Then she would fall asleep, and forget. Tonight it was past twelve o'clock before Mrs Darragh slept. Lull made up the fire, and crept softly out of the room to go to her own bed. But when she opened the door she discovered the five children in their nightgowns sitting huddled together in the pa.s.sage. They looked at Lull with anxious eyes.

"Is she dead, Lull?" Jane asked. Lull drove them off to the nursery.

"Tell us, Lull; is she dead?" Mick begged.

"Not a bit a' her," said Lull cheerfully. "She's sleepin' soun'." She tucked them into bed, and hurried back to see if they had waked their mother. All was quiet there, and she was once more going off to bed, when she heard voices in the nursery.

"I'll take it back the morra, but I think Almighty G.o.d's not fair." It was Honeybird's voice. "He might 'a' done some wee thing on me, an'

instead a' that He done the baddest thing He knowed."

"Whist, Honeybird," came Jane's voice.

"I'll not whist," said Honeybird. "He's near bruk my heart. Makin'

mother sick like that all for the sake of a wee bantam."

"G.o.d help childer an' their notions," said Lull to herself.

Next morning, when she was lighting the kitchen fire, a figure pa.s.sed the kitchen window. It was early for anybody to be about the place, so Lull got up to see who it could be. It was Honeybird. She was running quickly down the avenue, with something under her arm. She was back again before breakfast.

"How's mother?" were her first words. Lull a.s.sured her that Mrs Darragh was better again.

Honeybird gave a sigh of relief. "Och, but I got the quare scare," she said. Lull pretended to know nothing.

"Well, I may as well tell ye it was me stole Father Ryan's wee bantam,"

said Honeybird. Lull expressed surprise.

"An' sez I to myself: 'Almighty G.o.d niver knows that I know right well it's a sin'"--she paused for a moment--"but He knowed all the time.

'Clare to you, Lull dear, I made sure He'd 'a' kilt mother afore I got the wee bantam tuk back."

"Did ye tell the priest that?" Lull asked.

"Troth, I tould him ivery word from the very start," Honeybird answered.

"An' what did he say to ye?" said Lull.

"He's the awful nice man," said Honeybird. "He tried to make out that Almighty G.o.d wasn't as bad as all that. But I know better. Anyhow, he's goin' to buy me a wee bantam c.o.c.k and hen, all for my very own, to keep for iver."

CHAPTER IX

THE DORCAS SOCIETY

The Dorcas Society was Jane's idea. She thought of it one Monday evening as they all sat round the kitchen fire watching Lull make soup for the poor. A bad harvest had been followed by an unusually wild winter. Storms such as had not been known for fifty years swept over the country, and now, after three months of storm, February had come with a hard frost and biting wind that drove the cold home to the very marrow of your bones. In winters past the poor had come from miles round to Rowallan, where a boiler full of soup was never off the kitchen fire. This winter, driven by want, some of those who remembered the old days had come back once more, and Lull, out of her scanty store, had filled once more the big boiler. On this Monday evening, as she stirred the soup, she mourned for the good days past.

"Troth, Rowallan was the full an' plenty house when the ould master was alive. Bad an' all as he was there was good in him. It was a sayin'

among the neighbours that if ye'd had three bellies on ye ye could 'a'

filled them all at Rowallan." Lull could have talked all night on this subject. "An' the ould mistress, G.o.d have mercy on her; she'd have blankets an' flannel petticoats, an' dear knows what all, for the women an' childer; I'm sayin' Rowallan was the full an' plenty house wanst."

"Well, I wisht it was now," said Mick. "I met Anne M'Farlane on the road the day, an' ye could see the bones of her through her poor ould duds."

"Ah, I thought a quare pity a' her myself," said Patsy; "the teeth was rattlin' in her head."

"That'll make me cry when I'm in bed the night," said Honeybird sorrowfully.

It was then that the idea of a Dorcas Society, such as their mother had told them of, came to Jane, and was taken up enthusiastically by the others. "Ye get ould clothes, an' mend them, an' fix them for people,"

she explained to Lull. "We could have a brave one with all them things in the blue-room cupboards."

"Is it the clothes of your ould ancestry ye're for givin' away? I'm thinkin' ye'll get small thanks for that rubbidge," said Lull.

"Why, they're beautiful things, that warm an' thick," Jane protested, "an' we'd fix them up first." Lull looked at the five eager faces watching hers. She hated to damp their ardour, but she knew what the village would think of such gifts.

"Say yes, plaze," Honeybird begged, "or I'll be awful sorry ivery time I mind Anne M'Farlane shiverin'."

"Go on, Lull; many's the time I can hardly sleep when I think the people's cowld," said Mick.

