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Ebook has 1048 lines and 93092 words, and 21 pages

THE RAT-PIT

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

"Have you your brogues, Norah?"

"They're tied round my shoulders with a string, mother."

"And your brown penny for tea and bread in the town, Norah?"

"It's in the corner of my weasel-skin purse, mother."

"The tide is long on the turn, so you'd better be off, Norah."

"I'm off and away, mother."

Two voices were speaking inside a cabin on the coast of Donegal. The season was mid-winter; the time an hour before the dawn of a cheerless morning. Within the hovel there was neither light nor warmth; the rushlight had gone out and the turf piled on the hearth refused to burn. Outside a gale was blowing, the door, flimsy and fractured, creaked complainingly on its leathern hinges, the panes of the foot-square and only window were broken, the rags that had taken their places had been blown in during the night, and the sleet carried by the north-west wind struck heavily on the earthen floor. In the corner of the hut a woman coughed violently, expending all the breath in her body, then followed a struggle for air, for renewed life, and a battle against sickness or death went on in the darkness. There was silence for a moment, then a voice, speaking in Gaelic, could be heard again.

"Are you away, Norah?"

"I am just going, mother. I am stopping the window to keep the cold away from you."

"God bless you, child," came the answer. "The men are not coming in yet, are they?"

"I don't hear their step. Now the window is all right. Are you warm?"

"Middling, Alannah. Did you take the milk for your breakfast?"

"I left some for you in the jug," came the reply. "Will you take it now?"

"That is always the way with you, Norah," said the woman in a querulous voice. "You never take your meals, but always leave them for somebody else. And you are getting thinner on it every day. I don't want anything, for I am not hungry these days; and maybe it is God Himself that put the sickness on me so that I would not take away the food of them that needs it more than I do. Drink the milk, Norah, it will do you good."

There was no answer. A pale-faced little girl lifted the latch of the door and looked timorously out into the cold and the blackness. The gale caught her and for a moment she almost choked for breath. It was still intensely dark, no colour of the day was yet in the sky. The wind whistled shrilly round the corners of the cabin and a storm-swept bird dropped to the ground in front of the child. She looked back into the gloomy interior of the cabin and for a moment thought of returning. She was very hungry, but remembered her father and brother who would presently come in from the fishing, probably, as they had come in for days, with empty boats and empty stomachs. Another fit of coughing seized the mother, and the girl went out, shutting the door carefully behind her to stay the wrath of the wind which swept violently across the floor of the house.

The sea was near. The tide, sweeping sullenly away from the shore, moaned plaintively near the land and swelled into loud discordant wrath, far out at the bar. All round the house a tremulous gray haze enveloped everything, and the child stole into its mysterious bosom and towards the sea. The sleet shot sharply across her body and at times she turned round to save her face from its stinging lash. She was so small, so frail, so tender that she might be swept away at any moment as she moved like a shadow through the greyness, keeping a keen lookout for the ghosts that peopled the mists and the lonely places. Of these phantoms she was assured. To her they were as true as her own mother, as her own self. They were around and above her. They hid in the mists, walked on the sea, roved in the fields, and she was afraid of them.

Suddenly she called to mind the story of the Lone Woman of the Mist, the ghost whom all the old people of the locality had met at some time or another in their lives. Even as she thought, an apparition took form, a lone woman stood in front of the little girl, barely ten paces away. The child crossed herself seven times and walked straight ahead, keeping her eyes fixed on the figure that barred the path. This was the only thing to be done; under the steady look of the eyes a ghost is powerless. So her mother had told her, and the girl, knowing this, never lowered her gaze; but her bare feet got suddenly warm, her heart leapt as if wanting to leave her body, and the effort to restrain the tremor of her eyelids caused her pain. The ghost spoke.

"Who is the girsha that is out so early?" came the question.

"It's me, Norah Ryan," answered the child in a glad voice. "I thought that ye were the Lone Woman of the Mist or maybe a beanshee."

"I'm not the beanshee, I'm the beansho," the woman replied in a sharp voice. "D'ye know what that means?"

"It means that ye are the woman I'm not to have the civil word with because ye've committed a great sin."

"Who said that? Was it yer mother?"

"Then it was," said the child, "I often heard her say them words."

"D'ye know me sin then?" enquired the woman, and without waiting for an answer she went on: "Ye don't, of course. This is me sin, girsha; this is me sin. Look at it!"

The woman loosened the shawl which was drawn tightly around her body and disclosed a little bullet-headed child lying fast asleep in her arms. The wind caught the sleeper; one tiny hand quivered in mute protest, then the infant awoke and roared loudly. The mother kissed the wee thing hastily, fastened the shawl again and strode forward, taking long steps like a man, towards the sea. She was bare-footed; her feet made a rustling sound on the snow and two little furrows lay behind her. Norah Ryan followed and presently the older woman turned round.

"That's me sin, girsha, that's me sin," she said. "That's a sin that can never be undone. Mind that and mind it always.... Ye'll be goin' into the town, I suppose?" "That I am," said the child. "Is the tide full on the run now?"

"It's nearly out. See! the sky is clearin' a bit; and look it! there's some stars."

"I don't like the stars, good woman, for they're always so cold lookin'."

"Yes, they're middlin' like to goodly people," said the woman. "There, we're near the sea and the greyness is risin' off it."

