He’d sit there of an evening, when the people would drop in for a ceilidh,[9] a habit they lost while Julia was there. But they came again now, and would be very anxious to know all about where Peetcheen had been. They got no great satisfaction.
“Where was I since?” Peetcheen would say; “well, I went as far as Turn-Back! Ah! indeed! it is a gay piece out of this, sure enough!”
Peetcheen wasn’t such a fool but that he could hold his tongue, when he chose. And there’s many a wise adviser of a person that can’t do that, to save their lives.
“You’ll be getting her back now,” said Big Cusack to him; “the Woman, I mane, the Rest of ye....”
He was after hiring Peetcheen then, for the same job his father before him had had. Ay, and what’s more, Peetcheen managed to hold on to it, from that out.
Peetcheen had the fashion at times, that if he didn’t want to answer a question in a hurry, he would push the old caubeen down over his face, and scratch the back of his head. He did that now; and then says he, “I dunno, Mr. Cusack; I always h’ard tell, that it’s as good to l’ave well alone! And I’d have no wish in life to be interferin’ with anywan; let alone with a woman.”
CHAPTER IV
A DAYLIGHT GHOST
Heffernan of the Furry Farm, being lame now as well as old, thought it would be the best of his play not to go too far to look for the wife he was so anxious to bring home, now that he had Julia out of the way. And this is how he took the notion of seeing whether he could get a daughter of old Flanagan’s, a near neighbour of his. And as he said to himself, he knew all about those people, and what way they were situated, as to their little place and all to that.
“A man needn’t expect any fortune with one of his girls,” he thought; “but what of the few pounds? The land lies very handy to me own farm,” ... and so it did. Flanagan’s land “merined” the Furry Farm; and it was a wonder how two places so close together could be so different from one another! They both lay upon the same range of the Furry Hills. But whereas Heffernan’s was low down, and the house facing north, so that it seldom got a blink of sunshine, the Flanagans had theirs half-way up a slope the opposite side, where it had shelter, as well as all the sun and south wind there was to be had. In fact, it was one of the sweetest little places about the whole of Ardenoo. Greenan-more it was called, an old name that is said to mean “the big sunny parlour,” or something like that. It’s likely it got that name put upon it when there were people living in the old rath up above at the top of the hill behind the house. But of course there is nothing of a dwelling there now; nothing, only a hollow, with a Lone Thorn growing in the middle of it, and nettles and stones. Lonesome places, raths are! where the Good People live, and their music can be heard, and they themselves be seen, by them that are able to do so.
It would delight you, to look at Greenan-more! with the lake lying at the foot of the hill on which the house stood. The limestone pushes up there, close to the surface, and helps to keep the earth warm, so that the grass grows earlier there than it does anywhere else about Ardenoo. It’s a sweet grass, too. One bite of it is worth more to a beast than a full feed off the low, sour bottoms of the Furry Farm.