a short pause she seemed still to be\nhesitating. He would have said that he had never made a safer promise.\n\n\u201cWell, then,\u201d said Eileen; \u201cdo you remember how you said one time\nthat you could easily get a key for this old chest of ours? Here\u2019s\nthe keyhole, you see, all right. I\u2019ve always kept it clear of moss.\nAnd, I wonder, would you mind\u2014if it didn\u2019t give you a great deal of\ntrouble\u2014getting one for me now? Without telling anybody else, I mean,\nfor of course they wouldn\u2019t let me. I know I can have no legal right\nto take anything out of it until I come of age; but that\u2019s only the\n_law_, and really when people are starving, one can\u2019t be expected to\nwait for years and years just on account of such nonsense. At the\nbest of times it seems a great pity to keep it lying here useless\nfor so long, but now it\u2019s like locking up other people\u2019s lives. If\nI can\u2019t get at it in time to do anything for them, I might as well\nnever have it at all\u2014there\u2019ll not be a soul left in Glendoula. You\u2019ve\nno idea how hateful it makes one feel. Sometimes it seems to me that\nI\u2019m nearly as bad as the wretches who go on carting off their wheat\nand oats to sell in England. Only it isn\u2019t my fault in reality, for\nuntil you came I never had a chance of speaking to any possible\nperson about it. And then, Pierce, I was thinking that when we have\ngot this opened, you\u2019d maybe help me to manage about selling the\nsilver. It must be worth a great deal of money: enough, at any rate,\nto last while they are waiting for the potatoes; for we really had\nvery fine plate, I believe, though it mayn\u2019t be quite so splendid as\nold Timothy used to declare\u2014he _is_ a little given to romancing. And,\nof course, these times I don\u2019t expect to find the yards of pearl and\nruby ropes that were in the _Glittering Hoard_! You do remember that\nI told you, and that you promised about the key, don\u2019t you, Pierce?\u201d\nshe said anxiously, perplexed by his expression, for he was looking\nhard at her with a sort of bewildered blank dismay, almost as if\nsomething had frightened him\u2014an effect which she had not included\namong her many apprehensions.\n\nHe was taken wholly unprepared, because during her irresolution\nEileen naturally had shunned the perilous subject, and he had himself\nfor the time being entirely forgotten the existence of that old\nchildish myth. But now he did indeed remember it, as clearly as if it\nhad happened yesterday, instead of all those long years ago. There\nhad stood the little girl eagerly telling him her absurd story,\nto which he listened with amused forbearance, thinking to himself\nthat he must not vex her by incredulity, and carelessly noticing\nhow swiftly her small face flushed, and how brightly her large eyes\nshone in the excitement of her narrative. And to-day the same thing\nseemed coming to pass again\u2014but with differences. For here unchanged\nin the sunshine was the dark stone block with its yellow dappling of\nlichen, and that same clear voice came to him across it, speaking so\nmuch in earnest that the transparent flower-flush rose and the glance\nbrightened just as of old. But the small child had grown into a tall\nmaiden, and her voice was the one that gave meaning to all the other\nsounds in his world, and her absurd story no longer amused him in the\nleast, seemed liker breaking his heart, seemed the pronouncing of\nan evil spell, that blurred the light of his eyes, and conjured up\na web of black forebodings over the fair horizon of his future. If\nthe soft-aired spring morning had suddenly began to scowl and keen\naround him, and sting him with frozen pellets, it would have faintly\nshadowed forth the transition. A man\u2019s mood, however, may fall from\none level to another in much less time than it takes to tell, and\nEileen thought his answer came quickly.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t you know that you\u2019re talking nonsense, Eileen?\u201d he said.\n\nShe had never heard him speak so sharply, almost roughly\u2014not even\nwhen he had seen his case of mathematical instruments dropped by\nHughey Brian into the bottomless bog-hole, nor when he had come\nupon the Donnellys\u2019 little goat tethered with the remnant of\nan urgently-needed and long-sought measuring-line. And she was\nimmediately aware that the very worst had befallen. Her plan was\nimpracticable, and she had disgusted Pierce by proposing it. The\npoor Glendoula people must starve, and her cousin, who had been so\ngood-natured, could never like her any more. Probably he considered\nher request worthy of a dishonestly-minded idiot, and was deeply,\nperhaps justly, offended at her suggestion that he should take part\nin such a transaction. Certainly, he would not hear of the scheme,\nso all her hopes were scattered like mist before a hurrying wind,\nand there again loomed the grim trouble ahead, with its inexorable\nface turned unveiled upon her. Just at that moment, however, it was\npartially screened by the interposition of a still uglier one, which\nwould thrust itself between, asking and answering a question with the\nsame tormenting result: What must Pierce be thinking of her? He had\nsurely meant worse than \u201cnonsense.\u201d\n\nAmid this rude crowding in on her of disappointment jostling with\ngrief and mortification, Eileen clung half-consciously to the sense\nthat it behoved her by all means to retain the footing of her\nself-possession, and she replied very gently: \u201cNot exactly nonsense,\nI think; but perhaps\u2014I daresay it would be quite out of the question\nto take these things now, and not even right. It seemed to me the\nonly way I could do any thing to help the people, but of course I\nknew it mightn\u2019t be possible at all. I don\u2019t understand much about\nthe law. Don\u2019t you think it\u2019s getting rather cold up here? Perhaps\nwe\u2019d be wiser to come back before the day clouds over.\u201d\n\nThis dignified composure seemed to Pierce as it were a seal set upon\nhis fear, the document of which her fantastic story had supplied,\nand he dejectedly turned down the hill-path with her in silence. The\nsullen-looking stone which they left behind them, a blot on the sunny\nsward, might have been a little ancient altar to some unpropitious\nGod, whence they were taking home, sorrowfully, discomfortable\noracles. In truth, one of them had there said farewell to an old\nhope, and the other struck up an acquaintance with a new fear; both\nexperiences apt to arouse pre-occupying meditations. Neither of the\ncousins gave much heed to their surroundings as they went. The small\nwild clouds flirted the sunshine about as if flocks of white wings\nwere flickering by; here and there they flung down the shadows which\nmake one marvel how their \u201clittle-seeming substance\u201d can be the cause\nof such deep purple stains. But now nobody marked them, nor the\nfar-off pipe of the plover, nor the fragrance of the basking herbage\nunderfoot.\n\nThus they presently came to the gapped dyke leading into the first\nfield, and all the way neither of them had spoken a word. Now, at\nthat moment it happened that Eileen was looking very straight before\nher, with her head held rather high, and her eyes steadily opened,\nto give the tears a chance of going back the way they had come, and\nwalking warily as one who felt how even the quiver of an eyelash\nmight be fatal. Yet these precautions defeated themselves, for they\nwere the reason why she stumbled at the flat stepping-stones, so that\nPierce had to save her from falling just as he had done nearly nine\nyears before. This time, however, he did not let her go again with a\nlaugh. He held her close and said: \u201cOh, my darling, my sweetheart,\ndon\u2019t be vexed, don\u2019t be vexed. It will be all right, never fear.\nWe\u2019ll pull them through\u2014all of them\u2014safely somehow. Don\u2019t think about\nthat old silver any more; and you won\u2019t mind what I said just now?\nI\u2019m a stupid brute, you see, sweetheart; but there\u2019s nothing on earth\nthat I wouldn\u2019t do for you.\u201d\n\nWhile she listened to this statement, Eileen went through, in an\nintensified form, an experience somewhat resembling that of the\nbygone summer morning when the unknown Pierce had first spoken to\nher: a sudden surging up of dread, that wave-like took her off her\nfeet for the instant, but only to lift her unharmed into a new\nworld, most beautifully strange, and shut out from all troubles\nof the mere earth with the light that never was on land or sea. A\nreflection of it in her eyes encouraged him to pursue that line\nof argument, and he said a great deal more, all much to the same\npurport, as they went down the steep green fields, where the\nyoung bracken-fronds were uncoiling their flossy silken whorls\nbeneath last season\u2019s weather-beaten brown plumes, and the golden\nblossom-flakes were melting off the tall winter furzes; and then on\nbetween the fledged boles of the elm-grove, and under the scented\nshadow of the laurel-walk, until at the hall-door Eileen ran away\nto make a solitary survey of the unexplored regions in which she\nhad wonderfully arrived. Just for the moment Pierce felt gratefully\ndisposed towards the big stone, which had, at all events, given him\nhis cue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut later on that afternoon he spoke very bitterly to his Aunt\nGeraldine, whom he found alone in the book-room. The hearing of\ncandid opinions is a privilege not uncommonly enjoyed by spinster\naunts.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve kept her moping here all these years,\u201d he said, \u201cwithout\ncompanions or amusement or occupation, till it\u2019s no wonder that she\nhas taken up queer fancies. Why, it was enough to drive her\u2014to make\nanybody unlike other people. Surely you might have managed better for\nher somehow.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt really wouldn\u2019t have been easy,\u201d his aunt said, but meekly on the\ndefensive; \u201cwe always have had so little ready money, and then your\npoor Aunt Gerald\u2019s wretched health is another difficulty. Besides\nthat, I never noticed anything odd about Eileen. She always seems\ncontented and cheerful enough, and I thought she was a sensible\nsort of child, and very quiet. Just once or twice, now that I\nthink of it, she has said something that rather puzzled me about a\nplate-chest, but I had no idea she had any delusion of the kind.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, that\u2019s just where it is; nobody has cared to look after her or\ntake any trouble about her,\u201d Pierce said, wrathful and reproachful,\na little unreasonably; so fresh was his discovery that concern for\nEileen\u2019s welfare ought to be the prime consideration in every rightly\nordered mind. He did not surmise, either, that he was upbraiding a\nfriend. Yet such was the case. For, from the very first evening,\ntheir Aunt Geraldine had guessed whither things were tending, and\never since had been watching their course, a melancholy sort of\nProspero, who was powerless to work any wonders, and whose joy at\nnothing could be much, but who did feel some pleasure in the growing\nlikelihood that her favourite sister\u2019s son would some day reign in\nthe wreck of the old place, and take charge of the person whom she\nhad always regarded half-pityingly, half-impatiently as \u201cEileen,\npoor child.\u201d Therefore the cropping up of this ominous obstacle was\na disappointment by which she felt so cast down that she had not\nthe spirit to rebut with any energy the accusation of contributory\nnegligence.\n\nNeither she nor Pierce had spoken of the circumstances that lent the\nmatter its menacing aspect, but they were uppermost in the mind of\neach. What made Eileen\u2019s futile story sound so warningly in their\nears was the remembered existence of that baneful spectre whose\nmischief might be traced among the annals of the Fitzmaurice family,\nas well in the notorious eccentricities which had preluded poor\nSir Gerald\u2019s last desperate act, as in the more or less pronounced\noddities and deficiencies which had wrought the history of this\nkinsman and the other into a tragedy with a grotesquer plot.\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t think what has put such a notion into her head,\u201d Miss\nFitzmaurice said dejectedly. The workings of Eileen\u2019s mind could\nhardly indeed have been more remote from her observation if they\nhad gone on in a different planet. \u201cBut, after all, Pierce, if one\nconsiders how young she is\u2014scarcely more than a child.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo reasonable child would believe anything so preposterous,\u201d Pierce\nreplied with gloom. \u201cA rough lump of a boulder with moss growing in\nthe cracks!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd did you tell her so?\u201d asked his aunt.\n\n\u201cWell, no, not exactly; we began talking about something else, and\nI thought I\u2019d better see whether you knew anything about it; but\napparently you don\u2019t,\u201d said Pierce.\n\n\u201cOh, you must just laugh her out of it,\u201d his aunt said, laughing\nnervously herself, and had not any more helpful suggestion to offer.\nPierce left the interview dissatisfied and unreassured.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTowards sunsetting, however, he found himself once more on the summit\nof Slieve Ardgreine. He had promised to go and see after Barney\nFoyle, who had been \u201ctook bad wid the road-sickness\u201d on the day\nbefore, and as the Foyles\u2019 cabin stood by the side of the Clonmoragh\nroad, his shortest route was up and down through the Nick of Time.\nThe sight of the solitary boulder, squatting there starkly black\namid the flushed western glow, made him realise his trouble with\nmuch searching of heart. It seemed a symbol, or something more than\na symbol, a visible tangible embodiment of the obstruction which had\nthrust itself into the clear path of his desires. Now, Pierce Wilmot\nwas alike by nature and training a person who could not, without\ngreat and grudging reluctance, admit impediments to his progress\nalong the way wherein he would go; and in this case he felt more loth\nthan ever before. As he crossed the stretch of sward towards the gap,\nhe eyed the dark mass with a hot thrill of resentment, as if against\nsomebody who had wittingly baulked and baffled him. Yet withal it\nwas for him so obviously nothing more than just an ordinary lump of\nlimestone, that in view of it Eileen\u2019s quaint belief took a stronger\ntinge of unreason. Nor did he possess, to soften it down, any\nknowledge of how the seed had been sown in her mind, and had grown\nup, fostered and never disturbed, through the long years of a lonely\nchildhood. So, for a few paces, his heart sank and sank, till it\nreached depths where a poignant pity was the most endurable element\nin his mood.\n\nBut before he reached the Nick of Time, an idea that flashed across\nhim made him deviate several yards to the right, and walk up to the\nbig stone. He stood still beside it, reflecting for a while, and\nthen gave it a slight kick, as though to mark his arrival at some\ndefinite conclusion. At that moment he was saying to himself: \u201cIn\nany case it would be better out of this; and I\u2019ll do it the first\nthing to-morrow, by Jove I will! Then I\u2019ll bring her up here, and the\nchances are that when once she\u2019s seen it in fragments she\u2019ll never\ngive the matter another thought. There was that young fellow the\nBarnards knew, who got rid of a curious hallucination in much the\nsame sort of way. They burned an old paper on which he had taken it\ninto his head that the safety of the whole world depended; and when\nhe found that nothing happened, he grew perfectly rational about it.\nAnd so will she. For indeed she\u2019s as sensible as anybody can be,\nexcept just on that one point, which won\u2019t signify an atom, if it\u2019s\ntaken in time. It\u2019s a good job the notion occurred to me. Ay, that\u2019s\nthe kind of key I must get you, sweetheart\u2014poor little Bright-Eyes.\nHowever, I\u2019ll take good care that she shan\u2019t be vexed about it. So\nthere\u2019ll be a short end of you, you old _stookawn_, and joy go with\nyou,\u201d he said half-aloud, with a defiant flourish of his blackthorn\ntowards the big stone, which, as he turned his back upon it, flung a\nlong, murky shadow after him, like a scowl, over the sheeny grass.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next morning did not smile upon anyone\u2019s undertakings; rather,\nit might be said to survey them unsympathetically through a blank,\nexpressionless mask. For Letterglas and all its neighbouring glens\nwere full of a white fog. It was not merely the soft mist that\nclings about distant tree-clumps and cabin-clusters when the sun is\nstill low, and uncurls slowly, peeling off from round them, while\nhe climbs, giving one an impression that the landscape is a fragile\nwork of art, not yet quite finished careful unpacking out of delicate\ncotton-wool wrappings. All the night through a vast white cloud\nhad been adrift thither from the westward, over seas, hanging low\nalways, and sometimes trailing on the very face of the water like a\nhuge disabled pinion. Beneath it the dim blue tide had crept to the\nlimitary foot of the cliffs, furtively, as if from an ambush; but the\nwavering ribbon of weed and froth set no boundary for the thronging\nvapour-masses, which passed on wafted inland through rifts and over\ncrests, till at length the escorting breeze dropped and left them\nhalted motionless, a crowd checked by invisible barriers. Round about\nGlendoula they made all the valleys into one, spanning the ravines\nwith ghostly causeways and bridges, and levelling the peaks, lost\namong a\u00ebrial snowfields. The curd-white impenetrable wall looked at\na few yards\u2019 distance so dense and solid that the thought of walking\nthrough it almost took away one\u2019s breath, and people about to emerge\nfrom it loomed along with such dim, unsubstantial shapes that their\nvoices sounded startlingly loud and near.\n\nYet, notwithstanding these obstructive conditions, work was going\non in Letterglas valley, where wheel-barrows trundled to and fro\ninvisibly, tilting out clattering loads, and picks swung unseen till\none stood close to the wielder\u2019s elbow. Pierce, the inspector, had\nmade his way thither, gropingly, at an early hour, having a special\njob in view, which he was anxious to get done as soon as might be.\nBut since a field of vision wider than the present was desirable for\nhis operations, he consulted the weather-wise among his men as to the\nprobability of the fog clearing off. In old Murtagh Reilly\u2019s opinion,\nwhich was highly esteemed upon such points, this might be expected to\ntake place before they were much older.\n\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t wonder if it was very apt to be givin\u2019 itself a heft\nagin we\u2019re done breakfast, your honour,\u201d he said; \u201cand once it fairly\ngits a rise on it, it won\u2019t be long streelin\u2019 itself off out of your\nway. It\u2019s quare somewhiles to see the rate them mists \u2019ill be skytin\u2019\nup the hillside at, and not a breath of win\u2019 stirrin\u2019 that \u2019ud\nthrimble the feather of steam whiffin\u2019 out of an ould kettle\u2019s spout,\nlet alone liftin\u2019 a big cloud fit to thatch a townland.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure it\u2019s the sun shinin\u2019 on the wrong side of them does be drawin\u2019\nthem up,\u201d said Christy Martin instructively, \u201clike as if they was a\nwet shirt shrinkin\u2019 in front of the fire. The flannen\u2019s a terror for\ncocklin\u2019 up into nothin\u2019 if the hate\u2019s too strong for it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI dunno where the great likeness is then,\u201d said old Reilly, who had\nnot a taste for instruction.\n\n\u201cMaybe there\u2019s not, Christy,\u201d said Christy\u2019s brother Willy; \u201cvery\nbelike there is not. But all the same, you and me\u2019d be glad enough\nof a pinny for ivery time we\u2019ve seen the sun comin\u2019 out red on this\nside, lookin\u2019 the livin\u2019 moral of a hot cinder burnin\u2019 through a\nblanket.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave it your own way, lads,\u201d said old Reilly, sublimely abandoning\nthe whole expanse of the heavens to them with a comprehensive\nflourish of his hand. \u201cHowsomiver, your honour, if you was axin\u2019 me,\nI\u2019d say this day\u2019s apter than not to be takin\u2019 up prisintly, or next\ndoor to it, as thick as it is this instiant minyit.\u201d\n\nOld Reilly seemed to have said truly, for by the time that everybody\nrose from the sodded bank, on which some of them had been eating\nslices of bread as they sat\u2014others were in the same plight as John\nO\u2019Mahony, who remarked humorously that it saved a dale of throuble\nto have your breakfast yisterday or else to-morra\u2014there was a\nperceptible curtailment in the flowing drapery of the hill-slopes,\nand a thinning of its texture, paler shimmering brightness running\nthrough it here and there, to show that the opaque folds might shake\nout into diaphanous tissues of pearl and silver.\n\nAccordingly, a small knot of men by-and-by detached themselves from\nthe rest, and began to ascend towards the Nick of Time, whose gap\nwas still hidden by an ample curtain. Pierce was one of the party,\nwhich carried up with it a supply of gritty black grains and sundry\ncoercive-looking tools. He invited Murtagh Reilly to accompany them,\nbut the old man cried off the expedition. \u201cI\u2019m thinkin\u2019 I\u2019ll stop\nwhere I am,\u201d he said, \u201cfor these times when there does be a notorious\ncurse on the counthry, and the hungry-grass growin\u2019 over ivery inch\nof it, troth it\u2019s as much as a man\u2019s life\u2019s worth\u2014and if that\u2019s no\ngreat things, it\u2019s the most he has\u2014to be settin\u2019 his misfortnit fut\ne\u2019er a step further than he\u2019s bound. But you\u2019ve a plinty of the lads\nalong widout me, your honour.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJust at the same time, Larry M\u2018Farlane also set off up the slope,\nby a different route from the others, however, and with a different\ngoal. He was taking the shortest way to the Big House down at the\nbottom of Glendoula. The fog there had begun to recede a little\nearlier than in Letterglas, but still muffled things very closely,\nmaking mysteries of the most familiar objects, and Larry, who, to\njudge by his headlong bounds and plunges all the way, might have\nbeen racing for at least his life, collided more than once with a\ntree-trunk when he came among the plantations. And he reached the\nhouse panting, only to run up against more hampering blocks of delay.\nFor in the kitchen was nobody except Mrs Dunlop, the cook, busied\nwith frizzling preparations for the breakfast, and all she could be\ngot to say was, \u201cAw, ax Mr Gabbett, Larry man; he\u2019ll be apt to know\nif she\u2019s after goin\u2019 out, and if she isn\u2019t, she might be indures\nyit.\u201d And when he rushed on to the pantry, old Timothy, who had\noverheard the voice of an unfavoured visitor, shot the bolt of the\ndoor, and was long deaf to all thumps and calls. In fact, Larry, the\nurgency of whose errand divided every minute infinitely, was turning\naway in despair, when the old man shouted a surly, \u201cWhat\u2019s a-wantin?\u201d\nand he had to waste another tormenting interval before a churlish\nchink opened.\n\n\u201cWantin\u2019 to spake to Miss Eileen?\u201d said old Timothy. \u201cThen want\u2019ll be\nyour master, me hayro of war, for I seen her goin\u2019 out a while back.\nSo if that\u2019s what all you had the prancin\u2019 in the passage for, like a\ncross-tempered carriage-horse kep\u2019 standin\u2019 in a could win\u2019\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cMurther alive and wirrasthrew and bad luck to it,\u201d Larry said,\n\u201cwhat\u2019ll I do at all now? And which way did she go, Mr Gabbett? Was\nit up Slieve Ardgreine she wint, do you suppose? For it\u2019s biddin\u2019 her\nkeep off goin\u2019 up it I\u2019d be.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell to be sure, and set you up. Yourself\u2019s the great one to be\ngivin\u2019 your orders. And how the mischief could I be tellin\u2019 you where\nshe\u2019s went, except be the sound of the hall-door clappin\u2019? But I\ndunno what\u2019d take her sthreelin\u2019 very far up the hill, unless she was\nwishful to lose herself body and bones in the thick of the fog that\nyou might take and cut like the side of a rick. And if you\u2019re from\nthe place where they\u2019re workin\u2019, sure you\u2019d ha\u2019 met her comin\u2019 along,\nsupposin\u2019 she\u2019s gone that way.\u201d\n\n\u201cI might ha\u2019 passed her by twinty times over unbeknownst, up about\nthe top of the fields, where you couldn\u2019t see a goat\u2019s horns and tail\ntogether,\u201d said Larry; \u201cnor I wasn\u2019t keepin\u2019 along be the path the\nmost part of the way; I just slapped down the shortest I could. But\nif I\u2019d had the wit of an ould blind crow, I would ha\u2019 sted on her own\npath, and then I might ha\u2019 stopped her. But I\u2019ll be hard set now to\ngit a chance of findin\u2019 her at all.\u201d\n\nWith that, Larry bolted away too hurriedly for any further questions,\nthus frustrating the curiosity of old Timothy, left wondering \u201cWhat\nfor in the nation the bosthoon would be warnin\u2019 Miss Eileen off the\nhill,\u201d a riddle for which he could invent himself no plausible\nanswer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLarry\u2019s surmise was partly right, Eileen having in reality been\non her leisurely way up Slieve Ardgreine while he sped hot-foot\ndown it. She had slept little in the night, and would have almost\ngrudged that little, had it not been for the pleasantness of waking\nto the recollection that she was not only dreaming. The last time\nshe did so, the silvery lines framing the shuttered window, though\nbut faint as yet, convinced her that it could not be too early\nto get up. Rising, she was fascinated by the spectacle of one of\nthe snow-whitest and stillest fogs she had ever seen in the dozen\nyears or so during which she had been capable of meteorological\nobservations; and she stood looking on at it for some time. But when\nthe fabric of the spacious pavilion began to give ground a little\nand sway to and fro, restoring glimpses of a substantial world and\nshifting them away again, no longer contented with her watch from the\nwindow, she determined to run out and survey more thoroughly this\nrare aspect of things. On the way downstairs she stopped to tap at\nher mother\u2019s door, very softly\u2014a velvet-suited bee would have made\nmore noise flying against it\u2014hoping to be let in, and fearing to\nrouse a sleeper. An answer did set out to her, but the feeble drowsy\nvoice failed to reach her, so she stole on cautiously, a little sorry\nthat she must put off her good morning until she should return.\nEileen was wearing a favourite blue and white mousseline-de-laine,\nand had not forgotten to fasten its collar with her silver key. Over\nher head she had thrown a grey woollen shawl, because the April\nmorning air was soft rather than warm. It was a somewhat shabby old\nshawl, and Eileen vainly reflected that if she met anybody she could\njust slip it off and be carrying it on her arm.\n\nAnybody might be coming down the hill home to his breakfast about\nthis time, and the long aisle of the elm-walk, where the straight\ntrunk columns showed themselves momentarily and vanished as the\nmist-wreaths floated and melted through them, was weirdly alluring.\nWhen Eileen had followed it to its end, she found another vista\nopening before her out on the green slope, closed ever and anon, and\ntemptingly cleared again by capricious wafts of dimness. For as she\nwent there was setting in a general movement among all that great\ngathering of vapours; their assembly was lingeringly breaking up; a\nspectral city going to wrack. Vast cloaked and hooded shapes seemed\ncurtseying ceremoniously to one another from opposite sides of the\nglens, while here and there some loftily towering pile might be seen\nto betray the frailness of its structure by a shivering from top to\nbase like that of a sail in a veering wind. But hardly a breath was\nstirring in Glendoula, so that the dispersion proceeded by very slow\ndegrees, with many fitful pauses.\n\nEileen\u2019s little footpath led her so closely in the wake of a\nreceding cloud-wave that she could watch the bracken-plumes emerge\nfrond by frond from its filmy borders, and descry the gold of the\nfurze-blossom glimmering through the white, before the sombre\nbranches became visible. On either hand, low trailing fleeces were\ncaught and carded into filaments on tussocks and bents and briers.\nFarther up it seemed as if a spectral net cast over the hills were\nbeing hauled in with torn meshes teased and tangled. And behind all\nthis shadowy shifting drifting there were vague motions of light,\nhinted at by sudden wan shimmerings of the canopy that screened it.\n\nEileen was always half intending to turn back, yet she went on and\non, sometimes noticing these things, and occasionally stopping to\ngather a shrivelled dandelion bud, or a russet plantain head for\nthe old moping parrot in the parlour at home, until at last she\nknew that she must have come near the stone chest. It had no bitter\nassociations for her now. Rather she would have looked upon it as\nthe auspicious starting-point whence she had fared to the highest\nfortune. Even the failure of her scheme for producing a relief fund\ndid not any longer grieve her, for Pierce had undertaken that help\nwould be forthcoming, and to Pierce\u2019s keeping she had transferred\nherself, responsibilities and all, which she found a wonderful\nease to her mind. So light of heart, indeed, it made her that she\nnow began softly to sing a sorrowful little ditty, which she used\nlong ago to hear crooned by her poor old nurse, who had a turn for\nsentiment:\n\n      \u201c_Oh sunny blooms Slieve Cryan, where the gold boughs creep\n            together,\n      With honey on the high cliff in ten thousand bells of heather.\n      For the morn that fears no morrow is there bliss in flower and\n            bee,\n      And in one heart sorrow, sorrow, for the hope that wafts to\n            sea._\u201d\n\nBut as she sang, in a voice small and sweet, of this heart sorrow,\nshe looked on before her with shining eyes, very sure of seeing all\nshe wanted to crown the moment\u2019s gladness come presently to meet her\nfrom among the shrouding white mists.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHidden among them just then, not many yards away, half-a-dozen\npeople were at work around the big boulder, digging and boring,\nwith frequent mention in their discourse of needles and trains\nand matches. Their operations were by this time, however, nearly\nfinished, and after the last of them, which was the kindling of a\nlacklustre red flare with a sheet of grease-stained brown paper,\nthe whole party withdrew hastily through the Nick of Time, and\nretreating some little distance down the slope on the other side,\nstood still in apparent expectation of an event. It happened very\nsoon. First a fierce sharp-edged clatter, that crashed into a booming\nroar, followed by a duller sound of rushing thuds, as if a scattered\nflock of unwieldy birds had swooped down close at hand in headlong\nflight. An abrupt silence succeeded, for few echoes gossip among the\nLetterglas hills. It must have lasted unbroken for a long minute at\nleast. For the men had re-entered through the gap, where they found\nthe fog thickened by a sulphurous reek, and Pierce, making out amid\nit the expected new vacant place, was considering how he would now\nhurry home and fetch Eileen hither as soon as possible, that there\nmight be no further delay in the clearance of their pleasant path\u2014\u201cmy\nsweetheart,\u201d he was saying to himself with a remorseful remembrance\nof her sad eyes yesterday\u2014when the air filled, the wide world\nfilled as if it could never empty again, with a shriek and a shriek\nreiterated, shrill and wild, you could not have told whether man\u2019s or\nwoman\u2019s, hardly whether a human being\u2019s, it was a skirl of such sheer\ndespair. Yet Pierce thought he recognised in it a name that snatched\naway his breath.\n\n\u201cWhat was that, man? What is it?\u201d he said, pulling the sleeve of\nPaddy Murray, who was nearest to him.\n\n\u201cSomebody\u2019s hurted for sartin,\u201d declared Paddy.\n\nBut this was probably a mistake. The fragment of the big stone that\nhad struck Eileen on the temple, seemingly had thereby opened for her\nand shut the dark door, whose threshold the senses may not cross, all\nin an instant, before the happiness could fade out of her face, or\nthe little bunch of carefully-gathered weeds drop from her hand. It\nmight, by the way, be feared that poor Polly would enjoy no more such\nfeasts henceforward to the end of his tedious days.\n\nLarry M\u2018Farlane it was, arrived with his belated warning, who had\nraised the outcry on beholding this proof that his panic-stricken\nhurry had been all bootless, and that the evil dream which had\npossessed him ever since he casually overheard talk of Mr Pierce\u2019s\nproject was come most terribly true. Some of the others now bade him\nwhisht and run for Dr Blake and Father O\u2019Connor, who might both of\nthem very belike be below at Denroche\u2019s cottages, where the Maddens\nand young Joe Hanlon were mortal bad last night; though, for the\nmatther of that, it was aisy enough to see there\u2019d be little anybody\ncould do here\u2014goodness pity them all. But as there was nothing\nelse whatever that Pierce could do\u2014he who used to be so ready with\nresources\u2014he fixed his mind upon their coming with a desperate grip,\nwhile he stood by and waited idly.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe felt bewildered, chiefly by the sameness of most things, which\nwere unaccountably going on much as they had been doing a minute\nbefore, when Eileen could have spoken to him. The white mists were\nstill curtseying to one another across wider spaces in the valley,\nand the dim light behind them grew slowly stronger. There was a scent\nof turf-smoke on the air from a fire which someone had lit under a\nbank a little way down the hill. The very strokes of old Dan Heron\u2019s\nhammer continued to come up in a faint rap-tap from the roadside,\nwhere he was breaking lumps of reddish sandstone; for Dan was so deaf\nthat he applied himself to his tasks with abstracted concentration,\nand could not easily be interrupted. Evidently the news had not\npenetrated to him. A murmur of voices was passing to and fro in a\nknot of men gathered at a short distance. Pierce might have caught a\nsentence now and then.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019d a right to ha\u2019 sent them word to keep out of it\u2014you had so\u2014the\nway she\u2019d niver ha\u2019 come widin raich of harm.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure, we was intendin\u2019 to get it done that arly there\u2019d ha\u2019 been no\nfear of e\u2019er a sowl about; \u2019twas the fau\u2019t of the divil of an ould\nfog delayin\u2019 us.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, now, but it\u2019s the woful thing, however it come to happen. And\nshe the on\u2019y one her poor mother has. Is anybody runnin\u2019 down to tell\nthem?\u201d\n\n\u201cOch you may depind\u2014half-a-dozen.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s a quare ugly world she\u2019s took out of any way, the\ncrathur, God knows. \u2019Deed now, I do be wonderin\u2019 somewhiles what He\u2019s\nat wid bringin\u2019 the likes of her into such a place at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd small blame to you to be wonderin\u2019 that same, Jim, if it\u2019s for\nnothin\u2019 betther than to take and knock the bit of life out of her, as\nif it was a gossoon slingin\u2019 stones at a little wran hoppin\u2019 along in\nthe hedges.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s no sort of talk. God be good to the crathur, she looks as if\nno great harm was after happenin\u2019 her any way.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not kilt at all she is, I\u2019m thinkin\u2019. The Docther\u2019s apt to say\nshe\u2019ll be finely agin prisently.\u201d\n\n\u201cBedad now, you might ha\u2019 more wit, man\u2014Och, it\u2019s on\u2019y poor Crazy\nChristy.\u201d\n\nThe sound, but not the sense, of this discussion reached Pierce, and\nvaguely irritated him, because he thought it might prevent him from\nhearing the approach of what he forced himself to imagine possible\nassistance. But when Father O\u2019Connor, not long afterwards, did come\nup to him, it was with no more practical suggestion than: \u201cGod help\nyou.