Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna095 Manuscript Part Two English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna095 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna095_0.jpg LHL Archive PART II. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 675 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna096 Manuscript Tense, Anger English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna096 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna096_0.jpg LHL Archive 90 Chapter One. The days that followed in Rathard were tense and silent. Hamilton proved fiercely adamant, determined to give up nothing: yet he lacked the courage to ask the woman to give up Frank. There was nothing further to be hidden now from any one of them. The brothers moved warily in each other's presence, knowing that a sudden action was fraught with violence. And Sarah went about the house, eyes and ears strained to catch every word and gesture. Sometimes when her mind became tired and numb, she felt that she was watching a scene and she had neither sympathy nor blame for the woman she saw. Yet when she was nakedly conscious of what was happening to her she never wavered in her calm attention to the men, never setting one above the other. And all the time her fear was being dissipated by a mounting pride fed by all the humiliating years when she was a girl. She had two men. Frank quickly realised that this new relationship with Sarah meant very much to his brother, and though he called on jealousy, he called in vain, and his anger weakened. At times as he thought of himself, he felt a desire to laugh. There was something insanely comic that this should have come about where his father and mother had lived and moved a few months ago. Of the three of them Hamilton was the least disturbed. He saw clearly that his brother's relationship with the woman was a chancy thing, rooted in pride and appetite. He himself asked nothing from her that she was not prepared to give, but he had raised crops on stony soil before. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 676 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna097 Manuscript Killyleagh, Animals English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna097 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna097_0.jpg LHL Archive 91 Although there was sufficient passion and confusion present, which, in a more inactive and leisured household might have broken out in violence, the insistent demands of the farm took thou away from each other for long periods. The Echlins had a few sheep on the slope overlooking the lough and several of the ewes dropped lambs prematurely. A sudden squall of snow followed by a bitter frost killed several of the feeble creatures, and Hamilton spent a day and a night tending the survivors in an outhouse. The store of coal ran low and twice Frank had to turn back on the frozen roads to Killyleagh. Trees had to be cut down, hauled to the farm-close and sawed into fire wood. These communal activities made it necessary for decisions to be taken in the evenings, at the fireside, and advice offered and considered. And as the outside world thawed and the sound of running water was heard once more in the dykes, so speech began to move again, sluggishly at first, between the brothers. Yet, in the end, Frank and Hamilton fought. They had left the house after the mid-day meal and as Sarah went to the door to empty a basin, she heard the heavy breathing of men. There was something evil and deliberate about the sound. Then there came a hoarse grunt and the thud of a falling body. She flew to the byre and saw them on the ground between the stalls. The animals were tossing their heads in fear and crowding away from the struggling men. Hamilton knelt on his brother’s chest, his fist raised like a hammer and his head nodding patiently as he timed his blow on the face Jerking from side to side beneath him. The woman screamed and lifting a graip, struck Hamilton on the back. The brothers rose slowly, picking the filth from their clothes. They stared at each other like Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 677 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna098 Manuscript Nightmare, Rebellion English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna098 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna098_0.jpg LHL Archive 92 men who had wakened from a nightmare. "You fools!” shouted Sarah. They did not even turn to look at her. They stood there, their hands moving mechanically over their bodies, gazing into each other’s face. Hamilton closed his fist and stared at it dumbly. Is this the fist I meant to smash you with, brother? his eyes asked. Slowly the woman felt their hurt bewilderment: she knew that at that moment she did not exist. She was alien, barred, shut away from them. And the knowledge of her own guilt quelled any rebellion in her. she turned away, her head lowered, and left them. Yet before she had reached the house, her instinct was stirring in revolt against this bond between the men. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 678 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna099 Manuscript Ploughman, Kitchen English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna099 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna099_0.jpg LHL Archive 93 Chapter Two. Spring came, warm and turbulent. The drab sheets on the hillsides ware torn under the ploughman's heel and a tawny light rose from the soil. The sower came, scattering wisely from his sheet, then the plunging harrow driving the hard silver grain underground, and lastly tho roller, clanging like a bell as it wheeled, and leaving, for all the boulders piled upon it, faint pock-marks of hooves in the smooth soil. Rain-showers came leaping through the hills and were gone before the sun had time to shadow. Five times a lean cat stole across the dose of Rathard carrying a kitten in her Jaws. She went straight as an arrow, her head close to the ground and the proud cock trotted cut of her way. In the house, Sarah sat at her bedroom window overlooking the rath in the wrinkles of whose broken walls primroses were already gleaming. The men were out and there was a deep silence in the house. Nothing stirred and the beat of the kitchen clock did not penetrate through the closed door. The shawl that she had drawn over her head to go out had fallen down on her shoulders. She put her hand swiftly to her body feeling the movement below her heart again. No need now to go down to Agnes Sampson. She was to have a child. A stunned look came into her eyes. "I am having a child," she said aloud, impatiently, as if upbraiding herself for her lack of understanding. She put her hands over her face, and sat like this for a long time, staring through her fingers. A wagtail, bobbing and dipping on the sill, took fright and flew off. She rose slowly, as if very weary and went up to the kitchen. The untended fire fell in a cloud of ash and flames, she built it up again Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 679 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna100 Manuscript Countryside, Labour English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna100 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna100_0.jpg LHL Archive 94 and lowered the kettle to the turves. As she carried dishes from the dresser to the table, laying the evening meal, she moved as if she was in a dream, and her face was grey and haggard. A plate slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. She started and looked round her sharply as if she had been rudely awakened. After that she moved deftly and carefully about her task in her usual way but the haunted look was still on her face and she would stop suddenly and stand for long moments, gazing before her, unseeing. That night when she lay in her bed alone, all the possible and impossible consequences of her guilt that a heated brain could imagine were drawn to her pillow. She saw herself thrown out by the Echlins, scorned by the countryside and hunted by her neighbours. Echoes of such old stories sounded like spoken words in her ear. She started up in bed, the sweat running down her body. The voices fled and she lay down again. She thought of her mother and saw that small lean woman trembling when she told her and heard the passionate outburst of anger as she was driven from the house. She recoiled from the thought. Years of living in the one house, of sharing food and labour, of tending each other in sickness were not to be set aside so easily. There was a grain of comfort in the thought, and at last, as the darkness thinned in the east, she fell asleep. Not once, in that long sleepless night, had she thought of the child. In the cool light of morning with the simple familiar things at hand to be taken up, she smiled briefly and bitterly at her midnight fears, yet the comfort that the memory of her mother had given her, echoed in her Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:56 680 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna101 Manuscript Cottage, Heat English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna101 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna101_0.jpg LHL Archive 95 mind. When her work was done, she put a shawl over her hood, drew the door and started for her mother’s cottage. As she walked along the road, stumbling blindly over the rough places, she kept turning in her mind what she would say. But as the end of her Journey grow nearer her pace slackened, and she stopped irresolute in the rood. Slowly, with lagging steps, she approached the top of the hill looking down on her old home. She saw her mother come out and gather peat from the stack at the corner of the house. When she had filled her basket, tho old woman raised her head and looked up the road, shading her eyes with her hand. The woman on the hilltop stole into the shadow of the hedge and loaned her arms on the curved bough of an ashtree. She saw her mother raise the basket and go indoors and in a second a fresh puff of smoke leaned away from the chimney and trailed like an azure veil over the fields. Tears ran down the face of the woman standing in the hedge, she turned away, walking slowly on the road she had come. Down in the cottage, Martha had lowered the kettle on tho crane and set out two cups and a sugar basin and a milk Jug on the table. She hurried to the door to see again the figure she had seen below the trees. There was no one there and the road was empty as far as the eye could see. She stood in the doorway till she grew cold, but no one came. At last she turned and went back into the house. She sat down in her chair before the fire. The kettle sang and at last spluttered up, rocking its lid. She sat there for a long time staring numbly into the fire. Occasionally she rubbed her hands down her legs which had a strange burning feeling in them now, when she sat too near the heat. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 681 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna102 Manuscript Fiddle, Cobweb English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna102 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna102_0.jpg LHL Archive 96 Chapter Three Frank was cleaning the bee-hives. Sarah could see him standing in the blue shadow of the thorn-trees, his veiled head bent over the frames. Over the wall of the rath between the roots of the thorns the white-blossomed fairy lint broke in foam as though a sea of flowers tossed outside. A field of young corn lay beyond the rath, the grey cracked earth still showing through the pale shoots. The air was filled with small humming sounds as if someone was plucking a slack fiddle-string. The sound awoke a longing for sunshine and ripe nodding grass. Because something was lacking Sarah felt ill at ease, and sensed a note of panic in the flight of the bees. She had laughed when she saw Frank come out of the barn, a veil drawn over an old straw hat, his trouser-legs tied at the bottom, and gloves on his hands. He had given her cord to tie his cuffs. Then he had lighted his smoker at the fire and, the acrid smell of burnt paper hung in the air. A small rusty bee landed clumsily on the window-sill. It crawled along the frame until it reached the corner. Unable to go any further, it turned out towards the edge. It tried to rise and then fell over the edge, landing on a dusty cobweb which shook under its weight. She saw the delicate flexing of the spider's legs in the hole above the web. The bee struggled in the web, stabbing down with its pointed body. In a few seconds it hung motionless and silent. The spider came out with slow cautious steps. The wings of the snared bee fluttered weakly. The spider drew back. The bee lay motionless and again the spider approached. Slowly, under the fascinated eyes of the woman, it drew across the web. Then, at the end, with a little rush it was on the bee. The insects Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 682 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna103 Manuscript Bees, Ditch English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna103 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna103_0.jpg LHL Archive 97 clung together as in some sort of communion. Then the spider moved back a little, carefully and delicately cleaning the web from the bee. As the little mass of life and death moved upwards to the hole, the woman lifted a duster, and opening the door, ran outside to the window, she beat down the spider and its burden to the ground and trod then under her foot. Frank