A FAIRING
Up at Lisconnel, meanwhile, as the idle hours loitered by, Ody
Rafferty's aunt grew tired of her solitary housekeeping, and late in the
afternoon she made her way down as far as the Joyces'. Here a number of
the neighbours were sitting about in almost the same place where Theresa
had sustained the loss of her cherry-coloured knot. But to-day there
were no rough breezes stirring to bring about such disasters by their
unmannerly pranks. The sun-steeped air was so still that the thick
bushes stood as steady as the boulders, and even the rushes nodded
slightly and stiffly. As the old woman hobbled down the slope she saw
Denis O'Meara's scarlet uniform gleaming martially against a background
of dark broom and hoary rock. Its wearer was, however, very peacefully
employed in pulling the silky floss off the heads of the bog-cotton,
which lay in a great heap before him on a flat-topped boulder, with a
big bunch of many-hued wild flowers beside it. Theresa Joyce, who sat
opposite to him, was pulling bog-cotton too, though less diligently, for
it might have been noticed that she often looked off her work, and
towards the scrap of road that lay within her ken. Joe Egan was at his
cousin's elbow, and a few other lads and lasses made a rough circle. But
old Mrs. Joyce, and old Mrs. Ryan, and old Paddy Ryan, and old Felix
O'Beirne had established themselves on a low grassy bank at a little
distance. It was kept so closely cropped by the Ryans' goat that its
dandelions grew dwarfed and stalkless, and were set flat in the fine
sward like mock suns. All this day the real sun had shone on it so
strongly that the air was aromatic with the odour of its dim-blossomed
herbs, and to touch it was like laying your hand on the warm side of
some sleek-coated beast. Old Paddy said you might think you were sitting
on the back of an ould cow, but his wife rejoined that "you'd have to go
far enough from Lisconnel, worse luck, before you'd get the chance of
doin' such a thing." And she shook her head over the reflection so
regretfully that a matter-of-fact person might have inferred her to have
been formerly much in the habit of enjoying seats on the backs of cows.
These elders, from where they sat, commanded a comprehensive view of the
crops of Lisconnel, its potatoes and oats, green and gold, meshed in
their grey stone fences, and flecked with obstructive boulders and
laboured cairns. In the middle of the Ryans' neighbouring field there is
a block of quartzite, as big as a small turf-stack, which gleamed
exceedingly white from amongst the deep muffling greenery of the
potato-plants. Mrs. Joyce had been praising their thriving aspect to old
Paddy, who, however, was disposed to express a gloomy view of them.
"It's too rank they're growin' altogether," he said; "ne'er a big crop
you'll get under that heigth of haulms. 'Heavy thatchin' and light
liftin',' as the sayin' is."
To Felix O'Beirne the smooth leafy surface recalled a far-off incident
of the War, when the dense foliage of a certain potato-field had
permitted the execution of a curious military manoeuvre. It was one of
old O'Beirne's favourite stories, and he often related it at full
length, but to-day it was cut short by the arrival of Ody Rafferty's
aunt, whom Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ryan were prompt to greet, making room
for her between them on the bank with an alacrity which somehow conveyed
an impression of uneasiness lest she should establish herself elsewhere.
Presently she said: "And what at all is Theresa busy wid over
yonder--and young O'Meara? Is it bogberries they're after pullin'?"
Mrs. Joyce said: "No, ma'am, it isn't bogberries;" and left further
explanations to Mrs. Ryan, with the air of one who refrains from
self-glorification, but counts upon its being done for her, more
gracefully, by deputy.
"Sure wasn't he out on the bog the len'th of the day, since early this
mornin', he and little Joe, gadrin' her the bog-cotton?" said Mrs. Ryan.
"The full of a pitaty-creel he brought her. They have it there in a
hape."
"'Twas because he heard her sayin' last night she wished she had a good
bit of it to stuff the pillow she's makin' me," put in Mrs. Joyce. "Off
he went after it the first thing this mornin'."
"Whethen now, is that the way of the win'?" said Ody Rafferty's aunt,
with a pleased smile, striking out unfamiliar paths among her wrinkles.
