The folk of Furry Farm

by K. F. Purdon

With that, off stumps Heffernan, out through the yard into the fields beyond, towards where the Hill of the Rath rose up, dark and bristly, a piece off from the house. The moon was just commencing to rise, so that he had some light to show him where to put his poor old feet and he limping along.

He hadn’t been up the Furry Hills for many a day, not since he got the game leg that indeed hindered him of a-many a thing he might be wishing to do. But he set himself real courageous now to climb the Hill of the Rath; and you’d wonder how sprightly he went up it.

And as he worked his way, he could call to mind many a queer story of what was to be seen about that rath; stories he had heard from his very father; how that, one day and they sowing oats, just about that time of the year, didn’t there a weeny little red cap drop from out of the rath, right where they were working! And some boy ran to pick it up, but before he could reach it, my dear, didn’t a great furl of wind rise it off of the ground and blew it back into the rath again! And they all thought to hear a great laugh!

And another day, a third cousin of his father’s was gathering nuts, and he a young boy at the time, and it was from trees that grew on the side of the Hill of the Rath he was picking them. And suddenly, there was a lovely young girl, and she dressed in green, smiling at him very pleasant. And then she disappeared, as if the hill had opened to take her in.

“It’s no place for a little child to be, whatever!” thought Heffernan to himself; “and maybe would get a fright there that would last her for her lifetime! Or maybe not be let come back at all, only a ‘Visit’ sent in her place...!”

Mind you, it was hard work enough for any one at any time to get up that hill, let alone an old lame fellow like Mickey, and it the night. The place was all grown over, too, with briers and thorns and nut-trees; and big stones lay loose here and there, and made the going very rough. But Heffernan persevered on, until he got to the top, and then he climbed down into the rath; and very lonesome it appeared, and darker than ever the night was, when he got to the bottom of it, where a very old, twisted thorn-bush grew.

Something white was under the shelter of that bush; no more, you might think, than a gleam of the moonlight that was just beginning to peep in over the edge of the hollow of the rath. But to Mickey that white thing looked like the stray lamb he had found there, in that very spot, long ago. He went over and stooped down, and laid his hand upon it; and what was there, only little Brigid, lying there curled up like a kitten! And she was so tired that when Heffernan picked her up, she only stirred herself round in his arms, and settled herself off to sleep again.

Well, how Mickey got down that steep, rough path and he with the child to carry, is more than I can tell you, or indeed more than he could understand himself. But he did it. He got her safe home. When he had her inside by the fire, he could see that her little face and arms were scratched and bruised and torn with briers; and so were her grand little clothes, and muddied, where she must have slipped and fallen a few times.

“But what odds for all, when she’s found and safe at home, before Marg is back!” said Heffernan to himself, as he was letting himself down into his big chair very carefully, the way he wouldn’t waken little Bride, lying asleep in his arms.

While all this was going on, Marg, God help her! was galloping along on her way home, very happy at being rid of the teethaches, that had left her soon after she had been with that Fairy Doctor. There’s people very wise that will tell you such a thing can’t be, but you’ll see such cures done about Ardenoo. It was so with Marg, anyway, and she was in good heart, hurrying back to the child and Mickey and carrying a couple or three little matters with her that she thought of when passing Melia’s shop; a newspaper for Heffernan and a bit of tobacco, and a sugar-stick for the child. And she was thinking the way long till she’d get home to little Brigid, when didn’t she bob up against some one in the dark; and who was it only Dan.