Orange Lily: Chapter XVII

Author: May Crommelin

Date: 1879

Source: Orange Lily

Comments: A novel set in Carrowdore, County Down, in the 1860s

“O’Rourke’s noble fare will ne’er be forgot,

By those who were there, or those who were not;

Come, harper, strike up, but first, by your favor,

Boy, give us a cup.—Ah, this has some favor!

O’Rourke’s Jolly boys ne’er dreamt of the matter,

Till rous’d by the noise and musical clatter;

They dance in a round, cutting capers and ramping,

A mercy the ground did not burst with their stamping.”

Dean Swift, from the Irish.

Three months passed; then “word” came to a friend of Tom Coulter’s that the emigrants had landed safely—Providence be thanked—that Tom himself had got a little work, and hoped to do rightly.

When this was discussed through the country, at the village doors, or down the road, some wondered that old Coulter had gone so far at his time of life; others blamed Tom for not stopping quietly at home with his father, instead of dragging the latter out to America; while some again believed both had done right. Public opinion was so varied that it was well, perhaps, for the peace of mind of father and son that they had asked no man’s advice previously, but had gone their own road. Only James Keag held his peace. When directly asked, however, whether he did not miss his young farm-servant, since it had attracted attention that the latter, though so strong, diligent, and superior to most, had yet rested content with small wages, Tom’s former master would slowly reply—“He wrought well—ay, verily!—that no man can deny,” and again became silent.

In a few days the talk died out again; so soon are people commonly forgotten, although young Tom had been a favorite with many, and had held up his head high to the rest.

Orange Lily was glad it was so. She had winced every time Tom’s name was uttered, dreading lest Daniel Gilhorn had spoken of them both in his malice and jealousy to others besides her father, and so “talk” would arise—talk, the bugbear of all honest, modest girls like herself; since the village folk had too often tongues like knives, bearing out in their own lives the proverb, “Ill doers are ill deemers.” But nothing was whispered as yet; so she grew to feel comparatively grateful to Gilhorn for doing her no more harm, although, indeed, his silence shielded the fact of his own beating.

Meanwhile, day after day slowly passed, and Lill seemed to herself only half alive, half awake; and many things around her went by as if she did or felt them in a dream. At first the poor girl felt almost (not quite) glad Tom was gone, seeing it spared her the sharp pain of knowing him near, yet sundered; later, she heavily thought that the mere chance of seeing him would be worth twice as much torment, one cheery, rousing word from him, bliss. Nevertheless, there was no outward change much seen in her. She rose even earlier, washed, worked, stitched harder, later, and more continuously than even before; that it was done in a spiritless way, few noticed—she had always been so quiet. If at times she utterly despaired, hope was more often still new and young within her. After all, it was not long since Tom had gone. It would, surely, not be very long till he came back again.

Soon after that Christmas came another letter from Tom Coulter to a different friend—this time briefer. Work was scarce, he said, and times bad; but they were going to Chicago, and hoped to do better there. None had written him a line from Ballyboly in answer to his previous letter; and he would like well to hear some word—that was all!

This news filtered through the talk of various neighbors, till at last it saddened Lily’s ears. “Ochone!” she murmured to herself … “ochone!” Tom was unlucky, was “thinking long,” and the strange longing and home-sickness thereby meant was dreaded greatly by all Ballyboly folk. But soon, according to her nature, she took a sober, very patient, but cheerier view. Her mind pondered and pondered over the words that he “hoped to do better,” till Tom himself would have marvelled at their expansion. For in time they filled her with an ever-enlarging certainty that Tom had hoped to do better—was doing better—had fine prospects in view—would come home maybe next year, maybe in the one after that! All this while what he had written was but the brief expression of a deep discouragement the poor lad would not make further known.

At the new year time a neighbor, whose soul rejoiced over a new barn as his of the parable did in anticipation, gave an Orange ball, in the slated small-enough outhouse in question; and with the rest Mistress Keag and her step daughter were bidden. The barn walls had been roughly whitewashed and decorated with some bits of winter green; the earth floor was swept clean; two or three oil-lamps slung on a cord lighted the scene; and in a corner was the supper-table, set out with cakes and farls, tea-cups, and redolent already of hot whiskey and water.

