North, South and over the Sea Part 41

"Ahmin!" said Pat emphatically, "she's the grand little girl altogether, there's not her aiquals in Ireland."

"Aye, indeed," chimed in his wife, "an' lookit how humble she is--no more stuck up now nor she was when she was a little slip of a colleen, leppin' about on the Rock, beyant."

"An' she has the fine fortun', mind ye," said Judy proudly, "the Masther left her a power o' money--'deed an' he did, a power o'

money!"

"Bedad, he must have left her a good bit," agreed Pat meditatively, "and she desarves it all. 'Pon me word, I wisht Mike had left that ould rick alone. Sure, it's her that's the loser now. It's into her pocket all that fine money 'ud be comin'."

"Musha," exclaimed "Herself," "I declare I am sick an' tired hearing ye goin' on that way, an' me tellin' ye twenty times a day that it is the last thing poor Mike 'ud do. He would never dhrame o' such a thing, him that wouldn't hurt a fly. Many a time I seen him drivin'

home the sheep, an' he'd have his heart scalded wid them runnin' this way an' that, an' he'd niver offer to rise a stick to them, or so much as to peg a stone at them."

"Ah, ha! then, maybe he didn't!" cried Pat triumphantly; "I know me own son as well as ye do, ma'am, an' he has a fine sperrit of his own as quiet as he is. There now! Who done it if he didn't? Tell me that if ye plase."

"Sure them hayricks often and often goes on fire of themselves,"

retorted Mrs. Clancy, flushed and tearful; "ye know that as well as me, Pat. Weren't they at the loss of a lovely stack down there at McEvoy's, four year ago? No, it was five, I believe--look at that now."

Pat laughed derisively. "'Pon me word, Mary, you have no more sense nor herself there," nodding towards Judy. "Sure, McEvoy's rick took fire because they were afther stackin' it, an' it wet. Whoever heard of a three-year-old rick takin' fire of itself, an' every bit of it as dry as a bone?"

"Troth it was," put in Judy, "powerful dry, ma'am. Sure, when a little spark got on it out o' me pipe it burnt up the same as if it was tindher."

As she spoke she drew her stool up to the table; she was unusually loquacious and sensible that day. The potations in which she, in common with the other members of Roseen's establishment at Monavoe, had indulged having apparently at once loosened her tongue and brightened her wits.

Pat's face suddenly changed; his eyes flashed, and his voice shook when next he spoke, though he endeavoured to a.s.sume a casual air.

"An' was it smokin' alongside o' the rick you were, Judy? When was that, agrah?"

"Sure, it was the very night I lost me pipe," replied Judy. "Roseen bid me go out an' watch for Mike an' tell him the Masther had her locked in an' she couldn't get out to spake to him."

The Clancys looked at each other; the old man making an imperative sign to his wife to keep silent.

"That was the very night the rick was burnt down," he observed; "ye didn't see any one go near it, did ye?"

"Aye, indeed, it was the very night," agreed Judy; "I lost me lovely pipe that night too," she added plaintively.

"Did ye, now?" said Pat, adding in a menacing aside to his wife: "Woman, I'll be the death of ye if ye say a word now! Lave her to me.

Well, Judy, it was a poor case your losin' your pipe that way. I wonder what become of it at all? Ye didn't see any one comin', did ye, who would be apt to pick it up? Give the woman some tay, Mary, can't ye see she's dhry?"

Mrs. Clancy poured out the tea with a shaking hand, and Judy, spilling some into her saucer, proceeded to blow it vigorously, her hosts with difficulty restraining their impatience the while.

"Beautiful tay, ma'am!" she remarked, after gulping down the first instalment. "Elegant tay now, isn't it? Herself never gives less nor two an' thruppence a pound for it."

"Doesn't she now," cried Pat; "well, an' ye never seen anybody goin'

near that rick?"

"Ne'er a wan at all," replied Judy, collecting herself.

"Ye didn't see Mike then?"

"Well, I'll tell ye. I was sittin' wid me back to the rick waitin' for him, an' he didn't come, an' I fell asleep, an' when I woke up I couldn't for the life of me find me bit of a pipe, not a sign of it was in it at all." Here Judy began to weep. "Me heart's broke ever since! I just laid it out o' me hand for a minute, and ne'er a bit o'

me could find it since--and--Och! och! Mr. Clancy, ow--wh! Murdher!

What are ye doing at all?" For old Pat had struggled from his chair, and hobbling across to where Judy sat, had seized her by the shoulder, the grip of his one sound hand being as the grip of a vice.

"Woman!" he cried, "it's you that's afther bein' the ruination of me boy! It's you that set fire to the rick wid that ould mischeevious pipe o' yours! An' there, ye let him be sent to gaol an' the whole of us be disgraced for what you are afther doin'. 'Pon me word, I could throttle ye this minute."

Mrs. Clancy ran screaming out of the room, bursting in upon Roseen with the announcement in the same breath that "Himself would be the death of ould Judy before he was done wid her," and that "poor Mike must be fetched out o' gaol widout the loss of a minute."

