Read Ebook: Fairies and Folk of Ireland by Frost William Henry Burleigh Sydney Richmond Illustrator

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Kas vain, suuren halkolaatikon kansi oli auki. Ville koetteli k?dell??n halkolaatikkoa. Ei kapulaakaan.

-- "Min?h?n tahdoin, ett? olisimme eilen tuoneet yhden kuorman lis??", h?n nyr?hti itku kurkussa.

-- "Enn?tet??np? t?ss?", tuumaili Olli vet?stess??n nahkahiihnan viel? yht? reik?? tiukemmaksi kiinitt?m??n lyhyenlaista ruskearuutuista p??llysnuttuaan, joka ennen muinoin, ammoin sitten oli pitk?n? komeana matkanuttuna seurannut Vihtori-enoa Englannista.

-- "Sen koommin en en?? siihen nappia ompele", oli ?iti jo menn? talvena tuskitellut. "Ne kest?v?t kuitenkin vain sen ajan, jonka nuttu naulassa riippuu. Ollin on mahdotonta oppia vaatteitaan hoitamaan."

Ollipa l?ysi hiihnan ja py?r?ytti sill? nuttunsa kiini. Se oli yht? hyv? kuin monet napit ja n?ytti miesm?iselt?. Niinh?n ne rengitkin pitiv?t pakkasella. Kun nuttu sit? paitsi ei milloinkaan en?? napittamisen takia puristanut, ei my?sk??n huomannut sen kapenemistaan kapenevan, mik?li Ollin selk? levisi ja h?n itse tanakoitui ja py?ristyi. Olipa tosiaankin vaikea uskoa h?nt? kymmenvuotiseksi. Ja jollei h?n aina olisi pysynyt Ville? tuumaa lyhemp?n?, ei kukaan olisi aavistanutkaan, ett? h?n oli kokonaista vuotta nuorempi, p?iv?lleen vuotta nuorempi.

-- "Melkeinp? kuin kaksoset", virkkoi ?iti, kun puhe siihen kantautui, "ainoastaan kahden tunnin ero. Mutta Olli oli kookkaampi. Oi, semmoinen lihava m?sseli! Mutta kiltti h?n oli niin? aikoina. Vain nukkui ja s?i ja s?i ja nukkui. Ei h?n milloinkaan edes hiiskahtanutkaan."

Toiset h?nt? muistivat kiusata, ett? h?n vain "nukkui ja s?i ja s?i ja nukkui."

-- "El? ole mill?sik??n", is? lohdutteli. "Siit? voimistuu. Ja Suomi tarvitsee vahvoja k?sivarsia ja leveit? hartioita. Paljo t??ll? on teht?v??: laajat alat raivattavat ja syv?t ojat kaivettavat, hallasuot h?vitett?v?t."

Jollei tuuli olisi ollut niin pureva, eiv?t Ville ja Olli olisi pakkasesta v?h??k??n v?litt?neet. Eip? tainnut olla kuin kaksitoista astetta, ja olihan usein ollut kaksikymment?kin, jopa kerran kolmekinkymment?. Mutta tuuli oli kiusallinen. Se nipisti nen?? ja korvia ja pisteli tuhansin neuloin poskia ja silm?in ymp?ryksi? ja joka paikkaa, mihin se vain p??si tai ylti. Olli veti hattunsa reuhkat korvilleen, niin ett? silm?t vain kapeana viiruna n?kyi, ja kompastui suurine saappaineen kynnysrautaan.

-- "Kyll?p?s nyt on pime?", h?n ?r?hti. "Voisi se kuitenkin hiukan paremmin valasta tuo kuu-polonen."

-- "El? niin sano", neuvoi Ville, "saattaa synniksi lukeutua. Kummankos vuoro on olla hevosena?"

-- "Tietysti minun", Olli vastasi yrme?sti. "Kenenk?s muuten!"

Ville oli jo aukassut keitti?n korkeiden portaiden alla olevan heid?n oman s?ili?ns? oven ja vet?nyt sielt? halkokelkan. Jollei olisi ollut niin h?m?r?, olisi ken hyv?ns? voinut n?hd?, ett? se oli huononpuoleinen vanha kelkka, johon Ville ja Olle olivat laittaneet aisat ja v??nt?neet vitsakset kaplastenp?iden v?liin aivan niinkuin miesten ty?reiss?.

