Part 8

“Ah now, don’t say so, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said insinuatingly. “That’s an iligant little pattron you have been doin’, oncommon tasty. We have some thread-lace edgin’ at our place that I declare isn’t a ha’porth better, and it comes to as much as thruppence a yard.” He intended the highest compliment, but did only plunge himself the deeper into the depths of her disfavour by thus evening her delicate point to his coarse, machine-made wares. She chose, however, for the time being, to dissemble her wrath against him, because she was angrier with Brian Mahony for his persistence in evidently ignoring her flirtation, and keeping up an unconcerned chatter addressed to the children. So she accepted Stevie’s offer to join the broken thread for her, and was coquettishly derisive of his clumsy-fingered failures, with much tittering and ostentatious enjoyment of the situation; and, in like manner, Brian worked away at the ragged-rimmed creel, and only desisted occasionally to scuffle sportively with Jimmy or Biddy for the possession of a long supple osier. Nobody could suppose him to care a thraneen what Sarah and the chap from Grogan’s found so amusing. He had something else to do than to be botherin’ his head about them.

Meanwhile the master of the house was performing his part—a sad one—in the small drama. He lifted a brown earthenware teapot out of its niche in the mud wall projecting beside the hearth. Its removal discovered the opening of another recess, whence he drew a rough deal box with a broken lid. In this the Farrells apparently stored miscellaneous valuables, for it contained a little roll of bank-notes, a grey flannel bag with silver in it, an old prayer-book that had belonged to Mrs Farrell, some spools of cotton, and so forth. Dan slowly peeled off one of the begrimed Munster notes, and, pre-occupied with regretful calculations, he forgot the shillings which were due, and restored box and teapot to their places. Then he laid down the note on the window-seat, spread out the bluish bill beside it, and stood smoothing both bits of paper with the palm of his hand.

“There’s that,” he said.

“Sure, I’ll be signin’ the resate,” said Stevie, jumping up with alacrity, and producing his shiny black pocket-book and red chalk pencil. But he came to a pause as he noticed the absence of the silver. He looked interrogatively at Dan. The man’s careworn, broken-down aspect, his lined face and tattered garments gave his creditor a conscience-stricken twinge, and for an instant suggested the possibility of renouncing that toll. Stevie, however, quickly ascertained that this was too much to expect from himself; the sum would come in just then too handily to be forgone, and he compromised the matter by resolving to see that the Farrells were let off easily in their next account. Future generosity is always easier than present justice, especially when the postponed virtue can be practised at somebody else’s expense. So—

“There was thim five shillin’s comin’ to us,” said Stevie, continuing to look at Dan.

“Och, murder, tubbe sure there was. It’s meself’s the gaby,” said Dan disconcertedly; and he went towards the niche to rectify his blunder, but he was interrupted by his niece.

“Sure I’ll fetch it out, Uncle Dan,” she said. “It’s throublesome for you to be stoopin’. Mr Grogan can be puttin’ his name on the account.”

She fumbled for a few moments in the box, and came over to the window with a large silver coin in her hand. It was a crown-piece, which, although it bore the stamp of the fourth George, still retained its sturdy thickness and bold outlines unimpaired, as if it had changed owners slowly. Around this she was wrapping a bit of crumpled, thin paper, perceiving which her uncle said—

“Sure, girl alive, I’ve got the note here right enough.”

“But it’s my belief ’twas the dirtiest one you had that you sorted out,” replied Sarah promptly. “Now _I_’ve found him a dacint clane one; and I’m sure you’d a dale liefer be takin’ it wid you, Mr Grogan?”

“’Deed you may depind upon that, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said, with an elated smirk; “and hard-set I’ll be to part wid it, when I consider how you put yourself about to be pickin’ and choosin’ for me.”

