SHEhad not seen Morrison for close on fourteen months, and he had never written to her; but time and again she intended to post one of the letters which she spent part of her time in writing to him. But they were never posted, and often she wondered why she had written them. Why, he wouldn’t care for her, she told herself many times. He was far above her, a gentleman; she was only a poor worker, a little potato gatherer. He had never written and perhaps he did not love her one little bit. She felt angry and resentful with him, as she went out from the stuffy shed and looked up at the starlit sky.
Alec Morrison was waiting. Norah could see his darkform showing against the white gable of the byre, and could hear the crunch of his boots on the gravel as he changed his position. He had just come from Glasgow; he was working there now and he had come down to see Norah before she went back to Ireland. He had often intended to write to her but never did. Other more pressing problems, relating to a new sweetheart, a pretty little damsel in wonderful dresses and with no more morals than a bird, took up his attention. He held out his hand to Norah when she approached.
“I’m glad you’ve come out,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve been waiting here for quite a long while.”
He had been waiting for her! Norah’s heart gave a bound of gladness.
“But you never wrote to me,” she said reproachfully.
“You didn’t write to me and I didn’t know your address.”
That was really why he hadn’t written! How strange she had never thought of that.
“And ye would write?”
“Certainly, Norah,” he said. He had not let her hand go, now he imprisoned the other. How coarse they were and hard from her season’s work! The hands of the Glasgow girl.... But he felt that he was doing something wrong in comparing the two women at that moment.
“Do you mind the last night you were here?”
“I have often been thinkin’ of that night,” said Norah.
“Are you going to run away from me to-night?”
“No.”
“Why did you run away the last time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was that I was afraid.”
She looked back at the shed as she spoke, saw old Maire a Glan bending over the fire, Willie the Duck playing his fiddle; could hear the loud laughter of Micky’sJim. Norah looked up at the face of the man beside her and was not in the least afraid.
“We’ll go along the lane a bit,” he said.
They went together hand in hand along the hazel-lined gravel pathway. Overhead the stars sparkled, the trees, showing thin against the sky, waved their bare arms in the slight breeze and moaned plaintively. Willie the Duck was playing “Way down upon the Swanee River,” and it seemed as if the melody drifted in from a great distance.
“That’s a wonderful melody,” said the young man. “In it is the heart and soul of a persecuted people.”
He had heard somebody make that remark in the club and it appealed to him. The girl made no answer to his words. They stopped as if by mutual consent opposite the large shed in the stack yard.
“It’s very cold,” said Morrison.
“Is it? No.”
“We’ll go in here,” said the young man. He pulled the gate of the stack yard apart and went in, Norah following. A vague sense of danger, of some impending menace, suddenly took possession of the girl. The sight of the fire shining would be comforting, but she could not see the shed now. Between her and it the farmhouse stood up white and lonesome. A light glimmered for a moment in one of the rooms, then went out. Somewhere near a dog barked loudly, another joined in the outcry; an uneasy bird rose from the copse and fluttered off into the night.
They entered the shed. Inside it was warm and quiet and the scent of old hay pervaded the place. A strange fear, blending in some measure with joy, came over Norah. Morrison’s arms were round her and she felt as if she wanted to tell him some great secret. No thought of danger was now in her mind. The problems of existence had never given her a moment’s thought.All things were to her a matter of course, the world, the trees, the flowers and stars, and men and women. Love in some vague way she knew was related to marriage just as faith had some relation to heaven. But the faith in God which was hers was something which she never strove to analyse, and the love for the young man filled her being so much at present that she could not draw herself apart from it and consider the rights and wrongs of her position.
Everything was so peaceful and quiet that it seemed as if all the world were asleep and dreaming. Some words, hazy as the remembrance of almost forgotten dreams, drifted into her mind. They were words once spoken by Sheila Carrol at the hour of midnight on Dooey Strand.
“When the earth is asleep, child, that will be a dangerous hour, for you may then commit the mortal sin of love.”
What did Sheila mean when she spoke like that? Why was she thinking of those words now? Norah did not know. Before her was a great mystery, something unexplainable, terrible. The great fundamental truths of life were unknown to Norah; no one had ever explained to her why she was and how she had come into being. She walked blindly in a world of pitfalls and perils; unhelped by anyone she groped futilely in the dark for one sure resting place, looked for one illuminating ray of certainty to light up her path. At that moment the soul within the fair body of hers warned her in some vague way of the danger which lay before her. “You may commit the mortal sin of love.”
What did those words mean? She wanted to run away, but instead she clung closer to the man; she could feel his lips hot on hers and his breath warm on her cheek.
SOMETHINGterrible had happened. The maiden’s purity, never sullied by a careless thought, was sullied for ever. To the girl it appeared as if something priceless which she loved and treasured had suddenly been broken to pieces. Morrison stood beside her, his hands resting on her shoulders, his breath short and husky; and his whole appearance became suddenly repulsive to the girl. And the man wanted to be gone from her side. He had desired much, obtained what he desired, but was now far from satisfied. He felt in some vague, inexplicable way that she had suddenly become distasteful to him. With other women he had often before experienced the same feeling. He bent over the girl, who quivered like a reed under his hands.
“Are you going into the house?” he asked. He almost said “byre.”
“I’ll go in myself,” she answered in a low voice. “Go away and leave me.... Go away!”
“Are you angry with me?” he asked. He was now ashamed of all that had taken place, ashamed of himself and ashamed of the girl. In some subconscious way it was borne to him that the girl was to blame. He thrust the thought away for a moment but when it returned again he hugged it eagerly. He wanted to believe it; he chose to believe it.
“Good-night, Norah. I’ll see you again to-morrow before you go away.” He released her arms and went out through the gateway. She could hear his footsteps for a long while but never looked after him. A great fear settled on her heart; she was suddenly conscious of having done something terribly wrong, and it seemed as if the very fabric of her life had been torn to shreds.Weeping, she stole back to the shed like a frightened child.
The party was in a great state of excitement. A rat chased by some prowling dog had just run into the shed and passed between the legs of Maire a Glan, who was warming her hands at the fire.
“Mercy be on us! a dirty, big grey rat,” Maire was saying. “It was that long, as the man said.” She stretched a long lean arm out in front of her as she spoke.
“If we caught it we’d put paraffin oil all over it and set fire to its hair,” said Micky’s Jim. “That’s what scares the rats!”
“Ye wouldn’t set fire to a dumb animal, would ye?” asked Brigid Doherty.
“Wouldn’t I? What would yerself do with it?”
