July 26, 2025 • 61 mins
Dive into the world of 19th-century Irish peasantry through the captivating short stories in Irish Idylls. Authored by the enigmatic Jane Barlow, these tales are imbued with a unique expression that grips the reader while evoking deep empathy for the characters. Barlow masterfully replicates the rhythm and melody of Irish dialogue, painting a vivid picture of life in Lisconnel. Despite her noble roots, Barlow exhibits a profound understanding and sympathy towards the Irish peasants oppressed under English rule. Her stark anti-clerical and anti-religious stance is also quite remarkable for her time. Published in 1893, Irish Idylls was Barlows most notable work, followed by the equally compelling sequel Strangers at Lisconnel in 1895. Join us in this journey through time and culture, and you might even find yourself humming along to an Irish ballad. (Summary by JCarson)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section five of Irish Idols by Jane Barlow. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Section five. One day
it chanced that the pair had an interview a bit
out on the bog, near the place where Brian Kilfoyle
and his wife were cutting long tufted grass under a
(00:23):
bank for their pig. Missus Driscoll had a spied the
gleam of mad Bell's red petticoat against the black peat,
and had sped after it rather than return home, unfortified
by a word with its wearer. As the kilfoils moved
along the bank, twitching up bunches of the tangled green blades,
(00:45):
they gradually came closer to the two women who were
sitting on the other side, And when Missus Bryan arrived
within ear shot of their discourse, Missus Driscoll was just saying, so,
as I said Mad Bell, I ought to be steppin
back to get the water on the fire, in case,
by any odd chance himself happened home to night. Not
(01:08):
that it's anyways likely, for he's after getting a long
job down below at Hillfory's thinned mangolds and Weeden turnips.
They are I wouldn't wonder meself if it wasn't home
afoot before the end of the week. Yes, they will, Och,
they will, and they'll think him a gentleman born they will.
(01:29):
Mad Bell murmured absently it was the refrain of a
favorite titty, but did not throw much light upon the
matter in hand. And the lads are along with him,
Missus O'Driscoll continued, and I tool you Rose was gone
to stay a couple of days with her sister away
at Lisnodrum. It makes the house seem lonesome, like Mad
(01:54):
Bell me dear howsomever, it's just for a while, you know,
It's not as if I hadn't there coming back to
look to Mad Bell only nodded curtly and went on humming.
But it was precisely this passive acquiescence which made her
a valuable confidant to Missus O'Driscoll, who continued not discouraged.
(02:18):
I'm thinkin after all, twill be scarce worth me while
to be putting down any more beades this evening, on
the chance of their comin' the coold ones I have
over from this morn ol, do grandly for me if
I warmed them up, and even so there might be
a few left to crisp for the lads in case
they were home again. Breakfast time to morrow. Jack does
(02:42):
have an uncommon fancy for her crisp Patadi. He always
had ever since his two hands with a size to
behold in one. So good night to you, kindly, mad Bell.
I'll have a supper water boilin', And then if they
do come at this moment, Missus Bryan and accidentally pulled
a clattering stone down along with her wisp of grass,
(03:05):
and Missus o'triscoll startled saw that she had been speaking
to more ears than Mad Bell's. She looked confused and
disconcerted by the discovery, and said, in an apologetic tone, Ah,
Missus Bryan, sure, I was just in a manner, Romanson,
if you happen to notice, indeed, it's foolish enough, very belike.
(03:28):
But she doesn't mind. And the truth is the bit
of a house. There does be that quite and lonesome
on me these times, and I'm comin in that. I'm afeared. Truth,
It's afeared. I am going back to it unless I've
something made up in me mind to hold off the
thought like for goodness help me when I'm steppin up
(03:50):
to the door. If I was to be thinkin all
the while, twould be that same way. Wit never the
sound of a voice, o'er the stir of a foot
in sight for ever and evermore, should I'd be fit
to go distracted outright, so I would och. But it's
that i'd go in dread of. And there's the reason
(04:10):
why I keep letting nod. They're only away temporary. In course,
I know it's makin a fool o meself I am,
but it's a sort of comfort all the same, And
it seems more natural when I get tellin it and
talkin about them to somebody else. She never troubles herself
the creature whatever you let on to her, or mind's
(04:32):
to be contradictin' sure now there's no sin in it,
is there, ma'm? When it's only yourself you deceiven. So
I just pluther away to her for me own contentment.
Ah bedad, I hadn't the heart, missus, Bryan said when
relating the incident to her friends, for to say anything
a gain it to her. Though it's a queer kind
(04:53):
of consolement, it seems to me but oc she might
be hard put to it these times to fire any
at all. If she'd say an odd prayer for them
now and again, said the widowmer Girk, with some sternness,
she'd be better employed, and there might be some sense
in it than contrivin old inventions. She might, too, be sure,
(05:18):
Missus Bryan said, doubtfully, But according to my own experience,
there's nought easier than to be saying one's prayers and
thinking of different things at the same time. And that's
no distraction either to a body's mind. You might as
well be striven to keep the wind out with a
sieve full of holes. I do suppose there's some things
(05:42):
there's no use trying to contend with it, and that's
a fact, said old missus Kilfoyle, if one could make
one's mind up to believe it. But maybe, please God,
she won't be spared overlong. Missus O'Driscoll, however, stuck persistently
to her forlorn device, even on days when mad Bell
(06:02):
was not forthcoming to act as interlocutour. She would pause
at the accustomed point on her way home, and her
lips might be seen moving as if she were romancing.
To herself. Once. Pat Ryan, who passed her by on
an occasion when she had been bringing in a load
of turf, reported a new phase of self delusion. For said,
(06:27):
he I give you me word. She'd her creole there
set down on the dike, and first she'd take one
little bit of a sod and lay it flat of
the stone. And that's Rousine's, she'd say, And then she'd
put another beside it, and says she, And that's what
I got the lads, And here's for Molly, says she,
(06:49):
and so on. Then she'd be putting them back in
the creel, but she'd stop to take another look at them,
make it as if she was considering, and maybe says
she this here would do better for the boys, and
Molly might leave her have the pink colored one. That's
the way she kept talking to herself. And I couldn't
think what she was at till the idea came into
(07:13):
me head. Twas letting on she was to be comin
home from the town with trifles of presents in her
basket for the childer, and they grown and gone. But
all the while you could perceive she knew right well,
she was just persuadin herself again her reason only she
couldn't abide to be thinkin so sure, twas Melancolius said,
(07:37):
pat to see her there on the road side in
the rain, fiddlin about with them old scraps of turf sads,
ll be herself. When the neighbors heard it, many of
them shook their heads oracularly and said, twouldn't be apt
to go on that a way for very long. But
how long it might have gone on in the natural
(07:59):
course of things cannot now be known, for it was
brought to an end by the interposition of the law's
strong arm. It was not, i am sure, the children's
fault that, for some time before their father's death, their
scrawls and mundy orders had arrived, but seldom at liz
(08:20):
Connall the contents of the communications which it did get
there showed plainly that they were themselves struggling along painfully
enough in the new world, and likewise that several other
scrawls had failed to reach their destination, not a surprising
result when one considers their quaintly enagmatical superscriptions, and may
(08:42):
at the present writing be stowed unavailingly away in blind
or dead letter departments. But this failing off of remittances,
conjoined with a series of bad seasons, hastened to the
accumulation of the odriscals of rears, And when died the
land agent wrote to his employer at the Calton that
(09:05):
the widows, ever paying up, appeared to be an utterly
hopeless matter, which was quite true. Her neighbors were indeed
ready to lend her, as far as possible a helping hand,
but it could not extend itself to the payment of
a rent, and to grub that out of her screed
of stony ground was a task beyond her powers. The
(09:27):
land agent also wrote that the poor woman, who seemed
to be an uncivilized, feeble minded sort of creature, would
be much better in the union, and that as she must,
at any rate be got rid of, he had taken
immediate steps for serving her with the necessary notices. The
woman's own view of the case was, in some sure
(09:51):
what would become of the childer if she would be
put out of it, and argument the futility of which
it would have been hard to make her understand. She
was put out of it, however, one blustery autumn day,
when the sub sheriff's party and the police had caused
an unwonted stir and bustle all the morning on the
(10:13):
Duffclain Road, along which so many feet seldom pass in
a twelvemonth. The district was reported disturbed, and therefore a
squadron of dragoons had been brought from the nearest garrison,
a tedious way off to protect and over awe. Their
scarlet tunics and brass helmets enlivened the outward aspect of
(10:38):
the proceedings, vastly making such a gorgeous pageant as our
black Boglin has perhaps never witnessed before or since, not
a cossoon, but worshiped the stately horses as they passed,
and thought their plumed and burnished riders almost as supernaturally superb.
(10:59):
But it must be own wound that the latter were
for the most part in very human bad tempers. In fact,
when they ascertained the nature and scoop the duty on
which they had come so far, some of them said
a choleric word with such emphasis that their superiors were
obliged to choose between deftness and mutiny, or at least insubordination,
(11:22):
and discreetly preferred the lesser evil. When the invading force
entered liz Connell, which it did among afternoon beams, just
begun to mellow and slant dazzlingly. It found an ally
in old Missus Gilfoyle, inasmuch as she enticed Missus O'Driscoll
to pay her a visit. At the critical moment of
(11:45):
its arrival, the old woman had recognized the widow of
Driscll's fate as one of those things with which there
is no contending, and had said to herself and her
daughter in law, where's the use of having them risin'
or row? There would dragging her out the creature? God,
pity her, that'll never quit for certain of her own
(12:07):
free will. I'll just step over to her and axe
her to come give me a hand with menden the
bottom that's fallen out of the old turf creole. She
did always be great at them jobs, and always ready
to do a body a good turn. I'll say that
for her deed, yes, said Missus Bryan. So it came
(12:29):
about that. At the time when the forcible entrance of
her cabin was being effected, Missus O'Driscoll was out of
sight in the Kilfoil's dark little room with the two
missus Kilfoils detained her as long as they could, but
in the end they were not able to prevent the
evicted tenant from joining the group of angry and scared
(12:52):
and woebegone faces gathered as near the doomed dwelling as
the authorities would permit, and from saying we're we're a
in a half bewildered horror as she saw each one
more of her few goods and chattels added to the
little heap of chaos into which her domestic world had
(13:14):
changed fast by her door, it was decreed that her
cabin should be not only unroofed, but demolished, because, as
an old bailiff dolefully remarked, there never was any tellin
where you'd have those boyos, as like as not, they'd
land the thatch on to it again the first minute
(13:38):
your back was turned, as easy as you'd clap your
old corbine on your head, and there to be the
whole botheration over again, as fresh as a daisy. Therefore,
when the ancient smoke steeped, whether worn covering had been
plucked from off the skeleton rafters, and lay strewn around
(14:00):
in flocks and wisps, like the wreck of an Ogre's
brown wig. The picks and crow bars came into play,
for it was before the days of battering ram and maiden.
The mud walls were solid and thick. It had to yield,
and presently a broad bit of the back wall fell
outward all of a piece, as no other sort of
(14:23):
masonry falls with a dull, heavy thud, like a dead body.
The lime washed inner surface thus turned up skywards, gleamed
sharply despite all its smoke rhyme against the drab clay.
