The folk of Furry Farm

Well, Marg brought that child home with her, and when she did, she was so excited that she scarce knew what she was doing; bringing an old house on her head, as the saying is. But if she had known itself, or had taken time to think, would that have hindered her?

Not it! She had been the best of a daughter, and a sister, and wife; always doing for others, and forgetting herself. But with all the love she had given out, there was more left still in her heart than had ever been spent. It must have been waiting there for that baby of Rosy’s. For once Marg got the feel of it in her arms, small and soft and helpless, she knew it was what she had been hungry for, those years upon years past, and had given up all hopes of ever having for herself.

And now, at last she had it, and she was satisfied. No one else wanted that grand little baby; no one else had any call or claim to it. It wasn’t of the Union Marg was thinking, really; let alone of Grennan’s being so poor a little home, that to have another mouth there to fill wasn’t lightly to be thought of. No, she made no account of these things. They were all lost in the one wish that was burning in her heart. She must have that child for her very own.

And curious, too, it was, how little Marg seemed to consider Mickey himself in this matter, as if she didn’t care how he’d feel about the little newcomer! In fact, the night she brought the baby home, she was more like an old ewe with her lamb than anything else; on for fight with even a strange dog that may happen by. And poor old Mickey, sitting there so peaceable!

To give him his due, there never was a word said by him, as if he objected to the fuss of having the child there. Of course, it altered things a good deal. A baby coming into a house always does. And hasn’t it a right to? What are children for, only to teach us, in their own little way, by making us take care of them! Sent down from heaven they are, to help to show us how to get there. It’s a queer sort of man, let alone a woman, but will be the better of having to do with a child. For you have to be good to it; and then it does good to you, back again.

Now, Mickey was one of the best, if slow and silent; but good and all as he was, you may easily imagine that he’d feel a bit put about betimes, at finding himself left to himself in such things as not having the stick within reach; or putting his specs out of his hand and forgetting where they were; or having to wait of a morning to have his brogues laced upon his feet, because Marg would be engaged with the child.

He’d say nothing; that was his way; just sit there, most patient. But it’s often he’d be wondering how a thing so little would require so much! For by the time Marg would have the baby bathed and dressed of a morning, and hushoed off to sleep at night, let alone the feeding of her through the day, there appeared to be little time for anything else to be done. Not that Marg did neglect the work. She managed it by getting up earlier and going to bed later, and so she would contrive to overtake all. And the things to be done seemed to her less trouble than ever now; because always there was the baby, waiting and wanting her, Marg Heffernan, and no one else.

Marg would have been contented to spend all her time with the child, petting it upon her knee, and playing with its fingers, or making drakes’ tails out of the little soft wisps of hair upon the head of it! Not that I’m wanting to make little of the child or her hair, either! But at the beginning, she was next door to bald. As she grew big, she grew nice, and had the loveliest head of yellow curls you might ask to see. She had no touch of a Heffernan about her at all.

That was the child that lit on her feet and no mistake, when she was brought to the Furry Farm! She that was well minded; too well, in fact. Poor Marg could scarce bear the wind to blow or the sun to shine down upon her; only watching every turn, as if she thought some danger was waiting to happen to that child, if she took her own eye off her for a minute.

There’s many a woman like that. And it may be right enough, as long as the child is helpless in your arms, because then they’re easily hurt. But it’s another case altogether when they begin to feel the little feet under them, and are able to run about. It was then that the real trouble began with little Bride.

Here’s how it was. Marg used to dress her up very grandly. Nothing was too good for the child. What could be got at Melia’s shop wouldn’t answer at all. So Marg would send off to Dublin, no less, by Tommy the Crab, that had got on well in the world since the morning he sold the pictures to poor Art and Rosy.... Tommy had a cart and horse now, and was a higgler; going about buying up ducks and chickens and so on. And he’d call in at the Furry Farm, and Marg would give him whatever eggs or fowl she had to sell; and he would bring her back all manner of fineries for little Bride, that he would choose when he’d be off in the Big Smoke; and very nice the child looked in what came out of the grand Dublin shop, Tommy being very tasty and experiented about such things.

But what matter how she looked? Who was there to take notice whether it was a puce frock or a pink one she’d have on? Not one, except Marg herself. The Furry Farm wasn’t a place that was apt to be much frequented by people happening in, and Bride was too little still to be taken where she’d be seen. She might as well have been dressed in sacks.