\u201d\n\n\u201c_God?_\u201d said Pierce. \u201cWhat on earth can God do? I think it has\nkilled her.\u201d He put his question like one assuming some self-evident\nproposition, and the kindly old man turned away from him with a shake\nof the head, and no attempt to gainsay.\n\nThe next voice to arouse Pierce\u2019s attention was that of a youngish\nwoman, worn and weather-beaten, whose grey ragged shawl hooded black\nwings of hair, and the dark eyes that often look out so full of cares\nfrom such surroundings. He recognised her as Norah O\u2019Neil, by birth\nKinsella, and she was saying: \u201cSo I thought maybe the Docther might\nbe up here, Mr Pierce\u2014but sure it\u2019s all one. There\u2019s nobody can do a\nhand\u2019s turn for him or any of us now, on\u2019y God. For himself\u2019s lyin\u2019\ndead too, sir, be the roadside down beyant the bridge. And, truth\nto tell you, it\u2019s quare set agin stirrin\u2019 out he was this mornin\u2019,\nwishful he was to be lyin\u2019 in his bed, for he said he felt cruel\nwakely in himself altogether. But it\u2019s losin\u2019 the day\u2019s wages I was\nthinkin\u2019 of, and settlin\u2019 to call him all the lazy hounds I could\nlay me tongue to\u2014poor Mick, that was good to us ever\u2014for \u2019fraid we\u2019d\nbe starvin\u2019 to-morra. So he went off wid himself. And the God that\u2019s\nabove me knows well, on\u2019y for the childer I wouldn\u2019t ha\u2019 said a word.\nBut, Mr Pierce, the faces of thim is gone to nothin\u2019; there isn\u2019t\na one of thim the width of the palm of your hand. And on\u2019y for the\nchilder, to be lavin\u2019 thim, God knows I\u2019d liefer be lyin\u2019 the way\nMiss Eileen is this minyit, instead of her, the Saints in Heaven be\ngood to her, that\u2019s the young crathur. Many\u2019s the time I\u2019ve carried\nher up half-ways to this very place, when I wasn\u2019t so much oulder\nmeself. For what else will I be doin\u2019 all the rest of me life, but\nremimberin\u2019 the day I dhruv poor Mick out of the warm house to get\nhis death on the roadside, when all the while I knew in me heart he\nwasn\u2019t rightly able to stand on his feet. And he\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nBut Norah\u2019s story was here jostled aside by Con Furlong, the foreman,\na stolid, business-like person, who wished to mention that the men\nwere all quitting their work, and to receive instructions about\npaying for a couple of loads of stones that were just after coming\nover from Smith\u2019s place beyond Clonmoragh, where _he_ had never\nordered them. These details somehow helped Pierce to realise more\nfully that he was to be still alive. Meanwhile the sun had found a\nclear path earthward among the mists, and shone out through them with\nall the glamour of dawn and splendour of high-noon, so that swift\nlights strode hither and thither upon the hills, and the haze melted\ninto the deepening blue as fast as foam on a summer sea, until the\nspring-day was golden over the whole countryside. It was just the\nworld and the weather for those grand times which, as Pierce now\nsuddenly remembered, he had promised that Eileen should have when he\ncame with the key.\n\n\n\n\nA DESERTED CHILD\n\n\n\n\nA DESERTED CHILD\n\n\nThe Round Lodge at Kilrath is so ornate a little structure, with\nits pillared portico and fantastic pagoda-like roof, that it looks\nas incongruous in the lonesome grass-lands, amongst which it is\nsolitarily set, as a single pelargonium or calceolaria would look\namong their ragweed and thistles. Only the old people recollect how\nit was built by way of being a gate-lodge on one of the new roads\nwhich there was talk of young Mr Hall making at the time he came into\nthe property, but which, like many more of his schemes, were never\ncarried out. None of them, in fact, ever took a substantial form\nexcept the Round Lodge, his promptness in this matter being caused\nby a long-standing promise to his old nurse that if he succeeded to\nthe Kilrath estate she should have \u201ca little house of her own.\u201d As\nhis regard for the old woman was one of the few interests he had left\nunshrivelled by the gambling fever that had fastened on him, he found\nan eager pleasure in keeping his word to her, and travelled all the\nway down from Dublin that he might be present at her induction into\nher new abode.\n\nIt was a moteless morning in early summer, when the curved masses\nof the wood still had a misty softness of hue, and the green of the\nfresh lawns looked as unwitherable as the domed blue above them.\nThe Round Lodge gleamed most spick and span within and without,\nits brilliant tiles glowing, and the violet and amber panes in its\nglass door richly staining the sunbeams that crowded into the little\nporch. Mrs Moran, glancing round the cosy sitting-room with bright\nquick eyes like a bird\u2019s, felt herself happy indeed, though she only\n_said_ she dared say she might make a shift to manage well enough,\nonce she had the things set to rights a bit herself in her own way;\nwhich would have sounded faint praise to anybody who did not know\nher. But when she was left there to her own devices, she became\nsubject to fits of forlorn \u201clonesomeness,\u201d at intervals which grew\nshorter day by day as the first gloss of ownership wore off. It did\nso the more rapidly because the Round Lodge was so far out of the\nway that she seldom had a visitor to whom she could exhibit her\npossessions with proud disparagement. We all like to look at our\nown happiness through other men\u2019s eyes, a process by which it seems\nto gain a sort of stereoscopic solidity. Her nearest acquaintances\nwere the old coachman and cook couple who lived as caretakers in\nthe gaunt, empty mansion two miles away; for though the village is\nconsiderably closer by, a bit down the road after you turn out of the\nboreen, anybody who supposes that Mrs Moran could have associated\non terms of intimacy with its inhabitants must be sadly to seek in\na knowledge of our finely shaded social distinctions. Mrs Dowling\nalone, who was mistress of the post-office and shop, and who wore a\nbonnet at Mass, might have been an appropriate crony, but she was at\nthis time \u201cmortal bad wid the janders.\u201d Hence the clear summer noons\nand nights often strung themselves into a whole week without giving\nMrs Moran an opportunity of saying anything more to the purpose than\nthe occasional \u201cFine day, ma\u2019am,\u201d which even neighbours who are not\nacquaintances must exchange when they meet. This was a dull state of\nthings, and made the hours wagged out by the bland-faced clock lag\nand loiter strangely. Sometimes, if she had not recollected that she\nwas at last in the long-desired little house of her own, she would\nhave almost thought she had been in better places; and satisfaction\nthat has to be conjured up by an effort of memory comes cold and flat.\n\nA few perches to the westward of the Round Lodge a belt of timber\nbreaks the smooth sweep of the broad pastures that encircle it. If\nyou thread the narrow footpath between the delicate grey beech-trunks\nfor quite a long distance, you come to the edge of a high bank,\nwhich overhangs a deep-sunken lane, a mere boreen joining two more\nimportant thoroughfares. Thence the trees turn at right angles\nto fringe the brink of this lane. Across it you look into a wild\ncountry. The great Shangowragh bog rolls from the horizon almost to\nyour feet, and on the right hand, towards Lisconnel, spreads far\naway, a spacious level that seems brown until you have called it so,\nand then you see many other colours struggling duskily through, olive\nand purple and red. To the left there is rougher ground, mottled\nwith grey-gleaming boulders and clumps of furze, and lifting itself\nup lazily to a stony ridge. Beyond that rise darkly a pair of domed\nmountain summits, the same that are seen more dimly from Lisconnel.\nHere they have the aspect of two huge hooded heads, bowed over a\nmysteriously folded hollow. When Mrs Moran came within view of this\nlandscape, she generally shrank back among the sheltering trunks,\nand went home the way she had come. She said it made the flesh creep\nupon her bones, and she wouldn\u2019t stop where she\u2019d have one of those\nugly black-lookin\u2019 blocks of hills grimacin\u2019 at her from mornin\u2019\ntill night, not if she was paid for it by the hour. The fact was\nthat she had lived all her life in the corner of a softly contoured\nup-and-down county, where the little rounded grass hillocks and\nfrequent hedges make the countryside look as if it had been crumpled\ninto green bunches, and where the prospect seldom extends over more\nthan a few hawthorn-bounded fields at a time. So that these vast\nstretches of wilderness were for her a new and startling revelation\nof possibilities in Nature, which she was somewhat disposed to\nresent. On the whole, though she would by no means have allowed it,\neven to herself, the little house of her own was more or less a\ndisappointment, and disappointments that occur when one is verging\non threescore-and-ten have a discouraging air of finality.\n\nBut with that first long summer at the Round Lodge, Mrs Moran\u2019s\nsolitude was ended by the arrival there of her daughter-in-law, Mrs\nPeter, and of her three grandchildren, Nannie and Biddy and Con.\nTheir coming was caused by a very tragical occurrence, and apart\nfrom the melancholy circumstances, I doubt that it added to the old\nwoman\u2019s contentment. She had long since made up her mind that she\nwould not like a bone in her son\u2019s wife\u2019s skin, and the prejudice\ndid not melt away upon acquaintance, while the children were rather\noppressive to her after her long holiday from such society. Since\nthe infancy of Mr George, now in the Lancers, she had scarcely seen\na child to speak to, in the grown-up Halls\u2019 deserted nursery; and\nshe said aggrievedly that they _moidhered_ her, and that ne\u2019er a one\nof them featured their poor father. Nannie and Biddy, good-natured,\nhot-tempered little girls, shocked her by their romps and quarrels;\nand four-year-old Con, a small, melancholy child with a turn for\nmetaphysics, caused her some chagrin by his unthriving aspect; she\nsaid that he looked like a hap\u2019orth of soap after a week\u2019s washin\u2019,\nwid the face on him no broader than a farthin\u2019 herrin\u2019. With all\ntheir shortcomings, however, the young Morans were presently the\nmeans of bringing a still less promising inmate to the Round Lodge.\n\nAbout this time Kilrath happened to be suffering from a visitation\nof the Tinkers, who had established themselves as usual in the row\nof deserted cottages at the end of the boreen. The Tinkers were\npeople who spent all the tolerably warm part of the year among the\nbenettled wall-rims of deserted cabins, and under the arches of\nbridges, and in the hollows of old quarries, making progresses to and\nfrom these quarters with the help of two donkey-carts. Most of the\nparty passed the heart of the winter in the less primitive shelter of\nwhatever Union workhouse was nearest when the first unbearably cold\nnight overtook them. Now and then a member of their confraternity\ndisappeared for a space into the more rigorous seclusion of some\ncounty jail, but that was an accident of occurrence less common than\ntheir temporary neighbours could have wished. For the Tinkers, it\nis said, stole all before them. Middle-aged inhabitants of Kilrath\nremembered when the band had filled only one cart; but of late years\nthey had over-flowed into a second, the owners of which were known\nas the Young Tinkers. It was considered that the Young Tinkers were\ncollectively greater thieves of the world than the Ould, but that no\nsingle individual could hold a candle for villainy to Luke Maguire,\nthe very ancient commander of the original vehicle. People wondered\nsometimes that the Young and Ould Tinkers did not part company, and\ntake different routes, as their joint arrival at any camping-ground\nwas generally the signal for a frantic fight between the two\nsections. However, they continued to stick together, which, as a\nKilrath housewife remarked, was \u201ca rael charity, for if they took to\nscatterin\u2019 themselves over the whole countryside, like a flock of\nturkeys in a stubble-field, she should suppose there wouldn\u2019t be a\nhim or an egg to be had in it from one year\u2019s end to the other.\u201d\n\nSo not long after the Peter Morans\u2019 establishment at the Round\nLodge, the Tinkers sent to the door a deputation composed of a\nwoman and two children, all wildly ragged, and hung about with\nsamples of their flashing tinware in such profuse festoons that\ntheir approach sounded, one may suppose, somewhat like the onset\nof a mail-clad knight of old romance. Their call was but brief,\nfor their appearance did not favourably impress the two Mrs Morans,\nwho were afterwards careful to exhort Nannie and Biddy and Con\nthat they must on no account have anything to say to \u201cthem young\nrapscallions,\u201d if met with on their walks abroad. The little Morans,\nwho had been staring with all their eyes full of envious admiration\nat their two contemporaries permitted freely to handle and clink\nthose resplendent and resonant cans, felt vaguely the existence of\ncompensations and complications in the scheme of things, when they\nlearned that these privileged persons were nevertheless to be shunned\nas somehow inferior and reprehensible, and \u201cnot anyways fit company\nfor respectable people\u2019s childer.\u201d\n\nBut on the next Saturday their mother went to shop in the village,\nand up at the Round Lodge the children found the morning as long as\nmornings can be when one is under seven, and the end of an hour is\nout of sight. By the time that Nannie and Biddy and Con had finished\ntheir midday dinner, they felt quite convinced that if their mother\nmeant ever to come back to them at all, she must now be somewhere\nnear at hand; and while their grandmother was busy washing up, they\nslipped away to meet her along the path among the beeches. It was a\npleasant autumn day, with crisp leaf-drifts to scuffle underfoot, and\nhere and there a more or less ripe blackberry attainable, amusements\nwhich drew them on until they reached the brink of the abrupt descent\ninto the boreen. They saw no sign of their mother coming, and the\nbank looked so very high and steep that they could not even think\nof climbing it. But while they strayed desultorily on the top,\nsomebody, swinging from clumps of weeds to handles of looped roots\nin monkey-like fashion, came suddenly scrambling up it, and then\nsquatted down cross-legged under a sloe-bush. The new-comer seemed\nto the children a very large person, being a well-grown girl of ten\nor eleven. Her dress consisted of a brown skirt, which looked as if\nit had once been a sack, with a man\u2019s old jacket for a bodice, eked\nout by a screed of greenish shawl. She was barefooted and bareheaded,\nwith a great shock of black hair making thick eaves over her brows,\nunder which her light-grey eyes shone like the gleam of pools caught\nthrough dark-fledged boughs. This was Judy Flower, eldest daughter\nof Jack Flower, head of the family of the Young Tinkers. Strictly\nspeaking, Jack\u2019s surname was Murphy, but Jack\u2019s father, who had\nenjoyed some local renown as a wrestler, had been styled by his\nadmiring neighbours \u201cThe Flower of Clonmoyle,\u201d and his children had\nbeen spoken of as the Young Flowers, until the nickname hardened\ninto a patronymic, which Jack took with him when he sank into the\ntinkering line. Judy\u2019s mother, on the other hand, had real gipsies\namong her ancestry, which was, perhaps, the reason why Judy sat\ncross-legged, and had something weirdly Oriental in her aspect.\n\nThe Moran children sidled away a few paces, eyeing her doubtfully;\nbut she took no notice of them, and began to eat a bunch of\nremarkably large and ripe blackberries, evidently the remains of much\nsimilar spoil, for her hands and lips were blue with juice-stains.\nWhen she had finished them all but the last, which was also the\nbiggest and blackest, she suddenly held it out to Con, saying,\n\u201cThere\u2019s for you, young feller, and a grand one it is\u2014a dewberry.\nStuff it in your mouth, and no more talk out of you.\u201d She spoke in\na high-pitched gabble, and with a peremptoriness of manner modelled\nupon that used by her elders to herself. Con was half-scared, and\nBiddy plucked Nannie by the sleeve, whispering dismally, \u201cLet\u2019s go\nhome, she\u2019s ugly-lookin\u2019.\u201d However, the plump-seeded, glossy berry\nproved irresistible, and Con\u2019s hesitation ended in a furtive grab.\nNannie, emboldened by this mark of confidence, came a step nearer to\nJudy, and said, peering down the bank wistfully, for her gleanings by\nthe way had only served to whet her appetite, \u201cThere would be a dale\nof berries in it over yonder?\u201d Judy craned her neck round the bush,\nand looked down the bank too, and then at the three small children,\nwho stood in a row. \u201cIs it berries you\u2019re after?\u201d she said, \u201cand is\nit over there you\u2019d be goin\u2019? Whethen now, if you knew what all was\nin it over there, \u2019tisn\u2019t about berries you\u2019d be talkin. Och no,\nmurdher alive, not indeed, bedad.\u201d\n\n\u201cOver where is it?\u201d said Nannie, impressed and alarmed by the\nredundancy of Judy\u2019s asseverations.\n\nJudy pointed up the boreen, which just there turned sharply, and\nunder a roof of reddening boughs formed a vista, ended by the dark\nmountain-wall. \u201cOch if you was after seein\u2019 the laste taste of a\nsight of a one of them\u201d\u2014she said, with appalling vagueness. \u201cOch\nmercy on us all and more too, if you on\u2019y was.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat sort seein\u2019?\u201d said Nannie, with increasing anxiety. The row\nhad shortened itself considerably, the children had shrunk so close\ntogether.\n\n\u201cCrathurs,\u201d said Judy. \u201cOch my goodness the crathurs. Tiger-bastes,\nand camel-horses, and mambolethses\u2014rael frykful. I cudn\u2019t tell you\nthe half-quarter of them. But the crathur of all the crathurs is the\nbig red snake that\u2019s in it. Awful _he_ is. Och the dear help us, I\nhope he\u2019ll bide contint where he is, I hope he will. Wirrasthrew, if\nhe was to get hearin\u2019 any sort of noise that \u2019ud wake of him out of\nhis sleep\u2014whoo-oo, that\u2019d be the bad job for us all.\u201d\n\nThe children stared at her round-eyed like a bunch of fascinated\nlittle birds.\n\n\u201cWell now, but it\u2019s the terrible big red snake _he_ is,\u201d Judy went on\ncontemplatively, \u201cand the great hijjis lump of a black head he has\non him; it wouldn\u2019t scarce fit in between them two bushes; and the\nlong len\u2019th he is, that\u2019d raich aisy to the far end of the boreen\u2014and\nhe asleep up yonder, ready to wake every instant minute of time that\nhappens\u2014and bould little children talkin\u2019 of leppin\u2019 down the high\nbanks after blackberries.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe worn\u2019t,\u201d said Biddy, with a howl.\n\n\u201cWhere is he asleep at all?\u201d said Nannie in a hoarse whisper.\n\n\u201cSure, up there in his black hole,\u201d said Judy, pointing through\nthe trees, \u201cwound himself up he has\u2014round and round and\nround-an\u2019-round-an\u2019-round\u201d\u2014she described a rapid eddy in the air with\nher forefinger\u2014\u201cwid his big ugly head cocked in the middle, listenin\u2019\ntill he hears somethin\u2019 to wake him up\u2014and then, good gracious, is\nit what\u2019ll he do?\u201d she said, replying to an interrogative gasp from\nNannie, \u201cMurdher alive!\u201d She ducked down until her shock-head nearly\ntouched the ground, and recoiled immediately to an erect sitting\nposture with a jack-in-the-box-like spring. Then she elongated her\nneck preternaturally, and twisting it from side to side, glared about\nher with a ferocious goggle and grin. \u201cThat\u2019s what he\u2019ll do first,\u201d\nshe said, \u201cto find out what way the noise was comin\u2019 wakenin\u2019 of him.\nAnd after that, he lets a couple of roars out of him, and he begins\nto unrowl himself\u2014round and round an\u2019 round-an\u2019-round\u2014the wrong way.\nAnd as soon as he\u2019s stretched his len\u2019th, out he\u2019ll take wid himself\nslitherin\u2019 down the hill to us, and through the trees there he\u2019ll\ncome smashin\u2019 desthruction off of all before him. Ragin\u2019 mad he\u2019ll be\nfor bein\u2019 woke up. Och the creels of him and the crawls of him,\u201d said\nMiss Judy, rocking herself to and fro, so that the withered leaves\non the thorny bush behind her fell over her like a shower of little\ngolden coins, \u201coch the creels of him and the crawls of him, and the\nroars of him and the bawls of him\u2014there was never anything aquil to\nit. \u2019Twould terrify the clouds out of the sky.... And mercy be among\nus, what was that at all now? Was it him beginnin\u2019? I dunno but I\nheard him over yonder, like as if he was sayin\u2019 _cruel_ to himsel,\n\u2018Whoo-oo-o, let me be comin\u2019 at them.\u2019\u201d\n\nThis was too much for the fortitude of Biddy, a small fat child with\nno great force of character, and she broke into an uncontrollable\nroar, to the wrathful despair of Nannie, who shook her passionately,\nsaying, \u201cWhisht, whisht, you little madwoman! do you want to have\nus all destroyed?\u201d Con, on the other hand, not less dismayed, flew\nfrantically at Judy with a snatched-up stick, confusing the causer\nwith the object of his terror. Judy herself rose to her feet, and\nresorted to precipitate flight, not by reason of Con\u2019s assault, but\nbecause at this moment a voice called shrilly through the trees, \u201cYou\nyoung miscreant there, what at all are you doin\u2019 wid the childer?\u201d\nIt was old Mrs Moran, who, alarmed by the stillness, had set out\nin quest of her grandchildren. Judy, who had no wish to explain\nthe situation, sought to escape from it by a hasty retreat down\nthe boreen bank, but her attempt was unlucky. For in her hurried\nswinging of herself over the edge, she trusted her weight to a tuft\nof ragweed, whose roots ripped faithlessly out of the crumbling soil,\nand let her drop amongst a scattering of earth and pebbles into the\nmiddle of the lane, where she lay stunned and incapable for the\npresent of any further romancing.\n\nIt was in this way that Judy Flower became an inmate of the Round\nLodge, being carried up there by Michael Kelly, a turf-cutter, who\nappeared opportunely on the scene. He then tramped off several miles\nto summon the doctor, observing as he started that there was likely\nto be an Inquist to-morrow. But when the doctor came, he pronounced\nthe case one of merely slight concussion of the brain, and predicted\na rapid recovery, if the child were properly cared for, which Mrs\nMoran resolved that she should be. \u201cThe crathur might stop where she\nwas for a few days at any rate, till she came round a bit.\u201d\n\nThe Tinkers themselves did not display much concern about the fate\nof their youthful comrade. On the evening of the accident, two of\nthe women came to make inquiries at the Round Lodge, and their\nreport seemingly satisfied Judy\u2019s family, for next morning the\nwhole party decamped, moving on in the direction of Castlebawn. But\nit had happened that just at this time Judy\u2019s mother was absent,\ntramping the country on a professional tour, with a baby and a bunch\nof tinware, and so heard nothing of what had befallen her daughter\nuntil she rejoined the caravan at Castlebawn. They picked her up in\na dreary little back lane, where she awaited their coming, seated\non a broken-down mud wall. Her tin cans were nearly all slung about\nher still, but she had nothing in her arms, for the baby had died of\nbronchitis in the cold weather the week before, little to anybody\nelse\u2019s regret, perhaps not even its own. But the event had disposed\nMrs Flower to take a tragical view of things, and therefore, when her\nfamily equipage creaked near enough to admit a counting of black\nand red heads, which showed that one was missing, she immediately\nformed the gloomiest conclusions about the fate of the absentee. Nor\nwere the explanations she received particularly re-assuring. Little\nJimmy, her eldest boy, reported that Judy had fell off of the top of\nsomethin\u2019, he didn\u2019t rightly know what, and hadn\u2019t come home since.\nAnd his aunt Mrs Massey\u2019s account of the matter ran: \u201cOch, sure she\u2019s\nafter givin\u2019 herself a crack on the head, but the ould woman that\npicked her up off the road was a dacint body, and she\u2019s took her\nin. She might get over it and do right enough yet. Anyway, the best\nchance was to lave her where she is. It\u2019s late we are, for the roads\nis that heavy they\u2019re nearly pullin\u2019 the hoofs off of the misfort\u2019nit\nasses\u2019 ould feet. How did she get the crack? Sure the on\u2019y wonder is\nshe hasn\u2019t broke her neck a dozen of times wid the way she climbs\nover all before her. And so the baby\u2019s died on you? Ah the crathur,\nGod be good to it! \u2019Deed now, it would be cruel knocked about in the\nperishin\u2019 weather. Belike it\u2019s better off. Did you sell anythin\u2019 at\nall? Musha then, woman, you needn\u2019t be frettin\u2019 after Judy, for\nshe\u2019s apt to play plinty more fool\u2019s thricks yit, if that\u2019s all ails\nyou.\u201d\n\nMrs Flower was, however, bent on not only fretting, but going to\nsee after and if possible repossess herself of Judy. She was ill\nand miserable, and had been looking forward to the close of her\nweariful, lonesome tramp, and a spell of easier days, jogging along\non wheels among familiar faces. But Judy was the eldest of her\nchildren, and had perhaps never quite lost the glamour of a wonderful\nnew possession, which her mother could not contemplate in another\nperson\u2019s keeping without a pang of jealousy. At any rate, she made up\nher mind to resume her solitary way, and she kept her resolve despite\nthe disapproval of her family, of her gaunt-looking husband, who said\nshe\u2019d a dale better stop wid the childer and him and mind them a bit,\nand of the childer themselves, who, feeling mocked and defrauded by a\nglimpse of comfort so speedily withdrawn, howled dismally and drummed\nprotests on the sides of their cart, as they saw the much-desired\nwisp of black shawl recede fluttering down the wet street.\n\nUnder these discouraging circumstances, aggravated by wild wind and\nrain, Mrs Flower started on her doubtful quest. Four days she had to\ntrudge in solitude, and three nights she had to shelter as best she\ncould, the best being on two occasions no better than the lee-side\nof a dyke and a clump of rustling furze-bushes. Such wide tracts\nof bogland intervened between cabins where a night\u2019s lodging may\ngenerally be had for the asking, because the indwellers have little\nelse to bestow. But she consoled herself with the hope that on the\nway back she should have her daughter\u2019s company. She durst not now\nface the possibility of \u201canythin\u2019 havin\u2019 happint Judy,\u201d so that she\nwould after all return alone. That would have been to look recklessly\ndown a gulf of despair. So she allowed herself to doubt of nothing\nexcept her chances of reaching her goal before she was perished\noutright, or \u201ctook rael bad intirely.\u201d When she came to the village\nof Kilrath, a wannish gleam of prosperity flickered out on her, for\nshe succeeded in persuading Mrs Nally, the owner of a stray spare\npenny, to buy a tin-mug, which was described as being \u201cthat iligant\nand polished up, \u2019twould be a pleasure to drink anythin\u2019 out of it,\nif \u2019twas on\u2019y a sup of ditch-water, and strong? Och goodness preserve\nus, ma\u2019am dear, you might take and batter it agin that wall there\nthe len\u2019th of the day, and sorra a dint there\u2019d be in it when you\u2019d\ndone.\u201d As she knew that the Round Lodge could not be very far off,\nshe expended the proceeds of this sale in purchasing a little flour\ncake for Judy at the shop. It was richly yellowed with soda, and\nshowed three currants on its surface, which could not fail to tempt\nthe most delicate appetite. \u201cAnd sure the bit of a crathur would be\nfinely agin now.\u201d\n\nBy the time that Mrs Flower came to the Round Lodge, the wintry dusk\nhad thickened so that the driving sleet-sheets were more felt than\nseen. The leafless beech-grove was roaring in the wind with the voice\nof a foam-fretted shore, and straining and swaying to the stress of\nthe blasts until it looked like an anchored cloud. She groped baffled\namong the dripping trunks for a long while before she found a clue in\na line of red light to guide her across the dim grass-field, until\nshe stood under the porch of the Round Lodge. It was the Tinkers\u2019\nhabit to be stealthy in their movements, and she passed through the\ncoloured glass door unheard, and down the short passage to where\nanother door stood rather widely ajar, revealing an interior of\nruddily lit warmth, paradisiacal to anybody peering in very cold and\nwet and hungry. Only Mrs Moran and Judy were in the kitchen, which\nglowed all round its curved walls so that the room looked like a\ncupful of light filched from the ebbing day. Judy, now convalescent,\ninstalled in one of the fine new arm-chairs by the fire, with locks\nclipped and combed, and wearing a neat lilac print frock and little\nplaid shoulder-shawl, was wonderfully transformed in aspect. She was\neating a broad slice of buttered griddle-cake, and listening to a\nlong story, which Mrs Moran had drawn from her store of reminiscences\nabout the Quality she had lived with. While Mrs Flower watched, the\nold woman got up and brought the girl something in a large mug. \u201cIt\u2019s\na nice sup of buttermilk for you,\u201d she said; \u201csup it up, honey, along\nwid your cake. I declare now, you and I are great company together\nintirely.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy are we,\u201d said Judy complacently; \u201cand if I had me strip of\nknittin\u2019, I might be tryin\u2019 did I remember the stitch you was showin\u2019\nme. Sure none of them at home could do knittin\u2019 no more than the\ncrows in the field. And what become of Miss Lily\u2019s grey horse?\nThey\u2019d be apt to put it out of that, after it doin\u2019 such a thing.\u201d\n\nJudy\u2019s mother never heard the answer to that question, for she was\npre-occupied by a struggle towards a difficult resolve. When it was\nformed at last, she turned to slip noiselessly away. \u201cSure she has\nher chance there, me jewel,\u201d she said to herself. \u201cI\u2019ll let her be.\u201d\nBut she was not destined to depart uninterrupted. As she turned to\ngo, one of her cans swung, clanking against the door-edge, and Judy\nhad espied her before she could retreat.\n\n\u201cWhy, there\u2019s me mammy!\u201d Judy said. \u201cIt\u2019s comin\u2019 she\u2019ll be to take me\nhome.\u201d Her exclamation began jubilantly but ended in a minor cadence,\nfor her present quarters were in most ways very much to her mind, and\nbeing still less vigorous than usual, made her feel all the more loth\nto resume the rough faring upon which she looked back across this\nbrief novel experience of cosy chimney-corners and ample meals. It\nstruck her that her mammy might have arrived more appropriately some\nother time; _some_ time, of course, but _other_ certainly; and the\nopinion betrayed itself on her countenance.\n\n\u201cWell, and what way are you, Judy?\u201d said Mrs Flower, pausing as she\nfound herself observed; \u201cgrandly you look to be set up in there,\nbedad.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, she\u2019s doin\u2019 finely?\u201d said Mrs Moran. \u201cYou\u2019d better step inside,\nma\u2019am\u2014if you\u2019re Judy\u2019s mother,\u201d she added, though she could not\nforbear a mistrustful glance from her visitor\u2019s bedraggled rags\nto her own clean boards and good bit of carpet. \u201cIt\u2019s wet walkin\u2019\nto-night.\u201d\n\n\u201cI dunno but I\u2019d a right to stop where I am,\u201d said Mrs Flower,\nstanding still. \u201cDrippin\u2019 I am, sure enough; the showers this day\u2019d\ndrinch a water-eel. I was on\u2019y trampin\u2019 round wid the things; and as\nfor takin\u2019 you along, Judy, \u2019deed for the matter of that, sorra the\nhurry I\u2019m in at all, unless them that have got you so be.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s no hurry whatsomever,\u201d said Mrs Moran rather stiffly. \u201cLet\nalone that the child\u2019s noways fit to be streelin\u2019 about the counthry.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe saints above know I\u2019ve no wish to be saddlin\u2019 meself wid her,\u201d\nsaid Mrs Flower defiantly. \u201cIt\u2019s just a livin\u2019 torment she\u2019d be to\nme, and divil a hap\u2019orth else.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, to be sure, one\u2019d ha\u2019 thought you might ha\u2019 found somethin\u2019\nmore agreeable to say of your own child,\u201d said Mrs Moran, \u201ceven\nsupposin\u2019 it isn\u2019t convenient to have her along wid you these times.\u201d\n\n\u201cConvenient, is it?\u201d said Mrs Flower. \u201cBe jabers, it\u2019s them that has\nthe rarin\u2019 of the likes of her knows the throuble of it. Troth, you\nmight be tired bangin\u2019 her about and givin\u2019 her abuse from one day\u2019s\nend to the other, and get no good of her at the heel of the hunt.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Deed then, if you can conthrive nothin\u2019 better to do wid her than\nthat, I\u2019d a dale sooner she sted where she is,\u201d said Mrs Moran, with\nincreasing sternness, and a change of mind about the propriety of\noffering Mrs Flower a cup of tea. \u201cShe\u2019s an unnatural crathur,\u201d she\nsaid to herself, \u201cand all she cares for is to be shut of the child.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, good-bye to you, Judy,\u201d said her mother. \u201cI\u2019ll not come near\nyou, I\u2019m that muddy and wet.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you\u2019ll be comin\u2019 back some time soon, mammy?\u201d said Judy, who\nhad hitherto kept silence, somewhat shocked and affronted at her\nmother\u2019s disparagement, which was a new experience to her, as at home\nMrs Flower had been always wont to defend Judy\u2019s character and extol\nher, without much cause, \u201cfor lendin\u2019 a great hand wid the childer,\u201d\nand other domestic virtues. Now, however, Judy was stricken with\nremorse as she saw the familiar black shawl and weather-worn face\ndisappearing into a darkness which led towards the dreary noises of\nthe wild night. She got out of her arm-chair, and despite Mrs Moran\u2019s\nremonstrance, ran across the room and down the passage, hobblingly,\nbecause she was still lame from her fall. When she reached the porch,\nher mother, though close by, was almost swallowed up in the gloom,\nwhich had superseded the last glimmers of twilight. Only in the\nfarthest west lingered a dull-red band, hardly more luminous than a\ndrift of the dead beech-leaves. Judy stood on the steps peering out,\nwith the hearth-glow behind her. \u201cStop a minute, mammy,\u201d she called;\n\u201cI\u2019m after forgettin\u2019 to bid you good-bye or anythin\u2019. And I\u2019ll ax\nherself inside to be wettin\u2019 the tay\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nMrs Flower looked round, and halted for a moment. Then she shook\nher fist menacingly at her daughter. \u201cBe off and run in wid you out\nof that, you young divil!\u201d she shouted hoarsely. A gust of wind\nintercepted and bore away the words, but her threatening gesture was\nplain enough against the fading wraith of the sunset. And it was the\nlast that Judy ever saw of her unnatural mother.\n\n\n\n\nAN ACCOUNT SETTLED\n\n\n\n\nAN ACCOUNT SETTLED\n\n\nOne wet autumn evening, Mr Natty Grogan was taking stock and making\nup his books with the assistance of his family. When thus occupied,\nthe young Grogans were wont to complain that he would be trotting\nafter them with dogs\u2019 abuse from Billy to Jock, till you couldn\u2019t\ntell where to have him; while he used to declare that the lot of\nthem all together were more different kinds of fools than you\u2019d find\nanywhere else in the breadth of Ireland, and so was their mother\nbefore them. She had died many years since and her husband was\nreported to have remarked that the event would save him a couple\nof shillings a week, anyway, for milk and chicken-broth. But it is\nfair to observe that unfeeling speeches were likely enough to be put\ninto his mouth on this occasion\u2014such was his character among his\nneighbours. They said that his wife had been \u201ca very dacint poor\nwoman, and a dale too good for any such an ould slieveen, and it was\na pity all the childer, except, maybe, Andy, took after himself.