The Rat-Pit

CHAPTER VI

SCHOOL LIFE “ Dear Father and Mother and Norah , “I am writing to say that I am well, hoping to find you all at home in the same state of health. I am far away in the middle of England now, in a place called Liverpool where I have a job as a dock labourer—” “Micky’s Jim had that kind of job the year before last in Glasgow,” said the mother. “The work is hard enough, heaven knows, but the pay is good. I came here from Derry and I have been working for the most part of the time ever since. I intended to write home sooner but between one thing and another, time passed by, but now I am sending you home twelve pounds, and you can get gold in Frosses post-office for the slip of paper which I enclose——” “Under God the day and the night!” exclaimed the woman in the bed. “A pound of this money is for Norah, and she can buy a new dress for it. See and don’t let her go to Greenanore for yarn any more, or it will be the death of her, sleeping out at night on the rocks of Dooey. “I hope my mother is well and that her cold is getting better. I spend all my spare time reading books. It is a great, great world once you are away from Donegal, and here, where I am, as many books as one would want to carry can be had for a mere song——” “Getting things for a song!” said the man. “That is like the ballad singers——” “It would be nice to hear from you, but as I am going away to America on the day after to-morrow, I have no fixed address, and it would be next to useless for you to write to me. I’ll send a letter soon again, and more money when I can earn it. “Your loving son “ Fergus .” III “T HIS is the paper which he talks about,” said Norah, handing a money order to her mother. “A thing like that worth twelve pounds!” exclaimed the old woman, a look of perplexity intensifying the wrinkles of her face. “I would hardly give a white sixpence, no, nor a brown penny for the little thing. Glory be to God! but maybe it is worth twelve golden sovereigns, for there are many strange things that come out of foreign parts.” “Alive and well he is,” said Norah, reading the letter over again. “Thank God for that, for I was afraid that he might be dead, seeing that it took him so long to write home. Wouldn’t I like to see him again!” “It will be worth twelve pounds without a doubt,” said the husband, referring to the money order, as he threw the rushlight which was burning his fingers into the fire. “I once heard tell that a man can get hundreds and hundreds of guineas for a piece of paper no bigger than that!” “Mother of God!” exclaimed the old woman, making the sign of the cross and kissing the money order rapturously. “Poor Fergus!” said Norah, laying down the letter on the window-sill and taking up her needles. “It is a pity of him so far away from his own home!” “Twelve gold sovereigns!” said the mother. “A big pile that without a doubt. Hardly a house in Frosses has twelve pounds inside the threshold of its door. Put out that animal to the fields,” she called to her husband. “We’ll have to build a new byre and not have the cattle in the house any longer. A funny thing indeed to have them tied up in a house along with people who can get twelve pounds in bulk from foreign parts! No decent body would dream of such a thing as having them tied up here now! Norah, leave down that stocking. Let me never see you knitting under this roof again.” “Why, mother?” “You are going to be a nun, a holy nun, Norah, and nuns never knit; they just pray all day long and all night too. You have to set about and go to school again. You are not to be like other people’s children any more, knitting stockings in the ashes. You are going to be a nun—and there never was a nun in Frosses yet!” “I would like to go to school again,” said the child, clinking her irons nervously and following with her eyes the blue flames that rose from the peat fire and disappeared in the chimney. “There is a map of the world in the school, hanging on the wall, and one can see Liverpool on it and America as well. I could look at them and think that I am seeing Fergus away in foreign parts, so far from his own home.” “And there is a pound due to the priest this minute,” said the old man, who had just chased the calf out into the darkness. “It would be well to give the soggarth the money in the morning.” “And you’ll go to school again to-morrow,” repeated the mother, who was following up some train of thought, and who, curiously enough, made no mention of her son since the letter had been read. “You’ll go again to-morrow and learn well. The master said that you were getting on fine the last time you were there and that it was a sin to take you away from the books.” Having said this, the old woman lay back in her bed with a sigh of relief, the man closed the door of the house, and drawing near to the fire he held out his feet to the blaze. Norah, glad to be released from the labour of the knitting irons, looked into the flames, and many strange pictures came and went before her eyes. From time to time the woman in the bed could be heard speaking. “Twelve pounds for a piece of paper!” she would exclaim. “Mother of God! But there is strange things in foreign lands!” Suddenly Norah arose and approached the bed. “Am I a good girl, mother?” she asked, with a slight catch in her voice. “What silliness is entering your head?” enquired the old woman. “Who said that you were not good?” “You said that good people were happy in God’s house, but I am not always happy there.” “Did I say that?” asked the mother, who had forgotten all about the remark. “Maybe I did say it, maybe indeed. But run away now and don’t bother me, for I am going to sleep.” “A little bit of paper to be worth twelve pounds!” she mumbled to herself, after a short interval of silence. “Mother of God! but there are many strange things in foreign parts of the world!” CHAPTER VI SCHOOL LIFE I O N the Monday of the week following Norah Ryan went to school again. She had been there for two years already but left off going when she became an adept at the needles. Master Diver had control of the school; he was a fat little man, always panting and perspiring, who frightened the children and feared the priest. On the way to school he cut hazel rods by the roadside, and when in a bad mood he used them on the youngsters. After he had caned three or four children he became good tempered, when he caned half a dozen he got tired of his task and allowed the remainder (if any remained) to go scot free. Some of the boys who worked in their spare time at peat saving and fishing had hands hard as horses’ hooves. When these did something wrong their trousers were taken down and awkward chastisement was inflicted with severe simplicity in full view of a breathless school. The school consisted of a single apartment, at one end of which, on a slightly elevated platform near the fire, the master’s desk and chair were placed. Several maps, two blackboards, a modulator, which no one, not even the master himself, understood, and a thermometer, long deprived of its quicksilver, hung on the walls. In one corner were the pegs on which the boys’ caps were hung; on a large roof-beam which spanned the width of the room the girls’ shawls were piled in a large heap. The room boasted of two wide open fireplaces, but only one of these was ever lighted; the other was used for storing the turf carried to school daily by the scholars. The room was swept twice weekly; then a grey dust rose off the floor and the master and children were seized with prolonged fits of sneezing. Outside and above the door was a large plate with the inscription, Glenmornan National School. 