of St. Peter. A messenger was sent out to watch for him. At long last
the messenger shouted in through the open window:
"Here he comes!"
They all looked out and saw him coming. But it was a slow-moving,
dispirited, disappointed-looking St. Peter they saw. You'd think that
everyone belonging to him had just died or that he had heard some
sorrowful tidings. He stopped at the door and looked sadly at the
judge. Everyone was silent. St. Peter spoke.
"I give it up," says he, shaking his head, "there's no use in going on
with it. I've searched Heaven seven times over, from top to bottom,
from end to end and from side to side, here, there and everywhere, but
in any part or portion of it I couldn't find lawyer of any description
that I might ask to plead my case for me."
Then he turned on his heel and walked back as he had come.
THE FIRST PLUM PUDDING
It was drawing near Christmas and we were gathered one night in the
Forge, joking and laughing and smoking, and discussing various matters
of no importance with Ned M'Grane, the jovial and kindly blacksmith of
Balnagore. After a time the talk naturally turned on the great festival
that was near at hand, and all the old and new observances that came
with it as sure as sparks came when the smith's sledge hit the heated
steel or iron on the anvil. And Ned, who was in his best form, was
willing to talk in his own humorous fashion about everything connected
with Christmas, from three-foot high candles to penny bugles, and from
plum puddings to holly and ivy.
"I wonder who invented the sort of a Christmas we have nowadays?" said
Ned, as he lighted his pipe and laid the sledge on the anvil. "I'm
told that in the big towns an' the cities they start buyin' Christmas
presents in the middle o' summer, so as to get them cheap, an' that
some people go near losin' their mind tryin' to think o' what to give
this person an' that an' strivin' to figure out what they're goin' to
get themselves from their friends. Long ago the people thought it good
enough to give an' get a Christmas greetin' at the fair or market or
comin' home from Mass or goin' the road, but now you have to go to the
town or send away to Dublin or London or somewhere for a bit of a card
with a green robin redbreast on it, an' holly berries, an' about five
feet o' snow, an' you must put it in a letter an' stamp it an' post it
to the man or woman that lives next door to you, an' that you'll be
talkin' to five minutes before an' after he gets it. An' he must do the
same thing for you, an' if his card looks cheaper than yours, although
you're after sendin' him a printed verse about good-will an' eternal
friendship an' charity an' peace, you won't stop talkin' about his
meanness for a month o' Sundays. I don't know what Christmas is comin'
to at all."
"I wonder who thought o' the first plum puddin'," said Joe Clinton, as
he looked meditatively into the big turf fire that Ned kept burning in
a huge open grate for our special benefit. "Whoever he was, he didn't
think he'd sicken so many people before the end o' the world. Some o'
the things they call plum puddin's are a holy terror. An' the fun of it
is that they never put as much as the skin of a plum in one o' them."
"Well, Joe," answered Ned, "I don't know who took out the plum puddin'
patent first in the world, but I know who was the first who tried to
make one in Balnagore, an' I know what happened to it, an' how often it
was laughed over for many a long day after." And Ned chuckled softly
as he coaxed mighty clouds of blue and white smoke from his veteran
pipe. We saw at once that there was a story behind his remark, for
Ned's brain was a storehouse for yarns, and our hearts thumped with
excitement as we waited breathlessly for Joe Clinton to say the word
that would set Ned's tongue working.
"Who was that, Ned--I never heard of it," said Joe at last.
"It was Judy Connell," Ned answered, as he looked away into the shadows
as if his gaze was fixed on a cinematograph picture that had suddenly
appeared on the far wall of the forge, "an' I remember it the same as
if 'twas only yesterday, though it's a good twenty-five years since
it happened. In them times the only sort of a puddin' people had at
Christmas was a bit o' rice an' a few currants in it, an' it was a
bigger luxury than you'd imagine, because it's little o' sweets or
dainties the old people bothered their heads about: an' signs on it
there wasn't a fellow for pullin' teeth an' stuffin' teeth at every
fair an' market, nor bottles by the score in every 'pothacary's shop
window for the cure o' constipation an' twenty other 'ations' an'
'isms' that the people o' them days knew nothin' about. An' sure nearly
every man brought a full set o' teeth to the grave with him an' left
them there to be dug up when some other man was goin' down on top of
him. Nowadays every second man you meet has teeth made out o' melted
lead or somethin' tied on to his gums with wire, an' some people have
plum puddin' for their tay every time a friend or relation comes to
see them, an' they have to keep on the dresser a bottle o' somethin'
or other to shift the plum puddin' out of their stomach the next day.
That's how things has changed in this country since I was a gossoon.
"But I'm ramblin' away from Judy Connell's plum puddin'.
"Judy was as plain an' simple a little woman as ever went under a
shawl, an' had no more airs or notions than any of her neighbours,
an' it wasn't conceit or a wish to be better than the next that made
her think o' makin' the puddin'. But the lady she was at service with
before she married Mickey Connell, used to make her a present o' some
little thing every Christmas, an' this year that I'm talkin' about
didn't she take it into her head to send Judy a parcel o' raisins an'
currants an' spices an' candy peel an' all the other queer things they
mix up together, and wrote down all the rules an' regulations for
makin' the things grab on to each other an' turn out a plum puddin'.
Mickey wanted to give the things to the pigs instead o' goin' on with
any foolishness, as he said, but the childre coaxed an' coaxed until
they got the soft side o' the mother, as the like o' them will, an'
she said that on account o' them that sent the things an' the times
that were in it, she'd try her hand, come death or glory, at makin' the
first plum puddin' that ever was smelt in Balnagore.
