North, South and over the Sea Part 39

Judy looked up in astonishment. "Is it there ye are?" she cried.

"Oh, Judy, my grandfather has me locked in! Listen now! I want ye to do something for me."

Judy's face clouded over. "I was just stalin' out to have me little pipe," she said. "The masther does be killin' me, when he catches me at it, an' I was makin' me way off while he had his back turned."

"Ah, ye can smoke away as much as ye like," cried Roseen impatiently.

"See here, Judy, all I want ye to do is to stand over there, by the corner of the haggard, an' watch till Mike comes, an' tell him me grandfather's afther lockin' me up, an' I can't get out this evenin', but the first chanst I have to-morrow I'll run round. An' tell him"--here her voice faltered--"that no matther what any one says, I'll always be faithful to him. An' I'll never get married to anybody on'y to himself."

Judy's beady black eyes were fixed somewhat vacantly on her mistress's face during this speech, but she nodded at the end, and on being adjured not to forget, informed Roseen, somewhat tartly, that she had no notion of forgettin'. She hobbled off fingering her beloved pipe, and Roseen, sitting by the window, watched the twilight deepen and saw the world grow misty and indistinct, and heard the birds twittering as they went to roost. Then the stars came out one by one, and a pale young moon showed faintly in the sky; it was night now, but Judy had not returned. Was it possible that Mike had failed to appear at the trysting-place.

After what seemed an interminable time, Judy's uncertain footfalls were again heard, and her white bonnet showed indistinctly in the dusk, bobbing up and down as she approached. Roseen craned forward her head eagerly. "What did he say, Judy?"

"I'm afther losin' me lovely pipe," responded the old woman, halting beneath the window. "What in the world will I do? I'm afther losin'

it. Oh dear! oh dear!--the on'y bit o' comfort I had."

"Whisht, whisht; ye'll find it to-morrow, when the light comes. Did ye see Mike, Judy? An' what did he say?"

"Ah, don't be botherin' me about Mike," wailed Judy, "I have other things to be thinkin' of, I'm afther losing me beautiful pipe; me heart's broke entirely!"

"Judy, Judy! I'll give ye the loveliest pipe ever ye seen, an' a beautiful roll o' twist, if on'y ye'll tell me. Wasn't Mike in it at all, Judy? Tell me that, for the love of Heaven."

Judy made a desperate effort to collect the scattered remnants of her wits, and presently said doubtfully: "Is it Mike ye are axing about?

Sure what 'ud bring Mike to the haggard? I did _not_ see him--an' me pipe is lost on me!"

Roseen fairly stamped her foot. Why had she been such a fool as to count on this poor old idiotic creature? Probably while Judy was hunting for her pipe, Mike had watched and waited in vain for a sign from his love.

Judy shuffled off, lamenting, but Roseen sat still at her open cas.e.m.e.nt, pondering mournfully on the misfortunes which had overwhelmed those she loved, and bewailing her impotence to help them.

Soon all was absolutely still; the house was wrapt in slumber, and at last, rising, chilled and weary, the girl prepared to go to rest. As she closed the window her eye was caught by a curious appearance in the sky, immediately above the long line of the regularly shaped stacks in the haggard. The big hayrick particularly was defined with curious clearness against what seemed to be a glow in the sky. As she looked a sudden tongue of flame sprang out from the western corner, and ran leaping up the great dark ma.s.s, spreading and widening as it went; then sparks were thrown out, and Roseen suddenly realised that the great rick, composed of tons upon tons of hay, worth at this moment a fortune in itself, was on fire. Screaming she rushed frantically to the door, but owing to Peter's forethought she was locked in. In vain she hammered and shrieked; no one heeded her. Such labourers as remained on the premises at night slept over the stables; the two maid-servants whom Peter employed only came by day. If Judy heard, she had not the sense to heed; and old Peter himself, snuggling into his pillows, merely turned over when the din reached his ears, muttering to himself with righteous indignation that a body would think the girl would know better nor behave that way, but let her shout as much as she liked an' tire herself out, she'd be apt to be a bit quieter in the mornin'. Meanwhile the little flame, which Roseen had first seen, had grown apace. The slight crackling sound which had originally accompanied its progress, was replaced by a sullen roar; volumes of ruddy smoke filled the air; a pungent, peculiar smell penetrated even to Roseen's room, almost suffocating her. Would no one hear, would no one heed? Taking the poker she knocked on the floor, hoping to produce some response from her grandfather, but finding that he did not answer she fell to hammering and battering the lock of her door with such vigour and good-will that at last she succeeded in breaking it. Rushing down stairs, candle in hand, she burst in upon old Peter.

