This is how it happened with poor Mickey Heffernan that he was left with a “game” leg, soon after he had had that falling-out with Art and the Raffertys, on account of the little girl there. His sister Julia came home, of course, as soon as she got word about the accident. She looked after him well, and not alone that, but she managed the outside work about the place too, till Mickey was so far recovered as to be able to get about himself; at first on two crutches like Hughie himself, and then by degrees he was well enough to do with just a stick.

Well and good. As long as he was helpless, and depending on Julia for everything, she and he hit it off together, all right. A contrary woman is often like that. She’ll let you do nothing, as long as you are well, and would be able for a bit of sport and amusement. But once you are laid up so that you could enjoy nothing, she’ll encourage you to do the very things that would enrage her at other times.

This explains how it was that Julia flew into a tearing rage one morning, when Mickey was on his feet again, because he asked for a second egg for his breakfast. While he was in bed, she would be trying to force food on him, when he had no appetite for anything; I’m not saying that this is why she pressed the things on him; but anyway, now that he was up again and had a wish for food, it seemed as if she grudged it to him.

With Julia, one word borrowed another, although Mickey never made her answer. It saves quarrelling most times, but not with Julia. She would work herself into a rage all the more when he kept quiet and seemed to take no notice. Of course, that is an annoying thing. The end of it was, that Julia went off again, to stay with some friends in Dublin it was, this time.

It was a foolish step for Julia to take, but to be sure she did not know what was in Mickey’s mind, nor how having lost little Rosy Rafferty had not put him off the notion of getting a wife. It was only more anxious than ever he was now to be married. He was just as glad to be quit of Julia, the way he could be looking about him, without any interference from her. In fact, he knew very well that his only chance would be to take the ball at the hop, and look out for a woman that would be suitable, when Julia would be out of the way.

How he managed in the long run to rid himself of Julia was a most curious affair. Of all the people in Ardenoo, Peter Caffrey was the last that he would have expected help from in the business.

Peter, or Peetcheen as he was mostly always called, was the only boy that was left of the Caffreys at the cross-roads, before you come to the turn leading on to Clough-na-Rinka. A very long, weak family of them there used to be there. The poor mother found it hard to keep going at all, particularly after the father died. In fact, Dark Molly Reilly would say, she really thought Almighty God must have some little way of His own of feeding people like the Caffreys, that no one knew anything about.

They had the house for nothing, anyway. But a bad house it was; the roof let in wet, every time rain fell, the same as if it was coming through a sieve. And the smoke from the hearth curled up in clouds, and escaped by the door just as freely as it did through the chimney. It was old Peter Caffrey, Peetcheen’s grandfather, that he was called after, that had built the house himself, and had managed to edge it in on a piece of waste ground that no one could claim; so that’s how there was no rent to be paid. That is a great help to any one, to be rent-free; let alone to the Caffreys, that were always as poor as Job’s dog. There never was one of them had two halfpence to jingle on a tombstone. But still, poor and all as they were, they managed to be cheerful and contented and would suffer on, someway. It was the mother that saw to that.

One of the longest things that Peetcheen could look back on was the way Miss O’Farrell from the Big House laughed one day that she happened to be passing by and overheard Dark Moll passing the time of day with his father.

“How are you, Jack?” said Moll, “and how’s the rest of ye, man dear?”

By that word, “the rest,” she meant his wife, the other part of him. But Miss O’Farrell took it up wrong.

“The Rest?” she said; “why, that name fits Mrs. Caffrey like her skin! And it’s you that are the lucky man, Jack Caffrey, to have Rest! For there’s nothing like rest, in all this wide world!”

With that, she gave a little sob or sigh; it may have been because she was out of breath, for she was walking very fast. What else could it be? What trouble could be on the likes of Miss O’Farrell, living in a fine house, with full and plenty of everything she could want in it, and no one to interfere with her, except the father, and he doted down on her, his only child?

“Won’t you come in and take a heat of the fire, miss?” said Mrs. Caffrey, coming to the door very smiling. It would do you good to see her, she was so nice and quiet and easy-going. Nothing ever hurried her or put her about.

“I’m afraid I haven’t time to-day, thank you, Mrs. Caffrey,” said the young lady, and off she went, at a sweep’s trot, you might say; and left them standing there, Mrs. Caffrey with her hands under her apron, looking after her till she was out of sight.

All that remained in Peetcheen’s mind. He was just after coming from the well, he and the next smallest child, with a can of water slung on a stick between them. It was pretty heavy, and they got it hard to carry it; although before they had it landed into the kitchen for their mother, more than half of it had spilled out, because they could not keep it steady. And when they were rid of their burden, whatever the other child did, Peetcheen just went off to rest himself; what he was just in time to hear Miss O’Farrell say was such a good thing!

But without any such word from her, rest was a thing Peetcheen was always ready for. He took after the mother in that. If there was no stool ready for him ... and in houses like Caffrey’s furniture is never too plentiful; nothing is, except children; every seat there was, two would be wanting it; and the same with the food ... well Peetcheen would just step aside, and wait.

Truth to tell, he was one of the sort that really is anxious for nothing so much as to keep out of the way, and will let every one else get in ahead of them. Above all, with work. Whenever there was talk of a job to be done, Peetcheen was the last to make any attempt at it; frightened, as it were, at the thought of it. This is how it came about that when all the others of the Caffrey family went off, one here, another there, according as a chance turned up, and as many as could to America, Peetcheen was left on at home.

At Ardenoo, there was nothing scarcer than work; unless, maybe, money. The labour went out when the machines came in. The tillage was all given up, in any case. Every side you could see only grass farms, that there would be no labour wanted for, only a herd with his collie-dog. The farmers are blamed for this, but why would they not do what would bring them in the best return? It’s only human nature, that nothing can alter, only God, for every one to do the best he can for himself.

