Читать книгу The Rat-Pit - Patrick MacGill - Страница 29

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THE 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!”