CHAPTER II
THE THUNDER-STORM
"WHISHT, now! The fairy folk are passing along. We must get out of their way, and greet them politely," said Norah to her little sister Kate, as she made a bow, and whispered, "God speed ye."
The children were out berrying, and were quite a distance from home. They had wandered down the lane running through their little village, and were now on the road to Killarney.
"Why, Norah?"
"When you see a cloud of dust sweeping along, you may know the fairies are travelling. It might bring something bad to us if we stood in their way. We want them to be our friends, of course."
"Oh, yes, yes, Norah. I'll be careful next time. But I'm tired. Tell me a story about the fairies."
"I'm tired, too, Katie darlint. But I'll tell ye this much. There once was a man who did not care for the fairies as he should. Perhaps he did not believe they used arrows and shot them at the cattle of those people with whom they were angry. Oh, Katie, it is the living truth that the fairies can bewitch any one whom they please.
"Well, the man of whom I was tellin' ye bought a farm. It was close to a beautiful valley where the fairies had their home. He built himself a house; he ploughed the land; and then he made a lime-kiln on the very borders of the fairies' home.
"They were so angry that they punished him in many ways. But not all at once, Katie darlint. First, they killed his horse; next, three of his cows; and, as though that wasn't enough, nine of his pigs died.
"The farmer knew well enough what was the matter. He took down his lime-kiln, and was careful after that to keep clear of the borders of fairy-land."
"Look, look, Norah! I hear a carriage. It may be people travelling through the country. Put on your sweetest smile and maybe they will give us a penny."
The two children stood still on one side of the road. As the carriage passed them, little Kate held out her chubby hands, saying, "A penny, kind lady, if ye plaze."
She was quick to notice that, besides the driver, three gentlemen and a lady filled the seats of the jaunting-car.
"Take this, little one, for your rosy cheeks and smiling face."
The lady threw out a three-penny piece, as the driver stopped his car and asked Norah how far it was to the lakes of Killarney.
"Four miles, sir, if ye keep straight on this road," was the answer.
"Do you mean four Irish miles?" asked one of the gentlemen. "For, if you do, we have an hour's good drive before us."
"Sure, and I always supposed a mile is a mile," answered Norah, with a perplexed look in her eyes.
The gentleman laughed, and said, "If you go to America when you grow up, you will find that two of our miles will almost make one of yours."
The car passed on, and the children stood watching the travellers out of sight.
"Isn't it grand to be travelling like that, Katie?" said her sister. "A jaunting-car is one of the finest things in the world."
But the people who were in the carriage did not agree with her.
"Dear me!" said the lady, "I'm afraid of falling out whenever the horse goes fast. And as for this beautiful country, I can only see what is on one side of the road at a time."
"I quite agree with you," said her husband. "I have always wanted to ride in a jaunting-car, but it is more fun to talk about it than to really do it."
"But what is a jaunting-car?" perhaps you are wondering.
It is a carriage in which the seats are placed back to back, facing sideways. It has no top, but has big wheels and big springs underneath.
A small jaunting-car, like the one which had passed the children, has two wheels, and seats long enough to hold four people, two on each side. The driver's place is built out in front, reaching over the horse's back. Such a car is very light, and one horse can carry it easily.
But what the lady said was true. There was no way for the passengers to hold on firmly. Besides this, they could see the view on only one side at a time.
A story has been told of a man who was travelling in Ireland and wished to see the country. He rode in a jaunting-car from Queenstown to Cork. He sat on the side of the car toward the hill and did not get a single view of the river. When he went back again he changed his seat to the opposite side of the car. And still he saw nothing but the hill. It is no wonder that, when people spoke to him about the river between Cork and Queenstown, he said, "There is no river. There is nothing to be seen except a hill."
Do you see the joke? And do you understand the reason why he saw only one side of the country, though he travelled twice over the same road?
Norah and her little sister had just turned to go home, when they noticed the sky had grown black with heavy clouds.
"It is going to rain, Katie. We must hurry, for I fear it will thunder and lighten," said Norah.
The children began to run. Although they did not mind the rain, they were both afraid of thunder-storms.
"There! hear that, and that!" sobbed Katie, beginning to cry. A streak of lightning had darted across the sky, followed almost instantly by a loud peal of thunder.
Down came the rain in torrents, just as the children turned from the road and entered the lane leading to their own little village. As they did so, the sound of wheels could be heard behind them.
They were in too great a hurry and too much frightened to turn around. But as they reached their own door, the very jaunting-car they had met on the road to Killarney drove up.
The children's mother had been watching from the doorway.
"Come in, children, as fast as you can. I was near beside mesilf, I was that worried about ye."
Then the good woman, turning with a welcome smile to the people in the carriage, asked them to shelter themselves from the storm in her poor little cot.
The two drenched children rushed to the fireplace and stood there with the water dripping from their skirts and making little puddles on the floor of the cabin.
In the meantime, their mother was making her visitors as comfortable as she could. Two of the gentlemen took seats on the edge of a big feather bed, for there were not chairs enough to go around. The lady was given the best chair, after Norah's mother had dusted it with her apron, and placed it near the fire.
The flock of geese had somehow managed to follow the visitors into the house, and the big apron was next used to drive the poor wet creatures out into the storm. It was plain to see they did not enjoy it any more than the people themselves.
"You must excuse us for taking you by surprise in this way," said the lady, as soon as it was quiet enough for the kind Irishwoman to hear her, "but we saw the storm suddenly coming up, and we knew we were too far from Killarney to get there before it should break upon us." She smiled as she went on, "Indeed, it overtook us before we could even reach your village."