Besides, when there would be two or three looking for every job, why wouldn’t a man take the best he could get to do it for him? That is how Peetcheen was always left out in the cold. He never was the best at anything. Civil-spoken and willing the creature was always. Somehow, whatever he would attempt would go contrary on him though.

“I don’t know at all what sort of a gaum you must be, Peetcheen!” said Big Cusack to him, one day that they were drawing home his turf from the bog, and Peetcheen had come along with no more than a half-load; “a body would think it was teacakes for ladies you had laid out so careful, instead of sods of turf!”

Peetcheen was standing, with his mouth open, staring at the half-empty cart, and at last he said, “Sure I’m stupid, and always was! I filled that cart full, when I was leaving the bog.... It’s what I have a right to be hommered!”

“What use would it be, to go thrash ye?” said Cusack; “only a waste of time! Letting the fine turf dribble out along the road, for the want of fastening the creel in the back of the cart! You give me a disgoost with yer foolishness! I have no patience with the like!”

Peetcheen made him no answer, and Big Cusack got madder than ever.

“It’s ashamed of yourself you ought to be,” he began again, “a big gobbeen like you, sitting at home, and taking the bit out of your poor old mother’s mouth! Don’t let me see your big, useless carcass here again! What ails you, that you can’t be a man or a mouse? Why don’t ye strike off somewhere for yourself, where the people don’t know you, and you might have a chance?”

“Well, from this out!” said poor Peetcheen.

The very next day, it was all over Ardenoo that Peetcheen was after quitting.

Dark Moll went to see his mother about it.

“It’s not true what they’re all saying below there at the Shop, Mrs. Caffrey, mam,” said she, “that Peetcheen has wint off from you?”

“Ay, is it true,” said the mother; “the poor child, he went off, ere last night, and had nothing only a clean shirt and a pair of stockings between him and the world...” and she began to cry.

“Just so,” said Moll, “like the boy going away to seek his fortune in the old story, wid the half-cake and the blessing from his mammy....”

“He had that, whether or which,” said Mrs. Caffrey; “for a quieter, better boy never broke bread! And there he is now gone off from me; whatever riz his mind, that he couldn’t content himself at home here with me?”

“God send him safe, whatever way he struck off!” said Moll; “and lonesome you’ll be here, agrah! without your fine boy!”

“I miss him, the shockingest ever you knew!” said the mother, and she wiped her eyes on the corner of her little shawl; “if it was no more than the look of his brogues of an evening, and they steaming there by the fire....”

“Ay, do ye miss him, and will, too!” said Moll, very compassionately; “and the empty settle-bed and all! But if it would be consolations to ye, I could stop here for a while, anyway, and keep an eye on things, while you would have to be away; getting the water, or kindling ... or below at the Shop....”

Well, Mrs. Caffrey had no wish for Moll to be there for a constancy for different reasons. Moll was not very tasty in some of her ways, and she had a very long tongue. But Mrs. Caffrey had no excuse ready, and so it was easier to let the dark woman stay than to turn her away; and Mrs. Caffrey always did the easiest thing.

This is how Moll got a stopping-place there for a time. It contented her well. She had been very anxious to quit Molally’s, where she had been. They were decent people enough, but the house was narrow, and himself would be up striking lights at all hours, going out to look after the ewes and lambs that he had in his care. He was a herd. Moll felt it hard being disturbed out of her sleep. She thought she might do worse than stop at Caffrey’s for a bit, anyway.

Peetcheen went off, and a wandering boy like him will often go far enough, before he meets up with a chance of work. He was in Dublin for a while, but he thought bad of having to keep on at it, ding-dong, the whole day. He wanted to be somewhere that you need not be in a hurry, and if you like, betimes you might turn up a bucket and sit on it, and take a few blasts of a pipe; and not one to find fault with you for it.

But even at Ardenoo, a pet job like that is not very easy to find. Peetcheen thought he had his fortune made, when he got work at fifteen shillings a week, instead of the six he would get at Ardenoo. But he had not reckoned on paying out for everything he wanted, even to his washing, that the poor mother always did for him at home. He found the money little enough, and he had nothing at all to send to her, as he thought of doing. Maybe another boy would have managed better. But Peetcheen was just himself, and not another! He had no great sense about anything.

In Ardenoo, the neighbours would ask, “How is Peetcheen? what news have you from him?”

“Ah, what but good news!” Mrs. Caffrey would answer. Indeed, if no news is good news, she had nothing to complain about. There had never been but the one letter from Peetcheen, and the most of it was taken up sending remembrances and good wishes to this body and that, at home.

But the mother kept it safe, put up on top of the dresser, with her Prayer Book, and her clean cap for Sunday.

Peetcheen did not keep that job for very long. He could not content himself, where the work was so hard and constant. But what matter? he would not be kept there in any case. He got the sack; and then he felt he had had enough of town ways, and he wandered off into the country again.

After some little time, he found himself back again, not too far from home at all, only it chanced that he was not very well acquainted with any part of Ardenoo, except just about his own home. So he did not know the farmer’s place that he found himself near, one evening, that he went up to, and asked shelter for the night.

It was the Furry Farm. But, as has been explained, that house was very backwards, and Heffernan seldom left it, especially now that he was a bit helpless, with the game leg. So it was small blame to Peetcheen not to know where he was, or who it was he was speaking to. And Peetcheen was very slow. Many a thing that every one else would know, he would be as ignorant of as if he was a black stranger.

This turned out to his advantage now. For when he heard Mickey saying that he wanted a handy boy about the place, Peetcheen made no remark about Julia being gone off, though it had been common talk in Ardenoo, before even he had left it. He just said, “If you’ll give me the chance, sir, I’ll do me best to please ye!”