"Troth, but I'm rael glad to hear it. Bedad, it's a grand thing for
little Theresa."
"He's a very dacint poor lad," Mrs. Joyce said, looking over with pride
at the handsome young sergeant, and thinking that Ody Rafferty's aunt
must have some good nature in her after all, since she was so evidently
glad of their good luck.
"'Deed but there's not a finer young man in the kingdom of Connaught
this day," said Mrs. Ryan, who could, of course, be frankly laudatory.
"And wid everybody's good word, high and low, and drawin' grand pay, and
the colonel in his rigimint ready to do a turn for him any time, and a
rael steady kind-hearted lad to the back of that. But sure he's after as
nice a little girl as he'd ha' found anywheres, wid all his thravellin',
and as good as gould. He'll be very apt to be spakin' out to her
prisintly, for it's gettin' near his lave's ind, and what for would they
be waitin'? But to my mind it's as good as made up after what he's done
to-day."
In a little while after this Ody Rafferty's aunt slipped away, and set
off hobbling along the road towards Duffclane. She wanted to intercept
her grand-nephew on his way home and tell him this news. For all day she
had been haunted by an apprehension that Ody meant to return with a
fairing for Theresa, the presentation of which might bring about a
crisis in his courtship very disastrous from her own point of view. Old
Moggy surveyed her world rather steadily at all times from that
particular outlook, finding in her solitary superfluousness little to
deflect her gaze. The disappointment which, on her own theory, these
tidings would bring to Ody did not do so now, and she put her best foot
foremost, animated by the pleasure of telling some new thing, one,
moreover, that threw a reassuring light upon her situation. With even
her amended opinion of the lad she could hardly imagine that he would
have a chance against magnificent Denis O'Meara, whom nobody would have
ever expected to look for a wife in poor little Lisconnel--but you never
could tell, and she felt that it still behoved her to be on her guard
against all possible perils. Therefore she at present thought it
expedient to waylay Ody, and let him know that if he had any notion of
Theresa Joyce, he was a day after the fair.
Hobbling on bent and breathless, wrapped in her rusty black shawl, with
her shadow flitting far out over the level bog amid the slanted beams,
she looked a not inappropriate messenger of woe, symbolically impotent
and insignificant; a little dark speck in the wide westering light; a
feeble stir of life creeping on the verge of a vast silent solitude;
and full, withal, of baseless fears and futile plots, concerning the
withered shred of existence that remained to her. She was just in the
nick of time, she said to herself, when she saw the trio presently
coming over the top of the hill. Ody was pointing out conciliatingly to
the morose Rory how they'd be at home now nearly in the time he'd be
waggin' his tail; and Hugh McInerney was resolving that he would go on
straight to his own place, and defer the presentation of the ugly yellow
ribbon until to-morrow. All three were hot and fagged and dusty.
"Well, lad, and what's the best good news wid you?" Ody's aunt said to
him, as they met.
"Little enough," said Ody.
"And you comin' out of a fair?" she said. "Bedad now, we make a better
offer at it ourselves up here for the matter of news."
"What's that at all?" said Ody.
"Sure amn't I just after hearin' tell of a grand weddin' there's goin'
to be prisintly?" said his aunt, "and that doesn't happen every day of
the year."
"Och, a weddin'," said Ody. "I was thinkin' maybe there was somethin'
quare at our little place beyant yonder. But as long as it's nothin'
worser than weddin's you're hearin' tell of, I'm contint, if you
listened the two ears off your head."
"It's Denis O'Meara and Theresa Joyce has made a match of it," said his
aunt, conscious that she was slightly overstating facts; "settled up it
is on'y this evenin'. And the weddin's bound to be before his lave's
out--so there's for you."
"Sure good luck to the both of thim," said Ody, "Theresa Joyce is a
plisant little bein', I'll say that for her, and divil a bit of harm
there is in O'Meara aither. A fine chap he is for a sodger; not that
they're any great things as far as I can see--just pólis a thrifle
smartened up."
