DELAYED IN TRANSMISSION
When anybody in Meenaclochran gives a party, the word which goes round to bid the neighbours often has far to travel over the wide bog-land, and is conveyed by very miscellaneous messengers, all manner of wayfarers being pressed into the service. This was especially often the case with the Nolans and the M‘Nultys, two of the most sociably-disposed families in the place, and living remotely at opposite ends of the spacious and lonesome Cregganmore bog. Both households, however, comprised lively young people, while both were a shade or so more prosperous in their farming than is common in that district, and owned the warmest hearths and the widest floors. Consequently, among circumstances thus propitious, it was not likely that the obstacles merely of long miles and rough walking would prove insuperable when either wished to let the other know “there would be dancing in it” on such or such a night. As they were on most friendly terms they of course took care that the dates of their entertainments should not clash; but everybody knows how difficult it occasionally is to prevent this, and not long ago, by a chapter of those accidents which will sometimes happen, Dinny Breen and John Hickey met on Tackaberry’s Bridge, Dinny charged with an invitation from the Nolans to the M‘Nultys, and John with one from the M‘Nultys to the Nolans, both for the same Saturday evening.
Tackaberry’s Bridge is about half way between the two white farmhouses, humping itself up in an abrupt, ungainly loop, like a travelling caterpillar, over the Murna River, which flows through the middle of the bog. Though roughly built it shows more traces of design, such as it is, than the rest of the road, which seems just a track worn by feet choosing the firmest ground as they go to and fro. Stepping-stones occur here and there, and are found convenient by pedestrians in soft weather, but naturally tend to discourage any other kind of traffic.
As Dinny Breen sat now on the low parapet under the only little tree, a stooping willow, visible far and wide, he looked down into the clear brown water and said: “If the both of them has company axed for the one night, it stands to raison that naither of them could be goin’ out in any case. So there’s no great good in me trampin’ on all the way to M‘Nulty’s.”
“There is not, bedad,” said John Hickey. “Nor in meself, for the matter of that, to be mindin’ about lavin’ word wid the Nolans.”
“Because,” said Dinny, “this is a very handy day to be borryin’ the gun off Pat Kelly, when we have the dogs along, and the polis are away wid themselves to Loughmore Petty Sessions. A race’s runnin’ on the whole of them.”
“True for you; they are so bedad,” said John.
The last-named consideration was an important one, owing to the fact that neither the proposed borrowers nor lender happened to possess a licence, which made immunity from the chance of encounters with inquisitive patrols appear a highly desirable feature in an afternoon’s sport. Accordingly, the opportunity was pronounced too good to be thrown away, and the two faithless youths were soon happily engaged among bogholes and tussocks, and heathery boulders and golden-burning furze bushes, with no further thought of Nolans or M‘Nultys.
Anyone whose experience has lain in places like Meenaclochran will understand how improbably large an amount of good luck would be needed to keep the news of an entertainment from the ears of an uninvited neighbour. No such exceptional quantity intervened on this occasion. Very little contrariness of things, on the other hand, commonly suffices to ensure the worst possible complexion being put on the matter; and that was now amply supplied. A few unfortunate remarks from tactless or ill-disposed acquaintances, a few slight misrepresentations, inadvertent or otherwise, and the thing was done. The seeds of offence were safely sown and might be trusted to thrive apace. Only a short growing space was wanted to ripen the conviction alike of Nolans and M‘Nultys that they had been treated by each other with black ingratitude, if not insulted outrageously; and their firm belief in their wrongs was supersaturated with bitterness. The mood of that goddess excluded from the wedding feast, or of that fairy forgotten at the christening, may well have been enviable in comparison, since all the world has heard tell how they gave expression to their resentment with a satisfactory thoroughness far beyond the reach of any little farming folk “looking as sulky as a pig” at one another on a lonely Donegal bog. Although the latter had certainly no wish to conceal their state of mind, pride forbade them to manifest it in public by utterances more explicit than enigmatical innuendoes, coupled with the cast of countenance aforesaid; and this helped to keep the origin of the grievance in obscurity, thereby lessening the chances of an explanation.
Consequently, before many weeks went by, all Meenaclochran had begun to remark with interest that “Nolans and M‘Nultys weren’t so very great these times, whatever ailed them;” and soon afterwards it became clear that they were “black out altogether.”
The estrangement may perhaps have gratified two or three mischief-makers; it undoubtedly caused much distress to more than one of the persons most concerned. Generally speaking, it was regarded as an inconvenient and untoward occurrence, and if it had made a newspaper paragraph, might have been said, with more than average truth, to have thrown a gloom over the whole parish. On nobody, however, did it produce less effect than on the pair who had brought it about. Dinny Breen and John Hickey, being but slightly acquainted with either of the fronted parties, and finding their chief pleasure in the company of their terriers, stravading over the hills and bogs, were equally ignorant and unconcerned about this detail in the social affairs of their neighbourhood. They might have stated accurately that it was “all one to them so long as they could be gettin’ after the rabbits, and birds and troutses.”
