"Father Ryan's lost his wee bantam hen," said Patsy when they were having supper one evening. "Ould Rosie was out lukin' for it as I come past the presbytery."
"Somebuddy's stole it," said Honeybird. Mick challenged this statement.
"Well, it's just like what somebuddy 'ud do," Honeybird replied.
"I'm goin' to help ould Rosie to luk for it the morra," said Patsy.
Honeybird looked up from her porridge. "Ye'll niver fin' it," she said. "Somebuddy that lives away at the other side a' the town tuk it. I seen him goin' away with it under his arm."
The others stopped scraping their plates to look at her.
"Why didn't ye tell us afore?" Jane asked.
"'Cause I was feared," said Honeybird. "He tould me that if I telt anybuddy he'd come back an' cut my throat."
The family stared at her. Here was a wonderful adventure Honeybird had been through, and had never said a word about it till this minute. Questions poured in on her. Lull, remembering that Honeybird had been out by herself all afternoon, listened anxiously. Honeybird glanced quickly over her shoulder, as though she were afraid of being overheard. "I was coming along the road," she began, lowering her voice, "when who should I meet but a big, wicked-lukin' man, with a baldy head on him, an' two roun' eyes as big as saucers."
"Away ar that, Honeybird," Patsy interrupted.
"Well, I can tell ye they luked like that to me," said Honeybird. "An' just as he was passin' me I seen a wee beak keekin 'out a' his pocket, an' sez I to myself: 'Thon's Father Ryan's bantam hen.'" Honeybird had an attentive audience. "An' sez I to him: 'Drap it,' sez I."
"Lord love ye, child, the man might 'a' hurted ye," said Lull.
"He very near did," said Honeybird. "He lifted a big stone, an' clodded it at me, an' sez he: 'If ye tell on me I'll cut yer throat,' sez he."
"That's the last time ye're out stravagin' the roads by yer lone," said Lull. "Yez'll not have to lave the wee sowl after this," she cautioned the others. They were as frightened as Lull.
They treated Honeybird as though she had been rescued from some terrible danger. Next morning Andy was told. He questioned Honeybird closely, and said he would give a description of the man to Sergeant M'Gee. Honeybird remembered that the man had red whiskers, and carried a big stick. Later on she remembered that he had bandy legs and a squint. The more frightened the others grew at the thought of the dangers she had been exposed to the more terrible grew her description of the man's appearance. Once or twice Jane had a suspicion that Honeybird was adding to the truth, but when questioned Honeybird stuck to the same tale, and never contradicted herself.
"God be thankit no harm come to the wee sowl," said Mick when Honeybird had gone off to play, in charge of Fly and Patsy. "I'll be feared to let her out a' my sight after this."
"I'll hould ye Sergeant M'Gee'll keep a luk out for thon boy," said Jane. They were up in the loft getting hay for Rufus.
"Wasn't she the quare brave wee thing to tell the man to drap the priest's hen?" said Mick. Jane lifted a bundle of hay.
"She's an awful good wee child, anyway," she answered. "What's that scrapin' in the corner?" she added.
She stepped over the hay to look.
"What is it?" said Mick. Jane did not answer. He repeated his question, and Jane turned a bewildered face.
"Come here an' see," she said. In the corner, where a place had been cleared for the purpose, a bantam hen was tethered by a string to a nail in the floor!
"God help us," said Mick, "but why an' iver did he hide it here?"
"He!" said Jane, "don't you see the manin' af it? She's stole it herself, an' tould us all them lies on purpose."
Mick could hardly be brought to believe this.
"Did ye iver hear tell a' such badness?" said Jane.
"Mebby she niver knowed what she was doin'," said Mick.
"Didn't she just," said Jane; "she knowed enough to tell a quare good lie."
"We'd better go an' ast her if she done it," said Mick.
They found Honeybird playing on the lawn with the two others, and led her away to the top of the garden. Jane began the accusation.
"Do you know, Honeybird, we think you're a wee thief," she said.
"Dear forgive ye," said Honeybird.
"We seen the bantam," said Jane.
Honeybird looked up quickly. "Then just you lave it alone, an' mind yer own business," she said.
"Do you know that you are a thief an' a liar, Honeybird Darragh?" said Jane sternly.
"Well, what if I am?" said Honeybird. "Sure, I'm on'y a wee child, an know no better."
"Ye know the commandments an' 'Thou shall not steal' as well as I do," said Jane.
"I forget them sometimes," said Honeybird; "besides, too, I niver stole it. It as near as ninepence walked up into my pinny."
"Where was it?" Mick asked.
"It was out walkin' on the road all by its lone," said Honeybird, "an' if I hadn't 'a' tuk it mebby somebuddy else would."
"Then ye niver seen no bad man with a baldy head at all?" Mick asked.
"No, I didn't," Honeybird confessed; "but I might 'a' seen him all the same."
"Luk here, me girl," said Jane, "you've just got to walk that bantam hen back to Father Ryan."
"I will not," said Honeybird.
"Then we'll tell Lull."
Honeybird began to cry. "If ye do I'll run away, an' niver, niver come home any more," she said. Jane was dumfounded.
"Ye can't go on bein' a thief, Honeybird," she said at last. "We on'y want to make ye good."
"Then ye'll not make me good," said Honeybird. "If ye tell anybuddy I'll be as bad as bad as the divil, so I just will."
"Well, if ye don't give up the bantam Almighty God'll let ye know," said Jane.
"I'm not a bit feared a' Him," Honeybird replied. Say what they would they could not move her. Mick reasoned and Jane reasoned, but it was all to no purpose. Honeybird was determined to stick to her sin. In the end she got the better of them, for to put an end to her threats they had to promise not to tell. Later in the day Andy also discovered the bantam hen, and told Lull.
