The Catholic World Volume I Part 97

Old Murdock had never seen young Lennon dance until that night, and so far as he could judge, "he was not the man that Tom need be afraid of." He had often seen Tom's best dancing, and certainly nothing which young Lennon had exhibited there up to that time could at all touch it.

"Come, Tom," said he, "give the girls a specimen of what you can do, your lone," and he laid the poker and tongs across each other in the middle of the floor.

Paddy Murrin struck up a spirit-stirring jig, which no one could resist. The girls were all dancing it "to themselves," and young Lennon's feet were dying to be at it, but of course he must wait.

Indeed he was not anxious to exhibit in opposition to his host's son, but feared his reputation as a dancer would put him in for it.

Tom Murdock having been thus called on, was tightening the fung of one of his pumps, to begin. Turning then to Murrin, he called for "the fox-hunter's jig."

He now commenced, and like a knowing professor of his art "took it easy" at the commencement, determined however to astonish them ere he had done. He felt that he was dancing well, but knew that he could dance much better, and would presently do so. He had often tried the "poker and tongs jig," but hitherto never quite to his satisfaction.

He had sometimes come off perfectly victorious, without touching them, but as often managed to kick them about the floor. He was now on his mettle, not only on account of Winny Cavana, but also because "that whelp, Lennon, was looking on, which he had no right to be." For a while he succeeded admirably. He had tipped each division of the cross with both heel and toe, several times with rapid and successful precision; but becoming enthusiastic, as the plaudits pa.s.sed round, he called to Murrin "to play faster," when after a few moments of increased speed, he tripped in the tongs, and came flat on his back upon the floor. He was soon up again, and a few touches of the clothes-brush set all to rights, except the irrepressible t.i.tter that ran round the room.

Of course there was an excuse one of the fungs of his pump had again loosened and caught in the tongs. This was not merely an excuse, but a fact, upon which Tom Murdock built much consolation for his "partial failure," as he himself jocosely called it; but he was savage at heart.

There was a general call now from the girls for young Lennon, and "Emon-a-knock, Emon-a-knock," resounded on all sides. He would not rise, however; he was now more unwilling than ever to "dance a match,"

as he called it to himself, with his host's son.

The "partial failure" of his rival--and he was honest enough to admit that it was but partial, and could not have been avoided--gave him well-founded hopes of a triumph. He too had tried his powers of agility by the poker and tongs test, and oftener with success than otherwise. It was some time now since he had tried it, as latterly he had not much time to spare for such amus.e.m.e.nts. He was unwilling, but not from fear of failure, to get up; but no excuse would be taken; he was caught by the collar of his coat by two st.u.r.dy handsome girls, and dragged into the middle of the room. Thus placed before the spectators, he could not refuse the ordeal, as it might be called.

He had his wits about him, however. He had seen Tom Murdock whisper something to the piper when he was first called on to stand up, and it {660} proved that he was not astray as to its purport.

Recollecting the jig he was in the habit of dancing the poker and tongs to, he asked the piper to play it. Murrin hesitated, and at last came out with a stammer that "he hadn't it, but he'd give him one as good," striking up the most difficult jig in the Irish catalogue to dance to.

"No," said Lennon stoutly, "I heard you play the jig I called for a hundred times, and no later than last night, Pat, at Jemmy Mullarky's, as I pa.s.sed home from work, and I'll have no other."

"I took whatever jig he happened to strike up," said Tom with a sneer.

"You might have had your choice, for that matter, and I daresay you had," replied Lennon, "and I'll have mine! It is my right."

"If a man can dance," continued Tom, "he ought to be able to dance to any jig that's given him; it's like a man that can only say his prayers out of his own book." And there was a suppressed smile at Lennon's expense.

He saw it, and his blood was up in a moment.

"He may play any jig he chooses now," exclaimed Lennon, "except one, and that is the one _you_ told him to play," taking his chance that his suspicions were correct as to the purport of the whisper.

"I'll play the one I pled for the young masther himself; an' if that doesn't shoot you, you needn't dance at all," said Murrin, apparently prompted again by Tom Murdock.