First the supper was partaken of; then, when their hearts were warmed, and all felt full and satisfied, the dancing duly began. At these gatherings the guests were divided of late into two parties. One comprised all the older folk, who still loved to “foot” it on the floor, and who were anxious to dance none but old-fashioned country dances and reels; the other, the fashionably-minded younger ones, who had learnt polkas and waltzes by combining to pay for a dancing-master from Maghrenagh all last winter, and who naturally wished to show off what they had learnt for their money. The latter now carried the contest; and the fiddlers, who were perched on a little platform made of a shutter on two barrels, gayly struck up a polka. Away went the young folk dancing, not in a wild throughother jumble like the gentry at the Castle, but cautiously in a ring, six couples only at a time, doing their steps at every corner, and taking good care not to jostle each other, lest a kick from a hob-nailed boot should be given with applause, “to teach them to keep the circle.”

Almost all were dancing except Orange Lily herself, whom no one had yet claimed. This was unusual, for she was considered one of the cleverest and genteelest dancers of the new-fangled dances, and besides, was held a beauty in the neighborhood, being thought pleasant-faced by all the men, and popular with both sexes alike for her “quietness”—the most esteemed quality in the north. Her placid nature had complacently accepted a fair amount of continuous respectful homage therefore, while the good maiden trusted rather pharisaically that she was not vain. Now she was conscious of an unpleasant surprise. For a time she told herself that many of her friends often fared likewise; but when the next and the next dances found her still seated on the planks ranged round the rough walls for sitters, her cheeks began to burn, and her eyes sought the floor.

“Woman dear! Are you beside me still? Well, this is new-uns!” (or something new), exclaimed her step-mother, kindly, but with a loud wonder that the poor girl felt ill-timed, since several of the young people near looked round and smiled. She began to wonder was there anything queer about her plain black dress and blue ribbons. Certainly many of her friends wore Joseph-garments, and some even displayed red arms through their thin muslin jackets, shocking her better taste; “but the men seemed to admire it,” she thought, with a curl of her lip. Mistress Keag’s remark had excited the good nature of their hostess, a farmer’s wife, who bustled away, exclaiming, to the Orange Lily’s mortification, “Dear! dear! I must get her a partner,” and approached the youngest Gilhorn cousin, a young man whom most of the girls generally despised as loutish and ill-humored. To make matters worse, he seemed reluctant—he, who in general had no chance of such a favor as a dance with any of the popular girls. Poor Lily felt a mark for all eyes, and at that moment saw, with a start, a blue, piggishly small pair of orbs across the room, whose glance gave her “a turn” like the evil eye. Daniel Gilhorn was there! Home again—no doubt, on a holiday trip from Glasgow.

Back came the farmer’s wife, apparently bringing the sought partner after her with difficulty.

“Will ye stand up, Miss Keag?” asked William-Thomas Gilhorn, but with such evident reluctance that the young girl, flushing, replied very distinctly—

“No, I thank you; I like better to sit.”

“Well, I was bid ask you,” he answered, rudely turning on his heel. And just then the dance ceased, and his cousin Danny passed by.

“Ah! Miss Keag, were you not dancing, that I never had the pleasure of remarking you before?” he cried, stopping, so as to arrest the steps and attention of a good many others.

“So you’ve lost our friend, Mr. Thomas Coulter. You must miss him very much,” and he glanced round significantly at the bystanders, some of whom suppressed smiles.

A quicker-witted girl might perhaps have passed worse through such a sudden trial than the poor Orange Lily, who was so slow to understand that any one could wish to pain her that her dewy gray eyes gazed up wideningly at Gilhorn, utterly bewildered as to his drift.

“Oh, ay! We all miss him, of course,” she slowly answered, bravely making her words quite distinct. “But my father has got another boy now to do the work.”

