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By Root 1185 0

the window and nobody ever came to see her these days and she had no friends now that poor Angela had died and (that reminded her) why had he not come over to say hello to her on the day of Angela’s funeral...after all, she (Sarah) didn’t bite, but then she supposed that he was too high and mighty to be seen talking to the likes of her and he probably, anyway, couldn’t read her writing because she was scribbling away in bed, her fingers “half frozen off” and surrounded by stone hot-water jars against which she kept cracking her “poor toes” and which were practically freezing anyway...and besides, besides, she was positively bored to distraction with everything and there was simply nothing to do in Kilnalough, nothing at all, and she would certainly run away if she could (which, of course, she couldn’t, being a “poor, miserable cripple” into the bargain... and full of self-pity, he would surely be thinking)...

But enough of that, about herself there was nothing of interest to say. The Major must be wanting to hear what was happening in Kilnalough and at the Majestic and the answer to that was...ructions!!! Edward Spencer challenging Father O’Meara (practically) to a duel for improper association with Ripon. Old Mr Noonan threatening to horsewhip the young pup (Ripon, that was) if he didn’t stop playing fast and loose with Máire (did the Major remember the fat pudding of a girl they had met one day in the street?) and show whether he was a gentleman or what he was, anyway, begod...And as to what that might mean the Major’s guess was as good as hers...only it wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that the above-mentioned fat pudding was pregnant with triplets by the young pup. And to make matters worse Fr O’Meara was threatening to sue Edward for something the twins had done to him, she didn’t quite know what but she’d try and find out and let him know. Anyway, there was surely worse to come.

However, she was pretty certain that such provincial matters would hardly interest him now that he was back in the big city...Was it true that in London even the horses wore leather shoes? But she was only teasing him, of course. The English (that was to say, “the enemy”) were so serious one could never risk making a joke in case they believed you.

Had the Major heard the very latest, God forgive her (in fact, God forgive everybody), that had been happening right under her nose all this while...which was that one of her father’s clerks, a red-faced lad up from the country with a smathering of the “mattermathics” had dared, had had the temerity, had made so bold-faced as to get up his nerve to, in spite of her spots (which must show what strong stomachs country people had), actually fall in love with her! ! ! Without so much as a by-your-leave! He, the Major, would undoubtedly be as amazed as she was that even a country lad who only knew about cows (and himself smelled like a farmyard) could have his wits so deranged as to consider marrying a “total cripple” like herself.

Himself: “Will ye walk out with me, Miss Devlin?”

Me: “How can I, you peasant oaf, with no legs?” And now every time she went out of the house she would find her “rural swain” touching his forelock and blushing like a ripe tomato and the whole thing was positively sickening and disgusting. There surely must be something wrong with someone (apart altogether from the things which immediately greeted the eye and the nose) who would marry someone like her sooner than one of the millions of girls who could churn his butter and wash his clothes and thump his dough and have a brat a year like a pullet laying eggs from dawn to dusk without so much as batting an eyelid. And what did the Major think of such a thing anyway? Wasn’t she right to treat the whole thing as nonsense? But the worst was yet to come.

One could hardly believe it, but the “rural swain” had had the temerity to approach her father with his “bovine proposal” and had even inquired if there might not be a little bit of a dowry now to sweeten the bargain, a couple of heifers and a few quid, perhaps, or a brace