So Heffernan, after some further talk, agreed to that. He hired Peetcheen. The place suited the boy down to the ground. It was no town style there. Everything slow and easy-going. No one there, except Heffernan and himself; and they were very much of the same gait of going.

Farming is a grand business for them that are fond of keeping a pipe in their mouths and their hands in their pockets. It’s often remarked that when you do that, not much else finds its way in! But, then, not much finds its way out. You’ll not get rich, maybe, but you can keep going. Anyway, money isn’t everything.

Before Peetcheen had been very long at the Furry Farm, he began to notice that Heffernan would seem a bit uneasy at times. He was very silent. Often of an evening, he would go off somewhere with himself, either limping on his stick, or maybe driving himself on the side-car. While he would be away, Peetcheen would be left inside at the fire, and nothing to keep him company unless to watch a pot boiling over the hearth or something of that kind. But Peetcheen never objected to that, because he would as soon be in one place as another, and maybe sooner.

But one evening, Mickey stayed out very late. When he came in, he sat down opposite Peetcheen, and pushed back his old hat, and says he, blowing a big sigh out of him:

“It’s well for you, to be sitting there and nothing to torment you! And you looking as if you had the world in your pocket!”

Peetcheen took a while to think this over, and then he said, “It appears middling snug here! Plenty to eat and drink, and a good way of lying down at night. And what more can a man want?”

“I want more, anyway!” answered Heffernan; “there’s a woman wanting here, to have an eye over the place, and not let it be getting all through-other the way it is....”

“Won’t the sister you were telling me of be back from Dublin...?”

Then Mickey looked at Peetcheen with a very pitiful eye.

“She will, in troth!” he said.

He took a few draws of his pipe, and then, “I may’s well tell you the whole business!” he went on. At the same time, he did not; nor had the smallest intention of telling it. But who ever does tell their whole mind?

“The way of it is this,” said Mickey; “I’m wishing this length of time to get a wife in here, and am looking about for some one that would be suitable. But it’s tedious, and very severe work on a man like me. There’s a power to be considered. There’s Julia, now; she that’s my sister; her and whatever girl I’d take might not get on well together. In fact, she would be dead against my bringing any one in on this floor, as long as she’s on it herself. I was turning over in me own mind, could I make up a match for herself ... that would settle it ... but, sure, I tried that over and over ... at least, she did....”

“Hard to be plased, maybe?” said Peetcheen, lifting the pot off the hooks.

“Och, I don’t know about that!” said Heffernan.

At the time, he was looking at Peetcheen standing with the big black pot in his grip. And whatever his poor old mother might think of Peetcheen, the boy was no beauty. But Mickey had a notion in his head, and he thought he would see it out.

“A quiet, steady boy might do worse, you’d think, than get a hard-working girl, settled and sensible and not too young or skittish ... and she with two heifers of her own ... and maybe a few odd pounds in an old stocking as well....”

“They might, so,” agreed Peetcheen. He wondered what was making Mickey so chatty.

Then, “Why don’t you get marrit yourself?” said Heffernan, with a grin. And slow and thick as Peetcheen was, he began to guess what it was all about.

“I might do so as well as another,” he made answer; “do you think would the sisther try me?”

And to think that marrying was the last thing he had in his mind, when he began lifting the pig’s pot, just a minute or so before! But Mickey had it all laid out, and he did not care a straw who got Julia so long as she would clear out of the house and leave him free to bring in a wife.

“Ye have a house, ye tell me?” he said to Peetcheen.

“I have, so! and not a soul in it, only me mother, and she the quietest creature!”

“How much land?” asked Heffernan.

Why he said that, is hard to know! Of course he must have had some notion of the way it was with the Caffreys, he living so long in the place. Still, it was always hard to tell what Mickey knew or did not know! And he may have been trying to make out to himself that he really thought he was making a good match for Julia.

“I never got the land measured,” said Peetcheen. You would think he was humouring the thing. “I never got it measured; but there’s no rent to be paid.”

Measured indeed! and rent to be paid, and for what? A bare patch of weeds by the roadside that would not be enough to sod a lark!

Heffernan smoked on, and then Peetcheen began questioning in his turn, “How much are you offering, with the two heifers?”

In fact, the boy did not know if he was standing on his head or his heels! To hear himself being bid up in marriage like that! And for a wife with a fortune of her own!

“Thirty pound!” said Heffernan.

“Forty!” said Peetcheen, very determined.

“Thirty and no more!”

“Forty and no less!”

Well, in the long run, they split the difference between them, and settled the business then and there. Heffernan wrote off to the sister, telling her that he was as good as married himself and that he had a fine match made up for her, too; and she was to make no delay, for fear the boy might change his mind, and go off without waiting to see her.

Julia came on at once. And when she saw how things were shaping, of course she had a good deal to say at first. But then she bethought her that she might do worse than settle herself. She was getting on in years. And the cousins that she had been with in Dublin used to be talking about old maids, and that bachelors must be very scarce in Ardenoo! It was more than ever Mickey expected that she would give in so easily as she did, without making any great objection to Peetcheen, who, of course, was no great things for one of the Heffernans to take up with. But she gave in to take him. Heffernan and Peetcheen sprung the thing on her suddenly, and she was taken unawares, as you’ll see it done with a baulking horse. You can trick him into taking a jump that he has refused many a time before, if you bring him up to it without his knowing what you want.

Mickey had the wit to make the best of Peetcheen, by advancing him the price of a new suit of clothes, and tan boots and even gloves, to be married in. He wasn’t able to get them on, the gloves, I mean. But they had a very neat appearance. Maybe they gave Julia more satisfaction than anything else that her fortune was spent on. For of course it was out of her money that Mickey paid for the fine clothes for Peetcheen.

