The talk about Heffernan being married at last had all died away, and Marg was well settled in at the Furry Farm, busy and contented, looking after the house and her old man there, when another affair arose at Ardenoo that was the cause of a great deal of unpleasantness and worry.

A stranger from America turned up there; at least, that’s what he said he was, and no one for long enough knew anything different. But it was really Patsy Ratigan, no less, that had left Ardenoo years upon years before, and in too great a hurry to leave any message to say why or where he was going. Now he was back, and feeling none too sure what kind of welcome would be waiting for him. So he thought, when he got there, the day after he landed from America, that he’d keep himself quiet, till he saw how the thing would go on.

The place looked to Patsy wider and more silent than ever; the people fewer, and any he met, either they didn’t know him, or he couldn’t put a name upon them. That was just what he wanted, really; and still, he thought it very strange that everything was so changed from his recollection of it! He forgot that the world and all it contains must always be moving. If you come back to a place you left, even a very short time before, you’ll always find something not the same as it was. If it’s only a kettle that you leave swinging over the fire, while you run out for a few sprigs to hurry it to boil, it won’t be the same when you come in again. The water will be hotter or colder; the fire will be stronger or maybe gone black out.

Patsy should have bethought himself of the length of time he had been away, and then he wouldn’t have been so put out, to find things different. And, indeed, whatever change he saw in Ardenoo, there was more upon himself! Hard-set any of the neighbours would have been, even the comrade-boys that knew him best in the old wild days, to make out the thin rake of a fellow, ragged and light, that he used to be, in this big, stout, heavy-looking man. And he dressed, moreover, in black glossy clothes and a slouch hat; and with a gold watch-chain and ring upon him.

Grand indeed Patsy looked! And still, as well-appearing as he was, sitting resting himself by the side of the road, he was very uneasy in his mind. For he was thinking that he was on the last of his cigars, and wondering in his own mind how he was going to knock out another smoke, let alone any other little necessary comfort he might want. Very downhearted he was, and was feeling as lonesome as a milestone without a number upon it, when somebody else came in sight, walking along very brisk, although with a stick.

“I should know that person, anyway!” said Ratigan to himself; “she seems familiar.... Why, if it isn’t Dark Moll Reilly! And she with the ould shawl ... and the fiddle under it, on her back ... and all the ould bags hanging round her, to gather whatever she’s given.... She’s apt to have all the news of the place ... if there is any to know! If I can get chatting with her ... and she’ll not see who I am....”

So when she got near where he was, he called out to her:

“Hi! you there! my good woman! where are you off to?”

At the words, Moll stopped short, and began poking with the stick, as if to feel her way. It was as if hearing the voice had put a “blind” upon poor Moll; like the bit of board, or old cloth, you’ll see sometimes fastened across the face of a beast that is a rogue, to keep it from straying out of its own pasture.

“I ask yer pardon, sir,” she said, “but sure, I’m dark, you perceive! and couldn’t tell, no more nor the dead, where y’are or who y’are!”

With that, she dropped a curtsey, with her back to Ratigan, by the way of that she was so confused.

“Here!” said Ratigan, getting up, and catching her by the hand, “come over here, and sit down, and we can have a bit of discourse.... Just come here I am, from America, only landed yesterday....”

“From America! do ye tell me that, sir!” said Moll; “and are well acquainted with these parts, are you, sir?”

“Never set foot here, till now!” said Ratigan; “I just took me grip in me hand, and started off on this trip. And some friends of mine across the herring-pond were most anxious I should visit Ardenoo, and look up some old connections of theirs, and bring them all the news.... It’s when you’re away awhile from a place that you’ll be feeling queer and lonesome for them you left behind there!”

Ratigan was always ready for any kind of play-acting, and he could tell lies as easy as a dog can trot. He had made up this story, while Moll was groaning and letting herself down upon the bank beside him, very cautiously.

“Blind, are you? that’s a hard case!” he went on; “but I dare say you’ll be able to give me the information I require. I have all the names I was to ask after, wrote down here in my pocket-book,” he said, pretending to take one out of his breast, but all he had there was an old purse and it empty. “D ... D ... Dempsey ... ay, that’s the name of one ... queer names, the most of them are! Now, what about them?”

“Och, the Dempseys!” said Moll; “why, the sorra one of that family is left in the old place! by that name, at least. The last of them, little Kitty, took and married a boy ... Dan Grennan it is ... and he after coming home from America.... You never chanced to meet up wid a boy of the name, out there, sir?”

“Never heard it, till this minute!” he said.

“Well, Grennan came home, and just was in time to get Kitty, that was very near marrit upon old Heffernan of the Furry Farm.... And in luck Dan was, too, to get his head in there at Dempsey’s ... and a nice little girl for a wife he got, when he did cut his good days short, marrying at all!”

“Married young, did he?” said Ratigan.

“Ay, did he; and a very decent, quiet man he is, and always was; so that Kitty didn’t get the worst of it! They’re not to say too out-of-the-way rich; for whatever little money Dan brought home with him out of America didn’t stand them long. But God was good to Kitty; is sending her the full up of the house of childher; and nineteen turkeys she has, this year, let alone two pigs, and has the grass of her cow, for doing the herding for ould Heffernan....”

“Heffernan of the Furry Farm?” said Ratigan; “that’s another I was to ask about.... But from the description I was given of him, he should be a great age by now! Or is he to the good at all?”

“Getting young again he is,” said Moll, “ever since he has Marg there to be minding him and the place....”

“Marg! what Marg is that?” said Ratigan, a bit impatient.

“Why, who but ould Molally’s dauther!” said Moll; “she was none too young, but even so, Mickey might be her father. But what won’t a girl do, to get where there’s money! And he wid a head upon him as grey as a badger!”

Now the reason Moll spoke like that was, she had a spleen in for Marg, because she thought it was she herself had made up that fine match for Marg, with old Heffernan, and that in consequence she ought to be as free to go in and out at the Furry Farm as she used to be at Molally’s, before Marg had quitted it, to become Mrs. Heffernan. But Mickey didn’t like those ways, of having such as Moll too frequent visitors in his house; and Marg never went against him.

“As grey as a badger, is he?” says Ratigan; “well, sure, there’s some says, the bracketty[14] bird is the purtiest of the clutch!”

