THE WELL-WISHERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 70

THE WELL-WISHERS.

By Jane Baklow

(Copyright.) Into the cover of the hazels Matty fled, ewift and noiseless as a rabbit into its hole, and. Fanny followed. Hugh continued to advance, evidently unaware of the eavesdroppers. So much at ease was he that he whistled a tune as he reached the well There he dipped a hand in the water, and eprinkled it sparkling on the shadowy leaf'^Wif'Lawlor!" he called lustily. "Maggie Lawlor! Maggie Lawlorl The wishing-well lies at the secret heart of Glen Crevy, just a deep, narrow crack in the long slopes of Knockmena, so masked by a grove of spindle-stemmed trees, that a few yards from the head ot the footpaths which lead down into it at either end, nothing appears to suggest the existence of such a fissure. The sheer ; rock-walls are hung with enormous trails of ivy, which have caught and half-killed gome of the trees, mostly firs and birches If a rough wind gripped these, they would fall; but < ily their tops reach, so to speak, the surface, and scarcely a breath stirs in the cliff-locked creek. A great boulder in a little hazel-copse screens from the rare passers-by the wishmg-woll, the email round basin of which is fringed with ferns, is filled by a trickle from the cliff. Modest indeed is its fame as a marvel-worker—in face, on but one day of the year does it claim any magical properties beyond a merely vague luckiness. This is the festival of its patroness St. Earma, when, folk say, anybody who, wetting a hand in the water, cries aloud thrice on the name of a beloved object, will be found to have put an efficacious comether or spell on the person desired. Yeti even this inducement attracts not mora than a scanty number of visitors. On one of these anniversaries they included Fanny Flynn, the maid-servant at Mahony's Farm, who was up and ready for the expedition before five o'clock in the morning. This early start, which was necessary because she must be back by six o'clock to feed the pigs and poultry, entailed no serious hardship in that radiant May weather. She stopped on the way to pick up Matty Riall at a neighbouring farmhouse. Matty seemed rather sleepy, and not zealous about going; but Fanny drew her resolutely along for company, not liking to pass quite alone by an intervening fairy-fort, while the shadows still stretched so far across the solitary green fields.

As thev went Fanny talked with the utmost frankness about the purpose of her -visit to the well. She intended to call for -Jim Moriarty of Rathsorel. " Just no more than a chance, but maybe worth while trying. Ne'er a one can I afford to lose at all, and he setting off to England for the hay-cutting some time next month. If he takes off with himself the same way he done* last year, with not so much as a look at e out of the small end of his fool's c; s, I declare to goodness I believe 'twil be the finishing desolation of me misfortunate life," Fanny averred. But the effect of this tragicoromantic forecast was marred by the complacent expression on her jolly round face; and in the next breath she exclaimed: "Hoo! Look there, Matt. A corncrakes after running out from under the hedge over yonder. She's apt to have a nest in one of them tussocks." Fanny darted off headforemost in quest of it, but after a hurried examination of two or three grass clumps, desisted, and, returning to the path, at once resumed her discourse. " I can't be wasting me time now looking for it. We'll take another ten minutes getting to the well, and there'll be some Hail Marys to say when I've let the shouts, so we'd 1 a right to step on." "Suppose some person heard you!" said Matty. "Well, suppose anybody did!" said Fanny. "There's nothing agin that." "You to be shouting about a boy that way," said Matty. " 'Twould sound quare ' enough. Sure now Jim Moriarty might by chance be going past himself and hear you: he that's very belike not thinking of you at all. Ashamed of me life I'd be."

" I wish in me heart he would be somewheres around; nothing could happen luckier," said Fanny, " for it might put the notion into' his head to say something einsible. Not thinking about me? Why, to be sure, plenty he's thinking about.jne this long while back, only he hasn't the wit to spake his mind. That's the way ho was ever, and I've known him since the two of us could stand straight on our feet. Just a bit of a stir-up like he wants. 'Deed, telling him so myself I'd be before now if it wasn't I liefer wouldn't have his sisters and me own sisters, and them other ones casting it up to me that I had to ask him outright. But aren't you going to give e'er a call for yourself, Matty, when ycn're there? It could do no harm, anyhow."

"Indeed, and I will not then," Matty Baid, with as much disapproval as there was room for in her face, which had nothing large-sized belonging to it, except a few freckles and a pair of dark-grey eyes. " Sorry I'd be to go make such a show of meself, even if there was anybody I'd give a brass farthing for, let alone screeching after him like a demented ould banBhee."

" Musha long life to you. How grand you are!" Fanny said with sarcasm. "But it's my belief there's ne'er a banshee in Ireland demented enough to not' sooner have her own little house than be feeding Mrs Halloran's pigs. Don't tell me you couldn't think of somebody aisy. It's lust that you're not wishful I'd be hearing; hut I promise you faithful ne'er o word Til let out to man or mortal."

" Its nothing to me what you believe, or what you let out," Matty replied, walking on ahead with her chin in the air; and they proceeded thus until they came to the well.

