The Story of Bawn | Page 3

so the thing was a great marvel to
us and our people, to whom steam was quite marvel enough.
My grandfather at first would not even look on it. I have seen him turn
away sharply from the window to avoid seeing it. When we went out to
drive we turned our backs upon it, my grandfather saying that he would
not insult his horses by letting them look at it, and indeed I think that,
old as they were, yet having blood in them they would curvet a bit if
they saw anything so strange to them.
There is one thing the light railway has done, and that is to give the
people a market for their goods. We were all much poorer than we once
were, except Mr. Dawson, who made his money by money-lending in
Dublin and London; but even with Mr. Dawson's big house we did not
make a market for the countryside.
Besides, there was a stir among the people there used not to be. They
were spinning and weaving in their cottages, and they were rearing

fowl and growing fruit and flowers.
The things which before the peasant children did for sport they now did
for profit as well. It caused the greatest surprise in the minds of the
people when they discovered that anybody could want their
blackberries and their mushrooms; that money was to be made out of
even the gathering of shamrocks. They thought that people out in the
world who were ready to pay money for such things must be very queer
people indeed. But since there were "such quare ould oddities," it was
just as well, since they made life easier for the poor.
Another thing was that a creamery had been started at Araglin, only a
mile or two from us, and the girls went there from the farms to learn the
trade of dairying.
If it were not for the light railway none of these things would have been
possible, and so I forgave it that it flew with a shriek round the base of
the Purple Hill, setting all the mountains rattling with echoes, and
disturbing the water fowl on the lakes and the song-birds in the woods,
the eagle in his eyrie, and the wild red deer, to say nothing of the
innumerable grouse and partridges and black cock and plover and hares
and rabbits on the mountain-side.
My grandmother was not as angry against the light railway as my
grandfather; she used to say that we must go with the times, and she
was glad the people were stirring since it kept their thoughts from
turning to America. She had been talked over by Miss Champion, my
godmother and the greatest friend we have. And Miss Champion was
always on the side of the people, and had even persuaded my
grandmother to let her have some of her famous recipes, such as those
for elder and blackberry wine, and for various preserves, and for fine
soaps and washes for the skin, so that the people might know them and
make more money.
"Every one makes money except the gentry," my grandfather grumbled,
"and we grow poorer year by year."
My grandfather talked freely in my presence; and I knew that Aghadoe

Abbey was mortgaged to the doors and that the mortgages would be
foreclosed at my grandfather's death. They kept nothing from me, and
my grandmother has said to me with a watery smile: "If I survive your
grandfather, Bawn, my dear, you and I will have to find genteel
lodgings in Dublin. It would be a strange thing for a Lady St. Leger to
come down from Aghadoe Abbey to that. To be sure there was once a
Countess went ballad-singing in the streets of Cork."
"That day is far away," I answered. "And when it comes there will be
no genteel lodgings, but Theobald and I will take care of you
somewhere. In a little house it may be, but one with a garden where
you can walk in the sun in winter mornings as you do now, and prod at
the weeds in the path as you do now with your silver-headed cane."
"If I could survive your grandfather," she said, turning away her head,
"my heart would break to leave Aghadoe. I ask nothing of you and
Theobald, Bawn, but that you should take care of each other when we
are gone. It is not right that the old should burden the young."
I have always known, or at least since I was capable of entertaining
such things, that our grandparents destined Theobald and me for each
other. I have no love for Theobald such as I find in my books, but I
have a great affection for him as the dearest