A Very Irish Christmas Page 3

  Then, one evening, she surprised him with a request for a child. He halted in the act of drawing the red curtain and kept his eyes bent to the city which, in the amorphous gathering of dusk was condensed to the shape of a massive engine, ignited here and there by the sodium glow of the streetlamps.

  “So, this is what it comes to,” he thought and recognised that the plethora of whimsical animal figures had been an elaborate prelude to this ingenuous suggestion. She was little more than a child herself. He was aware too, in passing, of the season, and the notion took hold of him that somehow the mood of the city, in its swagger of Christmas fare, had percolated through the unpleasant welter of drizzle, smoke and noise, to this high enclosure and had impressed itself on her senses, stirring there the itch for a child. He closed the curtain and fumed to face her.

  “Why do you want a child?” he asked.

  She shrugged and bent her head.

  “For company,” her eyes swung across to the display of golden animals on the floor.

  “Yes, that’s all you need now in your collection, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “But it’s more than that too,” she protested and splayed her hand over her flat stomach.

  “Well, I don’t,” he said. “A child would only bring confusion in here.”

  He mounted the ladder onto the platform bed and lay with his face to the corner but did not sleep. On the floor below him she sat, moving her cast of animals about in the pale gleam of the gas flame, and watched as broad shadows were flung against the wall and ceiling.

  In the twelve day approach to Christmas carol singers cluttered on the thoroughfares and the savour of mince pies sold at outdoor stalls enriched the customary dank smell of the city. Occasionally, some of these festive singers and traders turned up in the grey outer housing zones. For those in the vulgar flats the voices of the carol singers lost all coherence, the notes and words of their songs distorted by the scarfing currents of air trapped between the tall concrete blocks.

  He observed a growing vagueness in her eyes and began on another evening to defend himself. “I had children once,” he said. “As you might have guessed, from a marriage of twenty years. They have their moments I grant you, a trick of the voice or a look that can win your heart. But they can torment your nerves too, and when they find the weak spot they persist until you no longer know what it is you are saying or doing. You are all the children I need now.”

  “But me,” was all that she said, and rubbed a dear space in the condensation on the glass as she tried to recompose in her head the dissonant notes that rose at intervals from the huddle of young carol singers in the darkness below.

  “It would have been nice to have thrown some money to them,” she remarked when the singers had moved away.

  “Yes, and falling from this height the coins would probably have killed them.”

  She withdrew from the window and let the curtain resettle, flush with its pair.

  He rarely moved now from the bed. Once in the door he undressed and climbed onto the platform. The illness that had swamped his lungs was becoming chronic. When he breathed he felt a wound stretch inside and suppurate, striking up a rattle in his chest. His skin had dried and drawn in to meet his bones. From where he lay he instructed her with monarchical detachment in the preparation of their supper but her disinterest angered him and he redoubled the rate of his smoking. As each carton was emptied he would toss it down to her, and, straightaway, her fingers would begin to manipulate the slim gold paper. His eyes then would be held by her deft movements and his attitude would once more soften towards her.

  Despite his illness, he continued to work, shrugging his weakened frame into the grey coat. It did not snow in the city but a hard frost bound the roofs and roads and pavements like sheets of iron. Even in those last days before Christmas he forced himself out and back at the same hour, morning and evening, resolved not to admit of any change, for reasons of health or merrymaking, in the daily course he had established. Only by conducting each day in the same way could he uphold the pretence that time did not pass.

  It was on Christmas Eve that she left him. What few material trappings she possessed were tied into a length of the red curtain and the bizarre hoard of gold foil animals was neatly pocketed in gaps and folds of the cloth. The screens alone were left behind, placed in a square like a lidless box in the centre of the eating table, where a low bolt of sunlight struck through the exposed window making their colours appear almost transparent.