And though the interior had been very thoroughly dismantled, a
(14:43):
few small pictures were still visible nailed on the white.
As the cordon of police and other officials fell back
a pace or so to avoid the toppling wall, the
Whidemergirk seized the opportunity to make a sally and cat
sure one of these derelict ornaments. It was a holy family,
(15:04):
a crudely colored print, all crimson and blue, with a
deep gilt border, such as you might purchase for a
halfpenny any day. Ay, sure, it's great, Ben, you are
entirely to be evict in the likes of them, she
cried shrilly, waving her lud aloft as she was hustled
(15:26):
back to a respectful distance. Autless. Connell responded with a
low and sullen murmur. But missus O'Driscoll's attention was very
opportunely taken up by the restoration of this piece of property.
Chwoman alive, she said, And it was himself brought me
that one give it to me into me hand. Should
(15:49):
I remember the day? Yet, as if the sun hadn't
gone down on it. The old higgler Finney had come
up with his basket, and while some of the rest
did be about to get and a few trifles, I
was in an uncommon admiration of this howsomever I hadn't
a penny to me name to be spending on anything
(16:09):
in the world. So I let him go, but shut
himself met me below on the road, and happened to
have a haypenny about him, and so he brought it
home to me. I mind, I run out and buried
attack from poor Mick Ryan to put it up with.
I dear, look now at the tear it's gut at
(16:30):
the top coming off. This damage seemed for the time
being to concern her more than any of her other troubles,
and she allowed herself to be drawn away on the
pretext of depositing the picture safely in the kilfoil's cabin,
where she remained until the invaders had departed from Les Connall.
(16:51):
Everybody else watched them trooping off over the bogland with
brass and scarlet, flashing and glowing splendidly in winter decleans
of the sunset. They had gone a long way before
the purple shadowed gloaming had swallowed up the last far
a spied glitter. With the kilfoils, she found a lodging
(17:14):
for some time, but she entered days at the widow Mergirk's,
where there was no less hospitality and more spare room.
She was persuaded to make the move, chiefly by the
consideration that she would there be nearer the crest of
the hill for the dominant dread which now brooded over
her life. We so seldom fall too low for special
(17:38):
fear was the home coming of the childer, and they
to be stepping along the creatures expecting no harm. And
then when there up the hill and in sight of
our bit of a house, all of a sudden to
see there was no trace of it, only a dissolute room.
They might better keep the breath of the ocean sea
(18:00):
between them, And that she seemed to be continually living
through in imagination this terrible moment, and grew more and
more eager to avert it. If I could get ever
a chance to see them come on the road, she said,
and give them warnin afore they'd crossed the knokworn twouldn't
(18:21):
come so cruel hard on them. And with that end
in view, she spent many an hour of the bleak,
witter days which followed her eviction in looking out from
the unsheltered hill side towards duff Layin. It was vain
now for any neighbor to profess a firm belief that
they would never return, just as confidently as he or
(18:45):
she had formerly been used to predict their appearance. One
of these days, missus O'Driscoll listened meekly while it was
pointed out to her how probably they had settled themselves
down over there for good and all and got married baby,
or who could tell that one of them mightn't have
been took bad and have gone beyond this world altogether
(19:08):
the same as his poor father. But then she went
and looked out again the young Doines and Sheridan's, who
at that time were quite small children. Remember how she
would stop them when she met them, and bid them
be sure if if ever, by any chance they saw
Rose or one of the lads coming along, to mind
(19:30):
and tell them that their father was gone, and she
was put out of it, but that missus mc girk
was given her shelter and no fear they wouldn't find her,
and to bid them make haste all the haste they could.
It must have been when she was on the watch
one perishing March day that she caught the cold, which
(19:51):
carried her off with very little resistance on her part.
She was herself too weak and still too much taken
up with the children affairs Toffert about the fact that
the expenses of Herburian would certainly be defrayed by the house.
But it distressed lest Connall seriously and would never have
(20:12):
been permitted to occur, could the requisite sum have been
by any means amassed. The circumstance added to some gloom
to the sorrowful mood in which her neighbors saw another
procession pass over the hill on a still wet morning,
when the rain rustled on along the road and the
gray mist curtains were closely drawn. None of the childer
(20:36):
have come back again, and it may now be hoped
that they never will. Chapter seven, Thunder in the air,
considering everything less connall musters as large a congregation as
could be expected from mass down Beyent on Sundays and
Saint's Days. But then so many things have to be considered,
(20:59):
including primarily those long lines of desolate road, that its
numbers are actually small. For when from the population of
the place you have deducted the people who are too
young or too old, or crippled like Peter and Peg Sheridan,
or minding babies and invalids, and from the residuum again
(21:22):
abstract the men who prefer basking in the sun should
it happen to spread that poor man's feast, and the
boys who, under any meteorological conditions whatever, would choose rather
to rush and yell about the wild bog than sit
still within four solemn walls. You will find no very
(21:43):
imposing contingent left. Of course, there are many days of
the year when wind and whether permit nobody to attempt
the journey, but a few people perform it with much regularity.
The Wudhemergirk, for instance, a strong and quick walker and
began who stumps on steadily and perseveringly, and says, Musha, good, gracious,
(22:08):
glory be to God, it's here I am. When she arrives,
little old missus Kilfoil too, might for many years be
met pattering along with a clean white flannel petticoat over
her head and her face looking out quaintly through the
pocket hole. This is the fashionable substitute for the cloak
(22:29):
in Liz Connell and Missus Kilfoil's venerable bluecloth hooded garment,
soon after it came into her possession by inheritance, had
been stolen by a passing vagrant, to the lasting impoverishment
of her family. In the female line, she used to
trot on with a briskness and staying power, which did
(22:52):
her son Brian's heart good to see. When the neighbors
commented upon it and said, sure be Dad, she was
as young as any of them. He was as much
pleased as if some one had guaranteed him ten years
good harvests, for by that time she must have been
verging upon eighty according to conjecture in less connell. Our
(23:15):
ages are always more or less matters of guess work
once they begin to be reckoned by years. But one Sunday,
it was a mild, mellow lighted September afternoon. She grew
so very tired on the way back that they had
the work of the world getting her home, and she
never went to Mass again, though by one of those
(23:40):
fictions which make life endurable, it was always understood that
she would resume the practice when the weather did be
something drier or warmer, or cooler, perhaps goodness coming on
Easter or Michaelmas and Brian found this a sadly shrunken
source of saddisfaction. During the late summer and early autumn,
(24:03):
Liz Connell is most frequently and numerously represented in the
little chapel near the town, partly perhaps because its inhabitants
are at this season better fed and have consequently more
energies to spare for extra exertions, and partly because in
the pleasant, breezy, blue and white mornings, mothers and wives
(24:26):
and sisters find it easier to beat up recruits for
their three hours trudge to first mass, even on rare
occasions when there is a station held at Duffclain which
cuts a couple of miles off their tramp. The start
has to be a timely one, made while your long
(24:48):
shadow eclipses many twinkling stars in the grass as it
slides before you, and while the air is still fresh
with dew. On such mornings as these, quite a procession
sometimes goes over the knockhorn, the white cloaks and shirt
sleeves gleaming with the stainlessness and snowiness which always puzzles
(25:12):
me when I look into the dark doors whence they issue?
I do not think that Elis Connell afflicts itself much
about its remoteness from Chapel, and this equanimity is in
a measure due to the attitude adopted by old Father Rooney,
who has for over forty years been its parish priest.
(25:34):
In his most active days, he recognized how impossible it
would be to establish any very close connections between himself
and that furthest outlying shred of his widely scattered cure,
and an actual benevolence of disposition inclined him to console
his parishioners for their inevitable stinting in the matter of
(25:57):
his ministrations. Perhaps also the breath of the spacious physical
horizon which he had before his eyes as he rode
about the bogs, may have somehow influenced his mental vision.
Me good woman, he exhorted Missus McGirk one day, when
she had been lamenting the probability that it might be
(26:20):
her husband's fate to die without his clergy. You should
not be making your mind too uneasy on that score.
Send for me, of course, and if by any means
I can come up to you, well and good. But
if I'm prevented, you've no call to be supposing that
you'll be left without every sort of assistance. For that reason,
(26:42):
likely enough, I will be all the while riding off
Sellenmore ways or Dromesque ways as fast as I can contrive.
But I'm not taken the blessed Saints and the Mother
of Mercy and the rest following along with me, same
as if I was, so to speak, showing them their road.
They know where they wanted as well as you or I.
(27:05):
You may depend and won't be asking either of our
leaves to get there. Missus mc girk was slightly shocked
and greatly relieved by this view of the matter. I
am not prepared to deny that if her circumstance had
been less utterly poverty stricken, for the Rooney might have
sincerely believed it his duty to point out a more
(27:28):
expensive method of quieting her misgivings. But extreme indigence has
some immunities, and these people of lez Connell are such
empty handed travelers between life and death that no one
can be much tempted to demand this kind of toll
from them on the way. For the Carol, who sometimes
(27:52):
assists for the Rooney, takes a rather sterner view of things, which, however,
does not count for much here or they. Owing to
his smaller popularity, the people generally speak of him as
the Cross Priest, less because they really know anything, to
the disadvantage of his temper, than because his harsh, featured,
(28:16):
blue shaven face looks somewhat grim beside the other's kindly
ruddy countenance and fringe of white hair. To some persons,
Father Carroll's outward man would suggest the suspicion that he
was habitually guarding dark secrets. But I do not believe
that this is the case. He is on more substantial
(28:39):
grounds considered to have a great eye entirely for a
good horse. One Saint Peter's day, he came up to
let Connell on an urgent sick call, and when departing,
fell in with Terence joined a wildish lad, to whom
he put the question why he had not gone to
(29:00):
that morning with his parents instead of fishing for pequens
along by the river, appending as a sort of corollary,
which we know is often more puzzling than the original proposition,
a request to be informed what effect on his final
destinies Terrance anticipated from such a line of conduct. Terence replied,
(29:24):
whether your reverence, I'll be right enough. I'm thinkin' mass
or no mass would be mother down below there, prayin'
away from me like everything you could name. Sure you
wouldn't say they'd go for to be making a fool
of her, letting her waste her time axin for nothin
she'll get. If they would, she might as well have
(29:45):
been after them pinkynes. That's as slivery to try catch
as little old devils. Did your reverence ever hear tell?
There was trouts in the bit of stream along yonder
Terence was trying to slip away from the point, but
for the Carroll would not be evaded, and said, no, Terence,
(30:06):
to be certain your mother will experience the benefit of
her prayers. But suppose she's granted something else better instead
of the saving of a young slivererin like yourself, and
such a thing is easy enough to imagine, would you
be then, my fine lad. This presentment of the case
somewhat flabbergasted Terence, and his reverence would probably have had
(30:29):
the last word if Terence's a brother. Matt, a smaller
and more reflective Gussoon had not intervened, saying, confidently, there's
neery no such a thing to be had, sorrow, another
thing would pass upy me mother, if anything went again him,
not if it was the illigentist could be conceived. She's
(30:51):
always had such a wish for him. Matt pointed to Terence,
as never was musher. But it's a fine time them
saints would be having its plutherplother ploth should go like
the old Hummond machine. They had thresh and os down
at Hilforthy's below and divil a minute's piece. Did one
of them get with her? If anybody looked crooked at
(31:14):
him fa the carol had not an argument ready, so
he only said, the poor woman seems likely to have
her own work with the pair of view, and the
advantage may be considered to have rested with the brothers.