"We'd begin at wanst," said Fly eagerly, and Lull weakly gave in. "G.o.d send they don't be makin' scarecrows a' the poor," she murmured when the children had departed in joyful haste to begin their Dorcas Society. For three days they could think and talk of nothing else.

Lull, watching them, regretted that she had not the heart to discourage them at the first, for they took such pleasure and pride in their society that she could not disappoint them now. She did drop a few hints, but n.o.body took any notice. The clothes from the blue-room cupboards represented the fashions for the past fifty years--full-skirted gowns, silk and satin, tarlatan, and bombazine calashes, areophane bonnets, Dolly Varden hats, pelerines, burnouses, shawls, tippets. At these Fly and Jane sewed from morning till night.

Fly saw the hand of Providence in an attack of rheumatism that kept Mr Rannigan in bed and put off lessons for a week. The boys were at school, but directly they came home they sat down by the schoolroom fire to help. Honeybird could not sew; she unpicked torn linings and, on Lull's suggestion, ripped off all unnecessary bows and fringes, working so hard that she had two big blisters where the scissors chafed her fingers. On Wednesday evening all the sewing was done, and the children prepared to take the clothes to the village. Lull regretted her weakness still more when she saw how pleased they were with their work. They brought her into the schoolroom to show her everything before they packed.

"Look at that fine thing," said Honeybird, patting a red burnouse.

"That'll keep Anne M'Farlane's ould bones from rattlin'." Patsy held up a buff-coloured satin gown, pointing out with pride where he had filled up the deficiencies of a very low neck with the top of a green silk pelerine.

"That's more like a dress now, isn't it, Lull?" he said. "I'm thinkin'

whoiver wore that afore I fixed it must 'a' been on the bare stomach."

They packed the clothes in ould Davy's wheelbarrow and the ould perambulator, and started off. Jane and Mick wheeled the loads. Patsy held a lantern, Fly and Honeybird carried armfuls of bonnets and hats that would have been crushed among the heavy things. Lull felt like a culprit as she watched them go. She waited with some anxiety for them to come home, but they came back as pleased as they had been when they started. Everybody was delighted, and had promised to wear their gifts.

"Anne M'Farlane cried, she was that glad," Honeybird told Lull.

"An', mind ye, the things fitted quare an' well," said Mick. "The only thing I have my doubts about was thon lilac boots ye give Mrs Cush."

"They went on her all right," said Jane.

"Ah, but I could see they hurted her all the same," said Mick; "but I suppose they'll stretch." Lull thanked G.o.d in her heart that the people had evidently taken the will for the deed. And perhaps, after all, though the clothes were not fit to wear, some of them might be useful--one of those satin dresses would be a warm covering on a bed.

Next morning she was skimming the soup when old Mrs Kelly came in.

Lull turned to greet her, and saw to her surprise that Mrs Kelly wore a tight black silk jacket and a green calash. "Saints presarve us, Mrs Kelly, woman," she exclaimed, for a moment forgetting the Dorcas Society. Mrs Kelly smiled weakly.

"I suppose I look like mad Mattie; but I couldn't be disappointin' the childer. Ye'll tell them, Lull, I come up in them, won't ye? I give them my word I would." Mrs Kelly departed with her soup, and Lull sat down to face the fact that the people had taken the children seriously.

"Dear forgive me, I'm the right ould fool. The village'll be like a circus the day," she murmured. A tall figure in vivid colours pa.s.sed the window. "G.o.d help us, there's Anne," she gasped. The next moment Anne M'Farlane stood in the doorway. She wore a brown bombazine dress, a red burnouse, and a bonnet of bright blue areophane. Lull greeted her as though there were nothing unusual about her appearance. But Anne, in no mood to notice this, stood still in the doorway. Lull turned towards the fire.

"Come on in an' warm yerself, Anne," she said cheerfully, trying to ignore Anne's dramatic att.i.tude. A burst of weeping was the reply from the figure in the doorway.

"Luk at me--luk!" wailed Anne. "Did ye iver see the like in all yer days?--all the childer in the streets a-callin' after me. An' when I met the priest on the road, sez he: 'Is it aff to a weddin' ye are in Lent, Anne?' sez he." Lull could find nothing to say. She tried to make Anne come in and have some tea, but Anne's woe was beyond the comfort of tea.

"Gimme the soup, an' I'll away home to my bed," she wept. "G.o.d help me, I'd be better in my grave." She dried her eyes on the burnouse, and took her soup, adding, as she turned to go: "Don't be lettin' on to the weans, Lull. Their meanin' was a' the best, but it's an image upon airth they've made a' me--me that always lived a moral life, an' hoped to die a moral death." She went away crying.

"It's the sore penance I'll get for this day's work," Lull muttered.