This was a decision from which no impartial person could dissent, and Lennon seemed perfectly satisfied, but after all this jaw and interruption he felt in no great humor to dance, and almost feared the result.

As he stood up he caught a glance from Winny's eye which banished every thought save that of complying with that look. If ever a look planted an undying resolve in a man's heart it was that. It called him "Emon" as plain as if she had spoken it, and said, "Don't let _that fellow_ put you down," and quick as the glance was it added, "he's a nasty fellow."

To it now Emon went with his whole heart. He cared not what jig Pat Murrin played, "or any other piper," he was able for them.

At first the quiet tipping of his heel and toe upon the floor, with now and then a flat stamp which threw up the dust, was inimitable. As he got into the "merits of the thing," the music was obliged to vie with him in activity. It seemed as much as if he was dancing for the piper to play to, as that the piper was playing for him to dance.

Those who were up to the merits of an Irish jig, could have told the one he was dancing to if there had been no music at all. There was a tip, a curl, or a stamp for every note in the tune. In fact he played the jig upon the floor with his feet. He now closed the poker and tongs with confidence, while Tom Murdock looked on with a malicious hope that he too would bungle the business; and Winny Cavana looked on with a timid fear of the same result. But he danced through and amongst them as if by magic--a toe here, and a heel there, in each compartment of the crossed irons with the rapidity of lightning, but he never touched one of them.

"Quicker! quicker," cried Murdock to the piper, seeing that Lennon was perfect master of his position.

"Aye, as quick as you like," stammered Lennon, almost out of breath; and the increased speed of the music brought forth more striking performance, testified to by the applause which greeted his finis.h.i.+ng bow.

He caught a short glance again from Winny's eye, as he pa.s.sed to a vacant seat. "Thank you, Emon, from my heart," it said, as plainly as the other had spoken when he stood up.

It was now well on in the small hours, and as old Murdock and his son had both ceased in a manner to do any more honors, their silence was accepted as a sort of "notice to quit," {661} and there was a general move in search of bonnets and cloaks. Tom Murdock knew that he was in the dumps, and wisely left Winny to her father's escort. Lennon's way lay by the Mulveys, and he was "that far" with Kate and some others.

Indeed, all the branch roads and pathways were echoing to the noisy chat and opinions of the scattered party on their several ways home.

CHAPTER VIII.

The after-reflections of those most interested in the above gathering were various, and it must be admitted to some extent unsatisfactory.

First of all, old Murdock was keen enough to perceive that he had not furthered his object in the least by having given the party at all.

From what Tom had told him he had kept a close watch upon young Lennon, of whose aspirations toward Winny Cavana he had now no doubt, and if he was not sure of a preference upon her part toward him, he was quite certain that she had none toward Tom. This was the natural result of old Murdock's observations of Winny's conduct during the evening,--who, while she could and did hide the one, could not, and did not, hide the other.

Tom Murdock was the least satisfied of them all with the whole business, and sullenly told his father, who had done it all to serve him, that "he had done more harm than good, and that he knew he would, by asking that whelp Lennon; and he hoped he might never die till he broke every bone in his body. By hook or by crook, by fair means or foul, he must put a stop to his hopes in that quarter."

His father was silent. He felt that he had not advanced matters by his party. Old Cavana was not the sharp old man in these matters, either to mind or divine from how many points the wind blew, and quietly supposed all had gone on smoothly, as he and old Murdock wished.

Winifred had been more than confirmed in her dislike to Tom Murdock, while her secret preference for Emon-a-knock had been in no respect diminished. She had depth enough also to perceive that Kate Mulvey was anxious enough to propitiate the good opinion, to which she had taken no pains to hide her indifference. She was aware that Kate Mulvey's name had been a.s.sociated with young Lennon's by the village gossips, but she had seen nothing on that night to justify any apprehension, if she chose to set herself to work. She would take an opportunity of sounding her friend upon this momentous subject, and finding out how the land really lay. If that was the side of her head Kate's cap was inclined to lean to, might they not strike a quiet and confidential little bargain between them, as regarded these two young men?

