Orange Lily: Chapter XXV

“The laborer with a bending scythe is seen,

Shaving the surface of the waving green;

Of all her native pride disrobes the land,

And meads lie waste before his sweeping hand;

While with the mounting sun the meadow glows,

The fading herbage round he loosely throws;

But if some sign portend a lasting shower,

Th’ experienc’d swain foresees the coming hour;

His sunburnt hands the scattering fork forsake,

And ruddy damsels ply the saving rake!

In rising hills the fragrant harvest grows,

And spreads along the field in equal rows.”

Gay.

There was naturally much pride in James Keag’s heart to think that his favorite daughter should be going to sit down as mistress in the finest farm in the countryside, as the Majempsys’ former home was held to be. And the rest of the family were all more or less excited on the subject, though Osilla stoutly declared, against united opposition, that she thought John’s own house far the most homely and pleasant-like to her mind. Amidst all this talk and congratulation Lill remained so quiet, humbler-looking, instead of being elated, that in their hearts all the folk in the household marvelled at her. But she felt like a wild creature that knew it was being silently snared with nets—she could hardly breathe! One day, John solemnly asked that his promised bride would walk down with him to the sea-farm.

“For,” said he, with a wink, “I thought it just as well yesterday, since Danny is so agreeable, to drop a hint of how things is between me and you; and if ye could take a survey of the house, and see any changes you would like done—beforehand! it … it would be mighty convenient.”

“So you told him! And what did your cousin say?” asked the young woman, slightly shrinking.

“You never saw a man so taken aback at the first!” replied John, with a great haw-haw. “And then he seemed pleased above anything, and shook hands, and wished me luck. ‘O bring her down,’ says he, ‘I’ll be ready for you both the morrow,’ and he went away laughing to himself, fit to split. I believe, in my heart, that drink has made him mad.”

So the Orange Lily put on her Sunday clothes and went soberly down the well-remembered solitary lane leading from their hill to the sea-farm with John, trying all the way to keep her thoughts from straying uselessly back to that sunny summer day long ago, when she and Tom Coulter, a pair of happy weans, had travelled this very path, and in the evening, returning, had plighted their troth. She was a foolish creature; she would not think about it. Was not her wedding-day coming so soon?—the thought choked her!

The day was unusually hot, although they neared the sea, and dark. There was thunder in the air, and rain seemed threatening as at last they reached the whitewashed farmyard. The gate, the only entrance here, was padlocked, to their surprise; so John hammered thereat, and shouted loudly to attract the attention of some one. After some time Danny Gilhorn’s voice was heard from a stable close by, cursing and asking who was there and what they wanted. Then he himself appeared swaggering to the gate with his hat all awry, and two surly bull-terriers with him.

“We want in; and there is a shower coming,” shouted Big John, briefly enough, being ill-pleased.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll get wet, he! he! he!” sneered Danny, with a malicious leer, from the other side of the gate. “For you won’t get in here; will they, my beauties?” and he stooped down to pet the bull-terriers, who growled at the strangers.

“Did you not ask us down?” inquired Big John, with amazement, supposing there was surely some joke in the matter.

“Is it I ask the like of you two within my door? It’s like your impudence; you asked yourselves, ye beggars!” sneered Danny, with drunken insolence; then grinning at his woman-guest from behind the strong bars of the gate, added, “Miss Keag, I wish you joy! though you don’t seem as fond of John as you were of your father’s farm-servant—he! he!”

“Come away—come away,” whispered Orange Lily, hastily laying her hand on John’s arm, while her face grew as red as a rose. But the latter seized the gate with all his might, and shook it.

“I’ll thole sitch capers no long-er! … Did you not say that you would be ready for the owner to-be?” he bellowed, wrath beginning to boil in him.

The dastard inside shrank back a second; but seeing the gate was high and strong, and that bluster was safe, now treated them both to a variety of insulting grimaces as a garnishing to his speech.

“And so I am ready for the owner to-be; my own friend from beyond Maghrenagh who is coming down the road immejently. If he catches you here, he’ll just murder the pair of ye, I can tell you, you big gawk! … yah! So you thought you had come round me with your blarney, did you? Did ye ever see such a pair of fools? O Lord! It will kill me with laughing,” and holding his sides Danny indulged in a weak cackle, and such extravagant gestures of mirth that John thundered—

“Are you going to let me have the farm, or not?”

