The Ned M'Keown Stories Part 17

"At last they got fairly tired of this, and resolved to take one another for better for worse. Indeed they would have done this long ago, only that they could never get as much together as would pay the priest.

Howandever, Larry spoke to his brother, who was a sober, industrious boy, that had laid by his _scollops_ for the windy-day,* and tould him that Sally Lowry and himself were going to yoke for life. Tom was a well-hearted, friendly lad, and thinking that Sally, who bore a good name for being such a clane sarvint, would make a good wife, he lent Larry two guineas, which along with two more that Sally's aunt, who had no childhre of her own, gave her, enabled them to over their difficulties and get married. Shortly after this, his brother Tom followed his example; but as he had saved something, he made up to Val Slevin's daughter, that had a fortune of twenty guineas, a cow and a heifer, with two good chaff beds and bedding.

* In Irish the proverb is--"Ha naha la na guiha la na scuilipagh:" that is, the windy or stormy day is not that on which the scollops should be cut. Scollops are osier twigs, sharpened at both ends, and inserted in the thatch, to bind it at the eave and rigging. The proverb inculcates preparation for future necessity.

"Soon after Tom's marriage, he comes to Larry one day and says 'Larry, you and I are now going to face the world; we're both young', healthy, and willin' to work--so are our wives; and it's bad if we can't make out bread for ourselves, I think.'

"'Thrue for you, Tom,' says Larry, 'and what's to hinder us? I only wish we had a farm, and you'd see we'd take good bread out of it: for my part there's not another _he_ in the country I'd turn my back upon for managing a farm, if I had one.'

"' Well,' says the other, 'that's what I wanted to overhaul as we're together; Squire d.i.c.kson's steward was telling me yesterday, as I was coming up from my father-in-law's, that his master has a farm of fourteen acres to set at the present time; the one the Nultys held, that went last spring to America--'twould be a dacent little take between us.'

"'I know every inch of it,' says Larry, 'and good strong land it is, but it was never well wrought; the Nultys weren't fit for it at all; for one of them didn't know how to folly a plough. I'd engage to make that land turn out as good crops as e'er a farm within ten miles of it.'

"'I know that, Larry,' says Tom, 'and Squire d.i.c.kson knows that no man could handle it to more advantage. Now if you join me in it, whatever means I have will be as much yours as mine; there's two snug houses under the one roof, with out-houses and all, in good repair--and if Sally and Biddy will pull manfully along with us, I don't see, with the help of Almighty Grod, why we shouldn't get on dacently, and soon be well and comfortable to live.'

"'Comfortable!' savs Larry, 'no, but wealthy itself, Tom: and let us _at_ it at wanst; Squire d.i.c.kson knows what I can do as well as any man in Europe; and I'll engage won't be hard upon us for the first year or two; our best plan is to go to-morrow, for fraid some-other might get the foreway of us.'

"The Squire knew very well that two better boys weren't to be met with than the same M'Farlands, in the way of knowing how to manage land; and although he had his doubts as to Larry's light and careless ways, yet he had good depindance out of the brother and thought, on the whole, that they might do very-well together. Accordingly, he set them the farm at a reasonable rint, and in a short time they were both living on it with their two wives. They divided the fourteen acres into aquil parts; and for fraid were would be any grumbling between them about better or worse, Tom proposed that they should draw lots, which was agreed to by Larry; but, indeed, there was very little difference in the two halves; for Tom took care, by the way he divided them, that none of them should have any reason to complain. From the time they wint to live upon their farms, Tom was up early and down late, improving it--paid attention to nothing else; axed every man's opinion as to what crop would be best for such a spot, and to tell the truth he found very few, if any, able to instruct him so well as his own brother Larry. He was no such laborer, however, as Larry--but what he was short in, he made up by perseverance and care.

"In the coorse 'of two or three years you would hardly bleeve how he got on, and his wife was every bit aquil to him. She spun the yarn for the linen that made their own s.h.i.+rts and sheeting, bought an odd pound of wool-now and then when she could get it chape, and put it past till she had a stone or so; she would then sit down and spin it--get it wove and dressed; and before one would know anything about it she'd have the making of a dacent comfortable coat for Tom, and a bit of heather-colored drugget for her own gown, along with a piece of striped red and blue for a petticoat--all at very little cost.

