The folk of Furry farm

Contents

PAGE

Introduction v

CHAPTER

Chapter I

There isn’t one now at Ardenoo that could tell you rightly about the Heffernans, or when the first of the name had come in upon the Furry Farm. People would remark that they were “the oldest standards about the place, and had been there during secula . ” And some said that in the real old ancient times, it was Heffernans that had owned the whole countryside, and had been great high Quality then, until they were turned out of their home, through their being Catholics. Of course such things did occur, but not often. There would not be many willing to be mixed up in such dirty work. And, moreover, those that came in on land in that way, mostly always did it to keep their place warm for whoever had had to quit out.

There’s a lot of nature in people, more than they get credit for. That’s how things don’t turn out as bad as you might expect very often. And of course along with all, there’s a great satisfaction in getting the better of the law.

It’s likely some friend of the Heffernans had stood to them in this way, when they had had to leave, and had just held the land for them, till they could slip back upon it again. But they had never said how it was. A queer, silent sort they were ever and always, that would never have much talk out of them about anything that would be going on, let alone about themselves.

But however it came to pass, at the time I am going to tell you about, there was nothing left of what had been once a very great fine kind of a place, only a bit of a ruined house, like, with the remains of a roof made of slabs of bog-oak over part of it, and it all reducing away under the weather.

Whatever it used to be, the Heffernans I knew would just fasten a calf in it, maybe, or put a goose to hatch there the way her mind wouldn’t be riz, it being a very quiet corner. And it was necessary to have every such little business as that going on at the Furry Farm, if you wanted to be able even to pay the rent, let alone live yourself out of the land. For the Heffernans had to pay rent now, as well as another ; and for land that was no great shakes, being very poor and thin. The best of it they never got back at all.

Betimes you’d hear it remarked in Ardenoo, how that they and their land were well matched. For if some of their bottom-land was sour, so was the Heffernan temper; and they could be as crabbed and contrary in their ways as the furze that was bristling over their own hills. And in another thing they were like their farm. Whatever treatment they got, that’s what they’d give. If you acted well by a Heffernan, they’d do the same by you; but they’d never pass over a bad turn; and, troth! there’s more than the Heffernans of the opinion that it’s only a fool that forgets! And so by their land. Hungry as it was, it would always return some sort of a crop, in proportion to the way it was tilled and manured. But it and its owners weren’t much to look at; you had to know them well, before you could find out the good there was in them.

In the course of time, there was a Heffernan in the Furry Farm, Michael by name, that was what you might call a chip of the old block. Quiet-going in himself, he was; silent and fond of industering; and a bit near about money, on the top of all. You’ll often see people like that; as if them that worked hard had no time for enjoying what they make ; whereas people that are poor and through-other will spend their last penny twice as free as what one like Heffernan would spend his first. And what’s more, they’ll get far better value out of it, too.

But that was just Michael’s way of going on; he’d sooner be putting up money in the old stocking than spending it on an odd spree. And he had every right to please himself. For he had no one else, barring a sister, older than himself, and twice as curious in her ways, and she with a tongue in her head as long as to-day and to-morrow. Many’s the time she let Mickey feel the length and breadth of it, but he had the fashion of never making her an answer, no matter what. It was the best of his play to say nothing. A man scarce ever can get the better of a woman that starts to give him a tongue-thrashing. Sure they do have great practice at it; and small blame to them! isn’t it the only thing they can do, to have their say out? Heffernan held his whisht in particular, because he knew well what would happen. The sister would get that outrageous mad with him, when she couldn’t make him as angry as herself, that she’d have to quit out; go away for weeks at a time she would, to friends in Dublin. Then poor Mickey would have great ease.

As far as she was concerned, that is, for he’d have the place to himself. But he never slackened on the work, only would be at it, early and late; so much so, that the people would be wondering why he’d bother his head with it all.

“And he ’ithout one in it, only himself!” they’d cry; “and no signs of he to be looking out for a wife, either! A middling stale boy poor Mickey should be, at this present!”

That was true enough, and along with that, he was no great beauty, to look at. The sister was worse again; as ugly as if she was bespoke. Still in all, she never gave up all hopes of she getting married. But that’s the way with a-many a one, as well as Julia Heffeman.