"I wouldn't 'a' believed there was that much veeciousness in the wean," he said. Andy was cross—he had been to the police barracks, and told Sergeant M'Gee to look out for Honeybird's bad man.
"God luk to yer wit, man," said Lull. "Sure, childer's always tryin' their han' at some divilment or other."
"She'd be the better af a good batin'," said Andy.
"It'd be the quare wan would lift han' to a chile like thon," said Lull. "I don't hould with batin's, anyway. Just take yer hurry, an' ye'll see what'll happen."
What did happen was that Honeybird brought an old hymn-book into the kitchen that evening, and sat by the fire singing hymns. "I am Jesus' little lamb," she was singing in a shrill voice when the others came into supper.
"Then ye're the quare black wan," said Jane.
Several days passed, and Honeybird showed no sign of repentance. She even continued the tale of the bad man to Fly and Patsy, who did not know the truth, and were still frightened of him. She said she had met him again. Where and when she was not going to tell, for he had told her he was going to America, and was never going to steal any more. He had also said that if she were a good girl he would give her a bantam hen for herself.
"He'll on'y give ye the wan he stole from Father Ryan, an' then ye'll have to take it back," said Fly.
"No; but he said it'd be wan he stole from somebuddy I niver seen or knowed," said Honeybird.
"Don't you be takin' it," Patsy warned her. "The receiver's as bad as the thief, ye know."
Honeybird was disconcerted for a moment. "Who tould ye that?" she asked.
"It's in the Bible," said Patsy.
"Well, I don't believe it," said Honeybird. "Anyway, Almighty God forgets things half His time. I seen somebuddy that done a sin wanst, an' He niver let on He knowed."
That night Mrs Darragh was ill again. The children had all gone to bed. Lull thanked God they were asleep as she sat by their mother's side listening to her wild prayers and protestations of repentance. "The childer'd make sure she was goin' to die if they heerd her," she thought, and hoped the nursery door was securely shut. She had found it was best to let Mrs Darragh cry till she had exhausted her grief. Then she would fall asleep, and forget. Tonight it was past twelve o'clock before Mrs Darragh slept. Lull made up the fire, and crept softly out of the room to go to her own bed. But when she opened the door she discovered the five children in their nightgowns sitting huddled together in the passage. They looked at Lull with anxious eyes.
"Is she dead, Lull?" Jane asked. Lull drove them off to the nursery.
"Tell us, Lull; is she dead?" Mick begged.
"Not a bit a' her," said Lull cheerfully. "She's sleepin' soun'." She tucked them into bed, and hurried back to see if they had waked their mother. All was quiet there, and she was once more going off to bed, when she heard voices in the nursery.
"I'll take it back the morra, but I think Almighty God's not fair." It was Honeybird's voice. "He might 'a' done some wee thing on me, an' instead a' that He done the baddest thing He knowed."
"Whist, Honeybird," came Jane's voice.
"I'll not whist," said Honeybird. "He's near bruk my heart. Makin' mother sick like that all for the sake of a wee bantam."
"God help childer an' their notions," said Lull to herself.
Next morning, when she was lighting the kitchen fire, a figure passed the kitchen window. It was early for anybody to be about the place, so Lull got up to see who it could be. It was Honeybird. She was running quickly down the avenue, with something under her arm. She was back again before breakfast.
"How's mother?" were her first words. Lull assured her that Mrs Darragh was better again.
Honeybird gave a sigh of relief. "Och, but I got the quare scare," she said. Lull pretended to know nothing.
"Well, I may as well tell ye it was me stole Father Ryan's wee bantam," said Honeybird. Lull expressed surprise.
"An' sez I to myself: 'Almighty God niver knows that I know right well it's a sin'"—she paused for a moment—"but He knowed all the time. 'Clare to you, Lull dear, I made sure He'd 'a' kilt mother afore I got the wee bantam tuk back."
"Did ye tell the priest that?" Lull asked.
"Troth, I tould him ivery word from the very start," Honeybird answered.
"An' what did he say to ye?" said Lull.
"He's the awful nice man," said Honeybird. "He tried to make out that Almighty God wasn't as bad as all that. But I know better. Anyhow, he's goin' to buy me a wee bantam cock and hen, all for my very own, to keep for iver."
The Dorcas Society was Jane's idea. She thought of it one Monday evening as they all sat round the kitchen fire watching Lull make soup for the poor. A bad harvest had been followed by an unusually wild winter. Storms such as had not been known for fifty years swept over the country, and now, after three months of storm, February had come with a hard frost and biting wind that drove the cold home to the very marrow of your bones. In winters past the poor had come from miles round to Rowallan, where a boiler full of soup was never off the kitchen fire. This winter, driven by want, some of those who remembered the old days had come back once more, and Lull, out of her scanty store, had filled once more the big boiler. On this Monday evening, as she stirred the soup, she mourned for the good days past.
"Troth, Rowallan was the full an' plenty house when the ould master was alive. Bad an' all as he was there was good in him. It was a sayin' among the neighbours that if ye'd had three bellies on ye ye could 'a' filled them all at Rowallan." Lull could have talked all night on this subject. "An' the ould mistress, God have mercy on her; she'd have blankets an' flannel petticoats, an' dear knows what all, for the women an' childer; I'm sayin' Rowallan was the full an' plenty house wanst."
"Well, I wisht it was now," said Mick. "I met Anne M'Farlane on the road the day, an' ye could see the bones of her through her poor ould duds."