"It wasn't so with Larry. In the beginning, to be sure, while the fit was on him, he did very well; only that he would go off an odd time to a dance; or of a market or fair day, when he'd see the people pa.s.s by, dressed in their best clothes, he'd take the notion, and sot off with himself, telling Sally that he'd just go in for a couple of hours, to see how the markets were going on.

"It's always an unpleasant thing for a body to go to a fair or market without anything in their pocket; accordingly, if money was in the house, he'd take some of it with him, for fraid that any friend or acquaintance might thrate him; and then it would be a poor, mane-spirited thing, he would say, to take another man's thrate, without giving one for it. He'd seldom have any notion, though, of breaking in upon or spinding the money, he only brought it to keep his pocket, jist to prevent him from being shamed, should he meet a friend.

"In the manetime, Sally, in his absence, would find herself lonely, and as she hadn't, may be, seen her aunt for some time before, she'd lock the door, and go over to spind a while with her; or take a trip as far as her ould mistress's place to see the family. Many a thing people will have to say to one another about the pleasant times they had together, or several other subjects best known to themselves, of coorse. Larry would come home in her absence, and finding the door locked, would slip down to Squire d.i.c.kson's, to chat with the steward or gardener, or with the sarvints in the kitchen.

"You all remimber Torn Hance, that kept the public-house at Tullyvernon cross-roads, a little above the. Squire's--at laste, most of you do--and ould w.i.l.l.y Butledge, the fiddler, that spint his time between Tom's and the big house--G.o.d,be good to Wilty!--it's himself was the droll man entirely: he died of ating boiled banes, for a wager that the Squire laid on him agin ould Captain Mint, and dhrinking porter after them till he was swelled like a tun; but the Squire berried him at his own expense. Well, Larry's haunt, on finding Sally out when he came home, was either at the Squire's kitchen, or Tom Hance's; and as he was the broth of a boy at dancing, the sarvints, when he'd go down, would send for Wilty to Hance's, if he didn't happen to be with themselves at the time, and strike up a dance in the kitchen; and, along with all, may be Larry would have a sup in his head.

"When Sally would come home, in her turn, she'd not find Larry before her; but Larry's custom was to go in to Tom's wife, and say,--'Biddy, tell Sally, when she comes home, that I'm gone down awhile to the big house (or to Tom Hance's, as it might be), but I'll not be long.' Sally, after waiting awhile, would put on her cloak, and slip down to see what was keeping him. Of course, when finding the sport going on, and carrying a light heel at the dance herself, she'd throw off the cloak, and take a hand at it along with the rest. Larry and she would then go their ways home, find the fire out, light a sod of turf in Tom's, and feeling their own place very cowld and naked, after the blazing comfortable fire they had left behind them, go to bed, both in very middling spirits entirely.

"Larry, at other times, would quit his work early in the evening, to go down towards the Squire's, bekase he had only to begin work earlier the next day to make it up. He'd meet the Squire himself, may be, and, after putting his hand to his hat, and getting a 'how do you do, Larry,'

from his honor, enter into discoorse with him about his honor's plan of stacking his corn. Now, Larry was famous at this.

"'Who's to build your stacks this saison, your honor?'

"'Tim Dillon, Larry.'

"'Is it he, your honor?--he knows as much about building a stack of corn as Mas-ther George, here. He'll only botch them, sir, if you let him go about them.'

"'Yes;' but what can I do, Larry? He's the only man I have that I could trust them to.'

"'Then it's your honor needn't say that anyhow; for rather then see them spoiled, I'd come down myself and put them up for you.'

"'Oh, I couldn't expect that, Larry.'

"Why, then, I'll do it, your honor; and you may expect, me down in the morning at six o'clock, plase G.o.d.'