But if you do put good clothes on a child that size, you are making trouble for yourself, unless you can spend all your time watching them; the clothes, I mean. It would take a person all their time, running after one like little Bride, to keep her from doing destruction on her grandeur. Marg had plenty of other work that had to be done, so she began teaching the child the fashion of keeping quiet, and sitting on her creepy-stool in the corner. Brigeen was easily taught, being very biddable, so she’d sit there, quite good, till you’d have to pity her, waiting till Marg would give her leave to run out for a little while.

Too anxious poor Marg was about the child, in every way! afraid of being too kind to her, and spoiling her by too much love; a thing impossible, if it’s right love; and afraid, too, of ever being cross enough to say a harsh word to her, let alone to punish the child, and she without either father or mother to take her part. Many a mother with an only child is not half as careful as Marg was with little Bride, that wasn’t her own at all, except through her own goodness. If only Marg could have taken a leaf out of Kitty Grennan’s book! Kitty, that had a houseful of children to contend with by that time, but took things rough and ready, so that her long family was less bother to her than the one at the Furry Farm was to Marg.

Why, if little Bride cried...! But it was seldom that occurred. How could it? Bride was healthy and gay, and moreover had the best of care in every way. What had she to cry for?

And still in all, there’s one thing that none of us can do well without, and that is, liberty to do what we want in our own way. And as well, children want some one the same age as themselves, to be company to them. Now, little Brigid had neither friends nor freedom. And that was hard on her, although, God knows! Marg meant nothing but kindness.

The child began to be lonesome and forgotten-looking. Marg herself noticed it at times, and wondered what ailed her pet. She could not guess; but supposing she could, what was she to do? She might put her two eyes upon sticks, and it would be no use. A grown person can never go back and be a little child again. And that was what ailed little Bride mostly; the want of another child to play with.

Now, strange enough, it was old Moll Reilly that first really seemed to know what the child was pining for. Dark and all as she was, she’d find out things that were going on, often far better than them that had their sight. She was sitting inside at Heffernan’s one evening, Marg being gone off to the well, and Heffernan himself outside seeing about the business being done, so that only Moll and the child were in the kitchen. And little Bride, after standing for some time with her finger in her mouth, came sidling over to the stool where Moll was sitting by the fire, and crept in as close as she could to the old woman, as if for company.

“Why aren’t you off somewheres outside?” said Moll to the child, “playing about in the fields, where maybe you’d chance to meet up with the young Grennans? Or up on the Furry Hills? Grand it does be, there!”

“I can’t,” said Bride, “because me mammy doesn’t like me to be anywhere that she can’t see me. Sometimes I do be put out into the yard, where she can be keeping an eye on me from the house; and she shuts the big gate that opens out into the fields ... the way I’ll be safe from the cows ... but they come to the other side of the gate and look through it at me with their wicked ould eyes ... and I do be afeard of them.... And all round the yard, there’s walls and sheds, too high to look over.... Only there’s one little spot where the wall is all broken and very low down ... and it’s there I do mostly go; where the little old bits of a house are....”

“And what do you be doing there, alanna?” said Moll.

“Making a chaney-house,” said little Bride; “all the old jugs and cups that gets broken, me mammy gives them to me, and I have a big big round stone there to make them into little bits.... I’d bring you there, only you’d not be able to see how grand I have it!”

“That’s a quare place for you to be! and do you never be lonesome there without one only yourself?” said Moll.

And little Brigid laughed, and said, “Indeed and I’m not lonesome! there does always be some one with me there, where I make the chaneys....”

“Your mammy, is it?” says Moll.

“No, no! it’s not me mammy!” said Brigid, looking down at the floor and then all round the kitchen as if she was puzzled; “it’s ... it’s some one ... I don’t know....”

“What are they like, that do be there with you?” asked Moll.

Brigid made no answer to this, but began twisting her little hands together, and kicking one foot to and fro. And there was no more to be said then, for here was Marg back with her can of water swinging by her side; and Heffernan himself, limping in to look for his tea. And the kettle hadn’t boiled, and the fire was low, and things seemed all behindhand.