The wedding passed off all right, and Mickey behaved very well, and threw in a jennet and cart, along with the money and the two heifers. And he allowed Julia to load up the cart with any mortal thing she chose to lay claim to in the place; even to the churn and the griddle. He did that, the way she would have no excuse for coming back and maybe making unpleasantness when he’d have his own woman at the Furry Farm.

It was a satisfaction to him to know that there would be a good few miles between him and the sister, once she was Mrs. Peetcheen. And when he saw them safely started, Peetcheen driving the heifers, and Julia sitting upon a stool in the cart, with all the things round her, “Glory be! I never thought to get shut of her so simple!” said Heffernan. “But God help poor Peetcheen, I pray!”

Peetcheen would have been surprised, if he had heard that word said. It was only too contented he was, and he stepping out very proudly. The new clothes would hardly hold him and his satisfaction, when he thought of how well he was doing for himself.

“What will the neighbours say to me now?” he was thinking, “going off the way I did, too thankful to any one that would give me a day’s work! And look at me now! with the two beasts, and the wife and all! Sure, it’s little I ever thought to see the day I’d have such things!”

And then he made up his mind that he would try not to be too uppish with the old friends, when they would be passing him the time of day. He determined to answer them very nice and civil, when they would ask him, “How’s yourself, Peetcheen, and how’s the rest of you?”

Then he began to think of the old mother, and that he would like to make her comfortable. A new shawl, he thought; and how well she could sit in the big arm-chair that was the full up of the cart that Julia was driving, very nearly.

He turned to look at it, because he was in front of the cart with the cattle, and the jennet was slow, with all the big load that was on her. Still, Peetcheen thought the whole thing was just behind him. But behold ye! sight nor light of cart, or jennet, or Julia even he couldn’t see! It was as if the ground had opened and swallowed them down!

He did not know what in the wide world to think. There he stood, looking up the road and down the road ... as if Julia could be coming any way except after him! for how could she have got on ahead without his knowing? But that was Peetcheen all over.

He thought he never saw anything so lonesome and silent as the same road, lying still before and behind him, and white with dust. It was the summer season of the year.

“If I go back,” thought he to himself, “I’m very apt to be missing her at some cross-roads! It’s what she has took the wrong turn at one of them, and not too far back ... it can’t be! for it’s not long since she got me to steady the churn-dash in the back of the cart, the way it wouldn’t be prodding into her back. The first man she meets will set her right. In any case, I’d have little to do, to go look for her ...” (and indeed Peetcheen was right there!) “for I’d have to take the two little heifers with me. And that might be putting a couple of miles more travelling on them. They’ll be slaved and tired enough, against I have them home. And if I was to leave them here by themselves, while I’d be going back for her, mightn’t I be summonsed? That wouldn’t answer! No! it’s better for me to wait here and see won’t she come along all right. And there is lots of good grass, that the cattle can be having a little fossick[8] for themselves and a rest.”

Peetcheen was right in this. There was plenty of feeding for the beasts there, going to loss, that they might as well have. Besides, when two people go astray from one another, the best chance they have of coming together again is for one of them to stop still. Peetcheen was thick in the wits, but he thought of this. Besides, to do nothing was the easiest for him. So he just sat down on a fine dry heap of stones that was lying there ready for the road-contractor, filled his pipe, and began to smoke. He might as well.

He had not finished that pipe altogether, when he heard the sound of wheels. Along came the jennet, and Julia hard at work, prodding him with the point of her umbrella, with her face very red, and her hair all every way. It didn’t cool her a bit, to see Peetcheen sitting at his ease, with his pipe, in the shade of a fine ash-tree.

“Where were you at all,” he said, getting up quite slowly off the stones; “and what ailed you, to be so long after me upon the road?”

“What ailed me, indeed!” said the wife; “much you care! Stravaguing on there in front of me, without a thought of what was becoming of me and the jennet. And I bawlin’ me livin’ best when I got to the cross-roads, and couldn’t get you to hear! How was I to know which way you went? Faith, I was in two minds to go off back home again! only for you having the two little heifers! And you lettin’ on not to hear me! Is it deaf you are, along with everything else? And then the jennet, to take and go stop on me, and I with the full up of me lap of me good cups and saucers, so that I wasn’t able to stir, to get any good of the beast! And then he gives a h’ise, and me fine big crock, that I have this ten years and was bringing it with me, got bruk in two halves! And you, standin’ there, with yer mouth open...!”

As if shutting his mouth would mend her crockery! But it vexed Julia the more, that Peetcheen said nothing.

“To the mischief with the whole of them! and you, too!” she said, then; and began flinging the rest of the crockery at Peetcheen, as hard as she could; at least, that was what she thought of. But of course she didn’t hit him; a woman never does; the thing she aims for is the last thing she’ll strike. But she fired one after the other, pell-mell, till she had all the cups smashed. And what else could she expect of cups flung about like that? I don’t know; only when she saw them in bits, she turned queer, and dropped down into the bottom of the cart, and began to laugh and cry all together, as if she was mad.

The sight of this cowed Peetcheen. He stooped down, and began turning over the bits of crockery, to see if e’er a one of them had escaped. But no! Not a cup or plate of all Julia’s set but was broken into smithereens.

Peetcheen still said nothing. He took the jennet by the head, started the cattle on again, and followed himself with the cart.

Now, I must explain that this wedding took place so suddenly, that no more than what we call in Ardenoo a “sketch” of it had gone round among the people. And even that had not reached old Mrs. Caffrey at all. So that she had not had the slightest warning of what to expect, at the very time that Peetcheen and the wife were making their way towards her.