"Larry would keep his word, though his own corn was drop-ripe; and havin' once undertaken the job, he couldn't give it up till he'd, finish it off dacently. In the meantime, his own crop would go to destruction; sometimes a windy day would come, and not leave him every tenth grain; he'd then get some one to cut it down for him--he had to go to the big house, to build the master's corn; he was then all bustle--a great man entirely--there was _non_ such; would be up with, the first light, ordering and commanding, and directing the Squire's laborers, as if he was the king of the castle. Maybe, 'tis after he'd come from the big'

house, that he'd, collect a few of the neighbors, and get a couple of cars and horses from the Squire, you see, to bring home his own oats to the hagyard with moonlight, after the dews would begin to fall; and.

in a week afterwards every stack would be heated, and all in a reek of froth and smoke. It's not aisy to do anything in a hurry, and especially it's not aisy to build a corn-stack after night, when a man cannot see how it goes on: so 'twas no wonder if Larry's stacks were supporting one another the next day--one leaning north and another south.

"But, along with this, Larry and Sally were great people for going to the dances that Hance used to have at the cra.s.s-roads, bekase he wished to put money into his own pocket; and if a neighbor died, they were sure to be the first at the wake-house--for Sally was a great hand at was.h.i.+ng down a corpse---and they would be the last home from the berril; for you know, they couldn't but be axed in to the dhrinking, after the friends would lave the churchyard, to take a sup to raise their spirits and drown sorrow, for grief is always drouthy.

"When the races, too, would come, they would be sure not to miss them; and if you'd go into a tint, it's odds but you'd find them among a knot of acquaintances, dhrinking and dancing, as if the world was no trouble to them. They were, indeed, the best nathured couple in Europe; they would lend you a spade or a hook in potato time or harvest, out of pure kindness, though their own corn, that was drop-ripe, should be uncut, or their potatoes, that were a tramping every day with their own cows or those of the neighbors, should be undug--all for fraid of being thought unneighborly.

"In this way they went on for some years, not altogether so bad but that they were able just to keep the house over their heads. They had a small family of three children on their hands, and every likelihood of having enough of them. Whenever they got a young one christened, they'd be sure to have a whole lot of the neighbors at it; and surely some of the young ladies, or Master George, or John, or Frederick, from the big house, should stand gossip, and have the child called after them. They then should have tay enough to sarve them, and loaf-bread and punch; and though Larry should sell a sack of seed-oats or seed-potatoes to get it, no doubt but there should be a bottle of wine, to thrate the young ladies or gintlemen.

"When their childre grew up, little care was taken of them, bekase their parents minded other people's business more nor their own. They were always in the greatest poverty and distress; for Larry would be killing time about the Squire's, or doing some handy job for a neighbor who could get no other man to do it. They now fell behind entirely in the rint, and Larry got many hints from the Squire that if he didn't pay more attention to his business, he must look after his arrears, or as much of it as he could make up from the cattle and the crop. Larry promised well, as far as words went, and no doubt hoped to be able to perform; but he hadn't steadiness to go through with a thing. Thruth's best;--you see both himself and his wife neglected their business in the beginning, so that everything went at sixes and sevens. They then found themselves uncomfortable at their own hearth, and had no heart to labor: so that what would make a careful person work their fingers to the stumps to get out of poverty, only prevented _them_ from working at all, or druv them to work for those that had more comfort, and could give them a better male's mate than they had themselves.

"Their tempers, now, soon began to get sour: Larry thought, bekase Sally wasn't as careful as she ought to be, that if he had taken any other young woman to his wife, he wouldn't be as he was;--she thought the very same thing of Larry. 'If he was like another,' she would say to his brother, 'that would be up airly and late at his own business, I would have spirits to work, by rason it would cheer my heart to see our little farm looking as warm and comfortable as anothers; but, _fareer gairh_ (* bitter misfortune) that's not the case, nor likely to be so, for he spinds his time from one place to another, working for them that laughs at him for his pains; but he'd rather go to his neck in wather than lay down a hand for himself, except when he can't help it.'

"Larry, again, had his complaint--'Sally's a lazy trollop,' he would say to his brother's wife, 'that never does one hand's turn that she can help, but sits over the fire from morning till night, making bird's nests in the ashes with her yallow heels, or going about from one neighbor's house to another, gosthering and palavering about what doesn't consarn her, instead of minding the house. How can I have heart to work, when I come in--expecting to find my dinner ready; but, instead of that, get her sitting upon her hunkers on the hearthstone; blowing at two or three green sticks with her ap.r.o.n, the pot hanging on the crook, without even the white horses on it.* She never puts a st.i.tch in my clothes, nor in the childher's clothes, nor in her own, but lets them go to rags at once--the divil's luck to her! I wish I had never met with her, or that I had married a sober girl, that wasn't fond of dress and dancing. If she was a good sarvint, it was only because she liked to have a good name; for when she got a house and place of her own, see how she turned out!'

