"Don't, Jane," Mick said sharply.  That mournful sound had made him
unhappy again about Pat.

"Come on out of that," said Patsy, "an' let's get some pears."

Aunt Mary always allowed them to play in the room where the apples and
pears were stored.  Besides apples and pears there were two wooden
boxes full of clothes to dress up in--stiff, old-fashioned silks,
Indian muslins, embroidered jackets, and a pair of white kid boots.
Aunt Mary had worn these things when she was young and lived at
Rowallan, before she turned to be a Roman Catholic and was driven out
by her father.  When they were tired of play they came downstairs to
the parlour.  This, they thought, was the most beautiful room in the
world.  There was a carpet with a wreath of roses on a grey ground, a
cupboard with diamond panes, where Aunt Mary kept her china, and the
deep window seat was filled with geraniums.  Aunt Mary had a birthday
present for Honeybird; she kissed her when she gave it; and said: "God
and His Blessed Mother keep you, child."  Then she cried a little, till
they all felt inclined to cry with her.  But she jumped up, and said it
was time she baked the soda bread for tea.  When the bread was baked
and the table laid Aunt Mary went to the half-door to look out for
Uncle Niel.

"I always know when he's comin' by your face, Aunt Mary," Jane said.

Aunt Mary laughed.  "Indeed, I'm not surprised," she said; "for I can't
remember a day when I didn't watch for his coming."

He came soon, and they had tea, and then he told them fairy tales by
the kitchen fire.  In the middle of a story Mick suddenly noticed Aunt
Mary's face as she looked up from her knitting to watch her brother.
Jane was right; her face changed when she looked at him, her eyes
seemed to shine.  When he and Jane were old, and lived together as they
had planned to do, they would love each other like that.  Uncle Niel
was like their father, Lull had once told them.  She said there was not
a finer gentleman in Ireland, and held him up to Mick and Patsy as a
pattern of what they ought to be when they were men.  Mick agreed with
her.  Uncle Niel was the kindest person he knew; after being with him
Mick always felt he would like to be more polite to the others.  When
he was old he would be as polite to Jane as Uncle Niel was to Aunt
Mary.  On the way home it was very dark, and they all walked close to
Uncle Niel going through the loney.  He laughed at them, but Jane said
she was afraid of the murderer whose bones rattled in the breeze.

"It's the first time I've heard of him or his bones," Uncle Niel said,
"and I've been through the loney at all hours of the day and night."

"Did ye niver hear tell of Skyan the Bugler?" said Honeybird, "for I'm
quare an' scared of him myself."

Uncle Niel picked her up in his arms.  "What would Skyan the Bugler
want with you?" he said.

"'Deed, he might be after marryin' me," she said, "an' ye know I
wouldn't like that."

"I'd rather be married that kilt," said Jane.

"I think one is as bad as the other," said Uncle Niel, and he laughed
again.  "But I tell you what," he added; "if I ever meet anything in
the loney worse than myself I'll come over in the morning and tell you."

Then Patsy, who had been walking along quietly, suddenly spoke.  "Uncle
Niel," he said, "who was Patrick M'Garvey?"

Mick caught his breath.  Where had Patsy heard that name?  Uncle Niel
seemed to be startled too.  He stopped short on the path.  "Who was
telling you about him, Patsy, lad?" he said.

"It was just a man at the fair wanst.  He said if Patrick M'Garvey had
waited in the loney instead of at the big gates my father would be
alive to this day.  I ast him what his manin' was; but another man
tould him to hould his tongue, an' tould me not to heed him, for he had
drink on him."

"Well, don't think about it any more, Patsy," Uncle Niel said; he was
not laughing now.  "You and I have a lot to forgive when we think of
Patrick M'Garvey, but we do well to forgive, as God forgives us."

Mick could not go to sleep that night thinking of what Uncle Niel and
Patsy had said.  It was a wet night, and the rain beat against the
windows.  After a bit Jane came into his room from the nursery; she
could not sleep either, and she thought she had heard the banshee
crying.  But there was no sound except the pelting of heavy rain when
they listened.  Mick made her crawl into his bed, and then they must
have fallen asleep.  They were waked by the sound of voices downstairs.
The rain was over, but the wind was up, and the voices seemed to die
away and rise again every time there was a lull in the storm.  They
both got up, and dressed hurriedly, without waking the others.
Something must have happened, they thought, and on such a dismal
morning it could only be something bad.  All the village was gathered
in the kitchen when they got downstairs.  Some of the women were
crying, and there was a scared look on the men's faces.  Mick and Jane
were sure their mother must be dead.  But no one took any notice of
them, and they could not see Lull anywhere.

"The dog was howlin' at half-past eleven," Mick heard a man say, "an'
the dour was locked and boulted when the polis tuk the body home."

Then the back door opened, and Father Ryan, the parish priest, came in.

"Go home, every one of you," he said; "talkin' won't give the man his
life back."

The kitchen was soon cleared.  Mick saw Lull sitting by the table, her
head on her hands.  Father Ryan put his hand on her shoulder.

"I've lost my best friend, Lull," he said.  Lull looked up; Mick hardly
knew her face, it was so small and old.

"God help us, Father," she said, and then began to cry wildly.  "Miss
Mary, poor Miss Mary; it'll be the death of her."

"You are right, Lull," Father Ryan said; "she'll never get over it.
I've just come from her.  It will just be the mistress over again----
What are the children doing here?" he added quickly.

"God forgive me, I niver seen them to this minute," said Lull.

Father Ryan called them over to him.  "Do you know what's come to you?"
he said.

"Somebody's dead," Mick answered.

"It's your Uncle Niel," Father Ryan said; "he was killed in the loney
last night."

Father Ryan did not stay long.  When he had gone Andy came in.  Mick
was crouching by the fire.

"Do you call to mind what day it was, Lull?" Andy said in a whisper
Mick heard.

"I do, well," said Lull; "six years to the very day.  God's curse on
him," she added in a strange, harsh voice; "couldn't he be content with
murderin' the wan, an' not hape sorra on us like this?"

"He's safe in America," said Andy, "that's the divilment of him; but
them that's got childer has got the long arm.  I'll hould ye he's niver
let the boy forget.  The ould mother was buried yesterday, an' the boy
must 'a' been waitin' for that till he done it."

Mick heard no more; he slipped out down the passage to the schoolroom.
He had forgotten all about Pat, but now he remembered, with a terror
that overwhelmed him.  For a moment he wondered if he were really
himself.  It could not be true that Uncle Niel was dead, and he,
Michael Darragh, knew--knew what?  He could not bear the thought.  But
it was all spread out plain before his eyes.  Pat M'Garvey, his friend,
whom he loved so much, had murdered Uncle Niel.  He shut his eyes, and
drew in his breath.  "I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm"--he could see
Pat's face as he said it, so thin and miserable.  Why, why had he done
it?  Uncle Niel was so good, and Pat was so good too, but now one was
dead and the other was a murderer.  Quick before his eyes horrid
pictures rose up--Uncle Niel lying dead, and Pat, with blood on his
hands, caught by the police; Pat going to gaol on a car, handcuffed,
between two policemen, his white face----  "He didn't mane it," Mick
burst out passionately.  "Oh, God, I just can't bear it."  Then another
thought came.  He himself would be brought up to give evidence.  Pat
had told him he was going to do it, and now on his word Pat would be
hanged.  What had happened that the whole world had turned against him
like this?

The next minute he was off, across the wet lawn, over the road, running
for his life, not on the road, in case he was seen, but on the other
side of the stone wall.  It was not daylight yet, but dawn was
struggling through the clouds.  When he came to the village he skirted
it by climbing over the rocks, then on as fast as he could go, on the
coast road now it was safe--he would meet no one there--then up along
the little path that wound through dead whins and boulders, up to the
cottage, where the rain was dripping from the thatch.  Mick never
stopped till he was at the door.  There was no answer to his knock.
"Pat," he whispered, "let me in."  Still there was no answer.  He
looked in at the window: the fire was out, and the place looked
deserted.  "He's away," he muttered.  But just then the door opened.
"Is that you?" said Pat's voice.  "Come in."  Mick went in, and shut
the door behind him.

"Pat," he said, "ye must be off at wanst--quick, quick--or they'll
catch ye."

"Who tould ye?" said Pat.

"Nobuddy tould me.  They said he was in America an' the ould mother was
buried yesterday.  But ye must be goin' this minute."

"Hould on a minute," said Pat; "do ye know what ye're sayin', do ye
know what I've done at all?"

"I do," said Mick; "ye mur----  Ye tould me yerself ye were goin' to do
me the cruel harm."

"Is that all ye know?" said Pat--"then ye know nothin'.  Do ye see that
gun there?"  Mick saw it was still hanging over the chimneypiece.
"Well, it was that gun shot your father.  Do ye see what I mane?"

Mick stared at him in a dazed way.  "My father?" he repeated.

"Your father," said Pat; "an' it was my father murdered him."

Mick was too dazed to take it in.  All he could think of, all he could
see, was that thin white face before his eyes.

"Do ye think ye'll get safe to America?" he said huskily.

"My God, are ye a chile at all?" said Pat.  He gave a big sob, that
made Mick jump, and then began to cry and shake all over.  "What did I
do it for at all at all?" he wailed.

Mick put his arm round him.  "Whist, Pat, whist, man; ye must be off,
now, at wanst."

Pat stopped crying.  "I'm not goin'," he said.  "I done what he bid me,
an' now I'll give myself up, an' let them hang me: it's what I disarve."

"Listen a bit, Pat," said Mick.  "Ye didn't mane it, I know that.  It's
not you but yer ould father that ought to be hanged----"  He stopped,
something came back to his mind as though out of a far-off past; but it
was only last night Uncle Niel had said: "We do well to forgive him, as
God forgives us."  "Pat," he cried, "Uncle Niel said we were to forgive
your father!"  Quickly he told the whole story--what Patsy had said,
what Uncle Niel had answered, with such a sense of relief as he told it
that he felt almost glad.  "An' I know he would forgive you for
murderin' him, Pat, this very minute, if he could spake."  Pat did not
answer.  "An' if ye don't go they'll make me give evidence, an' ye
wouldn't have me an informer, would ye?"

"I'll go," said Pat.

No one had missed Mick when he got home.  Their mother was ill, and the
doctor had come.  Lull was with her, and Teressa had come to do the
work.  After dinner Teressa came into the schoolroom.  She said she was
afraid to be by herself in the big kitchen.  Jane questioned her about
Uncle Niel, and she told them that one of the men had found the dead
body in the loney late at night as he was coming back from Newry with
one of the horses.  The horse had stopped half way down the loney, and
when the man looked round for a bit of a stick to beat him with he saw
the body lying on its face in the ditch.  "But the quare thing,"
Teressa said, "is that yer Aunt Mary houlds to it that he come in after
seein' yez all home last night.  She let him in, and boulted the dour
after him, but when they took the corpse home the dour was still
boulted, an' his bed had never been slep' in."  Here Lull came into the
schoolroom, and was cross with Teressa.  "Have ye no wit, woman," she
said, "sittin' there like an ould witch tellin' the childer a lock a'
lies?"

