Orange Lily: Chapter XIX

“The youth had wit himself, and could afford

A witty neighbor his good word.

Though scandal was his joy, he would not swear:

An oath had made the ladies stare.”—Mallet.

“An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered;

An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he.”—Goldsmith.

It was six years after Tom Coulter had left the country, when, one Sunday afternoon in summer time, Big John sauntered over towards the Keags’ farmhouse. All the family were sitting down below their own hill-field, by the marsh-edge, where was a sunny bank, and just below it a spring that bubbled out, strongly impregnated with iron, and celebrated thereabouts for its good properties, as the Spa Well. This was a favorite Sunday evening resort for the neighbors, who liked lolling on the grass, and had a firm belief in the strengthening virtues of “a sup of the water” for curing the ailments of the week. This day there were also there some cronies of James Keag’s; one or two girls who were friendly with Lily; and two farmers’ sons.

Big John was welcomed from afar by all. For, though owning a much bigger farm and better position than any of these, he was so “free” (i.e., friendly) to every one, and not in the least proud, that all his poorer friends were as much at their ease when entertaining him as if he supped no better than themselves.

“You’re quite a stranger—ay, verily!” slowly observed James Keag, with a twinkle in his eye; for, somehow, whatever commonplace remark was made by any one to Big Gilhorn was considered by the speaker as in some degree a joke.

“Well … how is everyone?” asked the new-comer, beaming a wide smile on the whole circle; and (evidently considering it too much trouble to shake so many hands) only offering his broad palm heavily to the Orange Lily, to whom most folk showed their best manners. Everybody else felt that, somehow, as quite natural; and when he did not stay beside her, as any one who was paying her attention might have done, but stretched his large person on the grass beside Mistress Keag, who merrily invited him near herself, every one took that, somehow, as equally natural.

It was the children who always gathered round Lily’s knee, while she talked softly to them, and kept them quietly happy in a wise, motherly manner, that it was pretty to watch. Now and again the others did so watch her with pleased eyes. If the bloom and soft roundness of earliest girlhood had vanished from her face, it had a sweet, steadfast expression of features, a tender, far-away look in the gray eyes, that touched some of them strangely. The men thought her a saint—and wished themselves were better. The girls thought her so good that—they were glad they were not quite as good! Perhaps they credited her with even more moral strictness than poor Lily truly had; not understanding why she cared so little for being admired by the men thereabouts, or should shrink from the somewhat unrefined compliments that other girls accepted from their swains—unless that she was just too religious!

Mistress Keag, having the giant so near her, like Gulliver among the little folk, now began to make sport for the rest with a most approved old joke.

“It’s so long since we’ve seen you, Mr. Gilhorn, we just believed you were thinking long to be married, and was away courting. It’s time for you, man dear!”

As the parish favorite was held to be a confirmed bachelor already, being shy of girls, this sally evoked much applause.

“Time enough,” John answered, lazily staring over the marsh, green with flags and rushes, while here and there great creamy spikes of meadow-sweet scented the warm air. “I knew a man once …” he began, slowly, in a story-telling voice, and every one looked up interested, for a story from John was a rarity indeed, and at no time a common possession of their own. Then Gilhorn went on: “I knew this man once; and there was a woman he liked very well. And he thought about it for five or six years, till at last he made up his mind till marry her. Well, he mentioned the matter to his father, and he was not agreeable. So the man just waited till, after awhile, the father died—and that was some years. And he spoke again to his mother; but she was someways disinclined for it, so he thought best to wait till she died—and, faith! She took a longer time about it. But at the last there was just him and woman for it!” (Here Big John artfully paused; and all listened attentively.) “So then he named it to herself; and she said that ’deed she was not just that ways inclined! She had her own house, and plenty to keep her, and was not to say young by then, nor in want of a change. Well, there were plenty other weemen would have taken the man, but he inclined to none of them, and just every Sunday evening he would walk down regular to see her; and did so still when I knew him afore he died, though turned seventy. And at the last, when he took bad, he said what came sorest upon him was missing that Sunday walk.”

“And do ye tell me that he never brisked himself up to look out for another wife, but daundered on all his life?” exclaimed Mistress Keag.

