That was a pleasant place where I was born, though ’twas only a thatched
cabin by the side of a mountain stream, where the country was so lonely,
that in summer time the wild ducks used to bring their young ones to
feed on the bog, within a hundred yards of our door; and you could not
stoop over the bank to raise a pitcher full of water, without
frightening a shoal of beautiful speckled trout. Well, ’tis long ago
since my brother Richard, that’s now grown a fine clever man, God bless
him!—and myself, used to set off together up the mountain to pick
bunches of the cotton plant and the bog myrtle, and to look for birds’
and wild bees’ nests. ’Tis long ago—and though I’m happy and well off
now, living in the big house as own maid to the young ladies, who, on
account of my being foster-sister to poor darling Miss Ellen, that died
of decline, treat me more like their equal than their servant, and give
me the means to improve myself; still at times, especially when James
Sweeney, a dacent boy of the neighbours, and myself are taking a walk
together through the fields in the cool and quiet of a summer’s evening,
I can’t help thinking of the times that are passed, and talking about
them to James with a sort of peaceful sadness, more happy maybe than if
we were laughing aloud.
Every evening, before I say my prayers, I read a chapter in the Bible
that Miss Ellen gave me; and last night I felt my tears dropping for
ever so long over one verse,—“And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are
passed away.” The words made me think of them that are gone—of my
father, and his wife that was a true fond mother to me; and, above all,
of my little sister Mary, the _clureen bawn_[1] that nestled in her
bosom.
Footnote 1:
White dove.
I was a wild slip of a girl, ten years of age, and my brother Richard
about two years older, when my father brought home his second wife. She
was the daughter of a farmer up at Lackabawn, and was reared with care
and dacency; but her father held his ground at a rack-rent, and the
middleman that was between him and the head landlord did not pay his own
rent, so the place was ejected, and the farmer collected every penny he
had, and set off with his family to America. My father had a liking for
the youngest daughter, and well become him to have it, for a sweeter
creature never drew the breath of life; but while her father passed for
a _strong_[2] farmer, he was timorous-like about asking her to share his
little cabin; however, when he found how matters stood, he didn’t lose
much time in finding out that she was willing to be his wife, and a
mother to his boy and girl. _That_ she was, a patient loving one. Oh! it
often sticks me like a knife, when I think how many times I fretted her
with my foolishness and my idle ways, and how ’twas a long time before
I’d call her “mother.” Often, when my father would be going to chastise
Richard and myself for our provoking doings, especially the day that we
took half-a-dozen eggs from under the hatching hen, to play “Blind Tom”
with them, she’d interfere for us, and say,—“Tim, _aleagh_, don’t touch
them this time; sure ’tis only _arch_ they are: they’ll get more sense
in time.” And then, after he was gone out, she’d advise us for our good
so pleasantly, that a thundercloud itself couldn’t look black at her.
She did wonders too about the house and garden. They were both dirty and
neglected enough when she first came over them; for I was too young and
foolish, and my father too busy with his out-door work, and the old
woman that lived with us in service too feeble and too blind to keep the
place either clean or decent; but my mother got the floor raised, and
the green pool in front drained, and a parcel of roses and honeysuckles
planted there instead. The neighbours’ wives used to say ’Twas all pride
and upsetting folly, to keep the kitchen-floor swept clean, and to put
the potatoes on a dish, instead of emptying them out of the pot into the
middle of the table; and, besides, ’twas a cruel unnatural thing, they
said, to take away the pool from the ducks, that they were always used
to paddle in so handy. But my mother was always too busy and too happy
to heed what they said; and, besides, she was always so ready to do a
kind turn for any of them, that, out of pure shame, they had at last to
leave off abusing her “fine English ways.”
Footnote 2:
Rich.
West of our house there was a straggling, stony piece of ground, where,
within the memory of man, nothing ever grew but nettles, docks, and
thistles. One Monday, when Richard and myself came in from school, my
mother told us to set about weeding it, and to bring in some basketsful
of good clay from the banks of the river: she said that if we worked
well at it until Saturday, she’d bring me a new frock, and Dick a
jacket, from the next market-town; and encouraged by this, we set to
work with right good will, and didn’t leave off till supper time. The
next day we did the same; and by degrees, when we saw the heap of weeds
and stones that we got out, growing big, and the ground looking nice and
smooth and red and rich, we got quite anxious about it ourselves, and we
built a nice little fence round it to keep out the pigs. When it was
manured, my mother planted cabbages, parsnips, and onions in it; and, to
be sure, she got a fine crop out of it, enough to make us many a nice
supper of vegetables stewed with pepper, and a small taste of bacon or a
red herring. Besides, she sold in the market as much as bought a Sunday
coat for my father, a gown for herself, a fine pair of shoes for Dick,
and as pretty a shawl for myself, as e’er a colleen in the country could
show at mass. Through means of my father’s industry and my mother’s good
management, we were, with the blessing of God, as snug and comfortable a
poor family as any in Munster. We paid but a small rent, and we had
always plenty of potatoes to eat, good clothes to wear, and cleanliness
and decency in and about our little cabin.
