I must now describe a portion of the garden which stretched out from
the back of old Ned Cavana's premises. A large well-enclosed farmyard,
almost immediately at the rear of the house, gave evidence of the
comfort and plenty belonging not only to the old man himself, but to
everything living and dead about the place; and as we shall be obliged
to pass through this farm-yard to get into the garden, we may as well
describe it first. Stacks of corn, wheat, oats, and barley, in great
variety of size, pointed the pinnacles of their finishing touch to the
sky. Sticking up from some of these were sham weather-cocks, made of
straw, in the shape of fish, fowl, dogs, and cats, the handiwork of
Jamesy Doyle, the servant boy,--the same black-headed urchin who lifted
the tenpenny-bit out of the tub at old Murdock's party. They were
fastened upon sticks, which did not turn round, and were therefore put
up more to frighten away the sparrows than for the purpose of
indicating which way the wind blew, or, more likely still, as mere
specimens of Jamesy Doyle's ingenuity. The whole yard was covered a
foot deep with loose straw, for the double purpose of giving comfort
to two or three litters of young pigs, and that of being used up, by
the constant tramping, into manure for the farm; for cows, heifers,
and calves strayed about it without interruption. A grand flock of
geese, as white as snow and as large nearly as swans, marched in from
the fields, headed by their gander, every evening about the same hour,
to spend their night gaggling and watching and sleeping by turns under
the stacks of corn, which were raised upon stone pillars with mushroom
metal-caps, to keep out the rats and mice. A big black cock, with a
hanging red comb and white jowls, and innumerable hens belonging to
him, something on the Brigham Young system, marched triumphantly
about, calling his favorites every now and then with a quick
melancholy little chuckle as often as he found a tit-bit amongst the
straw. Ducks, half as large as the geese, coming home without a
feather raffled, in a mottled string of all colors, from the stream
below the hill, diving, for variety, into the clean straw, emerging
now and then, and smattering with their flat bills in any little
puddle of water that lay between the pavement in the bare part of the
yard. "Bullydhu," the watch-dog, as evening closed, taking possession
of a small wooden house upon wheels,--Jamesy Doyle's handiwork
too,--that it might be turned to the shelter, whichever way the wind
blew. It was a miracle to see Bully getting into it, the door was so
low; another piece of consideration of Jamesy's for the dog's comfort.
You could only know when he was in it by seeing his large soft paws
under the arch of the low door.
Beyond this farm-yard--farm in all its appearance and realities--was
the garden. A thick, high, furze hedge, about sixty yards long, ran
down one side of it, from the corner of the farmyard wall; and at the
further end of this hedge, which was the square of the garden, and
facing the sun, was certainly the most complete and beautiful
summer-house in the parish of Rathcash, or Jamesy Doyle was very much
mistaken. It also was his handiwork. In fact, there was nothing Jamesy
could not turn his hands to, and his heart was as ready as his hands,
so that he was always successful, but here he had outstripped all his
former ingenuity. The bower was now of four years' standing, and every
summer Jamesy was proud to see that nature had approved of his plan by
endorsing it with a hundred different signatures. With the other
portions of the garden or its several crops, we have nothing to do; we
will therefore linger for a while about the furze hedge and in
"Jamesy's bower" to see what may turn up. But I must describe another
item in the locality.
Immediately outside the hedge there was a lane, common to a certain
extent to both farms. It might be said to divide them. It lay quite
close to the furze hedge, which ran in a straight line a long distance
beyond where "Jamesy's bower" formed one of the angles of the garden.
There was a gate across the lane precisely outside the corner where
the bower had been made, and this was the extent of Murdock's right or
title to the commonalty of the lane. Passing through this gate,
Murdock branched off to the left with the produce of his farm. It is a
long lane, they say, that has no turning, and although the portion of
this one with which we are concerned was only sixty yards long, I have
not, perhaps, brought the reader to the spot so quickly as I might. I
certainly could have brought him through the yard without putting even
the word "farm" before it, or without saying a word about the stacks
of corn and the weather-cocks, the pigs, cows, heifers, and calves,
the geese, ducks, cock, and hens, "Bullydhu" and his house, etc., and
with a hop, step, and a leap I might have placed him in "Jamesy's
bower" if he had been the person to occupy it--but he was not. With
every twig, however, of the hedge and the bower it is necessary that
my readers should be well acquainted; and I hope I have succeeded in
making them so.
