Daniel Driscoll and his weeping son Mickey were not the only victims of feminine oppression in Ballinderg that Saturday afternoon; they but typified the general state of affairs, for in every cottage, an anxious, flustered woman was bustling back and forth from dresser to clothespress and from bedroom back to kitchen, and woe betide any unfortunate man or child or four-footed beast that got in the way of her flying feet!
On each side of the winding village street, the male portion of the community, apprehensive, subdued, and biddable, sat smoking their pipes under the projecting thatch of the cottages. The air was tense with expectation. Today no child loitered on an errand. At the first word of command, there was a flash of bare legs, a swish of red petticoat, and he was shot across the street from threshold to threshold with the speed and precision of field-gun practice.
And who could blame the busy mothers for their feverish perturbation! Wasn't the archbishop himself—not the bishop, mind you, but the archbishop—coming down on the morrow to the humble village chapel to give Confirmation to the children. Don't be talkin'! Wasn't Father Cassidy the clever man entirely to get such an honor for Ballinderg?
But, oh dear, the bother of it! What with the grandeur of white veils and wreaths for the girls and brand-new suits for the boys—shoes for a good many of them, too—the parish was fairly turned upside down and made bankrupt, so it was.
Late in the afternoon, Father Cassidy, tired and happy, having put the last touch to the decorations in the chapel and the last bunch of wildflowers in the altar vases, went cantering home along the gravel country lane on his black hunter, Terror.
He passed through the village and had almost reached the Ballymore crossroads when he spied, just ahead of him, a slim, barefooted little girl, trudging wearily along and carrying in her clasped arms a pair of brogues almost as heavy as herself.
"It's Bridgeen Daley," he muttered. "The kind Lord look down on that houseful of motherless children."
Father Cassidy reined in his horse beside her. "Is that you, Bridgeen?" he called. "Come here, asthore. Oh, I see ye've been to Neddy Hagan's to get yer father's brogues mended. I'm greatly afraid all this grandeur will be the ruination of us at last."
The little girl bobbed a curtsey and raised a pair of timid blue eyes to the priest's face.
"I hear everyone saying, alannah, what a grand little mother you are to the brothers and sisters since—your poor mother was taken away from you; and it's pleased I am and proud of you."
The ghost of a smile flickered a moment over the child's sensitive lips. Wasn't it the grand thing entirely to be praised like that by such a great man as Father Cassidy! But it's little he knew the trouble Bridgeen had with those same brothers and sisters; indeed, she was strongly tempted to tell him of the goings on of Jamesy. Musha, why shouldn't she tell him? When Daniel Casey, the tailor, went wrong with the drink, didn't his wife, Julia, call in Father Cassidy to put corrections on Daniel? And didn't it work wonders?
As if reading her thought, the priest bent low and looked almost deferentially into the innocent, blushing face. "I suppose it's great trials entirely you have with them, acushla?"
Thus encouraged, the colleen broke forth: "Jamesy's the worst, sir," she cried. "Even Paudeen, the baby, is more biddable—and Jamesy four years old yisterday and ought to have more sinse. But nothin' plazes him, yer riverence, but pokin' at the fire. Whin I go home now, I'll warrant it's hunkerin' in the ashes I'll find him. If yer honor's riverence'd only stop in and give him a spakin' to"—there was a little catch in Bridgeen's voice as she realized her boldness—"I'd—I'd take it kind."
Father Cassidy shook his head in sorrowful surprise. "Dear, dear, will you look at that now! I wouldn't have believed it of Jamesy, and him four years old, too. Wait till I lay me eyes on him! However, 'tis of yourself I'd like to be asking. Are you all ready for the Confirmation tomorrow? Have you yer white wreath and veil?"
Bridgeen's eyes dropped instantly, and she fell to digging in the turf with a bare toe. "No," she half-whispered, and her head dropped lower and lower.
