Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna001 Manuscript December Bride English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna001 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna001_2.jpg LHL Archive DECEMBER BRIDE A Novel by Sam Hanna Bell Sam Hanna Bell, 2, Crescent Gardens, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 581 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna002 Manuscript Communion, Marriage English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna002 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna002_2.jpg LHL Archive DECEMBER BRIDE Chapter One RAVARA MEETING-HOUSE MOULDERED among its gravestones like a mother surrounded by her spinster children. Today the winter wind poured across the fields. It flung a handful of starlings over the church and plucked the caps and skirts of the men and women sheltering behind the gravestones. A man, with a billhook in his hand, broke through the hedge that surrounded the churchyard and hurried towards the gravelled path, Along the hedge bordering the road the weak sun glinted on curves and ellipses of bicycle wheels. In the church, with his back to the communion rail, and the book in his hand open at the marriage service, stood the reverend Isaac Sorleyson. The man and woman before him, Hamilton Echlin and Sarah Gomartin, were elderly, stooped, huddled together as if for protection. The whimpering wind and the breathless silence of the churoh heightened the loneliness of the two and gave an impression absurd and pathetic to the ceremony. Behind the bridegroom stood a youth of about nineteen years of age. Throughout the service he had strained to follow the minister’s words, only relaxing to glance back into the glimmering church or to reassure himself that the wedding ring was still embedded in his sweating palm. "Do you, Hamilton, take this woman, Sarah, to be your lawfuily wedded wife ...” The responses were given, and at a sign from Sorleyson, the young man dropped the ring into the dark cupped hand of the bridegroom. Echlin took his bride’s hand, and with her Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 582 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna003 Manuscript Pulpit, Reverence English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna003 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna003_1.jpg LHL Archive 2 assistance managed to press the ring over the first gnarled joint of her finger. But the lower knuckle, hard and dented as a chestnut was too large for the ring and Sarah timorously drew back her hand, Sorleyson caught it abruptly. 'I think we should manage to do it properly, he said, and tried to press the ring down to the root of her finger, As she winced, he lowered her hand with a look of annoyance, having the ring turning loosely in the middle of the fleshiness concave finger. “If you’ll follow me to the vestry” he said, waving his hand towards a door in the shadow of the pulpit. You too, Mr Neilly, please!” he called into the empty church. From the darkness of the last pew at the back of the church a man appeared and came trotting down the aisle with a fixed smile on his face, a bunch of keys chattering and tinkling from his hand. '’Right your reverence, right now, ' he answered waving his free hand deprecatingly as he approached them, the bridal party followed Sorleyson into the small room where he unlocked a cupboard, took out a flat black book and opened it on a narrow table. You sign here and with his firm young fingers he guided the gnarled discoloured hands of the man and woman. ’Now; you, Andrew, and he handed the pen to the youth, write your name here, where it says 'in tho presence of us"' He took the pen, wrote 'Andrew' hesitated for a moment and added ‘Echlin.* Sorleyson glanced at the sexton and waved to the pen. With practised carelessness he scrawled in his signature, laid down the pen, looked at the married couple, and then, without speaking, slithered out of the door and hurried up the aisle, Sorleyson thrust out his hands and caught hold those of Hamilton and Sarah. "Congratulations and may God bless you both!" he cried, he held Sharah’s Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 583 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna004 Manuscript Sexton, Churchyard English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna004 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna004_0.jpg LHL Archive 3 hand for a little longer. It wasn't too bad, was it?" "No she replied "No, it wasn't, Thank ye, Mr Shorleyson." "Aye' echoed HamiIton fumbling to take the minister's hand again, "Thank ye, thank ye." Sorleyson replaced the register, locked the cupboard, and opened tie door leading to the church. ’Now’ he said. The creak of the varnished door started the sexton from his seat in the last pew. He peered down the glimmering aisle to make sure that Sorleyson and the others were ready to leave the church, Then he slid as quickly and quietly as a ferret round the main door into the porch. Then he appeared, the men and woman nearest the church rose from the gravestones and shook themselves. The sexton nodded abruptly and glanced over his shoulder. Suddenly he threw up his hand in warning and started back into the shadows. Hamilton and Sarah came slowly out of the brown dusk of the porch and hesitated uncertainly in the pale sunlight. Behind them came Andrew, his face turned to the minister whose snowy collar gleamed in the shadow, then the youth looked out towards the churchyard, his face contracted when he saw the visiting country people, and with a word and a touch he urged the newly-married couple forward. Hamilton, tall and stooped, wore a dark hopsack suit of old-fashioned cut with all four buttons of the Jacket fastened, the arm on which rested Sarah’s hand was bent across his chest, holding in its fingers a bowler hat. From his other knotted and discoloured hand hung a pair of gloves, the fingers flat, stiff and unopened. When he left the shelter of the the church the wind lifted the strands of hair that had been combed over his bald crown. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 584 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna005 Manuscript Tobacco, Porcelain English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna005 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna005_0.jpg LHL Archive k Sarah was between fifty and fifty-five years of age, erect, with a confident step which became more pronounced as she approached the country people, giving her an air of boldness heightened by the unnatural colour throbbing in her cheeks. She kept her eyes downcast on the gravel as she walked, only raising them for an instant when she felt giddy. Her complexion had the appearance and texture of wax, and the deep and shadowy furrows which ran from each side of her nostrils to the comers of her mouth accentuated the soft, full and fading lips. She wore a tailored coat of fine grey material, open so that the stuff of her wedding-dress was visible, steel-grey in colour, with an ill-cut cameo pinned in the lace yoke. A shallow black hat with a blue and white ornament in front was set straight on top of her mouse- coloured hair, and the hair was so arranged at the temples as to cover, not with complete success, a white streak. "They make a gladsome couple, eh? He remarked the man with the billhook as he watched Hamilton and Sarah from between two stones. "Aye, and making his own son follow him as best man - its a crying shame• ” added the woman beside him, drawing her fat arms that were red with the cold, further under her shawl. The man with the billhook shot a lance of tobacco spittle into a cluster of porcelain flowers. " whose son?" he asked, quizzing the woman sardonically. "He’s as bad as the rest - there’s bad Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 585 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna006 Manuscript Doves, Horse English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna006 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna006_0.jpg LHL Archive 5 blood in the whole bloody tribe," Andrew, having failed to reply to some question of the minister's or even raise his head, Sorleyson turned his attention to the spectators who had suddenly retreated into the churchyard or made their way out and about distance down the road. After waiting patiently in the chill wind for a glimpse of the newly-married pair, the country-foils: were taken aback to find the Reverend Mr Sorleyson escorting them from the church, so now, skulking along the truncated pillars and crumbling doves, they fixed curious eyes on this Joyless bridal procession, only withdrawing their glances when they threatened to meet the angry and persistent stare of the minister. The sexton, who had trotted diagonally through the grave- yard oinking and grimacing to his neighbours, passed out through a side-gate, and crossing the road, disappeared into the churchyard stable. He came out backwards in the shafts of a light trap which he drew onto the road and lowered gingerly until it rested on its step. "Rabbie!” he shouted at a little boy in a ragged Jersey who stood with crossed legs against the wall, "away and fetch Mr Echlin's pony!" The horse being led out, with a relied neck and oat husks on his muzzle, Site Andrew then took charge, and as the bit was being adjusted, a pound-note passed into the sexton's hand. A little distance down the road, beyond the church gates, several men still lingered, and in the ditch two or three Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 586 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna007 Manuscript Peasants, Manse English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna007 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna007_0.jpg LHL Archive 6 women, their hands rolled in their aprons, peered through the twigs of a thornbush. Their scrutiny was short-lived. Mr Sorleyson was seen nodding energetically to a remark of Mr Echlin’s, the sexton flew; into the church-house and returned with the minister’s overcoat into which he helped him after removing his Geneva strings and billowing gown. The pound-note still being warm on his thigh, the sexton, shielding the gesture from the distant observers, endeavoured to shake hands with the party. He secured Sarah’s fingertips, touched the closed hand of Hamilton, and found that Andrew had mounted the trap and was now drawing up the reins. The others followed, and the whip being rattled in its cup, the vehicle moved away. The peasants came running towards the sexton who stood cracking- his knuckles in glee, his face wreathed in smiles. The trap stopped about a quarter-of-a-mile from the church at the mouth of a loanen, more dignified than that which led to a farm because of its bevel-clipped hedges. Here Sorleyson dismounted after shaking hands with the occupants of the trap. Ho held the young man’s hand in his for a second and spoke clearly and loudly. “why don’t you come down some evening and see us, Andrew?" For a moment the strained look left the other's face. He nodded. "I’ll try - some evening" The manse which the Sorleysons occupied was visible a short distance along the loanen. It was a pleasant, two- storied, whitewashed building, seen through the scattered Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 587 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna008 Manuscript Father, History English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna008 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna008_0.jpg LHL Archive 7 apple-trees on the lawn. The window-panes, crystal clear and bulging outward slightly in their narrow frames, gave on airy appearance to the house. But Mr Sorleyson did not hurry inward. Leaning his arms on the dry yielding hedge, he studied the ploughland on the other side, his eyes running up the curving furrows until they became flattened cogs on the skyline. He felt nothing hut satisfaction at what he had done, what weighed most with him, he reflected, was the pleasure that his father would feel in knowing that Hamilton and Sarah were now married. That alone Justified the casuistry. Except What his predecessor had told him, he knew very little of their history. From his father he had had only a few disjointed words of concern, and then, on the last time he had questioned him, an agonised pressure of the hand, which had left him in surprise and wondering silence as the old nan. withdraw to his room. Thinking of it afterwards, he remembered that this had been the old man’s first charge, and the son felt again, vicariously and for a moment, the anguish of his father. As he stood gazing at the pent-in landscape, he thought it no irreverent fancy to interpret as the devine Will that he should be instrumental in bringing back to the paths of propriety these two souls that must have caused his father so much sorrow. At that moment he raised his eyes to the hill- farm of Rathard. The horse and trap had drawn up in the farm- close and he watched the elderly couple and their son dismount. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 588 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna009 Manuscript Hedgetop, Spectacles English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna009 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna009_0.jpg LHL Archive 8 Echlin and the young man commencenced to unyoke the horse, and the women, drawing her skirts around her, crossed over to the house, Sorleyson’s face clouded. Ho ruffled the hedgetop with his open hand. Yes, I trapped her into it, I failed just as roach as my predecessors failed; as much as my father failed. He heard his name called, and turning, saw; his father standing under the apple-trees. The elder man came forward, his eyes shining mildly behind hie spectacles. His hair turning white, was still full and crisp on the back of his head. He wore a dark suit, a spotless white shirt and collar, and hie black tie was loosely twined, the flat Knot lying on his shirtfront. He had the benign end silvery aspect of one whoso life preoccupation has been the minutiae of human Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 589 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna010 Manuscript Cynic, Habitation English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna010 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna010_0.jpg LHL Archive 5 experience. He placed his hand on his son's shoulder. "Are you tired?" he asked. The young minister smiled and shook his head, “No, not very." Both men turned and walked slowly across the lawn towards the house. "And your - most remarkable wedding service, it went smoothly?" "Yes, oh yes. When I prayed, 1 asked them to kneel. I think I did right The father chose to ignore the note of query in his son's reply. Their feet were sounding on the gravel before the house, when he suddenly said 'If the reasons for most marriages were stated you would be astounded at the ingenuity of your feilow men - and perhaps appalled at their courage. Fortunately, that is not our business." At this remark a look of uneasiness and annoyance came on the young man's face. He shook his father’s shoulder gently. "You old cynic" he said with a laugh. As Mr Sorleyson was long past the age when the epithet could be considered a compliment he did not smile in reply. In silence the two men mounted the worn steps of the manse. Chapter Two The farm of Rathgard sat crescent-shaped on a low green hill screened by beech-trees from the misty winds that rose from the lough in the winter. on summer evenings the cream-washed homestead eyed by the setting sun, blushed warmly under the dark foliage. Swelling gently from the shores of Strangford Lough, the hill had borne habitation for centuries. Behind the dwelling-house lay an ancient rath from whence an earlier people had looked down on the sinious waters of the lough, how nothing more martial was heard than the cry of a cock, or the low piping of bees from the seven hives which sat in the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 590 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna011 Manuscript Echlin, Daughter English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna011 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna011_0.jpg LHL Archive 6 curve of the bowed earth walls. The house faced inland; to its right, towards the lough, were the barns and byres. To its left, the stackyard, bounded by a delicate file of rowan trees which ended where the rutted loanen, climbing from the road, emptied into the close. When Margaret Echlin turned her face from her husband and sons, from dung-crusted beasts and hungry fowl and clashing pails, only then did her husband Andrew realise what part she had filled in Rathard. It was as if the whole framework of the farm’s daily life had been withdrawn, hardly a task about the kitchen or the fields but now lacked some essential part. Urgently, Andrew set about finding someone to tend to himself and his sons. His task was not an easy one, for Rathard was surrounded by prosperous cottiers, the farms of which absorbed all the labour that each family could expend. But in the neighbouring townland of Banyil was a group of labourers' cottage in which lived the old residenters or their children, tenants of a vanished demense. In one of these cottages lived Charlie Gomartin, a thatcher with his wife and daughter Sarah, now a woman of thirty years. Charlie had travelled the countryside to ply his trade; but as time passed and Sarah grew up, his circuits became wider and his appearances at home more and more infrequent, until at last he disappeared entirely, and a rumour drifted to Banyil that he had died on a Sligo road among tinker people. Martha Gomartin and her daughter earned their money working in the houses and fields of neighbouring farmers, more often that of Mr Bourke, owner of the cottages. Martha was held in regard for her labour, frugality and honesty. Sarah, like herself, was a fine worker^better in the kitchen than her mother. Some said that she was as simple as a mouse, others that she was a sly lady. But she went her road quietly and didn't meddle with the boys Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 591 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna012 Manuscript Andrew, Martha English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna012 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna012_0.jpg LHL Archive Andrew Echlin sent word to Mrs Gomartin that he would have her come up to Rathard at her convenience. Accordingly, the next evening, Martha and her daughter entered the close before the Echlin's farmhouse. A collie rose dustily from a corner of the close and stretching out his neck, barked at the two women. They heard the screech of a chair pushed back on the tiled floor of the kitchen, and Andrew appeared on the threshold, twisting his fingers in his beard. “Come in, Martha" he said smiling at his neighbour and her daughter. The Echlins had worked late at some distance from the farmhouse and were now seated at their evenly meal. When Martha had spoken to the two sons, who ducked their head in answer, she and Sarah took seats along the wall close to the door. Andrew reached down cups and saucers from the dresser and filled them with dark pungent tea. ..hen he added milk the tea turned to a bright unappetising brown. Only the faintest thread of vapour rose from the cups. He watched Martha take one sip and then 3et her cup aside on the shelf of the sewing-machine, her daughter held her cup cradled in her lap. The old man laughed apologetically. "Ye can see, Martha. There's hands wanted here." MrS Gomartin was cautious. She studied the roughly set table and the choked hearth. "Things might be red up a wee-thing, Andrew,” she agreed, "Well, there ye are now" said Andrew slapping his leg softly. The young men and the young woman studied each other discreetly in passing glances. The seated men were framed in the long black oak dresser on the shelves of which rested row on row of cottage-blue and willow-pattern plates, the women itched to be at the soot that masked their bright faces. The mother saw them sparkling; the daughter saw them sparkling and ranked in symmetry of size and shape. But not a sign was made. Martha, her hands resting lightly Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 592 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna013 Manuscript Frank, Gomartin English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna013 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna013_0.jpg LHL Archive 8 on the arm of her chair listening patiently to the patriarch Andrew speaking for himself and his sons; Sarah listening dutifully to the talk of her elders and only seeming to rest when she glanced casually at the young men. Frank, the younger brother had stopped eating when the visitors arrived and now pushed crumbs around his plate with the end of his cigarette. He lounged carelessly in his chair, slim and brown, glancing thoughtfully at the girl from below him tumbled fair hair. Hamilton, seated in his father's shadow.had politely suspended his meal until the woman had tea. Hov he pushed his plate away after mopping up the last of the Mealy-cresshy which had been their evening dish. He spooled honey into the heart of a farl and as the sweet slowly uncoiled from his knife he amused himself with the thought that the hair of Martha’s daughter was the same colour, but he turned his dark face stolidly to his father’s talk. She’s a cold pale one, thought Frank, with no sport in her. Then he caught her calm ever-moving glance, and felt uncertain again. "Well, Martha, there’s room beyond for both of ye, ' said Andrew, inclining his head towards the lower part of the house. "Ye may come as soon as you’re free o’ the Bourkes. Ye’d be needed here at the harvest, and in the winter it would be a great