* The white horses are produced by the extrication of air, which rises in white bubbles to the surface when the potatoes are beginning to boil; so that when the first symptoms of boiling commence, it is a usual phrase to say, the white horses are on the pot--sometimes the white friars.

"From less to more, they went on squabbling and fighting, until at last you might see Sally one time with a black eye or a cut head, or another time going off with herself, crying, up to Tom Hance's or some other neighbor's house, to sit down and give a history of the ruction that he and she had on the head of some trifle or another that wasn't worth naming. Their childher were shows, running about without a single st.i.tch upon them, except ould coats that some of the sarvints from the big house would throw them. In these they'd go sailing about,with the long skirts trailing on the ground behind them; and sometimes Larry would be mane enough to take the coat from the gorsoon, and ware it himself. As for giving them any schooling, 'twas what they never thought of; but even if they were inclined to it, there was no school in the neighborhood to send them to, for G.o.d knows it's the counthry that was in a neglected state as to schools in those days, as well as now.

"It's a thrue saying, that as the ould c.o.c.k crows the young one larns; and this was thrue here, for the childher fought one another like so many divils, and swore like Trojans--Larry, along with everything else, when he was a Brine-oge, thought it was a manly thing to be a great swearer; and the childher, when they got able to swear, warn't worse nor their father. At first, when any of the little souls would thry at an oath, Larry would break his heart laughing at them; and so, from one thing to another, they got quite hardened in it, without being any way checked in wickedness. Things at last drew on to a bad state, entirely.

Larry and Sally were now as ragged as Dives and Lazarus, and their childher the same. It was no strange sight, in summer, to see the young ones marching about the street as bare as my hand, with scarce a blessed st.i.tch upon them that ever was seen, they dirt and ashes to the eyes, waddling after their uncle Tom's geese and ducks, through the green sink of rotten water that lay before their own door, just beside the dunghill: or the bigger ones running after the Squire's laborers, when bringing home the corn or the hay, wanting to get a ride as they went back with the empty cars.

"Larry and Sally would never be let into the Squire's kitchen now to eat or drink, or spend an evening with the sarvints; he might go out and in to his meal's mate along with the rest of the laborers, but there was no _grah_ (* goodwill) for him. Sally would go down with her jug to get some b.u.t.termilk, and have to stand among a set of beggars and cotters, she as ragged and as poor as any of them, for she wouldn't be let into the kitchen till her turn came, no more nor another, for the sarvints would turn up their noses with the greatest disdain possible at them both.

"It was hard to tell whether the inside or the outside of their house was worse;--within, it would amost turn your stomach to look at it--the flure was all dirt, for how could it be any other way, when at the end of every meal the _schrahag_* would be emptied down on it, and the pig, that was whining and grunting about the door, would brake into the hape of praty-skins that Sally would there throw down for it. You might reel Larry's s.h.i.+rt, or make a surveyor's chain of it; for, bad cess (* Bad success) to me, but I bleeve it would reach from this to the Bath. The blanket was in tatthers, and, like the s.h.i.+rt, would go round the house: their straw-beds were stocked with the _black militia_--the childer's heads were garrisoned with _Scotch greys_, and their heels and heads ornamented with all description of kibes. There wor only two stools in all the house, and a ha.s.sock of straw for the young child, and one of the stools wanted a leg, so that it was dangerous for a stranger to sit down upon it, except he knew of this failing. The flure was worn into large holes, that were mostly filled up with slop, where the childher used to daddle about, and amuse themselves by sailing egg-sh.e.l.ls upon them, with bits of boiled praties in them, by way of a little faste. The dresser was as black as dirt could make it, and had on it only two or three wooden dishes, clasped with tin, and noggins without hoops, a beetle, and some crockery. There was an ould chest to hold their male, but it wanted the hinges; and the childher, when they'd get the mother out, would mix a sup of male and wather in a noggin, and stuff themselves with it, raw and all, for they were almost starved.