Five years passed on in this way, and at last little Mary was born. She
was a delicate fairy thing, with that look, even from the first, in her
blue eyes, which is seldom seen, except where the shadow of the grave
darkens the cradle. She was fond of her father, and of Richard, and of
myself, and would laugh and crow when she saw us, but _the love in the
core of her heart_ was for her mother. No matter how tired, or sleepy,
or cross the baby might be, one word from _her_ would set the bright
eyes dancing, and the little rosy mouth smiling, and the tiny limbs
quivering, as if walking or running couldn’t content her, but she must
fly to her mother’s arms. And how that mother doted on the very ground
she trod! I often thought that the Queen in her state carriage, with her
son, God bless him! alongside of her, dressed out in gold and jewels,
was not one bit happier than my mother, when she sat under the shade of
the mountain ash near the door, in the hush of the summer’s evening,
singing and _cronauning_ her only one to sleep in her arms. In the month
of October, 1845, Mary was four years old. That was the bitter time,
when first the food of the earth was turned to poison; when the gardens
that used to be so bright and sweet, covered with the purple and white
potato blossoms, became in one night black and offensive, as if fire had
come down from heaven to burn them up. ’Twas a heart-breaking thing to
see the labouring men, the crathurs! that had only the one half-acre to
feed their little families, going out, after work, in the evenings to
dig their suppers from under the black stalks. Spadeful after spadeful
would be turned up, and a long piece of a ridge dug through, before
they’d get a small kish full of such withered _crohauneens_,[3] as other
years would be hardly counted fit for the pigs.
Footnote 3:
Small potatoes.
It was some time before the distress reached us, for there was a trifle
of money in the savings’ bank, that held us in meal, while the
neighbours were next door to starvation. As long as my father and mother
had it, they shared it freely with them that were worse off than
themselves; but at last the little penny of money was all spent, the
price of flour was raised; and, to make matters worse, the farmer that
my father worked for, at a poor eight-pence a day, was forced to send
him and three more of his labourers away, as he couldn’t afford to pay
them even _that_ any longer. Oh! ’twas a sorrowful night when my father
brought home the news. I remember, as well as if I saw it yesterday, the
desolate look in his face when he sat down by the ashes of the turf fire
that had just baked a yellow meal cake for his supper. My mother was at
the opposite side, giving little Mary a drink of sour milk out of her
little wooden piggin, and the child didn’t like it, being delicate and
always used to sweet milk, so she said:
“Mammy, won’t you give me some of the nice milk instead of that?”
“I haven’t it _asthore_, nor can’t get it,” said her mother, “so don’t
ye fret.”
Not a word more out of the little one’s mouth, only she turned her
little cheek in towards her mother, and stayed quite quiet, as if she
was hearkening to what was going on.
“Judy,” said my father, “God is good, and sure ’tis only in Him we must
put our trust; for in the wide world I can see nothing but starvation
before us.”
“God _is_ good, Tim,” replied my mother; “He won’t forsake us.”
Just then Richard came in with a more joyful face than I had seen on him
for many a day.
“Good news!” says he, “good news, father! there’s work for us both on
the Droumcarra road. The government works are to begin there to-morrow;
you’ll get eight-pence a day, and I’ll get six-pence.”
If you saw our delight when we heard this, you’d think ’twas the free
present of a thousand pounds that came to us, falling through the roof,
instead of an offer of small wages for hard work.
To be sure the potatoes were gone, and the yellow meal was dear and dry
and chippy—it hadn’t the _nature_ about it that a hot potato has for a
poor man; but still ’twas a great thing to have the prospect of getting
enough of even that same, and not to be obliged to follow the rest of
the country into the poorhouse, which was crowded to that degree that
the crathurs there—God help them!—hadn’t room even to die quietly in
their beds, but were crowded together on the floor like so many dogs in
a kennel. The next morning my father and Richard were off before
daybreak, for they had a long way to walk to Droumcarra, and they should
be there in time to begin work. They took an Indian meal cake with them
to eat for their dinner, and poor dry food it was, with only a draught
of cold water to wash it down. Still my father, who was knowledgeable
about such things, always said it was mighty wholesome when it was well
cooked; but some of the poor people took a great objection against it on
account of the yellow colour, which they thought came from having
sulphur mixed with it—and they said, Indeed it was putting a great
affront on the decent Irish to mix up their food as if ’twas for mangy
dogs. Glad enough, poor creatures, they were to get it afterwards, when
sea-weed and nettles, and the very grass by the roadside, was all that
many of them had to put into their mouths.
