A FLITTING
Among the latest of the strangers that have visited Lisconnel were some
who came at a time when the neighbours stood rather in need of
distraction. For the summer following Mrs. Kilfoyle's death was, between
one thing and another, a drearyish season with us. That little old woman
had left a great gap; and then there were many long spells of gloomy bad
weather, which seemed to beat people's troubles down upon them as the
damp drove the turf-reck back through their smoke-holes into the dark
rooms, where they could scarcely see how dense the blue haze was
growing. Stacey Doyne's marriage also had removed something young and
pleasant, and at times, when the thatch dripped without and within,
neighbours were apt to talk about her in tones of commiseration, and
say, "Sure, her poor mother's lost entirely." So that towards autumn
the diversion of some new residents' arrival happened opportunely
enough. It was made possible by the fact that Big Anne had given up her
holding and entered into partnership with the widow M'Gurk, thus leaving
her late abode empty for another tenant, who appeared much sooner than
any one might have anticipated from the aspect of the cabin.
Except as a fresh topic of conversation, however, the strangers gave
small promise of proving an acquisition to the community. Lisconnel did
not like their appearance by any means, and further acquaintance failed
to modify unfavourable first impressions. These were mainly received in
the course of the day after their arrival, which took place on a night
too black for anything beyond a shadowy counting of heads, and a
perception that the bulk of the new-comers' household stuff had jogged
up on one donkey, and must therefore be small. A portion of Big Anne's
furniture had remained behind her in the cabin, owing to certain arrears
of rent. Her heart was scalded, she said, wid the prices she'd only get
for her early chuckens, and they the weight of the world, if you'd feel
them in your hand; and poor Mad Bell, that 'ud mostly bring home a few
odd shillin's wid her, was away since afore last Christmas, and might
never show her face there agin, the crathur; and the poor Dummy gone,
that was great at the knittin' if she got the chance--a bit of narration
which would look funny enough in anybody's rental. Mrs. Quigley, who
went to the door with the offer of a seed of fire, found it shut, and a
voice inside called, "as onmannerly as you plase," "No, we've got
matches;" whereupon another voice, further in the interior, quavered,
"Thank'ee kindly, ma'am." So she departed little wiser than she had
come. But daylight showed that the party consisted of an old man, and
his son, and his son's wife, and her sister, and three small children,
besides some cochin-china fowl, and a black cat with vividly green eyes.
This much was apparent on the surface. Also that the old man was frail,
bent, shrivelled, and civil spoken, that the son was "a big soft gomeral
of a fellow," that both the women were sandily flaxen-haired, with
broad, flat cheeks and light eyes, and that two of the children
resembled them, while the third--a girl a trifle older--was a
dark-haired, disconsolate-looking little thing, "wid her face," Mrs.
Brian said, "not the width of the palm of your hand, and the eyes of
her sunk in her head." As for the fowl, there could be no doubt that
their "onnathural, long, fluffety legs were fit to make a body's flesh
creep," and the cat looked "as like an ould divil as anythin' you ever
witnessed, sittin' blinkin' atop of the turf-stack."
Other less self-evident facts came out by degrees--more slowly than
might have been expected, as the strangers were generally close and
chary of speech. They came from the north, where their affairs had not
prospered--in fact, they had been "sold up and put out of it," as the
young man divulged one day to Brian Kilfoyle. They were a somewhat
intricately connected family, by the name, predominantly, of Patman. The
sister-in-law was Tishy M'Crum, which seemed simple enough, but the two
light-haired boys were Greens, Mrs. Patman having been a widow, while
the little girl was the child of a wife whom Tom Patman had already
buried; for though he looked full young to have embarked upon matrimony
at all, this was his second venture. "And it's a quare comether she must
ha' been after puttin' on him," quoth Mrs. Quigley, "afore he took up
wid herself, that's as ugly as if she was bespoke, and half a dozen year
oulder than the young bosthoon, if she's a minyit." It is true that at
the time when Mrs. Quigley expressed this unflattering opinion she and
her neighbours had been exasperated by an impolite speech of Mrs.
Patman, who had said loudly in their hearing, "Well, for sartin if I'd
had a notion of the blamed little dog-hole he was bringin' us into,
sorra the sole of a fut 'ud I ha' set inside it;" and had then proceeded
to congratulate herself upon having prudently left "all her dacint bits
of furniture up above at her mother's, so that she needn't be bothered
wid cartin' them away out of a place that didn't look to have had ever
e'er a thing in it worth the throuble of movin', not if it stood there
until it dropped to pieces wid dirt." Mrs. Quigley rejoined (to Judy
Ryan) that "it would be a great pity if any people sted in a place that
wasn't good enough for them, supposin' all the while they was used to
anythin' a thraneen better--maybe they might, in coorse, and maybe they
mightn't. It was won'erful to hear the talk some folks had, and they wid
every ould stick they owned an aisy loadin' for Reilly's little ass."