Marg fed the child, and thought to get her off to her bed at once. But whatever queer spirit was in little Bride, whether it could have been that she was excited by the talk she had been having with Moll about the old bits of ruined wall and her chaney-house and the “some one” that was always there with her or not, it’s hard to say; only Marg could get no good of her at all. She would do nothing she was bid, only running this way and that way, and laughing when Marg pretended to get angry with her.

But at long last, Moll, knowing that Mickey was getting worn out with it all and she herself in the want of her supper, thought she’d put in her word.

So she said, “There now; too much laughing ends in crying. See here, Bridie, be a good child! Look at ... look at how well little Judy and Pat are behaving, playing about there and no bother to any one ...” and she pretended to be watching, or rather listening to a couple of children at the other end of the kitchen.

Brigid, that had been rushing about, laughing and shouting, stopped like a shot at that, and looked up at Moll.

“Where, where are they?” she said; “who’s Pat and Judy? ... where do you see them...?”

“Look at them! Off there, beyant your mammy’s spinning-wheel, hiding themselves ... that’s why you can’t see them ... and there, now! there they are, going off good to their beds as soon as they’re told....”

At that Brigid, who had been all noise and movement, stood still; and the laugh died off her lips, and her eyes grew big and shining, as she looked up, but seeming to see nothing. And then she lifted her little arms, and away she went, as if she was floating, floating, upon a wave of the sea. And as she crossed the floor and disappeared through the door of the kitchen, they could hear her saying in a half-whisper, “Are you there, Judy? Is Patsy with you?”

And then she’d go on to answer her own question, “Ay, indeed, are we here! and will be in bed and asleep before you....”

“And by that means,” said Moll, telling all this one day to Kitty Grennan, that she had called in to see on her rounds, “by that means, I got the better of the child, and she was no more trouble that evening, and Marg was able to attend to the business and Heffernan himself, and get all done. It’s no way to be going on, to have everybody waiting in order to humour a child!”

“If it was my case,” said Kitty, “I’d just give her a few little slaps....”

“So you would, and you’d be right, too. But Marg is that particular! And what is little Brigeen there, only a cuckoo?”

“Not at all!” said Kitty; “where there’s a cuckoo in a nest, he’ll be pushing out the other young birds, to take all himself. But there’s no one at the Furry Farm for little Bride to be interfering with; there she is, bird alone! And so, that’s how it comes to pass, what Dan was telling me about, only last night, that he seen at Heffernan’s. He chanced to be there a bit late, and a windy sort of a night it was, and neither raining nor letting it alone, only the air dark with the wet that ought to fall and wasn’t. And Dan said, you’d think there was a whole troop of children playing and chattering and laughing, in the corner of the yard where the bit of the old Heffernan castle is, they say. It was afterwards he thought how queer it was! he was in too great a hurry then, to pass any remarks, for we none of us care to be too late crossing the Furry Hills at night....”

“You’re right in that, too!” said Moll.

“... but Dan said,” Kitty went on, “that it was after he got back here he began to think it over ... and sure, he thought it was the strangest thing, to say there was no one there only little Bride, and she was going on talking and making answer then back to herself, as if she had a couple of Comrade Children there with her ... and even dogs she was talking to! One she called Bixey and another was Slangs; and she’d scold them, most bitter and natural; and then she’d pet them and make up friends with them again.... And sure there was neither child nor dog in that place, only Bridie herself! It was a fright, Dan said!”

“So it was, a fright,” Moll said, “and appears most curious too! But now I must be off about me business....”

“What hurry are you in?” said Kitty; “Dan is gone off to-day with Heffernan ... some business or other....”

“If that’s so,” said Moll, “I may’s well give poor Marg a look in; lonesome the crature does be there....”

So with that, she waddled off, big cloak and stick and all. She guessed she had got all Kitty had to spare for her, there not being too much in that house, by reason of all the children. And when she heard of Mickey not being at home, she bethought her that it would be a good opportunity for making a call at the Furry Farm. Marg, she knew, would be more free to give, when himself wasn’t there.

But when Moll got to Heffernan’s, it wasn’t what she expected that she found there. She looked to be brought into a quiet, orderly, comfortable place, such as Marg’s kitchen had the name of always being; and getting well fed and comforted in every way there. But the whole place was upside down. Not a hand’s turn had been done there since the breakfast was ett; everything through-other, and poor Marg herself running up and down and here and there, like a mad-woman.