No elaborate pretence of misunderstanding could have approached the excellence of that dulness. For Dan had so smiled and spoken in such a warm, friendly tone that surely, thought the honest child, he could be no enemy. Next moment the onlookers began to discourse each other, as if by common consent; something indescribable suggesting that the young girl’s answer had given an assurance for good to their minds.

On moved Dan, a sneer just raising his lip above his eye-tooth.

Then—then by degrees it began to dawn on the Orange Lily’s mind that what she dreaded had happened … the “talk” had begun! Slowly, as the tide covers the flat sands by the Majempsys’ farmhouse, bitterness overspread her heart against the traitor who had done this evil to her. So his smile had been that of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, had it? She thought indignantly, within her simple soul, that she would always know now what he meant by showing his white teeth like that. Alack! the more she thought about it, the heavier and sorer the poor lass felt her heart.

Just then, raising her down-dropped eye-lids, Lily perceived Big John Gilhorn, Danny’s eldest cousin, staring at her. He was the same young man who, some years ago, had offered to back Tom Coulter in a fight against his own cousin Daniel; and now grown older, broad and burly, was as universally esteemed as his brother was held cheap in the Ballyboly parish opinion.

He slowly came forward now, dragging his hands from his pockets with a great visible effort, as if these much disliked being called out for any other duties besides working or feeding. To Orange Lily’s amazement, he asked her to dance with him; he whose steps made one think of an elephant dancing a reel—and who was seldom induced thus to divert the company, unless dragged up by his friends. But he was smiling at her so broadly, like a good-natured man-in-the-moon, and he was so well-to-do, even among the richest farmers, and respected, that she quickly said yes.

Great applause followed Big John’s appearance, as he stood up with his partner in sign of his readiness to join in the company’s diversion. A fire of jests was instantly opened upon him; but in a manner that showed he was the favorite, not the fool, of the merry-makers, and was held of consequence.

“What dance is it to be, John? A gallop, man?—a polka?” “You’ll want the whole house to yourself, we’re thinking; their’s not many of your size will fit in.” “Try a schottish, John!”

“Faith and I will not, then,” quoth Big Gilhorn, decidedly. “None of your new slithery-slathery waltzes for me! What I like best is to see a man get up and take the middle of the floor—and foot it there for a good hour! ‘The Soldier’s Joy’ for me, if I may make so bold as ask that request; and I’ll be bound there’s a good few here will like to warm themselves alongside of me.”

A perfect storm of delight from the partisans of the old dances greeted his declaration. The hostess smiled assent; the fiddlers scraped with an evident pleasure, in the lilt of the well-known old air, and Big John executed a bit of a breakdown by himself with much applause.

“Now, boys, off with your coats,” cried he, as the couples formed with alacrity, more than one hale grandfather and grandmother among them, whose steps were the envy and admiration of their degenerate descendants.

In a twinkling the men were in their shirt-sleeves; and then, with an expression of glee contrasting curiously with the careful deportment of the new dancers, they started in the mazes of the vigorous reel. Big John did his steps with a nimbleness wonderful in such a heavy-looking man, finishing up every now and then with a solid pounding that made delicate-nerved folk like his cousin Daniel think it a “puffect mercy that he was on an earth-floor, in which holes were cheaply mended.” All such jokes the big man took with smiling placidity; as if, out of kindness to his friends, he permitted them to make him their butt, yet knew how to keep himself respected.

After the dance, up came Daniel Gilhorn again (as might a gnat determined to sting, with his thin body and white face, thought Lily Keag, shrinking).

Well, Miss Keag, I’m glad to see you’ve such a fine partner at last,” said he, with a laugh that disagreeably curdled what poor equanimity had been restored to his victim. “I’d have danced with you myself, but was afraid you would care for no partner after Mr. Tammas Cowltert,” emphasizing the vulgar manner of pronunciation as broadly as he could.

The Orange Lily was now roused at last; the color of battle dyed her fresh cheeks redder, the light of war shone in her gray eyes as she turned upon him.