It was late in the day. She and Dark Moll were out—sitting by the roadside, watching a clutch of young ducks just out of the shell, when they heard a noise, and looked round, to see, first the two heifers, and then the jennet and cart, with Peetcheen leading them, and Julia seated up in state, driving along. She had come to pretty well by that time. People that have tempers are often like that. They’ll be mad one minute, and abusing you into the ground, and before you have had time to take in all they were saying, they are ready to forget it, and be quite agreeable again. Moreover, they expect you to do the same, which is not so simple a matter as they think.

However, Peetcheen was very peaceable. As was usual with him, he had never made Julia an answer. She had quieted down by degrees, so that now he was enabled to explain the thing to his mother with some appearance of comfort.

The poor mother! She couldn’t believe her eyes nor her ears either almost, when she saw this procession drawing up before her door, and Peetcheen saying, “Well, mother! here I am! back to you! and bringing in a new dauther, in the place of all them that’s gone off ‘on’ you. Her and me is after getting marrit!” he ended.

Mrs. Caffrey stared at him, and then at Julia and all the belongings she had around her. But all she could get out was, “She’s kindly welcome in these parts!” before she fell into a kind of a weakness, and staggered, so that Peetcheen had to go forward to help her back into the house, while the wife was busy seeing to the things she had in the cart.

Dark Moll was looking on at all this, but no one took much notice of her. So by that she guessed that she was not wanted there, and made up her mind to slip away. She gathered up her little possessions, and went off at once to another stopping-place she had, not far away. And that is how it happened that no one knew much at first about what had taken place, when the new Mrs. Caffrey appeared upon the scene, or how the old woman took to the notion of a daughter-in-law in her home.

But Moll took the first opportunity of making her way back to the Caffreys’; and blind and all as she was, there was not a pin’s-worth about the place that she could not tell about, and give as good an account of it all as if she had the full use of her eyes.

“The new woman that Peetcheen’s after bringing home, is it?” she said; “a very agreeable-spoken person she is!”

Julia could be all that when she chose.

“Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I believe,” said Big Cusack, who was talking to her. He was as proud as Punch to know that Julia was gone out of the Furry Farm. For then he thought there need not be much delay about Heffernan’s own marriage; and Cusack had a niece of his own, Kitty Dempsey by name, that he wanted to make up a match for. Kitty was only a young slip of a thing, but there was a bit of land she was to come in for; and her Uncle Cusack, being an experiented man, thought Heffernan would be more suitable for her, nor any young boy, on that account.

“She’s as sweet as you please, that wife of Peetcheen’s, by all a body hears,” he went on; and then he added, “but there’s such a thing as being too sweet to be wholesome! She’s none too young, either! A chicken her age won’t die with the pip!”

“No,” said Moll, “nor tear in the plucking! But sure, a boy like Peetcheen couldn’t be too partickler!”

“You’re right there,” says Big Cusack; “and he wid a head upon him that you’d think should fizz, if he put it into could water, it’s that red! And the mouth of him! the same as if it was made wid a blow of a shovel! Isn’t he great, that got a wife at all! let alone the forchune. And has the two heifers at grass on my farm; and persuades the wife that the field they’re grazing on belongs to himself! Peetcheen may be slow, but he’s no such a fool as the people make him out!”

That was how Cusack spoke of him; and indeed, it was wonderful, all the praise you’d hear of Peetcheen now, very different from what it was before he went away, when every one would be making a hare of him. He himself would walk about, very important, going over to “have a look at the stock,” as if that would make them fatten any faster. And the way he would give a cock to his caubeen when he’d meet a neighbour, and pass the time of the day with him! And on a Sunday, to see him yoking up the jennet, to drive to Mass, feeling as good as the best! In fact, after a bit, the neighbours began to laugh at him again. It might have been jealousy.

“Cock him up, indeed!” Big Cusack said, when he had time to take this all in; “letting on he’s a gintleman, all out, Peetcheen is! with nothing to do, only ait his food! And in troth, the sorra long it will take them, to ait whatever forchune the wife brought into the place! It wasn’t much, I’ll go bail! There never was a Heffernan yet that would part money without a wrangle for it; and Mickey the same!”

All this was true; but nothing seemed to trouble Peetcheen. He spent the time the way I tell you; never appearing to imagine there was any necessity for him to do anything more than that.

But he had the wife to reckon with. She was of a very different way of thinking, and she very soon let him know her mind.

“What way is this to be going on?” she would say, “for a man to be at home here under a body’s feet from morning to night, as if the place wasn’t small enough, and in partickler since I brought me own good furnicher into it! Hard-set I’ll be, ever to get meself used to the likes of this house you brought me to!”

Julia was right enough in saying this. The Caffreys’ place was very small and poor, compared to the Furry farmhouse, where she was reared. And her things did crowd it up. The big chair alone took up the whole side of the fire. But as well as that, she was only saying what was true, when she spoke of Peetcheen sitting at home all day, as he had the fashion of doing.

When she would attack him about this, and ask him, if there was no job wanting to be done about his own place, why wouldn’t he go look for work with a neighbour, Peetcheen always had an answer ready.

“Sure there’s no work going, these times! I must wait till the haymaking comes on. Then there will be good pay to be earned. The meadows is nigh-hand ripe this minute!”

So they were; Julia could see that for herself. But when Peetcheen went to Big Cusack to ask for a job at the hay, he heard that all the work had been laid out, and no more hands were needed.

“And didn’t I think,” said Cusack to him, “that you were too big a man, all out, now, to take a fork in your fist; and you with the rich wife and all!”

Peetcheen made no answer to this. He just went over to a shady spot, and sat down there, to watch the work going on; went home to his dinner, and then back with him to the hayfield, till quitting-time that night.

