Mrs Molly Whelehan told the story to her grand-daughter, Helena Mahony,
much as she herself had heard it from her own grandmother, who, having
lived at the very time and place of its end, “had a right,” as Mrs
Whelehan said, “to know the whole of it.” They were seated on a fine
swarded bank by the northern shore of Loughnaglee, and resting, that
is to say Helena was resting, for her grandmother seemed just as fresh
and brisk as when they had set out two or three hours before, which
was absurd. For Helena had been quite lately sent to stay with her,
because a family conclave had decided that “the crathur was gettin’
a great age entirely, and too ould and feeble to be left any longer
livin’ her lone.” Whereas now, the day but one after Helena’s arrival,
her grandmother had nearly “tramped the two feet off of her,” gathering
rushes to patch the roof of the calf’s shed from breakfast-time till
noon.
Loughnaglee is set in level green land, with low shores, except at
its northern end, where a little hill range sends down a spur to the
water’s edge, overlooking it with a bold, furzy crag, lifted on a
pedestal of steep grass slopes. Beneath this run very tall blackthorn
hedges, which here enclose the dwindled lake-corner, turning to either
hand in symmetrically right lines and angles, so that it is like a
small court, with three high, thick walls. Its water-floor generally
lies in shadow, looking sombrely solid and opaque, as if paved with
black flags, even when the rest is all shimmering blue or silver.
Perhaps this gloomy aspect may have conspired with an echo born of the
cliff to suggest and foster the belief whence Loughnaglee has come
by its name--the Lake of the Cries: but no one has so far found or
invented any legend to explain its origin.
Wide shadow fell heavily on the water as the old woman and the girl sat
by it, close to the last sloe bush on the eastern shore; for although
it was midsummer and midday everything scowled back sympathetically and
unseasonably at the lowering cloud-canopy overhead. “If it’s trampin’
round Loughnaglee as often as meself you were,” Mrs Whelehan said as
they sat down and her grand-daughter complained of being “kilt,” “it’s
little enough you’d think of steppin’ as far as the Fivestones for a
bundle of rushes. But sure we can be restin’ here aisy for a bit, till
it’s time to go in and put on the pitaties. And bedad if any people was
livin’ all their lives beside it as long as I am, they wouldn’t have so
much talk out of them about the quare things there do be on the lough.
Ne’er a sign of them I seen anyway.”
“I wouldn’t suppose it was any quarer than e’er another little ould
lough,” said Helena, who being momentarily out of humour threw some
disparagement into her tone.
“For the matter of that,” replied the grandmother, promptly changing
front, “them that never set fut next nor nigh it till last Monday isn’t
very apt to have any great opinion about the quareness that might or
mightn’t be in it. Sure it’s much if they know the raison it got the
name Loughnaglee on it at all.”
“It had to be called some name, I should suppose,” said Helena, who was
still inclined to suppose perversely, “and one’s as good as another.”
“Well now, indeed and bedad, the people were fine fools if they’d no
better sort of raison than that when they called it the Lough of the
Cries in the Gaelic,” said Mrs Whelehan. “But there’s some could be
tellin’ you a different story, and a one that’s no lie either, to me
certain knowledge.”
“Could they so?” said Helena, who had been cooling her hands and face
with the clear water and felt her curiosity revive.
“But before ever that happint,” said Mrs Whelehan, “I was hearin’ tell
about the cries. For they do say that if a man’s anywheres convanient
to the lough, sittin’ here beside it, maybe, or up a bit on the hill,
and if he hears anythin’ cryin’ and callin’ him by his name, he may
depind there’s some harm after befallin’ the woman he sets the most
store by in this world, whoever she may be--his mother, or his wife, or
his child, or his sweetheart, just accordin’, though it’s far enough
away she was all the while.”
“To be sure, then, that’s rael quare,” said Helena. “I wonder is it the
truth?”
“You’ll be wonderin’ a long time before you make a bowl of stirabout
wid it,” Mrs Whelehan said oracularly, “but very belike your mammy was
tellin’ you agin now what happint me grandmother’s brother in the same
identical place we’re sittin’ in this minyit, I might say.”
“She was not,” said Helena. “No great talk of Loughnaglee she has these
times. Only a slip of a _girsheach_ she says she was and she gettin’
married and quittin’ out of it.”
“Herself hasn’t much nathur in her to be disremimberin’ it, if she was
twinty _girsheachs_. But I niver had any such great wish, so to spake,
for Biddy,” Mrs Whelehan said frankly. “She always took after her poor
father’s ould sister, Nellie Whelehan, that was as contrairy as a wild
hin. However, what happint me grandmother’s brother, Jim M‘Farlane, was
before my time, when they were all livin’ in the empty house fornint
me own, and the Cavanaghs were in the next one, that’s gone to ruin.
And the ould people were very wishful to be makin’ up a match wid Jim
M‘Farlane and Norah Cavanagh, the only daughter. Me grandmother said
she knew Norah had a likin’ ever for Jim, and Jim had nothin’ agin it,
till Mrs Cavanagh’s niece, Rose Moore, come to stop wid them, and then
he seemed takin’ a notion he might be better satisfied if he got her.
