Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl by L. T. Meade (e book free reading TXT) 📖

Bridget and Nora began to climb up a very steep and narrow winding path. It was nothing more than a grass path in the midst of a lot of rock and underwood, but the girls were like young chamois, and leaped over such obstacles with the lightness of fawns. Presently they arrived at the back entrance of Cronane, the Murphys' decidedly dilapidated residence. They had to cross a courtyard covered with rough cobbles and in a sad state of neglect and mess. Some pigs were wallowing in the mire in one corner, and a rough pony was tethered to a post not far off; he was endeavoring, with painful insistence, to reach a clump of hay which was sticking out of a hayrick a foot or two away. Nora, seeing his wistful eyes, sprang forward, pulled a great handful of the hay, and held it to his mouth. The little creature almost whinnied with delight.

“There you are,” said Bridget. “What right have you to give our hay to that pony?”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Nora; “the heart in him was starving.” She flung her arms round the pony's neck, pressed a kiss on his forehead, and continued to cross the yard with Biddy. Two or three ragged urchins soon impeded their path; one of them was the redoubtable Neil, the other Mike.

“Is it to-morrow night you want the boat, Miss Biddy?” said Neil.

Bridget dropped her voice to a whisper.

“Look here, Neil,” she said, “mum's the word; you are not to let it out to a soul. You and Mike shall come with us, and Miss Nora is coming too.”

Neil cast a bashful and admiring glance at handsome Nora, as she stood very erect by Biddy's side.

“All right, miss,” he said.

“At ten o'clock,” said Bridget; “have the boat in the cove then, and we'll be down there and ready.”

“But they say, miss, that the Banshee is out on the nights when the moon is at the full.”

“The O'Shanaghgans' Banshee,” said Biddy, glancing at Nora, whose face did not change a muscle, although the brightness and wistfulness in her eyes were abundantly visible. She was saying to herself:

“I would give all the world to speak to the Banshee alone—to ask her to get father out of his difficulty.”

She was half-ashamed of these thoughts, although she knew and almost gloried in the fact that she was superstitious to her heart's core.

She and Biddy soon entered the house by the back entrance, and ran up some carpetless stairs to Biddy's own room. This was a huge bedroom, carpetless and nearly bare. A little camp-bed stood in one corner, covered by a colored counterpane; there was a strip of carpet beside the bed, and another tiny strip by a wooden washhand-stand. The two great parliament windows were destitute of any curtain or even blind; they stared blankly out across the lovely summer landscape as hideous as windows could be.

It was a perfect summer's evening; but even now the old frames rattled and shook, and gave some idea of how they would behave were a storm abroad.

Biddy, who was quite accustomed to her room and never dreamed that any maiden could sleep in a more luxurious chamber, crossed it to where a huge wooden wardrobe stood. She unlocked the door, and took from its depths a pale-blue skirt trimmed with quantities of dirty pink flounces.

“Oh, you are not going to put that on,” said Nora, whose own training had made her sensitive to incongruity in dress.

“Yes, I am,” said Biddy. “How can I see your lady-mother in this style of thing?”

She went and stood in front of Nora with her arms akimbo.

“Look,” she said, “my frock has a rent from here to here, and this petticoat is none of the best, and my stockings—well, I know it is my own fault, but I won't darn them, and there is a great hole just above the heel. Now, this skirt will hide all blemishes.”

“But what will your mother say?”

“Bless her!” said Biddy, “she won't even notice. Here, let's whip on the dress.”

She hastily divested herself of her ragged cotton skirt, and put on the pale