1872. Over the plate and under the eaves of the building a sparrow built its nest yearly, and it was even reported that a bat took up its daily residence in the same quarter. From his seat beside the fire in the schoolroom the master watched his pupils through half-closed eyes, save when now and again he dropped into a sound sleep and snored loudly. Asleep he perspired more freely than when awake. He was very bald, and sometimes a tame robin that had been in the schoolhouse for many years fluttered down and rested on the skinny head which shone brilliantly in the firelight. There the robin preened its feathers. Now and then a mouse nibbled under the boards of the floor, and the children stopped their noisy chatter for a moment to listen to the movements of the little animal. Prayers were said morning and evening. The children went down on their knees, the master prayed standing like a priest at the altar. The prayers of the morning were repeated in English, those of the evening in Gaelic. Norah Ryan took her place in the third standard. In the class the boys stood at top, the girls at bottom, and those of each sex were ranged in order of merit. Norah, an apt pupil, easily took her place at the head of the girls, and the most ignorant of the boys, a youth named Dermod Flynn, was placed beside her. Although this lad got caned on an average three times a day, he never cried when he was beaten; still, Norah Ryan felt mutely compassionate for him when she heard the sharp hazel rod strike like a whiplash against his hand. His usual punishment consisted of four slaps of the rod, but always he held out his hand for a fifth; this, no doubt, was done to show the master that he did not fear him. Dermod could not fix his mind on any one subject; there was usually a far-away look in his eyes, which were continually turning towards the window and the country outside. On the calf of his left leg a large red scar showed where he had been bitten by a dog, and it was known that he would become mad one day. When a man is bitten by an angry dog he is sure to become mad at some time or another. So they say in Frosses. The third class was usually ranged for lessons in a semi-circle facing the map of the world, which, with the exception of the map of Ireland, was the largest in the school. On the corners of the map were pictures of various men and animals with titles underneath; which, going the round of the two hemispheres, could be read as follows: Dromedary; A Russian Moujik; Wild Boar; A Chinaman; Leopard; An Indian; Lion; A Fiji Islander; etc., etc. II O NE day the master asked Dermod Flynn if he knew what race of people lived in Liverpool. As usual Dermod did not know. “Dockers and Irishmen,” Norah Ryan, whose mind reverted to the letter which had been received from Fergus, whispered under her breath. “Rockets and Irishmen,” Dermod blurted out. No one laughed: a rocket had never been seen in Glenmornan, and it would have surprised none of the children if Dermod were correct; it would have surprised none of them if he were wrong. The master reached for the hazel rod. “Hold out your hand, Dermod Flynn,” he commanded and delivered four blows on the boy’s palm. Flynn held out his hand for a fifth slap: the master took no notice. “Now, Norah Ryan, hold out your hand,” said the master. “Promptin’ is worse than tellin’ lies.” Norah received two slaps, much lighter than those delivered to the boy. The master knew that she was going to be a nun one day, and he respected her accordingly, but not to such an extent that he could refrain from using the rod of correction. Dermod Flynn turned and stared at Norah. A red blush mantled her cheeks, and she looked at him shyly for a moment; then her lashes dropped quickly, for she felt that he was looking into her very soul. He appeared self-possessed, impervious to the pain of the master’s chastisement. After a while Norah looked at him again, but he was gazing vacantly out of the window at a brook tumbling from the rocky hills that fringed the further side of the playground. When school was dismissed and the scholars were on their way home, Dermod spoke to Norah. “Why did you help me in the class to-day?” he asked. She did not answer but turned away and stared at the stream falling from the dark rocks. “It’s like white smoke against a black cloud,” he said following her gaze. “What is?” “The stream falling from the rocks.” On the day following Dermod got into trouble again. His class was asked to write an essay on fire, and Dermod sat biting his pen until the allotted time was nearly finished. Then he scribbled down a few lines. “A house without fire is like a man without a stomach; a chimney without smoke is like a man without breath, for——” That was all. Dermod pondered over the word “stomach” for a while and felt that it made the whole sentence an unseemly one. He was stroking out the word when the master, awakening from his sleep, grabbed the essay and read it. He read it a second time, then took down a hazel rod from the nail on which it hung. The ignorance of the boy who wrote such a sentence was most profound. The master caned Dermod. Norah Ryan made rapid progress at her work, and when she went home in the evening she sat down on the hassock and learned her lessons by the light of the peat fire. She considered old Master Diver to be a very learned man, but somehow she could not get herself to like him. “Why does he beat Dermod Flynn so often?” she asked herself time and again, and whenever she thought of school she thought of Dermod Flynn. Her mother, who had improved in health, now that there was food to eat, brought a looking-glass from Greenanore one day. She paid fourpence halfpenny for it in “McKeown’s Great Emporium,” the new business which had just been started by the yarn merchant. Norah dressed her hair in front of this glass, and one day when engaged in the task, she said: “I wish I could see Dermod Flynn now!” Perhaps she really meant to say: “I wish Dermod Flynn could see me now!” In any case she got so red in the face that her mother asked her what was wrong. Shortly afterwards Dermod Flynn’s school troubles came to an end. His class was standing as usual, facing the map of the world, and Master Diver asked Dermod to point out Corsica. The boy did not know where Corsica was; he stared at the map, holding the idle pointer in his hand. “Point out Corsica!” the master repeated, and seized the youth by the ear, which he pulled vigorously. The blood mounted to the boy’s cheeks, and raising the pointer suddenly he hit the master sharply across the face. “You’ve killed him, Dermod Flynn!” Norah Ryan gasped involuntarily. The old fellow put his hands over his face and sank down limply on the form. Blood trickled through his fingers ... a fly settled on his bald head ... the scholars stared aghast at their fallen master. Dermod gazed at the old man for a moment, then seizing his cap he rushed out of the schoolroom. Most of the boys followed the example, and when the master, who only suffered from a slight flesh wound, regained his feet and looked round, the school was almost deserted. Dermod Flynn did not return again, and after his departure Norah found that she did not like the school so much as formerly. CHAPTER VII PLUCKING BOG-BINE I T HE May of 1903 came round, and on every twelfth day of May the young boys and girls of Donegal start for the hiring fair of Strabane. The rumour went that Dermod Flynn was going now, but no one knew for certain; the Flynns being a close-mouthed people gave no secrets away. On the evening preceding the twelfth, Norah heard of Dermod’s intended departure and that night she was long in falling asleep. Her bed was made on the floor beside the fire; a grey woollen blanket served a double debt to pay, and was used as a blanket and sheet. But the sleeping place was not cold; the heat of the fire and the breath of the kine kept it warm. The first bird was twittering on the thatch and the first tint of dawn was tingeing the sky when Norah awoke, sat up in bed and threw part of the blanket aside. At the further end of the house where it was still dark cattle were stamping, and bright eyes could be seen glowing like coals. The child rose, went to the window, pulled up the blind and looked out on the sea. She stood there for a moment rapt in reverie, her pure white bosom showing above her low-cut cotton chemise and her long tresses hanging down loosely over her shoulders. She was now fourteen. Her short reverie came to an end; she crossed herself many times and proceeded to dress, taking unusual care with her hair, weaving it into two long plaits, and polishing her boots carefully. These, the second pair of her life, were studded with nails which she liked to hear rasping on the ground as she walked. At night she noticed that the nails were bright and shiny; in the mornings they were always brown with rust. She recollected, not without a certain amount of satisfaction, that she was the only girl wearing shoes at Frosses school. But she could well afford it; Fergus had sent twenty pounds to his parents and three pounds to herself since he left home. Her father and mother were asleep in the bed; the former snoring loudly, the latter coughing drowsily from time to time. The cat, which had been in the house since Norah could remember, was curled atop of the blanket and fast asleep. A movement occurred in the bed as Norah finished her toilet; the cat stirred itself, stretched its front legs, spreading out its claws, yawned and fell asleep again. “Son of Mary! but you are up early, Norah!” exclaimed her mother, sitting up in bed; then seeing the cat she gave the blankets a vigorous shake and cried: “Get out, you little devil! You lie in bed as if you were a person and no less!” “I am going to pull bog-bine on the hills of Glenmornan for your sickness, mother.” “But would it not be time enough for you to go there come noon?” “It is as well to go now, mother.” “Then it is, alannah, if you have the liking for it,” said the old woman. “See and turn the cattle into the holm below the Holy Rocks before you go away.” “I will do that, mother.” “And put the blind up on the window again, for the light is getting into my eyes.” Norah untied the cattle from their stakes and opened the door. The old brindled cow went out first, lazily lashing her legs with her long tail, and smelt the door-post as she passed soberly into the open. The second cow, a fawn-grey beast, was followed by a restless, awkward calf that mischievously nudged the hindquarters of the animal in front with its nose. The Ryans possessed three cattle only, and the byre which the old woman had wanted erected was now in process of construction. When the young calf got into the field he jumped exultantly into the air and rushed madly off for the distance of a hundred yards; then, planting his forefeet squarely in the earth, as suddenly stopped and turned round to look at the two cows. Surprised that they had not followed him, he scampered back to where they were cropping noisily at the short grass, and with his head dunted the brindled cow on the belly. The old animal turned round, her mouth full of grass, and gave a reproving nudge with her warm, damp nose which sent the calf scampering off again. The houses of Meenalicknalore were arranged in a row on the top of a brae that swept down to the sea, shoving its toes into the water. A curl of smoke rose from some of the houses; others gave no hint of human activity. “A chimney without smoke is like a man without breath,” quoted Norah. “I wonder how Dermod Flynn thinks of things like that; and to-day he is goin’ away all alone by himself across the mountains.” She came to the Three Rocks; three large masses of limestone, one long and perpendicular, the other two squat and globular, which the peasantry supposed to represent the Holy Trinity. Here Norah said her prayers, one “Our Father” and three “Hail Mary’s” in front of each of the two smaller stones, and the Apostles’ Creed in front of the large rock in the centre. When her prayers were finished she drove the cattle into a holm, put a bush in the gap and resumed her journey. The sun had just risen ... a wind cool and moist blew in from the bosom of the sea ... little tufts of thistledown trembled through the air, dropped to the ground, rose again and vanished in the distance ... wrens chirped in the juniper ... frogs chuckled in the meadows ... a rabbit with eyes alert, ears aback and tail acock ran along the roadway and disappeared under a clump of furze ... clouds floating across the sky like large, lazy, wingless birds slowly assumed a delicate rosy tint until they looked like mother-of-pearl inside a giant shell. Norah, very excited and very happy, stood for a moment to look into a clear well by the roadside. On her face was the expectant look of a sweet kitten that waits for the ball to be thrown to it; her two plaits of hair hung over her shoulders, one delicate strand that had fallen away fluttering in the breeze. She looked approvingly into the calm water at the laughing face that smiled up to her. “How good to be out here, to be alive, to be young,” she seemed to say to herself. “Everything is so fair, so beautiful, so wonderful!” II A BOUT six o’clock Norah entered Glenmornan. Here she met three boys and two girls bound for the rabble market of Strabane. One of the boys was whistling a tune, the other two chattered noisily; the girls, who were silent, carried each a pair of hob-nailed boots hung over their shoulders. “Good luck to your journey,” said Norah Ryan, by way of salutation. “And to yours,” they answered. “Are there lots of ones a-goin’ this mornin’?” she asked in English. “Lots,” answered one of the girls, making the sign of the cross on her brow. “Two gasairs of Oiney Dinchy’s, one of Cormac of the Hill’s ones, seven or more from the townland of Dooran, and more besides.” “Many goin’ from Glenmornan?” “Lots,” said the boy who had been whistling. Norah waited for him to proceed, but finding that he remained silent, she enquired as to who was going. “Condy