Part 2

'Ahl ov us is young wanst in our lives,' replied Patsey sententiously, 'and he was a terrible han'some man. He was not from these parts, a packman from down Longford way: an' Masther Johnnie, what's home from school--'

'College,' corrected Hannah, but nobody paid any heed to her.

'--he has a power ov book-larnin', and he did be sayin' to me the other day that Sweeny come ov Spanish blood that they have in them down yonder from the times the Armady was wrecked on the shores of Longford--'

'Sorra but Longford isn't near the say,' interrupted Hannah, 'troth I larnt that meself in the National School--'

'Ah, will ye hould yer whisht, Hannah Gallagher, ye long-tongued divil ye,' cried Mrs. Mac. 'Ye're too cliver be half wid yer jography, so yous are.'

Hannah subsided, and Patsey continued, serenely impervious to criticism.

'Anyways she married him, and she only regretted it wanst, and that was ivery day ov her life afther. He was killed in a fight at a fair over a gurl, and that was the ind ov him, pace to his ashes.'

'Ye wudn't think oul' Peggy was that soort now,' persisted Mac; 'she lukes as could as yon hearthstone,' pointing as he spoke to the heap of gray ashes that had lately been a fire.

But one of the young men leant upon the handle of the bellows, and in a moment they leapt into a fierce white flame.

'Ay,' said Patsey, pointing the stem of his clay at the quickly-blackening cinders, 'yon's a betther answer nor any I cud give in a month ov Sundays.'

The following morning the rumor ran through the whole townland like fire through flax that Bella had returned with her mother unaccompanied by Terry, and unmarried.

Many were the conjectures that evening at the forge as to the meaning of this new move. Terry had been sounded on the subject, and told all he knew. He went with Bella to Enniskillen, and gave notice to the priest. Then they were overtaken by old Peggy, who spoke to her daughter privately for a few minutes. Bella came out from the conversation and said she had changed her mind and would not marry him after all. He raved and stormed, but all to no purpose: Bella was indifferent and her mother sphinx-like, he could get nothing further out of either, and he could not marry the girl in spite of herself. She went away and slept with her mother that night, and returned home by the first train in the morning. He could no nothing but follow her by the second.--Those were the facts, but as to the explanation of them he was entirely at a loss.

While they were still discussing this strange story, Terry himself passed the forge, switching moodily with his ash-plant at the 'boughaleen bwees,' the yellow rag-weed, that fringed the roadside.

When he came opposite the group at the doorway his cousin Owen called out to him jeeringly, 'Well, Terry, so yous are home again wid wan han' as long as the other. Didn't oul' Peggy think yous good enough for her dahter?'

Terry halted and looked up at them with a mild, wistful expression in his oxlike eyes, the look of a wounded animal, and said simply, 'Shure I'm not good enough for her.'

Somehow the laugh that had begun died away immediately, and Owen withdrew behind his companions, and began to light his pipe in a dark corner of the forge. His pipe was already alight. But Terry went upon his way pondering these, the first rough words of outside criticism that had fallen upon his ears. His mind was slow to move, and needed a jog from another hand to start it: but once stirred it moved deeply, and entertaining few ideas it was all the more tenacious of those which did manage to effect an entrance. His fancy for Bella, at first a young man's liking for a maid, had been fanned by opposition till now it had become a slow fire consuming his marrow. He thought of her all day, and in the night he lay awake biting his pillows, to prevent himself crying aloud for very loneliness of spirit. Bella remained at home with her mother, and he never saw her now, but her picture was too indelibly printed on his imagination for propinquity to add to her charms: absence but idealized them. He went about his work brooding eternally over his loss, and for the first time no one ventured to intrude upon his solitude. They laughed at him behind his back for a soft who had been jilted at the altar: but he had acquired a fresh dignity, which saved him from open ridicule or unsolicited advances. In those days when his trouble lay heavy upon him he shunned human creatures and found companionship only in the society of his horses. Their large calm soothed his fevered nerves. They grew to know his step, and whinnied when they heard him coming: and they would caress him with their tender muzzles as he rubbed them down with the soft hissing noise that they loved. For in sorrow animals are our most comforting companions: they are so silent and placid and self-contained, 'not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.'

But at the end of six months a fresh shock convulsed the neighborhood. As on the first occasion it was Hannah that brought the news to the forge, but this time it was the morning, and there was nobody there but the blacksmith and his wife.

'Have ye heerd tell what's come to oul' Peggy's Bella,' she asked, standing breathlessly in the doorway, and added without waiting for a reply, 'she had a child last night.'

'You don't tell me,' cried Mrs. Mac in amazement.

