The Furnishings of Pat Maguire

== THE FURNISHINGS OF PAT MAGUIRE: An Irish Love Story, ==
=== by Winifred Boggs ===
From The Leisure Hour 1903
By a certain Irish hamlet on the Atlantic there are cliffs that rise sheer from the sea; beneath them, far down, the black waters seethe and bubble as they dash into grim dark caverns, rushing past out-jutting crags with a whirling roar of foam, breaking with a deep crashing boom against the impenetrable sides of the gloomy cliffs, which, in their cold, stem grandeur, seem to gaze at the impotent fury of the waters in calm, measureless contempt. 
Here, on the top of these northern Irish cliffs, Biddy McShane stood motionless one night, watching for signs of life to pass into the field track which led zigzag to where she waited. 
The night grew later; the wind died down; the moon, coming out of a small rift in the sky, turned the great gleam of the waters into iridescent pathways of silver; but still the girl's eyes turned westward. 
There was a great stillness lying over all the land ,^ so deep, so quiet, that Nature and all things living seemed at rest; the spirit of silence seemed brooding in the air, save when, now and then, the dark sails of a fishing-smack came, like dreams, drifting through a silver sea away to the Isles of Sleep. 
Presently a welcome sound struck upon the girl's strained ear — the sound of merry-makers as they came home rejoicing with song and shout from Kilbahkarrak Fair. 
Up the winding path streamed a group of men, with here or there a woman in their midst, wives or mothers, and Biddy M 'Shane leaned eagerly forward to scan the faces of the advancing figures as the moon revealed them one by one to her. 
Then she drew back with bitter disappointment — the face she looked for was not there. She shrank into the shadows, hoping to remain unobserved while the roysterers passed. The first few noticed nothing, but the second lot, composed chiefly of women, were less easily deceived; one of their number sprang forward and caught the girl by the arm. “ Why shure and it's Biddy McShane, no less!" she exclaimed shrilly, then letting her go, with a loud laugh, “Is it waitin' for the fairin' ye be?" 
“Let me be, Kate Flanagan," cried the girl angrily, darting down the path out of reach. 
With a laugh and a jest the fairers passed on, and as their voices died away in the distance, silence reigned once more. 
The girl resturned her old station, and presently a man's solitary figure made her heart beat high with anticipation; then as the moon shone on fair, not dark, hair, and a man of large instead of small stature, her hopes fell again, and she stood sullen and resentful awaiting his approach. 
"Why, Biddy, can it be yezsilf?" cried the man, amazed, as catching sight of her watching figure, he sprang lightly to her side; “ 'tis little I hoped to see ye this noight," and he came closer, looking eagerly into her eyes. 
She returned his gaze with indifference. 
" 'Tis not for ye I be waitin*, Pat Maguire," she replied, turning away. 
The young man's face fell. 
"Arrah, now, Biddy, 'tis teasin' ye be," he said anxiously; "wait till I tell ye what I bought at the fair." 
She looked up with a faint glint of curiosity. 
“ 'Tis nothin' to me, thin," she said, tossing her head, adding in the same breath, “ Ye can tell me if ye like." 
"Well, thin, an elegant rockin'-chair an' no less," with triumph. 
"Ye niver did!" incredulously. 
"It's thruth," he replied solemnly. "An' that's not all, either," fumbling in his pockets as he spoke. "See here, Biddy allannah." 
Something flashed in the moonlight, and Biddy gave an exclamation of amazement as a little paste butterfly brooch was dropped into her hand. 
Never had she seen anything so beautiful before; she gazed at it with dilated eyes and parted lips. 
 “ Rale Oirish dimons the sellar tould me,” said Pat Maguire, proudly bending his fair thatch of hair low over the girl's palm, and taking jewel and all into his own brown fingers. "It'll look lovely in yez shawl on Sundays," he murmured admiringly; “shure an* it'll be breakin' the hearts of all the other colleens ye'll be, with yez beautiful face and rale Oirish dimons!" 
The girl hesitated; then she turned away from the glittering bauble. 
“I cannot take it, Pat Maguire," she said in a low voice; "kape it for yez swateheart," 
“But it's yezsilf that I want for me swateheart," began the tall young Irishman blankly. 