Dan, Hudy Neddy, Columb Kennedy, Unah Roarty and”—the boy paused for a moment to scratch his head—“and Dermod Flynn, the gasair that struck Master Diver with the pointer.” “Well, good luck to yer journey,” said Norah, shaking the hand of each of them in turn. “May God be with ye all till ye come back!” “And with yerself for ever.” The crooked road twisted round copse and knoll, now bordering the river, now rising well up on the shoulder of the hill, and along this road Norah hurried, her hands hanging idly by her side and her plaits when caught by an errant breeze fluttering over her shoulders. Half-way along the Glenmornan road she met Dermod Flynn. “Where are ye for this mornin’, Dermod?” she asked. She knew where he was going, and after speaking felt that she should not have asked him that question. “Beyond the mountains,” answered the youth with a smile which showed his white teeth. In one hand he carried a bundle, in the other an ash-plant with a heavy knob at the end. The young fellows of Glenmornan had got into a habit of carrying sticks in imitation of the cattle drovers who came once every month to the fair of Greenanore. “Ye’ll not come back for a long while, will ye?” Norah asked. “I’m never goin’ to come back again,” Dermod answered. At this Norah laughed, but, strangely enough, she felt ready to cry. All that she intended to say to him was forgotten; she held out her hand, stammered a confused good-bye and hurried away. “His eyes are on me now,” she said several times to herself as she walked away, and every time she spoke a blush mounted to her cheeks. She wanted to look back, but did not do so until she came to the first bend of the road. There she turned round, but Dermod Flynn had gone from sight and a great loneliness entered the girl’s heart. A steer with wide, curious eyes watched her from a field beside the road, the water sang a song, all its own, as it dropped from the hills, and the Glen River, viewed from the point where Norah stood, looked like a streak of silver on a cloth of green. But the girl saw and heard none of these things, her eyes were fixed on the crooked road which ran on through holt and hollow as far as the village of Greenanore, and miles and miles beyond. She stood there for a long time lost in reverie. Dermod Flynn was gone now, and he would never come back again. So he had told her. Suddenly she recollected why she had come out on the journey. “To pluck bog-bine it was,” she murmured. “I am after forgetting that!” She went across the river by the ford and climbed the hill. From the top of the knoll she could see the train steam out from the station of Greenanore. In it were the children bound for the rabble market of Strabane. Norah stared and stared at the train, which crawled like a black caterpillar across the brown moor, leaving a trail of white smoke behind it. “I’m after forgettin’ that I came out to pluck bog-bine,” she repeated when the train had disappeared from sight, and taking off her boots, she picked her way across the soft and spongy moor. CHAPTER VIII THE TRAGEDY I O FTEN a youth leaves Donegal and goes out into the world, does well for a time, writes frequently home to his own people, sends them a sum of money in every letter (which shows that he is not a spendthrift), asking them for a little gift in return, a scapular blessed by the priest, or a bottle of water from the holy well (which shows that he has not forgotten the faith in which he was born); but in the end he ceases to write, drops out of the ken of his people and disappears. The father mourns the son for a while, regrets that the usual money-order is not forthcoming, weeps little, for too much sentiment is foreign to the hardened sensibilities of the poor; the mother tells her beads and does not fail to say one extra decade for the boy or to give a hard-earned guinea to the priest for masses for the gasair’s soul. Time rapidly dries their tears of regret, their sorrow disappears and the more pressing problems of their lives take up their whole interests again. In later years they may learn that their boy died of fever in a hospital, or was killed by a broken derrick-jib, or done to death by a railway train. “Them foreign parts were always bad,” they may say. “Black luck be with the big boat, for it’s few it takes back of the many it takes away!” A year had passed by since James Ryan last heard from Fergus his son. No word came of the youth, and none of the Frosses people, great travellers though the young of Frosses were, had ever come across him in any corner of the world. “We are missing the blue pieces of paper,” Mary Ryan said to her husband one evening in the late autumn, fully three years after Fergus’s departure. She now spent her days sitting at the fire, and though her health was not the best it had greatly improved within recent years. “They were the papers!” she exclaimed. “They could buy meal in the town of Greenanore and pay the landlord his rent. Maybe the gasair is dead!” “Maybe he is,” the husband answered. He was a man of few words and fewer ideas. Life to him, as to the animals of the fields, was naturally simple. He married, became the father of many children, all unnecessary to an overcrowded district, and most of them were flicked out by death before they were a year old. Once every eighteen months James Ryan’s wife became suddenly irritable and querulous and asked her husband to leave the house for a while. The cattle were allowed to remain inside, the husband went out and walked about in the vicinity of his home for two or three hours. From time to time he would go up to the door and call out: “Are you all right, Mary?” through the keyhole. “I am all right, Shemus,” she would answer, and the man would resume his walk. When the wife allowed him to come in he always found that his family had increased in number. One day a child was born to him, and its third breath killed it. It was the seventh, and the year was a bad one. Potatoes lay rotting in the fields, and the peat being wet refused to burn. Somehow James Ryan felt a great relief when the child was buried. Twelve children in all were born to him, and ten of these died before they reached the age of three. “The hunger took them, I suppose,” he said, and never wept over any of his offspring, and even in time forgot the names of most of those who were dead. The third who came to him was the boy Fergus; Norah was the youngest of all. “Maybe, indeed, he is dead,” he repeated to his wife. “I suppose there is nothing for it but to put out the curragh to the fishing again.” “And never catch anything,” said his wife, as if blaming him for the ill-luck. “It is always the way.... If Fergus would send a few gold guineas now it would be a great help.” “It would be a great help.” “We could keep Norah at school for another year.” “We could.” “And then send her to the convent like a lady.” “Just.” “When are you going to put the curragh out again?” “Maybe this very night,” answered the husband. “It is now Michaelmas a week past. There were blue lights seen out beyond the bar last night, and a sea-gull dropped from the sky and fell dead on the rocks of Dooey. The same happened ten years ago, and at that time there was a big catch out by Arranmore.” “Then you had better go out to-night, for there is not much money in the tea-pot this minute.” “The byre cost a big penny,” said James Ryan, and he spoke as if regretting something. “It did that, and the house does not look half as well with the cattle gone from it.” So saying the woman turned over some live turf on the pile of potatoes that was toasting beside the fire, and rising emptied part of the contents of a jug of milk into a bowl. “It is a wonder that Norah is not in,” she remarked. “She should be back from school over an hour ago.” II A T that moment Norah entered, placed her cotton satchel and books on the window sill, and sat down to her meal. She was a winsome girl, neat, delicate and good-looking. She had grown taller; her tresses were glossier, her clear grey eyes, out of which the radiance of her pure soul seemed to shine, were dreamy and thoughtful. She was remarkable for a pure and exquisite beauty, not alone of body, but of mind. She was dressed in peasant garb, but her clothes, though patched and shabby, showed the lines of her well-formed figure to advantage. Her feet were small, an unusual thing amongst country children who run about bare-footed, and her dainty little hands matched her feet to perfection. Her accomplishments were the knowledge of a few Irish songs and country dances, and her intellectual gifts could be summed up in the words, simple innocence. “Are you getting on well with your lessons, Norah?” asked the father. Every day for the last two years, on her return from school, he asked a similar question and took no heed of the answer, which was always the same. “I am getting on very well, father.” “He’s going out to the fishing to-night,” said the mother, handing a bowl of milk to Norah and pointing her finger at her husband. “Any letter from Fergus?” asked the girl. “Never a word,” said the mother. “Maybe one will be here to-morrow.” “To-morrow never comes,” said James Ryan. He had heard somebody use this phrase years ago and he repeated it almost hourly ever since. “It is off on the curragh that I am going now.” He rose and went out. The dusk had fallen and a heaven of brilliant stars glittered overhead. A light gust of wind surged up angrily for a moment and swept along the ground, crooning amidst rock and boulder. Outside James Ryan stood for a moment and looked up at the sky, his thoughts running on the conversation which had just taken place inside. “To-morrow never comes,” he repeated and hurried towards the sea. Mary Ryan lit the paraffin lamp which hung from the great beam that stretched across the middle of the house. The rushlight was now used no longer; the oil lamp had taken its place in most of the houses in Frosses. Norah finished her meal and turned to her books. For a long while there was silence in the cabin, but outside the wind was rising, whirling round the corners and sweeping in under the door. “Tell me a story, mother,” Norah said, putting her books aside and curling up like a pretty ball on the earthen floor in front of the fire. “All right, I will tell you a story, silly baby that you are!” said the old woman, sitting down on the hassock by the hearth. “Will it be about the wee red-headed man with the flock of goats before him, and the flock of goats behind him, and the salmon tied to the laces of his brogues for supper?” “Not that one, a maghair, I know it myself.” “Will it be about Kitty the Ashy pet who said ‘Let you be combing there, mother, and I’ll be combing here,’ and who went up the Bay of Baltic, carrying the Rock of Cattegat on her shoulders?” “I know that one, mother.” “And the Bonnie Bull of Norway you know as well. Then it will be about the cat that would not dress its whiskers if it wasn’t in front of the biggest looking-glass in all the world. The biggest looking-glass in all the wide world is the broad ocean in a calm.” “Not that one, mother.” “You are hard to please this very night. I will tell you the story of the little green-coated boy who wandered on the rainy roads.... There’s the wind rising. Mercy of God be on your father if the sea is out of order!” Mary Ryan began the story which she knew by heart, having heard it so often from the lips of her own mother. Here, it may be remarked, most of the folk stories of Donegal are of Norwegian or Danish origin and have in many cases been so well preserved that the Scandinavian names of people and places are retained in the stories until the present day. “Once upon a time when cows were kine and when eagles of the air built their nests in the beards of Giants, a little green-coated boy with a stick in his hand and a bundle of bannocks over his shoulder went out on the rainy roads to push his fortune——” III “I’m going to marry a prince when I get very old, mother,” said Norah, interrupting the story-teller. “Prince Charming, for that’s what the girl did in the fairy stories when she grew up and got old at twenty or twenty-one. She was very poor at first and did nothing grand, but stopped at home, sweeping the floor and washing dishes. Then one night an old woman came down the chimney and told the girl to go to a dance, and the girl didn’t leave the dance in time and she lost one of her slippers and—Oh! it was a great story, mother. I read it in a book that Fergus had.” “You were reading those books, too!” “Just only that one, mother, and Fergus didn’t like it at all. He said it was very silly!” “So it was, alannah, when it put thoughts like that into your head. Marry Prince Charming, and you going to be a holy nun! Nuns never marry like that.” “Don’t they? Well, I’ll not marry a Prince Charming. I’ll marry one of the White Horsemen who are under the mountain of Aileach.” “But nuns never marry anybody.” “They don’t?” exclaimed Norah in a puzzled voice. Then with childish irrelevance: “But tell me the story about the White Horsemen of Aileach, mother. That’s the best story of all.” “Long, long ago, when the red-haired strangers came to Ireland, they put nearly everybody to the sword; the old and young, the fit and feeble, and mind you, Ireland was in worse than a bad way,” the mother began, drifting easily into her narrative. “Ireland was a great place in those days with castles and kings. Kings, Norah! There were five of them; now there isn’t even one in the four corners of the country. But the red-haired strangers came like a storm from the sea and there was no standing before them. Red were their swords, red as their hair, but not with rust but with the blood of men, women, and children. And the chieftains of Ireland and the men of Ireland could make no stand against the enemy atall. ‘What am I to do?’ cried the Ardrigh, the top king of the whole country, speaking from the door of his own castle. ‘There will soon be no Ireland belonging to me, it will all go to the red-haired strangers.’ Then up spoke an old withered stick of a man, that nobody knew, and who had been listening to the words of the King. “ ‘Have you asked the Chieftain of the White Horsemen for help?’ “ ‘I never met him, decent stranger,’ answered the King. ‘I know him not.’ “ ‘Go to the sea when it strikes in storm on the coast of Tir Conail,’ said the old man to the King, ‘and call out to Maanan MacLir for aid and he’ll send to your help his ten score and ten white horsemen. You’ll see the white horses far out, rearing on the top of the waves, every steed pawing the ocean and all mad for the fight before them.’ “Well, to cut a long story short, the King did as he was told and called to the White Horsemen to come and help him, and they came, ten score of them and ten, with their shields shining like polished silver and lances bright as frosty stars. Down from the North they rode, driving the foe on in front of them, and never was seen such a rout, neither in the days that went before nor the days that came after. The White Horsemen cut their way right through mountains in their haste to get to the other side; for nothing could stand against their lances. Nobody could go as quickly as them, not even the red-haired strangers who were in such a hurry to get out of their way. “And when victory was theirs, the White Horsemen came back here to Tir Conail again and stood on the verge of the ocean while Maanan MacLir headed his horse out on the waves. But lo, and behold! the steed could no longer gallop across the water. The poor animal sank into the sea and the chieftain was nearly drowned. At that moment a voice, nobody knew where it came from, called to Maanan MacLir: “ ‘Long enough has the sea called for the rest and quiet that was not given to it by the white horses of MacLir. Never more will the sea bend under them; now it will break apart and let them through!’ “When they heard these words the White Horsemen turned away from the sea and went galloping to the foot of the Mountain of Aileach. When they arrived there the mountain raised itself upon one side just like the lid of a kettle and Maanan MacLir and his White Horsemen disappeared under it. Since that day they have never been seen again.” “But the mountain didn’t close on top of them, did it?” asked Norah. “Of course it did. Isn’t it closed to this very day?” “And will it be a true story?” “True, child!” exclaimed the mother. “Sure the mountain is there to this very hour. And besides, Saint Columbkille talks about it in his prophecies.” “Then the White Horsemen will come out again?” “They’ll come out when the great war comes,” said the mother. “And that will be when there are roads round every mountain like the frills round the cap of an old woman. It will start, the great war, when the nights lengthen and the year grows brown, between the seasons of scythe and sickle; murder and slaughter, madder than cattle in the heat of summer, will run through the land, and the young men will be killed and the middle-aged men and the old. The very crutches of the cripples will be taken out to arm the fighters, and the bed-ridden will be turned three times three in their beds to see if they are fit to go into the field of battle. Death will take them all, for that is how it is to be; that way and no other. And when they’re all gone it will be the turn of the White Horsemen, who have been waiting for the great war ever since they chased the red-haired strangers from the country. They’ll come out from under Aileach when the day arrives, ten score and ten of them with silver shields and spears, bright as stars on a frosty night. They’ll fight the foe and win and victory will come to Ireland. These are the words of the great saint, Columbkille.” “Are the White Horsemen very tall, mother?” asked Norah, her eyes alight with enthusiastic interest. “Tall is not the word!” “High as a hill?” “Higher!” “As Sliab a Tuagh?” “It’s as nothing compared to one of the men of Maanan MacLir.” “Then I’ll marry one of the White Horsemen,” said Norah, decision in her clear voice. “I’ll live in a castle, polish his lance and shield, and—Who will that be at the door?” IV N ORAH paused. Someone was moving outside as if fumbling for the latch; then a tall, heavily-bearded man pushed the door of the cabin inwards and entered, bringing with him a terrific gust of wind that almost shook the house to its foundations. On his face was a scared look, and his clothes were dripping wet, although it was not raining. “Was it himself?” cried the old woman, alluding to her husband and speaking to the man who entered. It was evident from the tone in which she spoke that she anticipated something terrible. “It was himself,” said the man in a low, hoarse voice. “He’s coming on the flat of two oars. God bless us! But it is a black heart that the sea has.” With these words the visitor went out again, and the excited voices of men could be heard floating on the wind. “It’s your father, Norah,” said the old woman. “He went down with the curragh, I’m thinking; down through the black water. Mother of God! but it’s the sea that has the black heart! There they are coming with him. Open the door wider, Norah!” The girl, who had risen from her seat, pulled the door inwards and placed a stone against the sill to keep it open. She felt as if a thousand pins were pricking her legs; her head was heavy, her fingers felt enormous and when they pressed against the door it seemed to Norah as if they did not belong to her at all. Outside it was very dark, the heavens held no stars and it looked as if the howling gale had whirled them away. In the darkness a torch swayed in the wind, and behind the torch black forms of men and white, pallid faces could be discerned. Norah’s mind turned to the stories which her mother had been telling her. She knew it was wrong to think of them at that moment but she felt an inordinate desire to laugh at something; what she wanted to laugh at she did not know; why she wanted to laugh she could not fathom. “Are they coming, Norah?” asked the old woman, rising from her seat and hobbling with difficulty towards the door. “Mother of Christ! but the hand of God is heavy on me this night of nights! Children of my own and man of my own, all, all going away from me! I’ll see the last of them go down into the grave before me, for with my hard cough and the long sickness I’ll outlive them all: that is the will of God. Ten sons and daughters of my body; every one of them gone, and one away in black foreign parts.... Are they coming, Norah?” The woman reached the door and leant against the jamb for support. The torch was flaring outside and very near. “Watch that you don’t set the thatch on fire!” a voice cried. Two men entered the house, the water streaming from their clothes and each holding a burdened oar in his hands. Across the oars a sail was bound tightly, and cold in death on the sail lay James Ryan, his grey beard sticking out stiffly, his eyes open, his head shaking from side to side, his bare feet blue with the cold. The oars, which brushed sharply against the old woman in passing, were laid on the floor and the dead man was placed on the bed. “I’m sweatin’ like a pig!” said one of the bearers, and he rubbed his wrinkled brow violently with the back of his hand. “Watch the thatch!” someone outside shouted. The torch was extinguished and a crowd of men entered the cabin. An old red-haired fisherman lifted the oars; the sail was rolled into a bundle and carried out again. Pools of water formed on the floor and tracks of wet feet showed all over it. The old woman hobbled back to her bed and gazed long and earnestly at her husband; some of the men took off their hats; one was smoking, another dressed a bleeding foot and told how he hit it against a sharp rock when carrying the dead man up from the sea; several of the neighbouring women were already in the house. Maire a Crick was on her knees by the bedside. “I am used to it now,” said the old woman, as she sorted the blankets on the bed with her withered hands. “Ten sons and daughters, and another away and maybe never hearing from him again.... Himself said when he was going out that the morrow never comes.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, ran her fingers over the wet clothes of her husband, opened his vest, put her hand on his heart, shook her head sadly and buttoned the coat again. “Just when he was putting out the wind caught him, and he dropped like a stone over the side of the curragh,” the red-haired fisherman was saying. “But the boat was no good anyway. It is one of the Congested Districts Board’s boats that he should have.” “Where would he get the money to buy one?” asked Maire a Crick, turning round from the prayer which she was saying for the dead man. “The money can be paid in instalments,” answered the red fisherman. He spoke the Gaelic, as nearly everybody in Frosses did, but the words “instalments” and “Congested Districts Board” were said in English. “Ten pounds the new boats cost, and there is five years allowed for paying the money.” “The Congested Districts Board is going to be a great help,” someone remarked. “Is the curragh safe?” asked Mary Ryan, turning round. She was still sitting beside the bed, turning over the clothes with lean, shaky fingers. “It is at the bottom,” said a neighbour, Eamon Doherty by name. “It was rotten anyhow, and it hadn’t been in wet water for close on two years.... Now, I wonder what made Shemus go out on it?” “Nothing atall, atall left,” said the old woman in a feeble voice. “If I only had the curragh even.... And himself dead after all the times that the sea has bent under him! Never to see him again, never! Isn’t it hard to think that a thing like that could be?” Whereupon, saying this she began to cry, at first quietly, but afterwards, as if getting warmed to the task, more loudly, until her sobs could be heard a hundred yards away from the house. “If I only had the curragh left!” she repeated time and again. Norah approached the bed timidly. She had been weeping silently by the door ever since the corpse had been carried in. Death was here in the house; it had already taken possession of her father. And it was with her also. Not to-night nor to-morrow, but at the end of forty years or of fifty, and was it not all the same? And what was this death? She did not know; she only thought it cruel and strange. Her own helplessness in face of such a crisis almost overpowered her. For death there was no help, from it there was no escape. It was all powerful and terrible. To-morrow and to-morrow might come and go, but her father would lie still and unheeding. He would not return, he could not return. This fact hammered at her mind, and the cruelty of her own thoughts tortured her. She tried to think of something apart from the tragedy, but ever her mind reverted to the one and same dreadful subject. Of a great fact she was certain; one that would never be contradicted. Her father was dead; thousands of years might pass and one truth would still remain unquestioned. Her father was dead. “To think of it!” she said in a low voice. “Dead for ever!” She went down on her knees by the bedside but could not pray. God was cruel; He had no mercy. She sobbed no longer, but with wide, tearless eyes she gazed at the face of her father. It had now become yellow, the lips blue, the nose was pinched and the eyes sunken. The water from his clothes was dripping underneath the bed, and she could hear the drip-drip of it falling on the floor. Everything in the house had suddenly taken on a different aspect. The bed appeared strange to her; so did the fire, the low droning voices of the neighbours, and the play of light and shadow on the walls. The old cat sitting on top of the dresser, gazing down at her, had a curious look in its wide-open eyes; the animal seemed to have changed in some queer way. Outside the wind was beating against the house and wailing over the chimney. Never in her life before had she heard such a melancholy sob in the wind. CHAPTER IX THE WAKE I S EVERAL more neighbours, men, women, and children, were now coming in. With eyes fixed straight ahead they approached the corpse, went down on their knees on the wet floor by the bedside and said their prayers, crossing themselves many times. Those who carried the dead body up from the sea drew near to the fire and dried their sodden garments in the midst of a cloud of vapour that almost hid them from view. Eamon Doherty remarked that Ireland would have Home Rule presently, and a loud discussion mingled with many jokes was soon in progress. “The Irish will never agree,” said old Oiney Dinchy, a one-eyed ancient who had just risen from his knees by the bedside. “That is the worst of the Irish; they never agree. Look at them now in the House of Commons; one member is always fighting against another member, and it was ever the same, for contrairiness is in their blood to the very last drop of it.” “There is always bound to be two parties,” said Master Diver with dogmatic assurance. “In England and America there are always two parties, sometimes more.” “They’ll never get on, then,” said Eamon Doherty. “There are no two parties in the holy Church, and that’s why it gets on so well.” The door opened and Sheila Carrol, the beansho, entered, her child, now a chubby little boy of three, toddling at her heels. Without looking round she went down on her knees by the bedside, and a couple of women who were praying crossed themselves and rose hurriedly. A few of the younger men winked knowingly and turned their thumbs towards the new-comer. Old Mary Ryan muttered something under her breath and turned a look of severe disapproval on the kneeling woman, then on the little boy who had run forward to the fire, where he was holding out his hands to the blaze. “Who’ll be the ones that will go to Greenanore and get tea, bread, snuff, and tobacco for the wake?” asked Mary Ryan. “I’ll go if Eamon Doherty comes along with me,” said old Oiney Dinchy, getting to his feet and putting a live peat to the bowl of his pipe. “The two of you always get drunk if you go to Greenanore together,” said the old woman. “I’d as soon send the——” she pointed with her thumb over her shoulder at the beansho but did not mention her name, “to Greenanore, as send you two.” “It is not everyone that would be treated that way if they offered to help a person,” Eamon Doherty remarked in a loud voice to Oiney Dinchy. “I’ll go if Willie the Duck comes with me,” said a long, lank, shaggy youth, rising from one corner of the room and stretching his arms. “You’re the man for the job, Micky’s Jim,” answered Mary Ryan, coming from the bedside and tottering through the press of neighbours to the dresser where the Delft tea-pot stood. She raised the lid, dipped her hand into the tea-pot and drew out a fistful of money. “Four shillings for tea,” she began to calculate; “eight-pence for sugar; five shillings for