North, South and over the Sea Part 36

"Well, there ye have the story now, alanna, an' here's herself comin'

down the hill an' Mike afther her."

But Roseen was too much excited to heed the last announcement. "Was it this way, the way the rich man was groanin'?" she asked, once more imitating Pat's extraordinary utterances. The old man nodded, and Roseen stood still meditatively scratching one little brown leg with the curved-in toes of the other. "I wisht," she observed presently, in a pensive tone, "that a Gout 'ud get into me gran'father's big toe; it 'ud sarve him right!"

Pat was rubbing his hands and chuckling to himself over this remark when his wife entered, hot and weary after her peregrinations over the ruins.

"Sixpence is all they're afther givin' me," she observed plaintively.

"Dear knows, it's hard set we are to live these times at all."

"Is it sixpence, woman alive!" cried Pat; "I wonder they had the face to offer it to ye. Well, well, I was looking for a shillin' now, or maybe two. Here, cut the child a bit o' griddle cake; she's been keepin' me company this long while, haven't ye, Roseen? An' it's starvin' she is out-an'-out."

"Come here, alanna," said Mrs. Clancy, taking down the flat loaf from the shelf in the corner; "wait till I put a pinch o' sugar on it. I'm sorry I haven't b.u.t.ther for ye, but there isn't a bit in the house at all. There now."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Roseen, extending an eager hand.

"Ye're welcome, darlint. Here, Mike, ye'd like a bit too, wouldn't ye?"

"Aye," said Mike, drawing near likewise.

He was a st.u.r.dy little fellow of about eleven, with an open sunburnt face, hair bleached almost lint-white by the sun, and twinkling blue eyes like his father's. The mother pa.s.sed her thin knotted hand lovingly over his tangled head and smilingly bade him "be off out o'

that with Roseen."

The two little figures darted out in the sunlight, and soon were to be seen bounding like deer up the steep golden-green slope that led to the "Rock."

"What do ye think the little one there is afther sayin' to me?" asked Pat, shading his eyes with his hand as he peered after them. "'I wisht,' says she, 'a Gout 'ud get into me gran'father's fut,' says she; 'it 'ud sarve him right,' she says. I was afther tellin' her the 'Story of the Spider an' the Gout,' ye know."

"Did she now?" cried Mrs. Clancy, sinking down on the stool which Roseen had vacated and clapping her hands together. "Well now, that bates all! But she's the 'cutest little thing--I never seen her aiqual."

"'I wisht,' quoted Dan meditatively, 'a Gout 'ud get into me gran'father's big toe an' stay there,' says she. Ha, ha; bedad I wisht it would too, the ould naygur."

Meanwhile the children pattered up the hill and spoke no word until they reached the summit. Sitting down under the great portcullis, they munched their bread and sugar amicably together, Mike's eyes pensively gazing in front of him the while, and Roseen's roving hither and thither with quick, eager glances. Suddenly she tilted her head backward, gazing at a narrow horizontal slit in the masonry high over their heads. "That's where they used to throw the bilin' lead down in ould ancient times when anybody wanted to come fightin' them."

Mike gazed upwards likewise, still slowly munching, but said nothing.

"When you an' me grows up an' gets married to each other, the way we always said we would," pursued Roseen, "this 'ud be a gran' place to live."

Mike's face brightened, and he nodded enthusiastically. "It would so,"

he agreed.

"There's lots o' beau'ful rooms that we could live in," resumed Roseen, "an' we'd make a fire in that great big enormous stone hearth beyant, an' we'd ate off o' that big stone table, an' when anybody 'ud offer to come annoyin' us, we'd just melt a bit o' lead an' throw it down on them."

Mike looked astonished and perturbed. "Sure it 'ud burn the flesh off o' their bones. I wouldn't like to be doin' that, Roseen."

"If they was rale bad people," said Roseen persuasively; "rale wicked, crule people, the same as me gran'father beyant, it 'ud sarve them right,--or we might throw down a sup of bilin' wather," she added as a concession.

Mike appeared unconvinced.

"I don't think ye have a right to be talkin' that way of your gran'father," he said reprovingly; "an' he isn't that bad. He never offered to lay a finger on me as long as I am in it, barring the time I let the sheep into the hay-field."

"He's a crule ould villain!" returned Roseen conclusively. "Look at all he done on me mother. Come on now," with a sudden change of tone, "whistle a tune an' we'll have a dance."

Mike looked lovingly at the last fragments of his griddle cake, the enjoyment of which he had been anxious to prolong as much as possible, and then after a little sigh, crammed them into his mouth and led the way to the giant's wrestling ground.

"Wait a bit," he cried, as Roseen took hold of the folds of her ragged skirt daintily in the finger and thumb of each hand, and looked expectantly towards him, "I'm just goin' to thramp a bit in the joynt's steps."

"What are ye doin' that for at all?" asked Roseen, knitting her brows.