“ Haven't I tould ye now," reproachfully, “that I'd niver take ye for me bhoy?" 
"Och, Biddy, don't!” cried Pat in a sharp, pained voice, “shure it*s the loight of me eyes ye are, the — " 
The girl pushed him away with no gentle hand. "Grit away, ye great nuisance," she cried, with an angry sob, "it's no peace I have wid ye at all, at all. Ye know what I am waitin' here for, and niver a word of him, good or bad. Where is Harry-Bagh?" 
"I moight have known," whispered Pat bitterly; "always that wastral, that — " 
She turned on him like a wild cat. "Ye shall not say a word against him!" she replied fiercely. "Where is he, thin — ^where did ye lave him?" 
Old Adam was too strong for Pat Maguire, he told the crude truth when a little softening of the facts would have been more gracious. 
"Dead drunk in the ditch comin' along," he answered roughly. 
“Ye — ye coward, ye mane-spirited coward!" cried Biddy, with flashing eyes, "lavin' the poor darlint to catch his death of could in a damp ditch — for shame on ye, Pat Maguire, for shame! 'Tis no dacent Oirish bhoy ye are, but a low croil murthering thafe. Take that," and reaching on tiptoe, the young virago struck the big Irish lad a stinging blow on the right ear. 
Pat caught the offending hand and held it tightly, shaking the girl gently. 
" It's a damon ye are, for shurel" he muttered admiringly, liking the girl none the less for her show of spirit. “It's locked up or married ye should be." 
"And it's rather locked up for life I'd be than married to ye," was the reply. 
For a few moments there was silence, then — 
"Well, what do ye want me to do?" the young man asked unwillingly. 
"Ye know what any dacent boy would do." 
"Fetch him home?" sulkily. 
"Yes." 
Another pause, a longer one this time. 
" Well, I'll do it," he said at length, in anything but cheerful tones, "if ye'll give me — " he paused, confused by the scathing light in the girl's eyes, "if — if ye'll kape the brooch, I mane, an* wear it on Sunday." 
For answer, Biddy pinned the jewel in her bodice, and pointed down the path. 
"Now, thin, be quick wid ye," she said imperiously, "it's gettin' damp." 
The young man turned away, murmuring savagely — 
"I could be layin' in wather all noight before ye'd moider yezilf about me.” 
"The loikes of ye are big enough, and ugly enough, to look after yezselves," was the reply, "an' ye can stan' more dhrink than Harry-Bagh." 
"'Deed, thin, if I took half — " began the young man, injured, but Biddy was already pushing him down the slope. 
"It's slow as death ye are!" she cried impatiently; "what are yez great long legs for?" 1 m gom . 
An extra hard shove down the steep incline, and the angry Pat was indeed "goin'." 
" Good-noight, an' hurry now," called out Biddy before running home, and slipping into the small, full cabin without waking the slumberers within. 
It is to be feared that Harry-Bagh 's passage home was a trifle tmcomfortable, and that he would not have blessed Biddy for being the cause of the disturbance ot his sweet slumbers in the ditch. 
Biddy M 'Shane was the prettiest girl in Limnagarry, a place where pretty girls were the rule rather than the exception. Needless to remark, she had numerous admirers, the most eligible, as well as the most persistent, being big, .plain Pat Maguire, a distant kinsman; the least eligible, and most indifferent, was the village Adonis, the black-haired, blackeyed, natty Harry-Bagh. 
Pat had a cottage of his own, and almost enough land to constitute a small farm, in the imagination of Biddy's mother. He lived entirely alone, yet his cottage was a model of neatness; it even boasted a few articles of real furniture, and besides the living room and kitchen combined, had two others. 
It was the envy, the despair, the secret hope, of all the unmarried women from fifteen to fifty. 
While Harry-Bagh — ^though his hair was a mass of purpleblack curls, his black eyes fringed with dark, thick lashes, his teeth of dazzling whiteness, his merry mouth red and shapely with health and youth, and his small form the essence of dandified elegance — had nothing. 
He had friends and sweethearts galore, spirits that nothing could damp, and a humorous view of life that infected even the most destitute, but of worldly wealth not a sou. 
