Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl, L. T. Meade [drm ebook reader txt] 📗

was lit by a small dip candle, which was placed in an old tin candlestick on the mantelpiece.

“Dear, dear! the light will be coming in no time, and we can quench the glim then,” said Biddy. “I've got to be careful about candles. We're precious short of everything at Cronane just now. We're as poor as church mice; it's horrid to be so desperately poor as that. But, hurrah for the cold taters and bacon! We'll have a right good meal. That will warm you up; and I have a little potheen in a black bottle, too. I'll put some water to it and you shall have a drink.”

“I never touch it,” said Nora, shuddering.

“But you must tonight, or you'll catch your death of cold. There, the best thing you can do is to get right into bed. Why, you're shivering, and your teeth are chattering. It's a fine state Mrs. O'Shanaghgan will be in tomorrow when you go back to her.”

“I must not get ill, Biddy; that would never do,” said Nora, pulling herself together with an effort. “Yes, I'll get into bed; and I'll take a little of your potheen—very, very weak, if you'll mix it for me—and I'll have some of the bacon and potatoes. Oh! I would eat anything rather than be ill. I never was really ill in my life; but now, of all times, it would never do.”

“Well, then, here you go. Tumble into bed. I'll pile the blankets on you. Now, isn't that better?”

Biddy bustled, intent on hospitality. She propped Nora up with pillows, pulled a great rug over her shoulders, and heaped on more and more blankets, which she pulled expeditiously from under the bed. “They always stay here in the summer,” said Biddy. “That's to keep them aired; and now they're coming in very handy. You have got four doubled on you now; that makes eight. I should think you'd soon be warm enough.”

“I expect I shall soon be too hot,” said Nora; “but this is very nice.”

She sipped the potheen, ate a little bacon and cold potatoes, and presently declared herself well again.

“Oh, I am perfectly all right!” she said; “it was coming home in the boat in my wet things. I wish I had taken a pair of sculls again; then I wouldn't even have been cold.”

“Now you'll tell me,” said Biddy, who sat on the edge of the bed munching great chunks of bacon and eating her cold potatoes with extreme relish. “Oh! it's hungry I am; but I want to hear all about the lady Banshee. Did she come? Did you see her, Nora?”

“No, she didn't come,” said Nora very shortly.

“Didn't come? But they say she never fails when the moon is at the full. She rises up out of that pool—the bottomless pool it is called—and she floats over the water and waves her hand. It's awful to see her if you don't belong to her; but to those who belong to her she is tender and sweet, like a mother, they say; and her breath is like honey, and her kiss the sweetest you ever got in all your life. You mean to say you didn't see her? Why, Nora, what has come to you? You're trembling again.”

“I cannot tell you, Biddy; don't ask me any more. I didn't see the Banshee. It was very, very cold standing up to my knees in the water. I suppose I did wrong to go; but that's done and over now. Oh, I am so tired and sleepy! Do get into bed, Biddy, and let us have what little rest we can.”

Early the next morning Nora returned to O'Shanaghgan. All trace of ill effects had vanished under Biddy's prompt treatment. She had lain under her eight blankets until she found them intolerable, had then tossed most of them off, and fallen into deep slumber. In the morning she looked much as usual; but no entreaties on the part of Biddy, joined in very heartily by Squire Murphy and also by Mrs. Murphy, could induce her to prolong her visit.

“It's a message I'll take over myself to your father if you'll but stay, Nora,” said the Squire.

“No, no; I must really go home,” answered Nora.

“It's too fine you are for us, Nora, and that's the truth; and don't go for to be denying it,” said Mrs. Murphy.

“No; I hope I may never be too fine for my real friends,” said Nora a little sadly. “I must go back. I believe I am wanted at home.”

“You're a very conceited colleen; there's no girl that can't be spared from home sometimes,” said Mrs. Murphy. “I thought you would help Biddy and me to pick black currants. There are quarts and quarts of 'em in the garden, and the maids can't do it by themselves, poor things. Well, Biddy, you have got to help me today.”

“Oh, mammy, I just can't,” answered Biddy. “I'm due down at the shore, and I want to go a bit of the way back with Nora. You can't expect me to help you today, mammy.”

“There she is, Nora—there she is!” exclaimed the good lady, her face growing red and her eyes flashing fire; “not a bit of good, not worth her keep, I tell her. Why shouldn't she stay at home and help her mother? Do you hear me, Squire Murphy? Give your orders to the girl; tell her to stay at home and help her mother.”

“Ah, don't be bothering me,” said Squire Murphy. “It's out I'm going now. I have enough on my own shoulders without attending to the tittle-tattle of women.”

He rose from the table, and the next moment had left the room.

“Dear, dear! there are bad times ahead for poor Old Ireland,” said Mrs. Murphy. “Children don't obey their parents; husbands don't respect their wives; it's a queer state of the country. When I was young, and lived at my own home in Tipperary, we had full and plenty. There was a bite and a sup for every stranger who came to the door, and no one talked of money, nor thought of it neither. The land yielded a good crop, and the potatoes—oh, dear! oh, dear! that was before the famine. The famine brought us a lot of bad luck, that it did.”

“But the potatoes have been much better the last few years, and this year they say we're going to have a splendid crop,” said Nora. “But I must go now, Mrs. Murphy. Thank you so much for asking me.”

“You're looking a bit pale; but you're a beautiful girl,” said the good woman admiringly. “I'd give a lot if Biddy could change places with you—that is, in appearance, I mean. She's not a credit to anybody, with her bumpy forehead and her cocked nose, and her rude ways to her mother.”

“Mammy, I really cannot help the way I am made,” said Biddy; “and as to staying in this lovely day picking black currants and making jam, and staining my fingers, it's not to be thought of. Come along out, Nora. If you must be off back to O'Shanaghgan, I mean to claim the last few moments of your stay here.”

The girls spent the morning together, and early in the afternoon Nora returned to O'Shanaghgan. Terence met