Several years after this, a most brilliant July Sunday rose
upon les Connell, and by seven o'clock the people bound
(31:37):
for Chapel were prepared to start. It was a hot,
very still morning. The invisible hand, which is almost always
combing the rushes and sedges about the marshy pools, had
for once left them to stand street, and there was
not a breath stirring that could have carried the lightest
(31:58):
cloud fluck cross the deep, speed well blue of the sky,
where however, no clouds would be seen. Yet. Old mic Ryan,
who was sunning himself at his door, said that the
weather looked none too fine and wouldn't hold up much longer.
It's too clear altogether. Over yonder, he said, pointing to
(32:19):
the far off horizon, against which a sharp peak was
delicately outlined in faint, wild violet color, we'll be apt
to havin a crack of thunder presently it's in the air.
But the others said they saw no signs of it,
and it would be a queer thing to have a thunder.
So early in the month, when the chapel bound party
(32:41):
had gone a little way beyond the hill, they met
Terence Doyne, coming from the opposite direction. Is it home
you go on? Terence, said his sister Stacy. I'm glad
of that now, for you'll be company to mother and
Matt's away off somewheres down the bog. For missus Doyne
was ailing, and Stacy had been divided between a particularly
(33:03):
strong wish to attend Mass this morning and a feeling
that she ought to stay and keep her mother heartened up.
She now walked on with a sad conscience, though judging
by Terence's appearance, one might have thought him likely to
prove rather a wearing companion, his look being as of
(33:23):
one who has a grievance and resents it, and as
a matter of fact, his mother so far from being
cheered up, when some time afterwards he stooped in at
her doorway, felt her heart gripped again by a temporary
staved off dread. She had supposed him safely on his
(33:43):
way to Mass. Since he had come back. However, she
earnestly desired him to remain indoors, and she made conversation
perseveringly under the discouragement of brief and grumpy replies. She
hoped she was talking him into good use humor, until
he suddenly glanced round the shadow hung walls and said,
(34:05):
there's one of the loys took. Where's matt ooch away outside?
Maybe just trapesin about, said missus Dwyane, with a start.
And so I was tellin you, Judy Ryan says to me.
They were half through the chaps, as solid as a
gob of mud. When he's took a notion in his
fool's head, Terence went on, disregardfully, I know that he's
(34:27):
after cutting's sods in the bank where I've told him
times and again there isn't a spade load of good
slain turf let alone. It's beIN twist as far to
carry as from the place I was showing him yesterday.
He turned towards the door, but his mother, whose head
and hands had begun to tremble, said, piteously, sure, never
(34:49):
mind about it, this instant, Terence Avik, where's the hurry?
What were we saying about the Ryans? It was something
diverting enough, I know only as just passed out of
me head till I remembered it in another minute. Weak Now, Terence, honey,
would you fancy a bit of the griddle cake Missus
Kilfoyle brought me. There was a good bit over that
(35:11):
I couldn't eat last night, and I put it away
on purpose for you to be havin it beautiful whole
meal it is, she was sent to present of our mothers.
Never quite believe that we have fully outgrown the lure
of sugar. Bread and butter were the like, and perhaps
they hold not altogether ungrounded faith. Then, as Terence was
(35:34):
striding on gracelessly past this offer, she said, Hawk, then
stay a bit with me, jewel, should it's lonesome, I
do be and stacy away all the mornin', and never
a soul for me to pass a word wit and
me head's bad. Sure you might stop in a while
when I axe you. She so seldom made a point
(35:55):
blank appeal for anything on her own behalf that Terence
was in rest, and sat down, to her great relief
upon the ledge of the dresser, which jingled all its
jugs and cups every time he swung his legs. Furthermore,
he said, you, old toad, which pleased her vastly, as
she had reason to consider it an excellent sign for
(36:18):
his temper. But after all, when she was breathing freely
and thinking of topics to talk about, he jumped up
as if something had stabbed him, and went plunging through
the door before she had time to put in another
word of protest. His mother sat looking miserable for a
short time, and then went out also, and a little
(36:40):
way up the road to where a lot of neighbors
were gathered, some seated in a dwindling shadow of the
Sheridan's walls, and some in the broad sunshine. On the
top of the dike. The sky was still clear and
deeply ultramarine, but had lost its early egliciting as of
(37:00):
suspended dews, and looked sultry. Low down on its southern rim.
The jagged edge of a dense black cloud would just
show itself here and there for a moment and shrink
back out of kin. You might have fancied some huge,
dark hided shape lurking there in ambush, and as it
(37:22):
prowled to and fro ever and anon inadvertently discovering a
pricked up ear or ridge of a spine about the
Sheridan's door. People were carrying on a conversation leisurely and intermittently,
perhaps one should say a series of conversations. So long
were the frequent pauses the flow of their discourse quickened
(37:45):
into animation and conduity only in some eddy of anecdote,
as for example, when Oddy Rafferty was recounting a fracas
which had taken place lately somewhere between down below and
down beyond, Pat Martin was telling me. He said, young
Willie m'loy and another young fellow from dromsque Be the
(38:08):
name of Joyce, whereafter Havin the Greatest set to it
all on Tuesday night, where they were working for Sullivan
plowin for turnips. Young mlloy was and drove over a
stone in the furrow and smashed a back band all
to Flitterjigg's, whereby Sullivan came along and gave him dog's abuse.
(38:30):
So malloy ups and says, Joys has a right to
have seen the plow harness was sound afore they went out,
and Joyce he ups and says, the harness was right enough,
and the other had no call to be forcing his
plow over such a sizeable lump of a stone. So
from that they got to bullyragen and bargain, when another
(38:52):
outrageous till the end of it was they fell to
boxin on the road going home most terrific. Young mlloy
got the other chap down, and Pat says he'd have
had him choked as sure as there was breath in
his body. Only old Molly Finney caught him by the
hind leg till some of the rest of them pulled
(39:13):
him off ch He said, it was a great fight entirely.
The only wonder is, said missus Sheridan, that them young
chaps don't too slaughter on each other oftener than happens.
That puts me in mind of one of the further
backist things I remember, said Joe Ryan, old Mick's youngest brother,
(39:33):
twas as long ago as when I wasn't the size
of them smallens over there? Look at them now, Sure
the devil's busy with them. They're dragging a couple of
chickens up and down the street in their mother's saucepanes.
Let her get home to them. Sure, I dunno what
old ages go it mayn't be for its generations, since
(39:55):
the mac rands quit out of this, and it was
the time they had the Quiggly's house. But I mind
the sun. Luke one sunday mornin' comin' up here from
where ever he'd been powerful hot weather it was, and
much about this season of the year. And when he come,
his old father and sisters and some more of us
(40:17):
were just strillin' about the place promiscuous. So he striled
along too, and nobody noticed anything uncommon while we were
passin' b the dike. There at the bottom of Missus
mc girk's field of potades, and in one corner of
it there was a great blaze like of red poppies,
as there may be this present instinct for that matter.
(40:40):
But when Luke macran set eyes on them, he let
the most surprising yell you ever witnessed, and grabbed hold
of his father as he might have done, and he
scared it anything afore he was grown. Lord in heaven,
says he pointin afore him. What's that there? Sure? But
what else would it be, you, Gomerol, says one of
(41:01):
the girls, except a clump of poppies. Troth said he
I dunno what I thought it was at all, and
began laughing, a great horse laugh, as if he was
trying to pass it off. So he walked on a
few perches till we come where there was a line
of poppies again growing in the long grass under the dike.
And if we did, Luke Makran let another yell out
(41:25):
of him you might have heard in Cork, and stood
stirin wild. Says he. The devil's done that on me.
The devil's done that on me. It's on this road,
and it's all along the other road. And where am
I to get to at all? I say, says he,
seeming to go altogether beyond himself. And with that he
lipped the dike, and twas just there at the road
(41:49):
center away with him out over the bog, as if
hell was let loose behind him faith he whirled through,
wet and dry, like an old rag caught in a
straw wind. Folk thought he had drink taken, but maybe
something better. Than Half an hour after he'd gone, the
police came up with word there was a man lying
(42:10):
under a bank in a bit of bog celly bag
ways on Hillforthy's land. It was, and his head all
battered to smithere reins with the handle of an old grip,
and he seen alive last in company with Luke mc cran,
drinking together they were the night before. Oh that was
an ugly business. Nothing had suit me but to skite
(42:33):
off down there to see what I could. How whenever
the misfortunate beIN never was took. I dunno what became
of him at all. And his family quite decent, poor
people they were. Only Luke did always be fire and
hot in his temper. Sure, I dare say you might
remember it, Judy, We are much the one age bedad do,
(42:54):
I said, Judy, it had slipped hold of me recollection.
But now you mention it, I remember it right well.
But it's a misapprehension to say nobody noticed ought a
miss with him. For the first instinct he came. You
might easy see he was tremblin' head and foot like
a horse, that's after takin affright, and his eyes were
(43:16):
that wild, the look of him as clear before me,
yet as if he was standing as close to me
as missus Joyne is. Now, isn't there ever a seat
in it for you? Ma'am? You don't look always fit
to be standin about deeed. It's mighty indifferent. You're lookin' whatever.
Pat set the old creepy stool for missus Joyne. No
(43:37):
thank you, ma'am, said missus Joyne. I'm just steppin in
to speak to missus Kilfoyle. Tis the heat of the
sun discommodes me. It's blazin' hot this day. Twon't trouble
her much longer then, if that's what ails her, said
Peter Sheridan, as she turned away, twill be black out
on us afore we're five minutes older. There'll be a
(43:59):
little enough heat left in it once it gets behind that.
That was an enormous blue black cloud rampart with crenelated
summit and buttressed base, which had reared itself almost to
the zenith in the north and still rose steadily. Livid
white cloudlets scuddered across its dark face, and here and
(44:22):
there a rift let in background of coppery clare thunder.
Everybody said or thought, and straightway anxious forebodings about potatoes
and clutches of eggs mixed in many minds with a
vaguer disquietude. This cornall is seriously alarmed at thunder storms,
it might pass off. Yet Judy Ryan said, hopefully that's
(44:46):
not in the way of the wind. What trifle there
is does be suddenly as if Peter Sheridan rejoined ominously.
Everybody didn't know that thunder comes up again, the wind,
which is of a piece with the red of its
contrariness and bad cessed the same. Still, the sun held
Missus Doyin in a scorching dazzle all the way to
(45:08):
Kilfoyle's door, so that she had finished thanking Missus Kilfoyle
kindly for the griddled bread, before her blinking eyes had
caught sight of the little old woman in her obscure corner.