The day of the funeral Mick stood at the schoolroom window in his new
black coat watching the rain beating against the panes.  The burden of
the secret he carried weighed him down.  He must have been changed into
another person, he thought, since Honeybird's birthday.

"I wonder why it always rains when people die?" said Fly.

"He didn't die, he was murdered," said Jane bitterly.

Mick shivered; he felt like an accomplice.  All night he had been
thinking of the funeral.  Lull had told him yesterday he must go to be
chief mourner.  But had he any right to be a mourner?  What would the
people think--what would Father Ryan say--if they knew that he had
helped his uncle's murderer to escape?

"I wisht I could go with ye, Mick," said Jane at his elbow.  "I ast
Lull, but she said ladies niver went to feenerals."

Mick turned round.  "I'm all right, Janie," he said.  But Janie's
kindness seemed to hurt him more: what would she say if she knew?

"Wouldn't it be awful nice if ye woke up this minute an' it wasn't real
at all, an' we'd only dreamt it?" said Fly.

"Nip me as hard as ye can," said Jane.  Fly nipped her arm.  "Ye
needn't nip so hard--it's true enough."

"I wonder if God could make it not true?" said Fly.

"He couldn't," said Mick, "for I'd niver, niver forget it."

"Andy's ready waitin' for ye, Mick," said Lull at the door.

When they came home from the funeral Mick was ill, and had to be put to
bed.  Jane came up to his room, and sat with him.  "Do ye mind what
Uncle Niel said to us in the loney?" she said.  "Well, he couldn't come
as far as this to tell us, so he went an' tould Aunt Mary; Teressa says
it was his ghost come back to her."

"To tell us what?" said Mick feverishly.

"That it was wan of them _Things_ done it."

"I thought ye meant about forgivin'," said Mick.  "Mebby it was that;
don't ye think it might 'a' been, Janie?"  His voice was very eager.

"I niver thought a' that," said Jane; "but Uncle Niel was quare an'
good.  I believe he'd even forgive a buddy for murderin' him."

Mick lay down with a sigh of relief.  "I thought that myself," he said.

It was not till the primroses were out that the children went to the
farm again.  Half way down the loney there was a rough cross scratched
on a stone in the wall, and the words: Niel Darragh.  R.I.P.  Aunt Mary
had been ill all winter, and at first they did not know her, for her
hair was quite white.  But nothing else was changed.  The parlour
looked brighter than ever; there was a bowl of primroses on the table.
Through the window you could see the big cherry-trees in the orchard
white with blossom.  Upstairs the sun streamed into Aunt Mary's
bedroom, and the river sounded quite cheerful across the fields as it
raced along over the weir.  When Aunt Mary had baked the soda bread for
tea she went to the half-door, and looked out across the fields.  "I
thought I saw Niel coming," she said; "it is about time he was home."
Then she turned back to the children, and welcomed them, as though she
saw them now for the first time.  On the way back they asked each other
in whispers what could be the matter with her, but Mick walked on
ahead, and said not a word.  At the end of the loney they met Father
Ryan.

"I was just coming to see you," he said.  "It's you, Michael, I was
wanting.  I've got a blue pigeon for you, if you'll walk the length of
the village with me."

Mick turned back with him.  It was a lovely evening; the air was full
of the smell of spring.  They walked along silently.  At their feet
were tufts of primroses and dog-violets growing under the shelter of
the stone wall.  A chestnut-tree in the convent garden hung a green
branch over the road.  Before them, on one side, the sea lay like a
silver mist; on the other the mountains, so ethereal that they looked
as though at any moment they might melt away into the blue of the sky.
But Mick had no heart for these things.  Even when he heard the cuckoo
across the fields, for the first time that year, it was with no
answering thrill, but only with a dull sense that he had grown too old
now to care--seeing Aunt Mary had brought back all the trouble he had
tried so hard to forget.

When they got to Father Ryan's house they went straight into the
parlour.  "Mick," said Father Ryan, sitting down in his chair, "what
ails you, child, this long time back?"  Mick looked into his face.
"It's all right," said Father Ryan; "you can tell me nothing I don't
know.  I had a letter from him this morning, poor boy."

"Is he all right?" said Mick.

"He's all right; that's what I wanted to tell you.  But yourself, Mick,
what ails you?"

"There's nothin' ails me," said Mick; "I've just got ould."

"Whist, boy, at your time of life," said Father Ryan.

"What did he do it for?" said Mike sharply.  "Ye've seen her, Father;
it's made her go mad."  He began to cry.

"There, there, child," said Father Ryan.  "It's more than you or me can
say what it was done for.  A better boy than Pat never lived, but the
father had a bad hold on him."

"I sometimes think I done it myself," said Mick.

"You did it?" said Father Ryan.  "Faith, child, you did a thing God
Himself would have done."

When Mick said good-bye to Father Ryan about half-an-hour later, and
was starting out, with the pigeon buttoned up inside his coat, he found
Jane sitting on a stone at the presbytery gate waiting for him.

"Ye're the good ould sowl," he said, and he took her hand.  "Come on,
let's run home; I'm quare an' happy."

CHAPTER XI

A CHIEF MOURNER

Some time after the death of Uncle Niel, Patsy's ways began to puzzle
the others.  Until then they had always been quite open with each other
about their comings and goings, but Patsy took to disappearing for a
whole day at a time, giving no reason when he came home at night for
his long absence.  Mick and Jane asked him one day where he went so
often by himself, but his answer only made them more curious.  "If I
telled ye," he said, "ye'd all come, an' that'd spoil it."

About a week after this Lull took them into town, eight miles away, on
a shopping expedition.  Jane and Patsy were on one side of the car.
Jane noticed that several people they met, and they were people she did
not know, touched their hats to Patsy, and Patsy pulled off his cap
each time, but said nothing.  At last, while they were waiting outside
a shop for Lull, a tall man came down the street.  As he passed the car
he started, looked at Patsy, and then with a bow took off his hat, and
walked on.

"Who's that, Patsy?" Jane asked.

"He's just a man I'm acquainted with," Patsy answered, and would say no
more.

A few days later something happened that made Jane still more
suspicious.  They were having dinner, when Lull said: "Which of ye has
touched Mick's black coat and hat?"

They all denied having seen them since the day of the funeral, except
Patsy, who did not speak.

"Well, that's the quare thing," said Lull, "for I've hunted the length
and breadth of the house, an' can't lay my han' on them at all."

Again they declared they had not seen them.  This time Patsy spoke with
the others, but Jane noticed that he put his hand on the back of a
chair as he spoke.  After dinner she told Mick.  "It was Patsy tuk yer
black coat an' hat," she said.

"An' how do ye know that?" Mick asked.

"Didn't I see him touch wood when he said he niver seen it?" she said.
"I wonder what he's done with it, though," she added.  The more she
thought about it the more bewildered she grew.  But of one thing she
was sure: that if she could find out where he went, and what he did on
those long days away from home, she would have a key to the other
mystery.  So she set herself to find out.  The only thing to do was to
follow him some day; but Patsy seemed to know what was in her mind, for
he guarded his departures so carefully that each time it was not until
he had got a good start of her that she discovered he was gone.

One morning at breakfast Jane saw by the look on Patsy's face that he
meant to be off that day, and she made up her mind that this time he
should not slip through her fingers.

Patsy got up from the table with a yawn.  "Who's seen the wee babby
rabbits?" he said.  No one had.

"Well, first there gets the pick," he said, and they flew to the
hutches.  But when they got there no baby rabbits were to be seen, and,
in a fury of disappointment, Jane realised that Patsy had got the
better of her again.  She was so angry that she slapped Fly and
Honeybird for daring to laugh at the joke, and their cries brought Lull
out into the yard.  Lull dried their tears on her apron, scolding and
comforting at the same time.

"There now, ye're not kilt," she said.  "Shame on ye, Jane, to lift yer
han' again them.  If ye lay finger on them more I'll tell yer mother."
This was always Lull's threat, and though she never kept her word it
never failed to have the same effect on the children.  The thought of
making their mother unhappy was the most dreadful punishment they could
imagine.  Jane walked out of the yard with her nose in the air and a
miserable feeling in her heart.  But, once out of sight, she ran to her
favourite hiding-place among the sallies at the top of the garden, and
sitting down with her back to the convent wall she cried with
disappointment, and with repentance too.  It was wicked to have slapped
Fly and Honeybird, but they had no business to laugh at her; and that
little brute of a Patsy was off again all by himself, and she didn't
know where he was.  By-and-by she heard Mick calling her.  She knew he
would be sure to look in the sallies for her, so she dried her eyes,
and crept along by the wall, and under the fence at the top of the
garden, out into the field.  No good could come of letting Mick find
her; for she was still in a bad temper, and she knew it would only mean
more fights if she went home before her temper had gone.  She wandered
through the fields in an aimless way, till she began to get bored, and
not any better tempered for that.

It was all Patsy's fault; if he had not put her in a temper she might
have been working at the pigeon-house with Mick; but now the whole day
was spoilt, for she could not, with dignity, go home before tea-time.
Soon she found herself in a lane, and had to stop to choose which way
she would go.

One way led to the village and the sea, the other to the big road that
ran to Castle Magee and town.  It was too cold to go to the sea, and
she didn't want to go through the village with red eyes.  Then the
thought came into her mind that the snowdrops might be out in the
church-yard at Castle Magee, so she turned that way.

Castle Magee was a village of about six cottages and as many bigger
houses; a damp, mouldy place, that always impressed the children with a
sense of hunger and death.  They rarely saw anyone about but the
sexton, and he seemed to be perpetually at work digging graves in the
churchyard.  Then, too, there was no shop, and they had no friends in
the village, and after the long walk from home all that could be hoped
for was a turnip out of the fields.  The church, surrounded by
yew-trees, stood in the middle of the village.  The whitewashed walls
of the Parsonage blinked through an avenue of the same trees.  Lull
said the church was a Presbyterian meeting-house, and on Sundays people
came from miles round, and sang psalms without any tunes, and the
minister preached a sermon two hours long, and then everybody ate
sandwiches in their pews, and the minister preached another sermon two
hours longer.

The children had often climbed up, and looked in at the church windows,
and the cold, bare inside and the square boxes for pews had added to
their dreary impressions of the place.