That contented Julia. And when she asked him for his week’s pay from Big Cusack, to go to the Shop, he saw no occasion to explain to her that it was out of her own money, that Heffernan had handed to him in the old stocking, that she was getting it. It satisfied her, and a man will do a great deal for peace and quietness.

What you do once, comes very easy the next time. By this kind of management, Peetcheen put the next few months over him very nice and handy. Haymaking, and harvest, and turf-cutting, all happened along for his convenience. He could go off, when any of them were on, and lob about through the neighbourhood. I won’t say that he never did a tap of work; he might, have, now and then. But it was seldom the like happened to him.

This was all well and good, as far as Peetcheen himself was concerned. But Julia was the sort of woman that never can be easy. No! and what’s more never can let any one else be, either. So when Peetcheen kept out of her way, and she hadn’t the excuse of him and his ways, she began to turn on the poor old mother. A stirring, active little woman she was herself. Julia would have the kettle boiling and the tea wet, while another would be thinking of where to look for a bit of firing. But if she was quick itself, that was no reason for her to go on the way she did to old Mrs. Caffrey.

“Give me that besom, here!” she said to her one morning, snatching the broom out of the old woman’s hand, and giving her a shove towards the door; “be off out, and gether some kindling for the fire! that work is all you’re fit for! Sick and tired I do be, looking at ye; and you not done sweeping the flure yet!”

“God be wid the time I was young and strong; and able to sweep a flure wid any one!” says Peetcheen’s mother.

“It’s a long time ago, if ever you were!” said Julia. “Be off wid yourself now, and see can ye meet the higgler, and get him to come and buy them ould hens of yours! Sorra bit can I give to me own good Longshanks and Speckled Humbugs but what them ould scarecrows of yours has it all ett on them!”

“There’s no price goin’ now for ould hens,” said old Mrs. Caffrey; “and besides, I’m thinking it’s what they have a mind to go lay ... and eggs dear....”

“They’ll lay none here, whether or which!” Julia said; “lay, indeed! They wouldn’t know an egg, if they saw one!”

“There’s one tidy little hayro of a hen, her with the top-knot, that I’d have a great wish for....”

“Don’t mind your wishing! they’ll all go; so now, mind what I’m telling ye!” said Julia. And so they did.

“Bitther and wicked wid her tongue she is!” old Mrs. Caffrey would say; but only to herself. She wouldn’t fret Peetcheen for the world, the poor boy!

To give Julia her due, she was, as Dark Moll said, “a most notorious rairer of fowl of every description.” She had money from the higgler laid by already. But because she was lucky herself was no reason for her to jeer at the old woman, when a while afterwards, the little ducks that were out just the day Julia came there all died, one after another.

“What else could you expect, and they June birds?” she said. “No one only a born fool would try to have them hatched then!”

Julia was right there, and in many another notion that she brought with her from the Furry Farm. But people don’t always care so very much for new ways being forced on them. Peetcheen and his mother above all were not fond of changes. Julia would have a dinner of a Sunday that, as she said, “a lord might be proud to sit down before!” a pig’s face on a bolster of greens, it might be, or something like that. But no one would have much wish for it, because there would always be so much argument and scolding over it all.

They would have had far more comfort in the old times, with nothing better than potatoes and salt, and maybe a bit of bacon or a salt herring, by way of “kitchen.” Old Mrs. Caffrey would give you a pleasant word with whatever she was sharing round and that helps out a short dinner; what mostly was what she had, God help her!

However, it was Julia that ruled the roast at Caffreys’ the time I speak of, and the rest of them had just to make the best of it. And it’s a true saying, “Money makes the mare to go!” Of course every one had to give in to Julia on account of the fortune she had.

Peetcheen stood it out pretty well, as long as there was a penny at all left in the old stocking. But when the baby came, the money had to be handed out very free. Before he knew where he was, the stocking was empty; and Peetcheen, as usual, without a job. Not that that was any great heart-break to him.

He was stravaguing along the road one evening by himself, with the pipe in his mouth. It was lovely weather; the birds all singing, and the grass getting long and green on every side. He was turning over in his mind about the potato-patch he had; how would he get to pay for the seed? and weren’t the weeds very high in it? and would he have to go work in it himself? when he saw Dark Moll, sitting by the side of the road, very comfortably. Of course he stopped and began to pass the time of day with her.

“How’s all wid ye, Peetcheen?” asks Moll; “and above all, the woman that owns ye? And the young son? and a darling fine boy he must be, by all I can hear!”

“They’re well, I thank you and God,” answered Peetcheen; “and me mother, that proud out of the child! You’d think no one ever had a child before, and she after rairing ten of her own! And this minute, she’s leppin’ mad to begin again!”

“Ay! there’s the way!” said Moll.

Peetcheen smoked on a bit; and then says he, “A terrible expense this is, on a man!”

“You may say that, agra!” said Moll; though well she knew in her heart that there had been no christening worth mentioning at Caffreys’. The old woman was all for a bit of a spree, but Julia would not hear of it; “spending the money on foolishness that could be put to better use!” was what she said. The neighbours knew well how it was. But Moll didn’t want to pass any remarks about the thing, seeing she might be looking for help to the Caffreys, any day; and it wouldn’t answer to be offensive. So she only went on to say, “Sure the likes of you needn’t mind a few shillings, here nor there, when it’s the first, and a son! And you with them fine bastes at grass.... I hear they’re the talk of the town, and a fine price they’d go at the fair to-morrow, if it was a thing you’d have a mind to go sell them there.”

Moll said all this, because she felt vexed with Julia, not being asked to the christening, such as it was. Besides, from the start, Julia let her see very plain that she didn’t want her coming about the house whenever she fancied, and taking up a seat in the chimney-corner, as she had the fashion of doing. And Moll did not like getting the cold shoulder that way, no more than any of us would; and she missed Caffreys’, having been so used to it. Still, she had no meaning in what she had said about the fair and the stock, and all that. But see what came of that word!