“Grey; and as lame as a crutch, to the back of that!” says Moll; “a cant off the side-car that caused it. But Mickey was always weak about the legs; born on a fair-day, as the saying is, with the two knees of him boxing for sugar-sticks!”

“Lame of a leg, and grey in the head!” said Ratigan; “that’s a fancy man for a girl to go take!”

“Marg was none too young herself, though fresh and active still,” said Moll; “and when all fruit fails, welcome haws! She wanted some one. But if you have any wish for more information than a poor ould blind body can give you, sir, can’t you go give them a call at the Furry Farm? They do be mostly always within.”

“Well, maybe I would do that,” said Ratigan; though not a notion he had of doing any such thing.

So Moll gave him all the directions for finding his way, which Ratigan knew as well as she did; and then she went off on her own business, leaving him sitting still by the roadside.

“Divil may care what way you go, for I don’t!” said Moll to herself, when she got a piece off from Ratigan; “to say he was too mean even to offer me the price of a pint, and I as dry as a limekiln, telling him all the news!... Who is he now, at all? For I can’t believe that he’s a stranger in these parts. He was too ready with his talk ... and too anxious for news....”

She went on again, another little bit, thinking hard. Then, “I have it now!” she thought, laughing to herself; “it’s that bright boyo, Patsy Ratigan, as sure as God made little apples! And the great big size of him now! The broad red face of him! and he the full of his skin; instead of the way he was, so thin that there wasn’t as much fat upon him as would grease a gimlet! And the thick back to his head! and used to have a long neck upon him, like a distracted gander peeping down a pump-hole to look for poreens!”[15]

Moll, as I said, had better use of her eyes than the people thought. Still, she never would have known Ratigan again, only that her ears were so sharp. It was his voice she knew.

“And why did he tell that story? It’s terrible to be a liar!” thought Moll; “but sure, he must have some good reason.... Let you say nothing, Moll Reilly,” she went on to herself, “until you see how the cat jumps....”

Now it was true enough, what Moll had said to Ratigan about the Heffernans not often going from about their own place. Mickey wasn’t able for much travelling, on account of the bad leg; and Marg didn’t feel it right to leave him. Besides, she had always been one to keep herself to herself.

The place she went most to was Grennan’s. And so it happened some time after Ratigan coming back, though no word of that had reached the Furry Farm, that Marg said one evening to Mickey, “I have an occasion for going over to Grennan’s ... some eggs that Kitty is gathering for me ... and now, I have the churning done, and the butter made and all cleared away. So I’ll bring a sup of the fresh buttermilk with me, for it’s always welcome in a house like theirs; and it the Hallow Eve and all....”

Dan Grennan had got in on Dempsey’s farm when he married Kitty. But it was a small holding, and not worth much, by the time all the older girls had been fortuned off it. And though Dan had brought some money home with him out of America, it didn’t stand long, between rent that was owing, and then old Mrs. Dempsey having to be buried, when her time came; and of course Dan wanted to do the decent thing by Kitty’s mother. So when all that was attended to, there wasn’t much coming in, and Dan was glad enough to undertake the herding of the Furry Farm for Heffernan. It lay convenient to their own little place, too.

Marg had another reason for wanting to go to Grennan’s that same evening, but she didn’t want Mickey to know anything about it just then.

“Well, go, in the name of God!” said Heffernan, to her standing ready to start; “and as you are going, you might as well throw an eye over that young stock that I have there beyant. Dan is good, and very good; but it’s the master’s eye that puts meat upon his beasts, and I’m not able this len’th of time to be going across fields and rough ways....”

“Whatever you say yourself, I’ll do,” said his wife.

Marg never had any wish for going outside of her own work or interfering with what belongs to men. But she would not disagree with any word Mickey said. To give him his due, neither did he interfere with her. He was only too contented and happy to have her there, kind and good and peaceable; instead of Julia that had been such a heart-scald to him for so long, that he didn’t know himself to be the same, since he got shut of her, and had Marg to look to for everything.

She saw him settled comfortably by the fire, with his pipe for company, before she set off, with her can swinging by her side; and, moreover, a brave big lump of butter fresh off the churn, swimming in the milk. She was bringing that a present to Kitty, for Marg was very nice and free-handed in her ways. But there was no use in speaking of the butter to Mickey. That might only bring on an argument. And a woman has a good right to her churn and all that comes out of it. If she chooses to give any of it away, why not? And if Mickey knew nothing about it, he couldn’t object to it. Supposing he had any claim to the butter, wouldn’t he be all the better of its being given in charity and kindness, and he getting so far on in life? And they would never miss it, no, nor twice as much.

Marg was counted a very lucky hand over a dairy, and always had good yield from the milk. Near though she was to the Furry Hills, that were well known to be full up of fairies, she never got any annoyance from them, such as the Good People to “milk the tether” on her, or to take away the value of the milk from her. But of course, that mightn’t be luck, so much as that Marg knew what she was about. She was very particular not to give away anything to a stranger that might come borrowing from her on May Day; a mistake that has cost many a woman the loss of a fine cow. And she never forgot to throw a grain of salt into the churn, before she began to stir the dash. And as soon as ever she had the butter taken off the churn, she took care to stick the first bit against the wall, for the fairies. People can’t be too careful in such things, especially if they live anyway near such a place as the Furry Hills.

It was from those hills that Heffernan’s place had got its name of the Furry Farm. The hills rose up, across his land, steep and sharp, like the fin of a fish. High they were, and grown over with furze and ferns and brambles and old thorn bushes, that of course no one would ask to disturb. But anyway, you could never run a plough up such hills as they were, so there was no occasion to interfere with anything that grew on them.

In one part of the Furry Hills there was a gap, like a cleft, and the old people said it had been made there by a fairy sword. A narrow road, no more than a boreen, ran through that cleft; and hardly any one used it, though it was handy enough for many purposes. But there was great talk of fairies being thereabouts, and that fairy music could be heard there, and so on. It might be, too, that the old boreen was deserted because there was another road made, better and even handier for cattle that would be going to fairs at Ardenoo or Balloch. But even before that new road was there, the people would never go through the cleft by themselves or late at night; and it was used as seldom as possible. Except for this: not very far distant there lay a holy well, that people would go to at certain times. But Marg could get across the hills to Grennan’s without passing near the cleft at all.

