"I suppose," he added, looking round deprecatingly, "they'll tell me
down at the railway station the way we'll have to go; or maybe Father
Taylor 'ud know. The say is miles an' miles away--I question if they'd
give us a ticket for the say down beyant at Clonkeen."
"Sure, yez'll have to go to Dublin first," interposed the
well-informed person who had before volunteered useful explanations.
"Dublin!" said Dan, sitting down on the edge of his favourite little
"creepy" stool. "Well, well, to think o' that! I never thought to be
goin' to Dublin, an' I suppose America is twicet as far."
"Aye, an' ten times as far," cried Peggy Murphy.
Dan looked appealingly round as though seeking contradiction, but
could not summon up enough courage to speak. He sat still, rubbing his
hands, and smiling a rather vacant smile; and by-and-by, having
exhausted their queries and conjectures, the visitors left the cabin,
and the old couple were alone.
They stared at each other for a moment or two in silence, Mary Brophy
fingering the letter which she could not read.
"That's grand news?" she remarked presently, with a querulous
interrogative note in her voice.
"Grand entirely," repeated her husband submissively, rubbing the
patched knees of his corduroy trousers for a change.
"We'll have to be gettin' ready to be off soon, I suppose?" pursued
Mary, still in a tone of vexed inquiry.
"Aye," said Dan, continuing to rub his knees.
"Ye ought to be out o' yer wits wid delight," asserted Mrs. Brophy
angrily.
"So I am," said Dan, with a ghastly attempt at cheerfulness.
"Ah, go 'long out o' that!" cried Mary. "Ye have me moithered, sittin'
there starin' the two eyes out o' yer head. Go out an' give the hens a
bit to ate."
"Sure we haven't had our own suppers yet," returned Dan, slowly
rising; "time enough to give the cratur's what's left."
"Listen to the man! 'Pon me word, ye'd never desarve a bit o' good
look, Dan Brophy, ye've that little sense. What call have we to go
pinchin' an' scrapin' now, will ye tell me? Us that's goin' to spend
the rest of our days in peace an' comfort. Sure, Larry'll let us want
for nothin' while we live."
"Aye, indeed," returned her husband; "I was forgettin' that."
He went out obediently, and presently his voice was heard dolorously
"chuck-chucking" to the hens. When he re-entered he sat down on the
stool again, with the same puzzled air which had formerly irritated
his wife.
"I wonder," he said, "how in the world we'll be managin'. Will I go
down to the station beyant, an' give them that money ordher, an' tell
them Larry bid them give us tickets to America for it, or will I have
to take it to the post-office first? Mrs. Murphy said it was a
post-office ordher, but sure they wouldn't be givin' us tickets for
America at the post-office."
"Ah, what a gom ye are!" said Mary. It was her favourite and wholly
untranslatable term of opprobrium.
"Afther that," as Dan invariably said, "there was no use in talkin' to
Mary." He suspected that on this occasion she was feeling a little
puzzled herself, but wisely resolved to postpone the discussion till
she should be in a better humour.
Next morning, when the old man rose and went out of the house, as
usual, to fetch a pailful of water from the stream which ran at the
foot of the hill, he cast lingering glances about him. It would be a
queer thing, he thought, to look out in the morning on any other view
than this familiar one, which had greeted his waking eyes in his far
away childhood, and on which he had expected to look his last only
when the day came whereon he should close them for ever. On the other
side of the rugged brown shoulder of that hill was the little chapel,
under the shadow of which he had hoped one day to be laid to rest.
Pausing, pail in hand, he began to wonder to himself where he would
have had the monument which, if he and Mary had already departed, was,
by Larry's request, to have surmounted their remains. There was an
empty space to the right of the gate--it would have looked well
there--real handsome, Dan opined. With his mind full of this thought
he returned to Mary, and immediately imparted it to her.
"Alanna, we wouldn't have known ourselves, we'd have been so grand,"
he added. "Goold letthers, no less. I don't know that I'd altogether
fancy them little skulls, though. They would have been altogether too
mournful. I'd sooner have R.I.P. at all the corners--wouldn't you?"
"Maybe I would an' maybe I wouldn't," said Mary. "We needn't be
botherin' our heads about it. Larry'll be apt to be puttin' up a
tombstone over us when we do go."
"Sure what good will that do us over there where nobody knows us?"
murmured Dan discontentedly. "If it was here where all the neighbours
'ud be lookin' at it, it 'ud be somethin'-like. But what signifies
what kind of an ould gully-hole they throw us into over
beyant--there'll be nobody to pass a remark about us, or to put up a
prayer for us afther we're gone, only Larry and his wife; an' I
question if she's the lady to be throublin' her head over the like of
us."
Mrs. Brophy was quite taken aback at this harangue, but soon recovered
herself sufficiently to rate Dan as soundly as she considered he
deserved; then, with many muttered comments on his ingratitude, she
proceeded to crawl over to the hearth to prepare breakfast.
"Woman alive!" ejaculated Dan presently, "sure it's not tay ye're
wettin' this mornin', an' only a sign of it left in the bag. Ye'll be
callin' out for yer cup on Sunday, an' there'll not be a grain left
for ye."
"Good gracious, won't the two of us be out of it before Sunday?"
returned Mary tartly. "Upon me word, a body 'ud lose patience wid ye
altogether. I'm sick an' tired tellin' ye that we've no call to be
savin' up the way we used to be doin'. Sit down there, an' don't
_saucer_ yer tay, but drink it like a Christian out o' the cup. An'
for goodness' sake, Dan, don't be blowin' it that way. I declare I'll
be ashamed of me life if that's the way ye're goin' to go on forenenst
Mrs. Larry."