  When she stepped onto the pavement she shivered as much from fear as from the first sting of the winter air. She moved towards the city, skirting the main routes in case, by hazard , he would choose to surprise her and return early on this one day. Being without money she was forced to walk and the drag of the red bundle on her shoulders retarded her pace so that dusk had fallen by the time she had reached the heart of the city. In a square that she recognised she halted to sit on a step and rub her feet, swollen now with the unaccustomed exercise, and bruised with the cold. From the top of the bundle, which she had placed on the ground beside her, gleamed a fragment of gold. She smiled, and, standing again, caught the glance of a child’s face through an upper floor window, As she bent to pick up her bundle she extracted the delicate beast and placed it where she had been sitting.

  Frost continued to fall that night in greater profusion than it had before, and a greenish vapour pervaded every quarter of the city, merging with the scant light that showed through shutters and hallways. No traffic broke the quiet but, lining the streets, on doorsteps and on windowsills, stood a myriad of minute golden creatures, each one astir with the playful flicker of new life.

  The Christmas Cuckoo

  FRANCES BROWNE

  ONCE UPON A TIME THERE stood in the midst of a bleak moor, in the north country, a certain village; all its inhabitants were poor, for their fields were barren, and they had little trade, but the poorest of them all were two brothers called Scrub and Spare, who followed the cobbler’s craft, and had but one stall between them. It was a hut built of clay and wattles. The door was low and always open, for there was no window. The roof did not entirely keep out the rain, and the only thing comfortable about it was a wide hearth, for which the brothers could never find wood enough to make a sufficient fire. There they worked in most brotherly friendship, though with little encouragement.

  The people of that village were not extravagant in shoes, and better cobblers than Scrub and Spare might be found. Spiteful people said there were no shoes so bad that they would not be worse for their mending. Nevertheless Scrub and Spare managed to live between their own trade, a small barley field, and a cottage garden, till one unlucky day when a new cobbler arrived in the village. He had lived in the capital city of the kingdom, and, by his own account, cobbled for the queen and the princesses. His awls were sharp, his lasts were new; he set up his stall in a neat cottage with two windows. The villagers soon found out that one patch of his would wear two of the brothers’. In short, all the mending left Scrub and Spare, and went to the new cobbler. The season had been wet and cold, their barley did not ripen well, and the cabbages never half closed in the garden. So the brothers were poor that winter, and when Christmas came they had nothing to feast on but a barley loaf, a piece of rusty bacon, and some small beer of their own brewing. Worse than that, the snow was very deep, and they could get no firewood. Their hut stood at the end of the village; beyond it spread the bleak moor, now all white and silent; but that moor had once been a forest. Great roots of old trees were still to be found in it, loosened from the soil and laid bare by the winds and rains—one of these, a rough, gnarled log, lay hard by their door, the half of it above the snow, and Spare said to his brother:

  “Shall we sit here cold on Christmas while the great root lies yonder? Let us chop it up for firewood, the work will make us warm.”

  “No,” said Scrub, “it’s not right to chop wood on Christmas; besides, that root is too hard to be broken with
any hatchet.”

  “Hard or not we must have a fire,” replied Spare. “Come, brother, help me in with it. Poor as we are, there is nobody in the village will have such a Yule log as ours.”

  Scrub liked a little grandeur, and in hopes of having a fine Yule log, both brothers strained and strove with all their might till, between pulling and pushing, the great old root was safe on the hearth, and beginning to crackle and blaze with the red embers. In high glee, the cobblers sat down to their beer and bacon. The door was shut, for there was nothing but cold moonlight and snow outside; but the hut, strewn with fir boughs, and ornamented with holly, looked cheerful as the ruddy blaze flared up and rejoiced their hearts.

  “Long life and good fortune to ourselves, brother!” said Spare. “I hope you will drink that toast, and may we never have a worse fire on Christmas—but what is that?”

  Spare set down the drinking horn, and the brothers listened astonished, for out of the blazing root they heard, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” as plain as ever the spring bird’s voice came over the moor on a May morning.

  “It is something bad,” said Scrub, terribly frightened.

  “Maybe not,” said Spare; and out of the deep hole at the side which the fire had not reached flew a large grey cuckoo, and lit on the table before them. Much as the cobblers had been surprised, they were still more so when it said—

  “Good gentlemen, what season is this?”