Ody's thoughts were for the moment running on the police, a couple of
whom he had lately espied at a short distance coming across the bog.
"Well, if you wanted to see the two of thim," said his aunt, raising her
voice as he began to drive Rory on, "there they are, just at the back of
her place, sortin' the stuff he's after gettin' her on the bog. He
brought her the full of the pitaty-creel. Her mother's as plased over it
as anythin', and sot up too, aye is she bedad."
The old woman was for the time being almost as much disappointed as
relieved by the equanimity with which Ody had received her tidings; yet
if she had but known, they had not failed to produce a strong sensation.
Only she never thought of considering how they might affect that quare
big gawk Hugh McInerney. What did occur to her in his connection as he
begun to trudge alongside her after the pony, was that "he was as ugly
as if he had been bespoke." For Hugh's long tramp under the sultry sun
had scorched him a deeper and more uniform red brick than usual, and his
shock of tow-coloured hair jutting from beneath an unnoticeable round
cap, looked more than ever like thatch over his blinking blue eyes. When
they had gone a few yards in silence he suddenly said musingly--
"I dunno why he wouldn't have as good a right to be bringin' her
anythin' she had a fancy for off the bog in a pitaty-creel, as me to be
buyin' her len'ths of hijis-coloured ribbons to make a show of herself
wid. But all the same, I'd as lief he'd let it alone. For some raison or
other I've the wish in me mind I was slingin' the whole of it into one
of thim bog-houles out there--and that 'ud be no thing to go do on
her.... And that was a quare story the ould woman had about thim
gettin' married. Somebody was apt to be makin' a fool of her. Who was it
would be tellin' her I won'er?"
But old Moggy partly overheard and said: "Thim that knew what they was
talkin' about, supposin' it's any affair of yours."
So he did the rest of his meditating inaudibly. He said to himself that
he was steppin' home straight--continuing the while to walk in quite the
opposite direction--and that he wouldn't be goin' to the Joyces' place
to-night at all; what 'ud bring him there, and it gettin' so late? But
of course he went there, as surely as a swimming bubble goes over the
cataract's smooth lip, or a fascinated little bird down the snake's
throat.
For the sensation which he had begun to experience, and which was a
strong one, and strange to him, was nothing less than jealousy. He was
jealous of that pitaty-creel.
When he came to the place Ody's aunt had told of, he found a group of
young Joyces and Ryans and others gathered among the boulders and bushes
in a circle of which the heap of bog-cotton formed the centre; and a
glance having showed him that it included Denis and Theresa, he sat down
facing them, and said to himself:
"If I'd known, now, it was bog-cotton she was wantin', I could ha' been
gadrin' her plinty last night after I come home. There's a gran' big
moon these times, wid lashin's and lavin's of light to be gettin' thim
kind of glimmerin' things by. I seen a black place below between the
sthrame of wather and the roadside all waved over white wid it, like as
if it was a fall of snow thryin' could it flutter off away wid itself
agin out of the world. I'd have got her enough to fill a six-fut sack.
What for didn't the crathur tell me?"
Pursuing these and other such reflections Hugh's attention, which at all
times had a long tether, strayed far afield. He did not hear Denis
O'Meara inquire of him twice whether Ody Rafferty had got his fine price
for the old pony; not yet Peter Ryan rejoin after an interval that he
supposed it was such a big one, anyway, Hugh McInerney couldn't get it
out of his mouth--that was sizable enough. No doubt it was this symptom
of absentmindedness that emboldened Thady Joyce to set about twitching
out of Hugh's pocket the flimsy paper parcel seen protruding from it, a
feat which he achieved undetected, while his surrounding accomplices
nudged one another and whispered: "Och he has it now--whoo-oo he'll do
it."