\u201d\n\nFor the present, however, popular disapproval of the Grogans was in\nabeyance, as almost everybody else had gone to bed and to sleep,\nso that Athcrum\u2019s one wide street lay deserted and blank. It was a\nvery wet evening, and the whitewashed house-fronts had an ample dado\nof mud splashes about their doors and lower windows, but they were\nall now muffled up in darkness. The Grogans\u2019 late sitting threw no\nlight on the outer gloom, for the battered shop-shutters were up,\nand business proceeded in the little back room, whence old Natty lit\nhimself every now and then with a sweeling dip, to grope among his\nstock-in-trade in the adjoining shop. He accompanied these researches\nwith dissatisfied grunts, rising occasionally into requests\nwrathfully shouted to his family, for an explanation of what he found\nor missed. They grimaced at one another, and sometimes whispered\ntogether before they complied with his demands\u2014Nannie and Tom and\nStevie, seated round the table, where the strong lamp-light flared\nin their faces. Their father, peering in at them from murky recesses\nbehind the counter, half saw and half surmised these signals, which\ndid not soothe his irritation.\n\n\u201cWhat at all\u2019s gone wid the rest of the ten-pound tin of arrowroot\nbiscuits?\u201d he called suddenly. \u201cIt was better than three parts full\nlast time I seen it, and, accordin\u2019 to the accounts, there\u2019s no right\nto be anythin\u2019 out of it since then, but ne\u2019er an atom have you left\nin it, on\u2019y a dust of crumbs.\u201d\n\n\u201cBelike _they_ niver put down the last person had some,\u201d suggested\nTom, disassociating himself from the transaction with prompt presence\nof mind.\n\n\u201cAnd why the mischief didn\u2019t you? Am I keepin\u2019 the pack of yous\nfoolin\u2019 here to be slingin\u2019 me goods about the parish, and not so\nmuch as take the trouble to scrawm it down? There\u2019s not an infant\nchild goin\u2019 to school but \u2019d make a better offer at doin\u2019 business.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s very apt to ha\u2019 been Mrs Moriarty,\u201d said Nannie, choosing to\nignore this aspect of the matter; \u201cshe did be gettin\u2019 them kind of\nthings the time the childer was sick. We can aisy charge them to her.\u201d\n\n\u201cMrs Moriarty\u2019s great-grandmother\u2019s cat!\u201d said her father. \u201cYou\nmight as well save yourself the trouble\u2014and there\u2019s none readier\u2014of\nchargin\u2019 anythin\u2019 to her these times. The people at the post-office\nwas tellin\u2019 me this mornin\u2019 that the last American letter come\nfor her, sorra the money-order was in it at all, except word of\nthe daughter bein\u2019 in hospital, and the husband out of work. It\u2019s\none while before she\u2019ll be settlin her account. Howsome\u2019er, charge\nthe biscuits to her, and don\u2019t be makin\u2019 too free wid allowin\u2019 her\nanythin\u2019 else on credit. Whose bill\u2019s that you\u2019re makin\u2019 out there,\nStevie?\u201d\n\n\u201cYourself\u2019s after biddin\u2019 me get Dan Farrell\u2019s,\u201d Stevie replied.\n\n\u201cAy, did I? It\u2019s the best chance we have to be gettin\u2019 anythin\u2019\nout of the man, and he wid his couple of bastes in at Kenmare fair\nyisterday. If we don\u2019t look out sharp, his story\u2019ll be that the agent\ntook the price off him for rint. The divil mend the both of them for\na pair of thievin\u2019 villins! Sure Widdy Rourke below was tellin\u2019 me\nshe seen Dan diff\u2019rint times comin\u2019 out of Carmody\u2019s as hearty as\nanythin\u2019; and when\u2019s he had a glass from us at all? Ah, musha! long\nlife to him. A great notion he has to be spendin\u2019 his ready money\nat Carmody\u2019s, and we to be givin\u2019 him credit for everythin\u2019 else he\nhappens to fancy. Plase the pigs, I\u2019ll learn him the differ! What\u2019s\nthe amount he\u2019s owin\u2019? Eighteen shillin\u2019? Then just set him down a\ncouple of pound of them biscuits, or anythin\u2019\u2014the way there\u2019ll be no\nbother wid change comin\u2019 out of his note.\u201d\n\n\u201cBiscuits he didn\u2019t get, I\u2019ll take me living oath,\u201d said Stevie\nconfidently.\n\n\u201cKeep your oaths till they\u2019re axed for. \u2019Twas as apt to be biscuits\nas anythin\u2019. And I\u2019ll tell you what it is, me young shaver, _you_\u2019ll\nstep over to Farrell\u2019s to-morra mornin\u2019 and get the bill ped.\u201d Old\nNatty gave these commands in a triumphant tone, meaning them to be a\npenalty for his son\u2019s contumacious contradiction; and Stevie did say\ngrumblingly\u2014\n\n\u201cTroth and bedad, it\u2019s nicely bogged a man\u2019ll be thrampin\u2019 them roads\nafter these polthogues.\u201d\n\nBut the young Grogans had a way of posing in aggrieved attitudes from\nmotives of policy, and the commission was really much to Stevie\u2019s\nmind, the office of collector being always in request among them,\nbecause it was endowed with what they called their chances. These\nconsisted in a private lengthening of the bill by addition of sundry\nfictitious items, the price of which the inventor pocketed. Thus, on\nthe present occasion, before Stevie went to bed he was careful to\nsupplement Dan Farrell\u2019s account with the following entries, which\nwere purely efforts of imagination\u2014\n\n                  _s._  _d._\n\n  Extry male        2     3\n  Shuger            1     0\n  Other extrys      1     9\n\nFive shillings was an unusually large toll to levy in this way, but\nStevie knew his man, and had little fear of failing to extract it;\neasy-going Dan would so certainly be loth to \u201cget argufyin\u2019 and\nrisin\u2019 ructions.\u201d\n\nNext morning, Stevie started betimes on his two-mile walk. The\nraindrops had only just ceased pricking the wide, continuous puddle,\nwhich lent a Venetian aspect to the main street, and sounds of\ngurgling and dripping were audible all around, as if everything\nwere talking over the late downpour. When Stevie faced towards the\npurple mountain range, in the direction of which lay Dan Farrell\u2019s,\nhe saw the pale mists creeping along the ridges, and writhing up the\nravines, and swirling in the curved hollows, and the air had the\nbreath of autumnal chill that comes with rain in harvest time. Water\ngleamed greyly from the furrows of every little field that he passed,\nand he passed scores of them before he reached the river bridge,\nwhere he was within a few perches of his goal. He might have taken a\nshorter route, but it included a swampy patch and the passage of some\nstepping-stones, for which he considered the state of affairs \u201ctoo\nsoft altogether\u201d; and he therefore kept upon comparatively dry land.\nThe dryness was very comparative indeed all over Dan Farrell\u2019s little\nholding, which occupied the entrance to a winding green glen, where\nboth stream and hillside curved suddenly, leaving a triangular bit of\nlevel ground. During the past night, however, this had undergone an\nabrupt change of contour, as the swollen river had flung an impetuous\narm across it, islanding its apex and rejoining the main stream,\nturbid with melted clods and tangled with wisps of drowned green oats.\n\nWhen Stevie came to the bridge, Dan Farrell himself was standing up\nto his knees in the soaked grain by the water\u2019s edge and thinking of\nhis bad luck, without any presentiment that more was on its way. He\nwas a tall, black-bearded man, and had been a gaunt and grizzled one\never since a virulent attack of rheumatism last spring had changed\nhim from middle-aged to elderly in a few racking weeks. This illness\nhad brought Sarah Tighe, his sister\u2019s daughter, from her home in\nAthcrum to nurse him and manage his forlorn household, for Dan had\nlately been left a widower, and his four children were incapably\nsmall. Sarah was now calling to him from the door to the effect that\nhe hadn\u2019t as much sense as little Bobby, or else he\u2019d come in out of\nstreeling through them oats, and they as wet as the waves of the say,\nunless maybe he\u2019d a mind to have himself bawling for the next month\nwith the pains in his bones. But Dan turned a bothered ear to her\nwarnings, until she added\u2014\n\n\u201cAnd if here isn\u2019t one of the young Grogans slingein\u2019 along over the\nbridge.\u201d\n\nThen the recollection of his growing account at the shop started out\nfrom the misty background of his troubles, and took up a commanding\nposition in the forefront. He cast a glance of listless despondency\non the flooded field and turbulent river, and began to walk slowly up\nthe plashy furrow towards his house, set in motion by a vague sense\nthat it was more fitting for him than for his niece to receive young\nGrogan. By the time he reached the door, Stevie was already there\ntalking to Sarah, a plump young woman, whose colouring suggested an\nautumn hedgerow, with gleams of ruddy berries and black, and warm\nbrown leaves. She was naturally conversational and vivacious, but it\nmay be feared that her consciousness of Brian Mahony inside there\ndisapproving of the colloquy led her to carry it on with increased\nanimation. Had nobody been by to mind, Mr Stephen Grogan might have\nreceived a welcome more in accordance with Sarah\u2019s own private\nopinion of him, which was low. When her uncle came up, she stood\ndemurely aside, and waited while his health was inquired after and\nthe weather bewailed. Then Stevie asked\u2014\n\n\u201cAnd what way was the fair a\u2019 Tuesday?\u201d\n\n\u201cAs bad as anythin\u2019 at all,\u201d said Dan, \u201conless you was to be payin\u2019\nthe dalers to take your bastes off you for a complimint.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you\u2019re after selling a couple?\u201d said Stevie.\n\n\u201cOch, did I\u2014and what\u2019s four pound ten to git for a grand little\nheifer, and she a rael dexter, if you was to be tired swearin\u2019 agin\nit? Worth three times the money she\u2019d ha\u2019 been to me, if I could ha\u2019\nheld on to her a sixmonth longer.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure, now, it\u2019s you farmers that are the rich people, makin\u2019\nnothin\u2019 of pound notes at that rate,\u201d said Stevie, laughing with\na sort of uneasy jocularity. Dan knew quite well what was coming,\nbefore the other went on, \u201cSo as I was passin\u2019 this way, I just\nlooked in wid our bit of account, Misther Farrell; it\u2019s been runnin\u2019\nthis good while now.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy, bedad,\u201d Dan assented dejectedly, \u201cwill you be steppin\u2019 inside?\u201d\n\nInside reigned a brownish twilight, and the corners were all rounded\noff with smoke-haze. One of them was occupied by Brian Mahony, a\nneighbour of the Farrells, who, since Dan\u2019s illness, had often come\nin to lend him a hand. This morning he had undertaken the repairs of\na turf-creel. He was a powerful-looking young man, with a shock of\nchestnut hair and tawny tufts and frills about his face, which just\nthen wore a glum expression, misliking the entrance of Stevie Grogan.\nHis dissatisfaction caused him to appear deeply absorbed in his task,\nand to discuss it with the little Farrells, who stood around to watch\nhis splicing and weaving. They were unsuspectingly flattered by his\nunusual disposition to consult them, and they favoured him with much\ncriticism and advice.\n\n\u201cSit you down, man, and warm yourself,\u201d said Dan, taking the glazy\nblue paper which young Grogan had extracted from a thin pocket-book\nbound in black American cloth, and tied round with frayed strings\nof pink tape. \u201cI\u2019m afeard we haven\u2019t e\u2019en a sup of anythin\u2019 in the\nhouse.\u201d\n\nAs Stevie seated himself near the circle of glowing sods, Dan carried\nhis bill over to the window, that the light of its one deep-set pane\nmight assist his somewhat feeble scholarship in spelling out the\nitems. Many of them baffled him completely, but the grand total of\none pound five shillings appeared with cruel distinctness, and caused\nhim serious dismay. He had been prepared for a sum that would make\na very large hole in one of his few precious notes, and even this\nprospect was grievous. But the demand for a whole note, body and\nbones, and some silver too, came as an unexpected stroke. His hands\nshook as he held the paper to the light, obscured by the leaves of a\nstraggling geranium plant, and he felt bitterly convinced that he was\nbeing cheated. Manners, however, would not permit him to enter any\nprotest beyond saying to his niece\u2014\n\n\u201cMusha, Sally, it\u2019s a terrible sight of sugar you seem to ha\u2019 been\nusin\u2019.\u201d\n\nUpon this Stevie of course said\u2014\n\n\u201cAnd I\u2019m sure _she_ doesn\u2019t want it, anyway,\u201d\u2014smirking gallantly at\nSarah, who had sat down in the adjacent chimney-corner and taken up\nher strip of lace-work.\n\n\u201cWon\u2019erful fine talk you have,\u201d said Sarah.\n\n\u201cAnd divil a word but the truth, talkin\u2019 of you,\u201d rejoined Stevie,\nsidling a little nearer to her along his rickety-legged bench.\n\nSarah replied by making a threatening demonstration with her needle,\nwhich caused her frail thread to snap.\n\n\u201cThere now, you have it broke on me,\u201d she said, \u201cand sorra the bit of\nyou\u2019s worth the throuble of tyin\u2019 a knot.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh now, don\u2019t say so, Miss Tighe,\u201d Stevie said insinuatingly.\n\u201cThat\u2019s an iligant little pattron you have been doin\u2019, oncommon\ntasty. We have some thread-lace edgin\u2019 at our place that I declare\nisn\u2019t a ha\u2019porth better, and it comes to as much as thruppence a\nyard.\u201d He intended the highest compliment, but did only plunge\nhimself the deeper into the depths of her disfavour by thus evening\nher delicate point to his coarse, machine-made wares. She chose,\nhowever, for the time being, to dissemble her wrath against him,\nbecause she was angrier with Brian Mahony for his persistence in\nevidently ignoring her flirtation, and keeping up an unconcerned\nchatter addressed to the children. So she accepted Stevie\u2019s offer\nto join the broken thread for her, and was coquettishly derisive of\nhis clumsy-fingered failures, with much tittering and ostentatious\nenjoyment of the situation; and, in like manner, Brian worked away at\nthe ragged-rimmed creel, and only desisted occasionally to scuffle\nsportively with Jimmy or Biddy for the possession of a long supple\nosier. Nobody could suppose him to care a thraneen what Sarah and the\nchap from Grogan\u2019s found so amusing. He had something else to do than\nto be botherin\u2019 his head about them.\n\nMeanwhile the master of the house was performing his part\u2014a sad\none\u2014in the small drama. He lifted a brown earthenware teapot out\nof its niche in the mud wall projecting beside the hearth. Its\nremoval discovered the opening of another recess, whence he drew a\nrough deal box with a broken lid. In this the Farrells apparently\nstored miscellaneous valuables, for it contained a little roll of\nbank-notes, a grey flannel bag with silver in it, an old prayer-book\nthat had belonged to Mrs Farrell, some spools of cotton, and so\nforth. Dan slowly peeled off one of the begrimed Munster notes, and,\npre-occupied with regretful calculations, he forgot the shillings\nwhich were due, and restored box and teapot to their places. Then he\nlaid down the note on the window-seat, spread out the bluish bill\nbeside it, and stood smoothing both bits of paper with the palm of\nhis hand.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s that,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cSure, I\u2019ll be signin\u2019 the resate,\u201d said Stevie, jumping up with\nalacrity, and producing his shiny black pocket-book and red chalk\npencil. But he came to a pause as he noticed the absence of the\nsilver. He looked interrogatively at Dan. The man\u2019s careworn,\nbroken-down aspect, his lined face and tattered garments gave his\ncreditor a conscience-stricken twinge, and for an instant suggested\nthe possibility of renouncing that toll. Stevie, however, quickly\nascertained that this was too much to expect from himself; the sum\nwould come in just then too handily to be forgone, and he compromised\nthe matter by resolving to see that the Farrells were let off\neasily in their next account. Future generosity is always easier\nthan present justice, especially when the postponed virtue can be\npractised at somebody else\u2019s expense. So\u2014\n\n\u201cThere was thim five shillin\u2019s comin\u2019 to us,\u201d said Stevie, continuing\nto look at Dan.\n\n\u201cOch, murder, tubbe sure there was. It\u2019s meself\u2019s the gaby,\u201d said Dan\ndisconcertedly; and he went towards the niche to rectify his blunder,\nbut he was interrupted by his niece.\n\n\u201cSure I\u2019ll fetch it out, Uncle Dan,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s throublesome for\nyou to be stoopin\u2019. Mr Grogan can be puttin\u2019 his name on the account.\u201d\n\nShe fumbled for a few moments in the box, and came over to the window\nwith a large silver coin in her hand. It was a crown-piece, which,\nalthough it bore the stamp of the fourth George, still retained its\nsturdy thickness and bold outlines unimpaired, as if it had changed\nowners slowly. Around this she was wrapping a bit of crumpled, thin\npaper, perceiving which her uncle said\u2014\n\n\u201cSure, girl alive, I\u2019ve got the note here right enough.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s my belief \u2019twas the dirtiest one you had that you sorted\nout,\u201d replied Sarah promptly. \u201cNow _I_\u2019ve found him a dacint clane\none; and I\u2019m sure you\u2019d a dale liefer be takin\u2019 it wid you, Mr\nGrogan?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Deed you may depind upon that, Miss Tighe,\u201d Stevie said, with an\nelated smirk; \u201cand hard-set I\u2019ll be to part wid it, when I consider\nhow you put yourself about to be pickin\u2019 and choosin\u2019 for me.\u201d\n\nHere Brian Mahony abruptly threw down his creel and flung out of\nthe house, with a scowl which did not escape Sarah\u2019s observation.\nIt did not please her, somehow, any better than his previous air\nof unconcern, whence we may infer that her mood was capricious and\ncontrary. Stevie Grogan, at any rate, presently had reason to think\nit so, and a flatness and tartness came over the conversation, not\ninviting him to prolong his visit. After three snubs\u2014\n\n\u201cThe day\u2019s darkenin\u2019 again,\u201d he said, \u201cand I\u2019ll be getting along\nafore there\u2019s another plump of rain.\u201d He took leave of Dan, who was\nreflecting sorrowfully how much poorer a man the last half-hour had\nmade him, and went to the door, accompanied by Sarah. \u201cBedad!\u201d he\nsaid, glancing around, \u201cI think the sthrame looks to have quieted\nitself a goodish bit. I might be steppin\u2019 across them stones, it\nsaves better than a mile when you get into the bog over yonder.\u201d\n\nIt is possible that Stevie was determined to adopt this course less\nby the aspect of the river than by a glimpse which he at that moment\nhad had of Brian lounging moodily upon the bridge where he must\notherwise pass. But if that were the case, his plan failed of its\npurpose. For as he walked through the tangled oats followed by Sarah,\nwho had bethought her of a message to give him for her mother, Brian\nespied them, and immediately descended from the bridge and made for\nthe ford along the river\u2019s bank. He could not resist the spell which\ndrew him to every opportunity of tormenting himself by witnessing\nwhat his jealous mind regarded as Sarah\u2019s marked preference for young\nGrogan, and he sped so recklessly, stumbling and tripping over wisps\nof weeds and grass, that he reached the stepping-stones just as the\nothers did.\n\nOn this occasion, however, his feelings were not to be harrowed by\nthe display of much sentiment or facetiousness at leave-taking, as\nit was drowned in a sudden burst of rain, which made Sarah pull her\nfringed shawl into deep eaves over her face, and gasp out with ducked\nhead\u2014\n\n\u201cOch, mercy on us, here\u2019s polthogues\u2014I must run for me life, and\nyou\u2019d best step out, Stevie Grogan, or you\u2019ll be bogged entirely\nbefore you get home.\u201d\n\nThus exhorted, Stevie began hurriedly to stride from stone to stone.\nIn one hand he held the shiny pocket-book, and with the other\nhe clutched the brim of his black felt hat, which a rising gust\nmomentarily threatened to whisk away. He was nearly half over, when\nthe wind came swooping past in a furious flurry, and at the same\ntime a thicker coil of the brown river-water broke on the stones,\nmaking one on which he had just set his foot wobble violently. The\nconsequence was that he stumbled badly, only keeping his balance by\na headlong plunge forward with outspread arms; and not till he had\nfloundered on to the opposite bank did he perceive that his hat and\nbook were both missing. His hat, after a high-whirled flight, lit on\nthe rapid stream, and went skimming down it without let or hindrance,\nwhile his more precious book described a parabolic curve in the air,\nand dropped into the water near the place where Brian and Sarah\nstood. For a moment it lay on the surface, and Brian, leaning over\nat a dangerous angle, tried to reach it with his long osier rod. Upon\nwhich Sarah, gripping him by the arm, pulled him back with all her\nmight, saying in an agonised tone:\n\n\u201cOch, goodness gracious, man, get out of that, and let it be!\u201d But\neven as she spoke, the black cover, weighed down, no doubt, by the\nfilched crown-piece, sunk out of sight and was no more seen. A\nfew seconds later, however, the rough brown eddies a little lower\ndown became strewn with small flecks whiter than the creamy foam.\nEvidently the strings and covers had collapsed, and let their frail\ncontents go to wrack.\n\n\u201cSure it\u2019s every bit of it flitthered into laves,\u201d said Sarah,\nreleasing Brian\u2019s arm; \u201cniver sight nor light of it he\u2019ll get the\nchance to lay eyes on agin, note or no note.\u201d The tone in which she\nannounced this fact was both relieved and triumphant. As for the\nowner of that perishing property, he stood on the opposite bank,\nbareheaded in the pelting rain, discontented and woe-begone, an\nobject to move pity. But Sarah added: \u201cAnd the divil\u2019s cure to him,\nthe thievin\u2019 slieveen. We\u2019ve got the resate off him all right any\nway.\u201d\n\nBrian, on the contrary, now took off his own limp cloth cap, crumpled\nit round a great shingle stone for ballast, and flung it across to\nStevie.\n\n\u201cClap that on your head, and be leggin\u2019 it home wid you, if you\u2019ll\ntake my advice,\u201d he shouted against the wind; \u201cyou\u2019ll get nothin\u2019,\nunless it\u2019s your death of could, standin\u2019 there in the rain. Belike\nwe might be some odd chance get the five shillin\u2019 piece at the\nbottom, when the river goes down, but them bits of papers is past\nprayin\u2019 for intirely.\u201d This seemed obvious even to the unwillingly\nconvinced Stevie, and he started dolefully through the driving rain,\nhalf-blinded by it and the descending peak of Brian\u2019s too roomy cap.\nThe others raced home under much less trying circumstances, and were\nspeedily sheltered beneath Dan Farrell\u2019s thatch.\n\nSarah took her strip of lace-work, and sat down with it in the\nbrighter patch by the window. She was filling in the centre of a\nfantastic blossom with a pattern which seemed to have been suggested\nby the dewy web of some long-legged spinner hitched from blade point\nto point. Brian Mahony fetched his creel and osiers out of the\ncorner, and stood opposite to her, busy with his coarse weaving. Now\nand then he looked at her complacently as she stooped over her fine\nstitches, and for some time neither of them spoke. At last Brian said\u2014\n\n\u201cThat was a fine fright I\u2019m after giving you down there, Sarah. You\nhave the sleeve nearly rieved out of my ould coat. Was it dhrowndin\u2019\nmeself you thought I\u2019d be that you took such a hould of me?\u201d\n\n\u201cDhrowndin\u2019 himself? Frightenin\u2019 me? Musha good gracious, what talk\nhas the man out of him at all?\u201d Sarah said with shrill ejaculation.\n\u201cBedad, if that was all that ailed the likes of you, I\u2019d ha\u2019 had\nsomethin\u2019 better to be at than throublin\u2019 myself to interfere wid\nyou. But afeared I was that you\u2019d be hookin\u2019 that chap\u2019s ould book\nashore on us; thryin\u2019 your best you were to do that fool\u2019s thrick.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what for wouldn\u2019t I be saving it if I could?\u201d said Brian, partly\nconsoled for the unflattering explanation of his solicitude by the\nanimosity of her tone when she mentioned that chap; \u201csure, onst the\nmoney was ped away, you were nothin\u2019 the betther for it goin\u2019 to\nloss.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s all you know about it,\u201d said Sarah, with mysterious glee. She\nglanced round to see whether her uncle by the hearth were listening,\nand as he appeared to be half-asleep, she went on in a lower tone:\n\u201cWhy, look here, Brian\u2014sure that grand clane pound-note I let on to\nbe sortin\u2019 out for him, ne\u2019er a note it was at all, but just an ould\nbit of the silver-paper pattron I had workin\u2019 me lace from; when it\u2019s\ncrumpled up and creased like, it looks the very moral of one, and the\ngreat gomeral stuck it into his book widout takin\u2019 the throuble of\nunfoldin\u2019 it, be good luck.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what at all did you do that for?\u201d asked Brian after a puzzled\npause.\n\n\u201cWhat for?\u201d said Sarah, \u201csure in the first beginnin\u2019 of it \u2019twas\njust to be risin\u2019 a laugh on him; that was all the notion I had. It\ncome in me head when I was lookin\u2019 for the shillin\u2019s, and seen the\nthin paper there. But afterwards, when he tuk and put it up widout\nmindin\u2019, thinks I to myself, I\u2019ll ha\u2019 given him a good long thramp\nover it anyway; it\u2019s back he\u2019ll be thrapesin\u2019 to-morra or next day to\nget the right one, in a fine fantigue. But now when he\u2019s slung the\nwhole affair into the wather, so as nobody\u2019ll be the wiser what was\nin th\u2019 ould pocket-book and what wasn\u2019t, that\u2019s the greatest chance\ncould ha\u2019 happened, and we wid the resate signed and all, the way he\ncan\u2019t say a word agin us. It\u2019s as good as a pound saved to me uncle,\npoor man, that\u2019s annoyed enough wid his bit of harvest ruinated and\neverythin\u2019. And you doin\u2019 your endeavours to destroy it all wid\nfishin\u2019 the book out; small blame to me if I\u2019d pulled the fool\u2019s arm\noff of you, let alone your ould sleeve.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was no thing to go do,\u201d said Brian gruffly, \u201cto be playin\u2019 them\nsort of thricks.\u201d\n\n\u201cSorra the ha\u2019porth of harm was there in it,\u201d Sarah replied airily;\n\u201cand considerin\u2019 that whatever he got\u2019s swallied up in the river,\n\u2019twould ha\u2019 been a cruel pity if we\u2019d gave him anythin\u2019 betther.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019d a right to be sendin\u2019 him the rael note now,\u201d said Brian with\ndecision.\n\n\u201cSaints above! Whethen now, I hope you\u2019ll get your health until I\ndo,\u201d said Sarah, with a shrillness subdued by her uncle\u2019s proximity.\n\u201cThat\u2019d be a nice piece of foolery. Why, you sthookawn, the young\nslieveen\u2019s no worse off this minute than he would ha\u2019 been if I was\nafter givin\u2019 him a five-pound note to drop out of his hand.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou got the resate off of him for nothin\u2019 at all,\u201d said Brian; \u201che\u2019s\nnever been ped. And the river makes no differ. How would it, when he\nhadn\u2019t anythin\u2019 of yours to lose in it?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s just what I\u2019m sayin\u2019. It makes no odds to him; he\u2019d ha\u2019 lost\nit whether or no. And for the matther of that, he\u2019s been ped times\nand again for anythin\u2019 Uncle Dan ever got from them, poor man; for\nthem Grogans are notorious thieves, as everybody well knows. Me\nsister was tellin\u2019 us the other day, they charge three shillin\u2019s a\npound for tay that\u2019s on\u2019y eighteen-pence in Dublin. It\u2019s a charity\nto let them have a taste of chatin\u2019 for themselves. Not that we\u2019re\nchatin\u2019 them at all at all, it so happens.\u201d\n\nBrian listened quite unimpressed, having no turn for casuistry.\nHe now condescended, however, to urge an objection based upon the\nexpedient.\n\n\u201cAnd what\u2019ll your uncle say to it, when he finds he\u2019s got a pound too\nmuch?\u201d\n\n\u201cI was thinkin\u2019 of that,\u201d said Sarah, nowise disconcerted. \u201cBelike\nI could persuade him he miscounted them at the fair. But I dare say\n\u2019twould be better if I just slipt one off the roll, and kep\u2019 it to\nget odds and ends of things wid for him, accordin\u2019 as they would be\nwanted, and never let on about it. Och, no fear, but I\u2019ll conthrive\none way or the other.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy, bedad; it seems to me that you\u2019re great at conthrivin\u2019 and\nschemin\u2019,\u201d said Brian bitterly. \u201cI\u2019ve as good a mind as ever I had in\nme life to tell him the whole affair.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd if you offer to do such a thing on me, you ould clashbag, you!\u201d\nSarah said in a furious whisper, \u201csorra a word I\u2019ll spake to you agin\nas long as I live in the world.\u201d\n\n\u201cFaix, then, perhaps I won\u2019t be throublin\u2019 meself to ax you in a\nhurry,\u201d retorted Brian, \u201cwhen the on\u2019y talk people has out of them is\ntellin\u2019 lies and makin\u2019 fools of everybody. My notion is, the fewer\nwords they spake to you, the luckier you\u2019ll be.\u201d\n\n\u201cPlase yourself, and you\u2019ll plase me,\u201d said Sarah, with an assumption\nof calm indifference, which would have been more successfully\nachieved if she had not flushed to the scarlet of a frost-nipt brier\nleaf, besides adding inconsistently, \u201cI\u2019d liefer hear the pigs\ngruntin\u2019 in the ould stye than to be listenin\u2019 to some people gabbin\u2019\nand blatherin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd plenty good enough company they are, too, poor bastes, for the\nlikes of some I could name\u2014and long sorry I\u2019d be to stop anywheres I\nwasn\u2019t wanted, wastin\u2019 me time mendin\u2019 things, and gettin\u2019 imperance\nfor it\u2014and one while it\u2019ll be afore you\u2019ll have raison to complain\nof me disturbin\u2019 you,\u201d said Brian, whose wrath had flared up even\nmore ruddily than hers. And thereupon he bolted away into the rain,\nwithout waiting to borrow the loan of Dan\u2019s hat. At which Sarah\nthrough all her huff, stood somewhat aghast, knowing that for a man\nto go out of doors bareheaded argues no ordinary perturbation of\nspirit.\n\nAfter this there were many more wet days, and a few golden fine ones,\nand the harvest was got in one way or the other, and the winter came,\nand Sarah Tighe went home to live with her family at Athcrum, and\nfinished her fine lace border. But she and Brian did not meet again.\nAt last, one bright, frosty morning, not long before Christmas,\nthey ran against each other coming round the corner of the row in\nwhich the little post-office stands. Sarah was so startled that for\na moment or two she halted, irresolute, ere she recollected that it\nbehoved her to flounce past him with up-tilted chin. She was just\nproceeding to do so, when he twitched her shawl, and said, in an\nexpostulatory tone\u2014\n\n\u201cOch now, Sarah, is it cross wid me ye\u2019re goin\u2019 to be all this time?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t me that\u2019s cross wid anybody at all,\u201d said Sarah, subsiding\nlamentably from her dignified attitude.\n\n\u201cSure then,\u201d said Brian, \u201cI was on\u2019y wantin\u2019 to tell you what I\u2019ve\ndone about that pound-note was owin\u2019 to the Grogans. Sooner than that\nyou\u2019d have anythin\u2019\u2014anythin\u2019 quare-like on your conscience, I\u2019ve\nsaved up, and sent it to th\u2019 ould miscreant in a letter. So it can\u2019t\ncome agin you now anyway. I\u2019m just after postin\u2019 it this minute.\u201d\n\n\u201cOch, murdher! and are you so?\u201d said Sarah, with an accent of the\nkeenest regret. \u201cAnd weren\u2019t you the gomeral to not tell me that last\nweek?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd I on\u2019y droppin\u2019 it in the letter-box this instiant of time?\u201d\nsaid Brian. \u201cBut at all events, what differ\u2019d that have made?\u201d\n\n\u201cDiffer enough,\u201d said Sarah ruefully. \u201cYou see, the fact of the\nmatter was, when I come to considher, I didn\u2019t know but the ould\nnaygur Grogan had a right to that pound-note after all; so last week,\nwhen I sold me flounce of deep lace for thirty shillin\u2019s, I got an\norder, and put it in a cover, and sent it to ould Natty himself. I\nwasn\u2019t goin\u2019 to let that young thief of the world, Stevie, be layin\u2019\none of his greasy fingers on it, anyhow; and even so I thought badly\nenough of postin\u2019 it away. For now the winter\u2019s comin\u2019 on us, there\nwas a dale of things I\u2019d liefer ha\u2019 done wid it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBegorra, that\u2019s the very same way it was wid me just now,\u201d said\nBrian.\n\n\u201cMaybe the post-mistress\u2019d give it back to you, if you thried,\u201d\nsuggested Sarah. \u201cShe couldn\u2019t hardly ha\u2019 done anythin\u2019 wid the\nletters yet.\u201d\n\n\u201cSorra a thry I\u2019ll thry,\u201d said Brian, with decision. \u201cSure I wasn\u2019t\nmanin\u2019 to say that I begrudged it e\u2019er a bit, Sally, when it was\nsettin\u2019 things straight for you, acushla.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, but to think of payin\u2019 them twyste over\u2014that\u2019s what distresses\nme,\u201d said Sarah, who did not, however, look inconsolable. \u201c\u2019Deed,\nnow, we managed it finely, Brian; I\u2019m afeard that you and I are a\ngreat pair of fools.\u201d\n\nBut Brian replied with complacent promptitude, \u201cTrue for you, then,\nSally, machree; that\u2019s just the way it is. Fools we are, very belike,\nand a pair we are for sartin. Och now, honey, be aisy; sure \u2019twas\nyourself said it. And maybe we\u2019ll do all as well as if we\u2019d had more\nwit. It\u2019s continted I am, anyway. Ay, bedad, a pair of fools\u2014but them\nGrogans are welcome to their couple of pounds.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nM\u2018NEILLS\u2019 TIGER-SHEEP\n\n\n\n\nM\u2018NEILLS\u2019 TIGER-SHEEP\n\n\nThe feud between the Timothy O\u2019Farrells and Neil M\u2018Neills at\nMeenaclure was not of very long standing, for the dowager Mrs\nO\u2019Farrell and the elder Mrs M\u2018Neill, who had been by no means young\nwhen it began, were still to the fore, and not yet even considered\nto have attained \u201ca great ould age intirely.\u201d This seems a mere\nmushroom-growth compared with some of our family quarrels, which\nhave been handed down from father to son through so many generations\nthat everybody regards them as a part of the established order of\nthings in the world of their parish. Still, to the younger people,\nwho had been but children at its birth, it seemed to have lasted a\nlong while, and their juniors would have found a different state of\naffairs almost unthinkable. For them the origin of the enmity had\nalready begun to loom dimly through a mist of tradition, which would\ntend as time went on to grow vaguer and falser, until at length\nnobody would be left who could give a clear account of what it was\nall about. So far, however, all the neighbours who were \u201cany age to\nspeak of\u201d knew the rights of the case well enough. And this is what\nhad happened.\n\nIt was a cloudless midsummer evening, perhaps twenty years\nback\u2014nobody is over-particular about chronology at Meenaclure\u2014and\nall the dogs and children were away out on the wild land towards\nthe mountains, minding the sheep, to keep them from coming home and\neating up the crops. From April to October that was every year their\noccupation, and a very engrossing one they found it. For the scraggy\nlittle sheep of the district are endowed with an appetite for green\nfood worthy of any locust, added to a cleverness at taking fences\nthat would discredit no hunter; and this makes them a constant peril\nto the painfully-tilled fields, whose produce they threaten like a\nsort of visibly-embodied blight. Luckily, it is one whose ravages\ncan be averted by timely precautions; and therefore, as soon as\npotatoes are _kibbed_, and oats sown, the sheep are driven off to\na discreet distance on the moors, whence they are prevented from\nreturning by a strong cordon of wary mongrels and active spalpeens.