If it had not been for the snowdrops they would never have gone near
Castle Magee; but at the right time of year the churchyard was a white
drift of these flowers, and the sexton had often given them leave to
pick as many as they pleased.  With a big bunch of snowdrops Jane felt
she could go straight home.  Dinner would be over, of course, by that
time, but there would still be the afternoon to give to the new
pigeon-house.  And how pleased her mother would be with the flowers.
All Jane's bad temper disappeared at the thought, and she would tie up
two little bunches with ivy leaves at the back for Fly and Honeybird.
She skipped along the road, making up romances to herself to while away
the three long miles.  She was going to a ball in a blue satin dress
trimmed with pearls; then it was a dinner, and she wore black velvet
and diamonds; then a meet, and she had a green velvet habit, like the
picture of Miss Flora Macdonald Lull had nailed on the kitchen wall.

Soon she got tired of these thoughts.

"'Deed, I won't wear any of them things," she muttered; "everybody
wears them.  I'll just go in my bare skin an' a pair of Lull's ould
boots."  She laughed, and began to run.  As she got near the village
the old feeling of hunger, native to the place, reminded her that
turnips would now be stacked behind the Parsonage, and she remembered
that it would be best to look for an open heap, for the last time she
and Mick had broken into one they found they had opened a potato heap
by mistake.  She laughed as she thought of how cross the old farmer had
been when he had caught them filling up the hole again.  Luckily, the
first heap she came to was open, so, picking out a good big turnip, she
went on till she came to the churchyard wall, and sat down there to eat
it.  The village looked more desolate than usual.  The slate roofs of
the cottages were still wet with the rain that had fallen in the night,
and a cold wind moaned in the yew-trees.  There were only a few
snowdrops out, and for once the sexton was not to be seen, but a heap
of earth at the far corner of the churchyard showed a newly-dug grave.
Jane had got through her first slice of turnip when she was startled by
the sound of the bell in the church behind her.

One!  It went with a harsh clang.

She looked round, but the bell had stopped.  She was beginning to think
she had imagined it when the bell clanged again.  Then another moment's
pause and another clang.  Jane thought she had never heard anything so
queer, when she suddenly remembered what it was.  Of course, it was
tolling for a funeral.  It had tolled three already.  Lull said it
tolled one for every year of the dead person's life.

Four--five--six--went the bell.

"That might be our wee Honeybird," Jane said to herself, and remembered
the slap she had given Honeybird that morning.

Seven--eight.

The sound grew more and more melancholy to her ears.  Each clang of the
bell died away like a moan.

Nine.

"Mebby it's some person's only child," she thought.

Ten--eleven.

"It'd be the awful thing to be dead," she muttered, and shivered at the
thought of being buried this weather with nothing on but a white
nightgown.

Twelve--thirteen--tolled the bell.

"It'd be awfuller to be goin' to Mick's feeneral," she said.  The
thought made her heart sick.

She jumped up to go home--she could come back when more snowdrops were
out--but she caught sight of a long black line, slowly climbing up to
the church by the road from town.  The sight of a funeral always
depressed Jane, but there was something specially gloomy about this
one.  The wet road looked so cold, the sky so grey, and the black
hearse and six mourning carriages came heavily along, as though they
were weighed down by grief.

Jane began to say her prayers.  It was an awful world God had made, and
He might let one of them die if she didn't pray hard to Him.

The bell went on tolling.  It had got past twenty by the time her
prayer was said.  The funeral was so near that she could see the
mourners behind the hearse.  There were six tall men in black; two of
them walked in front of the others.  They were the chief mourners.
Perhaps it was their sister who was in the hearse.  The bell tolled oft
till it was past thirty; the funeral came nearer and nearer.

Then all at once Jane's heart went cold with pity, for between the two
chief mourners she saw a little boy.  It was the little boy's mother in
the hearse, of course, and one of the men was his father.  Tears rolled
down her face at the sight of him.  He was such a little boy, in a
black coat that was miles too big for him, and his head bent like his
father's.  This was too much for Jane's feelings; she rolled over the
wall, hid her face behind a tombstone, and cried bitterly.

The bell went on tolling.  The wind soughed in the yew-trees.  The
funeral procession came into the churchyard, the tall men carrying the
coffin, and the chief mourners walking behind.  The little boy walked
beside his father.

"Poor, poor wee sowl," Jane sobbed.  "God pity it--it might 'a' been
our wee Patsy!--Ye young divil!" she added through her teeth--for it
was Patsy.  Sure enough, there he was in Mick's black coat and hat,
walking solemnly behind the coffin, holding that strange man's hat.

"So I've catched ye, my boy," she muttered, hiding down behind the
tombstone.  She could watch without being seen, by lying flat on her
stomach, and she determined to see the end of it now.  The burial
service began.  She could hear voices, but could see nothing for the
crowd round the grave.  Then the crowd parted, and she saw the coffin
lowered.  The tall man began to sob.  Patsy respectfully held the man's
hat and gloves while he cried into a big black-bordered
pocket-handkerchief.  At last it was over, and they came back along the
path.  As they passed by the tombstone where Jane lay she heard Patsy
say:

"Well, I must be goin', so I'll be sayin' good-mornin' to ye, sir."

A man's voice answered.  "Ye're the remains a' them as is in their
graves, sir.  Good-morning to ye, sir."

When they had all passed she crept along behind the tombstone to the
far wall, and jumped over it into the field.  Then she ran as fast as
she could to the road, climbed up the bank, and sat down behind the
hedge to wait for Patsy.  He came soon, whistling, with the skirts of
Mick's coat tucked up under his arm.  Jane waited till he came quite
near, then she jumped over the hedge, and stood in front of him.

"Think I didn't see ye," he said; "jukin' down behind a tombstone with
yer flat ould face?  Ye very near made me laugh."

"What were ye doin', Patsy?" she said.

"'Deed, I was a mourner at the woman's feeneral, an' a very dacent
woman she was by all accounts."

Jane forgot to crow over him in her interest.  "What'd she die of,
Patsy?" she said.

Patsy stopped.  "Ye know that wee public-house as ye go into town, just
as ye turn down North Street?" he said.  Jane nodded.  "She kep' that,
the man tould me, an' she died a' hard work.'

"I niver heerd of any person dyin' of that afore," said Jane.

"Well, she did," said Patsy, "for I heard the sexton ast the man, an'
he said she died a' labour."

"I wonder if it's catchin'?" said Jane.

Patsy walked on whistling.

"But what tuk ye to the woman's feeneral at all, Patsy?" Jane asked.

"I just went for the fun a' the thing," he said.

"Sure, there's no fun in that," said Jane.

"Isn't there just?" said Patsy.  "That's all you know; I tell ye it's
the quare ould sport."  He stopped, and counted up on his fingers:
"That makes two weman's, two childers', and one man's feeneral I've
been chief mourner to since Christmas."

"But ye can't be chief mourner if ye're no relation," said Jane.

"Ye can just.  I walked close behind the hearse of every one of them,"
he said.  "When I see the feeneral comin' up the road I take off my
hat, an' they make room for me to walk with the best."

He bound Jane over by a promise not to tell.  In return for her promise
he showed her where he kept Mick's coat and hat--wrapped up in a
newspaper, and covered with sods, under an old bell-glass at the top of
the garden--and promised, on his part, he would tell her what the
people died of whose funerals he attended in the future.

But, as it happened, that was the last one he went to.  When they got
home they found the secret was out.  Mick met them.  He knew all about
it, he said; and Lull knew too, and was cross.  Teressa had told.  Her
sister, who was in service at the Parsonage at Castle Magee, had been
to see her, and told her all about the little gentleman from Rowallan
who came to every funeral in the churchyard.

"She sez," Mick went on, "that ye were the thoughtful wee man, Patsy,
an' it'd melt the heart of a stone to see ye standin' at the grave like
an' ould judge, holdin' the mourner's black kid gloves."

"Bah!" said Patsy.

But Lull threatened awful things if Patsy ever went to a funeral again.
"Mind, I'll tell yer mother if I ever hear tell of it," she said; "dear
knows what disease ye'll be bringin' home to us."

The lesson was impressed more deeply on Patsy's mind by Lull being ill
that evening, and going to bed early with a headache.  Patsy was
terrified.  He sat on the mat outside the door till past ten, and
refused to go to bed.

"She's just the very ould one would catch it," he said when Jane tried
to persuade him to go to bed, "for she works that hard herself."

"Well, I'll go in an' ast her if it's catchin'," Jane said at last.

Lull was awake when they went in.  "What's the matter?" she said,
sitting up in bed.

"There's nothin' the matter," said Jane; "only Patsy wants to know if
what the woman died of was catchin'."

"What did she die of?" said Lull.

"She died a' labour," said Patsy in a trembling voice.  "Is it
catchin', Lull?"

Lull laughed so much that she could not answer.

"Patsy was afraid ye'd catched it," said Jane, laughing too, though she
did not know why.

"God be thankit I have not," said Lull, and as they went joyfully off
to bed they could hear her still laughing.

CHAPTER XII

A SAFEGUARD FOR HAPPINESS

May was at its height; all the apple-trees were in blossom, and the
crimson thorn-trees on the lawn.  Through the open nursery windows a
soft wind brought the smell of hawthorn and lush green grass.  Bright
patches of sunlight spotted the bare floor and Jane's red and white
quilt.  It was early, and the children were still in bed.  They were
wide awake--the sun had waked them an hour ago--and already they had
planned how they would spend the day.  It was Saturday--a whole
holiday.  Nobody had to do lessons to-day; the long, rich sunny hours
lay before them full of happiness.  They had agreed that the rocks was
the place for to-day's picnic; no place would be half so beautiful.
This was the weather for the sea.  As they lay quiet in bed each one
was thinking of the joys in store.  First, there would be the walk
across the soft, spongy grass--past the whins for the sake of the hot,
sunny smell of the blossom.  They would be tempted to stop and have the
picnic there; but they would go on, towards the sea, and the sheep
would move off as they came near, and rakish black crows would rise
slowly, and sail away.  Then the sea would come in sight: so blue this
weather, how deep and full it looked, with what a soft splash it washed
against the black rocks, and how it stung your naked body as you slid
in for one dip and out again.  Fly loved to look forward, as she called
it.  Pleasures were worth twice as much to her if she were able to
think of them beforehand.  Then there would be the long afternoon, when
you lay on your face on the rocks, and watched the ships sailing far
away, and now and then caught sight of a trail of smoke on the horizon,
that told you a steamer was passing by.  A sound of singing came from
the convent garden, and in a moment all the five children were out of
bed, leaning out of the window, watching the long procession of white
nuns file slowly out of the convent door.  The voices, low at first,
grew stronger and clearer as the procession came along the cindered
path.  The nuns' white dresses, the black path they walked on, the
delicate green of the apple-trees on each side, the blue of the banner,
the shining gold of the cross, make a wonderful picture in the strong
sunlight.  The children watched in silence.  This singing procession of
white and blue was one of the things they liked best in May.  It came
every fine morning to remind them how happy they were now that the good
weather had come.  Lull said the nuns sang because May was the month of
Mary.

