The Weans at Rowallan Part 15

"Who's that, Patsy?" Jane asked.

"He's just a man I'm acquainted with," Patsy answered, and would say no more.

A few days later something happened that made Jane still more suspicious. They were having dinner, when Lull said: "Which of ye has touched Mick's black coat and hat?"

They all denied having seen them since the day of the funeral, except Patsy, who did not speak.

"Well, that's the quare thing," said Lull, "for I've hunted the length and breadth of the house, an' can't lay my han' on them at all."

Again they declared they had not seen them. This time Patsy spoke with the others, but Jane noticed that he put his hand on the back of a chair as he spoke. After dinner she told Mick. "It was Patsy tuk yer black coat an' hat," she said.

"An' how do ye know that?" Mick asked.

"Didn't I see him touch wood when he said he niver seen it?" she said.

"I wonder what he's done with it, though," she added. The more she thought about it the more bewildered she grew. But of one thing she was sure: that if she could find out where he went, and what he did on those long days away from home, she would have a key to the other mystery. So she set herself to find out. The only thing to do was to follow him some day; but Patsy seemed to know what was in her mind, for he guarded his departures so carefully that each time it was not until he had got a good start of her that she discovered he was gone.

One morning at breakfast Jane saw by the look on Patsy's face that he meant to be off that day, and she made up her mind that this time he should not slip through her fingers.

Patsy got up from the table with a yawn. "Who's seen the wee babby rabbits?" he said. No one had.

"Well, first there gets the pick," he said, and they flew to the hutches. But when they got there no baby rabbits were to be seen, and, in a fury of disappointment, Jane realised that Patsy had got the better of her again. She was so angry that she slapped Fly and Honeybird for daring to laugh at the joke, and their cries brought Lull out into the yard. Lull dried their tears on her ap.r.o.n, scolding and comforting at the same time.

"There now, ye're not kilt," she said. "Shame on ye, Jane, to lift yer han' again them. If ye lay finger on them more I'll tell yer mother."

This was always Lull's threat, and though she never kept her word it never failed to have the same effect on the children. The thought of making their mother unhappy was the most dreadful punishment they could imagine. Jane walked out of the yard with her nose in the air and a miserable feeling in her heart. But, once out of sight, she ran to her favourite hiding-place among the sallies at the top of the garden, and sitting down with her back to the convent wall she cried with disappointment, and with repentance too. It was wicked to have slapped Fly and Honeybird, but they had no business to laugh at her; and that little brute of a Patsy was off again all by himself, and she didn't know where he was. By-and-by she heard Mick calling her. She knew he would be sure to look in the sallies for her, so she dried her eyes, and crept along by the wall, and under the fence at the top of the garden, out into the field. No good could come of letting Mick find her; for she was still in a bad temper, and she knew it would only mean more fights if she went home before her temper had gone. She wandered through the fields in an aimless way, till she began to get bored, and not any better tempered for that.

It was all Patsy's fault; if he had not put her in a temper she might have been working at the pigeon-house with Mick; but now the whole day was spoilt, for she could not, with dignity, go home before tea-time.

Soon she found herself in a lane, and had to stop to choose which way she would go.

One way led to the village and the sea, the other to the big road that ran to Castle Magee and town. It was too cold to go to the sea, and she didn't want to go through the village with red eyes. Then the thought came into her mind that the snowdrops might be out in the church-yard at Castle Magee, so she turned that way.

Castle Magee was a village of about six cottages and as many bigger houses; a damp, mouldy place, that always impressed the children with a sense of hunger and death. They rarely saw anyone about but the s.e.xton, and he seemed to be perpetually at work digging graves in the churchyard. Then, too, there was no shop, and they had no friends in the village, and after the long walk from home all that could be hoped for was a turnip out of the fields. The church, surrounded by yew-trees, stood in the middle of the village. The whitewashed walls of the Parsonage blinked through an avenue of the same trees. Lull said the church was a Presbyterian meeting-house, and on Sundays people came from miles round, and sang psalms without any tunes, and the minister preached a sermon two hours long, and then everybody ate sandwiches in their pews, and the minister preached another sermon two hours longer.

The children had often climbed up, and looked in at the church windows, and the cold, bare inside and the square boxes for pews had added to their dreary impressions of the place.

If it had not been for the snowdrops they would never have gone near Castle Magee; but at the right time of year the churchyard was a white drift of these flowers, and the s.e.xton had often given them leave to pick as many as they pleased. With a big bunch of snowdrops Jane felt she could go straight home. Dinner would be over, of course, by that time, but there would still be the afternoon to give to the new pigeon-house. And how pleased her mother would be with the flowers.

All Jane's bad temper disappeared at the thought, and she would tie up two little bunches with ivy leaves at the back for Fly and Honeybird.

She skipped along the road, making up romances to herself to while away the three long miles. She was going to a ball in a blue satin dress trimmed with pearls; then it was a dinner, and she wore black velvet and diamonds; then a meet, and she had a green velvet habit, like the picture of Miss Flora Macdonald Lull had nailed on the kitchen wall.

Soon she got tired of these thoughts.