Wasn't it a terrible thing to be the only girl in the chapel before the archbishop without a white wreath and veil! But, ochone mavrone, the pennies which her mother and she had so carefully hoarded for them had gone a fortnight ago to buy the makings of a sober, brown shroud with which to cover a quiet breast.
"Never mind, mavourneen," said Father Cassidy. "I've a plan. On your way home, do you be looking carefully under the hedge as you go along, and who knows but what you may meet up with the Leprechaun. Do you know what the Leprechaun is, Bridgeen?"
"Yis, sir—I mane, yer riverence—he's the sly, wee, fairy cobbler that sits undher a twig makin' shoes for the Little People; and if ye can only find him and kape yer eye on him the while, it's three grand wishes he'll give ye to buy his freedom."
"True for you, Bridgeen, but remember what a cunning trickster the lad is; if he can beguile you to take your eyes from him for a second, he's gone forever; don't forget that. I'm on now. Take the lane and hurry home, asthore, and I'll take the road and keep an eye out for him meself, an' whichever of us finds the Leprechaun first will go and tell the other." There was a laugh in Father Cassidy's eyes as he nodded good-day. Then something tinkled on the road at Bridgeen's feet. She stopped to pick it up. Wonders! It was a bright silver shilling.
"Thank you kindly, yer riverence," she gasped, but Father Cassidy was already galloping away, down the road, laughing softly to himself.
Look at that now, Father Cassidy himself to be talking of the Leprechaun. Why, then, in spite of what the schoolmaster said, there was truly such a little fairy man, dressed in a green cloak and red cap. It was no lie at all Tim O'Brien was telling. Dear, dear, wouldn't it be the grandest luck in the world if one could only—
"But sure, what good if I did meet up with him?" thought Bridgeen. "Isn't it too frightened to spake to him I'd be, let alone clever enough to make the like of him a prisoner? But the wishes! Oh, if I only could."
Bridgeen had heard a hundred times how years and years ago, it was a fairy thrush that had coaxed Tim O'Brien out of this same lane—in troth, almost from this same spot—across the fields to the fairy rath, where, Tim declared, he saw the Leprechaun. Now a thrush which had followed Bridgeen from the village, whirring in short flights along the top of the hedge, stopped on a branch just above her head and began singing fit to burst his swelling throat. And indeed 'twas he that had the fine, friendly song with him!
At first, it's little heed the child gave to the bird, for the priest's last words had raised a solemn wonder in her mind; for now, after what Father Cassidy had said, there could be no danger in asking from the fairy cobbler the favor of three wishes. Neither could it be wrong for one to search for the little fairy; didn't the priest himself bid her look carefully under the hedges, and didn't he promise to do that same? Well, wasn't it a queer world entirely!
By this time, she had reached the stile into Hagan's meadow, so she seated herself on the lowest step to think up the three best wishes and to rest her arms from the heavy brogues.
Wouldn't it be the grand fortune entirely to meet the Leprechaun? She turned a dozen wishes over and over in her mind. There was the wreath and veil for herself, of course, but then, on the other hand, there were potatoes and meal for next week, and barely enough turnips for the cow, and the turf down to the last row, and oh, so many needed things; but, above and beyond them all, one impossible, shining wish.
However, Father Cassidy had bidden her to hurry home, so, putting aside the pleasant wishes, Bridgeen slowly picked up the brogues from the grass where she had laid them and arose to go. As she did so, she cast anxious eyes at the big, red sun which was already sending slow-creeping shadows across the fields. And lo! as she looked, there arose sharp and clear before her the great dead tree off at the foot of the blue hills, the tree that marked the fairy rath where Tim O'Brien once had seen the Leprechaun.
"Why couldn't I
go there looking for him?" The colleen trembled with excitement. "But it would be dark before I could go to the fairy fort and back again," she thought, shrinkingly.
And the distant tree towered so gloomily, so lonesomely, so silently, that Bridgeen hesitated, with her foot on the stile. But only an instant did she pause, for the friendly thrush which had followed her down the lane from the village rose out of the hedge nearby and, with a coaxing, beguiling trill, darted away across the meadow toward the fairy sentinel tree.