But Judy Ryan, with a flight of sarcastic fancy, hoped that Mrs. Patman
and her family "were about goin' on a visit prisintly to the Lady
Lifftinant, because it was much if they'd find any place else where
there'd be grandeur accordin' to their high-up notions."
Skirmishes such as this, however, were a symptom rather than a cause of
the Patmans' unpopularity. That sprang from several roots. For one
thing, both the women had harsh, scolding voices, and it was even
chances that if you passed within earshot of their cabin you would hear
them giving tongue. Their objurgations were, as a rule, addressed to the
young man or the old, the latter of whom soon grew into an object of
local compassion as "a harmless, dacint, poor crathur," while his son
came in for the frank-eyed looking-down-upon which is the portion of an
able-bodied man, shrew-ridden through sheer supineness and
"polthroonery." But what Lisconnel often said that it "thought badder
of" was the stepmotherly treatment which seemed to be the lot of the
little girl Katty. Of course the situation was one which, under the
circumstances, would have made people believe in such a state of things
upon the slenderest evidence. Still, even to unprejudiced eyes, it was
clear that Katty's rags were raggeder than those of her small
step-brothers, and that she crept about with the mien of a creature
which has conceived reasonable doubts respecting the reception it is
likely to meet in society. When the autumn weather began to grow wintry,
little Katty Patman, "perishin' about out there in the freezin' win',"
became a spectacle which was viewed with indignant sympathy from dark
doorways whence she received many an invitation to step in and be
warmin' herself. Her hostesses opined that she was fairly starved just
for a taste of the fire, and didn't believe she was ever let next or
nigh it in her own place. Often, too, the consideration that she had no
more flesh on her bones than a March chucken led to the bestowal of a
steaming potato or a piece of griddle-bread; but the result of this was
sometimes unsatisfactory to the giver, Katty being apt to dart away with
her refreshments, which she might presently be seen sharing among Bobby
and Stevie, for whom she entertained a strong and apparently
unreciprocated regard.
"I wouldn't go for to be sayin' anythin' to set her agin them," Mrs.
Brian Kilfoyle remarked on some such occasion. "But, goodness forgive
me! I've no likin' for them two little brats. I'd misthrust them."
"Ah, sure they've no sinse," said Biddy Ryan. "Where'd they git it? And
the biggest of them, I'd suppose, under four year ould."
"Sinse!" said Mrs. Quigley. "Bedad, then, if sinse was all that ailed
them, the pair of them is as 'cute as a couple of young foxes. I mind
on'y a day or so after they'd been in it, I met the laste one on the
road, and I comin' home wid be chance a sugarstick in me basket. So,
just to be makin' friends like, I gave it a bit for itself, and a bit
for the other that I seen comin' along. Well, now, ma'am, if it had took
and ate up the both of the bits, I'd ha' thought ne'er a pin's point of
harm--'twould ha' been nathural enough to the size of it. But I give you
me word, when it seen it couldn't get the two of them swallied down
afore its brother come by, what did it go do but clap the one of them
into a crevice in the wall, and cover it under a blackberry laif. And
wid that down it squats, and begins sayin', 'Creely-crawly
snail--where's the creely-crawly snail I'm after huntin' out of its
houle?'--lettin' on to be lookin' for somethin' creepin' in the grass.
And a while after it come slinkin' back, when it thought nobody was
mindin', to poke the bit out of the wall where I was gatherin'
dandelions under the bank. So while it was fumblin' about, missin' the
right crevice, sez I, poppin' up, thinkin' to shame it, 'Maybe the
crawly snail's after aitin' it on you,' sez I. 'Och, yis; I seen it,'
sez the spalpeen, as brazen as brass. 'Gimme 'noder bit instid.' There's
a schemin' young rapscallion for you!"
"They're too like their mother altogether to plase me," said Judy Ryan.
"The corners of their eyes do be as sharp as if they were cut out wid a
pair of scissors. Not that I'd mind if they'd e'er a sthrake of
good-nathur in them; but I misdoubt they have. The little girl, now, is
as diff'rint as day and night."
