AN AMERICAN VISITOR
The talk about Heffernan being married at last had all died away, and
Marg was well settled in at the Furry Farm, busy and contented, looking
after the house and her old man there, when another affair arose at
Ardenoo that was the cause of a great deal of unpleasantness and worry.
A stranger from America turned up there; at least, that’s what he said
he was, and no one for long enough knew anything different. But it was
really Patsy Ratigan, no less, that had left Ardenoo years upon years
before, and in too great a hurry to leave any message to say why or
where he was going. Now he was back, and feeling none too sure what
kind of welcome would be waiting for him. So he thought, when he got
there, the day after he landed from America, that he’d keep himself
quiet, till he saw how the thing would go on.
The place looked to Patsy wider and more silent than ever; the people
fewer, and any he met, either they didn’t know him, or he couldn’t
put a name upon them. That was just what he wanted, really; and still,
he thought it very strange that everything was so changed from his
recollection of it! He forgot that the world and all it contains must
always be moving. If you come back to a place you left, even a very
short time before, you’ll always find something not the same as it was.
If it’s only a kettle that you leave swinging over the fire, while you
run out for a few sprigs to hurry it to boil, it won’t be the same when
you come in again. The water will be hotter or colder; the fire will be
stronger or maybe gone black out.
Patsy should have bethought himself of the length of time he had
been away, and then he wouldn’t have been so put out, to find things
different. And, indeed, whatever change he saw in Ardenoo, there was
more upon himself! Hard-set any of the neighbours would have been, even
the comrade-boys that knew him best in the old wild days, to make out
the thin rake of a fellow, ragged and light, that he used to be, in
this big, stout, heavy-looking man. And he dressed, moreover, in black
glossy clothes and a slouch hat; and with a gold watch-chain and ring
upon him.
Grand indeed Patsy looked! And still, as well-appearing as he was,
sitting resting himself by the side of the road, he was very uneasy in
his mind. For he was thinking that he was on the last of his cigars,
and wondering in his own mind how he was going to knock out another
smoke, let alone any other little necessary comfort he might want. Very
downhearted he was, and was feeling as lonesome as a milestone without
a number upon it, when somebody else came in sight, walking along very
brisk, although with a stick.
“I should know that person, anyway!” said Ratigan to himself; “she
seems familiar.... Why, if it isn’t Dark Moll Reilly! And she with the
ould shawl ... and the fiddle under it, on her back ... and all the
ould bags hanging round her, to gather whatever she’s given.... She’s
apt to have all the news of the place ... if there is any to know! If I
can get chatting with her ... and she’ll not see who I am....”
So when she got near where he was, he called out to her:
“Hi! you there! my good woman! where are you off to?”
At the words, Moll stopped short, and began poking with the stick, as
if to feel her way. It was as if hearing the voice had put a “blind”
upon poor Moll; like the bit of board, or old cloth, you’ll see
sometimes fastened across the face of a beast that is a rogue, to keep
it from straying out of its own pasture.
“I ask yer pardon, sir,” she said, “but sure, I’m dark, you perceive!
and couldn’t tell, no more nor the dead, where y’are or who y’are!”
With that, she dropped a curtsey, with her back to Ratigan, by the way
of that she was so confused.
“Here!” said Ratigan, getting up, and catching her by the hand, “come
over here, and sit down, and we can have a bit of discourse.... Just
come here I am, from America, only landed yesterday....”
“From America! do ye tell me that, sir!” said Moll; “and are well
acquainted with these parts, are you, sir?”
“Never set foot here, till now!” said Ratigan; “I just took me grip in
me hand, and started off on this trip. And some friends of mine across
the herring-pond were most anxious I should visit Ardenoo, and look up
some old connections of theirs, and bring them all the news.... It’s
when you’re away awhile from a place that you’ll be feeling queer and
lonesome for them you left behind there!”
Ratigan was always ready for any kind of play-acting, and he could tell
lies as easy as a dog can trot. He had made up this story, while Moll
was groaning and letting herself down upon the bank beside him, very
cautiously.
“Blind, are you? that’s a hard case!” he went on; “but I dare say
you’ll be able to give me the information I require. I have all the
names I was to ask after, wrote down here in my pocket-book,” he said,
pretending to take one out of his breast, but all he had there was an
old purse and it empty. “D ... D ... Dempsey ... ay, that’s the name of
one ... queer names, the most of them are! Now, what about them?”
“Och, the Dempseys!” said Moll; “why, the sorra one of that family is
left in the old place! by that name, at least. The last of them, little
Kitty, took and married a boy ... Dan Grennan it is ... and he after
coming home from America.... You never chanced to meet up wid a boy of
the name, out there, sir?”
“Never heard it, till this minute!” he said.
“Well, Grennan came home, and just was in time to get Kitty, that was
very near marrit upon old Heffernan of the Furry Farm.... And in luck
Dan was, too, to get his head in there at Dempsey’s ... and a nice
little girl for a wife he got, when he did cut his good days short,
marrying at all!”
“Married young, did he?” said Ratigan.
“Ay, did he; and a very decent, quiet man he is, and always was;
so that Kitty didn’t get the worst of it! They’re not to say too
out-of-the-way rich; for whatever little money Dan brought home with
him out of America didn’t stand them long. But God was good to Kitty;
is sending her the full up of the house of childher; and nineteen
turkeys she has, this year, let alone two pigs, and has the grass of
her cow, for doing the herding for ould Heffernan....”
“Heffernan of the Furry Farm?” said Ratigan; “that’s another I was to
ask about.... But from the description I was given of him, he should be
a great age by now! Or is he to the good at all?”
“Getting young again he is,” said Moll, “ever since he has Marg there
to be minding him and the place....”
“Marg! what Marg is that?” said Ratigan, a bit impatient.
“Why, who but ould Molally’s dauther!” said Moll; “she was none too
young, but even so, Mickey might be her father. But what won’t a girl
do, to get where there’s money! And he wid a head upon him as grey as a
badger!”
Now the reason Moll spoke like that was, she had a spleen in for Marg,
because she thought it was she herself had made up that fine match for
Marg, with old Heffernan, and that in consequence she ought to be as
free to go in and out at the Furry Farm as she used to be at Molally’s,
before Marg had quitted it, to become Mrs. Heffernan. But Mickey didn’t
like those ways, of having such as Moll too frequent visitors in his
house; and Marg never went against him.
“As grey as a badger, is he?” says Ratigan; “well, sure, there’s some
says, the bracketty[14] bird is the purtiest of the clutch!”
