Chapter IV: Part 4

It’s often Nora took that counsel to herself, but the fear would never let her put it in practice. She never had right leave for it. Her mother would always be in the house, and no sooner would she be gone than she’d feel wanted. But she had leave now. None of them would be back in the house for another hour of the clock, at the least. She’d have a power of time to change her clothes, and to go off unbeknown to the world. She would meet nobody on the road, for all the people were gathered in the schoolhouse. She would have time to go as far as Ellery to-night and to sleep in the wood. She would rise early on the morrow morning, and she would take the road before anybody would be astir.

She jumped from the stool. There were scissors in the drawer of the dresser. It wasn’t long till she had a hold of them, and snip! snap! She cut off her back hair, and the fringe that was on her brow, and each ringleted tress that was on her, in one attack. She looked at herself in the glass. _A inghean O!_ isn’t it bald and bare she looked. She gathered the curls of hair from the floor, and she hid them in an old box. Over with her then to the place where a clean suit of bawneens belonging to Cuimin was hanging on a nail. Down with her on her knees searching for a shirt of Cuimin’s that was in a lower drawer of the dresser. She threw the clothes on the floor beside the fire.

Here she is now taking off her own share of clothes in a hurry. She threw her dress and her little blouse and her shift into a chest that was under the table. She put Cuimin’s shirt on herself. She stuck her legs into the breeches, and she pulled them up on herself. She minded then that she had neither belt nor gallowses. She’d have to make a belt out of an old piece of cord. She put the jacket on herself. She looked in the glass, and she started. It’s how she thought Cuimin was before her! She looked over her shoulder, but she didn’t see anybody. It’s then she minded that it’s her own self was looking at her, and she laughed. But if she did itself, she was a little scared. If she’d a cap now she’d be ready for the road. Yes, she knew where there was an old cap of Cuimin’s. She got it, and put it on her head. Farewell for ever now to the old life, and a hundred welcomes to the new!

When she was at the door she turned back and she crept over to the cradle. The child was sound asleep. She bent down and she gave a kiss to the baby, a little, little, light kiss in on his forehead. She stole on the tips of her toes to the door, opened it gently, went out on the street, and shut the door quietly after her. Across the street with her, and down the bohereen. It was short till she took the road to herself. She pressed on then towards Turlagh Beg.

It was short till she saw the schoolhouse by the side of the road. There was a fine light burning through the windows. She heard a noise, as if they’d be laughing and clapping hands within. Over across the fence with her, and up the school path. She went round to the back of the house. The windows were high enough, but she raised herself up till she’d a view of what was going on inside. Father Ronan was speaking. He stopped, and O, Lord!--the people began getting up. It was plain that the fun was over, and that they were about to separate to go home. What would she do, if she’d be seen?

She threw a leap from the window. Her foot slipped from her, coming down on the ground, and she got a drop. She very nearly screamed out, but she minded herself in time. Her knee was a little hurt, she thought. The people were out on the school yard by that. She must stay in hiding till they were all gone. She moved into the wall as close as she could. She heard the people talking and laughing, and she knew that they were scattering after one another.

What was that? The voices of people coming towards her; the sound of a footstep on the path beside her! It’s then she minded that there was a short-cut across the back of the house, and that there might be some people going the short-cut. Likely, her own people would be going that way, for it was a little shorter than round by the high road. A little knot came towards her; she recognized by their voices that they were Peatin Johnny’s people. They passed. Another little knot; the Boatman’s family. They drew that close to her that Eamonn trod on her poor, bare, little foot. She almost let a cry out of her the second time, but she didn’t--she only squeezed herself tighter to the wall. Another crowd was coming: O, Great God, her own people! Cuimin was saying, “Wasn’t it wonderful, Marcuseen’s dancing!” Her mother’s dress brushed Nora’s cheek going by: she didn’t draw her breath all that time. A company or two more went past. She listened for a spell. Nobody else was coming. It’s how they were all gone, said she to herself. Out with her from her hiding-place, and she tore across the path. Plimp! She ran against somebody. Two big hands were about her. She heard a man’s voice. She recognized the voice. The priest that was in it.

“Who have I?” says Father Ronan.

She told a lie. What else had she to say?

“Cuimin Col Labhras, Father,” says she.

He laid a hand on each shoulder of her, and looked down on her. She had her head bent.

“I thought you went home with your father and mother,” says he.

“I did, Father, but I lost my cap and I came back looking for it.”

“Isn’t your cap on your head?”

“I found it on the path.”

“Aren’t your father and mother gone the short-cut?”

“They are, Father, but I am going the road so that I’ll be with the other boys.”

“Off with you, then, or the ghosts’ll catch you!” With that Father Ronan let her go from him.

“May God give you good-night, Father,” says she. She didn’t mind to take off her cap, but it’s how she curtseyed to the priest after the manner of girls! If the priest took notice of that much he hadn’t time to say a word, for she was gone in the turning of your hand.

