CHAPTER II.
Evening had come and the humble school was empty of pupils. The glorious westering sun shone across the bare earthen floor as cheerily, and flecked it with gold as brightly, as if it were a mosaic. The master sat writing headlines to the copy-books of the next day, for engraved aphorisms had not yet penetrated to these parts, and his wife was smoking in the chimney-corner while supper was boiling.
“Well, Donat, an’ what was the Major wantin’ ov ye? Maybe meself wasn’t startled like when he axed plump and plain for ye on the road, an’ me thinkin’ ov nothin’ at all, but going quite simple to do Mrs. Purcell’s rounds for her at the blessed well.”
“He wanted what I don’t like, an’ I’d sooner have no hand or part wid one of the family,” responded the Manuscript Man after a pause.
She took the pipe from her lips, and blazed into a sudden rage. “Is it thinkin’ to hide it from me ye are? Why, then, you miserable beggar-man, let me never hear that ye don’t get as much money out of the Major as ever ye can; an’ it’s the first time yer oul’ papers an’ yer larnin’ was the laste morsel of use to any body livin’?”
“It seems, then, you know all about it,” rejoined her husband, meekly; for he was accustomed to be thus flouted on the score of his favourite pursuits.
“’Twas no thanks to you I know it,” she retorted, striking the ashes from her pipe. “If I hadn’t got a gossoon to hould the horse, an’ followed his honor up to St. Kevin’s, an’ heered what he said while I was gatherin’ some elderbuds to make an ointment, it’s little I’d know he’d ever axed you to tache him the Irish. What is it to you, man alive, whether his Englified tongue ever comes round it or not? The wages is your look out; only the world an’ all wont put a sinsible head on yer shoulders.”
Mrs. Clare paused in her objurgation. “An’ now I’ve went into a passion through the manes of ye, an’ Father Peter’ll be puttin’ a penance on me. But I just want to give ye one little bit of advice. Let by-gones be by-gones, seein’ nobody knows about ‘em, an’ don’t stand in yer own light, an’ Maureen’s there, she bein’ yer own little girl, wid nobody else to look to.”
Scarcely a little girl, except in the diminutives of affection, she entered the cabin just in time to point the moral of her mother’s speech: a very comely lass, nearly arrived at woman’s estate, with that brilliancy of eyes and clearness of complexion which are derived from splendid health and much pure air. The father forgot his domestic grievances in that pleasant sight.
“Well, have you got the money?” asked the mother, with her customary keen eye to business. Maureen produced some coppers, the result of the sale of rosary-tickets at a penny each. For Mrs. Clare was sub-collector of the Rosary Society which existed in that corner of the parish, for the purpose of procuring masses to be said for the members, each of whom subscribed weekly for the tickets, which entitled him or her to a share in the benefit. Certain other advantages, not distinctly defined, except as having some power toward lightening the awful endurance of purgatory, accrued to the dead on the lists, where persons might enter the names of their deceased friends, and by clubbing payment, procure a greater number of masses on the co-operative principle.
“An’, indeed, mother, tisn’t long poor Eily will be payin’ her rosary money. There’s death in her face quite plain, the crathur; an’ her eyes so big and bright like stars, an’ hardly a bit of voice at all, an’ her colour like the blush that’s on the edge of a white daisy, an’ her breath like the flutter of a little bird. Troth, she’s fairly gone from us, my poor Eily”—and Maureen’s apron was at her eyes as she remembered the forlorn face of her friend, who lay dying of decline.
“Well, dear, sure we must all go some time,” was her mother’s matter-of-fact comfort as she raked together the fire.
“Father, what are you saying?” interrupted the girl, who loved him so well. She put her lithe arm around his neck, and smoothed aside the stray locks on his wide forehead. The Manuscript Man half involuntarily repeated to himself those remarkable words, “Who hath abolished death.”
“Only somethin’ the Major was sayin’ to me this mornin’,” he began.
“Was he down here? an’ guess who should be at poor Eily’s; ne’er a one but the new lady herself — the Major’s wife.”
“An’ I hope she brought the sick crathur somethin’ besides them fine, civil words that cost her nothin’,” observed Mrs. Clare, who generally felt exceedingly venomous toward upper classes.
“She was drivin’ the dawniest little carriage ever I see, an’ young master an’ missy with her; an’ you’d think it was the grandest house in Munster, she come in so gentle like, after a little knock, an’ sat down by the bed, an’ gev poor Eily some things like gooseberries, only the quality calls them grapes; an broke ‘em into her poor parched mouth wid her own white fingers. An’ she had them civil words, too, mother, sweet, kind words; an’ it’s my belief Eily cared more for them than for the presents. I think she said over the very thing father repeated awhile ago that the Major tould him. Say it again, father?”
“’Who hath abolished death,’” said the Manuscript Man. “That’s to make an end of it entirely, an’ his name is our blessed Saviour—the Lord be praised.”
Each made the sign of the cross by putting the thumb rapidly to the forehead, the breast, and right and left shoulder.
“Any how, it’s much like what the lady said, an’ a dale more about our Lord, and heaven; an’ when she was gettn’ up to go away, (an’ I could see by poor Eily’s face that her heart was lighter an’ happier, for all the lady never breathed a word of her bin’ well again,) little missy whispers somethin’ to her mamma wid her little cheek as red as a rose. ‘She wants to know if you would like her to sing her hymn for you,’ says the lady to Eily. An’ then to hear the wee crathur begin’ wid a voice like the early larks up in the heavens — O father! it was sweet, an’ all about ‘a happy land far away;’ an’ the tears would come in yer eyes to listen; and then the little missy was shamed like, and hid her little face on her mamma’s shawl. An’ the lady says, ‘We’ll sing it together, dear,’ just to encourage her. An’ I never hear music like that; an’ poor Eily, she closed her eyes wid such a pleased-like smile! ‘Mother,’ she says, after they was gone, ‘I think I wouldn’t hardly mind dying, if I was certain sure of that happy land!”
“I don’t know how Father Euseby would like that sort of talk, or Father Peter, worse again,” observed Mrs. Clare, rising to bustle about spreading out the supper. “Sure there wouldn’t be no need of masses nor rosaries if people went straight up to heaven; it’s clane against the Church, so it is; an’ Eily can’t expect to be better off than anybody else; an’ her mother, honest woman, will be glad she paid such reglar money to the rosary, when she is gone.”
Maureen leaned her bright head on her father’s shoulder and shed a few tears. She was tender-hearted about her friend, this pretty fading girl, so blooming a few months ago, and now going down into the dark grave and the fearsome purgatory.
The
Manuscript Man divined what feelings moved her; but for this grief his religion
had no cure; he stroked her hair softly, and whispered an endearing word.
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