"I do believe he's calling me," she whispered.
The cheery note of the thrush took much of the lonesomeness out of the gathering shadows, and Bridgeen, with an answering cry in her throat, quickly hid her father's brogues under the stile and, without so much as a glance behind, followed the bird's flight.
Eager and brave enough she ran across the fields after the twinkling brown speck which, with many excited calls and soft, coaxing trills, lured her straight as a sunbeam through the cool, damp grass. Out of the meadow over the upland Bridgeen sped down from the upland into the moor she flew. An astonished curlew sent up a reproachful cry, and the moor hens, indignant at this untimely intrusion, fluttered angrily out of the bog.
The wind beating against the girl's face as she ran blurred the sight of her wide, blue eyes; and by and by, because of a throbbing in her temples, the line between earth and sky began to waver unsteadily up and down. Then, too, a mysterious, shadowy form, invisible, but nevertheless strongly palpable to her excited imagination, peeped out of the ditch after she had passed, and she knew that another strange shape crouched hidden in the rushes.
But, in spite of all her fears, a new, wild hope lent fluttering courage to her heart and gave such strength of speed to her bare, brown feet that before Bridgeen realized how far she had traveled, the gray, withered sentinel tree flashed up from the ground in her path and stood towering high above her head.
With a quick clasp of her hands and a frightened little gasp, Bridgeen stopped short and looked timidly around. Well might she hesitate! Just a few yards beyond the tree, shadowy, dark, and dumb, crouched the low green mound which was famed through all the countryside as the Leprechaun's fairy fort.
There was not a man in the barony, let alone a child, foolhardy enough to venture to this spot after dark; and, yet here was Bridgeen standing alone in that very place, with the sun fast disappearing behind the mountains.
To gain a moment's courage, she turned and looked in the direction of the village. It seemed miles and miles away, and a soft, white mist was creeping low along the meadows, cutting her off from the world of living things. There was not a cricket's chirp to break the throbbing silence. Even a curlew's cry would have brought some comfort with it. As she listened, a chilling sense of utter loneliness fell upon her, and a nameless dread reached out and touched her like a ghostly hand.
Overcome by a shapeless fear, she turned to fly from the awesome spot, when, clear and cheery from a leafless bough above her head, the same thrush began to call. Bridgeen paused, wonderstruck, for the bird was now chirping as plainly almost as spoken words: "The Leprechaun! The Leprechaun!"
'Twas like a friend's voice in her ear and brought with it the recollection of the importance of her mission. She hesitated no longer. Stealthily and still half-afraid, she tiptoed her way over to the shallow ditch which ran about the enchanted place and, with many a shuddering glance, stepped slowly down. There was nothing there save mayflowers, ivy, and daisies.
It was in this very ditch that Tim O'Brien had seen the Leprechaun; Bridgeen remembered that well. Her heart beating like that of a captured bird, the child stood, with parted lips and panting breast, wondering whether she should go to the right or to the left, when the twigs stirred on the bank above her head, and glancing quickly up, she saw through the fringe of leaves two round, golden eyes peering down upon her.
For one horrified instant, Bridgeen stared fascinated at the eyes, and the eyes, fixed and unwinking, glared back at her. All power of motion deserted the child. Then a smothered cry broke from her lips. At the sound of her voice, a pair of slim ears popped straight up above the eyes, and a great brown rabbit sat up on his haunches and listened for a moment, greatly surprised. Then, as though reassured, he coolly turned and, with a saucy whisk of his fluffy tail, scampered out of sight.
With a quick laugh of relief, the nervous colleen wiped her lips with her apron and crept on her way round the fairy rath. She looked eagerly under every bush, and behind every clump of rushes, but found no sign of the Leprechaun. After making the circle, so tired was Bridgeen and so disheartened that she sat herself down to think. But lo and behold you, she had hardly time to settle herself comfortably, when from somewhere behind her came the tack, tack, tack of a little hammer!