"Would ye have me scald the throat out o' meself?" retorted Dan
indignantly. "I wish to goodness that letther o' Larry's was at the
bottom of the say. Ye're that contrairy sence, I dunno whatever to do
wid ye. Bedad, if that's the way wid ye I'll not stir a fut out o'
this. Mind that!"
Mrs. Brophy, though much incensed, nevertheless deemed it prudent to
make no reply; and presently Dan, pushing back his stool, got up and
went out. Mary sat cogitating for some minutes alone; her reflections
were not altogether of the pleasantest order, and she was relieved
when, by-and-by, Mrs. Kinsella's voice hailed her from the doorway.
"How's yourself this morning?" inquired the visitor pleasantly. "Did
you think it was dramin' ye were when ye woke up? I suppose the two o'
yez'll soon be out o' this now. I was thinkin'"--leaning her arms
affably on the half-door--"any ould things, ye know, that wouldn't be
worth yer while to bring along wid yous 'ud come in very handy for me
down below. Of course I wouldn't name it if ye were likely to be
takin' everythin' wid ye; but goin' all that way, an' lavin' nobody
afther ye--it's a terrible long fam'ly I have altogether, ma'am--I
declare I have the work of the world wid them. Terence--nothin' 'ud
serve him but to go makin' a drum out o' the on'y pot we have, an'
he's afther knocking a great big hole in it. So if ye weren't goin' to
take your big ould pot away wid ye, ma'am, I thought I'd just mention
it."
Mrs. Brophy's withered little face flushed.
"It's yerself that 'ud be welcome, I'm sure," she replied stiffly,
"but that same pot Dan an' me bought when we got married, an' I don't
think I could have the heart to part wid it."
"Ah, that indeed, ma'am? Well, of course, when ye have a fancy for it
that way, it's best for ye to take it wid ye. But I question if Mrs.
Larry 'ud like the looks of it comin' into her grand kitchen. Sure
Bill tould me, that time he came back from America, there wasn't such
a thing as a pot to be seen over there at all. But plaze yerself,
ma'am, of coorse."
Mrs. Brophy looked startled and perturbed.
"Not such a thing as a pot in it," she repeated. "God bless us! it
must be a quare place. Well, Mrs. Kinsella, ma'am, if I do lave the
pot behind I'll make sure that yourself has it."
"Thank ye, ma'am," responded Mrs. Kinsella, with alacrity. "Any ould
thing at all that ye wouldn't be wantin' 'ud come in handy for me. Ye
wouldn't be takin' that ould chair, now, or the dresser; that 'ud be
altogether too big an' too heavy to put in a boat, but I'd be thankful
for it at my place."
Mary looked round at her little household gods with a sudden pang;
then she glanced rather sharply back at Mrs. Kinsella.
"There's time enough to be thinkin' o' them things," she observed.
"Himself an' me hasn't made up our minds at all when we're goin', or
what we'll be doin' wid our bits o' things."
"Well, I must be off wid meself anyhow," returned the visitor, easily
changing the subject. "Ye'll be havin' his reverence in wid yez some
time this mornin'. I'm afther meetin' him goin' up the road to poor
Pat Daly's, an' when I told him the news he near broke his heart
laughin' at the notion of the two o' yez goin' off travellin' at this
time o' day. 'But I'm sorry, too,' he says, 'I'm very sorry,' he says.
'Upon my word,' says he, 'the place won't know itself without poor Dan
an' Mary. An' so they're goin' to live over there,' says he, 'or
rather to die over there,' says he, 'an' there'll be some strange
priest lookin' afther them at the last,' he says. 'Well, well, I
always thought it 'ud be me that 'ud have the buryin' o' Dan an'
Mary.'--An' off wid him then up the hill to Dalys', but he'll be apt
to be lookin' in on his way back."
"He will, to be sure," agreed Mary, in rather doleful tones.
When Mrs. Kinsella had departed she sat cowering over the fire without
heeding her unfinished cup of tea. The priest's words just quoted had
touched her in a vulnerable point. True for his reverence. It wasn't
living much longer they'd be over there, and when they came to die it
would be a lonesome sort of thing to have a strange priest coming to
see them instead of their own Father Taylor, who had been their
friend, guide, and adviser for more than forty years! Mrs. Brophy's
heart misgave her; his reverence would be apt to think bad of their
going off that way, and him so good to them. Then Mrs. Kinsella's
remarks rankled in her memory--"an ould pot" that Mrs. Larry would
despise in her elegant kitchen; the cool scrutiny with which she had
surveyed all poor Mary's treasured belongings was hard to be borne.
The dresser; like enough there would not be room for the dresser in
the boat--Mary had no notion as to the size of the vessel that was to
convey her and her belongings to America--and what about the bed then?
The bed, a valuable heirloom which had stood in its own particular
corner of the cabin for nearly a century, which had been Mary's
mother's bed, the pride and joy of Mary's heart, and the envy of the
neighbours. What in the world was to be done with this priceless
treasure? Good-natured as she was she felt that she could not bring
herself to allow it to become the property of Mrs. Kinsella or any of
the neighbours. Who would respect it as she did? At the bare thought
of heedless "gossoons" or "slips of girls" tumbling in and out of the
receptacle which she herself had always approached so reverently, Mary
shivered.