“I am not—!” returned Danny, with a horrible curse upon them both, as the two human beings—bar one!—he hated the worst in the world. Then he gave an exclamation, and darted back to the shelter of his house-door, for Big John had taken hold of the gate again, like a second Samson at Gaza, and was wrenching and shaking it till he seemed likely to burst it in. In a twinkling the coward had bolted and barred himself inside, yelling he’d take the gun—he’d take the law on them.

After a few minutes, like an angry bull that no longer sees the object of his rage, John Gilhorn desisted from his fruitless efforts; and, listening at last to the continual entreaties of his gentle companion, allowed himself to be led down to the sea-road that ran past the front of the farm along the beach. But, on turning the house-corner, to Lill’s sore vexation he broke from her restraining clasp; and, rushing back a few steps, sent a well-directed stone whizzing through one of the windows. That done, he returned and drew a long breath, like one satisfied.

The young woman had purposely drawn her angry lover on to the high-road, although that was a longer way home, because a terrible thunderstorm was plainly about to break, and the lane was quite without shelter. Now she tried, for this reason, to persuade him to hurry onward till they should reach a cottage. But Gilhorn was almost unmanageable, and heeded nothing but the sore and shameful ill-treatment he had just received; recounting it all again and again with palsied speech, white lips, and body trembling with rage like a drunkard, or a man in ague.

All his sweetheart’s well-tried qualities of sweet reasonableness and soothing persuasion were now called on and taxed for some time, to their very uttermost. With her hand laid on John’s arm lovingly (as she had never before there placed it) she reminded him continually, putting the idea in every different shape imaginable, so that his mind might but some way receive it, that he had felt sorry at thought of leaving his own home—that she herself had been secretly grieved to think he had made the sacrifice for her—so that now they had both only to rejoice.

Tenderly, with most sweet womanly insistance, she pleaded, too, with him to control his passion; to be a man, and a Christian man. Yet so long was it in vain that her soul sank; and having no foundation of great affection for him on which, though beaten by his obstinacy, she could fall back, thinking, “Yet, with it all—I love him!” she found her heart suggesting how purposeless was this man’s anger, and what unreason in his babbling outpourings. He vapored too much and performed too little, it seemed to her; and though that only proved his harmlessness, yet comparing him with another man whom she had once known, who had stronger passions, but governed them, Lill trembled at coming so near despising him, with all his goodness. Then, growing impatient with both herself and him, she cried out—

“Ah, now! John, tell the truth! You’re only angry at being made a fool of! It’s not for the farm itself; it’s that Danny has tricked you. Och! sure the disgrace is his own! You have acted as an honest man, and can hold up your head with the best. Indeed, I am vexed for you … but not sorry for myself.”

“I am angry at losing the farm. It was to please you I wanted it,’’ John repeated, and all her assurances of relief of mind were just wasted on him. Then Lill’s heart burned, and said she—

“It is better to tell you the very truth, John Gilhorn. I am glad with my whole soul not to go there when I marry you,” and, standing solemnly still, she pointed back to the farm, over which a dark cloud had gathered. “For when as a little child I had the vain wish to live there, it was with—another man.”

Gilhorn’s jaw fell slightly, and he turned a blank, gloomy stare on the young woman’s face, that was visibly thrilled with emotion; while her eyes, full of sadness but utter honesty, met his without flinching—no, not to the quiver of an eyelash.

As if subdued either by her words, or a superiority he dimly felt and thus acknowledged—bred in her by suffering and displayed in patience, self-control, and love to all—the man, in sudden therefore strange silence, resumed his walk; and as mutely she stepped beside him.