She was supple and strong still, because she gave herself no time to get stiff in the limbs, only always kept going about something or other. So now it was no trouble to her to cross the hills, and strike off through the fields to Grennan’s.

The instant minute after she saw Kitty and they had passed the time of day with one another, “Any news yet?” asked Marg.

“The sorra news!” said Kitty; “me heart’s broke, so it is, fretting, and Dan the same. And he tells me, he heard below there at Melia’s, that there’s more cattle gone, the same way, as if the earth had opened and swallowed them. No account of them to be got, high, low, or holy! And not a night, since Dan missed that bullock out of the Big Field here, but there’s a rosary said in this house at bedtime, for it to be got back. The Lord forgive them that gets on with such work!”

“Did you ask St. Anthony?” said Marg; “he’s great, for things that are lost. I remember to hear tell of an old woman that lost her rosary once, and she having a great regard for it. So she used to ask St. Anthony; and it was a twelvemonth after, she went to turn up the mattress of her bed; and there was the rosary!”

“Look at that, now!” said Kitty; “well, sure, we might try him!”

“You could do no more, then,” said Marg; “but ... there’s the fair-day of Balloch coming round ... and himself might take the notion of selling there some of the cattle; and then he’ll have to be told about the bullock being lost!”

“I suppose that will have to be!” said Kitty, and she ready to cry; “it can’t be kept from him for ever! It was God that done it, that his leg got too bad for him to be able to go round the place, to see the stock and count them himself, this while back!”

Kitty meant no harm to Mickey by that saying; and Marg didn’t think it of her.

“What way is he now?” Kitty went on; “it’s a long time since he took the light from this door.”

“He’s well enough,” said Marg, “barrin’ for the leg, that has been giving him great punishment this good while. Only for that, and that I didn’t wish to be putting any other annoyance upon him, I would have told him about the bullock being lost before now.”

“Wait another little weeny while!” said Kitty, coaxingly; “what would we do at all, if he fell out with Dan?”

“Sure don’t I know that well! and have no wish in life to be making trouble,” said Marg, “carrying stories and telling tales ... only ... you see, he depends on me to bring him the report....”

She sat down then and began watching the children, while Kitty hung down the kettle to wet a grain of tea.

“Ora, Kitty,” said Marg, jumping up, “mind the child! the baby will be killed, if you don’t take heed! Little Mag isn’t able to be lifting him....”

The little girl at Grennan’s was called after Marg herself, and Kitty used to let her have the baby on the floor to nurse him.

“Och, never fear for them!” said Kitty; “here! I’ll put the two of them outside the door with a pinch of sugar ... there now, Maggie; be good and don’t be annoying me and I busy with Mrs. Heffernan; and take care of the baby....”

Kitty never was one to have much talk about her babies, and in particular when Marg that had none was by. But Kitty was right, to let them mind themselves, and learn to do that, by being left alone. If you’re always watching a child, and warning it about falling and so on, it will never learn to be handy with the little feet or anyway independent.

Kitty settled the children outside, then, and that left the kitchen quiet, so that she could give Marg the cup of tea in peace and quiet, and have a chat.

“I suppose,” said Kitty, while she was cooling a sup of her tea in the saucer, “I suppose you heard tell of the American that’s beyant in Clough-na-Rinka?”

“How would I hear,” said Marg; “that never goes anywhere, except to the chapel, from one year’s end to the other!”

“I wonder at that!” said Kitty, “but there he is, this len’th of time, stopping with the Widdah Grogan; and has her heart-scalded, by what I hear, with his grand, particular ways! Wanting beefsteaks and pie for his dinner, no less! as if he was a lord. And as for the talk he does have out of him...!”

“Americans does mostly always be that way,” says Marg; “quare notions they have, there beyant....”

“And for all that,” said Kitty, “in ways, you’d think him real innocent; don’t ask the use of a bedroom at all, so he’s no trouble that way ... go away now, Mags! and don’t be annoying me....”

Marg watched, while Kitty hunted the little girl again out of the kitchen, to where she had the baby laid in a turf-basket; and Marg wondered to herself, how Kitty could bear to have them out of her sight. But she said nothing about that, only, “Has no bed! that’s a quare way to be going on!”

“It appears,” Kitty explained, “that this is a man that got out of his health there in America, and was ordered a voyage across the salt water; and he knew people out there, that spoke to him of this place, and how quiet and healthy you could be here. And above all things, he says, he was warned never to sleep under a roof, if he could avoid doing so. Well, you know that little canoe of a place Mrs. Melia has, squeezed on at the back of her house? she keeps a bit of hay in it for the pony, and it’s there the American asked to be let lie down at night; says he has to have the fresh air. He has a bad foot, too, the crature! the size of a pot it is with all the old rags and bandages he keeps on it. Oh, very lame he is, with it, and says he always was, from a child, and had a fortune spent on it, but can find no cure. So there’s the way it is with him; he appears to have all the money any one could require. Stands treat, regular, to the boys that gather in to hear his stories, at Melia’s, and tells the shop-boy to score all up to him. I’d as soon he’d let that part of it alone!” said Kitty; “Dan was a bit too late coming home, a few nights ago, and then....”

Kitty sighed.

“It’s a seldom thing for that to occur with Dan!” said Margaret.

“Oh, ay! there’s not much to fault in Dan!” said his wife; “only a body gets a bit anxious, for fraid he might get the fashion of being late ... maybe begin stravaguing the roads....”

“Well, if the American is the way you say, with the bad foot, they’ll not go far, if they want his company!”

“Ay! that’s only God’s truth! and now speaking of a lame leg and the like, what remedy are you trying for Mickey?”

“Nothing; for there seems no good in anything I can apply to give him ease!” said Marg.

“Did you think of getting the water from the Holy Well?” said Kitty.

“I thought of that, over and over,” said Marg; “but I never got to try it for him yet. Only this evening, and I coming along here, I was intended to bring home a sup of the blessed water in the buttermilk can. And so I will, too, for I can get it easily, on the way back. So as soon as you can have the can readied out, I’ll be shortening the way home,” says Marg.