\nThe children of such places as Meenaclure find the sunnier half of\nthe year a season of perpetual school-vacation, when the longest days\nare watched out to their last lingering glimmer among the tussocks\nand boulders, so that the morning seems to have begun ages and ages\nago by the time one straggles home, three-parts asleep on one\u2019s feet,\nthe flocks having already betaken themselves to completer repose, or,\nrecognising the unattainability of young green oats, having set their\nnibbling mouths safely up the swarded hill-slopes. For that night the\nfields may lie secure from marauding trespassers.\n\nOn this particular day, however, owing to some remissness of the\nyoung M\u2018Neills and their shrewd-visaged dog, who were all led away\nby the excitement of a rabbit-hunt, one of the sheep under their\ncharge successfully eluded observation, and broke through the line,\nwith two comrades presently pattering after her. With a wiliness well\nmasked by her expression of meek fatuity, she slunk along unseen\nin furzy folds of the broken ground, and late in the afternoon had\narrived near the forbidden pastures. There she lurked furtively for a\nwhile, fully determined to hop over the fence of Timothy O\u2019Farrell\u2019s\noatfield, the very first moment that nobody seemed to be about.\nThis opportunity soon occurred, as the O\u2019Farrells\u2019 holding lies\nsomewhat apart in a slight hollow, which secludes it from the little\ncabin-cluster standing a bit higher round a curve in the long green\nglacis-like foot-slope of Slieve Gowran.\n\nThus it came to pass that when Timothy O\u2019Farrell returned from\nturf-cutting on the bog with his sister Margaret and his brothers\nHugh and Patrick, the first thing they noticed was an object like a\nmovable grey boulder cropping up on the delicate sheeny surface of\ntheir oat-patch. Whereupon: \u201cBe the powers of smoke,\u201d said Timothy,\n\u201cif there isn\u2019t them bastes in it agin.\u201d\n\n\u201cThree of them, no less,\u201d said Margaret.\n\n\u201cM\u2018Neills\u2019, you may bet your brogues,\u201d said Hugh.\n\n\u201cThe divil doubt it,\u201d said Timothy. Patrick, who was a youth of\naction rather than speech, had already plunged head-foremost towards\nthe scene of the trespass.\n\nThere were several reasons why doubts of the M\u2018Neills\u2019 responsibility\nin the matter should be relegated to the divil. In the first place,\nthe M\u2018Neills owned more sheep than anybody else at Meenaclure,\nwhereas the O\u2019Farrells owned none; and secondly, the O\u2019Farrells had\nsown an unusually extensive patch of oats, while the M\u2018Neills had\nplanted potatoes only. The tendencies of this situation are obvious.\nAgain, the O\u2019Farrells had more than once before undergone the like\ninroads, and on these occasions Neil M\u2018Neill had not, Timothy\nconsidered, shown by any means an adequate amount of penitence.\n\u201cBedad, now,\u201d Timothy reported to his family, \u201che was cool enough\nover it. Maybe it\u2019s _his_ notion of fine farmin\u2019 to graze his bastes\non other people\u2019s growin\u2019 crops.\u201d A deep-rooted sentiment of respect,\nhowever, restrained him from uttering these sarcasms in public. For\nTimothy, though the head and father of a family, had seen not many\nmore than a score of harvests; and Neil, a dozen years his senior,\nenjoyed a high reputation among the neighbours as a very knowledgable\nman altogether. After the second incursion, it is true, Timothy\u2019s\nwrath had so far overcrowed his awe as to make him \u201cup and tell\u201d Neil\nM\u2018Neill that \u201cif he didn\u2019t mind his ould shows of sheep himself, he\u2019d\nbe apt to find somebody that\u2019d do it in a way he mightn\u2019t like.\u201d\nStill, the affair went no farther, and Timothy had soon reverted to\nhis customary attitude of amicable veneration. But at this third\nrepetition of the offence his anger could not be expected to subside\nso harmlessly.\n\nPat\u2019s shouts and flourishing gallop speedily routed the\nconscious-stricken sheep, and two of them whisked up the hillside\nlike thistledown on a brisk breeze; but the third, who was the\nringleader, leaped the fence with so little judgment that she came\nfloundering against Timothy, who grasped her dexterously by the\nhind-legs.\n\nNow, to catch a Slieve Gowran sheep alive in the open is a rare and\ndifficult feat\u2014proverbially impossible, indeed, at Meenaclure; but\nTimothy and his brethren were at a loss how they should best turn\nthis achievement of it to account. They felt that simply to let the\ncreature go again would be a flat and unprofitable result, yet what\nelse could they do with it? While they pondered, and their captive\nimpotently wriggled, Hugh suddenly had an inspiration. It came to\nhim at the sight of two large black pots, which stood beside a\nsmouldering fire against the white end-wall of their little house.\nTo an unenlightened observer, they might have suggested some gipsy\nencampment, but Hugh knew they betokened that his mother had been\ndyeing her yarn. The Widow O\u2019Farrell was a great spinner, and a large\npart of the wool shorn in the parish travelled over her whirring\nwheel on its way to Fergus the weaver\u2019s loom. A few old sacks lying\nnear the fire had contained the ingredients which she used according\nto an immemorial recipe. From the mottled grey lichen, _crottal_,\nwhich clothes our boulders with hues strangely like those of the\nfleeces browsing among them, she extracted a warm tawny brown; a\nflaky mass of the rusty black turf-soot supplied her with a strong\nyellow, and the dull-red bog-ore boiled paradoxically into black.\n\n\u201cBe aisy, will you, you little thief of the mischief,\u201d Hugh said to\nthe sheep. \u201cM\u2018Neills\u2019 she is, sure enough; there\u2019s the mark. Musha,\nlads, let\u2019s give her a dab or so of what\u2019s left in the ould pots.\n\u2019Twould improve her apparance finely.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy would it,\u201d said Timothy. \u201cShe\u2019s an unnathural ugly objic\u2019 of\na crathur the way she is now. Bedad, they\u2019ve a couple of barrels\ndesthroyed on us.\u201d\n\n\u201cA few odd sthrakes of the black and yella\u2019d make her look iligant,\u201d\nsaid Hugh. \u201cDo you take a hould of her, Tim. Och, man, don\u2019t let her\naway, but lift her aisy. Maggie, did you see e\u2019er a sign of the stick\nthey had stirring the stuff wid? But it\u2019s apt to be cool enough agin\nnow.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, boys dear, but it\u2019s ragin\u2019 mad M\u2018Neills \u2019ll be if you go for to\ndo such a thing,\u201d Margaret said, half-scared, and blundering in her\nflurry on a wrong note, as she at once perceived. For her brothers\npromptly responded in a sort of fugal movement\u2014\n\n\u201cAnd sure who\u2019s purvintin\u2019 of them? They\u2019re welcome, bedad, them,\nor the likes of them. Is it ragin\u2019? Maybe it\u2019s raison they\u2019ll have\nbefore they\u2019re a great while oulder, musha Moyah.\u201d And they proceeded\nwith all the greater enthusiasm to carry out their design, which\nbecame more ambitiously elaborate in the course of execution.\n\nEarly next morning, while the mountain-shadow still threw a purple\ncloak over the steep fields of Meenaclure, where all the dewdrops\nwere ready to twinkle as soon as a ray reached them, and when Mrs\nNeil M\u2018Neill was preparing breakfast, which at this short-coming\nsummer season consisted chiefly of Indian meal, her eldest daughter\nran in to her with news. There was somethin\u2019, Molly said, leppin\u2019\nabout in the pigstye. Now, the M\u2018Neills\u2019 stye just then stood empty,\nin the interval between the despatch of their last lean fat pig\nto Letterkenny fair and the hoped-for fall in the market-price of\nthe wee springy which was to replace him. So Mrs Neil said, \u201cOch,\nblathers, child alive, what would there be in it at all?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s rustlin\u2019 in the straw,\u2014I heard it,\u2014and duntin\u2019 the door wid\nits head like,\u201d Molly persisted.\n\n\u201cSure then, run and see what it is, honey,\u201d said her mother, who was\npre-occupied with a critical stage of her porridge; and a piece of\npractical business on hand generally disposes us to adopt a sceptical\nattitude towards marvels. \u201cMaybe one of the hins might have fluttered\ninto it; but there\u2019s apter to not be anythin\u2019.\u201d\n\nMolly, whose mood was not enterprising, reinforced her courage\nwith the company of Judy and Thady before she went to investigate;\nand a minute afterwards she came rushing back uttering terrified\nlamentations, whereof the burden seemed to be, \u201cIt\u2019s a tiger-sheep.\u201d\nHer report could no longer be disregarded, and the rest of the family\nwere presently grouped round the low wall of the little lean-to\nshed, which did really contain an inmate of extraordinary aspect. Its\nform was that of a newly-shorn sheep, long-legged and lank-bodied\nlike others of its race, but in colouring altogether exceptional.\nBoldly marked stripes of black and tawny yellow alternated all over\nit, with a brilliant symmetry not surpassed by the natural history\nchromograph which flamed on the wall of Rathflesk National School,\nand which now recurred to little Molly\u2019s mind in conjunction with\nthe fact that the wearer of the striated skin \u201cwas a cruel, savage,\nwicked baste, that would be swallyin\u2019 all before it,\u201d whereupon she\nhad shrieked \u201cTiger-sheep!\u201d and fled from ravening jaws.\n\nHer parents and grandparents, on the contrary, stood and surveyed\nthe phenomenon with almost unutterable wrath. Traces of a human hand\nin its production were plain enough, for the beast had been fastened\ninto the stye by a rope round her neck, which was further ornamented\nwith long bracken-fronds and tufts of curiously-coloured wool,\nstudiously grotesque. In fact, had she been mercilessly endowed with\n\u201cthe giftie,\u201d she would no doubt have suffered from a mortification\nas acute as was that of her owners, instead of trotting off quite\nsatisfied, when once she was released and at liberty to resume her\nfastidious nibbling among the dewy tussocks.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s some divilment of the O\u2019Farrells, and the back of me hand\nto the whole of them!\u201d said Neil M\u2018Neill, with clenched eyebrows.\n\u201cThemselves and their blamed impidence, and their stinkin\u2019 brashes!\nThe ould woman\u2019s niver done boilin\u2019 them up for her wool. It\u2019s\nslung about her head I wish they were, sooner than to be used for\nmisthratin\u2019 other people\u2019s dacint bastes.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Deed now, thrue for you,\u201d said his mother. \u201cSure wasn\u2019t she tellin\u2019\nme herself yesterday evenin\u2019 she\u2019d been busy all day gettin\u2019 her\nyarn dyed, agin she would be knittin\u2019 the boys their socks? Gad\u2019rin\u2019\nthe sut she said she was this good while. That\u2019s the way they done\nit\u2014och, the vagabones!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a bad job,\u201d said old Joe M\u2018Neill, shaking his despondent white\nhead.\n\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t ever ha\u2019 thought it of them,\u201d said Mrs Neil. \u201cOn\u2019y\nthem boys is that terrible wild; goodness forgive them, there\u2019s no\ndemented notion they mayn\u2019t take into their heads. But what at all\ncould we do for the misfort\u2019nit crather? Sure it\u2019s distressful to\nsee her goin\u2019 about that scandalous figure. I can\u2019t abide the sight\nof her.\u201d\n\nOur bogland dyes, however, are very fast, and for many a day that\nsummer Mrs Neil had to endure the apparition of the O\u2019Farrells\u2019\nvictim, who of course became a painfully conspicuous object on the\nhillside, where she roamed blissfully unaware of how her owners\u2019 eyes\nfollowed her with gloomy resentment, and of how their neighbours\u2019\nchildren, catching up Molly\u2019s cry, shouted one to another derisively,\n\u201cOch, look at M\u2018Neills\u2019 tiger-sheep!\u201d But long and long after the\nparti-coloured fleece had vanished for good and all, the effects of\nthe outrage continued to make themselves felt in the social life of\nMeenaclure, where it must be owned that the inhabitants are rather\nprone to keep their grudges in the same time-proof wallet with their\ngratitudes. And the grudges, somehow, often seem to lie atop. In this\ncase, moreover, the injury had an especial bitterness, because the\nM\u2018Neills came of an old sheep-keeping class, whose little flock was\nan inheritance handed down, dwindling, through many generations, and\nwhose main interests and activities had time out of mind turned upon\nwool, so that everything connected with it had acquired in their eyes\nthe peculiar sanctity with which we often invest the materials and\nimplements belonging to our own craft. A chimney-sweep has probably\nsome feeling of disinterested regard for his bags and brushes.\nAccordingly, sheep were to them a serious, almost solemn subject,\naltogether unsuitable for a practical joke; and an insult offered to\nthem was felt to strike at the honour of the family. Small blame to\nthem, therefore, if, as the neighbours said, they were ragin\u2019 mad\nentirely, and turned a deaf ear to all pacific overtures.\n\nThe O\u2019Farrells, to do them justice, admitted upon reflection that\nthey had maybe gone a little beyond the beyonds, and were disposed to\nbe apologetic and conciliatory. But when old Mrs O\u2019Farrell, one day\nmeeting the two smallest M\u2018Neills on the road, presented each of them\nwith a pale brown egg, which she had just found in the nest of her\nspeckled hen away down beside the river, the result merely was that\nher gifts were smashed into an impromptu omelet before the M\u2018Neills\u2019\ndoor, by the direction of the master of the house, who only wished\nthe ould sinner had been there herself to see the way he\u2019d serve\nthat, or anythin\u2019 else she\u2019d have the impidence to be sendin\u2019 into\nhis place. And later on, when the feathery gold of the O\u2019Farrells\u2019\noatfield had been bound in stooks, and the hobbledehoy Pat was\ndespatched to inquire whether the M\u2018Neills might be wantin\u2019 e\u2019er a\nthrifle of straw after the thrashin\u2019 for darnin\u2019 their bit of thatch,\nthe polite attention elicited nothing except a peremptory injunction\nto \u201cquit out of that.\u201d\n\nIn taking up this attitude, the M\u2018Neills had at first the support\nof their neighbours\u2019 sympathy, public opinion being that it was no\nthing for the O\u2019Farrells to go do. But as time went on, people began\nto add occasionally that sure maybe they didn\u2019t mean any such great\nharm after all, and that they were only young boyoes, without as much\nsense among the whole of them as would keep a duck waddling straight.\nWhat was the use of being so stiff over a trifle? These magnanimous\nsentiments were, no doubt, strengthened by the fact that in so small\na community as Meenaclure a permanent breach between any two families\ncould not but entail some inconveniences upon all the rest. It was\nirksome, for instance, to bear in mind throughout a friendly chat\nthat at the casual mention of a neighbour\u2019s name the person you\nwere talking to would look \u201cas bitter as sut\u201d and freeze into grim\ndumbness; or to have to consider, should you wish for a loan of Widdy\nO\u2019Farrell\u2019s market-basket, that you must by no means \u201clet on\u201d to her\nyour intention of carrying home in it Mrs M\u2018Neill\u2019s grain of tea;\nor to be called upon to choose between the company of Neil M\u2018Neill\nand Hugh O\u2019Farrell on the way home from the fair, because neither\nof them, as the saying is, would look the same side of the road as\nthe other. Such obligations lay stumbling-blocks in our daily path,\nand nip growths of good fellowship, and are generally embarrassing\nand vexatious. However, Meenaclure had to put up with this state\nof things for so many a long day that people learned to include it\nunprotestingly among their necessary evils.\n\nUnder these circumstances, it was of course only in the nature of\nthings that the little M\u2018Neills and O\u2019Farrells, the smallest of whom\nhad not been born at the time of the quarrel, should always put out\ntheir tongues at one another whenever they met. They regarded the\nsalutation, indeed, as a sort of ceremonial observance, which could\nnot be omitted without a sense of indecorum. Thus, one inclement\nautumn, when Patrick O\u2019Farrell was no longer a hobbledehoy, but\n\u201cas big a man as you\u2019d meet goin\u2019 most roads,\u201d he went off to a\n_rabble_, that is, a hiring-fair, at Letterkenny, and took service\nfor six months with a farmer away at Raphoe. On the day that he left\nMeenaclure, he happened, just as he was setting out, to meet Molly\nM\u2018Neill, who had by this time grown into \u201ca tall slip of a girl going\non for sixteen,\u201d and they duly exchanged the customary greeting, Pat\ngetting the better of her by at least half-an-inch of insult. But\nwhen he returned on a soft April evening, it chanced again that one\nof the first persons he fell in with was Molly. She was coming along\nbetween the newly-clad hedges of a narrow lane, and when he caught\nsight of her first he mistook her for his cousin, Norah O\u2019Farrell,\nshe looked so much taller than his recollections. But, on perceiving\nhis error, he merely gave up his intention of saying, \u201cWell, Norah,\nand how\u2019s yourself this great while?\u201d and slunk past without making\nany demonstration whatever. Molly would hardly have noticed it,\nindeed, as when she saw him coming she began to minutely examine the\nbuds on the thorn-bushes, and did not lift an eyelash while they\nwere passing. Yet, as they went their several ways, Pat felt that\nhe had somehow shirked a duty; and Molly, for her part, could not\nshake off a sense of having failed in loyalty to her family until\nshe had relieved her conscience by announcing at home that she was\n\u201cjust after meetin\u2019 that great _ugly_-lookin\u2019 gomeral, Pat O\u2019Farrell,\nslingein\u2019 down the road below Widdy Byrne\u2019s.\u201d\n\nThe year which followed this spring was one of bad seasons and\nhard fare at Meenaclure, and towards the end of it Pat O\u2019Farrell\ncame reluctantly to perceive that he could best mend his own and\nhis family\u2019s tattered fortunes by emigrating to the States. His\nresolve, though regretted by all his neighbours, except of course the\nM\u2018Neills, was considered sensible enough; and at the \u201cconvoy\u201d which\nassembled according to custom to see him off on his long journey\nthe general purport of conversation was to the effect that, bedad,\neverybody\u2019d be missing poor Pat, but sure himself was the fine clever\nboy wouldn\u2019t be any time gettin\u2019 together the price of a little\nplace back again in the ould country. The M\u2018Neills alone were of the\nopinion, expressed by Neil\u2019s mother, that \u201cthe only pity was the rest\nof the pack weren\u2019t goin\u2019 along wid Pat; unless, like enough, they\u2019d\nbe more than the people out in those parts could put up wid all at\nonst, the way they\u2019d be landin\u2019 them back on us like a bundle of ould\nrubbish washin\u2019 up agin wid the tide.\u201d\n\nBut surprise was the universal feeling when, about six months later,\nit became known that Neil M\u2018Neill\u2019s eldest child Molly had also made\nup her mind to cross over the water. Her own family were foremost\namong the wonderers; for Molly had always been considered rather\nexcessively timid and quiet\u2014certainly the very last girl in the\nparish whom one would have thought likely to make such a venture.\nThey half-believed that when it came to the point, \u201csorra a fut of\nher would go\u201d; and they much more than half hoped so, notwithstanding\nthat their rent had fallen into alarming arrears, and none of her\nbrethren were old enough to help. Molly, however, actually went, amid\nlamentations and forebodings, both of her own and other people\u2019s,\nall alike unavailing to stop her. Mrs Timothy O\u2019Farrell said she\u2019d\nbe long sorry to have a daughter of hers streeling off to the ends\nof the earth. And I think that Molly\u2019s mother _was_ long sorry, poor\nsoul, through many a lonesome day and anxious night.\n\nAfter these two departures, things at Meenaclure took their wonted\ncourse, a little more sadly and dully perhaps than heretofore.\nCommunications from abroad came rarely and scantily, for neither\nof the absentees had much scholarship. Their sheep-herding summers\nhad greatly curtailed that, and it would have been difficult to say\nwhether Pat\u2019s or Molly\u2019s scrawls were the briefer or obscurer. But\nnot long after Molly M\u2018Neill had gone, one of Pat O\u2019Farrell\u2019s letters\ncontained an important piece of news\u2014nothing less than that he was\n\u201cjust about gettin\u2019 married.\u201d He did not go into particulars about\nthe match, merely describing the future Mrs Pat as the \u201cbest little\ngirl in or out of Ireland,\u201d and opining that they mightn\u2019t do too\nbadly. His family were not overjoyed at the event, which might be\nconsidered to presage a falling off in remittances; and his mother\nwas much cast down thereby, her thoughts going to the tune of \u201cmy son\nis my son till he gets him a wife.\u201d Still, she was not so dispirited\nas to be past finding some solace in an innuendo; and she almost\ncertainly designed one when she took occasion to remark just outside\nthe chapel door, where she had been telling the neighbours her news:\n\u201cBut ah, sure, I don\u2019t mind so long as he hasn\u2019t took up wid one of\nthem black-headed girls I never can abide the looks of. And \u2019deed now\nthere\u2019s no fear of that. Pat\u2019s just the same notion as myself, I know\nvery well.\u201d For Mrs Neil M\u2018Neill was standing well within earshot,\nand, as everybody remembered, \u201cthere wasn\u2019t a fair hair on the head\nof e\u2019er a one of her childer.\u201d However, Mrs Neil proved equal to the\nemergency, and remarked, addressing Katty Byrne, that \u201cIt was rael\nqueer the sort of omadhawns she\u2019d heard tell of some girls, who,\nbelike, knew no better, bein\u2019 content to take great lumberin\u2019 louts\nof fellers, wid the ugly-coloured hair on their heads like nothin\u2019\nin the world except a bit of new thatch before it would be combed\nstraight.\u201d\n\nShe spoke without any presentiment that she would soon have to go\nthrough much the same experience as old Mrs O\u2019Farrell; but so it\nwas. For a week or two later came a letter from Molly stating that\nshe was \u201cjust after gettin\u2019 married.\u201d Her husband, who she said\nwas earning grand wages, bore the obnoxious name of O\u2019Farrell, but\nthere was nothing strange in the coincidence, as the district about\nMeenaclure abounds in Farrells and Neills, with and without prefixes\nof O and Mac; and it seemed only natural to suppose a similar state\nof things in New York. Nobody could deny that there were plenty of\nO\u2019Farrells very dacint people. So Molly\u2019s mother mourned in private\nover an event which seemed to set a seal upon the separation between\nher daughter and herself; and in public was well pleased and very\nproud, laying great stress upon the fact that Molly had sent the\nmoney-order just as usual,\u2014\u201cSorra a fear of little Molly forgettin\u2019\nthe ould people at all,\u201d\u2014and serenely scorning Mesdames O\u2019Farrell\u2019s\nopinion that \u201cwhen a girl had to thravel off that far after a\nhusband, it was the quare crooked stick of a one she\u2019d be apt to pick\nup.\u201d\n\nAfter this Meenaclure received no very thrilling foreign news for\nabout a twelve-month. Then one fine Sunday, the Widdy O\u2019Farrell was\nto be seen sailing along Masswards, with her head held extremely\nhigh in its stiff-frilled cap and dark blue hood, and with a swinging\nsweep of her black homespun skirt, which betrayed an exultant stride.\nAll her family, indeed, wore a somewhat elated and consequential\nair, which most of her neighbours allowed to be justifiable when she\nexplained that she had become the happy grandmother of her Pat\u2019s fine\nyoung son: the letter with the announcement had come last night. This\nwas indeed promotion, for her son Tim\u2019s children were all girls. With\nthe congratulations upon so auspicious an event even old Mrs M\u2018Neill\ncould mingle only subdued murmurs about brats taking after their\nfathers that weren\u2019t good for much, the dear knows. However, she had\nnot long to wait for as good or better a right to strut chin in air,\nsince it was with a great-grandmother\u2019s dignity that a few days later\nshe could inform everybody of the arrival of Molly\u2019s boy. She would,\nI believe, have found it very hard to forgive Molly if the child had\nbeen merely a daughter.\n\nThis rivalry, as it were, between the estranged families in the\nmatter of news from their non-resident members recurred with the\nsame equipoised result on more than one similar occasion, and was\nextended even to less happy events. For instance, one time when Pat\nwrote in great distraction, and a wilder scrawl than usual, that the\n\u201cthree childer was dreadful bad wid the mumps, he doubted would they\nget over it,\u201d the next mail brought just such a report from Molly;\nwhich was rather awkward for her mother and grandmother, who had been\ngoing about passing the remark that \u201cwhen childer got proper mindin\u2019\nthey never took anythin\u2019 of the sort.\u201d\n\nAt length, however, when perhaps half-a-dozen years had gone by, the\nbalance of good fortune dipped decidedly towards the O\u2019Farrells.\nOne autumn morning a letter came from Pat to say that he and his\nfamily were coming home. He had saved up a tidy little bit of money,\nand meant to try could he settle himself on a dacint little bit of\nland; at any rate he would get a sight of the ould place and the\nould people. Great was the rejoicing of the O\u2019Farrells. Whereas for\nthe M\u2018Neills at this time the meagre mail-bags contained no foreign\nletter, no letter at all, bad or good, let alone one fraught with\nsuch grand news. Molly\u2019s mother, it is true, dreamt two nights\nrunning that Molly had come home; but dreams are a sorry substitute\nfor a letter, especially when everybody knows, and some people\nremind you, that they always go by contraries. So Mrs Neil fretted\nand foreboded, and had not the heart to be sarcastic, no matter how\narrogantly the O\u2019Farrells might comport themselves.\n\nThen the autumn days shrivelled and shrank, and one morning in late\nNovember the word went round Meenaclure that the _Kaley_ that evening\nwould be up at Fergus the weaver\u2019s. This meeting-place was always\npopular, Fergus being a well-liked man, with a wide space round his\nhearth. And this night\u2019s conversazione promised to be particularly\nenjoyable, as it had leaked out that Dan Farrell and Mrs Keogh and\nDinny O\u2019Neill were concerned in what is at Meenaclure technically\ntermed \u201ca join,\u201d for the purpose of treating the kaleying company to\ncups of tea. In fact, the materials for that refreshment, done up in\nfamiliar purple paper parcels, lying on the window-seat, were obvious\nto everybody who came into the room, though to have seemed aware of\nthem would have been a grave breach of manners. When all the company\nwere mustered, and the fire was burning its brightest, Fergus might\nwell look round his house with satisfaction, for so large an assembly\nseldom came together, and universal harmony seemed to prevail. This\nwas not disturbed by the fact that several both of the Timothy\nO\u2019Farrells and Neil M\u2018Neills were present, as by this time everybody\nthoroughly understood the situation, and the neighbours arranged\nthemselves as a matter of course in ways which precluded any awkward\njuxtapositions of persons \u201cwho weren\u2019t spakin\u2019.\u201d\n\nIt was a showery evening, with a wafting to and fro of wide gusts,\nwhich made the Widdy O\u2019Farrell wonder more than once as she sat on\nthe form by the hearth, with the Widdy Byrne interposed buffer-wise\nbetween her and old Joe M\u2018Neill. What she wondered was, whether\nher poor Pat might be apt to be crossin\u2019 over the say on such an\nugly wild night. Just as Mrs Keogh, with an eye on the lid-bobbing\nkettle, was about to ask Fergus if he might happen to have e\u2019er a\ndrop of hot water he could spare her\u2014that being the orthodox preface\nto tea-making on the occasion of a join\u2014the house-door rattled\nviolently, and opened with a fling. As nobody appeared at it, this\nwas supposed to be simply the wind\u2019s freak, and Fergus said to Mick\nM\u2018Murdo, who sat next to it, \u201cMusha, lad, be givin\u2019 it a clap to\nwid your fut.\u201d But at that instant a voice was heard close outside,\ncalling as if to another person a little farther off, \u201cMolly, Molly,\ncome along wid you; they\u2019re all here right enough, and I wouldn\u2019t be\nkeepin\u2019 the door open on them.\u201d Whereupon there was a quick patter\nof approaching feet, followed by the entrance of two bundle-bearing\nfigures. As they advanced into the flickering light, it showed that\nthe figures were a man and a woman, and the bundles children; and in\nanother moment there rose up recognising shrieks and shouts of \u201cPat\u201d\nand \u201cMolly,\u201d and then everybody rushed together tumultuously across a\nchasm of half-a-dozen years.\n\n\u201cThey tould us below at Widdy Byrne\u2019s that we\u2019d find yous all up\nhere,\u201d said Pat O\u2019Farrell, \u201cso we left the baby there, and stepped\nalong. Och, mother, it\u2019s younger you\u2019re grown instead of oulder, and\nthat\u2019s a fac.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd where\u2019s the wife, Paudyeen agra?\u201d said Pat\u2019s mother; \u201cor maybe\nshe sted below wid the child?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd where\u2019s himself, Molly jewel?\u201d said Molly\u2019s mother. \u201cSure you\ndidn\u2019t come your lone?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, here he is,\u201d said Molly. \u201cPat, man, wasn\u2019t you spakin\u2019 to me\nmother?\u201d\n\n\u201cOch, whethen now, and is it Pat O\u2019Farrell?\u201d his mother-in-law said\nwith a half-strangled gasp.\n\n\u201cAnd who else would it be at all at all, only Pat?\u201d said Molly, as if\npropounding an unanswerable argument.\n\n\u201cMercy be among us all\u2014and you niver let on\u2014och, you rogue of the\nworld\u2014you niver let on, Patsy avic, it was little Molly M\u2018Neill you\u2019d\ntook up wid all the while,\u201d said his mother.\n\n\u201cSure I was writin\u2019 to you all about her times and agin,\u201d Pat averred\nstoutly.\n\nPerhaps things might have turned out differently if people had not\nbeen delighted and taken by surprise. But as it was, how could a feud\nbe conducted with any propriety when Mrs Neil had unprotestingly been\nhugged by Pat O\u2019Farrell, and when old Joe M\u2018Neill and his wife and\ndaughter were already worshipping a very fat small two-year-old girl,\nwho unmistakably featured all the O\u2019Farrells that ever walked? The\nthing was impossible.\n\nFor one moment, indeed, an unhappy resurrection seemed to be\nthreatened. It was when everybody had got into a circle round the\nhearth, in expectation of the cups of tea, which were beginning to\nclatter in the background, and when Pat O\u2019Farrell, who was talking\nover old times with Neil M\u2018Neill, suddenly gave his father-in-law\na great thump on the back, exclaiming with a chuckle, \u201cOch, man,\nand do you remimber your ould sheep that we got in the oats, and\ngave a coloured wash to? Faix, but she was the comical objec\u2019\u2014\u2018the\ntiger-sheep,\u2019 the childer used to call her.\u201d Whereupon all the rest\nlooked at one another with dismayed countenances, as if they had\ncaught sight of something uncanny. But their alarm was needless.\nFor Neil returned Pat\u2019s thump promptly with interest, and replied,\n\u201cHaw, haw, haw! Bedad, and I do remimber her right well. Och now,\nman alive, I\u2019ll bet you me best brogues that wid all you\u2019ve been\nbehouldin\u2019 out there in the States you niver set eyes on e\u2019er a\nbaste\u2019d aquil her for quareness\u2014haw, haw, haw!\u201d And the whole company\ntook up the chorus, as if minded to make up on the spot all arrears\nof laughter owing on that long unappreciated joke. Amid the sound of\nwhich I have reason to believe that there fled away from Meenaclure\nfor ever the last haunting phantasm of the unchancy tiger-sheep.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SNAKES AND NORAH\n\n\n\n\nTHE SNAKES AND NORAH\n\n\nThe Kennys\u2019 little farmstead was a somewhat amphibious one, occupying\nthe southern end of the isthmus which keeps the Atlantic foam from\nriding into Lough Fintragh, a small, dark-watered nook niched in the\nshadow of steep mountain slopes. Another murkier shadow brooded over\nit in the opinion of the Kennys, who, like most of their neighbours,\nat least half-believed that its recesses harboured a monstrous\nin-dweller. Their thin white house stood fronting the seashore, with\na narrow grazing strip behind, while their yard and sheds lay along\nthe dwindling isthmus, which becomes a mere reef-like bar of boulders\nand shingle before it again touches the mainland. In calm weather\nJoe Kenny might see his unimposing ricks reflected from ridge to\nbutt, with gleams of ochre and amber and gold in both salt and fresh\nwater; but in stormy times, which came oftener, it might befall him\nto witness a less pleasing spectacle of hay-wisps and straw-stooks\nstrewn bodily, floating and soaking on the wasteful waves. So he\nwas not surprised to find that this had happened when he walked out\none December morning after a wild night whose blustering had mingled\nmenace with his dreams. Despite its close-meshed roping and thick\nfringe of dangling stone weights, the more exposed haystack had been\nseriously wrecked and pillaged. \u201cOch, bad cess to the ould win\u2019 and\nits whillaballoos!\u201d said Joe, as he surveyed the distorted outlines,\nand made a rueful estimate of the damage. \u201cIf I got the chance to\nslit its bastely bellows for it, \u2019twould be apt to keep its huffin\u2019\nand puffin\u2019 quiet for one while\u2014it would so.\u201d This was not, however,\nthe limit of his losses. Presently he stood looking vexedly over the\ndoor of a half-roofed shed, which contained a good deal of sea-water\nand weed; also a very small red calf, and a large jelly-fish. The\ncalf was drowned dead, but the jelly-fish seemingly lived as much\nas usual. \u201cEyah, get out wid you, you unnathural-lookin\u2019 blob of a\nbaste!\u201d said Joe, giving this unprofitable addition to his stock a\ncontumelious flick with his blackthorn. \u201cThere\u2019s another good fifteen\nshillin\u2019s gone on me. I\u2019d never ha\u2019 thought \u2019twould ha\u2019 tuk and\nslopped over the wall that way. Sorra the bit of a Christmas box I\u2019ll\nbe able to conthrive her this year, and that\u2019s a fac\u2019; and to-morra\nfair day and all\u2014weary on it!\u201d\n\n\u201cHer\u201d was Rose O\u2019Meara, Joe\u2019s sweetheart; and since he had long\nlooked forward to the opportunity of the Christmas gift as likely\nto bring about a favourable crisis in his courtship, the falling\nthrough of his plan made him feel dejectedly out of humour, in which\nunenjoyable mood he strolled on towards the pigstye. Traces of the\nspent storm lay all around him. The tide had receded some way, but\nthe waves were fast by, still hissing and seething, and flinging\nthemselves down with hollow booms and thuds. They had evidently been\nbeating high against the yard-wall, for all along it they had left\ngreat masses of brown sea-wrack tossed in bales and clumps, as if\nloaded out of a cart; and these were connected by trails of green\nand black weed, skeleton branches, shells, clotted froth, driftwood,\nand other debris, all in an indescribable tangle. As Joe stumped\nthrough it, he trucks his foot sharply against something hard, and\nnearly tripped up. When he recovered his balance, he saw that the\nobstruction was not the boulder which he had already execrated in\nhaste. It was a wooden box. In much excitement Joe picked it up, and\nset it on the top of the wall for exacter scrutiny. The tides were\nconstantly sweeping in with miscellaneous fringes on the Kennys\u2019\ndemesne, but seldom did they bring anything that might not be justly\ntermed \u201cquare ould rubbish.