"Get up, grandfather, get up at wanst! the big rick is on fire, and will be burnt to a cinder if you don't make haste." Old Peter sat up, blinking at the light, and at first refusing to believe Roseen; but when the girl flung open the window and he saw and heard for himself that the alarm was only too well founded, he fairly burst out crying like a child.

"Me rick, me beautiful rick! I'm ruined and destroyed entirely!

What'll I do at all?"

"Get up!" said Roseen sharply, "and let's get all the help we can.

I'll run out an' call Jack an' Barney, an' do you put on your clothes an' fill the stable bucket."

She flew out, and after some trouble succeeded in rousing the men in question, who, however, when they arrived on the scene and saw the extent of the damage which had already been done, gave her little hope of being able to arrest its progress.

"Sure it's all wan sheet of flame, none of us could get near it,"

cried one, pointing to the rick. "What good would a bucket or two of wather do on that?"

"Well, do something can't yez?" cried Roseen. "There's no good in standin' there, lookin' at it. I'll run off an' fetch Mike Clancy; he has more sense nor the whole o' yez put together."

Off she sped, finding her way easily, even in the dark, along the familiar path; but when she reached the cabin, and after much knocking succeeded in arousing Mrs. Clancy, disappointment awaited her--Mike was nowhere to be found.

The news went round the country next morning, first that old Peter Rorke's famous hayrick and two of the neighbouring cornstacks were burnt to the ground, and secondly that Michael Clancy had mysteriously disappeared. By-and-by certain additional circ.u.mstances were reported which caused people to connect the one fact with the other, and to comment thereon in whispers, with divers nods and winks, and mysterious jerks of the thumb. Michael was after havin' words with the ould fellow, it was rumoured, on account of his bein' sweet on Roseen, an' him and his ould father and mother were goin' to be put out o'

their little place. Sure no wonder the poor boy--Well, well, he'd have had the time to get far enough off by this, an' it was n.o.body's business, on'y his own, poor fellow!

It was whispered that Jack McEvoy had seen Mike on the evening before, standing in the corner of the haggard lookin' about him "rale distracted, ye'd say." "What are ye doin' there at all, this time o'

night?" said Jack. "Och, nothin' much," says Mike, "just streelin'

about." "Well," says Jack, "I'm afeard ye are after gettin' poor Roseen into throuble; there's the great blow-up entirely goin' on beyant there at the house. The masther's murdherin' Roseen for the way the two of yez has been goin' on. He had her crying, the poor little girl," says Jack; "I h'ard her through the windy," says he. "'Oh, grandfather,' she says, 'I'll never spake to Mike agin, I give ye me word,' she says. 'I'll never ax to look at him,' says she. Well," Jack said, "if ye'd seen the look that come over Mike's face! He staggered back, so he did. 'The ould devil,' says he, 'he's afther gettin' round her an' turnin' her agin me.'" "Och, to be sure," says Jack, "he's a rale ould villain! Is it true that he's puttin' yez all out in the road?" "He is," says Mike, "but he'll be sorry for it yet?"

"Mind that now," some one would say, and the nods and the shakings of the heads would become more mysterious than ever, and then the gossips would begin to chuckle over Peter's discomfiture; the universal verdict being that "It sarved him right, the covetious ould blackguard!" Mrs. Clancy had told Roseen, weeping, that Mike was gone off wid himself. He had come in late, very near distracted, the poor boy, an' he had said "good-bye" to his father an' mother, an' had told them he was goin' to England to try an' make a bit o' money at the potato-harvest, the way they wouldn't have to go to the workhouse when Mr. Rorke turned them out.

Gone without a word of farewell to her! Roseen betook herself homewards full of bewildered pain; but kept her own counsel.

When the whispers anent the probable cause of his disappearance reached her ears, she felt a momentary thrill of apprehension, but her faith in her old friend survived this temptation. "Mike never done the like," she said to herself, with a proud little toss of her head; even when by--and--by the lad was openly accused of having been the cause of the disaster, she took his part against all comers, making no secret of her own intention, frustrated by her grandfather, of meeting him in the haggard, and announcing boldly that it was on her account that Mike had come there.

Old Peter, who had behaved like a man distracted while his property was being consumed before his eyes, was the first to connect the disappearance of Mike with this act of destruction, and declared he would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to capture and punish him.

The police were soon on poor Mike's track, and before long he was discovered in the act of embarking for Liverpool, and ignominiously dragged back to the scene of his supposed exploit. In vain he denied all knowledge of the deed, putting forward the same motive for his absence as his mother had done; circ.u.mstances were adverse to him, and the evidence against him sufficiently strong to justify the magistrate in committing him for trial at the approaching a.s.sizes. In the meantime the unfortunate fellow was despatched to the county gaol.