Well, there came the day that she riz a shocking row all out with Mickey; and for what, neither man nor mortal could tell; no, nor Julia herself, let alone Mickey. Off with her, to some third or fourth cousin of theirs in England.

“Luck’s a king and Luck’s a beggar!” says she;

“and a body never knows whose flure it’s waiting on, for you!”

“Sure it’s leaving it behind you, maybe, you are! going off that-a-away in such a hurry!” says Mickey.

Not but what he was praying for she to be gone. But he knew if he let on to her how anxious he was to get shut of her, the sorra toe she’d stir. The same as if you were driving a pig. You must pull it back, if you want it to go on.

“Leaving it behind me, indeed!” says she; “no, but it’s hardship and a dog’s life I’m leaving! I’ve stopped here long enough, slaving the skin off me bones for ye!” says she.

So Mickey said no more, only drove her off himself on the side-car to the train, with her box; and when she was gone, “A good riddance of bad rubbish!” said Mickey to himself; and was getting up on the car again, when he perceived on the platform, as if he was after getting off the train, a young boy, a sort of a cousin of his own, by the name of Art Heffeman.

They passed the time of day, of course, and then had some further discourse, and it appeared that Art was out of a job. He had no means, no, nor a home; not one belonging to him any nearer nor Mickey. All his people were either gone to America, or to the old churchyard of Clough-na- Rinka, he said.

So Mickey then preffered him the chance of coming back with him to the Furry Farm for a bit, till he’d have time to look about him.

“I don’t mind if I do,” says Art; “but if I stop awhile and work about the place, what will you do for me in the way of payment?”

“Duck’s wages; the run of your bill,” says Mickey.

“Throw in a shuit of clothes and a pair of brogues, twice a year; and the grass of the little heifer I have, ” says Art, “and I don’t mind trying how we’ll get on for a bit. ”

Mickey agreed to that. He was at a short at that time, with Julia gone off, and no one likely at hand to do the work about the house, let alone the farm. And Art was well worthy of what he got. He was a smart, willing boy; able and ready to put his hand to whatever was required to be done about the whole place. And Mickey was contented with him. By this plan, he hadn’t to pay out money in wages; a thing he never had any wish for was, to part money.

It all went on very well. Art worked early and late, and was always agreeable and civil-spoken; so that the two of them, Heffernans both, appeared always to be the best of friends. And the people began saying among themselves, that Art was as apt as not to be coming in on the Furry Farm, when the present man would be done with it. That would be natural enough. But the thing turned out very different, in the heel of the hunt, from what any one was laying out then about the Heffernans.

There chanced to be a poor widow woman living in a little bit of a house that was edged in upon the Furry Farm. She paid some small trifle of rent to Mickey for it and a garden there was to it. She had no one in this living world in it only herself and a young slip of a girl, a daughter of hers.

In a case of the kind, you’ll mostly always find there will be some one or other ready to do the lone woman a good turn, such as the lend of a hand in the getting of the turf, and the planting of the potatoes, and so and so on. And Heffernan that was always counted to be a good enough neighbour, in his own way, would say to Art of an evening, “When you have this, that, and th’other done . . . the pigs fed, and the horses made up for the night, and water and turf left into the kitchen, you may’s well take and mosey off down to the Widdah Rafferty’s, and see does she want a hand with anything there.”

“All right!” Art would cry, he being, as I said, a very willing, handy boy, ready for any job as soon as he’d have the one in hand completed. So off he’d go; and Mickey would sit down in the chimney-corner, and light his pipe, and swell himself out with the satisfaction of thinking how that the poor widdah’s work was getting done, and still he to be at no loss in life about it.

This went on for some time, till Heffernan began to take notice how that Art appeared to be getting more and more anxious for his evening job.

He thought this over for a while, and then says he to Art: “You’re in a tearing hurry to-night to get all done,” he says ; “ and to be off from about the place, ” says he; “I doubt did you take time to more than half milk them cows ! ” he says.

“The cows is right enough!” says Art, and he scrubbing away at himself with a lump of yellow soap, and pumping water over himself till you’d think he wanted to flood the yard.

“And where’s the sense in going to all that nicety?” says Mickey, “and you about planting praties! washing your hands and face, no less, as if it was a Sundah morning!”

Art got very red, but he made Mickey no answer, nor never did. He just put the spade on his shoulder, and h-away with him to the Widdah Rafferty’s.

