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MY LADY OF THE
CHIMNEY CORNER
BY
ALEXANDER IRVINE
AUTHOR OF "FROM THE BOTTOM UP," ETC.
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1914
Copyright, 1913, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published, August, 1913_
TO
LADY GREGORY
AND
THE PLAYERS OF THE ABBEY THEATRE
DUBLIN
FOREWORD
This book is the torn manuscript of the most beautiful life I ever knew.
I have merely pieced and patched it together, and have not even changed
or disguised the names of the little group of neighbors who lived with
us, at "the bottom of the world." A. I.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I LOVE IS ENOUGH 3
II THE WOLF AND THE CARPENTER 21
III REHEARSING FOR THE SHOW 38
IV SUNDAY IN POGUE'S ENTRY 63
V HIS ARM IS NOT SHORTENED 85
VI THE APOTHEOSIS OF HUGHIE THORNTON 110
VII IN THE GLOW OF A PEAT FIRE 133
VIII THE WIND BLOWETH WHERE IT LISTETH 153
IX "BEYOND TH' MEADOWS AN' TH' CLOUDS" 171
X THE EMPTY CORNER 198
MY LADY OF THE CHIMNEY-CORNER
A STORY OF LOVE AND POVERTY IN
IRISH PEASANT LIFE
CHAPTER I
LOVE IS ENOUGH
"Anna's purty, an' she's good as well as purty, but th' beauty an'
goodness that's hers is short lived, I'm thinkin'," said old Bridget
McGrady to her neighbor Mrs. Tierney, as Mrs. Gilmore passed the door,
leading her five-year-old girl, Anna, by the hand. The old women were
sitting on the doorstep as the worshipers came down the lane from early
mass on a summer morning.
"Thrue for you, Bridget, for th' do say that th' Virgin takes all sich
childther before they're ten."
"Musha, but Mrs. Gilmore'll take on terrible," continued Mrs. Tierney,
"but th' will of God must be done."
Anna was dressed in a dainty pink dress. A wide blue ribbon kept her
wealth of jet black hair in order as it hung down her back and the
squeaking of her little shoes drew attention to the fact that they were
new and in the fashion.
"It's a mortal pity she's a girl," said Bridget, "bekase she might hev
been an althar boy before she goes."
"Aye, but if she was a bhoy shure there's no tellin' what divilmint
she'd get into; so maybe it's just as well."
The Gilmores lived on a small farm near Crumlin in County Antrim. They
were not considered "well to do," neither were they poor. They worked
hard and by dint of economy managed to keep their children at school.
Anna was a favorite child. Her quiet demeanor and gentle disposition
drew to her many considerations denied the rest of the family. She was a
favorite in the community. By the old women she was considered "too good
to live"; she took "kindly" to the house of God. Her teacher said, "Anna
has a great head for learning." This expression, oft repeated, gave the
Gilmores an ambition to prepare Anna for teaching. Despite the schedule
arranged for her she was confirmed in the parish chapel at the age of
ten. At fifteen she had exhausted the educational facilities of the
community and set her heart on institutions of higher learning in the
larger cities. While her parents were figuring that way the boys of the
parish were figuring in a different direction. Before Anna was seventeen
there was scarcely a boy living within miles who had not at one time or
another lingered around the gate of the Gilmore garden. Mrs. Gilmore
watched Anna carefully. She warned her against the danger of an
alliance with a boy of a lower station. The girl was devoted to the
Church. She knew her Book of Devotions as few of the older people knew
it, and before she was twelve she had read the Lives of the Saints. None
of these things made her an ascetic. She could laugh heartily and had a
keen sense of humor.
The old women revised their prophecies. They now spoke of her "takin'
th' veil." Some said she would make "a gey good schoolmisthress," for
she was fond of children.
While waiting the completion of arrangements to continue her schooling,
she helped her mother with the household work. She spent a good deal of
her time, too, in helping the old and disabled of the village. She
carried water to them from the village well and tidied up their cottages
at least once a week.
The village well was the point of departure in many a romance. There
the boys and girls met several times a day. Many a boy's first act of
chivalry was to take the girl's place under the hoop that kept the cans
apart and carry home the supply of water.
Half a century after the incident that played havoc with the dreams and
visions of which she was the central figure, Anna said to me:
"I was fillin' my cans at th' well. He was standin' there lukin' at me.
"'Wud ye mind,' says he, 'if I helped ye?'
"'Deed no, not at all,' says I. So he filled my cans an' then says he:
'I would give you a nice wee cow if I cud carry thim home fur ye.'
"'It's not home I'm goin',' says I, 'but to an' oul neighbor who can't
carry it herself.'
"'So much th' betther fur me,' says he, an' off he walked between the
cans. At Mary McKinstry's doore that afthernoon we stood till the
shadows began t' fall."
From the accounts rendered, old Mary did not lack for water-carriers for
months after that. One evening Mary made tea for the water-carriers and
after tea she "tossed th' cups" for them.
