Gems of the bog;

Front matter

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Contents

XXV. A Consecrated Life, .

XXVI. Visit from Friend and Foe, . XXVII. Going to America,

XXVIII. A rAiNFUE Parting, .

Chapter I. The First Families Of Killyrooke

The picturesque little hamlet of Killyrooke consisted of one long row of straw-thatched cottages, eacli having its garden patch stocked with potatoes and cabbages, and graced by a pig-pen. In most of the dwellings a hole in the wall sufficed for a window, wliile the floor was only the hard-beaten earth. Art had never entered Killyrooke ; but nature, so lavish of her bounties to all beautiful Ireland , had not forgotten this remote and quiet nook. The green lawns, tlie fields of flax and barley, the high old hedges, the bluest and brightest of waters, flie blackest and richest of bogs had

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charms unutterable for the hearts of her simple children. As the Switzer mourns for his mountains, and the Icelander for his snows, so they, when exiled, mourn for their native bogs.

The society of Killyrooke, humble as it was, boasted of its distinctions as much as did that of neighboring towns. The farmer — so called — sat upon the pinnacle of the little social fabric. He leased a bit of land, and owned a donkey, two or three cows, and pigs whose name was legion. The next grade were the laborers, many of them meriting that name only in harvest, living as they did in idleness and want most of the year ; while the lowliest of all were the professional beggars, who lived on the bounty of the gentry and larger farmers in the surrounding region, and who made their headquarters in Killyrooke, finding shelter in dilapidated huts and cow-houses, or with the tender-hearted peasants.

At one end of the long street lay in quiet beauty the little ‘‘ Lough,” a heritage of mercy to the people. Beside its bright* waters the ruddy daughters of the hamlet met once a week to wash their garments and to gossip over affairs of common interest. All day these nymphs stood knee deep in the water, splashing it about, either in work or play, while their plaintive Irish airs, chanted in time with their rubbing, and their merry wild laughter, woke the echoes from the neighboring hills. The washing done, they spread their clothes on the bright turf around the ‘‘ Lough,” and then sat down to wait for sunset, which always brought brothers, friends and lovers, as well as the older people, who came from curiosity to see and hear all that interested the girls and boys. What “ Change ” is to the city merchant, what the tavern and the store are to the remote villager, what the “ sewing-society ” is to ladies among us, the Lough was, at the time of which we write, to the dwellers in Killyrooke. Here the old men bargained for donkeys and discussed the probable price, of potatoes; here the young “boys” planned long tramps to fairs and horse-races, and ex-

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changed soft words with the ruddy-cheeked girls resting on the green banks. And in the background the mothers whispered their secrets of joy or woe in each other’s ears, and the grandmothers — always the nursery-maids among the the lowly Irish — swung themselves to and fro, wailing the babies to slumber, and varying their motion and tlieir music by an occasional blow or epithet aimed at the older urchins, who thwarted their efforts by tickling the toes of the drowsy infants.

We have said there was an aristocracy in this humble Killyrooke. It comprised the rival houses of Sheehan and O’ Gorman, and arose mainly from the fact that their ancestors had more land and better cottages than their neighbors, and that their dwellings alone had each a glass window to admit the liglit and to exclude the rain. But alas for human greatness ! There must be always some drawback to its perfect enjoyment. These families had for generations been bitter rivals as well as equals, and the distinction enjoyed by both above tlieir neighbors could not atone for the lieart-burnings and envy on the one hand, and the wounded feelings on the other.

But at the time when our story begins, the equality was broken, and the rivalry was waning. Sloth had taken captive the representative of the O’ Gormans ; while that “ which biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder ” had bound in its not less ruinous coil the wife, Biddy. Thus nine young scions of the house were left without care or restraint, save the brawlings exchanged between themselves, and the beatings bestowed on the younger eight by the first-born of the family, Nan, a bright girl of seventeen.

Nan O’ Gorman was very fair, having in some way monopolized all the beauty in the family. Once in a while the dying energy of her race would suddenly flash up in her breast, and for days she would scrub and sweep the cottage, wash the children’s faces, switch the pigs from the door-way, and begin to spin yarn for the winter’s stockings. Then the embers would die out, and Nan was off to a race oi

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a sliow, returning in sucli company and at such a time as jdcased herself. Meanwhile the little ones got a meal, or a crust, or went suppcrless to bed, according to the quantity of whiskey their mother had been able to procure. Is it any wonder, then, that the clay chimney had fallen, and that the envied glass window had been boarded up for want of panes ?