Her two cheeks were red-hot with shame, and she giving face on the road. She was after telling four big lies to the priest! She was afraid that those lies were a terrible sin on her soul. She was afraid going that lonesome road in the darkness of the night, and that burthen on her heart. The night was very black. There was a little brightening on her right hand. The lake of Turlagh Beg that was in it. There rose some bird, a curlew or a snipe, from the brink of the lake, letting mournful cries out of it. Nora started when she heard the bird’s voice, that suddenly, and the drumming of its wings. She hurried on, and her heart beating against her breast. She left Turlagh Beg behind her, and faced the long, straight road that leads to the Crosses of Kilbrickan. It’s with trouble she recognized the shape of the houses on the hill when she reached the Crosses. There was a light in the house of Peadar O Neachtain, and she heard voices from the side of Snamh-Bo. She followed on, drawing on Turlagh. When she reached the Bog Hill the moon came out, and she saw from her the scar of the hills. There came a great cloud across the face of the moon, and it seemed to her that it’s double dark the night was then. Terror seized her, for she minded that Cnoc-a’-Leachta (the Hill of the Grave) wasn’t far off, and that the graveyard would be on her right hand then. It’s often she heard that was an evil place in the middle of the night. She sharpened her pace; she began running. She thought that she was being followed; that there was a bare-footed woman treading almost on her heels; that there was a thin, black man travelling alongside her; that there was a child, and a white shirt on him, going the road before her. She opened her mouth to let a screech out of her, but there didn’t come a sound from her. She was in a cold sweat. Her legs were bending under her. She nearly fell in a heap on the road. She was at Cnoc-a’-Leachta about that time. It seemed to her that Cill Eoin was full of ghosts. She minded the word the priest said “Have a care, or the ghosts’ll catch you.” They were on her! She heard, she thought, the “plub-plab” of naked feet on the road. She turned to her left hand and she gave a leap over the ditch. She went near to being drowned in a deal-hole that was between her and the wood, unbeknown to her. She twisted her foot trying to save herself, and she felt pain. On with her, reeling. She was in the fields of Ellery then. She saw the lamp of the lake through the branches. A tree-root took a stumble out of her, and she fell. She lost her senses.

* * * * *

After a very long time she imagined that the place was filled with a sort of half-light, a light that was between the light of the sun and the light of the moon. She saw, very clearly, the feet of the trees, and them dark against a yellowish-green sky. She never saw a sky of that colour before, and it was beautiful to her. She heard a footstep, and she understood that there was someone coming towards her up from the lake. She knew in some manner that a prodigious miracle was about to be shown her, and that someone was to suffer there some awful passion. She hadn’t long to wait till she saw a young man struggling wearily through the tangle of the wood. He had his head bent, and the appearance of great sorrow on him. Nora recognised him. The Son of Mary that was in it, and she knew that He was journeying all alone to His death.

The Man threw himself on His knees, and He began praying. Nora didn’t hear one word from Him, but she understood in her heart what He was saying. He was asking His Eternal Father to send someone to Him who would side with Him against His enemies, and who would bear half of His burthen. Nora wished to rise and to go to Him, but she couldn’t stir out of the place she was in.

She heard a noise, and the place was filled with armed men. She saw dark, devilish faces and grey swords and edged weapons. The gentle Man was seized outrageously, and His share of clothes torn from Him, and He was scourged with scourges there till His body was in a bloody mass and in an everlasting wound from His head to the soles of His feet. A thorny crown was put then on His gentle head, and a cross was laid on His shoulders, and He went before Him, heavy-footed, pitifully, the sorrowful way of His journey to Calvary. The chain that was tying Nora’s tongue and limbs till that broke, and she cried aloud:

“Let me go with You, Jesus, and carry Your cross for You!”

* * * * *

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up. She saw her father’s face.

“What’s on my little girl, or why did she go from us?” says her father’s voice.

He lifted her in his arms and he brought her home. She lay on her bed till the end of a month after that. She was out of her mind for half of that time, and she thought at times that she was going the road, like a lone, wild-goose, and asking knowledge of the way of people; and she thought at other times that she was lying in under a tree in Ellery, and that she was watching again the passion of that gentle Man, and she trying to help Him, but without power to help him. That wandering went out of her mind at long last, and she understood she was at home again. And when she recognised her mother’s face her heart was filled with consolation, and she asked her to put the child into the bed with her, and when he was put into the bed she kissed him lovingly.

“Oh, mameen,” says she, “I thought I wouldn’t see you or my father or Cuimin or the child ever again. Were ye here all that time?”

“We were, white lamb,” says her mother.

“I’ll stay in the place where ye are,” says she. “Oh, mameen, heart, the roads were very dark.... And I’ll never strike the child again,”--and she gave him another little kiss.

The child put his arm about her neck, and he curled himself up in the bed at his full ease.

