“if she hadn’t done her best to be puttin’ the discredit on Mad Bell,
the poor little ould respectable diminted body, that niver laid a finger
on a pin’s point didn’t belong to her in all the years she’s comin’ and
goin’ among us.”
“And who’s offerin’ to pass a remark agin Mad Bell at all, at all? It’s
great ould talk the woman has,” said Mrs Autolycus, with half-abashed
defiance. She was a small shrivelled person, wearing the expression of a
magpie; and she now looked on wistfully, as that bird might have eyed a
rescued fork, while Mrs Duffy, the washer-woman, spread out the
recovered shirt over an Atlas and a Greek lexicon, upon the library
table, bewailing with an artist’s chagrin the destruction of her
handiwork.
“Och to goodness--sure I wouldn’t ha’ minded on’y nothin’ ’ud suit her
but one out of the finest set of all your Honour owns. And the ilegant
colour ’twas blachin’; the foam of the say was yalla to it--and to go
wisp it up like an ould dish-clout and sling it in the puddles--och,
look at it, all crases and mud. The loveliest bowl of could-water starch
I was after mixin’ for the front of it, wid a lump o’ sugar in it to
smoothen it, and left it to thicken on the windy ledge, while I’d step
out to fetch me things in--and there if this one wasn’t gone off of the
grass before me eyes! But, bedad, I well knew where it had travelled, as
soon as iver I beheld yon little-good-for leggin’ away down the road;
and I let a yell to me son Tim there, that was spreadin’ top-dressin’ in
the meadow, to be stoppin’ her. Troth, when she heard that she took off
wid herself for her life, till be luck she run full tilt into constable
Molloy comin’ round the corner. So here we’d have her grabbed as nate as
an ould mackerel in a creel, if she’s as slithery itself as a one of
them, except ’twas for the contrariness of Widdy Quinn, that’s set her
mind agin spakin’ a word--she that seen it took and nobody else. For
Katty Mahon noticed Mattie slinkin’ through the gap--and more betoken if
the girl had a grain of wit, she’d ha’ tould me, and I’d ha’ kep’ me eye
on the things--and Tim can swear he seen her tumblin’ down the bank,
wouldn’t you avic?”
“Ay would I,” averred Tim, “agin forty.”
“Musha then it’s yourself’s the great man whativer, Tim Duffy; fit to
swear the hind leg off of a dog any day,” remarked Mattie, with
sarcastic effrontery.
“And if he would, there’s plenty besides him would be ready enough to
swear agin any M’Niffe that iver walked,” retorted Mrs Duffy, “for sorra
a one of the lot of them you could trust the len’th of your little
finger. Och, bejabers, niver a mother’s son of them yet but was as full
of villainy as he could stick together. Wasn’t there her brother up at
Cloughdrum went be the name of Look-out M’Niffe, because the people
would be biddin’ one another look out they weren’t robbed, wheniver they
seen the ould miscreant slingein’ their way? Ah, sure, and didn’t
O’Farrell below say he’d liefer see his haggard black wid rats than
have one of them thievin’ permiscuous about his place?”
“He said right, ma’am. And the trick herself played me the time I was
stookawn enough to loan her me----”
Here the sound of a shrill voice came in a waft, as if through a door
opened at some distance. It seemed to be alternately using strong
language, and breaking into skirls of song.
“That’s poor Mad Bell herself,” said some one explanatorily. “Constable
Long’s keepin’ her pacified at the hall-door, the crathur. She’s waitin’
to take Mrs M’Niffe’s life when she comes out; she said she’d knock
saucepans out of her for thryin’ to do her that bad turn; ay did she,
and small blame to her. Begorrah, if Mad Bell was as big as she’s
little, it’s long sorry I’d be to get contendin’ wid her; for she’s a
terrible wicked woman sometimes, when she’s set a-goin’; and bad cess to
them that sets her, the misfortnit bein’.”