Thady conveyed what he had filched to Molly and Nelly Ryan, who
manipulated it for some time amid much giggling; and then Nelly, with
dexterous audacity pinned their handiwork on to the cap of her neighbour
Denis O'Meara, who sat all unawares. Thus it came to pass that when Hugh
was at last roused to a vague sense of tittering all round him, which
reached him much as the clacking chirp of sparrows gets meaninglessly
into our frayed morning dreams, and looking up out of his reverie,
stared about him for an explanation, the first thing his eyes lit on was
Denis's smart cap surmounted by a mass of gaudy yellow ribbon in immense
bows and loops and streamers, flapping and waggling absurdly at every
movement made by their unsuspecting wearer. And the spectacle caught his
breath, and dazzled his sight with a sudden scorching blast of wrath.
For it seemed to him that Denis was not making merely a mock of him and
his fairing, which he thought intrinsically of small amount, but through
it of Theresa herself and her foolish little fancies. And there sat
Theresa looking on, with a quick pink flush, and shining eyes, and a
quiver about her mouth. The next moment Hugh had hurled at the bedizened
cap what he happened to be holding in his hand. And this was Paddy
Ryan's new reaping-hook.
Thereupon followed a terrible confusion and clamour, which seemed to
fill at a sweep all the spacious drowsy light of the sunsetting. For the
missile had gone surely to its mark, and had not simply knocked off
Denis's cap, but made a shocking gash in his temple, so that there were
only too sufficient reasons for the rising shrieks of "Holy Virgin, he's
murdhered--he's kilt!" Amid all the turmoil, with Denis fallen on the
ground, and Hugh standing staring, and everybody else rushing through
other like crows in a storm, one person alone appeared to act with a
definite purpose, and that was little Joe Egan. The event had made him
like one possessed with rage and despair. To Joe, weakly and timorous
and not over-wise, his valiant, handsome, good-natured soldier cousin
had come as the most splendid apparition that had shined upon him in the
dim course of his fifteen years; and he had spent the past three months
in adoring it very devoutly. So that now to see him laid low suddenly in
this savage fashion was a sight that might well cause a burning thirst
for vengeance upon the miscreant who had dealt the stroke. Joe generally
had to get his revenges wreaked by deputy; and now, as he darted away,
his intention was to find the pólis somewhere, and bring them to take up
"that great bastely murdherin' divil, Hugh McInerney," and if by any
means possible get him hung. He attained his object sooner than might
have been expected, as not far down the road a pair of constables were
run into by a small tatterdemalion figure, who, choking and stammering
and writhing in an ague fit of fury, proceeded to inform them that "Big
Hugh McInerney was just after murdherin' Denis O'Meara up above
there--takin' the head off him wid a rapin'-hook," and, further, that
"if they looked in the dirty thief's little place at the fut of the
hill, they'd find that every other stone in the walls of it was nothin'
else but a crock of poteen."
This was the cause of the police's prompt arrival on the scene, where
nobody resented Joe's action. Denis's injury, though so grave, happily
did not seem to be mortal, in fact, on this occasion young Dan O'Beirne,
albeit scarcely more than a spalpeen, displayed a handiness and resource
about bandaging and other remedies, which foreshadowed his future
reputation throughout the district for knowledgableness in surgery and
medicine. Hugh McInerney was, of course, at once arrested, without any
resistance on his part, or any sympathy from the indignant neighbours.
He appeared to be what old Will Sheridan termed, "fallen into a serious
consternation," and was heard to make only one remark. It was when
people were saying that Theresa Joyce had took a wakeness, and her
brothers had carried her indoors. "Och, the crathur," he said, "and it
might aisy have hit her, very aisy. Miself's the quare divil."
Once the police and their prisoner had gone, Denis having been brought
into the Ryans' house, a deep and melancholy hush settled down upon
Lisconnel, as if a murky wing had flapped out its brief flare of
excitement. The whole thing had happened so quickly that the rich light
from the west was still bronzing the edges of the flat-ledged furze
boughs, and rosing their white stems, when the little hollow behind the
Joyces' house rested quiet and deserted, with no traces left of the
company lately there assembled, except a litter of silky white
bog-cotton tufts, soon to be swept away by the breeze, and the unchancy
yellow ribbon, which had been torn out of Denis's cap, and lay coiling
among the rough grass, whence, as the dusk thickened, it glinted like
the wraith of a lost sunbeam or a ray from an evil star.