  "Ave Maris Stella
  Dei Mater Alma!"

They were singing hymns to the Blessed Virgin now; their voices, very
sweet and clear, seemed to fill the garden.  They went on along the
path, paused by a black cross that marked a grave, then went round the
chapel, and the children could see them no longer.  They listened till
the singing died away, and then began to dress quickly.  Fly was always
last.  The others teased her about it, but they could not make her
hurry.  Fly had a reason for being slow.  She liked to say her prayers
last.  If she had been dressed sooner she would have had to say her
prayers at the same time as the others, and then, she thought, Almighty
God could not give her His undivided attention.  Fly said her prayers
very carefully; sometimes when she had said them once she went all
through them again, in case she had forgotten anything.  When the
others had gone downstairs she knelt down by her cot.  She said her
proper prayers first, then added: "And, please, don't let any of us
have anythin' the matter with our heart our liver our lungs, or any
part of our insides that I don't know the name of; please don't let any
of us kill or murder anybuddy, or be hanged or beheaded; an', please,
remember that it's ould Mrs Bogue's turn to die first."

She rose from her knees, and ran downstairs.  The hall door was open,
and the sunlight streamed into the hall.  There was really no need to
say your prayers at all this weather, Fly thought; for, of course,
nobody ever died except in winter, when the wind howled round the house
and rain lashed the window-panes.  Still, she liked to be on the safe
side.  She was very proud of her prayer: the last petition she had
thought of in the winter, when Mrs Darragh had been ill.  She had
reminded Almighty God that they had had a father and an uncle die,
while the Bogues had never had a death in their family.  Therefore it
must be Mrs Bogue's turn next.  Honeybird, the only one to whom she had
told this petition, was so pleased with it that she prayed it too.
Both children chuckled over the wisdom of it; for Mrs Bogue, in spite
of her eighty years, was a strong old woman--Lull had said she would
see ninety--so their turn could not come for years yet.

"It's the awful thing that people has to die at all."  Jane's voice
came from the schoolroom.  "An it's quare that God thinks anybuddy'd
like to go to heaven."

"Well, I niver want to go," said Patsy.  "I'd hate the ould gold street
an' glass sea; I'd far rather have a nice salt-water sea, with crabs
an' herrin's in it."

Fly stood in the doorway.  "What's happened?" she said.

"Ould Mrs Bogue's dead," said Jane, with her mouth full of porridge.  A
sharp pang of fear seized Fly.  A moment before she had been altogether
happy, now the light seemed to have gone from the day.  She looked at
Honeybird, but Honeybird was taking her breakfast calmly; she did not
realise what this meant.  Their safeguard was gone.  If Mrs Bogue had
died so suddenly and unexpectedly might it not mean that Almighty God
wanted their turn to come quickly?  She swallowed her breakfast, and
went out into the garden.  She could not go to the picnic with the
others; she was too miserable for that.  Why, oh, why did God make
people only to kill them again?  Why did He want them to go to such a
dull place as heaven?  Honeybird's voice called her from the garden
gate, and the next minute Honeybird came running down the grassy path.

"Why didn't ye go for the picnic?" Fly asked.

"'Cause I know'd ye'd be sorry about ould Mrs Bogue," said Honeybird,
sitting down beside her.  "I'm thinkin' mebby Mrs Bogue wasn't as
strong as we thinked.  It might 'a' been better to say Mr Rannigan."

"That wouldn't 'a' been fair," said Fly; "he had a sister die.  It was
ould Mrs Bogue's turn right enough, only it come far sooner that I
thought."

"What are ye goin' to do?" Honeybird asked.

Fly could think of nothing.

"Why don't ye pray to have ould Mrs Bogue alive again?" said Honeybird.

"That's no use wanst people's dead," said Fly.

"But couldn't God make her niver 'a' been dead at all?" Honeybird
asked.  "I'd try Him if I was you."

Fly thought for a moment.  "We'll both pray hard, and then we'll go an'
see."  They knelt down under an apple-tree.  Honeybird prayed first,
and then Fly.  Then they started for Mrs Bogue's house.  Honeybird
would have liked Fly to tell her a story as they went along the road,
but she dare not ask, for she could tell by Fly's face that she was
still praying.

The road was hot and dusty.  Both the children were soon tired.
Honeybird thought of the others enjoying themselves on the rocks.  She
wished she could have gone with them.  She would have enjoyed it too,
for though she pretended to Fly that she was anxious, she really was
not troubled at all.  She did not believe that Almighty God wanted one
of them to die.  Lull said their mother had not been so well for years.
But she had shared Fly's prayers, and a sense of honour made her try to
share Fly's trouble now that the prayer had gone wrong.  Fly was still
muttering.  Every now and then Honeybird could hear: "For Christ's
sake.  Amen."

When they came to Mrs Bogue's gate Fly said they were to say a last
prayer each, and then ask at the lodge.  They shut their eyes.

"Make her alive an' well, Almighty God.  Amen," said Honeybird.

They opened their eyes, and went up to the lodge, but while they were
still knocking at the door Mrs Bogue's big yellow carriage came round
the corner of the avenue.  Inside the carriage was the old lady
herself.  Fly gave a howl of delight.  The children ran forward, and
the carriage pulled up.

"There ye are alive an' well," said Fly joyfully.  "Och, but I'm glad
to see ye."

Mrs Bogue's wizened face expressed no pleasure at seeing Fly.

"Of course I'm well; I always am," she said in a thin, high voice.

"Ye were dead this mornin', though," said Honeybird.

"Dead! who said I was dead?" Mrs Bogue demanded indignantly.

"Lull tould us that iverybuddy said ye died last night," said Fly; she
was still smiling with delight.

Mrs Bogue turned to her niece.  "Do you hear that, Maria?  That is
twice they have had me dead.  I don't know what the world is coming to.
They won't give people time to die nowadays."

"We'll give ye any amount a' time, Mrs Bogue," said Fly earnestly; "we
want ye to live as long as iver ye can please."

"It's quare an' nice for us when ye're alive," said Honeybird.  Mrs
Bogue looked at them sharply.  Both faces were beaming with happiness.

"You are very kind children," she said.  She began to fumble in a bag
by her side.  "Here is a shilling each for you."

The yellow carriage went on.  Fly and Honeybird looked at each other.
Honeybird was thinking how glad she was that she had stayed with Fly
and had not gone off with the others.  Fly was thinking how good
Almighty God had been to hear her prayer.  They went on down the road
to Johnnie M'Causland's shop, and bought lemonade and sweets, and then
struck out across the fields towards the sea to find the others.

"Do ye know what?" said Fly, stopping in the middle of a field, with
her arms full of lemonade bottles.  "Ye're always far happier after
ye're miserable.  I believe He done it on purpose."  She kicked up her
heels.  "Let's run; it's a quare good ould world, an' God's a quare
good ould God, an' I'm awful happy."

CHAPTER XIII

JIMMIE BURKE'S WEDDING

Jimmie Burke's wife had not been dead a month, when one morning Teressa
brought the news that he was going to be married again.

"The haythen ould Mormon!" said Lull.  "God help the wemen these days."

At first the children could not believe it.  The late Mrs Burke had
been a friend of theirs.  They had walked to the village every Sunday
afternoon, for the whole long year that she had been ill, with pudding
and eggs for her.  And they thought Jimmie was so fond of her.  He was
heartbroken when she died.  When they went to the cottage the day
before the funeral, with a wreath of ivy leaves to put on the coffin,
they found him sitting beside the corpse, crying, and wiping his eyes
on a bit of newspaper.  Even Jane, who, for some reason that she had
not given the others, had always hated Jimmie, told Lull when they came
home that she could not help thinking a pity of the man sitting there
crying like a child.

"It bates Banagher," said Teressa, sitting down by the fire with the
cup of tea Lull had given her--"an' the woman not cowld in her coffin
yet; sure, it's enough to make the dead walk."

"Och, but the poor critter was glad to rest," said Lull.

"An', mind ye, he's the impitent ould skut," Teressa went on, stirring
her tea with her finger; "he come an' tould me last night himself.  An'
sez he: 'The wife she left me under no obligations,' sez he; 'but sorra
a woman is there about the place I'd luk at,' sez he."

"They'd be wantin' a man that tuk him," said Lull.  "The first wife's
well red a' him in glory."

"When's the weddin', Teressa?" Fly asked.

"An' who's marryin' him?" said Lull.

"He's away this mornin' to be marriet.  She's a lump of a girl up in
Ballynahinch," said Teressa.  "Troth, ay, he lost no time; he's
bringing her home the night, the neighbours say."

In the stable Andy Graham was even more indignant.  "It's the
ondacentest thing I iver heard tell of," he told Mick; "an' the woman
be to be as ondacent as himself."

But Andy's, indignation was nothing to what Jane felt.  "I knowed it,"
she said to the others when they were together in the schoolroom; "I
knowed the ould boy was the bad ould baste.  Augh! he oughtn't to be
let live."

"Away ar that, Jane," said Patsy; "sure, that's the fool talk.  Where's
the harm in him marryin' again?"

"Harm!" Jane shouted.  "It's more than harm; it's a dirty insult.  Ye
ought always to wait a year after yer wife dies afore ye marry again;
but him!--him!--he just ought to be hung."

"It's a dirty trick, sure enough," said Mick; "but ye couldn't hang him
unless he done a murder."

"An' so he did," said Jane sharply.  "Think I don't know?  I tell ye he
murdered her, as sure as I stan' on this flure."

"Whist, Jane," said Mick; "that's the awful thing to be sayin'."

"An' I can prove it, too," she went on, "for I saw him do it with my
own two eyes, not wanst, but twiced, an' she let out he was always
doin' it.  I promised her I wouldn't come over it, but there's no harm
tellin' it now she's dead.  Ye know them eggs Lull sent her?" the
children nodded.  "Well, do ye mane to say she iver eat them?  For she
just didn't; he eat ivery one himself, an' he eat the puddens, an' he
drunk the milk.  Augh! the ould baste, he'd eat the clothes off her bed
if he could 'a' chewed them."

"Who tould ye he eat them all?" said Patsy.

"Sure, I saw him doin' it myself, I tell ye.  He come home drunk one
day when I was there.  He was that blind drunk he niver seen me.  An'
he began eatin' all he could lay han' on.  He eat up the jelly; an' two
raw eggs, an' drunk the taste a' milk she had by her in the cup, an' he
even drunk the medicine out of the bottle, an' eat up the wee bunch a'
flowers I'd tuk her, an', when he'd eat up ivery wee nip he could find,
he lay down on the flure, an' went asleep."