A little while past, an unnatural darkness had begun to creep over the land; the dull, close afternoon had become hotter. From northwards, over the sea there, jagged black clouds came silently but swiftly moving across a background of dun. There came now deep murmurs in the distance, as if earth and sky were muttering to each other; then some few rain-drops, warnings of what was coming. By instinct each bird, beast, and insect was hidden; there seemed not a living thing left on the face of the land, and “Run!” both the man and woman ejaculated to each other, seeing a cottage near—and gained it none too soon. Quick, terrible flashes of lightning came in the east; the sky in that quarter was all cracked with flame; and mighty peals of thunder rolled, rumbled, and crashed right above the roof. Light and its brother sound seemed mocking mortals’ fright, and urging each other to deave and dazzle poor old earth, worse and worse!

The only cottage inmates seemed two women, crouched, crying, and quaking in terror on the ground, with their heads under the bed-clothes, as was the usual practice in Ballyboly during a thunder-storm. In vain Lily Keag tried to comfort them; she could not make either listen; so at last turned away and gazed, with awe and admiration in her face, out of the window, at the mighty and glorious show.

“Are you not feared, too? I’ve heerd tell often of lightning coming down the chimney and killing people dead,” said poor John Gilhorn, breaking his sullen silence at last.

“And if it did—!” came, as if she could not stop the words, from Lily’s lips.

“Why?—what!” gasped Big John, shocked as at a blasphemy; and that from a saint. “You don’t surely wish yourself dead? I’ve never heard the like of that from the lips of living soul! but just some wretches too miserable to care what happened till them … but, Lill!—you! held to be so religious—!”

But the young woman smiled a strange but beautiful smile, as if not caused by aught on this world; and her face seemed lit up by that holy and reverent expression as she answered—

“You don’t quite rightly understand me, Mr. Gilhorn. I am willing to live while the Lord wishes me, but will be far more glad to die. Life is good, but death is just glory! And often I think what a darling thing it will be to lie down and be at rest—when He calls to me that I have finished my work for Him, here.”

As she ended, a little child in a cradle, which they had not noticed, awoke and wailed. Lily took it to her arms, nursed it, and hushed its cries. Between the next two thunder-claps she heard John Gilhorn say, quite low, looking outside as he spoke,

“Lill … what do you think has become of that other man … of Tom Coulter?”

“I think he must be dead.”

Another peal of thunder; then he said again—

“And—tell me … Do ye really still like him better nor me?”

“I like and respect you above most men, and, since you took the promise from me, I will try to be a true and good wife to you,” Lill sadly answered; “but I loved him with my whole heart. And if he were to come back to-morrow as poor as he went—(which he never will)—God help me I I should feel just the same to him.”

Neither spoke again to each other. The darkness outside was lit still by flashes, but only to appear again the denser. Then heaven’s sluices seemed to open, and down full on earth, with the rushing noise of a waterfall, came the big rain, dark and drowning, hissing and flashing up from the ground, and turning the high-road into a water-course.

After a while the fierceness abated; there came a few more forked gleams, lessening rolls of heaven’s artillery behind time in the concert; and there was peace again in the little house. The two women had recovered themselves; and one of them accused herself for never having heard her child cry out in its fright.

“But you quieted him well, Miss Keag. He seems as happy with you as me,” she added, with gratitude—yet a touch of feminine jealousy.

“Still a mother’s breath is aye the sweetest,” replied Orange Lily, quoting a country saying; and gave her back her infant with that pleasant smile which made most hearts turn to her like flowers to the sun.

As she and John Gilhorn went homeward again by the high-road, they were silent all the way, except once when the young woman suddenly stopped, and cried out, “O—our hay!”

The water-meadows, which had been so recently cut and made into lap-cocks, had already had one severe soaking, so that this very morning the hay had been all spread again to dry. If, in that state, the thunder-shower had come down, before there was time to save the crop again—“Och, och! it would just be ruined!” as Big John, with the groan of a good farmer, made sole reply. But, lo and behold! as both came in sight anxiously of the low, flat mead, it was all dotted again with little lap-cocks; and Lill felt most thankful, for the hay would have been a severe loss, truly.

As they went up the lane together, Lill at last spoke again, and very earnestly, to entreat Gilhorn to say at first nought of what had so lately occurred, but let her gently break the matter to her people. And to this he silently nodded consent.

