AFTERWORD
I thought I had to have a better ending to the story than the scraps of things I had made over from Leerie’s letters and what Peter had told me. So I went to Hennessy.
It was midwinter. I found him cracking the ice on the pond to let the swans in for a cold bath.
“’Tis not docthor’s ordthers,” he grinned by way of explanation; “but they get so blitherin’ uneasy there’s no housin’ them. That’s the why I give them a bit of a cold nip onct the while—sure ’tis good threatment for us all—an’ then they settle down.”
I huddled deeper into a fur coat and tried to agree with Hennessy.
“Did ye see Leerie, then, since she came home?”
“Have you?”
He shirred his lips into an ecstatic pucker and whistled triumphantly. “Wasn’t I always sayin’ she’d marry the finest gentleman in the land, same as the King o’ Ireland’s only daughter, and go dandtherin’ off to a fine home of her own?”
“And she has.”
“She has that.”
“And so the story’s told, Hennessy.”
“Told nothin’. Sure, it isn’t half told—it isn’t more than half begun, just.”
“But you can’t end a book that way. You have to end with an ending.”
“’Tis the best way to end a book, then. Haven’t ye taken the lass over the worst o’ the road an’ aren’t ye leavin’ her with the best ahead?”
“But what is there left—to find along the way? She’s found her work—that’s over with. She’s found her man—that’s over with. She’s found love—that’s over—”
Hennessy interrupted me almost viciously. I think he wanted to prod me instead of the ice. “What kind of talkin’ is that for a person who thries to write books about real folk? Ye harken to me. Do ye think because love is found ’tis over with? Sure, Leerie’s only caught a whiff of it yet—’tis naught but budded for her. By an’ by there come the blossom of it an’ the fruit of it. An’ when death maybe withers it for a spell—’twill be but a winther-time promise to bud an’ blossom again in the Counthry Beyond. There’s no witherin’ to love like hers. An’ do ye think because she has her man found there’s no pretty fancy or adventure still waitin’ them along the way? An’ do ye think Leerie’s work will ever be done? Tell me that!”
The shirr tightened into something like contempt. Hennessy looked down upon me with undisguised pity.
“Did ye ever know Leerie at all, at all, I’m wondtherin’—to be savin’ things like that? Don’t ye know for the likes o’ her there’ll be childher—Saint Anthony send them a nestful!” He crossed himself to further the wish. “An’ over an’ above the time it takes tendin’ an’ lovin’ them an’ rearin’ them into the finest parcel o’ youngsters God ever made—wi’ the help o’ their parents—there’ll be time left to light the way for every poor, sorry soul within a hundred miles o’ her. Ye can take my word for it; an’ if she never did another stroke o’ work so long as she lived—bein’ Leerie, just, would be enough.”
“You may be right, Hennessy, but it’s still no way to end a book.”
He came a step nearer and shook a warning finger at me. “Will ye listen? Faith, I’m wondtherin’ sometimes that folk read your books when ye have so little sense wi’ the endin’ o’ them. Don’t ye know that a book that ends wi’ the end is a dead book entirely? An’ who cares to be readin’ a dead book? Tell me that.”
His contempt changed to commiseration. I might have been Brian Boru, the gray swan, the way he looked at me.
“The right way of endin’ is with a beginnin’—the beginnin’ o’ something bigger an’ betther an’ sweeter. ’Tis like ye were takin’ a friend with ye up a high hill—showin’ him all the pretty things along the way. Then just afore ye get to the top—an’ afore ye can look over an’ see what’s waitin’ beyond—ye leave him, sayin’, ‘Go ye alone an’ find whatever ye are most wishin’ for.’”
He stopped, pushed his hat back and pulled his forelock as if for more inspiration. “Do ye see? Just be leavin’ it to folk the world over. They can read in a betther endin’ than ye can be writin’ in in a hundthred years. An’ let Leerie be as I’m tellin’ ye—wi’ the road windin’ over the hill an’ out o’ sight. Sure the two of us know what she’ll be findin’ there; an’ do ye think the readers have less sense than what we have?”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to a nearby paragraph break.
The text in the list of illustrations is presented as in the original text, but the links navigate to the page number closest to the illustration’s loaction in this document.