Missus Doyne, a down hearted person whose experience of life
had not been calculated to encourage her, was always very
(45:31):
capable of fears, which she sometimes kept to herself for
private brooding over, but generally sooner or later communicated to
a sympathizing neighbor. Therefore, Missus Kilfoyle was not at all
surprised when her visitor now sat down and said, lamentably,
my hearts broke. This is our customary formula for announcing
(45:56):
that we are in any sort of tribulation and may
mean nothing serious. Are you finding yourself took worse again, me, dear,
said Missus Kilfoyle, commiseratingly. Ah No, said Missus Doyne. It's
the lads, Terence and Matt. They have me distracted. I
dun'no what's come over them this while back, For they
(46:18):
always lived together, as friendly as a pair of old brogues.
But now there's something gone again them there that cross
with one another. Twould dishearten you to see. Never the
thing Matt can do, but terenants'll find fault with it,
and they'll bicker and alligate about every hand's turn. I
believe they'd raise an argument about the stars and the
(46:40):
sky if they could find nothing else handier. And I
dun'no where it'd end. Sure, most people to be contrary
that way now and again, said Missus Kilfoyle consolingly. And
nobody can expect young lads like them to have a
scrumpcheon of sense. That's where it is. For how can
(47:02):
you tell what demented thing they'll be apt to go do?
Why should if one of them lost control of himself
for an instant of time, he might be hittin the
other a crack he'd never get the better of before
he knew what he was at. Oh, the dread of
that's never out o me mind. When they're away together,
I do be hearin somebody comin down the road with
(47:23):
the news every foot that stirs, and I can't sleep
at night for thinkin of it. Often. I'm wishin the
day it'd never come round again, to be giving them
a chance to destroying one another. Let it keep dark,
says I, for there's little to see be daylight, but
that one's afraid to look at. Now that's the talk
of a fool, said Missus Kilfoyle with candor. But my
(47:45):
opinion is nobody's rightly sensible in the nights. The notions
they'll take in their heads when they're lyin awake, or
mostly as unreasonable as when they're dreamin outright. If I
were you, Missus Doying, ma'am, I'd not mind a thronein
I thought in the knight, unless it was a put
room for thinkin' something different by otherwils fay, If some
(48:08):
one was killed every time a couple of people were
unpleasant in their tempers, how many of us would be
left alive? It's not every time. It's just the one
time I go in dread of, said Missus Doying, And
I know MAT's out on the bog cutting turf this
mornin' before I come in to you. Terrance went off
there with himself too, As like as not, they'll get
(48:30):
disputing about something. And the wild bog's a terrible dangerous
place for any persons to be quarreling in among all
them hideous, deep, bottomless holes. Sure a slipper or shove
might send one of them over the edge and them
tusslin about convenient, And then there do be the loys
and grips lyin around. Suppose need of them got caught
(48:52):
up in such a thing into his hand in a rage,
or the saint's shieldem And it's as black and as
bitter as such, Rance poor creature was looking when I
last set eyes on them, talking a black, said Missus Kilfoil,
with intentional inconsequence, it seems to be grown unnatural dark.
The thickest shadows indeed had stolen forth from all the
(49:17):
room corners, emboldened by the abrupt withdrawal of the long
rays which I had thrust A wedge of glowing gold
in at the open door and turned Missus Kilfoil's favorite
metallic burnished jug into a refulgent star, where it hung
on its remote recess. The two women rose and stood
(49:38):
looking out on a great gloom. People who had never
seen a wide sweep of bogland beneath the scowl of
a thunder cloud hardly know what blackness the face of
the earth can gather at noontide. Nowhere else, one imagines
does murk swooping from overhead so mingled with murk striking
(49:58):
up from under foot. For the ground seems not merely
to passively accept the shadows flung down upon it, but
to reflect them back as water reflects sunshine. The grim
bog broadens and flattens itself under the luring cloud masses,
as if some monstrous weight were actually drawn across it,
(50:20):
and their blackness is drawn into relief by lurid gleams
of smoky yellow. To day, the sullen, lustreless glare, as
from the low of some far distant furnace, seemed to
beat against the dense vapor screen and struggled through its
interse to seize with an evil looking glimmer. We'a said
(50:41):
Missus kilfoil woman alive, that you ever behold the like
of such a sky as that it might be a
loafful of coal tar boiled up over on an old
brass pan. The Lord be good to us this day,
but there's going to be something beyond the Beyonce Entirely,
if it was the end of all the ages, it
(51:03):
couldn't look more unnatural. Missus Doyne was literarily much more
afraid of thunder storms than Missus Kilfoyle, who had a
reassuring theory that if you just stayed quiet in whatever
place you happened to be, the lightning would know where
you were and be apt to keep out of your
way like her. Oddi Rafferty objected, a mad dog that
(51:27):
won't turn out of the road he's started running in
to bite you, But Missus Kilfoyle said it was all one.
Lezz Connall is decidedly eclectic in its philosophical explanations of
natural phenomena. On this occasion, however, Missus Doyne's mind had
been preoccupied by an anxiety that crowded out her usual panic,
(51:50):
and when she strained her gaze over the expanse of
gloom before her, it was not to note the march
of the menaced storm. Katy, she said to little Kilfoyle,
who stood near you that have the good sight, look
and tell me, can you see aught moving yonder on
the bog. Katie's gray eyes were as keen as any
(52:12):
young hawks, and she at once replied, Matt Doyne's cutting
turf away down there, and his brother's crossing over to
where he is. He's just after leapin' a bit of
a pool. As she spoke, a faint waft of wind
came panting towards them, out of the breathless hush, and
made all the taller grass tufts tremble. Here it is,
(52:36):
said missus Kilfoyle solemnly, But nothing followed except a slight
puff of dust. Missus Doyne said, with a grown off
them two lads. Sure they'll run home in next to
no time, nearly a harm they'll get. Why gosoons like
them just put down their heads and off wit them
skitin' across all before them. Ay, but it doesn't seem
(52:59):
so long, said the little old woman, since i'd be
doin the same myself. They're not like you and me.
They must be liftin' our feet over each separate stick
or stone in our road, same as a couple of
old hens. Mercy be among us, woman, dear, you're never
going after them in the face of that. For Missus
Doyane was gathering the folds of her ragged shawl under
(53:23):
her chin with a left hand, which if you wear
a shawl habitually means that you are setting out somewhere.
It's not a right thing for you to be doing
at all, getting yourself drounded dead for nothing in the
pulters of rain. We're safe to have presently, if there's
nought worse than Paulther's coming. Terence was mad, I know
(53:45):
about Matt cutting at that turf bank, murmured Missus Doying,
glancing nervously at the darkest cloud. Get out, said Missus Gilfoil.
It is raven frantic you suppose them to be. That
they'd stop there, rising rose with turf cutton, with the
noonday turned as black as the inside of an old
soot bag before their eyes. They'd have more woof goodness,
(54:09):
save and deliver us all. A vibrant, steely glare sawed
the gloom before their faces for a terrible moment, and
the thunder peel, almost overtaking it prolonged the rough right
through a sharp rattle and bellowing boom, dying away in
lumbering rumbles and thuds. Run in, Katie, run in both
(54:31):
of yours, cried Missus Kilfoyle, vanishing into her doorway, But
Missus Doying darted straight across the road and out upon
the scowling bog. She went in mortal fear. Weak as
she was, the mere solitary traversing of so much rough,
unsheltered ground would have seemed formidable to her. But now
(54:54):
if the swaying cloud bastions had been a fort, sweeping
her path with shot and shell, until the torn air
round her shrieked death, she could not have found it
hearted face. Every foot she set before the other had,
in a mental debate, been turned to flee ere the
step was taken forwards. As she walked over the yielding
(55:17):
lying stalks and slippery short grass, She dared not lift
her eyes from the ground lest they should meet that fearsome,
flickering blaze. It came again and again, making her heart
stand still with terror, but a dread within dread still
drove her on muttering, broken of heels till all the
(55:37):
powers of heaven. Then the air hissed, and she felt
hailstones pelting on her forehead and hands, and presently saw
them gathering in white drifts under black roots and banks,
and sprinkling dark spaces of bare turf. Cold blasts came
with the hail, flapping her shawl into her eyes. They
(56:01):
seemed to be suffocating her, yet when they had blustered by,
she felt as if they had taken her breath with them.
She could hardly tell the real thunderclaps from the sounds
that surged and hummed in her ears, and her knees
began to give at each heavily stumbling step, like a
stalk of meadow grass when its joint knot is snapped.
(56:24):
Where Still, a sense grew upon her that all these
things had happened to her before, an uncanny feeling which
brings desperation with it. This sense strengthened suddenly when at last,
coming as she thought, near the place where her boys
had been seen, she forced herself to look up, and
(56:45):
at once descried them through the hurdle of the pelting shower,
only a few yards distant, and fighting Terence was trying
to rest a spade out of Matt's hand. For one
nightmare moment, she stood spell stopped. The next she was
endeavoring wildly to call to them, but she believed that
(57:07):
no sound passed her lips. Only from somewhere far off
in the dimness, a strange, hoarse voice seemed to shriek meaninglessly,
and before she could struggle on again, floods of seething
darkness rushed in upon her from all sides and swept
her out of consciousness. Missus Joyne was mistaken. Her cry
(57:31):
came distinctly to her son's and stopped their scuffle as
effectually as if they had been separated by an explosion.
Was that mother Colin, they said, simultaneously, standing with dropped arms,
And in the same instant they saw her fall. Oh
my god, Oh my god, she struck, Matt shouted. Terence
(57:52):
was speechless, and put all his energies into a great spring,
foiled by a twisted heather root, which tripped him up.
That he had crawled, dragging a useless foot after him,
to the place where his brother had forestalled him. In
white lipped distraction. Neither of them could doubt that she
was dead, but Terence yelled to Matt run home for
(58:15):
his life and get help, and Matt fled away through
a blinding blue glare, with the thunder roll trampling after
him overhead. Then Terran sat down on the low grassy
ledge and said to his mother, Och, you bad old one.
What made you go for to be straffin' about the
(58:35):
bog this sort of weather? Sure twas no thing to
go do. But I dare say you're better now to
be lyin as quiet as you can, till some of
them comes to lend you a hand home for you. See,
I'm after wrenching me, fool of a foot? Did you
say anything? Mother? What was you saying? Mush now? But
you're the great old villain to be let nane there
(58:58):
thinking to terrify me, shourd, I'm always telling you you're
no better than a real downright rogue with the inventions
of you howsomever may be all the same. I won't
let the hailstones be hoppin' in your face. The devil
tear me that. I wouldn't stop in the house with
her this mornin'. What's gone at all? Would Matt and
(59:20):
the lads that there's ne'er a sign of them coming along.
Did you hear that clap? Mother, didn't you? Then? It
was a fine one entirely if you'd been listening. But
you needn't be minded, for we'll just help you home
out of it in next to no time, the old villain.
If the lads ever come, they did come as fast
(59:40):
as they could, and carried her home through the storm,
to her black little doorway, which seemed as much to
her present purpose as a palace of marble and ivory.