While the O’ Gormans were thus falling to decay, the Sheehans, who lived across the way, still prospered in worldly things, and kept up their honor and their name. Prudence and industry, long the guardians of their humble dwelling, still spread their wings above it ; plenty blessed the cottage and the land, and none in want were ever sent empty from the door.

There was not, and never had been, one point on which these two families could meet in sympathy. “We are no farther apart now,” said John Sheehan, the farmer of Daisy Farm, “ than wo iver war. The O’Gormans have been Papists since the time when there war darkness on the face o’ the deep, as mentioned in Scriptur’, and the Sheehans have been Protestants since the day in which God said, ‘ Let there be liglit.’ ”

But neither of these men, we are sorry to say, Avas a consistent defender of his own faith ; for while Pat 0’ Gorman would roll up his sleeves and figlit in defence of the “ mother church ” and all her mummeries, he lived in utter disregard of tlie decalogue she commanded him to obey. And John Sheehan, with the Assembly’s Catechism on his tongue, and a hatred of all Popery in his heart, was only a self-righteous Pharisee, walking in the light of the fire his own hands had kindled. He gloried in his laming,” in his Protestantism, in his Scotch descent, in the piety of his parents, in the respect paid him in the little Presbyterian church of the next town, and in every thing he had and did. He lacked humility, and was in great danger of striking a rock, as he sailed on with his eyes shut to the dangers around him. He was blind while boasting of his clear sight ; dead in sin while he fancied himself a living and active member, to whom

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tlie ‘‘ body of Christ ” was under great obligation. It’s a fine thing to be a Christian,” he said, “ but a finer thing to be a rispectible Christian.”

But, for all this self-deception, John Sheehan led a very different life from his neighbor. The dormouse-like existence of O'Gorman we have mentioned already. John Sheelian, like his ancestors, was noted for his mercy to the poor and his strict attention to his own business. It was his proudest boast — and John was a proud man — that his ancestors were all of his own way of thinking, and that the greatgreat-grandfather back of them all, Hugh Mc- Millan, was a Scotch Covenanter; and that while a drop of that holy blood was left in his veins he would hate sin and cleave to temperance and virtue; and that no beggar or outcast should be sent hungry from his door ; he would feed and shelter Protestants for their own sakes, and Catholics for the love of God, who made and bears with them.

Daisy Farm was well-tilled, and divided by wide ditches and hedges of long growth, and

John’s harvests were always the richest in the region. His cattle were well fed and housed, and treated almost like members of his family. Not seldom did he address a restless cow in soft tones, saying, Gently, dear, gently.” He was the soul of good nature, so that the O’ Gormans had found it much harder keeping up enmity with him, than with his stern, resolute old father before him. It was very hard to hate the man who called their dirty children “ dearies,” and who fed them with gingerbread.

As John kept up the reputation of the farm, so did his wife that of the dairy and poultryyard. His aged mother was still regarded as head of the family, and treated with a deference amounting to veneration. Her husband, while he lived, had always called her “ Honey,” so her dairy-maid and the farm-servant fell into the way of calling her “ Misthress Honey,” and to John she had always been “Mammy Honey.” And when John brought a young mistress to the cottage, the good woman found herself called “ Mammy Honey,” by way of

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distinction from the new Mistress Sheehan, by all Killyrooke. Never was a sweet name more justly applied. Her gentleness, love of peace and true generosity had long made her a wonder— almost an object of awe — among lier neighbors. To her was due the peace which had cheered the last hours of the old rivals — her husband and the father of Pat O’Gorman, — and her soft word had often turned away from John and his wife the wrath of the present occupants of the ruined cot.

Mammy Honey was not merely a good-tempered woman ; she possessed a strong mind and a noble heart. The stern blood of the old McMillans flowed through her veins, and the faith which had enabled them to sing psalms of triumph in the face of their foes still burned in her heart and lighted up her eyes. Had she lived in the days of the Covenanters, rather than have yielded her conscience to a tyrannical king she would have added her blood to that wh^ch then moistened the Scottish moors.

For fifty years, since she came a bride to

Killyrooke, Mammy Honey had walked blameless among her neighbors, yielding her interests, her feelings, every thing but her conscience, for peace’s sake. While no bitter words ever escaped her lips against the prevailing religion, she set her face with Puritanic firmness against all wliich she believed to be heresy, so that while serving and watching, as had always been her wont, by the sick-bed of her neighbors, she had never suffered her eyes to look upon, nor her ears to hear, the forms and mummeries which she regarded as the idolatry forbidden in the Word of Truth.

While the thriftless women about her envied her neat cottage, her fruitful garden, and her whole glass window, they loved her, and, aside from the rival O'Gormans, there was scarcely one in the hamlet who would have listened silently while her name was lightly spoken ; a few were even sensitive, for her sake, when the church of her love was reviled.

