PLUCKING BOG-BINE
I
The May of 1903 came round, and on every twelfth day of May the young
boys and girls of Donegal start for the hiring fair of Strabane. The
rumour went that Dermod Flynn was going now, but no one knew for
certain; the Flynns being a close-mouthed people gave no secrets away.
On the evening preceding the twelfth, Norah heard of Dermod’s intended
departure and that night she was long in falling asleep. Her bed was
made on the floor beside the fire; a grey woollen blanket served a
double debt to pay, and was used as a blanket and sheet. But the
sleeping place was not cold; the heat of the fire and the breath of the
kine kept it warm.
The first bird was twittering on the thatch and the first tint of dawn
was tingeing the sky when Norah awoke, sat up in bed and threw part of
the blanket aside. At the further end of the house where it was still
dark cattle were stamping, and bright eyes could be seen glowing like
coals. The child rose, went to the window, pulled up the blind and
looked out on the sea. She stood there for a moment rapt in reverie, her
pure white bosom showing above her low-cut cotton chemise and her long
tresses hanging down loosely over her shoulders. She was now fourteen.
Her short reverie came to an end; she crossed herself many times and
proceeded to dress, taking unusual care with her hair, weaving it into
two long plaits, and polishing her boots carefully. These, the second
pair of her life, were studded with nails which she liked to hear
rasping on the ground as she walked. At night she noticed that the nails
were bright and shiny; in the mornings they were always brown with rust.
She recollected, not without a certain amount of satisfaction, that she
was the only girl wearing shoes at Frosses school. But she could well
afford it; Fergus had sent twenty pounds to his parents and three pounds
to herself since he left home.
Her father and mother were asleep in the bed; the former snoring loudly,
the latter coughing drowsily from time to time. The cat, which had been
in the house since Norah could remember, was curled atop of the blanket
and fast asleep.
A movement occurred in the bed as Norah finished her toilet; the cat
stirred itself, stretched its front legs, spreading out its claws,
yawned and fell asleep again.
“Son of Mary! but you are up early, Norah!” exclaimed her mother,
sitting up in bed; then seeing the cat she gave the blankets a vigorous
shake and cried: “Get out, you little devil! You lie in bed as if you
were a person and no less!”
“I am going to pull bog-bine on the hills of Glenmornan for your
sickness, mother.”
“But would it not be time enough for you to go there come noon?”
“It is as well to go now, mother.”
“Then it is, alannah, if you have the liking for it,” said the old
woman. “See and turn the cattle into the holm below the Holy Rocks
before you go away.”
“I will do that, mother.”
“And put the blind up on the window again, for the light is getting into
my eyes.”
Norah untied the cattle from their stakes and opened the door. The old
brindled cow went out first, lazily lashing her legs with her long tail,
and smelt the door-post as she passed soberly into the open. The second
cow, a fawn-grey beast, was followed by a restless, awkward calf that
mischievously nudged the hindquarters of the animal in front with its
nose. The Ryans possessed three cattle only, and the byre which the old
woman had wanted erected was now in process of construction.
When the young calf got into the field he jumped exultantly into the air
and rushed madly off for the distance of a hundred yards; then, planting
his forefeet squarely in the earth, as suddenly stopped and turned round
to look at the two cows. Surprised that they had not followed him, he
scampered back to where they were cropping noisily at the short grass,
and with his head dunted the brindled cow on the belly. The old animal
turned round, her mouth full of grass, and gave a reproving nudge with
her warm, damp nose which sent the calf scampering off again.
The houses of Meenalicknalore were arranged in a row on the top of a
brae that swept down to the sea, shoving its toes into the water. A curl
of smoke rose from some of the houses; others gave no hint of human
activity. “A chimney without smoke is like a man without breath,” quoted
Norah. “I wonder how Dermod Flynn thinks of things like that; and to-day
he is goin’ away all alone by himself across the mountains.”
She came to the Three Rocks; three large masses of limestone, one long
and perpendicular, the other two squat and globular, which the peasantry
supposed to represent the Holy Trinity. Here Norah said her prayers, one
“Our Father” and three “Hail Mary’s” in front of each of the two
smaller stones, and the Apostles’ Creed in front of the large rock in
the centre. When her prayers were finished she drove the cattle into a
holm, put a bush in the gap and resumed her journey.