Kate Mulvey's thoughts were not very much at variance with those of her friend Winny. She, not having the same penetration into the probable results of sinister looks and scowling brows; or not, perhaps, having ever perceived them, had thrown one of the nicest caps that ever came from a smoothing-iron at Tom Murdock, but she feared he had not yet picked it up. She was afraid, until the night of the party, that her friend and rival--yes, it is only in the higher ranks of society that the two cannot be united--had thrown a still more richly trimmed one at him; but on that night, and she had watched closely, she had formed a reasonable belief that her fear was totally unfounded. She was not quite sure that it had not been let drop in Emon-a-knock's way, if not actually thrown at him. These girls, in such cases, are so sharp!

The very same thought had struck her. She also had determined upon sounding her friend Winny, and would {662} take the first favorable opportunity of having a confidential chat with her upon the subject.

The girls were very intimate, and were not rivals, only they did not know it. We shall see by-and-by how they "sounded" each other.

Young Lennon's after-thoughts, upon the whole, were more satisfactory than perhaps those of any of the other princ.i.p.al persons concerned. If Winny Cavana had not shown him a decided preference over the general set of young men there, she had certainly been still less particular in her conduct and manner toward Tom Murdock. These matters, no doubt, are managed pretty much the same in all ranks of society, though, of course, not with the same refinement; and to young Lennon, whose heart was on the watch, as well as his eyes, one or two little incidents during the night gave him some faint hopes that, as yet at least, his rich rival had not made much way against him. Hitherto, young Lennon had looked upon the rich heiress of Rathcash as a fruit too high for him to reach from the low ground upon which he stood, and had given more of his attention to her poorer neighbor Kate Mulvey. He, however, met with decided reluctance in that quarter, and being neither cowardly, ignorant, nor shy, he had improved one or two favorable occasions with Winny Cavana at the party, whom he now had some, perhaps delusive, notion was not so far above his reach after all.

These are the only persons with whose after-thoughts we are concerned.

There may have been some other by-play on the part of two or three fine young men and handsome girls, who burned themselves upon the bar, and danced together after they became cinders, but as they are in no respect mixed up with our story, we may pa.s.s them by without investigating their thoughts, further than to declare that they were all well pleased, and that the praises of old Murdock's munificence rang from one end of the parish to the other.

CHAPTER IX.

I must now describe a portion of the garden which stretched out from the back of old Ned Cavana's premises. A large well-enclosed farmyard, almost immediately at the rear of the house, gave evidence of the comfort and plenty belonging not only to the old man himself, but to everything living and dead about the place; and as we shall be obliged to pa.s.s through this farm-yard to get into the garden, we may as well describe it first. Stacks of corn, wheat, oats, and barley, in great variety of size, pointed the pinnacles of their finis.h.i.+ng touch to the sky. Sticking up from some of these were sham weather-c.o.c.ks, made of straw, in the shape of fish, fowl, dogs, and cats, the handiwork of Jamesy Doyle, the servant boy,--the same black-headed urchin who lifted the tenpenny-bit out of the tub at old Murdock's party. They were fastened upon sticks, which did not turn round, and were therefore put up more to frighten away the sparrows than for the purpose of indicating which way the wind blew, or, more likely still, as mere specimens of Jamesy Doyle's ingenuity. The whole yard was covered a foot deep with loose straw, for the double purpose of giving comfort to two or three litters of young pigs, and that of being used up, by the constant tramping, into manure for the farm; for cows, heifers, and calves strayed about it without interruption. A grand flock of geese, as white as snow and as large nearly as swans, marched in from the fields, headed by their gander, every evening about the same hour, to spend their night gaggling and watching and sleeping by turns under the stacks of corn, which were raised upon stone pillars with mushroom metal-caps, to keep out the rats and mice. A big black c.o.c.k, with a hanging red comb and white jowls, and innumerable hens belonging to him, something on the Brigham Young system, marched triumphantly about, calling his favorites {663} every now and then with a quick melancholy little chuckle as often as he found a t.i.t-bit amongst the straw. Ducks, half as large as the geese, coming home without a feather raffled, in a mottled string of all colors, from the stream below the hill, diving, for variety, into the clean straw, emerging now and then, and smattering with their flat bills in any little puddle of water that lay between the pavement in the bare part of the yard. "Bullydhu," the watch-dog, as evening closed, taking possession of a small wooden house upon wheels,--Jamesy Doyle's handiwork too,--that it might be turned to the shelter, whichever way the wind blew. It was a miracle to see Bully getting into it, the door was so low; another piece of consideration of Jamesy's for the dog's comfort.