Just for the sake of variety, for me grandmother said she wasn’t any
nicer than Norah, unless that might be the raison. But too young he was
to be firm in his mind. However, he was betwixt and between, and they
had nothin’ settled this way or that way, when the two girls took it in
their heads one day to go pull sloes along the hedge here, that were
just turned black. It was the grand hedge for sloes, and bedad it’s
full of them this minyit, if they were ripe. The white blossom on it
does be a sight to behould at the turn of the winter, and the sloes do
be the size of young plums, wid a bloom on them you could write your
name in. Grand wine they make. So off they set in the mornin’, and when
they came here they found Jim M‘Farlane up on the hill there wid his
tarrier after rabbits, and they only passed him the time of day, and
that was all. And Rose went wid her basket along this lough side of the
hedge, and Norah over yonder”--Mrs Whelehan pointed across the smooth
dark water--“where there’s somethin’ of a steep bank.
“Well now, after a while Jim was mindin’ the dog that had him nearly
bothered altogether wid the barkin’ and yelpin’ it kep’ up at a rabbit
hole; but all the same it seemed to him he heard somethin’ callin’ his
name wid a woeful screech. And says he to himself: ‘That’s Rose Moore
about drowndin’ herself as sure as the sun’s in the sky.’ And off wid
him to the place he’d seen her goin’. But there she was, pullin’ away
on the field side of the hedge, and sorra a pin’s points amiss wid
her, and ne’er a bit of her was after callin’ him, or hearin’ anythin’
only the little dog barkin’ and yellin’. Howane’er he stood out that
some person was screechin’ in it, and they looked through the hedge
here to try was there any signs of Norah over there. And at first they
seen nothin’, but prisintly they noticed a white strake on a bush
opposite, like as if a bough was wrenched off it; and the next minyit
they seen a white strake agin’ in the black wather, and what was that
but poor Norah’s apern, and she floatin’ across to them on the set of
the current? So Jim got her on shore by some manner of manes, but the
breath was out of her body entirely. And the crathur had the thorn
bough clutched in her hand, the way they knew she was houldin’ on to it
till it broke, and callin’ to Jim, and he runnin’ off from her after
Rose Moore, that naught ailed in the world.”
“Then she needn’t lose her life only for him bein’ mistook that way?”
said Helena.
“She need not, goodness may pity her. And only for him havin’ the story
in his head about the callin’ it’s well enough he’d know Norah’s voice,
that he was used to all the days of his life. So if there’s no raison
for what people do be sayin’ about the lough, get me a one. There was
raison enough to drownd the poor girl anyhow. But what I hope in me
heart is that the crathur wasn’t seein’ Jim, and he startin’ off and
lavin’ her that thought so much of him, for the sake of goin’ to Rosey
Moore. She might aisy catch sight of him through the hedge leppin’ down
the hill, and ’twould be fit to break her heart.”
“Sure if she was to be drownded the next minyit, that ’ud be the less
matter,” said Helena. “’Twould make no differ to her then.”
“It’s little the likes of you or anybody else knows what mightn’t make
a differ,” said her grandmother. “Some folks do be sayin’ she didn’t
die contint--God be good to her--and wasn’t restin’ aisy. I mind
meself hearin’ ould Christy Nolan and Judy Dunne sayin’ that long ago
they seen--’Twas about the time of Jim and Rose’s weddin’, for they
got married after all; but me grandmother said Rose wouldn’t look at
him for a great while she was that mad wid him for lettin’ Norah be
drownded.”
“What did they see?” said Helena.
“Ah, me dear, accordin’ to my opinion there wasn’t an atom of truth
in it. The Cavanaghs were very dacint, respectable people. I niver
heard tell of e’er another one of them walkin’. And forby that, more
betoken, look at all the years I’m livin’ alongside the lough, and
sight nor light I seen of e’er such a thing, in the daytime at anyrate,
and nobody has any call to be rovin’ about in the night. If they see
anythin’ quare then, they’ve thimselves to thank for it. I don’t
believe--”
“Och, what was that?” Helena gripped her grandmother’s arm and shrank
behind her, as a croaking chuckle approached them, breaking into a
laughter-like skirl, while a snowy gleam appeared, crossing over the
murky water.
“Sure only the big gull,” said Mrs Whelehan, pointing up to the wide
white wings as they sailed by. “But it’s no good sign for the weather
when that sort come streelin’ in so far from the say, and bedad I think
there’s a shower blowin’ up on the win’ this instant. So we’d do better
to be stirrin’ ourselves, till we get home dry.”
Indeed the first large drops were stamping circles on the capable
water, and ripples were rising and reeds bending to rub them out, as
Mrs Whelehan went with Helena home. The old woman was considering
that she must fetch in a creel of turf before the day turned out too
entirely soft on her. But her grand-daughter’s thoughts were occupied
somewhat fearfully with the story she had just been told. It seemed
to her that life at lonely Loughnaglee would henceforth have one more
shadow, thrown by the fate of Norah Cavanagh, who “didn’t die contint.”