"Then, as the cow-house had never been kept in repair, the roof fell in, and the cow and pig had to stand in one end of the dwelling-house; and, except Larry did it, whatever dirt the same cow and pig, and the childher to the back of that, were the occasion of, might stand there till Sat.u.r.day night, when, for dacency's sake, Sally herself would take a shovel, and out with it upon the hape that was beside the sink before the door. If a wet day came, there wasn't a spot you could stand in for _down-rain_; and wet or dry, Sally, Larry, and the childher were spotted like trouts with the soot-dhrops, made by the damp of the roof and the smoke. The house on the outside was all in ridges of black dirt, where the thatch had rotted, or covered over with chickenweed or blind-oats; but in the middle of all this misery they had a horseshoe nailed over the door-head for good luck.

"You know, that in telling this story, I needn't mintion everything just as it happened, laying down year after year, or day and date; so you may suppose, as I go on, that all this went forward in the coorse cf time.

They didn't get bad of a sudden, but by degrees, neglecting one thing after another, until they found themselves in the state I'm relating to you--then struggling and struggling, but never taking the right way to mend.

"But where's the use in saying much more about it?--things couldn't stand--they were terribly in arrears; but the landlord was a good kind of man, and, for the sake of the poor childher, didn't wish to turn them on the wide world, without house or shelter, bit or sup. Larry, too, had been, and still was, so ready to do difficult and nice jobs for him, and would resave no payment, that he couldn't think of taking his only cow from him or prevent him from raising a bit of oats' or a plat of potatoes, every year, out of the farm.--The farm itself was all run to waste by this time, and had a miserable look about it--sometimes you might see a piece of a field that had been ploughed, all overgrown with gra.s.s, because it had never been sowed or set with anything. The slaps were all broken down, or had only a piece of an ould beam, a thorn bush, or crazy car lying acra.s.s, to keep the cattle out of them. His bit of corn was all eat away and cropped here and there by the cows, and his potatoes rooted up by the pigs.--The garden, indeed, had a few cabbages, and a ridge of early potatoes, but these were so choked with burtlocks and nettles, that you could hardly see them.

"I tould you before that they led the divil's life, and that was nothing but G.o.d's truth; and according as they got into greater poverty it was worse. A day couldn't pa.s.s without a fight; if they'd be at their breakfust, maybe he'd make a potato hop off her skull, and she'd give him the contents of her noggin of b.u.t.termilk about the eyes; then he'd flake her, and the childher would be in an uproar, crying out, 'Oh, daddy, daddy, don't kill my mammy!' When this would be over, he'd go off with himself to do something for the Squire, and would sing and laugh so pleasant, that you'd think he was the best-tempered man alive; and so he was, until neglecting his business, and minding dances, and fairs, and drink, destroyed him.

"It's the maxim of the world, that when a man is down, down with him; but when a man goes down through his own fault, he finds very little mercy from any one. Larry might go to fifty fairs before he'd meet any one now to thrate him; instead of that, when he'd make up to them, they'd turn away, or give him the cowld shoulder. But that wouldn't satisfy him: for if he went to buy a slip of a pig, or a pair of brogues, and met an ould acquaintance that had got well to do in the world, he should bring him in, and give him a dram, merely to let the other see that he was still _able_ to do it; then, when they'd sit down, one dram would bring on another from Larry, till the price of the pig or the brogues would be spint, and he'd go home again as he came, sure to have another battle with Sally.

"In this way things went on, when one day that Larry was preparing to sell some oats a son of Nicholas Roe Sheridan's of the Broad bog came in to him. 'Good-morrow,' says he. 'Good-morrow, kindly, Art,' says Larry--'how are you, ma bou-chal?'

"'Why I've no rason to complain, thank G.o.d, and you,' says the other; 'how is yourself?'

"'Well, thank you, Art: how is the family?'

"'Faix, all stout except my father, that has got a touch of the toothache. When did you hear from the Slevins?'

"'Sally was down on Thursday last, and they're all well, your soul.'

"'Where's Sally now?'

"'She's just gone down to the big house for a pitcher of b.u.t.termilk; our cow won't calve these three weeks to come, and she gets a sup of kitchen for the childher till then; won't you take a sate, Art? but you had better have a care of yourself, for that stool wants a leg.'