"Sure me father bid me never go past this way widout stampin' them down a bit to keep them from gettin' smaller," answered Mike, hammering diligently with his bare heel at the corners of the "futprints" of the mighty Fin-ma-coul.

The operation at last concluded, he rejoined the little girl on a small gra.s.sy plateau surrounded by low growing Irish gorse. The heather, mingling with these furze bushes, was just beginning to bloom, and here and there a tall foxglove towered above the undulating irregular ma.s.s of purple and gold. Taking her place in the centre of her ball-room, Roseen again looped up her skirt and pointed her shapely little foot. Mike began to whistle a jig tune, his st.u.r.dy brown legs twinkling the while in time to the measure. Now and then his piping grew faint, and was interrupted by gasps for breath, whereupon Roseen, still vigorously footing it, would take up the tune after a fashion of her own, her voice imitating as nearly as might be the sound of a fiddle. Overhead a lark was soaring, and his trill, wafted down to them, mingled with their quaint human music; far away over that brown and purple stretch of bog the plovers were circling, their faint melancholy call sounding every now and then. The sun would soon set, the air was already turning a little chilly, and the dew was falling. The shadow of the ruined tower fell obliquely across the golden-green carpet of their ball-room; but the children danced on, Roseen's curls shaken into a light feathery nimbus round her brow, a beautiful colour in her cheeks, and her little white teeth parted in a smile of delight; while Mike pranced and capered, as though old Peter's stick had never fallen about his shoulders, and there were no holes in the roof at home.

ROSEEN

Peter Rorke stood on the threshold of Monavoe, his big comfortable house, looking round him with the proud air of the proprietor. It is commonly said that the Devil is not so black as he is painted, and in the case of Peter Rorke the proverb would seem to be justified. In appearance and manner there was nothing about the man to bear out his evil reputation. A close observer would indeed detect, in his long narrow face, and particularly in the neighbourhood of his rather small closely-set eyes, certain lines and wrinkles which conveyed an impression of meanness--the one sin which, as some one very truly observes, is apparently found least possible to forgive, particularly, one might add, by Irish folk. But, on the whole, Peter Rorke was not an ill-looking old fellow, and now as he stood basking in the autumn sunlight, while his eyes wandered from one to the other of his possessions, his face wore quite a pleasant expression. In truth, it would have been difficult, even for the most humble of mortals, not to feel a certain exhilaration on gazing at the evidences of prosperity at Monavoe. The house, to begin with, was solid and comfortable, the barns and granaries were full to overflowing; yonder were stables for the six fine cart-horses now toiling at various corners of Peter's domain; adjoining them the cow-houses, where Peter could not only accommodate twelve milch-cows, but fatten in the winter an equal number of "stall-feds"; in the "haggard" to the rear were the innumerable golden stacks and hay-ricks which were, of all his possessions, those most valued by the Master of Monavoe. No one in the country was so clever in selecting time and weather for cutting and carting; no one so cunning in ascertaining the most opportune moments for selling, or so far-seeing with regard to prices. At this very moment Peter Rorke was gazing at an immense rick of "prime old hay"

which he had had the prudence to keep back while all his neighbours were selling. His wisdom now appeared; there had been an unexpected failure in the hay crop that season, the prices had gone up accordingly, and Peter looked forward to receiving more than double the sum that his produce was actually worth.

Rousing himself at length from what, to one of his temperament, had been a reverie of long duration, he turned round and called loudly to some one whom he supposed to be within: "Rose, Rose! Are ye there, girl?"

There was no answer, and after a moment's pause he called again impatiently. A very old woman with a white sun-bonnet tilted over her brow came slowly from the back premises. "Where is my granddaughter, Judy?" he asked, with a frown. Judy was no favourite of his.

"She isn't here at all," she observed; and then jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of some outhouses, "she went acra.s.s to the dairy a while ago."

Peter Rorke grunted, and, without another glance at the old woman, began to walk at a rapid pace in the direction she had indicated. As he drew near the partly open door of the dairy, the sound of a girl's voice could be heard merrily lilting a tune; and when Peter entered the owner of the voice turned round, abruptly ceasing her song and gazing at him with a startled look. This was Roseen, a tall and comely la.s.sie of seventeen, in whose pretty, saucy face, however, and clear blue eyes, there still remained much of the child. Her mother had died when she was about fifteen, and, to the astonishment of every one who knew him, Peter Rorke had announced his intention of adopting his grandchild. He had never had any objections to the girl herself, he declared loftily; she was well enough in every way, and his own son's child; he could never put up with the mother, it was true--a common little servant girl that his son had no right to have been speaking to, much less to be goin' an' gettin' married to. Peter would never bring himself to recognise him at all after he had demeaned himself that way, and as long as the wife lived he couldn't be expected to take any notice of the child; but now that she was dead an' gone to her own place, wherever that might be, he wasn't goin' to let his granddaughter go out to sarvice. She was Miss Rorke, and her place was at Monavoe, where all the Rorkes had lived and died for more generations than any one cared to count.