looked up as he heard the clack of the latch, "Keep inside, Sarah," he called, "and keep the door closed, I think the bastes’ll swarm”. He puffed with his smoker until a blue cloud drifted across the rath and Sarah could only see him indistinctly as he worked at the hire. The bees swarmed, clustering in an angry confused mass around the queen. Carefully, Frank worked among them with his fingers in an effort to release the hapless female. The insects hung like a mass of ripe fruit from his gloves and arms, "Sarah! Are ye there?” he shouted. The woman rapped loudly on the pane to show that she was attentive, "Fetch a basin of water and lay it on the ground, here" he called. She went out to the ditch and filled the basin. Stray bees were hunming like gnats over the soapy stagnant water in the runlet behind the wall. "Stay your distance, now," said Frank when he heard her steps behind him. "Set the water down and go back in". She crouched down, pushing the basin as near him as she could. A bee danced angrily round her yellow hair as she ran back, When she got back to the window Frank had lifted the swarm clear of the hive. The bees dripped down from his hands like wet vibrating sea-weed. He lowered the mass slowly over the basin. A high-pitched whine penetrated into the house. The bees streamed out from the man’s grasp as if they were Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 683 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna104 Manuscript Woman, Irony English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna104 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna104_0.jpg LHL Archive 98 lifted by a wind. He held his hands out as they lifted into the tree over- head where they bent a bough with their dark murmurous weight. She saw Frank turn sharply and nod to someone in the loanen. Peering round the side of the window she saw the fLat-brimed hat of the Reverend Mr. Sorleyson. "Most inadvisable," she heard him say, "much too drastic, Frank. Even if you get them back, they won’t settle down for days”. The reverend gentleman was flapping his hand aimlessly round his head as he looked over the hedge. "Did you get the queen?" he asked. Frank shrugged his shoulders and turned away. A few moments later the minister tapped at the kitchen door and came in. "Good afternoon," he said, "I see you’re having trouble with your honey-makers". "Sit- down, Mr. Sorleyson," said the woman pushing forward a chair. "It’s Frank that’s having the trouble - I know nothing about them". "H’m, well," said Mr. Sorleyson, brushing the subject aside, "I came up to tell you that your mother is poorly. Not tell you," he added drily, glancing up at Sarah, "you must have noticed that when you visit her. I wanted to discuss with you what is the best thing to do". "Best thing to do? She echoed weakly. Mr. Sorleyson’s irony gave way very quickly. "Yes," he exclaimed irritably, "the best thing to do with your mother who is alone and ill. I’ve spoken to you before, about your duties to her. I did it because it was my duty to her, but I’m not going to reopen the matter again. I know quite well that, for some reason, you’ve stopped going down to see her”. He had been speaking rapidly, and he paused for breath. "But if Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 684 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna105 Manuscript Farmhouse, Kindly English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna105 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna105_0.jpg LHL Archive 99 you think, Sarah, that by sending your mother some money every week you have discharged your obligations, then I can only hope that you’ll be treated differently by your own children". Sarah was about to speak, but the minister waved his hand fretfully to stop her. "Let us consider what’s to be done. Her legs and arms are badly swollen and she can fend for herself no longer. Now what do you mean to do about it? Will you go back and stay with her for a while?” Mr. Sorleyson thrust his head forward aggressively. His round bespectacled face, usually so mild, was pink, and a frown creased his forehead with unaccustomed wrinkles. ”I’ll go down to her, Mr. Sorleyson. If she’s fit to move, I’ll bring her back here with me". "Oh,” exclaimed Mr. Sorleyson, rather taken aback. He felt like a man who had thrust violently against a door only to find it ajar. "Well - well, that would be vary satisfactory. But will she be happy here?” he demanded with some of his former brusqueness. ”I’ll see that she’s well looked after," answered Sarah in the same flat tone. It was only when Mr. Sorleyson was on the road home that the significance of Sarah’s promise to take her mother back to the Echlins struck him. Was that a strange thing for a servant girl in her master’s farmhouse to say? Mr. Sorleyson wasn’t quite sure. He had tried very hard ever since he had come to this congregation to understand the ways of the country people. He had learned by trial and error, and because he was a kindly man, eager to help, he had learned quickly. There had been the occasion (he had only been in the manse a few weeks) when he Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 685 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna106 Manuscript Hinder, Minister English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna106 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna106_0.jpg LHL Archive 100 called Into the little National school in Ravare. Only a dozen or so of the smallest boys and girls were present. The old schoolmaster had explained that - the elder children were kept at home to make the best of that one dry day in the fields. “But their schooling!” exclaimed Mr. Sorleyson. The old man smiled and looked at him strangely. He had tried to dissuade Mr. Sorleyson from calling on the parents of the children. The very first men he had spoken to, one of his own elders, after listening to hie remonstrances, had laid down his scythe and coming over to the hedge told him in as many words to attend to his own affaire and not hinder their work under the drying sun that God had granted them. Afterwards, when his resentment had gone, he laughed ruefully at the memory of the scowls on the faces of the two young urchins tying sheaves behind their father. But he learned that the most Important thing in the lives of farm people is saving their crops. As he turned into the manse drive he paused to look up at tho farm of Rathard and tried to understand the attitude of the woman there. Maybe she, too, was caught up in the relentless cycle of farm-work. It was a deceptive life, he thought, seemingly so slow and laborious and yet so all-consuming that people must at times forego their duties to themselves and others. Sarah sat thinking when Sorleyson had gone. The minister’s charge that she should return to her mother, found her, in a certain sense, prepared. It was an eventuality that she had already considered and now that it could no longer be avoided she proceeded, calmly and carefully, to reflect in what way it could be used to the least disadvantage. She did not give second thought to the suggestion that she should leave Rathard, even for a time. If she did that there was no way of telling how long she would be away. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 686 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna107 Manuscript Frank, Benyil English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna107 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna107_0.jpg LHL Archive 101 Three months, maybe, and three months would be too lone* The brothers would know about her than. Already she imagined that Trank was watching her with dislike and suspicion, Hamilton was different, tionsidorate and kindly for all hia dullness, Hut the risk was too great to loavo theta, Trunk would be at his brother's ear the moment her shadow had gone. There was nothing to do but bring her mother back to hathard and keep her own foot in the house. Trank cane in, in a bad temper, Tie had lost his swarm of bees and had been stung twice on the wrist. In his annoyance lie forgot to ask the reason for Sorleyoon’s visit and Jar ah carefully avoided the minister’s name, Hamilton came in from hia ploughing anti they sat down to their evening meal, "How did y® gat on wi* the bees, Trank?" he asked, "E.h, don't talk to me, I made a bad hand at them", Sarah leaned across the table, "Did Mr. Sorleyson cay the right thing?" she asked, "Aye, at the wrong time," answered the young loan shortly. "What fetched him up?" asked Hamilton glancing at Sarah, The woman paused a moment, keepirg her heed lowered. "My mother's ill," she said. "He wants me to go down and tend her, I may so hack and forrit to Banyil till she’s mended''* she closed Trank out with a steady gaze while oho waited for Hamilton to speak. "It’s a long road to Banyil," he 3aid thoughtfully. Be wa3 silent for a moment and then he spoke again, "Is there ooht been changed in the lower room? Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 687 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna108 Manuscript Kitchen, Milking English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna108 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna108_0.jpg LHL Archive 103 "Nothing since she left". "Then bring her baok here and tend her. Ye won't nave to leave the house then". "I could look after ye all, if she was here," agreed Sarah in a flat matter-of-fact voice. "Well, than, fetch her up," said Hamilton wiping his mouth. "Can ye manage the pony and trap yerself?" "I'll go for her now, when I’ve redd up," answered Sarah, rising. And so it was settled. The old woman offered no opposition to her daughter and she was brought back and given her old room in the Echlins' house. For a time she mde an effort, when the men were out, to follow Sarah round the house. But she could do very little work now and somehow she felt that her daughter didn't want her in the kitchen any more. Her legs were swollen; and sometimes, when there was a longer pause than usual in the irregular thumping of her heart, she drew herself upright on her pillow, gaping hungrily for breath. Each day she stayed a little longer in bed, until the time came when she was content to hear the men go out in the morning, and let the day pass a3 she slept or lay with her eyes closed, thimcing of the past, until she was roused again by the clatter of the milking pail3 and the low voices of the men gathered at the evening fire. She was very grateful for the peace that she was enjoying, and when Hamilton came down to see her in the evening she took his hand in hers and held it against her breast, and they sat for a time in silence, until he bade her good-night and went away again. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 688 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna109 Manuscript Lough, Fright English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna109 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna109_0.jpg LHL Archive 103 As th© time passed Sarah grew more careful in her mother's presence. Every little while during the day she took her r.iilk or broth or tea, setting them at her bedside and goi!^ back to the kitchen. Only in the dusk sho lit the assail lamp in her mother’s room and read to hor from the Bible or 3at talking a little and sewing. One evening, as Sarah was about to go to bed, she heard her mother oall. "What is it, mother?" she asked, when she got. to the old woman's side. "Open the window a wee bit, daughter. I*m near choking". Sarah lowered the upper part of the window and stood looking out. Away beyond a ridge of night-black trees the sky was inlaid with shafts of green. A star twinkled in the pale sky above the house and the mournful cry of a whaup came from the lough, There was a sense of melancJioly and peace in the scene, and the woman, silhouetted against the window, unconsciously drew her hands over her full body. Even as sho did so there wan a ch.old.ng inarticulate cry from the bed* She saw her mother rising in bed and caught the glean in her distended eyes. "Sarahl" she cried, lifting her aim till the sleeve fell back on her shrivelled shoulder, lhe daughter stood there, stupid with fright, her hands still laid on her belly. In the indistinct light the woman on the bed seemed to rise onto her ]cnees. Her grey hair fell down over her face, veiling her eyas. She clawed it back and her mouth worked as she tried to cry out again. Then with e horrible rattling noise in her throat she pitched face forward on the bed. keeping with terror, the girl ran forward and lifted her mother in her arms. The old woman'a head lifted a little and a long shuddering breath came from her lips, ilartha lay dead in her daughter's embrace. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 689 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna110 Manuscript July, Loyal English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna110 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna110_0.jpg LHL Archive 104 Chapter Four. To the desultory traveller, the passage of a fxya weeks works a silent and unobtrusive ohange in the countryside and never eo much 03 in those months that ripen from Spring to Summer. ithout a stick or atone displaced, the face of the land seams to have changed. On that hillside where the green down of young grass failed to hide the cracked earth, the hedges now restrain a lake of ripened hay whose bronze waves ripple and break against the thorn blossom. The loanens, which the winter’3 rain had laid bare to the whinstone, are patched ana tho patches are softened by the dappled gloom of the tall trees. Everywhere grass and weed uttack man’s handiwork. Kettles climb to the roofs of barns, grasses sprout between worn stones, ragweed nods in the hay* Even ^ in Ravara churchyard Martha*a mw swollen grave sinks under the rain, and yellow-blossomed saxifrage crosses and re-crosses tho withered wreaths. In the evening3, the people of tho townlands heard the rumble of the drums as the Orangeman practised for the July walk. Petie Sampson and his fife were the pride of Ravara’ 3 Loyal sons, and the little imn had led hia lodge to the Field and back for many years. Now as they marched and counter-marched on the country road to the patterned thunder of their drums, Petie skipped ahead of then, blowing vigorously on hie instrument. For years the drumming had been held some distance from ynocknadreemaliy, at Petie’s request, because of his regard for his neighbour, Owen Pineen. Andrew Kohlin had never joined with the Orangemen«. He was too deeply a roan of his faith and race not to sympathise with their aspirations. Yet he had never Joined then nor ashed his dons to Join then. Twice in his Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 690 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna111 Manuscript Orangemen, Blinded English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna111 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna111_0.jpg LHL Archive 1*5 lifetime he had left hie church for lone?, periods* A few years before his death, when he wan an older of the congregation, the minister had installed an organ in the church. Andrew had protested. His pretest had been unheeded. The or£,an had been installed and the old precentor, whose boss voice had led the praise as Ion? a3 anyone oould remember, had been driven out to a pew in the church. Hint Sunday '.’warring, on the first note of the instrument, Andrew end several of the elders had risen *nd left the build!nr. Many years before that, as a young man, he had wanted to join the Orangeman. Ho went to the Field on the Twelfth of July with the men of Ravara. "You* 11 hear powerful speeches" promised the companion who took him. Re heard and sew the powerful npoceh-rrkers• Some he already knew by MM and Bight, but he recognised them all for what they worst landlords, politicians and clergy, jjpt once did he hear a simple man like himself speak from a platform or a long car. The final revulsion camo when he niw a mill-owner whoa he knew by repute, stand up. Ilia gorge lose as he rate' -«d the creature*n face redden and the veins of his neck swell .nn lie ranted. It wati for this ran that roman blinded than- selves ’forking embroidery at ha'pence a dozen. He wn him lift up his hands as if he boro aloft, visible, like sacred relics, the shrivelled and relin- quished liberties that be and hie kind had bought and bled, Andrew came homo, on,-ry with himself and thr man from Ravara, Fran that day there was planted in him a hatred of Tpoliticel ciargy", whether they wore Geneva bands or Chasuble. Then, In tiro, being a good-natured young nan and fond of gaiety, ha went to ths dances and soirees in the Orange Hall. It * was there that he met hie future wife, Margaret Pentland. But he left to his Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 691 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna112 Manuscript Reaper, Harvesting English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna112 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna112_0.jpg LHL Archive 106 neighbours the July Walk, the bouncing fife and the braggadocio of the belly-drum. The hay wan ready for harvesting at Rathard. Early in the morning Hamilton went down to the field and "opened” it with his scythe. The sun was well up and a few laggard clouds wore hurrying across the hot flawless sky when Frank brought the reaper in, with a merry jingle of harness and the leisured purr of meshing wheels. The binders cane trickling in, one by one - Petie end Agnes and Sarah, the women with their hair tied up in bright cloths. A can of buttermilk sat in the shadow of the hedge, and the men fished out little green insects with their fingers before they drank. Frank sat on the reaper, his sunburnt face and chest beaded with sweat. He sang as he swung his rake, doling out the hay in loose sheaves. Slowly, patiently, crouching to the earth, the women moved behind the machine. Sarah worked on in a blindness of pain. As every sheaf dropped from her hand, she raised her open mouth to the air, as if she were choking. Then, at the corner of the field nearest the house, she cried out and fell to the ground. "Is it my time, Agnes?" she asked, as the old woman drew her up. Agnes nodded, "Now," she said. They passed through the cool shadow of the rowans and onwards into the house. Agnes undressed her and laid her in bed .... Someone spoke at a great distance. Through the deep small window came the sounds of the harvesting field, the bustle of bees, and a tapping noise close by. "Chase the hens from the garden, Agnes," said the woman on the bed, opening her eyes. Her neighbour still leaned over her waiting on an answer to her question. "Sarah, who’s the wean’s father?" she asked again. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 692 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna113 Manuscript Glee, Defiant English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna113 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna113_0.jpg LHL Archive 107 The woman on tho bed lay silent, her suspioiouu brooding face mirrored in the midwife's eyes. Suddenly the old woman understood. Stupefaction, incredulity and a trace of lecherous glee struggled on her face. ±he young woman stared at her with hard am defiant eyes. Then her gaze wavered and dropped and she turned her face away to the face of her infant son. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 693 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna114 Manuscript August, Autumn English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna114 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna114_0.jpg LHL Archive 108 Chapter Five. The year ripened into August and early autumn. In a few days Sarah appeared in the outside world with her son. The hay had been cut, and the weather being good, the stacks sat in the haggard.Hamilton knelt at the base of a stack, half hidden in the hay, feeding, with dexterous hands, the strands of a sugan rope twisted by Frank who backed across the close as the rope lengthened. Sarah crossed the close to Hamilton and kneeling down, held up the child to him. The baby’s eyes moveed with solemn indifference over leafy branches, man’s face, and bleached hay. Suddenly his nose wrinkled, his face reddened, his mouth opened and his eyes closed. He sneezed. Hamilton laughed and caught the child's bare foot between his finger unu thumb. The sugan rope sagged and dropped to the ground as Frank caused to wind. He stood watching the group at the stack. Sarah rose and came towards him. She turned the boy in her arms so that he could see his face. A little smile kept coming and going on the man’s lips, he put a crooked dark finger up and pulled away the shawl from the infant’s head. "Husha, you’re a bould boy," he laughed. "He’s a brave one, that," called Hamilton behind them* "he’s a brave one, indeed," said his brother pressing back the shawl. The people of Rathard, sitting high over the surrounding countryside in this mellow afternoon, seemed to be out of the world. Below lay the fields drenched in sunshine and every extraneous sound that came through the quivering air seemed distilled till it was less than the tiny chinks and rings of the insect world. A great golden bee bumbling across the close, drowned, in his passage, the distant clatter of a cart. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 694 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna115 Manuscript Rowan, Circle English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna115 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna115_0.jpg LHL Archive 109 Prank detached the thrawhook from the rope and walked slowly towards Hamilton, rolling the rope into a large prickly bail. At the barn door three hens were industriously scooping out hollows in the warm dust for their bodiew, Sarah glanced upward at the sun, measuring with her eye when the shadow of the rowan trees would fall across the boy and her. He lay, tired of the sun, turned into her bosom, asleep. The woman had never known contentment like this before. The men were in the fields the following day when Mr Sorleyson came up to Rathard. Sarah was seated at the door when he came into the close, and she treated before him into the house as he came towards her. "May I come in?” he asked, darkening the threshold. The woman nodded silently. He came in, and with only a fleeting glance at the child in its crib, took the chair she offered. "You are better?" he asked. Sarah nodded again, a flush rising on her face* "I wanted so much to speak to you," he continued and then was silent, agitatedly turning his circular hat In his hands. Sarah did not help him. She was hostile and wary. His appearance reminded her that outside the familiar circle of the farm was a world of strangers, moving about, whispering arson;; themselves as they looked up at Rathard. Sorleyson placed his hat on the table and folded his hands. "Sarah, he said, gazing straight into her face, "will you look upon me as a friend? Don’t think - oh, I know you doi - that Im going to reprove you, NO, rather - can’t we think of some way to right this terrible thing that’s happened?" The woman was picking at the child’s blanket, het head lowered so that, he could see only the curve of her sullen mouth. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 695 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna116 Manuscript Parentage, Secret English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna116 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna116_0.jpg LHL Archive 110 "Tell me," he put the question delicately, in a low voice, "tell me, is the parentage of your poor child uncertain?" She lo ked at him, not understanding. "Do you know who the father of the - eh - child is?" "No." "Oh, Sarah, Sarah, what darkness has fallen on this house*" he cried bitterly. And then because she was silent, he said "which of the men will you marry?" "I’ll marry noan of them," she returned, looking at him in sudden anger. "Oh!" exclaimed Mr Sorleyson springing up in amazement. "But, Sarah, this is inconceivable! Think of your good name!" "What ails my name?" demanded the girl, thoroughly aroused. "Ails your name!" he repeated, wheeling on her. "It - " But his words were checked by the baby’s cry, which carao in protest to their shouting. | The interruption gave them time to collect their thoughts. As Sorleyson watched her soothing the child, his arguments became completely unreal for a moment. What detail in the picture of this mother crooning over her child was evil? Was this not the very thing that he himself had pictured in his most secret thoughts? Ah, no, life was not so simple as that. One had obligations to God and one’s fellow-men. Of what avail was virtue if lust and irresponsibility were to be crowned with contentment? The child made signs that it wanted to be fed, and Sarah looked questioningly at the minister. Sorleyson started back uneasily, feeling that insome way he was being cheated. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 696 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna117 Manuscript Townland, Minister English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna117 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna117_0.jpg LHL Archive 111 "Can't you put the child somewhere, until we’ve finished talking?" he asked irritably, ’’No," she answered. "It's past his feeding time anyway." In his annoyance, Sorleyson said something that he had already considered and rejected, as being contemptible and cruel. "Sarah, tell me, what do you think your mother would have felt about this?" He saw her wince and immediately regretted his question. The young mother looked at him calmly for a moment. " Well, you said you came as a friend, Mr Sorleyson. I hope you're satisfied now. What you've said to me is no different from what the people of the townland would say. You're a man who's supposed to know better. Everything should be a kind of a way for you, to be right. Nothing ever is. It was the same when - " "When what?" asked Sorleyson, leaning forward. "When Andrew died. I dont know how ye did it, but ye stole some- thing away from that too!" "Surely, surely I didn't!" cried Sorleyson. "Yes, ye did!" cried the woman springing up in passion. "I told ye he left go of the boat for us, and ye said something about a sacrifice that should teach us something. It was like as if he had done nothing more than threw a pound-note on the collection plate. He gave his life for his sons and me, and all the time you were thinking how it could be made to prove something else, "My God, Mr Sorleyson, things happen to people!" "Yes, Sarah," answered the minister, "but there is a guidance that helps us to combat the temptations of life, and a Divine help which supports us in those evil hours that none of us can avoid. Have you Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 697 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna118 Manuscript Infant, Loanen English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna118 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna118_0.jpg LHL Archive 112 