“I’ll not ask to delay you, so,” said Kitty, “and it Hallow Eve and all; and the daylight beginning to fade. And cold it’s turning, too!”

“I’ll not heed that!” said Marg; and away she went.

There was a touch of frost in the air; the grass felt crisp underfoot. Dusk was gathering about the fields and the shadows began to lie very thick and dark under the trees and hedges. Margaret even shivered a little, as she hurried on. But that might be because all these lonesome signs of the night seemed worse, after leaving Kitty’s kitchen, gay and full up of the little chatter and laughing of the children, the baby in Kitty’s arm, and little Maggie standing beside her mother, to watch Mrs. Heffernan disappearing into the twilight. Marg loved to go to Grennan’s, and see the children, and maybe now and then coax one of them to sit on her knee and let her play with it. All the same, she was sighing now, to think how silent and sober her own house was, compared to Grennan’s.

She was thinking, going along, of the sound of the little voices there; “like music!” she said to herself. And with that word, she started. For, whether it was some echo carried on the wind from Grennan’s, or whatever it might have been, that very moment she thought she heard some sound of music coming out of the darkness to her as she was passing through the Big Pasture-Field.

“What can it be? Sure, I often heard tell of fairy music, and how that some can hear noises, like piannas and bugles, if they put their ear to the ground, close by a rath. But that can only be foolishness! I’ll not let the like of that talk stop me now, from going to the Holy Well, if there’s a cure, or even some small relief to be got there, for that poor leg of Mickey’s!”

So on she went, by the Furry Hills, until she got to the Holy Well, close under the Cleft of the Fairy Sword.

“It’s well the moon is up,” thought Marg, “the way I’ll have no delay in filling the can!”

The Holy Well lay in a corner, where the Big Pasture-Field sloped down to a hollow. Many’s the time Marg had seen it, of a Saint’s Day, with the lone thorn that leans out over the water all dressed up with bits of ribbon, and even rags, that the people would tie there, when there would be a Pattern at the Holy Well. And, besides, the girls had a great fashion of going there on Hallow Eve, to try old charms and “pistrogues,” “so that they might get to see whatever boy they were to marry.”

Well, this time, when Marg came in sight of the Well, wasn’t it all hid from her! ay and even the hollow where it lay was covered over with white columns of mist, that rose, and wavered, moving this way and that way as the night wind blew. It was steam from the Well, for the water there is warm. Not hot enough to make tea and boil eggs, as Mickey used to tell the people, but just nicely warm. And always in frost or cold, you could see the steam rising from it.

But as long as Marg had been at the Furry Farm, she had never chanced to see it like that. The Well lay a piece off from where she had business. And Marg never had been one to go stravaguing the fields for pleasure; and she wasn’t going to begin that fashion now, and she married.

Marg began to go slower, and to feel a bit fearful in herself. It was Hallow Eve, when, as everybody knows, the dead can come back to visit those they love. And here was she, all alone among the wide, silent fields, close to the Holy Well, with the moonlight white upon everything. And not a sound, only the whisper, whisper, of the stream that ran from the Well; and the soft, white clouds of steam, dancing and beckoning like strange beings that had life, this way and that way across the water....

“I’ll make no delay, for fraid I’d take fright altogether here!” she said to herself; and she hurried forward to the brink of the Well, and dipped in her can.

What did she see, when she straightened herself up again, but a Face, at the other side of the Well, and it staring, staring at her.

Her heart stopped beating; then “Patsy!” she said, in a choked kind of voice....

At the word, a puff of steam blew between her and the Face, and when she was able to see clearly again, it was gone!

How Marg got home that night, she never knew. All of a tremble she was; so much so, that her two shoes were full up with the water that kept spilling out of the can, she was walking so unsteadily. But still she kept on as fast as she could, and never let go her hold of the water from the Holy Well, till she had it landed in upon the kitchen floor. And proud she was to find herself there! and to be able to shut the door, between herself and the black shadows that seemed to rise out of the night, and to have been chasing and threatening upon her heels, once she left the Holy Well, all the way across the dark, lonesome fields.

But what was worse on her was, that the old fret seemed to be wakening up in her heart; a sharp kind of pain, after all those years, at sight of the boy that had treated her so queerly. She couldn’t tell why! but there it was; and there’s others the same, that will always have a soft corner in their hearts for any one they were young with; let alone that they’d have a wish for, as poor Marg had for Ratigan.

And, “Was it Patsy that was in it?” she kept asking herself; “or could it be that it was only some Appearance for Death ... or a Visit ... the Lord be between us and harm, I pray!”

But now she was inside her own house, and it all seemed full of light that was very bright after the dark night outside.... There was a great look of comfort upon it. There were rows and rows of good pewter plates and dishes and noggins, all shining and twinkling in the blazing firelight, she had them so well scoured and polished up. And the place was hung round with the fine sides of bacon that she had cured; hanks of yarn she had spun, and stockings she had knitted, in the chimney-corner, above her spinning-wheel of black oak. And Mickey himself was sitting there, very much as she had left him, in his big chair, close to the turf-box, the way he had it convenient to throw on a few sods when they were needed to keep the big pot boiling. He had his specs upon his nose and his pipe ready filled, and the newspaper on his knee, reading in it now and again. Margaret never forgot to bring that to him, every week, from Melia’s shop.

“You’re later than I thought,” said Heffernan to her.

“There’s what has me delayed,” said Margaret. “Kitty Grennan that bid me try the water from the Holy Well on that leg of yours ...” and she showed him what she had in the can.

“And is that what you were at!” said Mickey, looking as proud as Punch; “getting the blessed water to beethe me leg. Well, sure, you can’t do worse than try it! But I was getting really unaisy in me mind, for fear of something having happened you ... and a body feels a thing of the sort worse, if they’re helpless the way I am!”

“The sorra ha’porth is wrong with me!” said Marg.

And neither there was. And, of course, there was no occasion to tell Heffernan about what had happened at the Holy Well. What could she say? If it was an Appearance, well and good! there was no more to be said. But if it was Ratigan...! and how could it be? How could he be there, trying to play off some trick on her? Wouldn’t it be best to say nothing?