"So she read the directions over an' over an' up an' down until she had
them off like a song an' used to be singing them out in her sleep, an'
the childre thinkin' Christmas would never come, an' Mickey prayin'
with the wrong end of his tongue for Judy's old mistress that didn't
send the makin's of a flannel petticoat or somethin' sensible instead
of all that rubbish that was only fit for the pigs' pot; an' mornin',
noon, an' night Judy kept dinnin' into every one o' their ears that
they mustn't talk about it to anybody or she'd be a standin' disgrace
in the parish forever an' a day. An' the childre were only too glad to
promise they wouldn't say anythin' about it, because they were afraid
o' their lives anyone would get a taste o' the puddin' only themselves.
It was five gossoons Judy had an' every one o' them as wild as a hare.
"Well, Christmas Eve came at last an' Judy was up before the sun
thought of openin' his eyes, an' as soon as the breakfast was over
she started in to make the plum puddin', and she had every one o' the
childre helpin' her an' they grabbin' a raisin or a couple o' currants
every time she turned her back, an', sure, before she had it finished
an' in the big calico cloth she was after buyin' for it she was as
white as a miller from head to foot with flour, an' she sweatin' like
a damp wall, though the weather outside would nearly freeze a furnace.
An' when she had it tied up an' all, she put it in a pot o' boilin'
water over the fire, an' as she an' Mickey had to go into Castletown to
buy the Christmas things, she left word with the lads to keep a good
fire to the pot an' to put water into it now an' again from a kettle
that she had beside the hearth. An' off she went along with Mickey, an'
she thinkin' o' the nice, tasty puddin' she would put up on the table
along with the bit o' Christmas meat the next day.
"It was all very well until the boyos got hungry, an' the smell from
the puddin' bag began to make their teeth water, an' then they began
to look at the puddin' to see was it near done, an' to take a little
bit out of it here an' another little bit there, an' at last, they had
such a hole in it that one o' them said the water would get into it,
an' that it would be no good, an' he proposed that they put it away in
their insides for safety an' say the dog stole it, or that it boiled
away or somethin'. They all agreed with him, only the second youngest,
Larry, who was the mother's pet, an' he wanted not to stir it until the
mother came home, but the majority carried the day, an' made short work
o' the puddin'. An' I'm afraid Larry lowered a lump of it, too.
"Judy an' Mickey were in Cassidy's big shop in Castletown, scrooged up
among all their neighbours tryin' to get their few things an' be on the
road home before night, when Judy thought she heard a voice she knew,
an' when she looked round there was my brave Larry at the door an' he
makin' signs like a showman tryin' to get her to look at him. An' as
soon as her eye opened on the door--
"'Mother!' says he, in what he thought was a whisper, 'the lads ate the
plum puddin'.'
"Judy was jammed up in the crowd that filled the shop, an' she couldn't
stir hand or foot, but she began to threaten Larry with her head an'
made all sorts o' faces at him to try an' make him keep his mouth shut
an' not let out the secret, but Larry thought she wasn't believin' him
or didn't hear him, or somethin', so the whisper went up another step
or two:
"'Mother!' says he again, 'the lads took up the plum puddin' out o' the
pot, an' they're after eatin' every bit of it!'
"Judy knew that some o' the people near him were after hearin' Larry,
an' she felt herself gettin' weak with shame an' she'd give all the
plum puddin's that were ever made if the gossoon would only keep quiet
or go home. She made more faces at him than ever an' wagged her head
until she knocked off Mickey's hat, but it was all no use.
"'Mother!' says the lad at the door again, 'they're after eatin' the
plum puddin'--an' if you don't believe me, there's the bag!'
"Old Corney Macken, that was as contrairy as a cleeve o' cats, was
standin' at the counter with his big Caroline hat on him, an' he
contendin' with Martin Cassidy tryin' to get a bigger Christmas box
than anybody else, when down came the big wet puddin' bag, plastered
over with clammy boiled flour an' the butter Judy put on it to keep
the puddin' from stickin'; an' it just settled over the Caroline an'
over Corney's head an' face an' shoulders the same as one o' them motor
veils the women do be wearin', an' he began runnin' this way an' that
way an' his head goin' up an' down under the bag an' everybody laughin'
the same as if poor old Corney was a clown at a circus. An' poor Judy
got out o' the shop as fast as ever she could an' made away home before
she'd die with shame.
"Mickey had a little drop in, an' when Corney started to jaw, he let
the cat out o' the puddin' bag, an' the whole parish knew about it
before the stars were up that night. An' there was more hearty laughin'
over Corney's share o' the puddin' than you'd hear now over all the
comic Christmas cards that people spend a little fortune on.
"An' that's what happened the first plum puddin' that ever was boiled
in Balnagore."
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are represented using _underscores_.
Inconsistent accent marks (e.g. "grâdh" vs. "grádh") have been retained
from the original.
Inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. "gamekeeper" vs. "game-keeper") has been
retained from the original.
Adaptation notes following some story titles were formatted as
footnotes in the original text; they have been moved up and italicized
to improve readability.
Page 66, added missing apostrophe to "An' sure."
Page 76, added missing open single quote before "A barony an' a barony."
Page 90, corrected double quote to single quote before "says Dickey,
with a grunt."
Page 106, corrected single quote to double quote before "says another
well-scorched man."