North, South and over the Sea Part 33

"What would ye do, then?" interrupted his energetic little wife fiercely. "Stop at home, perishin' wid the cold an' hunger, an' the rain droppin' down on us while we're atin' our bit o' dinner; me that bad wid the rheumatiz I can hardly move hand or fut, an' yourself taken wid them wakenesses so that it's all ye can do to lift the potaties."

"Dear knows, it's himself that ought to leppin' mad wid j'y," cried one of the neighbours. "To get such a chance! Isn't it in the greatest good luck ye are, Dan, to be goin' off to that beautiful place, where ye'll be livin' in the heighth o' comfort an' need never do another hand's turn for yourselves? Troth, I wish it was me that had the offer of it."

Many murmurs of approval greeted this sally; every one being convinced that Dan was indeed in luck's way, while his wife wrathfully opined that he didn't know when he was well off.

Poor old Dan hastened to a.s.sure them that he was "over-j'yed."

"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," a.s.serted 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' sc.r.a.pin' 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 s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.body to pa.s.s 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 ingrat.i.tude, she proceeded to crawl over to the hearth to prepare breakfast.

"Woman alive!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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' n.o.body 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. "G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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."