As she finished speaking, there was a blinding flash of lightning. It was almost instantly followed by a peal of thunder which shook the little cabin again and again.
Norah's mother made the sign of the cross upon her breast, and her lips moved in prayer. Every one was silent as flash after flash of bright light came through the window, and one peal of thunder followed close upon another.
It was a good half-hour before the storm began to die away.
"Yes, the rain comes often in these parts, and thunder-storms are a common matter in the summer time," said Mrs. O'Neil, when they fell to talking again.
"That is one of the reasons why I don't like jaunting-cars," said her lady visitor. "They have no covering, and in a sudden rain there is no way of keeping dry."
"Wheniver the lightning comes as it did a few minutes ago," said Mrs. O'Neil, "it makes me think of a story told by me father, God rest his sowl.
"There was once a man working in his garden. It began to thunder, and the man was scared. He put his head through a hole in the wall. 'God save whativer is out of me.' That is what he prayed.
"He had no sooner said those words than the wall fell and his head was taken off entirely.
"You see, he didn't pray for the whole of him.
"Now, my good father said that was just right. The man was selfish to think only of himsilf. He should have prayed large, for all the folk around him, and not small, just for himsilf. It was the judgment of Hiven upon him.
"But, dear me! I must tend to my baking. I had clean forgot it in the storm."
Mrs. O'Neil turned to the fireplace and lifted a round, low pot out of the ashes. When she had set it on the table, she took off the cover. Then, turning the pot upside down, a dark, heavy loaf of bread fell out upon the table.
The visitors rose to go, thanking the good woman for her kindness in giving them shelter during the storm.
But Mrs. O'Neil would not hear of their leaving so near supper-time, with Killarney a good hour's drive away.
She told them she had a nice pat of butter in the cupboard. The wild berries picked by the children had been covered over, so they were not softened by the rain while on the way home. With a pot of good tea and the newly-baked bread, she proudly thought her visitors might satisfy their hunger.
After looking at her husband and the other gentlemen, the lady sat down again, saying:
"You are very kind and generous, Mrs. O'Neil, like the rest of your people. Wherever I have travelled in Ireland I have met just such kindness. I shall never forget my visit here.
"And what a beautiful country it is! I never saw such green grass anywhere else in the world. No wonder it is called 'The Emerald Isle.'"
Mrs. O'Neil smiled her happiest smile. She loved to hear her country praised.
"Ah! Ireland was a great place once," she cried. "But times have changed, and many of the days have been sad ones since the rule of our own kings. Did ye ever hear tell of the famine?" she asked.
"Yes, indeed," said one of the gentlemen, as Mrs. O'Neil bustled about the table. "I shall never forget a story I read at the time. I was a little boy in school. It was about a family who were suffering terribly from the famine. Their supply of potatoes had come to an end and the new crop was killed by the blight. There was no money to pay the rent, and the poor little children with their parents were turned out of their home by the hard-hearted landlord.
"But at this dreadful moment, help came from a kind friend in America, and they were saved from further suffering."
When he had finished speaking, Mrs. O'Neil told of the suffering people who became homeless and starving, and who died before help reached them.
Norah crept close to her mother's side as she listened to the story. Her big blue eyes were full of tears.
This dreadful famine happened before Mrs. O'Neil was born, for Norah's grandmother was herself a child at the time.
The potato crop had been poor for several years, and many were the families who were obliged to beg from those who were a little better off than themselves. But at last there came a season when all the crops failed. It was the dreadful year of 1847, when the blight fell upon every part of Ireland.
Stop for a minute and think of the thousands of little children who lived almost entirely on potatoes up to this time. Some of them, it is true, had bread every day, and meat once or twice a week.
But there were many many homes where the only food of the family was potatoes. Then you can picture what happened when there were no more potatoes.
The smiles soon gave place to tears. The roses faded away from the cheeks. The bright eyes grew dull and heavy.
Poor little children of Ireland! Think what became of them when the last piece of furniture had been sold to buy bread!
Alas! many of them were soon without even shelter. For they were driven with their parents out of their small homes, because there was no possible way of paying the rent.
Then what? Fever and sickness travelled from place to place. Death followed in their pathway. There were many days of cruel suffering before the rest of the world waked up and sent help to the sick and the starving in Ireland.
America showed herself a kind friend in that sad time. It was some of the very food she sent to Ireland that saved the life of Norah's grandmother. She and her brothers were nearly starving when the help came. They lived on the seashore and had been trying to keep themselves alive by eating seaweed and moss. Those were dreadful times, indeed.
Mrs. O'Neil stopped to pat Norah's head, which was in her apron. The child was crying softly.
"There, there, those hard days are over now, my child," said her mother, tenderly. "The sky is brighter for Ireland than it has been these many years. You must not let this fine lady see you cry. Enough water has fallen outside to-day without our adding to the shower."
Norah began to laugh, while she wiped away the tears with her mother's apron.
The visitors once more rose to go. At the same time one of the gentlemen stepped to Mrs. O'Neil's side and said in a low tone, "We would not think of offering pay for your kindness to us this afternoon, but it will give me a great deal of pleasure if you will take this and buy a little kid with it for Norah."
He pressed some money into the good woman's hands.
"But we have one goat now, as you must have seen," she said.
"Two goats will give the children twice as much milk as one," he answered, with a laugh. "And, besides, I want Norah to have the new goat for her very own."
Mrs. O'Neil could not refuse such a kind offer. "Thank ye entirely, and may Hiven send its blessing on ye all."
By this time the driver had brought the horse and the jaunting-car from the little shed, and the party drove off in the direction of Killarney.