"If _she_ takes after her father, she's a right to want the wit
powerful, misfort'nit little imp," said Mrs. Brian. "For if he isn't a
great stupid gomeral and an ass, just get me one. Why, if he was worth
the dust blowin' along the road, he'd purvint of his own child bein' put
upon."
"Och, they have him _frighted_," said Mrs. Quigley, with scornful
emphasis. "They won't let him take an atom of notice of her, they're
that jealous. Sure, if he gets talkin' to her outside the house there,
one of them 'ill let a bawl and send him off to be carryin' in turf or
wather. I've seen it times and agin."
"If he'd take and sling it about their ears some fine day he'd be doin'
right, and it might larn them to behave themselves," said Judy.
"But the ould man would disgust you," pursued Mrs. Quigley, "wid the
romancin' he has out of him about his son Tom. You'd suppose, to listen
to him, that the omadhawn's aquil never stepped. He'll deive you wid it
till you're fairly bothered. Troth, he thinks the young fellow's doin'
somethin' out of the way if he just walks down the street, and expec's
everybody to stand watchin' him goin' along. It's surprisin' the foolery
there does be in people."
"Och, murdher, women alive!" said Ody Rafferty, whose pipe went out at
this moment, "there's no contintin' yous at all. It's too cute they are,
and too foolish they are. Musha, very belike they're not so much off the
common if you'd a thrifle more exparience of them; there's nothin' to
match that for evenin' people. Bedad, now, there's some people _I_ know
so well that I can scarce tell the one from the other."
Lisconnel, however, generally declined to fall in with Ody's
philosophical views, and the Patmans, whether suspected of excessive
cuteness or folly, remained persistently unpopular. There was only one
exception to this rule. The widow M'Gurk has a certain fibre of
perversity in her which sometimes twists itself round unlikely objects,
for no apparent reason save that they are left clear by her neighbours,
and this peculiarity renders her prone upon occasion to undertake the
part of Devil's Advocate. When, therefore, she had once delivered
herself of the opinion that the newcomers were "very dacint folks," she
did not feel called upon to abandon it because it stood alone. As
grounds for it she commonly alleged that they were "rael hard-workin'
and industhrious," which was obviously true enough, since Mrs. Patman
and her sister might constantly be seen tilling their little field with
an energy far beyond the capacity of its late tenant. Her neighbours'
unimpressed rejoinder, "Well, and supposin' they are itself?" did not in
the least disconcert the widdy, nor yet their absence of enthusiasm when
she stated that it was "a sight to behould Tishy M'Crum diggin' over a
bit of ground; she'd lift as much on her spade as any two strong men."
As for little Katty, "she'd never seen anybody doin' anythin' agin the
child; it might happen by nature to be one of those little _crowls_ of
childer that 'ud always look hungry-like and pinin', the crathurs, if
you were able to keep feedin' them wid the best as long as the sun was
in the sky." In short, something more than talk was usually needed to
put the widow M'Gurk out of conceit with any notion she had taken up.
Perhaps the comparative aloofness of her hillside cabin helped to
maintain the Patmans at their original high level in her estimation. At
any rate they had not sunk from it by the time that they had been nearly
three months in Lisconnel, and when Mrs. Patman and her sister were on
terms of the very glummest civility with all the other women in the
place. Even towards the widow M'Gurk they were tolerant rather than
expansive. She said "they had done right enough to not be leppin' down
people's throaths."
One morning not long after Christmas, the widow, being bound on an
errand down below, called in at the Patmans' with a view to possible
commissions. Meal was wanted, and, while Tishy M'Crum stitched up a rent
in the bag, Mrs. M'Gurk noticed where little Katty, who had been "took
bad wid a could these three days," rustled uncomfortably among wisps of
rushes and rags in an obscure corner. Fever made her bold and
self-assertive, for she was wishing nothing less than that her daddy
would get her an orange--"An or'nge wid yeller peel round it"--Katty
laid stress upon this point--"like the one her mammy got her a long time
ago. And daddy'd be a good daddy and get her another now. And she'd keep
a bit for Bobby and Stevie and all of them--a big yeller or'nge."
Katty's eyes blazed with excitement as she reiterated these extravagant
desires.
"She's got an oncommon fancy for a one," said her daddy, looking
wistfully from the child to his wife.
"They have them down below," suggested the widow, "pence apiece."
Mrs. Patman's hand was slipping towards her pocket. "If it was just for
wunst," she had begun, when Tishy tweaked her sleeve viciously and
interpolated a rapid whisper, "It wont _be_; there'll be no ind to it if
you begin humourin' them," so the sentence was badly dislocated. "She'll
do a dale better widout any such thrash," Mrs. Patman concluded, and
walked off to throw sods on the fire.