“You know well enough that I never danced with him in my life; although I have little doubt upon it that he could beat you in that, like as in other ways.”

Her speech, always slow and deliberate, was unconsciously emphasized at the last words by her indignation. Daniel started, tried to speak; but could only produce a sound of anger that failed to be scorn, and with a vindictive glare walked away.

Big John thoughtfully worked about the contents of his pockets, and stared full in his companion’s face.

“Wee Danny seems some way spiteful against Tom Coulter,” quoth he, plainly. “Miss Keag, can you insense me into the reason for that? for I thought a great heap of that lad, now—in his own position.”

The young girl was silent, with her eyes fixed on the mud floor. Her ears seemed to hate the loud laughter around, the stamping of feet, the scraping of fiddles, the close smells; she felt heated, heartsick, and only longed to be home that she might cry in quiet.

“Well, well, I’m not wishing to be troublesome,” said big Gilhorn, kindly, if not very delicately; “but you’re young, and I’m sorry for you—that’s the truth. And if a body could stop the ill tongues that are glad enough to give talk about a girl—”

He slowly ended, and gazed straight at her.

“What talk?” she asked, with a passion she had not felt since she was a little child, when one day the school-children had jeered at Tom Coulter’s old clothes. “Mr. Gilhorn, there is nothing true to tell I could be ashamed of; anything else is lies.”

“Easy, easy! Why now, I could have told you that; I was just convinced of that when I saw your face so open and innocent there a bit ago, when Dan was at you about it,” cried the good-hearted man, jingling the contents of his pockets with a really glad air, for there was no evil joy in him, “and I’ll say so to Danny, so I will.”

“That would be like warning the thief that you fear there are robbers about,” returned the girl, growing almost ironical in the bitterness of her soul. Then, because he looked so puzzled, she told him the whole story of how Daniel had once insulted her and been thereupon chastised by Tom, which was the origin of all his present malice.

When she had finished, Big John, who had listened in utter silence, only wagged his head, and said—

“Ay, ay, Danny has a cur’ous tongue!”

But the poor girl felt somewhat comforted; for in those days it was much to her to get a friendly look as his was, accompanying words that were at least not unfriendly.

During the week that followed, she sorely needed some such comfort; yet got none. For the gossip around had not failed to “acquaint” Mistress Keag what was surmised about a mutual attachment between her late ploughboy and step-daughter, and the good woman was very angry. A great gossip herself, she considered it a dire misdemeanor “for any one belonging to her to get talked about;” and good-natured though she was, her fibre was not fine, so she daily lectured her step-daughter on the past, in words that kept a constant raw sore in the latter’s soul. Poor Orange Lily had always been proud enough in her quiet way, and held herself aloof from other girls of flighty manner and foolish speech. And now to find that, through a pure and honest love, which had begun unchecked in her childhood and but strengthened with years, never altered, she was considered to have disgraced herself below those others whose doings she had despised, was indeed wormwood and gall to her! But for that lesson, she had been in danger of becoming a good, nicely-mannered Pharisee of a farm maiden; that saved her. She took her moral medicine into a good heart, that happily sought and found in prayer its relief, then strength, hope, and very life; so it became a tonic to her, not a poison; and instead of growing bitter against those folk who so misjudged her, she humbled herself, and felt pitiful and sympathetic to all in her whole little world who were troubled, looked down on, and condemned for misconduct—“most likely wrongly, just like herself—just like herself!”

Lily worked hard, too, in those days, none harder; the good opinion of those she loved and lived amongst was like the very bread of her soul, and in this way only she could regain it.

“Och! ye do well enough now,” said her step-mother one evening, after a long day, during which the poor young girl had worked “just out-of-the-common”—“well enough now. But if you had been as mindful in your ways last spring, it would have answered ye better.”

“Let her alone,” said the farmer’s voice gruffly enough behind; so that both step-mother and daughter started, having believed him out at work carting manure from the till-midden. “Fair play is a jewel! And there is no use in casting up the past against her now, especially when it can’t change what’s done!”