“Just so! He was a quiet sort of man—like me,” placidly replied Big John; and while the rest broke out in a babble of remark, most joining in Mrs. Keag’s jeers, he rolled over on his other side near quiet Orange Lily, and chose himself a fresh grass-stalk to chew. She withdrew her eyes from studying the horizon, and said, softly,

“Mr. Gilhorn, I think I would have liked that man.”

John’s face broadened with delight.

“No, would ye—would ye, really, now? Would you, really?” he repeated, unable to express his satisfaction with variety, but hugely enjoying it all the same. In general he felt awed by the great moral and mental superiority over himself which the simple man rightly or wrongly imputed to Lily; her wits being, indeed, as a farthing candle to his rushlight. But just now she looked so gently and propitiously at him—put him so at his ease, unlike other girls, who teased him to attract his attention, that, after five full minutes’ cogitation, he was about to hazard a weighty and different remark from his last… !

At that moment up ran Osilla, her wild head crowned with meadow sweet, and flinging herself down, began pelting John’s nose with bits of flowers. Her mother burst out laughing, and cried, “Look at her!” Lill looked up perturbed, and just uttered one quiet, loving “Silla!” and the young sister stopped at once. She was a trouble to her thoughtful step-sister at times, seeming too unwilling to adopt the decorum of girlhood; and while as innocent as the youngest of the children, being, despite her added years, just as hard to keep in bounds.

“You’re like one of the play-actresses at the show in Maghrenagh,” observed John, grinning at his especial favorite, who always tried to monopolize him. “And I wouldn’t mind” (with a great effort) “escorting you and Miss Keag to see them—if the mistress is willing.”

“O ma! ma!—say yes,” ejaculated Osilla, in an ecstasy.

“Mother dear, I’ve heard it isn’t a nice place, indeed; thanking Mr. Gilhorn most kindly all the same,” pleaded poor Lily, in dismay; for indeed the show was far from edifying, and John, looking at her face, could have bitten his tongue out.

“Och! now, don’t preach at us, Lill! Sure I’d like to go myself. Plenty of respectable people does go,” retorted her step-mother, half crossly, half in banter; for, being rather a rake in heart, the fat old soul was just dying to see it.

“Ay! but they say they are sorry for it,” Lily softly expostulated.

“Well!— well!—well! I always let the womenkind fight it out; and then I’m ready for whatever is finally agreed on,” quoth John, in some haste, for he was an arrant big coward, as regarded feminine squabbles; then he rolled over to graze, like Nebuchadnezzar, in another direction.

“Just in time for a squabble among the ladies! The pretty dears will take to their nails in a minute. He! he!” said the voice of a new-comer from behind, with what, in Orange Lily’s ears, sounded an evil sneer. She knew, at his first word, that Daniel Gilhorn—the only man whom she had ever looked on as an enemy—was back on one of his periodical visits to Ballyboly. Her old repugnance, almost hatred, since he had tried to harm her by his tongue, rose up and filled her heart so suddenly that the day seemed cold and the sun shadowed. Then, horrified at her own lapse, because it was her nightly prayer that she might be helped to forgive him thoroughly as all others, she rose with an effort, and was the first to hold out her hand with all the greater cordiality. But Danny backed from her with affected horror.

“Hold her somebody; she wants to scratch my eyes out! Miss Keag, I’m puffickly shocked—you that I thought had taken to religion with years.”

Some of the more unthinking listeners laughed at this, as most greeted the new-comer; Lily Keag’s sweet face slowly flushed. Danny, simpering at his own wit, placed himself as centre in the circle, smiling around, and began again.

“Reelly, reelly! it is quite dreadful to see the bad passions that exist among such dear creatures as the female sex. But though, no doubt, you have been abusing each other very badly, Miss Keag there knows it is a Christian duty to forget and forgive; though maybe she herself may not always practise it. Mrs. Keag—my dear madam—I know you are not the lady to stand up for yourself, unless you are just trampled down, but we must make allowances for your step-daughter, that is such a saint—nowadays!” (here Danny airily waved his hand). “These pious people like having their own way, you know. Now—what is this little dispute?”

“As you did not think it worth while to ask sooner, it is not worth while telling you now,” calmly said Lily; her clear voice sounding before the rest had time to give their expected tribute of a general giggle.

Then she turned away to her youngest brother, an urchin that was dabbling in the iron-ooze, and staining his pinafore yellow with rust. Danny looked slightly discountenanced by her placidity, but tried fresh ground in haste.