But just at the point where the footpath twisted towards it, Fanny seized Matty by the arm and pulled her back with a jerk which nearly took her off her feet. " Look there,' said Fanny, " I give you me word it's young Hugh Bracken coming along from the other end. About letting a call he is, you may depend, and gveat 'twill be, if we get the chance of listening. Sure, then, we can be raising the laugh on him finely. Slip in among the bushes before he spies us." Into the cover of the hazels Matty fled, swift and noiseless as a rabbit into its hole, and Fanny followed. Hugh continued to advance, evidently unaware of the eavesdroppers. So much at ease was he that he whistled a tune as he reached the well. There he dipped a hand in the water, and sprinkled it sparkling on the shadowy leaf-dappled air. " Maggie Lawlor," he called lustily—" Maggie Lawlor! Maggie Lawlor!" Then he seemed to chuckle, and, taking up the shrill thread of his tune, withdrew by the way he had come.

The hidden girls had listened with bate*! breath. As soon as it was safe. Fanny laughed heartily. "So Maggie Lawlor it is with him.!" she said. " Well, to be sure! T>eecl, now when he began first, 'twas yourself, Matty, I thought he'd be calling. But Lawlor he said plain enough, whoever she may be. I must run along and let me own shouts, for herself 'll be raging over the calves' milk if I'm back late." Fanny ran. along, and lost no time in making the glen resound with Jim Moriarty's name. When she returned to the place of ambush, however, she found that Matty had gone on so rapidly as not to be overtaken until they were in the corncrake field. "It was yourself was in the great flurry," Fanny said, panting up behind her, " that you couldn't stand a couple of minyits."

" I was thinking of the pigs," Matty replied, hurrying on with her head in her shawl.

"Well, belike I'd best think of mine, too," said Fanny, "and I'll take the short cut across the corner here, so good-bye to you. 'Twas the quare pigs she was crying her eyes out over," Fanny reflected as she turned away. "I wonder now had the crature e'er a notion in her mind about Hugh Bracken ? Himself and his oukl Maggie Lawlcr !" Towards sunset on the next day, Matty Riall was shooing a party of errant ducks down the cow-lane to the pond, when who should be looking over the gate of Long Cryarks but Hugh Bracken himself. At sight of Matty he swung himself across the top bar with a thud which alarmed the ducks, and made her say: "There now, see what you're after doing !" " Sure what matter?" said Hugh,

" 'twill only encourage them into tho water. Waiting I was for a chance to bo spaking to you." "Were you so?" Matty said. "I wonder you weren't too much took up with Maggie Lawlor."

It was Hugh's turn to receive a shock, though less demonstratively than the flopping ducks. " Och, you little villan," he said, half-amused, half-rueful, "have you hoard tell of that already, and it only on the evening paper?" " I dunno what's on the evening paper," said Matty, " but 'twould be hard for anybody not to hear tell of her, that was within an ass's roar of the Glen yesterday morning early." Hugh's disconcertion visiblv increased. " Mav the saints have me soavl ! So that's come out, too. Well, to be*sure, I was the quare fool, but I took the notion in me head that th' ould well mig'H bring me a bit of good luck. And in place of that there,she goes and breaks her neck at the first lep." "Who broke her neck?" Matty said, jumping herself. This conversation seemed to abound in startling statements. 'Why who else except Maggie Lawlor, thai, I had straight tip to put all I could on for the Lambertstowi Cup? A pocketful of money I stoq4 to win, if she'd done as she was expected. And 'twould have been uncommon handy. Because then what would hinder you and me of furnishing the little house we had talked of before Christmas, only me poor mother bein? took sick that long, run away with all me savings? And I couldn't ask'vou to put up with living along with her for a bit. So all I can do is go over to England for a harvesting job. But it's with ' something in mo pocket I'll be coming back asain." " Sorra the differ it makes to me what vou have in your pocket at all,' Matty said The remark was certainly ambiguous, and Hugh looked at her for a moment with some anxious doubt. However, as a result of his scrutiny he interpreted it in a sense which led him to assert joyfully : " I declare, Matty astore, there isn't a little girl to aquil you in length and breadth, backwards and forwards, of the whole of Ireland." Scarcelv had he spoken when a sound of - scurrying feet approached down the lane, and Fanny Flynn burst in upon them. " Och, there you are, Matty —and Hugh Bracken along with you—so you'll know all about Maggie Lawlor —but sure wbat matter? A run over to tell you. when I'd done laughing. 'Twas nigh being the death of me. Well, I see the two of you's as right as rain. And d'you know, Jim Moriarty and meself are after making it up at last. But nobody can say I asked him. I just told him, joking like, that there was the qnarest echo entirely in Glen Creevy. 'Sure yesterday.' says I, 'calling at the well I was for old Peter Clancy, and if I did, what come back, as plain as you could spake, oxcept "Jim Moriarty"?' says I. And with that he up and said it was a dale the sinsiblost echo ever heard tell of.._ So straightways I bid him go spake to me father about mo bit of a fortune, and he's went. Sure now tho wishing well done all of us a good turn."