You could only know when he was in it by seeing his large soft paws under the arch of the low door.

Beyond this farm-yard--farm in all its appearance and realities--was the garden. A thick, high, furze hedge, about sixty yards long, ran down one side of it, from the corner of the farmyard wall; and at the further end of this hedge, which was the square of the garden, and facing the sun, was certainly the most complete and beautiful summer-house in the parish of Rathcash, or Jamesy Doyle was very much mistaken. It also was his handiwork. In fact, there was nothing Jamesy could not turn his hands to, and his heart was as ready as his hands, so that he was always successful, but here he had outstripped all his former ingenuity. The bower was now of four years' standing, and every summer Jamesy was proud to see that nature had approved of his plan by endorsing it with a hundred different signatures. With the other portions of the garden or its several crops, we have nothing to do; we will therefore linger for a while about the furze hedge and in "Jamesy's bower" to see what may turn up. But I must describe another item in the locality.

Immediately outside the hedge there was a lane, common to a certain extent to both farms. It might be said to divide them. It lay quite close to the furze hedge, which ran in a straight line a long distance beyond where "Jamesy's bower" formed one of the angles of the garden.

There was a gate across the lane precisely outside the corner where the bower had been made, and this was the extent of Murdock's right or t.i.tle to the commonalty of the lane. Pa.s.sing through this gate, Murdock branched off to the left with the produce of his farm. It is a long lane, they say, that has no turning, and although the portion of this one with which we are concerned was only sixty yards long, I have not, perhaps, brought the reader to the spot so quickly as I might. I certainly could have brought him through the yard without putting even the word "farm" before it, or without saying a word about the stacks of corn and the weather-c.o.c.ks, the pigs, cows, heifers, and calves, the geese, ducks, c.o.c.k, and hens, "Bullydhu" and his house, etc., and with a hop, step, and a leap I might have placed him in "Jamesy's bower" if he had been the person to occupy it--but he was not. With every twig, however, of the hedge and the bower it is necessary that my readers should be well acquainted; and I hope I have succeeded in making them so.

Winny Cavana was a thoughtful, thrifty girl, an experienced housekeeper, never allowing one job to overtake another where it could be avoided. Of course incidental difficulties would sometimes arise; but in general she managed everything so nicely and systematically that matters fell into their own time and place as regularly as possible.

When Winny got the invitation for Mick Murdock's party, which was only in the forenoon of the day before it came off, her first thought was, that she would be very tired and ill-fitted for business the day after it was over. She therefore called Jamesy Doyle to her a.s.sistance, and on that day and {664} the next, she got through whatever household jobs would bear performance in advance, and instructed Jamesy as to some little matters which she used to oversee herself, but which on this occasion she would entrust solely to his own intelligence and judgment for the day after the party. She could not have committed them to a more competent or conscientious lad. Anything Jamesy undertook to do, he did it well, as we have already seen both in the haggard, the garden, and the tub--for it was he who brought up the fippenny-bit at Murdock's, and he would lay down his life to serve or even to oblige Winny Cavana.

Having thus purchased an idle day after the party, Winny was determined to enjoy it, and after a very late breakfast, for her father, poor soul, was dead tired, she called Jamesy, and examined him as to what he had done or left undone. Finding that, notwithstanding he had been up as late as she had been herself the night before, he had been faithful to the trust reposed in him, and that everything was in trim order, she then complimented him upon his snapping and diving abilities.

"How much did you take up out of the tub, Jamesy?" she asked.