Viel? vitkastellen ja vastahakoisesti aisoihin astuessaan oli Olli hyvin vihainen. Mutta niin pian kuin h?n oli valjaissa, ei h?n ollutkaan en?? Olli, vaan virke? ja vallaton nuori hevonen, Ilo, joka hirnahdellen ja p?? painuneena kohotteli polviaan, t?misytti jalkojaan ja halkoreki per?ss??n porhalsi poikki pihamaan, niin ett? lumi ymp?rill? pyrysi. Villell?, joka ajoi, toisin sanoen piteli kelkkaa kaplastenp?ist?, oli t?ysi ty? pysytelless? mukana, ja jyrk?ss? k??nteess? pirtin nurkkauksessa sai h?n olla varoillaan, ettei tyhj? kelkka kaadu.

Huimaavaa vauhtia tallin ohi kiit?ess??n he kuulivat Antin siell? puuhaillessaan viheltelev?n, ja hevosten kavioiden lakkaamaton kopse kuului pilttuista. Olli s.o. Ilo hiljensi kulkuaan, heit?ls't Ireland always the poor, unhappy country, and all the people in it, only the landlords and the agents, and why should we think it will ever be better?"

"Everything has an end," the old woman repeated. "Ireland was not always the unhappy country. It was happy once and it will be happy again. It's not you, John O'Brien, that ought to be forgetting the good days of Ireland, long ago though they were. For you yourself are the descendant of King Brian Boru, and you know well, for it's many times I've told you, how in his days the country was happy and peaceful and blessed. He drove out the heathen and saved the country for his people. He had strict laws, and the people obeyed them. In his days a lovely girl, dressed all in fine silk and gold and jewels, walked alone the length of Ireland, and there was no one to rob her or to harm her, because of the good King and the love the people had for him and for his laws. And you, that are descended from King Brian, ask if Ireland wasn't always the poor, unhappy country."

"But all that was so long ago," said John; "near a thousand years, was it not? Since then it's been nothing but sorrow for the country and for the people. What good is it to us that the country was happy in King Brian's time? Will that help us pay the rent? And how we'll pay the rent when the winter comes, I dunno, and if we don't pay it we'll be evicted."

"Shaun," said his mother, calling him by the Irish name that she used sometimes--"Shaun, we'll not be evicted; never fear that. Things are bad, and they may be worse, but take my word, whatever comes, we'll not be evicted."

"Mother," said the young man, "you never spoke the word, so far as I know, that wasn't true, but I dunno how it'll be this time. We've been workin' all we can and we only just manage to pay the rent and live, and here's the summer over and the winter coming, and how will we pay the rent then?"

The mother did not answer this question directly. She began talking in a way that did not seem to have anything to do with the rent, though it really had something to do with it, in her own mind, and perhaps in her son's mind too.

"It's over-tired that you are with your hard day's work, Shaun," she said, "and that and seeing Kitty so tired, too, has maybe made you look at things a little worse than they are. We've never been so bad off as many of our neighbors; you know that. And yet I know it's been worse of late and harder for you than it might have been, and you can't remember the better times that our family had, and that's why you forget that the times were ever better. No, you wasn't born then, but the time was when good luck seemed to follow your father and me everywhere and always. Yes, and the good luck has not all left us yet, though we had the bad luck to lose your father so long ago. We could not hope to be rich or happy while the whole country was in such distress as it's been sometimes, yet there were always many that were worse off than we, and when I think of those days of '47 and '48 it makes the sorrows seem light that we're suffering now. And I always know that whatever comes, there'll be some good for me and mine while I live. I've told you how I know that, but you always forget, and I must tell you again."

They had not forgotten. They knew the story that was coming by heart, but they knew that the old woman liked to tell it, so they let her go on and said not a word.

For a little while, too, the old woman said not a word. She sat with her eyes closed, and smiling, as if she were in a dream. Then she began to speak softly, as if she were still only just waking out of a dream. "Blessed days there were," she said--"blessed days for Ireland once--long ago--many hundreds of years. O'Donoghue--it was he was the good King, and happy were his people. A fierce warrior he was to guard them from their enemies, and a just ruler to those who minded his laws. It was in the West that he ruled, by the beautiful Lakes of Killarney. The rich and the poor among his people were alike in one thing--they all had justice. He punished even his own son when he did wrong, as if he had been a poor man and a stranger.

"He gave grand feasts to his friends, and the greatest and the best men of all Erin came to sit at his table and to hear the wise words that he spoke. And the greatest bards of all Erin came to sing before him and his guests of the brave deeds of the heroes of old days and of the greatness and the goodness of O'Donoghue himself. At one of these feasts, after a bard had been singing of the noble days of Erin long ago, O'Donoghue began to speak of the years that were to come for Ireland. He told of much good and of much evil. He told how true and brave and noble men would live and work and fight and die for their country, and how cowards would betray her. He told of glory and he told of shame. He spoke of riches and honor, and poetry and beauty; he spoke of want and disgrace, and degradation and sorrow.

