Читать книгу The Rat-Pit - Patrick MacGill - Страница 24

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“THIS 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!”