“I call it rael outrageous and scandeelious of Widdy Quinn to be that
unmannerly about comin’ up along wid us,” protested Mrs Duffy, “and
lettin’ on be this and be that she niver seen a sight, as if Mattie
there was aught to her. And me that’s obliged her many a time, so I
have. And she knowin’ right well ’tis on’y the shed-wall and the end of
the stack hindered me of seein’ the ould rogue at her thievin’ wid me
own eyes, so as I might be swearin’ informations meself, and no thanks
to anybody. But sure maybe his Honour might conthrive to make her spake
out conformable, and tell the truth what she seen. And it his Honour’s
own grand shirt that was widin an ames ace of goin’ to loss.”
His Honour, even thus incited, recoiled from the task of reducing the
Widdy Quinn to conformity, and suggested that she possibly had seen
nothing after all.
“Och, musha, divil a fear of that! Sure how would she help seein’, if
she’d her eyes shut, wid her open door star-gazin’ right into the bit of
green? And, faix, there’s divil a much goin’ the road that the Widdy
Quinn doesn’t see if she so plases. Saints above, if a little ould
weevil went aisy be her door on its stockin’ feet, it’s lookin’ out
she’d be to spy what was passin’. Ay, she seen right enough; but the
fact of the matter is, it’s quare and setup she’s been iver since the
notice the Quality took of her what little while they were here; them
that your honour put out of it, or I’d a right to say your Honour’s
father--Heaven be his bed--a couple o’ year back, and a good job too,
for th’ ould Gineral was an ugly-tempered man. Often we would be sayin’
Miss Una was to be pitied wid him, for nobody had a word agin her, the
quite, soft-spoken young lady. Howsome’er, she’d a great opinion
entirely of the Widdy Quinn; times and agin she’d be down to her wid
sugar and tay. And now since they’re quit, what wid lavin’ her the
mindin’ of her baste, and writin’ her letters continyal----”
“Miss Ellis writes?”
“Bedad, yis, your Honour, as reg’lar as the month comes round. And
unless it’s that has cocked the Widdy up wid the idea she’s a great one,
I dunno what else the rason is. But, anyway, I’d have her to know she’s
no call to be disobligin’ dacint neighbours, and colloguin’ wid thieves
and vagabones.”
Mrs M’Niffe ducked an ironical curtsey, and said: “Thank ’ee kindly,
ma’am.”
“And wid them that has the imperence of a throop of horse-dragoons,”
went on Mrs Duffy, modulating abruptly into a key of shriller
exasperation, “and that knows better than any one could be tellin’ them
what went wid the patchwork quilt me sisther-in-law was at the loss of
last Easter; and that this day owns a top-knotty hen belongs to them be
rights as much as the crows in the sky.”
When evidence of this very discursive nature is gone into thoroughly,
proceedings take their time. A long time it seemed to Mr O’Neill before
he was able to arrive, by devious ways, at the regretful conclusion
that, considering the vexatious flaw in the evidence caused by the Widdy
Quinn’s contrariness, and the complications which might arise from Mad
Bell’s entanglement in the affair, the charge against Mattie M’Niffe
must be dismissed. Whereupon the party dispersed, Mattie, perkily
triumphant, being smuggled out by back ways, to frustrate Mad Bell’s
purpose of “doin’ murther on” her wily defamer, a sequel which duty
rather than inclination urged their neighbours to forbid.
Dick was thus at liberty again, but he reverted to his sauntering with a
shadow on his mood. His visitor’s references to “the Quality who had
been put out of it” had jarred a memory aching-ripe ever since, on his
return from a long tour two or three years ago, he had found his family
enmeshed in a lawsuit with their kinsman, General Ellis, then
provisionally in possession of Portrosna Castle, but presently to be
ousted by judicial decree. For sundry reasons Dick had much deplored
this augmentation of his patrimony, but his disregarded protests could
not turn the law from its course, which ran remorselessly as the share
of a steam-plough through growths of ancient amity and intimacy, leaving
the furrow behind it of a family feud, that any regrets of his seemed
powerless to efface. His father’s death, a year back, had not
appreciably altered the situation, which Dick now found so
unsatisfactory a theme for reflections that he determined to shake off
his depressing thoughts by taking a walk through the village.
