IN THE LANE
I
Sunday afternoon of a week later.
Alec Morrison was walking along a sheltered lane towards the house, his
hands deep in his trousers’ pockets, a cigarette between his lips, and
his mind dwelling on several things which had taken place the week
before. On Sundays he liked to walk alone when there was nothing
extraneous to distract his mind, and then to ponder over thoughts that
thronged his brain from time to time. He was a Progressive, and the
term, which might mean anything to the general public, to Morrison meant
all that was best in an age that, to him, was extremely reactionary and
lacking in earnestness of purpose and clarity of vision. The young man
believed that he, himself, realised all the beauty and all the
significance of life and the importance of the task allocated in it to
man. He also imagined that he possessed unlimited powers and that in the
advance of humanity towards perfection he was destined to play an
important part. Most young men of sanguine temperament, who read a
little, paint a little, and write a little, have at times hallucinations
of this kind. The young man’s pet idea was that he, by some inscrutable
decree of Fate, had been appointed to show the working classes the road
towards a better life, towards enlightenment and prosperity.
Up till very recently (he was now twenty-one) he had taken no notice of
the great class to which he did not belong. He lived in middle-class
society, was cradled in its smug self-conceit and nourished at the
breasts of affectation. He spent many years at school and now realised
that he had wasted his time there. After leaving school he entered a
bank in Paisley and spent a number of hours daily bending over a desk,
copying interminable figures with a weary pen.
Seeing the conditions under which labourers wrought on his father’s farm
caused him to think seriously. Once when he was at home two persons, a
man and a woman, Donal and Jean, supposed to be husband and wife, got
employment in the steading. These two people were very ragged, very
dirty, and very dissolute. The woman’s face was hacked in a terrible
manner; her nose had been broken, and her figure looked more like a
maltreated animal’s than a human being’s. The man was low-set, stunted,
and weedy. Both drew their wages daily and got drunk every night. One
night when they had returned from a neighbouring village Morrison saw
them in their sleeping quarters. A disused pig-sty, no longer tenable
for animals, was handed over to these creatures. A pile of dirty straw
lay on the floor and on this the man and woman were sleeping, the man
snoring loudly, the woman lying face upwards; the blunt nails of her
bleeding fingers showed over the filthy bags which covered her body. A
guttering candle was dying in the neck of a beer-bottle beside them and
the smell of beer pervaded the place.
“It must be an awful life, this,” he said to his father, who accompanied
him.
“These kind of people think nothin’ of it,” his father said. “They get
drunk every night and are very happy. Whisky is the only thing they
want.”
“Yes, they want something like that to live in a place like this.”
What struck the young man forcibly at that moment was that the people
were like himself; that under certain conditions he might be just as
they were, even like the man lying under the dirty bag by the side of
the pockmarked harridan; and that man under favourable conditions might
be himself, Morrison, and full of glorious dreams for the betterment of
the race to which he belonged.
That night Morrison slept little, and when sleep came he dreamt that he
lay with the old harridan under the dirty coverlet, his arms round her
and his lips pressed against the dry and almost bloodless lips of the
woman. In the morning the remembrance of the dream filled him with
horror. That such people should exist; that, under certain conditions,
he might be the man lying there in the pig-sty! He began to think
seriously of things. Then he came across a woman in Paisley--a woman who
belonged to the club of which he was a member--a woman whom he thought
was different to all others. She was progressive and pronounced in her
views and explained to Morrison how society from top to bottom, from
hall to hovel, from robes to rags, was an expression of injustice, of
wrong, of vice, of filth and moral decrepitude, and that in the interest
of the future race the social system had to be changed and society to be
renovated. Because she was very clever and good looking Morrison fell in
love with this woman. She was a typist in a merchant’s office.
II
Thinking of many things, he sauntered towards the farm. The cigarette
went out; he threw it away and lit another. The evening was calm and
quiet; a few late birds were chirruping in the hazel bushes and
somewhere in the distance a dog barked loudly. The grey twilight that
links day and night was over everything.
Suddenly Morrison perceived Norah Ryan coming towards him. She wore her
grey tweed, which showed to perfection the outlines of her slender
figure. In one hand she carried a book, the other hand hung idly by her
side.
“Are you going for a walk, Norah Ryan?” Morrison asked when he met her.