When, arrayed in her brown Sunday gown, and cloak of duffle gray, with her broad frilled cap bound to her head by a black ribbon, and

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leaning on John’s strong arm, Mammy Honey walked erect and firm to the little Presbyterian church at Cloynmally, she looked like a duchess in disguise rather than like the humble peasant she was.

One Sunday morning as she set off thus, her farm-servant, Paddy Mannon — of whom more anon — exclaimed to a trail of companions who passed on their way to mass, while he, easy soul, saj astride the stile gazing at them, ‘‘ Look at her, b’ys, this gold morning ! Heaven smile on her beauty! Sure, thin, she was made for a throne, but sint in mistake to a farm ; and will ye dare to say that because she turns her back on the church, and ‘ his riverence,’ and the saints, and the pictiirs, and the beads, that she’ll not enter heaven ? ’Dade I’ll fight the first one as dares say it ; and I’ll bet my new brogues with any of ye that there’s not as fine-looking a woman in heaven now as herself is — the bet to be paid when we gits there and proves it.” And Paddy winked at his comrades, to impress them with his shrewdness, while they laughed and called back, “ How comes it, Paddy, that ye ’bides in the true church yerself, while ye believe that Protestants will enter heaven as well as ourselves ? ”

“ How is it, indade ? ” replied Paddy. “ It’s because I was born in it, and can’t throw it off like my coat, and I wouldn’t if I could, be so mane. I’m not plazed with the freckles on my face, but do ye think I’m going to skin myself to get clear o’ them ? I don’t like these dull little eyes o’ my own, but do ye think I’ll pull them out o’ my head for that same ? Indade, no ! I stands on my honor, I does, in this matter o’ religion ; and though themselves has fed, and clothed, and rared me from a starved workhouse-child. I’ll not throw up my religion to plaze them. I’m great on conscience, and I’m not the b’y to sell my principles for a home, my birthright for a bowl o’ porridge, as one mean-sperited lad in the Scriptur’ did ; not I.”

Paddy was a man made up of contradictions. He was faithful to tne Sheehans but he was so careless of the poor wages he earned that

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he either gave or threw them away as soon as he got them. He had a wife and child, and would go almost wild with joy when they came to see him, but if months elapsed without a visit, he never sought them out, nor felt any anxiety for their welfare. He made all manner of sport of his riverence and the church,” but almost fell on his knees at sight of the priest, and shook with fear when rebuked by him for unfaithfulness. He was as lighthearted as the colt he was rearing, and felt no more care for the future. It was joy enough for him to live, and “ sarve Misthress Honey.”

Chapter II. A New Mistress

JOHN Sheehan had lived many years after his father’s death with no companion but his mother and Paddy Mannon. Being of a very social nature, he sometimes complained that the cottage was “ a dale too silent and lone ” for him; and yet he had reached thirty without a thought of marrying. When one suggested tliat he needed a wife, he would ask, with filial jealousy, “ Do ye see any thing goin’ wrong about the cottage or farm, that a wife could mend ? And where would I ever find a woman tliat would bide bein’ subject to Mammy Honey ? And that every body about me shall be, while Heaven spares her — the darling.”

He had scarcely uttered these words to a neighbor who was bantering him one day, when he drove off to sell five lovely young pigs ”

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to Farmer Doane, a prosperous man in the next county. Arrived there, he received a welcome both as merchant and as guest, and after pocketing his silver, took his place at the long deal table, on which smoked the sweet bacon, potatoes and cabbage raised on the farm. Here his eye fell on Peggy O’ Canty, a young orphan who assisted the good wife in the dairy, and wliom the worthy couple always addressed as Peggy, jewel.” He stole one sly glance at her as she poured out the buttermilk at table, and another when he left the kitchen to accompany Doane to the cow-house ; and then he mustered courage to ask her name and history.

In a marvellously short time John had pigs to sell again, to the great amazement of Mammy Honey, who looked upon it very much like selling her relations ; and in this second visit to Doane’s he fairly lost his heart, and came home laying plans to brighten up the cottage, and buy a new donkey-cart and a suit of “ younger-lookin’ clothes.”