The February afternoon was flighty and tricky, prone to lay booby-traps
with sudden down-pelting showers for any wayfarer who walked without
regard to the disposition of the swiftly shifting cloud-masses over his
head. Dick did so, and had just passed along the main street, when all
the lights twinkling in the rippled puddles went out abruptly beneath a
sliding black shadow, which straightway hissed and hummed with drops
blown aslant. Now, Dick O’Neill was so constituted that from no ordinary
convulsion of nature would he seek refuge voluntarily in a stranger
dwelling, be it high or low. But on this occasion the matter was taken
out of his hands; for the same gust that brought the rain whisked his
hat off his head, and wheeled it in at the door of the nearest cabin,
whither he was fain to pursue.
“Ah, then! step inside, your Honour--step in out of the teems of rain,”
said the mistress of the house, Widdy Quinn, whose white apron gleamed
in the dusky little entry where she stood, a dark-eyed woman, with an
anxious expression and a comeliness wearing somewhat smoke-dried.
Dick would most likely have declined the invitation had he been in
possession of his headgear; but that was in the hands of the Widdy, who
continued to wipe it vigorously with her apron’s end, and to ask for it
seemed rather more difficult than to step in. Therefore, following the
line of least resistance, he stooped into the turf-scented room, where
the corners were vaguely rounded off with blue haze, and the crockery on
the dresser caught shimmering flushes from the crumbling red
hearth-glow, and a lank geranium stalk was dying in a jampot against the
meagre pane.
“Arrah now, bad manners to you, wouldn’t you be stirrin’ to lave the
gentleman a sate?” said Widdy Quinn, apparently to somebody sitting in
the high-backed chair beside the fire; but she had to add joggles and
pokes to her remonstrance before its occupant emerged.
To Dick’s relief it was only an unusually large grey cat, which,
descending with a sullen flop, stretched itself inordinately, and then
went and ostentatiously sharpened its claws on the leg of the table.
“Sure, it’s thinkin’ to terrify us you are, bedad,” said Widdy Quinn.
“Sit you down, sir, and don’t let on to notice. That’s the thrick it has
if iver I do aught to disoblige it: off it takes, and puts a polish on
its ould croobeens, as much as to say it’s gettin’ itself ready to reive
all before it. Not that ’twould raise hand or foot agin anybody, the
crathur, all the while. Sure you wouldn’t, then, would you, ould
Triptolemus?”
“Triptolemus?” repeated Dick, pricking up his ears. “Is that what you
call him? Rather a queer name for a cat; but I happen to know of
another called so.”
“Well, your Honour, ’twas the name Miss Una had for hers,” said the
Widdy, with obvious embarrassment.
“And is that her--Miss Ellis’s--cat?”
“Well, your Honour, she left me the mindin’ of him when she quit: she
did so; that’s the truth I’m tellin’ you--and a quare name it was till
you got used to it--Triptolemus--och, yis, that’s what I said sure
enough--unless ’twas somethin’ diff’rint be mistake.” The Widdy was
growing more and more flurried and guilty in manner; to judge by it you
might have taken poor Dick for a bullying counsel on the other side. So
great, in fact, was her discomposure that, having finished wiping the
mud off his hat, she went and hung it up on the corner of the dresser,
instead of restoring it to him. But she turned round after this aimless
action with a purpose suddenly full grown.
“Troth, sir, I’ll tell you the whole of the matter,” she said, “faix
will I, for on me conscience I’ll keep it blackenin’ no longer. And be
the same token it’s maybe the nearest I can go to tellin’ Miss Una
herself, for Quality’s in a manner all the one thing; and many’s the
time she’s sat in that same chair, when she’d be bringing me the sugar
and tay. The more ould reprobate I to go chatin’ her, and the crathur
lyin’ underground this two year---- Och to goodness, no, sir, not Miss
Una at all at all; she’s well and hearty, glory be to God--but the
mislucky ould cat. Be sittin’ down agin, your Honour, for the rain’s
outrageous, and I’ll tell you the way of it all.