But that night fell very dark, with a moon so closely veiled that the
flaggers and bulrushes waving their swords and spears fast by, dwindled
into mere rustlings and murmurs--the air was full of them. At the
dimmest hour anybody who had stolen out of a neighbouring door, and
passed between the faintly glimmering white boulders, as if in search of
something lost there, might have seemed only one of the whispering
shadows. And these might have begun so say, "Sorra aught can I do at
all, at all. And ne'er a soul is there to spake a word--all of thim agin
him, and it no fau't of his, when he would be torminted that way. They'd
no call to go play such a thrick on him, and he didn't mane it a'
purpose, I very well know; but the other chap was intindin' to annoy
him, sittin' there wid a great ugly grin on his face. I wish he'd never
come next or nigh Lisconnel." But be that as it may, when the next
morning's light twinkled among the dewy blades, the yellow ribbon had
disappeared.
After this the days seemed to drag heavily at Lisconnel, where a dulness
and flatness had come over society. Dr. Hamilton had carried off Denis
O'Meara to Ballybrosna, and there was nothing to fill up the blank he
left except speculations about his chances of recovery, and censures
upon Hugh McInerney, monotonously unanimous. In his favour, indeed, no
one seemingly had a word to say. People declared that "they'd never have
thought he'd take and do such a thing, for though he might ha' been a
quare sort of bosthoon, he was always dacint and paiceable." But
cancelled praise is the bitterest of blame; and they added that "it was
rael outrageous of him to go do murdher on the likes of Denis O'Meara,
and no credit to Lisconnel for it to be happenin' him there. Iligant
charácters it 'ud be givin' them if he wint back to the rigimint wid his
eyes slashed out of his head, as much as to say he hadn't a fair chance
among us unless he'd come wid his side-arms."
The neighbours were of opinion, too, that "it was no wonder little
Theresa Joyce had got a bit moped and quiet, after her sweetheart bein'
as good as destroyed before her eyes, and it hard to say if she'd ever
see a sight of him again."
"It was a misfort'nit thing," Mrs. Con Ryan remarked one day, when the
subject was under discussion, "that young O'Meara hadn't actually spoke
out before it happint thim. 'Twould ha' made her a dale aisier in her
mind now, I wouldn't won'er. Because the way the matter stands, he
might take up wid some diff'rint notion, and just be off wid himself
like a cloud blown out of the sky, and she couldn't be sayin' a word, if
she was ever so sure of what he was intindin'."
Young Mrs. Keogh, to whom she made the observation, refused to entertain
this view, and replied, "Sorra a fear is there of that. It was aisy to
see he'd ha' gone to the Well of the World's End after her, let alone
steppin' up from the Town, if he's spared to get his health. Ay, he'll
be comin' back for her one of these fine days, sure enough, plase God."
But the fulfilment of her confident prediction looked several degrees
more doubtful in the light of one of the two pieces of news which Mrs.
Carbery, accompanied by her daughter Rose, conveyed to the Joyces' on a
bright September morning a short while after. Her son had come home with
it from the Town too late the night before. One of them was that Hugh
McInerney, who had been awaiting the assizes in Moynalone Jail, had died
of the fever there on last Friday. There was nothing very surprising in
this event, as Hugh's open-air life could have but ill acclimatised him
to the atmosphere of the unclean little jail; and it was not likely to
be very deeply deplored at Lisconnel, where he had not been known long,
nor, as we have seen, much to his advantage.
As Mrs. Carbery sat in the three-cornered arm-chair, with the sun-dazzle
off a burnished mug on the dresser shimmering into her eyes, and making
her blink quaintly, she said, with rather severe solemnity, that "she
hoped the young fellow had had time to repint of his sins, or else it
was very apt to be a bad look-out for him, and he after comin' widin a
shavin' of takin' another man's life no time at all ago, so to
spake--ne'er a chance but it would be clear in everybody's
recollection."
Mrs. Joyce, however, said: "Ah, sure maybe the crathur wasn't intindin'
any such great harm all the while, God be good to him. And, anyway,
where he's gone he'll find plinty ready to be spakin' up for him, and
puttin' the best face they can on the matter."