How could it be Patsy? wasn’t he married in America, ay, long enough before she was herself! And never had thought it worth his while to send her one line, either to ask for news of herself, or to tell her what he was doing with himself, out there. Just by chance, she had heard of his marriage. And, in troth, only for hearing that, she might be Marg Molally yet. You never can tell what small little word here or there will get you to do a certain thing or to leave it alone.

Whatever came or went, then or at any other time, Marg never failed in anything that could be done for Mickey. She was very fearful about going to the Well, after seeing what she saw there, that first night. And it should be done after dark, too; still, she persevered.

“It must be continued on,” said Dark Moll, that had a good knowledge of such things, so that Marg thought well of consulting her, one day she met her on the road; “you must go on wid it. And the water must be got by one that has a wish for whoever has need of it; and that person must go by themselves ... if the Holy Well is to do any good, that is!”

There wasn’t really one, on the face of this earth, to care one straw about poor Mickey, only his wife. And Marg ... sure, it was more compassion than anything else she felt for him, seeing how old and lonely and helpless he was. Though, indeed, he was kind in his own way to her, and showed great confidence and respect for her and all she did, and she felt thankful to him, over and over, for that, and for the good home he put her over. That’s a thing that is generally a satisfaction to a woman, and it was to Margaret.

But with others, Mickey Heffernan was no great favourite. He had no agreeable ways with him. He would do a kind turn for another, as soon as the next one; but then again he had a fashion of taking the good out of whatever he did that-a-way; the same as the cow that fills the can, and then kicks it over. So it came about that there was no one to go for the water for his leg but Marg herself. She went to the Holy Well every evening of her life then. Sometimes it would be fairly early, just duskish, and sometimes it would be late enough before she would be ready to start off, but she never failed to go.

This was the way with Marg, and as nothing strange occurred for some time, she was beginning to think that she had only imagined to see Ratigan that Hallow Eve at the Holy Well, when she got another great fright there. Bad as the first was, this was worse, so much so, that she nigh-hand fell out of her standing.

She was making her way along by the Furry Hills, when suddenly there was the greatest stamping and rustling and big clattering as if cart-loads of stones were being thrown down the side of the Fairy Cleft, and heavy sounds of grunting and breathing and snorting. And then she thought there was something like a figure of a man, going through the dusk, towards the Cleft, with a stick in his hand.

Margaret stopped and tried to think what it could mean.

“It can’t be Dan Grennan!” she said to herself; “for what would he be doing here at this hour? God knows but it might be some villyans of tinkers.... But whatever it is, I’ll have to find out who is there, making so free, and coming in here upon our place!”

So, though she was as frightened a woman as could be, she gave a great shout, thinking by that to frighten away whoever it might be.

It did frighten the man that was there! her voice lifted him off his feet, he was so startled, the fields being generally so silent at that hour.

He jumped up, and then he stopped; and the snorting and trampling feet stopped, too. Then the figure, that Marg could just make out against the pale yellow of the evening sky, where it was above the hill ... the figure seemed to Marg to turn about, and then she could hear it coming, coming quickly down the hill towards her.

She was frightened in earnest then. Her first thought was, that she’d run away. But her knees gave under her. So she crouched down close to the damp ground, thinking to escape being seen. And she had herself dead and buried, in her own mind that is, when the man came up, and stood still beside her.

“So you don’t know me, Marg Molally!” he said, in a very sad, mild voice; “you don’t remember poor Patsy now! Nor couldn’t, I suppose! Mrs. Heffernan is too big and grand a person now, to have any recollection of the ould times!”

And with that, he turned on the light of a lantern he was carrying under his coat; and Marg saw plainly who it was.

“In the name of God, Patsy Ratigan, it’s not you!” she said.

“Who else?” said he; “is it that I’m that changed a man, that you don’t know me? But small blame to me to be changed! after all the want and hardships I’m after putting over me! And small blame to you, either, not to know me. It’s another story with you,” he says, “the same as ever you look! not a day older than you were, the day you ... well, sure, it’s bad to be raking up old sores! But if it was you that had been away, and came back...! No matter what change there was upon you, I’d know your skin upon a bush, so I would!”

Marg couldn’t but listen to him, for she was too much surprised to do anything else. Puzzled too she was. For she was thinking of the Face she had seen at the Well; and she had known that to be Patsy Ratigan. And now here was a big, red-faced, puffy-looking man, saying that he was Ratigan!

God knows, there’s many a thing remains a puzzle! not to speak of what a body might chance upon, of a Hallow Eve.

But she got no time then to think this out, for of all the romancing that ever was heard, and Ratigan reeled it out of him then.

“Little I thought, that when we’d meet, you would have forgotten me!” he said; “but sure enough, there’s the way...!

“And I working and slaving off there in America, and never thinking when I came back, that I’d find meself forgot by every one, and you marrit!”

“Marrit!” said Marg; “and what about yourself? and the widdah with her shop ... and the six children?”

“Widdah? What widdah?” said Ratigan; “who was it at all that put round that story upon me? I only wish I had him here!” says he, very courageous, “and I’d soon show him the differ! And you to believe that of me! I couldn’t have believed it of you ... only for seeing it now! All I wonder is,” he went on, very bitter, “that it wasn’t ten widdahs! and sixty children that they had laid out for me! And I that was thinking of no one, only the girl at Ardenoo that I used to be helping of an evening with the bullocks ... and of the welcome home she would have for me, whenever I’d come back!”

Phwat! what he had in his mind was, that he had had enough of the hard work in America, and the hurry and noise there, once the widdah died, the crature. And her children took and threw Ratigan out of that; and it appeared then that they owned the shop and money, once the widdah was gone. And a loss it was to Patsy, that he hadn’t inquired fully into the thing before he got married. But when he had to quit out of the shop, where he had lived very nice and easy, and found he would have to earn for himself, he began to turn over in his mind about Ardenoo. Maybe Marg Molally was to the good still. And he knew her to be a good warrant to work. Moreover, he remembered that Ardenoo was a pleasant place for being idle in; and that’s what he liked best always.

What he said further then to Marg was, that all he’d care to do now was, to have leave to rest himself awhile before going back again; and that he was trying the water of the Holy Well for a bad foot he had. But he had been advised to do the cure secretly, and that was how he chanced to be coming there so late to the Fairy Cleft.

