raindrops had only just ceased pricking the wide, continuous puddle,
which lent a Venetian aspect to the main street, and sounds of
gurgling and dripping were audible all around, as if everything
were talking over the late downpour. When Stevie faced towards the
purple mountain range, in the direction of which lay Dan Farrell’s,
he saw the pale mists creeping along the ridges, and writhing up the
ravines, and swirling in the curved hollows, and the air had the
breath of autumnal chill that comes with rain in harvest time. Water
gleamed greyly from the furrows of every little field that he passed,
and he passed scores of them before he reached the river bridge,
where he was within a few perches of his goal. He might have taken a
shorter route, but it included a swampy patch and the passage of some
stepping-stones, for which he considered the state of affairs “too
soft altogether”; and he therefore kept upon comparatively dry land.
The dryness was very comparative indeed all over Dan Farrell’s little
holding, which occupied the entrance to a winding green glen, where
both stream and hillside curved suddenly, leaving a triangular bit of
level ground. During the past night, however, this had undergone an
abrupt change of contour, as the swollen river had flung an impetuous
arm across it, islanding its apex and rejoining the main stream,
turbid with melted clods and tangled with wisps of drowned green oats.
When Stevie came to the bridge, Dan Farrell himself was standing up
to his knees in the soaked grain by the water’s edge and thinking of
his bad luck, without any presentiment that more was on its way. He
was a tall, black-bearded man, and had been a gaunt and grizzled one
ever since a virulent attack of rheumatism last spring had changed
him from middle-aged to elderly in a few racking weeks. This illness
had brought Sarah Tighe, his sister’s daughter, from her home in
Athcrum to nurse him and manage his forlorn household, for Dan had
lately been left a widower, and his four children were incapably
small. Sarah was now calling to him from the door to the effect that
he hadn’t as much sense as little Bobby, or else he’d come in out of
streeling through them oats, and they as wet as the waves of the say,
unless maybe he’d a mind to have himself bawling for the next month
with the pains in his bones. But Dan turned a bothered ear to her
warnings, until she added—
“And if here isn’t one of the young Grogans slingein’ along over the
bridge.”
Then the recollection of his growing account at the shop started out
from the misty background of his troubles, and took up a commanding
position in the forefront. He cast a glance of listless despondency
on the flooded field and turbulent river, and began to walk slowly up
the plashy furrow towards his house, set in motion by a vague sense
that it was more fitting for him than for his niece to receive young
Grogan. By the time he reached the door, Stevie was already there
talking to Sarah, a plump young woman, whose colouring suggested an
autumn hedgerow, with gleams of ruddy berries and black, and warm
brown leaves. She was naturally conversational and vivacious, but it
may be feared that her consciousness of Brian Mahony inside there
disapproving of the colloquy led her to carry it on with increased
animation. Had nobody been by to mind, Mr Stephen Grogan might have
received a welcome more in accordance with Sarah’s own private
opinion of him, which was low. When her uncle came up, she stood
demurely aside, and waited while his health was inquired after and
the weather bewailed. Then Stevie asked—
“And what way was the fair a’ Tuesday?”
“As bad as anythin’ at all,” said Dan, “onless you was to be payin’
the dalers to take your bastes off you for a complimint.”
“But you’re after selling a couple?” said Stevie.
“Och, did I—and what’s four pound ten to git for a grand little
heifer, and she a rael dexter, if you was to be tired swearin’ agin
it? Worth three times the money she’d ha’ been to me, if I could ha’
held on to her a sixmonth longer.”
“Sure, now, it’s you farmers that are the rich people, makin’
nothin’ of pound notes at that rate,” said Stevie, laughing with
a sort of uneasy jocularity. Dan knew quite well what was coming,
before the other went on, “So as I was passin’ this way, I just
looked in wid our bit of account, Misther Farrell; it’s been runnin’
this good while now.”
“Ay, bedad,” Dan assented dejectedly, “will you be steppin’ inside?”
