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“They might, so,” agreed Peetcheen. He wondered what was making Mickey so chatty.
Then, “Why don’t you get marrit yourself?” said Heffernan, with a grin. And slow and thick as Peetcheen was, he began to guess what it was all about.
“I might do so as well as another,” he made answer; “do you think would the sisther try me?”
And to think that marrying was the last thing he had in his mind, when he began lifting the pig’s pot, just a minute or so before! But Mickey had it all laid out, and he did not care a straw who got Julia so long as she would clear out of the house and leave him free to bring in a wife.
“Ye have a house, ye tell me?” he said to Peetcheen.
“I have, so! and not a soul in it, only me mother, and she the quietest creature!”
“How much land?” asked Heffernan.
Why he said that, is hard to know! Of course he must have had some notion of the way it was with the Caffreys, he living so long in the place. Still, it was always hard to tell what Mickey knew or did not know! And he may have been trying to make out to himself that he really thought he was making a good match for Julia.
“I never got the land measured,” said Peetcheen. You would think he was humouring the thing. “I never got it measured; but there’s no rent to be paid.”
Measured indeed! and rent to be paid, and for what? A bare patch of weeds by the roadside that would not be enough to sod a lark!
Heffernan smoked on, and then Peetcheen began questioning in his turn, “How much are you offering, with the two heifers?”
In fact, the boy did not know if he was standing on his head or his heels! To hear himself being bid up in marriage like that! And for a wife with a fortune of her own!
“Thirty pound!” said Heffernan.
“Forty!” said Peetcheen, very determined.
“Thirty and no more!”
“Forty and no less!”
Well, in the long run, they split the difference between them, and settled the business then and there. Heffernan wrote off to the sister, telling her that he was as good as married himself and that he had a fine match made up for her, too; and she was to make no delay, for fear the boy might change his mind, and go off without waiting to see her.
Julia came on at once. And when she saw how things were shaping, of course she had a good deal to say at first. But then she bethought her that she might do worse than settle herself. She was getting on in years. And the cousins that she had been with in Dublin used to be talking about old maids, and that bachelors must be very scarce in Ardenoo! It was more than ever Mickey expected that she would give in so easily as she did, without making any great objection to Peetcheen, who, of course, was no great things for one of the Heffernans to take up with. But she gave in to take him. Heffernan and Peetcheen sprung the thing on her suddenly, and she was taken unawares, as you’ll see it done with a baulking horse. You can trick him into taking a jump that he has refused many a time before, if you bring him up to it without his knowing what you want.
Mickey had the wit to make the best of Peetcheen, by advancing him the price of a new suit of clothes, and tan boots and even gloves, to be married in. He wasn’t able to get them on, the gloves, I mean. But they had a very neat appearance. Maybe they gave Julia more satisfaction than anything else that her fortune was spent on. For of course it was out of her money that Mickey paid for the fine clothes for Peetcheen.
The wedding passed off all right, and Mickey behaved very well, and threw in a jennet and cart, along with the money and the two heifers. And he allowed Julia to load up the cart with any mortal
thing she chose to lay claim to in the place; even to the churn and the griddle. He did that, the way she would have no excuse for coming back and maybe making unpleasantness when he’d have his own woman at the Furry Farm.
It was a satisfaction to him to know that there would be a good few miles between him and the sister, once she was Mrs. Peetcheen. And when he saw them safely started, Peetcheen driving the heifers, and Julia sitting upon a stool in the cart, with all the things round her, “Glory be! I never thought to get shut of her so simple!” said Heffernan. “But God help poor Peetcheen, I pray!”
Peetcheen would have been surprised, if he had heard that word said. It was only too contented he was, and he stepping out very proudly. The new clothes would hardly hold him and his satisfaction, when he thought of how well he was doing for himself.
“What will the neighbours say to me now?” he was thinking, “going off the way I did, too thankful to any one that would give me a day’s work! And look at me now! with the two beasts, and the wife and all! Sure, it’s little I ever thought to see the day I’d have such things!”
And then he made up his mind that he would try not to be too uppish with the old friends, when they would be passing him the time of day. He determined to answer them very nice and civil, when they would ask him, “How’s yourself, Peetcheen, and how’s the rest of you?”
Then he began to think of the old mother, and that he would like to make her comfortable. A new shawl, he thought; and how well she could sit in the big arm-chair that was the full up of the cart that Julia was driving, very nearly.
He turned to look at it, because he was in front of the cart with the cattle, and the jennet was slow, with all the big load that was on her. Still, Peetcheen thought the whole thing was just behind him. But behold ye! sight nor light of cart, or jennet, or Julia even he couldn’t see! It was as if the ground had opened and swallowed them down!
He did not know what in the wide world to think. There he stood, looking up the road and down the road ... as if Julia could be coming any way except after him! for how could she have got on ahead without his knowing? But that was Peetcheen all over.
He thought he never saw anything so lonesome and silent as the same road, lying still before and behind him, and white with dust. It was the summer season of the year.