When he came back that night, “I dunno in this earthly world what you do be at, at all at all,” says Mickey to him, “but it appears as if your whole illemint was for Rafferty’s and spending your time doing the work there. A body would think that the girl there should be middling sizeable and strong by this, and able to do her share of whatever small matter of business they’d have in a place of the kind, and for they to not be looking for so much assistance. It was another thing altogether, while she was a child!”

Thinks Art to himself, “It was, so!” and out loud says he, “I never do go in it, only when the day’s work here is over. ”

This vexed Mickey ; for wasn’t it as much as to say, up to his face, that he begrudged the widdah woman what Art did for her; whereas he had no objections in life to it, as long as his own business wasn’t interfered with. There’s plenty of that kind of good-nature in the world ; the same as the ii way people have of giving away things they can’t use themselves, and then they expect great praise for doing what costs them nothing. But sure, you mightn’t expect too much from the likes of Heffernan.

He said no more then, only the very next evening a while after Art had quit off to Rafferty’s didn’t Mickey make up his mind to take a waddle off there himself, and see what was going on.

“An’ a fine evening it is, too,” he says to himself, quite cheerful-like; “and the ground in the finest of order for getting in the spuds. ” 1

For it was one of those long, clear spring’s days, when the birds are just beginning to tune up, and you can imagine to see a growth in the grass, and a change taking place upon the trees and hedges, as if some one was hanging veils of purple and green between you and them. But the sorra leaf is out on them yet! There’s nothing to be seen only bare branches, and the sting of winter is in the wind still. The days does be long and bright, so much so that a body is apt to imagine that the hard weather is all gone away, and that there’s to be nothing only what’s warm and pleasant from that out. And still in all, it’s the lonesomest time,

1 Potatoes.

and the time you’ll fret the most, of the whole year.

Heffeman had none of these things in his mind, and he making his way along to the Widdah Rafferty’s; only planning he was how to get up a-nigh it, without he to be seen himself.

It was along a bit of a boreen 1 the house was; and as Mickey came within sight of it, “I see no signs of work to be doing presently in this garden ! ” says he, and he craning his neck, and making himself as small as he could. And what he was after saying was true enough. You could just take notice of Art’s spade, stuck up straight in a halfdug furrow. But sight nor light of man nor mortal there wasn’t to be seen in the garden that Art was supposed to be planting.

On steps Heffeman; and now he begins to hear the pleasant little hum-hum of a spinning-wheel. The sound of it inside must have deadened the noise of his brogues and he going along the rough boreen, so as that he was enabled to get up close to the house annonst-like, and have a peep at what was going on there, without any one knowing he was in it at all.

Well, he looked in, and troth, there was no delay on him to do so. He mightn’t have been so

1 Lane- way.

cautious. For the people inside were too much taken up with themselves and their own goings-on to think of looking round for any one else.

There was the Widdah Rafferty, sitting in the chimney-corner at her wheel; but the sorra much spinning she was doing, with the way Art had her laughing, going on with his antics, himself and the daughter. In spite of all the hardship, Mrs. Rafferty was a very contented sort of a person, never going to meet trouble, as the saying is. Laughing at Art she was, and her daughter, Rosy. The two of them were sitting on a form, letting on to be very hard at work, cutting the seed potatoes, and they with a kish 1 upon the floor foreninst them, to throw the seed into, according as they’d have it ready.

“That’s never Rosy Rafferty ! ” thinks Heffeman to himself. Mickey, as you know, was never one to be having much discourse with the neighbours, beyond that he’d just pass the time of day with them. And that’s how he had never chanced to see the girl, no more than that he might meet her now and then, going along the road, with her shawl over her head, and her eyes on the ground, and she with the mother, on their way to Mass. Poor and

1 Basket.

all as the Widdah Rafferty was, she made a shift someways or other to rear this one child of hers very nice and tender. She’d never agree to let her go off to dances at the cross-roads, or the like of that, without she could be with her, herself. And in troth, Rosy Rafferty was as beautiful a young creature as ever the sun shone down upon; with cheeks like hedge roses, and a pair of big, soft eyes that you’d think . . . well, in fact, it would be a thing impossible to put down upon paper what such a girl looks like. Every eye forms a beauty for itself. What delights me, you wouldn’t maybe give a thraneen 1 for. But it was given up to Rosy that there wasn’t the peel of her in all Ardenoo, in the regard of looks, and along with that, she was as shy as a filly, and as sweet as a little bird.

