CHAPTER XIV
THE WISHING SPRING
“What was that you picked up, Kathleen?” Columba asked, as the two were walking home from school together one sunny afternoon in June.
“Oh, just an old nail,” replied Kathleen, dropping it quickly into her pocket.
“What will you do with an old nail?” questioned Columba. “Are you thinking of building a house?”
Kathleen hesitated so long before replying that her cousin repeated, “What’s an old nail good for?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Kathleen replied. “Granny Connor told me over a year ago that Mary Ellen should carry nine old nails in her pocket, and I found them and sewed them up in a little bag for her; but they’ve done no good that I can see. Now I’m finding nine more to send to her. Perhaps they will do better than the others. Oh, how I wish Mary Ellen could see! She has such pretty blue eyes, but no sight in them.”
“I’ll tell you what you ought to do,” said Columba. “There’s a spring in the woods down beyond the ruins of Jerpoint Abbey at Thomastown, and they say if you drink a cup of the water, and wish three times, your wish will come true. We might all go down there on a picnic and you could wish about Mary Ellen’s eyes. I wished for a pony once, and I got it,” he added, by way of encouragement.
“Oh, Columba, did you really?” Kathleen asked eagerly. “How I’d like to try it! Do you suppose your mother would let us have the picnic to-morrow?”
“We’ll ask her,” Columba said decidedly, and the two walked along in silence for a little while, Kathleen thinking of her sister, and Columba planning what he would like to have in the lunch baskets.
“There’s a wishing arch near the Giant’s Causeway,” Kathleen said finally. “I wrote to Father about it weeks ago and asked him to go there and wish for Mary Ellen’s sight, but I’ve not heard a word from him yet. Perhaps he is waiting till the last Sunday in June. Grandmother Barry says that is the day the pilgrims go to the well in County Sligo to be cured of their rheumatism.”
“Day after to-morrow will be the last Sunday in June, but we had better try the wishing spring, too, if Mother will let us,” said Columba.
“I’ll ask her now,” he added, and rushed into the house, shouting first for his mother and then for Captain Conn, sure that one or the other would be ready to plan for the next day’s frolic.
“I’ve been thinking this two months that I ought to go down to see your Aunt Ellen Butler at Thomastown,” said his mother, when he asked her about the picnic. “We’ll take the early morning train and have a good visit with her, and perhaps she will take her children over to the Abbey and we’ll all picnic together.”
It was a merry party that gathered under the old oak tree beside the ruins of Jerpoint Abbey the next day, and the four big lunch baskets looked as if they could hardly hold enough for so many hungry children.
“We’ll help you set out the lunch,” suggested Deena, taking off one of the covers and helping himself to a sandwich.
“You’ll not touch it till it’s ready,” replied Captain Conn. “Run away, every one of you, and stay until I call you.”
“Come to the tower,” called Columba, and all the children followed him as he clambered through one of the windows and climbed the ancient stone steps that led to the top of the square tower.
As they looked out over the beautiful, smiling country, with its green fields and peaceful river, Kathleen drew a long breath. “It makes me think of Donegal, it’s so different,” she said. “Up there it is cold and bleak and bare, and down here it is all so quiet and happy.”
“It wasn’t always quiet and happy here,” said Deena. “This old Abbey has seen days of fighting and bloodshed.”
“Tell us about it,” said Hannah, who liked stories of battles.
“Yes, do,” added Anna, who tried to like them.
“Well, you see,” began Deena, “this old ruin was once a magnificent church. It was built over seven hundred years ago, at the time when the English lords came over to live in Ireland and set the fashion of building grand churches and monasteries all over the country. This was one of the finest of them all, and would be to this day, perhaps, but for Cromwell’s army.”
“Yes, go on,” said Hannah, as Deena stopped to look off toward the distant hills. “Was it a big battle?”
“It was no battle at all,” replied her brother. “When Cromwell’s army came marching through the country the monks shut themselves up in this tower; but the soldiers went by without even stopping to look for them.”
“What made the ruins, then?” asked Columba. “I thought you said it was Cromwell’s army.”
“So it was,” replied Deena; “for when they had gone only two miles away the monks climbed up here to the top of the tower and rang the bells for joy. The soldiers heard the bells, and were so angry that they came back and destroyed the monastery and the Abbey.”
“Did they kill the monks?” asked Hannah.
“I don’t know, but I suppose they did,” replied her brother. “They destroyed many fine buildings and did many cruel deeds here in Ireland.”
“They didn’t destroy the Round Tower in Kilkenny,” said Columba. “Those round towers must have been good hiding-places for the monks.”
“That they were,” replied Deena. “The old stones would tell many wonderful tales if they could speak.”
“Are there many round towers in Ireland?” asked Kathleen.
“There are eighty still standing,” Deena told her, “and twenty of them are perfect; but the others are more or less in ruins.”
“What were they like?” asked little Tommy Butler. “I never saw one of them.”
“They were round, stone towers, from sixty to one hundred and fifty feet tall,” Deena replied. “Some of the tallest had six or seven stories, each story lighted by one window, and at the top there were four windows, facing north, south, east and west. There was only one small door, ten feet or more from the ground, which was reached by a ladder, and there were ladders inside to climb from one floor to the next.”
“What were the towers for?” asked Kathleen.
“They were built hundreds of years ago, in connection with the ancient churches, and were probably used as belfries, and also as a place of refuge for the monks,” answered Deena.
“Are there many ruins in Ireland?” asked Mary Butler.
“Yes,” replied Deena, “there are hundreds and hundreds of them. There is the ‘Seven Churches of Kells,’ over beyond Stonyford, for one, and the ‘Seven Churches of Glendalough,’ too. You should see the Round Tower at Glendalough.”
“Connie is calling,” interrupted Feena.
“Hurrah, lunch is ready!” shouted Columba, and they all clattered down the stone steps in a hurry.
The four baskets did hold a good deal after all, and the lunch looked so inviting, spread out on a white cloth in the shade of the big oak tree, that the ten hungry children made short work of it.
“Now let’s go to the wishing spring,” suggested Columba, taking a cookie in one hand and a pickle in the other, and starting off across the field.
“I wish you all good luck in your wishing, and I’ll stay here in the shade to wish it the heartier,” said his mother, taking out her knitting and making herself comfortable under the tree.
“And I wish you may not be hungry again for an hour,” added Captain Conn, gathering up the empty plates and cups and putting them in the baskets.
“There’s the spring,” shouted Deena, as they turned into a little lane. “It’s under that big tree in the edge of the woods.”
“Come on, Feena,” called Columba, “here’s the cup. Take a good drink and wish for the moon.”
“I shall do no such thing,” replied his sister. “I shall wish for a book of fairy stories, and I shall get it, too, for Father promised it to me last night.”
“I wish for a new knife,” said Deena, as he took the cup.
“And Hannah and I want a pair of white gloves to wear with our new white dresses,” said Anna, as she and her twin sister took their drink together.
“What is your wish, Kathleen?” asked Princess Feena.
“It is a very big wish,” replied Kathleen, so soberly that everyone stopped laughing and became quiet in a moment. “It is bigger than a knife, or a book, or a pair of gloves. It is almost bigger than the moon. I’m wishing that little Mary Ellen could see.”
“I wish it, too,” said Hannah earnestly.
“And I!” “And I!” cried the others, gathering close around Kathleen as she knelt before the bubbling spring and filled the cup with the clear, cold water.
“Perhaps it will come true, then,” said Kathleen, “if we are all wishing so hard,” and she smiled bravely up at them through her tears, as she drank the very last drop of water in the cup.