Part 5 (2/2)
Glory be to the great goodness, I'm throubled wid ne'er a one. 'Here's out of it,' sez I. 'Onnathural,' sez he, musha c.o.c.k him up, and himself shoein' ould garrons all the days of his life. Hi along, Rory, jewel!”
But Hugh said, meditatively, and more than half to himself, which was rather a habit of his: ”Well, now, for the matter of the fairin', it's just the best len'th of ribbon I can get thim to give me for a s.h.i.+llin'.
Yella it's to be. I wasn't long aither plannin' a way to find out the colour she'd like. Sure, I gave her a bunch of flowers wid poppies in it, and daisies, and furze-blossom, and foxglove, and forgit-me-not, and midowsweet, and sez I to her, which of thim was the finest coloured.
And, sez she, the furze-blossom was, be raison of it bein' the bright gould all over, that the others had mostly only a spark of somewheres inside. So it's to be yella. Tellin' you the truth, I'd liefer she wouldn't be wearin' e'er such a thing at all, anyways not in her hair, that's a sight purtier just in the big black twists. But, sure, it's the fancy she has, and morebetoken, I think bad of me lettin' the little goat swally the weeny bit she had on her. Ay bedad, I'd a right to be bringin' it to her; and, at all evints, I'd be doin' a foolish thing to come home widout it, and me not gettin' the bit of fat bacon these six weeks next Sat.u.r.day to make up the price. I won'er now what len'th they'd give you for one s.h.i.+llin'?”
But Ody, who had not been listening, only said, oracularly: ”Och! that's accordin',” which did not materially a.s.sist Hugh's speculations.
Yellow ribbons were not plentiful at Ballybrosna fair, and Hugh McInerney had to ask for them vainly at several stalls before he came to an old-clothes cart, where the proprietress, being hot and cross, took him aback by replying: ”And who ever heard tell of sellin' ribbons be the len'th, you quare-lookin' stookawn?”
”Sure it's meself couldn't say but you might; I niver had any call to be buyin' such a thing before. But a bit that one s.h.i.+llin' 'ud be the price of is what I'm wishful to be gettin', if it was yella--and beggin'
your pardon, ma'am,” Hugh answered with a glib meekness, which mollified the old woman as much as his not undesigned mention of his s.h.i.+lling.
So she said, ”'Deed, now, I believe I've a splindid yella bit somewheres, a trifle creased in the folds, that I could make you a prisint of for a s.h.i.+llin'.” And she rummaged, and unrolled before him interminable coils of vivid dandelion-hued ribbon. ”The grand colour of it couldn't be bet,” she said, ”in Ireland. You could see it a mile off, and you wouldn't get the match of it in Dublin under half-a-crown. If she wouldn't be plased wid that, you've got an odd one to satisfy.”
Ody with Rory came by as she was wrapping it up in paper, and Hugh, pointing to his purchase with a melancholy air, said, in an aggrieved tone: ”It's a _terrible_ quant.i.ty they're about givin' me--yards and yards--enough to rope round a haystack; and it's an ojis colour. Troth, now, if she takes the notion to be stickin' the whole of it on top of the little black head of her, it's an objec' she'll make of herself, she will so. It's a pity. I'd liefer there hadn't been the half of it.”
”What for then are you gettin' more than enough of whatever it is?” Ody asked not unreasonably. ”Supposin' you wanted any such thrash at all at all.”
”Ah, sure, I settled in me own mind to be spendin' me s.h.i.+llin' on it, and that's the way it is,” Hugh said resignedly. ”Maybe she'll have more wit, the bit of a crathur; she might never put it on. So now I've on'y to see after Paddy Ryan's rapin'-hook, and then I'm done. And is it carryin' them two bags all the way home you'd be? Sure there's plinty of room for them on the baste.”
”Ay, is there?” said Ody. ”But the fac' is Rory's in none too good a temper this minyit, goodness help him, and he'll be apt to thravel more contint, the crathur, if he sees he's not the on'y body wid a loadin'.”
”Rax me over the one of them,” said Hugh, ”I've nought barrin' the bit of ribbon, and the rapin'-hook 'ill be nothin' to me at all.”
