A Tale of the Black Year
by Mary Anne Hoare (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.1 #16 (20 Jul 1850).
That was a pleasant place where I was born, though 'twas only a thatched cabin by the side of a mountain stream, where the country was so lonely, that in summer time the wild ducks used to bring their young ones to feed on the bog, within a hundred yards of our door; and you could not stoop over the bank to raise a pitcher full of water, without frightening a shoal of beautiful speckled trout. Well, 'tis long ago since my brother Richard, that's now grown a fine clever man, God bless him!—and myself, used to set off together up the mountain to pick bunches of the cotton plant and the bog myrtle, and to look for birds' and wild bees' nests. 'Tis long ago—and though I'm happy and well off now, living in the big house as own maid to the young ladies, who, on account of my being foster-sister to poor darling Miss Ellen, that died of decline, treat me more like their equal than their servant, and give me the means to improve myself; still at times, especially when James Sweeney, a dacent boy of the neighbours, and myself are taking a walk together through the fields in the cool and quiet of a summer's evening, I can't help thinking of the times that are passed, and talking about them to James with a sort of peaceful sadness, more happy maybe than if we were laughing aloud.
Every evening, before I say my prayers, I read a chapter in the Bible that Miss Ellen gave me; and last night I felt my tears dropping for ever so long over one verse,—"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." The words made me think of them that are gone—of my father, and his wife that was a true fond mother to me; and, above all, of my little sister Mary, the clureen bawn[1] that nestled in her bosom.
I was a wild slip of a girl, ten years of age, and my brother Richard about two years older, when my father brought home his second wife. She was the daughter of a farmer up at Lackabawn, and was reared with care and dacency; but her father held his ground at a rack-rent, and the middleman that was between him and the head landlord did not pay his own rent, so the place was ejected, and the farmer collected every penny he had, and set off with his family to America. My father had a liking for the youngest daughter, and well become him to have it, for a sweeter creature never drew the breath of life; but while her father passed for a strong[2] farmer, he was timorous-like about asking her to share his little cabin; however, when he found how matters stood, he didn't lose much time in finding out that she was willing to be his wife, and a mother to his boy and girl. That she was, a patient loving one. Oh! it often sticks me like a knife, when I think how many times I fretted her with my foolishness and my idle ways, and how 'twas a long time before I'd call her "mother." Often, when my father would be going to chastise Richard and myself for our provoking doings, especially the day that we took half-a-dozen eggs from under the hatching hen, to play "Blind Tom" with them, she'd interfere for us, and say,—"Tim, aleagh, don't touch them this time; sure 'tis only arch they are: they'll get more sense in time." And then, after he was gone out, she'd advise us for our good so pleasantly, that a thundercloud itself couldn't look black at her. She did wonders too about the house and garden. They were both dirty and neglected enough when she first came over them; for I was too young and foolish, and my father too busy with his out-door work, and the old woman that lived with us in service too feeble and too blind to keep the place either clean or decent; but my mother got the floor raised, and the green pool in front drained, and a parcel of roses and honey-suckles planted there instead. The neighbours' wives used to say 'Twas all pride and upsetting folly, to keep the kitchen-floor swept clean, and to put the potatoes on a dish, instead of emptying them out of the pot into the middle of the table; and, besides, 'twas a cruel unnatural thing, they said, to take away the pool from the ducks, that they were always used to paddle in so handy. But my mother was always too busy and too happy to heed what they said; and, besides, she was always so ready to do a kind turn for any of them, that, out of pure shame, they had at last to leave off abusing her "fine English ways."
