The Weans at Rowallan Part 17

But she had shared Fly's prayers, and a sense of honour made her try to share Fly's trouble now that the prayer had gone wrong. Fly was still muttering. Every now and then Honeybird could hear: "For Christ's sake. Amen."

When they came to Mrs Bogue's gate Fly said they were to say a last prayer each, and then ask at the lodge. They shut their eyes.

"Make her alive an' well, Almighty G.o.d. Amen," said Honeybird.

They opened their eyes, and went up to the lodge, but while they were still knocking at the door Mrs Bogue's big yellow carriage came round the corner of the avenue. Inside the carriage was the old lady herself. Fly gave a howl of delight. The children ran forward, and the carriage pulled up.

"There ye are alive an' well," said Fly joyfully. "Och, but I'm glad to see ye."

Mrs Bogue's wizened face expressed no pleasure at seeing Fly.

"Of course I'm well; I always am," she said in a thin, high voice.

"Ye were dead this mornin', though," said Honeybird.

"Dead! who said I was dead?" Mrs Bogue demanded indignantly.

"Lull tould us that iverybuddy said ye died last night," said Fly; she was still smiling with delight.

Mrs Bogue turned to her niece. "Do you hear that, Maria? That is twice they have had me dead. I don't know what the world is coming to.

They won't give people time to die nowadays."

"We'll give ye any amount a' time, Mrs Bogue," said Fly earnestly; "we want ye to live as long as iver ye can please."

"It's quare an' nice for us when ye're alive," said Honeybird. Mrs Bogue looked at them sharply. Both faces were beaming with happiness.

"You are very kind children," she said. She began to fumble in a bag by her side. "Here is a s.h.i.+lling each for you."

The yellow carriage went on. Fly and Honeybird looked at each other.

Honeybird was thinking how glad she was that she had stayed with Fly and had not gone off with the others. Fly was thinking how good Almighty G.o.d had been to hear her prayer. They went on down the road to Johnnie M'Causland's shop, and bought lemonade and sweets, and then struck out across the fields towards the sea to find the others.

"Do ye know what?" said Fly, stopping in the middle of a field, with her arms full of lemonade bottles. "Ye're always far happier after ye're miserable. I believe He done it on purpose." She kicked up her heels. "Let's run; it's a quare good ould world, an' G.o.d's a quare good ould G.o.d, an' I'm awful happy."

CHAPTER XIII

JIMMIE BURKE'S WEDDING

Jimmie Burke's wife had not been dead a month, when one morning Teressa brought the news that he was going to be married again.

"The haythen ould Mormon!" said Lull. "G.o.d help the wemen these days."

At first the children could not believe it. The late Mrs Burke had been a friend of theirs. They had walked to the village every Sunday afternoon, for the whole long year that she had been ill, with pudding and eggs for her. And they thought Jimmie was so fond of her. He was heartbroken when she died. When they went to the cottage the day before the funeral, with a wreath of ivy leaves to put on the coffin, they found him sitting beside the corpse, crying, and wiping his eyes on a bit of newspaper. Even Jane, who, for some reason that she had not given the others, had always hated Jimmie, told Lull when they came home that she could not help thinking a pity of the man sitting there crying like a child.

"It bates Banagher," said Teressa, sitting down by the fire with the cup of tea Lull had given her--"an' the woman not cowld in her coffin yet; sure, it's enough to make the dead walk."

"Och, but the poor critter was glad to rest," said Lull.

"An', mind ye, he's the impitent ould skut," Teressa went on, stirring her tea with her finger; "he come an' tould me last night himself. An'

sez he: 'The wife she left me under no obligations,' sez he; 'but sorra a woman is there about the place I'd luk at,' sez he."

"They'd be wantin' a man that tuk him," said Lull. "The first wife's well red a' him in glory."

"When's the weddin', Teressa?" Fly asked.

"An' who's marryin' him?" said Lull.

"He's away this mornin' to be marriet. She's a lump of a girl up in Ballynahinch," said Teressa. "Troth, ay, he lost no time; he's bringing her home the night, the neighbours say."

In the stable Andy Graham was even more indignant. "It's the ondacentest thing I iver heard tell of," he told Mick; "an' the woman be to be as ondacent as himself."

But Andy's, indignation was nothing to what Jane felt. "I knowed it,"

she said to the others when they were together in the schoolroom; "I knowed the ould boy was the bad ould baste. Augh! he oughtn't to be let live."

"Away ar that, Jane," said Patsy; "sure, that's the fool talk. Where's the harm in him marryin' again?"

"Harm!" Jane shouted. "It's more than harm; it's a dirty insult. Ye ought always to wait a year after yer wife dies afore ye marry again; but him!--him!--he just ought to be hung."

"It's a dirty trick, sure enough," said Mick; "but ye couldn't hang him unless he done a murder."

"An' so he did," said Jane sharply. "Think I don't know? I tell ye he murdered her, as sure as I stan' on this flure."

"Whist, Jane," said Mick; "that's the awful thing to be sayin'."

"An' I can prove it, too," she went on, "for I saw him do it with my own two eyes, not wanst, but twiced, an' she let out he was always doin' it. I promised her I wouldn't come over it, but there's no harm tellin' it now she's dead. Ye know them eggs Lull sent her?" the children nodded. "Well, do ye mane to say she iver eat them? For she just didn't; he eat ivery one himself, an' he eat the puddens, an' he drunk the milk. Augh! the ould baste, he'd eat the clothes off her bed if he could 'a' chewed them."

"Who tould ye he eat them all?" said Patsy.

"Sure, I saw him doin' it myself, I tell ye. He come home drunk one day when I was there. He was that blind drunk he niver seen me. An'

he began eatin' all he could lay han' on. He eat up the jelly; an' two raw eggs, an' drunk the taste a' milk she had by her in the cup, an' he even drunk the medicine out of the bottle, an' eat up the wee bunch a'

flowers I'd tuk her, an', when he'd eat up ivery wee nip he could find, he lay down on the flure, an' went asleep."

"The dirty, greedy, mane ould divil," said the others.

"An' she tould me he always done it," Jane went on. "An' I seen it was the truth, for he come in another day, an' done the same, an' he was that cross that he frightened her, an' she begun to spit blood, an' if it hadn't been for me I believe he'd 'a' kilt her; but I was that mad that I hit him a big dig in the stomach; an', mind ye, I hurted him, for he went to bed like a lamb, an' I tied him in with an ould shawl afore I come away."

The others could find no words to express their disgust. They agreed that Jane was right--such a man ought not to be allowed to live.

"If we tould Sergeant M'Gee he'd hang him," said Fly.

"That'd be informin', said Mick.

"Almighty G.o.d's sure to pay him out when he dies," Honeybird said.

"I'd rather pay him out now," said Jane. At that moment there was a flash of lightning, and a crash of thunder overhead, and then a shower of hailstones rattled against the window.

"Mebby he'll be struck dead," said Fly; "Almighty G.o.d's sure to be awful mad with him."