The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 10

THE CHILDREN.

When the lessons and tasks are all ended, And the school for the day is dismissed, The little ones gather around me To bid me "good night," and be kissed.

Oh, the little white arms that encircle My neck in their tender embrace; Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven, Shedding suns.h.i.+ne of love on my face.

And when they are gone, I sit dreaming Of my childhood--too lovely to last-- Of joy that my heart will remember While it wakes to the pulse of the past: Ere the world and its wickedness made me A partner of sorrow and sin, When the glory of G.o.d was about me, And the glory of gladness within.

I ask not a life for the dear ones All radiant, as others have done; But that life may have just enough shadow To temper the glare of the sun; I would pray G.o.d to guard them from evil; But my prayer would bound back to myself: Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner.

But a sinner must pray for himself^

I shall leave the old house in the autumn, To traverse its threshold no more; Ah! how I shall sigh for the dear ones That meet me each morn at the door; I shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses, And the gush of their innocent glee; The group on the green, and the flowers That are brought every morning for me.

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From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.

CHAPTER XIII.

The next morning Winny presented herself at the breakfast-table, looking more attractive and more tidily dressed, her rich glossy hair better brushed and smoothed down more carefully than was usual at that hour of the day. Her daily custom, like all other country girls who had household concerns to look after, was not to "tidy herself up"

until they had been completed. She was not ignorant, however, of the great advantage which personal neatness added to beauty gave a young girl who had a cause to plead. And although the man upon whom she might have to throw herself for mercy was her father, she was not slow on this occasion to claim their advocacy for what they might be worth.

But she had also prayed to G.o.d to guide her in all her replies to the parent whom she was bound to honor and obey, as well as to Love. She had not contented herself with having set out her own appearance to the best advantage, but she had also set out the breakfast-table in the same way. The old blue-and-white teapot had been left on the dresser, and a dark-brown one, with a figured plated lid, taken out of the cupboard of Sunday china. Two cups and saucers, and plates "to match," with two real ivory-hafted knives laid beside them. There was also some white _broken_ sugar in a gla.s.s bowl, which Winny had won in a lottery at Carrick-on-Shannon from a "bazaar-man." There was nothing extraordinary in all this for persons of their means, though, to tell the truth, it was not the every-day paraphernalia of their breakfast-table. Winny had not been idle either in furnis.h.i.+ng the plates with a piping hot potato-cake, a thing of which her father was particularly fond, and which she often gave him; but this one had a few carraway-seeds through it, and was supposed to be better than usual. Then she had a couple of slices of nice thin bacon fried with an egg, which she knew he liked too. All this was prepared, and waiting for her father, whose fatigue of the day before had caused him to sleep over-long.

While waiting for him, it struck Winny that he must think such preparations out of the common, and perhaps done for a purpose. Upon reflection she was almost sorry she had not confined her embellishments to her own personal appearance, and even that, she began to feel, might have been as well let alone also. But she had little time now for reflection, for she heard her father's step, as he came down stairs.

She met him at the door, opening it for him.

"Good morrow, father," she said; "how do you find yourself to-day? I hope you rested well after your long walk yesterday."

"After a while I did, Winny; but the tea you made was very strong, an'

I didn't sleep for a long time after I went to bed."

"Well, 'a hair of the hound,' you know, father dear. I have a good cup for you now, too; it will not do you any harm in the morning when you have the whole day before you. And I have a nice potato-cake for you, for I know you like it."

"Troth I b'lieve you have, Winny; an' I smell the carraways that I like. But, Winny, sure the ould blue teapot's not broken, is it?"

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"No, father; but I was busy with the potato-cake this morning, and had not time to wash it out last night, so I took out number one to give it an airing; and I put down the other things to match."

The portion of this excuse which was true was far greater than that which was not; and Winny, who as a general rule was truthful, was satisfied with it--and, reader, so must you be.

"Never mind, Winny, you are mistress here, an' I don't want any explanation; it wasn't that made me spake; but I'd be sorry th' ould blue teapot was bruck, for we have it since afore you were well in your teens. You're lookin' very well this mornin', Winny agra."

"Hush, father; eat your cake, and don't talk nonsense. There's an egg that black Poll laid this morning, and here's some b.u.t.ter I finished not five minutes before you came in yesterday evening. Shall I give you some tea?"

"If you please, Winny dear." And the old man looked at his daughter with undeniable admiration.

They then enjoyed a neat and comfortable breakfast, which indeed neither of them seemed in a hurry to bring to an end. The old man was constrained and silent, and left all the talk to Winny, who, it must be admitted, never felt it more difficult to furnish conversation. Old Ned looked at her once or twice intently, as if wondering at her being much finer than usual; and then he looked at the breakfast gear; and the expression of his face was as if he suspected something. These looks, both at herself and the table, did not escape Winny's notice, but she never met them, always interrupting any exclamation which was likely to follow them with some question or remark of her own, such as, "Do you like that cake, father?" "That is the muil cow's b.u.t.ter; I always keep her milk by itself, and churn it in the small chum for you, father; you said you liked it." "Here, Bully-dhu, is a piece of cake for you."

With some such heterogeneous questions or remarks as these, she managed to parry his looks, or at all events the observations which were likely to follow them, and direct for the moment--ah, Winny, it was only for the moment!--his thoughts from whatever was upon them, and which Winny believed she knew right well.