The woman lifted her hand and pointed to the rocky shore that skirted the bay. At first sight it appeared to be completely deserted; nothing could be seen but the leaden grey sea and the sharp and jagged rocks protruding through the snow that covered the shore. The tide was nearly out; the east was clearing, but the wind still lashed furiously against the legs and faces of the woman and the girl.

"I suppose there'll be a lot waitin' for the tide," said Norah Ryan. "And a cold wait it'll be for them too, on this mornin' of all mornin's."

"It's God's will," said the woman with the child, "God's will, the priest's will, and the will of the yarn seller." She spoke sharply and resentfully and again with long strides hurried forward to the shore.

How lifeless the scene looked; the hollows white with snow, the gale-swept edges of the rocks darkly bare! Norah Ryan stepping timidly, suddenly shrieked as her foot slipped into a wreath of snow. Under her tread something moved, the snow rose into the air as if to shake itself, then fell again with a crackling noise. The girl had stepped upon a sleeping woman, who, now rudely wakened, was afoot and angry.

"Mercy be on you, child!" roared the female in Gaelic, as she shook the frozen flakes from the old woollen handkerchief that covered her head. "Can you not take heed of your feet and where you're putting them?"

"It's the child that didn't see ye," said the beansho, then added by way of salutation: "It's cold to be sleepin' out this mornin'."

"It's Norah Ryan, is it?" asked the woman, still shaking the snow from her head-dress. "And has she been along with you, of all persons in the world?"

"Is the tide out yet?" asked a voice from the snow.

A face like that of a sheeted corpse peered up into the greyness, and Norah Ryan looked at it, her face full of a fright that was not unmixed with childish curiosity. There in the white snow, some asleep and some staring vacantly into the darkness, lay a score of women, some young, some old, and all curled up like sleeping dogs. Nothing could be seen but the faces, coloured ghastly silver in the dim light of the slow dawn, faces without bodies staring like dead things from the welter of snow. An old woman asleep, the bones of her face showing plainly through the sallow wrinkles of the skin, her only tooth protruding like a fang and her jaw lowered as if hung by a string, suddenly coughed. Her cough was wheezy, weak with age, and she awoke. In the midst of the heap of bodies she stood upright and disturbed the other sleepers. In an instant the hollow was alive, voluble, noisy. Some of the women knelt down and said their prayers, others shook the snow from their shawls, one was humming a love song and making the sign of the cross at the end of every verse.

"I've been travelling all night long," said an old crone who had just joined the party, "and I thought that I would not be in time to catch the tide. It is a long way that I have to come for a bundle of yarn--sixteen miles, and maybe it is that I won't get it at the end of my journey."

The kneeling women rose from their knees and hurried towards the channel in the bay, now a thin string of water barely three yards in width. The wind, piercingly cold, no longer carried its burden of sleet, and the east, icily clear, waited, almost in suspense, for the first tint of the sun. The soil, black on the foreshore, cracked underfoot and pained the women as they walked. None wore their shoes, although three or four carried brogues tied round their necks. Most had mairteens on their feet, and these, though they retained a certain amount of body heat, kept out no wet. In front the old woman, all skin and bones and more bones than skin, whom Norah had wakened, led the way, her breath steaming out into the air and her feet sinking almost to the knees at every step. From her dull, lifeless look and the weary eyes that accepted everything with fatalistic calm it was plain that she had passed the greater part of her years in suffering.

All the women had difficulty with the wet and shifty sand, which, when they placed their feet heavily on one particular spot, rose in an instant to their knees. They floundered across, pulling out one foot and then another, and grunting whenever they did so. Norah Ryan, the child, had little difficulty; she glided lightly across, her feet barely sinking to the ankles.

"Who'd have thought that one's spags could be so troublesome!" said the beansho. "It almost seems like as if I had no end of feet."

"Do you hear that woman speaking?" asked the aged female who led the way. "It's ill luck that will keep us company when she's with us: her with her back-of-the-byre wean!"

"You shouldn't fault me for me sin," said the beansho, who overheard the remark, for there was no effort made to conceal it. "No, but ye should be thankful that it's not yourself that carries it."

The sun was nearing the horizon, and the women, now on the verge of the channel , stood in silence looking at the water. It was not at its lowest yet; probably they would have to wait for five minutes, maybe more. And as they waited they came closer and closer to one another for warmth.

The beansho stood a little apart from the throng. Although tall and angular, she showed traces of good looks which if they had been tended might have made her beautiful. But now her lips were drawn in a thin, hard line and a set, determined expression showed on her face. She was bare-footed and did not even wear mairteens, and carried no brogues. Her sole articles of dress were a shawl, which sufficed also for her child, a thick petticoat made of sackcloth, a chemise and a blouse. The wind constantly lifted her petticoat and exposed her bare legs above the knees. Some of the women sniggered on seeing this, but finally the beansho tightened her petticoat between her legs and thus held it firmly.

"That's the way, woman," said the old crone who led the party. "Hold your dress tight, tighter. Keep away from the beansho, Norah Ryan."

The child looked up at the old woman and smiled as a child sometimes will when it fails to understand the purport of words that are spoken. Then her teeth chattered and she looked down at her feet, which were bleeding, and the blood could be seen welling out through the mairteens. She shivered constantly from the cold and her face was a little drawn, a little wistful, and her grey eyes, large and soft, were full of a tender pity. Perhaps the pity was for her mother who was ill at home, maybe for the beansho whom everyone disliked, or maybe for herself, the little girl of twelve, who was by far the youngest member of the party.

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