West of our house there was a straggling, stony piece of ground, where, within the memory of man, nothing ever grew but nettles, docks, and thistles. One Monday, when Richard and myself came in from school, my mother told us to set about weeding it, and to bring in some basketsful of good clay from the banks of the river: she said that if we worked well at it until Saturday, she'd bring me a new frock, and Dick a jacket, from the next market-town; and encouraged by this, we set to work with right good will, and didn't leave off till supper time. The next day we did the same; and by degrees, when we saw the heap of weeds and stones that we got out, growing big, and the ground looking nice and smooth and red and rich, we got quite anxious about it ourselves, and we built a nice little fence round it to keep out the pigs. When it was manured, my mother planted cabbages, parsnips, and onions in it; and, to be sure, she got a fine crop out of it, enough to make us many a nice supper of vegetables stewed with pepper, and a small taste of bacon or a red herring. Besides, she sold in the market as much as bought a Sunday coat for my father, a gown for herself, a fine pair of shoes for Dick, and as pretty a shawl for myself, as e'er a colleen in the country could show at mass. Through means of my father's industry and my mother's good management, we were, with the blessing of God, as snug and comfortable a poor family as any in Munster. We paid but a small rent, and we had always plenty of potatoes to eat, good clothes to wear, and cleanliness and decency in and about our little cabin.
Five years passed on in this way, and at last little Mary was born. She was a delicate fairy thing, with that look, even from the first, in her blue eyes, which is seldom seen, except where the shadow of the grave darkens the cradle. She was fond of her father, and of Richard, and of myself, and would laugh and crow when she saw us, but the love in the core of her heart was for her mother. No matter how tired, or sleepy, or cross the baby might be, one word from her would set the bright eyes dancing, and the little rosy mouth smiling, and the tiny limbs quivering, as if walking or running couldn't content her, but she must fly to her mother's arms. And how that mother doted on the very ground she trod! I often thought that the Queen in her state carriage, with her son, God bless him! alongside of her, dressed out in gold and jewels, was not one bit happier than my mother, when she sat under the shade of the mountain ash near the door, in the hush of the summer's evening, singing and cronauning her only one to sleep in her arms. In the month of October, 1845, Mary was four years old. That was the bitter time, when first the food of the earth was turned to poison; when the gardens that used to be so bright and sweet, covered with the purple and white potato blossoms, became in one night black and offensive, as if fire had come down from heaven to burn them up. 'Twas a heart-breaking thing to see the labouring men, the crathurs! that had only the one half-acre to feed their little families, going out, after work, in the evenings to dig their suppers from under the black stalks. Spadeful after spadeful would be turned up, and a long piece of a ridge dug through, before they'd get a small kish full of such withered crohauneens3 as other years would be hardly counted fit for the pigs.
It was some time before the distress reached us, for there was a trifle of money in the savings' bank, that held us in meal, while the neighbours were next door to starvation. As long as my father and mother had it, they shared it freely with them that were worse off than themselves; but at last the little penny of money was all spent, the price of flour was raised; and, to make matters worse, the farmer that my father worked for, at a poor eight-pence a day, was forced to send him and three more of his labourers away, as he couldn't afford to pay them even that any longer. Oh! 'twas a sorrowful night when my father brought home the news. I remember, as well as if I saw it yesterday, the desolate look in his face when he sat down by the ashes of the turf fire that had just baked a yellow meal cake for his supper. My mother was at the opposite side, giving little Mary a drink of sour milk out of her little wooden piggin, and the child didn't like it, being delicate and always used to sweet milk, so she said:
"Mammy, won't you give me some of the nice milk instead of that?"
"I haven't it asthore, nor can't get it," said her mother, "so don't ye fret."
Not a word more out of the little one's mouth, only she turned her little cheek in towards her mother, and stayed quite quiet, as if she was hearkening to what was going on.
"Judy," said my father, "God is good, and sure 'tis only in Him we must put our trust; for in the wide world I can see nothing but starvation before us."
"God is good, Tim," replied my mother; "He won't forsake us."
Just then Richard came in with a more joyful face than I had seen on him for many a day.
"Good news!" says he, "good news, father! there's work for us both on the Droumcarra road. The government works are to begin there to-morrow; you'll get eight-pence a day, and I'll get six-pence."
If you saw our delight when we heard this, you'd think 'twas the free present of a thousand pounds that came to us, falling through the roof, instead of an offer of small wages for hard work.
