North, South and over the Sea Part 40

"Good gracious, woman, where would ye put them in that little shebeen--sure there isn't room in it for your own childer. G.o.d bless them! the fine childer they are too--but where in the world would you find a corner for Misther and Mrs. Clancy?"

"Troth, I'll find a corner aisy enough; and it wouldn't do a ha'porth of harm to the two little fellows if they were to sleep for a few nights undher the turf stack outside. It's grand warm weather we are havin', Glory be to Goodness, an' they'd sleep as sound as a bell by the side of it."

"Oh, not at all, ma'am," put in Mrs. Clancy, "we wouldn't dhrame to be puttin' ye about that much; the poor little fellows might be gettin'

their deaths o' cold on ye. Indeed it doesn't matther where we go; we are a throuble to every wan. I wisht the Lord 'ud take us out of it altogether," she added dismally; "I'd sooner be in the old gully-hole at wanst nor be goin' to the poorhouse, and, dear knows, that's where we'll have to go."

"Not wan bit, then," cried Pat resolutely, "not wan fut will ye iver put in the poorhouse, woman, nor me neither. We'll be back in the ould place here yit, see if we aren't. n.o.body 'ud go in it on'y ourselves, an' it'll be there waitin' for us till the poor boy comes out an' puts us back in it."

The neighbours glanced from one to the other, and by common accord decided to humour the old man.

"To be sure ye will, Misther Clancy. The two of yez will be back there before we can turn round, an' Mike will be apt to be gettin' your bits o' things back for yez too. Sure the old rogue up there will have no call to keep them wanst the boy has paid up the bit yez owe him."

"Troth, it'll be no time at all before you're back, Pat, an' ye had a right to lave talkin' that way about the poorhouse, ma'am. There isn't a wan of us that 'ud ever let yez go there, bad luck to it! No, indeed, ma'am."

"Aye, we'll be back yet in the ould little place," repeated Pat with conviction, "we will so; come on out o' that, Mary, an' make up your mind where it is we're goin' this night. Sure the craturs here is fightin' for the honour of havin' us. Stop turnin' your head round now; the place won't run away on ye till we're back in it."

All the neighbours were indeed vying with each other in their anxiety to entertain and comfort the helpless old pair, and prove at once their sympathy with them in their trouble and their indignation with Peter Rorke.

"He done it just out of spite, mind ye," they said one to the other.

"Wasn't he afther promisin' Mike to let him work out the thrifle o'

rent they were owin?"

"Aye! he is the outrageousest ould villain that ever stepped," was the general verdict. Nevertheless, as in all communities there is generally one ill-conditioned person, even in the little village of Donoughmor there was to be found a time-server who, wishing for reasons of his own to ingratiate himself with Peter Rorke, was base enough to report to him old Pat Clancy's hasty words.

"He's saying he wished Mike had burnt ye in your bed, an' more by token," added Peter's informant, "he's tellin' every wan that it'll be no time at all before he's back in his own place again the same as ever he was, an' that you may do what ye like on him, he doesn't care."

"He says that, does he?" cried Peter, crimson with fury; "I'll soon show him he's makin' a bit of a mistake. 'Pon me word, did ever anybody hear the like o' that?"

"Well, that's what he says," repeated the other. "'I wisht,' he says, 'that Mike had burnt the ould villain in his bed,' says he. That's the very word he said, 'the ould villain' he says; 'an' got shut of him,'

says he, 'but it'll be no time at all before herself an' me is back in the ould place,' he says. He did so--it's the truth I'm tellin' ye, that's the very way he said it."

"I'll show him different then," repeated Peter. "I wisht I'd thought of it first off--the way he'd have seen it."

"An' what's that, sir?"

"You'll soon see. 'Pon me word, I wisht I had him there now in his bed, the ould raskil, the way I could do on him what he's wishin' his spalpeen of a son had done on me. Are ye there, Pat?" he cried, raising his voice.

"I am, sir," returned some one from the region of the stables.

"Is Barney there?"

"He is."

"Bring him along wid ye then; an' call Jack McEvoy and a couple more of the boys. Bring a pick wid ye, an' a couple of them hatchets--an'

Pat!"

"Sir?" replied Pat, suddenly appearing from behind the stable-wall.

"Run round to the kitchen an' fetch the big bottle of paraffin off o'

the long shelf there."

"I will, sir. Where will we be goin' to, sir?"

"I have a little job for yous to do down at Donoughmor," said Peter.