He occupied, in company with his parents, nine brothers and sisters, his grandmother and an aunt, and — the pig, a small tumble-down cabin on the Limnagarry road just where it branched off into Blackberry Lane. It was perhaps the most picturesquely situated cabin in the whole country side; a winding lane with high wild hedgerows led to it; behind it rose the purple mountains of Donegal; beside it, to the right, lay the sea, with grassy slopes, one blaze of sea-pinks. Outside the most picttu*esque, and inside the dirtiest in all Donegal! 
By trade Harry-Bagh was, like his rival, a fisherman; yotmg and old, for many miles round, all earned their living in this manner. To see Harry-Bagh off to the shore with his black eyes twinkling, the gleam of his teeth showing through his merry lips, his red fisher-cap set jauntily on his thick dark curls, was to behold a joyous sight that many a blue-eyed colleen waited to see. 
To see him come back with his share of the spoil, whistling lightly as he sorted it out, his red cap farther back, his hair dashed with spray, while his dark Spanish face glowed with the sea's brown health, was to see, if possible, an even more joyous sight. Nothing disturbed the even tenor of his way. He went to a fair whistling “ Kathleen Mavoumeen"; he came back after a night spent quite happily in the ditch or lock-up, still whistling “ Kathleen Mavourneen/' a smile of good-fellowship on his devil-may-care face. Though by far the most worthless of all the young men about, and the one that cared least about Biddy, she, out of sheer perversity, set her fancy upon him. When she wanted anything, when she was in trouble, when there were grave matters to be settled, the honest, well-meaning, stalwart, but plain-feattu*ed Pat was the one she took cotmsel with. 
Ever since he had been old enough to know what he wanted, Pat had wanted Biddy, and Biddy alone; for him no other girl existed. Till Harry-Bagh's conquering black eyes had glanced into hers, Pat's suit had prospered well enough, and he had worked hard early and late, at his little patch, cultivating the ground and rearing pigs and poultry with well merited success. 
Owing to his industry, he was at last able to buy a small boat and fishing-tackle, so that everything was clear undivided profit, and he grew, in the eyes of the primitive Irish poor, almost a man of wealth. 
It had become second nature to him to make fair his home for the time of Biddy's coming. He still toiled on doggedly, hoping against hope, for he told himself, not always with conviction, that come she would in the end. 
Early the next morning after Harry-Bagh's late arrival home, he was on the beach as usual, none the worse for his little indiscretion. He strolled about from one girl to the other, exchanging jests and compliments, saying the same to Biddy as he said to all the girls with any pretensions to beauty, while Pat Maguire stood a little apart looking on with a jealous scowl, and perhaps expecting a word of praise from Biddy for carrying out her commands. 
On her part she wondered why he did not come up and speak to her, and something akin to annoyance seized upon her spoiled whims when he went off with the boats without one word. 
Harry-Bagh waved a smiling good-bye all round; Biddy could not flatter herself it was intended more for her than the others. She knew and deplored his light, fickle nature, but went on coveting his love all the same. 
In the evening, when the boats came home, it was much the same; again Hany-Bagh jested with all alike, while Pat Maguire, without a word, walked dourly home. 
For a few days things went on in this very unsatisfactory manner. Biddy wore the brooch on Sunday to the und)ring envy of all the other girls, but Pat never came to mass, and when she took it off and put it away in an old tin box, angry tears marred the brightness of the jewel. 
The next day Harry-Bagh*s mother, Mrs. O’Grady, waddled up to her with a wide, good-natured mouth gabbling long before she was in earshot. 
She came up panting and breathless, her hands pressed against her fat sides. "Arrah, thin, Biddy, me jewel, 'tis yezsilf I've been wantin' to see all this long weary day," she began rapidly. “ I've been insulted that never was, wid that wastral Harry-Bagh's foine yotmg English miss." 
"Who?" faltered Biddy. 
"Haven't ye heard? Shtire it's the bad bould heart the bhoy has!" lifting up her hands in mock horror, and trying hard to suppress unbecoming signs of pride. "Ye know that foine English lady's-maid her ladyship brought down?" 
"What has she got to do wid Harry-Bagh?" asked Biddy uneasily. 