Little Brigid was sitting on her creepy-stool by the fire, pale and shivering with the fright; and the big tears were streaming down her face.

“Ora, what’s this at all at all? or what’s the matter?” said Moll, who dark and all as she was, as I said before, could always give a good guess at what was going on, and in particular if it was anything wrong.

“I’m distracted!” said Marg; “out of me seven senses I am, and don’t know what I’m doing or saying, and has me poor little darlint there terrified! It’s the teethaches I have, and never closed an eye these two nights, only walking the floor ... and I tried all the remedies I can hear of....”

“The teethaches!” said Moll; “God help you, then, but it’s you that are to be pitied! Meself that used to be mortified with them, till all the teeth fell out. I got some ease then. But as for remedies, there’s no certain cure that ever I could hear of.... There’s charms, of course. And then there’s that Fairy Doctor ... he lives on beyant Clough-na-Rinka ... a seventh son he is, and does a lot of cures. It’s often I used to be thinking if only he was at that work of doing cures before my eyes got so bad ... but sure, it’s all the will of God! and nothing to be done for them poor eyes now; that day’s gone by for me. But for teethaches ... he’s most notorious for curing them. All he’ll do, is just pass his hand across the bad tooth, and the pain leaves it that instant minute....”

“I thought of him, over and over,” said Marg; “but how can I get to go, and himself gone off with the side-car?... I’d have to walk every step of the way. And it would be too far to carry the child; and worse to be leaving her here by herself.... I wouldn’t know what might happen her.... And the car’ll not be back till dark....”

“Sure, what of that?” said Moll; “can’t I be sitting here till either of yous is back, and keep an eye ... I mean, be minding the child? and let you go in the name of God!”

So that took place. Marg rolled her cloak about her and went flying off at a sweep’s trot, to get cured by the Fairy Doctor; and Moll settled herself in by the chimney-corner, in Mickey’s own big chair. She was a very gay old body, the very sort that children always love to be with. So before very long, she had little Brigid sitting on her lap, talking away.

“You do be very lonesome here betimes, don’t you?” said Moll.

“I do, middling,” said Brigid; “I am this evening, with every one gone off ... and Pat and Judy, that I do mostly have to play with, are gone too. Off a long ways they are; gone to buy hay for foddering the cattle, for the grass is beginning to run very short....”

That was the very word she had heard Heffernan saying when he was starting off with Dan awhile before. And whatever Brigid knew to be going on, she and her Comrade Children were to do the same.

“Where’s that you sent me mammy to?” she said then; “a Fairy Doctor, is it? and what kind of a thing is that?”

“Oh, there’s different sorts of Fairy-men,” said Moll; “and, moreover, of Fairy-women, too! Didn’t my very grandmother meet a Fairy-woman one evening, and she coming home from a dance at the cross-roads; ay, and the Fairy-woman had seven fairy children after her....”

“Seven children!” said Brigid, growing red at the thought.

“... and they all dressed in grand red cloaks! And long hair as yellow as butter in June, and it streaming down their backs ... and golden crowns upon their heads....”

“... Upon their heads!” said Bride, with her eyes shining and her face quite pale now at the thought of all this.

“Upon their heads, of course! where else?” said Moll; she might easy have known better than to go on spouting out of her like that to the innocent poor child ... “and riding upon ponies they do be ... white ponies, with long tails flying behind them in the wind, they go so fast....”

“Where, where? I’d like to see them!” said the child, her little voice choking with wonder at all Moll was telling her.

“Whethen now, they do be in a-many places,” said Moll; “the Furry Hills at the back of this very house used to be full up of them ... is still, for all I know....”

With that, she bethought her of what Marg had said, about taking care of the child. And she began to consider that maybe Bride’s mind might get upset, and that she’d take the notion of going off to look for the fairies herself.

So Moll went on to say, “But all that happened a very long time ago; and little girls mustn’t be too venturesome, only do as they’re bid, and then there will nothing happen to them!”

But it’s the first word that counts. Little Brigid took no heed of this warning. She was standing beside Moll now, with the little rosy hand laid upon the old woman’s checky apron, and she looking up at her, and listening, listening, to every word that was said.