"Ah, I thought a quare pity a' her myself," said Patsy; "the teeth was rattlin' in her head."
"That'll make me cry when I'm in bed the night," said Honeybird sorrowfully.
It was then that the idea of a Dorcas Society, such as their mother had told them of, came to Jane, and was taken up enthusiastically by the others. "Ye get ould clothes, an' mend them, an' fix them for people," she explained to Lull. "We could have a brave one with all them things in the blue-room cupboards."
"Is it the clothes of your ould ancestry ye're for givin' away? I'm thinkin' ye'll get small thanks for that rubbidge," said Lull.
"Why, they're beautiful things, that warm an' thick," Jane protested, "an' we'd fix them up first." Lull looked at the five eager faces watching hers. She hated to damp their ardour, but she knew what the village would think of such gifts.
"Say yes, plaze," Honeybird begged, "or I'll be awful sorry ivery time I mind Anne M'Farlane shiverin'."
"Go on, Lull; many's the time I can hardly sleep when I think the people's cowld," said Mick.
"We'd begin at wanst," said Fly eagerly, and Lull weakly gave in. "God send they don't be makin' scarecrows a' the poor," she murmured when the children had departed in joyful haste to begin their Dorcas Society. For three days they could think and talk of nothing else. Lull, watching them, regretted that she had not the heart to discourage them at the first, for they took such pleasure and pride in their society that she could not disappoint them now. She did drop a few hints, but nobody took any notice. The clothes from the blue-room cupboards represented the fashions for the past fifty years—full-skirted gowns, silk and satin, tarlatan, and bombazine calashes, areophane bonnets, Dolly Varden hats, pelerines, burnouses, shawls, tippets. At these Fly and Jane sewed from morning till night. Fly saw the hand of Providence in an attack of rheumatism that kept Mr Rannigan in bed and put off lessons for a week. The boys were at school, but directly they came home they sat down by the schoolroom fire to help. Honeybird could not sew; she unpicked torn linings and, on Lull's suggestion, ripped off all unnecessary bows and fringes, working so hard that she had two big blisters where the scissors chafed her fingers. On Wednesday evening all the sewing was done, and the children prepared to take the clothes to the village. Lull regretted her weakness still more when she saw how pleased they were with their work. They brought her into the schoolroom to show her everything before they packed.
"Look at that fine thing," said Honeybird, patting a red burnouse. "That'll keep Anne M'Farlane's ould bones from rattlin'." Patsy held up a buff-coloured satin gown, pointing out with pride where he had filled up the deficiencies of a very low neck with the top of a green silk pelerine.
"That's more like a dress now, isn't it, Lull?" he said. "I'm thinkin' whoiver wore that afore I fixed it must 'a' been on the bare stomach." They packed the clothes in ould Davy's wheelbarrow and the ould perambulator, and started off. Jane and Mick wheeled the loads. Patsy held a lantern, Fly and Honeybird carried armfuls of bonnets and hats that would have been crushed among the heavy things. Lull felt like a culprit as she watched them go. She waited with some anxiety for them to come home, but they came back as pleased as they had been when they started. Everybody was delighted, and had promised to wear their gifts.
"Anne M'Farlane cried, she was that glad," Honeybird told Lull.
"An', mind ye, the things fitted quare an' well," said Mick. "The only thing I have my doubts about was thon lilac boots ye give Mrs Cush."
"They went on her all right," said Jane.
"Ah, but I could see they hurted her all the same," said Mick; "but I suppose they'll stretch." Lull thanked God in her heart that the people had evidently taken the will for the deed. And perhaps, after all, though the clothes were not fit to wear, some of them might be useful—one of those satin dresses would be a warm covering on a bed.
Next morning she was skimming the soup when old Mrs Kelly came in. Lull turned to greet her, and saw to her surprise that Mrs Kelly wore a tight black silk jacket and a green calash. "Saints presarve us, Mrs Kelly, woman," she exclaimed, for a moment forgetting the Dorcas Society. Mrs Kelly smiled weakly.
"I suppose I look like mad Mattie; but I couldn't be disappointin' the childer. Ye'll tell them, Lull, I come up in them, won't ye? I give them my word I would." Mrs Kelly departed with her soup, and Lull sat down to face the fact that the people had taken the children seriously. "Dear forgive me, I'm the right ould fool. The village'll be like a circus the day," she murmured. A tall figure in vivid colours passed the window. "God help us, there's Anne," she gasped. The next moment Anne M'Farlane stood in the doorway. She wore a brown bombazine dress, a red burnouse, and a bonnet of bright blue areophane. Lull greeted her as though there were nothing unusual about her appearance. But Anne, in no mood to notice this, stood still in the doorway. Lull turned towards the fire.
"Come on in an' warm yerself, Anne," she said cheerfully, trying to ignore Anne's dramatic attitude. A burst of weeping was the reply from the figure in the doorway.
"Luk at me—luk!" wailed Anne. "Did ye iver see the like in all yer days?—all the childer in the streets a-callin' after me. An' when I met the priest on the road, sez he: 'Is it aff to a weddin' ye are in Lent, Anne?' sez he." Lull could find nothing to say. She tried to make Anne come in and have some tea, but Anne's woe was beyond the comfort of tea.
"Gimme the soup, an' I'll away home to my bed," she wept. "God help me, I'd be better in my grave." She dried her eyes on the burnouse, and took her soup, adding, as she turned to go: "Don't be lettin' on to the weans, Lull. Their meanin' was a' the best, but it's an image upon airth they've made a' me—me that always lived a moral life, an' hoped to die a moral death." She went away crying.
"It's the sore penance I'll get for this day's work," Lull muttered.
