Ever since little Minnie Lawlor, accompanied by her mother and younger
sister, had come to live with her grandmother in a gate-lodge of
Shanlough Castle, her great wish had been to visit the castle itself,
which was always whetting her curiosity by showing just the rim of one
turret, like the edge of a crinkled cloud, over the rounded tree-tops
in the distance. But it was not until some months had passed that she
found an opportunity. Then, on a showery May morning, her mother set
off early to Killavin Fair; her grandmother was pinned to the big chair
in the chimney-corner by an access of rheumatics; Lizzie Hackett, the
cross girl who scrubbed for them, sent word that she could not come
till noon; and, as the last link in this chain of lucky chances, the
rope-reins of Willie Downing’s ass-cart snapped right in front of the
lodge gate just when Minnie and Baby were setting off for school. “Bad
manners to you, Juggy, for a contrary ould baste!” Willie was saying
as he halted for repairs. “Would nothin’ else suit you but to set
me chuckin’ th’ ould reins till they broke on us in a place where a
man hasn’t so much as a bit of string?” Willie, being twelve years
old, seemed of formidable age and size to Minnie, who was seven: but
the good-natured expression of his face, where large freckles made a
well-covered pattern, emboldened her to propose the plan which had
occurred to her at the sight of the empty ass-cart. As a preliminary,
however, she supplied him with the longest bit of twine she could
twitch from the thrifty wisp hung on the hook of a dresser. After
which, “Is it anywheres near the castle you’ll be drivin’ to?” she
inquired, pointing in that direction.
“I’m apt to be passin’ it pretty middlin’ near,” said Willie,
struggling to knot a pair of rather skimpy ends.
“And do you think you could be takin’ me and Baby along wid you that
far?” said Minnie.
“What for at all?” he said, looking doubtful.
“To see the grandeur that’s in it,” replied Minnie.
“Up at th’ ould place?” said Willie. “I never heard tell there was any
such a thing in it.”
“Well, there’s grand people in it, at all events,” said Minnie. “Me
grandmother does be sayin’ the Fitzallens hasn’t their equals next or
nigh them. Lords of the land they are, and the top of everythin’. I’d
like finely to be seein’ them, and so would Baby. But if we’ve any talk
of walkin’ a step up the avenue, me grandmother always says: ‘On no
account suffer them, Maria; it mightn’t be liked by the Family.’ So we
do be stoppin’ in the little ugly shrubbery.”
“I dunno is there e’er a lord in it,” said Willie, doubtfully. “If
there is, I never laid eyes on him.” This was disappointing.
“I suppose you’re very ignorant,” Minnie remarked after a slight pause,
as if she had sought and found a satisfactory explanation.
“Pretty middlin’ I am, sure enough,” Willie said more decidedly, and
then added, as if he, too, had hit upon a probable conjecture: “Belike
yous would be wantin’ to see Mrs O’Rourke, th’ ould housekeeper?”
Minnie might have replied truly that she had never heard tell of any
such person; but as the idea seemed to remove her new acquaintance’s
difficulties she answered: “Ay, sure we could go see her if you took us
along. I can step in meself over the wheel, and you can aisy give Baby
a heft up.” “But in my belief it’s goin’ to school the two of yous had
a right to be,” Willie said, relapsing into doubt again as he glanced
at their small bundle of ragged-edged books.
“Och, me mother’d say we might have a holiday this minyit, only she’s
went to the fair,” Minnie affirmed confidently, though she might have
had some difficulty in reconciling this belief with her gladness that
there was not present anybody whose permission need be asked. “I’ll get
in first.”
“Themselves inside there might be infuriated wid the whole of us,” said
Willie, still unconvinced.
“Sure you’re not a tinker, are you?” Minnie said, ostentatiously
surveying the no-contents of the cart. “They do be biddin’ us have
nothin’ to say to tinkers, but ne’er a tin can or anythin’ I see in
it.” As Willie’s objections seemed to be over-ruled by this argument,
she continued: “So Baby and I’ll run in and leave our books, and get
our good hats; we’ll be back agin you have the reins mended--mind you
wait for us.”