To be sure the potatoes were gone, and the yellow meal was dear and dry and chippy—it hadn't the nature about it that a hot potato has for a poor man; but still 'twas a great thing to have the prospect of getting enough of even that same, and not to be obliged to follow the rest of the country into the poor-house, which was crowded to that degree that the crathurs there—God help them!— hadn't room even to die quietly in their beds, but were crowded together on the floor like so many dogs in a kennel. The next morning my father and Richard were off before day-break, for they had a long way to walk to Droumcarra, and they should be there in time to begin work. They took an Indian meal cake with them to eat for their dinner, and poor dry food it was, with only a draught of cold water to wash it down. Still my father, who was knowledgeable about such things, always said it was mighty wholesome when it was well cooked; but some of the poor people took a great objection against it on account of the yellow colour, which they thought came from having sulphur mixed with it—and they said, Indeed it was putting a great affront on the decent Irish to mix up their food as if 'twas for mangy dogs. Glad enough, poor creatures, they were to get it afterwards, when sea-weed and nettles, and the very grass by the roadside, was all that many of them had to put into their mouths.
When my father and brother came home in the evening, faint and tired from the two long walks and the day's work, my mother would always try to have something for them to eat with their porridge—a bit of butter, or a bowl of thick milk, or maybe a few eggs. She always gave me plenty as far as it would go; but 'twas little she took herself. She would often go entirely without a meal, and then she'd slip down to the huckster's, and buy a little white bun for Mary; and I'm sure it used to do her more good to see the child eat it, than if she got a meat-dinner for herself. No matter how hungry the poor little thing might be, she'd always break off a bit to put into her mother's mouth, and she would not be satisfied until she saw her swallow it; then the child would take a drink of cold water out of her little tin porringer, as contented as if it was new milk.
As the winter advanced, the weather became wet and bitterly cold, and the poor men working on the roads began to suffer dreadfully from being all day in wet clothes, and, what was worse, not having any change to put on when they went home at night without a dry thread about them. Fever soon got amongst them, and my father took it. My mother brought the doctor to see him, and by selling all our decent clothes, she got for him whatever was wanting, but all to no use: 'twas the will of the Lord to take him to himself, and he died after a few days' illness.
It would be hard to tell the sorrow that his widow and orphans felt, when they saw the fresh sods planted on his grave. It was not grief altogether like the grand stately grief of the quality, although maybe the same sharp knife is sticking into the same sore bosom inside in both; but the outside differs in rich and poor. I saw the mistress a week after Miss Ellen died. She was in her drawing-room with the blinds pulled down, sitting in a low chair, with her elbow on the small work-table, and her cheek resting on her hand—not a speck of anything white about her but the cambric handkerchief, and the face that was paler than the marble chimney-piece.
When she saw me, (for the butler, being busy, sent me in with the luncheon-tray,) she covered her eyes with her handkerchief, and began to cry, but quietly, as if she did not want it to be noticed. As I was going out, I just heard her say to Miss Alice in a choking voice:—
"Keep Sally here always; our poor darling was fond of her." And as I closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her, she was quite composed: only for the white cheek and the black dress, you would not know that the burning feel of a child's last kiss had ever touched her lips.
My father's wife mourned for him after another fashion. She could not sit quiet, she must work hard to keep the life in them to whom he gave it; and it was only in the evenings when she sat down before the fire with Mary in her arms, that she used to sob and rock herself to and fro, and sing a low wailing keen for the father of the little one, whose innocent tears were always ready to fall when she saw her mother cry. About this time my mother got an offer from some of the hucksters in the neighbourhood, who knew her honesty, to go three times a week to the next market-town, ten miles off, with their little money, and bring them back supplies of bread, groceries, soap, and caudles. This she used to do, walking the twenty miles—ten of them with a heavy load on her back—for the sake of earning enough to keep us alive. 'Twas very seldom that Richard could get a stroke of work to do: the boy wasn't strong in himself, for he had the sickness too; though he recovered from it, and always did his best to earn an honest penny wherever he could. I often wanted my mother to let me go in her stead and bring back the load; but she never would hear of it, and kept me at home to mind the house and little Mary. My poor pet lamb! 'twas little minding she wanted. She would go after breakfast and sit at the door, and stop there all day, watching for her mother, and never heeding the neighbours' children that used to come wanting her to play. Through the live-long hours she would never stir, but just keep her eyes fixed on the lonesome boreen;[4] and when the shadow of the mountain-ash grew long, and she caught a glimpse of her mother ever so far off, coming towards home, the joy that would flush on the small patient face, was brighter than the sunbeam on the river. And faint and weary as the poor woman used to be, before ever she sat down, she'd have Mary nestling in her bosom. No matter how little she might have eaten herself that day, she would always bring home a little white bun for Mary; and the child, that had tasted nothing since morning, would eat it so happily, and then fall quietly asleep in her mother's arms.