\u201d During all the course of Joe\u2019s life,\nand he was not in his first youth, no waif had been washed up so\npromising in appearance as this box. About ten inches square it was,\nand made of a fine grained dark wood, which seemed to have been very\nhighly polished. The corners were clamped with bronze-like metal,\nelaborately wrought, and plates of the same inlaid the keyhole and\nhinges. So strong was the lock, that when he tried to wrench off the\nlid he seemed to have a solid block in his hands, and it shut so\ntightly that the lines of juncture were almost invisible. Its weight\nwas considerable enough to increase his conviction that it held\nsomething very precious.\n\nJoe\u2019s first impulse was to rush home with his prize, exhibit and\nexamine it. Immediately afterwards, however, it flashed across him\nlike an inspiration that here was Rose\u2019s Christmas box; and upon\nthis followed a more leisurely resolve to keep it a secret until he\nshould present her with it intact on Christmas morning, still distant\nthree whole days. This course would cost him the repression of much\nimpatient curiosity, but it was recommended to him by a sense that\nit would enhance the value of the gift. He would be making over to\nRose all the vague and wonderful possibilities of the treasure-trove,\nwhich in his imagination were more splendid than any better-defined\nobject, as they loomed through a haze of unseen gold and jewels.\nDisappointment had scanty room among his forecasts. \u201cSure, I\u2019d a\nright to give it to her just the way it is, wid anythin\u2019 at all\ninside it, for amn\u2019t I axin\u2019 her to take meself in a manner like\nthat, whether good, bad, or indiff\u2019rint comes of it?\u2014on\u2019y it\u2019s scarce\nas apt, worse luck, to be any great things as the full of a grand\nlookin\u2019 box is. But she might understand \u2019twas as much as to say I\u2019d\nbe wishful she had every chance of the best that I could git for\nher, the crathur, if it was all the gold and silver and diamonds that\never were dhrownded under the say-wather, and\u2019d never think to be\nlookin\u2019 to reckon them, no more than if they were so many handfuls of\nould pebbles off of the strand.\u201d Thus reflected Joe, who had a vein\nof sentiment, which sometimes outran his powers of expression. And\nthereupon, leaving the box atop of the wall, he went to look after\nthe pigs. He found them all surviving, though the storm had caused\nsome dilapidations in their abode, which obliged him to do a little\nrough carpentry, and kept him hammering and thumping for several\nminutes. And when he returned to the place where he had left the box,\nthe box was gone.\n\nHe searched wildly for it among the litter on both sides of the\nwall, and nowhere could it be seen. Yet at that hour what man or\nmortal was there abroad to have stirred it? Then he thought that\nthe weeds looked wetter than they had been, and he said to himself\nthat \u201cone of them waves must ha\u2019 riz up permiscuous and swep\u2019 it\noff in a flurry while his back was turned; and a fine gomeral\nhe\u2019d been to go lave it widin raich of such a thing happenin\u2019 it.\u201d\nSo as no more satisfactory explanation was forthcoming, he turned\nhomeward, empty-handed and crestfallen. But before he had taken many\nsteps, he saw sitting under the lee of the yard-wall Tom O\u2019Meara,\nRose\u2019s brother, who was generally recognised to be courting Mary\nKenny, Joe\u2019s youngest sister. The O\u2019Mearas lived a good step beyond\nthe other end of the isthmus, and Joe had begun to speculate what\nso early a visit might signify, when the greater wonder abruptly\nswallowed the less as he became aware that Tom had the twice-lost box\nin his hands.\n\n\u201cLook-a, Joe, at what I\u2019m after findin\u2019,\u201d he called jubilantly.\n\n\u201cFindin\u2019? Musha moyah! that\u2019s fine talkin\u2019,\u201d said Joe. \u201cAnd where at\nall did you find it, then?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere it was to be had,\u201d said Tom, promptly adjusting his tone to\nJoe\u2019s, which was offensive.\n\n\u201cThen it\u2019s sitting atop of our wall there it was,\u201d said Joe.\n\u201cWhethen, now, some people has little enough to do that they can\u2019t\nkeep their hands off meddlin\u2019 wid things they find sittin\u2019 on other\npeople\u2019s yard-walls.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd suppose it was sittin\u2019 on anybody\u2019s ould wall,\u201d said Tom, \u201cwhat\nelse except a one of them rowlin\u2019 waves set it sittin\u2019 there wid\nitself, and it all dhreepin\u2019 wet out of the say? Be the same token\nit\u2019s quare if one person hasn\u2019t got as good a right to be liftin\u2019 it\noff as another. Troth and bedad, I\u2019d somethin\u2019 betther to do than\nto be standin\u2019 star-gazin\u2019 at it all day, waitin\u2019 to ax lave of the\nlikes of yous.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll soon show you the sort of rowlin\u2019 wave there was, me man, if\nyou don\u2019t throuble yourself to be handin\u2019 it over out of that, and I\nafter pickin\u2019 it up this half-hour ago,\u201d said Joe, with furious irony.\n\n\u201cCome on wid you, come on!\u201d Tom shouted, jumping to his feet with a\ngeneral flourish of defiance. At this point the dispute bade fair to\nbecome an argument without words, and would probably have done so\nhad it not been that the two young men were the brothers of their\nsisters. As it was, a sort of Roman-Sabine complication fettered and\nhandcuffed them. \u201cDivil a thing else I was intendin\u2019 to do wid it,\nbut bring it straight ways in to your sister Mary,\u201d said Tom, \u201cthat\nyou need go for to be risin\u2019 rows about the matter.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s for Rose\u2019s Christmas box; that\u2019s what I think bad of,\u201d said Joe.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s halve it between the two of them, then, whatever it is,\u201d said\nTom, feeling that a compromise was the utmost he could reasonably\nexpect from circumstances.\n\nAnd so it was arranged, rather weakly on Joe\u2019s part, he being the\nbetter man of the two, and well within his rights, if he had chosen\nto claim the box unconditionally. The joint presentation should take\nplace, they agreed, on Christmas Eve, the next day but one, when\nRose O\u2019Meara would be visiting the Kennys; and then Tom departed\nwhistling, with the pick he had come to borrow the loan of, while Joe\nconsoled himself as best he could for this arbitrary subtraction of\nmore than half the pleasure and romance from his morning\u2019s find.\n\nLate on Christmas Eve, when the Kennys\u2019 kitchen was full of glancing\nfirelight, and the widow Kenny, with her son and daughters and her\nguests, Tom and Rose O\u2019Meara, had all had their tea, Joe and Tom\nwere seen to often whisper and nudge one another, until at last\nJoe got up and produced the box from its secret hiding-place. But\nTom hastened to forestall him as spokesman, placing considerable\nconfidence in his own perspicacity and grace of diction. He said\u2014\n\n\u201cSee you here, Mary and Rose. This consarn\u2019s a prisint the two of us\nis after gettin\u2019 the two of yous\u2014I mane it was Joe found it aquilly\nthe same as me, that picked it up somethin\u2019 later. And it\u2019s he\u2019s\ngivin\u2019 the whole of his half of the whole of it to Rose; but he\u2019s\nnothin\u2019 to say to the rest of it; and it\u2019s meself that\u2019s givin\u2019 Mary\nthe half of the whole of the half\u2014och no, botheration! it\u2019s the whole\nof the\u2014it\u2019s the other whole half of it\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got it this time,\u201d Joe remarked in a sarcastic aside.\n\n\u201c\u2014I\u2019m givin\u2019 Mary. So that\u2019s the way of it, and when we\u2019ve got the\nlid prized off for yous, you\u2019ll just have to regulate it between\nyous, accordin\u2019 to what there is inside.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd if it\u2019s all the gold and diamonds in the riches of the world,\u201d\nsaid Joe, \u201cyou\u2019re kindly welcome to every grain of it, Rose jewel\u2014ay,\nbedad, are you.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo the one half of it,\u201d corrected Tom, with emphasis. But his\nsister tapped him with the pot-stick, and said, \u201cWhisht, you big\nomadhawn, whisht.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a pity of such a thing to be knockin\u2019 about and goin\u2019 to loss,\u201d\nsaid Mary, rubbin\u2019 her finger on the embossed metal-work; \u201cand I\nwonder what\u2019s gone wid whatever crathur owned it. Under the salt say\nhe\u2019s very apt to be lying this night\u2014the Lord be good to him!\u201d The\nrustle of the waves climbing up the shingle outside seemed to swell\nlouder as she spoke.\n\n\u201cFor anythin\u2019 we can tell, he might be takin\u2019 a look in at us through\nthe windy there this minute to see what we\u2019re doin\u2019 wid it,\u201d said Joe.\n\nEverybody\u2019s eyes turned towards the dark little square of the window,\nand Mary left off handling the box as suddenly as if it had become\nred-hot.\n\n\u201cOh, blathers!\u201d said Tom. \u201cJust raich me the rippin\u2019-chisel that\u2019s\nlyin\u2019 on the windy-stool, Norah, and we\u2019ll soon thry what it is at\nall.\u201d\n\nNorah, the elder sister, made a very long arm, and secured the tool\nwith as little approximation as might be to the deep-set panes. She\nhad neither sweetheart nor Christmas box, and was disposed to take a\nrather languid and cynical view of affairs.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s apt not to be any great things in it, I\u2019m thinkin\u2019,\u201d said\nthe widow Kenny from her elbow-chair by the hearth. The truth was\nthat she had been reflecting with some bitterness how not so many\nyears since Joe would have \u201ccome flourishin\u2019 in to her wid any ould\nthrifle of rubbish he might ha\u2019 picked up outside,\u201d whereas now he\nhad kept this valuable property silently in his possession for three\ndays, for the purpose of bestowing it upon the O\u2019Mearas\u2019 slip of a\ngirl. Consequently, Joe\u2019s mother held aloof from the eager group\nround the table, and uttered disparaging predictions of the event.\nTom and Mary did make a prudent attempt to fend off their collision\nwith the disappointment which might emerge from the mists ahead\nby repeating, as the chisel wrestled with the stubborn hasps and\nsprings, \u201cSure, all the while belike there\u2019s on\u2019y some quare ould\nstuff in it, no good to anybody.\u201d Joe and Rose, on the contrary,\nchose to run under crowded sail towards the possible wreck of their\nhopes, and talked of sovereigns and bank-notes and jewels while the\nlid creaked and resisted.\n\nBut when at length it yielded with a final splinter, it disclosed\nwhat no one had anticipated\u2014namely, nothing. The box was quite\nempty. Daintily lined with glossy satinwood, as if for the reception\nof something delicate and precious, but bare as the palm of your\nhand. There was not even so much vacant space as might have been\nexpected, for the sides were disproportionately thick. Very blank\nfaces exchanged notes with one another upon this result. Almost any\ncontents, however inappropriate and worthless, would have been their\n\u201cadvantage to exclaim upon,\u201d and more tolerable for that reason than\nmere nullity, about which there was little to be said. Rose was the\nfirst to rally from the general mortification, observing with forced\ncheerfulness that \u201csure \u2019twould make an iligant sort of workbox, at\nall ivints, and \u2019twas maybe just as handy there bein\u2019 nothin\u2019 in it,\nbecause \u2019twould hould anythin\u2019 you plased.\u201d To which Mary rejoined,\ndejectedly refusing to philosophise, \u201cBedad, then, you may keep it\nyourself, girl alive, for the lid\u2019s every atom all smashed into\nsmithereens.\u201d\n\nThe young people were not, however, with one exception, in the mood\nfor dwelling upon the dark side of things. Their depression caused by\nthe collapse of the Christmas box was superficial, and soon passed\naway. When in course of the evening the two young men went out to\nfeed the pigs, Rose and Mary accompanied them to the back door,\nwhere they all loitered so long that the patience waiting round the\nempty trough must have been sorely tried. Sounds of their talking\nand laughing came down the passage and were heard plainly in the\nkitchen, whence Mrs Kenny had slipped up her ladder stairs to say\nher rosary, so that Norah was for the time left quite alone. She\nwas decidedly out of humour, albeit by no means on account of the\nothers\u2019 rapid reverse of fortune. Rather, we may apprehend, she had\nviewed that incident as a not regrettable check to a tide of affairs\nwhich was unduly sweeping all manner of good luck her neighbours\u2019\nway, and unjustly leaving her high and dry. This grudging spirit had\nforbidden her to appear interested in the examination of the box, but\nnow she could satisfy without betraying her curiosity. As she drew\nher fingers aimlessly round its smooth inner surface, there was a\nsudden snap and jerk, and out slid a secret drawer, which had been\nconcealed by a false bottom. It was filled with rose-pink wadding,\namongst which lay the coils of a long gold snake necklace. She lifted\nit out amazedly, and held it up in the firelight, with jewelled head\ngleaming and enamelled scales, a far finer piece of workmanship than\nshe knew, though the flash of brilliants and rubies assured even her\nuninstructed eyes that she had come on something of much value.\n\nWhile she was still looking at it she heard steps returning up the\npassage, and forthwith tried hastily to replace it in the box. But\nat a clumsy touch the drawer flew back into its former invisibility,\nand her flurried fumbling failed to press the lurking spring. Then,\nas the steps came very near, she thrust her ornament into her pocket,\nand moved away from the table on which the box stood. In doing so,\nshe was conscious only of a proud perversity which made her loth to\nbe found meddling with what she sullenly called \u201cno consarn of mine.\u201d\nPresently, however, other motives for concealment grew clearer and\nstronger. Of course, the longer she retained it the more difficult\nwould the restoring of it be. Her crossness made it impossible for\nher to imagine a joke as a natural explanation of her conduct.\nMoreover, a covetous wish to keep the beautiful thing for its own\nsake sprang up, and had a swift growth. She said to herself that \u201cshe\ndidn\u2019t see why she need have any call to be givin\u2019 it up, after all.\nWasn\u2019t she after findin\u2019 it in the quare little slitherin\u2019 tray,\nand the rest of them wid no more notion of it bein\u2019 there at all\nthan ould Sally the goat had? It might be lyin\u2019 where it was till\nthe world\u2019s end on\u2019y for her? And sure, for the matter of that, the\nould box itself was no more a belongin\u2019 of the lads to give away\nthan of any other body that might ha\u2019 happened on it tossin\u2019 about\nthe shore. So if it wasn\u2019t theirs be rights, she thought she\u2019d be a\nfine fool to not keep what she\u2019d got.\u201d Sophistical arguments such as\nthese convinced her reason easily enough, but her conscience was less\namenable to them. They were reinforced by some further considerations\nwhich possessed no ethical value at all, and which she had the grace\nto be ashamed of putting into clearly outlined thoughts. She allowed\nherself to have only a vague sense of grievance at the fact that\nRose and Mary had \u201cpresents, and people to be makin\u2019 fools of them,\nand all manner,\u201d whereas none of these desirable things were bestowed\non her. Yet it formed a mental atmosphere which made the prospect of\nyielding up her discovery seem incongruous and odious, in the same\nway that a bitter wind blowing makes us loth to throw open our doors\nand windows.\n\n\u201cCock them up to be gettin\u2019 everythin\u2019,\u201d she said to herself, as she\nsat in a corner with her hand in her pocket, and drew through her\nfingers the cold, smooth coils, remembering how the gem-encrusted\nhead had blazed in the firelight. She wished that she could venture\nto take it out and proudly display it as her property; but she was\nfar from daring to do so. On the contrary, she felt herself laden\nwith a guilty secret, and was presently beset by all the misgivings,\nsuspicions, and surmises which infest people who carry about such\na burden. Whenever anyone went near the box her heart thumped with\nterror lest the drawer should be detected, and its rifled condition\nsomehow traced to her. Then she trembled to think that the lads\nperhaps knew all the time of the necklace\u2019s existence, and were\njust reserving it for a grand surprise; or she imagined herself\nletting it drop accidentally and being unable to account for her\npossession of it. These speculations so pre-occupied her that she\nwas obliged to explain her absent-mindedness by declaring herself\n\u201cintirely disthracted wid the toothache\u201d; upon which the condolences\nand sympathy of the others aggravated her uneasiness with remorseful\ngratitude. Her conscience nipped her shrewdly when Rose said, \u201cAh,\nthe crathur, I\u2019ll run over to-morra early and bring you the bottle\nould Matt Farren gev me mother; it\u2019s the grandest stuff at all for\nthe toothache,\u201d\u2014Rose whom she was defrauding of a share in that\ngolden marvel! At length she had resource to a plan which promised\nher temporary relief from urgent fears and self-reproaches. This was\nto hide away the necklace in some cranny of the rocks on the shore,\nwhere, if it should be rediscovered, nothing would implicate her in\nthe matter. She said to herself, indeed, that they would have just\nas much chance of finding it there as in the mysterious drawer;\nbut beneath that soothing reflection lay a resolve to minimise\nthe chance by choosing the most unlikely chink possible. Since the\nevening was by this time far spent, and the O\u2019Mearas had already\ntaken leave, she knew that she must hurry to execute her design\nbefore Joe came in from seeing after the cattle, when the house would\nbe shut up. So she slipped quietly out of doors.\n\nIt was a dark, gusty night, and the waves, still turbulent after\ntheir late uproar, were clattering noisily up the shingly ridges of\nthe beach. As Norah ran along she could barely discern the glimmering\nof pale grey stones and white foam-crests. She kept on by the lough\nside of the isthmus, because the walking there was smoother, but when\nshe thought she had come a safe distance she stopped, intending to\ncross over and seek a hiding-place for her spoil among a small chaos\nof weeded boulders. Looking for a moment athwart the black water, she\nsaw a dim streak of light in the sky above it. The moon was glimpsing\nout of an eastern cloud-rift, and throwing down a meagre web of rays,\nwhich the unquiet dark surface caught fitfully and shredded into\nthe broken coils of a writhing silver serpent. Perhaps it was this,\nor perhaps the golden snake-chain in her hands, that suggested the\nthing, but at any rate Norah suddenly bethought her of the _Piast_.\nFor Lough Fintragh is haunted by the terror of one of these monsters,\na huge and grisly worm, dwelling down in the shadowy end of the\nlake, where the water is said to have no bottom, and to wander in\nlabyrinthine caverns about the roots of the mountains. The creature\nhad not been very often seen, but Norah well knew what a direful fate\nhad overtaken every soul to whom its shag-maned, lurid-eyed head\nand rood-length of livid scales had disastrously appeared. One of\nits least appalling habits, ran report, was to glare fixedly at its\nvictim, until fascinated and distraught he leaped wildly into the\njaws gaping for their prey. In the lonesome, murmurous dimness by the\nshore, Norah did not care to linger over such incidents, and she was\nturning away quickly, when a shock of fright almost paralysed her.\nWithin a few yards of her feet she saw two reddish amber eyes glowing\nthrough the gloom, and from the same place came a sound of something\nin rustling, flapping motion.\n\nIt was, in fact, only a harmless and rather bewildered seal, who,\nduring the past night\u2019s turmoil, had somehow got into the lough, and\nwho now, instinctively aware of the rising tide, had set out eager\nto quit the insipid fresh water for his strong-flavoured Atlantic\nbrine. But Norah naturally jumped to the conclusion that nothing less\nfearsome than the _Piast_ itself was flopping towards her, and she\nfled away before it in a headlong panic, which culminated a moment\nafterwards when she ran against some large moving body. This, again,\nwas simply her brother Joe, returned from setting his friends on\ntheir way; but Norah, with a wild shriek, gave herself up for lost,\nand did actually come near putting an end to herself by tumbling\nin frantic career over one stone, and striking her head violently\non another. She had to be carried home insensible, and Christmas\nDay had come and gone before she found her way back gropingly to\nconsciousness.\n\nMeanwhile conjectures, of course, were rife as to the origin of her\nmishap, and the antecedents of the \u201ciligant gold snaky chain\u201d that\nshe was grasping. \u201cSclutched that tight she had it in her sclenched\nfist, we were hard set to wrench it out of her hand,\u201d Mrs Kenny\nvolubly told her neighbours. The favourite theory held that she\n\u201cwas after pickin\u2019 it up on the shore, and would be skytin\u2019 home wid\nit in a hurry, not mindin\u2019 where she was goin\u2019, and that was the\nway she got the ugly toss.\u201d And when Norah had recovered from the\neffects of it sufficiently to be asked for her own account of the\nmatter, she could throw but little light thereon. Her accident had\nleft, as so often happens, a strange misty gap in her memory, which\nit was vain to scan. The space between her first sight of the box\nand her blinding crash down on the shingle was all a confused blank.\nHowever, two results of the affair emerged, and, though their cause\nremained untraceable, had a distinct influence upon her future. One\nof them was, that she would on no account permit the snake necklace\nto be regarded as her property. She persistently asserted that it\nbelonged to Mary and Rose; and when Dr Mason, who had undertaken to\ndispose of it in Dublin, remitted an incredible number of pounds, she\nwould hear of no arrangement save dividing them between her sister\nand sister-in-law elect. The other had more important consequences\nto the whole course of her life. It was an abiding dread of their\nconnecting isthmus, which had become so horrible a place to her\nthat never again would she cross over it, even when promised the\nprotection of the most stalwart escort. Now, as the isthmus is very\nmuch the nearest way from the Kennys\u2019 farm to any other habitations,\nthis peculiarity of Norah\u2019s cut her off greatly from whatever\nsociety the neighbourhood afforded, besides gaining her a reputation\nfor \u201cquareness\u201d not likely to increase her popularity. Probably,\ntherefore, it may have been part of the reason why the years as they\ncame and went that way found her rooted fast and growing into a\nsettled old maid.\n\nThose glowering yellow eyes being blurred out of her recollection,\nthe _Piast_ did not occur to her as the object of her fear. But some\npeople were not slow to connect it with the uncanny inhabitant of the\nlough, and in process of time their various imaginations hardened\ninto a circumstantial narrative of an especially terrific appearance\nof the monster. To this day, indeed, so current is the story, that\nmany a wayfarer along the bleak shingle strip goes the faster for\na doubt whether such an awful experience as befell Norah Kenny may\nnot be writhing towards him beneath the sunless waters of Lough\nFintragh.\n\n\n\n\nTHREE PINT MEASURES\n\n\n\n\nTHREE PINT MEASURES\n\n\nThe little stream which flows southward through Ballyhoy must be\none of the smallest contributions accepted anywhere by the sea, so\ninsignificant in quantity is the water trickling over the smoothed\nstone step under the low arch on the shore. Yet the course of its\nchannel can be traced, when the tide is out, in gleaming sky-coloured\nloops far across the mud-flats. As a rule the tide there _is_ out:\nsome of the neighbours indeed, have a theory, no doubt scientifically\nuntenable, that it comes in only about once a week. For this narrow\ncreek, cut off from the Bay by the great grassy sandbank of the North\nBull, is steadily silting up, so that its soundings grow shallower\nevery year, and rarer the occasions when we see a plain of sapphire\nor mother-o\u2019-pearl, threaded with paths of silver rippling, spread\nall the way between us and the cliffs at purple Howth. It looks as\nif the Bull would ultimately join the mainland without intermission.\nEven now, at low water, the passage to and fro can be effected\nfairly dry-shod by well-chosen routes. These are known to the cattle\nwho graze on the salt herbage among the bent-grown sandhills; and at\nthe fitting time and place, a procession red and white and black may\nbe watched making its way thence in single file towards the strip\nof common-like pasture beside the sea-road. But the transit, if\nundertaken by the unwary or ignorant, is beset with serious peril,\nowing to sundry treacherous mud-holes, which lurk around. Their\nsmothering toils have in time past engulfed much vainly floundering\nprey, both man and beast, and at the present day several of them\nare called by the names of their respective victims\u2014Byrne\u2019s Hole,\nClancy\u2019s Hole\u2014obscurely commemorating tragedies not less piteous\nperhaps than those of the Kelpie\u2019s Flow and the Sands of Dee.\n\nI have never heard of any such disaster befalling a class of people\nwho might be supposed peculiarly liable to it, since so much of their\ntime is spent on the dangerous ground. All the shore from Ballyhoy to\nPortbrendan is haunted by cockle-pickers, who come out from Dublin,\nwhere they lodge among the Liberties or other purlieus, climbing\ndown into subterranean cellars, or perhaps mounting wide oaken stairs\nto spacious upper chambers with the carven panels and mantelpieces\nand ceilings of the past commenting ironically on the inartistic\nrags and squalor and famine of to-day. They time their arrival to\ncorrespond with low water, so that when you meet a batch of them\njogging along the road, you can infer the state of the tide from the\ncontents of the baskets they shoulder, according as these include a\nheap of grey-fluted shells and a trail of brown seaweed, or nothing\nexcept a dull tin measure and a grimy little pipe. Nobody ever sees\na cockle-picker apart from his or her basket, yet one of them would\nbe recognised without it, so constant is the type in the species. All\nare neither young nor old, all are wind and weather-beaten, all are\nshort of stature, any original excess in height being compensated\nfor by a more pronounced stoop, and the garments of all reproduce\nthe tints of blackish mud and greenish slime as accurately as if\nthe wearers were animals whose existence depended upon the power of\ngoing invisible. This is not the case, however. Unaggressive and\ninoffensive in their habits, the cockle-pickers have no especial\nenemies save the seasons\u2019 difference, and the dwellers by the shore\nregard their proceedings with hardly more suspicion than those of the\nwhite sea-gull flocks which sprinkle the neighbouring dark fields,\nwhen the lea is broken up and disturbed grubs abound. A favourite\nfishery is the strand along by the Black Banks, a little to the\neastward of the Ballyhoy river; and on most days of the year sombre\nfigures are to be seen there, paddling and poking, barefooted, in the\nmud, even when the pools have ice at the rim, and the green weed is\nstiff instead of slimy.\n\nVery differently does the little Black Banks settlement view the\ncoming of some other visitors, who put in an appearance more seldom.\nBut the tinkers are quite used to cool receptions, and if they\nwent only where they were welcome, would find their journeys much\nrestricted. So as this nook offers them a camping-ground conveniently\naccessible from the high road, they occasionally guide their jolting\ndonkey-cart down the shingly track, undeterred by the disapproving\neyes that watch them from the adjacent cabin-cluster. One row of\nthese has for some time past been standing roofless, a circumstance\nwhich points it out as appropriate quarters for all manner of\nvagrants, who have forfeited, if indeed they ever possessed, the\nright to expect the luxury of thatch overhead. And here the tinkers\nare wont to spend a few weeks every summer, seriously to the\ndiscomfort of their temporary neighbours. It must be allowed that\nthey have righteously earned the evil repute which dogs them. Seven\nordinarily ingenious magpies would be less grievous to the owners\nof hen-roosts and other portable property than a single tinker.\nOn many a night odours of savoury cooking, wafted from within the\nruined mud walls, have roused rueful suspicions in the proprietor\nof some \u201cgrand young pullet\u201d or \u201ciligant fat duck,\u201d which has been\nmysteriously absent at the last feeding-time; and the stealthiness\nwherewith a youthful tinker will creep in the small hours of the\nmorning, tin-mug in hand, to milk somebody else\u2019s goat tethered\nbehind a rickety-boarded fence, would discredit no Blackfoot on the\nhunting-trail. Also the tinker men drink and brawl, and the women\nstorm and screech, and the children interminably romp and quarrel,\nwhile the whole confraternity use language so wildly bad that it is\n\u201cfit to rise the hair up off of your head,\u201d as scandalised matrons\nobserve standing at their doors, and calling Biddy and Pat and\nLarry and Rose to \u201ccome in out of that and not be listening to such\nungovernable talk.\u201d And to atone for these causes of offence the\ntinkers bring no social advantages, if you except now and then the\nexcitement of a stand-up fight between a couple of the men, who have\ngrown pugnacious over their whisky, or the thrilling spectacle of an\narrest, which sometimes occurs when the proceedings of the band have\ncome under the consideration of the constabulary in the whitewashed\nbarracks above at Ballyhoy. Dramatic incidents are, be it said, very\nhighly valued hereabouts; but the price of the tinker\u2019s performance\nis more than can be paid without repining.\n\nOne day in the course of their last visit, it did seem as if they\nwere going to produce a satisfyingly strong sensation. It came about\nin this way. Foxy Cullen, their recognised chief, had returned late\nin the warm afternoon to the Black Banks from a tramp round the\ndistrict with a basket of tinware. He had not invidiously omitted to\ncall at the various \u201cpublics\u201d which he passed, and the consequence\nwas that he now \u201chad drink taken,\u201d a state more perilously conducive\nto rash and reprehensible acts than downright drunkenness. On the\npresent occasion, however, nothing more erratic suggested itself to\nFoxy than an idea that he would before he went home \u201cjust step across\nto the Bull and see what sort of a place at all it was over there.\u201d\nHe had often wished to do that, and as the tide had gone black out,\nleaving no water visibly intervening, save the river\u2019s fine-drawn\nthread, the opportunity appeared favourable. So he set down his\nbasket on the wayside sward, kept close-shaven by the goats, and\nhe called to his daughter Peg, whom he saw at hand, to come along\nwith him. Peg, a queer, monkey-like little figure in a scarlet print\nfrock, wore gleeful grins as she obeyed, for her ragged red-bearded\nfather was to her the flower and sum of things; and the pair walked\non over the grass until its daisies turned into sea-pinks, and until\nthe seaweedy shingle which succeeded them gave place to a breadth of\nglistening mud.\n\nBy the time they had got so far, Bill Duffy came round the turn\nof the road, faring homewards with his load of cockles. Bill had\nhad good luck with his fishing that day, and had filled his basket\nalmost before the tide was at its lowest ebb, and it should perhaps\nbe accounted a prolongation of his luckiness that the shimmering tin\nthings in Foxy\u2019s basket now beckoned to him from the sunny bank. He\nconcluded that some of the tinkers were about, but he saw nobody\nnear. The tinkers were slight acquaintances of his, and he had in\nfact just been trying to negotiate the sale of some of his stock with\nMrs Foxy up at the roofless cabin. Unsuccessfully, for she told him\nwith regret that she was \u201cstone broke, and until himself come home,\nyou might all as well be lookin\u2019 to find a penny in a cockle-shell as\nin her ould pocket.\u201d To which Bill replied, \u201cOch sure you don\u2019t get\nthat on\u2019y in an odd one or so,\u201d and departed acquiescent. But this\nderelict basketful of tinware proved to be a matter less easily dealt\nwith. At first indeed he seemed about to pass it by with merely a\ncasual glance, which, however, suddenly took on fixity and meaning,\nas he stopped short and stood looking earnestly at the contents.\nThese were mostly tin pint measures, a dozen of them, maybe, all very\nnew and clean and shiny.\n\nNow it so happened that at this time Bill badly wanted such an\narticle. Anybody might have inferred as much from the dingy,\nbattered aspect of the little vessel lying atop of his blackish-grey\ncockle-heap. In truth, ever since an accident which it had sustained\na good while ago, it could only by sheer courtesy be described as\na measure at all. For a dray-horse in Capel Street had set his\nshaggy foot upon it, treatment which no bit of white metal could be\nexpected to endure, and it had accordingly collapsed into a great\ndinge, rendering its capacity henceforth a question of intricate\ncalculations, far beyond the tether of Bill or his clients. This\nunchancy distortion had only the night before lost him a customer,\na housewife who had \u201cpriced\u201d his wares as he passed her half-door,\nand showed every symptom of coming to terms, when an over-officious\nfriend nudged her elbow, observing \u201cLaws bless us, woman, look at\nwhat he\u2019s be way of measurin\u2019 them wid. Sure it wouldn\u2019t hold a\nskimpy handful, let alone a pint.\u201d Bill protested that it held the\nbiggest pint in the County Dublin, and that he, inconsistently,\nalways allowed the half full of it over and above, to make up for any\npossible deficiency; nevertheless the prudent matron transferred her\npatronage to Mary Cassidy, who just then came by, and he was left in\nthe lurch with his damaged mug. But now, when he felt keenly alive\nboth to its shortcomings and to the difficulties of mustering the few\npence needed to replace it, here he was all at once confronted with\nan assortment ready to his hand, nothing apparently interposing to\nhinder him from acting on the principle that Heaven helps those who\nhelp themselves.\n\nBill Duffy was, as things go, at least indifferent honest; yet his\nintegrity made but a brief stand against the assault thus suddenly\nsprung upon it. He cast a furtive glance around, and then, with a\nrapid dive, clutched a measure, and thrust it over his shoulder down\ndeep among his cockles, which rattled clatteringly together to hide\nthe stealth. The next moment he started violently, and felt certain\nthat he was caught. For at no great distance there rose up a skirl\nof shrieking shriller than had ever issued from sea-fowl\u2019s throat,\nand looking in the direction of the sound, he saw a small and gaudy\nfigure running towards him. It advanced in short rushes, now and\nthen stopping to dance up and down as if in an ecstasy of rage or\nterror, but it screamed unintermittently, so that Bill could not be\nsure whether or no he did hear basser shouts the while proceeding\nfrom a point somewhat farther off. Presently, however, the note of\nterror grew predominant enough to change his opinion about the cause\nof the outcry, and set him off trotting to meet it. This red-frocked\nscreeching child turned out to be Peg Cullen, and the burden of her\nlamentations was something unintelligible concerning \u201cDaddy,\u201d whose\nbawls in the background here became, fortunately for him, so distinct\nas to furnish an explanatory note. Foxy had evidently blundered\ninto a mud-hole, which was now, in conformity with its agreeable\ncustom, taking prompt steps to secure and secrete him. Bill rapidly\ngrasped the situation, and unhitching his heavy basket he detached\nits long strap, and sped to the rescue, which, as Foxy was not yet\nvery deeply engaged, he found himself able to effect. A few frantic\nplunges and desperate hauls set Foxy on firm ground, exceedingly miry\nand alarmed, and quite sober; Peg left off screaming and dancing, and\nthey all returned to the road, stepping gingerly while they were on\nthe mud, but stamping boldly once they felt the dry sod under their\nfeet.