"Those who sat at his table listened to him in wonder. Sometimes their hearts swelled with pride at the noble lives and deeds of those who were to come after them, sometimes they wept at the sufferings that their children were to feel, and sometimes they hid their faces from each other in shame at the tales of cowardice and of treachery.

"As he finished speaking he rose from the table, crossed the hall, and walked out at the door and down to the shore of the lake. The others followed him and watched him, full of wonder. They saw him go to the edge of the lake and then walk out upon it, as if the water had been firm ground under his feet. He walked far and far out on the bright lake as they stood and gazed at him. Then he turned toward them, he waved his hand in farewell, and he was gone. They saw him no more."

The old woman paused for a moment and the dreaming look came back to her face. Then she went on. "They saw him no more--but others saw him--and I have seen him. Every year, on the 1st of May, just as the sun is rising, he rides across the lake on his beautiful white horse. He is not always seen, but sometimes a few can see him. And it always brings good luck to see O'Donoghue riding across the lake on May morning. And I saw him."

Again there was a pause, but she had no look of dreaming now. Her eyes were open and she seemed to be looking at something wonderful and beautiful that was far off. Slowly and softly she began speaking again. "I was a girl then. My father lived by the Lakes of Killarney. On that May morning I was standing at the door as the sun was rising. I was looking out upon the lake, far away to the east. The first that I saw was that the water, far off toward the sun, was ruffled, and then all at once a great, white-crested wave rose, as if a strong wind had struck the water, only all the air was still, and no wind ever raises such a wave as that on the lake. The wave came swiftly toward me, and I drew back, in a kind of dread, though I knew that it could not reach me where I stood. But still I looked--and then I saw him.

"Through the flying water and foam and mist I saw the old King, on his white horse, following the great wave across the lake. The sun made all his armor gleam like the silver of the lake itself, and the plume of his helmet streamed away behind him like the spray that a strong wind blows back from the crest of a breaker. After him came a train of glowing, beautiful forms--spirits of the lake or of the air, or some of the Good People--I do not know. They wore soft, flowing garments, that were like the morning mists; they carried chains of pearls and they scattered other pearls about them, that glistened like the drops of a shower when the sun is shining through it. They had garlands of flowers, and they plucked the flowers out and threw them high in the air, so that they fell before the King. They looked like flecks of foam from the waves, turned rosy and violet by the rising sun, but they were flowers. And there was a sound of sweet, soft music, like harps and mellow horns.

"The King and his train came nearer and I saw them plainer, and the music sounded louder. Then they passed me and moved far away again on the lake. The sight of them grew dim and the music grew faint, and I strained my eyes and my ears for the last of them, and they were gone. Then I could move and speak and breathe again, for it had seemed to me that I could not do any one of these things while the King was passing, and I knew that I had seen O'Donoghue."

The old woman stopped, as if the story were ended, but the younger people did not speak, for they knew that she had something else to tell. "O'Donoghue had passed and was gone," she said, "but he always leaves good luck behind him, and he left the good luck with me. That summer some rich young ladies came from Dublin to see the Lakes of Killarney. They heard the story of O'Donoghue, and the people told them that I was the last who had seen him. They came to my father's house and asked me to tell them what I had seen. They seemed pleased with what I told them, or with something that they saw in me, and they asked my father to let them take me back to the city with them, for a lady's maid. He did not like to let me go, but they said that they would pay me well and would have me taught better than I could be at home. He was poor, there were others at home who needed all that he could earn, I wished to go, and at last he said I might.

"So I went to Dublin and lived in a grand house, among grand people. I tried to do my duties well, and they were kind to me. They kept the promise that they had made to my father. They gave me books and allowed me time to study them, and they helped me in things that I could not well have learned by myself, even with the books. I was quick at study, and in the little time that I had, I learned all that I could. Three times they took me to London with them, and I saw still grander people and grander life.

"Those were happy days, but happier came. Your father came, Shaun. He was a servant of the family, like myself--a coachman. But he was wiser than I, and he talked with me and showed me that there was something better for us than to be servants always. We saved all the money that we could, and when we had enough we came here, where your father had lived before, and took a little farm. The luck of O'Donoghue was always with us. We had a good landlord, who asked a fair rent. We both worked hard, we saved more money and took more land, and all our neighbors thought that we were prosperous, and so we were.