'They had the oul' wumman from the Poorhouse there ahl night, an' I just seen the dishpensary docther lave the dure this minute wid me own two eyes.'

'An' her such a soft-spoken crathur,' continued Mrs. Mac; 'ye'd think that butther wudn't melt in her mouth, but it's ahlways them soort that goes wrong.'

Swiftly the news spread, and by half-past twelve at dinnertime all the workers in the fields about had left their haymaking, for it was harvest-time once more, to gather at this central spot and discuss the situation.

At first everybody was incredulous: such an event was almost unheard of in a community where chastity was a tradition, and insufficient nutriment kept the blood thin and the passions cold. But soon the testimony of a neighbor who had been called in put the question of fact beyond doubt.

'What did I tell ye about Andy Sweeny's dahter?' said old Patsey, taking credit for his hall-prophecy in the fuller light of after events.

'Ay, ay, deed so,' murmured the group in chorus.

Then curiosity centred itself on the point of who was the father of the child.

'It cudn't be Terry Gallagher, now,' said Mrs. Mac judicially, 'troth I'll be boun' he knew nahthin' about it, the crathur.'

'Ah, him is it?' said Owen contemptuously, 'he's too great a fule.'

'He's had a lucky escape anyways,' continued Mrs. Mac meditatively, 'I wunner now why she didn't marry him when she had the chanst, an' no wan wud ha' been a hate the wiser. Oul' Peggy'll be quare an' mad that she stopped the weddin'.'

'I cud make a boul' guess then,' broke in Hannah, who had been waiting for an opening. 'I'll houl' ye I know who owns it, an' more shame for her to lave her own wans for them as doesn't want her now that she's in trouble. I'm thinkin' it's some of the quality has a finger in it.'

'Betther kape a still tongue in yer head about the quality,' interrupted the blacksmith hastily, 'laste said's soonest mended.'

'Here's himself,' interjected one of the group by the door warningly, as Terry came into sight, climbing the hill towards them. As he drew near it could be seen that his steps were hurried and uneven, and his face as white as chalk.

He came straight up to them, and asked in a tense whisper, 'Is it thrue?' looking from one to the other.

They all avoided his eye and looked uneasily away, except Owen, in whose breast the memory of his self-humiliation of six months ago still rankled. He stepped a pace forward, and answered,--

'Aye, it sames you was good enough for her afther ahl.'

His cousin looked at him with a lack-lustre eye, as though he did not take in the meaning of the words, and, encouraged by his quiescence, Owen continued in a more pronounced tone,--

'More like it was her that wasn't good enough for yous.'

For a moment Terry stood rooted to the spot, while the blood surged upwards and veiled his eyesight with a mist, then he crouched and sprang headlong at his adversary's throat with an inarticulate snarl like a wild beast.

Owen was borne backwards by the impetus of his weight, and fell striking his head against the spike of the anvil: and Terry was torn from him by two of the men, his eyes staring and his limbs trembling with rage. When they released their hold of him, his sinews, all unstrung by the violence of his passion, gave way beneath him and he collapsed in a heap upon the floor. For a moment he sat there: then he rose to his knees, and thence to his feet, and staggered out of the door and down the road, reeling to and fro in the sunlight like a drunken man.

'Who'd ha' thought it?' said Patsey, looking after him: 'It's wunnerful what stuff a taste of the gurls does be makin' into a man. Yon wan was a suckin' calf a while ago, and now he's a young bull.'

'May the divil roast him,' exclaimed Owen, scrambling to his feet, and looking regretfully at the pool of his own blood upon the floor. 'He has me disthroyed, but I'll be even wid him yit.'

When his momentary rage had died down a great tumult was left in Terry's mind. The scene which he had just passed through had brought sharply home to him the attitude that the neighbors would take towards Bella's transgression. He pictured her to himself defenceless before her persecutors, and longed to give her the shelter of his arm and of his name. But could he offer to marry her still, and consent to be pointed at for the remainder of his life as the husband of a wanton? for scandal dies hard in the country. On the one side was ranged the whole force of a public opinion which it had never entered into his head to question until now, and of his own inherited racial instincts, and on the other his great love for this girl. He could not put it into words, but he felt dimly within him that it was she herself that he loved, and that her outward actions did not affect her inward essence, that he knew her better than any neighbor, and was a better judge of her than blind convention. He was not strong enough yet to be himself in the face of his world, but the balance wavered ever more deeply on the side of this new self that he was discovering. That he should have an opinion of his own at all was a great advance upon anything that he could have felt a year ago. But there is no forcing-house for the growth of character like disappointed love.