" Shure 'tis his latest swateheart she is — no less, but wait till I tell ye. Harry-Bagh was for bringin' her in to tay, so I put out the china, an' gave her the uncracked mug, I did too — the cratur! An' I dusted the seat of the chair, an' set boxes roun', an' aproud woman I was the day, Biddy McShane, wid the foine choilder, an' ducks, an' hens, an' the sides of the pig hangin' up to dry, an' fresh eggs for me foine lady, and rale bread an' butter, an' everjrthing so genteel an' iligant." 
She paused for breath, the girl waiting anxiously for her to continue. 
Presently Mrs. O'Grady got started again. "Yes," she went on, "all so foine and iligant, an' I waited for her in me grand new clothes I'd bought second-hand at the fair, an' where the body of me wouldn't meet, I wore Tim's Sunday waistcoat, an' it was a rale trate I was, me dear, though I says it as shouldn't. An' presently came Harry-Bagh an* his English miss, an', by St. Pathrick, what do you think the cratur wore?" 
"I can't think," breathlessly. 
"A rale silk petticoat, no less," in awed accents. 
Biddy's amaze and disgust were great enough even to please that lover of sensation, Mrs. O'Grady. 
“It's thrue, an* that's not all, for she lifted her skirts that hoigh, when she come in, and there were silk stockin's an' shoes that small, with tremendjious heels, just like her ladyship's. An' she walked like this, tumin' up her long nose," — Mrs. O'Grady walked in absurd imitation of her guest's manner, turning up her ridiculous little nose sky high — “ an' when she saw the ducks — the darlints — ^in the cabin, she squealed and said, 'Oh, gracious! the /ranimals have got into your 'ut' — called it a * 'ut.' An* was so ignorant she didn't know where the fowls lived! Thin, after I put tay in the taypot, she got up and held her foine hankerpiece to her face an' walked off wid Harry-Bagh, saying she couldn't stand *the low, common “irish”. Now," speechless with indignation, "what do you say to that?” 
Biddy could have said a good deal, but more of Harry-Bagh's fickleness than of his mother's injuries. 
She walked home rather thoughtfully. She could not help contrasting Pat and Harry-Bagh. On her way she paused, and looked wistfully at the former's well-kept potato-patch, but no stalwart form was working there, and heaving a sigh she went on with dragging footsteps. 
Half-way done the lane she met Pat Maguire, who turned and walked by her in silence. 
"Have ye lost yez tongue?" asked the girl pertly, at length. 
"No, Biddy, but I've bought a taypot an' two china cups an' saucers widout a crack." 
"Have ye, now?" with affected indifference. "What would. ye be wantin' wid two cups, Pat Maguire?" 
"Biddy, ye — " he began. 
"Well, good-night to ye, shure I see me mother lookin' for me;" and before he was aware of her intention she had caught up to Mrs. M 'Shane's small wrinkled form in front. 
He had no choice save to turn and go home, dwelling on the hardness of his lady-love's heart. 
A few days later, flushed and eager, he stood at the comer waiting to see her pass on her way to the well. No sooner had she appeared than he was by her side. 
"Biddy!" he cried breathlessly, "Biddy, I've bought a chest-o* -drawers / " 
The girl's great Irish eyes grew yet larger in amazement. “ I don't believe ye," she cried disdainfully ; "only the quality have chest-o'-drawers; what for would the loikes of ye be bu)dn' one?" 
"For me woife," boldly. 
" Arrah, thin, I did not know ye was married at all, at all." 
"Biddy," reproachfully, "ye know my manin'." 
Biddy tossed her head. "I don't," she declared imtruthfully. 
"Come an' look at it, thin," he pleaded, "just one little peep, now." 
The girl hesitated, and then turned resolutely away. " No, it's nothin' to me," she insisted, "an* I must be goin', Pat Maguire." 
He stood looking after her retreating form in bitter disappointment. 
" It's no good at all, at all," he thought wretchedly. Then the gloom lifted again as a vision of his green enameled chestof -drawers rose before his eyes. "Shure it's a foine tlimg entoirely," he muttered, "an' wait till I buy a cow,'' 
The news that Pat Maguire had bought a "rale iligant" chest-of-drawers spread like wildfire through Limnagarry, and incredulous groups rushed up to the cottage to see the wonder with their own doubting eyes. 
