Kathleen.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 112, 7 November 1908, Page 10

Kathleen.

(An Irish Peasant Sketch from Life.) They spoke very "dacent" English at O'Looney's litfe ruin of a farmstead among the limestone crags and water■falls-, four miles from the unimportant town of Bally irooley, and yet I missed {he point of much of it. O'Looney had been eleven y<>ars in a Liverpool bacon warehouse w^iich received pig's carca-ses from Cork for English stomachs-, and his wife was from Lancashire. She had welcomed her change of life, partly because of the soft Irish air and it 3 landscapes ol green and gold and sea-blub suited hei health better than Manchester's smoke, and partly, of course, because of her love for Terence O'Looney himselt. These iacts were made known to nio ,\\hen I camb weatherbound to the cottage 'af ter a cycle breakdown in the mountains. The weather was very bad, I hailed the hous-? .is a havea "Ye can enter, sure/ said O'Looney, wnen I begged for a ahakedown anywhere, and something to eat beforehand. Children were crying in ihe house, crying bitterly- I asked what ailed the ♦children. "Faith ! " said he, "vitti a shrug, "it's, just nothin' at all — the crathurs. They're losin' Kathleen, yell understand, and sorra d hit ot pluck they have about it. I'm feelin' it meself , but that's different. The place will not be the same 10-morrow when she has gone to hei- new home, but '%it the Lord's will, and there's no more to be said about it. Ye're understanding me, sirV » I said that I understood him p?rtectly. While he spoke no had fixed a haggard stare upon the photograph of a pretty young girl on the mantelpiece. The paper was peeling from the damp wab behmd her. He had set the lamp on the edge, and it shone all lor the maiden's dainty, tip-tilted nose and smiling face. Ihe situation was as plain as his own honest pug nose and wispy black aaii. A few years ago 1 had lost a "beloved daughter of my own in circumstances rather similar. My own. house had never been the same since. " "Ah, well !" I said, "never mind. It's the way of the world. Good luck to her, whoever the happy man may be !" He noddea and sighed. "Yes, ' he said, "there's that about it, sure, but the colleens haven't tho sinse to see it that way." \ The next moment I brok-e a chair by sitting on it, --and the noise o£ its collapse introduced me to Mrs. O'Looney. j She entered with red ey-es and a certain slackness of attire which seemed picturesquely characteristic of the soil, 'ihere was no ct/njecturable trace ot Lancashire left about her. She even exclaimed, " Bother take ye ; bo off back!" when three or lour pairs of little feet pattered after her to the tnreahold and gave me a glimpse of as many eyes in the nether dusk. They went "''off back" an* 1 renewed their grief at a distance. " Is it- meat to your tea yell be wishing? " she asked, a trifle - impatiently. "Indeed, aud if co, ther-e'ft none to have." Keansuretl on that point, she proceeded to fasten, buttons about her person. O'Looney slipped away to stall the bicycla. Thu children lushad out after him ; and his wii'e herself then hinted at the domestic bereavement. Tho autumn tains had wa&lied halt the potatoes out ol the ground and far away, and Biolly and l^rmot had had a spotted complaint tor which many bottles oi medicine were required iioin the nearest dispensary. Mrs. 'O'Looney also had had trouble m the death ot si. Mfeiei in .Derbyshire. "2>la.ybe.," skie "you'll be laughing at- vuv, but tit±y n 1 \u.l If it was not for Kathleen and our hopes about her, we'd scaiCcly have won tbrougli this winter t But there — not another word abc-a her shall pass my lips. 1 ' 1 vrasheu, ate an adequate meal ot eggs and bacon, and trifcd to despite the two oi tlueo fleas which by this time were making a recitation, igiound of me. The wind and rain were fierce outside. Tho gusts tested the tempei ot tho parlour : .ump. There were broken panes to the window, and it fjufted through ihem fieely. Bub the, feature of tho evening was the pei'bistent sobbing of the children. This continued Wg after the normal sleeping time of little things not yet in their teens. And it was all for pretty Kathleen. There never was anything to equal ' their affection for her, ' the crnthnr!" — Mrs. O'Looney told me yet again, with leaden eyes, when she brought tho bedtime candle. O'Looney, poor man, was sitting by the peats, with his pipe, brooding about it all. She was not oven in the house, although it was/ her last night at home. O'Looney's brother's widow had a small farm lower down, and I jumped to the conclusion that she ai as- with her aunt lor the night. I respected the grief of the establishment, and did not obtrude upon it : inquisitively. The pietty Kathleen on the mantelpiece realised herself more and more angelically as fancy pieced together the patchwork of her virtues and the children wailed themselves to sleep. It was early to bed tor me this night. Thero was a fair at Ballymooiey the next day, and Mr. and Mrs. O'Looney were off betimes to it. I presumed that the wedding -would open the morning, followed (as custom prescribed) by certain potations of whisky, which might enable O'Looney to drown his troubles for a time. And it was to the recollection of this stale of things that I awoke the next day with the sun on my face and more tumult j the screaming children, as before, only worse, and a shrieking pig. A common red ass cart was at the door, with shafts fore and aft. The pig was in a new canvas sack, tied, and I saw O'Looney and his wife lift it tenderly into the cart. One of the little bare-legged colleens danced in a convulsion of woe by the ass. The others stood silent, with wet eyes and sad faces. Then down I went to my breakfast and a very curious disillusionment. It did not flash to me until I went out into the sunshine and perceived first that ■ neither O'Looney nor his wife were in anything like wedding garments. Then, all at once, I understood that an Irishman and his family may still love a little pig in accordance with the ancient traditions pf the country. ""ife'll see her no more, my girl," Mrs. " O'Looney was saying to that agitated small daughter of hers when I crossed the threshold. The words "Katliy acushla" then cr|ed to my comprehension as the child clasped the sacked struggling and complaining shjpe in the car 6; and with, a "good morning" to the establishment I went back to my parlour. Thero while 1 breakfasted O'Looney quite enlightened me. "Faith! Yes, of course, Kathleen was the pig! Certainly he had a daugnter Kathleen also. She was at the W^terville Hotel, but young yet for marrying. No, it was not every young pig in ireland that had the honour of a name ; but this one had endeared itself to the children from the first, aud until the other day was as much at' home in tha kitchen as the' children themselves. She weighed five score pounds, and though pigs were only fetching fivepence in the pound at the current fairs, there was no keeping her at all, at all. Monej; wa.s ingcey^ und— =-

"I'll be wishing you good day, sir, and a pleasant journey to where you're going. 1 must be pushing on with the cart." Well, now, I don't know what will be thought of me, but I feel bound to confess it. Kathleen the pig did not go to the fair after all. She is still fattening as a friend of the family m that little farmhouse four miles from Ballymooiey, and I have a lien on her dear carcase, to the extent of £2 sterling. Like enough in a year's time, she will weigh ten score of pounds, instead of five, and every one will be a gainer. I left the children with dry eyes, beginning to gloat about a mysterious happiness which their young minds did not yet fully grasp. ' Some powerful blessings were laid upon my back by O'Lqoney and his wife when I started again, but I rode away down among the gorse slopes the lighter for them rather than otherwise. —C. Edwardes, in the Manchester Chronicle. j j '