It was June in Connemara. Where else is the month of roses half as lovely? where does the sky show bluer, or the grass greener? and where is the air so clear and cool and fragrant, or the lakes half as still and azure as in that blessed country?
The sun rode high in the sky, monarch of all, and men smiled as they went about their daily toil, and thanked the good God who was sending them favourable weather. Here and there, dotted about the hillsides, the tiny white-washed cabins were full of life; the cocks crowed proudly as they strutted in and out among their plump, sleek wives; the useful ass brayed loudly, roaming about field and lane in enjoyment of a leisure hour; the men were in the fields, cutting the sweet-scented grass, and the women busied themselves about the midday meal, while babies, with dirty faces and naked feet, tumbled about among the wandering pigs and quacking ducks in blissful content.
Along the white road that bordered the lake a cart was jolting slowly along; it was painted in a startling shade of blue, with shafts of brightest red that projected both back and front; upon it was arranged, with neatness and precision, a load of turf just cut from the bog; on one side, painted black, that all who run might read, was the name of "Patrick O'Malley" in crude lettering, and Patrick himself, in working dress of coarse cream homespun, walked beside his slow-going jennet, idly smoking his tin-topped pipe. From time to time he drew from his trouser pocket a letter, which he fingered with respect, gazing at it with profoundest wonder.
"Shure, 'tis the grandest and the natest letther ever seen, and the ilegant picthur on the back! Musha, musha, 'tis not the likes o' that comes to Biddy Joyce ivery day, no, nor to no one else neither in these parts! It minds me of a letther her ladyship at the castle aksed me to take to the posht, and her in a hurry; begob, but the paper's thick and good entoirely!" and he rubbed it softly between his finger and thumb. "Shure 'tis from London itself, and maybe the one as wrote it is some friend o' Eily's. Ah, but it's she is the foolish one that she did not take the boy! it's long ere she'll find another such a match again, and him with cattle and sheep and pigs o' his own, a house that many a girl would be wild for to get, and maybe—maybe—a bit laid by for a rainy day into the bargain!"
"Too Good for Her!"
The jennet jogged slowly on as Patrick soliloquised. "The poor lad, but it makes me heart ache to see him so low-like, setting so quiet in the house, and him thinking, thinking all the blessed while, and never a word out o' his mouth to complain. He's a rale good lad, and it's sorry I am that he should take on so bad, and all for the sake o' a pair o' bright eyes! To see him when Biddy Joyce was sick and Mike got laid up with rheumatics; who was it minded the cattle, and fed the pigs, and sat early and late 'tending on the pair o' thim but Dermot! It's mighty high the girl is, with her talk o' the gintry and the ilegant places she seen in London, and never a mintion o' his name in all her letthers, the foolish craythur! it's too good the bhoy is for the likes o' her!" The old man was beginning to wax indignant over his son's unfavoured suit when a voice, rich and strong, called to him across the loose stone wall that divided the road from the fields.
"Any news going down Lissough way, father?" It was Dermot, who had stopped for a moment in his task of cutting down the long grass.
"Arrah, phwat news is it likely an old man like me should bring? You ask me so eager-like that I misdoubt me but it's some colleen that's caught your eye!" Patrick's eyes twinkled merrily as he made his little joke. Dermot's face saddened, and he turned to his scythe once more.
His father, sorry that he had brought back the cloud once more to his son's face, pulled the letter from his pocket and laid it on the wall.