“One might kill it in an easier way.”
“Any way at all, for it’s all the same,” said Micky’s Jim. “Last year me and Dermod Flynn killed a lot on yon farm in Rothesay. The farmer gave us a penny a tail and we made lots of tin. How much did we make, Norah Ryan?” he asked. “It’s yerself that has the memory and ye were always concerned about Dermod.” “I don’t remember,” said Norah, who was standing at the door of the shed.
“The old mad farmer was goin’ to cheat us out of a tanner, anyway,” said Micky’s Jim. “But I soon put up my fives to him. ‘Smell them fists,’ I says to him——”
“Ye never stop talkin’ about fights,” said Biddy Wor.
“That’s the kind of him,” said Maire a Glan. “His people had the contrary drop in their veins always. D’ye mind, Norah Ryan, the way that——”
But when the old woman looked round Norah had disappeared. She had stolen out through the starlight to her bed, her mind groping blindly with a terrible mystery which she could not fathom.
INthe June of the following year Norah Ryan received a letter from Scotland. It ran:
“47, Ann Street,“Cowcaddens,“Glasgow.“My dear Norah,“It is a long while now since you heard a word from me. I often intended to write to you, but my hand was not used to the pen; it comes foreign to my fingers. I am not like you, a scholart that was so long at the Glenmornan school-house with Master Diver.“I am working away here in Scotland, the black country with the cold heart. I have only met one of the Glenmornan people for a long while. That was Oiney Dinchy’s son, Thady, and he’s a dock labourer on the quay. He told me all about the people at home. He said that poor Maire a Crick, God rest her soul! is dead. Do you mind the night on Dooey Head long ago? Them was the bad and bitter times. He said that Father Devaney has furnished his new house and the cost of it was thousands of pounds, a big lot for a poor parish to pay. He also told me that you were over with the potato squad in Scotland and that you were looked on with no unkindly eyes by a rich farmer’s son. But whoever he is or whatever he is, you are too good for him, for it is yourself that was always the comely girl with the pleasant ways. Whatever you do, child, watch yourself anyway,for the men that are in black foreign parts are not to have the great trust put in them.“Mac Oiney Dinchy was saying that no word has come from Dermod Flynn for a long time. He didn’t send much money home to his own people and they think that he has gone to the bad. Well, for all they say, Dermod was a taking lad when I knew him.“And old Farley McKeown—the Lord be between us and harm!—got married! What will we see next? I wonder what an old dry stick like him wants to get married for; and Mac Oiney Dinchy says that he gave his wife sixty thousand pounds as a wedding present. Well, well!“I do be lonely here often, and I am wishful that you would take up the pen and write me a long letter when you get this one, and if ever you come to Scotland again come to Glasgow and spend a couple of days with me.“Hoping that yourself and your mother is in good health,“Sheila Carrol.”
“47, Ann Street,“Cowcaddens,“Glasgow.
“My dear Norah,
“It is a long while now since you heard a word from me. I often intended to write to you, but my hand was not used to the pen; it comes foreign to my fingers. I am not like you, a scholart that was so long at the Glenmornan school-house with Master Diver.
“I am working away here in Scotland, the black country with the cold heart. I have only met one of the Glenmornan people for a long while. That was Oiney Dinchy’s son, Thady, and he’s a dock labourer on the quay. He told me all about the people at home. He said that poor Maire a Crick, God rest her soul! is dead. Do you mind the night on Dooey Head long ago? Them was the bad and bitter times. He said that Father Devaney has furnished his new house and the cost of it was thousands of pounds, a big lot for a poor parish to pay. He also told me that you were over with the potato squad in Scotland and that you were looked on with no unkindly eyes by a rich farmer’s son. But whoever he is or whatever he is, you are too good for him, for it is yourself that was always the comely girl with the pleasant ways. Whatever you do, child, watch yourself anyway,for the men that are in black foreign parts are not to have the great trust put in them.
“Mac Oiney Dinchy was saying that no word has come from Dermod Flynn for a long time. He didn’t send much money home to his own people and they think that he has gone to the bad. Well, for all they say, Dermod was a taking lad when I knew him.
“And old Farley McKeown—the Lord be between us and harm!—got married! What will we see next? I wonder what an old dry stick like him wants to get married for; and Mac Oiney Dinchy says that he gave his wife sixty thousand pounds as a wedding present. Well, well!
“I do be lonely here often, and I am wishful that you would take up the pen and write me a long letter when you get this one, and if ever you come to Scotland again come to Glasgow and spend a couple of days with me.
“Hoping that yourself and your mother is in good health,
“Sheila Carrol.”
“Who would that letter be from?” asked Mary Ryan from her seat in the chimney corner. A pile of dead ashes lay on the hearth; the previous summer had been wet and the turf was not lifted from the bog.
“It’s from Sheila Carrol, mother.”
“From that woman, child! And what would she be writing to you for, Norah?”
“She’s dying to hear from the Frosses people,” answered the girl. “And it is very lonely away in the big city.”
“Lonely!” exclaimed the mother. “If she is lonely it’s her own fault. It’s the hand of God that’s heavy on her because of her sin.”
“That’s no reason why the tongue of her country people should be bitter against her.”
“Saying that, child!” cried the woman. “What’s comin’ over you at all, girsha? Never let me hear of you writing to that woman!”
Norah went to the door and looked at the calm sea stretching out far below. The waves were bright under the glance of the sun; a dark boat, a little speck in the distance, was moving out towards the bar.
“Where are you going, Norah?” asked the woman at the fire.
“Down to the sea, mother,” answered the girl as she made her way towards the beach.
BETWEENthe ragged rocks the grass was soft to the feet and refreshing to the eyes. Two lone sycamore trees showed green against the sky; a few stray leaves, shrivelled and filed through by caterpillars, were fluttering to the earth. A long fairy-thimble stalk, partly despoiled by some heedless child but still bearing three beautiful bells at the extreme top, whipped backwards and forwards in the wind, and Norah, reaching forward, pulled off one of the flowers and pinned it to her breast.
The tide was on the turn. The girl sat on a rock by the shore and put her small brown feet in the water. Down under the moving waves they looked as if they didn’t belong to her at all. Here it was very quiet; the universal silence magnified the tranquillity of things. Under the girl’s feet it was very deep, very dark, and very peaceful; there, where a reflected swallow swept through a wide expanse of mirrored blue, in the sea under her, were no regrets, no heart-sickness, and no sorrow. When the tide went out a fair young body, a white face with closed eyes would lie on the strand. Then the Frosses people would know why the terrible phantom, Death, was courted by a girl.