Her anxiety about her appearance before the eyes of the grand people
made her risk losing the chance of seeing them at all as she hurried
herself and her sister into their best jackets and new hats trimmed
with pink gauze and daisies; while a wild hope she secretly entertained
that they would be offered hospitality up at the castle led her to
discard the basket containing their dinners. Baby, indeed, was inclined
to demur at this, so Minnie compromised the matter by extracting the
two oranges which crowned the menu, and Baby, bearing the golden balls,
followed as contented as any ordinary queen.
The ass-cart had obligingly waited for them, and Willie Downing had
spread a sack for them to sit on at the back. He also helped Baby to
scramble up, but unfortunately said to Minnie, “You’d better be keepin’
a hold on her, for ones of that size don’t have much wit. She’d drop
off as aisy as a sod of peat, and be delayin’ me to pick her up”--a
remark which Baby resented, as albeit three years short of Minnie’s
age, and thrice as young as Willie, she had a strong sense of her own
dignity. Otherwise the drive was very thoroughly enjoyable. The cart
was not, indeed, a luxurious vehicle, being simply a flat wooden tray
on wheels, with no springs to soften its jolts, and no rail to prevent
one of them from jerking out an unwary passenger. But the little girls
thought it a most desirable substitute for their stuffily stupid
schoolroom, and when they were rocked as if in a boat on a choppy sea,
Minnie said that it was as good as going two ways at once. Juggy’s pace
was slow, as suited her venerable appearance, for many years had made
her as white as if she had been bleached and as stiff as if she had
been starched. Willie had a thick ash stick, with which he every now
and then made a loud rattling clatter on the front board of the cart.
“You might as well,” he explained, “be batin’ ould carpets as Juggy,
but the noise keeps her awake sometimes.” Minnie and Baby, however, had
so much to look at in the strange bog-land through which the cart was
passing that they were in no hurry for the end of their drive. In fact,
even Minnie felt a little forlorn when Willie drew up at a small gate
in a high stone wall and said: “I’ll be droppin’ yous here. It’s the
nearest I can be bringin’ yous to the castle. You’ll find your ways to
it pretty middlin’ aisy by them shrubbery paths, unless you take the
wrong turn; you might ready enough, for there’s a dale of diff’rint
walks through it, but they’ll bring you somewheres anyhow. Git along
out of that, Juggy.” For then it suddenly occurred to her that they
had come a long way, which they must travel back all by themselves.
Willie’s directions, too, were not by any means as clear as she could
have wished, but no more were to be had, as Juggy started perversely
without her usual delay; and although he shouted something as he jogged
away, they could make out only the words “pretty middlin’,” and it was
useless to call “what?” Soon the sounds of the creaking wheels and
clattering stick died out of hearing; so Minnie took Baby in tow and
ran into the shady shubberies, hoping rather uneasily for the best.
Now, on this same May morning, and in the same neighbourhood, two
other young persons were planning an adventurous expedition. Mick and
Rosanna Tierney, who lived in the village of Glasdrum, not far from
Shanlough Castle, were bigger children than Minnie and Baby Lawlor,
and attended the white-washed school near the Lawlor’s gate-lodge, but
less regularly than they would have liked to do. For when they were
kept at home it was by no means to amuse themselves, and they much
preferred their holidays at school. On this morning, however, although
they grumbled over their tasks, it was not because they were prevented
from pursuing their studies, but because they particularly wanted to
go and spend their pennies at Killavin Fair. Mick had five and Rosanna
had four, partly in halfpence, so that when their wealth was all
spread out on the top of the low yard wall, the row of coins looked
long enough to buy almost anything. And at Killavin Fair wonderful
purchases might be made. The young Tierneys had heard that you could
get four sugar-sticks, “the len’th of your arm,” for one penny, and
there were swinging boats, and a theatre, and other shows to which
the same sum would procure admission. Accordingly, they had set their
hearts firmly upon it. But unluckily Mrs Tierney had been told that
“great bargains entirely” would appear there in the shape of “rael
grand blankets, that heavy you could scarce believe the weight of them,
wid a quare raisonable price on them whatever,” and having scraped
together a few shillings she was very anxious to inspect these wares.