When my father and brother came home in the evening, faint and tired
from the two long walks and the day’s work, my mother would always try
to have something for them to eat with their porridge—a bit of butter,
or a bowl of thick milk, or maybe a few eggs. She always gave me plenty
as far as it would go; but ’twas little she took herself. She would
often go entirely without a meal, and then she’d slip down to the
huckster’s, and buy a little white bun for Mary; and I’m sure it used to
do her more good to see the child eat it, than if she got a meat-dinner
for herself. No matter how hungry the poor little thing might be, she’d
always break off a bit to put into her mother’s mouth, and she would not
be satisfied until she saw her swallow it; then the child would take a
drink of cold water out of her little tin porringer, as contented as if
it was new milk.
As the winter advanced, the weather became wet and bitterly cold, and
the poor men working on the roads began to suffer dreadfully from being
all day in wet clothes, and, what was worse, not having any change to
put on when they went home at night without a dry thread about them.
Fever soon got amongst them, and my father took it. My mother brought
the doctor to see him, and by selling all our decent clothes, she got
for him whatever was wanting, but all to no use: ’twas the will of the
Lord to take him to himself, and he died after a few days’ illness.
It would be hard to tell the sorrow that his widow and orphans felt,
when they saw the fresh sods planted on his grave. It was not grief
altogether like the grand stately grief of the quality, although maybe
the same sharp knife is sticking into the same sore bosom _inside_ in
both; but the _outside_ differs in rich and poor. I saw the mistress a
week after Miss Ellen died. She was in her drawing-room with the blinds
pulled down, sitting in a low chair, with her elbow on the small
work-table, and her cheek resting on her hand—not a speck of anything
white about her but the cambric handkerchief, and the face that was
paler than the marble chimney-piece.
When she saw me, (for the butler, being busy, sent me in with the
luncheon-tray,) she covered her eyes with her handkerchief, and began to
cry, but quietly, as if she did not want it to be noticed. As I was
going out, I just heard her say to Miss Alice in a choking voice:—
“Keep Sally here always; our poor darling was fond of her.” And as I
closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her,
she was quite composed: only for the white cheek and the black dress,
you would not know that the burning feel of a child’s last kiss had ever
touched her lips.
My father’s wife mourned for him after another fashion. _She_ could not
sit quiet, she must work hard to keep the life in them to whom he gave
it; and it was only in the evenings when she sat down before the fire
with Mary in her arms, that she used to sob and rock herself to and fro,
and sing a low wailing keen for the father of the little one, whose
innocent tears were always ready to fall when she saw her mother cry.
About this time my mother got an offer from some of the hucksters in the
neighbourhood, who knew her honesty, to go three times a week to the
next market-town, ten miles off, with their little money, and bring them
back supplies of bread, groceries, soap, and candles. This she used to
do, walking the twenty miles—ten of them with a heavy load on her
back—for the sake of earning enough to keep us alive. ’Twas very seldom
that Richard could get a stroke of work to do: the boy wasn’t strong in
himself, for he had the sickness too; though he recovered from it, and
always did his best to earn an honest penny wherever he could. I often
wanted my mother to let me go in her stead and bring back the load; but
she never would hear of it, and kept me at home to mind the house and
little Mary. My poor pet lamb! ’twas little minding she wanted. She
would go after breakfast and sit at the door, and stop there all day,
watching for her mother, and never heeding the neighbours’ children that
used to come wanting her to play. Through the live-long hours she would
never stir, but just keep her eyes fixed on the lonesome _boreen_;[4]
and when the shadow of the mountain ash grew long, and she caught a
glimpse of her mother ever so far off, coming towards home, the joy that
would flush on the small patient face, was brighter than the sunbeam on
the river. And faint and weary as the poor woman used to be, before ever
she sat down, she’d have Mary nestling in her bosom. No matter how
little she might have eaten herself that day, she would always bring
home a little white bun for Mary; and the child, that had tasted nothing
since morning, would eat it so happily, and then fall quietly asleep in
her mother’s arms.
Footnote 4: