TOall souls who are sensitive to moods of any kind, whether joyful or sorrowful, there comes now and again a delicious hour when it is not night and no longer day; the timid twilight gleams softly on every object and favours a dreamy humour that weds itself, as if in a dream, to the dim play of light and shade. In that delightful passage of time the mind wanders through interminable spaces and dwells lovingly on vanished hopes, broken dreams, and shattered illusions. In that moment a soul feels the wordless pleasure of a memory that drifts lightly by; a memory to which only the accents of the heart can give life. Old scenes are brought up again and are seen in the delightful haze of transient remembrance; there are waters running to a sea; waves sobbing on a shore; voices speaking softly and low, and trees waving like phantoms to a wind that is merely the ghost of a wind. In these dreams there is a joyful melancholy, a placid acceptance of sorrow and happiness that might have only been realities of an earlier existence of long past years.
An hour like this came to Norah Ryan one evening as she sat in her room waiting for a fight to come to an end on the landing outside. The one-armed soldier, who had just returned from prison and found another man incompany with one of his loves, was now blackening the man’s eyes. Norah knew that she would be molested when passing outside; she chose to wait until the storm was over. She was dressed ready to go out; old Meg had taken charge of the child; the fight was still in full swing. A fire burned dimly in the grate at which Norah sat; a frail blue fleeting flame flared nervously for a moment amongst the red tongues of fire, then faded away. The blind was drawn across the window, but the lamp had not been lighted yet. Norah sat on the floor, looking into the glowing embers, her chin, delicately rounded, resting in the palm of her hand, her long, tapering fingers touching a little pink ear that was almost hidden under her soft, wavy tresses. The faintest flush mantled her cheeks, her brow seen in the half-light of the room looked doubly white, and her long lashes sank languidly from time to time over her dream-laden eyes.
Norah’s thoughts were far away; they had crossed the bridge of many years and roved without effort of will over the shores of her own country. Again she lived the life of a child, the life she had known in her earlier years. The air was full of the scent of the peat, the sound of the sea, the homesick song of the streams babbling out their plaints as they hurried to the bosom of their restless mother, the ocean.
It was evening. The sun, barely a hand’s breadth over the horizon, coloured the waters of the bar and the sea beyond, amber, crimson, and dun. The curraghs of Frosses were putting out from the shore; the bare-footed men hurried along the strand, waving their arms and moving their lips, but making no sound. Fergus was there, light-limbed and dark-haired; her father, wrinkled and bearded; the neighbours and the women and children who came down to the beach to see the people off to the fishing.
One dream blended with another. It was morning: the sun tipped the hills and lighted Glenmornan; strips of gold in the clouds of the east were drawn fine as the wrinkles on the brow of a woman; a mist rose from the holms of Frosses, and the water of the streams sparkled merrily. In the pools trout were leaping, breaking the glassy surface and raising a shower of rainbow mist that dissolved in the air. A boy came along the road; there was a smile on his face and his eyes were full of dreams, as the eyes of a youth who goes out to push his fortune well may be. In one hand he carried a stick, in the other a bundle. Dermod Flynn was setting out for the hiring fair of Strabane....
SONorah Ryan dreamt, one vision merging into another and all bringing a long-lost peace to her soul. She did not hear the first rap at the door, nor the second. The third knock, louder and more imperative than the others, roused her to a sense of her surroundings. In the fabric of her existence the black thread of destiny again reappeared and she rose, pushed back the erring lock of hair from her white forehead, placed some more coal on the fire, turned up the lamp and lit it, then went and opened the door. A young man dressed in sailor’s garb, his face cut and covered with blood, stood on the threshold; behind him on the ground lay a prostrate figure, the man with the empty sleeve.
“Come in,” said Norah. She did not look at the visitor; all men were the same now to her; all were so much alike. The sailor rubbed a handkerchief over his face, staggered past the girl and sank into a chair.
“What’s that one-armed swine doin’?” he cried.“Strikin’ a man, an A.B. before the mast, without any reason; him and his gabblin’ fools of women! But I learned him somethin’, I did. One on the jowl and down he went. An A.B. before the mast stands no foolin’. Has he got up?” he called to the woman at the door.
The ex-soldier staggered to his feet on the landing, and swore himself along the passage. Norah closed the door.
“He’s up on his feet and away to his own room,” she informed the sailor.
“This No. 8?” he asked.
“No,” answered Norah. “It’s three doors round on the left; I’ll show you where it is.”
“But is this house one like No. 8?”
“The same.”
“Then I’ll stay,” said the sailor, who was still busy with his face. “I heard tell of No. 8 out abroad. I’m an A.B., you know. Before the mast on half the seas of the world! I met a sailor who was here; not here, but at No. 8. Ah! he had great stories of the place. So I said that I’d come here too, if ever I came to Glasgow. Damn! that one-armed pig he almost blinded me, did the beggar. But I gave one to him on the jowl that he’ll not forget.... Where can I wash my face?”
“On the landing,” Norah told him, and handed the man a towel.
He went out and washed. Presently he re-appeared and Norah took stock of him. He was dressed in sailors’ garb; his eyes were hazy from intoxication, one of his hard and knotted hands was tattooed on the back, his dark and heavy moustache was draggled at both ends and a red scar on his right cheek-bone showed where the soldier had hit him. He was young, probably not over thirty years of age. He sat down again.
“D’ye know what it is?” he exclaimed, striking his fist heavily against his knee. “A woman of yer kind maybe as good as most and better than many. I always say that, always. Some of them may be bad, but for the others——”
He banged his fist again against his knee and paused as if collecting words for an emphatic finish to his sentence.
“Others are as good as pure gold,” he concluded. He was silent for a moment as if deep in thought, then he fixed his eyes on the girl. “Come here and sit on my knee,” he said.
She sat down on his knee and laughed, but her laugh was forced and hollow.
“Ye’re unhappy,” said the man, looking at her fixedly, and stroking his face with his hand. “Don’t say that ye aren’t, for I know that ye are. Ye’ll be new at this game, maybe.... D’ye belong to Glasgow?”
“I do.”
“Ye talk like an Irish girl.”
“My father was Irish.”
“Ah! that explains it,” said the man. “I’m Irish, ye know.”
“Are ye?” exclaimed Norah with a start.
“I am that,” said the man. “Why do ye jump like ye do? Maybe ye’re frightened of me?”
“No.”
“Maybe it’s yer first time at this work?”
The girl made no answer. Her cheeks were scarlet and she felt as if she could burst into tears, but stifled bravely the sob that rose to her throat.
“Don’t be frightened of me,” said the man. “We sailors are a rough lot at times, but we respect beauty, so to speak. My God, ye’re a soncy lookin’ wench. New to this kind of life as well!”
He paused.
“And what’s this?” he cried, glancing at the Virgin’s picture and the little black crucifix. He turned to thegirl and saw that a tear which she hastily tried to brush away was rolling down her cheek.
“Ye’re a Catholic too,” he said in a milder voice. “It’s damned hard luck. I myself am a Catholic, at least I was born one, but now I’m—well, I’m nothin’.... A Catholic feels it most.... I’ve always said that one may find women a great lot worse than women—than a woman like yerself. The ladies that can gorge themselves at table when ye have to do the likes of this for a livin’ are more guilty of yer sin than ye are yerself.... Ye know I’m a bit drunk; not much wrong with me, though, for I can see things clearly. If I’m a bit groggy ’twas mostly the fault of that one-armed swine. But I forgive him.... I’m an advanced thinker.... What is yer name?”
“Jean.”
“I mean yer real name. It’s rarely that an Irishman calls his children by names unbeknown in his own country. Sit closer. There! ye’re a nice girl. I like yer brow, it’s so white, and yer lips, they’re so pretty. Now, give me a kiss. It’s nice to have a girl like yerself on my knee. I’m three sheets in the wind, but I like ye. I’m an advanced thinker and I’ve read, oh! ever so much: Darwin, Huxley. Have ye ever heard of these men?”
“Never,” Norah answered. “Who are they?”
“They are the great minds of the world. They are the men who proved that there was no heaven and no God.”
“But there is a God!”
“If there is, why do ye suffer like this?”
“Because I’m bad.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the man. “How funny! how very funny! Ye are a child, and God would feel honoured if ye allowed Him to lace yer shoes. If ye kept very good and pure He might let ye to heaven when ye died—but would He give ye a pair of shoes in mid-winter?...There’s no God.... Kiss me again. By heaven! If ye weren’t so good lookin’ and so temptin’ I’d be generous. I’d go down on my knees and salute ye as a representative of sufferin’ womankind, and then go away feelin’ honoured if ye only allowed me to kiss your hand. But ye are so winsome! I should like ye to be always pure, but why do men like purity in a woman? They like it so that they can take it away, so that they can kill that which they love. But what am I talkin’ about anyway? I’m drunk; not so much—just three sheets in the wind or so. I can see things clearly. I’m a learned man and I know things, bein’ a great traveller, and a worker on half the docks in the world, and a sailor too. A.B. before the mast I am. I’ve seen things in my time, many things, most of them unjust, very unjust. It’s seven years since I left home, think of that! Yer father came from Ireland, ye say. What part of the country did he come from?”
“I don’t know,” said Norah in a low voice. “I never asked him. What part of Ireland did ye come from?”
“I said that it is an unjust world, a danged unjust world,” said the man, pressing her tightly and kissing her. “And in Ireland ye see more injustice than can be seen anywhere in half the world. I’ve seen women and girls in Ireland working for a penny a day. They were knittin’ socks and they had to travel miles for the yarn; aye, and to cross an arm of the sea that took them to their breasts. In the height of winter, too, with the snow fallin’ and the sleet. Ah! if yerself had suffered such hardships ye wouldn’t live to tell the tale. And children too had to go out into the cold black water! My sister, a very little girl—just about that size”—the sailor held out his hand about two feet from the ground—“used to work fourteen hours a day when she was but twelve, and her pay was sevenpence ha’penny a week! The hanged littlething! and she wasn’t that size.... But I’ve made some money—salvage, ye know—and I’m goin’ to make my sister a lady when I go back to Donegal. She was such a nice wee girl. Wouldn’t it be fine if girls always kept young! I think of my sister now as I left her, not grown up at all.... Ye too are a nice lass, so different from those I’ve seen in the far corners of the world.”
“What is yer name?” asked Norah in a tremulous whisper. But she knew his name, recognised her brother Fergus, saw in his face that indescribable individuality which distinguishes each face from all others in the world. With tense, strained look she waited for the answer to her question.
“FERGUSRyanof Frosses in the county Donegal,” replied the sailor, banging his fist against the corner of the chair. “Fergus Ryan, able-bodied seaman before the mast. I’ve sailed ever such a lot. Singapore, Calcutta, New York, and Melbourne; I’ve seen all those places, aye, and nearly all the countries of the world!... Ah! and I’ve come across a lot of trouble, fighting and all the rest of it. Two times a knife was left stickin’ in me; more than once I was washed into the sea. Ah! I could tell ye things about other places if I liked.... What’s wrong with ye? Ye seem scared. But ye’re not afraid of sailors, are ye? They’re all decent fellows, honest, though a little careless at times. My God! what’s comin’ over ye? Ye’re goin’ to faint!”
Norah had suddenly become heavy in the man’s arms; the hand which he held contracted tightly and a sickly pallor overspread her countenance.
“Jean!” cried the sailor, staring at the girl with a puzzled expression. “Jean! that’s not yer name, but itdoesn’t matter. Ye aren’t afraid of sailors, are ye? They’re rough fellows, most of them, but good at heart. Has a man never told ye before that he got stuck in the ribs with a knife? Women here know nothin’, but in Calcutta.... What am I talkin’ about anyhow? Jean, waken up!”
The man rose unsteadily, and bearing the senseless girl in his arms he approached the bed and laid her down carefully, sorting with clumsy fingers the stray tresses on her brow as he did so. Then seizing a glass that stood on the mantelpiece, he rushed out and filled it with water from the tap on the landing. He came in, held Norah up in his arms, and pressed the glass to her lips. She opened her eyes.
“Drink this,” said the sailor. “What else can I do to help ye?”
“Leave me to myself,” said the girl. “Go away and leave me. At once, now!” She sat upright in bed and freed herself from his arms; the glass fell to the floor and broke with a musical tinkle; the water splashed brightly and formed into little wells on the planking. The sailor put his hands between his belt and trousers and gazed placidly at the girl.
“Now, that is too bad,” he said, speaking slowly; “too dashed bad! All sailors are decent fellows at heart, only now and then they tell stories about their wild life. All that I said about the knifing was just a tale.”
“I haven’t mind of what ye said,” Norah replied in a whisper, then in a louder voice: “Go away! do go away and leave me to myself.”
“I’m not goin’ now,” he said in a voice of reproof. “I cannot go; it’s impossible! I’ve plenty of money. Look!” He pulled a handful of gold from his pocket. “My God! I cannot leave ye now, I cannot. Why do ye want me to go away?”
Norah looked at the picture of the Virgin and shuddered as if something had stung her. Suddenly it came to her that Fate had done its worst; that evil and unhappiness had reached their supreme climax. She looked hard at her brother, a fixed and almost defiant look in her eyes, her lips set in a firmly-drawn line.
“Why do ye want me to go away?” he repeated.
“Because I’m yer sister Norah, the one that wouldn’t be grown up when ye went back.” She felt a grim, unnatural satisfaction in repeating the man’s words, and strangely enough her voice was wonderfully calm. “I made a mistake and it was all my own fault. This is how I’m livin’ now—a common woman of the streets. Now go away and leave me to myself. Fergus, I’m grown up!”
“Ye’re my sister, ye’re Norah?” said the man as the girl freed herself, almost reluctantly, from his arms. He stepped backwards, paused as if he wanted to say something, approached the door, fumbled for a moment with the knob, and went out. On the stairway he stood as if trying to collect his thoughts.
“Where am I?” he muttered. “It used to be red creepin’ things before, and besides, I’m not very drunk at present, not more than three sheets.... But the picture of the Blessed Virgin—that was funny! Fergus Ryan, A.B., are ye drunk or are ye mad? Look around ye! This is a flight of stairs, wooden steps; this is an iron railin’, that’s a window. Now, ye aren’t very drunk when ye can notice these things. That’s where the one-armed swine struck me. Now I’ll look at my watch. A quarter past nine. If I was in the D.T.’s I couldn’t tell the time. Besides, I know where I am at present. On the stairway leadin’ to a Glasgow kip-shop, and I’ve been dreamin’. No, I haven’t been dreamin’, I’m mad! Talkin’ to my sister, to Norah! One does dream funny things.She isn’t a person like that.... Seven years is a long time and a lot might happen. I’ll walk along the street to the quay and maybe the air off the river will clear me up a bit. I’ll come back here and free her from the place, for I’ve money, plenty of it.... I’m afraid of nothin’, nothin’ in the world. Why should I, me with the track of two knives in my body? But what is the use of talkin’ when I’m awfully sick with fear at this moment! God! I’ve never ran up against a thing like this in all my life before.... Have I not, though? Are they not all somebody’s sisters, some mother’s children? I’ve never thought of it in that way before. I’ll go up again.”
He reached the top and tried to push the door open. It did not budge. He put his ear to the keyhole and heard sobs, smothered as if by a hand, very near him. On the other side of the door Norah was weeping.
“That’s my sister,” he whispered hoarsely. Looking down he saw the light shining through the splintered door. A cavity through which he might pass his fist lay open before him. He put his hand in his pocket, took out several pieces of gold and shoved them into the room; then turned down the stairs and hurried out into the crowded streets.
ATthe end of an hour he found himself sitting on a capstan by the river, his elbows on his knees and his head buried in his hands. He could not tell how he had gotten there; his brain was throbbing dizzily and myriad little red and blue spots danced before his eyes.
The place was very dark, the sickly light of the few lamps along the river did not light more than a dozen yards around them. On the deck of a near boat a sailor walked up and down, stamping his feet noisily and whistling a popular music-hall tune. Overhead a few starsglimmered soberly; a smell of pitch was in the air; a boat loosened from her moorings was heading downstream. About fifty paces back from the wharf a public-house opened out on the river. Dark forms stood at the bar, arms were waving in discussion, and hoarse voices could be heard distinctly. Against the garish light the smallest perpendicular object was outlined in black. Now and again a fist banged on a table and the glasses raised a silvery tinkle of protest against the striker. A woman came out of the place and went on her way along the street, reeling from side to side and giving utterance to some incoherent song. The water lapped against the wharf, a little wind wailed past Fergus’ ears; he rose, stretched his arms, took a cigarette from his pocket but threw it away when it was lighted.
“It’s lonely here, but in the pub a man may forget things,” he said. “I wish to heaven I could think of anything but it! I’ll try and forget it, but it’s hard, danged hard.... If I had a fight I’d forget, for a moment at least, what I have just seen. My sister Norah? And once I struck a sailor because he said that no girl was as good as I made out my sister to be.... A whore! my God, a whore! I’ll go’ver to the pub and get drunk, mad drunk! What matters now? I’ll not go home, I’ll never go home!”
Thrusting his hands under his belt, he crossed the street, entered the public-house and called for a glass of whisky at the bar. His face was haggard and the palms of both his hands were bleeding.
“I’ve driven my nails into them,” he said aloud, and looked round angrily. Those who were staring at him turned away their eyes, renewed their conversation and raised their glasses to their lips with evident unconcern. Fergus lifted his liquor and swallowed all at one gulp.
“The same again!” he shouted to the bar-tender, andlit another cigarette. “No, not the same; gi’ me a schooner and a stick[G]in it. God damn ye! what are ye starin’ at?”
The bar-tender who was examining Fergus attentively made no reply, but emptied out the liquor hastily. For a moment Fergus was deep in thought. Suddenly rousing himself he struck the counter a resounding blow with his fist, ripping his knuckles on the woodwork and causing everybody in the room to look round. Then he swallowed his drink and went towards the door. With his hand on the handle, he looked back. “I’m sorry for kickin’ up a noise,” he said. “Good-night.”
He passed out. The ray of light from the door showed him staggering across the street towards the quay. Once there he sat down on the capstan, put his hand in his pocket and brought out a fistful of money. He raised it over his head and for a moment it seemed as if he was going to throw it into the water. However, he kept hold of it and returned to the pub, where he purchased a half-pint of whisky. He placed a sovereign on the counter and went out without his change.
Ten o’clock passed; then eleven. Fergus Ryan paced up and down the quay, his hands deep down under his belt and the half-empty bottle in his pocket. The air was now moist and cold; a smell of rotting wood pervaded the place, and the water under the wharf was wailing fitfully. The mooring ropes of the nearest vessel strained tensely on the capstan and the giant vessel seemed eager as a stabled colt to get out, away and free.
“I would like to know where that boat is goin’ when she sails,” Fergus said, but instantly his thoughts turned to something else. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
“Would anyone know a new day if the clocks did notchime?” he asked himself in a puzzled way. “I suppose not. It’ll soon be here, the new day.... There, the clocks are beginnin’. Damn them! Damn them!... If it had been anyone but my sister! Why did she come to Scotland? Landlord, priest, and that arch-scoundrel, McKeown, livin’ on her earnin’s. I suppose she’ll send home money even now, and some of it’ll go to the priest to buy crucifixes and pictures of the Virgin, and some of it to the landlord to buy flounces for his wife, and some will go to Farley McKeown. I was goin’ to pay a surprise visit and I was livin’ on that goin’ home for a long while. Ah! but the world is out at elbow. And I’m drunk!”
He stuck both his hands under his belt again and approached the edge of the wharf. Three dark forms slunk out of the shadows and drew in on the sailor. Only when they were beside him did anything warn him of danger. He looked round into the face of the one-armed soldier, whose loose sleeve was fluttering in the wind.
“Ah! ye swine!” Fergus exclaimed and struggled with the belt which prisoned his hands. But the three men were on top of him and the effort was futile. In an instant he was flung outwards and dropped with a splash into the water that seemed to rise and meet him as he fell. It was as cold as ice and the belt held taut despite his efforts to break free. He had a moment to wonder. “Why did he want to drown me?” he asked himself. His mouth filled and he swallowed. He was now going down head first, but slowly. He made another effort to free his hands, but was unsuccessful. Then he resigned himself to his fate, and consciousness began to ebb from him. He felt that he had forgotten something that was very important, not to himself but to somebody else. Then came complete darkness, and the book of life, as man knows it, was closed forever to Fergus Ryan.
THElight on the mantelpiece grew faint, flickered and was going out; the wick, short and draggled, no longer reached the oil. The fire died down and only one red spark could be seen glowing in the white ashes. Twelve of the clock struck out slowly and wearily, as if the chimes were tired of their endless toil. On the floor beside the door a pile of sovereigns, scattered broadcast, glowed bright even under the dying light; the figure on the black crucifix showed very white, save where the daub of red paint told of the Saviour’s wounded side.
Norah sat on the bare floor, one leg stretching out, her hands clasped tightly round the knee of the other, which was almost drawn up to her chin. Action was clogged within her, a terrible black monotony was piled around and above her; a silence, not even broken by sighs, had taken possession of the girl.
Old Meg rapped at the door many times before Norah heard her; then she rose, poured some oil into the lamp and turned up the light. Afterwards, not because she wanted to, but because she was desirous of hiding from everybody that which had taken place within the room during the last few hours, she lifted the gold pieces and stuffed them into the pocket of her dress.
“Norah Ryan! Norah Ryan!” the old woman was crying outside the door. A dim, hazy thought of all the good things which the gold would buy for her child crossed Norah’s mind as she opened the door.
“The little fellow has taken a turn,” the old woman said as she stepped inside and looked curiously round. Of late Norah’s compartment had had a curious interest for her: how many times each night between the hours of six and twelve did she come to the door and listen to all that was going on inside. “I thought that ye’d never hear,” she said. “I was knockin’ and knockin’.”
“He’ll soon be better now,” Norah said in a voice so tensely strained that it caused the listener to look at her with surprise. “I can now pay for doctors, dresses, everything. D’ye hear that, Meg Morraws?” The last sentence sounded like a threat.
The child was doubled up on Meg’s bed, and perspiring freely. The old woman had put on a fire that was now blazing merrily.
“I had twa stanes of coal, and I put them all on because of the kid,” said the woman. “Have ye a penny and I’ll get some oil. There’s not a drop in the house and I’m clean broke.”
Norah handed the woman a sovereign and told her to keep it. Meg ejaculated a grunt of surprise, made a remark about the shops being closed, promptly discovered that she really had some oil, and put the coin in her pocket.
The night wore on; the child, breathing heavily and coughing, lay in Meg’s bed, one little hand showing over the blue lettered sentence on the blanket. The light burned fretfully, the old woman remarked that the oil was mixed with water and that she had got poor value for her money. Norah talked of removing the child into the other room; Meg said it would be madness, andscraping up more coal, heaped it on the fire. In the morning the old woman intended to get very drunk in the pub outside.
A clatter was heard on the stairs; then the sound of a falling body throbbed through the building. Meg went out and found a man—the one-armed soldier—asleep on the landing. She bent down, fumbled with the man’s coat, discovered a bottle of whisky, drank and returned the bottle to the sleeper’s pocket. She entered the room again, smacking her lips, threw herself down by the fire and started to weep. In a little while she fell asleep.
She woke instinctively at eight o’clock, the hour when the taverns were opening, and rising to her feet, she rubbed her eyes vigorously with her fingers. She found Norah sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed tightly against her knee, one resting lightly on the head of the child.
“Are the pubs open yet?” asked Meg, then in a lower voice: “I mean, is the child better, the dear little thing?”
“He’s dead,” said Norah quietly. “He died over an hour ago.”
“An hour ago!” exclaimed the woman. “And why didn’t ye waken me?... I’m a bad yin, Norah Ryan, a gey bad yin!” Saying these words the woman approached the bed and for a moment stared fixedly at the child. Then she paced backwards across the room, sobbing loudly and muttering meaningless words under her breath. Through the dirty window she could see the beer-shop opposite; the doors were open and a young man in shirt-sleeves was taking off the shutters.
“My heart is wae for ye, Norah,” said the old woman. “Death is a hard thing to bear. But I suppose it’ll come to all of us yin day. Oh! oh! and all of us maun gang some day.... I’m goin’ oot the noo,” she suddenly exclaimed, stopping in her walk and looking very serious,as if she had remembered something very important. “I’ll be back again in a meenit or twa.”
Meg tied her shawl over her head and without washing her face went out and became speedily drunk. The young man with the white shirt, who took down the shutters, made some sarcastic remarks about Meg’s dirty face, and Meg, being short-tempered, lifted an empty bottle and flung it in the man’s face, wounding him terribly. A policeman was called in and the woman was hurried off to the police-station.
Noon saw Norah Ryan still sitting on the bedside, her brother’s gold jingling in her pocket whenever she moved, and her dead child lying cold and silent beside her.
A month of black sorrow passed by. There was a great void in Norah’s heart, a void which could never be filled up. Every morning she rose from bed, knowing that the day would have no joy, no consolation for her. Life was almost unendurable; never was despair so overpowering, so terrible. Nothing but the all-encompassing loneliness of the future existed for her now—that terrible future from which she recoiled as a timid animal recoils from the brink of a precipice.
She had suffered so much, was healed a little; now the healing salve of motherhood was wrenched from her by the hand of death. Nothing now remained to the girl but regrets, terrible, torturing, lingering regrets that tore at her mind like birds of prey.
“No matter what I do now, nobody will think me no worse than I am,” she cried, but the thought left her unmoved; even life did not interest her enough to have any desire to end it. Shame had once covered her, envelopedher as in a garment, but now shame was gone; she had thrust it away and even the blind trust in some unshapen chance which had once been hers was now hers no longer.
She worked no more; only once was she roused to action, and that was when she looked at the gold coins in her pocket. This was Fergus’ money, and she had often wondered where he had gone to on that night of nights. She went to a neighbouring post-office and sent ten pounds home to her mother. Not a line, not a word went with the money order.
“I’m dead, dead to everyone,” she said. “To me own mother, to Fergus, to all the good people in the wide world.”
SHEwas coming back from the post-office and the loneliness weighed heavily upon her. She thought of the letter on its way to her own country. Soon the little slip of paper would be in the old home, would be pressed by her mother’s fingers; and she, poor little suffering Norah, would still be hemmed up in her narrow room, for all the world just like a bird prisoned in its cage; hearing nothing but the vacant laughter and sound of scurry and scuffle on the stairs and streets, and seeing nothing but the filthy lanes, the smoky sky, and the misery and squalor of the fetid Cowcaddens.
She went into a public-house and purchased a bottle of whisky. That night she got drunk and even happy; but the happiness was one of forgetfulness. She awoke from a heavy sleep in the middle of the night and lit her lamp. Then her eyes fell on the picture of the Virgin, the holy water stoup, the little black crucifix and the white Christ with extended arms and bleeding breast nailed upon it.
“I’ve prayed to ye for years,” she cried, clutching the picture of the Virgin in her hand. “And look at me to-night! It’s little good me prayers has done me; me a drunkard and everything that’s worse nor another!” So speaking, she flung the picture into the dead fire. A spiral of ashes rose slowly, fluttered round and settled on the floor. She brought down the holy water stoup, and resisting with a shudder the desire, bred of long custom, to cross herself, emptied the contents into the fireplace. Then she looked at the confidant of her innumerable vague longings—the crucifix.
“Sorrow!” she laughed. “Did ye ever know what a mother’s sorrow for her dead child was? That’s the sorrow, the sorrow that would make me commit the sins, the most awful in the whole world. But what am I saying? It’s me that doesn’t know all the meanin’ of many things. If the people at home, the master at school, the priest, any one at all had learned me all the things that every girl should know I wouldn’t be here now like something lost on a moor on a black night.”
She went back to her bed, leaving the light burning and the crucifix standing on the little shelf. She wondered why she had not thrown it into the fire as she intended to do, and wondering thus she fell into a deep and drunken slumber.
SHEawoke early, dressed, and went down the stairs into the street. It was Sunday, solitary and silent, with a slight shower of snow falling. Glasgow looked drearier than usual with its grimy houses and the wet roofs, its dirty, miry streets where the snow dissolved as soon as it fell. Norah’s spirits were in sympathy withthe sombre surroundings, and she felt glad that the oppressive noise of the week-days had abated.
Heedless of direction, she walked along and was passing a Catholic chapel when the worshippers who had been to early Mass showered upon her. It was too late to turn back; she walked hurriedly through the crowd, feeling that every eye was turned in her direction.
“Potato-diggers,” someone said. “They’re goin’ back to Ireland to-morrow.”
Norah looked at the speaker, then to the crowd at which he pointed. It was a party of Irish workers, now numbering about thirty in all, and a few stragglers were still coming out to swell the ranks. A young girl with very clear skin and beautiful eyes was putting her rosary, one with a shiny cross at the end of it, into her pocket. An old woman with a black shawl over her head was brushing the snow from her hair. Her face was brown and very wrinkled; the few hairs that fell over her brow were almost as white as the snow that covered her shawl.
A young priest in cassock and gown came out, smiling broadly. “It’s early in the year for snow,” he said, looking at the potato-diggers.
“One may expect anything at this season of the year, yer reverence,” said the old woman with the white hair. The young girl looked closely at the priest, hanging on every word that he uttered.
“Are you all goin’ across home, this winter?” asked the priest.
“All of us,” said a man.
“You like the old country?” enquired the priest.
“Well may we,” answered the old woman. “It’s our own country.”
Norah was moving away; the last words came to her like an echo.
“Our own country!” Norah repeated half aloud, every word coming slowly through her lips. “But I have no country at all, no country! He’s a nice, kind priest, indeed he is. Speakin’ to them just as if they were his own people! I would like to go and confess me sins to that priest!”
The snow fell faster, and presently Norah felt cold. A fit of coughing seized her and the sharp pain which seldom went away from her left shoulder-blade began to trouble her acutely. She turned and went back to her room.
All that evening two pictures kept rising in her mind. One was of the priest with the smiling face talking to the potato-diggers; the other was the picture of the young girl with the clear skin and the beautiful eyes putting the rosary, with the shiny cross at the end of it, into her pocket.
A week passed; the hour was twelve o’clock on a Saturday night. The clocks were striking midnight but the streets were still crowded with people. A boat could be heard hooting on the Broomielaw; a train whistling at Enoch Street station. A woman came along a narrow lane on the Cowcaddens, shouldering her way amongst the people, and abusing in no polite terms those who obstructed her way. She wore a shawl almost torn to shreds and she staggered a little as she walked. Her features were far from prepossessing; dry hacks dented her cheeks and brow; her lips were rough and almost bloodless and wisps of draggled hair hung over her face. As she walked along she broke into snatches of song from time to time.
Under the gaslight staring eyes set in sickly or swarthy faces glared at her; rude remarks and meaningless jokes were made; sounds of laughter rose, echoed and died away. Suddenly a noise, loud as a rising gale, swept through the lane; a man hurried past and rushed along the streets, a young girl followed. The crowd, as if actuated by one common impulse, scurried past the woman, yelling and shrieking. A drunken man stared stupidly after the mob, then fell like a wet sack to the pavement; a labourer struck against the prostrate body;fell, and rose cursing. A whistle was blown. “The slops! the slops!” a ragged youth shouted, and a hundred voices took up the cry. “Run! Run!” others roared.... A little toddling child stood on the pavement crying, one finger in its mouth and its big curious eyes fixed on the rabble.
“What are ye greetin’ for?” asked the woman in the ragged shawl. “Have ye lost yerself?”
“I want me mither!” wailed the child.
“Ye’re here, are ye?” cried a stout, brazen-faced woman, ambling up and seizing the infant, who was trying to chew a penny which the stranger had just given it. “It’s a lass that’s fainted on the pavement,” explained the mother, pointing to the crowd. “I think the corner boys, rascals that they are, were playin’ tricks on her.”
“That’s always the way with people,” said the strange woman. “See and don’t let the child swallow the bawbee.”
With these words she hurried into the press of people, the corners of her shawl fluttering round her. A group of ragged men and women stood on the pavement, chattering noisily. Against the wall a frail form was propped up between two young girls, one of whom had a frightened look on her face; the other was smiling and chewing an orange. A man, lighting a pipe and sheltering the match under the palm of his hand, made some suggestion as to what should be done, but nobody paid any heed.
The woman with the torn shawl elbowed her way through the crowd, and came to a standstill when she caught sight of the girl propped up on the pavement.
“It’s Norah Ryan!” she exclaimed.
“That’s the name,” a female in the crowd said. “She lives up 42. She’s a woman of the kind that.... But ye ken what I mean.”
“And ye’d let her die here, wi’out givin’ a hand to help her!” cried the new-comer, turning fiercely on the speaker. “Help me to take the lass to her house.”
The two girls assisted by two men helped the woman to carry Norah upstairs. The crowd followed, pressing in and shoving against those in front. Someone made a rude remark and the laughter which greeted it floated far up even to the topmost landing, where the paralysed beggar, somewhat the worse for liquor, was singing one of his cheery songs.
THEaccident to Norah happened in this way.
After seeing the Irish diggers come out of the chapel, she felt a sudden desire to go and confess her sins to the young priest. This desire she did not strive to explain or analyse; she only knew that she would be happy in some measure if she went to the chapel again.
The memory of her sins began to trouble her. How many they had been! she thought. From that night when a ring sparkled in the darkness outside Morrison’s farmhouse up till now, when she was a common woman of the streets, what a life she had led! With her mind aspiring towards heaven she became conscious of the mire in which her feet were set; the religion of childhood was now making itself heard in the heart of the woman. Nature had given Norah a power peculiarly her own that enabled her to endure suffering and in turn counselled resignation; but that power was now gone. She required something to lean against, and her heart turned to the faith of which the little black crucifix on the mantelpiece was the emblem. On the Saturday evening following her meeting with the potato-diggers she went to confession.
She entered the chapel, her shawl drawn tightly over her head and almost concealing her face, which looked fair, white and childlike, seen through the half-light of the large building. Although she tried to walk softly her boots made a loud clatter on the floor and the echo caught the sound and carried it far down through nave and chancel. A few candles, little white ghosts with halos of feeble flame around their heads, threw a dim light on the golden ornaments of the altar and the figure of the Christ standing out in bold relief against the darkness over the sacristy door. The sanctuary lamp, hanging from the roof and swaying backwards and forwards, showed like a big red eye.
Outside the confessional a number of men and women were seated on long forms; one or two were kneeling, their rosaries clicking as the beads ran through their fingers. Those seated, with eyes sparkling brightly whenever they turned their heads, looked like white-faced spirits. An old man was shuffling uneasily, his nailed boots rasping on the floor from time to time; a woman having been seized with the hiccough rose and went out, and the row on the seat gathered closer, each no doubt pleased at the prospect of getting in advance of at least one other sinner. Norah sat down at the end of the row, a strange fluttering in her heart, and her fingers opening and closing nervously. She felt that the penitents knew her, that they would arise suddenly and accuse her of her sins. A man opposite looked fixedly at her and she hung her head. The low mumbling voice of the priest saying the words of absolution over a sinner could be heard coming from the confessional. But had there ever been a sinner as bad as she was? Norah asked herself. For her sins it was so hard to ask forgiveness.
“Never, never will I get absolution,” she said under her breath.
Then she began to wonder if the young, pleasant-faced priest who talked to the potato-diggers was in the confessional. He would not be hard on her; he looked so kind and gentle!
“I’m afeared, very afeared,” she whispered to herself. “I’ll not go in this time; I’ll go away and come back again.”
But even as she spoke the woman with the hiccough came back and took up her position on the end of the seat. Norah found that she could not get away now without disturbing the woman. She bowed her head and began to pray.
SHEcould not see the priest in the confessional, but could hear him breathing in short, laboured pants like a very fat old woman. It couldn’t be the young man, Norah thought, as she went down on her knees and began the “Confiteor.” The priest hurried over the words in a weary voice; Norah repeated them after him, stopping now and again to draw her breath. A sensation, almost akin to that which precedes drowning, gripped her throat.
“What sins have ye committed?” asked the priest. “Tell me the greatest first.”
“I am a woman of the streets.” She had now taken the plunge and felt calmer as she waited to be asked a question.
“God’s merciful,” said the priest, and his voice was tinged with interest. “Go on.”
“I am the mother of a child that died but was never christened,” said Norah. “It was all through my own fault.”
“You haven’t been married?”
“No,” said the girl, with a shudder. “I often thought of takin’ my own life.”
“Yes.”
“I took to drink and then threw the picture of the Blessed Virgin and a stoup of holy water into the fire.”
She paused.
“Ye’ve given up the life of the streets?” enquired the priest in a voice teeming with curiosity.
“I have,” answered Norah.
“Did ye like it?”
“No.” The answer was the echo of a whisper almost.
“God’s merciful,” said the priest. His tones seemed hoarse with the passion of a sensuous youth. “And yer other sins?” he asked.
SHEprayed for a long time before the altar, mingling tears with her prayers. Footfalls came and went, but nobody paid any heed to the kneeling woman. Of this she was glad. Norah wanted to do good, as other people commit evil actions, secretly. The trembling shadows thrown by the sanctuary lamp played round the Christ who, with outstretched hand, stood over the sacristy door. How great and serious the Saviour looked! The girl imagined that He was thinking of some great secret belonging to humanity but hidden so deeply that it was unknown to man.
At ten o’clock she returned to her room and sat there for a long while. A great peace had stolen into her soul, a peace that was mingled with no regrets. She had forgotten the pain in her shoulder, forgotten everything but the figure of the Christ over the sacristy door, and the hand that was held out above her head as if in blessing.
It was near midnight when she went out to buy provisionsfor the next day. The hooligans at the street corner were very drunk and very noisy. There were no policemen about; a fight some distance off was engaging their attention.
“Ah! here’s one that’ll hae some siller, the kip-shop wench!” shouted one of the roughs, a big, round-shouldered rascal, on seeing Norah. “Fork out, my pretty, and gie us some tin.”
“Fork out!” roared the rest of the gang in chorus.
Norah stood undecided, one foot in the gutter, one on the pavement. The grocer’s shop was a dozen paces away.
“The cops will be here in a jiffy,” someone shouted in a tense whisper. “Search her!”
Then followed a wild rush and Norah was conscious of many things in the next few minutes. The air seemed suddenly charged with the fumes of alcohol; hands seized her, rough fingers fumbled at her blouse, opened it and rested on her breasts; a whistle was blown, she fell to the pavement, got dragged for a few paces on the wet street and was pulled to her feet again. Someone laid hands on her purse and took it out; a scramble ensued, then a fight for the money. Norah was thrown down again and trampled upon. The hooligans tore the purse and several coins fell to the ground. A second whistle was blown, and the crowd disappeared, leaving Norah lying in a dead faint on the pavement.
WHENshe recovered consciousness she was in her own room, lying on the bed. The lamp was lit and she could hear the coal crackling in the fire. She raised herself up in bed and looked enquiringly around.A stranger, a woman who was bending over the fire, hurried forward.
“And how are ye, Norah Ryan?” asked the stranger.
“It’s Ellen that’s in it,” exclaimed Norah, sinking back on the pillow, but more from surprise than from weariness. “Where have ye come from, Ellen?”
“I was in the street,” explained the woman, who was indeed Ellen—Gourock Ellen. “I saw ye lyin’ on the pavement and I kent ye at once. A woman in the crowd knew where ye lived.... Ye hae nae muckle changed, Norah Ryan. Ye’re just the same as ye was when I saw ye last in Jim Scanlon’s squad. And d’ye mind how me and ye was in the one bed?”
“Ellen, I’m glad that ye came,” said Norah in a low voice. “I used to be often thinkin’ of ye, Ellen.”
“Thinkin’ of me, lass?” exclaimed Ellen, bending over the bed, but keeping her lips as far away as possible from Norah lest the young woman should detect the smell of whisky off her breath. “Why were ye thinkin’ about me? Someone worthier should be in your thoughts.... The rascals in the streets! Ah, the muckle scamps! They should be run into the nick and never let out again. Ill-treatin’ a little lassie like you!”
Norah looked up at the woman. Ellen’s pock-marked face was still full of the same unfailing good nature which belonged to her years before when she worked in Micky’s Jim’s squad.
“Where is Annie?”
“I dinna ken. She went off with a man and I haven’t seen her never since.” Ellen smiled, but so slightly that the smile did not change the expression of her eyes.
“Ye don’t tell me! And ye’ve never been back at the squad again?”
“Never back. I was times workin’ at the rag-pickin’ and times gatherin’ coal from the free coup.”
“That’s what Mary Martin done,” Norah exclaimed. “She was a woman known to me.”
“And ye kent old Mary!” said Ellen. “Me and her have worked together for many’s a day, makin’ a shillin’ a day each at the job.”
The woman paused.
“Are ye feelin’ a wee better, Norah?” she asked presently.
“I’m fine, Ellen,” was the answer. “I could get up and run about and I’m not in the least sleepy. What were the corner boys wantin’ to do?”
“They wanted siller——”
“My purse, Ellen! Have they taken it from me?” Norah searched nervously in the pockets of her dress.
“I’m afeared that they have.”
“Mother of God! I haven’t one penny now, Ellen, not one brown penny!” Norah exclaimed. “It’ll be the streets for me again.”
“We’ll get along somehow, if we work together,” said Ellen.
“We’ll work together; that’s the way,” Norah whispered after a moment’s consideration.
“Twa is always better than yin,” Ellen replied.
Norah looked closely at the woman as if puzzling out something; then her eyes closed gently and quietly and she fell asleep. She awoke several times during the night, mumbled incoherent words, then sank into a deep slumber again. And all night Gourock Ellen watched over Norah Ryan. Morning found her still sitting beside the bed, weary-eyed but patient, her eyes fixed on the face of the sleeping girl.
INthe morning Norah was in a raging fever. She spoke in her delirium of many things, prattling like a child about the sea and curraghs of Frosses going out beyond Trienna Bar in the grey dusk of the harvest evening. She held conversation with people visible to none but herself: with Fergus, with Dermod Flynn, with her mother, with the dead child. The girl’s whole history for the last three years was thus disclosed to Gourock Ellen. Days came and went; the patient became no better. A doctor was called in; he applied his stethoscope to Norah’s chest and shook his head gravely.
“Well?” asked Ellen eagerly.
“I’ll come again to-morrow,” said the doctor, and his tones implied that this was a very important announcement. “Meanwhile——” and he gave Ellen instructions as to how she should treat the patient.
Money was scarce; Norah had lost every penny of hers on the night that the hooligans attacked her. The other woman had only twenty-five shillings in her possession, and this went very quickly. Then Ellen called on the Jew, Isaac Levison, who had the pawnbroking business on the stair.
“D’ye ken the lass Norah Ryan?” Ellen enquired of the man, an undersized, genial-looking fellow with sharp eyes and a dark moustache.
“I know her,” said the Jew. He knew Ellen by sight and reputation; the kind way in which she was treating the girl was common talk on the stairs.
“I want the len’ o’ three pounds,” said Ellen. “I can only gie my promise to pay it back when I get work. Is that enough of a security?”
“I’ll take your word,” said the Jew, who was to some extent a judge of character, and who was kindly disposed towards the woman, having heard much that was good about her. “Five per cent.,” he added. “That’s extra good terms.”