Several people set out in quest of the priest and
the doctor and Dan O'Byrne, whom it was feared they
would not find, he being supposed absent from home, and
(01:00:03):
others devoted themselves to the discussion of the case in
all its bearings. Little else remained for them to do,
but they decided that missus Doyne, whatever might have took her,
had not been struck by lightning. For Oddy Rafferty had
been told by a farmer who had a heifer destroyed
in that way, that the creature was all blackened on
(01:00:26):
one side, like the stem of a burnt fuse bush,
and there was no signs of anything on Missus Doyne,
it was like her paralysis. Everybody speculated too about what
she could have been doing out there on the bog,
and she scarce fit to go the length of her
own shadow, everybody except Missus Kilfoyle, who was merciful and said, sure,
(01:00:49):
maybe the creature Heaven help her, had been looking for
one of the lads to run on an errand for
her end of Section five eight
Section five of Irish Idols by Jane Barlow. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Section five. One day
it chanced that the pair had an interview a bit
out on the bog, near the place where Brian Kilfoyle
and his wife were cutting long tufted grass under a
(00:23):
bank for their pig. Missus Driscoll had a spied the
gleam of mad Bell's red petticoat against the black peat,
and had sped after it rather than return home, unfortified
by a word with its wearer. As the kilfoils moved
along the bank, twitching up bunches of the tangled green blades,
(00:45):
they gradually came closer to the two women who were
sitting on the other side, And when Missus Bryan arrived
within ear shot of their discourse, Missus Driscoll was just saying, so,
as I said Mad Bell, I ought to be steppin
back to get the water on the fire, in case,
by any odd chance himself happened home to night. Not
(01:08):
that it's anyways likely, for he's after getting a long
job down below at Hillfory's thinned mangolds and Weeden turnips.
They are I wouldn't wonder meself if it wasn't home
afoot before the end of the week. Yes, they will, Och,
they will, and they'll think him a gentleman born they will.
(01:29):
Mad Bell murmured absently it was the refrain of a
favorite titty, but did not throw much light upon the
matter in hand. And the lads are along with him,
Missus O'Driscoll continued, and I tool you Rose was gone
to stay a couple of days with her sister away
at Lisnodrum. It makes the house seem lonesome, like Mad
(01:54):
Bell me dear howsomever, it's just for a while, you know,
It's not as if I hadn't there coming back to
look to Mad Bell only nodded curtly and went on humming.
But it was precisely this passive acquiescence which made her
a valuable confidant to Missus O'Driscoll, who continued not discouraged.
(02:18):
I'm thinkin after all, twill be scarce worth me while
to be putting down any more beades this evening, on
the chance of their comin' the coold ones I have
over from this morn ol, do grandly for me if
I warmed them up, and even so there might be
a few left to crisp for the lads in case
they were home again. Breakfast time to morrow. Jack does
(02:42):
have an uncommon fancy for her crisp Patadi. He always
had ever since his two hands with a size to
behold in one. So good night to you, kindly, mad Bell.
I'll have a supper water boilin', And then if they
do come at this moment, Missus Bryan and accidentally pulled
a clattering stone down along with her wisp of grass,
(03:05):
and Missus o'triscoll startled saw that she had been speaking
to more ears than Mad Bell's. She looked confused and
disconcerted by the discovery, and said, in an apologetic tone, Ah,
Missus Bryan, sure, I was just in a manner, Romanson,
if you happen to notice, indeed, it's foolish enough, very belike.
(03:28):
But she doesn't mind. And the truth is the bit
of a house. There does be that quite and lonesome
on me these times, and I'm comin in that. I'm afeared. Truth,
It's afeared. I am going back to it unless I've
something made up in me mind to hold off the
thought like for goodness help me when I'm steppin up
(03:50):
to the door. If I was to be thinkin all
the while, twould be that same way. Wit never the
sound of a voice, o'er the stir of a foot
in sight for ever and evermore, should I'd be fit
to go distracted outright, so I would och. But it's
that i'd go in dread of. And there's the reason
(04:10):
why I keep letting nod. They're only away temporary. In course,
I know it's makin a fool o meself I am,
but it's a sort of comfort all the same, And
it seems more natural when I get tellin it and
talkin about them to somebody else. She never troubles herself
the creature whatever you let on to her, or mind's
(04:32):
to be contradictin' sure now there's no sin in it,
is there, ma'm? When it's only yourself you deceiven. So
I just pluther away to her for me own contentment.
Ah bedad, I hadn't the heart, missus, Bryan said when
relating the incident to her friends, for to say anything
a gain it to her. Though it's a queer kind
(04:53):
of consolement, it seems to me but oc she might
be hard put to it these times to fire any
at all. If she'd say an odd prayer for them
now and again, said the widowmer Girk, with some sternness,
she'd be better employed, and there might be some sense
in it than contrivin old inventions. She might, too, be sure,
(05:18):
Missus Bryan said, doubtfully, But according to my own experience,
there's nought easier than to be saying one's prayers and
thinking of different things at the same time. And that's
no distraction either to a body's mind. You might as
well be striven to keep the wind out with a
sieve full of holes. I do suppose there's some things
(05:42):
there's no use trying to contend with it, and that's
a fact, said old missus Kilfoyle, if one could make
one's mind up to believe it. But maybe, please God,
she won't be spared overlong. Missus O'Driscoll, however, stuck persistently
to her forlorn device, even on days when mad Bell
(06:02):
was not forthcoming to act as interlocutour. She would pause
at the accustomed point on her way home, and her
lips might be seen moving as if she were romancing.
To herself. Once. Pat Ryan, who passed her by on
an occasion when she had been bringing in a load
of turf, reported a new phase of self delusion. For said,
(06:27):
he I give you me word. She'd her creole there
set down on the dike, and first she'd take one
little bit of a sod and lay it flat of
the stone. And that's Rousine's, she'd say, And then she'd
put another beside it, and says she, And that's what
I got the lads, And here's for Molly, says she,
(06:49):
and so on. Then she'd be putting them back in
the creel, but she'd stop to take another look at them,
make it as if she was considering, and maybe says
she this here would do better for the boys, and
Molly might leave her have the pink colored one. That's
the way she kept talking to herself. And I couldn't
think what she was at till the idea came into
(07:13):
me head. Twas letting on she was to be comin
home from the town with trifles of presents in her
basket for the childer, and they grown and gone. But
all the while you could perceive she knew right well,
she was just persuadin herself again her reason only she
couldn't abide to be thinkin so sure, twas Melancolius said,
(07:37):
pat to see her there on the road side in
the rain, fiddlin about with them old scraps of turf sads,
ll be herself. When the neighbors heard it, many of
them shook their heads oracularly and said, twouldn't be apt
to go on that a way for very long. But
how long it might have gone on in the natural
(07:59):
course of things cannot now be known, for it was
brought to an end by the interposition of the law's
strong arm. It was not, i am sure, the children's
fault that, for some time before their father's death, their
scrawls and mundy orders had arrived, but seldom at liz
(08:20):
Connall the contents of the communications which it did get
there showed plainly that they were themselves struggling along painfully
enough in the new world, and likewise that several other
scrawls had failed to reach their destination, not a surprising
result when one considers their quaintly enagmatical superscriptions, and may
(08:42):
at the present writing be stowed unavailingly away in blind
or dead letter departments. But this failing off of remittances,
conjoined with a series of bad seasons, hastened to the
accumulation of the odriscals of rears, And when died the
land agent wrote to his employer at the Calton that
(09:05):
the widows, ever paying up, appeared to be an utterly
hopeless matter, which was quite true. Her neighbors were indeed
ready to lend her, as far as possible a helping hand,
but it could not extend itself to the payment of
a rent, and to grub that out of her screed
of stony ground was a task beyond her powers. The
(09:27):
land agent also wrote that the poor woman, who seemed
to be an uncivilized, feeble minded sort of creature, would
be much better in the union, and that as she must,
at any rate be got rid of, he had taken
immediate steps for serving her with the necessary notices. The
woman's own view of the case was, in some sure
(09:51):
what would become of the childer if she would be
put out of it, and argument the futility of which
it would have been hard to make her understand. She
was put out of it, however, one blustery autumn day,
when the sub sheriff's party and the police had caused
an unwonted stir and bustle all the morning on the
(10:13):
Duffclain Road, along which so many feet seldom pass in
a twelvemonth. The district was reported disturbed, and therefore a
squadron of dragoons had been brought from the nearest garrison,
a tedious way off to protect and over awe. Their
scarlet tunics and brass helmets enlivened the outward aspect of
(10:38):
the proceedings, vastly making such a gorgeous pageant as our
black Boglin has perhaps never witnessed before or since, not
a cossoon, but worshiped the stately horses as they passed,
and thought their plumed and burnished riders almost as supernaturally superb.
(10:59):
But it must be own wound that the latter were
for the most part in very human bad tempers. In fact,
when they ascertained the nature and scoop the duty on
which they had come so far, some of them said
a choleric word with such emphasis that their superiors were
obliged to choose between deftness and mutiny, or at least insubordination,
(11:22):
and discreetly preferred the lesser evil. When the invading force
entered liz Connell, which it did among afternoon beams, just
begun to mellow and slant dazzlingly. It found an ally
in old Missus Gilfoyle, inasmuch as she enticed Missus O'Driscoll
to pay her a visit. At the critical moment of
(11:45):
its arrival, the old woman had recognized the widow of
Driscll's fate as one of those things with which there
is no contending, and had said to herself and her
daughter in law, where's the use of having them risin'
or row? There would dragging her out the creature? God,
pity her, that'll never quit for certain of her own
(12:07):
free will. I'll just step over to her and axe
her to come give me a hand with menden the
bottom that's fallen out of the old turf creole. She
did always be great at them jobs, and always ready
to do a body a good turn. I'll say that
for her deed, yes, said Missus Bryan. So it came
(12:29):
about that. At the time when the forcible entrance of
her cabin was being effected, Missus O'Driscoll was out of
sight in the Kilfoil's dark little room with the two
missus Kilfoils detained her as long as they could, but
in the end they were not able to prevent the
evicted tenant from joining the group of angry and scared
(12:52):
and woebegone faces gathered as near the doomed dwelling as
the authorities would permit, and from saying we're we're a
in a half bewildered horror as she saw each one
more of her few goods and chattels added to the
little heap of chaos into which her domestic world had
(13:14):
changed fast by her door, it was decreed that her
cabin should be not only unroofed, but demolished, because, as
an old bailiff dolefully remarked, there never was any tellin
where you'd have those boyos, as like as not, they'd
land the thatch on to it again the first minute
(13:38):
your back was turned, as easy as you'd clap your
old corbine on your head, and there to be the
whole botheration over again, as fresh as a daisy. Therefore,
when the ancient smoke steeped, whether worn covering had been
plucked from off the skeleton rafters, and lay strewn around
(14:00):
in flocks and wisps, like the wreck of an Ogre's
brown wig. The picks and crow bars came into play,
for it was before the days of battering ram and maiden.
The mud walls were solid and thick. It had to yield,
and presently a broad bit of the back wall fell
outward all of a piece, as no other sort of
(14:23):
masonry falls with a dull, heavy thud, like a dead body.
The lime washed inner surface thus turned up skywards, gleamed
sharply despite all its smoke rhyme against the drab clay.
And though the interior had been very thoroughly dismantled, a
(14:43):
few small pictures were still visible nailed on the white.