To Mick and Rosanna, in this warm May weather, heavy blankets seemed
highly uninteresting, but their mother saw further and considered her
business of more importance than sugar-sticks or merry-go-rounds. Thus
it happened that Rosanna and Mick were required to stay at home minding
Biddy and Peter. The charge seemed to saddle them with quite disabling
incumbrances; for Peter was subject to panics at anything new and
strange in his eighteen months’ experience of life, and would certainly
roar without ceasing if brought in among the marvels of the fair, while
three-year-old Biddy, though quiet and tractable, was too little to
walk, and too heavy to be carried, a couple of Irish miles. “Sure, you
might as well be liftin’ a sack of pitaties,” said Rosanna; and Mick
added: “Ay, bedad, and you could aisy be shyin’ a one of them down the
road as far as she’d go without whingein’ to rest.” Yet though matters
looked so hopeless the day was still young when a promising scheme
presented itself to them. Mick had just captured Peter, who was in the
act of toddling off up the street on some excursion of his own, and who
loudly resented his arrest.
“Och, now, whisht bawlin’,” Mick said to Peter. “Was it losin’ yourself
you wanted to be? Bobby Byrne was tellin’ me,” he remarked to Rosanna,
“that they got a stray kid out on the bog one day last week. Belongin’
to the tinkers they thought it was.”
“And what did they do wid it?” Rosanna inquired.
“Brought it to the Shanlough Barracks down below there till the polis
would be findin’ out who owned it.”
“I wish to goodness we could be lavin’ _these_ two there,” said Rosanna.
“I wish we could so,” said Mick.
“We could carry them that far ready enough--it’s only a shortish step,”
Rosanna went on slowly, as if she were considering something really
possible; “and then, if we’d left them down there, we might skyte over
the bog to Killavin, that’s the nearest way, and see the fair, and
pick them up again when we would be comin’ back, as handy as anythin’.
The polis ’ud mind them first-rate; it’s their business to look after
whatever’s gone lost.”
“But sorra a bit of these ones _is_ lost,” objected Mick.
“And sure, couldn’t we very aisy lose them,” said Rosanna, “somewheres
convanient to the barracks?”
“The ould lads,” Mick said, meaning the police, “would know right well
whose childer they are, and where they come from.”
“And what great harm if they did, you gaby?” said Rosanna. “And
besides, aren’t they a new set that’s only a few weeks in it? Very
belike they never laid eyes on either of them.”
“Gaby yourself,” Mick said, “but Biddy’d be apt to tell them anyhow.
She’s gettin’ to spake terrible plain.”
“Biddy niver say’s e’er a word except ‘_Yis_’ when she’s wid strange
people; she’s a good child,” Rosanna said with confidence. “But I was
thinkin’ if we might by chance run up agin mother in the fair, and then
where’d we be?”
“Och, for the matter of that we could dodge her aisy enough in the
crowds there’ll be in it,” said Mick.
“Let’s thry, at all events,” said Rosanna, suddenly, pursing up her
mouth, and eyeing him with the expression of a magpie who is not sure
how near he may venture to hop. And Mick said, “We will, bedad.”
Not very long afterwards, Police-Sergeant Corry, sitting with his
pipe and newspaper in the porch of Shanlough Constabulary Barracks,
saw crawl in at the gate a small child, who was followed on foot by
another somewhat bigger. “Run away with you,” he called to them, and
resumed his reading. But when he finished his column he perceived that
they had sat down half way up the flagged path to the door, with no
apparent intention of moving on. So he went to investigate.
His inquiry was on the whole unsuccessful. The baby’s evidence was
quite inarticulate, and the little girl replied “Yis” to all his
questions in a manner which made her a most unsatisfactory witness. It
was a lonely place, on the edge of the bog, with no other houses near,
and nobody else in sight; though, if he had only known, two pairs of
eyes were all the while watching him through the thick fuschia hedge.
