THE STABLE
While poor Mrs. Moloney was fretting like this, and it Christmas Eve and
all, Big Michael was making his way through the wind and the sleety rain
to where he had his stable, a piece off from the house. It was
pitch-dark, so that he couldn't see his hand before his eyes, if he held
it up; but he had his lantern, and anyway he knew his way about
blindfold. But even in daylight you might pass by that stable ready,
unless you knew it was there. For it was very little, and being roofed
with heather it looked only like a bit of the bog that had humped itself
up a bit higher than the rest.
Poor-looking and small as it was, Big Michael was very proud of that
stable. He and Art had built it together, just before Art leaving home.
It was wanted to keep the little wad of hay or straw safe from the
weather, as well as to shelter the cow of a hard night. And after Art
had gone off to the Big Smoke, and for no other reason only getting
restless, as young hearts often do, many and many a time Michael would
slope off to the stable, and sit down there to take a draw of the pipe
and to wish he had his pleasant, active young boy back at home again. He
missed Art full as much as the mother, and maybe more.
In fact, it was getting into a habit with Michael to go off to the
stable. He had the best of a wife, but still there were times when he'd
wish to be with himself somewhere, so that he could take his ease, and
still not be feeling himself an annoyance to a busy woman. Big Michael
himself, the people said, always looked as if he thought to-morrow would
do. But the Woman that owned him was of a different way of thinking,
always going at something. So he got the fashion of keeping out of her
way.
When he got to the stable this night, a bit out of breath with the great
wind, he took notice first of the cow, and he saw that she was
comfortable, plenty of straw to lie upon, and plenty of fodder before
her. So then he bethought him of the little ass that was outside under
the dray yet.
"I'll put her in too!" he thought. "Destroyed she is and quite weakly
with the wet, like all donkeys, God help them! let alone the mud and
gutter she's after travelling through, all that long ways from the shop!
And carrit the things we were in need of, too! I'll let her stand here
near the cow. A good dry bed I'll put under her, and give her a grain of
oats to pet her heart. It'll not go astray with her, and she has it well
earned, the creature!"
So he unyoked the ass and led her into the stable, and rubbed down her
shaggy coat, all dripping like his own clothes, and fed her, and watched
with a curious satisfaction the nice way, like a lady, that she took the
feed he put before her.
"Poor Winny!" he said, rubbing a finger up and down her soft ears;
"many's the time Art laughed at you, and said it was only one remove
from a wheel-barra to be driving you! Ling-gerin' Death is what he used
to call you! But sure you do your best! and if you were the fastest
horse ever won the Grand National, you could do no more!"
He looked round then, with a very satisfied feeling. There he had them,
the two poor animals that depended out of him, but that served him and
his so well, too; had them safe and warm from the storm and rain
outside. He swung the lantern to and fro, so that he could see
everything that was in the stable. One end of it was filled with hay and
straw. The light gleamed here, gleamed there upon the kind, homely
plenty he had stored. Then it fell upon a heap of something else;
something that glistened from many points, green and cheerful.
"The holly'n'ivy," Big Michael thought, "that I cut this morning, and
has it here, the way it would be handy to do out the place in greenery
against Art and the wife would be here! Well, well! I wouldn't wish to
go against Herself, and she so fretted; but sure I might as well not
have cut it at all!"
He stood and stared at it, very mournful in himself. For the best part
of the Christmas to Michael was not the good feeding Herself always
provided, though he could take his share of that, as well as another;
no, but the holly and ivy and the Candle and the Crib; and now she had
set her face against them all. And it wouldn't be Christmas at all, he
thought, without them!
A sudden thought came into his mind.
"Why can't I have it Christmas here," he said to himself, "and not be
letting all these beautiful green branches go to waste! That's what I'll
do!"
And with that, he laid down the lantern, and began to decorate the
little stable. He moved slowly, but the work grew under his hands. He
put the bright, glistening holly in the rack that the cow fed from, and
over the door. And he flung the long curving trails of ivy over the
rafters, so that they hung down, and the whole place became the most
loveliest bower of green that you might ask to see.
He had just put up the last of his green stuff, when the lantern
flickered up and then quenched; it was burnt out.
[Illustration: "BIG MICHAEL CONTRIVED TO LIGHT THE CANDLE"]
"Dear, dear!" thought Michael; "a pity it is to say there's no light to
see it by; even if there's no one to look at it, itself!"
He stood still a bit. It always took Michael a good while even to think.
Then he said to himself, "Wait a bit! go aisy, now, will ye!" as if the
wife was there to be prodding him on. And then he began slowly to
unbutton his coat, and then another under that, and another, and so on,
much like peeling skins off an onion, till at last he came to something
that he drew out very carefully; something long and slim, and that
gleamed white in the light of a match he struck against the wall.
"_There's_ a Christmas Candle for ye!" he said, looking admiringly at
it; "two foot long if it's an inch! Mrs. Melia does the thing right, if
she goes to do it at all, the decent nice poor woman that she is! Gave
me that Candle in a Christmas present; her Christmas box she said it
was, and says she, 'It'll do to welcome Art and the young wife home!'
says she. And so of course it would, if only it was a thing that they
were coming.... But sure, God knows what happened to stop them.... But I
thought it as good say nothing about the Candle, foreninst Herself, to
be making her worse, when I seen the way she was about the Crib itself!
It's a pity she not to see it ..."
Slowly and awkwardly Big Michael contrived to light the Candle and to
set it up in a bucket that was there handy. He steadied it there by
melting some of the grease around it, and made it firm so that it could
not upset to do damage to the stable. Then when it was burning well he
went off, turning when he got out into the storm and darkness outside to
look again at the Candle that was shedding a ray of lovely light far
into the night.
"Ay, indeed!" thought he to himself, with great satisfaction, "it is a
grand fine Christmas Candle, sure enough! And it would be noways right
for us, even if we are only with ourselves to-night, not to have one
lit, the same as every other house in Ardenoo has, the way if any poor
woman with a child in her arms was wandering by, far from her own place,
she'd see the light and know there was room and a welcome waiting there
for them both! Ay, indeed! a great Candle that is, and will last well
and shine across the whole bog! But I wish Mrs. Melia had given me the
letter as well!"