availed yourself fully of that?" "Here’s your answer," said the woman aniline bitterly and holding out the infant. "And what was it ye said? To marry one of the men. To bend and contrive things so that all would be smooth from the outside, like the way a lazy workman finishes a creel." "I was thinking of the child's future, answered Mr Sorleyson coldly, stung at her bitter tone. "Were you?" she asked, looking at him keenly. "Like a picture off a grocer's calender, said a voice behind them, and Frank came into the kitchen. He threw his hat against the wall and rested one thigh on the table-corner, "Well, Mr sorleyson, have ye blessed the wean?" he continued insolently. The minister frowned at him, as he sat there, his head thrust forward truculently. "Is your brother about?" he asked, lifting his hat* "You’ll pass him in the loanen," said Frank. Sorleyson nodded to them both and went out. Frank moved to the door and watched him until he disappeared beyond the rowan bushes. "Is he gone?" asked Sarah at last, The young man turned and walked quickly towards the door leading to his bedroom. "Aye, he’s gone!" he shouted "The way all decent people will be from Rathard!" Before she could speak he had left the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. Sorleyson found Hamilton working in the loanon. The farmer touched his cap to the minister as he approached. "Will yo not bide ’til suppertime, Mr Sorleyson?" he asked, Sorleyson started at the question. For an instant he wondered if these Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 698 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna119 Manuscript Collar, Scratching English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna119 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna119_0.jpg LHL Archive 113 were the simple people he had known so long. He stood looking silently at Echlin. "Hamilton," he said at last, "this is a sad day for me to come to Rathard." "Is it?” asked the other stolidly. Then, as if ashamed, he lowered his head. "Aye,” he added. "Tell me, Hamilton, what do you intend to do about Sarah Gomartin?" "Do about her?" repeated Echlin in a puzzled tone. "Surely you must see that the girl will have to marry either one of you," said Sorleyson wearily. "Will you not marry her?" Echlin looked him up and down with a cunning expression in his eyes. He examined his round hat, his questioning face, his spotless collar, his slightly protuding vest, his black mud-smeared boots. "To tell ye the God’s truth, Mr Sorleyson," he exclaimed looking up suddenly and frankly, "I’d marry her flying. But she wont have me.” "H’m," grunted the minister, breaking a twig from the hedge. "What about Frank, then?" The other man made a gesture of impatience. "Frank’ll no settle down to marry anyone." He stood looking at the ground for a moment. "But she’ll no marry me," he repeated. "But what hope is there for her otherwise?" demanded Sorleyson. "If she doesn’t marry one of you, where else can she go?" Echlin stood scratching his nose and looking at the minister. A frown gathered on his face. "Who's talking about her going anywhere? She'll bide here, this is her home now." Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 699 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna120 Manuscript Censure, Stranger English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna120 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna120_0.jpg LHL Archive 114 "But good, heavens, man, that’s impossible; How long can this unatural arrangement last?" The other man shrugged his shoulders. "D’you know, Mr Sorleyson? No? Well, no more do I." > "But I know that you can either make or break it. Cant you put it to her that she either marries you, or leaves the child and goes?" "No! There’s to be no more talk of her going, what sort of a creature would I be to turn the girl out now?" "And what will the countryside think?" "I’m not feard of what the countryside thinks. Thank God, there’s little chance o’ us falling into their hands," added Echlin, turning to look across the fields that lay on each side of the loanen. Sorleyson followed his gaze. "There’s no happiness that way, Hamilton." "May be, maybe not. But I’ll no force her to marry me, all the same." Mr sorleyson paid no more visits that day. He walked home very slowly thinking of the people of Rathard. He was ashamed to find that he no longer felt any indignation against them. This is impossible! he exclaimed angrily. These people have deliberately sinned! But he could not recapture his mood of righteous disapproval. He recalled Hamilton with his dour loyalty, not to be budged by fear of censure. And Sarah with the child in her arms. She had seemed so natural, so essentialy right. How futile it was to appeal to a woman like that for convention’s sake! He had felt a strange langour as he spoke to her. And now, in a moment, he realised that he did not want to blame them. He envied them. These people had grasped what he had always Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 700 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna121 Manuscript Rebellious, Stranger English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna121 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna121_0.jpg LHL Archive 115 secretly longed for - in a proper way, of course! He stopped for a moment, leaning on the upper bar of a gate. The image of Sarah came before him, her smooth hair, her full bosom, her rebellious mouth. He closed his eyes and clung to the gate, feeling suddenly weak. When he was almost home he stopped in the middle of the road. "I should have offered to baptize the child.!" he exclaimed aloud. The thought kept nagging at him during dinner so that he failed to attend to his wife's remarks. When he did look at her, his face wore such a preoccupied expression, as though he were looking at a stranger, that she ceased any further efforts at conversation. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 701 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna122 Manuscript Bridie, Frank English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna122 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna122_0.jpg LHL Archive 116 Chapter Six The brother had been lifting their potato crop in "dribs and drabs," as they say in the townland, but now, with the ripening of the MOurne Banners, Stars of Down and other early breeds, they set about the work in earnest. It was impossible for Sarah to go into the fields so Agnes Sampson brought her neighbour, Bridie Dineen, to help with the lifting. Bridie was a thin autumn-faced woman, with a crest of red hair pinned up that gave her the look of a hen. She had another heniike quality, for even when she was alone, she walked with a short hesitant step as if she was afraid of trampling one of her many children. Outside her own house she spoke to her neighbours with that courteous but evasive briefness that marks the Catholic in a Protestant district.Before she had set her foot in the kitchen of Bathard Sarah disliked her. When the dinner was ready Sarah went down to the rowans and called on the potato-picke. Agnes and the woman Dineen were bent over the same creel. At the sound of her cry Sarah saw the redhaired stranger look up and lay her hand on Agne’s arm. The old woman straightened her back painfully and nodded. As Sarah turned back to the house she saw the woman staring after her. The harvesters came up from the field, their boots shapeless masses of clay. Hamilton led the horse, Frank came with Petie and Agnes with Bridie. The stopped at the ditch to wash hands and scrape their boots, and Sarah took them out a towel. One by one they dried their hands and came in, all but Bridie. Not wanting to leave the stranger alone, Sarah Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 702 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna123 Manuscript Startled, Sarah English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna123 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna123_0.jpg LHL Archive 117 went to the door. She saw the woman shaking her wet hands and staring at the house, then, before Sarah’s eyes, she crossed herself. Sarah threw the towel across the halfdoor. "Ye may dry your hands on that," She said loudly. The woman looked at her with startled suspicious eyes. "Thank ye," she said. Then, as Sarah set their plates before them she saw Bridie flush and gaze at her curiously. Her sensitive conscience rankled. There could only be one reason why the woman stared at her like that. The others / * started to eat hungrily but Bridie sat with her hands in her lap, and as Sarah stole a glance at her she saw her look pleadingly at Agnes. The old woman understood in a moment what was wrong. She lifted the bacon from Bridie’s plate and put it on Hamilton’s, then she drained the gravy off and set it before.her again. "What ails ye?" asked Hamilton, looking at the woman. "Nothing ava," she replied, smiling and glad to be at her meal. "The day’s a Friday," explained Agnes, Hamilton struck the table, "It is indeed. I’m right and sorry, Mrs Dineen. Sarah, is there anything else in the house?" "There’s a bit o’ ling, ’ answered Sarah, without raising her head. An awkward silence fell on the table, broken only by Bridie’s assurance that she was content. "Well, if there’s fish in the house get up and cook the woman a bit"" said Hamilton loudly and angrily. Sarah sprang from her chair, and rushing round the table snatched the plate from before the embarrassed woman. "I’ll get ye'a clean plate, too," she said, girning in fury at her. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 703 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna124 Manuscript Anger, Stable English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna124 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna124_0.jpg LHL Archive 118 Bit by bit, as they started to talk again, Sarah pieced together their morning's work. She learned that Agnes and Petie were picking behind Frank, driving the potato-digger. But Hamilton, who had two or three drills of a long golden potato that he didn’t want broken by the horse, was digging them with a fork, and Bridie Dineen was picking for him. She sat the±e, listening to them, her face burning with anger and humiliation. When the others had trooped out of the kitchen Hamilton spoke to her before he left for the field. "That was a sore way ye had wi’ that woman," he said abruptly. Sarah turned her back on him and went on scraping dishes. Are ye heeding me?" "Aye, I’m heeding ye." "Well, listen to what I'm saying*" He put his hand under her chin and drew her round, and at the touch of her face in his fingers, his resentment weakened. "There’s been a power o' harvesters come and gone here in my father's and his father’s time. Not one of them but couldn’t say he got good kitchen and the right money in his hand at the end o’ the day. It’ll be the same in our time. Heed that now, like a good woman." Her soft petulant face was framed in his fingers. He bent and kissed her oh the mouth. She stood motionless in the kitchen, watching him through the window as he crossed to the stable. The dishcloth had fallen from her hand to the floor. The words ’in our time* went singing through her like strong wine. But the image of Bridie Dineen came back to her mind, and she hardened her heart in anger against that red-haired woman. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 704 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna125 Manuscript Autumn, Childhood English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna125 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna125_0.jpg LHL Archive 119 Chapter Seven Mr Sorleyson was lifting his potatoes, too. He had had a few drills planted and was working among thorn now, gathering sufficient for dinner in a little shopping-basket. He had never been quite happy about this potato-patch. In the lawn beside it grew clove-lilies, mignonette, sweat-william and verbena, and these, in their turn, carried on a scented pageantry from spring till Autumn. To his city mind there was something peculiarly distasteful in this proximity of flowers to vegetables. In the Spring the knifesharp symmetrica] drills seemed uncouth beside the delicate blossoms, and even in the Summer when the dark heavy leaves of the vegetable hid the soil, they remained, blatantly, potato leaves. He had often walked through his neighbours’ gardens. None was so well kept nor so neat as the Manse garden, There he saw dog-roses growing among beans and carnations stretching their indolent silver stems over shive-beds. on the whole, he had to admit, there was a pleasing harmony in these gardens. Adn without being quite able to explain why, Mr Sorleyson felt a strong aversion to this mingling of the orderly with the arbitary. Perhaps it was because it ran counter to the attitude to which ho clung so strenously. Perhaps it was because it resembled too closely the lives of many of his congregation. He had discovered that these men and women who, from childhood, had been taught to esteem righteousness, could, without any fueling of Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 705 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna126 Manuscript Potatoes, Dinner English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna126 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna126_0.jpg LHL Archive 120 inconsistency, show a deplorable tolerance to things that were for from righteous or seemly. He had come to tho conclusion that Nature, with her continual and invariably indiscreet