“They don’t belong to tramps,” he said to himself, “for they’ve got
very respectable boots on them, and dacint hats. Tell me, now, which
way you’re after comin’ along here, there’s a good child,” he said to
Biddy, and Biddy said “Yis.” Just then it began to rain violently,
which led the Sergeant to bring them indoors to his wife, who was
sewing in the little parlour. “Here’s a couple of childer that can’t
give an account of theirselves,” he said to her. “We’d better keep
them a bit, and as like as not we’ll presently have somebody peltin’
in with inquiries.” Whereupon Mrs Corry, having had some experience
of such cases, gave them slices of sugar-sprinkled bread, and several
empty spools to play with in a corner, while immediately afterwards two
figures might have been espied running off at full speed across the
bog, among the grey curtains of the shower.
About this time Tom Flannery was digging in his potato-patch at the
fork of the Letteresk and Glasdrum roads. “Faix now, but Lizzie
Hackett’s in a fine hurry, whatever ails her,” he said to himself
as he became aware of a young woman trotting along the dyke. “Where
at all are you takin’ off wid yourself to?” he shouted as soon as
she was near enough; and Lizzie shouted back across the low stone
wall: “Sure, they’re in great distraction above at the lodge. The two
childer’s lost. They went out this mornin’ early, but a while ago the
schoolmistress looked in wid word they’d niver been next or nigh her.
Stole they are by them tinkers, I’ll bet you anythin’, and their poor
mother away at the fair, and the ould woman shakin’ in her chair fit to
thrimble the house down on her head. But runnin’ up to Connolly’s farm
I am, for Minnie and Baby’s went there a few times along wid me, and
its mostly the only place they know their way to hereabouts. You didn’t
be chance see them goin’ by this mornin’?”
“Sorra a stim, _this_ mornin’ nor _that_ mornin’,” said Tom. “But if
they’re strayed or stole you’d a right to lave word with the polis.”
“Och, lave word with them yourself,” Lizzie said, setting off again,
partly because she never liked taking advice, and partly because she
did not now wish to lengthen her hot race by calling at the barracks.
Tom rejoined: “Bedad, I’ve somethin’ else to do, me dear!” But when,
by-and-by, he finished his job, he turned a bit out of his homeward way
that he might pass the police-station. Sergeant Corry was looking over
the arched gate into the road. “Dry weather, Sergeant, when it isn’t
wet,” said Tom. “Did you hear tell anythin’ of two children bein’ lost?”
“What sort of childer now?” said the Sergeant. “Well, I dunno very
rightly,” said Tom. “I never seen them; but they’re out of the lodge
over there at the castle entrance, and ould Mrs Lawlor’s expectin’ her
death wid the fright. A little girl and a baby, I think, they said.”
“Sure enough they answer to that description, the two I have inside
here. The small one’s no size to spake of, and the other’s a girl,
though she hasn’t got the gift of the gab yet. I’ll send them over to
the lodge with Doyle and Atkinson that’s about settin’ off pathrollin’.
It ’ill be a good job to get them shifted into their own quarters
before night.”
To the lodge, accordingly, two tall constables carried the little
Tierneys, encountering by the way a fierce shower, which twisted
Biddy’s black locks into dripping rats’ tails, and soaked Peter’s
fluff of fair hair till it shrunk into nothing, like a wisp of wet
thistledown. Their arrival caused bitter disappointment to Mrs Lawlor,
junior, who had lately returned to her despoiled home. She vehemently
declared the forlorn-looking bundles to be no children of hers,
nor anyways like them, and was disposed to resent the constables’
conjecture that Minnie and Baby had just run off for diversion with
some of their schoolfellows to the fair. However, she consented to
keep these strange children while a search was being made, and she
beguiled her suspense by getting them into dry garments, outgrown by
the probable victims of tinkers and tramps.
Meanwhile, Minnie and Baby had in reality been experiencing many
vicissitudes. At first all had gone fairly well with them. After some
roaming they had emerged from the shrubberies on to a sloping lawn,
whence they had a grand view of the castle with its turrets and towers.