“I am,” she answered, hardly knowing whether she should stop and talk to
him or continue on her way.
“You’re reading, I see.” He took the cigarette from his mouth as he
spoke, held it between finger and thumb and flicked the ash off with his
little finger.
“Yes, I’m readin’,” she said, but did not tell him what book she held in
her hand; he could see, however, that it was a prayer-book.
“When do the squad go to Ireland?”
“Next Friday, if all goes well,” she answered.
“So soon!” Morrison exclaimed, and in his voice there was a vague hint
of regret. “Are you glad to get home again?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And the rest of the squad--what are they doing this evening? Are they
playing cards?”
“The men are; the women are singin’, some of them; and Gourock Ellen and
Annie are mendin’ their clothes.”
“It is getting dark quickly,” said Morrison. “Are you coming back now?”
“Is it time?” she asked, then said, “I suppose it is.”
He was going to the farm and it would be nice to have his company. She
had seen him going out and anticipated meeting him coming home. Perhaps
that was why she had come; if so she did not dare to confess it, even
to herself. She now thought that she should not have come; a tremor
shook her for a moment, then she turned and went back along the lane
with the young man.
A car drawn by a white pony came up behind them, and they stepped nearer
to the line of hazel bushes to let it pass. They were now very close to
one another.
“Some of the people on the next farm, coming home from church,” said
Morrison as the car was passing. “Watch that the wheels don’t catch you.
The lane is very narrow.... There!”
He caught hold of her by the waist, drawing her close to him and
pressing her very tightly.
“The car was almost running over you,” he said.
“Don’t!” she cried, striving to get free. “Don’t now; it’s not right.”
“The wheel ...” he said in a husky voice. “The lane is so narrow.” He
knew that he was telling a lie, but at the same time he felt very
pleased with himself. He had dropped the cigarette, which could be seen
glowing red on the dark ground. He released the girl, but would have
liked to catch her in his arms again. The vehicle went rumbling off into
the distance. “It is so very dark, too,” he muttered under his breath.
They walked along together, both busy with their own thoughts, the girl
hot and ashamed, but curiously elated; the young man in some way angry
with himself for what he had done, but at the same time desirous of
clasping Norah again in his arms.
“If I had someone to tell me what to do,” she said under her breath, but
knew instinctively that there was no one but herself to determine what
action should be pursued in an event like this. Even if advice were
proffered to her she knew that it would be useless. Something was
driving her to the brink of an unknown which she feared, and from which
there was no retreat and no escape.
“You are stumbling,” said Morrison, and again caught hold of her. She
had not stumbled; it was a pretext on his part; he merely wanted an
excuse to hold her in his arms. She could see his hand on her sleeve and
noticed the gold ring sparkling in the darkness.
In man there are two beings, the corporal and the spiritual; one
striving after that happiness which ministers to the passion of the
individual to the detriment of the race; the other which seeks for
happiness according to divine laws, a happiness that is good for all.
Yesterday, to-day, ten minutes before, this spiritual being presided
over Morrison’s destiny; now as he walked along the crooked lane, a lone
wind sighing in the hazel bushes and a few stars out above him, he felt
the animal man come and take possession of him. The rustling of Norah’s
petticoats as she walked beside him, the slight pressure of her little
rough fingers on his large smooth hand filled him with an insatiable
animal desire which held him captive.
This was no new experience, and it possessed for him a certain charm
which in his saner moments he loathed, but now he could neither conquer
nor drive it away.
“I like the bow in your hair,” he said in a hoarse voice that startled
the girl. “It suits you.”
“I must be off and away now,” she said, freeing her hand from his, but
not drawing it away quickly enough to prevent him getting possession of
it again. “Let me go,” she said in a low voice. “Ye must let me go. What
would yerself be talkin’ to the likes of me for? There’s the farm!”
“Don’t hurry away,” said Morrison, bending down and placing both arms
round her waist. For some reason which he could not fathom he felt
ashamed of himself, but he clasped her more tightly as he spoke. “Why
are you in so great a hurry? You’re better here. Is that young
fellow--Flynn they call him, I think--waiting for you? Micky’s Jim was
telling me all.”
“He had no right to,” said the girl angrily, but refrained from drawing
herself away. “Dermod Flynn is nothin’ to me.”