“Grey; and as lame as a crutch, to the back of that!” says Moll; “a
cant off the side-car that caused it. But Mickey was always weak about
the legs; born on a fair-day, as the saying is, with the two knees of
him boxing for sugar-sticks!”
“Lame of a leg, and grey in the head!” said Ratigan; “that’s a fancy
man for a girl to go take!”
“Marg was none too young herself, though fresh and active still,” said
Moll; “and when all fruit fails, welcome haws! She wanted some one. But
if you have any wish for more information than a poor ould blind body
can give you, sir, can’t you go give them a call at the Furry Farm?
They do be mostly always within.”
“Well, maybe I would do that,” said Ratigan; though not a notion he had
of doing any such thing.
So Moll gave him all the directions for finding his way, which Ratigan
knew as well as she did; and then she went off on her own business,
leaving him sitting still by the roadside.
“Divil may care what way you go, for _I_ don’t!” said Moll to herself,
when she got a piece off from Ratigan; “to say he was too mean even to
offer me the price of a pint, and I as dry as a limekiln, telling him
all the news!... Who is he now, at all? For I can’t believe that he’s
a stranger in these parts. He was too ready with his talk ... and too
anxious for news....”
She went on again, another little bit, thinking hard. Then, “I have it
now!” she thought, laughing to herself; “it’s that bright boyo, Patsy
Ratigan, as sure as God made little apples! And the great big size
of him now! The broad red face of him! and he the full of his skin;
instead of the way he was, so thin that there wasn’t as much fat upon
him as would grease a gimlet! And the thick back to his head! and used
to have a long neck upon him, like a distracted gander peeping down a
pump-hole to look for poreens!”[15]
Moll, as I said, had better use of her eyes than the people thought.
Still, she never would have known Ratigan again, only that her ears
were so sharp. It was his voice she knew.
“And why did he tell that story? It’s terrible to be a liar!” thought
Moll; “but sure, he must have some good reason.... Let you say nothing,
Moll Reilly,” she went on to herself, “until you see how the cat
jumps....”
Now it was true enough, what Moll had said to Ratigan about the
Heffernans not often going from about their own place. Mickey wasn’t
able for much travelling, on account of the bad leg; and Marg didn’t
feel it right to leave him. Besides, she had always been one to keep
herself to herself.
The place she went most to was Grennan’s. And so it happened some time
after Ratigan coming back, though no word of that had reached the
Furry Farm, that Marg said one evening to Mickey, “I have an occasion
for going over to Grennan’s ... some eggs that Kitty is gathering for
me ... and now, I have the churning done, and the butter made and all
cleared away. So I’ll bring a sup of the fresh buttermilk with me, for
it’s always welcome in a house like theirs; and it the Hallow Eve and
all....”
Dan Grennan had got in on Dempsey’s farm when he married Kitty. But
it was a small holding, and not worth much, by the time all the older
girls had been fortuned off it. And though Dan had brought some money
home with him out of America, it didn’t stand long, between rent that
was owing, and then old Mrs. Dempsey having to be buried, when her
time came; and of course Dan wanted to do the decent thing by Kitty’s
mother. So when all that was attended to, there wasn’t much coming in,
and Dan was glad enough to undertake the herding of the Furry Farm for
Heffernan. It lay convenient to their own little place, too.
Marg had another reason for wanting to go to Grennan’s that same
evening, but she didn’t want Mickey to know anything about it just then.
“Well, go, in the name of God!” said Heffernan, to her standing ready
to start; “and as you are going, you might as well throw an eye over
that young stock that I have there beyant. Dan is good, and very good;
but it’s the master’s eye that puts meat upon his beasts, and I’m not
able this len’th of time to be going across fields and rough ways....”
“Whatever you say yourself, I’ll do,” said his wife.
Marg never had any wish for going outside of her own work or
interfering with what belongs to men. But she would not disagree with
any word Mickey said. To give him his due, neither did he interfere
with her. He was only too contented and happy to have her there,
kind and good and peaceable; instead of Julia that had been such a
heart-scald to him for so long, that he didn’t know himself to be the
same, since he got shut of her, and had Marg to look to for everything.
She saw him settled comfortably by the fire, with his pipe for company,
before she set off, with her can swinging by her side; and, moreover,
a brave big lump of butter fresh off the churn, swimming in the milk.
She was bringing that a present to Kitty, for Marg was very nice and
free-handed in her ways. But there was no use in speaking of the
butter to Mickey. That might only bring on an argument. And a woman
has a good right to her churn and all that comes out of it. If she
chooses to give any of it away, why not? And if Mickey knew nothing
about it, he couldn’t object to it. Supposing he had any claim to the
butter, wouldn’t he be all the better of its being given in charity and
kindness, and he getting so far on in life? And they would never miss
it, no, nor twice as much.
Marg was counted a very lucky hand over a dairy, and always had good
yield from the milk. Near though she was to the Furry Hills, that were
well known to be full up of fairies, she never got any annoyance from
them, such as the Good People to “milk the tether” on her, or to take
away the value of the milk from her. But of course, that mightn’t
be luck, so much as that Marg knew what she was about. She was very
particular not to give away anything to a stranger that might come
borrowing from her on May Day; a mistake that has cost many a woman the
loss of a fine cow. And she never forgot to throw a grain of salt into
the churn, before she began to stir the dash. And as soon as ever she
had the butter taken off the churn, she took care to stick the first
bit against the wall, for the fairies. People can’t be too careful in
such things, especially if they live anyway near such a place as the
Furry Hills.
It was from those hills that Heffernan’s place had got its name of the
Furry Farm. The hills rose up, across his land, steep and sharp, like
the fin of a fish. High they were, and grown over with furze and ferns
and brambles and old thorn bushes, that of course no one would ask to
disturb. But anyway, you could never run a plough up such hills as they
were, so there was no occasion to interfere with anything that grew on
them.
In one part of the Furry Hills there was a gap, like a cleft, and the
old people said it had been made there by a fairy sword. A narrow road,
no more than a boreen, ran through that cleft; and hardly any one
used it, though it was handy enough for many purposes. But there was
great talk of fairies being thereabouts, and that fairy music could
be heard there, and so on. It might be, too, that the old boreen was
deserted because there was another road made, better and even handier
for cattle that would be going to fairs at Ardenoo or Balloch. But even
before that new road was there, the people would never go through the
cleft by themselves or late at night; and it was used as seldom as
possible. Except for this: not very far distant there lay a holy well,
that people would go to at certain times. But Marg could get across the
hills to Grennan’s without passing near the cleft at all.