Peetcheen bid Moll the time of day, and went on. It was to Big Cusack’s he was making his way, thinking he might happen on a job there, or settle something about help to do his own work. But the Big Man was from home. Peetcheen could have found that out, without going there, only he never thought of inquiring. So then he wavered off to Melia’s, thinking that he might meet some one there that would give him an advice about the thing.

He found a few comrade-boys of his in the shebeen, playing Twenty-five. He joined in, with whatever few coppers he had left. It took a long time, before they finished their game, so that it was pretty late when he got home. But that was all the wrong he did. He had no drink taken. There wasn’t a hair turned on him, when he walked into the house, so why Julia should be so raging mad with him, no one could tell. But she was and abused him up and down the banks; called him all the fools she could lay her tongue to; and still in all Peetcheen never said a word back to her.

But at last he got worn out, and left the house, thinking she might have a better chance to quiet down if he wasn’t there. So he turned back to Cusack’s, and spent the night in the Big Man’s barn.

Before he settled off to sleep, he had time to think over all that was after occurring; the wife to be so contrary with him, and all for nonsense, as a body might say. And then he considered over how short the money was with him; and where would he turn for the next few shillings Julia would be wanting from him. And then he got on to remembering what Dark Moll was after saying.

He fell asleep, however, before very long; and wakened up bright and early, with a great plan in his head.

This was, that he would drive off one of the two heifers that he had got in Julia’s fortune, to the fair that Dark Moll was after reminding him of; and a big price she brought. But Peetcheen and the likes of him often have great luck.

After that had come to pass, a strange thing happened. For what Peetcheen did with himself, or with the money that the people standing by saw him getting paid into his hand, was more than any one at Ardenoo knew, for many a long day, if ever they did. He just disappeared, so he did, as if the Good People took him out of it.

“Isn’t it a fright, all out,” the neighbours would say, “to see how a decent quiet man like Peetcheen could go out of that, and not one be able to give any account of him to the wife or the poor ould mother!”

Julia was most outrageous; at first very angry, and then took to fretting. But the old woman was twice as bad. God help her! she grew to be like nothing so much as a ha’porth of soap after the week’s washing.

She was out along the road one day, with the baby in her arms, when Dark Moll happened along, and of course began to chat; why not?

“And so that’s Peetcheen’s first, is it?” she says; “let me feel him in me arrums! och, the weight of him! the darlint fine lump of a gossoon that he is! Well, and how’s all goin’ on wid yiz these times!”

“Not goin’ on at all!” says Mrs. Caffrey; “heart-scalded I do be, wid the frettin’ and annoyance and thinkin’ that it’s murthered me poor boy must be, and he wid the price of the heifer in his pocket!”

“Och! murthered-how-are-ye!” says Moll, very confident in herself; “no! no such a thing! It’s what he has went off to America! He’ll be sendin’ yous back plenty of money out of it, I’ll go bail!”

“Do ye tell me that?” said the mother, brightening up as Moll talked on about it all. The old woman was getting a bit hard of hearing at that time; and she took it up that Peetcheen had told Moll that he was going.

“Well, that’s the best I could wish to hear, if it’s a thing that he wasn’t going to contint himself here at home with us; and too sure I am that he’ll do well ... ay, and won’t forget his poor mother....”

Julia comes up to them, and whips the child from Moll, the same as if she was dirt and not fit to touch him. That vexed Moll; small blame to her! So when old Mrs. Caffrey began reeling out of her all that she imagined Moll had said ... and a bit more that she didn’t say ... such as that poor Peetcheen was working hard there beyant to send home money to them, Moll never put her right. The old mother related it quite cheerfully, thinking it would pacify Julia. But it didn’t. You never saw so vexed a person.

“So, that’s where the price of me fine heifer is gone!” said Julia; “and I that had him dead! drowned in a bog-hole ... or murthered.... Breakin’ me heart I was, about a villyin of the soart! Well ... all I know is, them that thinks I’m goin’ to stop here and rair Peter Caffrey’s babby for him is in a great mistake! I’ll not do it! I’ll go after him, before I’m many days older!”

“Is it go to America? Sure, woman dear, you’d never find him! You might as well go look for a needle in a haystack. America is a middlin’ big place, mind ye!” said Moll.

No one knew better than Moll how to get round people. She was that clever, she could knot eels, the people said. She knew what a foolish notion it was of Julia’s, to go off to America; and that Julia herself would soon cool on it, if she was let alone. So that’s why she contradicted her.

“Fitter far, ay, and decenter, too, for a woman like you to stay where you’re well off, in your good home, with Peetcheen’s mother for company, and Peetcheen’s babby to be lookin’ at....”

“Mind yer own business, and be off about it, now!” said Julia, choking with the anger; “what call have you to be putting in yer gab here? I want no interference from you, or the likes of ye! Leave me to manage me own affairs! I’ll see to make Peetcheen pay for what he’s after doing ‘on’ me!”

And at that, Moll did turn about and waddle off. And she never let on but it was a real fact about Peetcheen being in America. Sure, maybe she believed it herself! A body that does as much talking as Moll might get confused betimes. But a few evenings after that, she ventured over to Caffreys’ again. She was most anxious to get back to that house; so she wanted to find out how it was going on with Julia and her American plan. She found her, fighting rings round her with the old woman, and abusing Peetcheen into the dirt.

“Sure, what at all! wasn’t it only sthrivin’ to better himself he was?” said Moll; “a good steady poor boy he was, always and ever!”