As the cordon of police and other officials fell back
a pace or so to avoid the toppling wall, the
Whidemergirk seized the opportunity to make a sally and cat
sure one of these derelict ornaments. It was a holy family,
(15:04):
a crudely colored print, all crimson and blue, with a
deep gilt border, such as you might purchase for a
halfpenny any day. Ay, sure, it's great, Ben, you are
entirely to be evict in the likes of them, she
cried shrilly, waving her lud aloft as she was hustled
(15:26):
back to a respectful distance. Autless. Connell responded with a
low and sullen murmur. But missus O'Driscoll's attention was very
opportunely taken up by the restoration of this piece of property.
Chwoman alive, she said, And it was himself brought me
that one give it to me into me hand. Should
(15:49):
I remember the day? Yet, as if the sun hadn't
gone down on it. The old higgler Finney had come
up with his basket, and while some of the rest
did be about to get and a few trifles, I
was in an uncommon admiration of this howsomever I hadn't
a penny to me name to be spending on anything
(16:09):
in the world. So I let him go, but shut
himself met me below on the road, and happened to
have a haypenny about him, and so he brought it
home to me. I mind, I run out and buried
attack from poor Mick Ryan to put it up with.
I dear, look now at the tear it's gut at
(16:30):
the top coming off. This damage seemed for the time
being to concern her more than any of her other troubles,
and she allowed herself to be drawn away on the
pretext of depositing the picture safely in the kilfoil's cabin,
where she remained until the invaders had departed from Les Connall.
(16:51):
Everybody else watched them trooping off over the bogland with
brass and scarlet, flashing and glowing splendidly in winter decleans
of the sunset. They had gone a long way before
the purple shadowed gloaming had swallowed up the last far
a spied glitter. With the kilfoils, she found a lodging
(17:14):
for some time, but she entered days at the widow Mergirk's,
where there was no less hospitality and more spare room.
She was persuaded to make the move, chiefly by the
consideration that she would there be nearer the crest of
the hill for the dominant dread which now brooded over
her life. We so seldom fall too low for special
(17:38):
fear was the home coming of the childer, and they
to be stepping along the creatures expecting no harm. And
then when there up the hill and in sight of
our bit of a house, all of a sudden to
see there was no trace of it, only a dissolute room.
They might better keep the breath of the ocean sea
(18:00):
between them, And that she seemed to be continually living
through in imagination this terrible moment, and grew more and
more eager to avert it. If I could get ever
a chance to see them come on the road, she said,
and give them warnin afore they'd crossed the knokworn twouldn't
(18:21):
come so cruel hard on them. And with that end
in view, she spent many an hour of the bleak,
witter days which followed her eviction in looking out from
the unsheltered hill side towards duff Layin. It was vain
now for any neighbor to profess a firm belief that
they would never return, just as confidently as he or
(18:45):
she had formerly been used to predict their appearance. One
of these days, missus O'Driscoll listened meekly while it was
pointed out to her how probably they had settled themselves
down over there for good and all and got married baby,
or who could tell that one of them mightn't have
been took bad and have gone beyond this world altogether
(19:08):
the same as his poor father. But then she went
and looked out again the young Doines and Sheridan's, who
at that time were quite small children. Remember how she
would stop them when she met them, and bid them
be sure if if ever, by any chance they saw
Rose or one of the lads coming along, to mind
(19:30):
and tell them that their father was gone, and she
was put out of it, but that missus mc girk
was given her shelter and no fear they wouldn't find her,
and to bid them make haste all the haste they could.
It must have been when she was on the watch
one perishing March day that she caught the cold, which
(19:51):
carried her off with very little resistance on her part.
She was herself too weak and still too much taken
up with the children affairs Toffert about the fact that
the expenses of Herburian would certainly be defrayed by the house.
But it distressed lest Connall seriously and would never have
(20:12):
been permitted to occur, could the requisite sum have been
by any means amassed. The circumstance added to some gloom
to the sorrowful mood in which her neighbors saw another
procession pass over the hill on a still wet morning,
when the rain rustled on along the road and the
gray mist curtains were closely drawn. None of the childer
(20:36):
have come back again, and it may now be hoped
that they never will. Chapter seven, Thunder in the air,
considering everything less connall musters as large a congregation as
could be expected from mass down Beyent on Sundays and
Saint's Days. But then so many things have to be considered,
(20:59):
including primarily those long lines of desolate road, that its
numbers are actually small. For when from the population of
the place you have deducted the people who are too
young or too old, or crippled like Peter and Peg Sheridan,
or minding babies and invalids, and from the residuum again
(21:22):
abstract the men who prefer basking in the sun should
it happen to spread that poor man's feast, and the
boys who, under any meteorological conditions whatever, would choose rather
to rush and yell about the wild bog than sit
still within four solemn walls. You will find no very
(21:43):
imposing contingent left. Of course, there are many days of
the year when wind and whether permit nobody to attempt
the journey, but a few people perform it with much regularity.
The Wudhemergirk, for instance, a strong and quick walker and
began who stumps on steadily and perseveringly, and says, Musha, good, gracious,
(22:08):
glory be to God, it's here I am. When she arrives,
little old missus Kilfoil too, might for many years be
met pattering along with a clean white flannel petticoat over
her head and her face looking out quaintly through the
pocket hole. This is the fashionable substitute for the cloak
(22:29):
in Liz Connell and Missus Kilfoil's venerable bluecloth hooded garment,
soon after it came into her possession by inheritance, had
been stolen by a passing vagrant, to the lasting impoverishment
of her family. In the female line, she used to
trot on with a briskness and staying power, which did
(22:52):
her son Brian's heart good to see. When the neighbors
commented upon it and said, sure be Dad, she was
as young as any of them. He was as much
pleased as if some one had guaranteed him ten years
good harvests, for by that time she must have been
verging upon eighty according to conjecture in less connell. Our
(23:15):
ages are always more or less matters of guess work
once they begin to be reckoned by years. But one Sunday,
it was a mild, mellow lighted September afternoon. She grew
so very tired on the way back that they had
the work of the world getting her home, and she
never went to Mass again, though by one of those
(23:40):
fictions which make life endurable, it was always understood that
she would resume the practice when the weather did be
something drier or warmer, or cooler, perhaps goodness coming on
Easter or Michaelmas and Brian found this a sadly shrunken
source of saddisfaction. During the late summer and early autumn,
(24:03):
Liz Connell is most frequently and numerously represented in the
little chapel near the town, partly perhaps because its inhabitants
are at this season better fed and have consequently more
energies to spare for extra exertions, and partly because in
the pleasant, breezy, blue and white mornings, mothers and wives
(24:26):
and sisters find it easier to beat up recruits for
their three hours trudge to first mass, even on rare
occasions when there is a station held at Duffclain which
cuts a couple of miles off their tramp. The start
has to be a timely one, made while your long
(24:48):
shadow eclipses many twinkling stars in the grass as it
slides before you, and while the air is still fresh
with dew. On such mornings as these, quite a procession
sometimes goes over the knockhorn, the white cloaks and shirt
sleeves gleaming with the stainlessness and snowiness which always puzzles
(25:12):
me when I look into the dark doors whence they issue?
I do not think that Elis Connell afflicts itself much
about its remoteness from Chapel, and this equanimity is in
a measure due to the attitude adopted by old Father Rooney,
who has for over forty years been its parish priest.
(25:34):
In his most active days, he recognized how impossible it
would be to establish any very close connections between himself
and that furthest outlying shred of his widely scattered cure,
and an actual benevolence of disposition inclined him to console
his parishioners for their inevitable stinting in the matter of
(25:57):
his ministrations. Perhaps also the breath of the spacious physical
horizon which he had before his eyes as he rode
about the bogs, may have somehow influenced his mental vision.
Me good woman, he exhorted Missus McGirk one day, when
she had been lamenting the probability that it might be
(26:20):
her husband's fate to die without his clergy. You should
not be making your mind too uneasy on that score.
Send for me, of course, and if by any means
I can come up to you, well and good. But
if I'm prevented, you've no call to be supposing that
you'll be left without every sort of assistance. For that reason,
(26:42):
likely enough, I will be all the while riding off
Sellenmore ways or Dromesque ways as fast as I can contrive.
But I'm not taken the blessed Saints and the Mother
of Mercy and the rest following along with me, same
as if I was, so to speak, showing them their road.
They know where they wanted as well as you or I.
(27:05):
You may depend and won't be asking either of our
leaves to get there. Missus mc girk was slightly shocked
and greatly relieved by this view of the matter. I
am not prepared to deny that if her circumstance had
been less utterly poverty stricken, for the Rooney might have
sincerely believed it his duty to point out a more
(27:28):
expensive method of quieting her misgivings. But extreme indigence has
some immunities, and these people of lez Connell are such
empty handed travelers between life and death that no one
can be much tempted to demand this kind of toll
from them on the way. For the Carol, who sometimes
(27:52):
assists for the Rooney, takes a rather sterner view of things, which, however,
does not count for much here or they. Owing to
his smaller popularity, the people generally speak of him as
the Cross Priest, less because they really know anything, to
the disadvantage of his temper, than because his harsh, featured,
(28:16):
blue shaven face looks somewhat grim beside the other's kindly
ruddy countenance and fringe of white hair. To some persons,
Father Carroll's outward man would suggest the suspicion that he
was habitually guarding dark secrets. But I do not believe
that this is the case. He is on more substantial
(28:39):
grounds considered to have a great eye entirely for a
good horse. One Saint Peter's day, he came up to
let Connell on an urgent sick call, and when departing,
fell in with Terence joined a wildish lad, to whom
he put the question why he had not gone to
(29:00):
that morning with his parents instead of fishing for pequens
along by the river, appending as a sort of corollary,
which we know is often more puzzling than the original proposition,
a request to be informed what effect on his final
destinies Terrance anticipated from such a line of conduct. Terence replied,
(29:24):
whether your reverence, I'll be right enough. I'm thinkin' mass
or no mass would be mother down below there, prayin'
away from me like everything you could name. Sure you
wouldn't say they'd go for to be making a fool
of her, letting her waste her time axin for nothin
she'll get. If they would, she might as well have
(29:45):
been after them pinkynes. That's as slivery to try catch
as little old devils. Did your reverence ever hear tell?
There was trouts in the bit of stream along yonder
Terence was trying to slip away from the point, but
for the Carroll would not be evaded, and said, no, Terence,
(30:06):
to be certain your mother will experience the benefit of
her prayers. But suppose she's granted something else better instead
of the saving of a young slivererin like yourself, and
such a thing is easy enough to imagine, would you
be then, my fine lad. This presentment of the case
somewhat flabbergasted Terence, and his reverence would probably have had
(30:29):
the last word if Terence's a brother. Matt, a smaller
and more reflective Gussoon had not intervened, saying, confidently, there's
neery no such a thing to be had, sorrow, another
thing would pass upy me mother, if anything went again him,
not if it was the illigentist could be conceived. She's
(30:51):
always had such a wish for him. Matt pointed to Terence,
as never was musher. But it's a fine time them
saints would be having its plutherplother ploth should go like
the old Hummond machine. They had thresh and os down
at Hilforthy's below and divil a minute's piece. Did one
of them get with her? If anybody looked crooked at
(31:14):
him fa the carol had not an argument ready, so
he only said, the poor woman seems likely to have
her own work with the pair of view, and the
advantage may be considered to have rested with the brothers.