She was supple and strong still, because she gave herself no time to
get stiff in the limbs, only always kept going about something or
other. So now it was no trouble to her to cross the hills, and strike
off through the fields to Grennan’s.
The instant minute after she saw Kitty and they had passed the time of
day with one another, “Any news yet?” asked Marg.
“The sorra news!” said Kitty; “me heart’s broke, so it is, fretting,
and Dan the same. And he tells me, he heard below there at Melia’s,
that there’s more cattle gone, the same way, as if the earth had opened
and swallowed them. No account of them to be got, high, low, or holy!
And not a night, since Dan missed that bullock out of the Big Field
here, but there’s a rosary said in this house at bedtime, for it to be
got back. The Lord forgive them that gets on with such work!”
“Did you ask St. Anthony?” said Marg; “he’s great, for things that are
lost. I remember to hear tell of an old woman that lost her rosary
once, and she having a great regard for it. So she used to ask St.
Anthony; and it was a twelvemonth after, she went to turn up the
mattress of her bed; and there was the rosary!”
“Look at that, now!” said Kitty; “well, sure, we might try him!”
“You could do no more, then,” said Marg; “but ... there’s the fair-day
of Balloch coming round ... and himself might take the notion of
selling there some of the cattle; and then he’ll have to be told about
the bullock being lost!”
“I suppose that will have to be!” said Kitty, and she ready to cry; “it
can’t be kept from him for ever! It was God that done it, that his leg
got too bad for him to be able to go round the place, to see the stock
and count them himself, this while back!”
Kitty meant no harm to Mickey by that saying; and Marg didn’t think it
of her.
“What way is he now?” Kitty went on; “it’s a long time since he took
the light from this door.”
“He’s well enough,” said Marg, “barrin’ for the leg, that has been
giving him great punishment this good while. Only for that, and that I
didn’t wish to be putting any other annoyance upon him, I would have
told him about the bullock being lost before now.”
“Wait another little weeny while!” said Kitty, coaxingly; “what would
we do at all, if he fell out with Dan?”
“Sure don’t I know that well! and have no wish in life to be making
trouble,” said Marg, “carrying stories and telling tales ... only ...
you see, he depends on me to bring him the report....”
She sat down then and began watching the children, while Kitty hung
down the kettle to wet a grain of tea.
“Ora, Kitty,” said Marg, jumping up, “mind the child! the baby will be
killed, if you don’t take heed! Little Mag isn’t able to be lifting
him....”
The little girl at Grennan’s was called after Marg herself, and Kitty
used to let her have the baby on the floor to nurse him.
“Och, never fear for them!” said Kitty; “here! I’ll put the two of them
outside the door with a pinch of sugar ... there now, Maggie; be good
and don’t be annoying me and I busy with Mrs. Heffernan; and take care
of the baby....”
Kitty never was one to have much talk about her babies, and in
particular when Marg that had none was by. But Kitty was right, to
let them mind themselves, and learn to do that, by being left alone.
If you’re always watching a child, and warning it about falling and
so on, it will never learn to be handy with the little feet or anyway
independent.
Kitty settled the children outside, then, and that left the kitchen
quiet, so that she could give Marg the cup of tea in peace and quiet,
and have a chat.
“I suppose,” said Kitty, while she was cooling a sup of her tea in the
saucer, “I suppose you heard tell of the American that’s beyant in
Clough-na-Rinka?”
“How would I hear,” said Marg; “that never goes anywhere, except to the
chapel, from one year’s end to the other!”
“I wonder at that!” said Kitty, “but there he is, this len’th of time,
stopping with the Widdah Grogan; and has her heart-scalded, by what I
hear, with his grand, particular ways! Wanting beefsteaks and pie for
his dinner, no less! as if he was a lord. And as for the talk he does
have out of him...!”
“Americans does mostly always be that way,” says Marg; “quare notions
they have, there beyant....”
“And for all that,” said Kitty, “in ways, you’d think him real
innocent; don’t ask the use of a bedroom at all, so he’s no trouble
that way ... go away now, Mags! and don’t be annoying me....”
Marg watched, while Kitty hunted the little girl again out of the
kitchen, to where she had the baby laid in a turf-basket; and Marg
wondered to herself, how Kitty could bear to have them out of her
sight. But she said nothing about that, only, “Has no bed! that’s a
quare way to be going on!”
“It appears,” Kitty explained, “that this is a man that got out of
his health there in America, and was ordered a voyage across the salt
water; and he knew people out there, that spoke to him of this place,
and how quiet and healthy you could be here. And above all things, he
says, he was warned never to sleep under a roof, if he could avoid
doing so. Well, you know that little canoe of a place Mrs. Melia has,
squeezed on at the back of her house? she keeps a bit of hay in it
for the pony, and it’s there the American asked to be let lie down at
night; says he has to have the fresh air. He has a bad foot, too, the
crature! the size of a pot it is with all the old rags and bandages he
keeps on it. Oh, very lame he is, with it, and says he always was,
from a child, and had a fortune spent on it, but can find no cure. So
there’s the way it is with him; he appears to have all the money any
one could require. Stands treat, regular, to the boys that gather in to
hear his stories, at Melia’s, and tells the shop-boy to score all up to
him. I’d as soon he’d let that part of it alone!” said Kitty; “Dan was
a bit too late coming home, a few nights ago, and then....”
Kitty sighed.
“It’s a seldom thing for that to occur with Dan!” said Margaret.
“Oh, ay! there’s not much to fault in Dan!” said his wife; “only a body
gets a bit anxious, for fraid he might get the fashion of being late
... maybe begin stravaguing the roads....”
“Well, if the American is the way you say, with the bad foot, they’ll
not go far, if they want his company!”
“Ay! that’s only God’s truth! and now speaking of a lame leg and the
like, what remedy are you trying for Mickey?”
“Nothing; for there seems no good in anything I can apply to give him
ease!” said Marg.
“Did you think of getting the water from the Holy Well?” said Kitty.
“I thought of that, over and over,” said Marg; “but I never got to
try it for him yet. Only this evening, and I coming along here, I was
intended to bring home a sup of the blessed water in the buttermilk
can. And so I will, too, for I can get it easily, on the way back. So
as soon as you can have the can readied out, I’ll be shortening the way
home,” says Marg.