"The dirty, greedy, mane ould divil," said the others.

"An' she tould me he always done it," Jane went on.  "An' I seen it was
the truth, for he come in another day, an' done the same, an' he was
that cross that he frightened her, an' she begun to spit blood, an' if
it hadn't been for me I believe he'd 'a' kilt her; but I was that mad
that I hit him a big dig in the stomach; an', mind ye, I hurted him,
for he went to bed like a lamb, an' I tied him in with an ould shawl
afore I come away."

The others could find no words to express their disgust.  They agreed
that Jane was right--such a man ought not to be allowed to live.

"If we tould Sergeant M'Gee he'd hang him," said Fly.

"That'd be informin', said Mick.

"Almighty God's sure to pay him out when he dies," Honeybird said.

"I'd rather pay him out now," said Jane.  At that moment there was a
flash of lightning, and a crash of thunder overhead, and then a shower
of hailstones rattled against the window.

"Mebby he'll be struck dead," said Fly; "Almighty God's sure to be
awful mad with him."

For three hours the rain poured in torrents.  The children watched it
from the schoolroom window splashing up on the path, and beating down
the fuchsia bushes in the border.

But by dinner-time it had cleared up, and the sky looked clean and
blue, as though it had just been washed.  When dinner was over they set
off to the village, expecting to hear that Jimmie had been struck by
lightning, or, as Fly thought would be more proper, killed by a
thunderbolt.

Mrs M'Rea was standing at her door, with a ring of neighbours round
her.  As they came up the street they heard her say: "There's the
childer, an' they were the kin' friends to her when she was alive."

"Good-mornin', Mrs M'Rea," said Jane; "has Jimmie been kilt?"

"Is it kilt," said Mrs M'Rea; "'deed an' it's no more than he
desarves--but we don't all get what we desarve in this world, glory be
to God!  Troth, no; it's marriet he is, an' comin' home the night in
style on a ker, all the way from Ballynahinch."

"We thought Almighty God'd 'a' kilt him with a thunderbolt," said Fly.

"Do ye hear that?" said old Mrs Clay.  "The very childer's turned agin
him--an' small wonder, the ould ruffan; it's the quare woman would have
him."

"By all accounts she is that," said Gordie O'Rorke, joining the group;
"they say she's six fut in her stockin's an' as blackavised as the ould
boy himself."

"We'll be givin' her the fine welcome the night," said his granny;
"she'll be thinkin' she's got to her long home."

"They say she's got the gran' clothes," said Gordie, "an' a silk dress
an'a gowld watch an' chain; mebby that's what tuk his fancy."

"If she doesn't luk out he'll be eatin' it," said Patsy.  There was a
roar of laughter.

"There's none knows better than yous what he could ate," said Mrs
M'Rea.  "Any bite or sup I tuk the woman I sat and seen it in her afore
I come away."

"He's stepped over his brogues this time," said Gordie, "for me uncle
up in Ballynahinch is well acquainted with the woman, an' he sez she's
a heeler, an' no mistake."

"Well, well," said ould Mrs Glover, "I'm sayin' she'll not have her
sorras to seek."

"No; nor Jimmie either," said Mrs M'Rea.  "But there, where's the good
a' talkin'?  It's the lamentable thing entirely; but they're marriet
now, an' God help both a' them."

"'Deed yis; they're marriet," said Mrs O'Rorke, "an we'll not be
forgettin' it the night.  It's tar bar'ls we'll be burnin'--they'll be
expectin' it, to be sure--an' a torchlight procession out to meet them
forby."

"Troth, then, they'll get more than they're expectin'," said Gordie.

"What time did ye say they'd be comin' back the night, Mrs M'Rea?" Mick
asked.

"Ye know we'd like' to come to the welcome," said Jane.

"Och, it'd be late for the likes a' yous," answered Mrs M'Rea.  "It'll
be past ten, won't it, Gordie."

"Nearer eleven that ten," said Gordie.  "You lave it to us, Miss Jane;
niver fear but they'll get the right good welcome."

Going home they were all very quiet.  No one spoke till they came to
the gates.  Then Patsy said: "Lull'll niver let us out at that time a'
night."

"We'll just have to dodge her," said Jane; "it'd be the wicked an' the
wrong thing to let ould Jimmie off."

"It'll be the quare fun," said Patsy, dancing round.

"It won't be fun, Patsy; it'll be vengeance," said Jane severely.

"Ye'll take me with ye, won't ye?" Honeybird begged.

"'Deed, we'll take the sowl," said Mick; "but ye'll be powerful tired."

"What do I care about that?" she said.  "I just want to hit that bad
ould man."

Lull was surprised to see them go to bed so quietly that night.  "Ye
niver know the minds a' childer," they heard her say as they left their
mother's room after they had said good-night.  "I made sure they'd be
wantin' to the village to see Jimmie Burke come home."  Honeybird
sniggered, but Fly nipped her into silence.

The convent bell was ringing for Compline when Lull tucked them into
bed, but before the schoolroom clock struck ten they were on their way
to the village.  When they got to Jimmie's cottage the crowd was so
great that they could see nothing.

"We'll have no han' in the welcome at all," said Mick.

"An' it's that pitch dark we'll niver see them," said Patsy.

"We'd better be goin' back a bit along the road, an give them the first
welcome," Jane said.  "Come on, quick," she added, "an' we can stan' on
the wall, an' paste them with mud as they come by."

"Hould on a minute," said Mick.  "I've got a plan: we'll stick my
lantern on the wall, an' shout out they're home; they'll be that drunk
they'll niver know the differs; that'll make them stop, an' we'll get a
good shot at them."

"Troth, we'll do better than that," said Patsy, with a chuckle.
"They'll be blind drunk, I'm tellin' ye, an' it's into the ould pond
we'll be welcomin' them.  Yous three can stan' on the wall out a' the
wet, an' me an' Mike'll assist the man an' his wife to step off the
car."

The pond was at the side of the road, not more than a hundred yards
from the village, and the wall ran right through the middle of it.  The
children climbed on the wall, and crept along on their hands and knees
till they came to the deepest part.  The water was up to the the top of
the wall, so they had to sit with their legs doubled up to keep them
out of the wet.

Soon they heard the wheels of the car coming along the road.

"Now, mind ye all screech at onst," said Patsy as he dropped off the
wall.  "Auch! but the water's cowld."

The car came nearer.  Jane held up the lantern.  "Hurrah, hurrah!" they
shouted; "here ye are at last.  Hurrah!"

"This way, this way," Mick shouted; "drive up to the man's own dour."

A stone from Patsy smashed the lamp on the car.

"Begorra, I can't see where I'm goin'," said the driver.

"Ye're all right," Mick shouted; "there's the lamp in the man's windy."

"Home, shweet home," said Jimmie; "no plache like home."

"Hurrah, hurrah!" they shouted as the horse splashed into the pond.

"Jump off, Mister Burke, there's a bit of a puddle by the step," said
Mick.

"Home, shweet home, me darlinsh," said Jimmie; "lemme shisht ye off
kersh."

"Come on, we'll help the wife off," said Mick.

But Jimmie had taken his wife's arm, and as he jumped she jumped too.
Splash they went into the pond, and at the same time a shower of stones
came from the wall.  The horse took fright, and started off, the driver
shouting "Murder!" as they raced down the road.

"In the name a' God, where am I?" shouted Mrs Burke.

But she got no answer, for Jimmie, with the help of Mick and Patsy, was
taking back ducks in the pond.  Mrs Burke splashed towards the light,
going deeper every step.

"Ye ould villain, will ye come an' help me out?" she screamed.  "Sure,
it's ruinin' me dress an' me new boots I am."

Then the light went out, and a moment later there was a gurgling cry,
followed by shrieks and cries of murder.  In the middle of it all
voices were heard coming along the road from the village, and the sound
of the car coming back.

"Hist!" said Mick.  "Home."

"Och, I'm wet to the skin," said Patsy as they ran along the road, "but
ould Jimmie's far wetter."

"He's as dry as the wife," said Jane, "for I ducked her three times;
she went down awful easy."

"It was me helpin' ye," said Fly; "I had her by the leg."

"Wasn't it quare an' good a' God to make the pond that deep?" said
Honeybird.  "It must 'a' been Him put it into Patsy's head to duck
them."

"That's why He made it rain so hard this mornin'," said Jane, "an' me
thought there was no manin' in it."

"It was the finest bit of vengeance I iver seen," said Patsy.  "Ould
Jimmie was as light as a cork, an' we soused him up an' down till there
wasn't a breath left in him."

"I wonder what Lull'll say when she sees our clothes," said Jane; "me
very shimmy's wet."  But, to their surprise, when they woke next
morning clean clothes had been put out for them, and when they came
downstairs Lull only said: "Has any of ye tuk a cold?"

"No, we haven't," said Jane.

"Well, then, don't name it to yer mother," Lull said, and left them
wondering how she had found out.

Andy Graham called them into the stable after breakfast.

"Did ye hear the news?" he said.

"What news?" said Mick.

"The news about the weddin'," Andy said.  "Didn't Lull tell ye about
it?  Sure, the whole place is ringin' with it.  Poor ould Jimmie Burke
an' the wife were near kilt last night.  A pack of ruffians stopped the
ker at the ould pond, an' ducked both him an' the wife.  He was that
full a' waiter they had to hould him up by the heels an' let it run
out; an' the wife covered with black mud from head to fut."

"Who done it?" said Patsy, looking Andy in the face.

"Who done it, do ye say?" said Andy--"sure, that's what I'd like to
know myself.  There wasn't wan out a' the village but what was waitin'
at the man's own dour when the ker come up, an ne'ery a wan on it but
the driver, shoutin' murder, an' when the neighbours went back along
the road there was Jimmie an' the wife in the middle a' the pond, and
niver a sowl else to be seen."

Mick laughed.  "Ye're the fly ould boy, Andy," he said; "an' I must say
ye done it right well, but didn't ye get awful wet when ye were duckin'
them?"

Andy stared at him.

"It's all right, Andy; we'll niver name it," said Patsy.  "An' I
wouldn't 'a' blamed ye if ye'd 'a' drownded the both a' them."

Andy whistled.  "Ye've as much brass as would make a dour knocker," he
said.  "But, see here, the next time yous are on the war pad don't be
lavin' circumstantial evidence behind ye."  He brought out from behind
the door an old rag doll, soaking wet.

"Och a nee!" wailed Honeybird, "it was me done that.  I hadn't the
heart to lave her at home," she explained.  "She's Bloody Mary, an' I
thought she'd enjoy the vengeance."