“Sure she had the baste wid her when first she came to the Castle, and a
hape she considhered of him. They say some one had brought him home to
her from the inds of the earth: an Angory they called him I believe, but
for aught I could see he was just the very moral of me own Minnie that’s
sittin’ over there, may goodness forgive me, lookin’ as bitter as sut
for bein’ put out of the chair. A thrifle longer-haired he might be, and
had a sort of fulness on him round the neck, but nothin’ much to notice,
and a quare notion he had that he wouldn’t dhrink his milk could, except
’twas warmed up wid a sup of hot wather through it; and he might have a
few more fantigues I disremember. Howsome’er I’m tould th’ ould Gineral
niver could abide the thoughts of the baste, whativer the rason might
be” (Dick believed he could surmise), “and if he met wid it comin’ along
the passages, he’d jump and clap his hands, and let yells at it, till he
had it skytin’ about distracted like a rabbit that’s lost its houle. And
Mick Denny, that helped the footman, says that a couple of days afore
they quit, the Master says at dinner: ‘And, mind you, _that brute’s_ not
comin’ along wid us,’ sez he. ‘And what will I do wid him then at all?’
sez Miss Una. ‘Och, sling it in the pond, or wheriver else you plase,’
sez he, ‘but wid a blessin’ we’ll be shut of it anyway.’
“So the next day Miss Una come here, wid the two eyes of her cried out
of her head, the crathur, to ax me would I take and keep the bastie for
her, and a couple of shillins a week I’d be ped for it. And I tould her
I would and welcome, and nary the shillins I’d look after, for proud I’d
be to have him for company to me and Minnie; and sorra a lie was in it,
for I would so. But she said ’twould be a sort of pleasure to her to pay
for his board and lodgin’, and she’d send it every month, and then I’d a
right to scrawm her a line to say what way he was. So she let the baste
out of the covered basket, and down she knelt on the floor to unbuckle
a grand red leather collar he had on him wid little silver conthrivances
shinin’ all over it ilegant. ‘Sure you’re doin’ right, Miss Una jewel,’
sez I to her, ‘to not be lavin’ that fine little affair on him here,
where the smoke and dirt ’ud on’y ruinate it. ’Tis too good entirely for
us,’ sez I.
“‘’Deed then, Mrs Quinn,’ sez she, ‘niver a bit too good it is at all,
but ’twas an ould friend gave it to me,’ sez she, and she turnin’ as
pink as me spark of geranium-blossom there, the crathur, thinkin’ she’d
done somethin’ uncivil like, ‘a _very_ ould friend,’ sez she, ‘and
that’s why I’d liefer keep it. But I’ll send you down some bright
ribbons for collars,’ sez she, ‘to-morra.’ And sure enough she
remembered to send down some len’ths of the beautifullest-coloured
ribbons I ever witnessed, unless it might be in a rainbow. Bedad, sir,
there’s the butt end of a one archin’ itself agin the door, so the
shower’s apt to be clearin’. But it’s little she thought, or I either,
that they’d be in a manner the death of the poor thing the way it
happint.