To Mickey Heffeman in especial, that had never passed much remarks about any girl, it appeared something altogether strange and new, to see the bright little face of her, shining there in the dim, smoky cabin, like a lovely poppy among the weeds of a potato-patch.

“Mind yer eye!” she was saying to Art, “or you’ll cut the hand off of yourself!”

“Which eye?” says Art, and he with his own

1 Stem of grass.

two eyes turned full upon Rosy; and, in troth, what a fool he’d be to have them anywhere else; “ which eye do ye mane? Is it the eye in me head, or the eye in me hand I’m to mind? ” Meaning, of course, the bud of the potato he was after cutting. “Och, begorra! there’s the knife after slipping on me. ...”

“ There now!” says Rosy, “didn’t I tell you!” and with that she turns gashly pale, at the sight of the blood. So it was the mother that had to see to Art’s wound. She stopped the wheel, and came over to look at it.

“Phoo! what at all!” she says; “sure, that’s a thing of nothing! It will be well afore you’re twice marrit!”

“I dunno about that!” says Art, not wanting to be done out of Rosy’s commiseration; “there’s an imminse pain in it at this present. ”

“Think as little of that as I do, and there won’t be a bother on ye ! ” says the Widdah ; ‘ ‘ and what’s this you’re after giving me to bandage it with, Rosy? Sure it’s not your good silk hankercher that I bought for you, off of Tommy the Crab, only last Easter was a twelvemonth! Pshat! girl dear, won’t any old polthogue do well enough for that cut thumb of Art’s!”

At this word, Rosy whips the purty little scarf into her pocket, and she with cheeks upon her as red as scarlet. Well ! to see the look Art gave her! If Rosy was a Queen, and she after offering to bestow her crown upon him, he couldn’t have appeared more thankful and delighted. And sure, may be after all, a Queen would have one crown for using every day, and a good one laid by for Sundays as well ; whereas, all the neckerchers that Rosy had in this wide world was just that pink one the mother had bought her out of Tommy the Crab’s basket.

Well, that all passed off, and when the mother was back at her wheel, and Rosy beginning on the praties again, says she to Art, Rosy I mean, “You’ll cut no more seed here to-night,” she says, “and you may’s well be making the road back to Heffernan’s short now as you’re no more use here,” says she.

“Is ‘that all you want wid me?” says Art; “if so, it’s as good for me to be off at wanst, as to be staying here, and wearing out me welcome!”

“What a hurry you’re in!” says Rosy then to him, and she looking up at him with a laugh in her eyes that would coax the birds off of the bushes;

“but sure maybe it's what you’d liefer, to be back with Mr. Heffernan beyant. ...”

“Is it him?” says Art; “troth, it’s him that’s the quare ould company to spend an evening wid ! and no more diversion in him, nor there’s fur on a frog. ...”

Art was at this time picking the praties out of the sack, and handing them to Rosy according as she’d be ready to cut them. And this was to help on with the work, by the way of; but every time he done that, wouldn’t he double his big fist over her little fingers and hold them tight, the way he’d get her to look up at him; and then they’d both take to go laugh.

“ Look at that, for a Murphy ! ” says Art, holding up a big potato ; queer and lumpy and long-shaped it was; “isn’t that the very livin’ image of ould Mickey himself! See here; the big nose . . .

and the weeny slit eyes, like pig’s eyes . . . and the mouth, like nothing so much as a burst slipper . . . ” and that was all true enough.

“You’ll see likenesses that-a-way often,” says the Widdah Rafferty, checking the wheel to join in the chat; “ I remimber to see a head of cabbage wanst, flat Dutch it was, and it as like ould Father Mulhall as could be, the heavens be his bed, I i8 pray ! very round-about and fat in the body he was. And that kittle there, hasn’t it the very appearance upon it of ould Tommy the Crab? wid the quare pintey little nose of him? And that puts me in mind . . . it’s time to be wettin’ the sup of tay. Off to the well wid the two of yiz . . . . ”

Heffernan outside the door heard this, and waited for no more, only slipped off, quiet and easy, afore any of them had put a stir upon themselves. And that gave him no trouble; for Art and Rosy were that taken up with one another, that the Widdah had to chastise them more than once, afore she could get them to go. So Heffernan was able to quit, without being seen by any of them.

He had heard all he wanted ; ay, and more than he liked ! But divil’s cure to him ! what call had he to take and go listen to what wasn’t meant for him ! He was all in a flutter and he going off home with himself. He didn’t like being made fun of; and faith! there’s few of us does! But that was the least part of what was working in his mind, like the wind on a field of ripe oats, twisting and turning it hither and over. And the storm that was stirring Heffernan ’s thoughts was, the look of Rosy and she sitting there smiling up at Art. That was what had him upset.

Young boys and girls are a bit too ready to forget that a man’s courting days doesn’t be always over, when the grey begins to show in his beard. No, in troth! and so by Heffernan. There was a warm stir about his heart and he stepping along up the boreen, back to his own place, and a feel like the spring sunshine came over him, and he tried to sing a bit of “The Bunch of Green Rushes, ” but sure he hadn’t it right, nor couldn’t remember it, he hadn’t heard it those years past.

When he got back to his own place, what should he do, only root out a little cracked looking-glass that had been thrown by since God knows when! He took it down off of the top of the dresser, and he rubbed the dust from it with the sleeve of his old coat, and then he went over to the door with it in his hand, to get the last of the daylight on it, the way he’d see did he look as old all out as he knew himself that he was.

Well, what he seen there was no ways encouraging; so he flings the glass back again, and goes over to the chimney-corner, and sits down. It was just the end of the day, as I said; the light was beginning to fail, and still there was too much of it for him to want to shut up the house or go light a candle, or that. And it was too cold for a body to care for being outside, unless they had some business to attend to.

So Mickey just sat there, with no one only himself, in the dusky kitchen; and all the cheerfulness he thought to see before was gone. The place seemed to him to have a desolate appearance upon it, that he had never noticed before. But the sorra change was on it, no more than the night will have got any darker really, when you go out into it after you being for a while in a room that was full up of light. It was himself that was different, after seeing into Rafferty’s, where the fire was small enough, God knows ! but the hearth was swep’ up tidy and nice. The table was old and shaky there, but it was scoured as white as the snow. And the wheel was singing its own little song of cheerful work, and there was talk and laughing going on ; and, above all, the gay shining little head of Rosy, that lit it up, like a bit of sunshine come down out of the skies. Whereas Heffeman’s kitchen was all through-other, just as they had got up after their dinners . . . plates and pots and praty-skins all lying hither and over. The fire was nigh-hand out, and it all as silent as the grave.

“And not a sod of turf left in!” says Heffeman to himself ; “ that’s a nice way for Art to be leaving the place, and he ped to mind it!”

Out with him to the clamp, to get an armful of turf; and didn’t the two pigs meet him full, and they coming back from the garden, after they rooting there to their heart’s content.

“There’s more of it, now!” he thinks to himself; “and a nice job I’ll have of it, striving to get them back to their sty ! Bad scran to Art ! I never seen such work! Cock him up, indeed! going off to his randy -voos , instead of minding his business!”

But it was really himself that Mickey ought to have blamed in regard to the pigs, with his fidgeting about and not fastening the door of the pigsty right, that had a loose hinge and required humouring, and had a right to be mended, along with all. But to the day of his death, Heffeman blamed them pigs on Art. And, still, he never let on a word to him of what was after happening about them. He was too angry, besides having a slow tongue. It was only in to himself he’d talk and argue.

“ I wondher, now, what else Art neglected here, ” he thought, “to make off wid himself to Rafferty’s! How anshis he is, about the Widdah’s work 1 In troth, it’s kissin’ the child for the sake of the nurse he is! Coortin’, are ye? Maybe there’ll be more nor one word to be said about that! I might manage to clip yer wings for ye, me boyo, as sure as there’s a leg in a pot ! And of all the chat he was having out of him . . . ! But sure Art could talk down a hedgeful of sparrows, anny day of the year!”

There’s the way he kept thinking over the thing, and there’s how he began first having a bad suspicion of Art, that the poor boy never earned. But just because he never spoke of what was in his mind, it kept rolling over and over there, till there was nothing so bad but what he thought Art was capable of it.