“I’ll not ask to delay you, so,” said Kitty, “and it Hallow Eve and
all; and the daylight beginning to fade. And cold it’s turning, too!”
“I’ll not heed that!” said Marg; and away she went.
There was a touch of frost in the air; the grass felt crisp underfoot.
Dusk was gathering about the fields and the shadows began to lie very
thick and dark under the trees and hedges. Margaret even shivered a
little, as she hurried on. But that might be because all these lonesome
signs of the night seemed worse, after leaving Kitty’s kitchen, gay
and full up of the little chatter and laughing of the children, the
baby in Kitty’s arm, and little Maggie standing beside her mother, to
watch Mrs. Heffernan disappearing into the twilight. Marg loved to go
to Grennan’s, and see the children, and maybe now and then coax one
of them to sit on her knee and let her play with it. All the same,
she was sighing now, to think how silent and sober her own house was,
compared to Grennan’s.
She was thinking, going along, of the sound of the little voices there;
“like music!” she said to herself. And with that word, she started.
For, whether it was some echo carried on the wind from Grennan’s, or
whatever it might have been, that very moment she thought she heard
some sound of music coming out of the darkness to her as she was
passing through the Big Pasture-Field.
“What can it be? Sure, I often heard tell of fairy music, and how that
some can hear noises, like piannas and bugles, if they put their ear
to the ground, close by a rath. But that can only be foolishness! I’ll
not let the like of that talk stop me now, from going to the Holy Well,
if there’s a cure, or even some small relief to be got there, for that
poor leg of Mickey’s!”
So on she went, by the Furry Hills, until she got to the Holy Well,
close under the Cleft of the Fairy Sword.
“It’s well the moon is up,” thought Marg, “the way I’ll have no delay
in filling the can!”
The Holy Well lay in a corner, where the Big Pasture-Field sloped down
to a hollow. Many’s the time Marg had seen it, of a Saint’s Day,
with the lone thorn that leans out over the water all dressed up with
bits of ribbon, and even rags, that the people would tie there, when
there would be a Pattern at the Holy Well. And, besides, the girls had
a great fashion of going there on Hallow Eve, to try old charms and
“pistrogues,” “so that they might get to see whatever boy they were to
marry.”
Well, this time, when Marg came in sight of the Well, wasn’t it all hid
from her! ay and even the hollow where it lay was covered over with
white columns of mist, that rose, and wavered, moving this way and that
way as the night wind blew. It was steam from the Well, for the water
there is warm. Not hot enough to make tea and boil eggs, as Mickey used
to tell the people, but just nicely warm. And always in frost or cold,
you could see the steam rising from it.
But as long as Marg had been at the Furry Farm, she had never chanced
to see it like that. The Well lay a piece off from where she had
business. And Marg never had been one to go stravaguing the fields
for pleasure; and she wasn’t going to begin that fashion now, and she
married.
Marg began to go slower, and to feel a bit fearful in herself. It
was Hallow Eve, when, as everybody knows, the dead can come back to
visit those they love. And here was she, all alone among the wide,
silent fields, close to the Holy Well, with the moonlight white upon
everything. And not a sound, only the whisper, whisper, of the stream
that ran from the Well; and the soft, white clouds of steam, dancing
and beckoning like strange beings that had life, this way and that way
across the water....
“I’ll make no delay, for fraid I’d take fright altogether here!” she
said to herself; and she hurried forward to the brink of the Well, and
dipped in her can.
What did she see, when she straightened herself up again, but a Face,
at the other side of the Well, and it staring, staring at her.
Her heart stopped beating; then “Patsy!” she said, in a choked kind of
voice....
At the word, a puff of steam blew between her and the Face, and when
she was able to see clearly again, it was gone!
How Marg got home that night, she never knew. All of a tremble she was;
so much so, that her two shoes were full up with the water that kept
spilling out of the can, she was walking so unsteadily. But still she
kept on as fast as she could, and never let go her hold of the water
from the Holy Well, till she had it landed in upon the kitchen floor.
And proud she was to find herself there! and to be able to shut the
door, between herself and the black shadows that seemed to rise out of
the night, and to have been chasing and threatening upon her heels,
once she left the Holy Well, all the way across the dark, lonesome
fields.
But what was worse on her was, that the old fret seemed to be wakening
up in her heart; a sharp kind of pain, after all those years, at sight
of the boy that had treated her so queerly. She couldn’t tell why! but
there it was; and there’s others the same, that will always have a soft
corner in their hearts for any one they were young with; let alone that
they’d have a wish for, as poor Marg had for Ratigan.
And, “Was it Patsy that was in it?” she kept asking herself; “or could
it be that it was only some Appearance for Death ... or a Visit ... the
Lord be between us and harm, I pray!”
But now she was inside her own house, and it all seemed full of light
that was very bright after the dark night outside.... There was a
great look of comfort upon it. There were rows and rows of good
pewter plates and dishes and noggins, all shining and twinkling in the
blazing firelight, she had them so well scoured and polished up. And
the place was hung round with the fine sides of bacon that she had
cured; hanks of yarn she had spun, and stockings she had knitted, in
the chimney-corner, above her spinning-wheel of black oak. And Mickey
himself was sitting there, very much as she had left him, in his big
chair, close to the turf-box, the way he had it convenient to throw on
a few sods when they were needed to keep the big pot boiling. He had
his specs upon his nose and his pipe ready filled, and the newspaper on
his knee, reading in it now and again. Margaret never forgot to bring
that to him, every week, from Melia’s shop.
“You’re later than I thought,” said Heffernan to her.
“There’s what has me delayed,” said Margaret. “Kitty Grennan that bid
me try the water from the Holy Well on that leg of yours ...” and she
showed him what she had in the can.
“And is that what you were at!” said Mickey, looking as proud as Punch;
“getting the blessed water to beethe me leg. Well, sure, you can’t do
worse than try it! But I was getting really unaisy in me mind, for
fear of something having happened you ... and a body feels a thing of
the sort worse, if they’re helpless the way I am!”
“The sorra ha’porth is wrong with me!” said Marg.
And neither there was. And, of course, there was no occasion to tell
Heffernan about what had happened at the Holy Well. What could she
say? If it was an Appearance, well and good! there was no more to be
said. But if it was Ratigan...! and how could it be? How could he be
there, trying to play off some trick on her? Wouldn’t it be best to say
nothing?