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BRIGID OF THE SONGS

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BRIGID OF THE SONGS

Brigid of the Songs was the most famous singer in Rossnageeragh, not only in my time but in my father’s time. It’s said that she could wile the song-thrush from the branch with the sweetness of the music that God gave her; and I would believe it, for it’s often she wiled me and other lads besides from our dinner or our supper. I’d be a rich man to-day if I had a shilling for every time I stopped outside her door, on my way home from school, listening to her share of songs; and my father told me that it’s often and often he did the same thing when he was a lad going to school. It was a tradition among the people that it was from Raftery himself that Brigid learned “_Conntae Mhuigheó_” (The County of Mayo), and isn’t it with the “_Conntae Mhuigheó_” that she drew the big tears out of the eyes of John MacHale one time he was on a visit here, along with our own Bishop, a year exactly before I was born?

A thing that’s no wonder, when we heard that there was to be a Feis in Moykeeran, we all settled in our minds that it’s Brigid would have the prize for the singing, if she’d enter for it. There was no other person, neither men-singers nor women-singers, half as good as she was in the seven parishes. She couldn’t be beaten, if right was to be done. She would put wonderment on the people of Moykeeran and on the grand folk would be in it out of Galway and out of Tuam. She would earn name and fame for Rossnageeragh. She would win the prize easy, and she would be sent to Dublin to sing a song at the Oireachtas. There was a sort of hesitation on Brigid at first. She was too old, she said. Her voice wasn’t as good as it used be. She hadn’t her wind. A share of her songs were going out of her memory. She didn’t want a prize. Didn’t the men of Ireland know that she was the best singer in Iar-Connacht? Didn’t Raftery praise her, didn’t Colm Wallace make a song in her honour, didn’t she draw tears out of the eyes of John MacHale? Brigid said that much and seven times more; but it was plain, at the same time, that there was a wish on her to go to the Feis, and we all knew that she would go. To make a short story of it, we were at her until we took a promise out of her that she would go.

She went. It’s well I remember the day of the Feis. The world of Ireland was there, you’d think. The house was overflowing with poor people and with rich people, with noble folk and with lowly folk, with strong, active youths, and with withered, done old people. There were priests and friars there from every art. There were doctors and lawyers there from Tuam and from Galway and from Uachtar Ard. There were newspaper people there from Dublin. There was a lord’s son there from England. The full of people went up, singing songs. Brigid went up. We were at the back of the house, listening to her. She began. There was a little bashfulness on her at the start, and her voice was too low. But she came to herself in time, according as she was stirring out into the song, and she took tears out of the eyes of the gathering with the last verse. There was great cheering when she had finished, and she coming down. _We_ put a shout out of us you’d think would crack the roof of the house. A young girl went up. Her voice was a long way better than Brigid’s, but, we thought, there was not the same sadness nor sweetness in the song as there was in Brigid’s. She came down. The people cheered again, but I didn’t notice that anybody was crying. One of the judges got up. He praised Brigid greatly. He praised the young girl greatly, too. He was very tedious.

“Who won the prize?” says one of us at last, when our share of patience was exhausted.

“Oh, the prize!” says he. “Well, in regard to the prize, we are giving it to Nora Cassidy (the young girl), but we are considering the award of a special prize to Brígid ní Mhainín (our Brigid). Nora Cassidy will be sent to Dublin to sing a song at the Oireachtas.”

The Moykeeran people applauded, for it was out of Moykeeran that Nora Cassidy was. We didn’t say anything. We looked over at Brigid. Her face was grey-white, and she trembling in every limb.

“What did you say, sir, please?” says she in a strange voice. “Is it I that have the prize?”

“We are considering the award of a special prize to you, my good woman, as you shaped so excellently--you did that,--but it’s to Nora Cassidy that the Feis prize is given.”

Brigid didn’t speak a word; but it’s how she rose up, and without looking either to the right hand or to the left, she went out the door. She took the road to Rossnageeragh, and she was before us when we reached the village late in the night.

* * * * *

The Oireachtas was to be in Dublin the week after. We were a sad crowd, remembering that Brigid of the Songs wouldn’t be there. We were full sure that fair play wasn’t done her in Moykeeran, and we thought that if she’d go to Dublin she’d get satisfaction. But alas! we had no money to send her there, and if we had itself we knew that she wouldn’t take it from us. We were arguing the question one evening at the gable of the Boatman’s house, when who should come up but little Martin Connolly, at a full run, and he said to us that Brigid of the Songs was gone, the lock on the door, and no tale or tidings to be got of her.

We didn’t know what happened her until a fortnight’s time after that. Here’s how it fell out. When she heard that the Oireachtas was to be in Dublin on such a day, she said to herself that she would be there if she lived. She didn’t let on to anyone, but went off with herself in the night-time, walking. She had only a florin piece in her pocket. She didn’t know where Dublin was, nor how far it was away. She followed her nose, it’s like, asking the road of the people she met, tramping always, until she’d left behind her Cashlagh, and Spiddal, and Galway, and Oranmore, and Athenry, and Kilconnell, and Ballinasloe, and Athlone, and Mullingar, and Maynooth, until at last she saw from her the houses of Dublin. It’s like that her share of money was spent long before that, and nobody will ever know how the creature lived on that long, lonesome journey. But one evening when the Oireachtas was in full swing in the big hall in Dublin, a countrywoman was seen coming in the door, her feet cut and bleeding with the hard stones of the road, her share of clothes speckled with dust and dirt, and she weary, worn-out and exhausted.