At the end of a fortnight he was still wavering in mind, but he could no longer rest without seeing Bella. So he put on his holiday suit, and went down the road towards her mother's cottage; but this time he did not wear the scarlet tie. As he approached the house he realized that it had a forlorn and neglected air, as though it shared the fallen estimation of its occupants; the grass grew thickly in the front yard and upon the thatched roof, and the geraniums upon the window-sill were withered and unwatered.

He pushed open the half-door and entered unasked, as was his wont. Bella was seated in the window, working at her sprigging and rocking a small wooden cradle with her foot; at the sound of his footstep she looked up with a strained hungry light in her eye, but at the sight of him a shade of disappointment flitted across her face and she continued to look past him over his shoulder as though expecting some one else. The old woman was seated on a three-legged stool crouched over the hearth while she stirred an iron pot of stirabout with a wooden pot-stick; she did not even turn her head when he entered.

'God save all here,' said Terry, awkwardly standing in the middle of the floor. His head nearly touched the blackened beam which ran across the middle of the room and supported a half-floor, whence the mingled smell of apples and dried onions came distinctly to his nostrils. He coughed and sat down upon the edge of the nearest chair, tucking his feet well under the rail and crunching his soft felt hat nervously in his hands. The swish of the thread being drawn through the embroidery was the only sound that broke the stillness, as he watched the regular sweep of Bella's arm against the window-pane.

'What's yer wull, Terry Gallagher?' snapped old Peggy abruptly, after a time.

Terry turned his hat over several times, examined the lining very carefully, and finally replied to her question with another:

'Why didn't ye let on to me yon time, mother, and let me marry her while there was time?'

At this heathenish question old Peggy rose to her full height and pointed the pot-stick accusingly at her daughter, as she said in a tone of concentrated bitterness:

'I wudn't let a wumman like yon soil an honest man's hearth.'

Bella sat unmoved, without taking the slightest notice of the words. Her mother and Terry belonged to a world outside of her which no longer affected her by their phantom movements.

But at this embodiment of the ghostly voices which he had been fighting against so long Terry sprang to his feet. In the face of concrete opposition a blind antagonism seized him which swallowed up all hesitation, and he dared to be individual. He took a stride forward, and, throwing out one arm towards the girl, said in a loud voice as though to penetrate her understanding:

'Bella, darlin', I'll marry ye now, av ye'll have me.'

Bella looked up with a faint smile of surprise, and opened her lips to answer. At that moment a thin cry came from the cradle at her feet; at the sound, while she still looked at him, a light crept over her face which transfigured it.

Then Terry knew that he had seen for the first time the love-look on a woman's face, and it was not for him. And, boor as he was, the knowledge came home to him at that instant, that for any one to marry her save the man who had the power to raise that look upon her face would be a sacrilege.

He turned with drooped head, and stumbled out of the cabin without a word.

THE LEGEND OF BARNESMORE GAP

At the point where the range of mountains which divides the Northern from the Southern half of Donegal approaches nearest to the innermost extremity of Donegal Bay, there is a wild and rocky pass which, from a distance, shows as a saddle-shaped hollow on the skyline, giving the impression of a bite taken by the mouth of a giant clean out of the centre of the mountain.

This gorge is still, as it always has been in the past, the main artery of communication between the level and fertile plains of Tyrone and Londonderry and the tract of country south of the mountains extending as far as Lough Erne. It is called Barnesmore Gap, and the following is the legend current upon the countryside as to the origin of the name.

'I tell the tale as 'twas told to me.'

At the beginning of this century when Mr. Balfour's light railways were not thought of, and even the Finn Valley Railway as yet was not, its place was taken in the internal economy of the country by the highroad running through the Gap. Great then was the congestion of traffic and the indignation of traders far and wide, when a highwayman selected the part of this road which lay amidst the mountains for the scene of his depredations, and levied toll upon all comers.

Men of a peace-loving disposition or with time to spare diverted their course round the southern extremity of the range. And as time is the least valuable commodity in Ireland and usually the least considered, the general stream of commerce followed this direction. But there were cases where urgency or impatience led to the use of the old route, and off these the highwayman made his profit.

When this state of siege had continued for some time, a gentleman of Enniskillen of the name of O'Connor had need of a sum of two hundred pounds within a certain time. This money he had to get from Derry. But he could not trust the mail, which was regularly robbed, and it would not reach him in time by any route, but the shortest--that through the Gap. None of his servants would run the risk of a meeting with the highwayman, and he had determined to take the journey himself, when a half-witted hanger-on about the house, named Blazing Barney from the color of his hair, volunteered for the sendee.

This man was a natural or a 'bit daft,' as they call it in Scotland. But his master knew that he could be sharp enough upon occasion, and no one would dream that such a half-witted creature would be trusted with such an important commission. Altogether this was the best chance of deceiving the highwayman, so he decided to risk it.