Roseen, rus.h.i.+ng to the scene of action, found indeed a prodigious uproar going on. Old Pat, who until then had been thoroughly convinced that his son had accomplished the destruction of Peter Rorke's hayrick, could not now restrain his indignation on learning that he had been wrongfully accused; and in the intervals of proclaiming at the top of his voice more energetically than even "Herself" in the past that "anybody wid a grain o' sense 'ud know poor Mike 'ud be the last one in the world to go disgracing himself that way," was shaking Judy backwards and forwards till, as she subsequently declared, she nearly lost her life.

"'Pon me word," he cried, when with some difficulty and a certain amount of physical force he had been separated from his victim, "that's the ould scut yez ought to be clappin' into gaol! Did anybody ever hear the like? She must go smokin' her dirty ould pipe under the loveliest rick in the country--sure, that rick is worth its weight in gould these times--an' settin' it on fire an' bringin' ruination an'

destruction on her misthress as well as on me poor innocent boy! I declare hangin' 'ud be too good for her!"

"Didn't I tell ye," cried Mrs. Clancy triumphantly, "that Mike never went next or nigh that rick?"

"Of course ye did. Anybody 'ud know that. Bedad, Mike 'ud know better nor do anythin' that senseless an' mischeevious. Sure, what good 'ud it do anybody to go burnin' that beautiful hay? 'Pon me word, Roseen, if I was you I'd walk that lady straight off to the magisthrate."

Judy, meanwhile, with shrill wails and much rocking backwards and forwards, was incoherently declaring that she wouldn't sit there to be murdhered, an' she didn't know why they was all shoutin' at her that way, an' that--as the culmination of woe--she'd lost her lovely pipe.

After some time Roseen succeeded in calming the belligerents, and in gathering the sense of their various statements.

Trembling with eagerness and excitement, she led Judy to the stackyard, and there, after much coaxing and persuasion, induced her to describe her position on the fateful night in question.

"I was sittin' here," announced Judy, pointing to a certain spot.

"You had your back to the rick then?" said Roseen, "ye can't see the haggard gate at all from here. No wonder ye didn't see Mike."

"I was tired waitin' for him," said Judy. "I just put me pipe out o'

me hand," she added meditatively. "I was thinkin' of goin' to look for him--and when I woke up it was black night an' I couldn't find--"

Suddenly she uttered a shrill scream, and darting forward, stooped over one of the stone supports which had formerly upheld old Peter's beloved rick, eagerly groping in a certain little fissure in the rough stone, almost hidden beneath the horizontal slab which surmounted it.

"Sure, there it is!" she cried triumphantly, producing indeed the grimy little object so dear to her heart. "I have it now! there's me darlin' pipe! I was afther forgettin' I put it there; it was turned upside down in the crack an' all me baccy's spilt on me!"

Roseen could at first scarcely believe her own eyes and ears; this then was the solution of the mystery which had so long baffled them.

Poor old Judy, growing sleepy and tired after her long wait, had laid her pipe on one side intending to rise and look for Mike, but, overcome by drowsiness, she had slept instead, and on awaking had forgotten the spot where she had stowed her treasure. The little pipe, slipping downwards in the crack, had turned over, upsetting its contents upon the loose hay beneath the rick, which being, as Judy had related, dry as tinder, quickly caught fire from the smouldering embers. A strong breeze had arisen that night, and the flame had spread to the stack itself with the results which Roseen knew. The pipe that had done all the damage, being snugly stowed away beneath the overhanging slab of stone, had told no tales; but now its evidence was conclusive, and while Judy rapturously embraced and mumbled over it, Roseen fell upon her knees and thanked G.o.d.

It was on a bright October morning that Mike was released from prison, but in spite of the joys of regained liberty and the warm congratulations of his friends, the poor fellow looked downcast and bewildered enough when he came forth into the suns.h.i.+ny world. Roseen had sent her car for him to the prison door, and Mike, releasing himself at length from the handshakes of the friends who awaited him outside, and being anxious to dispense with their escort, had induced the driver, with a hasty whispered word or two, to whip up the fast-trotting mare, which had thereupon started at a break-neck pace down the street, soon leaving the astonished convoy far behind.

"Bedad, ye are in a terrible hurry altogether," remarked Jack McEvoy, who happened to be driving. "I suppose ye are in a hurry to get to Monavoe." He laughed and winked. "Begorrah, if the ould Masther could lift his head out o' the grave, I wonder what he'd say at me goin' to fetch a husband for his granddaughter out o' Mount Kennedy gaol?"

Mike flushed to the roots of his hair and turned his back more completely on his opposite neighbour.

"Sure, ye needn't think shame o' that," went on Jack, quick to perceive that the joke was not appreciated. "If ye burnt the rick itself, there's n.o.body hereabouts but 'ud say ye done right. But your father's breaking his heart now bekase the loss o' the rick 'ull be out o' your own pocket."

"What call has he to say any such thing at all?" said Mike, glancing round fiercely.

"Och, bedad, doesn't every one know the way it is between the two of yez? Sure, there never was a fellow in such luck as yourself, Mike Clancy! Ye'll be the richest man between this and County Cork, an' let alone the fortun', ye'll be havin' the greatest jewel of a wife. 'Pon me word, if ye was to see the Misthress now of a Sunday!"

"Who's that?" said Mike absently.