It was a good thing that none dared tell Keag any gossip against his child; the reason being that the man was so easy-going and humorous that he was well liked through the country, but was known likewise to have a backbone of pride and stern anger in him that caused cowardly and ill-tongued folk to handle him cannily. Nay, not even his wife dared speak a word of it to him, had she been so minded; which she was not, however, “for when you get a quiet, decent man for a husband, it’s well to keep him peaceable,” she argued to a fireside friend. “And my one would just go clean demented if any one said a bad word of his Orange Lily, there—he’d take their life!”

Nevertheless, James Keag’s daughter knew in heart, with sadness, that his pride in her was humbled; that he now looked on her with eyes no longer hard or angry, but dull, puzzled, and regretful. As the weeks wore away, however, so the talk slowly died, so the father began to look around again on his fields with a more cheerful face, and the forgetful step-mother became her careless, kindly self again. But never again could poor Lily feel as before she had—to her sorrow—caused such mortification to those whom she loved so dearly; never forget for a day that she had loved Tom Coulter, her father’s farm-servant, whom she still believed worthy of her whole affection.

It happened one noon, at dinner-time, that her father startled her by remarking—

“There is a sough through the country (as I hear tell) that yon two Gilhorn cousins, Danny and Big John, have quarrelled out-right.”

“What for—for any sake?” exclaimed Mistress Keag, while such a nervous dread stirred poor Lily that she could not speak. For unkind gossip had not hardened but made her so tender, poor thing, that she winced at the very mention of reports; wondering could Big John have said aught to his cousin about—herself.

“They had been rivals for the old grandfather’s money this good wee while back,” said the farmer, as he placidly ate his potatoes and bacon. “And they came to words, as folk suppose, about that, the last time Danny was over here from Glasgow.”

So that was all! After all, Lily told herself it was foolish ever to think that a man’s championship can stop gossip about a woman. And most likely Big John had never thought more of her—after his first good-natured pity at seeing a young girl (like many another!) grieving herself and taking it to heart bitterly that the world seized her name to make sport with, more from idleness than out of mischief. It seemed likely, indeed; for she saw nothing of him more that year.

Order the new paperback edition of Orange Lily which includes an introduction, footnotes and a glossary of words by Dr Philip Robinson. The book also includes the short stories The Witch of Windy Hill and An Old Maid’s Marriage.

Tags: Tag1x

NOTICE

The Ulster-Scots Academy has been an integral part of the Ulster-Scots Language Society since 1993. The name "Ulster-Scots Academy" is registered to the USLS with the Intellectual Property Office.

Ulster Scots Academy

LATEST

A new edition of Michael Montgomery’s From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English recounts the lasting impact that at least 150,000 settlers from Ulster in the 18th century made on the development of the English language of the United States. This new edition published by the Ulster-Scots Language Society documents over 500 ‘shared’ vocabulary items which are authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. A searchable online version of this dictionary is now also available here.

FORTHCOMING

The Ulster-Scots Academy is currently working on the digitisation of Dr Philip Robinson's seminal Ulster-Scots Grammar and the English/Ulster-Scots part (with circa 10,000 entries) of a two-way historical dictionary of Ulster-Scots. These projects are planned to be completed and available on the site in 2016.

SUPPORT US

DONATE via PAYPAL

This site is being developed on a purely voluntary basis by the Ulster-Scots Language Society at no cost to the taxpayer. USLS volunteers have been involved in preserving and promoting Ulster-Scots for more than 20 years. All donations, however small, will be most gratefully received and contribute towards the expansion of the project. Thank you!

This site is being developed by the Ulster-Scots Language Society (Charity No. XN89678) without external financial assistance. USLS volunteers have been involved in preserving and promoting Ulster-Scots for more than 20 years. All donations, however small, will be most gratefully received and contribute towards the expansion of the project. Thank you!

(Friends of the Ulster-Scots Academy group)