Читать книгу The Rat-Pit - Patrick MacGill - Страница 20

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IN the evening when the moon peeped over the western hills, Fergus Ryan tied his boots round his neck, placed three bannocks in a woollen handkerchief and went out from his father’s door. The mother wept not when he was leaving; she had seen so many of her children go out on a much longer journey. Norah accompanied Fergus for a short distance and stopped where the road streaked with very faint lines of light merged into the darkness. The moon rose clear off the hills ... lights could be seen glowing in the distance ... a leafless birch waved its arms in the breeze ... somewhere a cow was lowing and far away, across the water, a Ballybonar dog howled at the stars.

“I never thought that I could like the place as much as I do now,” Fergus said in English.

“It’s the way with everyone when they’re going away,” answered his sister. “And I’m sick at heart that ye are goin’, Fergus. Is Derry far away?”

“A longish way—”

“Out beyont the moon, is it?” asked the child, pointing at the hills and the moon above them.

“Maybe,” said the youth; then in a low voice: “D’ye know what they do in other countries when they are saying ‘Good-bye’?”

“Then I don’t,” answered Norah.

“They do this,” said the young man, and he pressed his lips against his sister’s cheek.

“But they never do that here,” said the girl, and both blushed as if they had been discovered doing something very wrong. “I’ll say a long prayer for you every night, when you are away, Fergus.”

The boy looked at her, rubbed one bare foot on the ground and seemed on the point of saying something further; then without a word he turned and walked off along the wet road. Norah kept looking after him till he was out of sight, then, with her eyes full of tears, she went back to her home.