_ PART II CHAPTER XVI. CASTLE CONNOWAY
Meanwhile Boyd Connoway was in straits. Torn between two emotions, he was pleased for once to have found a means of earning his living and that of his family--especially the latter. For his own living was like that of the crows, "got round the country somewhere!" But with the lightest and most kindly heart in the world, Boyd Connoway found himself in trouble owing to the very means of opulence which had brought content to his house.
On going home on the night after the great attack on Marnhoul, weary of directing affairs, misleading the dragoons, whispering specious theories into the ear of the commanding officer and his aides, he had been met at the outer gate of his cabin by a fact that overturned all his notions of domestic economy. Ephraim, precious Ephraim, the Connoway family pig, had been turned out of doors and was now grunting disconsolately, thrusting a ringed nose through the bars of Paradise. Now Boyd knew that his wife set great store by Ephraim. Indeed, he had frequently been compared, to his disadvantage, with Ephraim and his predecessors in the narrow way of pigs. Ephraim was of service. What would the "poor childer," what would Bridget herself do without Ephraim? Bridget was not quite sure whether she kept Ephraim or whether Ephraim kept her. At any rate it was not to Boyd Connoway that she and her offspring were anyways indebted for care and sustenance.
"The craitur," said Bridget affectionately, "he pays the very rint!"
But here, outside the family domain, was Ephraim, the beloved of his wife's heart, actually turned out upon a cold and unfeeling world, and with carefully spaced grunts of bewilderment expressing his discontent. If such were Ephraim's fate, how would the matter go with him? Boyd Connoway saw a prospect of finding a husband and the father of a family turned from his own door, and obliged to return and take up his quarters with this earlier exile.
The Connoway family residence was a small and almost valueless leasehold from the estate of General Johnstone. The house had always been tumbledown, and the tenancy of Bridget and her brood had not improved it externally. The lease was evidently a repairing one. For holes in the thatch roof were stopped with heather, or mended with broad slabs of turf held down with stones and laboriously strengthened with wattle--a marvel of a roof. It is certain that Boyd's efforts were never continuous. He tired of everything in an hour, or sooner--unless somebody, preferably a woman, was watching him and paying him compliments on his dexterity.
The cottage had originally consisted of the usual "but-and-ben"--that is to say, in well regulated houses (which this one was not) of a kitchen--and a room that was not the kitchen. The family beds occupied one corner of the kitchen, that of Bridget and her husband in the middle (including accommodation for the latest baby), while on either side and at the foot, shakedowns were laid out "for the childer," slightly raised from the earthen floor on rude trestles, with a board laid across to receive the bedding. There was nothing at either side to provide against the occupants rolling over, but, as the distance from the ground did not average more than four inches, the young Connoways did not run much danger of accident on that account.
Disputes were, however, naturally somewhat frequent. Jerry or Phil would describe himself as "lying on so many taturs"--Mary or Kitty declare that her bedfellow was "pullin' every scrap off of her, that she was!"
To quell these domestic brawls Bridget Connoway kept at the head of the middle bed a long peeled willow, which was known as the "Thin One." The Thin One settled all night disputes in the most evenhanded way. For Bridget did not get out of bed to discriminate. She simply laid on the spot from which the disturbance proceeded till that disturbance ceased. Then the Thin One returned to his corner while innocent and guilty mingled their tears and resolved to conduct hostilities more silently in future.
In the daytime, however, the "Thick One" held sway, which was the work-hardened palm of Mistress Bridget Connoway's hand. She was ambidextrous in correction--"one was as good as t'other," as Jerry remarked, after he had done rubbing himself and comparing damages with his brother Phil, who had got the left. "There's not a fardin' to pick between us!" was the verdict as the boys started out to find their father, stretched on his favourite sunny mound within sight of the Haunted House of Marnhoul--now more haunted than ever.
But on this occasion Boyd Connoway was on his return, when he met the exiled Ephraim. His meditations on his own probable fate have led the historian into a sketch of the Connoway establishment, which, indeed, had to come in somewhere.