How could it be Patsy? wasn’t he married in America, ay, long enough
before she was herself! And never had thought it worth his while to
send her one line, either to ask for news of herself, or to tell her
what he was doing with himself, out there. Just by chance, she had
heard of his marriage. And, in troth, only for hearing that, she might
be Marg Molally yet. You never can tell what small little word here or
there will get you to do a certain thing or to leave it alone.
Whatever came or went, then or at any other time, Marg never failed in
anything that could be done for Mickey. She was very fearful about
going to the Well, after seeing what she saw there, that first night.
And it should be done after dark, too; still, she persevered.
“It must be continued on,” said Dark Moll, that had a good knowledge of
such things, so that Marg thought well of consulting her, one day she
met her on the road; “you must go on wid it. And the water must be got
by one that has a wish for whoever has need of it; and that person must
go by themselves ... if the Holy Well is to do any good, that is!”
There wasn’t really one, on the face of this earth, to care one straw
about poor Mickey, only his wife. And Marg ... sure, it was more
compassion than anything else she felt for him, seeing how old and
lonely and helpless he was. Though, indeed, he was kind in his own
way to her, and showed great confidence and respect for her and all
she did, and she felt thankful to him, over and over, for that, and
for the good home he put her over. That’s a thing that is generally a
satisfaction to a woman, and it was to Margaret.
But with others, Mickey Heffernan was no great favourite. He had no
agreeable ways with him. He would do a kind turn for another, as soon
as the next one; but then again he had a fashion of taking the good
out of whatever he did that-a-way; the same as the cow that fills the
can, and then kicks it over. So it came about that there was no one to
go for the water for his leg but Marg herself. She went to the Holy
Well every evening of her life then. Sometimes it would be fairly
early, just duskish, and sometimes it would be late enough before she
would be ready to start off, but she never failed to go.
This was the way with Marg, and as nothing strange occurred for some
time, she was beginning to think that she had only imagined to see
Ratigan that Hallow Eve at the Holy Well, when she got another great
fright there. Bad as the first was, this was worse, so much so, that
she nigh-hand fell out of her standing.
She was making her way along by the Furry Hills, when suddenly there
was the greatest stamping and rustling and big clattering as if
cart-loads of stones were being thrown down the side of the Fairy
Cleft, and heavy sounds of grunting and breathing and snorting. And
then she thought there was something like a figure of a man, going
through the dusk, towards the Cleft, with a stick in his hand.
Margaret stopped and tried to think what it could mean.
“It can’t be Dan Grennan!” she said to herself; “for what would he be
doing here at this hour? God knows but it might be some villyans of
tinkers.... But whatever it is, I’ll have to find out who is there,
making so free, and coming in here upon our place!”
So, though she was as frightened a woman as could be, she gave a great
shout, thinking by that to frighten away whoever it might be.
It did frighten the man that was there! her voice lifted him off his
feet, he was so startled, the fields being generally so silent at that
hour.
He jumped up, and then he stopped; and the snorting and trampling feet
stopped, too. Then the figure, that Marg could just make out against
the pale yellow of the evening sky, where it was above the hill ... the
figure seemed to Marg to turn about, and then she could hear it coming,
coming quickly down the hill towards her.
She was frightened in earnest then. Her first thought was, that she’d
run away. But her knees gave under her. So she crouched down close to
the damp ground, thinking to escape being seen. And she had herself
dead and buried, in her own mind that is, when the man came up, and
stood still beside her.
“So you don’t know me, Marg Molally!” he said, in a very sad, mild
voice; “you don’t remember poor Patsy now! Nor couldn’t, I suppose!
Mrs. Heffernan is too big and grand a person now, to have any
recollection of the ould times!”
And with that, he turned on the light of a lantern he was carrying
under his coat; and Marg saw plainly who it was.
“In the name of God, Patsy Ratigan, it’s not you!” she said.
“Who else?” said he; “is it that I’m that changed a man, that you don’t
know me? But small blame to me to be changed! after all the want and
hardships I’m after putting over me! And small blame to you, either,
not to know me. It’s another story with you,” he says, “the same as
ever you look! not a day older than you were, the day you ... well,
sure, it’s bad to be raking up old sores! But if it was you that had
been away, and came back...! No matter what change there was upon you,
I’d know your skin upon a bush, so I would!”
Marg couldn’t but listen to him, for she was too much surprised to do
anything else. Puzzled too she was. For she was thinking of the Face
she had seen at the Well; and she had known that to be Patsy Ratigan.
And now here was a big, red-faced, puffy-looking man, saying that he
was Ratigan!
God knows, there’s many a thing remains a puzzle! not to speak of what
a body might chance upon, of a Hallow Eve.
But she got no time then to think this out, for of all the romancing
that ever was heard, and Ratigan reeled it out of him then.
“Little I thought, that when we’d meet, you would have forgotten me!”
he said; “but sure enough, there’s the way...!
“The full pig in the sty
Thinks little of the empty one passing by!
“And I working and slaving off there in America, and never thinking
when I came back, that I’d find meself forgot by every one, and you
marrit!”
“Marrit!” said Marg; “and what about yourself? and the widdah with her
shop ... and the six children?”
“Widdah? What widdah?” said Ratigan; “who was it at all that put
round that story upon me? I only wish I had him here!” says he, very
courageous, “and I’d soon show him the differ! And you to believe that
of me! I couldn’t have believed it of you ... only for seeing it now!
All I wonder is,” he went on, very bitter, “that it wasn’t ten widdahs!
and sixty children that they had laid out for me! And I that was
thinking of no one, only the girl at Ardenoo that I used to be helping
of an evening with the bullocks ... and of the welcome home she would
have for me, whenever I’d come back!”
Phwat! what he had in his mind was, that he had had enough of the hard
work in America, and the hurry and noise there, once the widdah died,
the crature. And her children took and threw Ratigan out of that; and
it appeared then that they owned the shop and money, once the widdah
was gone. And a loss it was to Patsy, that he hadn’t inquired fully
into the thing before he got married. But when he had to quit out of
the shop, where he had lived very nice and easy, and found he would
have to earn for himself, he began to turn over in his mind about
Ardenoo. Maybe Marg Molally was to the good still. And he knew her to
be a good warrant to work. Moreover, he remembered that Ardenoo was a
pleasant place for being idle in; and that’s what he liked best always.
What he said further then to Marg was, that all he’d care to do now
was, to have leave to rest himself awhile before going back again; and
that he was trying the water of the Holy Well for a bad foot he had.
But he had been advised to do the cure secretly, and that was how he
chanced to be coming there so late to the Fairy Cleft.