convenience to have the house tended to." The. old man leaned forward with a smile wrinkling his eyes. " We dinna often hear a step in the close, but ye can aye go down the road when you’re lonely." Mrs Gomartin carefully folded her square, work-thickened fingers in her lap. "It makes no great odds, Andrew,”she replied with a quick upward lift of her head. "A widow’s seat is aye a lonely seat." "Aye, God knows that’s true enough” answered Andrew, staring sombrely at the wall. Three days later Mrs Gomartin closed her cottage and came with her Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 593 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna014 Manuscript Flirting, Reaper English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna014 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna014_0.jpg LHL Archive 9 daughter to live in the Echlins’ house. The women were given the two lower rooms of the house, one as a bedroom and one as a living room, She effect of the Gomartins moving in became quickly evident. Ir. the house, meals were more punctual and a greater variety of dishes appeared on the table. Beds were no longer confused heaps of malodorous clothes. Outside, in the work around the' f»rm, Martha and Gar ah took their share of the harvesting. Sarah had an amazing capacity for hard work, -he was deft and quick in her movements, and brought her strength to the point where it would have greatest effect, she sould have been considered' a graceful girl, but she neutralised that by her cold and detached expression. The Echlins and the Gomartins were members of the same Presbyterian congregation, and on Sundays the five members of the two families drove in the trap to the meeting-house. It had been the custom of the two young men, when the horse was stabled and the trap put away, to join the young men and women in the churchyard where they spent the few minutes before the service began in talking and flirting with each other. On the second Sabbath after they had driven to the church with the Gomartins, Frank was surprised to see his brother hasten into the church with only a nod to his old companions, he sat on a flat gravestone, gazing thoughtfully at the doorway through which Hamilton had disappeared, and quite unmindful of the talk of the young men around him. Ihe rain and winds which had beaten the corn until it lay tangled like the hair of a sleeping man, gave way to serene weather and the harvesters eked out each hour of light in the mellow August evening. Andrew opened the fields with his scythe, Hamilton or Frank rode the reaper, while Martha, Sarah and Peter Sampson, a labouring man, gathered and tied. Behind them Andrew stocked the shealves. Franks satisfaction at Sarah mild indifference Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 594 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna015 Manuscript Brother, Innocence English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna015 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna015_0.jpg LHL Archive 10 to his brother was tempered by the knowledge that it extended to himself. It gave way to chagrin when he saw the growls affection between his father and the young woman, From the first, Sarah had felt drawn towards Andrew, inspired by his kindness, humour and prophetic appearance, she was also impelled by a trait in herself, not uncommon in those who have tasted poverty, which made her prefer the father to the son, the master rather than the steward. But Sarah was a woman incapable of coquetry and none of her attentions to the old nan was spoiled by lack of innocence. Only Frank, his mind overcast by his own desires misinterpreted then. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 595 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna016 Manuscript Solitary, Peninsula English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna016 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna016_0.jpg LHL Archive 11 Chapter Three Sarah moved slowly along the hedge that bordered the grazing field sloping from the farm to the brink of the brae over the lough. Occasionaly, she knelt and drew out a sere twig from the ditch and put it in her pursed-up apron. She descended the slope until she was approaching the turn of the hedge over the lough. Her gleaning was so small and her steps so listless that it was evident that the gathering of kindling was only the outward 3ign of an inner preoccupation. But even here, a solitary figure in the dusk, no sign, no smile, no frown or poise of the head betrayed whether her thoughts were pleasant or otherwise. She had left the kitchen unable any longer to bear the attention of Frank whose eyes she felt fixed on her head as she went over her flowering, and which he lowered when at last he had forced a response from her. Then Mm..wcasaftt, his sunburnt face cupped in his hands, when he had returned her gaze boldly, with a look that filled her with apprehension and fear. She rose, folding up her embroidery, and put on her working apron. The tranquil light from the ceiling-lamp fell on the household as she stood with her hand on the latch: her mother, small and bent, tapping her flowering-hoops with her needle; Andrew, following the newsprint with moving lips, his spectacles balanced halfway between light-filled hair and beard; Hamilton, dozing at the fire. Frank stood up, stretching his arms and yawning. But his eyes were alert, bright, questioning her. She had rebuffed him as she lifted the latch and then hesitated on the threshold, half mindful to go in again. How she paused with a sharp intake of breath at a gap overlooking the lough. Below her the islands lay like cattle shoulder deep in dark grass flank beyond flank down the dull silver of the water until the last merged in the olive under dusk of the peninsula. He had wilfully misunderstood her. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 596 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna017 Manuscript Downpatrick, Finnebrogue English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna017 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna017_0.jpg LHL Archive 12 She bed wanted to deny him and his smile had said *1 see, 1 understand, not now.' and she had paused and not gone into her mother again, The grass wetted her stockings and she shivered in the chill air. hen she entered the kitchen again Hamilton and Frank had gone to bed, and her mother* dipping their supper cups in a basin of water, was saying to Andrew who set girning and muttering at the fire, "Ah, drink up your cocoa like a good man, till we get away t’our beds.” The old man tipped the contents of his cup into the back of the fire, "Cocoa's the fruit of the Lord as well aa bread, murmured Martha angrily. "Aye, and so are hearing” returned Andrew 'but I Winna feed them to a horse. “Sarah daughter, wet me a cup o’ tea, for my mouth’s as grurmly as a puddle, “What's in the wee shed below the brae?" she asked as she lowered the kettle on the crane. "A boat that Sarah bought nine or ten summers ago," answered . Andrew, watching with pleasure the hot water hiss on the leaves. Sarah thrust the belly of the pot between two turves to simmer, and Echlin continued '"The three of us were coming home from Downpatrick when the boys heard toll o’ a punt selling at Finnebrogue, so they bought her and rowed her the length o* the Lough and were home a round hour afore me and the cart. what do you think of that, now?" the women smiled and nodded. Will she Niinr?" asked Sarah, drawing out the pot. Aye, she’ll swim! her as tight as a bottle.' 'Ihere was silence as Sarah filled the cups. "Well, will ye take roe for a sail?" Andrew laughed and Martha slopped her cloth noisily on the table, She always felt uneasy when her daughter asked favours like this.in such a self- assured way, as if a refusal wasn't to be dreamt of. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 597 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna018 Manuscript Parlour, Bleached English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna018 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna018_0.jpg LHL Archive 13 "I've an errand over tae the Pentlands o’ the Island one of these days'said Andrew, "and if we’re spared, 1’11 take ye." Martha, after waiting for their cups, cast out the dishwater across the dark close, shot the bolt again, then went to her bed in silence. The rich colouring of the land was shorn away, or beaten down by wind and rain. On the hills the grey fields were like the faces of spent men; the loaves lay in sodden drifts in the poanena, and the water rose broadly is the wells, the men ran new runlets against the equinoctial storms, patched barns and byres, breaded hedges where the falling leaf revealed gaps and listened patiently to the indoor needs of the farmwife. The women felt the breasts of fowls, laid fragrant apples in the loft, and in the comfortable farms drew out again voluminous half-finished embroidered clothes from parlour chests. The rhythm of life in the countryside moves cautiously in the winter months, but the insistent note of the coming spring is never unheeded,and one morning Andrew said that he would have to cross over to Pentland’s to bring back a prize ram, his idea was that all five of them should go, but Martha was against putting her foot in a wee husk of a boat, as she called it, By midday the sky had darkened, and Mrs Gomartin tried to dissude Sarah from going with the men, out the girl insisted, and after some bickering with her mother, left the farmhouse with Andrew, Hamilton and rank, as they descended the brae to the beach Andrew pointed out to the girl Pentiand’a island which lay about a mile and a half down the lough and beyond several smaller islands, ran the top of the hill the house could be seen shining in a shaft of sunlight which fell for a moment through the mounting clouds, before the boathouse lay bleached rollers, half-eurieu in the shingle* Andrew unearthed then, and the others ran the boat down to the water, where it rocked gently, with an eager kissing sound, . Hamilton lifted Sarah in his arms Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 598 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna019 Manuscript Island, Mainland English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna019 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna019_0.jpg LHL Archive 14 and placed her in the stern. She thanked him, ignoring the shadow on his brother's face# Andrew pushed off and passed t'o oar forward to Hamilton, and the two brothers sent the little boat dancing over the shallow leaden waters. Above them to the east, a cloud rose up, spreading rapidly on either hand like a sheaf shaken loose, a blue light played swiftly over the low hills of Ards, followed by a distant rattle of thunder, The boat threaded its way between the Intervening islets, crept across the sound, and grated • on the shingle beach of Pentlands island, They left the boat and crossed the loose stones. Beyond a bolt of coarse grass and shrivelled harebells they came upon the path leading up to the farm. The island was less than half-a-rmile long, and the Echlins and Sarah had arrived on the highest point so that they could look down the whole length of it. ,except for the cultivated fields to the east the ground was given over to sheep-grazing, and the animals could be seen moving about in little grey drifts among the stones and rocks that burnt through the close-cropped turf. At the- beach nearest the mainland was the shell of a monastic settlement surrounded by smooth grassy mounds, which, Andrew told Sarah, were "the graves of old kings." The farm sat in the riddle of the island, and from it, as the travellers paused on the skyline, cane the barking of a dog. beyond the island black clouds were mounting on each other's shoulders. "It’s raining on the lough" said Hamilton, pointing to where a ragged Curtain of light fell across the water. Puff of wind lifted their hail, “will the boat'be all right?" asked Andrew looking back at the beach, when the two young men had satisfied him on this, they moved down towards the farm. A shift of rain struck their faces as they hurried into Pentland’s Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 599 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna020 Manuscript Hamilton, Pentland English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna020 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna020_0.jpg LHL Archive 15 close, and the sound of their feet on the paving-stones at the dog barking again from whatever outhouse he sheltered in. Fergus I out land net than at the doorway. He was a man of about thirty, with a brickrei complexion and lank black hair that kept falling down into his eyes’. He wore a fine white shirt, a tweed vest and riding breaches, and the porch in which he stood, with its 3hot-horns and churn of corn hanging on the varnished walls, indicated a genteel and prosperous farmer. Ho greeted his visitors affably, but his uncle Andrew’s response was as curt as decency would allow, and ho would have pushed post Pentland had the other not retreated before him, which surprised Jarah, who thought him a very well-set-up and pleasant young man. The noise of their arrival had been heard by someone inside the house, for a high quavoring voice was heard calling on Andrew's name. Hamilton and Frank beckoned Sarah to follow their father and they entered a large red-flagged kitchen where an old woman sat knitting before tho fire. "Aye, its me, Mother Pentland” said Andrew, in answer to the old woman’s question. "And who’s that wi’ ye?" asked the old woman peering beyond the men to Sarah. "It’s Martha Gomartin’s daughter. They’re giving us a hand up at Rathard now. Come forrit, Sarah, till Mrs Pentland sees ye." While Mrs Pentland was shaking hands with Sarah, her grandson was settle forward chairs for the visitors. A young servant appeared, her arms still freckled with meal, and lifting the rings on tho range, set the kettle on the fire. When she went to spread the cloth Fergus Pentland rose lazily from the table-corner on which he had seated himself to lean against the firecheek, from where, brown arms folded, he kept up a stream of - good-humoured banter with his cousins, occasionaly glancing into Sarah’s face to see if he had her attention. The girl, seated between Andrew and the old lady who had their heads together Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 600 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna021 Manuscript Fog, Donkey English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna021 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna021_0.jpg LHL Archive 16 and Frank,Hamilton and Pentland, tried to remain slightly withdrawn from both conversations. On the one side old age and low voices; on the other youth, and laughter, and the invitation in Pentland’s eye. ohe smiled, then she laughed and moved her chair a degree towards Pentland. Jie decided that she had never seen such an elegant good-natured young man before. The meal was almost finished when the storm broke in the lough, The farm house quivered under the first impact and the windows chattered in their frames. Then there was a momentary relief in gushing rain. Unable to see through the streaming panes, Andrew went to the door. Beyond the ken of the island everything was blotted out, and the rolling knowes and farm loomed and disappeared in the driven fog. The hiss and whine of the rain filled the air, but when the wind lifted its bow the roaring of the lough in its thousand holes and rock3 came to the old man's ears. 'Is it wild, Andra?" asked Mrs Pentland as he came in. "There's a bit av a blow on, but that's no newance in these parts, ’ he answered. , "Ye may bide a while then," said the old lady. "we'll bide till it clears a bit, but we'll have to be on the move afore dark. Could the ram be got ready?" Andrew adressed himself to Mrs Pentland as if reluctant to speak to her grandson. "Fergus, will ye fetch the ram and halter him. Ye can get Geordie bee lead him down tae your uncle's boat." "Peh!" cried Andrew. "Aren't there three of us in each other's road already, to fetch a bit o' a ram across!" Out when the rain and wind offered a moment of escape, it was found that the ram, a powerful and thick-coated Border Leicester, had been so enraged by the tethering that he hung back on the rope as intractable as a donkey, and had to be dragged u the close. Now as he slithered and danced angrily outside Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 601 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna022 Manuscript Farmhand, Oilskins English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna022 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna022_0.jpg LHL Archive 17 the door, his bellows, penetrating the storm, were answered by his plaintive dams as they stood heads buried in the whins and tails out to the rain. Pentland came stamping into the kitchen and it seemed to Sarah that some of his good-nature had worn away. "Sorra take it for a bad beast, that!” he declared, slapping his chafed hands on his soaked sleeves. The farmhand, standing in the doorway, declared that it would be folly to attempt to drag the ram over the island and suggested throwing him on the slipe and hauling • him down to the boat. Hamilton agreed with this, but Andrew seemed determined to oppose any suggestions of Pentland's, and declared that a man could carry the beast round the island, and going out he caught the ram by his woolly pow and with the unwilling help of his sons raised it on his shoulders. But his triumph was short-lived. The muscular arm could not hold the writhing animal, and after a few staggering steps the ram slithered out of his grasp and would have been away into the mist had not the servingman caught the tether and Hamilton thrown himself on the animal(s fleecy back. "That’s enough o' this foolishness” said Hamilton sharply, taking the rope in his hands. "Away and fetch the slipe, Geordie,” he 3aid to the man, and when it was dragged out the ram was tied and laid upon it. By this time the Echlins were soaked and Mrs Pentland would have delayed them further to dry themselves, but they were determined to go. Fergus returned to- the kitchen with an armful of oilskins. As he unknotted the strings of Sarah’s sou'wester he bent hi3 mouth to her ear "Let's hope there's warmth and sunshine when ye come back" he said. She looked up at him from tinder the hood. "Then its the summer ye want to see us again?" she asked with a smile on her lips. "Ah, I didn’t mean that, at all!” he protested laughingly. "Leave me to Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 602 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna023 Manuscript Monastery, Burden English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna023 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna023_0.jpg LHL Archive 18 find an errand soon in Rathard!” They went out into the mist and rain again. The wind had died away and did not impede the men as they dragged the slipe and the silent ram along the tracks or lifted it like a hurdle over the ditches. As they reached the highest point of the island below which their boat lay, Sarah looked back on the road they had come. The wind had come up again and driven the mist from the high points, the crumbling monastery, the farm and the scattered knowes where the sheep moved like detached fragments of mist that had bean shaken off Suddenly she cried out. To the south, upon the Mournes, a fantastic cloud- formation leaned, and from a fissure in the topmost billow a ray of sun poured down balor-like upon the earth. The beam, fire-tinged, and the looming mass behind, struck a chill of fear into the tired and buffetted group on the headland. Then, as though a lid swam sleepily, the eye diminished and the head seemed to nod forward. The farmhand turned with an oath and clattered down the path leading to the beach, the slipe bumping behind him, and the others hurrying on his heels. Had they delayed a moment they would have seen the cloud decapitated by the straining wind and the malignant glow appear diffused, opalescent and harmless. At the beach Hamilton and Frank tilted the boat to run off the rainwater Andrew and the farmhand released the ram from the slipe and it now scrambled to its feet looking very dejected and sorry for itself, At least Sarah seemed to think so, for she stood over it, crooning and scratching its drooping head, but she moved away lightly from Pentland as he approached her. "Let us be going now,” said Andrew. The ram was urged to the water’s edge and hoisted into the boat. Sarah was snatched up by Frank, and as he stood thigh-deep in the water he turned a little towards Pentland with his burden before he seated her in the stern.. Already the two men on the beach Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 603 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna024 Manuscript Woman, Lough English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna024 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna024_0.jpg LHL Archive 19 were vague and indistinct, and their shouts of farewell came torn and disjointed to those afloat. "He's a crabbit ould blirt, too" grumbled the serving man, referring to Andrew, as he and Pentland turned away. But his master only grunted. He v.as preoccupied with the image of the sturdy, pale,smooth-haired woman in whose company he had been for the past three hours. He remembered Frank Echlin's fingers sunk in her thigh and waist and a tremor ran through him. The slipe caught on a stone, and Pentland turned round to look down on the lough. The boat had vanished and the grey fretted water was hardly distinguishable from the rain and mist that swept across it. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 604 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna025 Manuscript Rathard, Menace English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna025 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna025_0.jpg LHL Archive 20 Chapter Four Sarah studied Andrew's face before she spoke. “Why do ye no like Pentland?" she asked. The old nan, whose eyes had been fixed on the rowers, turned to her. He dashed the drops vigorously from his brow and mouth. "Pah: That pachel - he's only an ould jinny of a man!” When she did not respond he added without taking his attention from the boat's course: "when ye see mair o' him, you'll heed what 1 say." The nose of the punt was set below Rathard so that the rowers could get what ease they might by running with the race down the lough and pulling up gain in the calmer waters under the hill. Andrew now crept forward and took a third oar, so that he and Frank were pulling on the starboard side and Hamilton, the most powerful rower of the three, was rowing on the port. Slowly the boat began to move obliquely across the channel-race. The wind was rising again, and it became evident to the three men that they were being carried down at such a pace that it would be impossible to make the passage between the small islands which lay between them and home. Hamilton decided what they should give up the idea of landing at Rathard and let themselves be carried further down and round the shelter of a third island from where they could pull across into Dufferin bay, two miles below Rathard. He shouted this in disjointed sentences as he bent and straightened to his oar,witih a rusty tin Sarah bailed the rain water and spume that gurgled and slopped at her feet. She was drenched to the skin but long past caring, »hen she looked up she saw the heads and bodies of the three men approaching and receding as they combed the tumbling waves. Impeded by hundreds of islands, the waves never mounted to the fury of those of the sea, the menace lying in the currents that raced through the passages between island and island. The punt was now crawling across such Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 605 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna026 Manuscript Kinship, Gunwale English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna026 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna026_0.jpg LHL Archive a passage and approaching the deep channel where a swift racing band of water, broken and wind-blown, raised itself like the ruff of an angry dog. Then, as they neared mid-channel, Sarah felt a sudden exhilaration and a surge of kinship and love for her three companions. Her fear was subdued and lost in this feeling of kinship, of nearness to men who recognised the danger, accepted it, and were battling with it. Unconsciously, her body moved in sympathy with the rowers. The bow entered the frothing race, Andrew and Frank strained on their oars, the boat shuddered madly and was straightened by Hamilton. Then they were across safely into the choppy broken lea-water of the island. Frank threw back his head and laughed aloud. They were coming up under the lea of the island. At a hoardes word from Andrew, Hamilton pulled the nose of the punt from a patch of water that revolved with sinister glassiness in the midst of the spume and fret. But in the end they came too close. A shaggy rock suddenly loured above them. As Andrew shouted, a sheep scrambled up in fear and brayed at the passing boat. Frank felt the ram writhe under his feet. He beat down savagely with his fist on its iron-hard head. The animal scrambled up until its forelegs lay over the gunwhale. Hamilton, raised high above the water, dragged hi3 oar in a flurry of broken foam and fell back over his father, The boat dropped down drinking deeply, and sank. The four people lay in the tumbling water. The punt rose sluggishly among them, keel uppermost, Sarah lay for a moment with her face to the sky, then fingers of iron, sinking agonisingly into her flesh, lifted her and hurled her across the shelving keel, shaking the water from her nose and mouth, she raised her face and saw the three men riding the waves, their arms stretched over the curving belly of the boat. "Pull yourself forrit, Sarah, and lie on our hands!” shouted Hamilton, gripping the ridge of the keel. The girl dragged herself forward and laid Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 606 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna027 Manuscript Guttered, Bruised English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna027 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna027_0.jpg LHL Archive 22 her body on the hands of the brothers. She stretched out and caught Andrew’s hand and forearm. The boat guttered and her head was plunged underwater, she felt Andrew’s hand to which she clung deliberately shake itself free and draw away. Choked, and with streaming eyes, she saw him slip away, his head visible for a moment in the spume and mist. The boat sprang up at the bows, and under her belly she felt the two brothers grasp convulsively to retain their hold. She moved her head from side to side of the keel: "He’s gone! Your father's gone!' she screamed, and looked into the eyes of drowning men. The boat was drawn into the broken race below the mainland, and circled down and across it* like a bruised fly in a gutter. Sarah, her face beaten and bruised by the plunging keel, lay like wax across the hands of the brothers. With a plunge and stumble Hamilton touched ground. He dragged his brother ashore and lifted the girl from the boat and laid her on the shingle beside Frank. Above him, on the hill, he heard the shrill cry of a boy and saw him running, zig-zag, down the shadowy slope, with a ;roan he fell on his knees between his brother and the girl. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 607 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna028 Manuscript Neighbours, Rhythmic English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna028 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna028_0.jpg LHL Archive 23 Chapter Five An old woman, gathering wrack after the s torn, found Andrew on the beach. Sarah stooped over him as he lay in hie coffin in the parlour of Rathard. His beard, washed and combed, lay like a sheaf of silver threads on hie linen gown* The shining plumred life had gone from his lips* his nostrils and eyelids had become delicate, waxen, translucent like shells, She heard a step at.the door and drew back as Hamilton entered, bending his head at the low doorway* "The neighbours are coming in he said. He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, turning her to the light, la it wise for ye to be on your feet?" She passed her hand across her bruised forehead* I’m bravely now" she answered. "Are the people in the close?" "Aye, but rest yourself. I bade Agnes Sampson come up and help your mother make what little meat there’ll be.” He seated himself on a chair near the door and laid his hands on his knees* "Sarah" he began, now that he’s gone he nodded towards the coffin, "I would like you and your mother to bide here for a while till Frank and me get settled. You’re in no hurry away, are ye?" He rose and walked to the coffin and placed his hand lightly on his father’s brow. "He was a good man’ he said "and he was gey fond of you." Sarah rose swiftly and stood with hear face to the window. z'ran the kitchen came the low murmur of voices and a rhythmic beat like a tiny drum a3 some farmhand rocked his sparbled boots on the tiled floor, Hamilton stood watching her silently. 'If my mother wants to stay, I’ll stay” she said. without looking at him again, she turned and left the room. She went up int the kitchen where the mourners were ranged around the walls, some seated, some standing, and each with a cup of tea in his hand or Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 608 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna029 Manuscript Furtively, Minister English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna029 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna029_0.jpg LHL Archive 24 on his knee, while Mrs Gomartin and Agnes Sampson moved among them, offering plates of slim scones and boiled ham on bread. The murmur of voices dropped as the girl entered the kitchen, and a few of the darkclad men, mostly strangers to her, smiled and Jerked their heads while the others looked at her furtively, as one who had been in danger of death. Stewartie Purdy, Eehlin's oldest neighbour and friend, rose and took her hand. ‘We’re thankful to see that you're able to be about, lass, he said, and as he retreated to his chair the others looked up, cleared their throats, and nodded. Then their heads clustered together in twos and threes and again the murmurous talk of crops and cattle arose. When the old man released her hand Sarah walked to the half-door, where she stood with her back to the room looking out over tie close. Her hands grasped the top of the low door in a fit of anger. She hated the people in the kitchen for their interrupted talk, their sly curious stare, and for the use of the word 'lass" by old Purdy. Then most humiliating of all, her mother's smile of gratitude, almost fawning, which had rested on Purdy as he took her hand. Her eyes filled with tears of self-pity as she thought of the old man who now lay silent in the parlour. She would show them all that she was more than a servant in this house! hut as she stood there, disregarding her mother's voice at her shoulder, caution, like a tardy sentinel, took up its position again in her mind. Her eyes hardened, her full lips lifted again at the corners and she would have turned unconcernedly and cheerfully to her mother, had not the sound of a step in the close drawn her attention. Two men were approaching the house. One of them, a clergyman, paused at the top of the loanen to wait on the other who was coming in by the gate over the lough. A thrill of pleasure ran through the girl as she recognised the figure and long abrupt stride of Pentland. She thought she saw him raise his hand to her but she fled back into the kitchen. "The minister!" she said Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 609 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna030 Manuscript Coffin, Pentland English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna030 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna030_0.jpg LHL Archive 25 in a low voice to her mother, tossing the words like coins to placate the old woman. She swept on, looking neither to right nor left, down to the parlour to tell the eldest son of the minister’s arrival. Hamilton was screwing his reflection sidewards in the narrow plushbound mirror over the fireboard as he pulled up hi3 tie. "Mr Sorleyson's here" she said. He adjusted his tie before he turned. She noticed that he had placed the lid loosely on the coffin. "I’ll go up now and speak to him. 1 want you and your mother to be here when the prayer’s said." They heard the kitchen door open and the footsteps of someone coming down the passage, the steps faltered as the intruder realised that he was approaching the death-room. Pentland appeared in the doorway. He came into the room and took his cousin’s hand. "I’m right and sorry to hear what happened, Hami. It's a terrible thing that it should have happened crossing from our place, too." Hamilton nodded and returned the pressure of the other's hand. "It was a sore blow tae us all, Fergus, but its well it wasn't worse. I’ll leave ye now, for I’ve to go up and speak tae the neighbours. Frank's in bed wi' a bad fever." When Hamilton had gone Pentland stood gazing down at the coffin but he did not make a move to raise the lid. "I’ll never forgive myself for letting you go that day" he said at last. "Oh, dont talk like that!" cried Sarah. "Sure, Andra was as set on going as anybody was. There’s no blame lies wi’ you, Mr Pentland." 'Ye think not?" He turned and looked anxiously into her face. Sarah shook her head. "It was ill-chance, that’s what it was." "Did ye cry?" asked Pentland suddenly, leaning over her. "Did ye shout in the water?" "No" answered Sarah, unwinding her clasped fingers and stepping back a little. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 610 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna031 Manuscript Drowned, Heavenly English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna031 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna031_0.jpg LHL Archive 26 “The sound mightn’t have carried to me wi’ the wind, anyway, But it’s terrible to think o’t! Ye might have been drowned!” Then Pentland recognised the effect hi a words had on Sarah. Colour glowed in her pale face and her eyes moved shyly and restlessly as if she was about to fly from him. lie turned away a little, endeavouring to compose his mouth and hands and voice. He glowed inwardly, and at the same moment a shadow of fear darkened his mind. In the silence that followed Sarah had overcome her confusion which was much more simple and direct, "Well, I wasn’t, that’s all” she said, shrugging her shoulders. Surely that was not all, . Miss Gomartin” said a voice behind them, startled, the girl turned t see Mr Sorleyson regarding her from the doorway. The minister came farther into the room, nodding to Pentland whom he had met in the close. Sorleyson's complexion was fair and his eyes, brown and smiling, were magnified a little by his spectacles. Ids voice although comnonplace, was clear, and everything he said was marked by an upward inflexion which gave it a note of diffidence arid willingness to please. "Surely you wont dismiss your escape from drowning in such a casual manner, Mss Gomartin? I've hoard the whole tragic story from Hamilton, and its a matter of deep thankfulness to our Heavenly Father that you and Hamilton and “rank are here today, although we grieve for the loss of our brother, Andrew.” As he finished, Hamilton entered the roam and seeing that the minister did not require him, turned to the window. Sarah would not have answered Sorleyson's mild reproof had he not mentioned Andrew’s name. Ham it brought up again, in vivid and painful detail, her last sight of the old man as he struck out from the overladen boat. "And why should God have let Andrew drown? He was a good man, Mr Sorleyaon." Hamilton turned impatiently fro: the window. "Mr Sorleyson” he said, the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 611 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna032 Manuscript Unbidden, Funeral English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna032 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna032_0.jpg LHL Archive 27 carriages are here.” "In a moment, Hamilton," replied the clergyman. "God moves in strange ways, Sarah. The old were taken and the young, we hope, will profit by this experience. He would have gone across to Hamilton, but Sarah laid her hand on his arm. "I've something to tell you, Mr Sorleyson. Andrew wasn't taken because he was old, and we weren't spared because we were young. I saw him leave go of the boat and swim into the fog. If he hadn't done that, there’s no telling but all four of us would have gone." Sorleyson was about to reply but Hamilton spoke first, "Away and bring your mother down, Sarah, and open Frank’s door so that he can hear the prayer." His face was dark and scowling and she knew that he was angry at all this chatter round the dead body of his father, even as she left t^e room the words rose unbidden . . . and if it hadn't been for you, Frank and me would have drowned ... She felt full of remorse, and an urgent desire to please him. When she had brought her mother down to the parlour, Sorleyson prayed. Sarah silently ran her nail over the worn plush on the arm of the chair at which she knelt, as Soleyson's words filtered through to her: ". . . my son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. She had ventured a little too far, having words like with the minister before Hamilton. Until the funeral left she would stay in the background behind her mother and Agnes, silent, only coming forward when she was needed. That was her place as a servant in the house. In the meantime, anyway, until her false step had been forgotten, Sorleyson cleared his throat before he launched into his special prayer for the occasion: 0 God, ho hast in thy great mercy spared the green and taken the ripe; teach, we beseech Thee, thy sons and daughters gathered here, that nature framed by Thy almighty hand can never be tamed to Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 612 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna033 Manuscript Undertaker, Map English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna033 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna033_0.jpg LHL Archive 28 man’s will. That storms and tempests will continue to brush aside man as a housewife brushes aside a cobweb. And when Thy inexorable processes run counter to man’s hopes and desires, help them, O Lord, to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. May their sorrows yield the peacable fruit of righteousness, so that each of them shall be able to say: It is good for me that I have been afflicted. And mercifully grant unto all of us here present, and to as many as mourn with us in this sorrow, that we may hear the voice of Thy Spirit saying to us. Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh . . . They remained for a moment in silence on their knees. Then they rose, Mrs Gomartin helping herself up slowly from the chair at which she knelt. Hamilton and Sarah looked at the face of the dead man, then they went up into the kitchen. The undertaker’s men slipped unobtrusively into the parlour and closed the door. Once there was the shrill scringe of a screw driven into wood. The mourners had shuffled out into the close where they stood under the rowans in the pearly afternoon light. Hamilton came to the door and beckoned silently to two or three of them. He chose elderly men a&I close neighbours. These were the first bearers of the coffin. As they came up from the parlour their laden unsteady steps passed over the brain of the sick man like great lurching wheels. They carried the coffin round the gable of the house to pass his window. While the indistinct shadow of their passage moved slowly across his room he Lay with closed eyes and twitching fingers, murmuring to himself. Pentland had spoken to Sarah before he took his place at the coffin. "I’ll be back this way for my boat he said. ’You’ll stop in have your toe?" the girl asked. He smiled and nodded then followed the other men into the house. Behind him stood Sorleyson, brushing the nap of his hat on his arm. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 613 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna034 Manuscript Funeral, Infinite English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna034 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna034_0.jpg LHL Archive 29 "Be comforted' ho said to Sarah. 1 hope to see you at church on Sunday." He included both women In his glance, then he hurried away to take his place at the head of the mourners beside Hamilton. Sarah stood with the other women at the head of the loanen watching the funeral procession wind slowly among the fields and vanish in a fold of the road. But she followed it unseeingiy as she brooded over Sorleyson’s remarks. And the more she thought on them, so anger and revolt stirred in her. To her simple mind, the idea of a vast overleaning spirit, ever present, which with infinite patience followed the coming-in and going-out of a human being for eighty years, and then, at a pre-ordained time plucked him from the world, bore me signs of an ultimate responsibility, but now she suspected, and her anger rose at the thought, that Sorleyson had bent a fortuitious and tragic occurence to buttress his own beliefs and teachings, am had in some way robbed the lustre of Andrew’s self-sacrifice. When the last trap had disappeared Agnes -Simpson went back across the close. “We’d better be getting redd up, for they’ll be coming back soon, she said. Martha and Sarah followed her back to the farm. As they were about to enter the house Martha turned to her daughter and said in a low voice ”1 was wondering what they’ll dae about us, now the old man’s gone, did Hmailton say anything?" “He wants us tae bide on, he says.” “Well, we could dae that. I don’t doubt but one or t’other of them will get married soon." Her daughter turned on her in a blaze of anger. “What makes ye say that; she cried, striking her hand on the doorpost. “You’re talking daft, mother!” She strode ahead into the kitchen while Martha gazed after her in fear and amazement. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 614 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna035 Manuscript Death, Fireside English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna035 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna035_0.jpg LHL Archive 30 Chapter Six After the death of Andrew there was no further talk as to whether Sarah and her mother would remain at Rathard. Once the fever had passed its crisis, rank came into the kitchen and sat crouched at the fire, while the women went about their work, indoors and outdoors. His fever had been broken by some concoction brewed by Agnes Sampson, and she came up each day with more brews in which the herbs had changed their proportions, or to which fresh ingredients had been added. The Echlins had a great regard for Agnes, and soon Sarah also was looking forward with pleasure to the visits of this laughter-loving old woman with the heavy bosom and slim ankles. hen her light dancing step was heard in the close and she came into the kitchen, talk sprang on people’s lips, and the fire which had been nodding in the hearth drew up vigouously under the lowered kettle, as though it felt the eye of its mistress. It was during one of these visits that Sarah learned that Fergus Pentland had the gift of charming sick animals and people suffering from eresipylis. "A lock of ungodly nonsense!" cried Martha angrily, and Frank threw back his head and laughed for the first time since his illness. Let him be better and get about his work again, prayed Sarah, as she heard his laugh. For in each of those few days she could almost feel the springs of vitality and desire rise again in the man at the fireside. His eyes rarely left her as she moved about the kitchen. He answered Martha from the corner of his mouth as he gazed at her daughter. She had been kneading bread at the table when suddenly he got up and came towards her, his blanket drop ing from his shoulders onto the chair. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 615 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna036 Manuscript November, Lamplight English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna036 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna036_0.jpg LHL Archive 31 his eyes were ardent, and there was a gleam of triumphant laughter on his face as though some obstacle between them had been removed. He stretched out his hand to touch her. She moved round the table from him, watching him wide-eyed. Her elbow knocked over the flour-mug which starred out with a little explosion on the floor. In the silence that followed they heard the steps of Martha in the upper room. "Hae ye broke the bowl, Sarah?" she called, the girl laughed silently in his face. "Wo, mother, I knocked over the wee mug." Frank went back to the fire and sat down with his back to her, cowling his head in the blanket. After a moment she ran down to her room where she gazed into the mirror for a long time, clapping her hand swiftly over her mouth when her breath came in a crow of excitement. In November, as was their yearly custom, the Pentiands moved across to a little farm on the mainland to winter. Fergus had come up twice to Rathard during Frank’s illness, and then when Frank was better the visits continued, lie would come into the kitchen in the evenings with his head lowered and his eyes blinking in the lamplight. At first Hamilton had put aside whatever paper he was reading, or whatever work he had in hand, to talk to his cousin. But now, when Pentland called once or twice a week he would only look up from his work to wish him good-evening. Frank greeted his cousin with a slow secretive smile that lingered on his face as he gazed into the fire. And Pentland, having found a seat close to Sarah, and laid some little parcel of honey or sweets in the shadows behind her, would watch the grin on his cousin’s face, and fail into a vexed silence, unconscious of the stolen glances of the girl at his side. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 616 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna037 Manuscript Blood, Minister English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna037 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna037_0.jpg LHL Archive 32 He became convinced that Frank was the girl's lover, and that they, and Hamilton, and perhaps even old Martha, were laughing at him. *he first time the idea entered his head, anger soon gave way to a peculiar pleasure in the thought, and he lay in bed and tortured himself, imagining word3 and actions between the two. Yet every time that he swore passionately < p>never to s flooding back, and his turmoil waxed and waned like the shadows that crowded round and fled from his swinging lantern. Sarah, the blood throbbing in her lips, her breast still tingling from his embrace, watched Pentland's light till it was swallowed below the brae. She crossed the rath behind the house and mounting the ancient wall picked out his lantern a3 it pricked its way slowly through the darkness. Then it disappeared for the last time and she returned slowly to the house, downcast and dissatisfied. Some weeks after the funeral, Mr Sorleyson called again at Rathard. he remained with Hamilton in the lower room for a time, before he came up into the kitchen where Martha and Sarah were working. “So you intend staying with Mr Echlin for a while, Martha?" he asked. The old woman nodded. "Aye, they want Sarah and me here." The minister glanced round the trim kitchen. I can see that, he said. "I didn't see you in church after all," he added, turning to Sarah. Mrs Gomartin put aside the brush with which she was blacking the crane. "I'm wearied talking to all three o' them, Mr Sorleyson she interjected. "But not one of them will go a step wi' me. ' The clergyman looked down at the floor with a grave expression. "It's your duty to go with your mother, you know, Sarah." The girl turned away with a slight shrug. The red sun pierced the kitchen Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 617 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna038 Manuscript Clergyman, Daughter English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna038 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna038_0.jpg LHL Archive 33 and gleamed on her fair hair. Sorleyson considered her figure as she stood in the roseate light. Kr regretted the shapeless apron that hung from her waist. The minister picked up his hat from the dresser. "Well, 1 must be away" he said. "I hope to see you all on the Sabbath." He shook hands with both women, and they heard him salute Frank as he crossed the close. "Ye heard what the minister said, Sarah?" asked Martha when they were alone again. "I did - I heard him rightly" answered the girl irritably. Martha straightened herself and turned round. "Aye, but did ye heed him?" "Why should I heed him? i.hat has he to do wi’ me?" "He’s your clergyman." "I didn’t ask for him! Why does he come here interfering in my concern?" In her fumbling way Martha tried to explain what she meant. "It isnt Mr Sorleyson, daughter. It’s what he stands for. He’s the servant o’ the Church o’ God - the Church that ye were reared in - and your folks afore, ye. Ye can’t prosper, Sarah, if ye forget your duty to God." Her daughter turned on her with strident voice. "Aye! cur folks prospered, didn't they, with their running tae Church on a Sunday! My father died on the roads, and ever since I can mind my life has been nothing else but slaving for other folk. And always (here she mimicked her mother cruelly) its 'be humble, Sarah, God will reward ye.” Well, I’m tired o’ it! My ways are my own. I get up in the morn tae my work, and at night I lie down in my bed, and if I fall dead in the midst o* it, there’ll be little talk and less weeping!" "God, what have I done tae hear my own daughter talk like this! lark my words, S^rah, ya’ll see the day when you'll regret on your bended knees Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 618 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna039 Manuscript Sun, Straw English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna039 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna039_0.jpg LHL Archive 34 that ye scorned the words of your mother and your minister: For its pain and evil you’ll bring on yourself if your hard heart isn’t changed!" "There’s pain and evil in roe non I" cried the girl, the tears springing to her eyes* "But 1*11 thole it - and it wont be on my knees!" and snatching up a basin she ran out of the kitchen. Frank, lying below a cart and driving nails into a floorboard, saw her run across the close into the mealshed. After she had disappeared his strokes became slow and erratic. At last he laid his ham. or down, and crawling out walked over to the shed, Sarah, her eyes blinded with tears, was plucking feverishly at the fastenings of a meal bag* He laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him. Under his gaze her brirmming eyes dried like summer pools under a noonday sun. For a moment, but only for a moment, his lust wavered under her look of supplication. He took the basin from her nerveless fingers and laid it on the sill. The straw motes circled lazily upward in the red sunlight. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 619 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna040 Manuscript Visitors, Humour English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna040 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna040_0.jpg LHL Archive 35 Chapter Seven Agnes Sampson and her husband, Petie, lived in one of two small thactched cottages which sat on top of Knocknadreemally, so called because here the fringes of Havara, Banyil and Lusky woods touched. The visitors entering the cottage set swinging clusters and strings of herbs and roots hanging from the dark rafters. On the mantelpiece and deep window-ledge sat jars filled with tormentil, tansy and golden rod, and many other dried pods, flowers, barks and roots. Iron time to time there arose murmurs among the wealthier farmers of an inquiry into the old woman’s traffic, and a possible prosecution. .Jut Q3 it was never proven that she had injured any of her poor patients, but on the contrary had dispelled innumerable fevers, bruises and domestic upsets, nothing was ever done about it. Her humour, energy and skill, and the many wild nights when she had clung to the back of a frantic non as he whipped his horse along the roads, so that she might be inn tine to wipe the lips and catch the last words of some dying crone, or deliver safely a whimpering child, had further endeared her in the affection and respect of the country folk. Her husband, Petie, was a small soft-spoken man who only put on a jacket when he was going to meeting-house. Be had a remarkable collection of parti- coloured waistcoats which he wore three at a time, winter and summer. Thus he had twelve pockets in which to mislay his chewing roll, opportunities of which he took full advantage. But as he was a gentle humorous creature, the search was calm and leisured. Having neither chick nor child, as the country folk say, Petie and Agnes had worked for many years in the fields of their neighbours, particularly the Echlins and their cousins the Pentlands. Agnes had been present at the birth Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 620 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna041 Manuscript Visitor, Animal English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna041 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna041_0.jpg LHL Archive 36 of Hamilton, Prank and Fergus; and having watched theta grow from childhood to manhood, fed them when their childish wanderings brought them over Kocknadreemally, and consoled then when they had been punished at home, she looked on them almost as her own sons. Knowing that he would receive good advice, and possibly sympathy, Pentland climbed the road one afternoon to Sampson’s cottage, «hen he entered, he found Petie seated on one side of the fire with his dog Kipper which rested its head on its master’s outstretched legs and communed silently with him through half-closed golden eyes. On the other side sat Agnes knitting, her skirt gathered into her lap and her woollen petticoat kilted to her knees. "Good-day to ye” said the young man pausing in the doorway. Agues narrowed her eyes to see who it was that stood silhouetted in the bright doorway, while Petie, too indolent to turn around, scanned her face as if hoping to see reflected there the identity of the visitor. "Ah, Fergus, ye scairt us!” cried Agnes when she recognised who it was. "Gome in, con, and dont stand there like a bagman. ut that animal away from ye, otie, and let Fergus sit down. She enquired after the young man’s grandmother, and then Pentland fell to stroking the dog’s head and there was silence for a time. "And are ye bravely yourseLf” enquired Agnes at last. Fergus paused long enough to give his answer the proper note of doubt and despondency. "Ah, 1 suppose I’m rightly, he answered with a slight nod that implied exactly the opposite. Agnes glanced quickly at him over her knitting, "Petie" she said take that animal away out and hae a dander t’yoursel’". Obediently the old man pushed Kipper towards the door and left the house. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 621 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna042 Manuscript Kitchen, Outburst English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna042 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna042_0.jpg LHL Archive 37 "You’re looking rightly, too” ventured Agnes tentatively, when her husband’s steps had died away. Fergus gave the short bitter laugh of a man who could reveal untold agony within if he had a mind to. "I was thinking of putting an end to myself in the lough" he said, gazing straight into the fire. “Here ye now?” queried Agnes looking up from her knitting, "Aye, maybe you're not as well as ye look - come, tell ould Agnes.” Her remark had the desired effect. Pentland’s reserve went down like a flimsy barrier before the trouble he had been nursing for so long, springing up from his chair, he thrust his hands into his pockets and strode distractedly up and down the kitchen. "To tell ye the God’s truth, Agnes, l*n a verry worrit man, and I dont know what way to turn, at all!” Re come back to her and the crisp bulbs dangled and swung bohind his head. “S1t down, son" said Agnes, "and tell me what’s putting these wild thoughts in your head. Hut the little outburst had eased him, and as ho sat down he felt his trouble to be unreal after all, and he regretted that he had come. He sat gazing gloomily at the dancing flames, his head sun in his shoulders. ‘Ach, it’s nothing" he said at last “My mind’s aye chasing mice.” "Ah, it's something, or ye wudna carry on like that" returned Agnes, Jerking her knitting back into her lap. “Hae ye got your_elf into trouble wi' a girl, or something o* that sort?" "In a manner o' speaking - yes," "Is it Stewartie Purdy’s lass?" It is not:” he declared emphatically, looking sharply at her, “Aye, well then, is it Martha Gomartin’s girl?" Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 622 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna043 Manuscript Smirked, Sweetheart English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna043 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna043_0.jpg LHL Archive 38 He smirked painfully. "How did ye guess her?" he asked. "Are ye simple, .Fergus? Sure you're never away from about the place!” "Well then, it's her" he replied in an offended tone. "And what's wrong between her and you?" persisted the old woman, the click of her needles never ceasing. Pentland seemed at a loss to reply. "Well, there's nothing wrong between me and her" he commenced at last "but 3he seems to be changing every day she's up there. 3he's changed a lot since the day ould Andrew was drownded, I can tell ye." "That’s no to be wondered at, considering where she sprung from" said Agnes. "It's wonderful what happens tae black-clocks when they get intae long grass" she added with malice. "Ah, there’s nothing wrong wi' the girl!" declared Fergus, stung into defence of his sweetheart. "No, no - there's no a ha'porth wrong wi' her agreed Agnes soothingly. "And her mother’s as honest a women as ye'd find in a day's walk. Tell me then, what's got intae ye?" Pentland stood up and threw the hair back out of his eyes. "I can't abide her being near that crature, Frank Echlin!” he burst out. "Sitting there wi’ that sneer on his face when I come ini I declare to m'God I could lift the throat out of him for it!” Agnes stiffened. Fond as she vas of Fergus, she had always been fonder and closer to the Echlin brothers and -'rank had been her special favourite, Petie and she, getting old, were now dependent on the Echlins for their livelihood and the cottage in which she sat was owned by the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 623 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna044 Manuscript Knitting, Voice English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna044 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna044_0.jpg LHL Archive 39 family at Rathard. Again, she was too old and wise in the ways of her neighbours to get caught up in any quarrel between the cousins. So she drew in her lips, raised her knitting, and remained silent. But Pentland also realised hi3 mistake and now he was intent on justifying his remarks. He came and oat down, drawing his chair closer so that he could look into Agnes’s face. "Tell me, Agnes, how would you feel if ye had to sit, night after night, beside a man that’s sneering and smirking at every word ye say?" "What makes ye think Frankie would be sneering at ye?" asked the old woman coldly. "God in Heaven! don't I see it on his face, every time I look at him?" "For why?" Pentland relapsed back into his chair. "I think he’s carrying on wi’ Sarah" he said in a low hard voice. Agnes stirred uneasily. But she laid down her knitting and laughed. "Ye sit there and tell me the girl favours ye and you’re worrying about Frank Echlin girning and cracking his fingers at ye over the fire? D’ye think if he was prospering wi’ her that ye’d be let in sight o' the close o’ Rathard? If ye believe that you're no long frae your mother’s teat!” "D'ye think there's nothing in it, then?" asked Pentland unable to stifle the relief in his voice. "I know there's nothing in it" declared the woman stoutly. "If ye want the girl dont go footerin at her as if ye didna. And for Frankie's sneers, pay nae heed to him. Remember the ould saying that the bee leaves a sting where he snooks nae honey." "You’re right, no doubt" said Pentland springing up with a smile. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 624 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna045 Manuscript Shivering, Husband English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna045 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna045_0.jpg LHL Archive 40 He seemed to be an much pleased with himself now as previously he had been downcast and gloomy. His wish gratified, he did not delay any longer in the Stepsons’ cottage but set off with a cheery word to Petie who was shivering on a stone outside the door, his walk long accomplished. As Petie hastened gladly to the fire he saw his wife standing at tho gable-window gazing after the young, man. "God forgive me if l*m a liar, anA I don’t doubt I am" he heard her say, Then, as the turned from the window she exclaimed "the bad hussy!” and looked broodingly at her husband's peaked and questioning face. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 625 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna046 Manuscript Religious, Bitter English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna046 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna046_0.jpg LHL Archive 41 Chapter Eight With that urgency with which religious old a,e invests such matters, Martha still endeavoured to make the younger Members of the household return to church, hamilton had continued to go for a few Sabbaths after his father’s death* .then one Sabbath morning he had gone out into the fields and from thence his attendance became more desultory, until now he and Frank contented themselves with driviing Martha to the church and returning for her after the service. As time passed they'did not even trouble to dress or shave themselves for those journeys. On the homeward way the churchgoers would watch the Echlin trap pass, and pull down their mouths and say "changed times at Rathard since ould Andra died," and others would maliciously add "or since the Gomartins went up.” But most of her neighbours sympathised with Martha. These whispers and glances did not escape the notice of the old woman, but the final humiliation was delivered by the Revenant Mr. Sorleyson. One Sunday morning as she left the church, he drew her aside and asked her, kindly enough, to prevail on the Echlins to come back to the congregation, "Aye, and my Sarah?" "Of course,’ exclaimed Mr Sorleyson after the faintest pause, "Sarah, as well.” But the momentary hesitation in Sorleyson’s voice went to the mother’s heart like a knife. When he left her she stood in the shelter of the hedge endeavouring to still the trembling In her legs, A dull burning pulsed i$ her cheeks and as she looked after the departing minister bitter tears flooded her eyes, "Ah, Mr Sorleyson" she whispered "could yo no leave the ninety and nine anti go after that which is lost until ye find it! Sarah, Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 626 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna047 Manuscript Clock, Boots English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna047 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna047_0.jpg LHL Archive 42 Sarah, your mother’s heart’s sore for ye this day,” She dabbed her eyes with her black cotton gloves and walked slowly towards the church coach- house. the broad road before the coach-house was empty now, and when she looked into the Echlin’s box in the stable two or three sparrows were quarreling on the floor of it. They hae forgotten me' she said, sitting down on the bench that ran along the wall. After a little while she arose and set out on the homeward road. Hamilton, coming from the byre, saw the trap sitting in the close, its shafts in the air. An uneasy feeling made him hasten into the house, the hands of the clock pointed to twenty minutes past one. lie hurried out to the stable and pushed open the ton-door. Both hors-s stood in their stalls, "Hell roast his soul" he muttered, 'he’s forgotten the ould woman." He went to the middle of the close and putting his hands to his mouth hallooed on his brother’s name. He paused, expectant, as his shout rang over the empty fields. A fe birds rose from the ridge of the stable and whirred away. Then he called on grab's name and as he listened he thought he heard a faint distant sound of laughter. He led out a horse, pulling cruelly on its mouth, and yoked it, singlehanded, in the trap. About two miles along the road he came on Martha seated on the ditch. He had to dismount and holdover to the trap. hen 3he left the church she had vowed to herself that she would refuse to ride with them if they came to meet her. But now all her pride was gene; she had lost a glove somewhere and her fine buttoned boots, of which she was so proud, were coated with mud. t er face was drawn with weariness, and she had to press her lips together to keep from bursting outright into tears of misery and loneliness. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 627 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna048 Manuscript Chimney, Hatred English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna048 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna048_0.jpg LHL Archive 43 In n halting; manner, and keeping; his eyes fixed on the horse’s ears, Hamilton tried to apologise for his brother’s lapse. The old woman gathered from his remarks that Frank and Sarah had disappeared from the house, "Did she lay the table?" Martha asked* "I didn pay any heed” answered Hamilton, touching up the horse, "If it had been set you’d have noticed it" she said briefly. As they turned off the road into the loanen they saw the blue smoke of a replenished fire rise from the chimney of trie farmhouse. Frank stood leaning over the half-door of tiro stable with his back to them as they drew up in the close, Hamilton unloosed the horse and led it out of the shafts, slipping the birchen over his arm. As he heard his brother approach Frank unbolted the stable door and held it open, but Hamilton checked the horse on the threshold, “What came intae ye?" he demanded, scowling at the other. Frank smiled, “I forgot all about the ould one" he answered. Although he smiled, his eyes were alert and he rocked gently on the balls of his feet, Hamilton stared at him for a moment then he spat contemptously on the ground and led the horse into the stable. Frank loitered in the close until his brother appeared again, than without looking up or speaking, folio ed him into the house. They sat down to the meal in silence. Frank, carefully watching the old woman, noted with apprehension that Sarah was doing the same, lie had hoped that the two women would have had it out before lie and Hamilton came in.As Sarah rose to bring the rennet dish to the table he suddenly turned to Martha and opening his lips was about to speak. At his gesture she looked up at him coldly and silently, -it the sight of her faded eyes and indrawn lips the words died in his throat. He felt a sudden hatred Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 628 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna049 Manuscript Silence, Fields English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna049 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna049_0.jpg LHL Archive 44 for. Sarah's mother with her cold reproachful look. As if he were bound to go when she said, go; and come when she said, come. To hell with ye, he said inwardly, you’re nothing to me. But his gesture stirred the old woman. Not content with knowing that her silence filled both the young people with remorse and anger she turned to her daughter, ’ Where were ye, when I was at church?” she asked. "We went over the fields to the head o’ the brae" answered the girl without raising her eye3 from her plate. “Waren’t ye left tae look after the house?" demanded Martha. "There now, Martha" interrupted Frank angrily, "the house didna run away." Mrtha ignored him. Her whole attention was fixed on her daughter. ”Since when hae ye taken to skiltin the fields on a sabbath? Look at yourself - you’re as tossed and through-other as if you’d been doing a day’s work. What ways that to behave on the Sabbath?" Sarah sprang up from the table* "Lay me alone!” she cried. "I’ll go out in the fields when I want, Sunday or any other day!” Martha had risen to her feet also, her face flushed and fingers plucking at her apron. Hamilton, who had been eating stolidly during all this talk, now rapped the table irritably with his spoon. "Sit down, Martha," he said "and let us get on wi’ our dinner."' Martha turned on him. "Listen to me, Hamilton Echlin, and you Sarah, and you Frank. If there’s not a charge in this house I'm going tae leave it and go back tae Banyil. God forgive me - I should ha’ spoken out before. But I’m no going to see my daughter run about a heathen, if the memory o’ your father won’t send yous t’church, as Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 629 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna050 Manuscript Rocking, Haltered English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna050 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna050_0.jpg LHL Archive 45 least I’ll see that she goesI" "Don’t meddle with me, Martha!” exclaimed Frank angrily. "I can look after my own affairs. Hae ye forgotten already what my father brought ye here for?" The old woman raised her hands to her head as if she had been struck. "Wilt thou afflict the widow or fatherless child? If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, 1 will surely hear their cry she intoned in a dull voice. "Ah, give mo none of your bibical oant!” cried Frank, beside himself with anger and shame at what he had said. Hamilton struck the table with his open hand. "That’s mair them enough!” he shouted. He turned to Martha who had seated herself at the fire and was rocking backwards and forwards in her chair. “Ye oanna interfere wi* us, Martha. If you’re no happy hare, I’m sorry, it seem a wee thing tae leave us for. Nobody hinders ye going to church and after today I’ll warrant ye that you’ll no walk home again. As he said this he looked at his brother, but Frank stood gating sullenly out of the door. The younger brother’s anger was really not so much at Martha’s presumption as at the fear of being haltered again, Andrew had not been a tyrranical father but he had always commanded implicit obedience from his sons. In doing so ho had been strengthened by affection and usage. But at his death, Frank had felt himself a free roan, his own meter. Without anything having been said between them, his word was as good as Hanilton’s on the farm. An" he possessed an undisputed delight which he hugged in secret glee, the enjoyment of Sarah. So when Martha, a stranger, and a servant, upbraided him, it was like a stranger’s hand on the neck of a wicked and restive horse. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:55 630 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna051 Manuscript Wrestling, Drudgery English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna051 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna051_0.jpg LHL Archive 46 Sarah stood with her hands clenched agonisingly together. She had never dreamt that her mother would Jeopardise her comfortable life at Rathard for principles. 3he had forgotten easily and too soon that her mother was a spiritual and racial* descendant of the two Margarets who, choking at their stakes in the rising waters of Solway, saw Christ and He wrestling, Martha's God was a terrible but hearkening God. Her every word and thought was weighed on His fingertip. Before a faith such as that, comfort and a hearth and a little folding of the hands burned away like so ranch dross. But to Sarah the novelty of her new position in life was too fresh for her not to appreciate the change for the better in her fortunes. They had come as servants and labourers to Rathard, and now she at least, had attained the position of mistress in the Echlin household. It was not avarice, but the fear of returning to a life of drudgery that filled her with hatred as she stood between the brothers, listening to the old woman. “Will ye change your ways o’ going, Sarah?" her mother asked. “There's nothing wrong wi' my ways o' going" the girl answered sullenly. "Are ye going to do as your betters bid yo, and return to your church?" persisted Martha. The girl raised her head sharply, ”My betters!” she exclaimed, her face flushing in anger. “So that’s it: Mr Sorleyson has been at ye - now isn’t that the truth!” “Aye, that’s the truth, your minister came down from his pulpit to beg wi’ me that my daughter would come back. That’s what i had to endure in my own church.' The old woman’s voice grew bitter, "He said that Frank and Kami would remember their father, God forgive them, they hae Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 631 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna052 Manuscript Affair, Fireplace English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna052 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna052_0.jpg LHL Archive 47 forgotten before the sod's healed over him.” "Let us be, Martha" said Hamilton uneasily, turning a cup in his hands. Frank stirred in the doorway but stood with his back to them, listening. "It's your own affair" said the old woman, rising. "But I’ll see to it that Sarah doesn’t go that road." “Quit it!” shouted Sarah. "Ye keep op talking o' me'as if I was a helpless wean! Ye can go to your church if ye will, but your no taking me!” "Very well, then" said her mother. “We’re leaving this house as soon as we can gather our wheen o' things thegither." The girl turned and clutched Hamilton’s arm. "Hami, will ye give me a job here?" She cried. Her eyes searched his face, and the man winced in her grasp. He released his arm from her fingers and crossed to the fireplace. “It’s not for me toe interfere between you and your daughter, Martha. You’re welcome tae bide here as long as ye wish, and I can't hinder ye if ye want to go, for you’re neither blood nor kin tae us. You’ve done your work well, and if ye go we maun get another. But go or stay, singly or together, you’re as .free as the birds o* the air. That's my word." For a long time mother and daughter looked at each other. The girl's pale lips scarcely moved. "I'm staying” she said.The old woman turned away to the door of the lower room, leaning faintly for a moment on the handle. She set about collecting her belongings with silent diligence. She accepted Frank’s shamefaced offer of a wooden case for her linens. Of Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 632 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna053 Manuscript Bitterness, Drudgery English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna053 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna053_0.jpg LHL Archive 48 every three pieces she left one aside for Sarah, and the girl going down into her room in the dusk found them lying across the bed. Martha's quiet determination to abide by her resolve, with neither recrimination nor bitterness succeeded in reducing her daughter to an anguish of spirit which in momenta of weakness she thought almost too much to pay for her new life, Neither encouraged by an air cf martyrdom on her mothers part, nor possessing herself that characteristic which in revolt and despair casts the whole burden of shame on the person who occasioned it, the girl was tormented by a superstitious belief that some day she would have to pay for her actions. She was fortified only by a secret stubborn shame and a hatred of subordination and its drudgery. Yet when at last Mrs Gomartin, with her few goods boxed and basketed, sat in the springcart, one backward glance would have brought her daughter into her arms. The old woman never looked round, and Sarah through tear-blinded eyes, watched the small bowed figure nod and lurch beside Hamilton as they drove away. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 633 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna054 Manuscript Blossom, Matrons English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna054 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna054_0.jpg LHL Archive 49 Chapter Nine When the apple trees shed their leaves on the lawn of Ravara Manse, the house could he seen from the road with its pouting doorway and tall blue-black windows, the alabaster lion in the fanlight and chairs at every window, broad splatbacks and the cupid bows of country heppleWhite. By tho time the road had ceased to ring under the heel the thin branches bristled with splitting buds. In May the blossom frothed to the eaves of the house. In August the green globes of fruit nodded in the warm air. Every year The Herriot sent his pupils to gather then in for the minister. By October the leaves lay tattered at the feet of the trees and the house gleamed again through the thin arms of the branches, The manse itself was a commodious and well-planned house. It held a remarkable collection of chairs clustered in hall, landings and odd corners. Brought there by succeeding young matrons of the manse, they had their day and as prosperity increased, or an urban flock called, wire discarded by the departing shepherd. Mrs Sorleyson, the present mistress, had been the daughter of a prosperous Belfast merchant and had gathered round her husband and herself household goods unusual in a country manse. this affluence had even added a lustre to the books in her husband’s library. She was a slight pretty woman, the hue of whose eyes, hair and skin was a little too light, trembling on the edge of faded love. She had brought to her marriage an unquestioning admiration and respect for her husband. If any doubts had arisen in her mind during those six years of married life, she had attributed then to her own unworthiness rather than to any flaws in her husband’s character. Unfortunately for Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 634 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna055 Manuscript Husband, Macabre English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna055 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna055_0.jpg LHL Archive 50 Edwin Sorleyson’s peace of mind, he was only too well aware of his selfishness, his boredom with hi3 life, his inability to return his wife’s affection. He had honestly tried in the first years of their life together to be a loving husband, and it was with both a knowledge of failure and a sense of relief that he watched their relationship change to that of strangers, bound for a lifelong duress to stifle the fruitless blaze of anger, and perform all the little acts that convention expected. Sorleyson was a creature of habit and he went into hisstudy every Thursday afternoon to refurbish his sermons. He took down one of his favourite poets, Pollok,or Heber or James Montgomery, and began to road, pausing only to make notes. Then his pencil fell, his notes were forgotten and he slipped the volume forward on the table and leant back with a lover’s smile on his lips. At this point he sighed, lifted his pencil, adjusted his spectacles and set himself again at his macabre task. On the following Sabbath evening the congregation of Ravara would be edified by a discourse liberally sprinkled with quotations from the lesser nineteenth-century poets, or listen again with drowsy loyalty to "God, nature and Hobble Burns." He was seated at his study table when the sound of a springcart passing on the road below made him glance out of the winnow. He saw the figures of old Mrs Gomartin and Hamilton Echlin nod along above the level of the hedge. His interest in the Rathard household still being active he rose and looked down at the departing cart. In the back of it he saw various bundles and baskets and after deciding that they were on their way to market glanced idly around the sombre countryside before Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 635 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna056 Manuscript Cottage, Belongings English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna056 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna056_0.jpg LHL Archive 51 again sitting down to work* it was not until they ware seated at their evening meal that he turned to his wife “Do you know of any markets on Thursday, in this part of the world, Victoria?" The woman seated across from him shook her head. "No, not on Thursday, dear. Why do you ask?" "Nothing" he said. "It’s of no significance. ' And he forgot the matter, Meanwhile Martha and Hamilton Jogged on in silence until they reached the old woman's cottage.Dismounting, Martha crossed to the door where aha kicked away the drift of leaves that had blown into the doorway. he took a large iron key from under her shawl and turned it with a grating noise in the lock. As she lifted the shutter from the little sunken window, Hamilton looked morosely r uni the little room before turning away to bring in her belongings. The last article to be brought In, a lidded basket with a sally-rod through its wicker hoops, he laid on the table. He was on his knees breaking twigs and placing them in the hearth when Martha came up again from the bedroom. ..lie had taken off her boots and her bare feet slapped on the polished earth floor. She was about to speak when she saw the unfamiliar basket on the table. Opening it, she drew out a dressed chicken and a cake. “Who put this in?" she demanded, turning to Hamilton who lay with his cheek to the floor nursing the fire with his breath. He stood up and rubbed his eyes. “Sarah" he replied, "I saw her putting it in." The old woman slammed the lid down angrily. “I didna bring it - ye may take it back.” Hamilton rubbed his chin slowly, gazing round the bare little cabin. “Martha' he said "don't be harsh on the girl.She's gey sad at ye leaving. Look," he raised his boot over the pulsing heart of fire “let me put it out an’we’ll go back.” She followed his glance Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 636 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna057 Manuscript Martha, Cottage English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna057 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna057_0.jpg LHL Archive 52 and shivered. Hamilton’s face lit up with a slow unfamiliar smile. She turned her eyes away and pulled the cowl of her shawl over her face. The young farmer’s boot clumped down on the floor and he walked slowly towards the door. "Is there ocht else ye want before I go? Water? Kindling?" '"Thank ye kindly, Hamilton. All’s in now." He turned again at the door. "I’ll come over tae see ye, maybe?" Martha hastened forward both hands outstretched, her face glowing with affection. "You’ll aye be welcome." She caught his hand between her thin hard palms. Hamilton clambered up into the cart and wheeled the horse to the road. "Goodnight tae ye, Martha" he said. The old woman was an indistinct figure in the gloom of the cottage. The flesh of her head and her hands and her feet shone palely in the glow of the fire. At the top of the hill he checked the horse and looked back at the cottage. The light suddenly grew stronger in the window, Martha had lit her lamp. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 637 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna058 Manuscript Agnes, Cousin English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna058 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna058_0.jpg LHL Archive 53 Chapter Ten Encouraged by Agnes’s advice Pentland overcame his doubts and went back to Rathard a few evenings later. He went determined not to be irritated by Frank, repeating to himself, as he climbed the loanen, Agnes's saying about the honey and the sting. But he was perplexed to find that his cousin’s demeanour had changed. The tolerant scorn had gone from his voice and he gave Fergus a brief and sullen answer to his greeting. Fergus was perplexed and yet, at first, a hope rose in him. Perhaps the issue had been joined between Frank and the girl and the verdict had gone in his favour, and against his cousin. But nothing in Sarah’s manner encouraged him in this hope. At every whispered word from Fergus she glanced fearfully across at rank before she responded. When the young man asked her to put away her work and com® out, as they always did on dry evenings, she pleaded that the night air was ran and cold. Yet she did not seam to be afraid of Echlin. Her eyes were hard when she looked at him,as if challenging him. Perhaps, thought Pentland, and the hair bristled on his neck, perhaps he said he would thrash me if I came back. He leaned back out of the circle of lamplight the better to see his cousin. He gripped the seat of his chair. In a few seconds his scalp itched with sweat as if he had been running under the sun, and his eyes felt as if they were bursting. But Echlin sat brooding over the fire, only moving his lips when he shot long slivers of spittle into the flame, or lifted an eyebrow to gaze at the outline of Sarah’s Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 638 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna059 Manuscript Pentland, Hamilton English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna059 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna059_0.jpg LHL Archive 54 legs in the firelight. The girl stood up to lower the kettle on the crane, For the first time Pentland realised that Mrs Gomartin was absent. "Is your mother reading?" he asked, looking behind him into the shadows as if expecting to see her seated there. Sarah, who had been lifting cups off the dresser, started at his question. "My mother?" she repeated, and then after the faintest hesitation; "Did yo not know? She went back t'Banyil last week." Ah." There was such a note of comprehension in Pentland's voice that Echlin rained his head sharply, and Sarah paused, her hand on a cup on the dresser. Pentland's eyes moved unseeingly over the objects on the mantelpiece. On his mouth was a bitter triumphant smile. He rose abruptly, buttoning his jacket. “I’ll go now' he said, without looking at the girl. The kettle’s near singing” she said in a small despairing voice. His heart smote him and he looked at her. But even as he looked he was smothered in hatred and a desire to hurt her. Without moving his eye a hairsbreadth he could see Echlin seated at the fire. There they were, both of then in the same vision, close together, waiting for him to go. And in her greed she wanted him too. In her insatiable childish greed she wanted everybody. He, him and Hamilton, if she hasn’t got him. "1 don't think I'll wait" he said, with as much malice and contempt in his voice as he could summon. He saw her wince and her eyes darken. He turned away to the door almost choking with Joy. God, if there was no end to the suffering he could make her go through: Then he became cunning. There was the faintest droop to his shoulders as he lifted the latch. Goodnight" he said without raising his head. He went Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 639 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna060 Manuscript Frank, Timbre English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna060 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna060_0.jpg LHL Archive 55 out and drew the door after him. When he had rounded the rowan bushes, he stepped silently like a cat, glancing back over his shoulder. He saw the light from the open door and Sarah's figure in the bright gap. To the man standing in the hedge she seemed to peer out for a moment and then the door closed softly and slowly. Pentland waited for a few seconds then he hurried away without a backward glance. When Sarah closed the door she crossed the floor to the hearth. She had been throwing the drains of the teapot across the close. She knelt down and brewed fresh tea. When it had bubbled a little at the hearthcheek she brought it over to the table. She drew up a chair and sat down. “Are ye coming over now?” she asked. Frank rose and dragged his warm chair across. They were silent during the meal, several times he-was about to speak but when he saw the soft brooding mouth the words died in him. When she was finished the girl rose and poured fresh water into the pot and placed it close to the fire. She turned to Frank. If the tea's too long infused when Hamilton comes in, tell him he may make some more for himself.” Frank nodded. He knew that she did not want to sit alone with him tonight. He watched her as she stood covering tho butter at the dresser. He trembled to steal up behind her and slip his hands round her, under her armpits. But the way she stood with her back to him, not looking round, warned him. Befor she left the kitchen she let down her hair, combing it back with her fingers, and letting it fall loosely over her shoulders. With the departure of Martha from Rathard the brothers and Sarah became secretive and restained and self-absorbed. To Sarah, who spent most of her waking hours in the kitchen, the house seemed empty and resounding. When a timber croaked or a mouse stirred in the lower Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 640 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna061 Manuscript Illusion, Twilight English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna061 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna061_0.jpg LHL Archive 56 rooms her heart raced and she lifted her face, listening. The sense of emptiness rushed in on her and she would have to go out into the dose and listen to the muted drumming from the barn where Hamilton seed potatoes. Nor did the presence of Hamilton and Yank in the house sooth her. The tiled floor that had sounded all day to the tap and shuffle of her mother’s feet now clashed harshly under the feet of the men. The absence of Martha brought back with acute poignancy the death of Andrew. Although all three of them felt this in varying degrees, the feeling of restraint prevented then from talking about it to each other. The older woman had absorbed into herself, silently and unobtrusively, the void and bitter longing left by Echlin’s death. The illusion of youth seemed nurtured and prolonged by the presence of familiar old age. But now Martha was gone and there was no-one to stand bet we an them and the passing days. Sometimes, as the three of the l sat at their evening meal, safe inside the circle of lam]light with the night pressing against the window, the keening of a dog across the fields ior.de the familiar place strange and hostile to Sarah, and they seemed lifted up in the hollow of the ancient rath, adrift without guidance on a dark and desolate sea. They wore now passing through the short glimmering days of the year, days of drenched storm riven twilight. very day from horizon to horizon the sky was filled with matted clouds creeping to the east. At noon for an hour, an unearthly pearly light fell on the walls and fields, a light that pressed on the head and hurt the brain, and those who had t be out at that time did so with averted heads, hurrying quickly from doorway to doorway. Then the baffled sun drew away and the countryside slid back Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 641 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna062 Manuscript Fluttering, Latch English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna062 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna062_0.jpg LHL Archive 57 again Into dripping icy darkness. There was little that the men could do in this weather, so they stayed indoors and sat about in Sarah’s road. Hamilton nursed the fire in his lap, as Sarah said crossly, whittling eternally with his knife. He cut teeth for the new-fangled horse rake and then he made a butter- print for the girl, e cow in relief on a shamrock. She scoffed at the crude figures, but he was content for he saw that she was pleased. Frank lay sacking ell day, turning the yellowed leaves of a natural history book. Sometimes he threw himself fully clothed on his bed, and Sarah found rinds of mud on the blankets. ..hen she scolded him he threw the book away, fluttering and shedding leaves, and went outside. He came back in a few minutes and lounged about in a hangdog way. "I’m going down tae Sampson's - is there anything ye want?" he asked at last. Sarah lifted the paraffin jar and shook it. There is" she answered, thrusting it Into his hand. "And ask Agnes tae get me half-a-dozen candles and a loaf o’ baker’s bread from Skillen’s shop." He put on his hat and drew a sack over his shoulders and went out. They were seated at their evening meal when he came back. Sarah rose when she heard his feet on the close, and lifting his plate from the hearth, blew the embers from the rim with her breath. They heard him fumbling at the latch, and then he came in with a little rush, regaining his balance, he stared at them foolishly for a moment, blinking his eyes in the light. He lurched again as he set t! oil-jar in the corner. Skimming his sodden hat across the room where it left a mark on the crocus—yellow wall, he crossed over to the table a id sat down. His lips were wet and quivering, and his hair, darkened with the rain, Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 642 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna063 Manuscript Whiskey, Brother English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna063 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna063_0.jpg LHL Archive 58 tumbled on his brow so that Sarah’s heart suddenly yearned to him. “Fetch us down a couple o' glasses, Sarah” he shouted and drew a half-pint of whiskey from his pocket. He set the bottle down with a thump among the tea-things and little trills of laughter ran through him as he peered at the bright amber liquor. Then he raised it between his eyes end the lamp. Shaken thus, the liquid released whorls of light that rose slowly up the bottle melting and reforming again in spirals and flecks of golden fire. The light penetrating the liquid cast an aureate glow on the drunken face held close to the bottle. He sucked a great breath into his mouth. "God, but its a wonderful lovely thing” he said. The sober awe in his voice startled and shocked Sarah. "Ye drunken crature" she cried "did ye ask Agnes tae get the groceries?" He stared at her dumb and outraged, then waved her impatiently aside. He turned to his brother. Hami, will ye have a wee drop?" There was a pleading note in his voice. Hamilton shook his head without looking up. “Noan for me” he mumbled. The young man stared angrily at the other two bent over their plates. The cork squealed as he drew it from the bottle. Still they did not look up. He tilted the bottle over his cup and looked at them again. Their heads were low over their plates and their lips were scarcely moving. To his drunken mind they seemed to be saying grace. He drove the cork back again with his fist and set it down with a crash on the dresser. His actions were wanton, violent; he wanted the others to look up and speak to him. The meal finished in silence and towards the end of it Hamilton stole a glance at his brother. His face was sober and sullenly turned away. He looked at the bottle on the dresser. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 643 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna064 Manuscript Superstitious, Impulsive English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna064 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna064_0.jpg LHL Archive 59 The golden liquor glowed like an idol. He was uneasy and perplexed. It was the first time that strong drink had ever been in Rathard. The whiskey bottle sat on the dresser for some days and Sarah lifted it to dust under it each day. Then by that inexplicable process that activates household articles it was moved to the window ledge behind the bowl of shamrock. After a time it was carried down to the parlour and at last it came to rest, still untouched, in the darkest corner of the camphor-scented press in the sideboard. The relationship between Sarah and the youngeer brother changed, imperceptibly but vitally during those few days. They still came together in furtive moments when Hamilton was about his work or when he had gone out in the evenings. But Frank sensed the growing antagonism in the girl. There was nothing said between them, but Sarah felt a great need to retract and be free again. The wave of frustration and rebellion that had torn her from her early cautious way of going had carried her out too far. How she wanted to find her feet again and weigh her chances for her own future advantage. And she felt, always resent, an overhanging guilt at the separation from her mother. She had a deep superstitious fear that she was casting off too many ties and that she would be punished. She thought calmly on the matter. In the first days of nor liason with Frank they had been recklessly impulsive; how reckless, she shivered in recalling. As she lay in bed at night, sleepless, she could scarcely believe that her mother or Hamilton could have failed to see what was going on. Frank with his crude passionate gestures outraged her, until he touched her again; And she, self-centred and independent, Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 644 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna065 Manuscript Prodigal, Charlie English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna065 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna065_0.jpg LHL Archive so had tasted him coolly before the others, never betraying herself. She remembered, with a wry smile, how furious she had been when he mimicked her one evening, as she lay spent and warm in his arms. Now her unmerited chance must have recognition. She retracted and drew away from Frank a little, watching Hamilton all the time. The weather released them. Sarah opened the door one morning to find' the world bathed in cold vibrating light. The snared raindrops quivered like jewels on the thatch; a prodigal starling, trembling with ecstasy on the stable ridge, mimicked the son; learnt last spring from a merle in the apple-trees. Looking out on such a morning, with the birdsong in her ears, the girl felt a great cloud lifting from her heart. Hamilton came down into the kitchen behind her. He put his head out over her shoulder and sniffed, turning his sleep-heavy eyes up to the washed lofty sky. "Isn't it fine to see it!" she cried, smiling at his dark unshaven face. You’ll get a bit o' ploughing done afore Christmas. It's like Royal Charlie. But better late nor never, ' he answered going back to the fire. When he had beaten his socks against the hearth-cheek and put them on, he said; Make me up a piece for the fields." As they sat at breakfast Hamilton turned to Frank. There's a wheen potatoes not seeded yet. Ye may finish them, for I’ll be plughing while the weather holds." “I’ve tae bring the mare up frae Burkes, but I’ll dash them off after that answered Frank. He spoke with zest, smiling at Hamilton and Sarah. When they had finished Sarah washed the dishes. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 645 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna066 Manuscript Plough, Brittle English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna066 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna066_0.jpg LHL Archive 61 She could hear Irani: whistling to the starling, and Hamilton stamping amiably at tho hearth as he thrust his feet into his boots, the rain had gone and the sun was shining on the fields. Te farm-houses and the little roads of their neighbours could be seen again, the three of them were happy and looked into each other’ll ayes when they spoke. Hamilton ploughed in the field running down to the road, i’he earth laid bare would be cleansed by the winter's frost. As his day's work went forward, the light-heartedness of the morning left him. He was perplexed and brooding again as he bent to the plough. At last the light began to go and he pulled the plough into the side. As he shaved the dry soil from his hands he spoke aloud to the horse. "Damn-4t-skin, what affair is it o' mine if she marries him?" the animal turned it3 head in mild wonder. He caught the horse by the mane and mounted. At the head of the field he turned to look down on his day's work, the furrows gleamed in the brittle evening light like fresh-combed hair. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 646 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna067 Manuscript Grocery, Defensive English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna067 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna067_0.jpg LHL Archive 62 Chapter Eleven The roads had been deserted except by a few hard-pressed travellers, but now that the weather had hardened the countryfolk appeared in ones and twos on errands to which the storm had given a little urgency; some to the shoemaker, the smithy, the thatcher or Skillen's grocery shop. Among them appeared Mr Sorleyson, eager to finish his visiting-round before Christmas. He came up to Rathard one afternoon. Sarah, who was busying herself at the fireside with meal for the fowl, heard his tap et the open door and bade him come in. He approached her holding out his hand and then he looked at hers, all meal-daubed, and smiled, Sarah laughed and brushed the hair from ho eyes with the back of her band, ’'we’re in a right pickle here,-' she said, cleaning her ham on her apron and pulling forward a chair. “Well, 1 know better then to interrupt said Mr Sorleyson as he sat down. Tell me, is Hamilton in?” ’No, answered. Sarah stepping a shade too quickly to the door. "But I'll call him." The minister raised his hand to stop her. To tell the truth, Sarah, its yourself 1 want to speak to." "Oh?” The sound was no more than an audible breath laden with misgiving. She did not come back to the fire again but stood as if ready to fly. There was silence between them. She, standing there, poised, her eyes on the defensive; Sorleyson, his head, sunk, turning his shallow black hat slowly on his fingers. He sensed in her attitude a need for care in his words.. He wondered, not for the first time, why Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 647 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna068 Manuscript Mother, Cottage English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna068 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna068_0.jpg LHL Archive 63 this country girl demanded from him such a pondering and weighing of words. with a bland, slightly unreal smile he looked at her. "Can you spare me a moment? », ill you sit down, please?" She turned a chair slowly out from under the table and sat down on the edge of it. The reassuring smile deepened a trifle on Mr. Sorlsyson’s face. He nodded his head gently, hung his hat on his knee, and placed the tips of his fingers together. ''I believe your mother has left Rathard. Is that so?" and he nodded again, so winningly, as if ail he sought was kindly confidence. But all this, far from calming the girl, made her more hostile and fearful. She nodded stiffly in reply, "She is," she said. "Does she intend to stay away for long?" queried Mr Sorleyson leaning forward, his fingers outstretched on the crown of his hat. "She's gone for good. Did she send ye here?" "No, no' said Mr Sorleyson hastily. "No: Mr Burke told me that your mother had occupied his cottage again. I was surprised to hear that she’d gone back alone," he added looking at Sarah closely. "What’s surprising about that?" She demanded, "Isn’t it her own home?" "And yours?" "And mine too, if ye want to know, Mr Sorleyson. But poor folk have tae work - and the breaking up of poor folks’ homes is a small matter." What’s a lie at this time and day, thought Sarah. But it seemed to have convinced Mr Sorleyson. "Well, I see by your remarks that you accept the responsibility of your mother. I’m sure she’ll come to no want." "Of course she’ll come to no want!” said the girl sharply. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 648 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna069 Manuscript Organisation, Frank English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna069 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna069_0.jpg LHL Archive 64 The minister stood up, "Dont misunderstand me, Sarah. Your mother is an old member of the congregration, and it was only to satisfy myself that she was being well looked after that I came up here.” Sarah was rather taken aback. So that’s what they think of me already, she thought, “’Thank ye for calling, Mr Sorleyson. Therenow, I never offered ye a cup o' tea!” "It’s no matter" he answered, "I’ve other calls to make before dark," He turned to her before he left the house. You'll give my regards to Hamilton and Frank?" “I will Indeed, Are ye sure ye wouldn’t like me to call them?" “No, please dont trouble hem, I must go now, before dark," He shook hands with her and left the farm. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 649 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna070 Manuscript Loitered, Puddles English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna070 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna070_0.jpg LHL Archive 65 Chapter Twelve She did not go down to her mother’s house on the next day nor the next. But on the third morning after Sorleyson’s visit, immediately after breakfast, she tidied herself and made ready to go. She was alnoe in the house; Frank had left early to go down to Purdie’s farm, and as it was Friday, market-day, Hamilton was preparing to go into Belfast. hen he came into the kitchen he noticed that she had her outdoor dress on. "I’m going down to my mother's,'' she explained, pinning up her hair at the little mirror. "H'm" he said and loitered about for a while before he went out. He was back again before she was finished. I’ll be passing ^our mother’s house in a while, * he said in a strange hurried way. "sould ye like tac come on into Belfast wi' me?" The girl's eyes lit up. ’Yes - yes, I would like that fine.” Then her mouth dropped. "But, oh no, there’s the fowl and Frank’s dinner." Hamilton waved his hand. “Never mind that. Frank’ll be staying on at Purdie's for a while end Petie Sampson can come up tae the fowl. ' "D’ye think it’ll be all right, then?" Hamilton nodded and she smiled at him, pleased and strangely shy. It was still early morning when she set out for her mother’s house but the ice on the puddles was already starred by early market-carts. On her left hand the sun drove up a herd of coral-red clouds and drab little winter birds fled from the horse-droppings as she approached. The kitchen of her old home was empty when she reached it, but the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 650 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna071 Manuscript Cheek, Gifts English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna071 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna071_0.jpg LHL Archive 66 floor was swept and the fire newly-made, little pouts of smoke rising between the turves. It was all as she had left it. the small window sunk in the wall, the warped glass of which made the briar stem outside now thin as a rush now swollen as a bough, The scrubbed table still stood there, scooped out by the hundreds of ear them ware dishes it had borne. The spotted dogs on the mantelshelf still stared disdainfully oyer her head. The earth floor glowed warmly as a flame lapped up. Her mother stood on the threshold of the loner room. Martha felt a thrill of triumph run through her as she saw her daughter stand uncertainly between the doorway and the fire. Jut the mother was old, full of painfully-gazed wisdom and the scrupulous regard for the dignity of others inherent in her race. ;he came across with her little tripping step and laying her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, pressed her lips to the girl's wind-cool cheek. Sarah felt the dried lips quiver as they touched her, and the doubt that had held her rigid and watchful melted away in the embrace. She clasped the other woman in her arms and they stood locked in bliss, mother and daughter once more. The fire was broken up, the kettle lowered and tea brewed. They sat one on each side of the