“For it might be a week after they’d quit, a letter come for me from
Miss Una wid an order to pay for Triptolemus a month beforehand; ten
shillins it was, that came as near as anythin’ to fluttherin’ up the
chimney on me, and I openin’ the cover in me flurry at the fire. And
somehow the notion took me that the least I could do was to put a new
collar on him, so I cut him a piece of the green ribbon, and tied it on
him in the grandest big bow. Saints alive, but the baste was sot up and
consaited over it! He wouldn’t look the way one of us was, but out of
the house he trapesed, to show himself off belike. You’d mind the figure
of him yit, if you’d seen him stompin’ slow across the street there,
wid his tail like a church steeple, and liftin’ up his ould feet as
if he was steppin’ over hot pitaties. But presently I heard
_wurra-wurra-wurra-woof-oof_ settin’ up outside, that would be Barney
Keogh’s rough terrier dog, the greatest little divil after huntin’ cats;
howane’er I niver thought to mind, because I well knew that any cat wid
four legs to it had nothin’ to do but skyte handy up th’ ould
thorn-bush, and defy the nation. But when the _wurra-wurrain’_ seemed
goin’ on onnatural, out I run--and och, murdher alive, if the poor
unlucky baste hadn’t slipped a crooky thorn-twig under his collar, that
was a thrifle loose on him, and there he stuck caught fast, till the
little rogue of a dog had got a woeful grip of him be the scruff of the
neck, and was after givin’ him a shake that shook the life clane out of
him. Kilt dead he was afore iver I could part them. Och now, your
Honour, that was a rael unchancy thing to go happen a body; and the
whole botheration of it came sloppin’ through me mind, like spilt wather
when it’s widenin’ itself over the floor. For directly I got
considherin’ how I’d have to be writin’ to tell Miss Una desthruction
was done on her baste, and how she’d be frettin’ after him, and belike
thinkin’ I’d took no heed to him; and how I’d a right to be sendin’ back
the ten-shillin’ order, and ne’er another one comin’, and I countin’ on
it towards Ray’s bill, and the pitaties middlin’, and pigs goin’ low----
“And then somehow the divilmint come all of a suddint into me head, and
the first thing I knew I’d whipped the green ribbon off of poor ould
Triptolemus, and clapped it on to Minnie there, and I’d got the
fire-shovel to scrape out a buryin’-hole under the hedge, and all the
while I was sayin’ to meself, same as if I was at me beads, ‘It’s
Minnie’s kilt--it’s Minnie’s kilt--it’s Minnie’s kilt,’ and ivery sowl
that come along the road I’d let a bawl to that Keogh’s dog was after
murdherin’ me ould Minnie on me. Begorrah, if I bawled the same big lie
once that day, I bawled it twinty times; but if I’d known rightly the
tormint ’twould be to me, I’d niver ha’ let it off me tongue. For
ochone, your Honour, the way one thing grows out of another does be
terrific. Sure the very next day I had to be gettin’ Foxy Doran’s lad to
do a letter for me to poor Miss Una, tellin’ her Triptolemus was keepin’
finely, and I wondherin’ to meself that the ink didn’t dhry into sut in
his pen wid the inventions I was biddin’ him write--and thankin’ her
kindly for the order I was as good as stealin’ off of her. So now your
Honour can persaive the rason why I couldn’t be spakin’ agin poor Mattie
M’Niffe this mornin’, no matter what I may ha’ seen her doin’. How’d I
have the face, and I thievin’ away reg’lar this two year, and she on’y
pickin’ up an odd thrifle now and agin? Mrs Duffy did be castin’ it up
to me that I was colloguin’ wid the likes of such a notorious ould
good-for-nought; and thinks I to meself, ‘Sure if I do so, sorra the
hap’orth better I am, or worse, if there’s any differ between us.’ It’s
heart-scalded I am,” quoth Widdy Quinn, so piteously that Dick plunged
hurriedly into an attempt to set matters in a pleasanter light.
“Oh, of course you were reluctant to vex Miss Una with the bad news;
nobody could blame you for that.”
