Fairies and Folk of Ireland Part 10

She could say no more, and there was no more to be said. "You couldn't get the child, then," said the King, "and there's the end of it. n.o.body could, if they did all them things. I dunno how it is," the King went on, half to himself, "a child lies there with a pair of scissors open near by, and a horseshoe nail close to it--maybe hung around its neck--and a circle drawn around it with a coal of fire, and it never minds it at all. It sleeps and wakes and lies there as peaceful and happy and quiet as if there was nothing at all out of the common about it. I dunno how they can do it. They're queer people, these mortals. We can't get the girl. They was too clever for us. But we've got the boy, and we'll do the best we can with him."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ]

VI

LITTLE KATHLEEN AND LITTLE TERENCE

The next morning John O'Brien was sitting alone, when there was a knock at the door. Then Peter Sullivan opened it, said "G.o.d save all here!" and came in.

"G.o.d save you kindly!" John answered.

"It's distressed we are," said Peter, "to hear of the death of poor Kitty. Ellen would be here with me to tell you so, only bein' in bed herself and not able to stir, and what'll come to all of us I dunno.

I'm that disturbed about her I dunno what I'll do at all. I left her with one of the neighbors and came to see your mother about her. But sure it's you has the great grief on you already, whatever comes to us. It's not only you I'm thinkin' of, but it's the child, left with no mother. Oh, it's a terrible thing."

"My own mother can bring up any child," John answered. "Have no fear of that. It's us that knew Kitty that'll feel the loss of her."

"And how is the child doing, anyway?" Peter asked.

"She looks fine and healthy, glory be to G.o.d!" said John.

"It's a girl, they tell me."

"It is."

"Do you know yet what you'll call her?"

"We'll name her Kathleen, after her mother," said John.

"Then you'll be calling her Kitty, like her mother, I suppose."

"No--no," John answered, slowly; "I don't think I'll call her that.

The child will be always Kathleen. I dunno if I can tell you how I feel about that. It was a name for a child, more than a woman--Kitty--and yet, now that she's gone from me, I've a feeling like it was something more than the name of a woman--like it was something holy, like the name of the blessed Mother of G.o.d. When I think of that name now, I want to think only of her, and I wouldn't like to be calling even her own child by it. It's Kathleen I'll call her--nothing else."

"You're right about all that, no doubt," said Peter; "but I can't be staying here, and Ellen and the child at home the way they are. You have your child left, and you say it's healthy--thank G.o.d for that same!--but it looks like I might have neither wife nor child."

"Don't say that, man alive," said John; "what's the matter at all then?"

"I can't stop discoursin' here," Peter answered. "I came to ask would your mother, being a knowledgable woman, step over for a bit and see can she tell at all what's the matter with Ellen and the child. There was a doctor there, but he seemed to do no good, and Ellen said your mother would know more than all the doctors, so I came to ask would she come. And if you care to come yourself, I'll be telling you how they are as we go along, but I can't stay here; it's too long to be away from them."

"Mother is with the child," said John; "I'll speak to her."

He went into another room, where the baby was sleeping and his mother was sitting beside her. He told her why Peter had come. "Step downstairs," said Mrs. O'Brien, "and ask Mrs. Mulvey will she sit by the baby till I'm back. Then I'll go with him. And you'd better come, too, John; the air will do you good."

John went down to another of the tenements in the house and came back with their neighbor, Mrs. Mulvey. "If you'll be so kind," Mrs. O'Brien said, "sit here by the baby till I'm back, and I'll not be long. And mind you keep everything as it is, unless she wakes, and then you'll know what to do as well as I, for you've children of your own. But don't disturb the pair of scissors that's there beside her, and don't take off the horseshoe nail that's hung round her neck."

"And what's them things for?" Mrs. Mulvey asked, with wonder in her eyes.

"Why, to keep the Good People from stealing the child," Mrs. O'Brien answered. "Did you never hear of those things? Don't you know the Good People can't stand the touch of iron, or even to be near it? And especially a horseshoe nail they can't stand. And the scissors, too, they couldn't come near, and then leaving them open they make a cross, and that keeps the child all the more from the Good People."

John and his mother left Mrs. Mulvey with little Kathleen and went with Peter. "And what's wrong with Ellen, then?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.

"I dunno that there's so much wrong with herself, as you might say,"

Peter answered. "I think it's more than anything else that she's worried about the child."