"I thought I knowed her when I seen her lyin' at the side a' the pond
this mornin," said Andy.  "An', mind ye, I'm not blamin' ye, an' I'm
not sayin' but what Jimmie an' the wife disarved it, but ye'd better
keep a quiet tongue in yer heads.  There's nobuddy but meself an' Lull
knows who done it, and nobuddy'll iver know.  It's all very well for a
wheen a' neighbours to do the like, but it's no work for quality to be
doin'."

CHAPTER XIV

JANE AT MISS COURTNEY'S SCHOOL

Jane hated going to school.  She had begged to be allowed to go on
doing lessons with Mr Rannigan, though he had said five children were
too many for him at his age.  Then she had begged to be allowed to go
to a boys' school with Mick.  But all her pleadings were in vain.  Lull
had arranged that she was to go to the select young ladies' school that
Aunt Mary had attended when she was a girl.  Lull secretly hoped that
contact with the select young ladies would make Jane a little bit more
genteel.  Every morning, driving into town on the car with Andy, Jane
mourned to Mick for the good days that were gone.  Mick annoyed her by
liking the change.  His school was quite pleasant.

"How'd ye like to be me," she asked him, "goin' to a school where
whativer ye do it's always wrong?"

She hid her unhappiness from Lull, partly because Lull had taken such
pride in sending her to Miss Courtney's, partly because she could not
have told Lull the offences for which she was reproved--offences no one
would have noticed at home.

In spite of an eager desire to be good and polite Jane was constantly
accused of being wicked and rude.  Mr Rannigan had never found fault
with her manners, but Miss Courtney sent her back three times one day
to re-enter the room because she bobbed her head and said: "Mornin',"
when she came in.  Jane, in bewilderment, repeated the offence, and was
punished.  "I wisht I'd 'a' knowed what it was she wanted," she
complained to Mick.  "If I had I'd 'a' done it at wanst."

She gathered that, in school, it was considered a sin to speak like the
poor.  Miss Courtney said a lady should have an English accent, and a
voice like a silvery wave.  Jane trembled every time she had to speak
to her.  In other things besides pronunciation she never knew when she
was doing right or wrong.

She was reproved for shaking hands with a housemaid, and sent into the
corner for putting a spelling-book on the top of a Bible.  School was a
strange world to her.  To speak with an English accent, to have a
mother who wore real lace and a father who did no work, these things
made you a lady, and if you were not a lady you were despised.  Jane
could tell the girls nothing about her father.  Her pronunciation was
shocking, and the girls made fun of her magenta stockings and home-made
clothes.  If only Mick had been with her Jane felt she could have borne
anything.  She was terribly home-sick every day.  From the time Andy
left her in the morning she counted the minutes till he would come to
take her back again to Rowallan and people who were kind.  But it was
only to Mick she told her trouble.  He said Miss Courtney was a fool,
and Jane trembled lest Miss Courtney might overhear it six miles away.
She was almost as frightened of the big girls as of Miss Courtney.
They wore such elegant clothes, and had such power to sting with their
tongues.  One day when Jane, in joyful haste, was putting on her hat to
go home three of the big girls came into the cloakroom.  They were
talking eagerly.  One of them mentioned Jane's name, then asked Jane
how much she was going to give towards Miss Courtney's birthday
present.  She explained that they always gave her a beautiful present
each year.  "What is the good of asking her?" said another, "she's
hasn't a penny, I'm sure."  The scorn in her voice seemed to scorch
Jane.

"I'll give five shillin's," she said calmly.  She had not as many
pennies in the world, but she could not bear to be despised.  The big
girls were delighted.  They were quite kind to her.  Jane promised to
bring the money next day.  All the way home she prayed that God would
send her five shillings.  She would not ask Lull for it--Lull was too
poor; Jane would rather have confessed to the big girls that she had no
money than take it from Lull.  She prayed earnestly before going to
bed, she woke in the night to pray, but morning came, and she was on
her way to school without the money.  When she got off the car at the
end off the street she was still praying, hoping that at the last
moment she would find the money on the pavement at her feet.  Suddenly
Mick's voice startled her.  "Ten shillin's reward!  Lost, a red settler
dog."  He was reading a poster on the wall.  Jane laughed with glee.
She thanked God for His goodness before she read the poster.  Here was
the money, and five shillings over.  She expected to see the lost dog
at the end of the street.  She read the poster carefully.  The red
setter answered to the name of Toby.  Nothing could be more easy to
find.  Mick dropped their schoolbags over a wall among some laurel
bushes, and they started on the search.  They began with the street
they were in, calling Toby up one side and down the other.  But they
got no answer.  Then they went on to the next, and so on from street to
street.  They saw brown dogs, black dogs, white dogs, yellow dogs, but
no sign of a red setter.  When they had searched the principal streets
they tried the back streets.  Jane called the dog's name till she was
hoarse, and then Mick called in his turn.  They asked a policeman if he
had seen Toby.  "A settler dog!  I niver heerd tell a' that breed," he
said.  "Where did you loss it?"

"We niver lost it, we're only lukin' for it," said Jane.

The policeman thought for a moment.  "I think I know where I could lay
my han' on a nice wee coally pup, if that'd content ye," he said.

Jane thanked him kindly, and they continued their search.  When they
had been walking for about two hours Mick began to despair.

"We're sure to fin' it," Jane assured him.  "Somebuddy's stole it;
let's luk in people's back yards."  Back yards were hard to get at in
town.  They listened for barks, and followed up the sound.  Three times
a bark led them back by different ways to the same dog.  Then they were
chased by owners of back yards, and once Jane tore her frock climbing
over a shed.  Jane never thought of giving in.  The lost dog was to be
sent in answer to her prayer to give her the money she needed so badly.
At last they came to an open door, through which they saw into a yard,
and there by a kennel sat a big red dog.  Jane gave a shout of joy.

"Toby, good Toby!" she called.  "Is it here ye're settlin', and' us
lukin' the town for ye?"  The dog was chained, but they unfastened him,
and with the help of a slice of bread and butter Jane had with her for
luncheon they coaxed him from the yard.  It was well they kept him on
the chain, for once they got out Toby began to run.  He was a big dog,
and pulled hard.  Both the children held tight to the chain, and still
he pulled them at a run through the streets.  At last they were so
tired they had to rest.  They sat down on a curbstone, with Toby
between them, and were just beginning to discuss the reward when a
heavy hand fell on Mick's shoulder.  It was the school porter.  In
spite of their protests he insisted that Mick was playing truant, and
marched him off to school.  Jane, left alone with Toby, debated what
she ought to do.  The reward was to be got in a village three or four
miles at the other side of Rowallan, so she would have to wait and go
back with Andy.  But there was still an hour and a half before he would
call at Miss Courtney's to take her home.  She decided that it was her
duty to go back to school till he came.  She could explain to Miss
Courtney that Toby was a valuable dog she had found.  She could also
tell the big girls, with perfect truth, that she would bring five
shillings next day.  When she got up to go Toby started at the same
bounding pace, dragging her through mud and puddles.  But she got him
to the place where Mick had hidden the schoolbags.  Then, with her bag
in her hand, she stood for a moment in doubt.

"I wouldn't take ye if I didn't think ye'd be as good as gold," she
said.  Toby wagged his tail.  As she was taking off her hat in the
cloakroom she warned him once more that he must be good.  He seemed to
understand perfectly, and walked quietly by her side to the schoolroom
door.  When she opened the door everybody looked up; there was a murmur
of astonishment, and before she could stop him Toby had bounded from
her, and was barking furiously at the infant class.  All the children
screamed.  Jane did her best to catch him, but he got away from her.
The big girls jumped on tables and forms, the little ones huddled
behind each other.  Miss Courtney stood on a chair.

"He'll not hurt ye," Jane tried to assure them.  "Quit yer yellin', an'
he'll be as quiet as a lamb."

"Turn him out, turn him out!" screamed Miss Courtney.  At last Jane
succeeded in catching Toby by the collar.

"Ye bad ruffan," she said, "scarin' the wits out a' iverybody."  The
noise died down except for the wailing of a few children who were still
frightened.  Miss Courtney rang for a servant, and ordered her to turn
the dog out.  Jane explained that this was impossible; Toby was a
valuable dog she had found, and she must take him home to his owner.
Miss Courtney would not listen to her.  The dog was to be sent away at
once.  Jane, when she saw Miss Courtney was frightened of Toby, said
she would take him away herself.  But, to her surprise, this was not
allowed.  She was to stay, and the dog was to go.  Miss Courtney would
not listen to reason.  It was nothing to her that Toby was valuable,
that there was ten shillings reward for him, that Jane had had great
trouble finding him.  Jane was a wicked girl, she said, and the dog
must go.  Jane could not see why she was in disgrace--she had done
nothing wrong.  It was Toby who had frightened them.  But astonishment
soon gave place to tears.  Miss Courtney made it plain that she must be
obeyed.  The servant, afraid to touch Toby herself, led Jane weeping to
the front door to turn him out.  The moment the door was opened Toby
bounded away, dragging his chain after him.  Once he stopped to look
back; then, as Jane did not follow, he went on alone.  The servant was
unsympathetic; she knew nothing of the bewildered disappointment in
Jane's heart.  She said Jane deserved to be whipped.  A far more awful
punishment was in store.  Jane was condemned to stand in the corner
till she had fulfilled all the hours she had wasted in the streets.
Jane was terrified.  She forgot the disgrace, forgot the lost reward,
forgot the scorn the big girls would heap on her when they found she
had no money.  If she had to stay there till six o'clock Andy would go
away without her, and she would have to walk all those long miles back
to Rowallan in the dark alone.  She begged Miss Courtney to let her go;
she prayed God to soften Miss Courtney's heart.  But it was all in
vain.  When the other children went home a Bible was put into her
hands, and she was told to learn the fifty-first Psalm.  She got no
further than "Have mercy upon me, O God."  Misery such as she had never
known before overwhelmed her.  Perhaps she would never get home again.
Anything might happen in those long, long hours.  Everybody might die
in her absence.  Perhaps, when she got out of school at last, and
tramped the long miles home, and ran past the shadow of the gates up
the dark avenue, she would put her hand on the bell, and hear it echo
in an empty house.  Everyone would have grown up and gone away years
ago, and left her.

The light began to fade from the sky, and Jane could bear her misery no
longer.  She determined to run away.  She crept quietly across the
floor to the door.  As she opened it she heard Miss Courtney's footstep
on the stairs.  For a moment Jane's heart was sick with fear; then, in
despair, she ducked her head, and charged for freedom.  Miss Courtney
went down three steps backwards way.  Jane never stopped.  She seized
her coat and hat, and ran out into the street.  There at the gate was
the car, with Andy and Mick waiting for her.  She gave a sob of relief
at the sight.