\n\nWhen they came where the tinker\u2019s basket was, Foxy fell to emptying\nhis black-oozing brogues, whilst Bill, case-hardened by much wading,\nbegan to splice his strap, which had nearly marred all with symptoms\nof fracture during the last critical tug. He had for the time being\nforgotten all about the pint measure. By-and-by, however, Foxy,\nflinging away the grass-wisp he had used to wipe off the mud, and\nshuffling uncomfortably in his soaked boots, said with a dissatisfied\ngrunt, \u201cAugh, bad luck to it for a deceptionable ould brash. I may go\nnow and get another sup of somethin\u2019 or else it\u2019s destroyed I\u2019ll be\nwid the could creeps in me bones agin mornin\u2019; wud you take a glass,\nman?\u201d\n\n\u201cSure, no,\u201d said Bill; \u201cI\u2019m shankin\u2019 into town meself as soon as I\ncan get th\u2019 ould strap mended.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s not much of a concern you\u2019ve got there,\u201d said Foxy, pointing\nto Bill\u2019s old mug as it lay dinted side uppermost on his cockles;\n\u201cpast mendin\u2019 it is, I should say. Look-a, here\u2019s a somethin\u2019 better\nquality you\u2019d be welcome to.\u201d He held out one of his measures\nto Bill, who shrank back as if its glittering surface had been\nincandescent with white-heat. The consciousness of what was hidden\nin the depths of his basket seemed to scorch his face and dazzle his\neyes.\n\n\u201cOch, not at all, thank \u2019ee,\u201d he said; \u201csure this I have usin\u2019 does\ngrand; it\u2019s the handiest one I ever owned. And I have a couple or so\nof spare ones lyin\u2019 about at home if I would be wantin\u2019 them. Och,\nnot at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a quare fancy you\u2019d be havin\u2019, then, to go about wid the likes\nof that,\u201d said Foxy. \u201cMusha, man, how ready you are to make a lie and\ntell it. Sure it\u2019s no compliment to be takin\u2019 such a trifle off me,\nwhen I\u2019ve got a basket full of them, and more-be-token I couldn\u2019t\nsay how many quarts of the bastely black mud I mightn\u2019t be after\nswallyin\u2019 down agin now if it wasn\u2019t only for you lendin\u2019 me a hand\nout\u2014bejabers it was the sizeablest cockle you ever landed. Bad cess\nto the could wather, it\u2019s at the bottom of every manner of mischief.\nI\u2019m steppin\u2019 along for a drop of spirits, and I\u2019ll lave the bit of a\nmug wid you, whether or no.\u201d He thrust it into Bill\u2019s basket and went\noff, followed jealously by Peg.\n\nFor a moment Bill stood staring blankly after them, but then an idea\nsuggested itself, and hoisting his basket on his arm he started in\nthe opposite direction.\n\nAt his goal, which was the tinker\u2019s cabin, he found Mrs Foxy stooping\nover her smoky driftwood fire, in a \u201cquare ugly temper,\u201d as her\nfamily could have told him. \u201cWhethen now and is it yourself botherin\u2019\nback agin?\u201d she said upon seeing him; \u201cdidn\u2019t I tell you a while ago\nas plain as I could spake that we weren\u2019t wantin\u2019 cockles to-day?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh whisht, honey, and don\u2019t be strikin\u2019 up ahead of the fiddler,\u201d\nsaid Bill suavely. \u201cAmn\u2019t I just after meetin\u2019 himself out there, and\nhe biddin\u2019 me be bringin\u2019 you up three pints for your suppers?\u201d\n\nMrs Foxy\u2019s countenance cleared up. \u201cWell, tubbe sure,\u201d she said;\n\u201cit\u2019s not often the man has the wit or the money left to do anythin\u2019\nso raisonable wid this hour of the evenin\u2019. But they\u2019ll come in\noncommon handy, for it\u2019s cleared out we are to-night intirely. What\nall I have for the supper wouldn\u2019t pacify a scutty wren.\u201d\n\nThe whole Cullen family looked on with a sense of brightened\nprospects while Bill dropped the cockles resonantly into a tin\ncan. It is part of Fate\u2019s irony towards the tinkers that, however\nplentiful may be the lack of viands in their larder, they are always\nabundantly provided with cooking utensils. He meted out his three\npints with a reckless liberality which convinced Mrs Foxy that her\nhusband must have ordered, and paid for, a couple of quarts at least.\nAnd when he took his departure, he successfully accomplished the\nstratagem, which had been the main object of his visit, by laying\ndown, unperceived, Foxy\u2019s glowing gift upon a nettle-girt stone just\ninside the threshold. This done, he went on his way greatly relieved\nand self-conciliated.\n\nBut he had not trudged many paces before scurrying feet pursued and\novertook him. Somebody had espied the purposely forgotten measure,\nand had remarked: \u201cOch, he\u2019s after lavin\u2019 his mug behind him\u201d; upon\nwhich somebody else rejoined: \u201c\u2019Deed, then, we\u2019ve slathers of them\nlitterin\u2019 about widout it, so there\u2019s no good keepin\u2019 it on the man.\nSkyte after him wid it, Lizzie.\u201d And Lizzie skyted, sped by a desire\nto be but briefly absent from the scene of preparations for supper,\nso that she tossed the mug into Bill\u2019s basket with scant ceremony,\nand was off again ere he well knew what had befallen. When it grew\nclear, a leaden conviction dumped down on him that he might give\nup setting his wits against Destiny. \u201cSure it was to be,\u201d he said\nto himself drearily, as he resumed his plodding, bent dejectedly\nunder a heavier weight than his moist basket. He resorted rather\nfrequently to this obvious truth, whence we may infer that his stock\nof consolatory reflections was not extensive.\n\nWhen he came once more where the road crossed the river, he,\naccording to custom in warm weather, climbed down the grassy bank for\na drink. On this occasion, however, his first act was to take all\nhis three pint measures out of the basket and set them in a row\u2014the\none he had been given, and the one he had stolen, and the battered\nold one that had, in a manner, caused the whole difficulty. Bill\neyed them gloomily as they glinted in the long rays. \u201cTroth, it\u2019s\nthemselves are the iligant lookin\u2019 collection,\u201d he said to himself\nwith some resentment, \u201cand a grand ould slieveen\u2019s trick it was to\nbe thievin\u2019 a poor man\u2019s bit of property, and he all the time widin\ntwo twos of dhrowndin\u2019 dead, scarce a stone\u2019s-throw away. Ay, bedad,\nit was so. But, musha, it was to be.\u201d As he mused mutteringly, he\npicked up a mug at random and dipped it carelessly in the stream,\nbut something surprising followed. For the water it scooped up\nstraightway plashed out of it again, as if poured through a funnel.\nOf course, Bill investigated the reason of this, and the result\nwas a discovery which lit up his face with a broad grin. Through\nsome defect in the soldering, the bottom of the vessel had almost\ndetached itself from the rim, and flapped out like a swing door at\nthe slightest touch. It could, clearly, hold nothing; and it was the\nstolen mug\u2014he recognised it by the handle.\n\n\u201cBless me ould bones, look at that now,\u201d Bill said gleefully,\n\u201cyou might all as well be axin\u2019 wather to stop aisy in the holes\nof me ould basket here. Sure it wouldn\u2019t hould e\u2019er a hap\u2019orth of\nanythin\u2019 wet or dhry\u201d\u2014he dropped a handful of cockles into it, and\ntriumphantly watched them slip through and fall with tiny thuds on\nthe grass. \u201cAy, begorra, it\u2019d ha\u2019 never been a thraneen of use to man\nor mortal; ne\u2019er a brass bawbee was it worth all the time, glory be\nto God.\u201d\n\nHe gloated over its dilapidations for a while longer, and at last\npoked it in behind a stone under the arch, where, for aught I know,\nit may remain to the present day. Then he gathered up the rest of his\neffects, and finally resumed his interrupted journey Dublin-wards,\nfacing a sky where the sunset grew as golden as the light in a\ncrocus-cup. But he no longer muttered: \u201cIt was to be.\u201d The burden of\nhis meditations was: \u201cBedad now, it\u2019s a good job I happened to be\nwidin hearin\u2019 of their roars, or else they might be lettin\u2019 them yet.\nAnd belike I wouldn\u2019t ha\u2019 been, if it wasn\u2019t only be raison of me\nstoppin\u2019 to\u2014to\u2014to look at them pint mugs.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE SURREE AT MAHON\u2019S\n\n\n\n\nTHE SURREE AT MAHON\u2019S\n\n\nFew people, I think, can ever have been impressed by the liveliness\nof little Killymeen, set in its nook among the lonesome mountain\nand moorland, its one humble street forming the nucleus of a sparse\ncabin-sprinkling, which strews white flecks on the far sweeping\ngreen folds hardly plentier than hailstones on a grass plot half a\nsunny hour after a July thunderstorm. Yet to Bridget Doran, the girl\nwho had lately taken service with the Caseys up at the Quarry Farm,\nit seemed a centre of fashion and gaiety, being, indeed, the most\nconsiderable place she had seen in all her seventeen years. For they\nhad been spent up at Loughdrumesk, a hamlet fully ten miles deeper\namong the wildest townlands, with only a rough cart-track threading\na black bog, and climbing endless shaggy slopes, and dropping over a\npurple mountain shoulder to connect it with Killymeen. She had left\nbehind there, three months ago, her feeble old grandfather and alert\nold grandmother, in a tiny, high-perched cabin, which felt a world\ntoo wide for its other indwellers when this third of their lives had\ngone. And since then there had been much travelling of thoughts to\nand fro between it and the Casey\u2019s prim whitewashed farmhouse at the\nfoot of Slieve Glasarna. At first Bridget\u2019s had made the journey as\nconstantly as her grandmother\u2019s, but she was young and busy and in a\nnew place, and as the weeks went on she became more engrossed with\nwhat lay immediately before her.\n\nThe Surree at Mahon\u2019s, fixed for a day in Christmas week, was the\nmost exciting of the fresh prospects that unfolded themselves, and\nwas looked forward to with much pleased interest by Killymeen at\nlarge. There had been no Surrees in the neighbourhood during a long\nspell of bad times, but this year matters were looking brighter, and\nold Barney Mahon, who had a thrifty turn and a commodious kitchen,\nwas encouraged to make a venture which promised fair profits at a\nsmall risk. For a Surree, which has with quaint effect borrowed its\nname from polite French, is a sort of subscription dance, little more\nelaborate in its arrangements than are the kaleys, or conversazioni,\nthat beguile so many wintry hours in Donegal homes, when all the\ndark out-of-doors hurtles and splashes with wind and rain, and the\nneighbours drift into their places round some appointed hearth as\npromiscuously as a wreath of dry leaves swept rustling together\nby an aerial eddy. At a Surree each couple pay a shilling, but no\nrefreshment is expected save frugally-dispensed tea; and the fiddler\nis content to scrape for a modest fee and his chances of small\ncoins from the dancers. Dark Hugh M\u2018Evoy, being Barney\u2019s cousin,\nwas willing to supply the music for this occasion on specially\neasy terms; and, in short, circumstances conspired to make it seem\ndesirable that Barney should meet the often-expressed wish of his\nyounger friends by announcing the first Surree of the season.\n\nIt would be Bridget\u2019s first taste of any formal dissipation, and Rose\nCasey, her master\u2019s niece, and Kate Duffy, his ploughman\u2019s daughter,\nwho lived in the yard, set her expectation on tiptoe extremely by\ntheir accounts of like entertainments. Kate and she were to go\ntogether, as it is the custom to attend Surrees in couples. These\noften are formed of a colleen with the boy who is \u201cspakin\u2019\u201d to her,\nbut often also a brother and sister make a pair, or any other two\nfriends. Rose Casey was to marry Peter O\u2019Donoghue at Shrovetide,\nso she would, of course, go with him\u2014a fact of which she made a\nlittle parade to Bridget, who felt, however, perfectly content with\nKate\u2019s escort: a sweetheart of her own would have seemed, indeed, an\nalarming possession. Her mistress had advanced her a shilling out of\nher quarter\u2019s wages\u2014a whole pound\u2014and she had expended the sixpence\nleft after securing her admission to the Surree upon a splendid red\nglass brooch, which made her think her equipment very complete.\n\nBut just when everything seemed gliding most smoothly towards the\ndelightful goal, an obstacle suddenly cropped up and threatened\nto overthrow all her plans with one disastrous jolt. On a certain\nfrost-spangled morning the postman brought to Bridget a letter,\nwhose contents agreed with her wishes as ill as a dash of vinegar\nwould have done with the thick cream which she was churning when the\nmail arrived. Her grandmother wrote to say that \u201cshe thought bad of\nBiddy to be trampin\u2019 the long way her lone from Killymeen to their\nplace, and that old Bill Molloy was slippin\u2019 over wid his pony and\na gatherin\u2019 of eggs to the Magamore on next Thursday morning, and\u2019d\ngive her a lift if she\u2019d start along wid him when he would be goin\u2019\nback. So Biddy had a right to ax lave of her mistress, and come home\nwid ould Bill, who\u2019d turn a bit out of his way to pick her up? and\nreal glad they\u2019d be to set eyes on her again.\u201d For Mrs Casey had\npromised Biddy her choice of three days in Christmas week to spend\nat home, dairy work being slack. Bridget had looked forward to the\nholiday with a glow of pleasure, and meant to take it on the Friday,\nwhich would be Christmas Eve, and the day after the Surree. But her\ngrandmother\u2019s injunction was not compatible with this arrangement.\n\n\u201cSure I\u2019d miss all the fun and everythin\u2019 if I took off and went\nwid ould Bill\u2014I wish he and his baste of an ugly skewbald \u2019d keep\nthemselves out of botherin\u2019 where they arn\u2019t wanted,\u201d she said,\nhalf-crying, to her friends Rose and Kate, as she showed them the\nletter in the kitchen.\n\n\u201cMusha, good gracious,\u201d said Rose, \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t ever think of goin\u2019?\nJust bid the ould man step along wid himself, and say you\u2019ll come on\nFriday.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut me grandmother\u2019d be rale vexed if I done that, and he after\ngoin\u2019 out of his road to call for me,\u201d said Bridget doubtfully.\n\n\u201cWell, then,\u201d said Kate, \u201cyou might write and tell her not to send\nhim. This is only Tuesday; there\u2019s plenty of time yet, and I\u2019ve a\nstamp in me box this long while you\u2019re welcome to.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy, to be sure,\u201d said Rose, \u201cand say me aunt can\u2019t spare you\nconvanient afore Friday.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said Bridget, looking disconcerted, \u201cI\u2019m after sendin\u2019 her\nword be Judy Flynn that I\u2019d got lave to come any day at all this\nweek.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, botheration to it,\u201d said Rose. \u201cThen say you\u2019re too bad with\na cowld, and couldn\u2019t be thravellin\u2019 that far. Bedad, I heard you\ncoughin\u2019 this mornin\u2019 fit to fall in pieces like the head of the\nwitherdy geranium there. Morebetoken, the red one in the windy\ncorner\u2019s dhroppin\u2019 itself into the pan of buttermilk where you\u2019ve set\nit; you\u2019d better be movin\u2019 it out of that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have a heavy cowld on me sure enough,\u201d said Bridget, coughing to\nconvince herself, but her disconcerted expression remained, and she\nfidgetted about uneasily. \u201cFor the matter of writin\u2019,\u201d she said, \u201cyou\nsee the time I was gettin\u2019 me schoolin\u2019 I did be mostly mindin\u2019 the\nsheep, and I can make some sort of an offer at the readin\u2019 if it\u2019s\nwrote pretty big, but writin\u2019 oneself is quare nigglety work.\u201d\n\n\u201cMercy on us, girl alive, if that\u2019s all that ails you, I\u2019ll write\na letter for you meself in a minyit and a half,\u201d said Rose with\nalacrity. \u201cBedad will I. Sure I\u2019ve wrote to Peter times and again\nwhen he was stoppin\u2019 away at Manchester. So don\u2019t bother your head\nabout it; lave the regulation of it to me. I\u2019ve plenty of paper\nmeself, and Kate\u2019ll give me her stamp.\u201d\n\nBridget agreed to this plan, though not without some qualms of\nconscience, which made her refrain guiltily from inquiring about\nthe details of its execution, thereby giving Rose a free hand,\nof which she availed herself without much scruple. She had an\nimaginative turn of mind, and a taste for fiction, so her story grew\nunder her scratching pen until in the end she produced a letter\npurporting to come not from Bridget, but from herself, and describing\nBridget\u2019s indisposition as not a simple cold, but an attack of\n\u201cplussery-newmoney.\u201d This formidable complaint would hinder her\nfrom returning with Bill Molloy. \u201cBut she\u2019ll come,\u201d wrote Rose, \u201cas\nsoon as ever she\u2019s able. And that won\u2019t be before Friday anyway,\nif she overs it at all.\u201d The last clause struck her as giving an\neffective completeness to the composition, and she read it over with\na complacency which did not take into account how it might be spelled\nout in the bleak little hillside cabin off away at Loughdrumesk.\n\nThe evening of the Surree arrived in due course, and with it a\nflutter of snow, swirling on rough and unruly blasts. Silver-white\nthreads and stitches had begun to embroider the purple folds of\nSlieve Glasarna before the mists descended muffling and blurring;\nand the paths crunched crisply under brogues, and made cold clutches\nat bare feet by the time that the neighbours were approaching Barney\nMahon\u2019s door. They remarked to one another that it was hardy weather,\nand added that they were apt to have it \u201csevare,\u201d which is some\ndegree worse than hardy. Few people, however, had been daunted into\nstaying at home, and there was much shaking of powder flakes out of\nshawl-folds and off rough coat-sleeves at the entrance to Barney\u2019s\nlustily flickering room.\n\nWhen Rose and Kate and Bridget got there, which they did as soon as\never they could finish \u201creadying up\u201d after tea, most of the company\nhad assembled, and dancing was about to begin. Rose\u2019s temper was\nsomewhat ruffled because Peter O\u2019Donoghue had not kept his promise\nof coming to escort her. But his sisters now hastened to explain how\nhe had been delayed by the sudden illness of their calf. \u201cHowane\u2019er\nthe baste was comin\u2019 round finely when they left,\u201d they reported,\nand Peter would be after them in no time. So his _fianc\u00e9e_ was\nappeased, and contented herself provisionally with Larry Sullivan for\na partner. \u201cFaix, now, it\u2019s on\u2019y an odd turn the rest of us boys gets\nwid you these times,\u201d he said to her gallantly as the fiddler struck\nup. \u201cNe\u2019er a chance we have at all, unless when the luck keeps him\nthat\u2019s luckier away.\u201d\n\nDo not suppose that the Surree danced jigs. Later on in the\nevening a couple might stand up and perform one while the others\nwere recovering their breath; but at the outset it was a vigorous\nround dance that began to gyrate with a step which, though perhaps\nnot recognised in any academy, kept time to Hugh\u2019s music with much\naccuracy, and made light of the difficulties opposed by an uneven mud\nfloor. The crockery on the dresser jingled merrily to the rhythmical\nbeat of their feet; and each pair of bobbing heads that passed in\nfront of it, might be seen to make an abrupt dip down and up again.\nThis was caused by an unusually deep hollow which occurred in that\npart of the floor, and Barney Mahon, looking on with the elders\nfrom their circle round the hearth, observed it and said\u2014\u201cBegob, I\nmust see to having that houle filled up before next time, or else\nsomebody\u2019ll be trippin\u2019 up in it, and gettin\u2019 a quare toss.\u201d\n\nThe other spectators sat well content with their share of the\nentertainment. Pungently-puffing cutty pipes solaced the men, and\nthe women kept their knitting-needles twinkling; in fact, they\nwould almost as soon have left off breathing by way of rest and\nrelaxation. For further amusement they had the affairs of the\ncountryside to discuss, enlivened by an occasional anecdote or\nriddle. Dan Goligher had just propounded one of the latter which\nsuccessfully puzzled everybody who had not heard it before\u2014\n\n            _A brown lough\n            Wid a white strand,\n      Sorra the ship could sail around it,\n      But I can hould it in my hand_;\n\nand he was triumphantly explaining, \u201cSure a cup of tea,\u201d when two\npeople came bolting in at the door, which they forthwith began to\nsecure behind them, as if they were shutting out some deadly peril.\nThey said nothing, but their speechless hurry was more suggestive\nthan words.\n\n\u201cWhethen now, Peter O\u2019Donoghue and Ned Kinsella, what\u2019s took you at\nall to be flouncin\u2019 in on the people that a-way?\u201d said Barney Mahon,\nsomewhat affronted at their unceremonious entrance and dealings\nwith his fastenings and furniture. \u201cThat\u2019s a great ould slammin\u2019 of\nthe door you have\u2014and what for would you be jammin\u2019 the bench again\nit, unless you\u2019re intendin\u2019 the next body that comes thro\u2019 it to be\nbreakin\u2019 his shins?\u201d\n\n\u201cTroth, I on\u2019y hope it may\u2014and its neck too, between us and harm\u2014if\nit\u2019s offering to come in on us\u2014I do so,\u201d said Peter O\u2019Donoghue,\npanting. He left his comrade to finish barricading the door, and\npushed himself farther into the room, until several groups interposed\nbetween him and the dangerous point. \u201cAfter us it may be this minyit\nof time,\u201d he said. \u201cOch, but that was the quare fright I got; the\nsaints look down upon us this night!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s herself below at th\u2019 ould gate there,\u201d said Ned Kinsella,\nwho was calmer than Peter, though evidently much alarmed. \u201cAnd\nmore-be-token it\u2019s not inside she is this night, but sittin\u2019 crouched\nup on the bank be the path, and the grab she made at Peter going by;\n\u2019deed, I thought he\u2019d never get his coat-tail wrenched out of her\nould hand.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt might as well ha\u2019 been caught in a rat-trap the way she held on,\u201d\nsaid Peter. \u201cI give you me word me hair\u2019s standin\u2019 on end yet, fit to\nrise me hat off the roof of me head. What wid that and the onnathural\nscreeches she let, I won\u2019er you didn\u2019t hear them here. And it\u2019s my\nbelief she set off leggin\u2019 after us\u2014goodness preserve us\u2014on\u2019y I was\nafraid of me life to look round and see.\u201d\n\nThese tidings spread general consternation among the company, as\nunder the circumstances they well might do. For only a few hundred\nyards down the loaning lay an ancient burying-ground, with its\nruined chapel and weed-entangled tombstones, a place whose ghostly\nreputation had long been established at Killymeen. In particular\nthe wraith of a little old woman was often to be seen of an evening\npeering out through the rusty gate-bars, and sometimes stretching\nforth a fearsome hand to pluck at the unwary passer-by. But her\nappearance out on the roadside was a new development, and one which\nmade Peter and Ned\u2019s report unpleasant hearing for people who would\npresently be obliged to take that route home. The dance came to a\nstandstill, and in its stead a series of dismal ghost-stories began\nto circle round the room. Perhaps the most gruesome of them was Nick\nCarolan\u2019s. He related how he had once lived in a place where there\nwas in the middle of the yard a deep well, out of which on certain\nmoon-lit nights a dark figure would emerge and go gliding round and\nround it, making a wider and wider circuit, until she reached the\nhouse, at whose door she rapped loudly as she passed by. And whenever\nthat happened there would be a death in the family before the\ntwelve-month was out as sure as fate. A general shudder followed this\n_d\u00e9nouement_, and old Mrs Linders made a particular application of it\nby remarking gloomily that it was a poor case to have the likes of\nsuch crathurs about; but Mrs Coleman, a comely matron, who continued\nto sit by the fire unperturbed, said placidly in a pause, \u201cSorra a\nbit of harm there\u2019s in it this night I\u2019m a-thinkin\u2019. If the lads seen\nanythin\u2019, it\u2019s apt to ha\u2019 just been some poor body after missin\u2019 her\nway in the snow.\u201d\n\n\u201cTroth and bedad, then it was the quare body altogether,\u201d Peter\nasseverated, \u201cand the hair of me head, as I was tellin\u2019 you,\nbristlin\u2019 straight wid the dhread of her the first minyit I come nigh\nthe place.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, sure, some people\u2019s as ready at that as a dog at cockin\u2019 his\nears,\u201d said Joey Nolan. \u201cMaybe we\u2019d a right to go look is there e\u2019er\na one in it. Some crathur might be strayin\u2019 about perishin\u2019, and it\nsnowin\u2019 again as thick as sheep\u2019s wool.\u201d\n\n\u201cBegor you won\u2019t persuade me to go foolin\u2019 along wid you,\u201d said\nPeter; \u201cI couldn\u2019t be gettin\u2019 my heels out of it fast enough. May\nthe saints have me sowl, but I thought I\u2019d lose me life afore ever I\nlanded inside\u2014and here I\u2019ll stop. Nobody need be axin\u2019 me, for divil\na fut I\u2019ll stir.\u201d\n\n\u201cGood people are scarce,\u201d Joe observed sarcastically; but Peter\nwent on in a half-complacent tone, \u201cOne while it\u2019ll be afore I\u2019m\nthe better of that frightenin\u2019 I got. Every mortal bit of me\u2019s in a\nthrimble wid it yet.\u201d\n\n\u201cMusha, then, you gaby, can\u2019t you whisht about it, instead of to be\ntellin\u2019 everybody the sort of ould polthroon you are?\u201d Rose Casey\nwhispered to him fiercely, ready to cry with mortification as she\nsaw significant smiles passing round at the expense of her happily\nunconscious betrothed.\n\nAs she spoke, the door resounded with a heavy thump, which made\nthose who were standing next it hop back with a scarcely dignified\nhaste. Some of them tried to carry it off by pretending that they\nwere merely getting out of one another\u2019s way, while some shrieked\nunfeignedly, and above all ejaculations rose Peter O\u2019Donoghue\u2019s\nvoice, shrill with undissembled terror, saying: \u201cOh to goodness,\ndon\u2019t open it for your lives. Run that other form again it, you\nthat are widin raich. Mercy be among us, she\u2019s apt to have us all\ndestroyed.\u201d\n\n\u201cArrah, now, will you be lettin\u2019 us in out of that, you jackasses,\nyou?\u201d shouted a voice reassuringly familiar and irate. It was young\nLarry Sullivan, who had slipped out through the back door a few\nminutes before, and whose impatience at being kept waiting had\nnothing supernatural about it. Despite Peter\u2019s remonstrances, the\ndoor was thrown open, and disclosed Larry, standing tall against a\nbackground of glimmering white, in a gloom which, when you looked\ninto it anywhere steadily, grew full of wandering flakes like\nscattered bread-crumbs. Beside him appeared a smaller figure, whom\nhe pulled indoors along with him before anybody well had time for\nterrific surmises, and whom the firelight showed to be a little old\nwoman, wrapped up in a powdered brown shawl. She was breathless and\nbewildered and forlorn-looking, as she peered round from face to\nface, all strange, all comfortless\u2014but no! for the moment Bridget\nDoran set eyes on her she sprang at her and caught her in a great hug\u2014\n\n\u201cWhy, granny darlint, and is it yourself?\u201d she said. \u201cAnd how at all\ndid you come this night in the snow? It\u2019s kilt you are entirely. You\ncan\u2019t ever ha\u2019 come wid ould Bill Molloy?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, honey, I thramped it,\u201d said old Mrs Doran. \u201cSure I couldn\u2019t rest\naisy, thinkin\u2019 me little Biddy was took that bad away all her lone\namong the strange people. But finely you\u2019re looking, glory be to\ngoodness. \u2019Deed now me heart\u2019s been fit to break frettin\u2019 ever since\nI got the letter this mornin\u2019, sayin\u2019 that belike you wouldn\u2019t get\nover it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAn\u2019 I to be dancin\u2019 round like a zany bewitched, and you all the\nwhile streelin\u2019 through the snow,\u201d said Bridget, with acute remorse.\n\u201cIt\u2019s sorry I am that I let anybody send you such owld lies.\nBut\u201d\u2014looking indignantly at Rose\u2014\u201cI only said to say that I had a\ncowld.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd I lost me way in the dark,\u201d went on Mrs Doran plaintively, \u201cand\nwhat at all I\u2019d ha\u2019 done I dunno, on\u2019y for the dacint boy coming by,\nfor nought else the other two\u2019d do but let yells at me, and run away\nlike scared turkeys.\u201d\n\n\u201cCreepin\u2019 along under the high bank she was, the crathur, when I met\nher,\u201d Larry meanwhile was telling the others, \u201cand scarce able to\ncontind wid the blasts of the win\u2019. And sez she to me, \u2018For the love\nof God, just stop to tell me am I anywhere near the Casey\u2019s house?\u2019\nAnd sez I to her, \u2018Is it the Quarry Farm you\u2019re wantin\u2019?\u2019 And sez\nshe to me, \u2018Ay, it\u2019s where my poor Katey\u2019s little daughter Bridget\nDoran\u2019s in service, and dyin\u2019 wid some manner of outlandish sickness:\nIt\u2019s to her, I\u2019m goin\u2019,\u2019 sez she. So sez I to her, if it was Bridget\nDoran she was wantin\u2019, I\u2019d seen the girl three minyits ago, and ne\u2019er\na sign of dyin\u2019 on her whatsome\u2019er, and I just brought her along\nhere. It\u2019s perished and stupid the crathur is wid the cowld. You\u2019d a\nright to get her a cup of hot tay, and a warm at the fire,\u201d concluded\nLarry, thereupon bestirring himself to superintend the carrying out\nof this prescription. And a little later he prompted his mother to\noffer Mrs Doran a night\u2019s lodging at their house close by, thus\nentailing upon themselves more hospitality than they had foreseen.\n\nFor of the Surree at Mahon\u2019s all\u2019s well that ends well could not\nquite be said, as some of the guests were disposed to say prematurely\nwhen the assembly was breaking up. To begin with, old Mrs Doran had\ncaught a very bad chill during her snowy wanderings, and now had a\nsevere illness which endangered her life, and obliged Bridget to\npay many an anxious and conscience-stricken hour as a fee for her\ndeceptive letter, while a difference which she had next morning with\nRose Casey about the unauthorised mendacity of its contents led to\na permanent cooling down of their friendship. Moreover, Rose, on\nthe very same day, spoke in such scathing terms to Peter O\u2019Donoghue\nwith reference to his panic on the night before, that even his\nimpenetrable self-satisfaction was touched, and a violent falling out\nensued. The consequence was that no wedding took place at Shrovetide;\nand the last time I had news from Killymeen \u201cthere was no talk of\nit at all, at all,\u201d so the breach may be considered final. In fact,\nit is commonly supposed that he has some notion of transferring his\nattentions to Bridget Doran. But I happen to know that the only\none among the boys she thinks anything of is Larry Sullivan, whom\nshe always remembers gratefully as the rescuer of her grandmother.\nWhereas, if Larry fancies anyone, it is Kate Duffy.\n\nWhence it appears that some rather complicated cross currents in\nthe stream of life flowing through Killymeen have started from this\nSurree at Mahon\u2019s.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHORTEST WAY\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHORTEST WAY\n\n\nDistrict-Inspector Rochfort had risen very early on that wet August\nmorning, to go trout-fishing along the Feltragh River. He hoped to\nget a couple of hours at it before breakfast; so he was not best\npleased when Hugh Christie accosted him as he crossed the Ivy Bridge.\nHugh was looking over the wreathed parapet up the river, and did not\ntake his eyes off it; only put out a hand as Mr Rochfort passed, and\nstopped him with a touch on the arm. Undoubtedly Hugh had queer ways.\nHis neighbours pronounced him to be \u201cnot all there,\u201d which seemed an\ninappropriate description of his peculiarities, as rather there was\nmore of him than of other people. But the more was something uncanny.\nHe now said, still watching the water: \u201cI was thinkin\u2019 the Sargint\nmight come by; howsome\u2019er, sir, you\u2019ll do as well.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat I won\u2019t, my man,\u201d said Mr Rochfort, \u201cunless it can be done\nuncommonly smart, for I\u2019ve no time to waste.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s as short as it\u2019s long,\u201d said Hugh. \u201cBut you needn\u2019t mind about\n_thim_\u201d\u2014he pointed to the young man\u2019s rod and creel\u2014\u201cthere\u2019ll be none\nof that work till it\u2019s gone down, and risin\u2019 it\u2019ll be yet awhile.\u201d\n\nMr Rochfort looked where Hugh was looking, and had reluctantly to\nadmit the truth of this. The river ran far below them, down in a\nnarrow steep-walled little glen, one of the many cracks that fissure\nLisvaughan\u2019s wind-swept, limestone plain. Almost each of these\nravines has a stream in it, with a remnant of trees huddled together\nfor shelter from the storms, whose stress they dare not meet in the\nopen, and with ferns venturing out of the rock-clefts to droop ample\nfronds over the boulders on the margin. It is thus with Feltragh\nRiver, which rises in the moorland towards Shrole, and here, at the\nIvy Bridge, comes round a sharp turn down a very stony stair. On the\nother side of the arch it broadens slightly, and a somewhat longer\nreach of it is in view; but Hugh Christie was staring up-stream,\nwhere the water rushed into sight abruptly within a pebble\u2019s cast of\nhis station. Swirling and tumbling it came, thrusting thick glassy\nstrands between the boulders, or seething over the tallest of them\nin creamy fleeces. A roar ascended from those rapids hollowly and\nfitfully, so that the District-Inspector looked up and down the road\noccasionally, thinking a heavy cart must be lumbering along.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a strong current in it now,\u201d said Hugh. \u201cMan nor mortal\ncouldn\u2019t stand agin it. \u2019Twould lift a dead cow, let alone\u2014anything\nelse.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve chosen a good place for a drenching,\u201d said the\nDistrict-Inspector, for the wind was driving its cold spray into\ntheir faces; \u201cbut I don\u2019t see what else is to be got by staying in\nit.\u201d And he was moving on, when Hugh said\u2014\n\n\u201cJust wait a bit, till I tell you.\u201d\n\nHugh\u2019s clothes had a sodden appearance, as if they had given up\ntrying to get any wetter, and his brown beard was all in a silvery\nmist of tiny drops; therefore he was not sensitive about the dampness\nof the weather. But what he said, though the District-Inspector did\nwait, was nothing more to the purpose than: \u201cLast night was powerful\ndark; but it didn\u2019t settle to rain till goin\u2019 on for one o\u2019clock\u2014not\nto spake of, any way.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s making up for lost time now, at all events,\u201d said the\nDistrict-Inspector, and had to be stopped again.\n\n\u201cSee here, Mr Rochfort, you\u2019re newish to the place; but ax anybody\u2014ax\nhis Riverence, or Mr Lennon at the public, or Sargint Moore\u2014and every\none of them\u2019ll say I was niver known to raise a hand to do murdher on\nman or woman\u2014or I might say child,\u201d Hugh added after a pause, as if\nhe felt that he was making large demands upon credulity.\n\n\u201cIf I were you, Christie, I\u2019d go home, out of the rain,\u201d replied the\nDistrict-Inspector.\n\n\u201cOch, no matther for that. I was goin\u2019 to ax you, sir, did you\nremember the McAuliffes\u2014the widdy and her daughter: that was all of\nthem was in it, ever since you come to Lisvaughan.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho lived at Brierly\u2019s cottages over yonder?\u201d the District-Inspector\nsaid, pointing towards the smooth-faced crag whose jut prevented\nthem from seeing any farther up the Feltragh River. \u201cI believe I do\nremember the old woman creeping to Mass\u2014a little lame body; didn\u2019t\nshe die the other day?