The Catholic World Volume I Part 71

Deep straight gullies, worn by the winter floods, mark the sides of both mountains into compartments, the proportion and regularity of which might almost be a matter of surprise, looking like huge stripes down the white dress of Slieve-bawn, while down that of Slieve-dhu they might be compared to black and purple plaid.

"Far to the north," in the bosom of the minor hills, lies a glittering lake--glittering when the sun s.h.i.+nes; dark, sombre, and almost imperceptible when the clouds prevail.

The origin of the beautiful name in which the spot itself rejoices I believe to be this; but why do I say "believe?" It is a self-evident and well-known fact.

Along the base of Slieve-bawn there runs a narrow _roadeen_, turning almost at right angles through the ravine already mentioned, and leading to the flat and populous portion of the country on the other side of the mountains, and cutting the journey, for any person requiring to go there, into the sixteenth of the distance by the main road. In this instance the proverb would not be fulfilled, that "the longest way round was the shortest way home." Across one of the winter-torrent beds which runs down the mountain side, almost at the entrance of the ravine, is a rough-built rustic bridge, at a considerable elevation from the road below. To those approaching it from the lower level, it forms a conspicuous and exceedingly picturesque object, looking not unlike a sort of castellated defence to the mouth of the narrow pa.s.s between the mountains.

This bridge, toward sunset upon a summer's evening, presents a very curious and (except in that spot) an unusual sight. Whether it arises from any peculiarity of the herbage in the vicinity, or the fissures in the mountains, or the crevices in the bridge itself, as calculated to engender them, it would be hard to say; but it would be impossible for any arithmetician to compute at the roughest guess the millions, the billions of small midges which dance in the sunbeams immediately above and around the bridge, but in no other spot for miles within view. The singularity of their movements, and the peculiarity of their distribution in the air, cannot fail to attract the observation of the most careless beholder. In separate and distinct batches of some hundreds of millions each, they rise in almost solid ma.s.ses until they are lost sight of, as they attain the level of the heathered brow of the mountain behind them, becoming visible again as they descend into the bright suns.h.i.+ne that lies upon the white rocks of Slieve-bawn. In no instance can you perceive individual or scattered midges; each batch is connected and distinct in itself, sometimes oval, sometimes almost square, but most frequently in a perfectly round ball. No two of these batches rise or fall at the same moment. I was fortunate enough to see them myself upon more than one occasion in high perfection. They reminded me of large b.a.l.l.s thrown up and caught successively by some distinguished {502} acrobat. During the performance, a tiny little sharp whir of music fills the atmosphere, which would almost set you to sleep as you sit on the battlement of the bridge watching and wondering.

By what law of creation, or what instinct of nature, or, if by neither, by what union of sympathy the movements of these milthiogues are governed--for I am certain there are millions of them at the same work in the same spot this fine summer's evening--would be a curious and proper study for an entomologist; but I have no time here to do more than describe the facts, were I even competent to enter into the inquiry. Fancy say fifty millions of midges in a round ball, so arranged that, under no suddenness or intricacy of movement, any one touches another. There is no saying amongst them, "Keep out of my way, and don't be _pus.h.i.+n'_ me," as Larry Doolan says.

So far, the thing in itself appears miraculous; but when we come to consider that their motions, upward to a certain point, and downward to another, are simultaneous, that the slightest turn of their wings is collectively instantaneous, rendering them at one moment like a black target, and another turn rendering them almost invisible, all their movements being as if guided by a single will--we are not only lost in wonder, but we are perfectly unable to account for or comprehend it. I have often been surprised, and so, no doubt, may many of my readers have been, at the regularity of the evolutions of a flock of stares in the air, where every twist and turn of a few thousand pairs of wings seemed as if moved by some connecting wire; but even this fact, surprising as it is, sinks into insignificance when compared with the movements of these milthiogues.

But putting all these inquiries and considerations aside, the simple facts recorded have been the origin of the name with which this tale commences.

CHAPTER II.

Winifred Cavana was an only daughter, indeed an only child. Her father, old Ned Cavana of Rathcash, had been always a thrifty and industrious man. During the many years he had been able to attend to business--and he was an experienced farmer--he had realized a sum of money, which, in his rank of life and by his less prosperous neighbors, would be called "unbounded wealth," but which, divested of that envious exaggeration, was really a comfortable independence for his declining years, and would one of those days be a handsome inheritance for his handsome daughter. Not that Ned Cavana intended to huxter the whole of it up, so that she should not enjoy any of it until its possession might serve to lighten her grief for his death--no; should Winny marry some "likely boy," of whom her father could in every respect approve, she should have six hundred pounds, R.M.D.; and at his death by which time Ned hoped some of his grandchildren would make the residue more necessary--she should have all that he was able to demise, which was no paltry matter. In the meantime they would live happily and comfortable, not n.i.g.g.ardly.

With this view--a distant one, he still hoped--before him, and knowing that he had already sown a good crop, and reaped a sufficient harvest to live liberally, die peacefully, and be _berrid dacently_, he had set a great portion of his land upon a lease during his own life, at the termination of which it was to revert to his son-in-law, of whose existence, long before that time, he could have no doubt, and for whose name a blank had been left in his will, to be filled up in due time before he died, or, failing that event--not his death, but a son-in-law--it was left solely to his daughter Winifred.

Winny Cavana was, beyond doubt or question, a very handsome girl and she knew it. She knew, too, {503} that she was "a catch;" the only one in that side of the country; and no person wondered at the many admirers she could boast of, though it was a thing she was never known to do; nor did she wonder at it herself. Without her six hundred pounds, Winny could have had scores of "bachelors;" and it was not very surprising if she was hard to be pleased. Indeed, had Winny Cavana been penniless, it is possible she would have had a greater number of open admirers, for her reputed wealth kept many a faint heart at a distance. It was not to be wondered at either, if a wealthy country beauty had the name of a coquette, whether she deserved it or not; nor was it to be expected that she could give unmixed satisfaction to each of her admirers; and we all know what censoriousness unsuccessful admiration is likely to cause in a disappointed heart.

