"Ah but, mother, you know, she has been so frighted."

"Frighted, indeed! She'll get over these tantrums, I hope, before Sunday next, or I know where I'll wish her again."

So Anty was left at home, and the rest of the family went to ma.s.s. When the women returned, Meg manoeuvred greatly, and, in fine, successfully, that no one should enter the little parlour to interrupt the wooing she intended should take place there. She had no difficulty with Jane, for she told her what her plans were; and though her less energetic sister did not quite agree in the wisdom of her designs, and p.r.o.nounced an opinion that it would be "better to let things settle down a bit,"

still she did not presume to run counter to Meg's views; but Meg had some work to dispose of her mother. It would not have answered at all, as Meg had very well learned herself, to caution her mother not to interrupt Martin in his love-making, for the widow had no charity for such follies. She certainly expected her daughters to get married, and wished them to be well and speedily settled; but she watched anything like a flirtation on their part as closely as a cat does a mouse.

If any young man were in the house, she'd listen to the fall of his footsteps with the utmost care; and when she had reason to fear that there was anything like a lengthened _tete-a-tete_ upstairs, she would steal on the pair, if possible, unawares, and interrupt, without the least reserve, any billing and cooing which might be going on, sending the delinquent daughter to her work, and giving a glower at the swain, which she expected might be sufficient to deter him from similar offences for some little time.

The girls, consequently, were taught to be on the alert--to steal about on tiptoe, to elude their mother's watchful ear, to have recourse to a thousand little methods of deceiving her, and to baffle her with her own weapons. The mother, if she suspected that any prohibited frolic was likely to be carried on, at a late hour, would tell her daughters that she was going to bed, and would shut herself up for a couple of hours in her bed-room, and then steal out eavesdropping, peeping through key-holes and listening at door-handles; and the daughters, knowing their mother's practice, would not come forth till the listening and peeping had been completed, and till they had ascertained, by some infallible means, that the old woman was between the sheets.

Each party knew the tricks of the other; and yet, taking it all in all, the widow got on very well with her children, and everybody said what a good mother she had been: she was accustomed to use deceit, and was therefore not disgusted by it in others. Whether the system of domestic manners which I have described is one likely to induce to sound restraint and good morals is a question which I will leave to be discussed by writers on educational points.

However Meg managed it, she did contrive that her mother should not go near the little parlour this Sunday morning, and Anty was left alone, to receive her lover's visit. I regret to say that he was long in paying it. He loitered about the chapel gates before he came home; and seemed more than usually willing to talk to anyone about anything. At last, however, just as Meg was getting furious, he entered the inn.

"Why, Martin, you born ideot--av' she ain't waiting for you this hour and more!"

"Thim that's long waited for is always welcome when they do come,"

replied Martin.

"Well afther all I've done for you! Are you going in now?--cause, av'

you don't, I'll go and tell her not to be tasing herself about you.

I'll neither be art or part in any such schaming."

"Schaming, is it, Meg? Faith, it'd be a clever fellow'd beat you at that," and, without waiting for his sister's sharp reply, he walked into the little room where Anty was sitting.

"So, Anty, you wouldn't come to ma.s.s?" he began.

"Maybe I'll go next Sunday," said she.

"It's a long time since you missed ma.s.s before, I'm thinking."

"Not since the Sunday afther father's death."

"It's little you were thinking then how soon you'd be stopping down here with us at the inn."

"That's thrue for you, Martin, G.o.d knows."

At this point of the conversation Martin stuck fast: he did not know Rosalind's recipe [29] for the difficulty a man feels, when he finds himself gravelled for conversation with his mistress; so he merely scratched his head, and thought hard to find what he'd say next. I doubt whether the conviction, which was then strong on his mind, that Meg was listening at the keyhole to every word that pa.s.sed, at all a.s.sisted him in the operation. At last, some Muse came to his aid, and he made out another sentence.

[FOOTNOTE 29: Rosalind's recipe--In _As You Like It_, Act III, Sc. ii, Rosalind, disguised as a young man, instructs Orlando to practice his wooing on her.]

"It was very odd my finding you down here, all ready before me, wasn't it?"

"'Deed it was: your mother was a very good woman to me that morning, anyhow."

"And tell me now, Anty, do you like the inn?"

"'Deed I do--but it's quare, like."

"How quare?"

"Why, having Meg and Jane here: I wasn't ever used to anyone to talk to, only just the servants."

"You'll have plenty always to talk to now--eh, Anty?" and Martin tried a sweet look at his lady love.

"I'm shure I don't know. Av' I'm only left quiet, that's what I most care about."

"But, Anty, tell me--you don't want always to be what you call quiet?"

"Oh! but I do--why not?"

"But you don't mane, Anty, that you wouldn't like to have some kind of work to do--some occupation, like?"

"Why, I wouldn't like to be idle; but a person needn't be idle because they're quiet."

"And that's thrue, Anty." And Martin broke down again.

"There'd be a great crowd in chapel, I suppose?" said Anty.

"There was a great crowd."

"And what was father Geoghegan preaching about?"

"Well, then, I didn't mind. To tell the truth, Anty, I came out most as soon as the preaching began; only I know he told the boys to pray that the liberathor might be got out of his throubles; and so they should--not that there's much to throuble him, as far as the verdict's concerned."

"Isn't there then? I thought they made him out guilty?"

"So they did, the false ruffians: but what harum 'll that do? they daren't touch a hair of his head!"

Politics, however, are not a favourable introduction to love-making: so Martin felt, and again gave up the subject, in the hopes that he might find something better. "What a fool the man is!" thought Meg to herself, at the door--"if I had a lover went on like that, wouldn't I pull his ears!"

Martin got up--walked across the room--looked out of the little window--felt very much ashamed of himself, and, returning, sat himself down on the sofa.

"Anty," he said, at last, blushing nearly brown as he spoke; "Were you thinking of what I was spaking to you about before I went to Dublin?"

Anty blushed also, now. "About what?" she said.

"Why, just about you and me making a match of it. Come, Anty, dear, what's the good of losing time? I've been thinking of little else; and, after what's been between us, you must have thought the matther over too, though you do let on to be so innocent. Come, Anty, now that you and mother's so thick, there can be nothing against it."

"But indeed there is, Martin, a great dale against it--though I'm sure it's good of you to be thinking of me. There's so much against it, I think we had betther be of one mind, and give it over at once."

"And what's to hinder us marrying, Anty, av' yourself is plazed? Av'

you and I, and mother are plazed, sorrow a one that I know of has a word to say in the matther."

"But Barry don't like it!"

"And, afther all, are you going to wait for what Barry likes? You didn't wait for what was plazing to Barry Lynch when you came down here; nor yet did mother when she went up and fetched you down at five in the morning, dreading he'd murdher you outright. And it was thrue for her, for he would, av' he was let, the brute. And are you going to wait for what he likes?"

"Whatever he's done, he's my brother; and there's only the two of us."