And now she went across to the half-door, that she was just able to peep over, by standing upon her tippy-toes; and Moll could hear her saying, in a whisper, “Pat! Judy! are yous there? Mind now and see to get that hay off the carts and ... and....”

She stopped at that, because, like many another that might be wishing to give directions, she didn’t know very well herself what ought to be done. She used to listen to Marg and Mickey, without appearing to mind them, and then, whatever they said, she would repeat it to the Comrade Children, when no one would be by that would maybe laugh at her. There’s nothing a child hates more than to be made fun of. But she managed so that there wasn’t a hand’s turn done about the Furry Farm but she would have the same going on, with herself and Pat and Judy.

Moll often said afterwards, that it gave her a turn as if she was listening to something not right, to hear the little voice talking away, and then answering itself back, “So we will, Brigeen, do all you say! But when are you coming out here to play with us? Tired we are, waiting on you....”

Before there was time to make any reply to that, Brigid ran back to Moll, and said, “Here’s himself, coming back!”

On the minute, Moll began to stir herself. She never had any great hopes out of Mickey, in the way of what he might give her. She knew how hard he always got it, to part money; and so, as soon as she had it all explained to him, about Marg being away, and had got the penny that Mickey handed to her when he was down off the car, she said, “Now that you’re here, Mr. Heffernan, I may’s well be making the road short. The child will be right enough with you about the place ... and Dan too....”

Mickey didn’t say against her; he had no great wish for having Moll in the kitchen.

So she went off, and Heffernan stumped into the house, and planked himself down in his chair by the fire. He gave a look round, and there he saw Brigid, sitting on her creepy, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, she was so meek.

“Well, Missie!” said Heffernan; for there’s the name he had for the child.

She said nothing, but he took no notice, and not long after, he fell asleep. He was old, and tired after the long day he had had, driving.

Bride watched him for a while. Then, when she had made sure that he was sound asleep, she rose up off her stool, and crept over very softly to the half-door again.

She had no delay in opening it, because Mickey had not fastened it as Marg always did, in a way the child did not understand yet. Brigid peeped out. There was no one in sight. Dan was gone off, after unyoking the old mare, to drive in the cows to be milked. There wasn’t a picture of a man about the yard.

It was the kind of a spring’s evening that you would think it a sin to stop in the house; cold and bright and no wind stirring. Here and there you could hear a little bird tuning up, but there was little signs of growth on anything yet. Little Bride thought something was saying to her, “Come out! come out!” as she stood a minute half-ways through the door.

She looked back at Heffernan. Was he really asleep, she wondered, or only pretending? He gave a sigh, and she was satisfied and looked out again, and said, in a whisper, “Are yous there? Patsy! have you the hay above in the loft...?”

“Ay, have I!” she made answer to herself; “and me and Judy only waiting on you, to go off to the chaney-house to play....”

“Is it there we’ll go?” said the real child.

“No! why would we?” said the Comrade Children; “we’re tired of playing there! We’d like to go away, away! out beyant the yard, and up into the rath on the hill ... and maybe we’d get to see some of the Good People there and....”

“Sure I wouldn’t be let to do that!” said little Brigid.

“Och, come along!” answers the Comrade Children; “won’t your own Pat and Judy be with you, and won’t let anything happen to you?”

“Do yous know the way?”

“Ay do we! weren’t we often there, and even went into the hill itself! follied after the Fairy-woman that was looking for the sup of new milk for the fairy baby, and it lying there upon her lap sick for the want of nourishment! And it was we that ‘milked the tether’ for her to get it from Marg’s dairy into the rath....”

“The time the grand big cow went back in her milk ... and me mammy was that put out!... And will we see the fairy children, with their crowns of gold upon them, and they riding, and long red cloaks upon their backs, and...?”

“To be sure we will! see all there is to see!” said the Comrade Children; “only let you hurry, and not be keeping us waiting here all night on you....”

Then out of the door goes little Brigid, talking all the time to herself, and answering herself back as if there was a whole regiment of children in the place, instead of only herself.