“It was all a great mistake,” she said to herself, andin the excitement caused by the stress of thought she sank her nails into her palms. The memory of a night passed seven months before came vividly to her mind. How many tearful nights had gone by since then! How many times had she written to Alec Morrison telling him of her plight! No answer had come; the man was indifferent.
“I wasn’t the girl for the likes of him, anyway,” said Norah, looking at her feet in the water. “But why has all this happened to me?”
As in all great crises of a person’s life, there came a moment of vivid consciousness to Norah and every surrounding object stamped itself indelibly on her mind. The tide was sweeping slowly out; the seaweed in the pool beneath swayed like the hair of a dead body floating in the water. Two little fish with wide-open eyes looked up and seemed to be staring at her. Beneath in the water the fleecy clouds looked like little white spots against the blue of the mirrored sky, and the bar moaned loudly on the frontier of the deep sea.
“No matter what I do now, no one will think me worse than I am,” said the poor girl. “I’ll have no joy no more in my life, for there’s no happiness that I can look forward to.”
She pulled the fairy thimbles from her breast and crushed them in her hand. Out near the bar she could see the little black boat heaving on the waves. Norah rose to her feet.
How dark the water looked under her. The sand sloped sharply from her feet to the bottom of the pool, which was bedded with sharp rocks covered with trailing, slimy seaweed. She peered in, catching her breath sharply as she did so. Then one little brown foot went further into the water, afterwards the other. She bent down, cut the water apart with her hands; a slight ripplespread out on both sides and was lost almost as soon as it was formed.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, pray for me a sinner now and at the hour of my death, Amen,” she said, repeating a prayer which had flowed countless times since childhood from her lips.
A sudden thought struck her and a look of perplexity overspread her face. “This is pilin’ one sin on top of the other,” she said in a low voice and looked round, fearing that somebody had overheard her. Everything about was silent as if in fear; in that moment she thought that the sea had ceased to move, the swallow to circle, herself even to live; the world seemed to be waiting for something—an event of great and terrible purport, hidden and unknown.
Suddenly the child that was in her leapt under her heart and a keen but not unpleasant pain swept through her body. She drew back from the pool, horror-stricken at the thing which she intended to do.
“I’ll go home,” she said meekly, as if obeying some command. “Maybe he’ll have pity on me when I go over again beyond the water. This day week Micky’s Jim, he goes again. And I can go to Sheila Carrol. She knows and she has the good heart. God in His heaven have pity on me and all that’s like me! for it’s the ignorant girl that I was.... If anyone had told me.... But I knew nothin’, nothin’, and I’m black now in the eyes of God as I’ll soon be black in the eyes of the world, of Dermod Flynn, of me mother and everybody that knows me. Nobody will speak to me then atall, atall!”
A dead weight lay on Norah’s heart; the child beneath her heart was a burden. But even yet (it was now the month of August) those in Micky’s Jim’s squad did not suspect her condition. She knew, however, that she could not conceal her plight much longer, and she wanted to run away and hide. How could she endure the glance of her country people, of Micky’s Jim and Maire a Glan, when the truth became known?
The squad would soon set off to Morrison’s. Things would go well if once she got there, she assured herself. At present she wished that she had someone to confide in, somebody to whom she could tell her story. But in the squad there was none whom she could take into her confidence. The old women from Glenmornan and Frosses, brimful of a narrow, virtuous simplicity, were not the ones to sympathise with her; they would only condemn. If Gourock Ellen was here, Norah felt that she could sigh her misfortune into that woman’s heart; but neither Gourock Ellen nor Annie had turned up for the last two years, and nobody knew what had become of them.
One day Norah felt that her secret was discovered. No one spoke of it; no one hinted at her condition, butall at once a curious feeling of restraint, of suspicion, charged the atmosphere of the barn and potato field. Whenever she asked a question those to whom she spoke fixed on her a stare of thinly-veiled pity, not pity in essence but in design, before replying. Once or twice when ploughing through the fields, her head bent upon her work, she glanced round covertly to see the eyes of everybody in the squad fixed on her. No one spoke and all silently resumed their work when she looked at them. The silence terrified and crushed the girl. “How much do they know?” she asked herself. That afternoon as she ploughed her way through the wet fields Micky’s Jim came up and stood behind her. Instinctively she knew that he was going to speak and she waited his words in fear and trembling.
“Norah Ryan,” he said, and his words came out very slowly, “who is to blame? Is it——”
Jim bent down, lifted a potato which she had passed over, threw it into the barrel and left the sentence unfinished.
It was Friday, the day on which the weekly wages of the party were paid. That night, when Norah received her money, she stole away from the squad intending to call on Alec Morrison.
ITwas the last day of August. The swallows and swifts circled above Norah’s head and from time to time swept down over the sodden pastures where the farm cattle were grazing. The birds snapped greedily at the awkward crane-flies that were now rising on their great September flights. Morrison’s farm was twenty miles distant, and not wanting to spend the money which she had earned at her work, Norah travelled all nightlong. In the morning she found that she had lost her way and had to retrace her steps for full seven miles in order to regain her former course. At a wayside post-office she sent half the money in her possession home to her mother. Late in the evening, feeling footsore and very weary, she came to the farm. Although she had not eaten food since leaving the squad she did not feel in the least hungry. Now and again dizziness seized her, however, and a sharp pain kept tapping as if with a hammer in her head.
“Everything will be all right now,” she said as she saw the lights of the farm glowing through the haze of the evening, but for all that she said the grave doubts which weighed upon her could not be shaken away. She entered the farmyard. A few stars were out in the sky, a low wind swept round the newly-built hayrick and the scent of hay filled her nostrils. Alec would surely be at home. She uttered the word “Alec” aloud; she had never given it utterance in his presence, she recollected, and wondered why she thought of that now.
The windows of the house were lighted up, and a long stream of light quivered out into the darkness. Norah approached the door, stood for a moment looking at the shiny brass knocker but refrained from lifting it. She was very frightened; the heart within her fluttered like a little bird that struggles violently against the bars of the cage in which it is imprisoned. One frail white hand was slowly lifted to the knocker; between the girl’s fingers it felt very cold and she let it go without moving it. A great weariness had gripped her limbs, and her hand, heavy and dead, seemed as if it did not belong to her.
She came away from the door and approached the window. She could hear loud laughter from the inside and somebody was playing on the piano. A dark blindhid the interior of the room from her view, but the light streaming out showed where the blind had been displaced at one corner, and pressing her brow against the pane Norah looked in.