"Here's two roads, dear," she said to Anna, "an' wan day ye'll haave t'
choose betwixt thim. On wan road there's love an' clane teeth (poverty),
an' on t'other riches an' hell on earth."
"What else do you see on the roads, Mary?" Anna asked.
"Plenty ov childther on th' road t' clane teeth, an' dogs an' cats on
th' road t' good livin'."
"What haave ye fur me, Mary?" Jamie Irvine, Anna's friend, asked. She
took his cup, gave it a shake, looked wise and said: "Begorra, I see a
big cup, me bhoy--it's a cup o' grief I'm thinkin' it is."
"Oul Mary was jist bletherin'," he said, as they walked down the road
in the gloaming, hand in hand.
"A cup of sorrow isn't so bad, Jamie, when there's two to drink it,"
Anna said. He pressed her hand tighter and replied:
"Aye, that's thrue, fur then it's only half a cup."
Jamie was a shoemaker's apprentice. His parents were very poor. The
struggle for existence left time for nothing else. As the children
reached the age of eight or nine they entered the struggle. Jamie began
when he was eight. He had never spent a day at school. His family
considered him fortunate, however, that he could be an apprentice.
The cup that old Mary saw in the tea leaves seemed something more than
"blether" when it was noised abroad that Anna and Jamie were to be
married.
The Gilmores strenuously objected. They objected because they had
another career mapped out for Anna. Jamie was illiterate, too, and she
was well educated. He was a Protestant and she an ardent Catholic.
Illiteracy was common enough and might be overlooked, but a mixed
marriage was unthinkable.
The Irvines, on the other hand, although very poor, could see nothing
but disaster in marriage with a Catholic, even though she was as "pure
and beautiful as the Virgin."
"It's a shame an' a scandal," others said, "that a young fella who can't
read his own name shud marry sich a nice girl wi' sich larnin'."
Jamie made some defense but it wasn't convincing.
"Doesn't the Bible say maan an' wife are wan?" he asked Mrs. Gilmore in
discussing the question with her.
"Aye."
"Well, when Anna an' me are wan won't she haave a thrade an' won't I
haave an education?"
"That's wan way ov lukin' at a vexed question, but you're th' only wan
that luks at it that way!"
"There's two," Anna said. "That's how I see it."
When Jamie became a journeyman shoemaker, the priest was asked to
perform the marriage ceremony. He refused and there was nothing left to
do but get a man who would give love as big a place as religion, and
they were married by the vicar of the parish church.
Not in the memory of man in that community had a wedding created so
little interest in one way and so much in another. They were both
"turncoats," the people said, and they were shunned by both sides. So
they drank their first big draft of the "cup o' grief" on their
wedding-day.
"Sufferin' will be yer portion in this world," Anna's mother told her,
"an' in th' world t' come separation from yer maan."
Anna kissed her mother and said:
"I've made my choice, mother, I've made it before God, and as for
Jamie's welfare in the next world, I'm sure that love like his would
turn either Limbo, Purgatory or Hell into a very nice place to live in!"
A few days after the wedding the young couple went out to the four
cross-roads. Jamie stood his staff on end and said:
"Are ye ready, dear?"
"Aye, I'm ready, but don't tip it in the direction of your preference!"
He was inclined toward Dublin, she toward Belfast. They laughed. Jamie
suddenly took his hand from the staff and it fell, neither toward
Belfast nor Dublin, but toward the town of Antrim, and toward Antrim
they set out on foot. It was a distance of less than ten miles, but it
was the longest journey she ever took--and the shortest, for she had all
the world beside her, and so had Jamie. It was in June, and they had all
the time there was. There was no hurry. They were as care-free as
children and utilized their freedom in full. Between Moira and Antrim
they came to Willie Withero's stone pile. Willie was Antrim's most noted
stone-breaker in those days. He was one of the town's news centers. At
his stone-pile he got the news going and coming. He was a strange
mixture of philosophy and cynicism. He had a rough exterior and spoke in
short, curt, snappish sentences, but behind it all he had a big heart
full of kindly human feeling.
"Anthrim's a purty good place fur pigs an' sich to live in," he told the
travelers. "Ye see, pigs is naither Fenians nor Orangemen. I get along
purty well m'self bekase I sit on both sides ov th' fence at th' same
time."
"How do you do it, Misther Withero?" Anna asked demurely.
"Don't call me 'Misther,'" Willie said; "only quality calls me 'Misther'
an' I don't like it--it doesn't fit an honest stone breaker." The
question was repeated and he said: "I wear a green ribbon on Pathrick's
Day an' an orange cockade on th' Twelfth ov July, an' if th' ax m' why,
I tell thim t' go t' h--l! That's Withero fur ye an' wan ov 'im is
enough fur Anthrim, that's why I niver married, an' that'll save ye the
throuble ov axin' me whither I've got a wife or no!"
"What church d'ye attend, Willie?" Jamie asked.
"Church is it, ye're axin' about? Luk here, me bhoy, step over th'
stile." Willie led the way over into the field.