When he got Paddy Mannon off to his bed

A MISTJiESS.

ill the loft tliat night, John opened his mind to his mother, dwelling on Peggy’s charms of face, and manner, and heart, as if he had known her for years, while the truth was he had never yet spoken to her ! ‘‘ And now,

Mammy Honey,” he said, ‘‘ here’s the way open for me to have company, and for ye to have help in the cottage and the dairy ; what would you say to my bringing her here ? ”

I’d think well o’ it, John,” replied the old woman, “ if I knew she war a humble. Godfearing child, for it’s such a one ye need, and not a flighty thing that would be running off to fairs and races and leading ye farther off from God — which same is unneedful. Ye must ride over to Doane’s some day and ask him is the girl a Protestant and a Christian, and does she mind her duty humbly, as if she felt the Masther’s eye on her. And more, John, dear, ask is she tinder and loving ; for I could nivcr give ye up without getting back love as my payment ; for ye are all I have left in the world, now ! 0, lad, it’s a great thing for a mother

to give her only son to another woman, and

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one she niver saw ! But as I have not been a selfish mother, no more will I be now ! May ten thousand blessings rest on ye both, darling, and may I live to see ye happy together.”

John soon “ got leave of his mother” — he was a man of six feet two, weighing two hundred pounds ! — ‘‘to ask a line of character from the minister of Oloynmally to Peggy’s master, begging his leave to marry her.” Hitherto Peggy had never heard of his intentions, and was quite amazed when her master explained matters to her in presence of the suitor. After John had left the house, she expressed great surprise to her mistress why such a fine, settled body should be looking after a poor, foolish, shy thing like herself. But the acquaintance grew and ripened as well as it would have done environed by the strictest rules of etiquette. When at last the matter was settled, Peggy could hardly tell which she loved most, John or his mother. She was quite as proud of Mammy Honey — who had visited her with an offering of ten hanks of flax yarn, ten ells of linen and six pairs of

A I^EW MISTRESS.

stockings — as of her son, “ the fine settled masther.’^

When the marriage ceremony was over, John brought Pe'ggy home in the new donkey-cart, — the only equipage his establishment boasted. Mammy Iloney stood in the cottage door arrayed in her best cap and gown, to receive them, while Paddy Mannon, in his Sunday corduroys and brogues, took the donkey’s bridle, and stood waiting to witness Peggy’s reception.

Fflding the young orphan to her breast. Mammy Honey cried out, with the eloquence of her people, ‘‘ Blissed be the God and Father of the orphan, that has this day given ye a mother, Peggy O’Canty ! Blissed be the God and husband of the widow, that has this day given me a daughter, who never had a one before ! It is this old heart, jewel, l^at will hide ye where trouble can never find ye ; and it’s on yer lovin’ breast, mavourneen, that I’ll lean and forget there’s such things as old age and wakeness in the world.”

Then throwing her arms around the stalwart

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form of John, she cried out, ‘‘ Ye, darlin’, are the son o’ a righteous man, and have come of a long line o’ them that feared God. The promise to the seed o’ the rigliteous has been fulfilled to ye, and see now that ye ’bide in the fear o’ God and seek Him hencefortli with the whole heart. Look, boy,” she continued, “ and see what God has given ye to make your home shine like heaven, and to close the dying eyes o’ yer old mother ! God save ye, John, from ever piercing her heart with one sharp word. And now the grace o’ God Jjide on ye both and on this house ! ”

Peggy was a blue-eyed, fair-haired girl, “made of love, entirely,” John himself — and who should know better than he ? — being witness in the case. She loved everything, from John and his mother down to the ducks and the^chickens ; whatever had life shared in her love or pity. She now bound up her hair under a snowy cap, saying, “ As John are ten years older nor me, he’ll be plazed to see me layin’ off girlish ways and lookin’ sober-like.” She applied herself to her work with that

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glad spirit wliicli changes toil to a blessing, and soon became the model wife of the region. The whitest flax, the sweetest butter and the brightest hearth-stone were hers. But such was her humility that she took none of the credit, but always spoke of “ Mammy Honey’s silver flax ” and “ Mammy Honey’s golden butter ; ” and wondered why John ever chose her for his wife, and how Mammy Honey could bear so patiently with her slow ways, and never weary teaching her her own “ ilegant ” ones !

Many a richer and wiser bride has gone to her husband’s home without such a welcome as Peggy received at Daisy Farm ; many a mother has given away a son with no such return of love to cheer her declining days as that in which Mammy Honey now rejoiced, and for which she praised God in prayer and song, and thank-offerings to every beggar she could find. And the thatch, which she declared was ‘‘just full o’ the prayers of centuries,” sheltered a happier family than did the lofty dome and wainscoted walls of Harpley Hall, — the seat of

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the gentleman who owned and neglected Killyrooke, and the region between it and his fine mansion.