Inside reigned a brownish twilight, and the corners were all rounded
off with smoke-haze. One of them was occupied by Brian Mahony, a
neighbour of the Farrells, who, since Dan’s illness, had often come
in to lend him a hand. This morning he had undertaken the repairs of
a turf-creel. He was a powerful-looking young man, with a shock of
chestnut hair and tawny tufts and frills about his face, which just
then wore a glum expression, misliking the entrance of Stevie Grogan.
His dissatisfaction caused him to appear deeply absorbed in his task,
and to discuss it with the little Farrells, who stood around to watch
his splicing and weaving. They were unsuspectingly flattered by his
unusual disposition to consult them, and they favoured him with much
criticism and advice.
“Sit you down, man, and warm yourself,” said Dan, taking the glazy
blue paper which young Grogan had extracted from a thin pocket-book
bound in black American cloth, and tied round with frayed strings
of pink tape. “I’m afeard we haven’t e’en a sup of anythin’ in the
house.”
As Stevie seated himself near the circle of glowing sods, Dan carried
his bill over to the window, that the light of its one deep-set pane
might assist his somewhat feeble scholarship in spelling out the
items. Many of them baffled him completely, but the grand total of
one pound five shillings appeared with cruel distinctness, and caused
him serious dismay. He had been prepared for a sum that would make
a very large hole in one of his few precious notes, and even this
prospect was grievous. But the demand for a whole note, body and
bones, and some silver too, came as an unexpected stroke. His hands
shook as he held the paper to the light, obscured by the leaves of a
straggling geranium plant, and he felt bitterly convinced that he was
being cheated. Manners, however, would not permit him to enter any
protest beyond saying to his niece—
“Musha, Sally, it’s a terrible sight of sugar you seem to ha’ been
usin’.”
Upon this Stevie of course said—
“And I’m sure _she_ doesn’t want it, anyway,”—smirking gallantly at
Sarah, who had sat down in the adjacent chimney-corner and taken up
her strip of lace-work.
“Won’erful fine talk you have,” said Sarah.
“And divil a word but the truth, talkin’ of you,” rejoined Stevie,
sidling a little nearer to her along his rickety-legged bench.
Sarah replied by making a threatening demonstration with her needle,
which caused her frail thread to snap.
“There now, you have it broke on me,” she said, “and sorra the bit of
you’s worth the throuble of tyin’ a knot.”
“Ah now, don’t say so, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said insinuatingly.
“That’s an iligant little pattron you have been doin’, oncommon
tasty. We have some thread-lace edgin’ at our place that I declare
isn’t a ha’porth better, and it comes to as much as thruppence a
yard.” He intended the highest compliment, but did only plunge
himself the deeper into the depths of her disfavour by thus evening
her delicate point to his coarse, machine-made wares. She chose,
however, for the time being, to dissemble her wrath against him,
because she was angrier with Brian Mahony for his persistence in
evidently ignoring her flirtation, and keeping up an unconcerned
chatter addressed to the children. So she accepted Stevie’s offer
to join the broken thread for her, and was coquettishly derisive of
his clumsy-fingered failures, with much tittering and ostentatious
enjoyment of the situation; and, in like manner, Brian worked away at
the ragged-rimmed creel, and only desisted occasionally to scuffle
sportively with Jimmy or Biddy for the possession of a long supple
osier. Nobody could suppose him to care a thraneen what Sarah and the
chap from Grogan’s found so amusing. He had something else to do than
to be botherin’ his head about them.
Meanwhile the master of the house was performing his part—a sad
one—in the small drama. He lifted a brown earthenware teapot out
of its niche in the mud wall projecting beside the hearth. Its
removal discovered the opening of another recess, whence he drew a
rough deal box with a broken lid. In this the Farrells apparently
stored miscellaneous valuables, for it contained a little roll of
bank-notes, a grey flannel bag with silver in it, an old prayer-book
that had belonged to Mrs Farrell, some spools of cotton, and so
forth. Dan slowly peeled off one of the begrimed Munster notes, and,
pre-occupied with regretful calculations, he forgot the shillings
which were due, and restored box and teapot to their places. Then he
laid down the note on the window-seat, spread out the bluish bill
beside it, and stood smoothing both bits of paper with the palm of
his hand.