"Cock them up, indeed!" she murmured wrathfully.
Then an idea struck her, an idea which became a fixed resolution when
presently Father Taylor's kindly face nodded at her over the
half-door. She would offer his reverence the bed; it would be honoured
by such a rise in the world as a transfer to the priest's house; and
at the same time Mary felt that this precious legacy would in some
measure repay her good pastor for his long and affectionate care. She
had hardly patience to listen to Father Taylor's greeting, or to
answer his good-natured rallying queries anent their unexpected good
fortune. When she did speak it was rather in a tone of lamentation
than of rejoicing:--
"Aye, indeed, yer reverence, it's what we nayther of us looked for,
an' it's a terrible change altogether. I'm wondering what in the world
I'll do wid my bits o' things--my little sticks o' furniture, ye know,
sir. Biddy Kinsella was up here a little while ago lookin' out for me
pot--it's an elegant pot, an' I'm loth to part with it--but she says
Bill tould her there's no such thing as a pot to be seen out there. So
I'll have to lave it with her. But the bed, Father Taylor, it's the
bed that's throublin' me the most. It's a beautiful bed, your
reverence."
The priest glanced towards that valuable article of furniture, and
responded heartily and admiringly:--
"It is, indeed, a wonderful bed."
"Sure there isn't its like in the place," resumed Mary. "It was me
mother's bed, so it was--she looked very well when she was laid out on
it," she added thoughtfully. "Very well, indeed, she looked! I always
thought that Dan an' meself 'ud be waked in that bed, too. Well, well,
the Lord knows best, doesn't he, yer reverence? But I'd think very bad
of lettin' that bed out o' this to go anywhere on'y to yer reverence's
house."
"Bless me!" cried Father Taylor, unable to restrain a surprised laugh;
but he quickly composed his features.
"Aye, indeed, yer reverence, I'd be proud if ye'd let me make ye a
present of it," said poor old Mary, trying to straighten her little
bent back, and peering at him with anxious eyes. "Sure it's altogether
too proud Dan an' meself 'ud be, an' ye wouldn't believe the beautiful
nights' rests we do be gettin' out o' that bed."
"I'm quite sure you do," responded the priest warmly; "but upon my
word, Mary, do you know I'm afraid the Bishop mightn't like it."
Mrs. Brophy was appalled at the magnitude of the idea. Father Taylor
continued in a very solemn voice, but with a twinkle in his eye:--
"You see, Mary, we poor priests are not allowed luxuries, and if his
lordship were to arrive unexpectedly and walk into my room and see
that grand bed in the corner he might think it very queer."
"Would he now?" said Mary, in awestruck tones.
"You wouldn't like to get me into trouble, Mary, I'm sure," pursued
Father Taylor. "The Bishop might think I was getting beyond myself
altogether."
Mrs. Brophy heaved a deep sigh; she was depressed, but magnanimous. It
would ill become her, she observed, to be gettin' his reverence into
trouble, and who'd think his lordship was that wicked? Holy man! She
would say no more; and Father Taylor was devoutly thankful for her
forbearance. He would have done anything rather than hurt her
feelings, but the mere sight of that ancient, venerable, and
much-begrimed four-poster made him shudder; while he scarcely ventured
to contemplate the attitude likely to be assumed by his
housekeeper--of whom he stood in some little awe--if the question were
mooted of adding this piece of furniture to her well-polished and
carefully-dusted stock.
Wishing to change the subject, he remarked that Mary's beautiful cup
of tea had been scarcely tasted. "Why, I thought every drop was
precious," he added, laughing; "but I suppose you will not be counting
the grains now as you used to do."
"I don't seem to fancy it this mornin' the way I used to do
sometimes," responded Mrs. Brophy plaintively.
"Ah," said the priest, half-sadly, "you will have plenty of everything
over there, Mary, but I doubt if you will relish anything as much as
what you and Dan used to buy out of the price of your chickens.
Nothing is so sweet as what we earn for ourselves, woman dear. I fancy
the potatoes grown in your little bit of ground, and boiled in your
own black pot, taste sweeter, somehow, than all the fine dinners that
Mrs. Larry will be giving you."
"Thrue for ye, yer reverence," put in Dan, suddenly appearing in the
doorway. "'Pon me word, I wish that ould letther an' all that was in
it had stopped where it was, before it came upsettin' us that way. I'd
sooner stop where I am, so I would--I would so--there now ye have it!"
turning defiantly to his wife. "Sure it'll be the death of the two of
us lavin' the ould place, an' thravellin' off across the say among
strangers. An' what good will it do us, as I do be sayin' to herself
here, for Larry to be puttin' up a monyement for us over beyant there,
where there's ne'er a one at all that knows us?"
"To be sure, I was forgetting the monument," said Father Taylor,
laughing again. "I was to have the choosing of it, too, wasn't I? Let
me look at the letter again, Mary. Yes, here it is. 'The reverend
gentleman, whoever he is, that's parish priest in Clonkeen now'--It's
the very same reverend gentleman that used to give Master Larry many a
good box on the ear long ago when he was a little rascally lad; but I
suppose he thought I was dead and buried by this time--he wants to
have us all underground. Well, well, it's a pity I'm not to have the
choosing of that monument--I'd have picked out the finest that money
could buy."
