When anybody in Meenaclochran gives a party, the word which goes
round to bid the neighbours often has far to travel over the wide
bog-land, and is conveyed by very miscellaneous messengers, all manner
of wayfarers being pressed into the service. This was especially
often the case with the Nolans and the M‘Nultys, two of the most
sociably-disposed families in the place, and living remotely at
opposite ends of the spacious and lonesome Cregganmore bog. Both
households, however, comprised lively young people, while both were
a shade or so more prosperous in their farming than is common in
that district, and owned the warmest hearths and the widest floors.
Consequently, among circumstances thus propitious, it was not likely
that the obstacles merely of long miles and rough walking would prove
insuperable when either wished to let the other know “there would be
dancing in it” on such or such a night. As they were on most friendly
terms they of course took care that the dates of their entertainments
should not clash; but everybody knows how difficult it occasionally is
to prevent this, and not long ago, by a chapter of those accidents
which will sometimes happen, Dinny Breen and John Hickey met on
Tackaberry’s Bridge, Dinny charged with an invitation from the Nolans
to the M‘Nultys, and John with one from the M‘Nultys to the Nolans,
both for the same Saturday evening.
Tackaberry’s Bridge is about half way between the two white farmhouses,
humping itself up in an abrupt, ungainly loop, like a travelling
caterpillar, over the Murna River, which flows through the middle of
the bog. Though roughly built it shows more traces of design, such as
it is, than the rest of the road, which seems just a track worn by feet
choosing the firmest ground as they go to and fro. Stepping-stones
occur here and there, and are found convenient by pedestrians in soft
weather, but naturally tend to discourage any other kind of traffic.
As Dinny Breen sat now on the low parapet under the only little tree,
a stooping willow, visible far and wide, he looked down into the clear
brown water and said: “If the both of them has company axed for the
one night, it stands to raison that naither of them could be goin’ out
in any case. So there’s no great good in me trampin’ on all the way to
M‘Nulty’s.”
“There is not, bedad,” said John Hickey. “Nor in meself, for the matter
of that, to be mindin’ about lavin’ word wid the Nolans.”
“Because,” said Dinny, “this is a very handy day to be borryin’ the gun
off Pat Kelly, when we have the dogs along, and the polis are away wid
themselves to Loughmore Petty Sessions. A race’s runnin’ on the whole
of them.”
“True for you; they are so bedad,” said John.
The last-named consideration was an important one, owing to the fact
that neither the proposed borrowers nor lender happened to possess
a licence, which made immunity from the chance of encounters with
inquisitive patrols appear a highly desirable feature in an afternoon’s
sport. Accordingly, the opportunity was pronounced too good to be
thrown away, and the two faithless youths were soon happily engaged
among bogholes and tussocks, and heathery boulders and golden-burning
furze bushes, with no further thought of Nolans or M‘Nultys.
Anyone whose experience has lain in places like Meenaclochran will
understand how improbably large an amount of good luck would be
needed to keep the news of an entertainment from the ears of an
uninvited neighbour. No such exceptional quantity intervened on this
occasion. Very little _contrariness_ of things, on the other hand,
commonly suffices to ensure the worst possible complexion being put
on the matter; and that was now amply supplied. A few unfortunate
remarks from tactless or ill-disposed acquaintances, a few slight
misrepresentations, inadvertent or otherwise, and the thing was done.
The seeds of offence were safely sown and might be trusted to thrive
apace. Only a short growing space was wanted to ripen the conviction
alike of Nolans and M‘Nultys that they had been treated by each
other with black ingratitude, if not insulted outrageously; and their
firm belief in their wrongs was supersaturated with bitterness. The
mood of that goddess excluded from the wedding feast, or of that
fairy forgotten at the christening, may well have been enviable in
comparison, since all the world has heard tell how they gave expression
to their resentment with a satisfactory thoroughness far beyond the
reach of any little farming folk “looking as sulky as a pig” at one
another on a lonely Donegal bog. Although the latter had certainly no
wish to conceal their state of mind, pride forbade them to manifest
it in public by utterances more explicit than enigmatical innuendoes,
coupled with the cast of countenance aforesaid; and this helped to keep
the origin of the grievance in obscurity, thereby lessening the chances
of an explanation.
Consequently, before many weeks went by, all Meenaclochran had begun to
remark with interest that “Nolans and M‘Nultys weren’t so very great
these times, whatever ailed them;” and soon afterwards it became clear
that they were “black out altogether.”
The estrangement may perhaps have gratified two or three
mischief-makers; it undoubtedly caused much distress to more than one
of the persons most concerned. Generally speaking, it was regarded as
an inconvenient and untoward occurrence, and if it had made a newspaper
paragraph, might have been said, with more than average truth, to
have thrown a gloom over the whole parish. On nobody, however, did it
produce less effect than on the pair who had brought it about. Dinny
Breen and John Hickey, being but slightly acquainted with either of
the fronted parties, and finding their chief pleasure in the company
of their terriers, stravading over the hills and bogs, were equally
ignorant and unconcerned about this detail in the social affairs of
their neighbourhood. They might have stated accurately that it was “all
one to them so long as they could be gettin’ after the rabbits, and
birds and troutses.”
But as the autumn waned into winter, diminishing their opportunities
for those favourite pursuits, they found themselves impelled to devise
other pastimes. And one tedious morning in Christmas week, said Dinny
to John: “D’you mind the day a while ago you and me was bringin’ round
word of a party to Nolans and M‘Nultys, and divil a bit of it we
brought them at all?”
“I do so, bedad,” said John. “That was the time we got the three brace
of snipe up at the end of the lough, and took them home along wid the
rabbits sittin’ in the middle of two big loads of bracken, and me hayro
of war at the barracks”--he referred to the police sergeant--“lookin’
over the gate at us and we goin’ by.”
“Because,” said Dinny, “I was thinkin’ why wouldn’t we be bringin’ it
to them now? Better late than never, as the man said when he ate the
bad egg. We needn’t be tellin’ them what Saturday it was, so they’ll
never suppose but it’s the next, that’s St Stephen’s Day. I’d like to
see what ould Anastasia M‘Nulty would say to it. There’s apt to be some
quare talk out of her, for Mick Gahan was tellin’ me she’s ragin’ mad
agin all the Nolans this while back, whatever’s took her.”
“Lookin’ as bitter as sut at one another they are this long time, sure
enough. Troth now, I wouldn’t wonder if the whole pack of them would be
leppin’ over it,” John said hopefully. “I’m passin’ by Nolan’s place
this evenin’, and I could as aisy as not look in.”
“And I’ll leg it over to M‘Nulty’s,” said Dinny, “for I might as well
be doin’ one thing as another.”
The two friends executed their design without difficulty, but, so far
as John Hickey was concerned, with somewhat disappointing results. For
when he put his head in at the Nolans’ back door, he saw nobody except
Mrs Peter, rolling out a flour cake on the table, and in reply to his
communication all she said was: “Musha, I hope they’re well,” with an
air of the utmost composure. Then to his inquiry whether he should
convey an answer for her, she rejoined simply and placidly: “Ah, go and
fish.” So that he retired with a sense of failure.
Dinny Breen’s adventures were more interesting as he found at home Mrs
Anastasia M‘Nulty who received his misleading message with a tirade
which almost came up to his expectations in vehemence and vigour. She
ended an impassioned critique upon the characters and conduct of the
Nolan family, past and present, by requesting him to tell them from her
that unless they “kep’ their impidence to themselves they would be very
apt to get it back, along wid somethin’ they might happen not to like,”
which Dinny solemnly promised to do. Whereupon, as he was passing the
haggart gate, out after him sped Molly M‘Nulty, who must have been
running along the other side of the dyke on purpose to intercept him,
and who breathlessly explained that “he needn’t repeat e’er a word her
grandmother was after sayin’, for she’d seemed in a quare cross humour
the whole day, and didn’t mane anythin’ at all, good or bad.” So Dinny
more honestly pledged himself on no account to deliver Mrs M‘Nulty’s
refusal.
Now these things would scarcely have helped the most acute and
furthest-sighted to predict what did actually happen on that next
Saturday evening, or to account for it with any certainty. Who, indeed,
can say how it came about? But whether through the genial influence
of the season, or a limited choice of gaieties, through amity or
_ennui_, _Liebe oder Langeweile_, the fact is that in a moonless
obscurity between seven and eight o’clock two parties of people, coming
from opposite directions, rushed almost into one another’s arms on
Tackaberry’s Bridge as they fled towards the willow tree for shelter
from a shower of rattling hailstones.
“Musha, good gracious! and is it yourself, Mrs M‘Nulty, ma’am?” said
Julia Nolan, becoming aware of whom she had jostled against. “Maybe
it’s too soon we are, then, steppin’ over to your place?”
“Pather Nolan, begorrah--I didn’t expec’ to see you till we got to the
farm,” said Art M‘Nulty. “And what way at all are you facin’ the now?”
Meanwhile Peter’s eldest son was shaking hands interminably with Art’s
youngest daughter, and saying: “And how’s yourself this long time,
Molly asthore? Sure I haven’t seen a sight of you for a month of
Sundays.”
“Somebody’s after makin’ fools of us, that’s the truth,” declared Joe
M‘Nulty when facts had been stated.
“And a dale our best plan then,” said Peter Nolan, “is to not be made
fools of. Just step along home wid us the whole of yous, the way you
was intindin’, and ’twill be a comical thing if we can’t get a drop out
of the bottle, and a scrape off of the fiddle handy enough.”
Well and good, as the old _shanachies_ say. Peter’s suggestion was
unanimously adopted; and since shortly afterwards the neighbours were
not only remarking how “M‘Nultys and Nolans had patched it up,” but
were also agreeably excited by the prospect of “young Pather Nolan and
Molly M‘Nulty gettin’ married at the Shrove,” we may perhaps regard the
results of this second misdeed on the part of Dinny and John as an
exception to the rule that two wrongs don’t make a right. Still, by way
of a better moral, we should bear in mind that only for the opportune
clatter of the hail-shower the consequences would probably have been
widely different. For if the two families had passed each other by
unbeknownst in the dark, to arrive cold and wet at empty, shut-up
houses, it is hard to say what complications might not have ensued. The
chances certainly are that no such wedding would have taken place at
the Shrovetide, if indeed it had not been put off hopelessly for ever
and a day. So great are the perils that environ practical jokers and
their victims.