She listened, every sense alert. There could be no mistake. From behind a sloe bush not five feet away, the sound came tinkling clear as a bell: tack-tack-tack-tack.
"Surely," said Bridgeen to herself, and she trembled at the thought, "it must be the Leprechaun!"
Then quietly, oh, so quietly, she stole over to the sloe bush and peeped cautiously behind it. There, in truth, was a sight of wonder. Seated on a flat stone and partly hidden by the grass, worked a frowning little bald-headed cobbler, not the height of Bridgeen's knee, hammering and stitching with all his might on a dainty wee slipper, the size of your thumb.
While Bridgeen stared, the fairy, frowning deeper still, began singing in a high, querulous voice:
-
Tick, tack, tickety, tack!
I've not a breath to lose;
Bad manners to their dancing,
But they're cruel on their shoes!
The quane plays on her silver pipes,
The king lolls on his throne.
But underneath the hawthorn three
I mend and moil alone.
-
He stopped singing. "All the rest of the world spendin' their lives in fun and jollity!" he muttered. "Wirra, wirra, I'm fair kilt with work, so I am." With a vicious bang of the little hammer he started again:
-
They trail their robes of shiny silk
Wear many a jeweled ring;
I'd make them careful of their brogues,
If I could be the king.
They ride the wind from cloud to cloud
'Mid wonder and delight,
But I must stitch the satin shoes
The quane will wear tonight.
The mist is on the spangled fields;
I'm perished with the frost!
If a mortal's eyes falls on me,
Tare an' ages, sure I'm lost!
He may ask for love and beauty;
Sure they always ask for wealth;
Much good in love or beauty Huh!
I'd rather have me health.
-
Tick, tack, tickety, tack—Suddenly, as if stuck by a pin, he sprang to his feet and turned, shaking his tiny hammer at Bridgeen. "What's the worruld comin' to," he shouted fiercely, "whin one of your age comes gallopin' and cavortin' over the fields to torture out of a poor ould man the favor of three wishes, you young r-r-rob-ber?"
"No, no, Misther Leprechaun, not that at all," Bridgeen hurried to say. "I don't want to force yer honor to do anything. I came only to beg from you one little wish. See, I will take my eyes from you, so that you may go away if you like; but, oh, it would be kind of you, indeed, indeed it would, to hear the wish before you go."
"Do! Take yer eyes from me! I dare ye!" snapped the little man.
And indeed, turn away her head she did; but when she looked back to the rock again, there still sat the little cobbler much as before, only now there was a friendlier light shining through his big spectacles.
"That was the daycintest thrick," vowed he, thumping the rock with his fist, "that I've seen a human crachure do in foive hundhred years. I mane whin ye turned yer head, mavourneen. By rayson, I've a gr-reat curiosity to know what
this one grand thing is that ye'd be after wishin' for. It's a crock o'goold, no doubt," he said, peering.
Bridgeen shook her head sadly and threw him a wistful look.
The Leprechaun dropped his chin into his hand and stared quizzically. "It's a coach an' four thin, I'm thinkin'," he ventured.
The sad, wistful look deepened on Bridgeen's face.
The Leprechaun puzzled a moment in silence and then spoke up quickly: "A-ha! I have it now! If it isn't a purty red dhress wid green ribbons, an' a hat wid a feather as long as yer arrum, thin I'm fair bate out!" exulted he, clasping his knee in his hands and leaning back.
The little girl still hesitated.
"Millia murdher! Isn't it that ayther? Out with it! Spake up!" he encouraged.
Bridgeen nervously plaited the corner of her apron in her fingers and answered, "It isn't any of thim things I want at all, at all," she hesitated. Then, boldly, "Of course, I need a white veil and wreath and dress for my Confirmation tomorrow."
"Oh my! Oh my!" broke in the Leprechaun. "The wreath, and the veil and the purty white dhress! Oh dear! Oh dear!"
The Ashes of Old Wishes Page 9