Just then the widow became aware that old Joe Patman was grimacing at
her from a corner fast by in a way that might have startled her had she
not been familiar with such modes of beckoning. But when she obeyed his
summons, what she saw did astound her outright, for Joe was stooping low
over a leathern pouch which he had drawn from a wall-cranny, and which
seemed to contain marvellous depths of silver money, with here and there
a golden gleam among it, as he warily stirred it up, circling a hurried
forefinger. She had only the briefest glimpse ere he shoved back the
pouch and thrust a sixpence into her hand, muttering, "Git her the
orange--don't be lettin' on for your life."
As she turned away with a reassuring nod, she perceived that Tishy
M'Crum was standing unexpectedly near, and looking towards them over the
top of the meal-bag. Tishy was bitting off a loose end of thread, which
gave her a determined and ferocious expression, but whether she could
have seen anything or not the widow felt uncertain. She thought not.
About ten days after this Mrs. M'Gurk was roused at a very early hour by
a thumping on her door. When she opened it she found some difficulty in
recognising her visitor, as the dawn had scarcely done more than dim a
few stars far away in the east, which is an ineffective form of
illumination. "Whethen, now, Joe Patman, is it yourself?" she said,
peeringly. "And what's brought you out at all afore you can see a step
or a stim? Is the little girl took worse?" For Katty's illness still
continued, and had grown rather serious.
"Sure, no," said the old man; "Katty's just pretty middlin'. But it's
waitin' I've been the len'th of the mornin', till 'twould turn broad
daylight, before I'd be disturbin' of you, ma'am, to tell you the quare
sort of a joke they're after playin' on me down yonder."
"Saints above, man, what talk have you of jokin' at this hour of the day
or night?" said Mrs. M'Gurk, feeling the unseasonableness acutely as a
bitter gust came swooping up the slope and indiscriminatingly ruffled
the rime-dusted grass-tufts and her own grizzled locks.
"Och, bejabbers, it's a great joke they have agin me whatever," said old
Patman, who was shivering much, with cold partly, and partly perhaps
with amusement. "You see the way of it was, last night, no great while
after we'd all gone asleep, I woke up suddint, like as if wid the crake
of a door or somethin', but, whatever it might be, 'twas slipped beyond
me hearin' afore I'd got a hould of me sinses rightly. So I listened a
goodish bit, and somehow everythin' seemed unnathural quiet, till I
heard Katty fidgettin', and I went over to see would she take a dhrink
of wather. The Lord presarve us and keep us, ma'am, if all the rest of
them hadn't quit--quit out of it they have, and left us cliver and
clane."
"Ah, now, don't be romancin' man," said the widow, remonstrantly. "What
in the name of the nation 'ud bewitch any people to go rovin' out of
their house in the middle of the black night, wid the frost thick on the
ground?"
"Quit they are," said the old man. "Tom's gone, and the wife, and every
man-jack of them. They've took the couple of chuckens I noticed Tishy
killin' of yisterday. Begorrah, I believe they've took Tib the cat, for
ne'er a sign of it I see about the place, that would mostly be sittin'
cocked up atop of the dresser. Goodness guide us, sorra a sowl there is
in the house but the two of us, me and the child, and she's rael bad.
It's a quare ould joke."
"It 'ud be the joke of a set of ravin' mad people," said the widow.
"But the best of it is," he went on, "do you mind, ma'am"--he looked
round him suspiciously and lowered his voice--"the leather pouch you
might ha' seen wid me the other day?"
"Whoo!" said Mrs. M'Gurk, "are they after takin' that on you? Sure, man,
I thought you had it unbeknownst."
"Aye, it's took," old Patman said, "but how she grabbed it I dunno,
onless, I was thinkin', be any chance you mentioned somethin' about it?"
"Divil a bit of me did," the widow averred, with truth, which her hearer
accepted. "And how much might you have had in it at all?"