“Well, Cousin John—haven’t spoken to you yet—but no offence. I hope—he, he!—that you’re glad to see me.”

Up got John Gilhorn, stretched himself silently to his full height and breadth, looked down at his cousin, as if, but that he disdained touching such a worm, he would “knock him into smithereens;” and gravely said,

“James Keag … if it’s agreeable to you … I’d be glad to go now and see your pigs.”

At tea in the farm kitchen, that evening, Mistress Keag, who was as unobservant as she was good-humored, remarked, in a tone of triumph, when her husband and guest came in and sat down at the board,

“Ah! Mr. Gilhorn, I was telling your cousin Danny that Lill would not let even an old wife like me go to the Maghrenagh show—and he up like a man, and says he’ll take me himself! Now you’ll come too, with Osilla, quick enough.”

Big John laid down the round of bread and butter he was just going to bite into, and said, emphatically,

“You’ll excuse me, ma’am … but I’ll not stir one foot! I don’t speak to Daniel; nor will I suffer him to speak to me. And I’m—I’m queerly surprised that you bore with his impudence this very day.”

“Hut! Danny must always have his joke! And very pleasant-spoken he is to me; although he and Lill seem to have some turn against each other,” retorted the good wife, warmly; for she would never be too old not to be gratified by a young man’s compliments. And neither she nor her husband understood well why Danny and their daughter were not on good terms; when he was so civil to themselves, some part of the fault was surely hers.

Keag now fairly roared laughing; for to see John roused, and his big face redden like a setting sun, was a rare sight.

“Ah! my boy, I’m feared Daniel has got the best of you with the old grandfather,” he cried.

“Faith! and he has,” returned John, with recovered good temper, biting his bread like an alligator, after that short fast. “I am ‘the worst in the world’ with the poor old man now—and Daniel is all in all! So I’ve not been near the farm this some time past—nor will go.”

When tea was finished. Orange Lily silently collected all the broken bread; and her father, perceiving John Gilhorn’s eyes upon her, said, half in apology, half proudly, in a whisper,

“It’s to feed that old witch down the road there. My girl has kept her alive for years. I trust she’ll be repaid in heaven; for faith! she doesn’t even get thanks from her here.”

The farmer’s pride in his eldest daughter was as great once more, but curiously different from that he had felt years ago in the bonny lass whose manners so far surpassed those of her fellows. He felt now as one who had unwittingly reared a saint—an incomparable but rather incomprehensible daughter, who was doubtless praiseworthily but uncomfortably anxious to wash the feet of others not half so good as herself. The process of readjusting his good opinion of his child had been slow and puzzling; but at last was done. He judged her now as one of those blessed but simple-minded people in whom worldly wisdom is not to be expected; and only thought of her early attachment as a mental aberration, excusable in one whose conscience forbade her being a respecter of persons, and a proof that if such good people’s friends were only properly determined with them they could save them from becoming utter fanatics.

The two men strolled outside to smoke then, while the goodwife was preparing the pig’s pottage. She seemed always either preparing or dispensing; while, on the contrary, her step-daughter was as continually putting by broken bread, mending and tidying. For it often brought a thought-wrinkle on the latter’s smooth forehead that in their family the mouths were now more, and the bodies bigger, to be fed; and yet crops had been bad and the rent backward, and her father, who had never been a strong man, was feebler now. By and by Lill went out and began collecting hens and chickens and ducks, to shut them up for the night; then Big John slowly approached her, and took his pipe from his mouth.

“I wonder, now, you don’t make the children do that,” said he, glancing with a newly-come disapprobation to where Osilla and her brothers were indulging in romps round the horse-pond—merry enough to watch, but no more useful in John’s opinion, that moment, than the gambols of rabbits. “You are breeding them up to be lazy.”

“Indeed, Mr. Gilhorn, I do try to do the best for them,” answered the Orange Lily, somewhat perturbed at such an unexpected reproach.

“I won’t gainsay, but you do,” solemnly replied her self-made judge. “But you are like a new policeman; you do your duty, but you do more nor your duty! You are always for sparing them—and who thinks of sparing you?”

With increased surprise, Orange Lily could find nothing to say but “Shoo—shoo! now,” to those most foolish of birds, the turkeys. John came nearer and cleared his throat portentously three times, each time pausing in a most ominous way to speak.