The piano suddenly ceased; a frail shadow came between the light and the window; then a young and beautiful girl passed like a vision across the stretch of room open to the watcher’s eyes. Norah’s glance took in the girl for a moment; she noticed a fair head firmly poised, a small hand raised to brush back the tresses that fell down over a white brow. Even as the small hand was raised, a hand, larger, but almost as white, reached out and the fingers of the girl were gripped in a firm embrace.
Norah started violently, hitting her head sharply against the window-pane, and with difficulty restraining the cry that rose to her lips. The hand, white as a woman’s almost, with the glittering ring on the middle finger, how well she knew it. And who was the fair girl, the fleeting and beautiful vision on whom she looked in from the cold and darkness of the night? Norah did not know, but instinctively she felt rising in her heart a great resentment against the woman in the room. Hatred filled her soul; her breath came sharply through her nostrils and a mist gathered before her eyes.
“I’m not goin’ to cry!” she said defiantly, and began to weep silently even as she spoke.
A withered husk of moon crept up the sky; a dying wind moaned feebly on the roof overhead and on the ground beneath the girl’s feet; a blundering moth struck sharply against her face, fell to the ground, rose slowly and as slowly disappeared. All around was the vast breathing silence of the infinite, the mystery of the world.
Norah looked into the room again and old Farmer Morrison was facing her, a long white pipe in his mouth anda starched collar under his chin. A broad grin overspread his face, and he looked like a fat, serious frog that had suddenly begun to smile. The upturned end of the blind slowly fluttered down and the whole interior of the room was hidden from the girl’s eyes.
“Here am I out in the cold, and everyone is happy inside,” said the poor girl, pressing her hand tightly against her breast as she spoke. “What was I doin’ atall, atall, when I was here before? How I call to mind that night of all nights, a dear night to me! And it is forever written red in my soul.... There he’s in there and in there is another girl—not me. I’m out here in the cold.... Mother of God! What am I to do?”
Norah went back from the window, caring nothing for the noise she made; caring little for what might now happen to her. Her face twitched, her breath stressed through her nostrils, her shoulders rose slowly and fell rapidly. The breeze gathered strength; it swept as if in a light passion around the farmyard and caused the girl’s skirts to cling closely about her legs. She leant for support against the shed in which Micky’s Jim and his squad had taken up their quarters so often. How bare and lonely the place looked now! Somewhere in the far corner a rat was gnawing at the woodwork with its sharp teeth; presently it ran out into the open, moving along rapidly, but as softly as a piece of velvet trailed on polished wood.
At that moment an intense and sudden revulsion of feeling took place within Norah. She was filled with a strange dislike for everything and everybody. A great change began to operate in her soul. In one vivid flash the whole world lay as if naked before her. Man lived for pleasure only; he had no thought for others; he cared only for himself, his passions and desires. What had she been doing all her life? Working for others, slavingthat others might be happy. She worked to bring money to the landlord (ah! the dresses that the landlord’s daughters wore!), to Farley McKeown (ah! the lady that got sixty thousand pounds to become his wife!), and to the priest (ah! the big mansion and the many rooms!). At this awful moment she dared not go to one of her people for help. Even her mother would give her the cold glance if she went home; she might shut the very door in her daughter’s face. There was nobody to care for her—but even at that moment she recollected Gourock Ellen and Sheila Carrol, and felt that in these two women great wells of sympathy were open and at these she might refresh her weary soul.
Before her for an instant the world lay exposed to its very core; then as if by a falling curtain the sight was hidden again from her eyes and she found herself, a lonely little girl, leaning against the cold wall, her head sunk on her breast and her numb fingers, that almost lacked feeling, pressing against the rough masonry of the shed. A great wave of self-pity surged through the girl and she burst into tears.
She took no heed of the voice near her, did not see the dark forms which stood beside her, and only started violently and looked round when a hand was laid upon her shoulder. Two persons, a man and a woman, were looking at her. But even then in the terrible isolation of her own thoughts she took little heed of the strangers. She gazed at them vacantly for a moment, then turned towards the wall again as if nothing interested her but the bleak shed and the rats squeaking in the corner. When, after a moment, the strange woman ventured to speak, Norah looked round in surprise. She had forgotten all about the two people. Recollection of having seen them before came to her; they were the man and womanthat had made such an impression on Morrison when he viewed them sleeping in the pig-sty.
“What’s wrong with ye?” asked the woman in a not unkindly voice. Norah could detect the odour of whisky in her breath and concluded that both the man and woman were drunk.
“Poor girl!” said the man when Norah did not answer. He looked closely at her and seemed to understand her plight. “Poor lassie!” he repeated.... “Where’s yer folk? Ah, I know who ye are, for I saw ye before. Ye were here with the tattie diggers last year, weren’t ye?”
“Come doon to the shed with us,” said the woman. “It’s warmer there than here.”
The woman took the girl gently but firmly by the hand and led her into the sty in which herself and the man lived. Norah made no protest and followed the woman without a word. In the dwelling-place of the man and woman it was very dark and rats were scampering all over the place.
“Jean,” said the man on hearing the scurrying in the corner, “rats!”
“Last night they ate all our food,” said the woman.
“Last night, Jean?” interrogated the man.
“The night before,” the woman corrected.
The man drew a match from his pocket, rubbed it on his trousers and lit a candle stuck in the neck of a black bottle which stood on the floor. Near it a small pile of wood, hemmed with a few lumps of coal, was ready for lighting. To this the man applied the match and in a few minutes the fire was burning brightly. A dark smoke rose to the roof, which was broken in several places; something small like a bird fluttered out from the rafters and whirred in the air above.
“Jean,” said the man, “a blind bat!”
“Sit doon here, lass,” said the woman, drawing forwarda splintered chest and placing it beside Norah. “We’ll gie ye somethin’ to eat in a meenit. Are ye hungry?”
“Not hungry,” said Norah, sitting down on the box, “but dry.”
“This is what ye need,” said the man, drawing a bottle from his pocket and handing it to the girl.
“I don’t drink,” said Norah. “I’ve the pledge.”
“Jean,” said the man, looking at his wife and pointing to a tin porringer which lay on the ground beside him, “water.”
The woman went out and returned in a few minutes with a porringer of water which she handed to Norah, who drank deeply.
“Jean,” said the man, uncorking the bottle which he held in his hand, “drink!” The woman returned the bottle when she had drunk a mouthful.
“Jean, tea!”
The woman emptied the porringer from which Norah had drunk and went out again.
“She’s a rare body that!” said the man to Norah when the woman clattered away through the darkness. “I like her, I like her—like——” he paused for a moment and bit the nail of his thumb; “like blazes!” he concluded.
Norah looked round and took a sudden interest in the place. An instinctive liking for this man and woman crept into her soul. True they were both half-tipsy, and the man now and again without any apparent reason uttered words which were not nice to hear.
“Yer wife is a kindly woman,” said Norah, breaking through the barriers of her silence.
“Wife!” said the man and laughed a trifle awkwardly. “Wife! Well, I suppose it is all the same.”
The man was a stunted little fellow, unshaven and ragged, but his shoulders were very broad. The littlefinger of his left hand was missing and his toes peeped out through his boots. His teeth were stained a dirty yellow with tobacco juice.
“It’s not much of a place, this,” he said. “We never have much company here ’cept the bat that lives in the rafters and the wind that comes in by the door and the stars that look down through the roof.”
He laughed loudly, but seeing that Norah did not join in his laughter, he suddenly became silent. Norah’s eyes again roved round the place. It was dirty and squalid, well in keeping with the occupants. A potato barrel stood in one corner; beside it was a pile of straw covered with a few dirty bags. This was the bed. The guttering candle gleamed feebly in the corner and the grease ran down the bottle. Overhead the bat was still fluttering madly, hitting against the joists every moment.
The woman re-entered the shed and placed the porringer of water on the fire; the man went to the barrel, lifted the bag which served as a cover, and brought out little packets of food.
“Can I be of any help to you?” asked Norah, rising to her feet.
“Ye’re tired and worn,” said the woman.
“Jean,” said the man, “don’t let the lass work.”
Norah sat down again. A box came from the dark recess of the room; the woman wiped it with her apron and laid it on the floor by the fire. The man placed a loaf, some sugar, a piece of butter, and a tin mug on the table.
“Donal,” said the woman suddenly, “milk.”
The man went out and returned in about ten minutes with some warm milk at the bottom of a large wooden pail.
“We just get a wee drop from the farmer’s cows when there’s nobody about,” he explained.
When tea was ready the girl was handed the tin porringer filled to the brim; the pannikin in which the tea was made served the other two, both drinking from the vessel in turn. Norah ate the bread greedily; she felt very hungry. The man and woman had recourse to the bottle once more when the meal was finished.
“Where is the tattie squad now?” asked Donal.
“Down at G—— farm, near S——,” answered Norah.
“Donal, dinna speir,” said the woman in a sharp voice.
“Jean, haud yer tongue,” answered the man, but he did not press the question when he noticed a startled look steal into Norah’s eyes.
“Things maun be some way,” said the woman in a voice of consolation, though she seemed to be addressing nobody in particular, “and things will happen.”
“There’s great goings-on in there,” said Donal, pointing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the farmhouse. “Morrison’s son has been and engaged to a young lady. Happen that ye may have seen the young man when ye were here afore.”
Norah looked at Donal straight in the eyes and he felt that she was seeing through him into a world far beyond. The man looked at Jean; their glances met and a message flashed between them.
“Him!” said the woman.
“The feckless rascal!” exclaimed the man.
He threw another lump of coal into the fire, kicked the others into a riotous blaze, shook up the straw in the corner and spread out the blankets and bags.
“Bed, lassie,” he said to Norah, pointing at the straw.
“But where’ll yerselves sleep?” asked the girl.
“Jean, where’ll we doss?”
“By the fire,” answered the woman.
“But it’ll be wrong of me,” said Norah; then stopped and left the words that rose to her tongue unuttered.Sleep was stealing over her; she shut her eyes. A gentle arm was laid on her shoulders; she rose, because a voice suggested that she should rise, and afterwards found herself lying on the bed of straw.
A vision of a lighted window came to her; she was looking in at the man she loved and his lips were pressing those of another woman. Then scenes and objects vague and indistinct passed before her eyes, big dark shadows mustered together in the centre of the roof above her, then other shadows from all sides rushed in and joined together, trembled and became blended in complete obscurity. Norah fell asleep.
“Poor lassie!” said Donal, throwing himself down on the floor by the fire, “poor lassie!”
“God have pity on her,” said the woman; “and her sic a comely lass!”
ONthe night of Norah’s arrival at the steading Alec Morrison slept well, but wakened with the dawn and sat up betimes. He was very pleased with himself and his position at the bank; things had gone well, his father had doubled his allowance, and on the strength of that the young man had become engaged.
He had broken with the little girl in Glasgow; for while admiring her good looks he deplored her lack of intelligence. She spent a great deal of her time in dressing herself, and Morrison knew that there would come a day when dresses would not please, when a husband would require something more worthy of respect, something more enduring than pretty looks and gaudy garments. Besides this drawback there was another. The girl, who took her good looks from her mother, long dead, had a grasping, greedy father whom nobody could love or admire. Morrison had met him twice and disliked him immensely. He was a dirty little man and generally had three days’ growth of hair on his chin. When shaking hands his thumb described a curious backward turn, forming into a loop like one of those on the letter S. The daughter had the same peculiarity. Before meeting the father this movement of the girl’s thumb amused Morrison; afterwards it disgusted him. Finally he tookhis departure and again got into tow with Ellen Keenans, the live woman with advanced views ten years ahead of her age. Morrison fell in love easily, indifferently almost. He was an attractive young man, well built and muscular, who cultivated the art of dress with considerable care. All good-looking women fascinated him, but none held him captive for very long. He had become engaged to the girl with the advanced ideas and took her to his people’s home. The old farmer liked her but did not understand many of the things of which she spoke. That was not to be wondered at, seeing that he was a plain, blunt man, although a gentleman farmer, and the girl was ten years ahead of her time.
ALECMorrison, the sleep gone entirely from his eyes, his face a little red after shaving, came downstairs to the breakfast-room. Ellen Keenans was sitting on the sofa, a book in her hand.
“Up already, dear?” asked Morrison, and bent to kiss the girl. She laid down the book which she had been reading and met the kiss with her lips.
“The country life is so quiet, so refreshing; one cannot have too much of it,” she said, drumming idly with her fingers on the edge of the sofa.
“What are you reading, dear?” the young man asked.
“Kautsky’sEthics of Materialist Conception of History.”
“Rather a big thing to tackle before breakfast.”
She cast a look of reproof at the young man, lifted the book from the table, then, as if something occurred to her, laid it down again.
“You haven’t read it, I bet,” she said; then before hecould answer: “You promised last night to let me see some queer people—”
“Wrecks of the social system.”
“—who live on this farm.”
“An old man and woman,” said Morrison. “A quaint pair they are, stunted and seedy. They seem to have no souls, but I suppose deep down within them there is some eternal goodness, some fundamental virtue.”
“Who are you quoting?” asked the girl, getting to her feet. “Where are these two people?”
“In an outhouse near by,” he told her. “It’s terrible the abyss to which some people sink,” he went on. “How many of these derelicts might be saved if some restraining hand was reached out to help them, if some charitable soul would take pity on them.”
“When did you begin to look upon charity as a means of remedying social evils?” asked the girl almost fiercely. “Charity is a bribe paid to the maltreated so that they may hold their tongues.”
Morrison, as was his custom when the girl spoke in that manner, became silent.
“In here,” he said when they arrived at the dilapidated door of the pig-sty.
“In there?” questioned the girl and looked at Morrison.
Morrison entered with rather an important air; he was showing a new world to his fair companion. The girl hesitated for a moment on the threshold, then followed the young man into the dark interior.
Donal and Jean were seated at the fire drinking tea from the same can. On a small and dirty board which lay on the ground between them a chunk of dry bread and a little lump of butter could be seen. The two occupants of the sty took very little notice of the visitors; the mansaid “Good-morning” gruffly, the woman looked critically at the girl’s dress then went on with her meal.
“It must be cold here,” said the young girl, looking curiously round and noticing a streak of grey daylight stealing through the roof.
“Jean, is it cold here?” asked the man by the fire, biting the end of his crust.
“As cold as the grave,” answered the woman.
Ellen Keenans looked closely at the speaker. The broken nose, almost on a level with her face, the pockmarked flesh of the cheeks and chin, the red eyelids, the watery, expressionless eyes filled the young lady with nauseous horror. In the renovated society of which Ellen Keenans dreamt, this woman would be entirely out of place, just as much as her sweetheart and herself with their well-made clothing, their soft leather shoes and gold rings, were out of place here. And these two people, the man who wolfed up his bread like a dog and the woman with the disfigured face, might have something great and good in their natures. Alec had given such sentiments voice often. How noble-minded he was, she thought.
The door of the building faced east. The early sun, rising over a bank of grey clouds, suddenly beamed forth with splendid ray and lit up the dark interior of the sty. This beautiful beam disclosed what the darkness had hidden, the dirt and squalor of the place.
The floor, on which crawled numberless wood lice and beetles, was indented with holes filled with filthy smelling water, and the blank walls were literally covered with reddish cockroaches. The sunlight beamed on a spider’s web hanging from the roof; the thin silky threads were covered with dead insects. Rats had burrowed into the base of the walls and the whole building was permeated with an overpowering and unhealthy odour. Ellen Keenans glanced up at the joists where the sun-raysstruck them, then down the stretch of dark slimy wall, down, down to the floor, and there, in bold relief against the darkness, she saw in all its youthful beauty the face of a sleeping girl. Ellen turned an enquiring glance to the woman by the fire; then to Morrison, whose face wore a troubled expression.
“Who have you here, Donal?” asked the young man.
“A lass that we found greetin’ outside your door last night,” said the man, this time not appealing to Jean for an answer. “Happen that ye know her?”
The two by the fire looked at the young couple. The woman’s watery eyes took on a new expression; they seemed suddenly to have become charged with condemnation and contempt.
“Is she one of Jim Scanlon’s squad?” asked Morrison. Although putting the question he had recognised Norah instantly, and now he wished to be away. Donal and Jean looked suddenly terrible in his eyes; the pity he felt for them a moment ago now gave place to a fear for himself. Odd little waves of expression were passing over the woman’s face and in her eyes he read a terrible accusation.
“It was all her fault, not mine,” he muttered under his breath. “That night and the dog howling and the stars out above us.... But it was all her own fault. Why did she keep following me about? She might have known that I could never have.... We’ll go back to the house now,” he said aloud to Ellen Keenans. “We’ve seen all that is to be seen.”
The girl glanced at him interrogatively, curious. “Who is she?” came the question.
“Ye’ll soon know,” said the woman by the fire, rising and going to the shake-down by the wall. “Wake up, lass!” she cried to the sleeper.
Norah rose in bed, her mind groping darkly with hersurroundings. She had been dreaming of home and wakened with a vivid remembrance of her mother’s cabin still in her mind. The light of the sun shone full in her face and she lifted her hand up to shield her eyes. Then in a flash it was borne to her where she had spent the night. Several dark objects stood between her and the door; these developed into a grouping of persons, in the midst of which Alec Morrison stood out definitely. Norah, fully dressed, just as she had gone to sleep, moved towards him.
“Alec Morrison, I’ve come back,” she said, paused and looked at the girl beside him, then began to talk hurriedly. “I left the squad the day before yesterday; I travelled all the dark night and lost me way, for me mind would be busy with the thoughts that were coming to me.... Last night I came to yer door.... Alec Morrison, why are ye so scared lookin’? Sure ye’re not afraid of me!”
Morrison was in a very awkward fix, and this he confessed to himself. He never intended to marry the girl and never for a moment thought that the adventure of Christmas Eve would lead him into such a predicament. “And you are as well rid of her,” some evil voice whispered in his ear. “Look at her as she is now. Is she a suitable companion for you?” Morrison gazed covertly at the girl. Her hair, which had not been combed for two days, hung over her eyes and ears in tangled tufts; even the face, which still retained all its splendid beauty, was blackened by the dust which had fallen from the roof during the night.
“Are ye goin’ to do the right thing to the girl?” asked Donal. “It’s the only way out of it if ye have the spirit of a man in ye.”
Morrison gazed blankly at the man, then at Norah. Afierce and almost animal look came into her eyes as she faced him.
“I’ll do the right thing,” he said in a hoarse voice and turned and went out of the building, Ellen Keenans following at his heels. Norah watched them go, making no effort to detain them. When they went out she tottered towards the wall, reaching upwards with her hands as if wanting to touch resignation.
“It’s all over!” she exclaimed. “It’s him that has the black heart and will be goin’ to do the right thing with little bits of money. The right thing!” She leant against the cockroach-covered wall, her little voice raised in loud protest against the monstrous futility of existence.
ANhour later Morrison returned to the sty, carrying gold in his pocket but feeling very awkward. He and Ellen had quarrelled. When they went out into the open from the sty she turned on him fiercely.
“How many of these souls might be saved if some restraining hand was reached out to help them!” she quoted sneeringly.
“But, Ellen, it was more the girl’s fault than mine. And when one is young one may do many things that he’s sorry for afterwards. And I’ll do the right thing for the girl.”
“The right thing?” queried Ellen Keenans, and a troubled expression settled on her face. “But you cannot. It’s impossible. To two——”
“I’m wealthy now, you know. My allowance——”
“Oh, I see,” said the girl and, strangely enough, a suggestion of relief blended with her voice.
“I suppose you’ll think me a prig, Ellen,” said theyoung man. “But it wasn’t altogether my fault, neither was it the girl’s, I suppose. I suppose it was fate.... The girl won’t be highly sensitive. I’ve seen ones working here on the farm, young women, and they made a slip. But it did not seem to affect them. And we all make mistakes, Ellen....”
His speech came to an end and he left her and went towards the house; an hour later he re-entered the sty.
The woman with the pock-marked face looked at him angrily. Norah sat beside her on the upturned box, one arm hanging loosely by her side, the other resting on her knees, the hand pressed against her chin and a tapering finger stretching along her cheek. The old woman had given Norah a broken comb to dress her hair and now it hung to her waist in long, wavy tresses. But in the middle of the work she had dropped the comb and fallen into a deep reverie.
“I’ve come to see you,” Morrison began with an abruptness which showed that he wanted to hurry over a distasteful job. He was going to make atonement for his sin, and atonement represented a few pieces of gold, a few months’ denial of the luxuries which this gold could procure. He looked straight at Norah’s bowed head, taking no notice of the other occupants of the hovel.
“I’ve come to see you,” he repeated, but the girl paid no heed to him. He drew an envelope from his pocket, shook it so that the money within made a loud rattle, and placed it on her lap. The girl roused herself abruptly as if stung, lifted the envelope and looked at the man. Fearing that she was going to fling the terrible packet in his face, he put up his hand to shield himself. Norah smiled coldly and then handed him back the packet, which he had not the courage to refuse nor the audacity to return. The girl seemed to be performing some task that had no interest for her, something out and beyond thescope of her life. For a moment Morrison felt it in him to pity her, but deep down in his heart he pitied himself more.
“I thought ... I would like.... You know that....” he stammered. “I’ll go away just now,” he said in a low voice.
“You’d better,” said Donal, crouching by the fire like a cat ready to spring.
Alec Morrison left the sty. At the hour of noon Norah bade good-bye to Donal and Jean and set off for Glasgow, where she intended to call on Sheila Carrol, the beansho.
THEaddress on the letter which Norah received from Sheila Carrol was “47, Ann Street, Cowcaddens,” but shortly after the letter had been written the Glasgow Corporation decided that 47 was unfit for human habitation, and those who lived there were turned out to the streets.
It was late in the evening of the day on which she left Jean and Donal that Norah came to No. 47, to find the place in total darkness. She groped her way up a narrow alley to the foot of a stair and there suddenly stepped on a warm human body lying on the ground.
“What the devil!—Ah, ye’re choking me, an old person that never done no one no harm,” croaked a wheezy voice, apparently a woman’s, under Norah’s feet. “I only came in oot of the cauld, lookin’ for a night’s shelter. Hadn’t a bawbee for the Rat-pit. Beg pardon! I’m sorry; I’ll go away at once; I’ll go now. For the love of heaven don’t gie me up to the cops. I’m only a old body and I hadn’t a bawbee of my own. I couldn’t keep walkin’ on all night. Beg pardon, I’m only a old body and I hadn’t a kirk siller piece[F]for the Rat-Pit!”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t know that there was anyone here,” said Norah, peering through the darkness. “I’m a stranger, good woman.”
“Ye’re goin’ to doss here too,” croaked the voice from the ground.
“I’m lookin’ for a friend,” said Norah. “Maybe ye’ll know her—Sheila Carrol. She lives here.”
“Nobody lives here,” said the woman, shuffling to her feet. “Nobody but the likes of me and ones like me. No human being is supposed to live here. I had at one time a room on the top of the landin’, the cheapest room in Glasgow it was. Can’t get another one like it now and must sleep out in the snow. Out under the scabby sky and the wind and the rain. It wasn’t healthy for people to sleep here, so someone said, and we were put out. Think of that, and me havin’ the cheapest room in the Cowcaddens. If the cops find me here, it’s quod. Wha be ye lookin’ for?”
“A friend, Sheila Carrol.”
“Never heard of her.” The voice, almost toneless, seemed to be forcing its way through some thick fluid in the speaker’s throat. The darkness of the alley was intense and the women were hidden from one another.
“Everybody that stayed here has gone, and I don’t know where they are,” the old woman continued. “Don’t know at all. Ye dinna belong to Glesga?” she croaked.
“No, decent woman.”
“By yer tongue ye’ll be a young girl.”
“I am.”
“Mind ye, I’m a cute one and I ken everything. It’s not every one that could tell what ye are by yer tongue. Are ye a stranger?”
“I am,” answered Norah. “I was never in Glasgow before.”
“I knew that too,” said the old woman. “And ye want lodgin’s for the night? Then the Rat-pit’s the place; a good decent place it is—threepence a night for a bunk. Beg pardon, but maybe ye’ll have a kid’s eye (threepence)extra to spare for an old body. Come along with me and I’ll show the way. I’m a cute one and I know everything. Ye couldn’t ha’e got into better hands than mine if ye’re a stranger in Glasgow.”
They went out into a dimly-lighted lane and Norah took stock of her new friend. The woman was almost bent double with age; a few rags covered her body, she wore no shoes, and a dusty, grimy clout was tied round one of her feet. As if conscious of Norah’s scrutiny she turned to the girl.
“Ah! Ye wouldn’t think, would ye, that I had once the finest room in the Cowcaddens, the finest—at its price?”
“The Rat-pit’s a lodgin’ place for women,” the old creature croaked after an interval. “There are good beds there; threepence a night ye pay for them. Beg pardon, but maybe ye’ll pay for my bunk for the night. That’s just how I live; it’s only one night after another in my life. Beg pardon, but that’s how it is.” She seemed to be apologising for the crime of existing. “But ye’ll maybe have a kid’s eye to spare for my bunk?” she asked.
“All right, decent woman,” said Norah.
“What do they cry ye?”
“Norah Ryan.”
“A pretty name; and my name’s Maudie Stiddart,” said the old woman.
TENminutes later the two women were seated in the kitchen of the Rat-pit, frying a chop which Norah had bought on their way to the lodging-house.