Teressa was the next person to arrive, and to Lull's relief she wore her own well-known green plaid shawl. On seeing this Lull took heart again. Mrs Kelly and Anne M'Farlane were both such good-natured bodies, perhaps they would be the only ones to wear the Dorcas Society's gifts. But Teressa was charged with news. She was hardly inside the door before she began. "Man, Lull, woman, but there's the quare fun in the village the day. Ye'd split yer two sides at the people. I niver laughed as many. Thon's the curiosities a' the ould-fashionedest, to be sure. Silks an' satins trailin' round the dours like tip-top quality rared in the parlour." She took a seat by the fire. "God be thanked, the childer niver come near me; mebby they'd 'a' made a kiltie a' me, like poor Mary M'Cann, the critter." Before Lull had time to reply the door was once more opened, and old Mrs Glover came in, looking very apologetic in the full-skirted, buff-coloured satin gown that Patsy had made wearable.
"Good mornin' to ye, Lull," she curtsied. "Is that yerself, Mrs O'Rorke?" She was evidently on the verge of tears. Teressa looked pityingly at her.
"Och, but the quality does be makin' fun a' the poor," she said. Mrs Glover's tears brimmed over. "The boyseys has laughed their fill at me, an' me their ould granny," she quavered. "I'd do anythin' to oblige, but I hadn't the nerve to come out in thon fur hat: Geordie said I looked for all the world like an' ould rabbit in it."
"A dacint woman like yerself. I'm sayin', I wonder the childer would do the like," said Teressa sympathetically. Lull felt her temper rising, but she was powerless to reply. Teressa invited Mrs Glover to sit down.
"They're stirrin' weans, an' I'm not aquil for them," Mrs Glover murmured.
Teressa nodded from the other side of the fire. "Families does be terrible like other," she said.
"'Deed ay; that's no lie," said Mrs Glover plaintively. "I mind their ould grandfather afore them; many's the time the people be to curse the Pope for him afore he'd let them have the wee drap a' soup."
Lull rose in wrath. "Is it the weans ye're namin' wi that ould ruffan?" she said fiercely—"an' them stitching an' rippin' for a pack a' crabbit ould women that the saints in glory couldn't plaze."
Teressa and Mrs Glover both got up hastily, full of apologies, but Lull would not be appeased. She gave them their soup, and sent them off. "People does be thinkin' quare things," she murmured as she watched them go. "How an' iver am I going to tell the childer thon?"
She had no need, however, to tell the children. The news came from an unexpected quarter. Dinner was waiting on the schoolroom table, and the children, standing by the fire, were still discussing their Dorcas Society, when there came a tap at the door, and Miss Rannigan, the rector's niece, walked in.
Miss Rannigan was a little woman, prim and bird-like in her movements. She came to stay at the Rectory about twice a year, and the children avoided the place while she was there. She had never been to Rowallan before, and they thought she must have come to tell them that Mr Rannigan was dead. Her first words dispelled this fear.
"Fie! oh, fie!" She pointed a black-kid finger at Jane. Jane quickly reviewed her life to see which sin had been discovered. "The whole village is intoxicated, you cruel child." They all stared at her. "They tell me it was you made such shocking guys of those poor, benighted old women who are now dancing in the street like drunken playactors." A scarlet flame leapt from face to face; the children turned to each other with burning cheeks. "If my uncle had been able he would have come here himself," Miss Rannigan went on.
"We—we—we——" Jane stammered; she could not tell Miss Rannigan about the Dorcas Society.
"Do not try to make excuses," said that lady.
"We make no excuses," said Patsy wrathfully. "We done it a' purpose, just for the pure divilment a' the thing."
"Wean, dear!" Lull remonstrated.
"Their meanin' was good, miss," she began. Andy's head appeared round the door.
"If ye plaze, Miss Jane, wee Cush is here, an' she says for the love of God will ye come an' take them fancy boots off her ould granny that ye put on last night, for ne'er a buddy else can. The ould woman niver got a wink a' sleep, an' the two feet's burnin' aff her."
"I should like to teach you what a mother is," said Miss Rannigan grimly.
"Do ye think she was tellin' the truth?" said Mick when she had gone.
Jane was putting on her hat. "I'm goin' to see," she said. She departed for the village, and the others went with her, in spite of Lull's entreaties to them to stay and eat their dinner first. Lull put the dinner in the oven, and then sat down and cried. They came back miserably dejected. Miss Rannigan's tale was only too true. "There's hardly wan sober," Jane explained. "Ould Mrs Cush is, 'cause the boots hurted her that much she couldn't put fut to the flure. I had to cut them off her."
"Where did they get the drink?" Lull asked.
"At the Red Lion. John M'Fall had them all in, an' made them drunk for nuthin', 'cause they looked that awful funny in our clothes." Jane put her head down on the table, and cried bitterly. Mick tried to comfort her, while Fly and Honeybird wept on Lull's lap.
"Sure, ye did it all for the best, dear," Lull said. "It's meselfs the bad ould fool not to see how it would be from the first."
Suddenly Patsy began to laugh. "I can't help it if ye are cross wi' me, Jane, but I wisht ye'd seen ould Mrs Glover in thon furry hat."
Jane raised a wrathful face. "It's awful wicked of ye, Patsy, when mebby they'll all be took up and put in gaol through us."
"They can't be that," said Patsy, "for Sergeant M'Gee's as drunk as anybody."
Jane's face cleared. "Are ye sure?" she demanded.
"Sure! didn't ye see him walasin' round in thon tull bonnet? I heard him sayin' they'd burn tar bar'ls the night." This relieved their anxiety, but it could not do away with the disgrace. The children avoided the village for weeks, and never again mentioned the Dorcas Society.