“If I go back,” thought he to himself, “I’m very apt to be missing her at some cross-roads! It’s what she has took the wrong turn at one of them, and not too far back ... it can’t be! for it’s not long since she got me to steady the churn-dash in the back of the cart, the way it wouldn’t be prodding into her back. The first man she meets will set her right. In any case, I’d have little to do, to go look for her ... ” (and indeed Peetcheen was right there!) “for I’d have to take the two little heifers with me. And that might be putting a couple of miles more travelling on them. They’ll be slaved and tired enough, against I have them home. And if I was to leave them here by themselves, while I’d be going back for her, mightn’t I be summonsed? That wouldn’t answer! No! it’s better for me to wait here and see won’t she come along all right. And there is lots of good grass, that the cattle can be having a little fossick[8] for themselves and a rest.”
Peetcheen was right in this. There was plenty of feeding for the beasts there, going to loss, that they might as well have. Besides, when two people go astray from one another, the best chance they have of coming together again is for one of them to stop still. Peetcheen was thick in the wits, but he thought of this. Besides, to do nothing was the easiest for him. So he just sat down on a fine dry heap of stones that was lying there ready for the roadcontractor, filled his pipe, and began to smoke. He might as well. He had not finished that pipe altogether, when he heard the sound of wheels. Along came the jennet, and Julia hard at work, prodding him with the point of her umbrella, with her face very red, and her
hair all every way. It didn’t cool her a bit, to see Peetcheen sitting at his ease, with his pipe, in the shade of a fine ash-tree.
“Where were you at all,” he said, getting up quite slowly off the stones; “and what ailed you, to be so long after me upon the road?”
“What ailed me, indeed!” said the wife; “much you care! Stravaguing on there in front of me, without a thought of what was becoming of me and the jennet. And I bawlin’ me livin’ best when I got to the cross-roads, and couldn’t get you to hear! How was I to know which way you went? Faith, I was in two minds to go off back home again! only for you having the two little heifers! And you lettin’ on not to hear me! Is it deaf you are, along with everything else? And then the jennet, to take and go stop on me, and I with the full up of me lap of me good cups and saucers, so that I wasn’t able to stir, to get any good of the beast! And then he gives a h’ise, and me fine big crock, that I have this ten years and was bringing it with me, got bruk in two halves! And you, standin’ there, with yer mouth open...!”
As if shutting his mouth would mend her crockery! But it vexed Julia the more, that Peetcheen said nothing.
“To the mischief with the whole of them! and you, too!” she said, then; and began flinging the rest of the crockery at Peetcheen, as hard as she could; at least, that was what she thought of. But of course she didn’t hit him; a woman never does; the thing she aims for is the last thing she’ll strike. But she fired one after the other, pell-mell, till she had all the cups smashed. And what else could she expect of cups flung about like that? I don’t know; only when she saw them in bits, she turned queer, and dropped down into the bottom of the cart, and began to laugh and cry all together, as if she was mad.
The sight of this cowed Peetcheen. He stooped down, and began turning over the bits of crockery, to see if e’er a one of them had escaped. But no! Not a cup or plate of all Julia’s set but was broken into smithereens.
Peetcheen still said nothing. He took the jennet by the head, started the cattle on again, and followed himself with the cart.
Now, I must explain that this wedding took place so suddenly, that no more than what we call in Ardenoo a “sketch” of it had gone round among the people. And even that had not reached old Mrs. Caffrey at all. So that she had not had the slightest warning of what to expect, at the very time that Peetcheen and the wife were making their way towards her.
It was late in the day. She and Dark Moll were out—sitting by the roadside, watching a clutch of young ducks just out of the shell, when they heard a noise, and looked round, to see, first the two heifers, and then the jennet and cart, with Peetcheen leading them, and Julia seated up in state, driving along. She had come to pretty well by that time. People that have tempers are often like that. They’ll be mad one minute, and abusing you into the ground, and before you have had time to take in all they were saying, they are ready to forget it, and be quite agreeable again. Moreover, they expect you to do the same, which is not so simple a matter as they think.
However, Peetcheen was very peaceable. As was usual with him, he had never made Julia an answer. She had quieted down by degrees, so that now he was enabled to explain the thing to his mother with some appearance of comfort.
The poor mother! She couldn’t believe her eyes nor her ears either almost, when she saw this procession drawing up before her door, and Peetcheen saying, “Well, mother! here I am! back to you! and bringing in a new dauther, in the place of all them that’s gone off ‘on’ you. Her and me is after getting marrit!” he ended.
Mrs. Caffrey stared at him, and then at Julia and all the belongings she had around her. But all she could get out was, “She’s kindly
welcome in these parts!” before she fell into a kind of a weakness, and staggered, so that Peetcheen had to go forward to help her back into the house, while the wife was busy seeing to the things she had in the cart.
Dark Moll was looking on at all this, but no one took much notice of her. So by that she guessed that she was not wanted there, and made up her mind to slip away. She gathered up her little possessions, and went off at once to another stopping-place she had, not far away. And that is how it happened that no one knew much at first about what had taken place, when the new Mrs. Caffrey appeared upon the scene, or how the old woman took to the notion of a daughter-in-law in her home.
But Moll took the first opportunity of making her way back to the Caffreys’; and blind and all as she was, there was not a pin’s-worth about the place that she could not tell about, and give as good an account of it all as if she had the full use of her eyes.