loaves of bread; four shillings and sixpence for tobacco, and sixpence for snuff, and—How much potheen did you get for your father’s wake, Eamon Doherty?” “Four gallons and no less,” Eamon answered in a surly tone of voice. “Two gallons of potheen, Micky’s Jim, and get it as cheap as you can,” said the old woman, turning to the long-limbed youth. “From what I hear Martin Eveleen sells good potheen. Get it from him, for it was Martin, I wish him luck! that helped Norah when she took the fargortha on the road to Greenanore three winters agone.” The money was handed to Micky’s Jim, and he left the house followed by Willie the Duck, a small man, dark and swarthy, with a hump on his left shoulder, and a voice, when he spoke, that reminded one of the quacking of ducks. “Thirty-four shillings in all,” mumbled Mary Ryan as she took her way back to the fireside. “It costs a lot to bury a body, and there will never be left one at all to bury me, never a one at all. If only the curragh was left me it would be something.” Meanwhile Norah had slipped out, and went from house to house borrowing candlesticks (Meenalicknalore townland consisted of thirty families and there were only two candlesticks amongst them), baskets of peat, holy water, a lamp, extra chairs, stools, and many other things required for the wake. II A T midnight the cabin was cleared of everybody but the washers of the dead, Eamon Doherty and Master Diver. Oiney Dinchy was very angry because Mary Ryan did not ask him to give a hand at the washing of her husband. “It wasn’t as if Shemus and me weren’t good friends,” said Oiney. “And besides, I have washed more dead men in a year of my life than all washed by Eamon and Master Diver put together.... And to think that I wasn’t allowed to help at the washin’ to-night!” The men and women who had left the cabin went down on their knees at the doorstep and recited the Rosary. The night being very dark the young men drew near the girls and tickled them on the bare feet while they prayed. When admittance was again possible the dead man lay in the bed, his body covered with a white sheet and a large black crucifix resting on his breast. His clothes were already burned in the fire, it being a common custom in Frosses to consign the clothes of the dead to the flames on the first night of the wake. About two o’clock in the morning provisions came from Greenanore. The house was now crowded, and several games such as “The Priest of the Parish,” “Catch the Ten,” and “Put your fingers in the Crow’s Nest” were in progress. An old man who sat in the corner was telling a story of the famine, and a few mischievous boys were amusing themselves by throwing pieces of peat at his hat. While tea was being made, the rosary was again started. Micky’s Jim, a trifle the worse for liquor, went down on his knees on a chair and gave out the prayers. The mischievous boys turned their attentions from the old man to Jim, who was presently bombarded by a fire of turf. One went past his ears; one hit him on the back, another on the head, a third on the brow. Jim got angry. “Pray away yourselves and be damned to you!” he roared at the kneeling house and, jumping off the chair, he sat down in a corner from which he had a view of the whole party. Prayers came to an abrupt conclusion; the chair was taken by the beansho, who placed her child between its legs, and the little boy, who had shown a wonderful propensity for running to the bedside and pulling the corpse by the beard, was held a fast prisoner. Four or five women moved about hurriedly preparing tea; whisky was served without skimp or stint, but pipes were found to be scarce; one had to do for three persons, each pulling at it in turn. The old man in the corner took up the famine story at a point where the prayers had interrupted the recital. It told of a corpse that rose from the bed of death, sat down at the table, lifted a bowl of tea, drank it and went back to bed again. “And the man was dead all the time,” said the story-teller. Willie the Duck, speaking in a quavering voice, began to ask riddles: “What bears but never blossoms?” he enquired. “The hangman’s rope,” was the answer. “What tree never comes to fruit?” he asked. “The gallows-tree,” was the answer. “This is the best guess of the night,” said Willie, taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing violently. “No one will be able to answer it.... In the morning four legs; at noon two legs; in the evening three legs and at night four legs; and what would that be?” “It’s a man,” said Eamon Doherty, looking round with a triumphant glance. “In his young days a man walks on his hands and knees, when he grows up he walks on two legs; when he gets older he walks on three legs, two and a stick; and if he lives long enough he’ll walk on crutches, God be good to us! and that’s four legs!” “You’re a man with a head, Eamon,” said Willie the Duck. “And how did you guess it atall?” “I heard the same guess often and I knew the answer every time,” Eamon replied, and a smile of satisfaction lit up his face. About four o’clock in the morning most of the men and a few of the ancient females were drunk. Mary Ryan had fallen asleep by the fire, her head touching the white ashes of her husband’s clothes. Norah placed a pillow under her mother’s head and took up a seat near her, gazing in turn at the silent figure which lay in the bed and the blue flames chasing one another up the black chimney. Two lamps, one at each end of the house, spluttered dismally; the wind outside battered loudly against the door and wailed over the chimney. Oiney Dinchy was asleep and snoring loudly, and two youngsters blackened his face with soot. The beansho slept, and her child, long since released from the prison of the chair, was blubbering fitfully. On the damp earth of the mid-floor a well-made young woman slumbered, the naked calves of her finely formed legs showing. Micky’s Jim slapped the legs with his hand; the girl awoke, put down her dress until it covered her toes, made a face at the tormentor and went to sleep again. Beside Norah, old Master Diver, now remarkably rotund, was asleep, his bald head hanging to one side and a spittle slobbering from his lips. Norah looked round at the sleepers, saw the stiff legs stretched on the floor, the long, awkward arms hanging loosely over the backs of the chairs, the bowls and the upturned whisky glasses on the table; heard the loud snoring, the rustle of petticoats as a woman changed her position on a stool, the crackle of falling peat on the hearth, the whimpering of the beansho’s child, and the sound made by the lips of a sucking babe pulling at its mother’s breast. The strange fear, that which had taken possession of her three years before on the rocks of Dooey, seized her again. To her all things seemed to lack finish as they lacked design. A vague sense of repulsion overcame the girl as she gazed at the sleepers huddled on form and floor. She shuddered as if in a fever and approached the bed; there the awful stillness of the dead fascinated her. She was looking at the dead, but somehow Death had now lost its terror: it was the living who caused her fear. She knelt down and prayed.

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