And in this way they plodded back to Lisconnel.
CHAPTER VI
A FAIRING
Up at Lisconnel, meanwhile, as the idle hours loitered by, Ody Rafferty's aunt grew tired of her solitary housekeeping, and late in the afternoon she made her way down as far as the Joyces'. Here a number of the neighbours were sitting about in almost the same place where Theresa had sustained the loss of her cherry-coloured knot. But to-day there were no rough breezes stirring to bring about such disasters by their unmannerly pranks. The sun-steeped air was so still that the thick bushes stood as steady as the boulders, and even the rushes nodded slightly and stiffly. As the old woman hobbled down the slope she saw Denis O'Meara's scarlet uniform gleaming martially against a background of dark broom and h.o.a.ry rock. Its wearer was, however, very peacefully employed in pulling the silky floss off the heads of the bog-cotton, which lay in a great heap before him on a flat-topped boulder, with a big bunch of many-hued wild flowers beside it. Theresa Joyce, who sat opposite to him, was pulling bog-cotton too, though less diligently, for it might have been noticed that she often looked off her work, and towards the sc.r.a.p of road that lay within her ken. Joe Egan was at his cousin's elbow, and a few other lads and la.s.ses made a rough circle. But old Mrs. Joyce, and old Mrs. Ryan, and old Paddy Ryan, and old Felix O'Beirne had established themselves on a low gra.s.sy bank at a little distance. It was kept so closely cropped by the Ryans' goat that its dandelions grew dwarfed and stalkless, and were set flat in the fine sward like mock suns. All this day the real sun had shone on it so strongly that the air was aromatic with the odour of its dim-blossomed herbs, and to touch it was like laying your hand on the warm side of some sleek-coated beast. Old Paddy said you might think you were sitting on the back of an ould cow, but his wife rejoined that ”you'd have to go far enough from Lisconnel, worse luck, before you'd get the chance of doin' such a thing.” And she shook her head over the reflection so regretfully that a matter-of-fact person might have inferred her to have been formerly much in the habit of enjoying seats on the backs of cows.
These elders, from where they sat, commanded a comprehensive view of the crops of Lisconnel, its potatoes and oats, green and gold, meshed in their grey stone fences, and flecked with obstructive boulders and laboured cairns. In the middle of the Ryans' neighbouring field there is a block of quartzite, as big as a small turf-stack, which gleamed exceedingly white from amongst the deep m.u.f.fling greenery of the potato-plants. Mrs. Joyce had been praising their thriving aspect to old Paddy, who, however, was disposed to express a gloomy view of them.
”It's too rank they're growin' altogether,” he said; ”ne'er a big crop you'll get under that heigth of haulms. 'Heavy thatchin' and light liftin',' as the sayin' is.”
To Felix O'Beirne the smooth leafy surface recalled a far-off incident of the War, when the dense foliage of a certain potato-field had permitted the execution of a curious military manoeuvre. It was one of old O'Beirne's favourite stories, and he often related it at full length, but to-day it was cut short by the arrival of Ody Rafferty's aunt, whom Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ryan were prompt to greet, making room for her between them on the bank with an alacrity which somehow conveyed an impression of uneasiness lest she should establish herself elsewhere.
Presently she said: ”And what at all is Theresa busy wid over yonder--and young O'Meara? Is it bogberries they're after pullin'?”
Mrs. Joyce said: ”No, ma'am, it isn't bogberries;” and left further explanations to Mrs. Ryan, with the air of one who refrains from self-glorification, but counts upon its being done for her, more gracefully, by deputy.
”Sure wasn't he out on the bog the len'th of the day, since early this mornin', he and little Joe, gadrin' her the bog-cotton?” said Mrs. Ryan.
”The full of a pitaty-creel he brought her. They have it there in a hape.”
”'Twas because he heard her sayin' last night she wished she had a good bit of it to stuff the pillow she's makin' me,” put in Mrs. Joyce. ”Off he went after it the first thing this mornin'.”
”Whethen now, is that the way of the win'?” said Ody Rafferty's aunt, with a pleased smile, striking out unfamiliar paths among her wrinkles.
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