“Nary the use there’s in that,” said the Widdy, disconsolately. “Thried
it I have often, but the more I’d let on ’twas Miss Una’s frettin’ I did
be mindin’, the more sartin-sure I’d get that niver a thraneen I cared
about her frettin’, or anythin’ else except the shillins. And the same
way I kep’ on thinkin’ to persuade meself ’twas Minnie got kilt after
all--niver a bit of me could. D’ye see the white forepaw she has on her,
your Honour? That’s the most of the differ there was between her and
Triptolemus; and it seemed to me wheniver I’d get anywhere’s near mixin’
the two of them up in me mind, out she’d cock her ould fut, same as if
she was callin’ me a liar to me face. I got to hate the sight of it. Or
she’d come and rub her head agin’ me, and I talkin’ to any of the
neighbours, till they’d be passin’ the remark that the baste was grown
as friendly wid me as if I’d had it as long as me own poor Minnie; and
then, goodness forgive me, I’d wish she was choked. Ay, often enough I
do be wishin’ she’d just die away wid herself, and lave me a chanst to
quit the sin off of me conscience, for all she’s been the greatest
company to me these ten year. Sure of an evenin’ when she’ll be rowled
up forenint me in the chair, blinkin’ her two eyes at me, and carryin’
on like an ould cushion wid a creak in it, I do whiles git past me
patience, and ‘Bad luck to you then,’ I’ll say, ‘sittin’ cocked up there
in contintment, purrin’ and purrin’, and damnin’ me sowl.’ ’Twas on’y
th’ other night the notion came into me head I’d ax Constable Long for
the loan of a bit of the quare poison stuff they got at the barracks for
slaughtherin’ the rats. Stiffened them up it did, I heard tell, like so
many ould shoes. For if once I’d Minnie stiffened, there’d be an end of
writin’ lies and thievin’ ten-shillinses for good and all. But, och, I
hadn’t the heart to go do such a thing, and that’s a fac’. More-betoken,
wheniver I take any account considherate of the crool idees I’m gettin’
to have in me mind, it’s terrified in a way I do be, for sez I to
meself: ‘What sort of ould divil am I comin’ to at all? It’s apt I am to
be doin’ murdher on some unlucky bosthoon of a human crathur, let alone
an innicent brute-baste, afore I rightly know what I’m at.
“Many’s the time I’ve had it on the furthest end of me tongue to be
tellin’ the whole consarn to his Riverence at confession. But then I
know right well the first thing he’d bid me would be to lave off the
lyin’ and desaivin’, and stop them orders a-comin’; and whatever he’d
say I couldn’t go agin for me life; so tellin’ him would be all the same
thing as openin’ a door you couldn’t shut to: and niver a word I’ve let
on. And himself not long since offerin’ to give me a character to the
new agint for an honest respectable tinant! Troth, if it’s meself’s not
the deceptionable ould haythen, get me one. And dozens of times I’d me
mind made up strong that anyhow niver a penny more comin’ that road
would I touch to be spendin’ it. Keepin’ it safe in me ould glass-lidded
box I’d be, and perhaps sendin’ it back cliver and clane, as I’d on’y a
right, to Miss Una one of these days. But musha goodness help us, what
wid this thing and the other, when the starvation does be in it--and the
poor crathurs borryin’ loans--and meself took bad now and agin--the end
of it was the order’d slip out of the box agin afore I’d fairly clapped
down the lid on top of it. And changed at the post office ’twould be,
your Honour; and onst it was broke, sure you might as well thry to hould
a crumbled clod of clay a horse is after settin’ his fut on, in your
hand, as think to be keepin’ it. And the same way ’twill be wid the one
come yisterday. A bit late it come, because of Miss Una bein’ laid up
this long while, she sez, wid a could--wondherin’ she was, the crathur,
whether Triptolemus remimbered her yit--and the ould Gineral took rael
mortal bad on her now--and I to be chatin’ her in the middle of her
misfortins----”
“By Jove!” said Dick, diving suddenly out of his chair, which was so
constructed that it could be quitted only by a vigorous header, “can you
tell me where she is at present?--where she writes from?”
The mere aspect of the note which Widdy Quinn produced from her
glass-lidded box made Dick feel vaguely as if he had received a bit of
disquieting information. It was dated from a street in the town of
Galway, and its few hurried lines were written palely upon a sheet of
thin limp paper, such as might be used by some struggling retailer, fain
to minimise his trade expenses. “Look here, Mrs Quinn,” he said, when
he had read it through several times, “if you’ll leave the matter to me,
I think I could explain it to Miss Una,--she’s my cousin, and I used to
know her very well. It might, perhaps, be a mistake to tell her just
now, when she’s so uneasy about her father, since she seems to have
thought a great deal of the beast--by Jove she does. I daresay I could
get her another from the same fellow. But anyhow, I’ll see what’s best
to be done.”