She sat down. People were singing in the old style. Brígid ní Mhainín from Rossnageeragh was called on (for we had entered her name in hopes that we’d be able to send her). The old woman rose, went up, and started “_Conntae Mhuigheó_.”

When she finished the house was in one ree-raw with shouts, it was that fine. She was told to sing another song. She began on the “_Sail Og Ruadh_” (The Red Willow). She had only the first line of the second verse said when there came some wandering in her head. She stopped and she began again. The wandering came on her a second time, then a trembling, and she fell in a faint on the stage. She was carried out of the hall. A doctor came to examine her.

“She is dying from the hunger and the hardship,” says he.

While that was going on, great shouts were heard inside the hall. One of the judges came out in a hurry.

“You have won the first prize!” says he. “You did”--. He stopped suddenly.

A priest was on his knees bending over Brigid. He raised his hand and he gave the absolution.

“She has won a greater reward than the first prize,” says he.

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THE THIEF

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THE THIEF

One day when the boys of Gortmore were let out from school, after the Glencaha boys and the Derrybanniv boys had gone east, the Turlagh boys and the Inver boys stayed to have a while’s chat before separating at the Rossnageeragh road. The master’s house is exactly at the head of the road, its back to the hill and its face to Loch Ellery.

“I heard that the master’s bees were swarming,” says Michileen Bartly Enda.

“In with you into the garden till we look at them,” says Daragh Barbara of the Bridge.

“I’m afraid,” says Michileen.

“What are you afraid of?” says Daragh.

“By my word, the master and the mistress will be out presently.”

“Who’ll stay to give us word when the master will be coming?” says Daragh.

“I will,” says little Anthony Manning.

“That’ll do,” says Daragh. “Let a whistle when you see him leaving the school.”

In over the fence with him. In over the fence with the other boys after him.

“Have a care that none of you will get a sting,” says Anthony.

“Little fear,” says Daragh. And off forever with them.

Anthony sat on the fence, and his back to the road. He could see the master over his right shoulder if he’d leave the schoolhouse. What a nice garden the master had, thought Anthony. He had rose-trees and gooseberry-trees and apple-trees. He had little white stones round the path. He had big white stones in a pretty rockery, and moss and maiden-hair fern and common fern growing between them. He had....

Anthony saw a wonder greater than any wonder the master had in the garden. He saw a little, beautiful wee house under the shade of one of the rose-trees; it made of wood; two storys in it; white colour on the lower story and red colour on the upper story; a little green door on it; three windows of glass on it, one downstairs and two upstairs; house furniture in it, between tables and chairs and beds and delf, and the rest; and, says Anthony to himself, look at the lady of the house sitting in the door!

Anthony never saw a doll’s house before, and it was a wonder to him, its neatness and order, for a toy. He knew that it belonged to the master’s little girl, little Nance. A pity that his own little sister hadn’t one like it--Eibhlin, the creature, that was stretched on her bed for a long three months, and she weak and sick! A pity she hadn’t the doll itself! Anthony put the covetousness of his heart in that doll for Eibhlin. He looked over his right shoulder--neither master nor mistress was to be seen. He looked over his left shoulder--the other boys were out of sight. He didn’t think the second thought. He gave his best leap from the fence; he seized the doll; he stuck it under his jacket; he clambered out over the ditch again, and away with him home.

“I have a present for you,” says he to Eibhlin, when he reached the house. “Look!” and with that he showed her the doll.

There came a blush on the wasted cheeks of the little sick girl, and a light into her eyes.

“_Ora_, Anthony, love, where did you get it?” says she.

“The master’s little Nance, that sent it to you for a present,” says Anthony.

Their mother came in.

“Oh, mameen, treasure,” says Eibhlin, “look at the present that the master’s little Nance sent me!”

“In earnest?” says the mother.

“Surely,” says Eibhlin. “Anthony, it was, that brought it in to me now.”

Anthony looked down at his feet, and began counting the toes that were on them.

“My own pet,” says the mother, “isn’t it she that was good to you! _Muise_, Nance! I’ll go bail that that present will put great improvement on my little girl.”

And there came tears in the mother’s eyes out of gratitude to little Nance because she remembered the sick child. Though he wasn’t able to look his mother between the eyes, or at Eibhlin, with the dint of fear, Anthony was glad that he committed the theft.

He was afraid to say his prayers that night, and he lay down on his bed without as much as an “Our Father.” He couldn’t say the Act of Contrition, for it wasn’t truthfully he’d be able to say to God that he was sorry for that sin. It’s often he started in the night, imagining that little Nance was coming seeking the doll from Eibhlin, that the master was taxing him with the robbery before the school, that there was a miraculous swarm of bees rising against him, and Daragh Barbara of the Bridge and the other boys exciting them with shouts and with the music of drums. But the next morning he said to himself: “I don’t care. The doll will make Eibhlin better.”