“The new woman that Peetcheen’s after bringing home, is it?” she said; “a very agreeable-spoken person she is!”
Julia could be all that when she chose.
“Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I believe,” said Big Cusack, who was talking to her. He was as proud as Punch to know that Julia was gone out of the Furry Farm. For then he thought there need not be much delay about Heffernan’s own marriage; and Cusack had a niece of his own, Kitty Dempsey by name, that he wanted to make up a match for. Kitty was only a young slip of a thing, but there was a bit of land she was to come in for; and her Uncle Cusack, being an experiented man, thought Heffernan would be more suitable for her, nor any young boy, on that account.
“She’s as sweet as you please, that wife of Peetcheen’s, by all a body hears,” he went on; and then he added, “but there’s such a thing as being too sweet to be wholesome! She’s none too young, either! A chicken her age won’t die with the pip!”
“No,” said Moll, “nor tear in the plucking! But sure, a boy like Peetcheen couldn’t be too partickler!”
“You’re right there,” says Big Cusack; “and he wid a head upon him that you’d think should fizz, if he put it into could water, it’s that red! And the mouth of him! the same as if it was made wid a blow of a shovel! Isn’t he great, that got a wife at all! let alone the forchune. And has the two heifers at grass on my farm; and persuades the wife that the field they’re grazing on belongs to himself! Peetcheen may be slow, but he’s no such a fool as the people make him out!”
That was how Cusack spoke of him; and indeed, it was wonderful, all the praise you’d hear of Peetcheen now, very different from what it was before he went away, when every one would be making a hare of him. He himself would walk about, very important, going over to “have a look at the stock,” as if that would make them fatten any faster. And the way he would give a cock to his caubeen when he’d meet a neighbour, and pass the time of the day with him! And on a Sunday, to see him yoking up the jennet, to drive to Mass, feeling as good as the best! In fact, after a bit, the neighbours began to laugh at him again. It might have been jealousy.
“Cock him up, indeed!” Big Cusack said, when he had time to take this all in; “letting on he’s a gintleman, all out, Peetcheen is! with nothing to do, only ait his food! And in troth, the sorra long it will take them, to ait whatever forchune the wife brought into the place! It wasn’t much, I’ll go bail! There never was a Heffernan yet that would part money without a wrangle for it; and Mickey the same!”
All this was true; but nothing seemed to trouble Peetcheen. He spent the time the way I tell you; never appearing to imagine there was any necessity for him to do anything more than that.
But he had the wife to reckon with. She was of a very different way of thinking, and she very soon let him know her mind.
“What way is this to be going on?” she would say, “for a man to be at home here under a body’s feet from morning to night, as if the place wasn’t small enough, and in partickler since I brought me own
good furnicher into it! Hard-set I’ll be, ever to get meself used to the likes of this house you brought me to!”
Julia was right enough in saying this. The Caffreys’ place was very small and poor, compared to the Furry farmhouse, where she was reared. And her things did crowd it up. The big chair alone took up the whole side of the fire. But as well as that, she was only saying what was true, when she spoke of Peetcheen sitting at home all day, as he had the fashion of doing.
When she would attack him about this, and ask him, if there was no job wanting to be done about his own place, why wouldn’t he go look for work with a neighbour, Peetcheen always had an answer ready.
“Sure there’s no work going, these times! I must wait till the haymaking comes on. Then there will be good pay to be earned. The meadows is nigh-hand ripe this minute!”
So they were; Julia could see that for herself. But when Peetcheen went to Big Cusack to ask for a job at the hay, he heard that all the work had been laid out, and no more hands were needed.
“And didn’t I think,” said Cusack to him, “that you were too big a man, all out, now, to take a fork in your fist; and you with the rich wife and all!”
Peetcheen made no answer to this. He just went over to a shady spot, and sat down there, to watch the work going on; went home to his dinner, and then back with him to the hayfield, till quittingtime that night.
That contented Julia. And when she asked him for his week’s pay from Big Cusack, to go to the Shop, he saw no occasion to explain to her that it was out of her own money, that Heffernan had handed to him in the old stocking, that she was getting it. It satisfied her, and a man will do a great deal for peace and quietness.
What you do once, comes very easy the next time. By this kind of management, Peetcheen put the next few months over him very
nice and handy. Haymaking, and harvest, and turf-cutting, all happened along for his convenience. He could go off, when any of them were on, and lob about through the neighbourhood. I won’t say that he never did a tap of work; he might, have, now and then. But it was seldom the like happened to him.
This was all well and good, as far as Peetcheen himself was concerned. But Julia was the sort of woman that never can be easy. No! and what’s more never can let any one else be, either. So when Peetcheen kept out of her way, and she hadn’t the excuse of him and his ways, she began to turn on the poor old mother. A stirring, active little woman she was herself. Julia would have the kettle boiling and the tea wet, while another would be thinking of where to look for a bit of firing. But if she was quick itself, that was no reason for her to go on the way she did to old Mrs. Caffrey.
“Give me that besom, here!” she said to her one morning, snatching the broom out of the old woman’s hand, and giving her a shove towards the door; “be off out, and gether some kindling for the fire! that work is all you’re fit for! Sick and tired I do be, looking at ye; and you not done sweeping the flure yet!”