He intended this as a joke, and Dan and Mary uttered a somewhat
melancholy, but complimentary laugh; then they looked at each other
wistfully, as though regretting that they were not in a position to
enable their pastor to gratify his artistic tastes.
Dan presently confided his troubles and difficulties anent the
changing of the order, and was desired by the priest to call in the
afternoon, when he would himself go with him to the post-office. Then
Father Taylor withdrew, feeling a little sad at the thought of losing
two such old parishioners, and a little impatient with the
over-affectionate nephew, who had so late in the day insisted on their
uprootal.
"How much more sensible it would have been," he said to himself, "how
much more truly kind, if Larry, instead of transplanting the poor old
couple in their old age, had sent them a small sum of money every
month to enable them to end their days in comfort at home." But there
was apparently nothing for it now but to take what steps he could to
help them over the difficulties of their flitting.
About five o'clock Dan duly made his appearance, wearing a much more
jubilant aspect than when his pastor had taken leave of him. With a
comical and somewhat sheepish grin he produced the "ordher" in a
crumpled condition from his tattered pocket, and handed it over to the
priest, remarking, as he did so, that "it was a quare thing to think
what a power o' money did be in a little or'nary thing like that."
"Yes, indeed," said Father Taylor, with a sigh, "that little bit of
paper will carry you and Mary all the way over the sea, and across a
State as big as Ireland."
"Would it now?" inquired Dan, eyeing it curiously. "Well now, to tell
you the truth, yer reverence, herself an' me has been havin' a bit of
a chat. She thinks bad, the cratur', of lavin' the bed, an' the ould
pot, an' all our little sticks o' things behind, ye know, sir, an' I
do be thinkin' I'd never get my health at all out of ould Ireland; an'
any way the two of us is too ould to be thravellin' off that way. An'
so herself says to me--she says:--'Dan,' says she, 'I think the best
way would be for ye to step down to his reverence's,' says she, 'an'
give him the ordher,' she says, 'an' ax him,' says she, 'if he'll just
write a line to poor Larry, an' let him know that we haven't the heart
nor the strength to be lavin' our own little place. An' bid him,' says
she, "ax Larry if it 'ud be all the same to him if his reverence was
to keep the money for us agin we want it.'"
"To be sure, to be sure," cried Father Taylor, delighted. "You show
your good sense, Dan, and so does Mary. I'll just go with you now, and
change the order; and I'll let Larry know that I'll keep the money for
you, and pay it out little by little as long as it lasts."
"Not at all, not at _all_," interrupted Dan, hastily and indignantly.
"Bedad, it isn't that we want yer reverence to do for us. Sure the
raison I'm afther givin' ye the ordher is for you to keep it safe, the
way we'll have it for the monyement."
"THE SPIDER AND THE GOUT"
Old Pat Clancy lived in a small cabin immediately beneath the Rock of
Donoughmor, and looked upon the ruined castle on the top as his
especial property, the legends concerning them being treasured by him
as jealously as though they were traditions of his own ancestors. A
proud man was Pat when piloting the occasional strangers who wished to
inspect the keep up the steep and slippery path which led to the
ancient portcullis, and conducting them thence to the banqueting-hall,
sparing the luckless pilgrim, in fact, no corner of the edifice or its
surroundings, and pausing only on the mossy slope to the rear, where,
his charge having duly admired "the view over three counties," he
would proudly point out the precise spots where Fin-ma-coul had
"wrastled" with and overthrown another "monsthrous joynt" of name
unknown, the traces of the encounter being yet visible in the short
turf.
"Ne'er a blade o' grass at all 'ud grow on them," Pat would cry,
pointing triumphantly to the irregular hollows in the soil supposed to
be the traces of the giant's mighty feet. These, by the way,
occasionally varied oddly in extent; during the summertime, when most
visitors were to be expected, being noticeably large, and much deeper
than at other seasons.
Poor Pat's devotion to his beloved ruins was the cause of his undoing.
One spring morning, when a late frost had made the grass unusually
slippery, just as he was expounding to an interested audience how the
Danes used to shoot "arrers through them little slits of windies in
the wall beyant," his foot slipped, and after rolling for a little
distance down the steep incline, he went over the precipitous side of
the crag, and fell some twenty feet on to the stones below. Many bones
were broken, and as surgical aid was difficult to obtain, and but of
poor quality when at last secured, most of them were badly set, and
the poor old fellow remained to the end of his days a cripple. How he
and his wife and their last remaining child, a son born to them when
Pat was already old, managed thenceforth to eke out a living would
have been a marvel to their neighbours, if similar problems of
existence had not been so common in the countryside. There was the
pig, of course, and a few chickens, and "herself" did a day's work now
and then in the fields, and escorted the visitors over the ruins, well
primed and prompted by Patrick as to the "laygends and tragedies"
(traditions) of those sacred precincts; and little Mike minded the
sheep, and frightened crows and picked turnips for their landlord,
"ould Pether Rorke beyant at Monavoe," but "Goodness knows," as the
neighbours would say, shaking their heads at each other, "it was not
much of a livin' the poor child 'ud make out of him--the ould villain!
Didn't he let his own flesh and blood go cold and hungry--'twasn't to
be expected he'd do more nor he could help for a stranger. Aye indeed,
he was a great ould villain! To think of him with lashin's and lavin's
of everything an' money untold laid by, an' his only son's widdy
livin' down there with a half-witted lodger in a little black hole of
a place that was not fit for a pig, let alone a Christian, an' the
beautiful little cratur', his grandchild, Roseen, runnin' about
barefut, with her dotey little hands an' feet black an' blue wid the
cowld--sure what sort of a heart had the man at all?"