When he went to school the boys asked him why he went off unawares the evening before that, and he after promising them he’d keep watch.

“My mother sent for me,” says Anthony. “She’d a task for me.”

When little Nance came into the school, Anthony looked at her under his brows. He fancied that she was after being crying; he thought that he saw the track of the tears on her cheeks. The first time the master called him by his name he jumped, because he thought that he was going to tax him with the fault or to cross-question him about the doll. He never put in as miserable a day as that day at school. But when he went home and saw the great improvement on Eibhlin, and she sitting up in the bed for the first time for a month, and the doll clasped in her arms, says he to himself: “I don’t care. The doll is making Eibhlin better.”

In his bed in the night-time he had bad dreams again. He thought that the master was after telling the police that he stole the doll, and that they were on his track; he imagined one time that there was a policeman hiding under the bed and that there was another hunkering behind the window-curtain. He screamed out in his sleep.

“What’s on you?” says his father to him.

“The peeler that’s going to take me,” says Anthony.

“You’re only rambling, boy,” says his father to him. “There’s no peeler in it. Go to sleep.”

There was the misery of the world on the poor fellow from that out. He used think they would be pointing fingers at him, and he going the road. He used think they would be shaking their heads and saying to each other, “There’s a thief,” or, “Did you hear what Anthony Pharaig Manning did? Her doll he stole from the master’s little Nance. Now what do you say?” But he didn’t suffer rightly till he went to Mass on Sunday and till Father Ronan started preaching a sermon on the Seventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not steal; and if you commit a theft it will not be forgiven you until you make restitution.” Anthony was full sure that it was a mortal sin. He knew that he ought to go to confession and tell the sin to the priest. But he couldn’t go to confession, for he knew that the priest would say to him that he must give the doll back. And he wouldn’t give the doll back. He hardened his heart and he said that he’d never give the doll back, for that the doll was making Eibhlin better every day.

One evening he was sitting by the bed-foot in serious talk with Eibhlin when his mother ran in in a hurry, and says she--

“Here’s the mistress and little Nance coming up the bohereen!”

Anthony wished the earth would open and swallow him. His face was red up to his two ears. He was in a sweat. He wasn’t able to say a word or to think a thought. But these words were running through his head: “They’ll take the doll from Eibhlin.” It was all the same to him what they’d say or what they’d do to himself. The only answer he’d have would be, “The doll’s making Eibhlin better.”

The mistress and little Nance came into the room. Anthony got up. He couldn’t look them in the face. He began at his old clatter, counting the toes of his feet. Five on each foot; four toes and a big toe; or three toes, a big toe, and a little toe; that’s five; twice five are ten; ten in all. He couldn’t add to their number or take from them. His mother was talking, the mistress was talking, but Anthony paid no heed to them. He was waiting till something would be said about the doll. There was nothing for him to do till that but count his toes. One, two, three....

What was that? Eibhlin was referring to the doll. Anthony listened now.

“Wasn’t it good of you to send me the doll?” she was saying to Nance. “From the day Anthony brought it in to me a change began coming on me.”

“It did that,” says her mother. “We’ll be forever grateful to you for that same doll you sent to her. May God increase your store, and may He requite you for it a thousand times.”

Neither Nance nor the mistress spoke. Anthony looked at Nance shyly. His two eyes were stuck in the doll, for the doll was lying cosy in the bed beside Eibhlin. It had its mouth half open, and the wonder of the world on it at the sayings of Eibhlin and her mother.

“It’s with trouble I believed Anthony when he brought it into me,” says Eibhlin, “and when he told me you sent it to me as a present.”

Nance looked over at Anthony. Anthony lifted his head slowly, and their eyes met. It will never be known what Nance read in Anthony’s eyes. What Anthony read in Nance’s eyes was mercy, love and sweetness. Nance spoke to Eibhlin.

“Do you like it?” says she.

“Over anything,” says Eibhlin. “I’d rather it than anything I have in the world.”

“I have the little house it lives in,” says. Nance. “I must send it to you. Anthony will bring it to you to-morrow.”

“_Ora!_” says Eibhlin, and she clapping her two little thin palms together.

“You’ll miss it, love,” says Eibhlin’s mother to Nance.

“No,” said Nance. “It will put more improvement on Eibhlin. I have lots of things.”

“Let her do it, Cait,” said the mistress to the mother.

“Ye are too good,” says the poor woman.

Anthony thought that it’s dreaming he was. Or he thought that it’s not a person of this world little Nance was at all, but an angel come down out of heaven. He wanted to go on his knees to her.

When the mistress and little Nance went off, Anthony ran out the back door and tore across the garden, so that he’d be before them at the bohereen-foot, and they going out on the road.

“Nance,” says he, “I s-stole it,--the d-doll.”

“Never mind, Anthony,” says Nance, “you did good to Eibhlin.”

Anthony stood like a stake in the road, and he couldn’t speak another word.

Isn’t it he was proud bringing the doll’s house home to Eibhlin after school the next day! And isn’t it they had the fun that evening settling the house and polishing the furniture and putting the doll to sleep on its little bed!