\u201d\n\n\u201cAy did she, last Friday week in Shrole Union; for the daughter that\nkep\u2019 her out of it went wid the fever in the spring, and her son\nDan that ped their rint in \u2019Sthralia, was niver sendin\u2019 her a word\niver since. So she made up her mind he was dead too, and she didn\u2019t\ncare what become of her after that; and she broke her heart fretting\nin the Infirm\u2019ry. But last night Dan landed home lookin\u2019 for her, as\nplased as anythin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe unlucky devil,\u201d said the District-Inspector.\n\n\u201cYou may say that,\u201d said Hugh; \u201cbut there\u2019s unluckier. Sure it was\nmeself met him a trifle down the road, and on\u2019y for that, \u2019twould ha\u2019\nbeen nobody\u2019s doin\u2019, and done all the same. And if it hadn\u2019t been\nthat outrageous dark, I\u2019d never ha\u2019 seen a sight of him. But sure\nup agin ourselves we foosthered on the path, and I wasn\u2019t long then\ndoubtin\u2019 who had the discourse out of him about the Divil and such.\nSo: \u2018Is it after desthroyin\u2019 you, I am, Dan?\u2019 sez I. And sez he, \u2018To\nyour sowl, if it\u2019s yourself, Hughey Christie,\u2019 he sez, for he and I\ndid be as thick as thieves in the ould times. And \u2018Come a step along\nwid me,\u2019 sez he, \u2018for I can\u2019t be delayin\u2019.\u2019 \u2018Sure where\u2019s the hurry\nat all?\u2019 sez I, misdoubtin\u2019 what might be in his mind, if he knew\nno betther or worser. \u2018Why, man,\u2019 sez he, \u2018isn\u2019t it goin\u2019 on for ten\nyear since I was at home? And like a living dhrame to me now I\u2019m\nthinkin\u2019 I\u2019m that near her agin.\u2019 So sez I to myself, \u2018The Divil\u2019s\nin it\u2019; and sez I to himself, \u2018Take care it isn\u2019t too soon you\u2019ll be\ngettin\u2019 there, since you couldn\u2019t conthrive it any sooner.\u2019 Sure now,\nyou\u2019d ha\u2019 supposed he\u2019d ha\u2019 had the wit to git a fright at that. But\nall he said was, \u2018Ah,\u2014the sisther, poor Lizzie, the crathur; \u2019deed,\nthen, that was the great pity entirely, and a cruel loss to her for\nsartin. But sure that\u2019s the raisin of me comin\u2019 home at all, thinkin\u2019\nme mother\u2019d be left too lonesome altogether. And what wid th\u2019 ould\nstame-boat bustin\u2019 up in her ingines,\u2019 sez he, \u2018and meself takin\u2019 bad\nwhere they stopped for repeers, I\u2019ve been twyste the time I\u2019d a right\nto on the way. She\u2019ll be in dhread there\u2019s somethin\u2019 happint me.\nHowane\u2019er, sorra a much fear of that is there now, Hughey man, and\nme, so to spake, at the door goin\u2019 in to her, thanks be to goodness,\u2019\nsez he.\n\n\u201cAnd niver a word out of me head to that. But I declare to you,\nsir, you might ha\u2019 thought the river itself, that\u2019s a dumb crathur,\nwas thryin\u2019 its best to tell him, accordin\u2019 to the quare mutterin\u2019\nlike it kep\u2019 on wid down below. For stumpin\u2019 up the Quarry Lane he\nwas, that\u2019s the nearest road to his house; \u2019twas just turnin\u2019 into\nit I met him. Nor aisy it wouldn\u2019t ha\u2019 been any ways to git a word\ninto the talk he had, and it mostly all about what he\u2019d saved in\n\u2019Sthralia, and the fine counthry it was, and the grand thing to ha\u2019\ngot away out of it. \u2018But,\u2019 sez he, \u2018maybe I\u2019d ha\u2019 sted in it a while\nlonger, if I hadn\u2019t been afeard me ould woman here\u2019d get mopin\u2019 and\nfrettin\u2019 left all to herself, which I couldn\u2019t abide the thoughts\nof. For right well I was doin\u2019 out there,\u2019 sez he, \u2018and in another\ncouple of years I\u2019d ha\u2019 had a goodish bit more to be bringin\u2019 home\nwid me.\u2019 And, bedad, you could see the truth of that, because every\nglimmer of light in the black of the night was shinin\u2019 on the len\u2019ths\nof the gould watch-chain he had wearin\u2019 on his weskit. \u2018Howiver,\u2019 he\nsez, \u2018I\u2019ve plinty to be keepin\u2019 her iligant, and what great matther\nabout anythin\u2019 more, when herself\u2019s the on\u2019y mortal crathur I have\nbelongin\u2019 to me in the width of the world? Sure, if I hadn\u2019t her to\nbe spendin\u2019 it on,\u2019 sez he, \u2018I\u2019d as lief be slingin\u2019 ivery blamed\nould pinny I own over the bank there into the rowlin\u2019 river, and\nmeself after it\u2014faix would I, the Lord knows.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell now, sir, after his sayin\u2019 that, wouldn\u2019t tellin\u2019 him ha\u2019 been\nas good as biddin\u2019 him go dhrownd himself? I put it to you: wouldn\u2019t\nit now?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say,\u201d said the District-Inspector: \u201cbut what _did_ you\ndo?\u201d\n\n\u201cStumpin\u2019 along wid him I was, lettin\u2019 on I was listenin\u2019 to him, and\nall the while I was makin\u2019 no more sinse of it than if he\u2019d been a\nbullock I had dhrivin\u2019 to market, that would be lettin\u2019 a roar now\nand agin, at the mischief knows what. For thinkin\u2019 to meself I was\nthat unless I quitted foolin\u2019 him, he\u2019d be very prisintly walkin\u2019 up\nto his door, and one of the Duggans, that he niver set eyes on in his\nlife, shoutin\u2019 to know who he was, and what he wanted, and tellin\u2019\nhim the Union was after buryin\u2019 his mother on him. So at last I\u2019d\ntwisted up me mind wid the notion I\u2019d spake out the next time he said\nanythin\u2019, and if I did, that minyit he hit me a clout on the back,\nand, \u2018Och, Hughey, you bosthoon,\u2019 sez he, \u2018herself\u2019ll be sittin\u2019 this\ninstiant of time be the fire in there, and niver thinkin\u2019 I\u2019m comin\u2019\nalong a few perch down the ould road.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd sez I, \u2018Tubbe sure, Dan, she\u2019s thinkin\u2019 no such thing at all\u2019;\nand, for that matther, what truer could I ha\u2019 said? And as sure as\nI\u2019m alive, I\u2019d ha\u2019 gone on wid it, I would so, on\u2019y \u2019twas just then\nwe come round the turn opposite them Brierly Cottages. You know,\nsir, where they\u2019re cocked up, across the river, fornint Fitzsimmons\u2019\nlime-kiln, wid ne\u2019er a handy way of gittin\u2019 at them except be the\nbridge; the next one above this it is\u2014a wooden fut-bridge wid a\nhand-rail. But not a sight of it could we see in the dark, or\nanythin\u2019 else, on\u2019y the light burnin\u2019 in the Duggans\u2019 windy, the way\nit used to be afore they come there.\n\n\u201cAnd when Dan seen that, he let a sort of yell, and sez he, \u2018There it\nis\u2014there\u2019s her ould bit of a lamp lightin\u2019 the same as it was ever,\nand meself beholdin\u2019 it agin\u2014_glory be to God_.\u2019 The Divil\u2019s in it,\u201d\nHugh said, with a fierce clutch at the dripping ivy-sprays. \u201cIf the\ncrathur hadn\u2019t been so ready to be gloryin\u2019 God, I\u2019d ha\u2019 found it\nin me heart to ha\u2019 tould him the whole thing straight out\u2014goodness\nhelp him!\u2014but instead of that, I thought to be comin\u2019 at it gradial.\nSo I sez to him, lettin\u2019 on I wasn\u2019t mindin\u2019 what he\u2019d said, \u2018Is\nit a star you\u2019re lookin\u2019 at?\u2019 And sez he to me, \u2018Musha, not at all,\nman; it\u2019s somethin\u2019 a dale nearer than a one of thim.\u2019 And, \u2018There\u2019s\nthings farther off than stars,\u2019 sez I; and, \u2018Belike there is,\u2019 sez\nhe, \u2018but I\u2019m not apt to be throublin\u2019 me head about them when me ould\nwoman\u2019s waitin\u2019 for me unbeknownst just across the sthrame. So I\u2019ll\nbe sayin\u2019 good-night to you kindly, Hughey, and skytin\u2019 over. Where\nat all\u2019s the bridge? I can\u2019t make out a stim before me. Ah, here it\nis!\u2019 sez he, \u2018right enough in its own place.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s the truth I\u2019m tellin\u2019 you, Mr Rochfort, the truth I\u2019m\ntellin\u2019 you: not till the man was grabbin\u2019 the rail wid one hand and\nmine wid the other, biddin\u2019 me good-night, did the recollection come\ninto me mind of anythin\u2019 amiss. And then I dunno rightly how it was,\nbut the same time I got considherin\u2019 the way \u2019twould be, supposin\u2019\nI held me tongue for that minyit. For if I didn\u2019t tell him the one\nthing, nobody\u2019d ever tell him the other, and \u2019twould save throuble in\na manner. Och, I dunno what come over me, but in the end all I sez to\nhim was, \u2018You\u2019ll have to be walkin\u2019 cautious, Dan,\u2019\u2014God forgive me,\nbut for sure He won\u2019t: that was every word I said.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why should you have said more?\u201d asked the District-Inspector.\n\u201cThe bridge is safe enough. Wasn\u2019t the man sober?\u201d\n\n\u201cSafe enough, begorra!\u201d said Hugh. \u201cIf there warn\u2019t six fut smashed\nslap out of the middle of it wid the big ash-tree buttin\u2019 its head\nthrough it, that was blown off the top of the bank in the storm the\nnight before last. Six fut clever and clane, and maybe six times six\nfut under it to drop down on the river and the rocks.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you sent him over that in the dark?\u201d said the\nDistrict-Inspector. \u201cWhat on earth possessed you?\u201d This question,\nhowever, was merely a phrase, for he seemed to know the reason very\nwell. \u201cWas he killed?\u201d he demanded, with the inquest in his mind.\n\u201cWhere\u2019s the body lying?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s that I\u2019m watchin\u2019 for,\u201d said Hugh, his eyes still following\nthe rough white race below, \u201cever since I had light to see. He might\nbe comin\u2019 by any minyit now. But until the river riz wid the rain a\ncouple of hours back, I doubt was there water enough to bring him;\nthere was no very great dale runnin\u2019 in it before then. So I wouldn\u2019t\nthink he could ha\u2019 slipped past, and I not to notice.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you mean to say,\u201d said the District-Inspector, \u201cthat you went off\nand left the unfortunate man there, without so much as ascertaining\nwhether he was dead or alive?\u201d\n\n\u201cAlive is it?\u201d said Hugh. \u201cSure the wooden bridge is a good bit\nhigher than this one; but if I tuk a standin\u2019 lep off of the ledge\nhere, it\u2019s breakin\u2019 me neck I\u2019d be afore I knew where I was. And\nthe jagged lumps of big stones is terrible; he might be wedged in\nbetween two of them. Och, no! for all the life\u2019s left in him, poor\nDan\u2019ll ha\u2019 had a paicibler night of it up there than meself had here,\nconsidherin\u2019 quare things in the dark this long while. Ay will he,\nfor the sort of moanin\u2019 and screeches there was in it now and again\nwas nothin\u2019 on\u2019y the win\u2019, and the rain polthoguin\u2019, I very well\nknow.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd are you certain that the bridge hadn\u2019t been mended?\u201d said the\nDistrict-Inspector.\n\n\u201cHow could I help bein\u2019 sartin sure? And I goin\u2019 by it on\u2019y a while\nbefore, in the grey of the light, and Mrs Duggan herself bawlin\u2019\nacross to me that they were kilt thrampin\u2019 half-a-mile or so afore\nthey could git over anywheres.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut if you didn\u2019t wait, how do you know that he mayn\u2019t have turned\nback?\u201d\n\n\u201cWait? Bedad no, it\u2019s runnin\u2019 away down here I was, as fast as I\ncould pelt. But what was to turn him back, and he flourishin\u2019 off wid\nhimself in the greatest hurry at all? You might ha\u2019 thought it was\nten fine fortin\u2019s he was goin\u2019 after; and not a stim to see a step\nbefore him wid. So if it isn\u2019t a murdher, get me one. And that\u2019s the\nraison I was thinkin\u2019 I\u2019d a right to be mentionin\u2019 it to yourself,\nsir, or the Sargint.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a very curious case,\u201d said the District-Inspector, beginning\ninstinctively to grope about for precedents, and finding none.\n\n\u201cBut murdher or no,\u201d said Hugh, \u201cI do be thinkin\u2019 diff\u2019rent ways\nof it, and some of them\u2019s bad. For I sez to meself, \u2018In a fine\ndisthraction poor Dan\u2019d ha\u2019 been, when he heard tell of th\u2019 ould\ncrathur breakin\u2019 her heart in the House.\u2019 And then again I sez to\nmeself, \u2018And supposin\u2019? Many\u2019s the fine disthraction you\u2019ve been in\nyourself, me man, and niver tuk a lep into the river out of it.\u2019 And\narter that agin sez I to meself, \u2018But sure, if some one\u2019d ha\u2019 up and\nshoved me over unbeknownst, so to spake, sorra the blame I\u2019d ha\u2019\nblamed him.\u2019 However, since the day\u2019s light\u2019nin\u2019 overhead, little\ndoubt I\u2019ve had in me mind but that I\u2019d liefer see him comin\u2019 along\nthe road on his feet, disthracted or not disthracted; and that\u2019s what\nI\u2019ll niver behould, if it was twyste as clear. Terrible clear it is\ngettin\u2019,\u201d he said, glancing furtively up.\n\nThe sky was all one floating, drifting greyness, dim and impenetrable\neven in a place rather low on the east, where many invisible hands\nseemed to be straining the vast web in devious directions, so that it\nthinned and paled. But at this moment it rent there right through,\nleaving a rift filled strangely with a liquid radiance of silver\nlight glowing into amber, which suddenly darted into the eyes of the\ntwo men, and threw their shadows across the wet road, and set the\npuddles on fire.\n\n\u201cLook,\u201d said Hugh excitedly, standing up straight and pointing\ntowards the water.\n\nA wave wider and wilder than the others was coming down the river,\nwith something lapt round in it that made a dark core to its turbid\nbrown. But this was borne along no farther than to the first ridged\nstep in the fleeting rapids. There it halted and lay still, while\nthe turmoil of water and foam fell away from about it in a flurry,\ndraining off through the interstices of the boulders, or pouring\nover their veiled crests. It was the body of a man. One arm hung\ndown against the straight rock-ledge, and the face looked up to the\nsun-gleam so naturally that when the next wave rushed by, weltering\non and on and on interminably over it, the District-Inspector gave a\ngasp as if something had been taking his own breath.\n\n\u201cThere he is, the very way I tould you,\u201d said Hugh. At the sound of\nhis voice the District-Inspector turned quickly, and, seeing that he\nhad stepped up on to the low, ivied parapet, made a grasp at him, but\nwas not in time to reach him. \u201cStop where you are, Dan, one instiant\nyet,\u201d Hugh shouted: \u201cfor here I am, too!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE STAY-AT-HOMES\n\n\n\n\nTHE STAY-AT-HOMES\n\n\nOn the 1st of March, last year, it might have been noticed that\npeople were continually going in and out of Letterowen Railway\nStation; yet the number of passengers who arrived and departed by\ntrain was certainly no larger than usual. The station is rather a new\nfeature in the village, children of smallish growth remembering a\ntime when its fine pink-washed gables, and brilliant flower-borders,\nand curious turnstile did not exist; still it had been there long\nenough for the charm of novelty to have been worn off, and that\nwas not the _comether_ which on this dusty-grey, east-windy March\nSunday drew thither so many visitors, who had no tickets to buy, nor\nother official business to transact. What they dropped in to look\nat was placarded upon the walls of the bare little waiting-rooms,\nwhere Jim Neligan, the porter, had been busy with a paste brush the\nevening before\u2014so excessively so, indeed, being new to his post and\nzealous, that the station-master had inquired sarcastically whether\nhe intended to paper the whole place over entirely, and if he didn\u2019t\nthink he might as well stick on another layer atop of the first. But\nthe result of Jim\u2019s lavishness was that wherever you turned there\nwere the thick black letters announcing a special cheap excursion\nto Dublin on next Tuesday fortnight, which, as everybody well knew,\nwould be St Patrick\u2019s Day. Peter Carroll, who helped to clean lamps\nat the station, and his mother, who scrubbed floors there, had\nspread the report of the advertisement overnight, and it sounded so\nvery remarkable that more people than not twirled the turnstile in\nthe course of the morning and came down the zig-zag path to see for\nthemselves.\n\nThe inhabitants of Letterowen are not great travellers. Their railway\nis only a branch of a branch line, and while most of them have not\ngone farther along it than Brockenbeg Junction, seven miles north,\nby no means few have never got even so far. It is a place where in\nsoft weather the platform frequently takes a pattern of bare feet,\nand bare feet seldom set out on long journeys by rail. As for Dublin,\nthat had hitherto seemed a goal which remoteness and magnitude made\nhardly accessible even to imagination. Letterowen folk considered\nvaguely that it would need a sight of money and a powerful length of\ntime to bring you thither, and what might be expected to befall you\nthere was so hard to say that your return seemed misty indeed. Yet\nhere was a printed notice boldly promising\u2014\u201cTo Dublin and back for\ntwo shillings,\u201d and going into circumstantial details about a train\ndeparting at six in the morning and arriving at noon, and leaving\nagain at midnight. \u201cTwenty-four hours for twenty-four pence,\u201d it\nended epigrammatically, and some of its readers felt no manner of\ndoubt that each one of them would be an hour of rapture unalloyed.\nOthers were less confident. Old Dan Molloy had heard tell of there\nbeing such thick fogs in Dublin most whiles that people \u201cwere as apt\nto walk plump into the river as anywhere else, which was a terrible\ndangerous thing.\u201d And the Widow Loughlin had been told that \u201cthim\nquare excursion trains as often as not got shunted off into a siding\nbefore they came to any place, and the crathurs in them did be left\nthere perishin\u2019 for nobody knew how long.\u201d Several of the neighbours\nalso wondered whether the people would have to be sitting in their\nseats all the time she was stopping in Dublin station, for that\nwouldn\u2019t be very gay at all. Mr Farrell, the station-master, was\nfrequently called upon to clear up this or some similar perplexity,\nand he generally did so satisfactorily, pointing out at the same time\nthat the terms were uncommonly reasonable. I do not think that they\nstruck most of his hearers in just that light. The opinion rather\ninclined to be that they certainly offered a great deal for the\nmoney, but that the money, as certainly, was a great deal to pay. For\npence are pennies at Letterowen. Thus the price specified for the\nfour-and-twenty hours had in some cases an effect not intended by the\ncompany.\n\n\u201cFour-and-twinty pence\u2014goodness guide us; sure I would be four days\narnin\u2019 meself that much at the weedin\u2019 or stone-gatherin\u2019 if I was on\nfull woman\u2019s wages itself,\u201d said Anne Reilly, who in slack seasons\noften had to be content with half that amount; \u201cand to go spind it\naway between one mornin\u2019 and the next, as if you could pick it up\nhandy along the side of the road. Musha, long life to them; I hope\nthey\u2019ll be gettin\u2019 their health till I do.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd, mind you, the two shillin\u2019s isn\u2019t the whole of it\u2014where\u2019s your\nbit of food comin\u2019 from? Or is it starvin\u2019 you\u2019d go there and back\nagain?\u201d said Anne\u2019s niece, Katty M\u2018Grehan, meaning to discourage her\nsister Maggie, whom she suspected of harbouring extravagant ideas,\nwhich Maggie quite understood, and rejoined to, saying with some\nheat: \u201cThen is it aitin\u2019 nothin\u2019 at all a body\u2019d be, supposin\u2019 they\nwas sittin\u2019 mopin\u2019 at home? \u2019Twould be all the one thing to take it\nalong in the ould can. For the matter of that there\u2019s nothin\u2019 aisier.\u201d\n\n\u201cNor wastefuller,\u201d Katty said, sticking obdurately to her point,\nwith her worst suspicions confirmed. She wanted to save those two\nshillings, having planned a treat for her crippled father, \u201cthe\ncrathur.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, glory be to goodness, Jimmy,\u201d old Mrs Walsh remarked to\nher contemporary, James M\u2018Evilly, who, like herself, had listened\ndispassionately to the little skirmish, \u201cyou and me is too ould and\nancient altogether for to be botherin\u2019 about goin\u2019 or stayin\u2019\u2014the\ntrees in the hedges is as apt to be thinkin\u2019 of takin\u2019 runs up the\nroad, and it saves a power of throuble.\u201d\n\nThis view of the situation prevailed more or less among the elders of\nLetterowen, but not universally. Here and there an old body held an\nalert and agile mind, which, according to circumstances, chafed at\nits restraints, or made a shift to get about in spite of them. Such\nwas the case with Mrs Rea, whose age, never estimated at less than\n\u201crale ould entirely,\u201d is by some people asserted to be \u201cevery day of\nninety year.\u201d She herself acquiesces cheerfully in any figure between\nthat and threescore and ten. Certain it is, at all events, that she\nseems quite as active and vigorous as many of her much less venerable\nneighbours. Still they were surprised when, a few days later, she was\namongst the first to announce that she intended to \u201cthry her chance,\nand see what sort of a place Dublin might be at all at all.\u201d Behind\nher back, they declared that it was \u201cno thing for the ould crathur\nto take upon herself to be doin\u2019,\u201d and that \u201cshe might very aisy\nlose her life over it if she didn\u2019t mind what she was at.\u201d And some\nof them called upon her in her house at the end of the post-office\nrow, fronting the railway embankment, for the express purpose of\nremonstrating with her in scarcely less outspoken terms. \u201cAh, woman\ndear,\u201d they would say, \u201cis it dotin\u2019 you are, or what at all\u2019s come\nover you to put such a notion in your head? Sure it\u2019s losin\u2019 yourself\nten times you\u2019ll be going that far, let alone breakin\u2019 the ould bones\nof you clamberin\u2019 in and out of them high carriages, and up and down\nthem cruel steep stairs. Or else, ma\u2019am, desthroyed you\u2019ll surely\nbe in the streets, where they say an ould person creepin\u2019 about is\nas apt to get dhruv over as a weeny chucken that sets itself up to\nbe runnin\u2019 under the people\u2019s feet, and they coming out from Mass.\u201d\nBut for all of these she had the same answer: \u201cWell now, ma\u2019am, if I\namn\u2019t ould enough to take care of meself at this time of day, I dunno\nwhen I\u2019m likely to be.\u201d To which piece of inconsequence they commonly\nreplied, \u201cthat them that was wilful\u2019d go their own way,\u201d and took\nleave huffily, unconvincing and unconvinced.\n\nTheir axiom was truer in Mrs Rea\u2019s case than might have been\nanticipated from her circumstances; for she was a solitary widow,\nand the way that such persons go is often determined by quite other\nconsiderations than their own wilfulness, especially if there be a\nquestion of as much as two shillings involved. Mrs Rea, however, had\none son prospering in the States, and another long established as\nunder-gardener to very high-up quality in the county Sligo, and both\nof them were \u201crale good lads to their mother,\u201d which set her above\nanything she or her neighbours would have called want. Just now,\nmoreover, her \u201codd few ould hens,\u201d had been laying unusually well,\nso that her railway fare was forthcoming with little difficulty. The\nchief obstacle she encountered was public opinion, which, although\nshe thought as lightly of it as might be, she could not completely\ndisregard. It is impossible to set out on a great enterprise with an\nunperturbed mind in the face of unanimous prophecies that you will\nnever come back alive; even if you do let on to consider them \u201call\nblathers and nonsense.\u201d So Mrs Rea, while dealing summarily with the\nobjections urged by her ordinary acquaintances, would condescend\nto argue the matter at much length with her especial crony, Julia\nCarroll.\n\nJulia disapproved of the project rather decidedly for her, she being\nby no means an opinionated person. \u201c\u2019Deed, now, Joanna,\u201d she said,\nin the course of their first discussion, \u201csupposin\u2019 I had the chance\nitself, which I havn\u2019t, it\u2019s long sorry I\u2019d be to be settin\u2019 off\non any such a deminted sthravade. Sure, woman alive, them that has\nthe age on them of you and me is bound to be travellin\u2019 prisintly,\nwhether or no, far enough to contint anybody, unless it was the\nWanderin\u2019 Jew. So where\u2019s the sinse of tatterin\u2019 about afore thin in\nthem racketin\u2019 smoky trains? I declare to you, I hate the noise and\nsmell of them passin\u2019 by there, goodness forgive me, and it only the\nnathur of them after all.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut bedad thin, Julia, that\u2019s the very thing I was considherin\u2019,\u201d\nsaid Mrs Rea. \u201cFor if it\u2019s stuck down in the one place we\u2019re to\nbe all the while till we\u2019re took, we\u2019ll get that disaccustomed to\neverythin\u2019 out of the way we won\u2019t know what to do wid ourselves\nanywheres else. So for that raison we\u2019d a right to jaunt about now\nand agin to diff\u2019rint places the way we\u2019ll be a thrifle used to what\nwe\u2019re strange to, and not amazed and moidhered entirely wid the\nquareness of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, now, I\u2019d never have that notion,\u201d said Julia Carroll, \u201cfor\nit\u2019s the quare quareness and the sthrange sthrangeness I\u2019ll be\nthroublin\u2019 me head about when once I get the chance of goin\u2019 the\nroad after some of them that\u2019s wint afore me. Sure as long as there\nwas the ould people in it it might be the most outlandish place one\ncould consaive and I\u2019d niver notice it, I\u2019d be that took up wid\nmeetin\u2019 them, nor you wouldn\u2019t aither, Joanna. Morebetoken, I\u2019m often\nthinkin\u2019 these times that the old place is the sthrangest of all\nsince they\u2019re quit out of it\u2014and no fear of gettin\u2019 used to it, sorra\na fear!\u201d\n\n\u201cMaybe that\u2019s very thrue for you,\u201d said Mrs Rea. \u201cBut, talkin\u2019 of the\nould people, there\u2019s another raison I have. Do you remimber Biddy\nLoughlin\u2014thim that lived below the forge?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn a manner I remember her, but which of them was Biddy I couldn\u2019t\nsay for sure. They was only slips of girls the time they stopped\nhere, and we never had much doin\u2019s or dalin\u2019s wid them.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Biddy married a man of the name of Jackson that lives up there\nin Dublin. Her aunt was telling me she heard from her last Christmas.\nKeepin\u2019 a fine little shop, they are, in some sthreet\u2014I must ask her\nthe name\u2014convenient to the railway station. So I was thinkin\u2019 I\u2019d\nwrite her word when I was comin\u2019, and maybe bid her meet me at the\nthrain. \u2019Twould be pleasant to see a body one knew.\u201d\n\n\u201cMiddlin\u2019 pleasant it might be. But, saints above, woman, you needn\u2019t\ntell _me_ that you\u2019re takin\u2019 off up to Dublin for a sight of Biddy\nLoughlin, that I believe you\u2019d scarce know from her grandmother\u2019s\nninth cousin, as the sayin\u2019 is, if she walked into the room this\ninstiant minyit. For that is too onraisonable a raison altogether.\u201d\n\nMrs Rea looked rather defiantly conscience-stricken. \u201cTo spake the\nmoral thruth,\u201d she said, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t wonder if all the while I wasn\u2019t\ngoin\u2019 for e\u2019er a thing else except a bit of divarsion; and I dunno if\nthat\u2019s any great sin.\u201d \u201cSure not all,\u201d Julia Carroll said, more from\npoliteness than conviction, for she was an ascetic both by nature and\ntraining. \u201cOnly it\u2019s the quare divarsion\u2019d take me thravellin\u2019 over\nthe counthry if I had a grand little room of me own to be stoppin\u2019\npaiceable in.\u201d She glanced covetously round her friend\u2019s house, in\nwhich they were talking. For Julia, having lagged superfluously long\nbehind her own generation, was wearing out the fag end of her days in\na grand-nephew\u2019s family, where the tolerance she met with, though\ngood-natured enough, could not benumb her sense that only in this\nworld she filled up a place which, albeit cold and comfortless, could\nwith difficulty be spared to her. Therefore she looked wistfully\nround Mrs Rea\u2019s domain and said, \u201cVery paiceable I\u2019d stop in it, ay\nwould I.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019ll be a good few out of this goin\u2019 on it besides me, you may\ndipind,\u201d said Mrs Rea, \u201cDinny Fitzpatrick is, for one, I know.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, poor Dinny\u2019s a young chap, the crathur; where\u2019d he get a\nha\u2019porth of wit,\u201d said Julia, this time with unintentional severity.\n\u201cAnd be the same token, there was his head went by the windy. Gettin\u2019\non for six o\u2019clock it must be if he\u2019s lavin\u2019 work, and I\u2019ve a right\nto be steppin\u2019 along wid meself.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it wit?\u201d said Mrs Rea; \u201cthe lad has plinty of that, according to\naught I ever seen of him. If there\u2019s anything ails him, it\u2019s bein\u2019\na thrifle ugly in his temper, as his father was before him. \u2019Deed,\nthem Fitzpatricks have the name of bein\u2019 cross-tempered people\u2014dacint\nand cross-tempered. That\u2019s the way he got quarrellin\u2019 wid Norah\nM\u2018Grehan, she he was spaking to a long while, just about the time\nshe took her situation in Dublin. And my belief is he has some notion\nnow of makin\u2019 it up wid her, and that\u2019s what\u2019s startin\u2019 him on the\nexcursion; for until he heard tell of it his mind was set on goin\u2019 to\nthe Malahogue Races. I\u2019d be glad if the two of them got frinds ag\u2019in;\npoor Norah\u2019s a good-nathured little girl, the crathur, and all Dinny\nwants is a bit of humourin\u2019 to keep him plisant, and whativer the\nraison may be, he\u2019s mostly seemed as discontinted as an ould hin in a\nshower of sleet ever since Norah quit.\u201d\n\nDenis Fitzpatrick, whose clear-cut profile and rough tweed cap had\njust crossed Mrs Rea\u2019s greenish pane on his way up the dusk-dimmed\nstreet, was a good-looking sturdy young fellow, with a countenance\nwhich bore out her assertion that he had plenty of wit. She was\nright, too, in her conjectures about the motive which lay at the\nbottom of his plans for St Patrick\u2019s Day. At that very moment, in\nfact, he was considering how he might best ascertain Norah M\u2018Grehan\u2019s\nDublin address without compromising his dignity by any direct\ninquiries from her family, who had been stiff enough for some months\npast. He thought he would ask ould Mrs Rea, who was likely to know,\nand, failing her, Norah\u2019s sister Maggie, as she looked several\ndegrees less forbiddingly upon him than Katty had done since the\nfalling out.\n\nBut after all he need not have troubled himself with these\narrangements. On the afternoon of the Sunday before the holiday Mrs\nRea was happily busy over her fire when a long shadow fell in at her\ndoor and ran up the wall.\n\n\u201cWell, Dinny,\u201d she said, recognising it without turning her head,\n\u201cand what\u2019s the best good news wid you?\u201d\n\n\u201cOch nothin\u2019 at all, ma\u2019am,\u201d said Dinny.\n\n\u201cThere couldn\u2019t be less,\u201d Mrs Rea said cheerfully; \u201cI\u2019m makin\u2019 meself\na bit of griddle bread to take along in the thrain, and I\u2019ll ha\u2019\nplinty for you in it too, Dinny.\u201d\n\n\u201cThank\u2019ee kindly, ma\u2019am,\u201d Dinny said, gloomily, \u201cbut divil a thrain\nI\u2019ll be thravellin\u2019 in.\u201d\n\n\u201cMercy on us all\u2014what\u2019s after happ\u2019nin\u2019 you, man?\u201d she said, whirling\nround in consternation.\n\n\u201cSure because I\u2019m claned out\u2014stone broke,\u201d said Dinny. \u201cDidn\u2019t I\nput me half-crown on Black Knot, that was runnin\u2019 yesterday for the\nBalmarina Cup, and what\u2019d suit the baste but to go break his ugly\nneck at the first lep? It was Sargint Duffy himself bid me put every\npenny I could on him, and he knows people that knows all manner. Two\npounds he had on him himself. The divil\u2019s in it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou great, big, stupid ass, you,\u201d said Mrs Rea. \u201cOch, well now,\nwouldn\u2019t anybody think an infant child might have the sinse to keep\nout of them ould barracks, where it\u2019s bettin\u2019 and foolery the len\u2019th\nof the day? And small blame, maybe, to the polis, that\u2019s nothin\u2019\nbetther to do, and plinty of money to be pitchin\u2019 under the horses\u2019\nfeet; but for the likes of you to go settin\u2019 up to ruinate yourself!\nFaix but you\u2019re the quare fool.\u201d Her genuine vexation at his mishap\ncame to the surface in a bubbling of wrath, while her plain speaking\nwas made all the more natural by the fact that it seemed to her only\nthe other day since six-foot Dinny stood scarcely as high as her\ntable, and that in Dinny\u2019s recollections Mrs Rea had always been\na rather comical old personage, from whom desirable sugar-sticks\nand cakes and negligible threats and reproaches were occasionally\nforthcoming. \u201cThe grandest chance at all,\u201d she said, \u201cand everythin\u2019\nsettled\u2014and Norah, the crathur. Och, now, Dinny Fitzpatrick, if\nyourself\u2019s not the most unchancy stookawn of a gomeral on the\ntownland, just get me him that is?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve raison to be greatly obligated to you, ma\u2019am,\u201d said Dinny;\n\u201cand the next time I want somebody to gab the hind leg off a dog, I\nknow where to be comin\u2019 to.\u201d So he went away in high indignation.\nWhereupon Mrs Rea thought ruefully to herself, \u201cSure, maybe I\u2019d no\nright to be annoyin\u2019 him, and he disappointed wid losin\u2019 his holiday\nand all, the mislucky bosthoon.\u201d\n\nAnnoyed him she had, however, so seriously, that next evening he had\ntwenty minds at least to make as if he did not hear her calling him\nacross the street, when he was going by from his work. Only that\nthere seemed to be a hoarse sort of despair in her \u201cDinny, man,\nDinny,\u201d resentment would undoubtedly have got the better of him; but\nas it was, he came over and asked what ailed her.\n\nMrs Rea looked rather dreadful, for she had her head muffled in\ntwo large shawls, one grey and one black, and had wisped round her\nthroat a white apron, which gave a curious conventual touch to her\nappearance. She explained that she was destroyed with a very bad\ncold, some sort of asthmy or influenzy she thought it must be,\nit had come on so sudden, and her corroborative coughs were quite\nalarmingly loud. \u201cNe\u2019er a fut\u2019ll I git out to-morra,\u201d she said, \u201cnot\nif the city of Dublin was just across the width of them two rails\nthere, instid of len\u2019th-ways. And me writin\u2019 word to poor Biddy\nLoughlin I was comin\u2019 at twelve o\u2019clock. Lookin\u2019 out for me she\u2019ll\nbe.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure you could aisy send her a message be some of them that\u2019s\ngoin\u2019,\u201d said Dinny. \u201cArt Walsh is, I know, and his sisther.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Deed but I wouldn\u2019t like to be disthressin\u2019 them to be wastin\u2019\ntheir day runnin\u2019 about after me messages,\u201d Mrs Rea said, \u201cnor I\nwouldn\u2019t like poor Biddy to be losin\u2019 her time expectin\u2019 me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, thin, I dunno how you can manage it,\u201d said Dinny. \u201cOne thing\nor the other you must do\u2014send it or let it alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere\u2019s yourself, lad?\u201d said Mrs Rea.\n\n\u201cAnd didn\u2019t I tell you I hadn\u2019t a penny to me name? Not unless it\u2019s\nborryin\u2019 I was, and then where\u2019d me wages be on Sathurday? I wouldn\u2019t\nmind if it was meself only, but I can\u2019t be lavin\u2019 the ould bodies at\nhome too short, and that\u2019s the end of it. There\u2019s no use talkin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cOch, you gaby, wasn\u2019t I manin\u2019 you to go on me own couple of\nshillin\u2019s in place of meself, and take me message? Supposin\u2019 you\u2019d\nnought betther to do. It\u2019s too late to be writin\u2019 be the post, and if\nBiddy doesn\u2019t get word, as like as not she\u2019ll be in a fine fantigue,\nconsidherin\u2019 I\u2019m lost and sthrayed away; but when you tould her that\nkilt wid a cowld was all I was, she\u2019d know nothin\u2019 ailed me. Quite\nconvanient she lives to the station, so \u2019twouldn\u2019t delay you above\na minyit, and then all the rest of the while you could be seein\u2019\nanybody else there was, and the sights of Dublin, and everythin\u2019.