"And what's wrong with the child, then?"

"There's everything wrong with the child," said Peter. "It's not like the same child at all. Last night he was as healthy a boy as you'ld wish to see--quiet and peaceable and good-tempered and strong-looking, for his age. And now this morning he's thin and sick-looking, and there's black hair all over his arms, and his face is wrinkled, like he was a little old man, and he does nothing but cry and scream till you can't bear it, and twist and squirm till you can't hold him. It's like he was fairy-struck, only I don't believe in them things at all."

"Did you watch him close last night?" Mrs. O'Brien asked.

"Part of the time," Peter answered, "but I dare say we was both asleep other times."

"Was Ellen careful about her prayers last night, and were you so, too?"

"I can't say about that," Peter said. "We might be letting some of them go, such a time as that, you know, and make it up after."

"Yes," said Mrs. O'Brien, "make it up after by losing your child! Was there any iron anywhere about him?"

"I don't know that there was."

"And did you make a circle of fire about the place where he was lying?"

"I did not."

"The child's not been struck," said Mrs. O'Brien; "not the way you mean. It's not your child at all, but one of the Good People themselves, that's in it. They've stolen your child and left a changeling in the place of it."

"It's the same way you always talked, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter. "I don't believe them things."

They had come to Peter's door by this time. They found Ellen lying in bed, looking frightened half to death, and beside her was the baby, or the fairy, or whatever it was. It was not crying loudly now, but it was keeping up a little whining and whimpering noise that was quite as unpleasant to listen to as a good, honest cry. Its face looked thin and pinched and old; it had a little thin, wispy hair on its head where no baby of the age that this one was supposed to be has a right to have any. Its arms and hands were thin and bony. It looked weak and sick, but it was rolling and wriggling about in the liveliest way. It would give a spring as if it were going straight off the bed upon the floor, and when poor Ellen caught at it to save it, it would roll back toward her, stop its crying for a second, and seem to be laughing at her, and then it would do the same thing again.

"It's plain enough," Mrs. O'Brien said, as soon as she saw it. "It's one of the Good People. But it's quick enough we'll be rid of it and have back your own child. Bring me some eggs."

"I'll have nothing of the sort now," said Ellen. "It's bad the poor child is with some sickness or other, but it's my own child, and I'll have nothing done to it that's not to do it good. If you know anything that'll help it, Mrs. O'Brien, tell me that, but don't be sayin' it's not my child."

"I'll not hurt the child, whatever it is," said Mrs. O'Brien, "but there are ways to tell whether it's your own child at all or one of the Good People. If you find it's one of them, then it's easy to do more, but in the meantime it's not harmed."

"I'll not have you trying any of them things," said Ellen. "I'll not have you saying it's not my child, and I'll not be thinking of such a thing myself. You see how poor and sick it's looking. If there's anything you can do for the child, do it, but don't be talking that way any more."

"Ellen," said Mrs. O'Brien, "you don't know what you're talking about at all. Wait now till I tell you what was told to me when I lived in Dublin, and I think that it was not far from there that it happened.

It's about a woman that talked as you do. A sailor's wife she was, and there was a child born to her while her husband was away at sea. She thought he'ld be home soon, and so she wanted to put off the christening of the child till he'ld be back. So she waited and waited for a long time, and her husband did not come. The neighbors told her she was doing wrong to wait so long and she ought to have the child christened before anything would happen to it. But she wouldn't listen to them.

"So it went on for a year and a half, and still the father didn't come home. But the boy was healthy and happy, and the mother never had any trouble with him. But the trouble came. One day she'd been working in the field, and she came home, and as soon as she was in the house she heard crying from the bed where the child used to sleep. She ran to look at him, and he lay there, looking sick and thin and weak, the way your boy does, and crying that he was hungry. He was like her child and he was not like him. He'd grown so pale and bad-looking that she thought he'd had a stroke from the Good People. But she went to get him some bread and milk, and she asked her other boy, that was about seven years old, when it was and how it was that he began to be sick.

"'I left him playing near the fire,' the boy said, 'and I was in the other room. And I heard a rus.h.i.+ng noise, like a great flock of birds flying down the chimney, and then I heard a cry from my brother and then again the noise, like the birds were flying out at the chimney again. And then I ran in and found him there the way you see him now.'