  “It’s Christmas,” said Spare.

  “Then a merry Christmas to you!” said the cuckoo. “I went to sleep in the hollow of that old root one evening last summer, and never woke till the heat of your fire made me think it was summer again; but now since you have burned my lodging, let me stay in your hut till the spring comes round—I only want a hole to sleep in, and when I go on my travels next summer be assured I will bring you some present for your trouble.”

  “Stay, and welcome,” said Spare, while Scrub sat wondering if it were something bad or not. “I’ll make you a good warm hole in the thatch. But you must be hungry after that long sleep? Here is a slice of barley bread. Come help us to keep Christmas!”

  The cuckoo ate up the slice, drank water from the brown jug, for he would take no beer, and flew into a snug hole which Spare scooped for him in the thatch of the hut.

  Scrub said he was afraid it wouldn’t be lucky; but as it slept on, and the days passed, he forgot his fears. So the snow melted, the heavy rains came, the cold grew less, the days lengthened, and one sunny morning the brothers were awoke by the cuckoo shouting its own cry to let them know the spring had come.

  “Now I’m going on my travels,” said the bird, “over the world to tell men of the spring. There is no country where trees bud or flowers bloom, that I will not cry in before the year goes round. Give me another slice of barley bread to keep me on my journey, and tell me what present I shall bring you at the twelve-month’s end.”

  Scrub would have been angry with his brother for cutting so large a slice, their store of barley meal being low, but his mind was occupied with what present would be most prudent to ask: at length, a lucky thought struck him.

  “Good master cuckoo,” said he, “if a great traveller who sees all the world like you, could know of any place where diamonds or pearls were to be found, one of a tolerable size brought in your beak would help such poor men as my brother and I to provide something better than barley bread for your next entertainment.”

  “I know nothing of diamonds or pearls,” said the cuckoo, “they are in the hearts of rocks and the sands of rivers. My knowledge is only of that which grows on the earth. But there are two trees hard by the well that lies at the world’s end—one of them is called the golden tree, for its leaves are all of beaten gold: every winter they fall into the well with a sound like scattered coin, and I know not what becomes of them. As for the other, it is always green like a laurel. Some call it the wise, and some the merry tree. Its leaves never fall, but they that get one of them keep a blithe heart in spite of all misfortunes, and can make themselves as merry in a hut as in a palace.”

  “Good master cuckoo, bring me a leaf off that tree!” cried Spare.

  “Now, brother, don’t be a fool!” said Scrub. “Think of the leaves of beaten gold! Dear master cuckoo, bring me one of them!”

  Before another word could be spoken, the cuckoo had flown out of the open door, and was shouting its spring cry over moor and meadow. The brothers were poorer than ever that year; nobody would send them a single shoe to mend. The new cobbler said, in scorn, they should come to be his apprentices; and Scrub and Spare would have left the village but for their barley field, their cabbage garden, and a certain maid called Fairfeather, whom both the cobblers had courted for seven years without even knowing which she meant to favour.

  Sometimes Fairfeather seemed inclined to Scrub, sometimes she smiled on Spare; but the brothers never disputed for that. They sowed their barley, planted their cabbage, and now that their trade was gone, worked in the rich villagers’ fields to make out a scanty living. So the seasons came and passed: spring, summer, harvest, and winter followed one another as they have done from the beginning. At the end of the latter, Scrub and Spare had grown so poor and ragged that Fairfeather thought them beneath her notice. Old neighbours forgot to invite them to wedding feasts or merrymaking; and they thought the cuckoo had forgotten them, too, when at daybreak, on the first of April, they heard a hard beak knocking at their door, and a voice crying:

  “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Let me in with my presents.”

  Spare ran to open the door, and in came the cuckoo, carrying on one side of his bill a golden leaf larger than that of any tree in the north country; and in the other, one like that of the common laurel, only it had a fresher green.

  “Here,” it said, giving the gold to Scrub and the green to Spare, “it is a long carriage from the world’s end. Give me a slice of barley bread, for I must tell the north country that the spring has come.”