“God be wid the time I was young and strong; and able to sweep a flure wid any one!” says Peetcheen’s mother.
“It’s a long time ago, if ever you were!” said Julia. “Be off wid yourself now, and see can ye meet the higgler, and get him to come and buy them ould hens of yours! Sorra bit can I give to me own good Longshanks and Speckled Humbugs but what them ould scarecrows of yours has it all ett on them!”
“There’s no price goin’ now for ould hens,” said old Mrs. Caffrey; “and besides, I’m thinking it’s what they have a mind to go lay ... and eggs dear....”
“They’ll lay none here, whether or which!” Julia said; “lay, indeed! They wouldn’t know an egg, if they saw one!”
“There’s one tidy little hayro of a hen, her with the top-knot, that I’d have a great wish for....”
“Don’t mind your wishing! they’ll all go; so now, mind what I’m telling ye!” said Julia. And so they did.
“Bitther and wicked wid her tongue she is!” old Mrs. Caffrey would say; but only to herself. She wouldn’t fret Peetcheen for the world, the poor boy!
To give Julia her due, she was, as Dark Moll said, “a most notorious rairer of fowl of every description.” She had money from the higgler laid by already. But because she was lucky herself was no reason for her to jeer at the old woman, when a while afterwards, the little ducks that were out just the day Julia came there all died, one after another.
“What else could you expect, and they June birds?” she said. “No one only a born fool would try to have them hatched then!”
Julia was right there, and in many another notion that she brought with her from the Furry Farm. But people don’t always care so very much for new ways being forced on them. Peetcheen and his mother above all were not fond of changes. Julia would have a dinner of a Sunday that, as she said, “a lord might be proud to sit down before!” a pig’s face on a bolster of greens, it might be, or something like that. But no one would have much wish for it, because there would always be so much argument and scolding over it all.
They would have had far more comfort in the old times, with nothing better than potatoes and salt, and maybe a bit of bacon or a salt herring, by way of “kitchen.” Old Mrs. Caffrey would give you a pleasant word with whatever she was sharing round and that helps out a short dinner; what mostly was what she had, God help her!
However, it was Julia that ruled the roast at Caffreys’ the time I speak of, and the rest of them had just to make the best of it. And it’s a true saying, “Money makes the mare to go!” Of course every one had to give in to Julia on account of the fortune she had.
Peetcheen stood it out pretty well, as long as there was a penny at all left in the old stocking. But when the baby came, the money had to be handed out very free. Before he knew where he was, the
stocking was empty; and Peetcheen, as usual, without a job. Not that that was any great heart-break to him.
He was stravaguing along the road one evening by himself, with the pipe in his mouth. It was lovely weather; the birds all singing, and the grass getting long and green on every side. He was turning over in his mind about the potato-patch he had; how would he get to pay for the seed? and weren’t the weeds very high in it? and would he have to go work in it himself? when he saw Dark Moll, sitting by the side of the road, very comfortably. Of course he stopped and began to pass the time of day with her.
“How’s all wid ye, Peetcheen?” asks Moll; “and above all, the woman that owns ye? And the young son? and a darling fine boy he must be, by all I can hear!”
“They’re well, I thank you and God,” answered Peetcheen; “and me mother, that proud out of the child! You’d think no one ever had a child before, and she after rairing ten of her own! And this minute, she’s leppin’ mad to begin again!”
“Ay! there’s the way!” said Moll.
Peetcheen smoked on a bit; and then says he, “A terrible expense this is, on a man!”
“You may say that, agra!” said Moll; though well she knew in her heart that there had been no christening worth mentioning at Caffreys’. The old woman was all for a bit of a spree, but Julia would not hear of it; “spending the money on foolishness that could be put to better use!” was what she said. The neighbours knew well how it was. But Moll didn’t want to pass any remarks about the thing, seeing she might be looking for help to the Caffreys, any day; and it wouldn’t answer to be offensive. So she only went on to say, “Sure the likes of you needn’t mind a few shillings, here nor there, when it’s the first, and a son! And you with them fine bastes at grass.... I hear they’re the talk of the town, and a fine price they’d go at the fair to-morrow, if it was a thing you’d have a mind to go sell them there.”
Moll said all this, because she felt vexed with Julia, not being asked to the christening, such as it was. Besides, from the start, Julia let her see very plain that she didn’t want her coming about the house whenever she fancied, and taking up a seat in the chimney-corner, as she had the fashion of doing. And Moll did not like getting the cold shoulder that way, no more than any of us would; and she missed Caffreys’, having been so used to it. Still, she had no meaning in what she had said about the fair and the stock, and all that. But see what came of that word!
Peetcheen bid Moll the time of day, and went on. It was to Big Cusack’s he was making his way, thinking he might happen on a job there, or settle something about help to do his own work. But the Big Man was from home. Peetcheen could have found that out, without going there, only he never thought of inquiring. So then he wavered off to Melia’s, thinking that he might meet some one there that would give him an advice about the thing.