"Ay will he," said old Biddy Ryan, who was calling too, "and bedad it's
one great differ there is, be all accounts, between that place and this.
For here if a misfort'nit body does aught amiss, the first notion the
rest of us have, God forgive us, is to be axin' what worser he was
manin', like as if it was some manner of riddle, that there's bound to
be an answer to, if one could find it."
"'Deed, and I dunno if they haven't very far to look, ma'am," said Mrs.
Carbery, with dignity, "when a chap does his endeavours to take the head
off another man wid a rapin'-hook, ma'am."
"And _I_ dunno, ma'am, for that matter," said old Biddy, also with
dignity, "if it's any such a great dale better to have one's mind took
up wid invintin' other people's bad intintions than if it was wid one's
own."
"Ah, well! I wouldn't be thinkin' too bad of poor Hugh McInerney, at all
events," said Mrs. Joyce. "'Twas maybe a sort of accident, for he seemed
a dacint crathur afore that. Och now, to think it's on'y a few odd weeks
since he was creepin' about over our heads up there, mendin' th' ould
thatch! You'd whiles hear him hummin' away, talkin' to himself like some
sort of big bee--and in his grave to-day! But isn't it a lucky thing
that he's lavin' nobody belongin' to him to be breakin' their hearts
frettin' after him? Theresa, child dear, you've ne'er a stim of light to
be workin' in, sittin' there in the corner."
But Theresa said she had light enough to blind her, and was only
winding a skein, and could see better to do that in the dark. So Mrs.
Carbery passed on to her second piece of news, which, though less
tragical than the first, was not likely to sound very cheerfully in the
ears of some among her audience. It ran that her son Ned was "after
seein' Denis O'Meara down beyant, and that he was doin' finely, next
door to himself again: and that the people in the Town did be sayin' he
was coortin' Mary Anne Neligan, the people's daughter that he was
lodgin' wid--a terrible fortin she was said to have--and that he'd be
very apt to be takin' her along wid him prisintly when his lave was up."
Mrs. Carbery supposed they were none of them ever likely to see him
again up at Lisconnel. And the rest of the neighbours, having heard her
tale, supposed so likewise, and said among themselves that Theresa Joyce
was to be pitied.
Yet not many days after this, while the early autumn weather was still
soft-aired and mellow-lighted over our blue-misted bogland, where the
leaves and berries were brightening, and even the little frosty-grey
cups on the lichened boulders getting a scarlet thread at the rim, on
one clear, dew-dashed morning, who but Denis O'Meara himself should
come stepping into Lisconnel? The neighbours who saw him go by were glad
to notice that he looked as well as ever he did in his life, and he
greeted them all blithely though briefly, eluding every attempt to
entangle him in conversation, and making very straight for the Widow
Joyce's house, which was by these same observers considered to betoken a
healthy frame of mind.
Only Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Kilfoyle were in the little brown room when he
arrived, but they gave him a cordial welcome, and he took a seat from
which he could keep a watch on the door while they talked about
different things. One of these, naturally, was the melancholy end of
Denis's assailant--poor Hugh McInerney--and Mrs. Joyce said it was
little enough they'd have thought a while ago that it would be Denis
who'd come back. "But indeed," she said, "if anythin' had took you, we'd
ha' been in no hurry ever to set eyes on the other unlucky bosthoon."
Denis said: "Faith, ma'am, I'd give six months' pay the thing had never
happint. Divil a bit of harm I believe there was in poor McInerney; and
I spoke to Dr. Hamilton to spake to Mr. Nugent and the other magistrates
for him; but they said, after what me cousin Joe let out about the
poteen at his place, the pólis would be wishful to keep him convanient
to thim for a while; and to be sure, they kep' him too long altogether.
I know, ma'am, young Rafferty and the rest had his shanty pulled down
before the pólis come up next day; but they thought they'd git somethin'
out of him. The little jackass ought to ha' held his tongue. It was a
pity, bedad. Hard lines it is on a man to be losin' his life, you may
say, along wid his temper, just be raison of a bit of a joke."