Peter Rorke remained in a condition of mind bordering upon frenzy; some of his neighbours opined that he was goin' out of his wits altogether, and there were moments when Roseen herself was in terror of him. The old man's excitement took a most unpleasant form, his hatred of Mike and his unfortunate parents being little less than rabid.

Not only were the poor old couple evicted with the least possible delay, but their few "sticks of furniture," precious to themselves and worth absolutely nothing to anybody else, were seized and carried off to Monavoe--there being no bidders at the sale which Peter held in "distraint for rent."

Poor old Pat was helped out of the cabin and insisted on seating himself by the roadside to watch proceedings, though his wife tried anxiously to persuade him to accept at once the hospitality pressed upon them by sympathetic neighbours.

"Lave me alone," he growled, "I'll see this out, so I will. Och, bedad, they are afther liftin' out the bed now--mind it doesn't fall to pieces on yez before yez get it into the cart. Troth, ould Peter himself ought to sleep in that iligant bed; it's the pleasant dhrames he'd have!"

"It doesn't become ye to be talkin' that way, Pat," cried "Herself,"

flushed and weeping; "that was me mother's bed, so it was. Oh dear, oh dear! that I should live to see it taken off of us that way! And there's me pot that I biled mornin' an' evenin' these years an'

years!"

"Och, musha, lave the pot," retorted Pat; "sure what good is the pot to us when we haven't a bit to put in it? Troth, now the ould sckamer beyant has Mike in prison, we may give up altogether. Yourself an' me will soon be undher the Daisy-quilt, never fear. There they have me ould chair, now," he added sardonically; "troth it looks well c.o.c.ked up there. Mind the china now, Jack McEvoy; herself here thinks there isn't the like in the country,--have ye all now, the two mugs an' the three plates, an' the cups an' saucers, an' the little taypot with the cracked spout? Ah, don't be forgettin' the little jug though, the little weeny jug with a rose on it. Sure, what are ye crying for, woman! Isn't it great grandeur for the little jug to be goin' up to Monavoe? Bedad, ould Peter'll be apt to be puttin' it undher a gla.s.s case on the chimley-piece!"

Their friends and neighbours gathering round gazed with puzzled looks at the old man as he sat enthroned on his heap of stones, his knotted trembling hands leaning on a blackthorn stick, his face flushed, and his eyes blazing under their s.h.a.ggy white brows. They could scarcely understand his stoicism; Mrs. Clancy's lamentations were far more comprehensible to them.

"I won't be in it long," she wailed, "throublin' anybody. Sure, what matther if it's in the poorhouse the two of us ends our days, now poor Mike has been sent to gaol on us! Ah! G.o.d bless us! I could never hould up me head agin afther that."

"G.o.d help ye!" commented a bystander. "Don't be frettin' that a-way, ma'am; sure even if he's in gaol itself, he'll be out agin before ye know where yez are an' maybe they wouldn't keep him in it at all."

"'Deed then they had a right to let him out at wanst," groaned Mrs.

Clancy from beneath her ap.r.o.n. "The Lord knows he never done what they're afther sayin' he done."

"Hothen, indeed, I wouldn't make too sure of that," put in Pat. "Why wouldn't he do it? Bedad, he'ud have done well if he done twice as much. No, but he had a right to have burnt the ould villain in his bed an' got shut of him out-an'-out--the on'y mistake the poor fellow made, was lettin' him off so aisy."

"Whisht, whisht! in the name of goodness! G.o.d bless us! what is it ye're sayin' at all? Sure, poor Mike's as innocent as a lamb."

"Heth, he's the fine lamb!" retorted the father sarcastically. "Well, I believe they have everything now, down to the little creepy. Good luck to ye, Jack McEvoy; mind how ye go takin' it up the road--don't be dhroppin' any of it out o' the cart. Give me compliments to Mr.

Rorke, and tell him I hope he'll enjoy my iligant furnitur, an' much good may it do him!"

Jack McEvoy, one of Peter's men, climbed into the cart sheepishly enough and drove off. Once more the neighbours pressed round the homeless old pair, quarrelling for the honour of harbouring them.

"It's coming along wid me they are," cried one, "aren't yez now? sure of course they are. Isn't mine the biggest house anywhere in Donoughmor?"

"Ah, but it's that far off," argued another. "Look at the length of time it 'ud take them to be gettin' there, an' the two of them so wake on their legs, G.o.d help them! No, but it'll be betther for them step down to my little place that's handy. An' it ud' take them no time at all to get there."