Old Pat was sitting alone one summer's afternoon, "herself" having
gone up to Donoughmor with some Quality, and Mike not having yet
returned from work, when little Roseen Rorke poked her sunny face in
at the door.
"Is that yourself?" said Pat pleasantly. He was fond of the child, as
was every one in the neighbourhood, and being a fellow-sufferer from
the hard-heartedness of her grandfather, who was, as has been said,
his landlord, was perhaps the most violent of her champions.
Roseen's blue eyes, peering through her tangled sheaf of golden-brown
curls, took a hasty and discontented survey of the small kitchen.
"Isn't Mike here?" she inquired.
"He's not, asthore, an' won't be home this hour most likely; but come
in out o' the scorching sun, an' sit down on the little creepy stool.
Herself will be in in a few minutes, an' maybe she'll give ye a bit o'
griddle cake."
Roseen unfastened the half-door and came in, her little bare brown
feet making no sound on the mud floor. She was a pretty child for all
her sunburnt face and scanty unkempt attire. Poor Widow Rorke has long
ceased to take pride in the fact that her husband had been the son of
the richest farmer in all the countryside, and did not care to keep up
appearances, all her energies being devoted to the struggle for daily
bread; nevertheless, the short red flannel frock was as becoming to
Roseen as any more elegant garment could have been, and when she
approached the hearth and sat down on the three-legged stool by Pat's
side, he breathed a blessing on her pretty face that was as admiring
as it was fervent.
Crossing one shapely sunburnt leg over the other, and gazing pensively
at the smouldering turf sods, she heaved a deep sigh.
"They're afther goin' out an' lavin' me," she lamented.
"Did they, asthore? Sure they had a right to have taken ye along wid
them. Where are they gone to at all, alanna?"
"Me mother's after goin' to the town to buy a bit o' bread, an' Judy's
streeled off with herself, goodness knows where, wid her ould pipe in
her pocket. Dear knows when she'll be back; an' she bid me stop at
home an' mind the fire, but I come away out o' that as soon as her
back was turned."
The bright eyes glanced defiantly at the old man and then suddenly
clouded over; the corners of the little mouth began to droop, and the
small bare shoulders to heave.
"They'd no call to go lavin' me all by meself."
"Troth they hadn't, mavourneen," agreed Pat, clackling his tongue
sympathetically. "It was too hard on ye, altogether, but sure you
won't cry now, there's a good little girl; crying never done any one a
ha'porth o' good yit. Look at me here wid all my ould bones broke; I
might cry the two eyes out o' my head an' never a wan at all ud' get
mended for me."
Roseen sat up blinking. "Did it hurt ye much, Misther Clancy, when
your bones was broke on ye?"
"Is it hurt, bedad! Ye'd hear me bawlin' up at the crass roads. Sure I
thought it was killed I was! My ancistor couldn't have shouted louder
when he had the Earl Strongbow's spear stuck in him. Will I tell ye
about that, alanna, to pass the time till herself comes in?"
Roseen shook her head discontentedly.
"I know that story," she said. "I wisht ye'd tell me about the Spider
an' the Gout though, Misther Clancy. Ah do, an' I'll sit here
listenin' as quiet as a mouse."
Pat rubbed his unshaven chin with the lean fingers of his one
serviceable hand, the bristles of his week-old beard making a rasping
sound the while, and glanced down sideways at the eager little
petitioner.
"Is it the Spider an' the Gout?" he said, knitting his brows with
affected reluctance. "Sure I am sick an' tired tellin' ye that. No,
but I'll tell ye 'The little man and the little woman that lived in
the vinegar bottle.' ... Wanst upon a time, there was a weeshy-dawshy
little man--'"
"Ah no, Misther Clancy, I don't care for that," interrupted Roseen,
jumping up and clapping her hands to her ears. "It's a horrible ould
story. They'd have been drownded," she added seriously.
Pat chuckled. "Well, sit down, an' don't offer to say a word unless
you hear me goin' out. Sure maybe I disremember it altogether."
Roseen sat down obediently and fixed her eyes on the old man's face.
[Illustration: THE SPIDER AND THE GOUT
"Wanst upon a time," began Dan]
"Wanst upon a time," began Dan, with a twinkle in his eye, "the pigs
were swine." Roseen gave an impatient wriggle. "Well, well, it's too
bad to be tormentin' ye that way. I'll begin right now.--Well, very
well then. There was wan time the Spider an' the Gout was thravellin'
together, goin' to seek their fortun's. Well, they come to the crass
roads. 'Lookit here,' says the Spider, 'it's time for you an' me to be
partin' company,' says he; 'I'm goin' up along here to the right,'
says he, 'to that great big house on the hill. A very rich man lives
there,' says he, 'an' I think the quarthers 'ull suit me. You can go
down that little boreen to the left,' he says; 'there's a little cabin
there that belongs to some poor fellow or other. The door is cracked,'
says the Spider, 'and the windy is broke. Ye can slip in aisy,' he
says, 'an' creep into the poor fellow's toe before he knows where he
is.'--'Is that so?' says the Gout. 'Oh, that indeed!' says he; 'it'll
suit me very well,' says he, 'if that's the way it is. An' I'll tell
you what we'll do,' says the Gout, 'you an' me'll meet here this time
to-morrow night an' tell each other how we're gettin' on,' says he."