“I’m glad of that.”
“Why?”
Morrison did not answer. It would be unwise to commit himself in any
way, he thought, and for a moment he mastered the passion which filled
his body. The lights of the farm sparkled in front. The open shed was
facing them. The fire glowed red inside, and against it dark forms came
and went. He stooped down and kissed her three times and she could feel
his warm body press passionately against her own.
Someone passed near them and Morrison let her go. She hurried off
towards the shed, and he could hear the patter of her boots as she ran.
She passed Dermod Flynn on her way; no doubt he had seen Morrison kiss
her, she thought. When she entered the shed Gourock Ellen, who was
bending over the card table, looked up and saw the flush of colour in
Norah’s face. Then Ellen noticed Dermod coming in and saw the troubled
look in the boy’s eyes.
“Dermod’s been kissin’ ye, lass, I’ll warrant,” she whispered to Norah,
then turning round to Micky’s Jim, she opened his shirt front and ran
her fingers down his hairy chest. “Come on now, Jim, for that’ll gie ye
luck,” she cried.
“Yes, decent woman, it’s sure to give me luck,” said Jim, throwing down
the cards and putting a match to his pipe.
III
“What have I done, what’s Alec Morrison to me?”
Norah asked herself as she looked in her little cracked hand mirror ten
minutes later. “He’s nothin’ to me, nothin’, nothin’; no more than
Dermod Flynn is. The two of them might so well be strangers to me. Now
why did he kiss me? Dermod never kissed me. I’m glad of that.”
Norah looked round the byre, at the bunks in the stalls, the cattle
troughs and the candle burning on the iron stanchion. She was alone, the
other women were still out with the card-players in the shed.
“I must be very good-lookin’,” she whispered to herself as her eyes
sought their reflection in the cracked mirror; then she blushed at her
girlish vanity and innocent pride. “And him so grand, too, a gentleman!”
But in some indistinct and indefinite way she felt that she would be
raised to his level. “And he kissed me--here.” She put her fingers over
her red lips. “But he’s nothin’ to me, nothin’. Dermod Flynn is nothin’
either.” She knew that the first assertion was not true; the repetition
of the second gave her a certain pleasure.
“Do I love two of them? Can one love two people?” she asked herself.
“But I’m not in love and never was. I like Dermod, but all the girls in
the squad like him.... Why did Alec Morrison kiss me, and him a
gentleman? It wasn’t my fault, was it?” She looked round and addressed
an imaginary person, a look of bewilderment settling on her face.
“Did I go out to meet him this evenin’? Did I like his kisses? Is Dermod
Flynn angry? I couldn’t help liking Dermod; he is so good, so kindly.
But I’m a bad girl, very bad; all my life was full of sin. Pride and
vanity, what the Catechism condemned, are my two sins. I used to be
vain at school. I had two shoes and I was proud, because other people
wore only mairteens. I used to dress my hair and try and look nicer than
any other girsha; because I was vain. And now I’m vain because a
well-dressed gentleman talks kindly to me. God forgive me! Ah, this
looking-glass, I hate it! I’ll just have one look at myself and then
never get hold of a glass again.”
She sat down on the bed and her fingers toyed with the potato sacks that
served as quilt.
“Yes, he’s very nice and talks to us so kindly,” she whispered, and
again her eyes sought the mirror. “Oh, it was a fine evening, one of the
nicest ever I had.... They’re not too red, just pale, and when the blush
is in them I’m better lookin’ than at any time. Has any one in the squad
cheeks like mine?... Why did he want to kiss me? And my boots to one
side at the heels and the toe-cap risin’ off one of them. I wish I had
money, lots of it, gold, a crock of gold like the fairies leave under
the holly bush.... I could buy new dresses and maybe rings. Norah, don’t
let your hair hang down so far over your forehead, it doesn’t become ye.
A wee bit back there, no, here; that’s it. Now ye’re very good lookin’.”
“And to think of it as the first time and he has won fifteen shillin’s!”
said Maire a Glan, who had just entered the byre. “Fifteen shillin’s,
Norah!”
“What?”
“He won!”
“Who?”
“Who but Dermod Flynn?” said the old woman. “And him playin’ for the
first time!”