Amongst all those who were said to have entered for the prize of Winny's heart, Thomas Murdock was the favorite--not with herself, but the neighbors. At all events he was the "likely boy" whom Winny's father had in his eye as a husband for his daughter; and in writing his will, he had lifted his pen from the paper at the blank already mentioned, and written the name Thomas Murdock in the air, so that, in case matters turned out as he wished and antic.i.p.ated, it would fit in to a nicety.

The townlands of Rathcash and Rathcashmore, upon which the Cavanas and Murdocks lived, was rather a thickly populated district, and they had some well-to-do neighbors, beside many who were not quite so well-to-do, but were yet decent and respectable. There were the Boyds, the Beattys, and the Brennans, with the Cahils, the Cartys, and the Clearys beyond them; the Doyles, the Dempseys, and the Dolans not far off; with the Mulveys, the Mooneys, and the Morans quite close. The people seemed to live in alphabetical batches in that district, as if for the convenience of the county cess-collector and his book. Many others lived still further off, but not so far (in Ireland) as not to be called neighbors.

Kate Mulvey, one of the nearest neighbors, was a great friend and companion of Winny's. If Kate had six hundred pounds she could easily have rivalled Winny's good looks, but she had not six hundred pence; and notwithstanding her magnificent eyes, her white teeth, and her glossy brown hair, she could not look within miles as high into the clouds as Winny could. Still Kate had her admirers, some of whom even Winny's fondest glance, with all her money, could not betray into treachery. But it so happened that the person at whom she had thrown her cap had not (as yet, at least) picked it up.

CHAPTER III.

It was toward the end of October, 1826. There had been an early spring, and the crops had been got in favorably, and in good time.

There had been "a wet and a windy May;" a warm, bright summer had succeeded it; and the harvest had been now all gathered in, except the potatoes, which were in rapid progress of being dug and pitted. It was a great day for Ireland, let the advocates for "breadstuffs" say what they will, before the blight and yellow meal had either of them become familiar with the poor. There were the Cork reds and the cups, the benefits and the Brown's fancies, for half nothing in every direction, beside many other sorts of potatoes, bulging up the surface of the ridges--there were no drills in those days; _mehils_ in almost every field, with their coats off at the digging-in.

"Bill, don't lane on that boy on the ridge wid you; he's not much more nor a _gossoon_; give him a start of you."

"_Gossoon aniow_; be gorra, he's as smart a chap on the face of a ridge as the best of us, Tom."

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"Ay; but don't take it out of him too soon, Bill."

"Work away, boys," said the _gossoon_ in question; "I'll engage I'll shoulder my loy at the end of the ridge as soon as some of ye that's spaking."

"It was wan word for the _gossoon_, as he calls him, an' two for himself, Bill," chimed in the man on the next ridge. "Don't hurry Tom Nolan; his feet's sore afther all he danced with Nelly Gaffeny last night."

Here there was a loud and general laugh at poor Tom Nolan's expense, and the pickers women and girls, with handkerchiefs tied over their heads looked up with one accord, annoyed that they were too far off to hear the joke. It was well for one of them that they had not heard it, for Nelly Gaffeny was amongst them.

"It's many a day, Pat, since you seen the likes of them turned out of a ridge."

"They bate the world."

"They bang Banagher; and Banagher, they say--"

"Whist, Larry; don't be dhrawing that chap down at all."

"I seen but wan betther the year," said Tim Meaney.

"I say you didn't, nor the sorra take the betther, nor so good."

"Arra, didn't I? I say I did though."

"Where, _avic ma cree?_"

"Beyant at Tony Kilroy's."

"Ay, ay; Tony always had a pet acre on the side of the hill toward the sun. He has the best bit of land in the parish."

"You may say that, Micky, with your own purty mouth. I led his _mehil_, come this hollintide will be three years; an' there wasn't a man of forty of us but turned out eight stone of cup off every ten yards a a' four-split ridge. Devil a the like of them I ever seen afore or since."

"Lumpers you mane, Andy; wasn't I there?"

"Is it you, Darby? no, nor the sorra take the foot; we all know where you were that same year."

"Down in the lower part of Cavan, Phil. In throth, it wasn't cup potatoes was throublin' him that time; but cups and saucers. He dhrank a power of tay that harvest, boys."

Here there was another loud laugh, and the women with the handkerchiefs upon their heads looked up again.

"Well, I brought her home dacent, boys; an' what can ye say to her?"

"Be gor, nothing, Darby avic, but that she's an iligant purty crathur, and a credit to them that owns her, an' them that reared her."

"The sorra word of lie in that," echoed every man in the _mehil_.

Thus the merry chat and laugh went on in every potato-field. The women, finding that they had too much to do to enable them to keep close to the men, and that they were losing the fun, of course got up a chat for themselves, and took good care to have some loud and hearty laughs, which made the men in their turn look up, and lean upon their loys.

Everything about Rathcash and Rathcashmore was prosperous and happy, and the farmers were cheerful and open-hearted.

"That's grand weather, glory be to G.o.d, Ned, for the time of year,"

said Mick Murdock to his neighbor Cavana, who was leaning, with his arms folded, on a field-gate near the mearing of their two farms. The farms lay alongside of each other one in the town-land of Rathcash, and the other in Rathcashmore.

"Couldn't be bet, Mick. I'm upward of forty years stannin' in this spot, an' I never seen the batin' of it."

"Be gorra, you have a right to be tired, Ned; that's a long stannin'."