“But,” says Ratigan, “I never said, to man nor mortal except yourself, who I am. You’re the only living soul in Ardenoo that I have any wish to speak to; and I’ll trust to you to say nothing!”

“Very well!” said Marg, a bit puzzled why he should want nothing said. But, like many another, she was proud to be told what no one else knew.

“And where do you stop?” said Marg then.

“Beyant in the town,” said Ratigan, telling the truth for once; “Mrs. Melia that lets me sleep in the hay-loft that she has leaning up at the back of the house; and then it’s not so expensive on a poor man like Patsy. And, besides, I’d liefer not to be inside the shop; I can’t abide the least smell of drink!”

Mrs. Melia could have told a different story about that, for the American, as he was called at the shop, was the talk of the whole place, the way he was going on with every play-boy that was there, treating them all. And she could get no money out of him, only now and then. He would always be telling her, that he was expecting funds from his agent in America by the next mail.

Well, that agent lived quite convenient to Ardenoo! and was going about on four legs, as long as he would be let. There was no doubt that Ratigan had some way of getting money into his pocket; and also that cattle and other things were disappearing, no one knew how; neither did any one know whose turn it would be next.

There is something very curious about cows and the things that will happen to them. Dark Moll had a story she was fond of relating, about Andy McGuinness, long ago, that saw a strange woman dressed in green, and long hair as yellow as butter flowing down her back, and she was milking Andy’s fine cow one summer evening. So Andy caught the cow by the tail, when the woman disappeared at sight of him. And by that means he got inside the Furry Hills. And there was the fairy-woman he had seen, and she with a fairy child in her arms. And Andy had to promise her that she might take a pint of milk every night for the child. And then he found himself out again with his cow safe in his own fields. And after that he had no more trouble with her. She had been no use to him up to that, giving only small sups of milk, and no yield of butter upon even what she gave.

Well, Moll said, now that all the cattle were disappearing, that it would be simple enough to find out all about them if only some one had the spirit to go to the Fairy Cleft like Andy, and see what was taking place there. She was right, too, as it happened, though not exactly in the way she meant. But no one had any wish to take that advice.

“It’s easy for them to talk, that will do nothing themselves! advice is always cheap!” they would say.

Ratigan, or the American, as the people called him, had a good deal to say about the stealing of the stock.

“If it was away in the States that such a thing was going on,” he said, “the whole countryside would join, and turn out to hunt the cattle-thief! What good are the people here, anyway! Only for this bad foot of mine, I’d start the thing meself!”

And with that he stuck out a foot as big as a beehive, to all appearance. And who was to know that there wasn’t a ha’porth the matter with the same foot? It was all play-acting he was, and by this talk he made it easy for himself to come and go after dark, in and out of the hay-loft at Melia’s.

“Dan Grennan,” said Ratigan another time, “Dan that had a great deal to say over his glass last night about this business, and in particular about a bullock that is missing off the Furry Farm. Strayed, as likely as not! But I can’t help thinking of a saying I used to hear from an Irishman I met over in America; how that the fox always smells his own smell!”

There were some that heard him say this that were inclined to be angry. It was no right thing to say of a decent neighbour. But the others laughed it off. The American had a way of making jokes, and no one minded much what he said, he being very free with his treats, too, to every one.

All this time, poor Dan and Kitty were fretting their hearts out about the bullock that was lost. They knew well that Heffernan would blame them for the loss, and maybe bid them leave the place for some one that would be more careful. And then what would become of them and the little family? Marg did all she could, but the thing could not be kept from Mickey’s knowledge for ever. He took it very hard.

You would really think that it was worse for him to be at a loss than any one else that had met the same misfortune. And he with not one in his house to care about providing for, except himself and the wife! But God help him and all like him! Sure his money and money’s worth appeared to be all he had, at that time anyway, to care about; excepting only Marg herself, of course. And he was so well used by now to her, and all her care and attention, that he scarcely knew himself either how necessary she was to him, or how much he thought of her.

But now, he wouldn’t listen to one word she’d say about this loss, to try to reconcile him to it; only he would keep on, ding-dong, from morning to night and from night to morning, lamenting about the fine beast that was gone, and saying that such a thing had never occurred as long as he had been to the good himself. At last, he began to say that he’d have to turn Dan and Kitty away.

Now this is the kind of talk Marg had to listen to, all day long, up and down, this way and that way, the same thing over and over again, till she grew sick of the very name of a bullock! So you could hardly blame her, that she began to look forward to the evenings, when she would be slipping off to the Holy Well, and the chance of seeing Ratigan there and passing a few remarks with him. It happened pretty often that they met in this way.

Ratigan still had the same pleasant manners with him, and the tongue that could coax the birds off the bushes. Sometimes he’d be telling Marg of all the troubles and hardships he met up with, out in America; and then again, it would be nothing but about the money you could earn and the fine times you could have there. And this would be, while he would be carrying the can of blessed water a piece of the way home for her. He never could abide, he’d cry, to see a woman have to work! as long as he’d have a leg under him; and how that he himself was nearly cured by the same Well. Now Marg could not but be glad to have her mind diverted from poor Mickey with his complaints about the lost bullock as well as his lame leg.

It was worse that Heffernan was growing over this matter as time went on, instead of beginning to forget it. In fact, it wasn’t Mickey alone, or even those only that had lost a beast themselves that were uneasy, but all Ardenoo could do nothing but talk about the cattle being stolen, and wonder whose turn would come next.

Now this thing is so simple that it’s curious more don’t turn their hands to it. Horn brand or hide brand, they’re easily got rid of, with the help of a file and a pair of scissors. And if you start early in the night, you can travel a long way with whatever you may have to drive, before the weight of the people will be out of their beds. And if there chances to be a lonely spot like the Fairy Cleft anyway convenient, that crowns you for the job. The beasts could be taken there and along the disused boreen as handy as you like. Ratigan had it all as fit for his requirements as if he had made it himself.

At last Heffernan made up his mind that he’d run no more risks about having his cattle stolen. So he said to Marg, “The fair in Clough-na-Rinka is coming on, and it would be as good for us to sell that half-score of store cattle there as to leave them to be stolen, like their comrade. They’ll sell at a loss,” he went on, with a sigh, “but sure, little fish is sweet! and the rent has to be made up. And it will only be worse to be keeping them back and having to fodder them in the winter, and the hay none too plenty ... sure, they’d have themselves ett against next May!”