Here Brian Mahony abruptly threw down his creel and flung out of the house, with a scowl which did not escape Sarah’s observation. It did not please her, somehow, any better than his previous air of unconcern, whence we may infer that her mood was capricious and contrary. Stevie Grogan, at any rate, presently had reason to think it so, and a flatness and tartness came over the conversation, not inviting him to prolong his visit. After three snubs—

“The day’s darkenin’ again,” he said, “and I’ll be getting along afore there’s another plump of rain.” He took leave of Dan, who was reflecting sorrowfully how much poorer a man the last half-hour had made him, and went to the door, accompanied by Sarah. “Bedad!” he said, glancing around, “I think the sthrame looks to have quieted itself a goodish bit. I might be steppin’ across them stones, it saves better than a mile when you get into the bog over yonder.”

It is possible that Stevie was determined to adopt this course less by the aspect of the river than by a glimpse which he at that moment had had of Brian lounging moodily upon the bridge where he must otherwise pass. But if that were the case, his plan failed of its purpose. For as he walked through the tangled oats followed by Sarah, who had bethought her of a message to give him for her mother, Brian espied them, and immediately descended from the bridge and made for the ford along the river’s bank. He could not resist the spell which drew him to every opportunity of tormenting himself by witnessing what his jealous mind regarded as Sarah’s marked preference for young Grogan, and he sped so recklessly, stumbling and tripping over wisps of weeds and grass, that he reached the stepping-stones just as the others did.

On this occasion, however, his feelings were not to be harrowed by the display of much sentiment or facetiousness at leave-taking, as it was drowned in a sudden burst of rain, which made Sarah pull her fringed shawl into deep eaves over her face, and gasp out with ducked head—

“Och, mercy on us, here’s polthogues—I must run for me life, and you’d best step out, Stevie Grogan, or you’ll be bogged entirely before you get home.”

Thus exhorted, Stevie began hurriedly to stride from stone to stone. In one hand he held the shiny pocket-book, and with the other he clutched the brim of his black felt hat, which a rising gust momentarily threatened to whisk away. He was nearly half over, when the wind came swooping past in a furious flurry, and at the same time a thicker coil of the brown river-water broke on the stones, making one on which he had just set his foot wobble violently. The consequence was that he stumbled badly, only keeping his balance by a headlong plunge forward with outspread arms; and not till he had floundered on to the opposite bank did he perceive that his hat and book were both missing. His hat, after a high-whirled flight, lit on the rapid stream, and went skimming down it without let or hindrance, while his more precious book described a parabolic curve in the air, and dropped into the water near the place where Brian and Sarah stood. For a moment it lay on the surface, and Brian, leaning over at a dangerous angle, tried to reach it with his long osier rod. Upon which Sarah, gripping him by the arm, pulled him back with all her might, saying in an agonised tone:

“Och, goodness gracious, man, get out of that, and let it be!” But even as she spoke, the black cover, weighed down, no doubt, by the filched crown-piece, sunk out of sight and was no more seen. A few seconds later, however, the rough brown eddies a little lower down became strewn with small flecks whiter than the creamy foam. Evidently the strings and covers had collapsed, and let their frail contents go to wrack.

“Sure it’s every bit of it flitthered into laves,” said Sarah, releasing Brian’s arm; “niver sight nor light of it he’ll get the chance to lay eyes on agin, note or no note.” The tone in which she announced this fact was both relieved and triumphant. As for the owner of that perishing property, he stood on the opposite bank, bareheaded in the pelting rain, discontented and woe-begone, an object to move pity. But Sarah added: “And the divil’s cure to him, the thievin’ slieveen. We’ve got the resate off him all right any way.”

Brian, on the contrary, now took off his own limp cloth cap, crumpled it round a great shingle stone for ballast, and flung it across to Stevie.