The Saturday following Anthony went to confession, and told his sin to the priest. The penance the priest put on him was to clean the doll’s house once in the week for Eibhlin, till she would be strong enough to clean it herself. Eibhlin was strong enough for it by the end of a month. By the end of another month she was at school again.

There wasn’t a Saturday evening from that out that they wouldn’t hear a little, light tapping at the master’s door. On the mistress going out Anthony would be standing at the door.

“Here’s a little present for Nance,” he’d say, stretching towards her half-a-dozen duck’s eggs, or a bunch of heather, or, at the least, the full of his fist of _duileasg_, and then he’d brush off with him without giving the mistress time to say “thank you.”

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THE KEENING WOMAN

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THE KEENING WOMAN

I

“Coilin,” says my father to me one morning after the breakfast, and I putting my books together to be stirring to school--“Coilin,” says he, “I have a task for you to-day. Sean will tell the master it was myself kept you at home to-day, or it’s the way he’ll be thinking you’re miching, like you were last week. Let you not forget now, Sean.”

“I will not, father,” says Sean, and a lip on him. He wasn’t too thankful it to be said that it’s not for him my father had the task. This son was well satisfied, for my lessons were always a trouble to me, and the master promised me a beating the day before unless I’d have them at the tip of my mouth the next day.

“What you’ll do, Coilin,” says my father when Sean was gone off, “is to bring the ass and the little car with you to Screeb, and draw home a load of sedge. Michileen Maire is cutting it for me. We’ll be starting, with God’s help, to put the new roof on the house after to-morrow, if the weather stands.”

“Michileen took the ass and car with him this morning,” says I.

“You’ll have to leg it, then, _a mhic O_,” says my father. “As soon as Michileen has an ass-load cut, fetch it home with you on the car, and let Michileen tear till he’s black. We might draw the other share to-morrow.”

It wasn’t long till I was knocking steps out of the road. I gave my back to Kilbrickan and my face to Turlagh. I left Turlagh behind me, and I made for Gortmore. I stood a spell looking at an oared boat that was on Loch Ellery, and another spell playing with some Inver boys that were late going to Gortmore school. I left them at the school gate, and I reached Glencaha. I stood, for the third time, watching a big eagle that was sunning himself on Carrigacapple. East with me, then, till I was in Derrybanniv, and the hour and a half wasn’t spent when I cleared Glashaduff bridge.

There was a house that time a couple of hundred yards east from the bridge, near the road, on your right-hand side and you drawing towards Screeb. It was often before that that I saw an old woman standing in the door of that house, but I had no acquaintance on her, nor did she ever put talk or topic on me. A tall, thin woman she was, her head as white as the snow, and two dark eyes, as they would be two burning sods, flaming in her head. She was a woman that would scare me if I met her in a lonely place in the night. Times she would be knitting or carding, and she crooning low to herself; but the thing she would be mostly doing when I travelled, would be standing in the door, and looking from her up and down the road, exactly as she’d be waiting for someone that would be away from her, and she expecting him home.

She was standing there that morning as usual, her hand to her eyes, and she staring up the road. When she saw me going past, she nodded her head to me. I went over to her.

“Do you see a person at all coming up the road?” says she.

“I don’t,” says I.

“I thought I saw someone. It can’t be that I’m astray. See, isn’t that a young man making up on us?” says she.

“Devil a one do I see,” says I. “There’s not a person at all between the spot we’re on and the turning of the road.”

“I was astray, then,” says she. “My sight isn’t as good as it was. I thought I saw him coming. I don’t know what’s keeping him.”

“Who’s away from you?” says myself.

“My son that’s away from me,” says she.

“Is he long away?”

“This morning he went to Uachtar Ard.”

“But, sure, he couldn’t be here for a while,” says I. “You’d think he’d barely be in Uachtar Ard by now, and he doing his best, unless it was by the morning train he went from the Burnt House.”

“What’s this I’m saying?” says she. “It’s not to-day he went, but yesterday,--or the day ere yesterday, maybe.... I’m losing my wits.”

“If it’s on the train he’s coming,” says I, “he’ll not be here for a couple of hours yet.”

“On the train?” says she. “What train?”

“The train that does be at the Burnt House at noon.”

“He didn’t say a word about a train,” says she. “There was no train coming as far as the Burnt House yesterday.”

“Isn’t there a train coming to the Burnt House these years?” says I, wondering greatly. She didn’t give me any answer, however. She was staring up the road again. There came a sort of dread on me of her, and I was about gathering off.

“If you see him on the road,” says she, “tell him to make hurry.”

“I’ve no acquaintance on him,” says I.

“You’d know him easy. He’s the play-boy of the people. A young, active lad, and he well set-up. He has a white head on him, like is on yourself, and grey eyes ... like his father had. Bawneens he’s wearing.”

“If I see him,” says I, “I’ll tell him you’re waiting for him.”

“Do, son,” says she.

With that I stirred on with me east, and left her standing in the door.

* * * * *

She was there still, and I coming home a couple of hours after that, and the load of sedge on the car.