“Whatever you say yourself,” said Marg, only too glad of the chance of getting rid of the bullocks, and thinking that then maybe Mickey would cease to be fretting and annoying himself over the one that was stolen; “but how will you manage to get to the fair?”

“I know well that I’d have no right to go, and the leg the way it is with me,” said Mickey, “but I think you’d do, if you were instructed.”

“I’ll go, if you say the word,” said Marg.

She felt glad of the chance. She would hardly say it, even to herself, but she would like to get away for even that one day from poor Mickey. Not that she’d let any one say a word against him, but she was worn out of all comfort by his growling and complaining. Of course it was the bad leg that helped to make him so contrary; and Marg never forgot that, and would never make him an answer, no matter what he’d say.

“I can go away easy enough with the mare and side-car ...” for that is how Mickey himself always went to fairs.

“Ora, what side-car do you want?” said Mickey a bit short; for now along with all else, the poor old man was fretting because he could not go to do the business himself, being sure, like every one, that he could do it better than any one else; “what side-car do you mean? Can’t ye take the little ass?”

“She’s very slow now,” said Marg, “and it will leave me that I’ll have to be a long time away from you.”

“It’s lost for the want of work she is, this minute,” said Heffernan; “fresh enough she is, this minute, to dance a cat off the high-road! and as well, there’s a bit of ploughing that the mare could be at, here at home....”

“I can walk; shanks’ mare will do me full as well as either ass or mare!” said Marg, that had not one ounce of lazy flesh upon her bones.

So when the fair-day came round, she was up and off, bright and early, before the stars were out of the skies, the cattle having been sent on ahead with Dan Grennan. Marg had no delay in selling the stock, for fine beasts they were; and to a dealer that she and Mickey were well acquainted with, so that Marg felt no great anxiety about the business.

When they had the bargain closed, “Come along in here, Mrs. Heffernan, mam,” said this dealer, “to Mrs. Melia’s, a decent woman she is and keeps a decent house as you may wish to find. And I can be paying you the money inside there, in the parlour, away out of the noise and crowds in the street,” said he, “let alone the mud and gutther, with the heavy rain that’s falling....”

“Very soft entirely it has turned, since the turn of the day,” said Marg; “the cloak on me is heavy with the soaking wet.”

“You’re saying only the truth, mam,” said the dealer; “and all the more reason for you to be getting into shelter, where we can be having a cup of tea, or whatever other refreshment you like to put a name upon.”

“I thank you kindly,” said Marg; “indeed, I’ll be glad of something warm to drink....”

Like many another woman, Marg had neglected herself in the matter of food, and had never tasted bite nor sup since leaving home that morning. And now that she had the selling of the cattle off her mind, she remembered that, and began to feel very weak-like in herself.

So she raised no demur to going into Melia’s, and in particular because she had observed Ratigan a piece off from her down the fair-green. He was pretending not to know her. Marg was no hand at that work, and she was glad not to have to meet up with him, before all the neighbours. But Ratigan was keeping a close eye on her, all through. Not a turn of Marg that day but he watched. And when he saw herself and the dealer going into Melia’s, my dear, what did he do, only whipped round like shot, in and out among the crowds of people and beasts of all kinds, and up with him into the hay-loft. The big foot was no hindrance to him, he would explain, only betimes. And anyway, every one was too much taken up with their own concerns to mind much what the American was about that evening.

The loft wasn’t to say very well built. There was a chink that he had often found very convenient, for seeing what went on in Mrs. Melia’s parlour. He put his eye to it now.

In due course, he saw all he wanted to see. There were Marg and the cattle-dealer, drinking their tea and eating fried eggs and bacon; and badly they both stood in need of their bit. Then the dealer pulled out the purse, and counted out the money upon the table, that he was paying for Mickey’s stock; and the luck-penny was handed back to him. Ratigan’s mouth was watering at the sight, and when he saw Marg tying up what she got, a full hundred pounds, in a strong bag, and fastening that into the front pocket of her cloak, inside, a very safe spot.

“Yiz never got any account of the bullock that was lost ... not to say, stole?” says the dealer.

“Never a word,” said Marg; “whoever done it, no one knows, nor can’t think. And to say that all over the whole of Ardenoo such work to be going on! Sure it’s a fright, so it is!”

“You may say that; a fright it is, sure enough!” says the dealer; “but whoever it is, will soon be known! I have that from certain knowledge; and that the polis has all ready, and will have the thief inside of the barracks, before he’s a day oulder! so mind, now, I’m telling you!”

“It would be a charity, too!” said Marg; and then the dealer bid her the time of day, and went off, to get the cattle home before it would be dark night down upon him and them, and it raining hard still.

Marg was just thinking in herself, had she the money safe for Mickey, and fidgeting with her hand to feel was it where she had put it, not two minutes before, and she was thinking of the long road that lay between her and the Furry Farm, where she’d be as apt as not to meet with tinkers and queer people going along, after leaving the fair and maybe they not so sober as they might be ... when the door of the parlour opened, very easy, and in walked Ratigan. And not a limp was upon him then! He had too many other things in his head, to remember about his lame foot. But anyway, Marg was too much surprised to meet him there quite suddenly, after she trying to not see him all day, to remark on that. She was flustered, too, about the bag of money, not having satisfied herself yet that she had it in the safest place.

She turned to face Ratigan, trying to look careless. But she felt trembly and queer, meeting him there, in that little crowded-up parlour. Someways, it wasn’t the same thing at all as when they would be having just a chat in the dusk at the Holy Well, or straying along through the quiet fields.

“Good-evening, Mrs. Heffernan, mam,” said Ratigan, very polite; “I seen you over and over to-day ...” and he stopped short, and his eyes began looking at her every way.

“Well, and if you did, and had anything to say, why didn’t you come up and speak to me?” said Marg hurriedly.

It wasn’t what she wanted to say to him at all.

“Och sure, how was I to know would you wish that?” said Ratigan, very humble in himself; and then Margaret’s heart softened towards him.