hearth, with their cups in their hands, talking. They talked about the hard winter, and how Martha's turf stock was going down, and the bog in winter flood. Sarah described how her boiling of winter apples had jellied. “Look” she said, and taking a pot from the basket she had brought held it out to her mother. It was a delicate moment, the first interchange of gifts. Martha accepted it critically, held it against the light, shook it, praised its colour and firmness. Then she rose and lifted the lid of the earthenware crock Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 651 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna072 Manuscript Note, Whip English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna072 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna072_0.jpg LHL Archive 67 on the dresser. She cane back with an oatmeal pudding in her hands. "Oh!” cried Sarah, her face alight with surprise and pleasure, where in the world did ye get the pig’s bag at this time o’ the year?" ”The Burkes slaughtered one on Monday,” replied Martha in an off-hand way, but it was easy to see that she was gratified. "Look - there is money. It’s part o’ my wages" said Sarah abruptly, laying some silver wrapped in a one-pound note in her mother’s lap. Mrs Gomartin raised her hands away from the money, looked at it and then at her daughter. Then, after a moment, she took it between her finger and thumb and pushed it on to the mantelboard. Sarah was satisfied. They pulled their chairs closer to the fire and drank more tea. But when Martha heard wheels on the road she said, "There, that might be Hamilton now. Go and see who it is, and as Sarah looked out her mother stood close behind her so that the passers-by could see them together. Once it was Mr Burke’s housekeeper and Martha was so pleased and called out "good-morning" so brightly and loudly, that the hard-faced woman in the trap looked back in surprise. After that Sarah went back to the fire and sat down. Then they heard the prance and clatter of a horse, and hamilton’s voice. The shadow of his cart fell on the door and darkened the little kitchen, Sarah rose and pulled on her coat hurriedly. I’ll not keep him waiting," she said and went out. Hamilton got down and helped her on to the seat. He tucked the rug around her feet before he got up himself, "If the frost’s no too hard we may be back this way home," he called to Martha. He rattled the whip in its cup and the cart moved off up the hill Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 652 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna073 Manuscript Spring, Turkeys English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna073 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna073_0.jpg LHL Archive 68 to the main road. It was pleasant, thought Sarah, to sit up here beside Hamilton, a strong farmer going to market. Pleasant to watch the rhythmic plunge of the glossy haunches before her and listen to the subdued dash of the harness. There was a richness in the twinkling of the grassgreen spokes and glittering hubs against the sullen hedges. There seemed even to be a richness in the soft yeilding of the springs to the road. And she had made peace with her mother. Her heart quickened as she remembered the touch of those withered lips on her cheek. Ah, it warmed the heart to know that she could go to her mother again with her troubles. A shadow stirred deep down in her soul at the thought and she turned resolutely to the present. Slowly, like a late Spring in her life her desires were building to fullfilment. A hearth, a home to preside over, the daily life of cattle and fowl in her hands, the desires of her own body - she winced and turned away again from that impalpable shadow that hung in the depths of her mind. They passed heavy orange-coloured carts, lurching and clanging, but Hamilton and she rushed swiftly past, swaying gently in their seats. They overtook the children going to school and Sarah laughed when they raced the cart, peep-peeping at the turkeys that craned their naked ridiculous heads from the basket under the seat, she laughed again when the children fell behind and threw themselves with smoking breath on the roadside banks. Hamilton smiled at her pleasure, his eyes watchful on the road, the reins moving in his strong alert hands. The horse’s stride lengthened on the thawing road and soon they were passing through the little clachan of Moneyrea, and the haze of Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 653 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna074 Manuscript City, Poultry English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna074 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna074_0.jpg LHL Archive 69 Belfast rose before them, above the tree tops. They wound care fully down the lone: hill into the city, the people on tho road became more numerous, and the hedges t.ave «ay to the heavy grey walls of an estate. Then came a row of whitewashed cottages, once the village of Castlereadh but now chained to the city by row upon row of redbrick houses. Hamilton reined the horse down to walking pace as they joined the long jolting' cavalcade of carts arriving in from the townlands lying to the south and east. Towering among them the horse-trams lurched slowly towards the city centre, Hamilton, unlikely the majority of his fellow-farmers, sold his butter, eggs, fowl and garden crops direct to a grocer situated near the market district. In return he bought nails, paraffin and whatever house- hold goods were required in Rathard. In the old days his father had come with a list in his vest pocket, but now he had Sarah to help him, he bought cheese and rice and currants and raisins and barley, and a side of dried ling for their own needs. She asked for a feeding bucket and a score of coloured leg-rings for the spring poultry. “I couldna have carried a better list to market," said Hamilton as she passed from counter to counter. She laughed and coloured a little. She watched him as he made his purchases for the outdoor life of Rathard. He was taller and bulkier in his homespun clothes than the people around him, and as he lifted, talked and moved about he seemed to overshadow the dark crowded shop. All their purchases made, Hamilton arranged to call for them on the way home and Sarah and he went out to the cart, here was a warm pride and pleasure towards each other as they mounted again and drove further into the heart of the city. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 654 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna075 Manuscript Children, Cromac English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna075 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna075_0.jpg LHL Archive 70 Although living only twenty miles from Belfast, Sarah had never been in the city before. Now she sat high in the cart, turning her head from side aa she watched the teeming crowds of oilstained men crossing the road, some under the horse’s very nose, and some waiting impatiently until the traffic slackened. “Where would they be coming from?" she asked, her eyes wide with surprise, "They’re shipyard workers, Hamilton explained, pointing with his whip to where a mass of slendar gantries like a piece of jagged lace stood at the bottom of a hill with a sliver of grey water at their feet, "and this is their dinner-hour." She stared in wonder at a woman who shot out of a low doorway, like a cork out of a bottle, with a rabble of laughing dirty children tumbling behind her onto the pavement. A man in a tweed cap stood in the door- way shouting and shaking his fist. the woman passed close to the cart Sarah saw that she was weeping. They passed over the bridges leading into the town and Hamilton left the horse and cart in Cromac Square. He led Sarah to the variety market where old women, surrounded by piles of bedsteads, clothes, pictures, boxes of fruit and tottering columns of books, paused only in their monotonous cries to blow on their numbed fingers. Sarah bought a lustre Jug and a worn paisley shawl for her mother. When Hamilton saw her eyeing two highly glazed and warty figures of a highland girl and her lover on whose delph plaid a tartan was daubed, he fished with finger and thumb in the slit pocket close to his waistband. They carried their purchases back to the square and laid the figures, wrapped in straw, at the bottom of the cart. When Hamilton had shaken up Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 655 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna076 Manuscript Reflection, Traffic English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna076 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna076_0.jpg LHL Archive 71 the horse’s nosebag they went to a little eating-house close to the markets. The warm steaming air of the place was filled with the noise of voices and the clatter of knives and forks. The heat of the food and the rank smoke of their husbands’ pipes had brought a dew on the faces of the women, as they sat with their dresses open at the neck, and their thick flushed wrists, toiling away at their plates. After the meal Hamilton had to fetch some harrow teeth from an implement shop. Sarah walked slowly round the square, pausing now and then to glance into the low shop windows. Tiring of this she stopped to look at the hurrying people. A man who had been approaching her slackened his pace as he neared her, and catching her eye, winked broadly. The girl started in surprise and confusion. Turning, she started to walk rapidly away, but as she passed through the crowds she became aware of bold friendly glances from the men. Gradually a feeling of pleasure came over her. She paused to look at her reflection in a shopwindow and the innate peasant appreciation of harmonious colour and line in living things was satisfied. The hat of brown velvet enriched her smooth ripe hair. Her readymade coat failed to muffle the lines of her strong shapely body, her eyes darkened with pride. Amongst the city women, with their strained hurrying faces and their arms torn down with baskets, she moved with ease, her movements a promise of warmth and desire. Three young shipyard workers, walking arm-in-arm, smiled at her, their teeth shining in their oil- smudged faces. She turned her head away, her lips quivering with pleasure. Suddenly she realised that she had been away from the cart for a long time. Hurrying fearfully through the traffic she crossed the square and found the cart still there, untended. Hamilton arrived a few minutes later and dropped a small sack with a chinking thud into the cart. They Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 656 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna077 Manuscript Parents, Cart English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna077 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna077_0.jpg LHL Archive 72 climbed up and Hamilton rounded the horse’s head into the homeward traffic. Sarah, gazing down from her high seat thought the people strange and hostile again, The shawled women hurried by unseeing, the men whistled and stamped their feet impatiently, waiting a chance to duck under the horse’s head or swing through by the tailboard. When they looked up their glance was curt, indifferent, like men who had tired of the sight of human faces. The holiday was over. She shivered and wound her hands in the rug, longing for home. Their cart was one in a long procession of carts, moving back through the dusk of the winter evening towards the townlands. They overtook great country carts laden to the brim with bags of feeding meal on which the driver lay, and perhaps one or two others, smoking and singing. On the quiet verge of the road tramped men and women carrying baskets of city purchases. At the loanen-heads, sleepy numb little children, silenced by the cold and stars, were gathered under greatcoats in clusters of two or three, waiting for the return of their parents. Then the thin gold n cries ringing over quiet fields as a cart lantern halted on the road and the great tufted horse set his feet carefully on-the loanen. The youngest child was hauled up by his braces and crouched, shuddering with joy, under the warmth of his father’s jacket. Hamilton’s light cart bowled on through the cold green twilight, overtaking carts and people on foot. He drew up outside Ardpatrick and lighted his lamp. A man whom he had just passed came running out of the dusk, calling on his name. "I thought I saw ye going past, he said, leaning breathlessly against the wheel. He carried a large hamper on his arm. Echlin, dazzled by the candleflame, peered down into the stranger’s Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 657 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna078 Manuscript Belfast, Saint Peter English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna078 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna078_0.jpg LHL Archive 73 face. His breath smelt of whiskey. "It’s me,” he said, stepping out into the light. Hamilton’s face lit up. ’eh, is it you, Shuey?. Sarah," he said, 'ye know Shuey Carspindle of Lusky woods?" The man ducked and touched his forehead. I hope you’re well, ma’am," he said. Get up, Shuey,” continued Hamilton, lifting the man’s basket into the cart. I’ll leave ye down at your loanen.” The man hesitated; then, "I’m much obliged t’ye” he replied, and climbed up by the wheelhub and sat down on the floor of the cart behind them. "And had ye a brave' day at Belfast, ma’am? he enquired when he had found his basket again. "I had indeed,” answered Sarah, ”and had you, Mr Carspindle?" The man behind then smacked his lips. Fair enough, ma'am, fair enough. But going to Belfast is no newance to me. Sure I’ve been going to Belfast market ever since I was the height av two peats. I went first wi’ my da, God rest him, five and forty years ago. My da was a very wicked wee man and told the daftest tales. Did ye take notice av all the church steeples sticking up out av the town, ma’am?” he asked, prodding Sarah in the ribs. "I did that.” • “Well, the ould boy told me that God and St. Peter were travelling over Ireland on a cloud onct, and God dandered out to the edge and peeped over, ’Where would that be now, says God, pullin at his beard and looking by the way he was mystified. St. Peter takes a keek down. ’Oh-ho’ says he, not to be taken in, ’sure ye know rightly that’s Belfast.' 'Is it now,” says God, ’so that’s where there all coming from? By-my-name!* says he, wi’ all them sharp points sticking up I thought it was a harrow, cowped Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 658 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna079 Manuscript Carspindle, Drink English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna079 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna079_0.jpg LHL Archive 74 on its back In the rain.’ Ye see, ma'am?" cried Carspindle, "God was lettin’ on he didn't know what the steeples wore;" The girl nodded violently, and now Hamilton ma laughing outright. "Oh, he was the harey boy .for the stories, was my ould da," said Carspindle, relapsing back on the floor of the cart. They were passing through the single street of Ardpatrick. It was an oasis of light in the dark countryside, through the flitting windows Sarah could see the lamplight fall on old pictures, halters, clocks and the heads of men and women gathered round the supper tables. The last light in the street had a ruddy glow as if from the open door of a furnace. Carspindle plucked Hamilton's sleeve. "I’ll light down here for a while, Hami," he said. Sarah looked through the window from where the glow came and saw a row of warm brown barrel-ends, grained and varnished, with a brass spigot in each. The head and shoulders of a ruddyfaced man could be seen; by his movements he appeared to be mopping the bar-counter, and all the time he kept talkin' and nodding to same invisible audience.Carspindle passed with one leg over the wing of the cart. “Will ye oome in?" he asked. He lowered himself onto the ground and pulled his hamper after him. “Will ye’ is a bad fellow, come on in and keep me company." There was no reply from the people in the cart. "Came on in," the man continued wheedingly, "I'll no detain ye a minute." “Well, that’s fair enough, said Hamilton suddenly, looking at Sarah. The girl sat silent, not knowing what to do. She Had never been in a public-house before. Since she was a child she had had the evils of drink dinned into her, she had seen the example of her father. Yet the-excitement of the city was on her, and Hamilton, whom she had expected to drive on was waiting for her word. Carspindle, on the road, leered up at her. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 659 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna080 Manuscript Laboureres, Ascetic English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna080 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna080_0.jpg LHL Archive 75 "Come, ma’am,” he said, "it’s not often ye grace the market. Dont kill the day for a thimblefull o’ fun." Sarah laughed and stretching down her hand to Carspindle, leapt lightly to the ground. When she entered the tavern she saw the men to whom the publican had been speaking. They were three labourers, the first of the evening’s company. They sat with their back to the wall on a long form, dressed in their evening best, with shaven faces, bright cloth caps and gleamiig brass studs in the necks of their collarless twisttweed shirts. The publican nodded familiarly to Carspindle and moving swiftly down, the bar, threw open the door leading to the kitchen. Hamilton hesitated on the threshold, “Maybe its too much trouble - we aren’t stopping over long, he said. Carspindle caught him by the arm. "damn-it-skin, he said in a low voice ye cant have the lady sitting there!” nodding to the bar and its three interested occupants. "Ah!” said Hamilton, and plunged down the dark passage after the publican. The man ushered them into the empty kitchen and there Carspindle took charge. In the light of the hanging-lamp Sarah saw her fellow- traveller more closely. He was about sixty years of age, sturdily built, his shoulders already bowed and his hands hanging down, knuckles out, on the front of his thighs. He had no hat and his thin hair and naked scalp filled the girl with pity and distaste. He wore a leather waistcoat and had bundled himself into three threadbare overcoats of varying length and colour. The knot of his woolen scarf, damp with drunken spittle and condensed breath, had chafed his throat and now twisted behind his ear. Some Whiskey drinkers achieve a pale, almost ascetic appearance, but with Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 660 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna081 Manuscript Hamilton, Paddy English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna081 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna081_0.jpg LHL Archive 76 Carspindle the irregular temples, the cheeks, the pouches below the eyes, the nose itself and the moist and quivering chin were composed of little sacks of Reddish flesh, the whole held together in the shape of a face, as it were, by a web of fine dark veins radiating from the root of his nose. He snuffed the odours of the bar, swaying a little on his feet; a vessel crammed and running over with folly, fecklessness and good- humour. Hamilton, who had caught the look of repugnance on Sarah's face, shuffled his feet uneasily. Maybe we’d better wait outside for ye, Shuey, The pony’ll be getting restless." He made as if to step to the door, Carspindle woke out of his trance, "Damn the fears av him!” he said, jumping forward. He hurried to the wall and dragged out a chair, "Here, ma’am, sit down and rest your legs. Paddy!” he shouted, turning his head to the door, "what’s detaining ye?" As he heard the feet of the -publican in the passage he thrust his hand into his pocket and brought it out with notes and coins peeping from the crevices of his fist. A florin slipped from his hand and ran tinkling across the tiles. The man stood crouched under the lamp watching the coin until it wobbled and fell at the feet of Paddy as he came in. "A good dog aye knows its own master," he said with a wry laugh as the publican lifted the coin. “What’ll the lady have, Hami?" he asked, holding his finger and thumb suggestively apart. Echlin looked in a helpless manner at 3arah a3 she sat at the fire. "Port, maybe?" he said. Paddy shook his head, “No port." "There’s only one drink for a night like this," declared Carspindle, Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 661 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna082 Manuscript Carspindle, Echlin English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna082 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna082_0.jpg LHL Archive 77 "and bring it in a bottle and no in wee drops ye can snuff up your nose - and I’ll have a pint o' porther.” The publican returned with a pint of porter, a bottle half full of whiskey and three whiskey glasses. Carspindle pushed Hamilton’s outstretched hand away. "It was me that ast ye in, wasn't it?” He poured out whiskey for the others and handed it to them. As Sarah raised her glass to her lips she recoiled a little from the sweetly pungent smell of the liquor. Her eyes met Carspindle’s. ”It’s fine stuff, that, he said. She put the glass to her mouth and tilted it back, "Aaah” she eaid and shuddered, the level of the whiskey in the bottle dropped steadily downward. Carspindle, with his funny bald head and his mouth drawn down as he told his story ... he had never known such good company before. She knew that she looked beautiful at this moment. Delicately she touched her cheeks and upward curving lips. And oh! the movements of her hands. Like a swan or an osier beside the stream. She threw out her hand in a queenly way to the man opposite her. A glass shivered on the floor. A sudden panic ran through her. She saw Hamilton sitting rigid in his chair. Carspindle’s moist red face swooped down on her as he kicked the pieces under the table. With a great effort she fixed her eyes precisely on the latch of the door. The floor rose and fell beneath her feet as she went forward, her hand raised. Behind her, Hamilton scrambled up, pushing the table from him. Carspindle steadied the bottle and glared after his compan- ions. He heard the snick of the latch, and a cold blast of air struck him. Echiin ran out, clashing the door violently at his heels. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 662 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna083 Manuscript Horse, Village English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna083 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna083_0.jpg LHL Archive 78 "Damn ye for a bitch!” Carspindle shouted, forcing the cork into the bottle and staggering upward. Sarah ran blindly through the public saloon looking to neither right nor left. She saw the glow of the cart lamp at the gable of the house. The bitter cold of the night made her draw breath with a hiss, in the whitewashed wall across the street a man lay spreadeagled. "D’ye know toe Three Curses av Ireland, ma’am?" he bellowed, "Priests, Parsons an’ Porther!’ She reached the cart and fumbled at the step with her foot. She found it and raised herself up, kneeling on the shaft, then on the lip of the cart. With a sob she tumbled forward on the seat. The heavy footsteps behind her stopped and she saw Hamilton climbing up by the wheel. He forced his way past her and sat down heavily. "In the name of Cod, Sarah!” he shouted angrily. She put her hands to her face and sobbed outright. The horse, feeling the reins tighten on his mouth, stirred gladly and clicked his hooves on the stones. The door of the nubile-house flew open again and Carsplndle stood on the step. Damn your souls - dont go off wi' my basket!" he shouted running towards them. The horse did not move and he ran heavily against the side of the cart. "Hold him, Hami," he said, groping with his foot for the spokes. "I thought ye were away wi’out me, he said In an apologetic voice, worming himself down into the bags behind them. The echo of the horse's feet grew and fell away as they passed the last irregular walls of the village. Then hey were out in the silence again, running swiftly through the fields, and the glean end sound of their passage was swallowed by the black hedges. The homing horse, feeling a lax hand on the reins, opened his stride on the hard ringing Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 663 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna084 Manuscript Chest, Trouble English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna084 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna084_0.jpg LHL Archive 79 road. His breath came back in coloured vapour around the lamp, and where the hedges stooped the light shot in swift arrows across the fields. Sarah, crouching in her seat, nodded weakly to toe movements of the cart. Her mouth was full of a sticky aromatic taste and she had a sensation like a hard fiery ball in her chest. At that moment she thought she knew the truth of her mother’s words ‘Like a leper smits you with leprosy, a drunkard smits you with misery.” She heard the squeak of a cork behind her and after a pause felt Carspindle push the bottle between her and Hamilton. She did not even trouble to look down. but she saw the glint of the bottle as Hamilton raised it to his mouth. Then there was the rasp of a match as the man behind them lighted his pipe, and in a low unsteady voice, to the drumming of Carspindle's bottle, Hamilton began to sing: I will gie ye fine beavers And a fine silken goon: I will gie ye smart petticoats Flounced tae the groon' I will gle ye fair jewels, and live but for thee, If ye leave your ain true love And marry wi' me. Carspindle ceased his drumming and leaned over the side of the cart. Ahead, a light gleamed frostily at the side of the road. Carspindle straightened his muffler. "Pull up, Hami boy, he said, "I’ll light down here." The door of the cottage at which they had stopped opened a little and they saw a woman standing in the crevice of light, She held back a struggling dog between her log and the door. "Is that you, Shuey?" she called in a thin plaintive voice. The dog wriggled past her and shot out, Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 664 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna085 Manuscript Bottle, Frost English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna085 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna085_0.jpg LHL Archive 80 shaking and cringing with joy around Carspindle as he lowered himself to the ground. "Have ye got your basket now?" Hamilton asked. "I have, and I’m muoh obliged to ye. Here, hold hard a minute". He came round to the front of the cart and held up his bottle. "Old friends, Hami, old friends," he urged, seeing tho man in the cart hesitate. "H’m. Give me the hold of it," said Echlin, grasping the bottle. He tilted it to his mouth and was seized with a violent fit of coughing. Carspindle reached up and took the bottle from his hand. "Are ye rightly, Hami?” he asked. "Damn it!" shouted Echlin, whooping for breath, "it near choked me". He shook the reins. "Goodnight". "Goodnight, Hami. Goodnight, ma’am, and I’m much obliged again." "You’re welcome," said Echlin as tho horse moved off. High above them the stars glittered, chill and remote. Streams fell silent, stones and trees cracked in the grip of tho frost, and the earth resounded like a bell under the horse’s foot. They wore entering the townland of Lusky woods and tho road, gleaming faintly in the starlight, undulated onward through boglands checkered with crisped heather and black peat banks. Echlin’s body was lapped in a warm stupor. From his shoulders downward ho felt relaxed and drooping. His legs were relaxed and bowed so that his feet lay sole to sole on the floor of tho cart. But his neck and head were rigid, balanced between the knifepoints of the bitter air. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 665 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna086 Manuscript Body, Lamp English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna086 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna086_0.jpg LHL Archive 81 On his loin and thigh he oould feel the woman nestling into his warmth. He gave his warmth prodigally and his whole body was aware of her. She was insistently bearing into the glow of his body, and at the realisation of this a warn flood ran down him to the pit of his stomach. He released a hand from the reins and put his arm deliberately around her. His heart gave a great beat as he felt her respond and come closer into him. He pressed his arm up under her armpit and his hand closed on a curve of her body. At the touch of his hand cradling her breast the hard pain broke in the girl and ran through her in tingling fiery jets. She raised her head and drew in a deep shuddering breath, below her side she could feel the man’s thigh quivering uncontrollably. They hesitated, silent, scarcely breathing. She gave willingly to the pressure of his hand, sliding her hand under his coat until it lay over his heart. The headed rime on her smooth hair pricked his lips, and he gently edged her face upward. His mouth closed down on the warm hollow of her eye and the reins dropped from his hands. She lay back on his arm, her eyes dosed and her lips a little parted. The horse stumbled and stood trembling on the road, the man was stooped over the woman, his mouth pressing down on hers. At the horse’s stumble they slipped downward amongst the bags, silently, without laughter. The patient beast lowered his head to nuzzle the stiff tracery of the hedge ..... Presently Sarah stirred and sat up, "Listen”. In the distance they heard the ringing beat of steps. When they had gained the seat, needles of light were rising over a hill in front of then. A man carrying a lamp came nearer. He raised it and hailed them. "It’s a hardy one, that," Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 666 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna087 Manuscript Purify, Darkness English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna087 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna087_0.jpg LHL Archive 82 he said. They saw the face of Fergus Pentland in the light. He stared at them for a moment, then lowered his lamp and went on without speaking again. Echlin and the girl drove on in silence. They sat apart, deep in silence. Once or twice he glanced at her, but her face was hidden in the scarf that she had drawn over her head. Her gloveless hands hung forward on her knees, swaying listlessly to the motion of the cart. Around her, the earth in cold purity turned its face to the stars, but neither wind nor frost could purify her hands. There was something uncanny in the way she sat, her cowled head sunk in her shoulders, her hands Jerking listlessly. The horse slithered on an icy rut. Echlin lashed it with the whip. "Damn ye, have ye gone dumb!” he shouted to Sarah. She neither moved nor spoke, staring ahead into the darkness. It was the first time that he had ever spoke to her like that. Something stirred in her, rebellious, yet strangely comforting. The tired beast came to a halt in the close. The door opened and Frank stood silhouetted in the light. He stared out at them without speaking, eating something from his hand. He came forward without a ward and started to move the purchases from the cart. As Hamilton led the horse out of the shafts something came tinkling down the floor of the cart and shattered into fragments at Sarah’s feet. She picked up a piece that gleamed in the light of the window. It was her Mother’s lustre Jug. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 667 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna088 Manuscript Ditch, Hawk English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna088 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna088_0.jpg LHL Archive 83 Chapter Twelve. Next morning, as usual, Sarah had the fire kindled and the kettle singing before she heard the clump of feet in the room behind the hearth. Frank came down first and without speaking passed through the kitchen on his way out to the "ditch", a stone wall under the rowan bushes, on which sat buckets and basins, filled, if it had been raining, with soft rainwater. In the crevices between the stones were slips of fiery red and white soaps, the toilet preparations of the Echlins. The young man cracked the ice on the butt and filled his basin from it. When he came back into the kitchen again, fumbling behind the door for the towel, Hamilton was seated at the fire, pulling on his heavy grey socks which had been hanging on the crane. Frank, red and glowing, came over to the fire, and sat down on the opposite side of the hearth. Between them, Sarah bent over the frying-pan, cooking the breakfast. "I brought teeth for the harrow," said Hamilton, without looking up, "will ye have time to knock them in the day?" Frank sat rolling down his sleeves, his eyes fixed on his brother. Getting no answer Hamilton looked up, his face unshadowed and questioning. He did not repeat his question but jerked his head in interrogation, "Will ye?" The younger brother was angered at the simplicity of the question. "No," he growled, "I’ve to go down to Stewartie Purdie's the day again". Sarah rose with their breakfast plates in her hands and in silence they followed her to the table and drew in their chairs. Frank sat tense and suspicious at the meal. He felt himself hang over the table like a hawk, heart and brain stilled and narrowed for a Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 668 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna089 Manuscript Beast, Fork English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna089 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna089_0.jpg LHL Archive 84 look or gesture between his brother and the girl. No one spoke and he sensed somewhere a strain, vibrating and tense s his own. He examined Sarah covertly as she ate. Her faoe was calm and detached as ever, what thoughts were passing behind that broad calm forehead? His brother’s arms or the feeding of hens? Perhaps she was sitting tense with laughter knowing that she could always outwit him and knowing that he knew it too. And because he could not break her with his silence and read what shs tried to conceal, his knife clattered on his plate with rage There wa3 Hamilton left, slow and powerful a3 the animals he worked among. Hamilton set his life by the sun and seasons and moved as irresistibly. As long as he could remember Frank had jeered at him and turned to him in moments of fear. He grew out of the soil and a man and a bush and a beast kept their appointed places in his world. The swift accidental things of life did not exist for him. He never kicked or swore at inanimate things hut bent patiently and saw where the beam had been rotten, the rope frayed, the wheel caught on a stone. But nothing was to be learnt from Hamilton. He hung his head low over his plate and shovelled the food into his mouth. Then he raised his head and chewed meditatively, gazing at the wall. Then down went hi3 head again to meet his loaded fork. Twice Frank stole a glance at the dark placid face. The second time Hamilton caught his eye and held him. "That harrow’ll have tae be fixed afore long". "Ah," said Frank. "Will Stewartie soon be redd up, down there?" Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 669 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna090 Manuscript Frank, Sarah English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna090 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna090_0.jpg LHL Archive 86 "The day should finish it," answered Frank shortly. "Well, see if ye can put a hand to the harrow, afore Sunday". Frank rose without answering and Hamilton cocked his chair back and fell to picking his teeth with a match. As he stumbled down the path to Purdie’s, Frank asked himself angrily if they thought that they had fooled him. Suddenly he stopped with a question trembling on his lips. Why did he suspect them and did he care a damn anyway? His angry mind proffered a thousand reasons for suspicion. Their slipping away to market together. His astonishment at smelling drink on his brother. The flushed face and heavy eyes of the woman that he knew too well to misinterpret. And now this hard silence hanging over them. And Hamilton, the simple one. Perhaps there were depths in a man only uncovered by such a thing as this? He kicked a stone from under his foot and watched it go bounding down the hill. He descended more slowly now, thinking over the second part of his question. Did he love Sarah Gomartin? It was difficult to lay out the threads of that problem. Against every firm thread of regard a rotten one snapped in his hand. To touch her, yes. But then she was herself so quickly again, like a pool you lash into foam with a branch and in a twinkling the ripples die and it stares up cold and impersonal, mirroring your still hot and tremulous face. To enjoy her food and attention and skill in the house, yes. But then in unguarded moments to catch the calculating glance in her eye that turned all her little attentions to mockery and her own presence to that of a stranger and a trespasser. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 670 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna091 Manuscript School, Children English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna091 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna091_0.jpg LHL Archive 86 But now his pride would not let him give her up so easily to his brother. Somewhere perhaps, and he could not even take his oath on that, was a woman with the qualities Sarah lacked. But the girl had satisfied his greatest hunger and these finicking imperfections had only been revealed later. When he knocked at Purdie's door it was opened by Eileen, Stewartie's daughter. She was a heavy, red-faced girl with dank coils of hair slipping untidily over her neck. At school frank and his companions had made her life a misery. She giggled sheepishly when she saw the young man and drew the opening of her dress over the roughened reddish skin of her chest. Below the flushed skin, Frank caught a glimpse of her white breasts. He wrinkled his lips and the image of Sarah came into his mind again. The young woman turned and shuffled back into the warm, red-flagged kitchen and then frank noticed that she was wearing a pair of unlaced men’s boots. On the hearth stood Stewartie in long, rod, woollen underpants, balancing himself on one leg as he drew on a pair of breeches. The knee bands were tight for his swollen calves and when he had pulled them up he stood breathless, the front of his breeches gaping open. An old woman and two younger children 3till sat at the breakfast table. Eileen stood behind her father and stole glances at the young man, exchanging little tittering laughs with the elder of the two children, a girl. "Ye must ha’ rose at the skraik o’ dawn!” shouted Purdy, his arms hanging loose. Echlin smiled and shook his head abruptly. "It's past nine, man. Get yourself ready, and I'll wait outside". He refused a cup of tea Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 671 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna092 Manuscript Purdie, Water English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna092 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna092_0.jpg LHL Archive 87 and left the house walking across the close and into the field where Purdlie and he had been working. He turned up along the hedge until he stood at the back wall of a barn against which ranks of stinging nettles clung stubbornly, The field in which he stood was fringed by the waters of the lough that lapped grey and chill under the winter sky. On the bottom of the hill, which sloped down from Rathard, Purdy and he hod opened a trench and now water was gushing down it, still discoloured with raw clay. At the end of the trench where it passed dose to the barn a square pit had been dug and beside it lay the axle and blades of a waterwheel. One evening in the autumn, Purdie had come up to Rathard and asked permission to turn a little stream which ran along the bottom of the hill into the lough, so that it would pass behind the wall of his barn. When Hamilton heard that Purdie meant to turn his barn machinery with the water power, he laughed. He took Purdie out and showed him the rivulet where it ran on the hillside below the rath. "There's not enough power in that trinket tae drive a turnip-cutter let alone fans. Stick tae your horse on the horse-walk, Stewartie". But the old man was obstinate, Frank backed him up for the novelty of the waterwheel, and Hamilton shrugged, laughed and gave permission. Purdie came through the gate with two axle-sockets of stone in his arms. "We’ll set these first, Frank, put on the wheel an* couple her up wi’ the shaft". He dropped the sockets and indicated a driving-shaft protruding from the wall of the barn. They set to work and in a short time the sockets were secured and the wheel lowered under the falling water. Both men stood back, their Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 672 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna093 Manuscript Contraption, Coil English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna093 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna093_0.jpg LHL Archive 88 eyes glistening with pleasure and excitement as the bladed wheel gathered speed until it humped on its axle. "Quick now, the shaft. Couple her up, man, couple her up!" shouted Purdie. The teeth meshed and a significant groan came from the arrested wheel. hurdle turned and ran clumsily towards the gate with Prank on his heels. When they arrived at the barn they heard a muted clanking noise. The shaft was spinning slowly at the base of the wall. “Would ye Just look at that now!" said Purdie, squatting down beside it and grinning with pride. Frank placed the palm of his hand firmly on the shaft and the contraption stopped with a jerk. "God damn ye!" roared Purdie, knocking down his arm violently, "d’ye want tae ruin my waterwheel!" Prank sat back on his heels roaring with laughter at the old man's angry face. The shaft took up its load again and started to revolve slowly. Purdie stamped up and down tho barn once or twice. His face brightened up. "I’ll clear the burn further up and lighten the cogs. That should settle it," he said. He turned to Frank, "Come on in tae the house for a drop o’ tea". As they crossed the close Purdie raised his hand and pointed to the hillside. "There’s a boyo for ye," he said. Prank saw his brother swinging the plough to a fresh furrow. The colter glinted once in the light. Suddenly the young man stiffened. He saw the gleam of Sarah's apron as she came from the farmhouse. She stopped at the gate of the field where Hamilton was working and slipped a can and a small parcel through the bars. Frank watched his brother raise his hand, draw in a coil of rein, and his clear hup now! came faintly through the air. Horse, plough and man Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 673 Part One Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna094 Manuscript Eavesdropping, Purdie English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna094 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna094_0.jpg LHL Archive 89 crawled slowly down the face of the hill again. Frank.felt a feeling of shame as if he had been caught eavesdropping. Be turned and followed Purdie into the house. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 674