“And I wanted to speak … I have a thing to say … for I’m just heart-sorry now to have even named the show to you; and that’s the truth! … And I ask your pardon for thinking you would go … And—and that’s all!”

“You could not say more; and thank you kindly,” said the young woman, giving a gracious glance into his eyes, that seemed to him to go thence plumb down into his soft heart.

Then, after a few seconds of chicken manoeuvring—for it was hard to count them all on the roost—Lill, feeling encouraged to speak openly, and womanlike, enjoying the opportunity of preaching a little sermon to a man whose friendship and good-humor she reckoned on to make him take it not ill, said in her turn,

“And if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Gilhorn, I was a little troubled in mind to hear you speak as you did of your cousin this evening. Surely you ought to forgive him;” and Lill paused with her hand on the fowl-house half-door, and looked up with reproach and pleading deepening her good gray eyes. “It’s not Christian, you know, to bear malice; although he has, no doubt, ill-treated you … I—I had something against him myself once, but forgave it long ago.”

Big John stared with a most troubled look at the comely, accusing farm-angel, who so arraigned him; and his whole body heaved with a reproachful sigh, like a breeze of wind.

“Well, now! … I never expected that from you; when it was about yourself, and none else, the first quarrel arose betwixt him and me, now five years ago … and six months! And a Christian I can be when it’s only to forgive what harm he does myself; but I disremember where we are bidden forgive the harm done on those we care a heap more for than ourselves … ! O—just, I can never get over how ill he abused you!”

A thrill of pleasure vibrated through poor Lill one moment. The next she reproached herself for such a feeling sprung from the vain and baser part of her nature. Yet it was long—so long since she had had words spoken to her in such a tender strain! And the love of her family was only her natural right; the almost universal esteem of the neighbors she was used to, and gave it no thought; but this seemed to be a warmer, more satisfying tribute of respect, after all, to a lonely human heart—no more, of course! So she was amazed and rather glad, but ashamed to be at all thus moved; and fumbled at the door-hasp with awkward fingers and eyes soberly downcast. At last she murmured, “Indeed, indeed, I am not near worthy that you should mind that all this time, Mr. Gilhorn; but thank you very much.” Then, with an irrepressible ejaculation of wonder, “And I who never thought you were such an’ a friend of mine!”

“Who else, under heaven, did you think I came visiting here for?” returned Big John, in a deep, somewhat agitated grumble, meant for a murmur, churning the keys and coppers in his pockets hurriedly up and down.

Then he glanced with a rather piteous uncomfortableness at the farmyard, round which the children were racing, apparently bent on pulling each other’s hair; whilst close by Osilla and her brothers were teasing the collie dog.

“It’s a throughother place this. Won’t you come down by the beech hedge a minute … ah do!”

“I can’t. I must feed the pigs,” hastily returned the girl, and she leant against the pump, as if glad to know that everything in the world was not unreal, nor changed strangely in the twinkling of an eye, like this, her acquaintance of years.

“Could you not speak here, please; if—you have really anything to say?”

Big John gave a sort of groan.

“Och, I could … and maybe it’s as well said one place as another … but the long and the short of it is this, Miss Keag, though I’ve noticed rightly you’ve never been much on for marrying—I am!! … It came on me a year or two ago. And if you can noways make up your mind to have me, well … and … good! But, if you incline towards me, why—why—well and better!” And with a great effort he pulled both hands out of his pockets.

Lill felt almost giddy; her face paled, and she looked utterly dismayed and sorrow-stricken.

“O Mr. Gilhorn, I’m sorry with my whole heart,” was all she found breath to whisper.

“Ay, ay, I was thinking as much,” said Big John, very slowly, after a pause, during which both heard the ticking of his great turnip-sized watch; then he turned his back, and, staring at the barn wall, added, “You’ll be like the woman I spoke of this very day—not just that ways inclined.”

“There are plenty of others in the country, Mr. Gilhorn, better looking, and with more fortune nor me, who would be glad enough—”

“Sure I know—I know!—I know!” and John desperately waved his arm, as though implying they bothered his very soul. “But a woman’s more plague than peace, unless I get a bit used to her, quiet like; and I’ve watched you this three years … ! Maybe, after another wee bit— Well, well! … Good-evening.”

And away he trudged, while the children clamored after him. Orange Lily slipped into the byre alone; and sitting down there sadly, thought awhile of such another time nearly seven years ago.

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.