“But,” says Ratigan, “I never said, to man nor mortal except yourself,
who I am. You’re the only living soul in Ardenoo that I have any wish
to speak to; and I’ll trust to you to say nothing!”
“Very well!” said Marg, a bit puzzled why he should want nothing said.
But, like many another, she was proud to be told what no one else knew.
“And where do you stop?” said Marg then.
“Beyant in the town,” said Ratigan, telling the truth for once; “Mrs.
Melia that lets me sleep in the hay-loft that she has leaning up at
the back of the house; and then it’s not so expensive on a poor man
like Patsy. And, besides, I’d liefer not to be inside the shop; I can’t
abide the least smell of drink!”
Mrs. Melia could have told a different story about that, for the
American, as he was called at the shop, was the talk of the whole
place, the way he was going on with every play-boy that was there,
treating them all. And she could get no money out of him, only now and
then. He would always be telling her, that he was expecting funds from
his agent in America by the next mail.
Well, that agent lived quite convenient to Ardenoo! and was going about
on four legs, as long as he would be let. There was no doubt that
Ratigan had some way of getting money into his pocket; and also that
cattle and other things were disappearing, no one knew how; neither did
any one know whose turn it would be next.
There is something very curious about cows and the things that will
happen to them. Dark Moll had a story she was fond of relating, about
Andy McGuinness, long ago, that saw a strange woman dressed in green,
and long hair as yellow as butter flowing down her back, and she was
milking Andy’s fine cow one summer evening. So Andy caught the cow by
the tail, when the woman disappeared at sight of him. And by that means
he got inside the Furry Hills. And there was the fairy-woman he had
seen, and she with a fairy child in her arms. And Andy had to promise
her that she might take a pint of milk every night for the child. And
then he found himself out again with his cow safe in his own fields.
And after that he had no more trouble with her. She had been no use to
him up to that, giving only small sups of milk, and no yield of butter
upon even what she gave.
Well, Moll said, now that all the cattle were disappearing, that it
would be simple enough to find out all about them if only some one had
the spirit to go to the Fairy Cleft like Andy, and see what was taking
place there. She was right, too, as it happened, though not exactly in
the way she meant. But no one had any wish to take that advice.
“It’s easy for them to talk, that will do nothing themselves! advice is
always cheap!” they would say.
Ratigan, or the American, as the people called him, had a good deal to
say about the stealing of the stock.
“If it was away in the States that such a thing was going on,” he
said, “the whole countryside would join, and turn out to hunt the
cattle-thief! What good are the people here, anyway! Only for this bad
foot of mine, I’d start the thing meself!”
And with that he stuck out a foot as big as a beehive, to all
appearance. And who was to know that there wasn’t a ha’porth the matter
with the same foot? It was all play-acting he was, and by this talk he
made it easy for himself to come and go after dark, in and out of the
hay-loft at Melia’s.
“Dan Grennan,” said Ratigan another time, “Dan that had a great deal to
say over his glass last night about this business, and in particular
about a bullock that is missing off the Furry Farm. Strayed, as likely
as not! But I can’t help thinking of a saying I used to hear from an
Irishman I met over in America; how that the fox always smells his own
smell!”
There were some that heard him say this that were inclined to be angry.
It was no right thing to say of a decent neighbour. But the others
laughed it off. The American had a way of making jokes, and no one
minded much what he said, he being very free with his treats, too, to
every one.
All this time, poor Dan and Kitty were fretting their hearts out about
the bullock that was lost. They knew well that Heffernan would blame
them for the loss, and maybe bid them leave the place for some one
that would be more careful. And then what would become of them and the
little family? Marg did all she could, but the thing could not be kept
from Mickey’s knowledge for ever. He took it very hard.
You would really think that it was worse for him to be at a loss
than any one else that had met the same misfortune. And he with not
one in his house to care about providing for, except himself and the
wife! But God help him and all like him! Sure his money and money’s
worth appeared to be all he had, at that time anyway, to care about;
excepting only Marg herself, of course. And he was so well used by now
to her, and all her care and attention, that he scarcely knew himself
either how necessary she was to him, or how much he thought of her.
But now, he wouldn’t listen to one word she’d say about this loss, to
try to reconcile him to it; only he would keep on, ding-dong, from
morning to night and from night to morning, lamenting about the fine
beast that was gone, and saying that such a thing had never occurred as
long as he had been to the good himself. At last, he began to say that
he’d have to turn Dan and Kitty away.
Now this is the kind of talk Marg had to listen to, all day long, up
and down, this way and that way, the same thing over and over again,
till she grew sick of the very name of a bullock! So you could hardly
blame her, that she began to look forward to the evenings, when she
would be slipping off to the Holy Well, and the chance of seeing
Ratigan there and passing a few remarks with him. It happened pretty
often that they met in this way.
Ratigan still had the same pleasant manners with him, and the tongue
that could coax the birds off the bushes. Sometimes he’d be telling
Marg of all the troubles and hardships he met up with, out in America;
and then again, it would be nothing but about the money you could earn
and the fine times you could have there. And this would be, while he
would be carrying the can of blessed water a piece of the way home for
her. He never could abide, he’d cry, to see a woman have to work! as
long as he’d have a leg under him; and how that he himself was nearly
cured by the same Well. Now Marg could not but be glad to have her mind
diverted from poor Mickey with his complaints about the lost bullock as
well as his lame leg.
It was worse that Heffernan was growing over this matter as time went
on, instead of beginning to forget it. In fact, it wasn’t Mickey alone,
or even those only that had lost a beast themselves that were uneasy,
but all Ardenoo could do nothing but talk about the cattle being
stolen, and wonder whose turn would come next.
Now this thing is so simple that it’s curious more don’t turn their
hands to it. Horn brand or hide brand, they’re easily got rid of, with
the help of a file and a pair of scissors. And if you start early in
the night, you can travel a long way with whatever you may have to
drive, before the weight of the people will be out of their beds.
And if there chances to be a lonely spot like the Fairy Cleft anyway
convenient, that crowns you for the job. The beasts could be taken
there and along the disused boreen as handy as you like. Ratigan had it
all as fit for his requirements as if he had made it himself.
At last Heffernan made up his mind that he’d run no more risks
about having his cattle stolen. So he said to Marg, “The fair in
Clough-na-Rinka is coming on, and it would be as good for us to sell
that half-score of store cattle there as to leave them to be stolen,
like their comrade. They’ll sell at a loss,” he went on, with a sigh,
“but sure, little fish is sweet! and the rent has to be made up. And
it will only be worse to be keeping them back and having to fodder
them in the winter, and the hay none too plenty ... sure, they’d have
themselves ett against next May!”
