Humours of Irish Life Part 43

"Ah, hold on, Major," said Flurry, soothingly, "it'll be all right. No one knows anything. It's only on spec' the old lady sent the Bobbies here. If you'll keep quiet it'll all blow over."

"I don't care," I said, struggling hopelessly in the toils; "if I meet your grandmother, and she asks me about it, I shall tell her all I know."

"Please G.o.d you'll not meet her! After all, it's not once in a blue moon that she----" began Flurry. Even as he said the words his face changed.

"Holy fly!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "isn't that her dog coming into the field?

Look at her bonnet over the wall! Hide, hide, for your life!" He caught me by the shoulder and shoved me down among the furze bushes before I realised what had happened.

"Get in there! I'll talk to her."

I may as well confess that at the mere sight of Mrs. Knox's purple bonnet my heart had turned to water. In that moment I knew what it would be like to tell her how I, having eaten her salmon, and capped her quotations, and drunk her best port, had gone forth and helped to steal her horse. I abandoned my dignity, my sense of honour; I took the furze p.r.i.c.kles to my breast and wallowed in them.

Mrs. Knox had advanced with vengeful speed; already she was in high altercation with Flurry at no great distance from where I lay; varying sounds of battle reached me, and I gathered that Flurry was not--to put it mildly--shrinking from that economy of truth that the situation required.

"Is it that curby, long-backed brute? You promised him to me long ago, but I wouldn't be bothered with him."

The old lady uttered a laugh of shrill derision. "Is it likely I'd promise you my best colt? And still more, is it likely that you'd refuse him if I did?"

"Very well, ma'am," Flurry's voice was admirably indignant. "Then I suppose I'm a liar and a thief."

"I'd be more obliged to you for the information if I hadn't known it before," responded his grandmother with lightning speed; "if you swore to me on a stack of Bibles you knew nothing about my colt I wouldn't believe you! I shall go straight to Major Yeates and ask his advice. I believe him to be a gentleman, in spite of the company he keeps!"

I writhed deeper into the furze bushes, and thereby discovered a sandy rabbit run, along which I crawled, with my cap well over my eyes, and the furze needles stabbing me through my stockings. The ground shelved a little, promising profounder concealment, but the bushes were very thick, and I had hold of the bare stem of one to help my progress. It lifted out of the ground in my hand, revealing a freshly-cut stump.

Something snorted, not a yard away; I glared through the opening, and was confronted by the long, horrified face of Mrs. Knox's colt, mysteriously on a level with my own.

Even without the white diamond on his forehead I should have divined the truth; but how in the name of wonder had Flurry persuaded him to couch like a woodc.o.c.k in the heart of a furze brake? For a minute I lay as still as death for fear of frightening him, while the voices of Flurry and his grandmother raged on alarmingly close to me. The colt snorted, and blew long breaths through his wide nostrils, but he did not move. I crawled an inch or two nearer, and after a few seconds of cautious peering I grasped the position. They had buried him!

A small sandpit among the furze had been utilised as a grave; they had filled him in up to his withers with sand, and a few furze bushes, artistically disposed round the pit had done the rest. As the depth of Flurry's guile was revealed, laughter came upon me like a flood; I gurgled and shook apoplectically, and the colt gazed at me with serious surprise, until a sudden outburst of barking close to my elbow administered a fresh shock to my tottering nerves.

Mrs. Knox's woolly dog had tracked me into the furze, and was now baying the colt and me with mingled terror and indignation. I addressed him in a whisper, with perfidious endearments, advancing a crafty hand towards him the while, made a s.n.a.t.c.h for the back of his neck, missed it badly, and got him by the ragged fleece of his hind-quarters as he tried to flee. If I had flayed him alive he could hardly have uttered a more deafening series of yells, but, like a fool, instead of letting him go, I dragged him towards me, and tried to stifle the noise by holding his muzzle. The tussle lasted engrossingly for a few seconds, and then the climax of the nightmare arrived.

Mrs. Knox's voice, close behind me, said, "Let go my dog this instant, sir! Who are you----"

Her voice faded away, and I knew that she also had seen the colt's head.