Mick had made friends with Pat M'Garvey in the spring, when Jane and the others had measles, and he had been sent to the Rectory to be out of the way. The weather had been fine, and he had gone exploring nearly every day. On one of these expeditions he had come across a tall, red-haired boy setting potatoes in a patch of ground behind a cottage on tfie side of the mountain. The coast road ran below, and Mick must have passed the cottage dozens of times, but he had never seen it before. He discovered it now only because he had been up the mountain and had seen a thread of smoke below. Even then it had been hard to find the cottage, hid as it was by boulders and whins. At first Pat had not been friendly. When he straightened his long back up from the potatoes he was bending over he had looked angrily at Mick. But Mick had insisted on being friends, he was so lonely, and after a bit Pat had invited him into the garden, and allowed him to help to plant the potatoes. The next day Mick went again, and then the next. He soon discovered that Pat was not like the boys in the village: he knew things that Mick had never heard of, and told him stories of the Red Branch Knights and the time when Ireland was happy. Once when Mick tried to show off the little he knew about the Rebellion Pat took the story out of his mouth, and got so excited that his grey-green eyes looked as though they were on fire. He was twenty years old, and lived alone with his old grandmother.
"Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God, an' yer father's gun in his han'""Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are?Mother a' God, an' yer father's gun in his han'"
"Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God, an' yer father's gun in his han'""Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are?Mother a' God, an' yer father's gun in his han'"
The first time Mick went into the cottage a strange thing happened. Old Mrs M'Garvey was sitting by the chimney corner, her hands stretched out over the fire. She looked like a witch, Mick thought. Over the chimneypiece there was a gun that took Mick's fancy. It was nearly six feet long. Pat saw him looking at it, and took it down. He said it had been washed ashore the time of the Spanish Armada, and had been found in the sand. Mick took it into his hands to feel the weight. Suddenly the old woman looked up, and asked Pat what was the young gentleman's name. Mick answered for himself. She rose from her stool with a screech: "Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God! an' yer father's gun in his han'." Mick turned in bewilderment to Pat, but he was leaning against the wall, shaking all over. "In the name of God," he was saying. Then he took the gun away, and hurried Mick out of the cottage. "I niver knew that was who ye were," he said; "I made sure you were wan a' the young Bogues." He told Mick not to think about it again—the old woman was doting, and did not know what she was saying—but he made him promise never to tell anyone what had happened, and never let anyone know they were friends—they might both get into trouble if it were known, he said. Soon after this Mick went back to Rowallan, and then he was not able to see Pat so often. If the friendship had not been a secret he could have gone, but it was hard to get away from the others without explaining where he was going. Once or twice through the summer he slipped away, and found Pat about the cottage. On one of these days Pat told him he was going away to America soon, to his father. Mick had imagined that Mr M'Garvey was dead. He thought Pat looked very miserable. "Don't ye want to go?" he asked.
"It's not so much the goin' I mind as a terrible piece a' work I have to do afore I go," he said. Then after a pause he added: "But I'll not be goin' yet a bit; I'll wait till I bury my ould granny."
Mick did not go back till one day in November. He could not see Pat anywhere outside, so he knocked at the cottage door. It was opened by Pat himself. "She's dead," he said. He came out, and they sat on the wall. "Then ye'll be off to America," Mick said sadly—he had never seen Pat look so thin and ill; "I'll be quare an' sorry to see ye go."
Pat did not answer, he was looking straight out at the line of grey sea. Mick could hear the waves beating on the rocks below. At last Pat said: "I have that bit of a job to do before I go." Mick thought he meant he must bury his granny. He tried to cheer him up. "Yer father'll be brave an' glad to see ye," he said.
"It's six years the morra since I seen him," said Pat, still looking out to sea.
"Six years the morra; why, that's just as long as my father's been dead," said Mick. Pat did not answer.
"Will ye iver come back any more?" Mick asked.
"Niver," said Pat. "I'll bury my granny the morra, an' then—then I start."
"Well, I'll niver forget ye," said Mick. Now that it had come to saying good-bye for ever Mick felt he could not let Pat go; it was like parting from Jane or Patsy; he was almost crying.
"Ye'll have no call to forget me or mine," said Pat bitterly.
"'Deed, I won't," said Mick; "ye've been quare an' kind to me. I'd like to give ye somethin' before ye go, so that ye won't forget me, but I've nothin' but my ould watch. I wisht ye'd take it, Pat."
Pat hid his face in his hands, then he gave a sound like a groan, and got up, and took Mick by the shoulders. "See here," he said, "ye'll niver forget me, an' I'll niver forget you. God forgive me, I wouldn't hurt a hair a' yer head, an' yet I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm. An' it's tearin' the heart out of me to do it. Mind that. But I give my father my word I'd do it, an' it's the right thing for-by. It's only because it's yerself that it's killin' me." And he turned back into the cottage, and shut the door. The whole way home Mick puzzled over what he could have meant.
The next day was Honeybird's birthday, and they were all to go to take tea with Aunt Mary and Uncle Niel at the farm. This was one of their greatest treats; but at the last minute Mick said he did not want to go. All the morning, every time he remembered, tears kept coming into his eyes—Pat was burying his old granny to-day, and then he was going to leave Ireland for ever. It seemed a mean thing to go to a tea party when your best friend was going away, and you would never see him again. When he thought of how white and ill Pat had looked yesterday Mick felt a lump in his throat. But Lull said he must go to the farm whether he liked it or not, or Aunt Mary would be hurt.