"Step over here, me girl." Anna followed. A few yards from the hedge
there was an ant-hill.
"See thim ants?"
"Aye."
"Now if Withero thought thim ants hated aych other like th' men ov
Anthrim d'ye know what I'd do?"
"What?"
"I'd pour a kittle ov boilin' wather on thim an' roast th' hides off
ivery mother's son ov thim. Aye, that's what I'd do, shure as gun's
iron!"
"That would be a sure and speedy cure," Anna said, smiling.
"What's this world but an ant-hill?" he asked. "Jist a big ant-hill an'
we're ants begorra an' uncles, but instead ov workin' like these wee
fellas do--help aych other an' shouldther aych other's burdens, an'
build up th' town, an' forage fur fodder, begobs we cut aych other's
throats over th' color ov ribbon or th' kind ov a church we attind! Ugh,
what balderdash!"
The stone-breaker dropped on his knees beside the ant-hill and eyed the
manoeuvering of the ants.
"Luk here!" he said.
They looked in the direction of his pointed finger and observed an ant
dragging a dead fly over the hill.
"Jist watch that wee fella!" They watched. The ant had a big job, but
it pulled and pushed the big awkward carcass over the side of the hill.
A second ant came along, sized up the situation, and took a hand. "Ha,
ha!" he chortled, "that's th' ticket, now kape yez eye on him!"
The ants dragged the fly over the top of the hill and stuffed it down a
hole.
"Now," said Withero, "if a fella in Anthrim wanted a han' th' other
fellah wud say: 'Where d'ye hing yer hat up on Sunday?' or some other
sich fool question!"
"He wud that."
"Now mind ye, I'm not huffed at th' churches, aither Orange or Green, or
th' praychers aither--tho 'pon m' sowl ivery time I luk at wan o' thim I
think ov God as a first class journeyman tailor! But I get more good
switherin' over an ant-hill than whin wan o' thim wee praychers thry t'
make me feel as miserable as th' divil!"
"There's somethin' in that," Jamie said.
"Aye, ye kin bate a pair ov oul boots there is!"
"What will th' ants do wi' th' fly?" Jamie asked.
"Huh!" he grunted with an air of authority, "they'll haave rump steaks
fur tay and fly broth fur breakvist th' morra!"
"Th' don't need praychers down there, do th', Willie?"
"Don't need thim up here!" he said. "They're sign-boards t' point th'
way that iverybody knows as well as th' nose on his face!"
"Good-by," Anna said, as they prepared to leave.
"Good-by, an' God save ye both kindly," were Willie's parting words. He
adjusted the wire protectors to his eyes and the sojourners went on down
the road.
They found a mossy bank and unpacked their dinner.
"Quare, isn't he?" Jamie said.
"He has more sense than any of our people."
"That's no compliment t' Withero, Anna, but I was jist thinkin' about
our case; we've got t' decide somethin' an' we might as well decide it
here as aanywhere."
"About religion, Jamie?"
"Aye."
"I've decided."
"When?"
"At the ant-hill."
"Ye cudn't be Withero?"
"No, dear, Willie sees only half th' world. There's love in it that's
bigger than color of ribbon or creed of church. We've proven that,
Jamie, haven't we?"
"But what haave ye decided?"
"That love is bigger than religion. That two things are sure. One is
love of God. He loves all His children and gets huffed at none. The
other is that the love we have for each other is of the same warp and
woof as His for us, and _love is enough_, Jamie."
"Aye, love is shure enough an' enough's as good as a faste, but what
about childther if th' come, Anna?"
"We don't cross a stile till we come to it, do we?"
"That's right, that's right, acushla; now we're as rich as lords, aren't
we, but I'm th' richest, amn't I? I've got you an' you've only got me."
"I've got book learning, but you've got love and a trade, what more do I
want? You've got more love than any man that ever wooed a woman--so I'm
richer, amn't I?"
"Oh, God," Jamie said, "but isn't this th' lovely world, eh, Anna?"
Within a mile of Antrim they saw a cottage, perched on a high bluff by
the roadside. It was reached by stone steps. They climbed the steps to
ask for a drink of water. They were kindly received. The owner was a
follower of Wesley and his conversation at the well was in sharp
contrast to the philosophy at the stone-pile. The young journeyman and
his wife were profoundly impressed with the place. The stone cottage was
vine-clad. There were beautiful trees and a garden. The June flowers
were in bloom and a cow grazed in the pasture near by.
"Some day we'll haave a home like this," Jamie said as they descended
the steps. Anna named it "The Mount of Temptation," for it was the
nearest she had ever been to the sin of envy. A one-armed Crimean
pensioner named Steele occupied it during my youth. It could be seen
from Pogue's entry and Anna used to point it out and tell the story of
that memorable journey. In days when clouds were heavy and low and the
gaunt wolf stood at the door she would say: "Do you mind the journey to
Antrim, Jamie?"
"Aye," he would say with a sigh, "an' we've been in love ever since,
haven't we, Anna?"