"'Deed, I won't wear any of them things," she muttered; "everybody wears them. I'll just go in my bare skin an' a pair of Lull's ould boots." She laughed, and began to run. As she got near the village the old feeling of hunger, native to the place, reminded her that turnips would now be stacked behind the Parsonage, and she remembered that it would be best to look for an open heap, for the last time she and Mick had broken into one they found they had opened a potato heap by mistake. She laughed as she thought of how cross the old farmer had been when he had caught them filling up the hole again. Luckily, the first heap she came to was open, so, picking out a good big turnip, she went on till she came to the churchyard wall, and sat down there to eat it. The village looked more desolate than usual. The slate roofs of the cottages were still wet with the rain that had fallen in the night, and a cold wind moaned in the yew-trees. There were only a few snowdrops out, and for once the s.e.xton was not to be seen, but a heap of earth at the far corner of the churchyard showed a newly-dug grave.

Jane had got through her first slice of turnip when she was startled by the sound of the bell in the church behind her.

One! It went with a harsh clang.

She looked round, but the bell had stopped. She was beginning to think she had imagined it when the bell clanged again. Then another moment's pause and another clang. Jane thought she had never heard anything so queer, when she suddenly remembered what it was. Of course, it was tolling for a funeral. It had tolled three already. Lull said it tolled one for every year of the dead person's life.

Four--five--six--went the bell.

"That might be our wee Honeybird," Jane said to herself, and remembered the slap she had given Honeybird that morning.

Seven--eight.

The sound grew more and more melancholy to her ears. Each clang of the bell died away like a moan.

Nine.

"Mebby it's some person's only child," she thought.

Ten--eleven.

"It'd be the awful thing to be dead," she muttered, and s.h.i.+vered at the thought of being buried this weather with nothing on but a white nightgown.

Twelve--thirteen--tolled the bell.

"It'd be awfuller to be goin' to Mick's feeneral," she said. The thought made her heart sick.

She jumped up to go home--she could come back when more snowdrops were out--but she caught sight of a long black line, slowly climbing up to the church by the road from town. The sight of a funeral always depressed Jane, but there was something specially gloomy about this one. The wet road looked so cold, the sky so grey, and the black hea.r.s.e and six mourning carriages came heavily along, as though they were weighed down by grief.

Jane began to say her prayers. It was an awful world G.o.d had made, and He might let one of them die if she didn't pray hard to Him.

The bell went on tolling. It had got past twenty by the time her prayer was said. The funeral was so near that she could see the mourners behind the hea.r.s.e. There were six tall men in black; two of them walked in front of the others. They were the chief mourners.

Perhaps it was their sister who was in the hea.r.s.e. The bell tolled oft till it was past thirty; the funeral came nearer and nearer.

Then all at once Jane's heart went cold with pity, for between the two chief mourners she saw a little boy. It was the little boy's mother in the hea.r.s.e, of course, and one of the men was his father. Tears rolled down her face at the sight of him. He was such a little boy, in a black coat that was miles too big for him, and his head bent like his father's. This was too much for Jane's feelings; she rolled over the wall, hid her face behind a tombstone, and cried bitterly.

The bell went on tolling. The wind soughed in the yew-trees. The funeral procession came into the churchyard, the tall men carrying the coffin, and the chief mourners walking behind. The little boy walked beside his father.

"Poor, poor wee sowl," Jane sobbed. "G.o.d pity it--it might 'a' been our wee Patsy!--Ye young divil!" she added through her teeth--for it was Patsy. Sure enough, there he was in Mick's black coat and hat, walking solemnly behind the coffin, holding that strange man's hat.

"So I've catched ye, my boy," she muttered, hiding down behind the tombstone. She could watch without being seen, by lying flat on her stomach, and she determined to see the end of it now. The burial service began. She could hear voices, but could see nothing for the crowd round the grave. Then the crowd parted, and she saw the coffin lowered. The tall man began to sob. Patsy respectfully held the man's hat and gloves while he cried into a big black-bordered pocket-handkerchief. At last it was over, and they came back along the path. As they pa.s.sed by the tombstone where Jane lay she heard Patsy say:

"Well, I must be goin', so I'll be sayin' good-mornin' to ye, sir."

A man's voice answered. "Ye're the remains a' them as is in their graves, sir. Good-morning to ye, sir."

When they had all pa.s.sed she crept along behind the tombstone to the far wall, and jumped over it into the field. Then she ran as fast as she could to the road, climbed up the bank, and sat down behind the hedge to wait for Patsy. He came soon, whistling, with the skirts of Mick's coat tucked up under his arm. Jane waited till he came quite near, then she jumped over the hedge, and stood in front of him.

"Think I didn't see ye," he said; "jukin' down behind a tombstone with yer flat ould face? Ye very near made me laugh."

"What were ye doin', Patsy?" she said.

"'Deed, I was a mourner at the woman's feeneral, an' a very dacent woman she was by all accounts."

Jane forgot to crow over him in her interest. "What'd she die of, Patsy?" she said.

Patsy stopped. "Ye know that wee public-house as ye go into town, just as ye turn down North Street?" he said. Jane nodded. "She kep' that, the man tould me, an' she died a' hard work.'