At the end of some months I got the sickness myself, but not so heavily as Richard did before. Any way, he and my mother tended me well through it. They sold almost every little stick of furniture that was left, to buy me drink and medicine. By degrees I recovered, and the first evening I was able to sit up, I noticed a strange wild brightness in my mother's eyes, and a hot flush on her thin cheeks—she had taken the fever.
Before she lay down on the wisp of straw that served her for a bed, she brought little Mary over to me: "Take her, Sally," she said—and between every word she gave the child a kiss—"Take her; she's safer with you than she'd be with me, for you're over the sickness, and 'tisn't long any way I'll be with you, my jewel," she said, as she gave the little creature one long close hug, and put her into my arms.
'Twould take long to tell all about her sickness—how Richard and I, as good right we had, tended her night and day; and how, when every farthing and farthing's worth we had in the world was gone, the mistress herself came down from the big house, the very day after the family returned home from France, and brought wine, food, medicine, linen, and everything we could want.
Shortly after the kind lady was gone, my mother took the change for death; her senses came back, she grew quite strong-like, and sat up straight in the bed.
"Bring me the child, Sally aleagh" she said. And when I carried little Mary over to her, she looked into the tiny face, as if she was reading it like a book.
"You won't be long away from me, my own one," she said, while her tears fell down upon the child like summer-rain.
"Mother," said I, as well as I could speak for crying, "sure you know I'll do my best to tend her."
"I know you will, acushla; you were always a true and dutiful daughter to me and to him that's gone; but, Sally, there's that in my weeney one that won't let her thrive without the mother's hand over her, and the mother's heart for her's to lean against. And now—." It was all she could say: she just clasped the little child to her bosom, fell back on my arm, and in a few moments all was over. At first, Richard and I could not believe that she was dead; and it was very long before the orphan would loose her hold of the stiffening fingers; but when the neighbours came in to prepare for the wake, we contrived to flatter her away.
Days passed on; the child was very quiet; she used to go as usual to sit at the door, and watch hour after hour along the road that her mother always took coming home from market, waiting for her that could never come again. When the sun was near setting, her gaze used to be more fixed and eager; but when the darkness came on, her blue eyes used to droop like the flowers that shut up their leaves, and she would come in quietly without saying a word, and allow me to undress her and put her to bed.
It troubled us and the young ladies greatly that she would not eat. It was almost impossible to get her to taste a morsel; indeed the only thing she would let inside her lips was a bit of a little white bun, like those her poor mother used to bring her. There was nothing left untried to please her. I carried her up to the big house, thinking the change might do her good, and the ladies petted her, and talked to her, and gave her heaps of toys and cakes, and pretty frocks and coats; but she hardly noticed them, and was restless and uneasy until she got back to her own low sunny door-step.
Every day she grew paler and thinner, and her bright eyes had a sad fond look in them, so like her mother's. One evening she sat at the door later than usual.
"Come in, alannah," I said to her. "Won't you come in for your own Sally?"
She never stirred. I went over to her; she was quite still, with her little hands crossed on her lap, and her head drooping on her chest. I touched her—she was cold. I gave a loud scream, and Richard came running; he stopped and looked, and then burst out crying like an infant. Our little sister was dead!
Well, my Mary, the sorrow was bitter, but t was short. You're gone home to Him that comforts as a mother comforteth. Agra machree, your eyes are as blue, and your hair as golden, and your voice as sweet, as they were when you watched by the cabin-door; but your cheeks are not pale, acushla, nor your little hands thin, and the shade of sorrow has passed away from your forehead like a rain-cloud from the summer sky. She that loved you so on earth, has clasped you for ever to her bosom in heaven; and God himself has wiped away all tears from your eyes, and placed you both and our own dear father far beyond the touch of sorrow or the fear of death.
1. White dove.
2. Rich.
3. Small potatoes.
4. By-road.