"Hurry up now the whole of yous; I don't want to be losin' more time over it nor I can help."

The officious visitor, finding that matters were likely to become more unpleasant than he had antic.i.p.ated, disappeared while preparations were going forward, and it was only at the head of his own startled and unwilling band of followers that Peter at length sallied forth.

Not a word said Peter Rorke until he reached the Clancys' deserted cabin, and with his own hands set fire to the thatch; then falling back a step or two he rubbed his hands and chuckled.

"There, now," he cried, "let us see if I can't make near as good a bonfire as Mike Clancy himself! Throw a sup more paraffin on, you, Pat; now stand back all of yous, an' look at the fine blaze. As soon as we have the roof off of it, you can all set to work an' pull the whole place down. Then we'll see if the Clancys will come to their own again, as the ould blackguard Pat keeps tellin' every one. I don't think it'll be worth his while to step back in it when I've done with it."

The poor little rotten roof, mossgrown as it was, did not burn as rapidly as Peter could have wished, but by dint of much coaxing and a plentiful sprinkling of paraffin, the fire at last gained ground, and a dense smoke began to issue from the smouldering thatch. Peter coughed and choked, and at last calling out to his men that he would be with them again as soon as that part of the job was over, climbed up the rocky hillside, pausing only when he had reached the summit, and turning round with a long gasping breath. The air was clearer there, and it pleased him to look down from this eminence on his destructive work. The smoke of the burning roof hung over the little dwelling as though to hide its degradation; jets of flame leaped through it now and then; from time to time one of his men approached with the bottle of paraffin, but the rest stood together looking on, somewhat sullenly. Farther down the lane a few women and old folks had gathered together; from his alt.i.tude Peter watched them, marking their eager gestures and imagining the horror and disgust in their faces.

"Let them say what they like," he muttered to himself grimly, "I'll not leave a bit o' the place standin'. Aye! they may curse an' swear as much as they like, it doesn't hurt me."

Suddenly he bethought him how Mike had threatened him before setting fire to his rick; his hard-heartedness would bring a curse upon him, the boy had said. Peter asked himself now, with a dry chuckle, upon whom the curse had fallen most heavily. It was certainly a piece of bad luck to lose his splendid rick, but he had paid the villains well out for it. There was Mike in gaol, the old people living on the charity of their neighbours, with no prospect before them but to end their days in the workhouse; their goods scattered, their cabin razed to the ground--who was the most accursed?

Ha! one of those women down there had fallen on her knees and was raising her hands to heaven; another crone was shaking her fist in his direction. Let them pray and let them threaten--Peter was not afraid of anything or anybody, neither G.o.d nor man--not of the devil himself!

A sudden sound of stones falling just behind him made him turn round quickly. He could see nothing, but a curious sc.r.a.ping and rustling were still to be heard. He was standing almost beneath a low stone wall which traversed the summit. The sound appeared to him to come from a spot immediately above his head; he looked up and could see through a fissure in the wall what seemed to be a moving form. His gaze remaining fixed and fascinated on this object, distinguished at last a dark face with two gleaming eyes surmounted by _horns_. All Peter Rorke's vaunted courage deserted him; conscience-stricken and smitten by sudden agonising fears, he uttered a shrill quavering scream and began to totter down the hill with all the speed he could muster.

The steep path had been rendered more slippery than usual by recent rain, and afforded very insecure footing. Peter, rushing blindly forward, soon lost all control over his limbs, and fell at last, rolling over and over until he dropped on the rocks below.

His men, hastening to his a.s.sistance, hardly dared to raise him from the ground, and when they had at last mustered courage to do so, they were under the firm belief that it was the corpse of their master which they were carrying home. But Peter Rorke was not dead yet, and to the surprise of all who had known him, soon demonstrated that he was going to cheat a certain Old Gentleman--who had been considered his intimate friend during his long life--of his company at the close of it. His end in fact was most edifying. He made his peace with both G.o.d and man before he departed. To the last he remained persuaded that the horned face, which had peered at him through the ruins of Donoughmor, was that of the devil himself.

The explanation that the McEvoys' goat, which had been tethered on the hill, had broken loose and clambered up the ruined wall did not seem to him to have any bearing on the case. It was his belief that the "Ould Boy" had somewhat prematurely appeared to claim him; and his most anxious endeavour was to cheat him of his due. So Peter accomplished deeds which, under other circ.u.mstances, would have been impossible to him. He made his will to begin with, leaving a good deal of money in charity, and the bulk of his fortune to Roseen; he left directions that the Clancys were to be reinstated in their cabin and emphatically announced that he forgave Mike. When this last item, by the way, was reported to Pat, the old man's indignation knew no bounds.

