A Garden of Girls; Or, Famous Schoolgirls of Former Days

by Mrs. Thomas Concannon

Very warm was the nest they made for her—the holy maidens, who were Brigid’s companions. Dear gentle Daria, the blind nun, wove a cradle of osiers, and Blathnata filled a deer-skin with downy feathers to lay in it. Kinnia spun fine linen for it; and Brigid, herself, took the wool of the whitest lamb in her flock, and spun and wove it into warm, soft coverlets. When the sisters were gathered with spindle, and distaff, and needle on the lawn, the little cradle stood in the midst of them, protected from the damp grass by the wolf-skin, which had been Flann’s last offering. But it was so contrived that it could be hung, also, from a branch of the tree. So, as the little green leaves began to peep out on the oak tree, they found among their green company something that they might well have taken for a beautiful, rosy blossom. And it was the little child in her cradle.

At night the cradle was hung from the feici[4] in Brigid’s cell, a dim lamp swaying from the opposite end. And when the dawn came, and Brigid set wide the door to let it in, there was always standing by the threshold her own snow-white pet doe, waiting to give her milk to feed her tiny nursling.

The months passed quickly, and at last the little maiden had climbed out of the cradle, and was learning to take her first faltering steps. Blind Daria, with her deft hands, had fashioned the quaintest garments for her. They were of undyed lambs’-wool, and made in the same fashion that the holy maidens, themselves, had chosen. There was a white mantle, too; and on the curly, baby head, was set a snow-white veil.

But not in dress alone was Darlugdacha a little nun. Very early, like all healthy little girls, she insisted on taking an active part in the life she saw around her. There was one beautiful night when Brigid and her companions were gathered in the Church for the Second Nocturn. The lamps were swaying from the ridge-pole, and in the dim light of them the nuns were singing from psalters of their own copying the appointed psalms. All but blind Daria, who needed no psalter and no lamp-light.

All at once the blind nun’s quick ear caught a sound at the barred door. Very softly she stole from her place and set it open. There was Darlugdacha, with her white tunic all stained with mud, her rosy face all stained with tears, and her baby hands all hurt with beating at the door. Sightless Daria could see these things, as she stooped and gathered the forlorn little figure into her arms. Presently, she was back in her place again, with Darlugdacha’s head on her shoulder, and Darlugdacha singing her own version of the psalms after her, in the sweetest baby voice. But, long before the Office was ended, Darlugdacha was sound asleep.

After that night, Daria would always slip into the Abbess’ hut before she took her own place in the church, and, if the child seemed restless, she would wrap her up warmly in her own mantle and carry her with her. So Darlugdacha early took her part in the “Magnum Opus,” and the earliest words her tongue uttered were the praises of God. The music of the psaltery was her most frequent lullaby.

She was welcome everywhere, and in no place whithersoever her little pattering feet led her, did she find her help, however embarrassing to the recipient, disdained. Even when there were guests in the guest-house, and Blathnata, the cook, was very busy in the kitchen, Darlugdacha could enter that domain fearlessly, and, as Blathnata soon found out, could make herself astonishingly useful. The kitchen was a little round hut, which stood by itself behind the other cells. A fire of wood burned in the middle of it, the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. It was always a joy to Darlugdacha when Blathnata swung the beautiful shining cauldron over the flames, and the cheerful simmering of the meat within filled the little hut with sound. She was very proud of herself when she was, at last, permitted to go near enough to the fire to turn the fish, or joints, that were roasting on spits of pointed hazel rods round the fire, and proudest of all, when Blathnata showed her how to baste them with honey. She was very young, indeed, when she cooked her first dish of Craibhacan, chopping the meat fine, and flavouring it with leeks, and kale, and rowan berries. Nathfraich, the charioteer, won her heart by making for her a tiny kneading trough, and a sieve with a whale-bone bottom, and he secured it for ever by manfully eating to the last crumb the first cake she baked with these utensils. Kinnia said, as she and Blathnata were carrying water one day from the covered well in the dairy to the kitchen, and Darlugdacha was trotting along by their side (her hand on one of the handles of the pail, as if she had the whole weight of it herself), that, for her part, she would rather eat a woman’s ration than a man’s ration of Darlugdacha’s baking. But when she saw Darlugdacha, presently, with one of Blathnata’s cooking-aprons on her (so as to save her white tunic), scrubbing away very busily at Blathnata’s wooden vessels, the little woman looked so sweet, that Kinnia told herself she would eat a whole cake, if it were necessary, to please her.

There was never such a busy little girl. When work was slack in the kitchen, there was the dairy to keep her in occupation. Brigid herself loved the dairy, and, mindful of her own young days, gave Darlugdacha the freedom of it early. In the delicious dawn-hour, when the sisters, one and all, went out to the milking, there was never a happier young thing, whether among the lambs, or the birds, or the flowers, than the tiny white maiden who trotted between Brigid and Daria, with each hand in one of theirs, laughing back at Kinnia and Blathnata, who carried the wooden milking vessels between them. She knew each of the cows by name, and she would call them out in her clear voice the moment she passed out of the door of the Lios, and came in sight of the “badhun” (bawn, lit. cow-fort), into which the cattle were driven each night for safety. And when the gate of the badhun was reached, there they were waiting for her—Bainidhe and Breacaidhe, and Sgead and Riabhac, and all the others, lowing in answer. And the sound of their bells put the birds on the tops of the apple-trees of the Lios, to shame.

It happened, however, one morning, that when Darlugdacha got to the gate of the badhun, she found among the waiting, lowing herd, no Bainidhe—the little white cow with the red ears, which was her special pet. It seemed that two lepers had come to Brigid the day before, and the sight of their miserable condition so prevailed with the compassionate Abbess that she promised to give them the best cow in her byre, leaving the choice to them. Of course, it naturally fell on Bainidhe.