\u201d\nMrs Rea was so bent upon recommending her plan that she forgot her\nhoarseness and bad cough. However, this signified little, as Dinny\nwas too well pleased with the project to be critical about symptoms.\n\n\u201cI give you my word, Judy, woman,\u201d she said, when shortly afterwards\nrelating the incident to her friend, \u201cthe eyes of him shone out of\nhis head at the notion like the two bright lamps in the tail end of\nthe thrains runnin\u2019 by there on a black night.\u201d\n\nThus it came to pass that Denis Fitzpatrick was after all one of\nthe party who on the morrow made an early start from Letterowen.\nIt was a still, soft morning, discreetly hooded in grey, but with\nan indefinable atmosphere abroad, as if the air were full of some\nsecrets that might be told when the sun got a little higher. Quite a\ncrowd of the neighbours were on the platform seeing the excursionists\noff, some of them with rather envious eyes. And among those\nmalcontents was Maggie M\u2018Grehan, who felt herself aggrieved by her\nfailure to capture her railway fare, notwithstanding that she had the\nprospect of a drive to the Malahogue Races for her holiday amusement\nwhile her sister Katty looked after their bedridden father. Her mood\nlightened, however, at the sight of Denis actually starting with the\nrest, because, for reasons of her own, she had been considerably put\nout by the stoppage of his expedition.\n\nMrs Rea did not appear. Of course it would have been unwise of\nher to venture out with her cold, although her violent cough had\nwonderfully subsided. But she saw the train whisked by as she was\nmaking herself very busy over cleaning up the inmost recesses of\nher dresser; and her comment was, \u201cAh, well; sure \u2019twould ha\u2019 been\na pity to stand in their way, the crathurs.\u201d Her day after this\npassed without noteworthy incidents until about tea-time, when, as\nshe and Julia Carroll were sitting quietly at the brightening fire\nsomething unwelcome occurred. To all appearances, it was nothing\nworse than the entrance of a pleasant-looking, dark-eyed girl, in a\nbecoming velvet-trimmed hat and neat cloth jacket; yet the tone of\nthe ejaculations with which Mrs Rea greeted her clearly betokened\nan untoward event. \u201cOch, glory be to goodness, is it yourself here,\nNorah M\u2018Grehan? Whethen now, how did you come whatever? Isn\u2019t the\nchilder at your place took sick, the way you couldn\u2019t git lave at\nall, so Katty was tellin\u2019 me\u2014the last time you wrote?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut sure they\u2019ve got finely now, and the misthress is takin\u2019 them\nout to Dalkey for a bit of a change. I wrote home word on Sathurday.\nDidn\u2019t they tell you?\u201d\n\n\u201cDeed no; I seen naither of them; and there I am after packing off\npoor Dinny Fitzpatrick up to Dublin this mornin\u2019 arly. Ragin\u2019 he is\nthis minyit of time, you may depind, findin\u2019 nobody in it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what\u2019d ail him to be ragin\u2019?\u201d said Norah, \u201cor what call\u2019d he\nhave to be thinkin\u2019 of findin\u2019 anybody? He knew as well as I did I\nwas comin\u2019 down to-day. So off he wint, and joy go wid him and the\nlikes of him. Be good luck I\u2019ll be out of it on the eleven o\u2019clock\ntrain to-night afore he\u2019s back.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, if he knew, it\u2019s a quare thing,\u201d Mrs Rea began.\n\n\u201cQuarer it\u2019d be if he didn\u2019t,\u201d Norah said, interrupting, \u201cwhen he\nheard it from Maggie last night. Katty was tellin\u2019 me\u2014for Maggie\u2019s\noff to the races\u2014she seen her talkin\u2019 to him outside, so she was\ncheckin\u2019 her for havin\u2019 anythin\u2019 to say to him, not bein\u2019 friendly\nthese times, since he took upon himself to give me impidence about\nthe Molloy\u2019s party. And Maggie said he stopped her to ax would I be\ncomin\u2019 home on the holiday, and she tould him as plain as she could\nspake that I was. So that was the way of it, and the best thing could\nhappen.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, well, well, but that bangs Banagher,\u201d Mrs Rea said, not\ndisguising her chagrin. \u201cWhat was he up to then at all? Troth now,\nyou might as aisy make an offer to count the grains of sugar meltin\u2019\nin your tay as tell the contrariness and treachery there does be in\nanother body\u2019s mind. But we\u2019d betther just be sittin\u2019 down; \u2019twill\nbe drawn be this time. Wait till I reach down a cup and saucer for\nyou, Norah alanna; it\u2019s somethin\u2019 to git a sight of you at all\nevints.\u201d\n\nIt is to be feared that Norah did not find this tea a very lively\nentertainment, although she talked away at a great rate, telling all\nher Dublin news. Mrs Rea listened with only a divided attention, the\nother half, and the largest, being occupied by the thought that after\nall she might better have gone on the jaunt herself. A sacrifice\nthrown away is generally an irritating and depressing subject for\nmeditation; and Mrs Rea\u2019s seemed to have been worse than merely\nwasted, as she said to herself that \u201call the good her stayin\u2019 at\nhome had done anybody was only harm.\u201d These reflections made her a\ndull and silent hostess. Then, during a pause in the conversation,\nJulia Carroll expressed her belief that she herself \u201cas like as not\nwouldn\u2019t be dhrinkin\u2019 tay anywheres by next St Patrick\u2019s Day.\u201d The\nlittle old woman spoke in a hopeful tone, looking as if she saw many\npleasant possibilities in the conjecture; but a slip of a girl of\nNorah\u2019s age and experience could scarcely share that view, and the\nremark did not tend to cheer her.\n\nHowever, when they had finished tea, Mrs Rea went out into the grey\ndusk at the door to collect her hens with the few crumbs, and a\nmoment afterwards Norah, who was putting turf on the fire, heard a\nsound that made her drop the sod out of her hand suddenly enough\nto set the white ashes fluttering about like snow-flakes, while\nthe golden sparks darted up straight like shooting stars. It was\nMrs Rea exclaiming: \u201cOch, mercy be among us! is it yourself, Dinny\nFitzpatrick? And what at all brought you back so soon, and how did\nyou conthrive to come?\u201d To which the voice of Dinny replied: \u201cSure,\nma\u2019am, when I got there I found there was nothin\u2019 to be keepin\u2019 me in\nit whatsome\u2019er, so one of the guards at the station was a dacint chap\nfrom Youghal, and for the sixpence I had along wid me for a dhrink,\nhe let me come back on the two o\u2019clock mail that stops next to\nnowhere for man or baste, and that way I got home very handy. And was\nyou seein\u2019 anythin\u2019 to-day of Norah M\u2018Grehan? But, bedad, \u2019twould be\njust of a piece wid the rest of it if she was on the road thravellin\u2019\nback to Dublin agin now.\u201d\n\n\u201cMusha, thin, she\u2019s not got very far yet, that\u2019s sartin. But,\ngoodness help you, man alive, wouldn\u2019t it ha\u2019 been a dale more\nsinsible to ha\u2019 axed the question afore you took skytin\u2019 the len\u2019th\nof the counthry, and nothin\u2019 at the end of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd, begorra, didn\u2019t I ax it? Sure I knew there was some talk of her\ncomin\u2019 home, so I axed her sisther Maggie last night, and no, sez\nshe, sorra a fut could she get lave.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was an onthruth she tould you,\u201d said Mrs Rea.\n\n\u201cTroth, now, I had me doubts it was, ever since the ould woman I seen\nat her place in Dublin said she well remembered Norah writin\u2019 home to\nsay she was goin\u2019; and, if I\u2019m not mistaken, it\u2019s not the first ugly\nturn that Maggie\u2019s after doin\u2019 agin us. But did you say, ma\u2019am, that\nNorah was above at her house?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat for would _I_ go to be tellin\u2019 lies on you? Sure, not at all,\nbut if you\u2019ve a fancy to be standin\u2019 on the one flure wid her, just\nstep your feet over the hins\u2019 ould dish, and there you are.\u201d\n\nDinny stepped accordingly, and immediately afterwards found himself\nshaking hands vehemently with Norah M\u2018Grehan, and inquiring what way\nshe was this long while. Norah replied that she must be running home\nto her poor father and Katty, for she\u2019d presently have to be settin\u2019\noff again to catch the Dublin train. But Mrs Rea, bustling jubilantly\nabout the dresser, said, \u201cAisy now, honey. You\u2019ll give the poor lad\ntime just to swallow his cup of tay, and then he\u2019ll be all ready to\ngo along wid you.\u201d\n\nWhile Dinny gulped down a very hot mixture of sugar chiefly and\ngrounds, Julia Carroll took the opportunity to draw from the events\nof the day a moral in support of her favourite contention against\ntravelling about, pointing out what a sight of trouble it would have\nsaved if Dinny had \u201cstopped paiceably at home, the way he needn\u2019t ha\u2019\nbeen scaldin\u2019 and chokin\u2019 himself for want of a few minutes to spake\nto his frinds.\u201d Mrs Rea, however, rejoined\u2014\u201cAnd supposin\u2019 Norah had\ntook it into her head to stop paiceable where she was too, where\u2019d\nthe both of them be this evenin\u2019?\u201d And although she answered readily\nenough, \u201cSure, where Norah was, she wasn\u2019t at home,\u201d the argument\ndid not convince anybody. Certainly not Mrs Rea. For when Dinny had\njust started with Norah he wheeled round suddenly to make a penitent\nconfession. \u201cOch, murdher! Och, Mrs Rea, ma\u2019am, I niver remimbered\nit till this instant, but tellin\u2019 you the thruth, I niver went\nnext or nigh the ould woman you bid me be bringin\u2019 word you wasn\u2019t\ncomin\u2019\u2014cliver and clane I forgot it, and went off straight to look\nfor the Square\u2014Well now, wasn\u2019t I the bosthoon?\u201d\n\n\u201cSure, no matther,\u201d Mrs Rea said, blandly. \u201cIt\u2019s little Biddy\nLoughlin\u2019d be troublin\u2019 her head about me goin\u2019 or stayin\u2019, for the\nthruth is, there was niver much love or likin\u2019 between any of us and\nany of thim.\u201d\n\nDinny looked hard at her for a moment, \u201cAnd another thing I\ndisremimbered,\u201d he said, \u201cwas to be axin\u2019 you after your terrible bad\ncowld.\u201d\n\n\u201cBedad, Dinny, I\u2019m thinkin\u2019 it wint off to Dublin along wid you,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cAnyhow it\u2019s quit away surprisin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s my belief, you\u2019re a great ould rogue, ma\u2019am, yourself and your\ncowld,\u201d said Dinny. \u201cBut I\u2019d as lief I hadn\u2019t lost thim two shillin\u2019s\nand everythin\u2019 on you.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure what matther at all?\u201d Mrs Rea said again. \u201cAnd who can tell\nbut I mightn\u2019t get as good a chance next St Patrick\u2019s Day, and be\ntravellin\u2019 up to Dublin iligant after all? I wouldn\u2019t wonder if I\nwas\u2014there\u2019s time enough.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nA PROUD WOMAN\n\n\n\n\nA PROUD WOMAN\n\n\nPeter Mackey, the Carrickcrum Doctor\u2019s man, introduced me to Mrs\nDaly one early summer morning, when her table was flecked with small\nquivering shadows by the young beech-leaves. That such a ceremony was\nrequired argued me a stranger to the place, for \u201could Anne Daly\u201d at\nher stall had a speaking acquaintance with almost every passer-by.\nHer rickety deal board stood at the cross-roads under the beech-tree\nwhose trunk was built into the wall behind the National School, where\nshe had a view of Carrickcrum\u2019s street on either hand, and looked\nup the road to the bridge, and down the road to the police barracks\nas well. She was a picturesque figure in her black gown and bluish\napron; for her hair made white light beneath broad cap frills hooded\nwith a heavy grey shawl, and the brown eyes among their weather-worn\nwrinkles still glanced as brightly as the waters of a bog-stream. Her\nknitting-needles twinkled up at them, in and out of the dark, rough\nstocking-leg that lengthened in her hands, as she sat perched on a\ncrippled chair, dexterously propped against the beech\u2019s roots. Upon\nthe planks before her glowed a small heap of half-a-dozen oranges,\nand as many pink sugar-sticks protruded from a white Delft jam-pot.\nThat was all her stock-in-trade, and even the golden dance over it\nof the spangling sunbeams could not give it an opulent aspect. What\ncaught my eye at once, however, was a signboard nailed to the trunk\njust above her head, bearing on a brilliant ultramarine ground, in\nletters of fiery vermilion, the words:\u2014\n\n  THE SENTRALL IMPOREOM.\n\nThe inscription somehow took my fancy, and I had scarcely beheld\nit when I seemed to be reading in the catalogue of a certain art\nexhibition: \u201cNo. 34. The Sentrall Imporeom, by Charles Hamilton,\nprice \u2014\u2014.\u201d Whereupon followed a vision of the corresponding work\u2014the\nquaint old country woman presiding over her simple wares beneath\nher leafy canopy and grandiloquent label, with perhaps a hint of\nthe village street in the distance to explain the situation. I\npresaged \u201ca hit,\u201d and felt impatient to set about it at once. There\nwas a grass-patch over the way that would conveniently accommodate\nmy easel. Then I wondered who had put up the gaudy signboard, and\nwhy; whether in pompous earnest, or intending a jest at the poor\nlittle establishment: and what might be Mrs Daly\u2019s sentiments on the\nsubject. So, with a design to elicit these, I remarked: \u201cThat\u2019s a\nfine piece of painting you have up there.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Deed now is it, sir?\u201d Mrs Daly replied, darting a quick look at\nme to ascertain whether my admiration was unfeigned, much as I\nhave seen her prove the soundness of her pears with the point of\nher knitting-needle. It stood the test with effrontery, and she\nproceeded: \u201cThat was Joe Lenihan. He done it last winter wid the bit\nof paint he had over after finishin\u2019 Mr Conroy\u2019s new cart. Joe\u2019s a\nterrible handy boy. It\u2019s got a nice apparence off it, to my mind,\nand ne\u2019er a harm at all that I can see; but, och! the Gaffneys were\nragin\u2019 mad over it\u2014them at the shop below there, sir.\u201d She pointed\ndown the street, and I took a few steps backwards to get a glimpse\nof its single plate-glass pane, which displayed groceries, hardware,\nmillinery, and other things, and above which ran, large and yellow,\n\u201cGENERAL EMPORIUM.\u201d \u201cRagin\u2019 they were,\u201d Mrs Daly said in a tone that\nwas half-gratified and half-rueful. \u201cSure to this day they won\u2019t\nlook the way I am. But I dunno what call they have to set themselves\nup to be the only Imporum in the place, and they just \u2018P. Gaffney,\u2019\nsorra a hap\u2019orth more, and plenty good enough, for them, until before\nlast Christmas they got a man over from Newtownbailey to do their\npaintin\u2019. There was nobody here aquil to it, I should suppose. So now\nthey\u2019re of the opinion I had a right to ha\u2019 hindered Joe of doin\u2019 me\na Imporum as well, and I wid ne\u2019er a notion he was plannin\u2019 any such\na thing. Howsome\u2019er, he made a very good job of it, sir, as you was\nsayin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a fine morning, Mrs Daly,\u201d someone said at my elbow, and,\nturning round, I saw beside me a tall, respectable-looking young man\nin a grey tweed suit. \u201cI\u2019m just after shooting old Mr Carbury dead\nwith the rook-rifle, and throwing him over the wall into the river\nbelow at Reilly\u2019s,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cAnd is it yourself, Mr Ned? I never heard you comin\u2019. Well now, but\nyou\u2019re terrible wicked to go do the like of that,\u201d Mrs Daly said, as\nplacidly as she had praised Joe Lenihan\u2019s handiness. \u201cIt\u2019s hangin\u2019\nyou they\u2019ll be this time for sartin. So you\u2019re off to the barracks?\u201d\n\n\u201cStraight,\u201d said Mr Ned gravely, \u201cand they needn\u2019t offer to say it\u2019s\nmanslaughter either, for it\u2019s an awful murder. You might have heard\nthe shot. But to see him rolling down the river, over and over\u2014I\ndidn\u2019t wait till he sank, for it\u2019s time I gave myself up on the\ncharge of committing a cold-blooded murder.\u201d\n\nHe strode away abruptly with an air of solemn fuss, and Mrs Daly\nsaid, looking after him commiseratingly: \u201cHe\u2019s a son of the Clancys\nat Glen Farm. Asthray in his mind he is, the crathur, and scarce a\nmornin\u2019 but he comes by here on his way to the polis wid a story of\nsome quare villiny he\u2019s after doin\u2019. My belief is he dhrames them\nin the night, and when he wakes up he can\u2019t tell the differ as a\nsinsible body would. Anyhow he niver harmed man or baste. But sure\nthe Sargint and all of them up there knows the way it is, and they\nniver throuble their heads about his romancin\u2019, or now and again they\nput him up in the guard-room for a while, just to contint him.\n\n\u201cOnly one day be chance he landed in on them when there was nobody\nin it except a young constable that was new to the place, and him he\nhad in a sarious consternation wid the slaughtherin\u2019 he was tellin\u2019\nhim of. Fit to raise the counthryside he was before the other men\ncame home. It\u2019s as good as a play to hear Joe Lenihan tellin\u2019 it.\n\u2019Deed now, we\u2019d maybe do betther to not be takin\u2019 divarsion out of\nthe crathur\u2019s vagaries, that\u2019s to be pitied, the dear knows. But sure\nyour heart might be broke waitin\u2019 for somethin\u2019 to laugh at, if you\nwas to look black at everythin\u2019 wid a grain of misfortin in it, for\nthat comes as nathural as the grounds in your cup of tay.\u201d\n\nSo Mrs Daly philosophised; and when she had finished I bought an\norange, and went on my way.\n\nThis, however, was only the first of many visits to the Sentrall\nImporeum. My wish to paint it and its proprietress continued, and\nshe presently gave me a series of sittings, in the course of which\nI learned a good deal about her character and affairs. Mrs Daly\nlived close by, in a very miserable little shanty, windowless and\nchimneyless, built against a sunken bank, so that its ragged thatch\nwas on a level with the roadway. How she lived seemed less obvious\nthan where, as although she owned three or four hens, and did some\ncoarse knitting while she sat all day at the table with its screed of\nsweets and fruit, one would have estimated the combined profits of\nthese to fall far short of sufficiency for even her modest wants. Her\nlameness debarred her from more active industries, she having been\ncrippled by an accident at the same disastrous period\u2014about thirty\nyears before\u2014when her husband died, and her son \u2019listed, and her\ndaughter married an emigrant to the States.\n\nPerhaps it should be reckoned as another disability that she was the\nproudest woman in the parish, to whom an offer of assistance seemed\nan insult, and who would accept nothing from her neighbours beyond\na most rigorous equity. For instance, Arthur Kelly, the struggling\nfarmer who owned the shed which she inhabited, would gladly have\nallowed her to occupy it rent free, but was obliged every week\ncompunctiously to receive sixpence.\n\nI myself experienced the same sort of thing in my trivial dealings\nwith her. Small artifices, prompted by baffled speculations as to\nhow she made out a subsistence, all signally failed. If I contrived\none day to over-pay for a purchase, pleading want of change, on the\nnext the undesired pennies were sure to be awaiting me inevitably\nand inexorably. She refused point-blank to sell me the crushed and\nover-ripe gooseberries with a fancy for which I had been seized, and\nshe insisted upon taking a farthing apiece off the price of some\napples that were fully half-sound. In fact, I was soon compelled\nto desist from practising any such stratagems, perceiving that our\nsittings and conversations would otherwise abruptly end. But being\nwise in time, I kept on good and improving terms with Mrs Daly, and\nmade my studies at the Sentrall Imporeum desultorily all through the\nsummer. Still, when it drew to a close, I was quite aware that our\nfriendliness had not brought me a step nearer venturing upon any\nattempt to undermine her rigid principle of independence.\n\nThis being so, I was not a little surprised when one wet evening at\ntea-time Mrs Daly paid me a visit for the purpose of asking me to do\nher a favour. The cottage I had taken that summer stands on the same\nside of the road as her tiny cabin, but about half-a-mile farther\nfrom Newtownbailey. It belongs to the brother-in-law of Peter Mackey,\nDr Kennedy\u2019s man, which is how I came to hear of it, and it contains\nno less than three rooms on the ground\u2014literally ground\u2014floor,\nbesides two little attics huddled up under the thatch. As it has a\nstrip of privet hedge in front, and a path three flag-stones long\nleading to the door, and a hen-house leaned-to against one end, it\nmay be considered superior to the neighbouring residences, though\nunsophisticated mud and straw are the main ingredients in its,\nas well as in their, composition. With the help of loans from my\nfriend the Doctor, and some properties of my own, I had furnished\nit in a style which I believe excited admiration on the whole. Yet\nthe establishment did not reach the standard of what was deemed\nappropriate for \u201crael quality,\u201d especially as I did for myself\nsingle-handed, with only an old woman from next door to \u201cready up\u201d\nthings in the morning; and my social standing was consequently always\nregarded as an ambiguous and perplexing point at Carrickcrum.\n\nMrs Daly arrived with something evidently on her mind. She was not\nlikely, indeed, to have undertaken that slow and painful hobble\nthrough the pelting rain without some object; but she seemed to find\nmuch difficulty in disclosing it. At last, however, having repeated\nincredibly often that it was \u201ca very soft night intirely,\u201d she made\nthe following more pertinent statement:\u2014\n\n\u201cI\u2019m after gettin\u2019 a letter to-day from me brother Hugh\u2019s son. That\nwas Hugh went out to the States I couldn\u2019t tell you what ould ages\nago, and be all accounts he\u2019s made the fine fortin in it. But the\ntime he went I was about gettin\u2019 married, and he set his face agin\nthat altogether. No opinion he had of poor Andy, that wasn\u2019t to say\nvery well to do, and maybe not over-steady. So he wouldn\u2019t allow me\nto be spakin\u2019 to Andy at all, and he was wantin\u2019 me to go out along\nwid himself, for Hugh and I were always frinds. Infuriated he was\nwhen he couldn\u2019t persuade me; the last time I seen him, there was no\nname bad enough for him to be callin\u2019 poor Andy, and he up and tould\nme that, as sure as he was alive, the next time he set eyes on me\n\u2019twould be beggin\u2019 he\u2019d find me, unless it was in the workhouse. And\nsez I to him he might make his mind aisy that, whativer place he\nmight find me in, the on\u2019y thing I\u2019d be beggin\u2019 of him\u2019d be to keep\nhimself out of it. And we\u2019ve niver been friendly since. Sorra the\nletter I\u2019ve wrote to him, nor he to me. But now there\u2019s the young\nchap writin\u2019 me word from Queenstown that he\u2019s crossed the wather to\nsee the ould counthry, and that before he wint his father bid him go\nlook up his Aunt Nan while he was at home. Sure, I scarce thought he\nas much as knew where I was livin\u2019 these times. So me nephew\u2019s comin\u2019\nto-morra on the train to Newtownbailey.... Well, now, you know me\nhouse, sir? It isn\u2019t too bad a little place at all, but you couldn\u2019t\nsay it was very big.\u201d\n\nYou certainly could not say so, upon almost any scale of measurement,\nor with any approximation to truth, I reflected; for I had seen its\ntenant creeping in and out at its low black doorway, which would\nhardly have made an imposing entrance to an average rabbit-burrow.\n\n\u201cAnd I was thinkin\u2019,\u201d she continued, \u201cthat if the young fellow come\nthere, it might be apt to give him the notion I was livin\u2019 in a\npoorish sort of way\u2014for the dear knows what quare big barracks of\nplaces he\u2019s maybe used to at home\u2014and I\u2019m no ways wishful he\u2019d bring\nback any such a story wid him to his father, after the talk he had\nout of him about the workhouse and the beggin\u2019.\n\n\u201cAnd another thing is, Hugh\u2019d say \u2019twas next door to it, me sellin\u2019\nthem hap\u2019orths of sweets outside there; he would, sure enough, for\nnone of me family done the like ever. Och, I\u2019d a dale liefer he\u2019d ha\u2019\nsted away; but I can\u2019t put him off of comin\u2019. And I was thinkin\u2019\u2014I\nwas thinkin\u2019, sir....\u201d But Mrs Daly\u2019s further thoughts could not be\nput into words without much stumbling and hesitation. \u201cWhat I was\nthinkin\u2019 was, that if be any chance you were out paintin\u2019 the way\nyou do mostly be, sir, after dinner-time to-morra, you\u2019d be willin\u2019,\nmaybe, to let me bring me nephew in here just for the couple of hours\nhe has to stop\u2014comin\u2019 on the half-past two train he is, and lavin\u2019 on\nthe five\u2014and loan me the fire to make him a cup of me own tay. For\nthen, sir, you see, he could niver say a word to anybody except that\nI was livin\u2019 rael dacint and comfortable\u2014ay, bedad, it is so,\u201d she\nsaid, glancing wistfully round the ruddily-lighted room. \u201cBut it\u2019s a\nterrible dale to be axin\u2019 you; and very belike \u2019twill be a pourin\u2019\nwet day, and you not stirrin\u2019 out,\u201d she added, looking behind her as\nif she had several minds to vanish away through the dim rain without\nwaiting for an answer.\n\nI lost no time in cordially assenting to her plan, and the sympathy\ninspired by a sincere commiseration for her dilemma, caught as she\nwas between two scathing fires of pride, enabled me, I believe, to\nconvince her that I really expected to derive some benefit from the\nproposed arrangement, as I pointed out how, only for her presence\nthere, the house would be left empty all the afternoon, a probable\nprey to passing tramps. I mentioned also that, if I happened to\nappear upon the scene, it might be in the character of her lodger.\nThese suggestions seemed to relieve her mind. But as she was turning\nto go, a difficulty occurred to me.\n\n\u201cHow will your nephew find his way here, Mrs Daly?\u201d I said. \u201cIf he\nasks it, you know, they\u2019ll direct him to the wrong place.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, sir,\u201d she said, \u201cI was intindin\u2019 to step over wid meself and\nmeet him at the Newtownbailey station. I\u2019ll get him aisy enough, for\nthere does mostly be no such great throng on the platforrm\u201d\u2014(arrivals\ngenerally averaged about three)\u2014\u201cthat I\u2019d have much throuble sortin\u2019\nhim out. And then I could bring him along back wid me as handy as\nanythin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a long walk for you, though,\u201d said I, for Newtownbailey is a\ngood two miles from Carrickcrum, and a mile was a mile indeed, at the\nlittle old woman\u2019s \u201cgait o\u2019 goin\u2019.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure I\u2019m well used to it,\u201d said she, \u201cI do be thravellin\u2019 it these\ntimes every Saturday after me few sugar-sticks. At Gaffney\u2019s here\nI was gettin\u2019 them for a great while, but ever since I set up the\nSentrall Imporum, they\u2019re chargin\u2019 me fi\u2019pince a dozen, and that I\ncouldn\u2019t afford. Ould Gaffney himself he sez to me the laste they\ncould do was to be puttin\u2019 on a pinny to the price, now that I\u2019d took\nto keep such a grand place. But fourpince is all I have to pay at\nNewtownbailey.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was a spiteful trick,\u201d I said. And a reply came from without,\nas the speaker departed over the slippery, wet flags:\n\n\u201cWhat can you get from a hog but a grunt?\u201d said Mrs Daly.\n\nThe morrow was not wet, as she had foreboded, but rather sultry and\nshowery. In the morning, with the help of my friend the Doctor\u2019s\nwife, I made some preparations for my coming guest. Part of these\nconsisted in hanging up on my wall-hooks sundry warm woollen skirts\nand bodices, and a fine lilac-ribboned cap, with respect to which I\ncherished designs. Also I spread a table with the materials for a\ntea, comprising a richly-speckled barn-brack, and a seed-cake pinkly\nfrosted.\n\nI meant to go a-sketching for the day, but had not yet started\nwhen, about noon, I saw Mrs Daly toiling up to the door laden with\na large basket\u2014come, no doubt, to make final arrangements, before\nproceeding to fetch her nephew from the station. I was in the little\nroom adjoining the kitchen, and, as the door stood slightly ajar, I\ncould watch her unpack her basket. Evidently she had determined to\ntrespass upon my hospitality only to the extent of house-room, for\nshe produced several sods of turf, besides cups, saucers, and teapot\n(which held a drop of milk), paper wisps of tea and sugar, and half\na loaf of bread. These being set on the table, I saw her, to my\nmortification, remove from it the cakes and other eatables, and stow\nthem away carefully out of sight in a press. I noticed, too, that she\nlaid on the shelf along with them a pair of her knitted socks, which,\nI conjectured\u2014rightly, as I afterwards learned\u2014were a present to me\nand a peace-offering to her pride. I blamed myself for not having\nforeseen this preliminary visit, and deferred my preparations until a\ntime when she would have no opportunity to cancel them. And at first\nI thought of lingering behind, and re-arranging the tea-table when\nshe had gone; but upon reflection it seemed more forbearing to leave\nher to her own devices; so I slipped away unobserved.\n\nThe picture of the Sentrall Imporeom still lacked a few finishing\ntouches, which I had, fortunately, resolved to give it in the course\nof that day; and I was at work down there towards three o\u2019clock,\nwhen Mrs Daly drove by on a car, sitting beside a well-dressed,\nmiddle-aged man. She wore her fine Sunday shawl, whose ample folds of\ncream and fawn colour could charitably cover many defects in a body\u2019s\ntoilette, and she held up her head with an air of resolute dignity,\nwhich grew almost defiant at sight of her residence and business\npremises. She gave me a stately nod as she passed, turning then to\nher companion with some remark which was, I fancied, explanatory\nand apologetic. I watched them round the corner, regretting that\nthey were on their way to such frugal fare, and hoping that the\nentertainment might go off satisfactorily, despite Mrs Daly\u2019s refusal\nof my contributions to its success.\n\nThe afternoon slid by rapidly on the rollers of my work, which was\ninterrupted by the occurrence of more than one sharp thundery shower.\nI was still struggling to catch the effect of a sunbeam blinking\nTurneresquely on a little pile of shrivelled oranges, and snatched\naway capriciously by shifting clouds, when the car re-appeared,\ntrotting back very fast with the same load as before.\n\n\u201cSure, me nephew,\u201d Mrs Daly told me afterwards, \u201cfound himself so\ncomfortable up above there, and was in such an admiration of the\ngrand little room, that he sted talkin\u2019 of all manner till he\u2019d left\nhimself scarce betther than a short quarther of an hour to git his\nthrain, so he bid the man dhrive for every cent he was worth. He\u2019s\na queer, outlandish way of spakin\u2019. And I sez to him I had some\nshoppin\u2019 to do in the village, so he was givin\u2019 me a lift.\u201d\n\nJust as the car passed between my easel and the beech, a fierce\nflicker of lightning quivered through the boughs, causing the horse\nto shy with a wide-sweeping swerve, which brought the car-wheel full\ntilt against the rickety table, whose flimsy boards fell asunder,\nstrewing their burdens around, while the sudden jerk flung the old\nwoman on the road.\n\nFor a moment I feared some damage more tragical than that sustained\nby the ruined stall; but Mrs Daly picked herself up with great\npromptitude, and without any apparent injury. Her presence of mind\nwas evidently unscathed, for she at once remarked, calmly surveying\nthe wreck\u2014\n\n\u201cBedad, now, that\u2019ll be a loss to whatever poor body owns it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI expect it will, indeed,\u201d said her nephew, who looked much more\nperturbed than she. \u201cIt\u2019s considerable of a smash, anyway. But look\nhere, Aunt Anne, perhaps you\u2019d have no objection to taking charge of\nthe dollars to make all square? Because, if you\u2019re really none the\nworse for your fall, I must be making tracks for the dep\u00f4t, or I\u2019ll\nnot get on the cars this evening at all; and I wouldn\u2019t miss them for\na long figure, and that\u2019s a fact.\u201d\n\nHe was pulling out a bank-note, but his aunt waved it away superbly.\n\n\u201cAh, no, lad; not be any manner of manes,\u201d she said. \u201cSure, what\nmatter about it? They were on\u2019y a thrash of ould sticks.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeak for yourself, Mrs Daly,\u201d I said. \u201cThe person they belong to\nwouldn\u2019t thank you.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s so, sir,\u201d said the stranger, who was obviously divided\nbetween anxiety to do justice and to avoid delay. \u201cI wonder now would\n_you_ have the goodness to pass this on to the proper party?\u201d\n\nI assented to the proposal with an alacrity which, had it not been\nfor his own hurry, might have struck him as suspicious; whereupon he\nhanded me the note, and drove away. He had placed, I was gratified to\nlearn, ten pounds\u2019 worth of confidence in me at first sight.\n\nLong and elaborate, however, were the arguments which I had to use\nbefore Mrs Daly would permit me to execute his commission. They\nwere tedious to recapitulate, and the most effective of them was\nprobably the least logical\u2014that, namely, which urged the exultation\nto be presumed in the mean Gaffneys at her unretrieved disaster.\nHer scruples yielded to a judicious insistence upon this, and she\nsuffered the making of her fortune. For her acquisition of ten pounds\nwas nothing less than that, as will be readily understood by anyone\nwho has tried to live, for any length of time, on the profits arising\nfrom the sale of a dozen half-penny sugar-sticks. It enabled her to\nrent a much superior dwelling with a window, and to invest in quite\na large assortment of miscellaneous goods for exhibition behind the\npanes, besides adding to her stock of \u201cchuckens\u201d; and, according to\nlatest reports, she was doing grandly. But the Sentrall Imporeom no\nlonger exists. A few days after the accident, the gaudy blue-and-red\nboard was found to have been removed from the beech-trunk\u2014a deed\nwith which the parodied Gaffneys were credited, and at which Mrs\nDaly felt rather aggrieved, as she had wished to set it over her new\ndoor, having given up the hardships of an open-air stall. However,\nshe has plenty of things to pride herself on these times. And, as she\nmoralised: \u201cIt\u2019s the quare low-lived tricks people does be at by way\nof settin\u2019 themselves up.\u201d\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n  TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\n  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,\n  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.\n\n  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the\n  text, inconsistent or archaic usage, and dialect have been left\n  unchanged.\n\n  Pg 27: \u2018little intercouse\u2019 replaced by \u2018little intercourse\u2019.\n  Pg 49: \u2018incident befel\u2019 replaced by \u2018incident befell\u2019.\n  Pg 72: \u2018spinister aunts\u2019 replaced by \u2018spinster aunts\u2019.\n  Pg 110: \u2018at the the three\u2019 replaced by \u2018at the three\u2019.\n  Pg 114: \u2018up their by\u2019 replaced by \u2018up there by\u2019.\n  Pg 129: \u2018rest of the the\u2019 replaced by \u2018rest of the\u2019.\n  Pg 240: \u2018she produeed\u2019 replaced by \u2018she produced\u2019.\n  Pg 287: \u2018negligable threats\u2019 replaced by \u2018negligible threats\u2019.","title":"A creel of Irish stories","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":60928}