The Weans at Rowallan Part 5

Fly looked at her in a bewildered way.

"You are quite sure it wasn't Phoebus--not my darling cat?" said her G.o.dmother sternly.

A horrid fear seized Fly. Phoebus was not a boy, he was a cat--surely, surely not that yellow cat--such a thing would be too terrible.

"Was it a large, dignified creature with yellow fur?" her G.o.dmother questioned.

"It was not," said Fly emphatically. "It was a wee, scraggy cat, black all over, with a white spot on its tail."

"Thank G.o.d for it," said Miss Black. "If it had been Phoebus I should have died."

Fly was shaking all over; she felt like a murderess. If only her G.o.dmother knew the truth! It was, of course, hopeless to ask G.o.d to make the cat alive again. The only thing was to get her G.o.dmother safely away from Rowallan, and pray that she might never come back.

Anxiously she watched the lady go down the steps. The donkey carriage was waiting. In another minute she would be gone; but, with her foot on the step of the carriage, Miss Black paused.

"I must see the garden; it was so pretty once, and I may never be back again," she said. Fly led the way. The burden on her chest lifted a little as she heard that her G.o.dmother would not be likely to come again. It would not take long to see the garden, and then she would go for ever. When they were half way down the path the garden gate opened, and Honeybird came through, wheeling a barrow. She had Lull's old c.r.a.pe bonnet on her head. Fly had a moment of sickening fright.

"I'm comin' home from a feeneral," Honeybird called out cheerfully.

"I've just been buryin' my ould husband, an' now I'm a widdy woman."

Fly breathed again: Phoebus was safely buried.

"How very nice," said Miss Black.

"Ye wouldn't say that if ye knowed who her husband was," Fly thought.

"Would ye 'a' liked to be a mourner?" Honeybird asked, with a smile at Miss Black. "'Cause if ye would I can dig him up, an' bury him again."

Fly grimaced at her in an agony of terror. "Lull wants ye this very minute," she said hurriedly. Honeybird nodded to them, and took her barrow again, and went on round the house.

By this time the sun had set, and the garden was full of that strange, luminous twilight that comes with frost in the air.

A cl.u.s.ter of late roses in Patsy's garden glowed against the fuchsia hedge; a white flower stood out in almost startling distinctness.

Above the pear-tree the sky was clear, cold green; a flush of red mounted from the south-west. The garden, shut in by the convent wall and high hedge, seemed to Fly like a box without a lid at the bottom of a deep well of clear sky.

She sniffed the cold air. Her happiness had gone from her, but she had been mercifully delivered from her trouble. Suddenly a hand gripped her. Her G.o.dmother pointed with the spiked finger of a black kid glove to Honeybird's garden. It was a bare patch--nothing grew there--for what Honeybird planted one day she dug up the next. To-day Honeybird evidently had made a new bed-centre, and bordered it with c.o.c.kle sh.e.l.ls. Fly's knees shook under her. In the middle of that bed, coming up through the newly-turned earth, with a ring of c.o.c.kle sh.e.l.ls round its neck, was the head of a big yellow cat. It was here Honeybird had buried her husband--buried him, unfortunately, as she always buried birds, with his head out, in case he felt lonely in the dark. Miss Black was down on her knees, clearing the earth away. Fly never thought of escape. She felt as though she were tied to the path.

She stood there while her G.o.dmother lifted the dead cat in her arms and tenderly brushed the earth from its fur. Then the little lady turned round. "Now she'll kill me," Fly thought. She lifted her terrified eyes to Miss Black's face. How would she do it, she wondered. But her G.o.dmother never seemed to notice her. Without a word she turned, and walked quickly from the garden. A moment later Fly heard the gate shut. She was too bewildered to move. The sound of wheels going down the avenue roused her to the fact that her G.o.dmother had gone. She had been found out, and no awful punishment had followed, but to her surprise there was no relief in this. Fly felt as miserable as ever.

She looked up at the sky. A star showed above the pear-tree. She had not meant to do anything wrong, but she had hurt somebody terribly.

Whose fault was it? Almighty G.o.d's or her own? The donkey carriage was going slowly up the road; she could hear the whacking of a stick and the driver's "gone a' that." Suddenly through the frosty air her ear caught the sound of bitter weeping. Then Fly turned, and ran from the garden, das.h.i.+ng wildly through Patsy's flower-bed in her haste to get away from that heart-breaking sound.

CHAPTER V

THE CHILD SAMUEL

Fly and Honeybird introduced Samuel Brown to Rowallan. They found him sitting at the gate one day, and mistook him for the child Samuel. For a long time they had been expecting the coming of a mysterious beggar, who would turn out to be a saint or an angel in disguise. Such things had often happened in Ireland, Lull said. But, although scores of beggars came to Rowallan, so far no saint or angel had appeared. Most of the beggars were too well known to cast off a disguise worn long and successfully and suddenly declare themselves to be celestial visitors.

But now and then an unknown beggar came from n.o.body knew where, and disappeared again into the same silent country. These nameless ones kept the two children's faith and hope alive. Samuel was one of these.

Fly had spied his likeness to the child Samuel the minute she saw him sitting at the gate tired and dejected. They went to work cautiously to find out the truth, for they had got into trouble with Lull a few days before for bringing into the house a possible St Anne, who had stolen the schoolroom tablecloth. But when they asked his name, and he said it was Samuel, they did not need much further proof.