He found a few comrade-boys of his in the shebeen, playing Twentyfive. He joined in, with whatever few coppers he had left. It took a long time, before they finished their game, so that it was pretty late when he got home. But that was all the wrong he did. He had no drink taken. There wasn’t a hair turned on him, when he walked into the house, so why Julia should be so raging mad with him, no one could tell. But she was and abused him up and down the banks; called him all the fools she could lay her tongue to; and still in all Peetcheen never said a word back to her.
But at last he got worn out, and left the house, thinking she might have a better chance to quiet down if he wasn’t there. So he turned back to Cusack’s, and spent the night in the Big Man’s barn.
Before he settled off to sleep, he had time to think over all that was after occurring; the wife to be so contrary with him, and all for nonsense, as a body might say. And then he considered over how short the money was with him; and where would he turn for the next few shillings Julia would be wanting from him. And then he got on to remembering what Dark Moll was after saying.
He fell asleep, however, before very long; and wakened up bright and early, with a great plan in his head.
This was, that he would drive off one of the two heifers that he had got in Julia’s fortune, to the fair that Dark Moll was after reminding him of; and a big price she brought. But Peetcheen and the likes of him often have great luck.
After that had come to pass, a strange thing happened. For what Peetcheen did with himself, or with the money that the people standing by saw him getting paid into his hand, was more than any one at Ardenoo knew, for many a long day, if ever they did. He just disappeared, so he did, as if the Good People took him out of it.
“Isn’t it a fright, all out,” the neighbours would say, “to see how a decent quiet man like Peetcheen could go out of that, and not one be able to give any account of him to the wife or the poor ould mother!”
Julia was most outrageous; at first very angry, and then took to fretting. But the old woman was twice as bad. God help her! she grew to be like nothing so much as a ha’porth of soap after the week’s washing.
She was out along the road one day, with the baby in her arms, when Dark Moll happened along, and of course began to chat; why not?
“And so that’s Peetcheen’s first, is it?” she says; “let me feel him in me arrums! och, the weight of him! the darlint fine lump of a gossoon that he is! Well, and how’s all goin’ on wid yiz these times!”
“Not goin’ on at all!” says Mrs. Caffrey; “heart-scalded I do be, wid the frettin’ and annoyance and thinkin’ that it’s murthered me poor boy must be, and he wid the price of the heifer in his pocket!”
“Och! murthered-how-are-ye!” says Moll, very confident in herself; “no! no such a thing! It’s what he has went off to America! He’ll be sendin’ yous back plenty of money out of it, I’ll go bail!”
“Do ye tell me that?” said the mother, brightening up as Moll talked on about it all. The old woman was getting a bit hard of hearing at that time; and she took it up that Peetcheen had told Moll that he was going.
“Well, that’s the best I could wish to hear, if it’s a thing that he wasn’t going to contint himself here at home with us; and too sure I am that he’ll do well ... ay, and won’t forget his poor mother....”
Julia comes up to them, and whips the child from Moll, the same as if she was dirt and not fit to touch him. That vexed Moll; small blame to her! So when old Mrs. Caffrey began reeling out of her all that she imagined Moll had said ... and a bit more that she didn’t say ... such as that poor Peetcheen was working hard there beyant to send home money to them, Moll never put her right. The old mother related it quite cheerfully, thinking it would pacify Julia. But it didn’t. You never saw so vexed a person.
“So, that’s where the price of me fine heifer is gone!” said Julia; “and I that had him dead! drowned in a bog-hole ... or murthered.... Breakin’ me heart I was, about a villyin of the soart! Well ... all I know is, them that thinks I’m goin’ to stop here and rair Peter Caffrey’s babby for him is in a great mistake! I’ll not do it! I’ll go after him, before I’m many days older!”
“Is it go to America? Sure, woman dear, you’d never find him! You might as well go look for a needle in a haystack. America is a middlin’ big place, mind ye!” said Moll.
No one knew better than Moll how to get round people. She was that clever, she could knot eels, the people said. She knew what a foolish notion it was of Julia’s, to go off to America; and that Julia herself would soon cool on it, if she was let alone. So that’s why she contradicted her.
“Fitter far, ay, and decenter, too, for a woman like you to stay where you’re well off, in your good home, with Peetcheen’s mother for company, and Peetcheen’s babby to be lookin’ at....”
“Mind yer own business, and be off about it, now!” said Julia, choking with the anger; “what call have you to be putting in yer gab here? I want no interference from you, or the likes of ye! Leave me to manage me own affairs! I’ll see to make Peetcheen pay for what he’s after doing ‘on’ me!”
And at that, Moll did turn about and waddle off. And she never let on but it was a real fact about Peetcheen being in America. Sure, maybe she believed it herself! A body that does as much talking as Moll might get confused betimes. But a few evenings after that, she ventured over to Caffreys’ again. She was most anxious to get back to that house; so she wanted to find out how it was going on with Julia and her American plan. She found her, fighting rings round her with the old woman, and abusing Peetcheen into the dirt.
“Sure, what at all! wasn’t it only sthrivin’ to better himself he was?” said Moll; “a good steady poor boy he was, always and ever!”