"Then came '47. Nobody could be prosperous then. Nobody that had a heart in him at all could even keep what he had saved then. What we had and what our neighbors had belonged to all, and little enough there was of it. It is well for you young people to talk of these times being hard. Harder than some they may be, but good and easy compared with those days of '47 and '48. You talk of injustice and wrong to Ireland! What think you of those times, when every day great ships sailed away from Ireland loaded down with food--corn and bacon, and beef and butter--and Ireland's own people left without the bit of food to keep the life in them? All summer long was the horrible wet weather, and the potatoes rotting in the ground before they'ld be ripe, and never fit to eat. To add to all that was the fever, that killed its thousands, and then the cold. And when the days came again that the crops would grow, many and many of the people were so weak with the hunger and the sickness that they could not work in the fields. Ah! and you call these hard times!

"Those were the bad days for Ireland, those days of '47. Not even the luck of O'Donoghue could make us prosper or give us comforts then. But we lived through the time, as many others did. The poor helped those who were poorer than themselves; the sick tended those who were sicker; the cold gave clothes and fire to those who were colder. The little money that we had saved helped us and some of our neighbors. And we lived through it all.

"Better times came, though never again so good as the old. We worked again and we saved a trifle. Then you were born to us, John. We had a worse landlord now. He was of the kind that cared nothing for his tenants and nothing for his land, but to get the last penny off it. The rent was raised, and we never could have paid it but for the care and the skill and the hard work of your father. And then, John, you know that when you were hardly old enough to take his place with the work, let alone knowing how to work as well as he, he died and left us--Heaven rest his soul!"

For a long time the old woman said no more, and neither of the others spoke. Then she said: "John, the country is in trouble enough and the times are hard enough for you and for Kitty, here, and for all of us, I know. But don't be cast down. There have been worse days than these; there have been better days, too, and there will be better again."

THE BIG POOR PEOPLE

There was a knock at the door, and John opened it. "God save all here except the cat!" said a voice outside.

"God save you kindly!" John answered.

A young man and a young woman came in. They were neighbors--Peter Sullivan and his wife, Ellen. "Good avenin' to you, Pether," said John; "you're lookin' fine and hearty, and it's like a rose you're lookin', Ellen."

"It's more like nettles than roses we're feelin'," Ellen answered, "but something with prickles anyway, wid the bother we have every day and all day."

"Thrue for you, it's hard times," said John; "we was speaking about them just the minute before you came in; but we all have to bear them. It's not you ought to complain, as long as you've good health; now here's Kitty--I dunno how--"

"It's not the hard times I'm speakin' of now," said Ellen; "they're bad enough, goodness knows; but it's the bother we have all the time, and we can't tell how or why. Half the time the cow gives no milk, and when she does, you can make no butther wid it. The pig, the crathur, won't get fat; he ates everything he can reach, and still he looks like a basket wid a skin over it. The smoke of the fire comes down the chimney, the dishes are thrown on the floor, wid nobody near them, and such noises are goin' on all night long that never a wink of sleep can a body get. What we'll do at all if it goes on, I dunno."

"Leave off the things you do that make you all these troubles," said the older Mrs. O'Brien, "and you'll have no more need to go to the States than others."

"What things are them that we do?" Ellen asked.

"Haven't I told you before this," said Mrs. O'Brien, "that it's the Good People that trouble you? If you'ld treat them well, as we do, they'ld never bother you. If you'ld even take good care never to harm them, it's likely they'ld never come near you."

"It's the fairies you're speakin' of," said Peter. "Sure I don't believe in them at all. It's old woman's nonsense that your head's full of, savin' your presence, Mrs. O'Brien. There's no fairies at all. Don't talk to me."

"You'ld better be more respectful to them, Peter," Mrs. O'Brien answered. "Say less about not believing in them and don't call them by that name, that they don't like. Call them 'the Good People' or 'the gentry.' They don't like the name that you called them, any more than they like those who disbelieve in them or those who try to know too much about them. Speak well about them and treat them well, as we do, and they'll not trouble you; maybe they'll even help you. Didn't you see, as you came in, how we left something for them to eat and drink outside the door there? We've not much, but they like fresh milk and clean water, and we always give them these, and they hold nothing but friendliness for us. Look and see now if they've taken what we left there for them after supper."

Peter went to the door and looked. "There's nothing in the dishes there," he said; "but how do we know it wasn't the pig that ate it, or some poor dog, maybe?"

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