She ran straight to that choice spot of hers, where the small little remains of the old castle of the Heffernans was. And there she stood a minute, listening, you’d think. All that remained there now of the old building that had once been so grand and fine was a couple or three bits of walls, half-roofed, very thick and strong. In one of them there was a pointy long-shaped hole, like where the window of a chapel might have been. Many a time Brigid had stood, and had looked at the hole, and had longed to climb up and out through it, to see what was on the other side, only Marg had always checked her. So of course the child couldn’t but know that her mammy wouldn’t wish her to go through there.

But now it seemed as if she forgot all that! She scrambled up and out through the window; she half fell, half jumped on to the long grass outside. Of course she had no call to do the like; but don’t we all act contrary at times? and it’s often you’ll hear it said, “Where’s the sense in being young, if you’re not foolish?” Little Bride just picked herself up; stood still a minute, looking back at the hole. Then she held out the two little hands, the soft, rosy little hands that Marg loved to kiss, as if to catch hold of other hands; and off she started, running as fast as the little feet would carry her, towards the Hill of the Rath, that was dim and fading already into the night.

Inside in the kitchen, Mickey slept ahead for a while; long enough in fact for it to be middling dark when he began to stir himself and waken up. Then he looked about him, and missed Marg, and remembered all that was after happening, and that she was gone off, and the child left in his charge. She had been sitting on her creepy in the corner. He looked over to see if she was there still. The stool was, but the little girl was gone.

At first, Heffernan didn’t mind so much, thinking it was only outside Bride should be. So he gave a great shout of a call to her, and even when there was no answer, he only thought, “She mustn’t be far; I did no more than close me eyes for a minute of time!” half ashamed, the way the most of us are about taking a doze by the fire; as if, you’d think, it was one of the seven deadly sins to fall asleep anywhere only in your bed.

But when no Bride appeared, after a bit Mickey grew uncomfortable in himself. He got up and limped over to the door, to see could he see the child in the yard. It wasn’t till he found that the night was settling down dark and quiet, that the real lonesomeness came over him! He called again, but of course there was nothing, only echo from the old walls for him to hear. Little Brigid was too far away for any shout from him to reach her.

“What will I do, at all at all?” thinks Heffernan to himself; “I wish to God Marg was back here! What a thing for her to go do, to be getting the teethaches this day of all days, and leave me here to be annoyed with the child going astray on me! And sure, if anything was to happen little Missie, Marg would never over it!”

He felt now that he’d give a good deal to see little Bride come trotting up to the door; and he strained his eyes out into the darkness as if by that he thought he might get her back.

Many’s the time he had thought it long, when he’d have to wait his turn till Marg would be done with the child; and he might sit there, lonely and forgotten and as if he was no consequence, till the child would be dressed and fed and all to that. But he had never said a word of a complaint, and now it was all past. He could only see the look on Marg’s face, when she’d have Brigid on her knee, warm and smiling after her bath; or latterly, the way she’d be folding the little hands for her, and getting her to say her prayers, before she’d be put into her bed. Heffernan was half-wild, thinking how fretted Marg would be, if she came home and found the child gone.

“She’d never stop here at all, wanting her!” he said to himself.

That minute, he heard Dan’s foot outside, and he called to him, and gave him instructions. He wasn’t to mind anything, mare or cows either, only run off to search for the child; first at the well, and then at the old quarry-hole; and if he got no signs of her at either of those places, he was to take off along the high-road, after a band of tinkers that Heffernan and he had passed that day coming home after buying the hay.

“Sure, what would they want with the child?” said Dan; “doesn’t the like of them have the full up of their ass-carts of fine children of their own?”

“Be giving me none of your chat!” said Heffernan to him, pretty severe; and at that, off went Dan. He was anxious enough himself by then.

When Dan was gone, Mickey felt worse than ever.

“How am I to stop here,” he thought, “or how could I face Marg, if she comes back to find Missie gone? Maybe it’s what she’d show fight....” She might say, wasn’t it a queer thing, that he couldn’t look after the child for one evening, and she that had always done everything for him, those years past! And well he knew that himself! He couldn’t call to mind any time that he had asked Marg to do a thing for him, but she was ready for the job. And to say he couldn’t do that much for her, only dropping off asleep...!

He couldn’t keep inside. He hobbled out into the yard again, and tried to look through the darkness that had fallen now over everything around.

“It would be very simple for any one to go astray now, let alone a little child!” he thinks to himself.