“Clap that on your head, and be leggin’ it home wid you, if you’ll take my advice,” he shouted against the wind; “you’ll get nothin’, unless it’s your death of could, standin’ there in the rain. Belike we might be some odd chance get the five shillin’ piece at the bottom, when the river goes down, but them bits of papers is past prayin’ for intirely.” This seemed obvious even to the unwillingly convinced Stevie, and he started dolefully through the driving rain, half-blinded by it and the descending peak of Brian’s too roomy cap. The others raced home under much less trying circumstances, and were speedily sheltered beneath Dan Farrell’s thatch.

Sarah took her strip of lace-work, and sat down with it in the brighter patch by the window. She was filling in the centre of a fantastic blossom with a pattern which seemed to have been suggested by the dewy web of some long-legged spinner hitched from blade point to point. Brian Mahony fetched his creel and osiers out of the corner, and stood opposite to her, busy with his coarse weaving. Now and then he looked at her complacently as she stooped over her fine stitches, and for some time neither of them spoke. At last Brian said—

“That was a fine fright I’m after giving you down there, Sarah. You have the sleeve nearly rieved out of my ould coat. Was it dhrowndin’ meself you thought I’d be that you took such a hould of me?”

“Dhrowndin’ himself? Frightenin’ me? Musha good gracious, what talk has the man out of him at all?” Sarah said with shrill ejaculation. “Bedad, if that was all that ailed the likes of you, I’d ha’ had somethin’ better to be at than throublin’ myself to interfere wid you. But afeared I was that you’d be hookin’ that chap’s ould book ashore on us; thryin’ your best you were to do that fool’s thrick.”

“And what for wouldn’t I be saving it if I could?” said Brian, partly consoled for the unflattering explanation of his solicitude by the animosity of her tone when she mentioned that chap; “sure, onst the money was ped away, you were nothin’ the betther for it goin’ to loss.”

“That’s all you know about it,” said Sarah, with mysterious glee. She glanced round to see whether her uncle by the hearth were listening, and as he appeared to be half-asleep, she went on in a lower tone: “Why, look here, Brian—sure that grand clane pound-note I let on to be sortin’ out for him, ne’er a note it was at all, but just an ould bit of the silver-paper pattron I had workin’ me lace from; when it’s crumpled up and creased like, it looks the very moral of one, and the great gomeral stuck it into his book widout takin’ the throuble of unfoldin’ it, be good luck.”

“And what at all did you do that for?” asked Brian after a puzzled pause.

“What for?” said Sarah, “sure in the first beginnin’ of it ’twas just to be risin’ a laugh on him; that was all the notion I had. It come in me head when I was lookin’ for the shillin’s, and seen the thin paper there. But afterwards, when he tuk and put it up widout mindin’, thinks I to myself, I’ll ha’ given him a good long thramp over it anyway; it’s back he’ll be thrapesin’ to-morra or next day to get the right one, in a fine fantigue. But now when he’s slung the whole affair into the wather, so as nobody’ll be the wiser what was in th’ ould pocket-book and what wasn’t, that’s the greatest chance could ha’ happened, and we wid the resate signed and all, the way he can’t say a word agin us. It’s as good as a pound saved to me uncle, poor man, that’s annoyed enough wid his bit of harvest ruinated and everythin’. And you doin’ your endeavours to destroy it all wid fishin’ the book out; small blame to me if I’d pulled the fool’s arm off of you, let alone your ould sleeve.”

“It was no thing to go do,” said Brian gruffly, “to be playin’ them sort of thricks.”

“Sorra the ha’porth of harm was there in it,” Sarah replied airily; “and considerin’ that whatever he got’s swallied up in the river, ’twould ha’ been a cruel pity if we’d gave him anythin’ betther.”

“You’d a right to be sendin’ him the rael note now,” said Brian with decision.

“Saints above! Whethen now, I hope you’ll get your health until I do,” said Sarah, with a shrillness subdued by her uncle’s proximity. “That’d be a nice piece of foolery. Why, you sthookawn, the young slieveen’s no worse off this minute than he would ha’ been if I was after givin’ him a five-pound note to drop out of his hand.”