Pat paused, rubbing his knotted fingers up and down the ragged knees
of his corduroys. Roseen heaved a deep sigh, and folded one dimpled
hand over the other, her eyes meanwhile fixed unwinkingly on the face
of the narrator. The interest of the tale was now growing absorbing.
"Well, the Spider went off wid himself up to the rich man's house, an'
what do ye think the poor fellow found when he got there?"
Roseen was perfectly aware of the state of affairs which the Spider
discovered, knowing as she did every word of the story by heart, but
deemed it her duty to shake her head slightly and raise her eyebrows
in a manner which denoted that she was absolutely at fault.
"Well," pursued Pat, "every door in the whole place was shut up, an'
every windy was bolted an' barred, an' though the poor Spider ran this
way an' that way, an' round the house an' round the house, not a hole
nor a crack could he find; an' there he had to stop outside in the
wind an' the rain."
Roseen's face betokened extreme compassion for the Spider. Pat went
on, drawing in his breath with a sucking sound.
"Well then, very well then; next mornin' the sarvants was sweepin' and
clanin' an' dustin', here an' there an' everywhere, the way they do in
the houses of Quality. One o' them left the hall door open an' in
creeps the little Spider, an' away wid him acrass the hall, an' never
stops till he gets to the great big parlour. Up the wall wid him then
as fast as he could leg it, an' there if he doesn't go and make his
web in a corner of a great big gould pictur' frame. Well, there he
sat, the poor fellow, but ne'er a fly at all come next or nigh him,
an' by-an'-by in walks the housemaid wid her great big broom, an' if
she didn't--"
"You are afther forgettin'!" interrupted Roseen, quickly seizing the
opportunity of using her tongue, and proceeding with as close an
imitation of Pat's manner as she could muster. "In walks the
housemaid. 'Och,' says she, 'what brings you here at all, ye dirty
little spalpeen!'"
"To be sure," said Pat, "I was near forgettin' that altogether. 'Och,'
says she (in shrill tones of horror supposed to proceed from the
startled housemaid), 'what brings you here at all, ye dirty little
spalpeen? You infarnal little sckamer,' says she."
Roseen gave a delighted little cackle, this being an addition on Pat's
part and charming her by its vigour and originality.
"'You infarnal little sckamer, what brings you here at all?' And she
whips out her duster an' hot the poor Spider such a crack that his web
was destroyed on him altogether, an' it was on'y by the greatest good
luck he was able to creep out of her way behind the corner of the
frame, or she'd have had him killed as well. Well, the poor fellow,
there he sat the whole livelong day, niver so much as offerin' to spin
another web; an' sure if he had it 'ud have been no use, for there
wasn't the sign of a fly at all. When evenin' come the masther of the
house had company, an' there was atin' an' drinkin' an' the best of
everything but the poor little Spider was lookin' on, very near
perishin' wid hunger an' fright. Well, at the long and the last, when
he thought there was nobody lookin', he crept down the wall an'
folleyed wan o' the sarvants out o' the room, an' by good luck, the
hall door was open, so the poor fellow made off wid himself as fast as
he could. Down the road wid him till he come to where the Gout was
sittin' waitin' for him at the crass roads. 'Is that yourself?' says
the Spider. 'How did you get on?' says he. 'Och,' says the poor
Gout"--and here Pat assumed a tone of extreme weakness and
exhaustion--"'it's near killed I am altogether; I never put in such a
time in me life.' 'Well, for that matther,' says the Spider, 'I might
say the same; but what happened to ye at all? Tell me all about it in
the name of goodness,' says he.
"'Well,' says the Gout, 'I went off down the boreen the same as ye
told me, an' I come to the little cabin beyant; the door was open an'
in I walked, but o--o--oh! Wh--o--o--oh!' (Pat indulged in a prolonged
shiver, while Roseen chuckled and clapped her hands.) 'The cowld of
that place was near bein' the death o' me! Sure the wind blew into
it,' says he, 'an' the rain was comin' through the roof, an' there
wasn't as much fire on the hearth as 'ud warm a fly itself. Well, the
poor man come in afther a bit,' says the Gout, 'an' I slipped in
through a crack in his owld wore-out brogue, an' into his toe. "Och,
Mary," says the poor man to his wife, "I have a terrible bad pain in
me toe! What'll I do in the world?" says he; "I'll never be able to
stir a fut to-morrow." "Whisht, sure it's maybe a bit of a cramp ye've
got. Wait a bit," she says, "an' I'll fetch ye a sup o' the wather I'm
afther bilin' the pitaties in, maybe that'll do ye good," she says.
'Well,' says the Gout, 'if the fellow didn't go an' put his fut, _an'
me in it_, into an owld rusty bucket full of pitaty-wather! I thought
he'd have destroyed me altogether. An' such a night as I passed, wid
scarcely a blanket at all on the bed! An' nothin' 'ud sarve the man
but to get up before light, an' go thrampin' off through the mud an'
rain till I was nearly perished. There he was draggin' me up an' down
at the tail of a plough, wid the wet soakin' in through the holes in
his brogues, till I couldn't stand it any more, an' I come away wid
meself, an' I've been waitin' for ye this two hours.' 'Ho then,
indeed,' says the Spider, 'I'd have been glad enough to be out of it
before this; I never was so put about in me life as I was up there,'
says he. 'Sure they had all their windies shut up,' says he, 'and the
doors too, an' ne'er a sign of a fly at all in it when I did get in,'
he says; 'an' the whole place that clane, an' sarvants running about,
till I couldn't so much as find a corner to spin my web,' says he.