"Drive quick, Andy," she begged as she climbed up; "I'm feared I've
kilt her."

"Ould divil," said Mick sympathetically.  "One a' the girls tould me
what she done.  All I got was a slap with the cane."

Jane was laughing and crying by turns.  "Her two feet was up in the
air, but I'm feared thon crack must 'a' split her skull."

When she was calmer Mick broke the news that Toby was not a red setter
at all.  "It's a wonder the polis wasn't after yez," said Andy from the
other side of the car, "stealin' dogs out a' people's back yards."
Jane did not mind about Toby.  She said it did not matter now, for she
was never going back to Miss Courtney's again.  She told Lull
everything that evening.  Lull thought Miss Courtney would forgive her,
but Jane refused to go near the hated place again.  So Patsy was sent
to school with Mick, and Jane went back to do lessons with Mr Rannigan.

CHAPTER XV

AN ENGLISH AUNT

No one had invited the English aunt to come over, so when a letter
arrived one morning saying she would be with them that same day, and
would they send the carriage to the station to meet her, everyone was
surprised.  The children were delighted at the thought of a visit from
an unknown aunt: they had thought Aunt Mary was the only aunt they had.
This strange Aunt Charlotte was their mother's sister, and, Patsy said,
she was sure to bring them a present in her trunk.  But Lull went about
the house, getting ready a room in the nursery passage, dusting the
drawing-room, and opening the windows, with a look in her eyes that was
not of pleasure.

"Don't ye want Aunt Charlotte to come?" Jane asked her.

"Want her?" Lull snapped.  "Why couldn't she come when she was wanted
sore?  What kep' her then, an' me prayin' night an' day for her?"

Jane stopped in the middle of the drawing-room floor with a soup tureen
full of dog-daisies in her hands.

"There, I'll quit bletherin'!" Lull added.  "None of yous mind, thank
God, but--if I had 'a' had a young sister struck dumb in morshial agony
haythen Turks wouldn't 'a' kep' me from her."

Lull flounced out of the room, and Jane was left standing in the middle
of the floor.  She had never heard Lull speak like that before.  What
did she mean?  A young sister, she had said; their mother was the only
sister Aunt Charlotte had.  When was their mother struck dumb and Aunt
Charlotte wouldn't come?  Jane went out to the stable, where Andy
Graham was putting the horse in the car.  Honeybird was brushing his
top hat for him at the far end of the stable, but Jane did not see her.

"Andy, when was mother struck dumb in morshial agony?" she said.

Andy dropped a trace.  "By the holy poker! what put that in yer head?"
he said.

"Lull said Aunt Charlotte wouldn't come when she was wanted sore, an'
her young sister was struck dumb in morshial agony," said Jane.

"An' a fine ould clashbag Lull was to say the word," said Andy, picking
up the trace.

"Tell us, Andy, an' I'll niver name it," said Jane.

"See here, Miss Jane," said Andy, "it's no talk for the likes a' yous
to be hearin'.  Sure, there's niver a wan would mind it at all if it
wasn't for that ould targe of a Lull, an' it be to be as far back as
the flood for her to forget."

"Go on, Andy; tell a buddy," Jane begged, "an' I'll not come over it to
a livin' sowl."

"Sure, ye know all I know myself," said Andy.  "The mistress was tarble
bad, an' they sent for yer Aunt Charlotte, an' she wouldn't come."

"Why wouldn't she?" said Jane.

"God knows," said Andy.  "She wouldn't, and Lull was clean dimented at
the time for the want of her.  An' I'm tellin' ye it got yer Aunt
Charlotte an ill name about the place.  There's many's the wan has it
agin her to this day."

"Have you, Andy?" said Jane.

"Is it me!  God forgive me, I could bear no malice.  An' see an' forgit
it yerself Miss Jane, for she'll be the good aunt to ye all yit."

Jane went slowly back to the house.  She would have liked to consult
Mick about it, but she had promised not to tell.  The only thing to do
was to wait till she could ask Aunt Charlotte herself.

Mick went to the station on the car to meet Aunt Charlotte.  The others
waited at the gate, two on each of the stone lions, to give a cheer
when she arrived.

It was a long drive from the station, and they were stiff and cramped
before the car came back, but Jane would not let them get down, for
fear the car might turn the corner while they were down, and Aunt
Charlotte would not get a proper welcome.

It came at last, and they hurrahed till they were hoarse.  Aunt
Charlotte sat on one side, and Mick on the other.  There was a tin box
between them on the well of the car.  As the car came nearer they saw
that Mick was making signs, shaking his head and frowning, and when the
car turned in at the gate Aunt Charlotte looked straight in front of
her, and did not even glance at the welcoming party on the lions.

They got down, and followed up the avenue.  In a minute they were
joined by Mick.  "Let's hide," he said; "she's an ould divil."

Silently they turned away from the house, across the lawn, and dropped
over the wall into the road.  They went up the road till they came to
an opening in the wall on the other side, where they filed through, and
struck out across the fields.  Sheep were feeding on the spongy grass,
and as they got farther away from home rocks and boulders began to
appear, and at last a long line of clear blue sea.  Mick led the way
till they came to a flat rock jutting out like a shelf over the sea,
and here they sat down.

"What did she do?" Jane asked.

"She said I was no gentleman," said Mick.

"What for?"

Mick began his tale.

"When the train come in I went up to her, an' sez I: 'How'r' ye?'  Sez
she: 'Who are you?'  Sez I: 'I'm Michael Darragh.'  'Is it possible?'
sez she, an' ye should 'a' seen the ould face on her.  Sez I: 'The
car's waitin'.'  'Then tell the man to come for my luggage,' sez she."

"Oh Mick," gasped Jane, "what did ye do?"

"I didn't know what to do.  I didn't like to say right out that Andy
had got no livery on his legs, and daren't strip off the rug.  So I
sez: 'We'll get a porter to carry it out.'  'No,' sez she; 'I'd have to
tip him.  Tell the coachman to come.'"

"As mane as dirt," said Patsy.

"Sez I: 'He can't come, Aunt Charlotte, 'cause he can't get off the
dickey.'  'What's the matter with him?' sez she.  I was afraid I'd tell
a lie, but I thought a bit, an' then I sez: 'He's disable.'"

"Good for you, Mickey Free!" Jane shouted.

"But it wasn't good, for when we started she begun astin' Andy what
ailed him.  Andy didn't know, so he said he was in the best of good
health.  Sez she: 'My nephew tould me you had been disabled.'  'Divil a
fut, mem,' sez Andy; 'I'm as well as ye are yerself.'  She got as red
as fire, an' sez she: 'No gentleman tells lies, Michael!"  Mick's face
was white with anger.

"But ye tould no lie, Mickey dear," said Fly.

"An' ye couldn't tell her Andy had no white breeches," said Patsy.

"Dear forgive her," said Jane bitterly, "an' we thought she was an
aunt."

They did not go home till it was getting dark.  When they went into the
kitchen Lull was sitting by the fire.  "Well," she said, "did ye see
yer Aunt Charlotte; she's out lukin' for ye?"

"She can luk till she's black for all I care," said Jane.

Their mother was sitting up in bed when they went in to say good-night,
and they saw she had been crying.

"You are the best children in the world," she said, "but your Aunt
Charlotte thinks you are barbarians."

"She's an ould divil, an' we just hate the sight a' her," said Patsy.

"'Deed, an' there's more than yous does that," said Lull.

"Hush, Lull," said their mother; "she is my sister, after all."

"Purty sister," Lull snorted, "comin' where she's not wanted, upsettin'
everybuddy with her talk a' ruination."

"It's true, it's true," Mrs Darragh wailed, and began to cry again.

Lull hurried the children out of the room; they heard her comforting
their mother as they went down the passage.  They went to bed with
heavy hearts.  Jane said her prayers three times over, then cried
herself to sleep.

Next morning Aunt Charlotte was down early.  Fly and Patsy, who had
been out to see if the gooseberries were ripe, met her in the hall as
they came back.

"Good morning," she said.  "I don't think I saw you yesterday.  What
are your names?"

"I am Fly, an' he is Patsy," Fly answered.

"What?" said Aunt Charlotte.

"Fly an' Patsy," Fly repeated, and was going past, but Aunt Charlotte
pounced on some gooseberries Fly had in her pinafore.  "What are you
going to do with these?" she said.

"Ripe them," said Patsy, trying to get past.

"You cannot ripen green gooseberries off the bushes," said Aunt
Charlotte.

"'Deed, then, ye just can," said Fly; "ye squeeze them till they're
soft, an' then ye suck them till they're sweet."

"I am sure your nurse cannot allow you to do anything so disgusting,"
said Aunt Charlotte.

At this moment Lull came out of the schoolroom, where she had been
laying the table for breakfast.

"M'Leary!" said Aunt Charlotte--they had never heard Lull called that
before--"surely you cannot allow the children to eat such poisonous
stuff as unripe gooseberries?"

Lull's eyes flashed fire for a second, then she said: "You lave them to
me, mem," and took Fly and Patsy off to the kitchen, where they
squeezed and sucked the gooseberries in peace.

At breakfast Aunt Charlotte asked questions about everything: who their
neighbours were; where they visited; where they went to church.

"You see," she said, "I have not been here before, so you must tell me
everything about your surroundings now."

"Why didn't ye come afore?" said Jane eagerly.  "When ye were wanted
sore, what kept ye then?"

"Little girls cannot understand the motives of their elders," Aunt
Charlotte said sharply.  "I was far from well, and the country was
disturbed."

"What's disturbed?" said Patsy.

Her back stiffened.  "Your fellow-countrymen were in a wicked state of
rebellion against the powers ordained by God," she said.

"'Deed, an' who wouldn't fight the polis?" said Patsy.  "Ye should 'a'
seen the gran' fight we had last week on the twelfth."

"I understood that everything was quiet," Aunt Charlotte murmured.

"Lull was prayin' night an' day for ye to come.  She was clean dimented
for the want of ye," Jane went on, hoping Aunt Charlotte would explain.
But Aunt Charlotte did nothing of the kind.

"We will not discuss the matter," she said; "I have told you it was
impossible for me to come."

"I'm tellin' ye it got ye an ill name about the place," said Honeybird,
looking up from her porridge; "there's many's a one has it agin ye to
this day."

The children looked at each other in surprise.  Honeybird had a way of
repeating things she had picked up; but only Jane knew where she could
have heard this, and a kick from Jane told her to be quiet.  Aunt
Charlotte's knife and fork dropped with a clatter on her plate.  Her
face was white as chalk.  For a minute no one spoke.  Aunt Charlotte
drank some coffee, and shut her eyes.  The children thought she had
forgotten to say her grace till now; they went on with their breakfast,
and in a few minutes she spoke again.