“Whatever you say yourself,” said Marg, only too glad of the chance of
getting rid of the bullocks, and thinking that then maybe Mickey would
cease to be fretting and annoying himself over the one that was stolen;
“but how will you manage to get to the fair?”
“I know well that I’d have no right to go, and the leg the way it is
with me,” said Mickey, “but I think you’d do, if you were instructed.”
“I’ll go, if you say the word,” said Marg.
She felt glad of the chance. She would hardly say it, even to herself,
but she would like to get away for even that one day from poor Mickey.
Not that she’d let any one say a word against him, but she was worn
out of all comfort by his growling and complaining. Of course it was
the bad leg that helped to make him so contrary; and Marg never forgot
that, and would never make him an answer, no matter what he’d say.
“I can go away easy enough with the mare and side-car ...” for that is
how Mickey himself always went to fairs.
“Ora, what side-car do you want?” said Mickey a bit short; for now
along with all else, the poor old man was fretting because he could
not go to do the business himself, being sure, like every one, that he
could do it better than any one else; “what side-car do you mean? Can’t
ye take the little ass?”
“She’s very slow now,” said Marg, “and it will leave me that I’ll have
to be a long time away from you.”
“It’s lost for the want of work she is, this minute,” said Heffernan;
“fresh enough she is, this minute, to dance a cat off the high-road!
and as well, there’s a bit of ploughing that the mare could be at, here
at home....”
“I can walk; shanks’ mare will do me full as well as either ass or
mare!” said Marg, that had not one ounce of lazy flesh upon her bones.
So when the fair-day came round, she was up and off, bright and early,
before the stars were out of the skies, the cattle having been sent on
ahead with Dan Grennan. Marg had no delay in selling the stock, for
fine beasts they were; and to a dealer that she and Mickey were well
acquainted with, so that Marg felt no great anxiety about the business.
When they had the bargain closed, “Come along in here, Mrs. Heffernan,
mam,” said this dealer, “to Mrs. Melia’s, a decent woman she is and
keeps a decent house as you may wish to find. And I can be paying
you the money inside there, in the parlour, away out of the noise and
crowds in the street,” said he, “let alone the mud and gutther, with
the heavy rain that’s falling....”
“Very soft entirely it has turned, since the turn of the day,” said
Marg; “the cloak on me is heavy with the soaking wet.”
“You’re saying only the truth, mam,” said the dealer; “and all the more
reason for you to be getting into shelter, where we can be having a cup
of tea, or whatever other refreshment you like to put a name upon.”
“I thank you kindly,” said Marg; “indeed, I’ll be glad of something
warm to drink....”
Like many another woman, Marg had neglected herself in the matter
of food, and had never tasted bite nor sup since leaving home that
morning. And now that she had the selling of the cattle off her mind,
she remembered that, and began to feel very weak-like in herself.
So she raised no demur to going into Melia’s, and in particular because
she had observed Ratigan a piece off from her down the fair-green. He
was pretending not to know her. Marg was no hand at that work, and she
was glad not to have to meet up with him, before all the neighbours.
But Ratigan was keeping a close eye on her, all through. Not a turn of
Marg that day but he watched. And when he saw herself and the dealer
going into Melia’s, my dear, what did he do, only whipped round like
shot, in and out among the crowds of people and beasts of all kinds,
and up with him into the hay-loft. The big foot was no hindrance to
him, he would explain, only betimes. And anyway, every one was too much
taken up with their own concerns to mind much what the American was
about that evening.
The loft wasn’t to say very well built. There was a chink that he had
often found very convenient, for seeing what went on in Mrs. Melia’s
parlour. He put his eye to it now.
In due course, he saw all he wanted to see. There were Marg and the
cattle-dealer, drinking their tea and eating fried eggs and bacon; and
badly they both stood in need of their bit. Then the dealer pulled
out the purse, and counted out the money upon the table, that he was
paying for Mickey’s stock; and the luck-penny was handed back to him.
Ratigan’s mouth was watering at the sight, and when he saw Marg tying
up what she got, a full hundred pounds, in a strong bag, and fastening
that into the front pocket of her cloak, inside, a very safe spot.
“Yiz never got any account of the bullock that was lost ... not to say,
stole?” says the dealer.
“Never a word,” said Marg; “whoever done it, no one knows, nor can’t
think. And to say that all over the whole of Ardenoo such work to be
going on! Sure it’s a fright, so it is!”
“You may say that; a fright it is, sure enough!” says the dealer; “but
whoever it is, will soon be known! I have that from certain knowledge;
and that the polis has all ready, and will have the thief inside of the
barracks, before he’s a day oulder! so mind, now, I’m telling you!”
“It would be a charity, too!” said Marg; and then the dealer bid her
the time of day, and went off, to get the cattle home before it would
be dark night down upon him and them, and it raining hard still.
Marg was just thinking in herself, had she the money safe for Mickey,
and fidgeting with her hand to feel was it where she had put it, not
two minutes before, and she was thinking of the long road that lay
between her and the Furry Farm, where she’d be as apt as not to meet
with tinkers and queer people going along, after leaving the fair
and maybe they not so sober as they might be ... when the door of the
parlour opened, very easy, and in walked Ratigan. And not a limp was
upon him then! He had too many other things in his head, to remember
about his lame foot. But anyway, Marg was too much surprised to meet
him there quite suddenly, after she trying to not see him all day, to
remark on that. She was flustered, too, about the bag of money, not
having satisfied herself yet that she had it in the safest place.
She turned to face Ratigan, trying to look careless. But she felt
trembly and queer, meeting him there, in that little crowded-up
parlour. Someways, it wasn’t the same thing at all as when they would
be having just a chat in the dusk at the Holy Well, or straying along
through the quiet fields.
“Good-evening, Mrs. Heffernan, mam,” said Ratigan, very polite; “I seen
you over and over to-day ...” and he stopped short, and his eyes began
looking at her every way.
“Well, and if you did, and had anything to say, why didn’t you come up
and speak to me?” said Marg hurriedly.
It wasn’t what she wanted to say to him at all.
“Och sure, how was I to know would you wish that?” said Ratigan, very
humble in himself; and then Margaret’s heart softened towards him.