'Och, dear,' says the Gout, 'that's a poor case entirely; what sort of
a place was it at all, an' what were they doin' in it?'
"'Ah, 'twas a great big place--altogether too big for my taste; an'
they had roarin' fires in the grates. I was near killed wid the hate.'
"'That indeed!' says the Gout, pricking up his ears." Roseen listened
solemnly, not in the least astonished to be told that the personage in
question was possessed of ears; she supposed "a Gout" to be a living
thing, an insect probably, of a more noxious kind than a spider.
"'Fires!' says the Gout; 'an' was they atin' an' drinkin' at all?'
says he.
"'Atin' an' drinkin'!' says the Spider. 'Bedad, they're afther
spendin' hours at it, an' were in the thick of it when I come away. If
ye were to see the j'ints that was in it, ye wouldn't believe your own
eyes; an' chickens an' turkeys,' he says, 'was nothin' at all to them,
and they was swalleyin' down pigeons an' partridges an' them sorts o'
little birds, the same as if they wasn't worth counting.'
"'Oh, oh!' says the Gout, smacking his lips, 'an' did ye chanst to see
any dhrinkin' at all?' 'Goodness gracious!' says the Spider, 'sure
there was rivers of wine goin' down every man's throat!'
"'That'll do,' says the Gout. 'I'll bid ye good evening,' he says,
'an' I'll be off wid meself up there; an' I'll tell ye what,' says he,
'I'll be in no hurry to lave it!' he says, winking acrass at the
other, 'an' you thry the cabin,' he says, lookin' back over his
shoulder; 'maybe it'll suit ye betther nor me.' Well, the poor Spider
ran off as fast as he could, an' when he come to the poor man's
housheen, in he walked, widout a bit o' throuble at all, an' sure
there was plenty of flies there waitin' for him. They used to come
buzzing in an' out through the broken windies all day long.
"'Och, bedad! I am in luck,' says the Spider to himself, 'if on'y the
ould woman 'ull let me stop in it an' not be thryin' to desthroy me
wid her duster, the way the girl up beyant at the Coort did.' But
sure, the poor ould woman had other things to be thinkin' of nor to be
goin' afther Spiders. She left him alone in peace an' comfort, an' the
poor fellow thought he was in heaven, afther all he had to put up wid
at the other place. Well, there he lived till he died, an' he got so
fat wid all the flies he was afther killin' that it was an
_apple-complex_ that carried him off at the end!
"Well, Misther Gout went marching up the hill at a fine rate, an' when
he come to the rich man's house, who should he see, by the greatest
good luck, but the masther himself, standin' on the steps o' the hall
door, sayin' good-bye to the company. He lay quiet till the last of
the illigant carr'ages had drove off, an' the master stepped inside
again.
"'I think I'll have a smoke,' says he--here Pat assumed an
aristocratic air and spoke in refined and mincing tones--'before I go
to bed. William,' says he to one of the futmen, 'bring me me
slippers.' Well, the gentleman sat down in a grand soft armchair, an'
the futman brought his slippers--an' if the Gout didn't take the
opportunity an' pop into his big toe!"
Roseen jumped up from her stool with a chuckle of anticipation. Pat
proceeded to give utterance to a series of hollow and extraordinary
groans, and to writhe in a manner intended to convey the extreme agony
of the rich man. Roseen fairly danced about, imitating Pat's moanings
to the best of her ability. "Ou-ou-ou-ough! Ugh!" "'By this an' by
that,' says the gentleman, 'tare an' ages!' says he, 'thunder an'
turf!' he says, 'what in the world is the matter wid me big toe?'
"Well, the misthress comes runnin' down in a great state. 'My dear,'
she says (here Pat affected an extremely _Englified_ falsetto), 'I am
afeard you are very sick,' says she; 'ye'd best have a sup of port
wine,' says she.
"'Ou-ou-ough!' says the masther, 'maybe it would do me good. Fetch it
there, quick,' he says to the sarvants, 'or I'll be the death o' some
of yez!'
"Well, they brought him port wine, an' they brought him whisky, an'
they brought a beautiful velvet cushion an' put it under the
gentleman's fut; an' the Gout winks to himself, an' says he, 'Troth,
I'll not be in a hurry to quit out o' this. Sure it's in clover
altogether I am,' he says.
"Well, there ye have the story now, alanna, an' here's herself comin'
down the hill an' Mike afther her."
But Roseen was too much excited to heed the last announcement. "Was it
this way, the way the rich man was groanin'?" she asked, once more
imitating Pat's extraordinary utterances. The old man nodded, and
Roseen stood still meditatively scratching one little brown leg with
the curved-in toes of the other. "I wisht," she observed presently, in
a pensive tone, "that a Gout 'ud get into me gran'father's big toe; it
'ud sarve him right!"
Pat was rubbing his hands and chuckling to himself over this remark
when his wife entered, hot and weary after her peregrinations over the
ruins.
"Sixpence is all they're afther givin' me," she observed plaintively.
"Dear knows, it's hard set we are to live these times at all."
"Is it sixpence, woman alive!" cried Pat; "I wonder they had the face
to offer it to ye. Well, well, I was looking for a shillin' now, or
maybe two. Here, cut the child a bit o' griddle cake; she's been
keepin' me company this long while, haven't ye, Roseen? An' it's
starvin' she is out-an'-out."