On the minute, he began to call to mind the time he had lost a lamb once, and that it was above upon the Hill of the Rath he had found it.

“And why wouldn’t a child be the same as a lamb, and try to get up higher always, when it would be lost?” he thought to himself; “and a poor thing it would be, if anything was to happen Brigeen now and she half reared ... and a Heffernan too ... and along with all, to think of the way Marg is made upon her! thinks the sun rises and sets in that child!”

With that, off stumps Heffernan, out through the yard into the fields beyond, towards where the Hill of the Rath rose up, dark and bristly, a piece off from the house. The moon was just commencing to rise, so that he had some light to show him where to put his poor old feet and he limping along.

He hadn’t been up the Furry Hills for many a day, not since he got the game leg that indeed hindered him of a-many a thing he might be wishing to do. But he set himself real courageous now to climb the Hill of the Rath; and you’d wonder how sprightly he went up it.

And as he worked his way, he could call to mind many a queer story of what was to be seen about that rath; stories he had heard from his very father; how that, one day and they sowing oats, just about that time of the year, didn’t there a weeny little red cap drop from out of the rath, right where they were working! And some boy ran to pick it up, but before he could reach it, my dear, didn’t a great furl of wind rise it off of the ground and blew it back into the rath again! And they all thought to hear a great laugh!

And another day, a third cousin of his father’s was gathering nuts, and he a young boy at the time, and it was from trees that grew on the side of the Hill of the Rath he was picking them. And suddenly, there was a lovely young girl, and she dressed in green, smiling at him very pleasant. And then she disappeared, as if the hill had opened to take her in.

“It’s no place for a little child to be, whatever!” thought Heffernan to himself; “and maybe would get a fright there that would last her for her lifetime! Or maybe not be let come back at all, only a ‘Visit’ sent in her place...!”

Mind you, it was hard work enough for any one at any time to get up that hill, let alone an old lame fellow like Mickey, and it the night. The place was all grown over, too, with briers and thorns and nut-trees; and big stones lay loose here and there, and made the going very rough. But Heffernan persevered on, until he got to the top, and then he climbed down into the rath; and very lonesome it appeared, and darker than ever the night was, when he got to the bottom of it, where a very old, twisted thorn-bush grew.

Something white was under the shelter of that bush; no more, you might think, than a gleam of the moonlight that was just beginning to peep in over the edge of the hollow of the rath. But to Mickey that white thing looked like the stray lamb he had found there, in that very spot, long ago. He went over and stooped down, and laid his hand upon it; and what was there, only little Brigid, lying there curled up like a kitten! And she was so tired that when Heffernan picked her up, she only stirred herself round in his arms, and settled herself off to sleep again.

Well, how Mickey got down that steep, rough path and he with the child to carry, is more than I can tell you, or indeed more than he could understand himself. But he did it. He got her safe home. When he had her inside by the fire, he could see that her little face and arms were scratched and bruised and torn with briers; and so were her grand little clothes, and muddied, where she must have slipped and fallen a few times.

“But what odds for all, when she’s found and safe at home, before Marg is back!” said Heffernan to himself, as he was letting himself down into his big chair very carefully, the way he wouldn’t waken little Bride, lying asleep in his arms.

While all this was going on, Marg, God help her! was galloping along on her way home, very happy at being rid of the teethaches, that had left her soon after she had been with that Fairy Doctor. There’s people very wise that will tell you such a thing can’t be, but you’ll see such cures done about Ardenoo. It was so with Marg, anyway, and she was in good heart, hurrying back to the child and Mickey and carrying a couple or three little matters with her that she thought of when passing Melia’s shop; a newspaper for Heffernan and a bit of tobacco, and a sugar-stick for the child. And she was thinking the way long till she’d get home to little Brigid, when didn’t she bob up against some one in the dark; and who was it only Dan.

“What’s bringing you off here, Dan?” said she, “instead of attending to the business at home; is there anything wrong...?”

Dan didn’t know how to begin to tell her.

“It was ... it was himself that bid me.... I was to make no delay for anything, only look for the child along the road ... and sure, as like as not....”

“The child! is it Bridie? What do you mean? Sure there’s nothing after happening to her! Speak up, why don’t ye!”