Peter's last hours were not, however, disturbed by any hint as to the Clancys' att.i.tude, and it was with the most peaceful and resigned disposition that he, at last, betook himself to another world, with the full a.s.surance that it would prove a better one.

When Roseen had in some measure recovered from the shock of her grandfather's death, her thoughts turned at once to the Clancys. One of the family indeed had never been absent from them, and it was with surprise and indignation that she learnt that old Peter's forgiveness would in no manner affect Mike's actual position. The crime of which he was accused was so serious in character that he would have to await his trial at the approaching Sessions.

For his parents, however, something could be done, and Roseen, now finding herself mistress of Monavoe and all who dwelt there, proceeded to give orders right and left with an a.s.surance which surprised those who had formerly known her. Injunctions were issued that the Clancys'

cottage should be re-roofed and made habitable without delay, and, meanwhile, she announced her intention of taking the old couple to live with her at Monavoe. Many were the jokes and comments made upon this act of hers; a few people of what had now become her own standing in the neighbourhood offered her sage pieces of advice; some of her former cronies laughed and inquired if she were going to set up a home for incurables, as what between ould Judy that had no sense to speak of, an' Pat Clancy with ne'er a sound limb in his body, and his wife, G.o.d help her! hardly able to crawl with rheumatics, she would have her hands full up there. Roseen thanked her advisers kindly and laughed with the jokers, and went her own way.

One fine morning, her smart outside car drove up to the hospitable cabin which had sheltered the Clancys, and Pat and his wife were with some difficulty hoisted on to it. Some twenty or thirty neighbours kindly escorted them, "to hould them on for fear they might fall, the craturs!" With a deal of shouting and huzzahing, the little procession halted at length at Monavoe, where Roseen's health was drunk in due form, and then Mike's, and then Pat's, and then Mrs. Clancy's, and then Roseen's again; and at last the escort went reluctantly homewards, and Roseen conveyed her charges to the apartment she destined for them. It was a comfortable room on the ground floor, larger than the whole of the Clancys' former dwelling, which, nevertheless, it resembled oddly in many particulars. For, lo and behold! there in the corner stood their own venerable four-poster, and drawn up by the hearth was Pat's particular elbow-chair; all their possessions were there in fact, Roseen having carefully collected them previous to installing their owners--not even the little creepy-stool was absent.

Pat Clancy, who had maintained a certain dignified reserve all day, not quite liking the notion of being regarded as Roseen's pensioner, and not being certain whether this new move did not involve a sacrifice of independence, was now fairly overcome. "G.o.d bless you, me child!" he said brokenly, "ye were always the good little girl, Roseen. Herself and me will be quite at home here."

"Ah then, musha, look at me pot," cried Mrs. Clancy, who had been troubled by no scruples and whose tongue had been wagging freely during the course of their transit to Monavoe. "Look at me own _i_-dentical pot that has biled for me ever since we got married! I declare I could very near kiss it! I could never fancy any stir-about the same as what come out o' that pot! And there's the dresser an' all me cups and saucers widout so much as a crack on them. Well now, who'd ever fancy anybody that thoughtful? Sure we'll be in clover here--if only we had poor Mike out o' gaol!"

"He'll be out soon, never fear," cried Roseen. "We'll get a grand clever lawyer from Dublin to come an' spake for him, see if we don't.

But rest yourself now, Mr. Clancy, ye'll be tired afther the drive.

Maybe Mrs. Clancy would like to wet a grain o' tay for ye. Ye'll find plenty there, ma'am, in the little caddy, an' I'll send up Judy with a bit o' griddle cake."

"G.o.d bless ye, alanna!" said Mrs. Clancy, with shining eyes; "I'll set on me own little kettle this minute; it's a grand little wan to bile in a hurry, an' I'll make himself a cup of tay in no time."

Roseen withdrew with a bright nod, her innate delicacy prompting her to leave the couple to themselves for a time. Mrs. Clancy's own particular little rusty kettle was soon singing merrily on the hob, and Judy presently appeared with the griddle cake and a roll of b.u.t.ter of Roseen's own making.

"She's afther fetchin' it herself from the dairy," she remarked. "It's herself has the grand hand for b.u.t.ter, G.o.d bless her!"