“He didn’t come yet?” says I to her.

“No, _a mhuirnín_. You didn’t see him?”

“No.”

“No? What can have happened him?”

There were signs of rain on the day.

“Come in till the shower’s over,” says she. “It’s seldom I do have company.”

I left the ass and the little car on the road, and I went into the house.

“Sit and drink a cup of milk,” says she.

I sat on the bench in the corner, and she gave me a drink of milk and a morsel of bread. I was looking all round the house, and I eating and drinking. There was a chair beside the fire, and a white shirt and a suit of clothes laid on it.

“I have these ready against he will come,” says she. “I washed the bawneens yesterday after his departing,--no, the day ere yesterday--I don’t know right which day I washed them; but, anyhow, they’ll be clean and dry before him when he does come.... What’s your own name?” says she, suddenly, after a spell of silence.

I told her.

“_Muise_, my love you are!” says she. “The very name that was--that is--on my own son. Whose are you?”

I told her.

“And do you say you’re a son of Sean Feichin’s?” says she. “Your father was in the public-house in Uachtar Ard that night....” She stopped suddenly with that, and there came some change on her. She put her hand to her head. You’d think that it’s madness was struck on her. She sat before the fire then, and she stayed for a while dreaming into the heart of the fire. It was short till she began moving herself to and fro over the fire, and crooning or keening in a low voice. I didn’t understand the words right, or it would be better for me to say that it’s not on the words I was thinking but on the music. It seemed to me that there was the loneliness of the hills in the dead time of night, or the loneliness of the grave when nothing stirs in it but worms, in that music. Here are the words as I heard them from my father after that:--

Sorrow on death, it is it that blackened my heart,
That carried off my love and that left me ruined,
Without friend, without companion under the roof of my house
But this sorrow in my middle, and I lamenting.

Going the mountain one evening,
The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,
The melodious snipe and the voiceful curlew,
Telling me that my treasure was dead.

I called on you, and your voice I did not hear,
I called again, and an answer I did not get.
I kissed your mouth, and O God, wasn’t it cold!
Och, it’s cold your bed is in the lonely graveyard.

And O sod-green grave, where my child is,
O narrow, little grave, since you are his bed,
My blessing on you, and the thousand blessings
On the green sods that are over my pet.

Sorrow on death, its blessing is not possible--
It lays fresh and withered together;
And, O pleasant little son, it is it is my affliction,
Your sweet body to be making clay!

When she had that finished, she kept on moving herself to and fro, and lamenting in a low voice. It was a lonesome place to be, in that backward house, and you to have no company but yon solitary old woman, mourning to herself by the fireside. There came a dread and a creeping on me, and I rose to my feet.

“It’s time for me to be going home,” says I. “The evening’s clearing.”

“Come here,” says she to me.

I went hither to her. She laid her two hands softly on my head, and she kissed my forehead.

“The protection of God to you, little son,” says she. “May He let the harm of the year over you, and may He increase the good fortune and happiness of the year to you and to your family.”

With that she freed me from her. I left the house, and pushed on home with me.

* * * * *

“Where were you, Coilin, when the shower caught you?” says my mother to me that night. “It didn’t do you any hurt.”

“I waited in the house of yon old woman on the east side of Glashaduff bridge,” says I. “She was talking to me about her son. He’s in Uachtar Ard these two days, and she doesn’t know why he hasn’t come home ere this.”

My father looked over at my mother.

“The Keening Woman,” says he.

“Who is she?” says I.

“The Keening Woman,” says my father. “Muirne of the Keens.”

“Why was that name given to her?” says I.

“For the keens she does be making,” answered my father. “She’s the most famous keening-woman in Connemara or in the Joyce Country. She’s always sent for when anyone dies. She keened my father, and there’s a chance but she’ll keen myself. But, may God comfort her, it’s her own dead she does be keening always, it’s all the same what corpse is in the house.”

“And what’s her son doing in Uachtar Ard?” says I.

“Her son died twenty years since, Coilin,” says my mother.

“He didn’t die at all,” says my father, and a very black look on him. “_He was murdered._”

“Who murdered him?”

It’s seldom I saw my father angry, but it’s awful his anger was when it would rise up in him. He took a start out of me when he spoke again, he was that angry.

“Who murdered your own grandfather? Who drew the red blood out of my grandmother’s shoulders with a lash? Who would do it but the English? My curse on--”

My mother rose, and she put her hand on his mouth.

“Don’t give your curse to anyone, Sean,” says she. My mother was that kind-hearted, she wouldn’t like to throw the bad word at the devil himself. I believe she’d have pity in her heart for Cain and for Judas, and for Diarmaid of the Galls. “It’s time for us to be saying the Rosary,” says she. “Your father will tell you about Coilin Muirne some other night.”

“Father,” says I, and we going on our knees, “we should say a prayer for Coilin’s soul this night.”

“We’ll do that, son,” says my father kindly.

