CHAPTER XII
THE YOUNG MALONES
The oldest one is Tara,
Next Captain Connemara,
And Moira and Norah, each a twin;
Then “Save-a-Shilling Deena”
And little Princess Feena,
But hold the door,—there’s others to come in;
There’s Hannah and there’s Anna,
We call them both “alanna,”
Then young Columba, he’s the gentle dove;
And last of all Victoria,
She’s not the one to frighten ye,
For she’s the youngest one, the one ye’ll love.
Chorus
Oh, would ye learn to count the young Malones?
Ye’ve only just to trip it two by two;
Of couples there’s a many,
At Malone’s in old Kilkenny,
And we’d like to count you two, too, at Malone’s!
Never did two travellers receive a noisier or heartier greeting than the ten young Malones gave to Danny and Kathleen on the night of their arrival from Tonroe. From twenty-four-year-old Tara to three-year-old Victoria there was nothing but bright faces, merry voices, and outstretched hands.
No one could be shy or homesick in the midst of so much jollity, and in no time at all Kathleen was laughing and talking as gaily as if she had lived with “the Malones in old Kilkenny” all her life.
When, at last, she fell asleep for the night, two of the happy family stood out most clearly in her memory. One was Connemara, who had slipped her motherly arm around the little girl’s tired shoulders to draw her away from the hubbub and put her to bed. The other was Columba, who followed her to the foot of the stairs to say, “I’ll tell you to-morrow why they call me ‘the gentle dove.’ It’s because I have such an awful temper. And up at St. Kieran’s College they call Deena ‘Save-a-Shilling Malone,’ because he advertises in the Weekly Budget that the students can save a shilling on their books if they buy them of him,” he added, shouting the last words as Connemara led Kathleen down the long hall to her own little bedroom.
As she lay in her bed, thinking over all the happy events of the day, she heard the thirteen-year-old twins, Hannah and Anna, shouting with laughter over a joke of Deena’s. Then the two older twins began a duet on the piano, and just as she was trying to think of the tune they were playing she shut her eyes and was lost in the land of Nod.
In the meantime good Uncle Tom Malone had taken Danny into his library to talk with the lad about his plans. It was a simple story that Danny had to tell. He was going at once to Queenstown to take the steamer there for America.
“Do you know any one over there?” asked his uncle, looking at him with shrewd eyes.
“No,” replied Danny, “but I know how to work, and that’s something.”
“What did Patrick say to it?” asked Uncle Tom.
“He said he had no fear but that I would do well,” said Danny modestly, “but he wanted me to stay in Ireland. He said I could do well here, too.”
“Did he want you to stay with him on the farm?”
“Yes, but I’m thinking I can do better in some other line than farming,” said Danny. “I’d like to get into a shop and work my way up.”
“If you are in no hurry to go to America you might stay and have a try at working for me,” suggested his uncle. “I have a linen shop here in Kilkenny. Next year, if you do well, I’ll send you and Tara to one of the great linen mills in Belfast to learn the business.”
“I’d like nothing better,” replied Danny heartily, “and I’ll do my best to make the most of the chance.”
“There’s as good a place for you here as you will find in America,” said his uncle, “and we can’t afford to let all our lads leave their own country.”
So the next day found Danny in the linen shop with Tara, while Kathleen, at home with her cousins, was learning to know and love them all.
But it was to pretty Fiona, “Princess Feena” the children called her, with the curly hair, brown eyes, and fluttering ribbons, that Kathleen took the greatest fancy, and she followed her about everywhere, just to watch the gleams of sunshine shake out from the rippling waves that crowned her cousin’s head.
As for Fiona, having been named for an Irish princess, she talked by the hour about kings, queens, and castles, and the royal times she hoped to enjoy some day; while Kathleen listened as if she were enchanted.
It was useless for the twins, Hannah and Anna, to try to entice her away for a game. She preferred to listen while Feena told stories, or read aloud from some old book of the time when Ireland was ruled by “a king with flowing golden hair, his crimson cloak held at the breast by a magnificent jewelled brooch, his shirt interwoven with gold threads, and his girdle sparkling with precious gems.”
Columba, too, was sadly disappointed at not finding a playmate in Kathleen. He had even given way to his temper one day when, instead of going for a ride in the trap with him, she had chosen to walk along the bank of the River Nore with Feena to see the beautiful ivy-covered Kilkenny Castle.
He went to Connemara, or “Captain Conn” as she was always called, with his grievance. “She’s gone off with Feena again,” he said wrathfully, “and here I’ve been planning to show her St. Canice’s Church and the Round Tower ever since she came. I can tell her plenty of stories about the old Round Tower, if it’s stories she wants.”
“Perhaps she would not like your stories,” suggested Connemara. “Feena would never tell her that great stones were dropped from the top of the Round Tower, down one hundred feet on the heads of men, murdering Danes though they were.”
“Well, the Danes deserved all the trouble they found; they made enough for us, the spalpeens!” said Columba, the gentle dove. “We were a peaceable nation, content to fight among ourselves, when the Danes came crowding into the land. I’m glad Brian Boru was man enough to drive them out again.
“But then,” he added, “if she doesn’t like to hear about the priests carrying stones to the top of the tower to drop them on the heads of the Danes, I can tell her that they carried their precious books into the tower for safety; and that they used to stand at the four little windows at the top looking out over the country to watch for the approach of an enemy.
“Or I can take her down to Kilkenny Castle and tell her how Strongbow, the Governor of Ireland, built his fortress there nearly a thousand years ago, and brought his bride, the daughter of the King of Leinster, to live in the Castle. Then I can show her St. Canice’s Cathedral, where the soldiers of Cromwell’s army, when they were besieging the city in 1650, used to amuse themselves by smashing the beautiful windows and throwing the bells down out of the tower.”
Connemara could not help laughing as she looked at her brother’s earnest face. “’Tis plain that you know the history of the city,” she said, “but your stories are all about wars. To-morrow is market-day. Ask Kathleen to go with you down through the city streets to see the old peddler women in their bright shawls, selling their wares in the little booths and tents. That will be a strange sight to the child, after lonely Donegal; and she’ll like it better than battles.”
After supper that night she took Kathleen within the cosy shelter of her arms and talked with her about little Mary Ellen and her life in Tonroe.
“She’s like Victoria,” said Kathleen, “gentle and loving. I wish she could be here instead of me. She used to wish that whole troops of boys and girls would come over the bare Donegal hills to play with us.”
But when, on the next afternoon, Columba took her in the donkey-trap and drove in and out among the streets of Kilkenny, she almost forgot Tonroe and the little sister.
They went first to the market, and Kathleen spent one of the precious shillings she had earned stacking peat to buy a string of pink beads to send to Mary Ellen. Then they drove past the Cathedral and down to the Castle, and came home along the bank of the River Nore, which is one of the prettiest rivers in all Ireland.
“Sure, you are the fine driver,” Kathleen said admiringly to Columba, as he sent the little donkey along at a rattling pace behind a jaunting-car filled with tourists.
And of the two it would have been hard to tell which was the happier that day,—Kathleen, whirling along the beautiful tree-shaded river seeing the city, or Columba, showing to her admiring eyes how much at home he was among such grand sights.