“You’re not going out in that dreep of rain?” says he, noticing that
Marg was pulling up her cloak about her shoulders, where she had it
undone, while she was drinking her cup of tea; “teeming out of the
skies it is, as if all the wathers of the salt seas I have to cross was
coming down upon Ardenoo!”
“I’ll have to face out, rain or no rain,” said Marg; “I have a long
ways before me!”
“I’ve a longer!” says he; and he puffed a big sigh out of him; “and has
to go wid meself....”
“You should be used to that!” says Marg.
He had her persuaded that he never was married at all.
“I ought to be, I know,” said Ratigan; “but I haven’t the short memory
I see with some people for the old times! But them that’s in heaven
themselves, finds it easy to forget all else; and thim that’s snug and
warm in their own home, has little thought for them that has to be
without in cold and wet and hardship!”
“There’s more a body wants than food and fire,” says Marg, as if she
was thinking out loud.
“Ay is there! that’s a true word!” said Ratigan.
He was thinking at that present, that he wanted the price of his
passage back to America, as badly as ever a man wanted anything! He
had squandered away the money he had got for the cattle he had stolen,
in paying Mrs. Melia some of what he owed her, and the rest drinking
and spreeing. And now he was after hearing through the chink in the
hay-loft all that the dealer had been saying to Marg. He knew about the
money she had been putting away; and he knew, too, about the polis, and
the danger he was in. And he felt that the sooner he could quit out of
that the better it would be for his health.
But how was he going to get away, and he without a penny to his name!
And it would take some days for him to get any more by that means he
was employing. And he must lose no time.
The only thing to be done was, to get a hold of that bag of money he
had seen with Marg. Have it he must, by hook or by crook! Maybe she’d
go with him. That would be the simplest, though not what he’d like
best. But he spoke to her very nice and soft, saying how he thought the
world and all of her, and trying to get to coax her....
“I must be shortening the road home!” was all Marg said in answer. And
she went over to the window, and stood there, looking out at where
the rain was coming down in white sheets of wet, and running down the
street in streams, all choked up with mud, after the traffic of the
day, and the trampling feet of the sheep and cattle. It wasn’t very
tempting; and she turned away from it, as if she couldn’t make up her
mind ought she to go, or to wait a while longer.
Ratigan all the time was watching her, like a cat with a mouse.
“Maybe it would be as good for you to start off at once!” he said;
“it’s not better it will be getting ... only the dark night coming
down....”
He was mad to be off, knowing it wouldn’t answer for him to be delaying
there, so close to the barracks, and even wondering how soon he’d have
to make a run for it, money or no money. But if only he could get Marg
outside the town, and on a lonely piece of the road, how simply he
could be coming along behind her in the dark, and take the bag from
her; and she never to know who he was. Or if she did itself, what loss!
A man like Ratigan can’t be too particular.
“No, it’s not better it will be getting!” he said again.... “Sure,
if only I dar’ go with ye, to see you safe ... but that mightn’t
answer....”
“The Lord save us!” says Marg, interrupting him there. “That’s Mickey!
I thought to know the rattling sound of the side-car; it never can go
by annonst....”
Sure enough, there it was, coming up the street, and Heffernan sitting
balanced upon it, looking little and bent and perished-looking, with
the dint of the wind and wet, in spite of the big frieze coat he had
on, with the collar shaving his ears, and his hands lost in the length
of the sleeves.
“Holy Mother of God!” said Marg, “sure it’s not down he’s wanting to
get, there, in that thronged place! He’ll be kilt dead! Wait, wait a
minute, Mickey!” she said, as if he could hear her through the window,
“wait! there’s no one can humour that poor leg only meself, when he
does be getting down off the car....” and in her hurry to save Mickey,
she threw off the heavy cloak and left it, money and all, down upon the
floor, and ran out, through the heavy _polters_ of rain, over to Mickey
upon the car.
“You’ll mind that for me!” she called out over her shoulder to Ratigan,
as she darted out of the door.
Mind it! Little delay Ratigan made, only whipped the bag of money out
of where Marg had it inside the cloak, and away with him, like a
redshank, by the back door.
“What at all brought you here, at this late hour?” said Marg, reaching
up her hand to help Mickey off the side-car.
“Well, when I saw the evening turning so wild and hard,” said Mickey,
“I thought bad of you having that long walk home, after such an early
start this morning. And along with all, I had a bad dream and I sitting
in the chimney-corner. I thought to see you in some great danger ...
and it was about the money you were after getting for the bullocks....
So Dan was back, and he gave me an account of all, and the good price
they made.... And I got him to throw the harness on the old mare ... it
was too bad a day for she to go plough.... I would have been here long
ago, if I’d been able to get ready meself.... But hurry now, girl dear!
you’re getting all wet ... and no cloak about you....”
“Sure, what matter! And I dreading the long walk home in the dark!”
said Marg, nearly ready to cry when she thought of the poor old lame
chap quitting his snug seat at home, to come look for her, at the very
time that she was listening to Ratigan with his foolish wild talk.
“I’ll just run back for the cloak,” said Marg, “and then there need be
no more delay upon us, only to get home in comfort!”
Well, there’s where it was, when she went back, and took up the cloak,
and just put her hand inside, to make sure she had the money, and it
wasn’t there! She nigh-hand fainted, with the fright. She couldn’t
believe it! She felt in all her pockets, over and over again. She
called out for Mrs. Melia, who came and helped her to look everywhere
about the room, and out in the wet street, over to where Mickey was
waiting on the side-car, and telling Marg to make haste and come on out
of that.
“What will you do, at all at all?” said Mrs. Melia ... “will you be
able to pacify Mickey? ... tell him ... what would you say? that you
left it here with me, and I having it locked up and had to go away....”
Mrs. Melia made that up out of the goodness of her heart, but Marg
wouldn’t agree.
“I can only say what happened,” she said.
She did that; and Heffernan looked terribly put about. But he took it
the best ever you knew. Far worse Marg herself was.
“We’ll go at once and notice the polis!” he said; “sure whoever took
the money can’t be far!”
So they did that; but they scarcely had their story told, when in
walked two constables, and Ratigan between them.
It was all up with him then! the butter came out of the stir-about in
earnest. The whole thing was opened up and explained. Great excitement
there was over it, and a trial of law, that you can hear talked about
still in Ardenoo.
What never was rightly known was, who told the polis. Some laid it on
Dark Moll, but others would not believe she’d do such a dirty mean
turn. Still, she had a spleen in for Ratigan, because he never gave her
so much as the price of a drink of porter; penny wise and pound foolish
as the saying is.