“I didn’t then, till years after,” said the old gardener, “and then I learned it by accident like. Maurya na Gleanna, as we called her, was one Mary M’Kenna, and at the time of the troubles, she was, everybody said, one of the most beautiful girls in all Ulster. And it seems she was in love with a boy called Pat Gallagher, who was one of the “United Men,” and he was in love with her, as many another man was also. And sure amongst them was the one she called Red Michil, whose mother, who was a widow woman, kept the lodge at the front gate of Pennington Hall in the County of Antrim. And Red Michil pursued her, but ’twas the back of her hand she gave him, and to take revenge on her and on Pat Gallagher, who took her fancy, he informed on him, and made up a charge against him, and Gallagher was tried by court-martial and hanged, and the poor creature wouldn’t leave until he was at the foot of the gallows, and when she was taken away they saw that her mind was gone.
Her relatives did their best to look after her, but they were poor, and so she rambled off from them till she found her way to our glen. Red Michil, when he had wreaked his vengeance, sank lower and lower. He became a common informer, and then, when the hangings were all over, he secured employment under the Revenue as a scenter-out of illicit stills, and, as he had some experience of the trade himself, he was well up in the expedients which the potheen makers were wont to adopt in order to evade the agents of the law. He was thus an instrument in working out his own fate, and after long, weary years, poor Maurya na Gleanna had her revenge at last.
STORY OF THE RAVEN.
When I was a lad of about nineteen summers, proceeded Brother Mailcoba, I happened to be on a visit to my uncle, who was a Brughfer, and whose house was on the road leading from Baile atha Cliath (Dublin) to Tara. My uncle, who was a widower, had met with a serious accident, and he was laid up in the house of the leech (physician) who lived about a quarter of a mile away, and in his absence the duty of attending to the travellers who might seek the hospitality of the Brugh fell on me.
The duty had been light enough for many days, for, though the great Fair of Tara was close at hand, the weather was most unseasonable. The heavy rains had beaten the ripening corn to the ground, and the road was sodden, and it seemed at times as if all the winds had been let loose and met in conflict, snapping in their struggle the leafy trees that fell with a crash on hill and in valley, and their outstretched limbs, cumbering the roads, made them almost impassable for man or beast. During those days of rain and storm the sun never showed himself, and the night came almost as quickly as in the wintertide, and men said that the seasons had changed, and that ruin threatened the land. Yet no one knew why it should be so, for the king was good and generous, and while he maintained his own dignity, and insisted on his dues, his hand was open as the doors of his hospitality, and to no man, simple or gentle, was justice denied.
Night after night, when the day was drawn into the mouth of darkness, I kindled the light on the lawn to guide the wayfarers who might seek food and shelter, but night after night passed over, and no one came.
At length there was a day when the rain no longer fell, and the winds, which had gone back to the hollows of the mountains, no longer blustered. But sullen clouds covered the sky, and the night, as chill as if the breath of winter was on it, crept early under them. I had lit the light upon the lawn, and had come in and closed the door, and was sitting facing the fire of pine logs that smouldered upon the hearth. The servants of the Brugh were in the outhouses attending to cattle, or discharging other duties, and I was quite alone, for even the raven, who was my usual companion, was out in the barn watching the milking of the cows. I was thinking of going up to the house of the leech to inquire for my uncle, when, suddenly, I heard the sound of chariot wheels coming up the beaten road to the door of the Brugh. I had hardly opened the door when I saw in the light cast from the “candle in the candlestick” two horses covered with foam, and I distinguished in the seat of the chariot two figures muffled up against the weather; but I had no difficulty in recognising one as that of a lady.
“The blessing of God be on you,” said the man.