Inside the farm every one was at tea, and received them with such high spirits and eager tongues that both found themselves pushed into seats, and made to eat and listen, before either had courage to say or show that they carried ill news. Mistress Keag—of course—first taking up the word, declared that a special interposition of Providence had saved the hay. (“Ay, verily!” came from her husband.) For, as they were all hurrying, foreseeing the coming shower, and despairing, and working—dear help them, how they had worked!—a kindly man coming up the road, seeing their distress, had called out he would give them a hand’s turn; and jumping the hedge, accordingly, seized a rake and wrought like nine men. (“Ay, verily!”)

But for him the lower half would have lain there under that most outrageous drenching! (“Ay, verily! … And all the words ever he said was, when the lightning came, ‘Bid the weemen go up to the house, for they will be skeered,’ but himself just worked on,” put in James Keag, dryly, with admiration.) When he took shelter in the kitchen at last, went on the goodwife, she had urged him, all her able, to stay for tea—such a handsome, fine man as he was, too! (A chorus in approbation of the stranger came from all the younger members of the family.) But he would noways be persuaded, saying he had to go on and see Daniel Gilhorn.)

“What! …” exclaimed Big John, striking his hand on the tea-table with a crash that made them all jump. “Where does he come from?”

“From—the dear help us!—from … I asked him from where, and he said from a good bit further than Maghrenagh.”

“That’s him,” stuttered and spluttered Big John, scarlet now as any turkey cock. “That’s the very man that has gone and cheated me out of the farm; for—for—for Danny has given it till him behind my back!”

Such a hurly-burly of voices arose at this that for a long time the gentle Orange Lily could not make herself heard in favor of peace. When the calm followed, however, she did speak up, to take in fairness the man’s part who had so proved his kindness of disposition; who most likely knew nothing at all of Daniel’s treachery; and who—they should all remember—had asked first for the farm, before John had ever thought of it.

Her words made some little impression on the men, notably on her father; although they would by no means acknowledge it. Yet, to her last remark, her young brother warmly, and John more tacitly, averred that a Ballyboly man ought to be preferred for a Ballyboly farm—be his rival never so good!

Mistress Keag and Osilla showed themselves, however, inclined to side with their homely farm-saint, who had appealed to the generosity of all present; but they were so manifestly stirred on this point by the remembrance of the stranger’s good looks, that the men voted this a matter in which “wee-men had no call to interfere—” and retired with dignity to consult together, outside; for, “verily,” said James Keag, “the female mind first goes the one way and then goes di-reckly the opposite; for all the world like the pendulum of a clawk.”

The women, however, being all the more free to talk, bore up under this treatment; and Osilla, bridling and blushing—since she was plainly smitten—recounted to her elder how the man had asked her had she a sister as pleasant-looking as herself, for, if so, he would like her very much, he was certain sure.

“And I told him you would most likely be coming up the lane; and he directly after went down it—what a pity you missed seeing him!”

‘‘ Yes, he seemed greatly taken with Silla. Who knows, lass, but if poor Lill does miss the sea-farm, you’ll maybe be mistress there?” merrily cried the mother; who, though heartily sorry for her step-daughter’s supposed vexation, now took a brighter view of the case. “Oh—ma!” cried Osilla. half modestly, half with a vexed air—but pleased.

Before bed-time that night they learnt the result of the men’s private discussion, however. It had been agreed among them that on the morrow morning Big John should go to the Colonel, and just let him know how ill his tenant for the sea-farm had behaved; it being shrewdly guessed that then Danny and the new man would be at the Castle.

“He’ll be staying this night with Danny,” observed eager young Hans, as though he had something to suggest anent that.

“Not he”, interrupted Mistress Keag, “for he asked me what time the long-car to Maghrenagh would pass the sea-farm. ‘In an hour,’ says I. ‘If you do be wanting it, you’ll not have many minutes with your friend.’ ‘Quite time enough,’ says he, smiling; and by that I judged he was no such an’ a great friend either.”

James Keag, it had been settled, was to accompany Big John both as friend and witness; but that night, worse luck, took rheumatics so badly, owing to a partial wetting in the thunder-shower, that he was obliged reluctantly to abandon the idea in favor of Hans, his son, who most willingly undertook to represent him; secretly thinking that young blood, in these matters, brought matters to a more glorious issue, even when defeated, than did the sluggish, sober minds of his elders.

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.