It was like oil on lit turf to Julia, to hear her put in a good word for Peetcheen. When you want the woman to come round, in the case of any little difference between her and the husband, you should find all the fault you can with him. Then you’ll find the wife will wear horns, and stand up for her husband, and turn on you. And Moll knew that as well as any one. She could see how mad Julia would get, when she and old Mrs. Caffrey would be all for compassionating Peetcheen, and saying how good he was, and all to that. In fact, no one could say anything bad that ever he did. To be sure, he never did anything, one way or the other.
And now, here was Moll, very full of a letter she was after hearing read out by one of the neighbours.
“It was wrote,” she said, “by one of the Caffreys, cousins of the family here, that are out there so long, and doing well, too, they appear to be, by what I hear....”
“So they are,” said old Mrs. Caffrey, perking up at this account of her son’s people being set out to Julia; “and why wouldn’t they? and it’s likely to them me poor child wint! God sind him safe!”
“And Amen to that, I pray!” said Moll; the same as if she herself thought it was there he was.
Julia was listening to all this. It made her more set than ever about going after Peetcheen. She was like the rest of us; only too ready to believe what she wanted to believe. She took all this, about the letter from the cousins, for proof that Peetcheen was really gone to America.
“And to think he should be out there, with full and plenty, I’ll be bound; and me slavin’ here! I’ll not do it nor it’s not to be expected that I would, either!”
She was just mad to be off. And there were few would miss her in Ardenoo. Even Peetcheen’s baby would be far more contented, lying on the granny’s knee, or with Dark Moll, than he ever was with his mother. An infant is very easy put about; and Julia was very odd and jerky in her ways. But, sure she could have had no nature in her, or she never would have left the child.
Julia made no delay, only sold the second heifer to Big Cusack. Not much she got out of the thing. The two beasts “had themselves ett,” he said, “very nearly,” meaning that nearly the whole price was owing to him for their grass. Peetcheen hadn’t paid a penny for them, since first he got Big Cusack to take them in on his pasturefield. In fact, Julia was none too well treated in the business of her fortune. It was all gone now, except the few pounds she got from Mr. Cusack over the heifers.
But “Divil’s cure to her!” was what was mostly said about her; “why couldn’t she keep a civil tongue in her head, and not harish the dacent boy out of the place that he was raired in; and the father and grandfather before him?”
Julia of course heard nothing of this. There wasn’t one would be willing to draw her tongue on them; and anyway, there would be no sense in interfering. She never asked advice from man nor mortal; so she had no chance of finding out how much truth there was in
the story about Peetcheen being in America. She went off, as soon as she could take her passage.
A few days after she left, “Glory be!” says Dark Moll, sitting by the fire, with old Mrs. Caffrey opposite to her, and the child asleep on her lap, “glory be, there’ll be p’ace and quietness here now, anyway! And I’ll come back, never you fear, acushla, the way you’ll not be lonesome and fretted here wid yourself! Nor be at a short for some sinsible person to take the babby out of your arrums while you’d be out....”
But she never finished the sketch she was giving of what all she would do. For at that word, old Mrs. Caffrey gave a screech that very nearly lifted the thatch off the house.
“Oh, Peetcheen! Peetcheen!” she cried; “and is it yourself that’s in it? Come over to meself, the way I’ll get a good look at ye! The Lord save us! but where wor ye this lin’th of time, at all at all?”
“What’s all this?” said Moll; “what are you sayin’? Is it Peetcheen you think is here? or could it be Something Not Right ... and the people saying it was what he should be ‘away’ wid the Good People ... and me a poor blind ould woman that can’t know what’s going on....”
But the same Moll was very hardy, and not easily daunted by man nor mortal; just she said that wanting to get compassionated. But neither Peetcheen nor his mother took any heed of her. For it was Peetcheen, right enough! and very slaved-looking he was; with his feet on the world, you might say, his brogues were so worn and broken. And by that sign, the people thought it was on the stray he must have been, ever since he went off after selling the heifer at the fair.
But no one ever got much account of the business or of what became of the money he had then; whether he spreed it all, or if he held on to any of it. It was like as if he had brought back some of it, anyway. For they had more appearance of comfort about them the next winter than ever they had before. Peetcheen got a neighbour to
draw home a nice little bit of turf for the winter, from the bog; and there was a new shawl for the mother, for going to Mass.
Peetcheen, you remember, had that laid out in his own mind, when he was on his way home, after marrying Julia. And, moreover, the big arm-chair, that Julia had put by, above in the room, the way it wouldn’t be getting knocked about in the kitchen ... and as well, she didn’t want Peetcheen to have the comfort of falling asleep in it, as many a time he did ... well, that chair was brought back and put in the chimney-corner. And many a comfortable snooze Peetcheen took in it now, when he would feel inclined to rest himself; a wish he often had.
He’d sit there of an evening, when the people would drop in for a ceilidh,[9] a habit they lost while Julia was there. But they came again now, and would be very anxious to know all about where Peetcheen had been. They got no great satisfaction.
“Where was I since?” Peetcheen would say; “well, I went as far as Turn-Back! Ah! indeed! it isa gay piece out of this, sure enough!”
Peetcheen wasn’t such a fool but that he could hold his tongue, when he chose. And there’s many a wise adviser of a person that can’t do that, to save their lives.
“You’ll be getting her back now,” said Big Cusack to him; “the Woman, I mane, the Rest of ye....”