“You got the resate off of him for nothin’ at all,” said Brian; “he’s never been ped. And the river makes no differ. How would it, when he hadn’t anythin’ of yours to lose in it?”

“That’s just what I’m sayin’. It makes no odds to him; he’d ha’ lost it whether or no. And for the matther of that, he’s been ped times and again for anythin’ Uncle Dan ever got from them, poor man; for them Grogans are notorious thieves, as everybody well knows. Me sister was tellin’ us the other day, they charge three shillin’s a pound for tay that’s on’y eighteen-pence in Dublin. It’s a charity to let them have a taste of chatin’ for themselves. Not that we’re chatin’ them at all at all, it so happens.”

Brian listened quite unimpressed, having no turn for casuistry. He now condescended, however, to urge an objection based upon the expedient.

“And what’ll your uncle say to it, when he finds he’s got a pound too much?”

“I was thinkin’ of that,” said Sarah, nowise disconcerted. “Belike I could persuade him he miscounted them at the fair. But I dare say ’twould be better if I just slipt one off the roll, and kep’ it to get odds and ends of things wid for him, accordin’ as they would be wanted, and never let on about it. Och, no fear, but I’ll conthrive one way or the other.”

“Ay, bedad; it seems to me that you’re great at conthrivin’ and schemin’,” said Brian bitterly. “I’ve as good a mind as ever I had in me life to tell him the whole affair.”

“And if you offer to do such a thing on me, you ould clashbag, you!” Sarah said in a furious whisper, “sorra a word I’ll spake to you agin as long as I live in the world.”

“Faix, then, perhaps I won’t be throublin’ meself to ax you in a hurry,” retorted Brian, “when the on’y talk people has out of them is tellin’ lies and makin’ fools of everybody. My notion is, the fewer words they spake to you, the luckier you’ll be.”

“Plase yourself, and you’ll plase me,” said Sarah, with an assumption of calm indifference, which would have been more successfully achieved if she had not flushed to the scarlet of a frost-nipt brier leaf, besides adding inconsistently, “I’d liefer hear the pigs gruntin’ in the ould stye than to be listenin’ to some people gabbin’ and blatherin’.”

“And plenty good enough company they are, too, poor bastes, for the likes of some I could name—and long sorry I’d be to stop anywheres I wasn’t wanted, wastin’ me time mendin’ things, and gettin’ imperance for it—and one while it’ll be afore you’ll have raison to complain of me disturbin’ you,” said Brian, whose wrath had flared up even more ruddily than hers. And thereupon he bolted away into the rain, without waiting to borrow the loan of Dan’s hat. At which Sarah through all her huff, stood somewhat aghast, knowing that for a man to go out of doors bareheaded argues no ordinary perturbation of spirit.

After this there were many more wet days, and a few golden fine ones, and the harvest was got in one way or the other, and the winter came, and Sarah Tighe went home to live with her family at Athcrum, and finished her fine lace border. But she and Brian did not meet again. At last, one bright, frosty morning, not long before Christmas, they ran against each other coming round the corner of the row in which the little post-office stands. Sarah was so startled that for a moment or two she halted, irresolute, ere she recollected that it behoved her to flounce past him with up-tilted chin. She was just proceeding to do so, when he twitched her shawl, and said, in an expostulatory tone—

“Och now, Sarah, is it cross wid me ye’re goin’ to be all this time?”

“It isn’t me that’s cross wid anybody at all,” said Sarah, subsiding lamentably from her dignified attitude.

“Sure then,” said Brian, “I was on’y wantin’ to tell you what I’ve done about that pound-note was owin’ to the Grogans. Sooner than that you’d have anythin’—anythin’ quare-like on your conscience, I’ve saved up, and sent it to th’ ould miscreant in a letter. So it can’t come agin you now anyway. I’m just after postin’ it this minute.”

“Och, murdher! and are you so?” said Sarah, with an accent of the keenest regret. “And weren’t you the gomeral to not tell me that last week?”