Still as he looked out into the sunshine he could not help thinking that
he would have had a greater loss of his life than poor Hugh McInerney,
who, it was evident, would always have met with a cold reception from
everybody at the Joyces'. Then he said to Mrs. Joyce: "And how's
Theresa, ma'am?"
Mrs. Joyce was in the middle of replying that she was grandly, and had
just run over to Mrs. Keogh on a message, when Theresa herself came in.
Denis jumped up quickly, saying: "Ah, Theresa, it's a great while since
I've seen you."
But Theresa only lifted her head without turning it, and walked straight
on as if nobody had accosted her.
"Arrah, now, Theresa darlint, don't you see Denis O'Meara?" said her
mother, puzzled and rather dismayed.
And then Theresa did turn and look at him. "Yis, I see him," she
said--and, indeed, she might as easily have overlooked the red flame in
a lantern as the tall scarlet lancer in her mother's little
misty-cornered room. "I see him," she said, "and I hate the sight of
him." And thereupon she turned again, and walked out of the door,
leaving a dead silence behind her.
This was one of the very few harsh sayings that Theresa Joyce has
uttered in the course of her long life, and it came like a shock upon
her hearers.
Mrs. Joyce at last said blankly: "What at all has took the child?"
And Bessie Kilfoyle said to Denis, who stood dumbfounded: "But indeed
now, you may be sure there's not a many up here, at any rate, who do
that."
But he replied: "If _she_ does, it's many enough for me, Mrs. Kilfoyle.
And I won't stop here to be drivin' her out of the house. So I'll say
good-bye to yous kindly, for I'll be off now to Dublin to-morra or next
day."
"And in coorse," Mrs. Joyce remarked ruefully, after he had departed,
retreading his steps through the bright fresh morning with so
crestfallen a mien that all the neighbours knew things had not run
smoothly, "you couldn't raisonably expec' him to stay here to be hated
the sight of. And indeed, what wid one thing and another, it's none too
good thratement the poor lad's got up at Lisconnel, more's the pity."
Theresa herself never had any explanation to offer of "why she would be
that cross wid poor Denis O'Meara." Her mother accounted for it by pique
at the Carberys' ill-timed gossip about his imaginary courtship of Mary
Anne Neligan; and Mrs. Kilfoyle was for a while inclined to the same
opinion, until one day by chance she espied in the little old tin box
which contained Theresa's treasures, a roll of bright yellow ribbon
wrapped up very carefully; and thenceforward she silently ceased to hope
that things might all come right yet, if Denis O'Meara came back again
on leave.
So, although Mrs. Joyce may have drawn wrong inferences, the results
were much as she had foreseen. Theresa never married, and when her
mother died she went to live with her brother Mick at Laraghmena, where
she is living still, notwithstanding that it is so long since all this
happened--since the fine summer when Denis O'Meara was at Lisconnel, and
Hugh McInerney, who luckily left nobody to be breaking their hearts
fretting after him, died in Moynalone Jail.
The yellow ribbon lies safely in her box, and with it a grimy bit of
paper, brought to her one day by a trusty hand, to which Hugh found out
a way of committing it "before he was took bad entirely." Theresa
herself has never deciphered its wild scrawls, being an unlettered
person, but its bearer read it over to her until she knew it by heart
every word. "For your own self the yella ribin is," the letter ran, "but
don't be wearin' it unless you like it. And I'm sorry the man got hit;
but I do be dhramin' most nights that it's you I'm after rapin' the
little black head off of; and I'd liefer lose me life than think I'd be
after hurtin' a hair of it. But the Divil was busy wid me that evenin'.
And I'm very apt never to get the chance to set fut again out on the big
bog. It 'ud do me heart good to see the sun goin' down in it a great way
off, for this is a quare small place. It's a long while. But sure, to
the end of all the days of me life," it said to her, like an echo
beaten back from the walls of the great abysm, "it's of yourself I'll be
thinkin' off away in contintmint at Lisconnel."