Years wore on at Daisy Farm. The family had their sorrows, but they were hardly worth, the name. John had lost a donkey one year and a cow the next, and Mammy Honey was afflicted by “gapes’’ among her feathered family, beside having a pet lamb mangled and torn by the ferocious dog of the O’ Gorman boys. But Peggy’s trials were the sorest, while she had the least strength to endure them. Her careless neighbor across the way was constantly accusing the innocent creature of trying to outshine her in the neatness of her person and in the order of her household, — a thing easily done by any one. The neglected little ones, catching the spirit of their mother, felt at liberty to annoy her also. The big boys stoned her ducks, stole her Christmas turkeys, and turned their half-famished pigs into her cherished cabbage garden. But, according to her first resolution, she returned good for evil, and, with the sympathy of Mammy Honey,

A HEW MISTBESS.

boro their insults with meekness and patience. • Once, sorely annoyed, she shed tears, when that old philosopher said, in soothing tones,

“ It’s yer oiild mammy that knows, mavourneen, how hard all this is to the flesh, for she’s gone through it for nigh half a cent’ry with the O’ Gormans in the grave and them alive ; and I can say this for my promise-keepin’ God, that so has He helped me through all these years that I never gave them back an angry word, or laid up one ha’ peth o’ revinge agin them, but always pitied them. And so I did, dear, till the pity turned to love, and in the end brought back love again. For when the ould mother o’ this man come down to death, it was I alone must smooth her pillow and mix her drink, and I — Protestant though I was — must close her eyes in death. She remembered how patient I had borne with her, and this was all the way she had o’ asking my forgiveness. And if she had not it would ha’ been all the same, for Crod never forgets, jewel! Patience with them will bring heaps of heaven’s gold into yer own heart, and ye’ll ^ find that even them is helpin’ ye on in the road to glory, by-and-by.”

And under such wise instructions Peggy took up the cross which the old saint was about laying down, and moved meekly on.

Now the cruel neighbor had one cause of boasting of which poor Peggy was very sensitive. She had, in her own words, “ nine as bulky childer as ye could find ony day at Blarney Pair.” Peggy had none, and John was fond of children even to a weakness. But the pure-hearted creature was resolved to turn even this bitter cup to one of sweetness, by her submission to God’s will, and her tenderness towards all little children. So, when her careless neighbor was away from home, she would call in two or three of the youngest of the flock, and after treating them to clean faces, would feed them with her sweet bread and milk, and keep them till John’s return from the field, knowing how fond he was of children’s prattle.

Once when “ the masther ” expressed pleasure at their frolicsome ways, she said, “ I’ll

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bring them over ony day, dear, to play with ye, but neither yer mother nor myself is plazed to have ye cross the street after them, nor yet to chat with their father as ye have o’ late ; ” for she had noticed that for the last few weeks O’Gorman had frequently called to him to come over and hear a letter from Jim, in “ Ameriky,” or to smoke a pipe with him. This was an unwonted civility which John had not power to refuse — indeed, he had not power to refuse anything to anybody. He had been held in by his stern father and his resolute mother from going among evil companions, but he had never yet learned to say “no” in his own name. And no man, however old he may be, is safe till he can do that.

Chapter III. Mammy Honey

DARK day comes sooner or later to every

Ja. dwelling. If no other shadow falls across its sunshine, death’s surely will, and sad indeed is the home over which his wing broods.

Mammy Honey was now nearing the end of her fourscore years. Her labors had been one by one relinquished ; her dairy was no longer inspected daily, the music of her flax-wheel had ceased, and lastly, the bright knitting-needles had been passed through the gray ball and laid away forever. But still her heart was fresh and warm, and therefore she had not outlived her usefulness ; there were yet some little acts of love which she could perform for her children.

But one night — a night never to be forgotten at Daisy Farm — she was prostrated by a

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sudden palsy, and became thenceforth like a helpless child in the care of Peggy.

It’s a life’s load ye’a got now,” cried out her hard-hearted neighbor to Peggy, the morning after this calamity. “ The Sheehans will get good pay out of ye now, for all the fine living ye've had there these last years! Och, but she’ll be a burden 1 ”

“ 0, no, don’t say that, neighbor,” replied Peggy. “ It’s such a burden as I pray God to let me carry to the end o’ my days. If He’ll only spare her to me. I’ll be the thankfulest child He has in all the wide world, and never weary o’ her day or night — the darlin’.”

“ Ye know well that this is a widow’s curse that has fallen on the ould body, o’ course ? ” asked Biddy 0’ Gorman.

‘‘ A curse fallen on her blissed head ? It can never be 1 ” replied Peggy, turning pale.

“ Yis that same,” repeated Mrs. Biddy. “ It was this way : When John and my husband were b’ys, there cam’ along ould Bet Mighoul tellin’ fortun’s, and as yer kitchen was the hugest in Killyrooke, she asked might the