Was he the real child Samuel out of the Bible? Honey bird asked, to make sure. The boy confessed he was. He had come straight from heaven on purpose to visit them, he said.

As they were taking him up to the house they met Patsy, and told him.

Patsy jeered at their tale, and reminded them of St Anne. But, in spite of Patsy's warning, they took the beggar into the kitchen.

Patsy, disgusted at their folly, left them to do as they pleased. If he had remembered that Lull was out he might have been more careful.

Half-an-hour later he caught sight of the child Samuel running down the avenue wearing his best Sunday coat. Lull was very angry with Fly and Honeybird when she came home. Mick and Jane said it was the beggar who was to blame. Patsy had given chase, and did not come home till ten o'clock that night. When he did come back he brought his Sunday coat with him, as well as a black eye. He had followed the child Samuel to the town, he said, and Eli had never given the boy as good a beating.

In spite of this beating and the discovery of his fraud Samuel came back a few days later. His mother was sick, he said, and he had come to borrow sixpence. Jane wanted Mick to give him a second beating.

"Nasty wee ruffan, comin' here cheatin' two wee girls," she said.

Samuel took no notice of her. He addressed his remarks to Patsy.

"Anybuddy could chate them, but I'm thinkin' it'd be the divil's own job to chate yerself," he said flatteringly.

Patsy smiled. "Don't you try it on, that's all," he said.

"Do ye think I want another batin'?" Samuel grinned. He stayed, and played with them all afternoon, in spite of Jane's plain-spoken requests for him to be off. Before he left he had a good tea in the kitchen, and got sixpence from Lull, who had a tender heart for the poor. After that he came frequently. He said his mother was dying, and wrung Lull's heart by his tales of the poor woman's sufferings.

Jane noticed, and did not fail to point out, that grief never spoilt his appet.i.te for pears. Now and then Samuel would silence her by a wild fit of weeping. Patsy got angry with Jane for her cruelty.

"Let the poor wee soul alone, an' quit yer naggin' at him," he said one day, when Jane's repeated hints had made Samuel throw himself on the gra.s.s to cry.

"I wisht I believed he was tellin' no lies," was Jane's answer.

Lull agreed with Patsy that Jane was too suspicious.

"No good iver comes to them that's hasky with the poor," she told Jane.

Lull was Samuel's best friend. Every time he came she gave him something for his dying mother. There was one thing the children did not like about Samuel: he never seemed to be content with what he got.

He begged for more and more, till even Patsy was ashamed of him. One evening he grumbled because Lull had only given him a penny. He had had a good tea, and his pockets were lined with apples to eat on the way home.

"It's hardly worth my while comin' if that's all I'm going to get," he said.

"Then don't be troublin' yerself to come anymore," said Jane; "we'll niver miss ye."

Samuel looked reproachfully at her. "How would ye like your own mother to be dyin'?" he asked. Jane's heart melted at once. She offered him flowers to take back. Samuel refused the flowers. "Thon half-crown ye have in yer money-box'll be more to her than yer whole garden full," he said.

But Jane was not sympathetic enough for this. She said she was saving up to buy Lull a pair of boots at Christmas. After he had gone she wondered how he could have known about her money-box, and then remembered that Fly and Honeybird had told him most of the history of the house on his first visit. The very next day Samuel came to tell them that his mother was dead. His eyes were red and swollen with weeping. For half-an-hour after he came he sat in the kitchen sobbing bitterly, and refusing to be comforted. Fly and Honeybird cried in sympathy, and Jane would have cried too if she had not been so busy watching him. He cried steadily, only stopping every now and then, to wipe his nose on his sleeve. She decided she would give him the black-bordered handkerchief she had treasured away in her drawer upstairs; also, she would make a beautiful wreath for his mother's coffin. But soon the terrible truth came out that there was no coffin.

Between bursts of sobs Samuel explained that his father was in gaol, and he himself had not a penny to pay for the funeral.

"An' her laid out an' all," he wept. "The neighbours done that much for her. In as nice a shroud as ye'd wish to wear. She had it by her this many's the day. But sorra a coffin has she, poor soul, an' G.o.d knows where she's goin' to get wan."

Lull was greatly distressed. "To be sure, the parish would bury the woman," she said; "but G.o.d save us from a burial like that." She took her teapot out of the cupboard, and gave Samuel five s.h.i.+llings.

"If I had more ye'd be welcome to it, but that's every penny piece I've got," she said. Samuel thanked her kindly, and murmured something about money-boxes. Mick responded at once.

"I'll bet ye we've got a good wee bit in them," he said joyfully. The money-boxes were opened, and found to contain nearly ten s.h.i.+llings.

The children handed over their savings gladly to help Samuel in his need. Even Jane rejoiced that she had her half-crown to give. Samuel went away immediately after this, and not until he had been gone some time did Jane remember the black-bordered pocket handkerchief.

However, she determined to take it to him, and also to take a wreath for the coffin. After dinner she made the wreath in private. Lull might have forbidden it if she had known. Then she called Mick and Patsy, and they started for Samuel's house. He lived near the town, so they had a long walk before they reached the squalid street. Some boys were playing marbles when the children turned the street corner. One of them looked up, then rose, and fled into a house. Jane thought he looked like Samuel, but she said nothing. Patsy had led the way so far; now he stopped, and said they must ask which was the house. They asked some women sitting on a doorstep.