Jane Journeys On

by Ruth Comfort Mitchell

"'Then came the sickness, the plague that shadowed five counties the way you'd see a black cloud sailing down the sky of a June day. Nary a village but paid its toll in death and doom. One of the first I was, and one of the worst. Wirra, the weeks I lay on the sill of death's door,—the gray days, the black nights.

"'Came the time when I heard Father Quinn's voice and he sitting beside me, telling me slow and easy, the way you'd be talking to a child itself, that Larry Kinsella was mending and calling for me. Well, I rose up, destroyed with the weakness though I was, to be on the way to him, but there in the bit of a glass on my wall I saw my face ... my face ... Mary, be good to us ... my face! Back I fell in the black pit of despair, praying for death itself. But it would not come to my bidding. In the black of the night, in the gray of the dawn, the dreams that tormented me! Larry's voice, wheedling and soft in my ear—

"'With your lips and cheeks the rose,

That is blooming in the snow——'

"'And always Father Quinn, wasted and worn with care for the living and prayer for the dead, bidding me rise up on my two feet and go to the lad I loved. Love, was it? God forgive me, the way I misnamed it then.

"'Well, then, in the dusk of one day I went with him, me leaning for weakness on his tired arm. Out of every house peered a face, but there was no lad begging a smile of me and no green envy at all in the glance of the girls. When we were well past the whole of them I went down on my two knees in the dirt of the road, the way I'd be praying at a shrine itself, for there was a white moon rising in the soul of me and I began to see clear. "Mary, Mother," I said, "God forbid the likes of me to be driving a bargain with yourself, but give me the one thing only and I'll never pester your ear again all the days of my life. Here in the dust I make a heap of all my sins and vanities,—the toss of my head and the tilt of my chin, the love-looks of the lads and the black hate of the girls, and I'll burn them for a sacrifice the way the heathen would be doing and go joyful on my way with the ashes in my mouth! Leave the children to run from me, me, the one-time wonder of the weeping west; leave the girls to make mock of my face; only Mary, Mother, for the sake of the joy he had in me, let Larry Kinsella only of all the world be seeing me still with the eyes of love, and see me fair!"

"'Then was a glad cry sounding and the pinched face of Father Quinn shining like an altar and it lighted up for Easter itself. "Glory be to God," he cried out in a great voice. "Now let you make haste to your lad, for I heard the rustle of wings on that prayer will carry it high!"

"'When Larry Kinsella heard the sound of my foot on his step he leapt up. Wirra ... down all the years I can hear the wild joy of him still—— "Core of my heart, have you come? Alannah!—With your lips and cheeks the rose——"

"'I opened my mouth to cry shame on him, mocking my face, but then the peace of God came down on me like a deep rain on a parched field, and I knew what way it would be with the two of us all the long days of this world. Larry Kinsella was blind.'"

Michael had been speaking more and more slowly and softly and he did not move for many moments after he had finished his tale. Then he stealthily rose and bent over young Randal, and tiptoed away. "Asleep," his lips barely formed the word, and he motioned Jane to follow him. She caught up her wrap and crept after him.