All on the Irish Shore | Page 4

somewhat unsteadily, towards the wood,
dragging after him by a rope a large dog. He did not notice that he was
being followed by a barefooted woman, but the dog did, and, being an
intelligent dog, was in some degree reassured. In the wood the tinker
spent some time in selecting a tree with a projecting branch suitable to
his purpose, and having found one he proceeded to hang the dog. Even
in his cups Mr. Fennessy made sentiment subservient to common sense.
It is hardly too much to say that in a week the tinker had taken up a
position in the Craffroe household only comparable to that of Ygdrasil,
who in Norse mythology forms the ultimate support of all things. Save
for the incessant demands upon his skill in the matter of solder and
stitches, his recent tinkerhood was politely ignored, or treated as an
escapade excusable in a youth of spirit. Had not his father owned a
farm and seven cows in the county Limerick, and had not he himself
three times returned the price of his ticket to America to a circle of
adoring and wealthy relatives in Boston? His position in the kitchen
and yard became speedily assured. Under his _régime_ the hounds
were valeted as they had never been before. Lily herself (newly washed,
with "blue" in the water) was scarcely more white than the concrete
floor of the kennel yard, and the puppies, Ruby and Remus, who had
unaccountably developed a virulent form of mange, were immediately
taken in hand by the all-accomplished tinker, and anointed with a
mixture whose very noisomeness was to Patsey Crimmeen a sufficient
guarantee of its efficacy, and was impressive even to the Master, fresh
from much anxious study of veterinary lore.
"He's the best man we've got!" said Freddy proudly to a dubious uncle,
"there isn't a mortal thing he can't put his hand to."
"Or lay his hands on," suggested the dubious uncle. "May I ask if his
colleagues are still within a mile of the place?"
"Oh, he hates the very sight of 'em!" said Freddy hastily, "cuts 'em dead
whenever he sees 'em."
"It's no use your crabbing him, George," broke in Mrs. Alexander, "we
won't give him up to you! Wait till you see how he has mended the lock

of the hall door!"
"I should recommend you to buy a new one at once," said Sir George
Ker, in a way that was singularly exasperating to the paragon's
proprietors.
Mrs. Alexander was, or so her friends said, somewhat given to vaunting
herself of her paragons, under which heading, it may be admitted,
practically all her household were included. She was, indeed, one of
those persons who may or may not be heroes to their valets, but whose
valets are almost invariably heroes to them. It was, therefore,
excessively discomposing to her that, during the following week, in the
very height of apparently cloudless domestic tranquillity, the
housemaid and the parlour-maid should in one black hour successively
demand an audience, and successively, in the floods of tears proper to
such occasions, give warning. Inquiry as to their reasons was fruitless.
They were unhappy: one said she wouldn't get her appetite, and that her
mother was sick; the other said she wouldn't get her sleep in it, and
there was things--sob--going on--sob.
Mrs. Alexander concluded the interview abruptly, and descended to the
kitchen to interview her queen paragon, Barnet, on the crisis.
Miss Barnet was a stout and comely English lady, of that liberal forty
that frankly admits itself in advertisements to be twenty-eight. It was
understood that she had only accepted office in Ireland because, in the
first place, the butler to whom she had long been affianced had married
another, and because, in the second place, she had a brother buried in
Belfast. She was, perhaps, the one person in the world whose opinion
about poultry Mrs. Alexander ranked higher than her own. She now
allowed a restrained acidity to mingle with her dignity of manner,
scarcely more than the calculated lemon essence in her faultless castle
puddings, but enough to indicate that she, too, had grievances. She
didn't know why they were leaving. She had heard some talk about a
fairy or something, but she didn't hold with such nonsense.
"Gerrls is very frightful!" broke in an unexpected voice; "owld
standards like meself maybe wouldn't feel it!"

A large basket of linen had suddenly blocked the scullery door, and
from beneath it a little woman, like an Australian aborigine, delivered
herself of this dark saying.
"What are you talking about, Mrs. Griffen?" demanded Mrs. Alexander,
turning in vexed bewilderment to her laundress, "what does all this
mean?"
"The Lord save us, ma'am, there's some says it means a death in the
house!" replied