Читать книгу The Rat-Pit - Patrick MacGill - Страница 26

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ON 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.