“There’s that,” he said.
“Sure, I’ll be signin’ the resate,” said Stevie, jumping up with
alacrity, and producing his shiny black pocket-book and red chalk
pencil. But he came to a pause as he noticed the absence of the
silver. He looked interrogatively at Dan. The man’s careworn,
broken-down aspect, his lined face and tattered garments gave his
creditor a conscience-stricken twinge, and for an instant suggested
the possibility of renouncing that toll. Stevie, however, quickly
ascertained that this was too much to expect from himself; the sum
would come in just then too handily to be forgone, and he compromised
the matter by resolving to see that the Farrells were let off
easily in their next account. Future generosity is always easier
than present justice, especially when the postponed virtue can be
practised at somebody else’s expense. So—
“There was thim five shillin’s comin’ to us,” said Stevie, continuing
to look at Dan.
“Och, murder, tubbe sure there was. It’s meself’s the gaby,” said Dan
disconcertedly; and he went towards the niche to rectify his blunder,
but he was interrupted by his niece.
“Sure I’ll fetch it out, Uncle Dan,” she said. “It’s throublesome for
you to be stoopin’. Mr Grogan can be puttin’ his name on the account.”
She fumbled for a few moments in the box, and came over to the window
with a large silver coin in her hand. It was a crown-piece, which,
although it bore the stamp of the fourth George, still retained its
sturdy thickness and bold outlines unimpaired, as if it had changed
owners slowly. Around this she was wrapping a bit of crumpled, thin
paper, perceiving which her uncle said—
“Sure, girl alive, I’ve got the note here right enough.”
“But it’s my belief ’twas the dirtiest one you had that you sorted
out,” replied Sarah promptly. “Now _I_’ve found him a dacint clane
one; and I’m sure you’d a dale liefer be takin’ it wid you, Mr
Grogan?”
“’Deed you may depind upon that, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said, with an
elated smirk; “and hard-set I’ll be to part wid it, when I consider
how you put yourself about to be pickin’ and choosin’ for me.”
Here Brian Mahony abruptly threw down his creel and flung out of
the house, with a scowl which did not escape Sarah’s observation.
It did not please her, somehow, any better than his previous air
of unconcern, whence we may infer that her mood was capricious and
contrary. Stevie Grogan, at any rate, presently had reason to think
it so, and a flatness and tartness came over the conversation, not
inviting him to prolong his visit. After three snubs—
“The day’s darkenin’ again,” he said, “and I’ll be getting along
afore there’s another plump of rain.” He took leave of Dan, who was
reflecting sorrowfully how much poorer a man the last half-hour had
made him, and went to the door, accompanied by Sarah. “Bedad!” he
said, glancing around, “I think the sthrame looks to have quieted
itself a goodish bit. I might be steppin’ across them stones, it
saves better than a mile when you get into the bog over yonder.”
It is possible that Stevie was determined to adopt this course less
by the aspect of the river than by a glimpse which he at that moment
had had of Brian lounging moodily upon the bridge where he must
otherwise pass. But if that were the case, his plan failed of its
purpose. For as he walked through the tangled oats followed by Sarah,
who had bethought her of a message to give him for her mother, Brian
espied them, and immediately descended from the bridge and made for
the ford along the river’s bank. He could not resist the spell which
drew him to every opportunity of tormenting himself by witnessing
what his jealous mind regarded as Sarah’s marked preference for young
Grogan, and he sped so recklessly, stumbling and tripping over wisps
of weeds and grass, that he reached the stepping-stones just as the
others did.