“Sure isn’t that what I’m trying ... but she can’t be far, nor hadn’t time to be really lost ... well, well!” as Marg rushed away from him, “why wouldn’t she listen, and not go flying off that-a-way like a mad-woman!”

Mad! Well that’s what Marg really was, and she racing along like the wind, with a short hold of her skirts, and flinging her cloak and parcels from her, hither and over, as she ran! What did she care about them, about anything now? There was only room in her mind for the one thought: little Brigid was gone.

Gone! Lost! and what is there that can happen, able to make you feel more astray and lonesome, than to lose anything, even if it’s only a button off your shirt? But of all things, to lose a child! All the dreadful things that ever you heard come into your mind, and you make up your mind that they’re all happening to that one child! Cold, you think, and hungry; worst of all, tired and frightened, and crying out for you to save it!

And then you wonder what at all made it go off! Did you speak sharp to it, or give it a little slap, so that the child had gone off fretting and sore-hearted; and never to come back in life again?

All these things, and more, passed through Marg’s mind, as she was tearing along the dark, silent road. She kept saying to herself, with a kind of sob, “What at all am I to do? Where should she be? To stray off, in the night and cold ... sure she’ll get her death! What was Dark Moll about, that she couldn’t do that much, and she with nothing else to think of ... and how well it should be my poor little laneen that wandered away! how well the Grennans can have all theirs with them, safe and warm, this night, and my one little pet to be lost ... lost! I had little to do, to go leave the house at all, for any Fairy Doctor! Sure, if I had stopped where I was, the pain might be gone by this! And the little child ... and she so small ... God and His Holy Angels watch over her, this night, I pray!”

And along with these ideas there came into Marg’s mind the thought that when she’d get back to the house, there would be Heffernan, sitting by the fire, smoking, maybe, and maybe taking a sleep in his chair as he had the fashion of doing, easy and snug, and not casting a thought on little Brigid. He never did appear to take much notice of the child. And Marg felt now that she couldn’t stand that; it would make her hate the very sight of Heffernan. To think he’d be there, just as usual, warm and comfortable, and he near the close of his days, and her young little darling that was only beginning to live, gone from her!

She was wild when she got to the door, and out of breath, so that she had to stand a minute before she could raise the latch. And as she was shaking at it, trembling all over, heart, soul, and body, behold ye! what did she hear, only some one singing inside in the kitchen! Singing, of all things! And a queer old cracked voice it was, too, that was crooning out:

“The Lord save us! that must be Mickey I hear! that never lifted a lip to sing in his mortial life before! Gone mad on me he must be, along with all other misfortunes! But sure, what odds about that or anything else, now!” thinks Marg to herself.

And at last she got the door open, and then she nearly fell into the kitchen, being giddy as well as tired, not to speak of the fret that was on her.

What did she see then, by the light of a fine turf fire, only himself was sitting there, Mickey, in his own corner, where she imagined him as she was running home. But what she never thought to see, he had little Bride upon his knee, rocking and dandling her, as handy as you please. Marg could scarce believe her eyes. She stood there, trying to get her breath, and looking at the two there before her; and then she said, “She’s not lost, then; thank God for all!”

And still she made no attempt to interfere with Mickey; she never did; though now you could know by her that she was wild for the feel of her heart’s treasure, her cushla machree, in her own arms.

The child opened her eyes, and looked up dreaming-like at Marg; then slumbered off again, with her rosy cheek and the tumbled bush of yellow hair croodled up against Mickey’s old frieze coat, the same as a lamb with a ewe. And all the wisdom of the world couldn’t have shown her better.

A little slow blush crept up over poor Mickey’s face. It was the first time ever he balanced a child upon his knee, and he was doing it the best, though awkward-appearing, with the child’s legs and one small little arm hanging helpless, and her frock every way upon her. But he thought he was great to have Brigeen hushoed off to sleep. “See that, now,” says he, “sure a child is aisy minded, if only you go about it right. Ay, and knewn where to go look for her, too, what noan of yous knew, above on the Hill of the Rath....”

“You! you! was it yourself done that? and took that great imminse climb.” The tears began to rain down Marg’s face; a seldom thing to be seen. She went over to Heffernan and stooped down to kiss him.

“Aisy, aisy now,” says he; “if you’re not careful, you’ll have the child awake!”

THE END