But this suspense on both sides must come to an end. Old Ned, from his conversation with Mick Murdock, had determined not to speak to his daughter until he knew Tom had done so. But Winny did not know this, and dreaded every moment a thunder-clap would come which she was herself preparing for her father, and she was anxious, if it was only for the sake of propriety, to tell her story unprovoked.

The old man now stood up from the table, saying he would be likely to be out all day, as he was preparing to get down some wheat. But Winny, when it came to the point, could only stammer out in a feeble voice, that she wanted to speak to him before he went.

"Now's your time, Winny dear, for I have a great dale to do before dinner-time; an' I must be off to the men."

"Father dear, I may as well tell you at once--I'm in trouble--about --about--about--Tom--Murdock." And she threw her arms round his neck, and laid her cheek upon his shoulder.

"An' is that all, mavourneen? Ah, Winny, Winny, I knew it would come to this!--mavourneen macree, I knew it would. But there, Winny jewel, don't be crying--don't be crying; sure you know I'm not the man to cross your wishes; no--no, my own girl, I'd neither oppose you nor force you for 'the world; aren't you the only one I have on airth? an'

sure isn't your happiness mine, Winny dear? There, Winny, don't cry; sure you may do as you like, mavourneen macree, you may."

Winny knew that all this was uttered under a misconception, and it gave her but little comfort. There was {73} _one_ part of it, however, she would not forget.

"Oh, father," she sobbed out upon his breast, "Tom Murdock has asked me to marry him." And the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Why then, Winny dear, dhry up them tears; sure I know they're on my account, at the thoughts of partin' me; but won't you be livin' at the doore with me while I last? Isn't it what I always hoped an' prayed for?--och, Winny, Winny, but you're the lucky girl this day, an' I'm the lucky man, for it will add ten years to my life."

And he kissed her yielding lips over and over again. But she did not speak; while the big tears continued to course themselves down her pale but beautiful cheeks.

"Don't--don't, Winny asth.o.r.e; don't be crying on my account; sure I may say we'll not have to part at all. Mick an' I have it all settled, mavourneen; he's to build you a grand new house where th' ould one stan's, an' I'm to furnish it from top to toe; and Mick an' I will live here, not three hundred yards from the pair of you. Oh, Winny, Winny, but it's I is the happy man this day! There, don't be cryin', I tell you; sure I would not gainsay you for the world;" and he kissed her again. But still she did not speak.

"There, Winny, there; don't be sobbin' an' cryin', I tell you. Why, what's the matther with you, Winny mavrone?"

"Oh, father, father, it never can be!" she exclaimed in broken sobs, and clinging to his neck closer than ever.

"Nonsense, Winny! what's the matther, I say? why can't it be? Of course you did not refuse Tom's offer?"

"I'd, father--indeed I did. I never can care for Tom Murdock; father, I could never be happy with that man. Don't ask me to marry him."

"Is the girl mad? To be sure I will, Winny. There's but the two of you in it an' with Mick's farm an' mine joined,--the leases are all as one as 'free simple,'--you'd be as grand as many ladies an' gentlemen in the county;" and he disengaged himself from her arms, and strode toward the door.

Winny thought he was going; but he had no notion of it at so unsettled a point. She rushed between him and the door.

"Father, don't go!" she cried; "for G.o.d's sake don't leave me that way!"

"Winny, it's what I'm greatly surprised at you, so I am. My whole life has been spent in puttin' together a dacent little fortun' for you; I never had one on airth I loved but yourself an' your poor mother--G.o.d rest her sowl! I never spoke a cross word to you, Winny jewel, since I followed her to the grave, four days after you were born; an' now, in my old days, when I haven't long to last, you're goin' to break my heart, an' shorten them same. Oh, Winny, Winny, say it's only jokin'

you are, an' I'll forgive you, cruel as it was."

"No, father, I'm telling you the real truth; people seldom joke with the tears running down their cheeks; look at them, father. I know all you say is true; and indeed it will break my own heart to oppose you, if you do not yield. But listen here, father dear; sure after all your love and kindness to me for the last eighteen or twenty years, I may say, you won't go now and spoil it all by crossing my happiness without any necessity for it. Tom put all the grandeur and wealth before me himself, that the joining of the two farms and marrying him would bring to me. But it is no use, father; I never liked that man, and I never can. Oh, don't ask me, father asth.o.r.e; I'm contented and happy as I am."

"Winny, I never found you out in a lie since you could first spake, an' I'm sure you won't tell me one now. Listen to me, Winny. Tom Murdock is a fine, handsome young fellow, an' {74} well to do in the world, with a grand education, an' fit to hould his own anywhere; and I say he's any young girl's fancy, or ought to be, at any rate. You an' he have been reared at the doore with each other. What you are yourself, Winny asth.o.r.e, I need not say, for every one that sees you knows it; and well they may, for sure you spake for yourself. It seldom happens--indeed, Winny, I never knew it--that a boy an' girl like you an' Tom, reared at the doore that way, fail but what they take a likin' to each other. It seems Tom done his part, both as to the likin' an' spakin', as he ought to do in both; but you, Winny, have done neither. Now, Winny, I can't but think that's very strange, an' I have but the one way to riddle it. Tell me now, honestly and plainly, is there any one that c.u.m afore Tom in his request? Answer me that, Winny?"

"I win, father, honestly and truly. It is not that any one has come between me and Tom that made me refuse him. The very thing that you say, of our being reared at the door with one another, has made me dislike him. I have seen too much of his ways, and heard too many of his words, ever to like him, father; there is no use in trying to make me, for I never can."