The farm was nearly a mile from Rowallan. Half the way was by the open road, but the other half was through the loney—a muddy lane with a bad reputation. All sorts of tales were told about it. A murderer had been hanged, people said, on the willow-tree that grew there, and late at night his bones could be heard still rattling in the breeze; andThingsthat dare not go by the front road, for fear of passing the figure of the Blessed Virgin on the convent chapel, came to and from the mountains by this way. The convent wall, on one side, threw a shadow on the path, making it dark even in daylight; on the other side was a deep ditch. The children ran as fast as they could till they came to the end of the wall, when the path turned across the open fields to the farm. They knew no place that looked so clean and bright as that whitewashed house on the brow of the hill. After the gloom of the loney the low, white garden wall, the fuchsia bushes, the beds of yellow marigolds seemed to smile at them in a glow of sunlight. Aunt Mary was waiting at the half-door, quieting the dogs, that had been roused from their sleep in front of the kitchen fire. Aunt Mary was a little woman with a soft voice; she wore her hair parted down the middle, and brushed back till it shone like silk. When she had kissed them all she took them upstairs to her bedroom to take off their things. Jane always said she would be feared to death to sleep in Aunt Mary's room. The ceiling sloped down on one side, and in under it there was a window looking across the fields to the river and the big dark mountains beyond. To-day the window was open, and they could hear the noise the river made as it fell at the weir. Jane listened a minute, then turned away. "I hate it," she said; "it's like a mad, wild woman cryin'."
"Don't, Jane," Mick said sharply. That mournful sound had made him unhappy again about Pat.
"Come on out of that," said Patsy, "an' let's get some pears."
Aunt Mary always allowed them to play in the room where the apples and pears were stored. Besides apples and pears there were two wooden boxes full of clothes to dress up in—stiff, old-fashioned silks, Indian muslins, embroidered jackets, and a pair of white kid boots. Aunt Mary had worn these things when she was young and lived at Rowallan, before she turned to be a Roman Catholic and was driven out by her father. When they were tired of play they came downstairs to the parlour. This, they thought, was the most beautiful room in the world. There was a carpet with a wreath of roses on a grey ground, a cupboard with diamond panes, where Aunt Mary kept her china, and the deep window seat was filled with geraniums. Aunt Mary had a birthday present for Honeybird; she kissed her when she gave it; and said: "God and His Blessed Mother keep you, child." Then she cried a little, till they all felt inclined to cry with her. But she jumped up, and said it was time she baked the soda bread for tea. When the bread was baked and the table laid Aunt Mary went to the half-door to look out for Uncle Niel.
"I always know when he's comin' by your face, Aunt Mary," Jane said.
Aunt Mary laughed. "Indeed, I'm not surprised," she said; "for I can't remember a day when I didn't watch for his coming."
He came soon, and they had tea, and then he told them fairy tales by the kitchen fire. In the middle of a story Mick suddenly noticed Aunt Mary's face as she looked up from her knitting to watch her brother. Jane was right; her face changed when she looked at him, her eyes seemed to shine. When he and Jane were old, and lived together as they had planned to do, they would love each other like that. Uncle Niel was like their father, Lull had once told them. She said there was not a finer gentleman in Ireland, and held him up to Mick and Patsy as a pattern of what they ought to be when they were men. Mick agreed with her. Uncle Niel was the kindest person he knew; after being with him Mick always felt he would like to be more polite to the others. When he was old he would be as polite to Jane as Uncle Niel was to Aunt Mary. On the way home it was very dark, and they all walked close to Uncle Niel going through the loney. He laughed at them, but Jane said she was afraid of the murderer whose bones rattled in the breeze.
"It's the first time I've heard of him or his bones," Uncle Niel said, "and I've been through the loney at all hours of the day and night."
"Did ye niver hear tell of Skyan the Bugler?" said Honeybird, "for I'm quare an' scared of him myself."
Uncle Niel picked her up in his arms. "What would Skyan the Bugler want with you?" he said.
"'Deed, he might be after marryin' me," she said, "an' ye know I wouldn't like that."
"I'd rather be married that kilt," said Jane.
"I think one is as bad as the other," said Uncle Niel, and he laughed again. "But I tell you what," he added; "if I ever meet anything in the loney worse than myself I'll come over in the morning and tell you."
Then Patsy, who had been walking along quietly, suddenly spoke. "Uncle Niel," he said, "who was Patrick M'Garvey?"
Mick caught his breath. Where had Patsy heard that name? Uncle Niel seemed to be startled too. He stopped short on the path. "Who was telling you about him, Patsy, lad?" he said.
"It was just a man at the fair wanst. He said if Patrick M'Garvey had waited in the loney instead of at the big gates my father would be alive to this day. I ast him what his manin' was; but another man tould him to hould his tongue, an' tould me not to heed him, for he had drink on him."
"Well, don't think about it any more, Patsy," Uncle Niel said; he was not laughing now. "You and I have a lot to forgive when we think of Patrick M'Garvey, but we do well to forgive, as God forgives us."
Mick could not go to sleep that night thinking of what Uncle Niel and Patsy had said. It was a wet night, and the rain beat against the windows. After a bit Jane came into his room from the nursery; she could not sleep either, and she thought she had heard the banshee crying. But there was no sound except the pelting of heavy rain when they listened. Mick made her crawl into his bed, and then they must have fallen asleep. They were waked by the sound of voices downstairs. The rain was over, but the wind was up, and the voices seemed to die away and rise again every time there was a lull in the storm. They both got up, and dressed hurriedly, without waking the others. Something must have happened, they thought, and on such a dismal morning it could only be something bad. All the village was gathered in the kitchen when they got downstairs. Some of the women were crying, and there was a scared look on the men's faces. Mick and Jane were sure their mother must be dead. But no one took any notice of them, and they could not see Lull anywhere.