Several years after this, a most brilliant July Sunday rose
upon les Connell, and by seven o'clock the people bound
(31:37):
for Chapel were prepared to start. It was a hot,
very still morning. The invisible hand, which is almost always
combing the rushes and sedges about the marshy pools, had
for once left them to stand street, and there was
not a breath stirring that could have carried the lightest
(31:58):
cloud fluck cross the deep, speed well blue of the sky,
where however, no clouds would be seen. Yet. Old mic Ryan,
who was sunning himself at his door, said that the
weather looked none too fine and wouldn't hold up much longer.
It's too clear altogether. Over yonder, he said, pointing to
(32:19):
the far off horizon, against which a sharp peak was
delicately outlined in faint, wild violet color, we'll be apt
to havin a crack of thunder presently it's in the air.
But the others said they saw no signs of it,
and it would be a queer thing to have a thunder.
So early in the month, when the chapel bound party
(32:41):
had gone a little way beyond the hill, they met
Terence Doyne, coming from the opposite direction. Is it home
you go on? Terence, said his sister Stacy. I'm glad
of that now, for you'll be company to mother and
Matt's away off somewheres down the bog. For missus Doyne
was ailing, and Stacy had been divided between a particularly
(33:03):
strong wish to attend Mass this morning and a feeling
that she ought to stay and keep her mother heartened up.
She now walked on with a sad conscience, though judging
by Terence's appearance, one might have thought him likely to
prove rather a wearing companion, his look being as of
(33:23):
one who has a grievance and resents it, and as
a matter of fact, his mother so far from being
cheered up, when some time afterwards he stooped in at
her doorway, felt her heart gripped again by a temporary
staved off dread. She had supposed him safely on his
(33:43):
way to Mass. Since he had come back. However, she
earnestly desired him to remain indoors, and she made conversation
perseveringly under the discouragement of brief and grumpy replies. She
hoped she was talking him into good use humor, until
he suddenly glanced round the shadow hung walls and said,
(34:05):
there's one of the loys took. Where's matt ooch away outside?
Maybe just trapesin about, said missus Dwyane, with a start.
And so I was tellin you, Judy Ryan says to me.
They were half through the chaps, as solid as a
gob of mud. When he's took a notion in his
fool's head, Terence went on, disregardfully, I know that he's
(34:27):
after cutting's sods in the bank where I've told him
times and again there isn't a spade load of good
slain turf let alone. It's beIN twist as far to
carry as from the place I was showing him yesterday.
He turned towards the door, but his mother, whose head
and hands had begun to tremble, said, piteously, sure, never
(34:49):
mind about it, this instant, Terence Avik, where's the hurry?
What were we saying about the Ryans? It was something
diverting enough, I know only as just passed out of
me head till I remembered it in another minute. Weak Now, Terence, honey,
would you fancy a bit of the griddle cake Missus
Kilfoyle brought me. There was a good bit over that
(35:11):
I couldn't eat last night, and I put it away
on purpose for you to be havin it beautiful whole
meal it is, she was sent to present of our mothers.
Never quite believe that we have fully outgrown the lure
of sugar. Bread and butter were the like, and perhaps
they hold not altogether ungrounded faith. Then, as Terence was
(35:34):
striding on gracelessly past this offer, she said, Hawk, then
stay a bit with me, jewel, should it's lonesome, I
do be and stacy away all the mornin', and never
a soul for me to pass a word wit and
me head's bad. Sure you might stop in a while
when I axe you. She so seldom made a point
(35:55):
blank appeal for anything on her own behalf that Terence
was in rest, and sat down, to her great relief
upon the ledge of the dresser, which jingled all its
jugs and cups every time he swung his legs. Furthermore,
he said, you, old toad, which pleased her vastly, as
she had reason to consider it an excellent sign for
(36:18):
his temper. But after all, when she was breathing freely
and thinking of topics to talk about, he jumped up
as if something had stabbed him, and went plunging through
the door before she had time to put in another
word of protest. His mother sat looking miserable for a
short time, and then went out also, and a little
(36:40):
way up the road to where a lot of neighbors
were gathered, some seated in a dwindling shadow of the
Sheridan's walls, and some in the broad sunshine. On the
top of the dike. The sky was still clear and
deeply ultramarine, but had lost its early egliciting as of
(37:00):
suspended dews, and looked sultry. Low down on its southern rim.
The jagged edge of a dense black cloud would just
show itself here and there for a moment and shrink
back out of kin. You might have fancied some huge,
dark hided shape lurking there in ambush, and as it
(37:22):
prowled to and fro ever and anon inadvertently discovering a
pricked up ear or ridge of a spine about the
Sheridan's door. People were carrying on a conversation leisurely and intermittently,
perhaps one should say a series of conversations. So long
were the frequent pauses the flow of their discourse quickened
(37:45):
into animation and conduity only in some eddy of anecdote,
as for example, when Oddy Rafferty was recounting a fracas
which had taken place lately somewhere between down below and
down beyond, Pat Martin was telling me. He said, young
Willie m'loy and another young fellow from dromsque Be the
(38:08):
name of Joyce, whereafter Havin the Greatest set to it
all on Tuesday night, where they were working for Sullivan
plowin for turnips. Young mlloy was and drove over a
stone in the furrow and smashed a back band all
to Flitterjigg's, whereby Sullivan came along and gave him dog's abuse.
(38:30):
So malloy ups and says, Joys has a right to
have seen the plow harness was sound afore they went out,
and Joyce he ups and says, the harness was right enough,
and the other had no call to be forcing his
plow over such a sizeable lump of a stone. So
from that they got to bullyragen and bargain, when another
(38:52):
outrageous till the end of it was they fell to
boxin on the road going home most terrific. Young mlloy
got the other chap down, and Pat says he'd have
had him choked as sure as there was breath in
his body. Only old Molly Finney caught him by the
hind leg till some of the rest of them pulled
(39:13):
him off ch He said, it was a great fight entirely.
The only wonder is, said missus Sheridan, that them young
chaps don't too slaughter on each other oftener than happens.
That puts me in mind of one of the further
backist things I remember, said Joe Ryan, old Mick's youngest brother,
(39:33):
twas as long ago as when I wasn't the size
of them smallens over there? Look at them now, Sure
the devil's busy with them. They're dragging a couple of
chickens up and down the street in their mother's saucepanes.
Let her get home to them. Sure, I dunno what
old ages go it mayn't be for its generations, since
(39:55):
the mac rands quit out of this, and it was
the time they had the Quiggly's house. But I mind
the sun. Luke one sunday mornin' comin' up here from
where ever he'd been powerful hot weather it was, and
much about this season of the year. And when he come,
his old father and sisters and some more of us
(40:17):
were just strillin' about the place promiscuous. So he striled
along too, and nobody noticed anything uncommon while we were
passin' b the dike. There at the bottom of Missus
mc girk's field of potades, and in one corner of
it there was a great blaze like of red poppies,
as there may be this present instinct for that matter.
(40:40):
But when Luke macran set eyes on them, he let
the most surprising yell you ever witnessed, and grabbed hold
of his father as he might have done, and he
scared it anything afore he was grown. Lord in heaven,
says he pointin afore him. What's that there? Sure? But
what else would it be, you, Gomerol, says one of
(41:01):
the girls, except a clump of poppies. Troth said he
I dunno what I thought it was at all, and
began laughing, a great horse laugh, as if he was
trying to pass it off. So he walked on a
few perches till we come where there was a line
of poppies again growing in the long grass under the dike.
And if we did, Luke Makran let another yell out
(41:25):
of him you might have heard in Cork, and stood
stirin wild. Says he. The devil's done that on me.
The devil's done that on me. It's on this road,
and it's all along the other road. And where am
I to get to at all? I say, says he,
seeming to go altogether beyond himself. And with that he
lipped the dike, and twas just there at the road
(41:49):
center away with him out over the bog, as if
hell was let loose behind him faith he whirled through,
wet and dry, like an old rag caught in a
straw wind. Folk thought he had drink taken, but maybe
something better. Than Half an hour after he'd gone, the
police came up with word there was a man lying
(42:10):
under a bank in a bit of bog celly bag
ways on Hillforthy's land. It was, and his head all
battered to smithere reins with the handle of an old grip,
and he seen alive last in company with Luke mc cran,
drinking together they were the night before. Oh that was
an ugly business. Nothing had suit me but to skite
(42:33):
off down there to see what I could. How whenever
the misfortunate beIN never was took. I dunno what became
of him at all. And his family quite decent, poor
people they were. Only Luke did always be fire and
hot in his temper. Sure, I dare say you might
remember it, Judy, We are much the one age bedad do,
(42:54):
I said, Judy, it had slipped hold of me recollection.
But now you mention it, I remember it right well.
But it's a misapprehension to say nobody noticed ought a
miss with him. For the first instinct he came. You
might easy see he was tremblin' head and foot like
a horse, that's after takin affright, and his eyes were
(43:16):
that wild, the look of him as clear before me,
yet as if he was standing as close to me
as missus Joyne is. Now, isn't there ever a seat
in it for you? Ma'am? You don't look always fit
to be standin about deeed. It's mighty indifferent. You're lookin' whatever.
Pat set the old creepy stool for missus Joyne. No
(43:37):
thank you, ma'am, said missus Joyne. I'm just steppin in
to speak to missus Kilfoyle. Tis the heat of the
sun discommodes me. It's blazin' hot this day. Twon't trouble
her much longer then, if that's what ails her, said
Peter Sheridan, as she turned away, twill be black out
on us afore we're five minutes older. There'll be a
(43:59):
little enough heat left in it once it gets behind that.
That was an enormous blue black cloud rampart with crenelated
summit and buttressed base, which had reared itself almost to
the zenith in the north and still rose steadily. Livid
white cloudlets scuddered across its dark face, and here and
(44:22):
there a rift let in background of coppery clare thunder.
Everybody said or thought, and straightway anxious forebodings about potatoes
and clutches of eggs mixed in many minds with a
vaguer disquietude. This cornall is seriously alarmed at thunder storms,
it might pass off. Yet Judy Ryan said, hopefully that's
(44:46):
not in the way of the wind. What trifle there
is does be suddenly as if Peter Sheridan rejoined ominously.
Everybody didn't know that thunder comes up again, the wind,
which is of a piece with the red of its
contrariness and bad cessed the same. Still, the sun held
Missus Doyin in a scorching dazzle all the way to
(45:08):
Kilfoyle's door, so that she had finished thanking Missus Kilfoyle
kindly for the griddled bread, before her blinking eyes had
caught sight of the little old woman in her obscure corner.
Missus Doyne, a down hearted person whose experience of life
had not been calculated to encourage her, was always very
(45:31):
capable of fears, which she sometimes kept to herself for
private brooding over, but generally sooner or later communicated to
a sympathizing neighbor. Therefore, Missus Kilfoyle was not at all
surprised when her visitor now sat down and said, lamentably,
my hearts broke. This is our customary formula for announcing
(45:56):
that we are in any sort of tribulation and may
mean nothing serious. Are you finding yourself took worse again, me, dear,
said Missus Kilfoyle, commiseratingly. Ah No, said Missus Doyne. It's
the lads, Terence and Matt. They have me distracted. I
dun'no what's come over them this while back, For they
(46:18):
always lived together, as friendly as a pair of old brogues.