He was after hiring Peetcheen then, for the same job his father before him had had. Ay, and what’s more, Peetcheen managed to hold on to it, from that out.
Peetcheen had the fashion at times, that if he didn’t want to answer a question in a hurry, he would push the old caubeendown over his face, and scratch the back of his head. He did that now; and then says he, “I dunno, Mr. Cusack; I always h’ard tell, that it’s as good to l’ave well alone! And I’d have no wish in life to be interferin’ with anywan; let alone with a woman.”
CHAPTER IV A DAYLIGHT GHOST
HEFFERNAN of the Furry Farm, being lame now as well as old, thought it would be the best of his play not to go too far to look for the wife he was so anxious to bring home, now that he had Julia out of the way. And this is how he took the notion of seeing whether he could get a daughter of old Flanagan’s, a near neighbour of his. And as he said to himself, he knew all about those people, and what way they were situated, as to their little place and all to that.
“A man needn’t expect any fortune with one of his girls,” he thought; “but what of the few pounds? The land lies very handy to me own farm,” ... and so it did. Flanagan’s land “merined” the Furry Farm; and it was a wonder how two places so close together could be so different from one another! They both lay upon the same range of the Furry Hills. But whereas Heffernan’s was low down, and the house facing north, so that it seldom got a blink of sunshine, the Flanagans had theirs half-way up a slope the opposite side, where it had shelter, as well as all the sun and south wind there was to be had. In fact, it was one of the sweetest little places about the whole of Ardenoo. Greenan-more it was called, an old name that is said to mean “the big sunny parlour,” or something like that. It’s likely it got that name put upon it when there were people living in the old rath up above at the top of the hill behind the house. But of course there is nothing of a dwelling there now; nothing, only a hollow, with a Lone Thorn growing in the middle of it, and nettles and stones. Lonesome places, raths are! where the Good People live, and their music can be heard, and they themselves be seen, by them that are able to do so.
It would delight you, to look at Greenan-more! with the lake lying at the foot of the hill on which the house stood. The limestone pushes
up there, close to the surface, and helps to keep the earth warm, so that the grass grows earlier there than it does anywhere else about Ardenoo. It’s a sweet grass, too. One bite of it is worth more to a beast than a full feed off the low, sour bottoms of the Furry Farm.
The land was different on the two places; the houses were different; and the people were different, too. Heffernan’s was well enough, in the way of it being comfortable and plentiful; but it was lonesome and no great appearance of tastiness about it. But Flanagan’s had a snug, bright look. The two daughters were always contriving some little thing to give it a look. It was all neat and clean; with a rose growing over the door, and the walls whitewashed to that degree, that when the sun shone on them, they would dazzle you, nighhand.
“Like a smile upon a rosy face!” Jim Cassidy used to think to himself, when he would be taking a streel up the hill, of a Sunday or a holiday evening. And when a boy takes to that kind of talk, it’s easy to guess what he has in his mind.
With Jim, I may as well tell you, it was little Nelly Flanagan that he was thinking about; though when he’d be there, it was all to chat to the old father he had come, bythewayof!
And Nelly that took no more heed of Jim than of any other boy about Ardenoo! What was she, only a child! no more; as gay and as frolicsome as a pet lamb. But still in all, Nelly was very nice, and biddable. She would do anything in this world wide that the elder sister, Christina, would say. And why wouldn’t she?
Here’s who were living at Greenan-more at that time: old Flanagan himself; a real old Sport. Not a fair or a funeral, a wake or a wedding in all Ardenoo, but he’d make it his business to be there; and with him there lived his two girls, Christina and Nelly.
The mother had died soon after Nelly being born; had no great comfort with Flanagan, and no wish to go on living. So when she felt herself to be on the last, all she said was: “I’ll give the baby to you, Chrissie!” There’s the pet name she had for her.
And Christina, that was only a little slip of a thing, about nine or ten years old, took on at once to mind the infant, and was like a little mother to her. Those that would be in and out of the house said it was most amazing, the way she cared the little sister. She was very wise and sensible, and as good as she could be, every way.
In fact, as time went on, the two sisters were just made upon each other, as the saying is. They were always together; Christina made a baby of Nelly and Nelly made a mother of Christina. And what caused this the more with them was, the father being the sort he was; taking very little heed of anything, only his own amusement. That is all right enough, in its way. But it doesn’t help you to get on in this world; and I don’t know is it apt to do much for you in the next. What Flanagan and men like him don’t spend in their playing about, they waste in idleness. Christina did as much as ever she could. But on a farm, there’s always many things that a woman can’t do.
And this is how she began first to be thinking a good deal about Jim Cassidy. For he was very smart. He would see with half an eye what was wrong, and set it right while another would be wondering what ought to be done. He was ready and willing to do anything in life for them at Flanagan’s, so that Christina, that was what we call the sense-carrier of the family, got to depend on Jim for every hand’s turn that wanted doing about Greenan-more; such as the drawing home of the turf from the bog; or getting the hay or oats saved, or buying in a couple of young pigs to be fattened. Of course, the selling of the stock had to be left to Flanagan himself; and that was the pity; and was little good to either him or his girls. He would no sooner have the price of the cattle or sheep or whatever it might be, paid into his hand, than he’d go off on a spree, and then you couldn’t tell what he’d be up to; as likely as not, never come home, till he’d have it spent.