Winny Cavana was a thoughtful, thrifty girl, an experienced
housekeeper, never allowing one job to overtake another where it could
be avoided. Of course incidental difficulties would sometimes arise;
but in general she managed everything so nicely and systematically
that matters fell into their own time and place as regularly as
possible.
When Winny got the invitation for Mick Murdock's party, which was only
in the forenoon of the day before it came off, her first thought was,
that she would be very tired and ill-fitted for business the day after
it was over. She therefore called Jamesy Doyle to her assistance, and
on that day and the next, she got through whatever household
jobs would bear performance in advance, and instructed Jamesy as to
some little matters which she used to oversee herself, but which on
this occasion she would entrust solely to his own intelligence and
judgment for the day after the party. She could not have committed
them to a more competent or conscientious lad. Anything Jamesy
undertook to do, he did it well, as we have already seen both in the
haggard, the garden, and the tub--for it was he who brought up the
fippenny-bit at Murdock's, and he would lay down his life to serve or
even to oblige Winny Cavana.
Having thus purchased an idle day after the party, Winny was
determined to enjoy it, and after a very late breakfast, for her
father, poor soul, was dead tired, she called Jamesy, and examined him
as to what he had done or left undone. Finding that, notwithstanding
he had been up as late as she had been herself the night before, he
had been faithful to the trust reposed in him, and that everything was
in trim order, she then complimented him upon his snapping and diving
abilities.
"How much did you take up out of the tub, Jamesy?" she asked.
"Be gorra, Miss Winny, I took up two tenpenny-bits an' a fippenny."
"And what will you do with all that money, Jamesy? it is nearly a
month's wages."
"Be gorra, my mother has it afore this, Miss Winny."
"That is a good boy, Jamesy, but you shouldn't curse."
"Be gorra, I won't, miss; but I didn't think that was cursing, at all,
at all."
"Well, it is swearing, Jamesy, and that is just as bad."
"Well, Miss Winny, you'll never hear me say it agen."
"That's right, James. Is the garden open?
"It is, miss; I'm afther bringing out an armful of leaves to bile for
the pigs."
Winny passed on through the yard into the garden. It was a fine, mild
day for the time of year, and she was soon sitting in the bower with
an unopened story-book in her lap. It was a piece of idle folly her
bringing the book there at all. In the first place, she had it by
heart--for books were scarce in that locality, and were often
read--and in the next, she was more in a humor to think than to read.
It was no strange thing, under the circumstances, if, like some
heroines of a higher stamp, "she fell into a reverie." "How long she
remained thus," to use the patent phrase in such a case, must be a
mere matter of surmise; but a step at the gate outside the hedge, and
her own name distinctly pronounced, caused her to start.
Eaves-dropping has been universally condemned, and "listeners," they
say, "never hear good of themselves." But where is the young girl, or
indeed any person, hearing their own name pronounced, and being in a
position to listen unobserved, who would not do so? Our heroine, at
all events, was not "above that sort of thing," and instead of
hemming, or coughing, or shuffling her feet in the gravel, she cocked
her ears and held her breath. We would be a little indulgent to a
person so sorely tempted, whatever our readers may think.
"If Winny Cavana," she heard, "was twice as proud, an' twice as great
a lady, you may believe me, Tom, she wouldn't refuse you. She'll have
six hundred pounds as round as the crown of your hat; an' that fine
farm we're afther walkin' over; like her, or not like her, take my
advice an' don't lose the fortune an' the farm."
"Not if I can help it, father. There's more reason than you know of
why I should secure the ready money of her fortune at any rate; as to
herself, if it wasn't for that, she might marry Tom Naddy _th'
aumadhawn_ if she had a mind."