When the doctor came the next day Ellen spoke to him.
“Cash is gey scarce here,” she said, “but do yer best for the girl and I’ll meet the bill some day. I’ll meet it, doctor, so help me God!”
The doctor smiled slightly; such protestations were not new to him. Besides, he was a kindly man.
“I’ll do my best for her,” he said. “And as to payment—well, we’ll see.”
“Ye’ll get paid,” said Ellen fiercely. “Ye must wait, but it doesn’t matter what happens, ye’ll get paid, mind that! Though the lass is no blood relation of mine, I dinna want ye to work for charity. And I’ll pay ye yer siller; aye, if I’ve to work my fingers to the bone to do it.”
The doctor looked at the woman and knew that she was speaking from the depths of her heart.
ANOTHERfortnight, and the tang of spring was in the air. Ellen had procured work as a charwoman in a large school, and being a good, reliable worker, several smaller jobs came her way. Her wages now amounted to nine shillings a week. Norah had recovereda little; the cough was not as hard as formerly; the pain under her left shoulder-blade had lost its sting, but, though hardly noticeable, it was always there. At first Ellen found it difficult to induce Norah to stop in bed; the girl wanted to get about and do some work. Only when she got to her feet did Norah become fully conscious of the weakness in her legs and spine.
As she lay there in her narrow bed she could discern through the cracked window the sky, always sombre grey and covered with low, sagging clouds. Now and again she could see a homing crow fly past on lazy wings or perhaps a white sea-gull turning sharply far up in the sky with a glint of sunshine resting on its distended wings. And often on a clear night, when the moonbeams filtered through the ragged blind, Norah would dream of Frosses, and the sea, the old home, with the moon rising over the hills of Glenmornan and lighting up the coast of Donegal.
“I have been a great trouble to ye, Ellen,” Norah said one evening, turning round in the bed and looking earnestly at her friend. “I seem to be only a trouble to everyone that I meet, and now to yerself most of all. Ye have been the great friend to me, Ellen.”
“Haud yer tongue, ye muckle simple hussy,” said Ellen with a smile, sorting the blankets on the bed. “Now gang to sleep and dinna let me hear ye fash any longer. Are ye happy?”
“I’m very happy, Ellen, waitin’ for the minit.”
“What are ye haverin’ aboot, silly lassie?”
“I used to build castles on Dooey Strand, that’s home in Donegal, when I was wee,” said Norah. “And then when they were big and high the tide would come in and sweep them away in one little minit. Them castles were like people’s lives. Used ye to make castles in the sand when ye were wee, Ellen?”
“Not in the sand, but in the air, Norah,” said Ellen reminiscently. “I began the bad life gey early. My mither—she wasna what some people might cry vera guid; but she was my mither, Norah. Maybe I wasna wanted when I came, but she had the pain o’ bringin’ me forth. Well, I kent most things before I was sixteen years auld. Sixteen is an age when a girl dinna weigh her actions, and sixteen likes pretty dresses, and sixteen disna like to starve. Though we were poor and often hungry I kept pure for a long while. But to tell the truth I didna think it worth it in the end, Norah.”
She paused for a moment and sorted a piece of cloth to fit on the dress she was patching.
“At eighteen—that’s a gey guid wheen of years ago now—I took it in my heid that I wisna goin’ to sin ony mair,” Ellen went on. “I got very religious and bowed myself in the dust before God. ‘He’ll ne’er forgie me my trespasses,’ I said, ‘for I’m a poor miserable sinner.’ I got a Bible then and read in it mony things that were a consolation and an upliftin’ to me. And last night I bought one on the streets, Norah. A man with a barrow was sellin’ them, and I got one for a penny. I thought that maybe we would read pieces from it together.”
“The Catholic Church doesn’t allow us to read the Bible,” said Norah.
“I’ll only read one little bit,” said Ellen, taking a dilapidated volume from her pocket. “Ye’ll listen to it, Norah, won’t ye?”
“Anything that pleases yerself, Ellen, will please me.”
ELLENlaid down her scissors, trimmed the wick of the lamp, resumed her seat, wetted her thumb and began to turn over the pages of the volume.
“Here it is,” she said, and commenced to read in a low voice.
“ ‘And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them. And the Scribes and Pharisees’—they were a kind of people that lived in them days, Norah—‘brought unto Him a woman taken in’—who committed a bad sin; ‘and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto Him: Master, this woman was taken’—when she was sinnin’—‘in the very act. Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou? This they said, temptin’ Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not. So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself and said unto them:He that is without sin amongst you let him first cast a stone at her. And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up Himself and saw none but the woman, He said unto her: Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.’ ”
Tears showed in Ellen’s eyes when she finished reading; then without giving Norah time to speak, she went on with her own story.
“I gave up the life on the streets for twa and twa—for nearly four months, Norah. Then my mither took ill and was like to dee. I nursed her for a long while, then the siller gaed awa’ and hunger came in its place. I had never learnt ony trade; there was only one thing to bedone, Norah. I went oot tae the streets again, oot to sin knowingly, and what was before an ignorant lassie’s mistake was then and after a fault, black in the eyes of heaven.”
Ellen paused and looked up at the roof. Perhaps she was again seeing herself as she was on that evening long ago, a wistful and pretty girl, a child almost, going out into the streets to earn the money that would buy food and clothing for her ailing mother.
“I came back the next morn, greetin’ a wee, if I remember right, and twa pieces of gold in my pocket. When I came into our room I found my mither lyin’ on her chair by the fire, and she was dead!”
“Poor Ellen,” said Norah in a low voice. “Ye had a hard time of it from the beginnin’.”
“Hard’s not the word,” cried Ellen, and a fierce look came into her eyes. “It was damnable!”
There was silence for a moment, when the two women felt rather than thought. As in a dream, they could hear crowds passing like tides along the narrow lane outside.
“Will God ever forgive us for our sins?” asked Norah.
“Ye have never ceased to be pure in the sight of God, lass,” said Ellen; “and if baith of us are judged accordin’ to our sufferin’s we needna hae muckle fear. That’s the way I look at things, Norah!”
And Ellen, taking up her scissors, restarted her work, a smile almost angelic in its sadness playing in odd little waves over her face. And in the poor woman’s soul, glowing brighter even in misfortune, burned that divine and primary spark which evil and accident could never extinguish.