It was like oil on lit turf to Julia, to hear her put in a good word for Peetcheen. When you want the woman to come round, in the case of any little difference between her and the husband, you should find all the fault you can with him. Then you’ll find the wife will wear horns, and stand up for her husband, and turn on you. And Moll knew that as well as any one. She could see how mad Julia would get, when she and old Mrs. Caffrey would be all for compassionating Peetcheen, and saying how good he was, and all to that. In fact, no one could say anything bad that ever he did. To be sure, he never did anything, one way or the other.

And now, here was Moll, very full of a letter she was after hearing read out by one of the neighbours.

“It was wrote,” she said, “by one of the Caffreys, cousins of the family here, that are out there so long, and doing well, too, they appear to be, by what I hear....”

“So they are,” said old Mrs. Caffrey, perking up at this account of her son’s people being set out to Julia; “and why wouldn’t they? and it’s likely to them me poor child wint! God sind him safe!”

“And Amen to that, I pray!” said Moll; the same as if she herself thought it was there he was.

Julia was listening to all this. It made her more set than ever about going after Peetcheen. She was like the rest of us; only too ready to believe what she wanted to believe. She took all this, about the letter from the cousins, for proof that Peetcheen was really gone to America.

“And to think he should be out there, with full and plenty, I’ll be bound; and me slavin’ here! I’ll not do it nor it’s not to be expected that I would, either!”

She was just mad to be off. And there were few would miss her in Ardenoo. Even Peetcheen’s baby would be far more contented, lying on the granny’s knee, or with Dark Moll, than he ever was with his mother. An infant is very easy put about; and Julia was very odd and jerky in her ways. But, sure she could have had no nature in her, or she never would have left the child.

Julia made no delay, only sold the second heifer to Big Cusack. Not much she got out of the thing. The two beasts “had themselves ett,” he said, “very nearly,” meaning that nearly the whole price was owing to him for their grass. Peetcheen hadn’t paid a penny for them, since first he got Big Cusack to take them in on his pasture-field. In fact, Julia was none too well treated in the business of her fortune. It was all gone now, except the few pounds she got from Mr. Cusack over the heifers.

But “Divil’s cure to her!” was what was mostly said about her; “why couldn’t she keep a civil tongue in her head, and not harish the dacent boy out of the place that he was raired in; and the father and grandfather before him?”

Julia of course heard nothing of this. There wasn’t one would be willing to draw her tongue on them; and anyway, there would be no sense in interfering. She never asked advice from man nor mortal; so she had no chance of finding out how much truth there was in the story about Peetcheen being in America. She went off, as soon as she could take her passage.

A few days after she left, “Glory be!” says Dark Moll, sitting by the fire, with old Mrs. Caffrey opposite to her, and the child asleep on her lap, “glory be, there’ll be p’ace and quietness here now, anyway! And I’ll come back, never you fear, acushla, the way you’ll not be lonesome and fretted here wid yourself! Nor be at a short for some sinsible person to take the babby out of your arrums while you’d be out....”

But she never finished the sketch she was giving of what all she would do. For at that word, old Mrs. Caffrey gave a screech that very nearly lifted the thatch off the house.

“Oh, Peetcheen! Peetcheen!” she cried; “and is it yourself that’s in it? Come over to meself, the way I’ll get a good look at ye! The Lord save us! but where wor ye this lin’th of time, at all at all?”

“What’s all this?” said Moll; “what are you sayin’? Is it Peetcheen you think is here? or could it be Something Not Right ... and the people saying it was what he should be ‘away’ wid the Good People ... and me a poor blind ould woman that can’t know what’s going on....”

But the same Moll was very hardy, and not easily daunted by man nor mortal; just she said that wanting to get compassionated. But neither Peetcheen nor his mother took any heed of her. For it was Peetcheen, right enough! and very slaved-looking he was; with his feet on the world, you might say, his brogues were so worn and broken. And by that sign, the people thought it was on the stray he must have been, ever since he went off after selling the heifer at the fair.

But no one ever got much account of the business or of what became of the money he had then; whether he spreed it all, or if he held on to any of it. It was like as if he had brought back some of it, anyway. For they had more appearance of comfort about them the next winter than ever they had before. Peetcheen got a neighbour to draw home a nice little bit of turf for the winter, from the bog; and there was a new shawl for the mother, for going to Mass.

Peetcheen, you remember, had that laid out in his own mind, when he was on his way home, after marrying Julia. And, moreover, the big arm-chair, that Julia had put by, above in the room, the way it wouldn’t be getting knocked about in the kitchen ... and as well, she didn’t want Peetcheen to have the comfort of falling asleep in it, as many a time he did ... well, that chair was brought back and put in the chimney-corner. And many a comfortable snooze Peetcheen took in it now, when he would feel inclined to rest himself; a wish he often had.

He’d sit there of an evening, when the people would drop in for a ceilidh,[9] a habit they lost while Julia was there. But they came again now, and would be very anxious to know all about where Peetcheen had been. They got no great satisfaction.

“Where was I since?” Peetcheen would say; “well, I went as far as Turn-Back! Ah! indeed! it is a gay piece out of this, sure enough!”

Peetcheen wasn’t such a fool but that he could hold his tongue, when he chose. And there’s many a wise adviser of a person that can’t do that, to save their lives.

“You’ll be getting her back now,” said Big Cusack to him; “the Woman, I mane, the Rest of ye....”

He was after hiring Peetcheen then, for the same job his father before him had had. Ay, and what’s more, Peetcheen managed to hold on to it, from that out.

Peetcheen had the fashion at times, that if he didn’t want to answer a question in a hurry, he would push the old caubeen down over his face, and scratch the back of his head. He did that now; and then says he, “I dunno, Mr. Cusack; I always h’ard tell, that it’s as good to l’ave well alone! And I’d have no wish in life to be interferin’ with anywan; let alone with a woman.”