When they beheld it, one and all were speechless with envy and admiration, and went home scarcely believing the evidence of their own eyes. What would not every woman there have given to possess that wonderful piece of furniture for her very own? And to think that Biddy M 'Shane might have it, and all the glories of the cottage, for the lifting up of her little finger! 
"Shure 'tis a proud woman I am this day!" said Mrs. M 'Shane, with a gasp. 
Biddy was^ot as indifferent as she pretended, to the event of the year, and she hoped Pat would ask her again to view his purchase. When he did so she decided to give in gracefully after a decent show of resistance; however, as Pat, much to her bitter mortification, did nothing of the kind, keeping instead strictly out of her way, and even leaving her to learn from others that he had added a cow to the establishment, such condescension was not asked from her. 
By this time she had forgotten all about the fickle Harry Bagh and was thoroughly in love with the stalwart yotmg fanner — for so her mother insisted on speaking of him since the arrival of the cow. 
The cow calved, and there was a large litter of pigs, but still Pat went on his way regardless of Biddy's wistful, watching eyes, and one day when she heard he had added a small wooden dresser, with dishes, and plates, and three jugs to place upon it, she felt she could bear his strange conduct no longer, and lingered in Blackberry Lane at twilight time, waiting to see him pass. 
He paused as he came along, and looked at her eagerly, then made as if he would pass on unheeding, but the girl's entreating face, raised to his, weakened his resolution. He stopped and grew suddenly very shy and tongue-tied, standing there big and awkward, his heart full of the love he could not find words to express. 
The golden light was just resting on the purple of the mountains; a soft haze of crimson lay behind them, cutting a fleecy cloud into flecks. The purple mountains, the gold, and the crimson, and all the glories of the setting sun were reflected in the azure waters. The bees hummed lazily down the lane, their drowsy buzzing a lullaby; butterflies twinkled from flower to flower, fluttering up and down like tiny gorgeous blossoms, and the smell of earth and peat, and all the summer of Nature, came sweet and strong to the young couple standing side by side. 
“ It's a stranger ye are now entoirely," said the girl at last, coyly. 
Still Pat made no remark. 
“ How is the chest-o'-drawers? " asked Biddy, looking down. 
His face brightened. “Ye should just see it," he cried enthusiastically. “Shure it's the loight of the cottage, an' the iligant side-board, an' plates, an* dishes an' jugs an' all! Kate Giligan came in yesterday, an' she said 'twould hould  all a body's clothes " (he was referring to the chest-of -drawers), "an' lave room for tay an' sugar besides, an' she tried the rockin' chair an' said it was the most comfortable she'd ever seen." 
Biddy looked at him with jealous, blazing eyes. “ I wonder it didn't break wid the weight of the cratur — a great ugly elephant I" 
"It's as strong as nivir was; shtire 'twould hould me an* another." 
He looked at her shyly. 
“An' her Sunday clothes in my — your chest-o'-drawers! As if a great ugly colleen like Kate wanted clothes at all." 
“Why, Biddy!" exclaimed Pat, mildly shocked, "ye wouldn't have a dacent body goin' about — " 
"Fm not sure that she is a dacent body," retorted Biddy, tossing her head. 
“For shame—" 
“Well, thin," hotly, “is it dacent ye call it, to go to a bhoy's cottage an' thry his things, an' his rockin '-chair, an' — an' — ?" She broke off with a stifled sob. 
The idea of that hateful thing trying to rob her of Pat's affection, and — his furniture! She sobbed wildly at the mere thought of it. 
Pat stood opposite trying to look into her eyes. "Why, Biddy, me jewel, what is it?" he asked tenderly, pulling her hands down from her face; "tell me now, darlint." 
" I think it is a pity the chest-o'-drawers, an' the iligant side-board, an' the rockin'-chair, an' the jugs an' the dishes should — go out of the family," she whispered, blushing. 
Pat put his arms around her without more ado, and drew her wet face against his own radiant one. " Is it yezsilf that will be wantin' of thim, thin, darlint?" he asked eagerly. 
"Yes," cried the girl, her arms stealing round her lover's neck. "I do want that chest-o'-drawers mortal bad, but — I want ye more, Pat — darlint." 
Category:Boggs
Category:The Leisure Hour