The place was crowded with women of all ages, some young, children almost, their hair hanging down their backs, and the blouses that their pinched breasts could notfill sagging loose at the bosom. There were six or seven of these girls, queer weedy things that smoked cigarettes and used foul words whenever they spoke. The face of one was pitted with small-pox; another had both eyes blackened, the result of a fight; a third, clean of face and limb, was telling how she had just served two months in prison for importuning men on the streets. Several of the elder females were drunk; two fought in the kitchen, pulling handfuls of hair from one another’s heads. Nobody interfered; when the struggle came to an end the combatants sat down together and warmed their hands at the stove. At this juncture a bare-footed woman, with clay caked brown behind her ankles and a hairy wart on her chin, came up to Norah.
“Ye’re a stranger here,” she said.
“I am, decent woman.”
“Ye’re Irish, too, for I ken by yer talk,” said the female. “And ye’ve got into trouble.”
She pointed at the girl with a long, crooked finger, and Norah blushed.
“Dinna be ashamed of it,” said the woman; then turning to Maudie Stiddart she enquired: “And ye’re here too, are ye? I thought ye were dead long ago? Jesus! but some people can stick it out. There’s no killin’ of ’em!”
“Oh, ye’re a blether, Mary Martin,” said Maudie, turning the chop over on the stove. “Where are ye workin’ now?”
“On the free coup outside Glesga.”
“The free coup?” asked the young girl who had just left prison, lighting a cigarette. “What’s that atall?”
“The place to where the dung and dust and dirt of a town is carried away and throwed down,” Mary Martin explained. “Sometimes lumps of coal and pieces of metalare flung down there. These I pick up and sell to people and that’s how I make my livin’.”
“Is that how you do?” asked the girl with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Everyone isn’t young like you,” said Mary, sitting down on a bench near the stove. The girl laughed vacantly, tried to make a ring of the cigarette smoke, was unable to do so, and walked away. Mary Martin turned to Maudie and whispered something to her.
“Ah, puir lass!” exclaimed Maudie.
“And the one to blame was a toff, too!” said Mary. “They’re all alike, and the good dress often hides a dirty hide.”
“Beg pardon, but have ye got anything to ate?” asked Maudie.
“Nothin’ the night,” answered Mary. “Only made the price of my bed for my whole day’s work.”
“Will ye ate something with us?” asked Norah.
“Thank ye,” said Mary Martin, and the three women drew closer to the chop that was roasting on the stove.
THEbeds in the Rat-pit, forty in all, were in a large chamber upstairs, and each woman had a bed to herself. The lodgers undressed openly, shoved their clothes under the mattresses and slid into bed. One sat down to unlace her boots and fell asleep where she sat; another, a young girl of seventeen or eighteen, fell against the leg of the bed and sank into slumber, her face turned to the roof and her mouth wide open. The girl who had been in prison became suddenly unwell and burst into tears; nobody knew what she was weeping about and nobody enquired.
Maudie, Mary, and Norah slept in three adjoining beds, the Irish girl in the centre. The two older women dropped off to sleep the moment their heads touched the pillows; Norah lay awake gazing at the flickering shadows cast by the solitary gas-jet on the roof of the room. The heat was oppressive, suffocating almost, and not a window in the place was open. Women were still coming in, and only half the bunks in the room were yet occupied. Most of the new-comers were drunk; some sat down or fell on the floor and slept where they had fallen, others threw themselves in on top of the bed and lay there with their clothes on. An old woman whose eye had been blackened in a fight downstairs started to sing “Annie Laurie,” but forgetting what followed the first verse, relapsed into silence.
Norah began to pray under her breath to the Virgin, but had only got half through with her prayer when a shriek from the bed on her left startled her. Maudie was sitting upright, yelling at the top of her voice. “Cannot ye let an old body be?” she cried. “I’m only wantin’ a night’s doss at the foot of the stairs. That’s not much for an old un to ask, is it? Holy Jesus! I cannot be let alone for a minute. Beg pardon; I’m goin’ away, but ye might let me stay here, and me only an old woman!”
Maudie opened her watery eyes and stared round. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead, and her face—red as a crab—looked terrifying in the half-light of the room.
“Beg pardon,” she croaked, and her voice had a sound like the breaking of bones. “Beg pardon. I’m only an old woman and I never did nobody no harm!”
She sank down again, pulled the blankets over her shoulders and fell asleep.
Fresh arrivals came in every minute, staggered wearily to their bunks and threw themselves down without undressing.About midnight a female attendant, a young, neat girl with a pleasing face, entered, surveyed the room, helped those who lay on the floor into bed, turned down the gas and went away.
Slumber would not come to Norah. All night she lay awake, listening to the noise of the dust-carts on the pavement outside, the chiming of church clocks, the deep breathing of the sleepers all around her, and the sudden yells from Maudie’s bunk as the woman started in her sleep protesting against some grievance or voicing some ancient wrong.
The daylight was stealing through the grimy window when Norah got up and proceeded to dress. A deep quietness, broken only by the heavy breathing of the women, lay over the whole place. The feeble light of daybreak shone on the ashen faces of the sleepers, on the naked body of a well-made girl who had flung off all her clothing in a troubled slumber, on Mary Martin’s clay-caked legs that stuck out from beneath the blankets, on Maudie Stiddart’s wrinkled, narrow brow beaded with sweat; on the faces of all the sleepers, the wiry and weakly, the fit and feeble, the light of new-born day rested. Suddenly old Mary turned in her sleep, then sat up.
“Where are ye goin’ now?” she called to Norah.
“To look for a friend,” came the answer.
“A man?”
“A woman called Sheila Carrol is the one I’m lookin’ for,” said Norah. “I went to 47, Ann Street last night, for I had a letter from her there. But the place was closed up.”
“Sheila Carrol, they cry her, ye say?” said the old woman, getting out of bed. “Maybe it’s her that I ken. She came from Ireland with a little boy and she used towork with me at one time. A comely strong-boned wench she was. Came from Frosses, she once told me.”
“That’s Sheila!”
“And she’s left 47?”
“So I hear.”
“Then take my advice and try No. 46 and No. 48,” said Mary Martin; “and also every close in the street. The people that lived in 47 will not gang far awa’ from it. They’ll be in the next close or thereabouts. What do they cry you, lass?” asked the old woman, slipping into her rags.
“Norah Ryan.”
“A pretty name it is, indeed. And have ye threepence to spare for my breakfast, Norah Ryan? I haven’t a penny piece in all the wide world.”
Norah gave threepence of her hard-earned money to Mary, sorted her dress and stole out into the streets to search for Sheila Carrol.