On this occasion, however, his feelings were not to be harrowed by
the display of much sentiment or facetiousness at leave-taking, as
it was drowned in a sudden burst of rain, which made Sarah pull her
fringed shawl into deep eaves over her face, and gasp out with ducked
head—
“Och, mercy on us, here’s polthogues—I must run for me life, and
you’d best step out, Stevie Grogan, or you’ll be bogged entirely
before you get home.”
Thus exhorted, Stevie began hurriedly to stride from stone to stone.
In one hand he held the shiny pocket-book, and with the other
he clutched the brim of his black felt hat, which a rising gust
momentarily threatened to whisk away. He was nearly half over, when
the wind came swooping past in a furious flurry, and at the same
time a thicker coil of the brown river-water broke on the stones,
making one on which he had just set his foot wobble violently. The
consequence was that he stumbled badly, only keeping his balance by
a headlong plunge forward with outspread arms; and not till he had
floundered on to the opposite bank did he perceive that his hat and
book were both missing. His hat, after a high-whirled flight, lit on
the rapid stream, and went skimming down it without let or hindrance,
while his more precious book described a parabolic curve in the air,
and dropped into the water near the place where Brian and Sarah
stood. For a moment it lay on the surface, and Brian, leaning over
at a dangerous angle, tried to reach it with his long osier rod. Upon
which Sarah, gripping him by the arm, pulled him back with all her
might, saying in an agonised tone:
“Och, goodness gracious, man, get out of that, and let it be!” But
even as she spoke, the black cover, weighed down, no doubt, by the
filched crown-piece, sunk out of sight and was no more seen. A
few seconds later, however, the rough brown eddies a little lower
down became strewn with small flecks whiter than the creamy foam.
Evidently the strings and covers had collapsed, and let their frail
contents go to wrack.
“Sure it’s every bit of it flitthered into laves,” said Sarah,
releasing Brian’s arm; “niver sight nor light of it he’ll get the
chance to lay eyes on agin, note or no note.” The tone in which she
announced this fact was both relieved and triumphant. As for the
owner of that perishing property, he stood on the opposite bank,
bareheaded in the pelting rain, discontented and woe-begone, an
object to move pity. But Sarah added: “And the divil’s cure to him,
the thievin’ slieveen. We’ve got the resate off him all right any
way.”
Brian, on the contrary, now took off his own limp cloth cap, crumpled
it round a great shingle stone for ballast, and flung it across to
Stevie.
“Clap that on your head, and be leggin’ it home wid you, if you’ll
take my advice,” he shouted against the wind; “you’ll get nothin’,
unless it’s your death of could, standin’ there in the rain. Belike
we might be some odd chance get the five shillin’ piece at the
bottom, when the river goes down, but them bits of papers is past
prayin’ for intirely.” This seemed obvious even to the unwillingly
convinced Stevie, and he started dolefully through the driving rain,
half-blinded by it and the descending peak of Brian’s too roomy cap.
The others raced home under much less trying circumstances, and were
speedily sheltered beneath Dan Farrell’s thatch.
Sarah took her strip of lace-work, and sat down with it in the
brighter patch by the window. She was filling in the centre of a
fantastic blossom with a pattern which seemed to have been suggested
by the dewy web of some long-legged spinner hitched from blade point
to point. Brian Mahony fetched his creel and osiers out of the
corner, and stood opposite to her, busy with his coarse weaving. Now
and then he looked at her complacently as she stooped over her fine
stitches, and for some time neither of them spoke. At last Brian said—
“That was a fine fright I’m after giving you down there, Sarah. You
have the sleeve nearly rieved out of my ould coat. Was it dhrowndin’
meself you thought I’d be that you took such a hould of me?”
“Dhrowndin’ himself? Frightenin’ me? Musha good gracious, what talk
has the man out of him at all?” Sarah said with shrill ejaculation.
