Humours of Irish Life Part 33

"Yu're very good, but it's not to be expected I'd find myself easy under this roof, where, I can a.s.sure yu, I'd never have come of my own free will; an' I apologise to yu, Misther O'Brien, for givin' so much trouble--not that I could help myself."

"Sure, 'tis I that should apologise," blurted out Jim; "an' rale sorry I am--though, maybe, ye won't b'lieve me--that I ever dhruv the customers out."

For a long time Mrs. Macfarlane did not speak.

"I could forgive that easier than your rootin' up my lilies," she said, in a strained voice.

"But that I never did. G.o.d knows an' sees me this night, an' He knows that I never laid a finger on thim. I kem out, an' foun' the dog there scrattin' at thim, an' if this was me last dyin' worrd, 'tis thrue."

"An' 'twas really the wee dog?"

"It was, though I done wrong in laughin' at him, an' cheerin' him on; but, sure, ye wouldn't mind me whin I told ye he was at me roses, an' I thought it sarved ye right, an' that ye called him 'King William' to spite me."

"So I did," said Mrs. Macfarlane, and, she added, more gently, "I'm sorry now."

"Are ye so?" said Jim, brightening. "Faith, I'm glad to hear ye say it.

We was both in the wrong, ye see, an' if you bear no malice, I don't."

"Yu have been very good to me, seein' how I misjudged you," said Mrs.

Macfarlane.

"Not a bit ov it; an' 'twas the wife anyhow, for, begorra, I was hardened against ye, so I was."

"An' yu've spent yer money on me, an' I----"

"Sure, don't say a worrd about id. I owed it to you, so I did, but, begorra, ye won't have to complain ov wantin' custom wanst yer well."

Mrs. Macfarlane smiled wanly.

"No chance o' that, I'm afraid. What with my illness an' all that went before it, business is gone. Look at the place shut up this three weeks an' more."

"Not it," said Jim. "Sure, sence y've been sick I put our little Kitty, the shlip, in charge of the place, an' she's made a power o' money for ye, an' she on'y risin' sixteen, an' havin' to help her mother an' all.

She's a clever girl, so she is, though I sez it, an' she ruz the prices all round. She couldn't manage with the cakes, not knowin' how to bake thim like yerself; but sure I bought her plenty ov biscuits at Connolly's; and her mother cut her sandwidges, an' made tay, an' the dhrinks was all there as you left them, an' Kitty kep' count ov all she sould."

Mrs. Macfarlane looked at him for a moment queerly then she drew the sheet over her face, and began to sob.

Jim, feeling wretchedly uncomfortable, crept downstairs.

"Go to the craythure, Mary," he said. "Sure, she's cryin'. We've made it up--an' see here, let her want for nothin'."

Mary ran upstairs, took grim Mrs. Macfarlane in her arms, and actually kissed her; and Mrs. Macfarlane's grimness melted away, and the two women cried together for sympathy.

Now, as the trains come into Toomevara station, Jim goes from carriage to carriage making himself a perfect nuisance to pa.s.sengers with well-filled luncheon baskets. "Won't ye have a cup o' tay, me lady?

There's plinty ov time, an' sure, we've the finest tay here that you'll get on the line. There's nothin' like it this side o' Dublin; A gla.s.s o'

whiskey, sir? 'Tis on'y the best John Jameson that's kep', or sherry wine? Ye won't be shtoppin' agin annywheres that you'll like it as well.

Sure, if ye don't want to get out--though there's plinty o' time--I'll give the ordher an' have it sent over to yez. Cakes, ma'am, for the little ladies? 'Tis a long journey, an' maybe they'll be hungry--an apples? Apples is mighty good for childher. She keeps fine apples if ye like thim."

Mrs. Macfarlane has grown quite fat, is at peace with all mankind, takes the deepest interest in the O'Brien family, and calls her dog "Billy."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A blade of gra.s.s.

[2] Hag

Quin's Rick.

_From "Doings and Dealings."_

BY JANE BARLOW.

Clear skies and gentle breezes had so favoured Hugh Lennon's harvesting that his thres.h.i.+ng was all safely done by the first week in October, and as the fine weather still continued, he took his wife, according to promise, for a ten days' stay at the seaside. Mrs. Hugh was rather young and rather pretty, and much more than rather short-tempered. The neighbours often remarked that they would not be in Hugh Lennon's coat for a great deal--at times specifying very considerable sums.

From her visit to Warrenpoint, however, she returned home in high good humour, and ran gaily upstairs to remove her flowery hat, announcing that she would do some fried eggs, Hugh's favourite dish, for their tea.

Hence, he was all the more disconcerted when, as he followed her along the little pa.s.sage, she suddenly wheeled round upon him, and confronted him with a countenance full of wrath. She had merely been looking for a moment out of the small end window, and why, in the name of fortune, marvelled Hugh, should that have put her in one of her tantrums? But it evidently had done so. "Saw you ever the like of that?" she demanded furiously, pointing through the window.

"The like of what at all?" said Hugh.

"Look at it," said Mrs. Hugh, and drummed with the point of her umbrella on a pane.

Hugh looked, and saw, conspicuous at a short distance beyond their backyard, a portly rick of straw, which their neighbour, Peter Quin, had nearly finished building. A youth was tumbling himself about on top of it with much agility, and shouting "Pull!" at each floundering fall.

"Sure," said Hugh, "it's nothing, only young Jim Quin leppin' their rick."

"I wisht he'd break every bone in his ugly body, then, while he's at it," declared Mrs. Hugh.

"It's a quare wish to be wis.h.i.+n' agin the poor, decent lad," said her husband, "and he lepping plenty of ricks for ourselves before now."

"And what call have they to be c.o.c.king up e'er a one there," said Mrs.

Hugh, "where there was never such a thing seen till this day?"

"Why wouldn't they?" said Hugh. "It's a handy place enough for a one, I should say, there on the bit of a headland."

"How handy it is!" said his wife, "and it shutting out the gap in the fence on me that was the only glimpse I had into our lane."

"Well, supposing it does, where's the odds?" said Hugh. "There's ne'er a much in the lane for anybody to be glimpsing at."

"The greatest convenience in the world it was," declared Mrs. Hugh, "to be able to see you crossing it of a morning, and you coming in from the lower field, the way I could put the bit of bacon down ready for the breakfast."

"Musha, good gracious, woman alive, if that's all's ailing you, where's the need to be so exact?" said Hugh.

"Exact, is it?" said Mrs. Hugh. "Maybe you'd like to have the whole of it melted away into grease with being set on the fire half an hour too soon. Or else you to be standing about open-mouthed under me feet, like a starving terrier, waiting till it's fit to eat. That's how it'll be, anyway, like it or lump it. And I used to be watching for old Matty Flanaghan going by with the post-bag, and the Keoghs coming back from early Ma.s.s--'twas as good as an extra clock for telling the time. But now, with that big lump of a thing stuck there, I might as well be shut up inside of any old prison. Them Quins done it a-purpose to annoy me, so they did. Sorra another raison had they, for what else 'ud make them take and build it behind our backs? But put up with it is what I won't do. Stepping over to them I'll be this night, and letting them know how little I think of themselves and their mean tricks. And if I see old Peter, I'll tell him you'll have the law of him unless he gets it cleared away out of that to-morrow. Bedad will I; and yourself 'ud say the same, if you had as much spirit in you as a moulting chicken."