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II

Sitting up one night, in the winter that was on us, my father told us the story of Muirne from start to finish. It’s well I mind him in the firelight, a broad-shouldered man, a little stooped, his share of hair going grey, lines in his forehead, a sad look in his eyes. He was mending an old sail that night, and I was on my knees beside him in the name of helping him. My mother and my sisters were spinning frieze. Seaneen was stretched on his face on the floor, and he in grips of a book. ’Twas small the heed he gave to the same book, for it’s the pastime he had, to be tickling the soles of my feet and taking an odd pinch out of my calves; but as my father stirred out in the story Sean gave over his trickery, and it is short till he was listening as interested as anyone. It would be hard not to listen to my father when he’d tell a story like that by the hearthside. He was a sweet storyteller. It’s often I’d think there was music in his voice; a low, deep music like that in the bass of the organ in Tuam Cathedral.

Twenty years are gone, Coilin (says my father), since the night myself and Coilin Muirne (may God give him grace) and three or four others of the neighbours were in Neachtan’s public-house in Uachtar Ard. There was a fair in the town the same day, and we were drinking a glass before taking the road home on ourselves. There were four or five men in it from Carrowroe and from the Joyce Country, and six or seven of the people of the town. There came a stranger in, a thin, black man that nobody knew. He called for a glass.

“Did ye hear, people,” says he to us, and he drinking with us, “that the lord is to come home to-night?”

“What business has the devil here?” says someone.

“Bad work he’s up to, as usual,” says the black man. “He has settled to put seven families out of their holdings.”

“Who’s to be put out?” says one of us.

“Old Thomas O’Drinan from the Glen,--I’m told the poor fellow’s dying, but it’s on the roadside he’ll die, if God hasn’t him already; a man of the O’Conaire’s that lives in a cabin on this side of Loch Shindilla; Manning from Snamh Bo; two in Annaghmaan; a woman at the head of the Island; and Anthony O’Greelis from Lower Camus.”

“Anthony’s wife is heavy in child,” says Cuimin O’Niadh.

“That won’t save her, the creature,” says the black man. “She’s not the first woman out of this country that bore her child in a ditch-side of the road.”

There wasn’t a word out of anyone of us.

“What sort of men are ye?” says the black man,--“ye are not men, at all. I was born and raised in a countryside, and, my word to you, the men of that place wouldn’t let the whole English army together throw out seven families on the road without them knowing the reason why. Are ye afraid of the man that’s coming here to-night?”

“It’s easy to talk,” said Cuimin, “but what way can we stop the bodach?”

“Murder him this night,” says a voice behind me. Everybody started. I myself turned round. It was Coilin Muirne that spoke. His two eyes were blazing in his head, a flame in his cheeks, and his head thrown high.

“A man that spoke that, whatever his name and surname,” says the stranger. He went hither and gripped Coilin’s hand. “Drink a glass with me,” says he.

Coilin drank the glass. The others wouldn’t speak.

“It’s time for us to be shortening the road,” says Cuimin, after a little spell.

We got a move on us. We took the road home. The night was dark. There was no wish for talk on any of us, at all. When we came to the head of the street Cuimin stood in the middle of the road.

“Where’s Coilin Muirne?” says he.

We didn’t feel him from us till Cuimin spoke. He wasn’t in the company.

Myself went back to the public-house. Coilin wasn’t in it. I questioned the pot-boy. He said that Coilin and the black man left the shop together five minutes after our going. I searched the town. There wasn’t tale or tidings of Coilin anywhere. I left the town and I followed the other men. I hoped it might be that he’d be to find before me. He wasn’t, nor the track of him.

It was very far in the night when we reached Glashaduff bridge. There was a light in Muirne’s house. Muirne herself was standing in the door.

“God save you, men,” says she, coming over to us. “Is Coilin with you?”

“He isn’t, _muise_,” says I. “He stayed behind us in Uachtar Ard.”

“Did he sell?” says she.

“He did, and well,” says I. “There’s every chance that he’ll stay in the town till morning. The night’s black and cold in itself. Wouldn’t it be as well for you to go in and lie down?”

“It’s not worth my while,” says she. “I’ll wait up till he comes. May God hasten you.”

We departed. There was, as it would be, a load on my heart. I was afraid that there was something after happening to Coilin. I had ill notions of that black man.... I lay down on my bed after coming home, but I didn’t sleep.

The next morning myself and your mother were eating breakfast, when the latch was lifted from the door, and in comes Cuimin O’Niadh. He could hardly draw his breath.

“What’s the news with you, man?” says I.

“Bad news,” says he. “The lord was murdered last night. He was got on the road a mile to the east of Uachtar Ard, and a bullet through his heart. The soldiers were in Muirne’s house this morning on the track of Coilin, but he wasn’t there. He hasn’t come home yet. It’s said it was he murdered the lord. You mind the words he said last night?”

I leaped up, and out the door with me. Down the road, and east to Muirne’s house. There was no one before me but herself. The furniture of the house was this way and that way, where the soldiers were searching. Muirne got up when she saw me in the door.

“Sean O’Conaire,” says she, “for God’s pitiful sake, tell me where’s my son? You were along with him. Why isn’t he coming home to me?”