"But I can tell you how she thravelled a good step of the way home," Ody now continued, "for she tould me herself. The Tinkers gave her a lift in their ould cart. Somewheres beyant Rosbride she met wid them; glory be to goodness 'twasn't any nearer here they were, the ould thieves of sin. Howane'er, Mrs. M'Gurk belike 'ud be wishful to see thim comin' along. Fine company they'd be for anybody begorrah. Troth, it's the quare ugly boghoule she'd find the aquil of thim at the bottom of."
Mrs. M'Gurk, however, said protestingly, "Och, wirrasthrew, man, don't be talkin' of the Tinkers. They'd a right to not be let set fut widin tin mile of any dacint place. Thim or the likes of any such rogues."
And Mrs. Kilfoyle said, "I'd liefer than a great deal they kep' out of it. Ne'er a one of the lot of them I ever beheld but had the eyes rowlin' in his head wid villiny. And the childer, goodness help them, do be worse than the grown people."
And Ody Rafferty's aunt said, "Bad cess to the whole of them."
For in Lisconnel nobody has a good word to say of the Tinkers.
The tribe and their many delinquencies have even supplied us with a bit of the proverbial philosophy in which not a little of our local history is epitomised. The saying, "As pat as thievin' to a tinker" is probably quoted among us as frequently as any other, except, perhaps, one which refers to Jerry Dunne's basket. This latter had its origin in a certain event, not like the former in the long-accumulating observation of habits and propensities, and to explain it therefore is to write a chapter of our chronicles. Moreover, the event in question is otherwise not unimportant from a sociological point of view, because it is very likely to have been the first morning call ever made at Lisconnel.
CHAPTER II
JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET
So it is worth while to tell the reason why people at Lisconnel sometimes respond with irony to a question: "What have I got? Sure, all that Jerry Dunne had in his basket." The saying is of respectable antiquity, for it originated while Bessy Joyce, who died a year or so back, at "a great ould age entirely," was still but a slip of a girl. In those days her mother used often to say regretfully that she didn't know when she was well off, like Rody O'Rourke's pigs, quoting a proverb of obscurer antecedents. When she did so she was generally thinking of the fine little farm in the county Clare, which they had not long since exchanged for the poor tiny holding away in the heart of the black bog; and of how, among the green fields, and thriving beasts, and other good things of Clonmena, she had allowed her content to be marred by such a detail as her Bessy's refusal to favour the suit of Jerry Dunne.
Mrs. Joyce eagerly desired a brilliant alliance for Bessy, who was rather an important daughter, being the only grown-up girl, and a very pretty one, among a troop of younger brethren; so it seemed contrary enough that she wouldn't look the same side of the road as young Jerry, who was farming prosperously on his own account, and whose family were old friends and neighbours, and real respectable people, including a first cousin nothing less than a parish priest. Yet Bessy ran away and hid herself in as ingeniously unlikely places as a strayed calf whenever she heard of his approach, and if brought by chance into his society became most discouragingly deaf and dumb.
It is true that at the time I speak of Bessy's prospects fully entitled her to as opulent a match, and no one apparently foresaw how speedily they would be overcast by her father's improvidence. But Andy Joyce had an ill-advised predilection for seeing things what he called "dacint and proper" about him, and it led him into several imprudent acts. For instance, he built some highly superior sheds in the bawn, to the bettering, no doubt, of his cattle's condition, but very little to his own purpose, which he would indeed have served more advantageously by spending the money they cost him at Moriarty's shebeen. Nor was he left without due warning of the consequences likely to result from such courses. The abrupt raising of his rent by fifty per cent, was a broad hint which most men would have taken; and it did keep Andy quiet, ruefully, for a season or two. Then, however, having again saved up a trifle, he could not resist the temptation to drain the swampy corner of the farthest river-field, which was as kind a bit of land as you could wish, only for the water lying on it, and in which he afterwards raised himself a remarkably fine crop of white oats. The sight of them "done his heart good," he said, exultantly, nothing recking that it was the last touch of farmer's pride he would ever feel. Yet on the next quarter-day the Joyces received notice to quit, and their landlord determined to keep the vacated holding in his own hands; those new sheds were just the thing for his young stock. Andy, in fact, had done his best to improve himself off the face of the earth, and he should therefore have been thankful to retain a foothold, even in a loose-jointed, rush-roofed cabin away at stony Lisconnel. Whether thankful or no, there, at any rate, he presently found himself established with all his family, and the meagre remnant of his hastily sold-off gear, and the black doors of the "house" seeming to loom ahead whenever he looked into the murky future.
The first weeks and months of their new adversity passed slowly and heavily for the transplanted household, more especially for Andy and his wife, who had outgrown a love of paddling in bogholes, and had acquired a habit of wondering "what at all 'ud become of the childer, the crathurs." One shrill-blasted March morning Andy trudged off to the fair down below at Duffclane—not that he had any business to transact there, unless we reckon as such a desire to gain a respite from regretful boredom. He but partially succeeded in doing this, and returned at dusk so fagged and dispirited that he had not energy to relate his scraps of news until he was half through his plate of stirabout. Then he observed "I seen a couple of boys from home in it."
"Whethen now, to think of that," said Mrs. Joyce with mournful interest, "which of them was it?"
"The one of them was Terence Kilfoyle," said Andy.
Mrs. Joyce's interest flagged, for young Kilfoyle was merely a good-looking lad with the name of being rather wild. "Ah sure he might as well be in one place as another," she said indifferently. "Bessy, honey, as you're done, just throw the scraps to the white hin where she's sittin'."
"He sez he's thinkin' to settle hereabouts," said Andy; "I tould him he'd a right to go thry his fortin somewhere outlandish, but he didn't seem to fancy the idee, and small blame to him. A man's bound to get his heart broke one way or the other anywheres, as far as I can see. I met Jerry Dunne too."
"Och and did you indeed?" said Mrs. Joyce, kindling into eagerness again.
Jerry had been absent from Clonmena at the time of their flitting, and they had heard nothing of him since; but she still cherished a flicker of hope in his connection, which the tidings of his appearance in the neighbourhood fanned and fed.
"And he's quit out of it himself," Andy continued, "for the ould uncle of his he's been stoppin' wid this while back at Duffclane's after dyin' and lavin' him a fine farm and a hantle of money, and I dunno what all besides. So it's there he's goin' to live, and he's gave up the ould place at Clonmena, as well he may, and no loss to him on it, for he sez himself he niver spent a pinny over it beyont what he'd be druv to, if he wanted to get e'er a crop out of it at all, and keep things together in any fashion: he wasn't such a fool." Andy hesitated, as if on the brink of a painful theme, and resumed with an effort: "He's bought Magpie and the two two-year-olds off of Peter Martin. Chape enough he got them, too, though he had to give ten shillin's a head more for them than Martin ped me."
"Mavrone, but some people have the luck," said Mrs. Joyce.
"And Jerry bid me tell you," said Andy, the memory of his lost cattle still saddening his tone, "that he might be steppin' up here to see you to-morra or next day."
At this Mrs. Joyce's face suddenly brightened, as if she had been summoned to share Jerry Dunne's good luck. She felt almost as if that had actually happened. For his visit could surely signify nothing else than that