“And I on’y droppin’ it in the letter-box this instiant of time?” said Brian. “But at all events, what differ’d that have made?”

“Differ enough,” said Sarah ruefully. “You see, the fact of the matter was, when I come to considher, I didn’t know but the ould naygur Grogan had a right to that pound-note after all; so last week, when I sold me flounce of deep lace for thirty shillin’s, I got an order, and put it in a cover, and sent it to ould Natty himself. I wasn’t goin’ to let that young thief of the world, Stevie, be layin’ one of his greasy fingers on it, anyhow; and even so I thought badly enough of postin’ it away. For now the winter’s comin’ on us, there was a dale of things I’d liefer ha’ done wid it.”

“Begorra, that’s the very same way it was wid me just now,” said Brian.

“Maybe the post-mistress’d give it back to you, if you thried,” suggested Sarah. “She couldn’t hardly ha’ done anythin’ wid the letters yet.”

“Sorra a thry I’ll thry,” said Brian, with decision. “Sure I wasn’t manin’ to say that I begrudged it e’er a bit, Sally, when it was settin’ things straight for you, acushla.”

“Ah, but to think of payin’ them twyste over—that’s what distresses me,” said Sarah, who did not, however, look inconsolable. “’Deed, now, we managed it finely, Brian; I’m afeard that you and I are a great pair of fools.”

But Brian replied with complacent promptitude, “True for you, then, Sally, machree; that’s just the way it is. Fools we are, very belike, and a pair we are for sartin. Och now, honey, be aisy; sure ’twas yourself said it. And maybe we’ll do all as well as if we’d had more wit. It’s continted I am, anyway. Ay, bedad, a pair of fools—but them Grogans are welcome to their couple of pounds.”

M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP

M‘NEILLS’ TIGER-SHEEP

The feud between the Timothy O’Farrells and Neil M‘Neills at Meenaclure was not of very long standing, for the dowager Mrs O’Farrell and the elder Mrs M‘Neill, who had been by no means young when it began, were still to the fore, and not yet even considered to have attained “a great ould age intirely.” This seems a mere mushroom-growth compared with some of our family quarrels, which have been handed down from father to son through so many generations that everybody regards them as a part of the established order of things in the world of their parish. Still, to the younger people, who had been but children at its birth, it seemed to have lasted a long while, and their juniors would have found a different state of affairs almost unthinkable. For them the origin of the enmity had already begun to loom dimly through a mist of tradition, which would tend as time went on to grow vaguer and falser, until at length nobody would be left who could give a clear account of what it was all about. So far, however, all the neighbours who were “any age to speak of” knew the rights of the case well enough. And this is what had happened.

It was a cloudless midsummer evening, perhaps twenty years back—nobody is over-particular about chronology at Meenaclure—and all the dogs and children were away out on the wild land towards the mountains, minding the sheep, to keep them from coming home and eating up the crops. From April to October that was every year their occupation, and a very engrossing one they found it. For the scraggy little sheep of the district are endowed with an appetite for green food worthy of any locust, added to a cleverness at taking fences that would discredit no hunter; and this makes them a constant peril to the painfully-tilled fields, whose produce they threaten like a sort of visibly-embodied blight. Luckily, it is one whose ravages can be averted by timely precautions; and therefore, as soon as potatoes are _kibbed_, and oats sown, the sheep are driven off to a discreet distance on the moors, whence they are prevented from returning by a strong cordon of wary mongrels and active spalpeens. The children of such places as Meenaclure find the sunnier half of the year a season of perpetual school-vacation, when the longest days are watched out to their last lingering glimmer among the tussocks and boulders, so that the morning seems to have begun ages and ages ago by the time one straggles home, three-parts asleep on one’s feet, the flocks having already betaken themselves to completer repose, or, recognising the unattainability of young green oats, having set their nibbling mouths safely up the swarded hill-slopes. For that night the fields may lie secure from marauding trespassers.