"Come here, alanna," said Mrs. Clancy, taking down the flat loaf from
the shelf in the corner; "wait till I put a pinch o' sugar on it. I'm
sorry I haven't butther for ye, but there isn't a bit in the house at
all. There now."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Roseen, extending an eager hand.
"Ye're welcome, darlint. Here, Mike, ye'd like a bit too, wouldn't
ye?"
"Aye," said Mike, drawing near likewise.
He was a sturdy little fellow of about eleven, with an open sunburnt
face, hair bleached almost lint-white by the sun, and twinkling blue
eyes like his father's. The mother passed her thin knotted hand
lovingly over his tangled head and smilingly bade him "be off out o'
that with Roseen."
The two little figures darted out in the sunlight, and soon were to be
seen bounding like deer up the steep golden-green slope that led to
the "Rock."
"What do ye think the little one there is afther sayin' to me?" asked
Pat, shading his eyes with his hand as he peered after them. "'I
wisht,' says she, 'a Gout 'ud get into me gran'father's fut,' says
she; 'it 'ud sarve him right,' she says. I was afther tellin' her the
'Story of the Spider an' the Gout,' ye know."
"Did she now?" cried Mrs. Clancy, sinking down on the stool which
Roseen had vacated and clapping her hands together. "Well now, that
bates all! But she's the 'cutest little thing--I never seen her
aiqual."
"'I wisht,' quoted Dan meditatively, 'a Gout 'ud get into me
gran'father's big toe an' stay there,' says she. Ha, ha; bedad I wisht
it would too, the ould naygur."
Meanwhile the children pattered up the hill and spoke no word until
they reached the summit. Sitting down under the great portcullis, they
munched their bread and sugar amicably together, Mike's eyes pensively
gazing in front of him the while, and Roseen's roving hither and
thither with quick, eager glances. Suddenly she tilted her head
backward, gazing at a narrow horizontal slit in the masonry high over
their heads. "That's where they used to throw the bilin' lead down in
ould ancient times when anybody wanted to come fightin' them."
Mike gazed upwards likewise, still slowly munching, but said nothing.
"When you an' me grows up an' gets married to each other, the way we
always said we would," pursued Roseen, "this 'ud be a gran' place to
live."
Mike's face brightened, and he nodded enthusiastically. "It would so,"
he agreed.
"There's lots o' beau'ful rooms that we could live in," resumed
Roseen, "an' we'd make a fire in that great big enormous stone hearth
beyant, an' we'd ate off o' that big stone table, an' when anybody 'ud
offer to come annoyin' us, we'd just melt a bit o' lead an' throw it
down on them."
Mike looked astonished and perturbed. "Sure it 'ud burn the flesh off
o' their bones. I wouldn't like to be doin' that, Roseen."
"If they was rale bad people," said Roseen persuasively; "rale wicked,
crule people, the same as me gran'father beyant, it 'ud sarve them
right,--or we might throw down a sup of bilin' wather," she added as a
concession.
Mike appeared unconvinced.
"I don't think ye have a right to be talkin' that way of your
gran'father," he said reprovingly; "an' he isn't that bad. He never
offered to lay a finger on me as long as I am in it, barring the time
I let the sheep into the hay-field."
"He's a crule ould villain!" returned Roseen conclusively. "Look at
all he done on me mother. Come on now," with a sudden change of tone,
"whistle a tune an' we'll have a dance."
Mike looked lovingly at the last fragments of his griddle cake, the
enjoyment of which he had been anxious to prolong as much as possible,
and then after a little sigh, crammed them into his mouth and led the
way to the giant's wrestling ground.
"Wait a bit," he cried, as Roseen took hold of the folds of her ragged
skirt daintily in the finger and thumb of each hand, and looked
expectantly towards him, "I'm just goin' to thramp a bit in the
joynt's steps."
"What are ye doin' that for at all?" asked Roseen, knitting her
brows.
"Sure me father bid me never go past this way widout stampin' them
down a bit to keep them from gettin' smaller," answered Mike,
hammering diligently with his bare heel at the corners of the
"futprints" of the mighty Fin-ma-coul.
The operation at last concluded, he rejoined the little girl on a
small grassy plateau surrounded by low growing Irish gorse. The
heather, mingling with these furze bushes, was just beginning to
bloom, and here and there a tall foxglove towered above the undulating
irregular mass of purple and gold. Taking her place in the centre of
her ball-room, Roseen again looped up her skirt and pointed her
shapely little foot. Mike began to whistle a jig tune, his sturdy
brown legs twinkling the while in time to the measure. Now and then
his piping grew faint, and was interrupted by gasps for breath,
whereupon Roseen, still vigorously footing it, would take up the tune
after a fashion of her own, her voice imitating as nearly as might be
the sound of a fiddle. Overhead a lark was soaring, and his trill,
wafted down to them, mingled with their quaint human music; far away
over that brown and purple stretch of bog the plovers were circling,
their faint melancholy call sounding every now and then. The sun would
soon set, the air was already turning a little chilly, and the dew was
falling. The shadow of the ruined tower fell obliquely across the
golden-green carpet of their ball-room; but the children danced on,
Roseen's curls shaken into a light feathery nimbus round her brow, a
beautiful colour in her cheeks, and her little white teeth parted in a
smile of delight; while Mike pranced and capered, as though old
Peter's stick had never fallen about his shoulders, and there were no
holes in the roof at home.