"I suppose you all like toys," she said.

The three younger ones brightened up.

"You know there are beautiful toys to be had in London, and I did think
of bringing you some, but, then, I thought that out here in the
country, with so many trees and flowers to play with, it would be like
bringing coals to Newcastle."

They understood that she had brought nothing.  Mick and Jane looked
relieved, but Honeybird's eyes filled with tears.  "Niver a wee dawl?"
she said.

"What does she mean?" said Aunt Charlotte.  "Oh, a little doll; the
child speaks like a peasant."

No one answered.  Honeybird's tears dropped into her lap.  Fly passed
her a ripened gooseberry under the table.

After breakfast Aunt Charlotte said they must show her the gardens and
the stable.  They had meant to go out bathing, and stay away all day;
but there was no escaping from her, so they started off, to the stables
first.

Aunt Charlotte shook her head over everything.

"Disgraceful neglect," they heard her say.

"We'll soon make it grand when our ship comes in," said Jane.

"What a strange expression," said Aunt Charlotte.  "And, pray, when
will that be?"

"God knows, for I don't," said Honeybird, repeating what Andy Graham
always said when they asked him that question.

Aunt Charlotte looked at Honeybird, who was playing with the cat.  "Do
you know that you have taken your Maker's name in vain?" she said.  "Go
back to the house at once, you wicked child."

Honeybird stared, her grey eyes growing wider and wider.

"Do you hear me?" said Aunt Charlotte.  "Go into the house at once."

With a gasp of horror Honeybird turned back across the yard, and they
heard her go into the kitchen, sobbing: "Poor, poor wee me!"

"Now take me to see the kitchen garden," said Aunt Charlotte.

"Ould Davy'll be mad if we do," said Jane.

"I wish you would speak more distinctly," said Aunt Charlotte, "I
cannot understand what you say."

"I on'y said ould Davy'd be cross," said Jane.

"What is his name?  Who is he?" said Aunt Charlotte.

"'Deed, he's just ould Davy," said Patsy; "thon's him in among the
cur'n' bushes."

But ould Davy spoke for himself.

"Be off wid yer," he shouted; "away home ar this, or if I catch the
hould a' yer I'll cut yer throats."

"I tould ye he'd be cross," said Jane.

But Aunt Charlotte was running back to the house as fast her legs would
carry her.

"She's feared," said Jane joyfully.

Patsy danced.  "It'd be quare fun to take her to see Jane Dyer," he
said.

They laughed at the thought till they had to sit down on the path.

"I wisht I could come with ye," said Jane, "but ould Jane's friends
with me, so I can't."

"No; ye'll have to stay at home, Janey dear," said Mick; "she wouldn't
lift a finger if she saw ye with us."

"It's all because I tuk her them ould boots," said Jane; "but yous
three can go; an' mind ye run the minute she throws the first stone,
for if ye stan' an' face her she's like a lamb."

A few minutes later Mick and Fly and Patsy came into the drawing-room,
and asked Aunt Charlotte if she would like to go for a walk; they were
going down to the sea, they said.  Aunt Charlotte said she would be
delighted to go.  She put on her hat and gloves, and they started.  On
each side of the road was a wall of loose stones bound together by moss
and brambles.  In the distance, to their right, rose the mountains, and
a turn of the road about a mile from home brought them in sight of the
sea.  They passed through the village, a long road of whitewashed
cottages, with here and there a fuchsia bush by a door, a line of
bright nasturtiums under a window, or a potato patch dotted with curly
kale by the side of a house.  Farther down the street the church stood
back from the road in a graveyard full of tombstones and weeds.  Aunt
Charlotte said she was interested in churches, so they stopped to look
at it.  Coming back through the graveyard Mick showed her the
tombstones of the rebels, with skull and crossbones on the top, and the
grave of a great-uncle of theirs, who had been hanged at the time of
the rebellion for deserting his friends.

"Serve him right, the ould traitor," said Patsy.

Aunt Charlotte was shocked.  "If he was your great-uncle you should
think of him with respect," she said.

"An' him an informer!" said Mick; "'deed, I'd 'a' kilt him myself, so I
would.  Andy Graham sez he'd 'a' japped the brains out a' him."

"Lull sez she'd 'a' napped him on the head with a wee blackthorn," said
Fly.  "But whist," she added, "I do believe the ould ruffian's lyin' in
his grave listenin' to us."

Aunt Charlotte shivered.  As they were going down the steps Patsy
stopped.  "Look at them two ould rats," he said, "sittin' there on the
wall like ould men.  They're just sayin' which of us all will be
brought here the first."

Aunt Charlotte gave a little scream, and ran out into the road.  "You
children have such morbid minds," she said; "indeed," with a little
laugh, "you have made me quite nervous."

About five minutes' walk from the village they came to a lane that ran
down to the sea, black mud underfoot and stone walls on each side.  The
lane widened into a small farmyard.  There was a low cottage, a stack
of peat, and two or three hens picking about in the mud.

"What a squalid scene!" said Aunt Charlotte.  "Is it possible that any
human being can live here?"

The children did not answer, for, to their disappointment, the door was
shut.  "She's out!" Mick said.

A few yards from the cottage the land ended on the seashore.  The sand
was covered with brown seaweed; a cart filled with it was propped up on
stones.  Bits of cork and wood were strewn about in every direction,
and beyond the line of dry seaweed there were big round stones covered
with golden brown seaweed, still wet, for the tide was only half-way
out.

Aunt Charlotte didn't like this sea very much.  She said it was all so
untidy.  Not even the beautiful green crabs that Fly caught under the
wet seaweed pleased her, so after a few minutes they turned back.  The
children were afraid that Jane Dyer would not have come home yet, but
just as they passed the cottage Aunt Charlotte suddenly gripped hold of
Mick's arm.

"Who is that," she said sharply; "there, coming down the lane?"  Fly
gave a hysterical giggle.  Coming towards them down the lane was a tall
figure dressed in an old green ulster coat, tied in round the waist by
an apron; white hair fell about a flat white face, and big bare feet
splashed in the mud.  As it came it muttered and frowned and shook its
fist.

"Who is it, I say?" said Aunt Charlotte.

"It's Jane Dyer," said Mick.

Patsy gave a loud 'Hee-haw,' that was supposed to remind Jane of her
dead donkey, and always made her wild with rage, even if the sight of
visitors in her lane had not already made her angry.  She came swinging
along, muttering and cursing to herself, stopping here and there to
pick up a stone, till her apron was full.  Then, with a sudden leap in
the air, she aimed.  The stone hit Fly on the shin; she gave a yell of
pain, and was over the wall in a second.  The boys followed, while a
volley of stones and curses came from the lane.  Aunt Charlotte was
left behind.  They heard her scrambling over the wall, the loose stones
rolling off as she scrambled, and as they ran they could hear her
panting: "My God, my God, this is awful!"

Two fields away the boys found Fly sitting on a bank nursing her leg.
"Did ye hear her takin' her Maker's name in vain?" said Patsy, and he
rolled on the grass with laughter.

"I niver seen ould Jane in better fettle," said Mick.

"If we'd had any wit we'd 'a' set Sammy on her too," said Fly.

"We'll do it yit," said Patsy, and there and then they began to run
like hares along the road to the cottage where Sammy lived.  Sammy was
an innocent, and lived in a one-roomed cottage on the roadside that was
entirely hidden from sight by the rowan-trees that grew round it.  He
was a little old man, who spent his days attending to his sister's pig.
There was not a more peaceable soul in the countryside, but on the
subject of the pig Sammy could be roused to fury.  He talked to it,
sang to it, fed it out of his hand.  When he walked about the fields
the pig followed at his heels, when he sat on the doorstep it lay at
his feet.  But if one of the village children threw a stone at it, or
if any threatened in joke to harm it, Sammy was beside himself with
rage, and it was an insult he never forgot.  Twice a week he came to
Rowallan for the refuse and broken meat, and, next to the pig, he loved
the children.  He was at home when they knocked at the door, and came
out at once.

"M-m-m-m-mornin'!" he stammered.

They were out of breath, and could hardly speak.  Sammy began to look
frightened; it was so easy to scare his few wits away.

"Oh, Sammy, she's comin' after yer pig," Fly panted.

"Wh-wh-wh-where?" Sammy shouted.

"Along the road," said Patsy; "she'll be here in a minute; a long
string of a woman with a black dress on.  She's clean mad to get at it;
ye'd better be out, an' chase her."

"L-l-l-l-let me at her!" roared Sammy, picking up his bucket.

"She's comin' to kill it, Sammy," said Mick; "she come all the way from
England to do it."

Sammy was dancing on the doorstep.  "Hide down behind the wall till she
comes," said Patsy, and they pulled Sammy down with them.

"Whist, Sammy; be quiet, man, till she comes," said Mick--for Sammy was
snorting and quivering.  "I'll give ye the word when I see her."

[Illustration: "Whist, Sammy, be quiet, man, till she comes," said Mick]

In about five minutes Aunt Charlotte came in sight.  They saw her
through the holes in the wall, limping slowly, and looking back over
her shoulder every few steps.  Her hair was down, and she was trying to
fasten it up.  Mick nudged Fly and Patsy not to speak, and gave Aunt
Charlotte time to pass the cottage before he said: "Here she comes,
Sammy."  Sammy jumped up, and out on to the road, waving his bucket
over his head, and roaring: "Ye-ye-ye-ye ould butcher, E-e-e-e-english
butcher, I'll-'ll-'ll-'ll bite ye."

There was a half-stifled scream as Aunt Charlotte turned for a second,
and the next moment she was out of sight.  Sammy danced on the road,
and yelled after her till he was hoarse, then he came back to where the
children were crouched down behind the wall.

"S-s-s-she was aff like the wind, af-af-af-fore I could touch her," he
said, "b-b-but I'll kill her th-th-the next time."

They shook hands with him, and told him he was a brave man.  Then they
went down to the sea, and bathed, and stayed out till it was tea-time.
Jane and Honeybird met them at the door when they got home.  "She's
away back to England," they chanted.

The others could hardly believe their ears.  "She came back all mud and
dirt," said Jane, "with her hair a-hingin' in her eyes, an' said we
were all haythens an' savages, an' she wouldn't stay another day in
this blackguardy country."

Lull questioned them while they were having supper.  "An' what an' iver
did ye do to send yer Aunt Charlotte home like thon?" she said.

"'Deed, we just tuk her to see Jane Dyer," said Patsy.

Lull looked at him for a minute.  "There's a hape a' wisdom in a
chile," she said at last.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH.

[Transcriber's note: the HTML version of this ebook contains page scans
of the publisher's catalogue.]

End of Project Gutenberg's The Weans at Rowallan, by Kathleen Fitzpatrick