The sun had just risen ... a wind cool and moist blew in from the bosom
of the sea ... little tufts of thistledown trembled through the air,
dropped to the ground, rose again and vanished in the distance ... wrens
chirped in the juniper ... frogs chuckled in the meadows ... a rabbit
with eyes alert, ears aback and tail acock ran along the roadway and
disappeared under a clump of furze ... clouds floating across the sky
like large, lazy, wingless birds slowly assumed a delicate rosy tint
until they looked like mother-of-pearl inside a giant shell.
Norah, very excited and very happy, stood for a moment to look into a
clear well by the roadside. On her face was the expectant look of a
sweet kitten that waits for the ball to be thrown to it; her two plaits
of hair hung over her shoulders, one delicate strand that had fallen
away fluttering in the breeze. She looked approvingly into the calm
water at the laughing face that smiled up to her.
“How good to be out here, to be alive, to be young,” she seemed to say
to herself. “Everything is so fair, so beautiful, so wonderful!”
II
About six o’clock Norah entered Glenmornan. Here she met three boys and
two girls bound for the rabble market of Strabane. One of the boys was
whistling a tune, the other two chattered noisily; the girls, who were
silent, carried each a pair of hob-nailed boots hung over their
shoulders.
“Good luck to your journey,” said Norah Ryan, by way of salutation.
“And to yours,” they answered.
“Are there lots of ones a-goin’ this mornin’?” she asked in English.
“Lots,” answered one of the girls, making the sign of the cross on her
brow. “Two gasairs of Oiney Dinchy’s, one of Cormac of the Hill’s ones,
seven or more from the townland of Dooran, and more besides.”
“Many goin’ from Glenmornan?”
“Lots,” said the boy who had been whistling.
Norah waited for him to proceed, but finding that he remained silent,
she enquired as to who was going.
“Condy Dan, Hudy Neddy, Columb Kennedy, Unah Roarty and”--the boy paused
for a moment to scratch his head--“and Dermod Flynn, the gasair that
struck Master Diver with the pointer.”
“Well, good luck to yer journey,” said Norah, shaking the hand of each
of them in turn. “May God be with ye all till ye come back!”
“And with yerself for ever.”
The crooked road twisted round copse and knoll, now bordering the river,
now rising well up on the shoulder of the hill, and along this road
Norah hurried, her hands hanging idly by her side and her plaits when
caught by an errant breeze fluttering over her shoulders. Half-way along
the Glenmornan road she met Dermod Flynn.
“Where are ye for this mornin’, Dermod?” she asked. She knew where he
was going, and after speaking felt that she should not have asked him
that question.
“Beyond the mountains,” answered the youth with a smile which showed his
white teeth. In one hand he carried a bundle, in the other an ash-plant
with a heavy knob at the end. The young fellows of Glenmornan had got
into a habit of carrying sticks in imitation of the cattle drovers who
came once every month to the fair of Greenanore.
“Ye’ll not come back for a long while, will ye?” Norah asked.
“I’m never goin’ to come back again,” Dermod answered. At this Norah
laughed, but, strangely enough, she felt ready to cry. All that she
intended to say to him was forgotten; she held out her hand, stammered a
confused good-bye and hurried away.
“His eyes are on me now,” she said several times to herself as she
walked away, and every time she spoke a blush mounted to her cheeks. She
wanted to look back, but did not do so until she came to the first bend
of the road. There she turned round, but Dermod Flynn had gone from
sight and a great loneliness entered the girl’s heart. A steer with
wide, curious eyes watched her from a field beside the road, the water
sang a song, all its own, as it dropped from the hills, and the Glen
River, viewed from the point where Norah stood, looked like a streak of
silver on a cloth of green. But the girl saw and heard none of these
things, her eyes were fixed on the crooked road which ran on through
holt and hollow as far as the village of Greenanore, and miles and miles
beyond.
She stood there for a long time lost in reverie. Dermod Flynn was gone
now, and he would never come back again. So he had told her. Suddenly
she recollected why she had come out on the journey. “To pluck bog-bine
it was,” she murmured. “I am after forgetting that!”
She went across the river by the ford and climbed the hill. From the top
of the knoll she could see the train steam out from the station of
Greenanore. In it were the children bound for the rabble market of
Strabane. Norah stared and stared at the train, which crawled like a
black caterpillar across the brown moor, leaving a trail of white smoke
behind it.
“I’m after forgettin’ that I came out to pluck bog-bine,” she repeated
when the train had disappeared from sight, and taking off her boots, she
picked her way across the soft and spongy moor.