"Troth, I couldn't be tellin' you," he said; "I never thought to count
it. 'Tis just for a pleasure to meself I keep it. This long while back
I've put ne'er a penny in it, but when we used to be livin' up at
Portnafoyle I'd slip in the odd shillin's now and agin, and sometimes
I'd think 'twould be handy for buryin' me, and other times I'd think I'd
give it to Tom as soon as I'd gathered a thrifle more, on'y some way the
thought of partin' wid it 'ud seem to go agin me, and since poor Tom
made a match with Martha M'Crum 'tis worse agin me it goes. 'Tis that
good-for-nought weasel of a slieveen Tishy's after conthrivin' it on me,
I well know, and bad luck to her," quoth the old man, with a sudden
spasm of resentment. "Tom 'ud never play such a thrick--I mane it wasn't
he invinted the joke; he doesn't throuble himself wid much jokin'; he's
too sinsible, and steady, and perspicuous, and oncommon set on me and
the child, all the while. There's no better son in Ireland. Och, but the
rest of them mane no harm wid it; they're just schemin' to dhrop in
prisintly and be risin' a laugh on me."
Steps which were promptly taken to verify old Joe Patman's strange story
proved it to be correct in every particular. The only fresh fact which
investigations brought to light was the presence of a five-shilling
piece lying on the dresser, where Joe had overlooked it in the early
dusk. All the other inmates, chuckens and cat included, had disappeared,
and with them most of the few movables, the old man and the sick child
being left as forlorn fixtures. Lisconnel at large was neither slow nor
circumlocutory in forming and expressing its opinion as touching the
nature of the joke, a firm belief in which old Joe resolutely opposed to
his troubles as they thickened around him. For no tidings came from the
absentees, nor were any heard of them, while Katty's fever ran so high
that it seemed likely her grandfather would be at small further charges
on her account--a prospect which, however financially sound for a
capitalist of five shillings or under, none the less filled his soul
with grief. Then, one night, when Katty was at her worst, a great gale
came rushing and roaring across the bog, and when the day broke it
discovered the Patmans' brown thatch-slope interrupted by a gaping
crevasse, over which a quick-plashing rain-sheet quivered.
The widow M'Gurk had less spare room than heretofore at her disposal now
that she harboured a co-tenant, with a slight accession of tables and
chairs. Yet she made out a dry corner for the child and her grandfather,
who accepted these quarters in preference to any others, because the
widow, whatever may have been her private views, was prevented by a
mixture of contrariness and magnanimity from joining in the general
denunciation of her former allies, compromising as were the
circumstances under which they had elected to take their departure. In
her society, therefore, he was not obliged to overhear trenchant
criticisms upon his Tom's behaviour, and could dilate, at least
uncontradicted, upon those gifts and graces in the young man, which
recent events had certainly placed in some need of exposition.
Other disquieting voices there were, however, which he could not dodge,
and they spoke louder every day. For his five shillings were melting,
dwindling--had vanished; and Lisconnel, with the best will in the world,
could ill brook a burden of two incapables more laid upon its winter
penury. No word on the subject had reached the old man's outer ears; but
as Katty struggled slowly and fractiously towards convalescence, it
became clearer in his mind that unless something happened, she must,
when well enough to be moved, seek change of air away at the big House.
Perhaps this prospect was now more constantly before him than even the
thought of Tom's filial virtues, as he sat drearily on the bank by the
widow M'Gurk's door. He might often be seen to shake his head
despondently, and then he was probably saying to himself: "Belike he
thought bad of me, keepin' the bit of money unbeknownst."
By that time he had abandoned the joke theory, and fixed his hopes upon
the arrival of a letter to explain the mysterious nocturnal flitting,
and say whither they had betaken themselves after passing through
Duffclane, the furthest point to which the detective forces of the
district had tracked the party. Young Dan O'Beirne, whose work brought
him daily up from down below to the forge a long way on the road toward
Lisconnel, had safely promised to convey this letter so far whenever it
came; and on many a day the neighbours nodded commiseratingly to one
another as they saw "the ould crathur, goodness may pity him, settin'
off wid himself" in quest of it. The prompt January dusk would have
already fallen before he struggled up the Knockawn, to be greeted by the
widow in the tone of marked congratulation which our friends sometimes
adopt when all reason for it is conspicuously absent: "Well, man alive,
there wouldn't be ere a letter in it this day anyway."
"Och tub-be sure, not at all," he would answer cheerfully, "I wouldn't
look to there bein' e'er a one sooner than to-morra. I hadn't the notion
of expectin' a letter whatever. 'Twas just for the enjoyment of the bit
of a walk I went."
"Why tub-be sure it was. But be comin' in, man, for you're fit to dhrop,
and be gettin' your ould brogues dhried. Och man, you're dhrownded
entirely; 'tis a mighty soft evenin' it's turnin' out."
"And here's Katty lookin' out for you this great while," Big Anne would
say, "she's finely this evenin', glory be to goodness."