“Bedad, if that was all that ailed the likes of you, I’d ha’ had
somethin’ better to be at than throublin’ myself to interfere wid
you. But afeared I was that you’d be hookin’ that chap’s ould book
ashore on us; thryin’ your best you were to do that fool’s thrick.”
“And what for wouldn’t I be saving it if I could?” said Brian, partly
consoled for the unflattering explanation of his solicitude by the
animosity of her tone when she mentioned that chap; “sure, onst the
money was ped away, you were nothin’ the betther for it goin’ to
loss.”
“That’s all you know about it,” said Sarah, with mysterious glee. She
glanced round to see whether her uncle by the hearth were listening,
and as he appeared to be half-asleep, she went on in a lower tone:
“Why, look here, Brian—sure that grand clane pound-note I let on to
be sortin’ out for him, ne’er a note it was at all, but just an ould
bit of the silver-paper pattron I had workin’ me lace from; when it’s
crumpled up and creased like, it looks the very moral of one, and the
great gomeral stuck it into his book widout takin’ the throuble of
unfoldin’ it, be good luck.”
“And what at all did you do that for?” asked Brian after a puzzled
pause.
“What for?” said Sarah, “sure in the first beginnin’ of it ’twas
just to be risin’ a laugh on him; that was all the notion I had. It
come in me head when I was lookin’ for the shillin’s, and seen the
thin paper there. But afterwards, when he tuk and put it up widout
mindin’, thinks I to myself, I’ll ha’ given him a good long thramp
over it anyway; it’s back he’ll be thrapesin’ to-morra or next day to
get the right one, in a fine fantigue. But now when he’s slung the
whole affair into the wather, so as nobody’ll be the wiser what was
in th’ ould pocket-book and what wasn’t, that’s the greatest chance
could ha’ happened, and we wid the resate signed and all, the way he
can’t say a word agin us. It’s as good as a pound saved to me uncle,
poor man, that’s annoyed enough wid his bit of harvest ruinated and
everythin’. And you doin’ your endeavours to destroy it all wid
fishin’ the book out; small blame to me if I’d pulled the fool’s arm
off of you, let alone your ould sleeve.”
“It was no thing to go do,” said Brian gruffly, “to be playin’ them
sort of thricks.”
“Sorra the ha’porth of harm was there in it,” Sarah replied airily;
“and considerin’ that whatever he got’s swallied up in the river,
’twould ha’ been a cruel pity if we’d gave him anythin’ betther.”
“You’d a right to be sendin’ him the rael note now,” said Brian with
decision.
“Saints above! Whethen now, I hope you’ll get your health until I
do,” said Sarah, with a shrillness subdued by her uncle’s proximity.
“That’d be a nice piece of foolery. Why, you sthookawn, the young
slieveen’s no worse off this minute than he would ha’ been if I was
after givin’ him a five-pound note to drop out of his hand.”
“You got the resate off of him for nothin’ at all,” said Brian; “he’s
never been ped. And the river makes no differ. How would it, when he
hadn’t anythin’ of yours to lose in it?”
“That’s just what I’m sayin’. It makes no odds to him; he’d ha’ lost
it whether or no. And for the matther of that, he’s been ped times
and again for anythin’ Uncle Dan ever got from them, poor man; for
them Grogans are notorious thieves, as everybody well knows. Me
sister was tellin’ us the other day, they charge three shillin’s a
pound for tay that’s on’y eighteen-pence in Dublin. It’s a charity
to let them have a taste of chatin’ for themselves. Not that we’re
chatin’ them at all at all, it so happens.”
Brian listened quite unimpressed, having no turn for casuistry.
He now condescended, however, to urge an objection based upon the
expedient.
“And what’ll your uncle say to it, when he finds he’s got a pound too
much?”
“I was thinkin’ of that,” said Sarah, nowise disconcerted. “Belike
I could persuade him he miscounted them at the fair. But I dare say
’twould be better if I just slipt one off the roll, and kep’ it to
get odds and ends of things wid for him, accordin’ as they would be
wanted, and never let on about it. Och, no fear, but I’ll conthrive
one way or the other.”