He offered Barney the pick of his weapons and his best hunter, but the omadhawn preferred to go unarmed and mounted upon the worst looking horse in the stable, an old gray, that was blind of one eye and lame of one leg, but could still do a good day's travelling. As he shrewdly remarked:

'Fwhat 'ud I be doin' on a gran' upstandin' baste like yon; the thafe beyant wud rise till the thrick in no time.'

For Barney's silliness only came on in fits at the season of the new moon; at other times he was merely a slightly exaggerated type of that mixture of simplicity with a certain low-bred cunning in practical matters which has distinguished the countryman in all ages from the larger-minded dweller in cities. The present was a lucid interval, so he could be trusted to take care of himself.

So Barney jogged along on his way towards Derry, through Fermanagh and Donegal, without fear of any ill, and only had to ask for what he wanted in the way of food and shelter in order to get it. The simple-hearted peasantry never grudge 'bit nor sup' to the poor of their own order, and those afflicted as he was they regard as being under the special protection of heaven.

With the help of an early start, in spite of the sorriness of his nag, he managed the fifty miles between Enniskillen and the town of Donegal on the first day, and early on the second reached the Gap. It was a moist, drizzling morning, and as he rode in among the mountains a damp mist closed down upon him, almost hiding the ground beneath him from his sight. The road passed upwards along the mountain side, until it became a mere ledge jutting out from it, and forming a break in the sheer descent of the cliff; on the one hand was a precipice, from the bottom of which came the ripple of rushing waters to warn the traveller from its brink, on the other rose the steep hillside, whence he could hear above him the muffled crowing of the grouse among the heather.

Suddenly a gigantic figure outlined itself upon the mist, seeming to Barney larger than human, and he crossed himself as he rode nearer to it. But as the deceitful folds of vapor rolled away from it, the figure, resolved itself into a man on horseback standing across the roadway at its narrowest point.

'Where are ye for?' said the stranger shortly.

'It's a saft day, yer 'ahner, an' where am I for, is it? Well, I'll just tell ye, it's Derry I'm for, that same, an' mebbe ye'll infarm me if I'm on the right road.' And Barney giggled vacantly.

'What are you laughing at, fool?'

'Laffin' is it me, yer 'ahner? Troth I was only--'

'Don't stand bletherin' there,' interrupted the other angrily. 'What'll ye be doin' at Derry?'

'At Derry? He! he! he! That's just fwhat I was tould not to let an to a livin' sowl, but there can be no harrum, musha, in tellin' a fine jintleman like yersilf now, kin there now? I'm goin' to Derry for two hunner pund. That's what I'll be doin'. What do ye say to that?'

'An' who'd give you two hundred pounds, ye cod ye?'

'Two hunner pun', he! he! he! two hunner pun'..!'

'Look here, my good fellow, does this money belong to you?'

'Me is it? No for shure, it's the masther's.'

'And who's your master?'

'The masther? Troth he's just the masther, he! he! he!'

'What's his name, you idiot?'

'Oh his name, his name's Misther O'Connor of Inniskilling.'

'And has he much money?'

'Lashins.'

'An' what did the master send you for?'

'Fwhat for? Two hunner pun', he! he! he!'

'Why did he choose you to send? Don't you know that there is a highwayman on this road?'

'Ah, that's just it yer 'ahner, I'm only a fule, so the thafe of the wurruld won't suspect me, but mebbe I'll not be such a fule as he thinks me.'

'How do you know I'm not the highwayman?'

'Ah ye're makin' game yer 'ahner. A fine jintleman like yersilf on a splendacious baste, the likes of yon is it that would be a dhirty robber? I'm not such a fule as to think that.'

'Well, well, what would you do if you did meet the robber?'

'Rin like a hare, yer 'ahner.'

'That old horse of yours wouldn't, I'm thinkin'. And if ye couldn't run?'

'Well, I dunno,' and Barney scratched his head--'stan' I spose an' give him the money if he axed far it.'

'A nice cowardly thing to do with your master's property.'

'Betther be a coward nor a corp,' replied Barney pithily.

'Well, I hope you'll find Derry a good sort of place.'

'For sartin, shure. Why wudn't I? I hear tell ye can git as much cahfee there for a pinny as wud make tay for tin min.'

'Will you shake your elbow?'

'Thank ye kindly, sirr, but niver a dhrain do I take.'

'Well, the loss is yours. Here's luck!' and the stranger raised the rejected flask to his own lips.

'Will you be coming back this way?'

'I dunno.'

'What day will you be coming back, d'ye think?'

'I d'no.'

'To-morrow?'

'Aiblins.'

'Well, will ye be coming back the day after?'