"The dog was howlin' at half-past eleven," Mick heard a man say, "an' the dour was locked and boulted when the polis tuk the body home."
Then the back door opened, and Father Ryan, the parish priest, came in.
"Go home, every one of you," he said; "talkin' won't give the man his life back."
The kitchen was soon cleared. Mick saw Lull sitting by the table, her head on her hands. Father Ryan put his hand on her shoulder.
"I've lost my best friend, Lull," he said. Lull looked up; Mick hardly knew her face, it was so small and old.
"God help us, Father," she said, and then began to cry wildly. "Miss Mary, poor Miss Mary; it'll be the death of her."
"You are right, Lull," Father Ryan said; "she'll never get over it. I've just come from her. It will just be the mistress over again—— What are the children doing here?" he added quickly.
"God forgive me, I niver seen them to this minute," said Lull.
Father Ryan called them over to him. "Do you know what's come to you?" he said.
"Somebody's dead," Mick answered.
"It's your Uncle Niel," Father Ryan said; "he was killed in the loney last night."
Father Ryan did not stay long. When he had gone Andy came in. Mick was crouching by the fire.
"Do you call to mind what day it was, Lull?" Andy said in a whisper Mick heard.
"I do, well," said Lull; "six years to the very day. God's curse on him," she added in a strange, harsh voice; "couldn't he be content with murderin' the wan, an' not hape sorra on us like this?"
"He's safe in America," said Andy, "that's the divilment of him; but them that's got childer has got the long arm. I'll hould ye he's niver let the boy forget. The ould mother was buried yesterday, an' the boy must 'a' been waitin' for that till he done it."
Mick heard no more; he slipped out down the passage to the schoolroom. He had forgotten all about Pat, but now he remembered, with a terror that overwhelmed him. For a moment he wondered if he were really himself. It could not be true that Uncle Niel was dead, and he, Michael Darragh, knew—knew what? He could not bear the thought. But it was all spread out plain before his eyes. Pat M'Garvey, his friend, whom he loved so much, had murdered Uncle Niel. He shut his eyes, and drew in his breath. "I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm"—he could see Pat's face as he said it, so thin and miserable. Why, why had he done it? Uncle Niel was so good, and Pat was so good too, but now one was dead and the other was a murderer. Quick before his eyes horrid pictures rose up—Uncle Niel lying dead, and Pat, with blood on his hands, caught by the police; Pat going to gaol on a car, handcuffed, between two policemen, his white face—— "He didn't mane it," Mick burst out passionately. "Oh, God, I just can't bear it." Then another thought came. He himself would be brought up to give evidence. Pat had told him he was going to do it, and now on his word Pat would be hanged. What had happened that the whole world had turned against him like this?
The next minute he was off, across the wet lawn, over the road, running for his life, not on the road, in case he was seen, but on the other side of the stone wall. It was not daylight yet, but dawn was struggling through the clouds. When he came to the village he skirted it by climbing over the rocks, then on as fast as he could go, on the coast road now it was safe—he would meet no one there—then up along the little path that wound through dead whins and boulders, up to the cottage, where the rain was dripping from the thatch. Mick never stopped till he was at the door. There was no answer to his knock. "Pat," he whispered, "let me in." Still there was no answer. He looked in at the window: the fire was out, and the place looked deserted. "He's away," he muttered. But just then the door opened. "Is that you?" said Pat's voice. "Come in." Mick went in, and shut the door behind him.
"Pat," he said, "ye must be off at wanst—quick, quick—or they'll catch ye."
"Who tould ye?" said Pat.
"Nobuddy tould me. They said he was in America an' the ould mother was buried yesterday. But ye must be goin' this minute."
"Hould on a minute," said Pat; "do ye know what ye're sayin', do ye know what I've done at all?"
"I do," said Mick; "ye mur—— Ye tould me yerself ye were goin' to do me the cruel harm."
"Is that all ye know?" said Pat—"then ye know nothin'. Do ye see that gun there?" Mick saw it was still hanging over the chimneypiece. "Well, it was that gun shot your father. Do ye see what I mane?"
Mick stared at him in a dazed way. "My father?" he repeated.
"Your father," said Pat; "an' it was my father murdered him."
Mick was too dazed to take it in. All he could think of, all he could see, was that thin white face before his eyes.
"Do ye think ye'll get safe to America?" he said huskily.
"My God, are ye a chile at all?" said Pat. He gave a big sob, that made Mick jump, and then began to cry and shake all over. "What did I do it for at all at all?" he wailed.
Mick put his arm round him. "Whist, Pat, whist, man; ye must be off, now, at wanst."
Pat stopped crying. "I'm not goin'," he said. "I done what he bid me, an' now I'll give myself up, an' let them hang me: it's what I disarve."
"Listen a bit, Pat," said Mick. "Ye didn't mane it, I know that. It's not you but yer ould father that ought to be hanged——" He stopped, something came back to his mind as though out of a far-off past; but it was only last night Uncle Niel had said: "We do well to forgive him, as God forgives us." "Pat," he cried, "Uncle Niel said we were to forgive your father!" Quickly he told the whole story—what Patsy had said, what Uncle Niel had answered, with such a sense of relief as he told it that he felt almost glad. "An' I know he would forgive you for murderin' him, Pat, this very minute, if he could spake." Pat did not answer. "An' if ye don't go they'll make me give evidence, an' ye wouldn't have me an informer, would ye?"
"I'll go," said Pat.