"Had you any chat with her last night, Tom? Oh then, wasn't she
lookin' elegant!"
"As elegant as you please, father, but as proud as a peacock. No, I
had no chat with her, except what the whole room could hear; she was
determined on that, and I'm still of opinion that you did more harm
than good."
"Not if you were worth a _thrawncen_, Tom. Arrah avic machree, you
don't undherstand her; that was all put on, man alive. I'm afeerd
she'll think you haven't the pluck in you; she's a sperited girl
herself, and depend upon it she expects you to spake, an' its what
she's vexed at, your dilly-dallyin'. Why did you let that fellow take
her out for the first dance? I heerd Mrs. Moran remark it to Kitty
Mulvey's mother."
"That was a mistake, father; he had her out before I got in from the
kitchen."
"They don't like them mistakes, Tom, an' that's the very thing I blame
you for; you should have stuck to her like a leech the whole night;
they like a man that's in earnest. Take my advice, Tom avic, an put
the question plump to her at wanst fore Shraftide. Tell her I'll lay
down a pound for you for every pound her father gives her, and I'll
make over this place to you out an out. Old Ned an I will live
together while we last, an that can't be long, Tom avic. I know he'll
settle Rathcash upon Winny, and he'll have the interest of her fortune
beside--"
"Interest be d--d!" interrupted Tom; "won't he pay the money down?"
"He might do that same, but I think not; he's afeerd it might be
dribbled away, but with Rathcash, an Rathcashmore joined, the devil's
in it and she can't live like a lady; at all events, Tom, you can live
like a gentleman; ould Ned's for you entirely, Tom, I can tell you
that."
"That is all very well, father, and I wish that you could make me
think that your words would come true, but I'm not come to
four-and-twenty years of age without knowing something of the way
girls get on; and if that one is not set on young Lennon, my name is
not Tom Murdock; and I'll tell you what's more, that if it wasn't for
her fortune and that farm, he might have her and welcome. There are
many girls in the parish as handsome, and handsomer for that matter,
than what she is, that would just jump at me."
"I know that, Tom agra, but maybe it's what you'll only fix her on
that whelp, as you call him, the stronger, if you be houldin' back the
way you do. They like pluck, Tom; they like pluck, I tell you, and in
my opinion she's only makin' b'lief, to dhraw you out. Try her, Tom,
try her."
"I will, father, and if I fail, and I find that that spalpeen Lennon
is at the bottom of it, let them both look out, that's all. For his
part, I have a way of dealing with him that he knows nothing about,
and as for her--"
Here Jamesy Doyle came out into the lane from the farm-yard, and
father and son immediately branched off in the direction of their own
house, leaving Tom Murdock's second part of the threat unfinished.
But Winny had heard enough. Her heart, which had been beating with
indignation the whole time, had nearly betrayed itself when she heard
Emon-a-knock called a spalpeen.
One thing she was now certain of, and the certainty gave her whole
soul relief,--that if ever Tom Murdock could have had any chance of
success through her father's influence, and her love for him, it was
now entirely at an end for ever. Should her father urge the match upon
her, she had, as a last remedy, but to reveal this conversation, to
gain him over indignantly to her side.
Winny was seldom very wrong in her likings or dislikings, although
perhaps both were formed in some instances rather hastily, and she
often knew not why. In Tom Murdock's case, she was glad, and now
rather "proud out of herself," that she had never liked him.
"I knew the dirt was in him," she said to herself as she returned to
the house. "I wish he did not live so near us, for I foresee nothing
but trouble and vexation before me on his account. I'm sorry Jamesy
Doyle came out so soon. I'd like to have heard what he was going to
say of myself, but sure he said enough. Em-on-a-knock may despise
himself and his threat." And she went into the house to prepare the
dinner.
Tom Murdock, notwithstanding his shortcomings, and they were neither
few nor far between, was a shrewd, clever fellow in most matters. It
was owing to this shrewdness that he resolved to watch for some
favorable opportunity, rather than seek a formal meeting with Winny
Cavana "_at wanst_" as had been 'advised by his father.