I positively felt sorry for her. At her age there was no knowing what effect the shock might have on her. I scrambled to my feet and confronted her.

"Major Yeates!" she said. There was a deathly pause. "Will you kindly tell me," said Mrs. Knox, slowly, "am I in Bedlam, or are you? And what is that?"

She pointed to the colt, and the unfortunate animal, recognising the voice of his mistress, uttered a hoa.r.s.e and lamentable whinny. Mrs. Knox felt around her for support, found only furze p.r.i.c.kles, gazed speechlessly at me, and then, to her eternal honour, fell into wild cackles of laughter.

So, I may say, did Flurry and I. I embarked on my explanation and broke down. Flurry followed suit and broke down, too. Overwhelming laughter held us all three, disintegrating our very souls. Mrs. Knox pulled herself together first.

"I acquit you, Major Yeates, I acquit you, though appearances are against you. It's clear enough to me you've fallen among thieves." She stopped and glowered at Flurry. Her purple bonnet was over one eye.

"I'll thank you, sir," she said, "to dig out that horse before I leave this place. And when you've dug him out you may keep him. I'll be no receiver of stolen goods!"

She broke off and shook her fist at him. "Upon my conscience, Tony, I'd give a guinea to have thought of it myself!"

The Wee Tea Table.

_From "Irish Pastorals."_

BY SHAN BULLOCK (1865--).

Somewhere near the hill-hedge, with their arms bare, skirts tucked up, and faces peering from the depths of big sunbonnets, Anne Daly and Judy Brady were gathering the hay into long, narrow rows; one raking this side of a row, the other that, and both sweetening toil with laughter and talk. Sometimes Anne leaned on her rake and chattered for a while; now Judy said a word or two and ended with a t.i.tter; again, both bobbed heads and broke into merriment. I came nearer to them, got ready my rake, and began on a fresh row.

The talk was of a woman, of her and her absurdities.

"I've come to help you to laugh, Anne," said I. "What friend is this of yours and Judy's that you're stripping of her character?"

"The la.s.sie," said Anne, "we were talkin' about is a marrit woman--one Hannah Breen be name--an' she lives in a big house on the side of a hill over there towards the mountain. The husband's a farmer--an easy-goin', bull-voiced, good-hearted lump of a man, wi' a good word for ould Satan himself, an' a laugh always ready for iverything. But the wife, Hannah, isn't that kind. Aw, 'deed she isn't. 'Tisn't much good-speakin' or laughin' Hannah'll be doin'; 'tisn't herself'd get many cars to follow her funeral in these parts. Aw, no. 'Tisn't milkin' the cows, an' makin'

the b.u.t.ter, an' washin' John's shirts, an' darnin' his socks, an'

mendin' her own tatters, an' huntin' the chickens from the porridge-pot, Hannah was made for. Aw, no. It's a lady Hannah must be, a real live lady. It's step out o' bed at eight o'clock in the mornin', Hannah must do, an' slither down to her tay an' have it all in grandeur in the parlour; it's sittin' half the day she must be, readin' about the doin's o' the quality, an' the goin's on o' the world, an' squintin' at fashion-pictures, an' fillin' her mind wi' the height o' nonsense an'

foolery; it's rise from the table in a tantrum she must do because John smacks his lips, an' ates his cabbage wi' his knife; it's worry the poor man out o' his mind she'd be after because he lies and snores on the kitchen table, an' smokes up to bed, an' won't shave more'n once a week, an' says he'd rather be hanged at once nor be choked up in a white shirt an' collar o' Sundays. An' for herself--aw, now, it'd take me from this till sunset to tell ye about all her fooleries. If you'd only see her, Mr. John, stalkin' in through the chapel gates, wi' her skirts tucked up high enough to show the frillin' on her white petticoat, an' low enough to hide the big tear in it; an' black kid gloves on her fists; an' a bonnet on her wi'out a string to it; an' light shoes on her; an' a big hole in the heel o' her stockin'; and her nose in the air; an' her sniffin' at us all just as if we were the tenants at the b.u.t.ter-show an'

herself My Lady come to prance before us all an' make herself agreeable for five minutes or so.... Aw, Lord, Lord," laughed Anne, "if ye could only see her, Mr. John."