  Scrub did not grudge the thickness of that slice, though it was cut from their last loaf. So much gold had never been in the cobbler’s hands before, and he could not help exulting over his brother.

  “See the wisdom of my choice!” he said, holding up the large leaf of gold. “As for yours, as good might be plucked from any hedge. I wonder a sensible bird would carry the like so far.”

  “Good master cobbler,” cried the cuckoo, finishing the slice, “your conclusions are more hasty than courteous. If your brother be disappointed this time, I go on the same journey every year, and for your hospitable entertainment will think it no trouble to bring each of you whichever leaf you desire.”

  “Darling cuckoo!” cried Scrub, “bring me a golden one”; and Spare, looking up from the green leaf on which he gazed as though it were a crown jewel, said:

  “Be sure to bring me one from the merry tree,” and away flew the cuckoo.

  “This is the Feast of All Fools, and it ought to be your birthday,” said Scrub. “Did ever man fling away such an opportunity of getting rich! Much good your merry leaves will do in the midst of rags and poverty!” So he went on, but Spare laughed at him, and answered with quaint old proverbs concerning the cares that come with gold, till Scrub, at length getting angry, vowed his brother was not fit to live with a respectable man; and taking his lasts, his awls, and his golden leaf, he left the wattle hut, and went to tell the villagers.

  They were astonished at the folly of Spare and charmed with Scrub’s good sense, particularly when he showed them the golden leaf, and told that the cuckoo would bring him one every spring. The new cobbler immediately took him into partnership; the greatest people sent him their shoes to mend; Fairfeather smiled graciously upon him, and in the course of that summer they were married, with a grand wedding feast, at which the whole village danced, except Spare, who was not invited, because the bride could not bear his low-mindedness, and his brother thought him a disgrace to the family.

  Indeed, all who heard the story concluded that Spare must be mad, an
d nobody would associate with him but a lame tinker, a beggar boy, and a poor woman reputed to be a witch because she was old and ugly. As for Scrub, he established himself with Fairfeather in a cottage close by that of the new cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes to everybody’s satisfaction, had a scarlet coat for holidays, and a fat goose for dinner every wedding day. Fairfeather, too, had a crimson gown and fine blue ribands; but neither she nor Scrub were content, for to buy this grandeur the golden leaf had to be broken and parted with piece by piece, so the last morsel was gone before the cuckoo came with another.

  Spare lived on in the old hut, and worked in the cabbage garden. (Scrub had got the barley field because he was the eldest.) Every day his coat grew more ragged, and the hut more weather-beaten; but people remarked that he never looked sad or sour; and the wonder was, that from the time they began to keep his company, the tinker grew kinder to the poor ass with which he travelled the country, the beggar boy kept out of mischief, and the old woman was never cross to her cat or angry with the children.

  Every first of April the cuckoo came tapping at their doors with the golden leaf to Scrub and the green to Spare. Fairfeather would have entertained him nobly with wheaten bread and honey, for she had some notion of persuading him to bring two gold leaves instead of one; but the cuckoo flew away to eat barley bread with Spare, saying he was not fit company for fine people, and liked the old hut where he slept so snugly from Christmas till Spring.

  Scrub spent the golden leaves, and Spare kept the merry ones; and I know not how many years passed in this manner, when a certain great lord, who owned that village came to the neighbourhood. His castle stood on the moor. It was ancient and strong, with high towers and a deep moat. All the country, as far as one could see from the highest turret, belonged to its lord; but he had not been there for twenty years, and would not have come then, only he was melancholy. The cause of his grief was that he had been prime minister at court, and in high favour, till somebody told the crown prince that he had spoken disrespectfully concerning the turning out of his royal highness’s toes, and the king that he did not lay on taxes enough, whereon the north country lord was turned out of office, and banished to his own estate. There he lived for some weeks in very bad temper. The servants said nothing would please him, and the villagers put on their worst clothes lest he should raise their rents; but one day in the harvest time his lordship chanced to meet Spare gathering watercresses at a meadow stream, and fell into talk with the cobbler.