“Ay, bedad; it seems to me that you’re great at conthrivin’ and
schemin’,” said Brian bitterly. “I’ve as good a mind as ever I had in
me life to tell him the whole affair.”
“And if you offer to do such a thing on me, you ould clashbag, you!”
Sarah said in a furious whisper, “sorra a word I’ll spake to you agin
as long as I live in the world.”
“Faix, then, perhaps I won’t be throublin’ meself to ax you in a
hurry,” retorted Brian, “when the on’y talk people has out of them is
tellin’ lies and makin’ fools of everybody. My notion is, the fewer
words they spake to you, the luckier you’ll be.”
“Plase yourself, and you’ll plase me,” said Sarah, with an assumption
of calm indifference, which would have been more successfully
achieved if she had not flushed to the scarlet of a frost-nipt brier
leaf, besides adding inconsistently, “I’d liefer hear the pigs
gruntin’ in the ould stye than to be listenin’ to some people gabbin’
and blatherin’.”
“And plenty good enough company they are, too, poor bastes, for the
likes of some I could name—and long sorry I’d be to stop anywheres I
wasn’t wanted, wastin’ me time mendin’ things, and gettin’ imperance
for it—and one while it’ll be afore you’ll have raison to complain
of me disturbin’ you,” said Brian, whose wrath had flared up even
more ruddily than hers. And thereupon he bolted away into the rain,
without waiting to borrow the loan of Dan’s hat. At which Sarah
through all her huff, stood somewhat aghast, knowing that for a man
to go out of doors bareheaded argues no ordinary perturbation of
spirit.
After this there were many more wet days, and a few golden fine ones,
and the harvest was got in one way or the other, and the winter came,
and Sarah Tighe went home to live with her family at Athcrum, and
finished her fine lace border. But she and Brian did not meet again.
At last, one bright, frosty morning, not long before Christmas,
they ran against each other coming round the corner of the row in
which the little post-office stands. Sarah was so startled that for
a moment or two she halted, irresolute, ere she recollected that it
behoved her to flounce past him with up-tilted chin. She was just
proceeding to do so, when he twitched her shawl, and said, in an
expostulatory tone—
“Och now, Sarah, is it cross wid me ye’re goin’ to be all this time?”
“It isn’t me that’s cross wid anybody at all,” said Sarah, subsiding
lamentably from her dignified attitude.
“Sure then,” said Brian, “I was on’y wantin’ to tell you what I’ve
done about that pound-note was owin’ to the Grogans. Sooner than that
you’d have anythin’—anythin’ quare-like on your conscience, I’ve
saved up, and sent it to th’ ould miscreant in a letter. So it can’t
come agin you now anyway. I’m just after postin’ it this minute.”
“Och, murdher! and are you so?” said Sarah, with an accent of the
keenest regret. “And weren’t you the gomeral to not tell me that last
week?”
“And I on’y droppin’ it in the letter-box this instiant of time?”
said Brian. “But at all events, what differ’d that have made?”
“Differ enough,” said Sarah ruefully. “You see, the fact of the
matter was, when I come to considher, I didn’t know but the ould
naygur Grogan had a right to that pound-note after all; so last week,
when I sold me flounce of deep lace for thirty shillin’s, I got an
order, and put it in a cover, and sent it to ould Natty himself. I
wasn’t goin’ to let that young thief of the world, Stevie, be layin’
one of his greasy fingers on it, anyhow; and even so I thought badly
enough of postin’ it away. For now the winter’s comin’ on us, there
was a dale of things I’d liefer ha’ done wid it.”
“Begorra, that’s the very same way it was wid me just now,” said
Brian.
“Maybe the post-mistress’d give it back to you, if you thried,”
suggested Sarah. “She couldn’t hardly ha’ done anythin’ wid the
letters yet.”