But as the autumn waned into winter, diminishing their opportunities for those favourite pursuits, they found themselves impelled to devise other pastimes. And one tedious morning in Christmas week, said Dinny to John: “D’you mind the day a while ago you and me was bringin’ round word of a party to Nolans and M‘Nultys, and divil a bit of it we brought them at all?”
“I do so, bedad,” said John. “That was the time we got the three brace of snipe up at the end of the lough, and took them home along wid the rabbits sittin’ in the middle of two big loads of bracken, and me hayro of war at the barracks”—he referred to the police sergeant—“lookin’ over the gate at us and we goin’ by.”
“Because,” said Dinny, “I was thinkin’ why wouldn’t we be bringin’ it to them now? Better late than never, as the man said when he ate the bad egg. We needn’t be tellin’ them what Saturday it was, so they’ll never suppose but it’s the next, that’s St Stephen’s Day. I’d like to see what ould Anastasia M‘Nulty would say to it. There’s apt to be some quare talk out of her, for Mick Gahan was tellin’ me she’s ragin’ mad agin all the Nolans this while back, whatever’s took her.”
“Lookin’ as bitter as sut at one another they are this long time, sure enough. Troth now, I wouldn’t wonder if the whole pack of them would be leppin’ over it,” John said hopefully. “I’m passin’ by Nolan’s place this evenin’, and I could as aisy as not look in.”
“And I’ll leg it over to M‘Nulty’s,” said Dinny, “for I might as well be doin’ one thing as another.”
The two friends executed their design without difficulty, but, so far as John Hickey was concerned, with somewhat disappointing results. For when he put his head in at the Nolans’ back door, he saw nobody except Mrs Peter, rolling out a flour cake on the table, and in reply to his communication all she said was: “Musha, I hope they’re well,” with an air of the utmost composure. Then to his inquiry whether he should convey an answer for her, she rejoined simply and placidly: “Ah, go and fish.” So that he retired with a sense of failure.
Dinny Breen’s adventures were more interesting as he found at home Mrs Anastasia M‘Nulty who received his misleading message with a tirade which almost came up to his expectations in vehemence and vigour. She ended an impassioned critique upon the characters and conduct of the Nolan family, past and present, by requesting him to tell them from her that unless they “kep’ their impidence to themselves they would be very apt to get it back, along wid somethin’ they might happen not to like,” which Dinny solemnly promised to do. Whereupon, as he was passing the haggart gate, out after him sped Molly M‘Nulty, who must have been running along the other side of the dyke on purpose to intercept him, and who breathlessly explained that “he needn’t repeat e’er a word her grandmother was after sayin’, for she’d seemed in a quare cross humour the whole day, and didn’t mane anythin’ at all, good or bad.” So Dinny more honestly pledged himself on no account to deliver Mrs M‘Nulty’s refusal.
Now these things would scarcely have helped the most acute and furthest-sighted to predict what did actually happen on that next Saturday evening, or to account for it with any certainty. Who, indeed, can say how it came about? But whether through the genial influence of the season, or a limited choice of gaieties, through amity or ennui, Liebe oder Langeweile, the fact is that in a moonless obscurity between seven and eight o’clock two parties of people, coming from opposite directions, rushed almost into one another’s arms on Tackaberry’s Bridge as they fled towards the willow tree for shelter from a shower of rattling hailstones.
“Musha, good gracious! and is it yourself, Mrs M‘Nulty, ma’am?” said Julia Nolan, becoming aware of whom she had jostled against. “Maybe it’s too soon we are, then, steppin’ over to your place?”
“Pather Nolan, begorrah—I didn’t expec’ to see you till we got to the farm,” said Art M‘Nulty. “And what way at all are you facin’ the now?”
Meanwhile Peter’s eldest son was shaking hands interminably with Art’s youngest daughter, and saying: “And how’s yourself this long time, Molly asthore? Sure I haven’t seen a sight of you for a month of Sundays.”
“Somebody’s after makin’ fools of us, that’s the truth,” declared Joe M‘Nulty when facts had been stated.
“And a dale our best plan then,” said Peter Nolan, “is to not be made fools of. Just step along home wid us the whole of yous, the way you was intindin’, and ’twill be a comical thing if we can’t get a drop out of the bottle, and a scrape off of the fiddle handy enough.”
Well and good, as the old shanachies say. Peter’s suggestion was unanimously adopted; and since shortly afterwards the neighbours were not only remarking how “M‘Nultys and Nolans had patched it up,” but were also agreeably excited by the prospect of “young Pather Nolan and Molly M‘Nulty gettin’ married at the Shrove,” we may perhaps regard the results of this second misdeed on the part of Dinny and John as an exception to the rule that two wrongs don’t make a right. Still, by way of a better moral, we should bear in mind that only for the opportune clatter of the hail-shower the consequences would probably have been widely different. For if the two families had passed each other by unbeknownst in the dark, to arrive cold and wet at empty, shut-up houses, it is hard to say what complications might not have ensued. The chances certainly are that no such wedding would have taken place at the Shrovetide, if indeed it had not been put off hopelessly for ever and a day. So great are the perils that environ practical jokers and their victims.