What the girls had for themselves was anything they could make of the butter and eggs, the geese and turkeys and so on. They were
satisfied enough, they didn’t want so much. So was the old father, contented in his own way.
And here again, there was a wide difference between them and the Heffernans. Poor Mickey, for all his industering, never took much satisfaction out of what he worked so hard for; and as for Julia, she was so crabbed always, that she used never to enjoy her own life, nor let any one else enjoy theirs either; at least, as long as she remained in Ardenoo; of course, she might have changed, going to America.
Yes, the Flanagans were peaceful and easy-going; all but Christina, that favoured her dead mother, and as she got a bit older, used to feel anxious betimes about many things. Of course this made her all the more ready to look to Jim Cassidy for help. Like as if he was a brother, she often said to herself. But there’s many a brother that wouldn’t be as good-natured to a couple of sisters as Jim was in regard to the Flanagans.
Christina having so much dependence out of Jim, then, small blame to her, when, one evening as she was driving in the cows, and he came up, she nearly fell out of her standing, when he said:
“I’m going off next week!”
“Going off! A—where, Jim?” she said, though she knew well, all the time. There was only the one place for a boy like Jim to make for, those times.
“To America! Where else?” said Jim. “The uncle that’s there beyant has wrote me word, that he has me passage paid, and, moreover, has a good job waiting on me. So why wouldn’t I go, and not to be stopping on here; pulling the divil by the tail for the rest of me days!”
He stopped at that; and if he’d been looking at Christina, instead of staring out over the lake, the way he was, he would have seen that she had turned as white as a patch of bog-cotton. But he never looked at her, only went on to say: “There’s only the one thing that I’m sorry for leaving behind me! Sure, what need I care for going! a
boy like me, without one belonging to me left now in Ardenoo; or indeed the whole of Ireland! Only the one thing for me to regret! that’s Greenan-more....”
And if he had chanced now to look at Christina, he would scarcely have known was it her or Nelly that was standing beside him; for Christina’s eyes were dancing, and her cheeks flushed and warm....
But Jim was still gaping out across the lake, as if he had never seen till then the way it shimmered and flashed under the setting sun. He saw nothing of the change in Christina, only went on: “Greenanmore! ay, Greenan-more! that’s where me thoughts will be; that’s what I’m fretting to leave behind; where I’d always love to be...! But you’ll write to me, Christina....”
At the word, Christina felt happiness rising, rising like a warm wave about her....
“... and you’ll tell me about every one, and everything that’s going on in the place ...” Jim stopped a bit there ... and then, in a whisper, “and about Nelly...?”
Then Christina felt the wave die down, and she grew cold. Everything suddenly turned black and lonesome, all in a minute. She felt giddy, as if the world had begun to sink away from under her feet. But she said nothing. Indeed, why should she? Wouldn’t it be the queer world, if people did what they say they do, and just told out whatever they think? They don’t; nor they couldn’t; it would never answer....
All Christina could say, was: “Next week? why then, that’s short notice!”
And Jim helped her to drive the cows into their shed, and got her the stool, and she sat down and began to milk. Just the way he was always helping her! and he stood beside her, for a bit, advising her about this thing and that thing; and she felt as if it was all a dream. But one thing was real enough to her. She knew Jim was only delaying there, in the hopes of seeing Nelly coming out from the
house, to help to carry in the milk. And poor Christina felt ashamed of the satisfaction it was to her, that as likely as not Nelly would forget all about the cows, and the dairy, and the evening’s work. She had that satisfaction; not a sight of Nelly was to be seen. And Jim, after waiting a bit, thinking that maybe Christina would be bidding him to come into the house, or stay to his supper there, just went off home to wherever he was stopping.
He had short notice, sure enough, for so long a journey. But what matter for that? If you have little, you travel light. Christina, that was always busy at some industering, had a grand lot of stockings of her own spinning and knitting, ready to put into his bundle. Nelly had nothing, and she cried down tears to turn a mill, over that. But Christina had the fashion still, when she would go to the Shop, that she’d bring home a lucky-bag to Nelly, as if she was a child still. She did that, the very day before Jim started. And what was in the luckybag, but a grand breast-pin, that had a stone in it, shining like a diamond, only of course it couldn’t be that! Nelly offered the pin to Jim for a keepsake, and he was as proud as if it really was a diamond she had for him.
Jim went off, and of all the friends he left behind him you’d think Christina cared the least. But there’s many a one like that. They’ll be able for the day’s work, and will keep bright and busy; ay, and have a smile and a pleasant word for every one. But underneath all that, there’s something aching, aching...! unknown to all the world, except themselves.
It’s like the “swallyin’-holes” you come on now and then in the boggy bits of Ardenoo. You may be walking along, happy and contented, in the sunshine, making your way through heather and brambles and fern; sweet smells coming up to you from the bog-myrtle and meadow-sweet; and suddenly with a gasp you stop short! There at your feet, you’ll see a gaping hole, half hidden by moss and rushes ... and when you look down, far, far below the warm, smiling surface of the bog, you see water, black and deep and silent.