“You’re not going out in that dreep of rain?” says he, noticing that Marg was pulling up her cloak about her shoulders, where she had it undone, while she was drinking her cup of tea; “teeming out of the skies it is, as if all the wathers of the salt seas I have to cross was coming down upon Ardenoo!”

“I’ll have to face out, rain or no rain,” said Marg; “I have a long ways before me!”

“I’ve a longer!” says he; and he puffed a big sigh out of him; “and has to go wid meself....”

“You should be used to that!” says Marg.

He had her persuaded that he never was married at all.

“I ought to be, I know,” said Ratigan; “but I haven’t the short memory I see with some people for the old times! But them that’s in heaven themselves, finds it easy to forget all else; and thim that’s snug and warm in their own home, has little thought for them that has to be without in cold and wet and hardship!”

“There’s more a body wants than food and fire,” says Marg, as if she was thinking out loud.

“Ay is there! that’s a true word!” said Ratigan.

He was thinking at that present, that he wanted the price of his passage back to America, as badly as ever a man wanted anything! He had squandered away the money he had got for the cattle he had stolen, in paying Mrs. Melia some of what he owed her, and the rest drinking and spreeing. And now he was after hearing through the chink in the hay-loft all that the dealer had been saying to Marg. He knew about the money she had been putting away; and he knew, too, about the polis, and the danger he was in. And he felt that the sooner he could quit out of that the better it would be for his health.

But how was he going to get away, and he without a penny to his name! And it would take some days for him to get any more by that means he was employing. And he must lose no time.

The only thing to be done was, to get a hold of that bag of money he had seen with Marg. Have it he must, by hook or by crook! Maybe she’d go with him. That would be the simplest, though not what he’d like best. But he spoke to her very nice and soft, saying how he thought the world and all of her, and trying to get to coax her....

“I must be shortening the road home!” was all Marg said in answer. And she went over to the window, and stood there, looking out at where the rain was coming down in white sheets of wet, and running down the street in streams, all choked up with mud, after the traffic of the day, and the trampling feet of the sheep and cattle. It wasn’t very tempting; and she turned away from it, as if she couldn’t make up her mind ought she to go, or to wait a while longer.

Ratigan all the time was watching her, like a cat with a mouse.

“Maybe it would be as good for you to start off at once!” he said; “it’s not better it will be getting ... only the dark night coming down....”

He was mad to be off, knowing it wouldn’t answer for him to be delaying there, so close to the barracks, and even wondering how soon he’d have to make a run for it, money or no money. But if only he could get Marg outside the town, and on a lonely piece of the road, how simply he could be coming along behind her in the dark, and take the bag from her; and she never to know who he was. Or if she did itself, what loss! A man like Ratigan can’t be too particular.

“No, it’s not better it will be getting!” he said again.... “Sure, if only I dar’ go with ye, to see you safe ... but that mightn’t answer....”

“The Lord save us!” says Marg, interrupting him there. “That’s Mickey! I thought to know the rattling sound of the side-car; it never can go by annonst....”

Sure enough, there it was, coming up the street, and Heffernan sitting balanced upon it, looking little and bent and perished-looking, with the dint of the wind and wet, in spite of the big frieze coat he had on, with the collar shaving his ears, and his hands lost in the length of the sleeves.

“Holy Mother of God!” said Marg, “sure it’s not down he’s wanting to get, there, in that thronged place! He’ll be kilt dead! Wait, wait a minute, Mickey!” she said, as if he could hear her through the window, “wait! there’s no one can humour that poor leg only meself, when he does be getting down off the car....” and in her hurry to save Mickey, she threw off the heavy cloak and left it, money and all, down upon the floor, and ran out, through the heavy polters of rain, over to Mickey upon the car.

“You’ll mind that for me!” she called out over her shoulder to Ratigan, as she darted out of the door.

Mind it! Little delay Ratigan made, only whipped the bag of money out of where Marg had it inside the cloak, and away with him, like a redshank, by the back door.

“What at all brought you here, at this late hour?” said Marg, reaching up her hand to help Mickey off the side-car.

“Well, when I saw the evening turning so wild and hard,” said Mickey, “I thought bad of you having that long walk home, after such an early start this morning. And along with all, I had a bad dream and I sitting in the chimney-corner. I thought to see you in some great danger ... and it was about the money you were after getting for the bullocks.... So Dan was back, and he gave me an account of all, and the good price they made.... And I got him to throw the harness on the old mare ... it was too bad a day for she to go plough.... I would have been here long ago, if I’d been able to get ready meself.... But hurry now, girl dear! you’re getting all wet ... and no cloak about you....”

“Sure, what matter! And I dreading the long walk home in the dark!” said Marg, nearly ready to cry when she thought of the poor old lame chap quitting his snug seat at home, to come look for her, at the very time that she was listening to Ratigan with his foolish wild talk.

“I’ll just run back for the cloak,” said Marg, “and then there need be no more delay upon us, only to get home in comfort!”

Well, there’s where it was, when she went back, and took up the cloak, and just put her hand inside, to make sure she had the money, and it wasn’t there! She nigh-hand fainted, with the fright. She couldn’t believe it! She felt in all her pockets, over and over again. She called out for Mrs. Melia, who came and helped her to look everywhere about the room, and out in the wet street, over to where Mickey was waiting on the side-car, and telling Marg to make haste and come on out of that.

“What will you do, at all at all?” said Mrs. Melia ... “will you be able to pacify Mickey? ... tell him ... what would you say? that you left it here with me, and I having it locked up and had to go away....”

Mrs. Melia made that up out of the goodness of her heart, but Marg wouldn’t agree.

“I can only say what happened,” she said.

She did that; and Heffernan looked terribly put about. But he took it the best ever you knew. Far worse Marg herself was.

“We’ll go at once and notice the polis!” he said; “sure whoever took the money can’t be far!”

So they did that; but they scarcely had their story told, when in walked two constables, and Ratigan between them.

It was all up with him then! the butter came out of the stir-about in earnest. The whole thing was opened up and explained. Great excitement there was over it, and a trial of law, that you can hear talked about still in Ardenoo.

What never was rightly known was, who told the polis. Some laid it on Dark Moll, but others would not believe she’d do such a dirty mean turn. Still, she had a spleen in for Ratigan, because he never gave her so much as the price of a drink of porter; penny wise and pound foolish as the saying is.