It pleased them so much that they sat down on a bench beneath a big
sycamore to enjoy the prospect and their oranges. This was the highest
point of their success; for when they had just finishing peeling, and
the grass all around them was thickly strewn with shreds of white-lined
golden rind, suddenly there appeared to them an elderly, angry man in
a straw hat, who wanted to know what they meant by trespassing on his
grounds, and bade them clear up that disgraceful litter at once, and
stood pointing his stick and glaring dreadfully at every single scrap
of peel until it was picked up; and then, as they fled away like scared
rabbits, shouted that he would give notice to the police to keep an eye
on them. Thenceforward troubles gathered and gloom. When they escaped
from the labyrinth of shrubberies they found themselves in strange
fields, where they met with herds of what were certainly beasts, and,
in Minnie’s opinion, most likely bulls. They were hunted out of a
rickyard by a barking dog, and in their flight Baby lost a shoe, which
they dared not turn back to discover. Soon afterwards she ran a thorn
into her unshod foot and could hardly hobble along. It came on to rain
so heavily that their new hats were battered and drenched out of all
shape and hue, and Minnie tore a sleeve of her good jacket into ribbons
scrambling through a hedge. As time elapsed they felt more and more
thoroughly lost, and their terrors were increased by a dread that all
the while they might perhaps be trespassers with the eye of the police
upon them.
But at last, when they had almost despaired of ever, as Baby said,
“bein’ _anywhere_ again,” as they stumbled along the edge of a ploughed
field, they were met by a big boy carrying a bunch of bright tinware.
Minnie had luckily still sense enough left to explain that they were
looking for a gate-lodge of the castle; upon hearing which the boy
just caught each of them by an arm and swung them through a gap in the
ragged hedge, setting them down plump in the middle of a muddy lane.
“Sure, there’s one widin’ a couple of stones’ throws off you, only you
was headin’ the wrong way to get to it,” he said, pointing along the
lane. “Them’s the gate-posts glimpsin’ at you out of the trees.” And
the children perceived with relief and amazement that so it actually
was. Full of joy and confidence they started again, but before they had
gone many steps they met Lizzie Hackett setting out to see if there
were any signs of the constables coming back with news of what, in her
own mind, she called “them young torments.”
“Saints and patience!” she said when she saw them, “and so there you
are. I declare to goodness I thought it was a couple of beggar childer
comin’ along, you’re that quare shows. Where in the earthly world have
you been the whole day?”
“We just took a bit--a bit of a walk like,” Minnie said, beginning to
feel that their difficulties might not yet be all at an end.
“Well, to be sure--a fine bit of a walk,” said Lizzie, “wid your poor
granny and your poor ma terrified out of their sivin sinses, and
meself kilt stravadin’ over the parish after you. A race’s runnin’ on
you for a couple of as bould childer as there is in Ireland.” Lizzie,
being out of humour with everybody, preferred the chance of paying out
the truants for the trouble they had caused her to the excitement of
announcing their return, so she continued: “Howsome’er, you’ve no call
to be hurryin’ yourselves now. You can be stoppin’ away as long as
you plase, and longer after that again, for your ma says she won’t be
bothered any more to put up wid the likes of such ungovernable brats,
and she’s got herself a couple of nice, good little childer to keep
that won’t be annoyin’ her losin’ themselves about the country instead
of goin’ to their school. And she’s after dressin’ them illigant in the
cloth cape that was belongin’ to you, Miss Minnie, and a one of Baby’s
cotton frocks, and the two of them’s sittin’ this minyit as grand as
anythin’ at all before the fire in the parlour. Pettin’ them finely
herself is and not thinkin’ a thraneen of yous. It’s in your beds that
them ones ’ill be sleepin’ this night. But sure you’d rather be tearin’
about under the rain in the fields like the rabbits,” said Lizzie,
pulling her shawl over her head and walking on. “And it pitch dark,”
she added over her shoulder.
