Fairies and Folk of Ireland | Page 6

of foam
from the waves, turned rosy and violet by the rising sun, but they were
flowers. And there was a sound of sweet, soft music, like harps and
mellow horns.
"The King and his train came nearer and I saw them plainer, and the
music sounded louder. Then they passed me and moved far away again
on the lake. The sight of them grew dim and the music grew faint, and I
strained my eyes and my ears for the last of them, and they were gone.
Then I could move and speak and breathe again, for it had seemed to
me that I could not do any one of these things while the King was
passing, and I knew that I had seen O'Donoghue."
The old woman stopped, as if the story were ended, but the younger
people did not speak, for they knew that she had something else to tell.
"O'Donoghue had passed and was gone," she said, "but he always

leaves good luck behind him, and he left the good luck with me. That
summer some rich young ladies came from Dublin to see the Lakes of
Killarney. They heard the story of O'Donoghue, and the people told
them that I was the last who had seen him. They came to my father's
house and asked me to tell them what I had seen. They seemed pleased
with what I told them, or with something that they saw in me, and they
asked my father to let them take me back to the city with them, for a
lady's maid. He did not like to let me go, but they said that they would
pay me well and would have me taught better than I could be at home.
He was poor, there were others at home who needed all that he could
earn, I wished to go, and at last he said I might.
"So I went to Dublin and lived in a grand house, among grand people. I
tried to do my duties well, and they were kind to me. They kept the
promise that they had made to my father. They gave me books and
allowed me time to study them, and they helped me in things that I
could not well have learned by myself, even with the books. I was
quick at study, and in the little time that I had, I learned all that I could.
Three times they took me to London with them, and I saw still grander
people and grander life.
"Those were happy days, but happier came. Your father came, Shaun.
He was a servant of the family, like myself--a coachman. But he was
wiser than I, and he talked with me and showed me that there was
something better for us than to be servants always. We saved all the
money that we could, and when we had enough we came here, where
your father had lived before, and took a little farm. The luck of
O'Donoghue was always with us. We had a good landlord, who asked a
fair rent. We both worked hard, we saved more money and took more
land, and all our neighbors thought that we were prosperous, and so we
were.
"Then came '47. Nobody could be prosperous then. Nobody that had a
heart in him at all could even keep what he had saved then. What we
had and what our neighbors had belonged to all, and little enough there
was of it. It is well for you young people to talk of these times being
hard. Harder than some they may be, but good and easy compared with

those days of '47 and '48. You talk of injustice and wrong to Ireland!
What think you of those times, when every day great ships sailed away
from Ireland loaded down with food--corn and bacon, and beef and
butter--and Ireland's own people left without the bit of food to keep the
life in them? All summer long was the horrible wet weather, and the
potatoes rotting in the ground before they'ld be ripe, and never fit to eat.
To add to all that was the fever, that killed its thousands, and then the
cold. And when the days came again that the crops would grow, many
and many of the people were so weak with the hunger and the sickness
that they could not work in the fields. Ah! and you call these hard
times!
"Those were the bad days for Ireland, those days of '47. Not even the
luck of O'Donoghue could make us prosper or give us comforts then.
But we lived through the time, as many others did. The poor helped
those who were poorer than themselves; the sick tended those who
were sicker; the cold gave clothes and