For once Boyd wasted no time. With his wife waiting for him it was well to know the worst and get it over. He opened the door quickly, and intruding his hat on the end of his walking stick, awaited results. It was only for a moment, of course, but Boyd Connoway felt satisfied. His Bridget was not waiting for him behind the door with the potato-beetle as she did on days of great irritation. His heart rose--his courage returned. Was he not a free man, a house-holder? Had he not taken a distinguished part in a gallant action? Bridget must understand this. Bridget should understand this. Boyd Connoway would be respected in his own house!
Nevertheless he entered hastily, sidling like a dog which expects a kick. He avoided the dusky places instinctively--the door of the "ben" room was shut, so Bridget could not be lying in wait there. Was it in the little closet behind the kitchen that the danger lurked? The children were in bed, save the two youngest, all quiet, all watching with the large, dreamy blue (Connoway) eyes, or the small, very bright ones (Bridget's) what his fate would be.
He glanced quaintly, with an interrogative lift of his eyebrows, at the bed to the left. Jerry of the twinkling sloe-eyes answered with a quick upturn of the thumb in the direction of the spare chamber.
Boyd Connoway frowned portentously at his eldest son. The youth shook his head. The sign was well understood, especially when helped out with a grin, broad as all County Donegal 'twixt Killibegs and Innishowen Light.
The "Misthress" was in a good temper. Reassured, on his own account, but inwardly no little alarmed for his wife's health in these unusual circumstances, Boyd began to take off his boots with the idea of gliding safely into bed and pretending to be asleep before the wind had time to change.
But Jerry's mouth was very evidently forming some words, which were meant to inform his father as to particulars. These, though unintelligible individually, being taken together and punctuated with jerks in the direction of the shut door of "doon-the-hoose," constituted a warning which Boyd Connoway could not afford to neglect.
He went forward to the left hand bed, cocked his ear in the direction of the closed door, and then rapidly lowered it almost against his son's lips.
"She's gotten a hurt man down there," said Jerry, "she has been runnin' wi' white clouts and bandages a' the forenight. And I'm thinkin' he's no very wise, either--for he keeps cryin' that the deils are comin' to tak' him!"
"What like of a man?" said Boyd Connoway.
But Jerry's quick ear caught a stirring in the room with the closed door. He shook his head and motioned his father to get away from the side of his low truckle bed.
When his wife entered, Boyd Connoway, with a sober and innocent face, was untying his boot by the side of the fire. Bridget entered with a saucepan in her hand, which, before she deigned to take any notice of her husband, she pushed upon the red ashes in the grate.
From the "ben" room, of which the door was now open, Boyd could hear the low moaning of a man in pain. He had tended too many sick people not to know the delirium of fever, the pitiful lapses of sense, then again the vague and troubled pour of words, and at the sound he started to his feet. He was not good for much in the way of providing for a family. He did a great many foolish, yet more useless things, but there was one thing which he understood better than Bridget--how to nurse the sick.
He disengaged his boot and stood in his stocking feet.
"What is it?" he said, in an undertone to Bridget.
"No business of yours!" she answered, with a sudden hissing vehemence.
"I can do
that better than you!" he answered, for once sure of his ground.
His wife darted at him a look of concentrated scorn.
"Get to bed!" she commanded him, declining to argue with such as he--and but for the twinkling eyes of Jerry, which looked sympathy, Boyd would have preferred to have joined the exiled Ephraim under the dark pent among the coom of the peat-house.
He looked to Jerry, but Jerry was sound asleep. So was Phil. So were all the others.
"Very well, daeaerlin'!" said Boyd Connoway to himself as his wife left the room. "But, sorrow am I for the man down there that she will not let me nurse. She's a woman among a thousand, is Bridget Connoway. But the craitur will be after makin' the poor man eat his poultices, and use his beef tay for outward application only!" _