When, however, he had, with a good deal of pompous benevolence, driven up on his outside-car to fetch Miss Rorke from the tumbled-down cabin which had been hitherto the only home she had known, that young lady, instead of being properly grateful, and impressed by her relative's condescension, had displayed a spirit of independence, and indeed stubbornness, which the worthy old gentleman found as bewildering as mortifying. He had never taken any notice of them before, she had averred; he had let her father starve, and her mother work herself to death. Roseen was not going to be beholden to him now--she'd earn her own bread, so she would, an' if he thought shame of his grandchild goin' to sarvice, she was glad of it, so she was, an' she'd make sure an' tell every one the way he was afther thratin' them. Peter had rubbed his lantern-jaw and glanced askance at the determined little maiden who stood facing him, her blue eyes flashing through her tears, and every line of face and figure betokening resolution. First, he had been puzzled, then angry, finally he had had recourse to entreaty, feeling in his heart that he could never look the neighbours in the face again if the story got about that this chit had "got the better of him that way." At length Roseen had suffered herself to be softened, and agreed, after much persuasion, to a compromise. She would condescend to take up her abode under her grandfather's roof on the condition that Judy came too. Judy was one of these appendages so frequently to be seen in Irish cabins, there being, apparently, scarcely any householder so poor that he or she cannot afford to shelter some one poorer still. While there is a roof over their heads, a potato to put into their mouths, the Irish peasants will share with one another. Ever since Roseen could remember, Judy had been an inmate of their home; she had helped in the small household labours, tended Mrs. Rorke after her own fashion when she had been sick, scolded and adored Roseen from babyhood to youth. There was not much else poor Judy could do, except smoke her pipe when, by some lucky chance, a "bit o' baccy" came in her way: she was not only old and lame, but half-witted, very nearly "innocent." What Peter's feelings had been may be guessed when invited to receive this strange-looking old creature into his house; but Roseen had been firm, and he had finally consented.

Whether there had been some dormant family affection in that withered heart of his, which had sprung to life now that poor Mrs. Rorke no longer stood between him and his own flesh and blood, or whether the girl's obstinacy had aroused in him a corresponding desire to carry his point, or whether, as some of the neighbours ill-naturedly said, he thought if the fine little colleen was to go to sarvice at all, she might as well come to him for no wages as to be airnin' from somebody else, remains a mystery; but it is certain that in spite of the unpleasant condition imposed by Roseen, Peter felt a curious glow of pride and pleasure when he a.s.sisted Roseen to alight at the door of Monavoe. Since then he had certainly grown fond of her, and was moreover proud of her good looks and winsome ways. He had sent her to a boarding-school, a grand convent establishment for young ladies, where the good nuns had done their best to impart to her all that was deemed essential for Mr. Rorke's granddaughter to learn. Roseen knew already how to read, and could write after a fashion of her own; she now learnt arithmetic, and could, indeed, keep her b.u.t.ter accounts by dint of much counting on slim sunburnt fingers and puckering of her pretty white forehead; but alas! all attempts to attain more elegant accomplishments remained fruitless--Roseen was a thorough little dunce. Much to the relief of all parties, she returned to Monavoe at the end of twelve months, and thereupon devoted her energies to the more homely acquirements in which she had since become an adept. She could do anything with those deft fingers of hers: her b.u.t.ter was proverbial, her bread excellent, she could trim a hat and hem a duster with equal speed and nicety, and as for clear-starching and getting up fine things, she was the wonder of the rustic matrons for ten miles round.

Roseen had been making b.u.t.ter when her grandfather entered, and, turning round, displayed a face rosy with her exertions, and arms bare to the elbow.

"So here ye are," remarked Peter, his grim face relaxing as much as was possible to it; "I've been lookin' for ye everywhere. Do ye know what I am after doin' for you this fine mornin'?"

"What?" asked Roseen, a little apprehensively, while the colour deepened in her cheeks. Peter leaned against the long stone shelf that ran round the dairy wall, and smiled before replying: "I am after makin' the finest match for you that's to be had in all the country side."

The flush mounted to Roseen's very temples and then died away; she paused a moment to steady her voice before venturing on a query. "I seen Mr. Quinn goin' down the road a little while ago--is it him?"

"Ah, you little rogue! you were on the lookout, were ye?" cried Peter jocosely. "Well, you are right; it is him. You are the rale lucky girl, Roseen! You'll be the richest woman in the town-land."

Roseen glanced down, apparently wrestling with some inward emotion, and presently observed in a small, strangled voice: "Sure, he is twenty year older nor me."

"What matter?" said Peter; "he'll be all the better able to take care o' you. It's better to marry a man with sense, nor to go takin' up with some young whipper-snapper that would be thinkin' of nothin' but spendin' money and carryin' on with nonsense."

"He's an ould widower," cried Roseen, wrinkling up her little nose with an expression of disgust.

"Well," said Peter, "an' a good thing too; you'll come in for all the beautiful dresses and jewels and things the first Mrs. Quinn left behind."