If Minnie had been in her ordinary frame of mind she would have
perceived how improbable this story sounded, and would have said to
Baby: “Och, never mind; she’s only romancin’.” Just then, however, she
was too tired and bewildered to take a sensible view of anything, and
what Lizzie asserted alarmed and enraged them both. Still they more
than half hoped that they would find it was not true at all. But as
they trotted and hobbled past the parlour window they got a glimpse
into the fire-lit room, and there, sure enough, two horrid little
children were seated before the hearth, one wearing a pink frock, the
other Minnie’s well-known brown cape. And he--which was the worst part
of it--sat on Minnie’s mother’s knee, with a bitten biscuit in his
hand. “’Deed she has really got them,” Minnie said to Baby with a sort
of groan. “There’s no good in us goin’ in any more.” And both the
little girls flung themselves down on a mossy log, which had been made
into a seat, beneath an old laurel bush near the door. They had not
noticed the sound of footsteps that were following them, but just then
two figures came rushing by and darted into the house. In the parlour
Mrs Lawlor heard the patter of feet, which she had been listening for
so long, and she jumped up very quickly, only to meet with another
disappointment.
Mick and Rosanna Tierney had enjoyed their time at the fair. They saw
two shows, and bought as many sweets as possible with their remaining
pennies. They were careful not to meet their mother, nor did they
forget how desirable it was that they should be at home again before
her. The heavy rain, too, made it easier for them to tear themselves
away from among the stalls and booths and carts and set off across the
bog to pick up Biddy and Peter at the barracks. Rosanna had three fruit
drops and half a peppermint sugar-stick tied up for them in a corner of
her wet pinafore. Mick had meant to bring Biddy a bull’s-eye, but he
put it into his mouth just to taste, and forgot to take it out until it
was too late.
At the police barracks the rain had driven Sergeant Corry indoors, but
he came out when he heard the children clattering into the porch.
“If you plase, sir,” Mick said, panting, “we want the couple of childer
we left--I mane we _lost_--here this mornin’ going to Killavin--a
little one, and a bigger little girl--dark hair she has, the same
as _her_.” “They’ve straw hats on them,” Rosanna struck in, “and the
youngster has a grey flannen frock, and Biddy’s is blue, and she’s
black stockin’s. She wouldn’t tell you her name, or say anythin’ only
‘Yis.’”
“Them’s the very two we had here till a while ago I packed them off to
Mrs Lawlor up there at the castle lodge. Bedad,” said the sergeant,
“it’s the wrong children I’m after sendin’ her. And what do you mean,
I should like to know, by leaving them crawling about here and giving
trouble and annoyance?”
But the Tierneys were not waiting to listen. “Come along, Rosanna,”
said Mick, “we might be in time to get them yet if we hurry.” And they
did hurry with an impetuosity which brought them head foremost into the
Lawlors’ kitchen.
“What brings you here at all?” poor Mrs Lawlor said in much vexation
when she saw who they were not. “It seems to me every strange child
in the parish is takin’ upon itself to come tumblin’ in on top of us
except me own little girls, and the deer knows where they may be.”
“We was only wantin’ to fetch away our two,” said Mick. “The sergeant
sent you the wrong childer. That’s Peter you’ve got, ma’am--och, and
there’s Biddy. You take hold of her, Rosanna; I’ve took him. And I seen
a couple of little girls sittin’ roarin’ on the sate there next door,
and we runnin’ in, that might be your ones, ma’am.”
Out sped Mrs Lawlor, hopeful again, and this time not in vain.
“Children dear, what happint you at all?” she said, “and where have you
been?”
“We got into an ould donkey-cart,” Minnie said deplorably, “and then
we lost our ways--and an ould man’s after settin’ the police to keep
an eye on us--and Baby’s one shoe is off her, so the other’s no good;
and she’s run a thorn into her foot; and I’ve tore the cuff off of me
sleeve; and our hats is destroyed. But we thought there wasn’t any use
goin’ in, for Lizzie tould us you’d took them other ones instead.”
“A donkey-cart!” said Mrs Lawlor. “I always said those thieves of
tinkers were at the bottom of it. But come in, me jewels; sure you’re
drowned and perished. The polis ought to be ashamed of theirselves for
not minding their business better.”
And in Mrs Lawlor’s mind, indeed, the blame was permanently shared by
the tinkers and the police, which was of course convenient for her
children, and probably did not in any way affect either the police or
the tinkers.
As for the young Tierneys, they got home with such guilty expedition
that they were all discovered innocently safe and dry by their own
fireside when Mrs Tierney returned, with sugar-sticks, from the fair.
And thus we must fear that the episode ended in a lamentable failure of
poetical justice to all parties concerned.