But now there's something gone again them there that cross
with one another. Twould dishearten you to see. Never the
thing Matt can do, but terenants'll find fault with it,
and they'll bicker and alligate about every hand's turn. I
believe they'd raise an argument about the stars and the
(46:40):
sky if they could find nothing else handier. And I
dun'no where it'd end. Sure, most people to be contrary
that way now and again, said Missus Kilfoyle consolingly. And
nobody can expect young lads like them to have a
scrumpcheon of sense. That's where it is. For how can
(47:02):
you tell what demented thing they'll be apt to go do?
Why should if one of them lost control of himself
for an instant of time, he might be hittin the
other a crack he'd never get the better of before
he knew what he was at. Oh, the dread of
that's never out o me mind. When they're away together,
I do be hearin somebody comin down the road with
(47:23):
the news every foot that stirs, and I can't sleep
at night for thinkin of it. Often. I'm wishin the
day it'd never come round again, to be giving them
a chance to destroying one another. Let it keep dark,
says I, for there's little to see be daylight, but
that one's afraid to look at. Now that's the talk
of a fool, said Missus Kilfoyle with candor. But my
(47:45):
opinion is nobody's rightly sensible in the nights. The notions
they'll take in their heads when they're lyin awake, or
mostly as unreasonable as when they're dreamin outright. If I
were you, Missus Doying, ma'am, I'd not mind a thronein
I thought in the knight, unless it was a put
room for thinkin' something different by otherwils fay, If some
(48:08):
one was killed every time a couple of people were
unpleasant in their tempers, how many of us would be
left alive? It's not every time. It's just the one
time I go in dread of, said Missus Doying, And
I know MAT's out on the bog cutting turf this
mornin' before I come in to you. Terrance went off
there with himself too, As like as not, they'll get
(48:30):
disputing about something. And the wild bog's a terrible dangerous
place for any persons to be quarreling in among all
them hideous, deep, bottomless holes. Sure a slipper or shove
might send one of them over the edge and them
tusslin about convenient, And then there do be the loys
and grips lyin around. Suppose need of them got caught
(48:52):
up in such a thing into his hand in a rage,
or the saint's shieldem And it's as black and as
bitter as such, Rance poor creature was looking when I
last set eyes on them, talking a black, said Missus Kilfoil,
with intentional inconsequence, it seems to be grown unnatural dark.
The thickest shadows indeed had stolen forth from all the
(49:17):
room corners, emboldened by the abrupt withdrawal of the long
rays which I had thrust A wedge of glowing gold
in at the open door and turned Missus Kilfoil's favorite
metallic burnished jug into a refulgent star, where it hung
on its remote recess. The two women rose and stood
(49:38):
looking out on a great gloom. People who had never
seen a wide sweep of bogland beneath the scowl of
a thunder cloud hardly know what blackness the face of
the earth can gather at noontide. Nowhere else, one imagines
does murk swooping from overhead so mingled with murk striking
(49:58):
up from under foot. For the ground seems not merely
to passively accept the shadows flung down upon it, but
to reflect them back as water reflects sunshine. The grim
bog broadens and flattens itself under the luring cloud masses,
as if some monstrous weight were actually drawn across it,
(50:20):
and their blackness is drawn into relief by lurid gleams
of smoky yellow. To day, the sullen, lustreless glare, as
from the low of some far distant furnace, seemed to
beat against the dense vapor screen and struggled through its
interse to seize with an evil looking glimmer. We'a said
(50:41):
Missus kilfoil woman alive, that you ever behold the like
of such a sky as that it might be a
loafful of coal tar boiled up over on an old
brass pan. The Lord be good to us this day,
but there's going to be something beyond the Beyonce Entirely,
if it was the end of all the ages, it
(51:03):
couldn't look more unnatural. Missus Doyne was literarily much more
afraid of thunder storms than Missus Kilfoyle, who had a
reassuring theory that if you just stayed quiet in whatever
place you happened to be, the lightning would know where
you were and be apt to keep out of your
way like her. Oddi Rafferty objected, a mad dog that
(51:27):
won't turn out of the road he's started running in
to bite you, But Missus Kilfoyle said it was all one.
Lezz Connall is decidedly eclectic in its philosophical explanations of
natural phenomena. On this occasion, however, Missus Doyne's mind had
been preoccupied by an anxiety that crowded out her usual panic,
(51:50):
and when she strained her gaze over the expanse of
gloom before her, it was not to note the march
of the menaced storm. Katy, she said to little Kilfoyle,
who stood near you that have the good sight, look
and tell me, can you see aught moving yonder on
the bog. Katie's gray eyes were as keen as any
(52:12):
young hawks, and she at once replied, Matt Doyne's cutting
turf away down there, and his brother's crossing over to
where he is. He's just after leapin' a bit of
a pool. As she spoke, a faint waft of wind
came panting towards them, out of the breathless hush, and
made all the taller grass tufts tremble. Here it is,
(52:36):
said missus Kilfoyle solemnly, But nothing followed except a slight
puff of dust. Missus Doyne said, with a grown off
them two lads. Sure they'll run home in next to
no time, nearly a harm they'll get. Why gosoons like
them just put down their heads and off wit them
skitin' across all before them. Ay, but it doesn't seem
(52:59):
so long, said the little old woman, since i'd be
doin the same myself. They're not like you and me.
They must be liftin' our feet over each separate stick
or stone in our road, same as a couple of
old hens. Mercy be among us, woman, dear, you're never
going after them in the face of that. For Missus
Doyane was gathering the folds of her ragged shawl under
(53:23):
her chin with a left hand, which if you wear
a shawl habitually means that you are setting out somewhere.
It's not a right thing for you to be doing
at all, getting yourself drounded dead for nothing in the
pulters of rain. We're safe to have presently, if there's
nought worse than Paulther's coming. Terence was mad, I know
(53:45):
about Matt cutting at that turf bank, murmured Missus Doying,
glancing nervously at the darkest cloud. Get out, said Missus Gilfoil.
It is raven frantic you suppose them to be. That
they'd stop there, rising rose with turf cutton, with the
noonday turned as black as the inside of an old
soot bag before their eyes. They'd have more woof goodness,
(54:09):
save and deliver us all. A vibrant, steely glare sawed
the gloom before their faces for a terrible moment, and
the thunder peel, almost overtaking it prolonged the rough right
through a sharp rattle and bellowing boom, dying away in
lumbering rumbles and thuds. Run in, Katie, run in both
(54:31):
of yours, cried Missus Kilfoyle, vanishing into her doorway, But
Missus Doying darted straight across the road and out upon
the scowling bog. She went in mortal fear. Weak as
she was, the mere solitary traversing of so much rough,
unsheltered ground would have seemed formidable to her. But now
(54:54):
if the swaying cloud bastions had been a fort, sweeping
her path with shot and shell, until the torn air
round her shrieked death, she could not have found it
hearted face. Every foot she set before the other had,
in a mental debate, been turned to flee ere the
step was taken forwards. As she walked over the yielding
(55:17):
lying stalks and slippery short grass, She dared not lift
her eyes from the ground lest they should meet that fearsome,
flickering blaze. It came again and again, making her heart
stand still with terror, but a dread within dread still
drove her on muttering, broken of heels till all the
(55:37):
powers of heaven. Then the air hissed, and she felt
hailstones pelting on her forehead and hands, and presently saw
them gathering in white drifts under black roots and banks,
and sprinkling dark spaces of bare turf. Cold blasts came
with the hail, flapping her shawl into her eyes. They
(56:01):
seemed to be suffocating her, yet when they had blustered by,
she felt as if they had taken her breath with them.
She could hardly tell the real thunderclaps from the sounds
that surged and hummed in her ears, and her knees
began to give at each heavily stumbling step, like a
stalk of meadow grass when its joint knot is snapped.
(56:24):
Where Still, a sense grew upon her that all these
things had happened to her before, an uncanny feeling which
brings desperation with it. This sense strengthened suddenly when at last,
coming as she thought, near the place where her boys
had been seen, she forced herself to look up, and
(56:45):
at once descried them through the hurdle of the pelting shower,
only a few yards distant, and fighting Terence was trying
to rest a spade out of Matt's hand. For one
nightmare moment, she stood spell stopped. The next she was
endeavoring wildly to call to them, but she believed that
(57:07):
no sound passed her lips. Only from somewhere far off
in the dimness, a strange, hoarse voice seemed to shriek meaninglessly,
and before she could struggle on again, floods of seething
darkness rushed in upon her from all sides and swept
her out of consciousness. Missus Joyne was mistaken. Her cry
(57:31):
came distinctly to her son's and stopped their scuffle as
effectually as if they had been separated by an explosion.
Was that mother Colin, they said, simultaneously, standing with dropped arms,
And in the same instant they saw her fall. Oh
my god, Oh my god, she struck, Matt shouted. Terence
(57:52):
was speechless, and put all his energies into a great spring,
foiled by a twisted heather root, which tripped him up.
That he had crawled, dragging a useless foot after him,
to the place where his brother had forestalled him. In
white lipped distraction. Neither of them could doubt that she
was dead, but Terence yelled to Matt run home for
(58:15):
his life and get help, and Matt fled away through
a blinding blue glare, with the thunder roll trampling after
him overhead. Then Terran sat down on the low grassy
ledge and said to his mother, Och, you bad old one.
What made you go for to be straffin' about the
(58:35):
bog this sort of weather? Sure twas no thing to
go do. But I dare say you're better now to
be lyin as quiet as you can, till some of
them comes to lend you a hand home for you. See,
I'm after wrenching me, fool of a foot? Did you
say anything? Mother? What was you saying? Mush now? But
you're the great old villain to be let nane there
(58:58):
thinking to terrify me, shourd, I'm always telling you you're
no better than a real downright rogue with the inventions
of you howsomever may be all the same. I won't
let the hailstones be hoppin' in your face. The devil
tear me that. I wouldn't stop in the house with
her this mornin'. What's gone at all? Would Matt and
(59:20):
the lads that there's ne'er a sign of them coming along.
Did you hear that clap? Mother, didn't you? Then? It
was a fine one entirely if you'd been listening. But
you needn't be minded, for we'll just help you home
out of it in next to no time, the old villain.
If the lads ever come, they did come as fast
(59:40):
as they could, and carried her home through the storm,
to her black little doorway, which seemed as much to
her present purpose as a palace of marble and ivory.
Several people set out in quest of the priest and
the doctor and Dan O'Byrne, whom it was feared they
would not find, he being supposed absent from home, and
(01:00:03):
others devoted themselves to the discussion of the case in
all its bearings. Little else remained for them to do,
but they decided that missus Doyne, whatever might have took her,
had not been struck by lightning. For Oddy Rafferty had
been told by a farmer who had a heifer destroyed
in that way, that the creature was all blackened on
(01:00:26):
one side, like the stem of a burnt fuse bush,
and there was no signs of anything on Missus Doyne,
it was like her paralysis. Everybody speculated too about what
she could have been doing out there on the bog,
and she scarce fit to go the length of her
own shadow, everybody except Missus Kilfoyle, who was merciful and said, sure,
(01:00:49):
maybe the creature Heaven help her, had been looking for
one of the lads to run on an errand for
her end of Section five eight
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!