No one had missed Mick when he got home. Their mother was ill, and the doctor had come. Lull was with her, and Teressa had come to do the work. After dinner Teressa came into the schoolroom. She said she was afraid to be by herself in the big kitchen. Jane questioned her about Uncle Niel, and she told them that one of the men had found the dead body in the loney late at night as he was coming back from Newry with one of the horses. The horse had stopped half way down the loney, and when the man looked round for a bit of a stick to beat him with he saw the body lying on its face in the ditch. "But the quare thing," Teressa said, "is that yer Aunt Mary houlds to it that he come in after seein' yez all home last night. She let him in, and boulted the dour after him, but when they took the corpse home the dour was still boulted, an' his bed had never been slep' in." Here Lull came into the schoolroom, and was cross with Teressa. "Have ye no wit, woman," she said, "sittin' there like an ould witch tellin' the childer a lock a' lies?"
The day of the funeral Mick stood at the schoolroom window in his new black coat watching the rain beating against the panes. The burden of the secret he carried weighed him down. He must have been changed into another person, he thought, since Honeybird's birthday.
"I wonder why it always rains when people die?" said Fly.
"He didn't die, he was murdered," said Jane bitterly.
Mick shivered; he felt like an accomplice. All night he had been thinking of the funeral. Lull had told him yesterday he must go to be chief mourner. But had he any right to be a mourner? What would the people think—what would Father Ryan say—if they knew that he had helped his uncle's murderer to escape?
"I wisht I could go with ye, Mick," said Jane at his elbow. "I ast Lull, but she said ladies niver went to feenerals."
Mick turned round. "I'm all right, Janie," he said. But Janie's kindness seemed to hurt him more: what would she say if she knew?
"Wouldn't it be awful nice if ye woke up this minute an' it wasn't real at all, an' we'd only dreamt it?" said Fly.
"Nip me as hard as ye can," said Jane. Fly nipped her arm. "Ye needn't nip so hard—it's true enough."
"I wonder if God could make it not true?" said Fly.
"He couldn't," said Mick, "for I'd niver, niver forget it."
"Andy's ready waitin' for ye, Mick," said Lull at the door.
When they came home from the funeral Mick was ill, and had to be put to bed. Jane came up to his room, and sat with him. "Do ye mind what Uncle Niel said to us in the loney?" she said. "Well, he couldn't come as far as this to tell us, so he went an' tould Aunt Mary; Teressa says it was his ghost come back to her."
"To tell us what?" said Mick feverishly.
"That it was wan of themThingsdone it."
"I thought ye meant about forgivin'," said Mick. "Mebby it was that; don't ye think it might 'a' been, Janie?" His voice was very eager.
"I niver thought a' that," said Jane; "but Uncle Niel was quare an' good. I believe he'd even forgive a buddy for murderin' him."
Mick lay down with a sigh of relief. "I thought that myself," he said.
It was not till the primroses were out that the children went to the farm again. Half way down the loney there was a rough cross scratched on a stone in the wall, and the words: Niel Darragh. R.I.P. Aunt Mary had been ill all winter, and at first they did not know her, for her hair was quite white. But nothing else was changed. The parlour looked brighter than ever; there was a bowl of primroses on the table. Through the window you could see the big cherry-trees in the orchard white with blossom. Upstairs the sun streamed into Aunt Mary's bedroom, and the river sounded quite cheerful across the fields as it raced along over the weir. When Aunt Mary had baked the soda bread for tea she went to the half-door, and looked out across the fields. "I thought I saw Niel coming," she said; "it is about time he was home." Then she turned back to the children, and welcomed them, as though she saw them now for the first time. On the way back they asked each other in whispers what could be the matter with her, but Mick walked on ahead, and said not a word. At the end of the loney they met Father Ryan.
"I was just coming to see you," he said. "It's you, Michael, I was wanting. I've got a blue pigeon for you, if you'll walk the length of the village with me."
Mick turned back with him. It was a lovely evening; the air was full of the smell of spring. They walked along silently. At their feet were tufts of primroses and dog-violets growing under the shelter of the stone wall. A chestnut-tree in the convent garden hung a green branch over the road. Before them, on one side, the sea lay like a silver mist; on the other the mountains, so ethereal that they looked as though at any moment they might melt away into the blue of the sky. But Mick had no heart for these things. Even when he heard the cuckoo across the fields, for the first time that year, it was with no answering thrill, but only with a dull sense that he had grown too old now to care—seeing Aunt Mary had brought back all the trouble he had tried so hard to forget.
When they got to Father Ryan's house they went straight into the parlour. "Mick," said Father Ryan, sitting down in his chair, "what ails you, child, this long time back?" Mick looked into his face. "It's all right," said Father Ryan; "you can tell me nothing I don't know. I had a letter from him this morning, poor boy."
"Is he all right?" said Mick.
"He's all right; that's what I wanted to tell you. But yourself, Mick, what ails you?"
"There's nothin' ails me," said Mick; "I've just got ould."
"Whist, boy, at your time of life," said Father Ryan.
"What did he do it for?" said Mike sharply. "Ye've seen her, Father; it's made her go mad." He began to cry.
"There, there, child," said Father Ryan. "It's more than you or me can say what it was done for. A better boy than Pat never lived, but the father had a bad hold on him."
"I sometimes think I done it myself," said Mick.
"You did it?" said Father Ryan. "Faith, child, you did a thing God Himself would have done."
When Mick said good-bye to Father Ryan about half-an-hour later, and was starting out, with the pigeon buttoned up inside his coat, he found Jane sitting on a stone at the presbytery gate waiting for him.
"Ye're the good ould sowl," he said, and he took her hand. "Come on, let's run home; I'm quare an' happy."