"An' to see her steppin' down Bunn Street," Anne went on, as we turned at the hedge, and set our faces once more towards the river, "as if the town belonged to her--a ribbon flutterin' here, an' a buckle shinin'

there, an' a feather danglin' another place--steppin' along wi' her b.u.t.ter-basket on her arm, an' big John draggin' at her heels, an' that look on her face you'd expect to see on the face o' the Queen o' France walkin' on a gold carpet, in goold slippers, to a goold throne! An' to see the airs of her when someone'd spake; an' to see the murderin' look on her when someone'd hint at a drop o'whiskey for the good of her health; an' to hear the beautiful talk of her to the b.u.t.ter-buyers--that soft an' po-lite; an' to see her sittin' in the ould ramshackle of a cart goin' home, as straight in the back an' as stiff as a ramrod, an'

her face set like a plaster image, an' her niver lettin' her eye fall on John sittin' beside her, an' him as drunk an' merry as a houseful o'

fiddlers! Aw, sure," cried Anne, flinging up a hand, "aw, sure, it's past the power o' mortial tongue to tell about her."

"Yours, Anne, makes a good attempt at the telling, for all that," said I.

"Ach, I'm only bleatherin'," said Anne. "If ye only knew her--only did."

"Well, tell me all about her," said I, "before your tongue gets tired."

"Ah, sure, an' I will," replied she; "sure, an' I'll try me hand at it."

"One day, then, sometime last summer, Hannah--beggin' her ladyship's pardon," said Anne, a sudden note of scorn rasping in her voice, "but I meant Mrs. Breen--decks herself out, ties on her bonnet, pulls on her kid gloves, an' steps out through the hall door. Down she goes, over the ruts an' the stones, along the lane, turns down the main road; after a while comes to the house o' Mrs. Flaherty--herself that told me--crosses the street, an' knocks po-lite on the door.

"'Aw, is Mrs. Flaherty at home, this fine day?' axes Hannah when the door opens, an' wee Nancy put her tattered head between it an' the post.

'Is Mrs. Flaherty at home?' says she.

"'She is so,' answers Nancy; 'but she'd be out at the well,' says the wee crature.

"'I see,' says Hannah, 'I see. Then, if you please, when she comes back,' says she, 'would you be kindly handin' her that, wi' Mrs. Breen's compliments'--an' out of her pocket Hannah pulls a letter, gives it to Nancy, says good evenin' to the wee mortial, gathers up her skirt, an'

steps off in her grandeur through the hens an' ducks back to the road.

Well, on she goes another piece, an' comes to the house of Mary Dolan; an' there, too, faith, she does the genteel an' leaves another letter an' turns her feet for the house of Mrs. Hogan; an' at Sally's she smiles, an' bobs her head, an' pulls another letter from her pocket, an'

leaves it at the door; then twists on her heel, turns back home an'

begins dustin' the parlours, an' arrangin' her trumpery an' readin'

bleather from the fashion papers.

"Very well, childer. Home Jane comes from the well, an' there's Nancy wi' the letter in her fist. 'What the divil's this?' says Jane, an'

tears it open; an' there, lo an' behold ye, is a bit of a card--Jane swears 'twas a piece of a bandbox, but I'd be disbelievin' her--an' on it an invite to come an' have tay with me bould Hannah, on the next Wednesday evenin' at five o'clock p.m.--whativer in glory p.m. may be after meanin'; when Mary Dolan opens hers, there's the same invite; an'

when Sally Hogan opens hers, out drops the same bit of a card on the floor; an' Sally laughs, an' Mary laughs, an' Jane laughs, an' the three o' them, what wi' the quareness o' the business, an' the curiosity of them to see Hannah at her capers, put their heads together, an' laughs again, an' settles it that sorrow take them, but go they'll go. An' go they did. Aw, yis ... Aw, Lord, Lord," laughed Anne, turning up her eyes. "Lord, Lord!"