fertility, was a bad example to simple folk. How could he explain the grievous conduct of tho Echlin brothers and Sarah Gomartin? Such a catastrophe and such men and woman had never before entered into Mr Sorleyson's experience. since the last time he had spoken to Sarah he had set determindly for Rathard on two occasions. And then, whan he had got to the head of ’Echlin’s loanen he had hung about not certain as to why ho was there. Was it to appeal to her again to marry one of the brothers? Or had he intended to offer to baptize the infant? Or was it because he was tormented now with an insatiable interest in her and wanted to speak to her again? Witbout waiting to lever the root clear of the earth he snatched the plant so violently that the fat purple potatoes were scattered widespread. he raked them up and flung them so forcibly into the little basket that it leaped on the ground. ”I will go!" he said aloud and stabbed the potato-fork in to the soil. He carried the potatoes into the houses and sat them on the kitchen floor. He changed his boots, scrubbed Ms nails and carefully brushed his hair. As he was picking his hat in the hall hs heard the light step of his wife on the stairs above, " Are you going out, deer?" she called. "I have a few calls to make - not.far away#" "You’ll be back for dinner?" "Yes, yes. Of course I’ll be back for dinner." He rushed down the steps of the Manse and out onto the road. He Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 706 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna127 Manuscript Rathard, Noble English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna127 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna127_0.jpg LHL Archive 121 was filled with an unreasonable anger against his wife. Why had she to see him going out now? And why must she always bo so gentle and attentive? An unpleasant feeling of prickly sweat and breathlessness made him stop on a hill under some great beech trees. He looked around him in a distracted manner. With an effort he calmed himself, and sitting down, took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “It’s my duty to insist that the child is baptised" he exclaimed, striking one hand on the other. He sprang up and pressed onward to the top of the hill. In Rathard Sarah stood in a little shed open to the close, beetling grain for the fowl. Hamitlton and Frank had gone to a timber auction in a nearby plantitlon and the boy was asleep in the bedbox in the kitchen. she was startled to hear a step at the corner of the shed, and looking up she saw the Reverend. Mr. Sorleyson. "Good afternoon," said the minister, taking off his hat and fanning his face with it. "It's a very warm today.” The woman looked at him supicously. "It is. Did ye want to speak to Hamilton?" "No, no. It was about the boy. Have you decided on a name for him yet?" "The men have a liking for the name of Ben.” "Benjamin. That is a very noble name. Do you know what it means, Sarah?" "What it moans?" She laughed. "Names are things you’re bid by, Mr Sorleyson" Yes, but they’ve meanings too. You name means 'a princess.'" Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 707 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna128 Manuscript Conqueror, Lips English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna128 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna128_0.jpg LHL Archive 122 She let the beetle drop from her hands, and laughed, colouring a little. "A princess? And has your name a meaning, too?" "My name means - well, Edwin means ’a conqueror.’" They looked at each other for a moment, and then Sarah said, "And the name - Ben?" "Benjamin means the ’son of e right hand." He saw her stiffen, and she bent lower over the crook in which she was kneading the grain. "Why did ye ask for the child’s name?" she demanded suddenly. "That is really why I came today. Would you like me to christen him?" She shook her head. "I dont know. I would have to hear What the men say." Sorleyson came a little closer. "Sarah, your boy will be called Ben Echlin when he grows up. Will he have to be ashamed of one of his names? He wont, if you marry Frank or Hamilton." "Isn’t it just because of that, that I cant marry either of them? God in Heaven, Mr Sorleyson, dont make it harder for me nor you can!" "I’m not making it difficult for you, I’m showing you a way out of your difficulty. It’s my duty to advise on these difficulties, Sarah. I tell you that you’re mistaken to think that you cant marry either of them! " "If I did what ye bid me, it would only be putting a scab on a sore. What right have I to give myself and the child to one man over the other?" "Do you not lean towards one of them yourself?” She straightened and looked angrily at him, her lips drawn closely Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 708 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna129 Manuscript Marry, Spiritual English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna129 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna129_0.jpg LHL Archive 123 together, and Sorleyson did not press the question. "And are you content?" "I’m content." Sorleyson withdrew to the corner of the shed and stood gazing gloomily over the lough, Sarah glanced at him once and then went on with her work. It had been a defeat, and yet Sorleyson found himself strangely indifferent to the outcome of the conversation, when he thought of Sarah and when he talked with her he felt himself pressed with apathy towards the very course that he urged on her. All his subterfuges were falling, one by one. His insistence that she should marry one of the men was only a nod to the world. His offer to christen the child only an excuse to bring him back again. For the first time in his life Sorleyson really knew that there were two separate and antagonistic beings in him: his spiritual self on which all his studies and hopes had been concentrated for the past twenty years, and which now, when put to the trial, proved puny and impoverished, and his natural carnal curiosity in men and women which he had tried to stifle for so long in pious readymade explanations and haIf-fulfillments such as his own tepid marriage. And Mr Sorleyson, standing at the corner of the shed listened in fearful pleasure and did not stop his ears. Attracted by the rhythmic movements of the woman, he shifted his gaze to her. She had forgotten him and was completely absorbed in her work. Small damp tendrils had loosened from her smooth head and curled her brow. He saw the firm smooth flesh of her upperarm quiver at every plunge of the beetle. As she withdraw the stick on its upward stroke her face was visible for a moment, her eyes blank as if her thoughts were far away, and her moist lips open a little as she breathed. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 709 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna130 Manuscript Minister, Hills English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna130 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna130_0.jpg LHL Archive 124 Sorleyson quivered and turned in towards her. As she bent again he had a glimpse of her body through the open neck of her dress. With silent fascinated steps he approached and then he bent down, and gently, as though he where clasping a bird, he stretched out his hand and touched her bosom. She did not recoil faster than he did. As though an electric shock had passed through their bodies and hurled them apart the minister and the woman stood wide-eyed, shocked and breathless, gazing at each other in silence. Sorleyson stood with his back pressed to the wall of the shed, his eyes full of horror, his hands clasped in a gesture of supplication. "Forgive me," he whispered, "I dont know what I’ve done. Some evil power cane over me." Sarah closed the neck of her dress with her hand. "It would be better if you went away now, Mr Sorleyson,' she said. Nothing more than that. She didnt scream or cry out or run away from him. He saw that she was shocked and that she pitied him and he was ashamed of the pity he saw. Very timidly he came towards her. "Sarah - I can say no more. God forgive us both. I’ll go now." Ihe woman nodded gravely and he turned and hurried from the farm. As he stumbled down the loanen, the roughness of the track and the stubborn little hills in his path slowed hi, and he became less agitated. He paused at a spot in the lane sheltered from both the house und the road, and sat down on a grassy bank. For the first time he thought of his wife. To have had a wife with whom he was in love, what a safe anchorage that would have been, what stress it would have spared the soul Hsoul! He turned out the palms of his hands and stared at them. Love was Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 710 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna131 Manuscript Façade, Rose English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna131 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna131_0.jpg LHL Archive 125 both a sword to pierce and a shield to protect. And the work to which he had dedicated his life now lay in ruins around him. How swiftly the facade, already honeycombed with his own doubts and reservations, had crumbled. Yet knew he knew that belief and faith as frail as his had borne many of his fellows to the close of their days, both honoured and mourned, but they had steered clear of the shattering rock that he had run upon. He who had so often realised that all his sermons, all his counsel, could be cancelled by one deed, now saw with equal clearness that one deed could not be erased by a thousand words. "How beggarly all arguments appear before a defiant deed," he quoted bitterly. He arose and went slowly down to the road. As he walked home he met a farmer and his wife, members of his congregation, driving towards him in their trap. With shame and embarassment he saw the little stir that passed over them as they recognised his figure. When they approached him he saluted them and bowed his head so that they had no choice but to bid him the time of day and drive on. He didnt avoid the little cloud of dust that rose from their wheels. It fell on his clothes but he walked on, unheeding Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 711 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna132 Manuscript Asleep, Darkness English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna132 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna132_0.jpg LHL Archive 126 The men came from the timber auction, tired and out-of- sorts, They had gone there, Hamilton looking for some sawn timber to build a turf-house and Frank for trimmed saplings to renew gate- posts. Hamilton had seen nothing to please him, and had been equally dissatisfied with the green wood that Frank wanted to take. "They would be in mush in a twelvemonth; we'll face up the ould stone pillars and make do," he said. So they came jogging home in the cart, silent and half asleep in the sun. They ate a heavy supper and afterwards sat round the fire for a while, Frank shaking his sunburnt head and blowing violently through his nostrils which always felt clogged up after a day in the sun. The dusk was seeping into the close and the hens had gone to roost. "I’m away t’ay bed," said the younger man, yawning and rubbing his face. Hamilton pulled on his boots and shuffled out to lock up the animals, when he came back Sarah was winding the clock. "Was there anything stirring with ye, the day?" he asked. She replaced the clock on the mantelboar.* "Not a soul," she answered. He sat down, kicked off his boots again, hung his socks over the crane, and went down to bed. The next morning Sarah was early afoot. The windows were still squares of watered darkness when Frank was awakened by the thudding of the poker against the back of the hearth.He heard the wooden doorbar being withdrawn and the swish of emptied water on the close. Curtains billowed and lamps swung gently as the early morning air rushed through the house. He strained his ears to catch the time. But no birds chirped among the trees in the rath and away in the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 712 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna133 Manuscript Ardpatrick, Breakfast English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna133 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna133_0.jpg LHL Archive 127 distance he heard the faint trumpet-note 6f a cock# It’s still the scraich o’ dawn," he grumbled, pulling the blankets over his head, "What does she want to be moving about at this hour for?" HE peered over at Hamilton’s bed and saw that it was empty. He was awakened again by Hamilton coming into the room to dress. "Ye may rise, he said, for Sarah's wanting to get away to Ardpatrick this morning, on an errand. "Who's driving her in?" "She’ll drive the wee pony herself. Rise now, like a good man, and no be detaining her." Frank yawned, swung his legs out of bed, pulled down his shirt, and rubbed his face vigorously with his hand. I’m glad we didnae buy them bits o’ posts , yesterday, he said. Hamilton smiled and nodded. "We were well guided to let then be,' he answered. When Frank went down to the kitchen he found that Sarah was already dressed in her Sabbath clothes. "Will ye bring back two or three packets o' fegs wi' ye?" he asked, laying some money on the table. "Oh, and a bit o' plug for Petie." Then Hamilton remembered a few things that he wanted, and as Sarah supped her porridge and buttermilk she scribbled down the purchases she had to make. Immediately the meal was finished she washed up, brushed the floor and tended the fire. There was an air of urgency and decision in her movements as she hurried about the house, pushing the men aside and knocking tho brush against their chairlegs as they sat for their brief after-breakfast smoke. Unable to bear it any longer they went out into the close to finish their pipes. A few minutes later Hamilton came to the door. "I’ve yoked the pony. what'11 ye do with the wean?" Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 713 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna134 Manuscript Autumn, Knocknadreemally English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna134 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna134_0.jpg LHL Archive 128 Sarah turned from the mirror where she war arranging her hair under her hat. I'll leave him off at Agnes's til I get back.” "Aye. He'll bo all right there, 1 don't doubt," said Hamilton rathar reluctantly as he withdrew. Sarah Lifted tho boy from his crib, pulled a woollen cap on his head, pinned a large shawl around him, and after bolting the halfdoor behind her, carried him out to the trap. Frank had already gone to the fields and Hamilton was in the byre from where he appeared when he heard the click of the pony's hooves as it moved off. "Will ye be back afore dark?" he called. "Aye, long afore dark!” "Well, I might take a dander up to Agnes's and meet ye. Heh! my bold boy," he cried to the baby, "So long now!" Sarah jerked the reins, clicked her tongue at the pony, who set off with stiff carefully placed forelegs down the steep rocky descent. It was a glorious autumn morning with a feint tang of frost in the air, and the climbing sun promised heat Inter in the day. As they drove along the road a vermilion leaf or two came flutttering down from the trees, and high above the swallows sped and circled with their flittering crescent wings. As the pony wound up Knocknadremally, Sarah saw Agues and Bridie Dineen standing on the road at the top of tht hill. Agnes had a hen under her arm, and the other woman, round whose skirts two or three children swung sad played, had a tin basin in her hand, that gleamed and waned as it was struck by one of the shouting children. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 714 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna135 Manuscript Cottage, Agnes English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna135 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna135_0.jpg LHL Archive 129 The faint clip-clop of the pony's hooves reached the women on the hilltop. In a moment Bridli Dineen had gathered her children into her, and after a few hurried words to Agnes, swept them and herself out of the sun into the shadowy firelit depths of here cottage. Agnes waited until the trap drew up beside her. "How are ye, Sarah?" she asked, and then as she saw the small shawled figure in the crook of Sarah’s arm, she cried "Ah, did ye bring the wee fella! Give us him down here." Sarah climbed down with the baby in her arms. "l’m going on an errand to Ardpatrick, and I was wondering would ye look after him ’til I get back?" "Aye, God bless him, I’ll dae it with a heart and a half." Two or three of the children had crept out again from Bridie’s cottage and now stood blinking at Sarah and the handsome trap. Sarah glanced at them. "Tell me, Agnes, why did the Dineen woman go indoors when she saw me? She went off like a clockin hen when it hears a magpie!"* "Och, dont heed her, she said she smelt a pot boiling over." "It was a quare pot boiling over! look at her noq, keeking at us through the window, Heth, but she’s a sleeked one, that." Agnes cuffed the hen that was pecking listlessly at her hard freckled arm. "Och, she’s like many another. She was learned as a child tae stick taw the highroad for this," and herw she nodded at Bridie's children, "and she’s irked when she finds another has ta’en a short cut through the dykes, and arrived wi’ as much honour and more ease." Sarah did not know what to make of this. She searched Agnes’s Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 715 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna136 Manuscript Dineen, Square English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna136 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna136_0.jpg LHL Archive 130 face carefully, "Is she envious o’ me,then?" The old woman chuckled mirthlessly* "Aye, ye could say that - if ye take any pride in short cuts in the matter o’ bearing weans." Sarah thrust the child abruptly into the other woman’s free arm. "I’ll be back afore dark* Hamilton said he might take a walk up." "Whenever suits ya," answered Agnes, and went into her cottage with the child in one arm and the truant hen in the other. As Sarah lifted the reins she remembered that she had meant to ask Agnes if she wanted anything brought from Ardpatrick, but she was so bitten into a fury by ths old woman’s remarks and by her apparent sympathy with the Dinee-n woman, that instead of drawing up and going back, she cut at the horse with the whip and set him cantoring recklessly down the hill. She was in the mood of knowing that she was criticised by a standard which she herself accepted, and was being rightfully blamed for falling below it. And while there was something furtive and cowardly in the manner of the criticism, it was apt sufficient to cancel out the justice of it. So, as the horse drew her swiftly towards Ardpatrick she thought bitterly of the Dineen woman, hating her for her pharisaical pride in her lawful wedlock, despising her for her poverty, detesting her for her papishness; all by turn, and none with any feeling of sincerity. The sun was almost overhead when she reached Ardpatrick, and the old market cross, aslant in the middle of the cobbled square, cast a blunt deep shadow over two of its four ancient watering troughs. She drove slowly round the Square, peering et the nameplates beside the doors and clicking her tongue impatiently at the pony when he shied at the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 716 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna137 Manuscript Pony, Registrar English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna137 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna137_0.jpg LHL Archive 131 geese he disturbed in their warm dust-beds. Except for the geese and two old women nodding in the sun at the watering—troughs and a mn leaning against a sunny wall, the Square aesiasti was deserted. Aa Sarah came up to the man she brought the pony to a standstill. He was occupied in squirting long silvers of tobacco-juice in the shape of a fan on the flags, an occupation which promised some hours of amusement, as the aim always dried up the first one or two spittles by the time the design was completed, "My good man," said Sarah, leaning out of the trap, "would ye kindly move a weethin 'til I read that board behind ye?" "There’s no call for me to move," responded the man raising his eyes from the pavement. "The board says ’Ardpatrick Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths - Registrar, Dr. P 0. Furphy - In attendance 10 till 11 an’ 3 till 5.’ And the ould boy is in there, himself, bating about like a hen in nettles." Sarah glanced at the church clock at the bottom of the Square, The hands pointed to a quarter to eleven. Nodding to the man, she urged the pony towards the market cross. There she dismounted, eased the bit, and fastened the reins to one of the sunken stone posts around the cross. When she left him the pony moved towards the troughs, blowing on the surface of the water till his thick black lips quivered. The Registrar’s office was situated in what had once been the parlour of a dwelling-house, and although it was but a few feet along the hall from the frontdoor, Sarah had to go up and down several steps before she reached it. The lounger’s description of Dr, Furphy suited that gentleman admirably. When Sarah entered he was moving aimlessly Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 717 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna138 Manuscript Mahogany, Doctor English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna138 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna138_0.jpg LHL Archive 132 around the large dark room peering at paper-littered chairs, scratching at documents impaled on wire hooks hanging feom the walls abd advancing and retreating between tables and cabinets with irritated grunts. He was a short, stout, baldheaded nan, dressed in a tweed jacket and shooting breechs, and on the wall behind his desk hung a tweed hat tufted with trout files. when Sarah entered ho retreated to a swivel ohuir and sat down with his back to her, and then with s flick of his foot, swung round until she saw his red bulbous profile. This tine there was a note of interrogation in his grunt. "I. want to put down a child’s name, said Sarah. "Sit down, then," said the doctor, spurning the floor again and being carried round to his desk, a tall mahogany affair with mirrors and brasswork, which, when he slid back the lid revealed a tangled bank of papers reaching up to overflowing pigeon-holes. He pushed some of the papers aside, drew out a book and opened it on the leaf of the desk. He dipped his pen, adjusted his spectacles, and without looking at Sarah began to question her. "And what’s your name - full name?" "Sarah Gomartin.’ "Your husband’s name?" Sarah, seated on the edge of the chair, remained silent, the doctor looked up. Although her head was averted she flushed and touched her lips nervously with her fingers. Furphy raised his brows encouragingly and smilled, "The father’s name?" "I dont know.” A change came over the Doctor. HIs glance which had been kind, Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 718 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna139 Manuscript Furphy, Certificate English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna139 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna139_0.jpg LHL Archive 133 encouraging, slightly condescending, narrowed into a stare of curiosity. He noted her decent Sabbath clothes, her well—gloved hands, and her face, which although darkened now with shame and embarrasment, bore the habitual traces of firmness, independence and even'arrogance. With a feeling of surprise he recalled the sound of wheels in the square and the clear voice of the woman. How could this decent prosperous young woman be a libertine? But suddenly, as though it flowed into the room, he saw the placid dimpled trout-stream waiting for him three miles away. He grunted impatiently and drew his pen through the column that should have shewn the father’s name. "Is it a boy or a girl?” "A boy." "What name do you wish to call him?" "Andrew.” The doctor looked up again. "You realise that, legally, his name will be Andrew Gomartin?" Sarah nodded. Furphy’s pen scratched on until he had filled in all the details. "Do you want a certificate?” "How much is that?" "Two shillings and sevenpence." She sat considering this, then took the money from her purse and laid it on the desk. When he had completed the certificate, ho folded it neatly, handed it to her, and then held the door open as she went out. "Good day to you," he said. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 719 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna140 Manuscript Square, Plucking English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna140 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna140_0.jpg LHL Archive 134 "Good day to ye, doctor." He watched her cross the square, adjust the horse’s harness and wheel him round on the cobbles. "B’god its a strange world,’' he mused, plucking at his lip. He stood there until she was out of sight, still plucking at his lip. Its a bit bright," he said aloud, but now he was thinking of the sun on the stream. t Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 720 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna141 Manuscript Distress, Wife English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna141 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna141_0.jpg LHL Archive 135 Mr Sorleyson sat at his study table. He pushed away the books before him and one fell unheeded on the floor, spilling loose sheets of paper over the carpet. His open hands, twitching a little, were laid on the space that he had cleared. He stared unseeingly at Madame Lebrun and her Daughter on the opposite wall. Slowly a change came over his whole appearance. He drew himself upright in his chair, his body rigid and erect. Unexpected lines and ridges marred the curve of his smooth pleasant cheeks. His habitual expression of kindliness and irresolution gave way to one of turmoil and distress.He pressed his hands on the table until the polished mahogany around his fingers misted with sweat. He sat like that for a long time then suddenly be slumped back in hia chair, and on his face there was the look, of a man who had awakened from a long and restless sleep. He had come to a decision. For a moment a faint moisture of self-pity rose in his eyes, he plucked his spectacles off, wiped them, and forced then on again, springing the legs painfully behind his ears in exasparation. He rose and went down to the sitting-room. His wife, her pretty feet drawn under her chair, sat at the fire, knitting. As he entered she laid her knitting in her lap, and smiled up him with tired sweetness. "I was Just longing for a cup of tea, dear, will you stay and have one with me?" "Yes," he replied, sitting down. opposite her. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 721 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna142 Manuscript Belfast, Shephard English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna142 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna142_0.jpg LHL Archive 136 In a short time she was back with a tray on which sat two cups and saucers, buttered barnbrack, and their intimate little supper teapot in its woollen cosy. He cleared the leather pouffe of scissors and needles and the evening paper so that she could set down the tray. He didnt speak to her as he sat there, eating his bread and sipping his tea and staring into the fire. But there was nothing unusual about that, she never expected him to speak to her, much. He is thinking of his sermon she reassured herself, in accordance with the pitiable game of make-believe that she had played for years. Then suddenly he looked across at her. "Victoria, I’ve decided to - to ask for a transfer to Belfast." The last six words came in a rush. For once she was startled, "But - I thought you wore happy, Edwin. Dont you remember you said you had a sense of fulfilment here?” He beat his hand impatiently on the arm of his chair, "Yes, yes, but there’s no scope here! I feel that I could be of more use in Belfast. Anyway, its time I had a change in the city." He was quite irritable by now, not so much with her as with himself. What he had meant to say, calmly and with no further discussion, was, ’Victoria, I’ve decided to leave the church and take up teaching, perhaps,’ But his courage had failed at the enormity of that, and he had retreated even further, in the reason he had given for leaving Ravara. But she understood him so perfectly. Had she not dedicated herself for just such as this, to be the pastor’s helpmeet; the shepherd’a staff as she once laughingly described herself at a women’s meeting? ( an old illiterate peasant woman had rebuked her by quoting the fourth versa of the twentythird Psalm). Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 722 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna143 Manuscript Saviour, Horror English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna143 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna143_0.jpg LHL Archive 137 How she Had loved those early days! On Saturday afternoons they walked far out of the city, and there, as she sat on his handkerohief on a grassy bank, Edwin would deliver his virgin sermons. Hoe she had clasped her hands in ecstasy at some particularly felicitious phrase; how the tears had risen to her eyes as he dwelt on the love and agony of our Saviour; how ner flowerlike face had contracted in little pangs of anguish as he spoke of the erring soul and the Judgement to come. And then Edwin would suddenly crush the sheets in his hand, and runto her and take her face in his hands and kiss the shadows away. Ah, happy happy days! Then as he became moody and irritable and discontented with her, what marvels of ingenuity and self-deception she practised on herserlf Were not these moods und silences and brief displays of temper? the human frailities that had marked every great man? but slowly and reluctantly, and not without much self-reproach, she began to admit to herself that Edwin might not be the great divine they' both so fondly imagined he would be, in their courtship and early marriage. When Sorleyson arrived at his decision in his study that evening he experienced a sense of relief far outweighing, any fear of what the future held. For the first time he had admitted to himself, openly and frankly, his incapability and distaste for the life of a clergy- man. But when he went to tell his wife his courage failed him, and he left her with the idea that he would grace a pulpit elsewhere. ame idea got abroad in the townlands and among his brethern and friends in the city, with growing horror he realised that he had merely escaped from one plight into another which was becoming Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 723 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna144 Manuscript Ravara, Manse English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna144 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna144_0.jpg LHL Archive 138 equally unbearable. Time after time the truth trembled on his lips. And time after time, as he look'd on the patient questioning face of his wife or met the bland glances of his fellow-ministers, he swallowed his words. On his last evening in Ravara Manse he sat in his study endeavouring to parcel up his manuscripts. His wife appeared in the doorway with a small plaster figure in her arms. "Shall we take this?" she asked, holding out her burden like a child. Soleyson felt a fresh paroxysm of self-reproach. That she should follow him so uncomplainingly! He threw himself at her feet and putting his arms around her, buried his face in her dress. Suddenly the small woman shook him from her skirts and looking up he saw her face pink with anger. "Get up, you foolish man!" she cried. "You nearly made me drop it on your head!" After she had gone he sat down again and began to laugh in a shamefaced way. He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror over the fireplace. "I’m a sick man," he said, nodding dejectedly to his image. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 724 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna145 Manuscript Reverend, Relationship English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna145 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna145_0.jpg LHL Archive 139 Chapter Ten The departure of the Reverend Mr Sorleyson and his wife was hardly spoken of in Rathord. So for as Hamilton and Frank were concerned, any thought they had on the matter was one of relief, and as the Echlins had by this time completely severed themselves from Ravara church, they did not expect a renewed effort on the part of Sorleyson’s successor to interfere in the relationship between them and Sarah. When she first heard the news, Sarah dimly associated the minister’s departure with the afternoon that he had come up to the farm. But as she had already thrust the memory from her mind, (in some way that she could not explain, it was associated with the memory of her mother) and because she was incapable of understanding what a disturbance the encounter had created in the more sensitive mind of the man, the news roused little interest in her, and was soon forgotten. Isolated though they were, situated high on the hill-farm and almost sufficient to themselves, the inhabitants of Rathard were not unaware of the criticism of their conduct by the people of the town- lands. The irregular menage of Rathard might have been rectified by the intervention of someone with the moral authority of a clergyman. But the people knew as well as he did, that his power to bring about a more normal relationship in any home was limited to counsel and warning. And the warning was, in the last extreme, limited to such incorporeal things us the displeasure of Providence. Having no Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 725 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna146 Manuscript Birth, Crossroads English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna146 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna146_0.jpg LHL Archive 140 economic hold over his flock, the minister coUld not go beyond that. And how potent was this warning of the displeasure of God? Men or women determined to pursue some selfish course, hardened their hearts with an ancient knowledge that the world did not behave as the clergy wanted it to do, or worse still, said it did. In a drought the peasants might flock to church with every mark of fervour to pray for rain, but they knew that when the rain did come, it would come vast, rolling, drenching the world from horizon to horizon and not seeking out, with scrupulous justice, the meadows of the pious. For some months after the birth of the child the Echlin brothers kept as close to the farm as possible, but some traffic with their neighbours was unavoiiable, and it was these few visitors to Rathard who spread the story that Sarah Gomartin was now the master as well as the mistress of the farm. They found that when they bought potatoes in the field or straw in the haggard, it was in the house they paid the money, and it was Sarah who took it. "And arr those pachels of brothers going to put their hearth and broad into the fists of that creature!" cried the women in exasperation. "Ah, fair’s fair," pleaded the storyteller. "Fairs, fair, She'll never take a penny too much, or give ye a penny less, to my knowing. ’ But the women, those shapers of opinion and prejudice, would hear nothing in Sarah's favour, and the men for peace's sake, agreed that she was a shameless bismn and worth the watching. Yet, anong themselves, as they gathered at the crossroads, there could be detected a tickled humour at the idea of this matriarchal household set up among then, and one nan expressed the opinion that if there was any truth in the old saying that Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 726 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna147 Manuscript Martha, Economy English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna147 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna147_0.jpg LHL Archive 141 "a man maun ask his wife’s leave to thrive then the Echlins would do rightly with Martha Gomartin’s girl. While the neighbours greatly exaggerated Sarah’s position in Rathard, there was no doubt that a subtle change in relationship had come about between the men and the woman. Sarah was indeed, as she had told Sorleyson, behaving with strict impartiality to the brothers, and because of this she had unobtrusively taken control of the house. Yet, she had not done it designedly. Hamilton and Frank, for different reasons, encouraged her towards this end. For all the different, even antagonistic traits in their characters, they were both men of a fibre who did not willingly repudiate a deed whether it proved to be profitable or otherwise. Now that the child was born and the brothers realised the disrepute into which they had fallen, they felt the necessity to achieve some unity among themselves. For that an equilibrium was necessary so they accepted Sarah’s manage- ment of the economy of the farm. It would have been unatural if the woman had not felt some triumph at this turn of circumstance. But soon it became a matter of acceptance. It is the man and woman who are unsure of themselves who are for ever triumphing over their work. But Sarah stood above, and accomplished every task with ease. She had the prudence, the physical persistence, the etrnal patience of the peasant. With hamilton, she felt a deep feeling of understanding, of being cherished, but with Frank she knew that the truce was only temporary, She shared herself between them both, in body and in mind, and so disarmed the younger brother. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 727 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna148 Manuscript Andrew, Cough English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna148 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna148_0.jpg LHL Archive 142 Chapter Eleven By slow degrees the boy Andrew learned to walk. He was over fourteen months old before he made his first stumbling Journey, one Sunday afternoon, from the hands of his mother over a good three yards of the kitchen floor to the safe haven between Frank’s knees. Hamilton was brought up from the parlour by the excited and gleeful laughter, and the three adults squatted round the child as he sat on his creepy stool. "Again, son, again," pleaded Sarah, holding up a muscatel raisin. But the child sat gazing at his pink feet in solemn wonder. He was raised up and unleashed a dozen times from the hands of his mother or the men. All possible combinations of propulsion and attraction were tried but Andrew walked no more that day. The next day, at the midday meal, he clambered down from his high chair and went staggering after the dog. Halfway across he lost his balance, spun round slowly and sat. down on the tiles. From then on, his progress was speedy and each day saw him venture further and further from the hearth until his tiny figure, dressed in shawl and petticoats, was to be seen daily among the dogs, pigeons and fowl that inhabited the close. One night Sarah was awakened by the coughing of the boy. Rising, she lighted a candle, and crossed over to his cradle. Shading the candle with her hand she looked down into the face of her son. He lay on his back and as she bent over him his mouth gathered into an 0, and a cough, followed by a peculiar indrawn whoop shook him violently. Then he was seized by a paroxysm of coughing until he lay weak and trembling, a skein of spittle on his cheek. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 728 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna149 Manuscript Woman, Coughing English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna149 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna149_0.jpg LHL Archive 143 The coughing began again and the young mother raised the child in her arms in an effort to ease him, but this seemed only to aggravate the attack. Hurrying down to the kitchen she blew up the dying fire and heated a little milk. When she gave it to the boy it seemed to soothe him and he lay back in her arms with his eyes closed. Then he retched the milk up which had curdled in his stomach, and the cough came again with greater voilence. The child’s face darkened, and he grasped Sarah’s nightdress convulsively while he drew breath in great whoops of sound that terrified the woman. Looking towards the inner door distractedly, the mother heard noises beyond the wail, and first Hamilton and then Frank appeared, blinking and screwing up their eyes. "What ails him, Sarah?" asked Frank, padding forward on his bare feet and peering down at the boy. "I’m feard it’s the hooping-cough," answered the mother. "One of ye may go and fetch Agnes." Hamilton had already left the room and in a few minutes he reappeared, with jacket and trousers pulled on and unlaced boots on his feet. He brought a hurricane lamp with him which he proceeded to trim and light. "If you’re going, dont delay, Hami," pleaded Sarah, as he closed the globe. He left the house and went out into the close which was bathed in keen white moonlight. Under the moon the lamp became a pallid globe of light. He extinguished it, and setting it on the ditch, hurried down the loanen. It seemed hours before Frank and Sarah heard the measured clack of feet ascending the loanen. The old woman came in and lifted the boy from his cradle. "Aye, its the hooping-cough," she said. She told Sarah to heat some water while she held the child’s wrists to ease the strain on the little body. When the water was heated she mixed a draught that she had brought with her, and made the boy drink it. The coughing eased Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 729 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna150 Manuscript Sky, Agnes English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna150 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna150_0.jpg LHL Archive 144 considerably, the vomiting ceased, and as the first light of day crept into the sky. The boy fell asleep. Agnes stood up and shook herself. "The wean will be as right as rain in a day or two,” she said. "And hold your tongue like a good woman,” she continued, when Sarah tried to thank her. She smiled and shook her head as she looked at the woman and the two men gathered round the cradle. "It’s a quare world," was her last remark as she left the house. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 15:58 730 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna151 Manuscript Wine, Reddish English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna151 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna151_0.jpg LHL Archive 145 Chapter Twelve Time, and Agnes’s ipecacuanha wine rid little Andrew of his whooping- cough and the only reminder he had of his illness was a peculiar singing note in his ears, which remained with him when he had recovered. Sarah would discover him lying in same out-of-the-way corner with a strange rapt look on his face as he listened to the rushing noise, like a tiny waterfall in his head* "Water, mammy," he would say, "water," and press his fresh young cheek against hers, but his mother could never hear the water, and eventually as he became used to it, he ceased to mention it any more. He was a swift inquisitive child, strong limbed, with fair reddish hair and dark eyes. He had Frank’s short square fingers, and in those unguarded moments when the initiated claim to perceive the parentage, he showed a resemblance to the younger brother. He spent most of his time with Hamilton in the outhouses among the animals or in the fields, and sometimes, as he considered some childish task his face would take the some pondering look, and he would splay his tiny legs as the man splayed his. It was a great day in Hathard when his third birthday arrived and he discarded his petticoats for ever and was buttoned into his first knee-breeches. Sarah invited Agnes and Petie for the great ocassion, and Hamilton, who carried the message to Knoeknadreemally, suggested to Agnes that she might bring young Con Dineen with her, now a boy of four. But when the old couple arrived they were alone. "Did ye no fetch Owen’s wean?” asked Hamilton as they came into the kitchen. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 731 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna152 Manuscript Bridie, Gifts English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna152 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna152_0.jpg LHL Archive 146 Agnes shook her head impatiently. "I did not.” "And why for not?” persisted Hamilton, as she lifted up Andrew. "I went into Bridie’s and told her that ye bid Con to Rathard for Andra’s birthday. ’That's kindly o' Mr Echlin,' says she, ’but I'm no sure he can go. His da's no at home.' And then she goes lilting round the house and making no shift to wipe the wean's face. 'Bridie,' says I, 'leave over your fooling like a good woman, and answer me - is the wean coming or no? 'Ach, Agnes,' says she, 'sure I havena a clean jersey to put on the cratur.' But I could see by the look o' her that it was only a put-off. 'Peh,' says I and left her." "Maybe you’re satisfied now" cried Sarah, her eyes bright with anger. "Maybe the wean hadna a clean Jersey for all my knowing or your knowing," returned Hamilton calmly, and said no more about.it. But this initial unpleasantness was soon forgotten, and they sat down to the birthday tea. The young Andrew sat at the head of the table in his grandfather's great rope-bottomed chair and had three slices of deil's bun, a dark rich bread flavoured with treacle, spice and fruit, and usually kept for Hallowe’en. After the tea the gifts, Agnes brought him an old silver caddy spoon with which to sup his porridge; Petie gave him a money-box made from a cows horn; Sarah hanselled him by dropping a brand new shilling into his breek’s pocket; Hamilton gave him a carved boretree whistle, and,Frank, slipping out mysteriously amid all the gift-giving, came back again leading a black-nosed, delicate-footed kid. "What d'ye say to that now, son?" asked Sarah. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 732 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna153 Manuscript Lough, Moneybox English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna153 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna153_0.jpg LHL Archive 147 "Thank ye," answered the boy, lifting his shy flushed face from the kid’s neck. Then, when he had gone to bed, the older folk gathered round the fire. The shadows were creeping up from the lough when at last Agnes stood up. "I hope the Good Man looks down on the wean and sends him many another birthday," she said. ”Aye, indeed," said the others. Sarah took the shilling from the boy’s breeches pocket and put it into tho cowhorn moneybox on the mantelshelf. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 733 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna154 Manuscript Rathard, Hill English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna154 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna154_0.jpg LHL Archive 146 Chapter Thirteen Now that Andrew was a man of breeks, with a dog and a goat of his own, he willingly permitted curiosity to lead him into the fields and dykes around the hill of Rathard. The terrier, a fat and genial braggart, and the boy, as yet as innocent and merry as the dog, could play for hours beside the little stream that trundled round the hill to the lough. Politely they broke their play for a moment to applaud each other; the dog to stand with trembling logs, stiff ears, and panting mouth, as a boat was launched and slipped away lying over to a full press of feathers, the boy to kneel fearfully beside the dog as he tore with savage intent at an otter’s den until the ravager tired of it and scampered off unabashed, revealing a shallow muddy groove in the bank. So, as they ranged the land, Andrew came upon the road. It ran away on either hand, rising and falling, curving between its hedges, and smooth to the finger and eye with a white floury dust. Then one day he saw Petie descending Knocknadreemally, and ran to meet him. From then on he was allowed to walk with his dog to the Sampson’s house, it being agreed that he should start at set times and that Petie would watch for him from the top of the hill, so that he was passing out of the range of one watchful eye to come under the view of another. He loved going to Petie’s house. Agnes made toffes in the shape of little boys and he experienced a fearful pleasure in biting off their heads and feet. She held great pink shells to his ears, but though he Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 734 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna155 Manuscript Dineen, Petie English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna155 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna155_0.jpg LHL Archive 149 laughed he knew that it was the insistent, ever-present singing in his own ears that he heard. In the heart of a tiny rock-fringed knowe she taught him to plant a garden with cowslips and marigolds. Then, in the evening, when Petie came in, and before his mother came to fetch him home, he would sit with the old man on the long stone before the door, and Petie would play his flute or whistle below his breath while he beat out the rhythm of a lambeg drum with two twigs on the legs of his moleskin trousers, and the dogs, stretched in the warm dust, snapped at flies and cuffed each other lazily. He never spoke to Con Dineen. One afternoon as he climbed Knockna- dreemally he saw the read-headed boy sitting with Petie on the low wall that separated the little pebbled closes before the cottages. Fingering the marbles in his pocket, Andrew quickened his step, but as he appeared in sight of Dineen’s window he heard Mrs Dineen call "Co-o-oni Con, come in at once, I’m needing you"" and the boy with a long reluctant look at Andrew, went indoors with hanging bead. "What happened to the other wee fella?" asked Andrew of Petie. "Didn’t ye hear his ma calling on him?” "Will he be lot out tae play marlies wi' me?" "Son, Con’s a papish." "Aye. Will he be let out tae play marlies wi' me?" "Did ye hear what I telt ye, Andra?" But the simple child, ignorant of the wisdom of his elders persisted in his question until Petie led him away to watch the waterhens on the linthole behind the cottages. That evening when his mother came for him he was sitting on the road sifting the warm white dust through his toes. He jumped up when Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 735 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna156 Manuscript Sarah, Andrew English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna156 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna156_0.jpg LHL Archive 150 he s»w her, and taking her hand led her to Agnes’s cottage. "I saw ye with Petie at the linthole," she said, smiling down at him, ’were ye swimming a boat?” ”No. We were watching the wee black birds docking in the water. Ma,” he said as they were passing Dineen’a cottage, Sarah looking straight ahead. "I was going to play marlies wi’ the wee fella that lives in there, but his ma called on him to come in.” Sarah stopped abruptly, her face flushing with anger. "Andra," she said, shakin his hand to give her words emphasis, "if I ever catch ye speaking to one of that breed, i’ll draw my hand across the side of your head. D’ye hear me?" "Aye,” "I’ll no let ye come back to Petie and Agnes," a threat that had much greater effect on the child. The boys were to see each other again that evening, for the last time. It was the evening hour, between darkness and light, when blue wraiths creep over the fields, the white dust ceene for a moment to be luminous, and dark little winds come to roost in the hedges. This is the time theft country children, reprieved from bed for another minute dart round the houses in their bare feet, their hearts full of a delicious terror of the dusk. Andrew, tiring of the talk, went out and sat on the wall. Con was kneeling disconsolately in the window of his house, staring out at the glowing twilight. The eyes of the boys met in a long searching stare. Each w«s searching the other for that longed-for acknowledgment. When both of them, with poisoned words still percolating through their young minds, witheld it, there could be only one result, Andrew screwed Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 736 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna157 Manuscript Cottage, Agnes English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna157 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna157_0.jpg LHL Archive 151 his face into a horrible grimace and Con stuck out his tongue as far as the roots would permit. Then, feeling the smooth and pleasant coolness of the glass, Con flattened out his tongue on the pane. It stuck there, like a poppy petal, between his face and the window, and the boy outside forgot his enmity, and laughed, and edged forward a little the better to see. Con winked, and as he winked he was suddenly plucked backward into the darkness of the kitchen and his place was taken by his mother, angrily wiping the damp mark from the pane, and avoiding the questioning eyes of the child outside. Meanwhile, in the cottage, Sarah, Agnes and Petie sat round the fire drinking tea. Suddenly Petie said I heard toll that the Bourkes are selling out all the land beyond the road to the lough.” Agnes paused with her cup halfway to her mouth, waiting for her husband to continue, but as he did not, she asked with some asperity, "Does that mean the cottages, too?” ”Aye, it’ll mean the cottages, too,” said Petie, in a tone of patient explanation. "Considering that the cottages sit twixt the road and the lough, it’ll mean the cottages, too, woman dear." "And did it dawn on ye that we’re living in one of them?" demanded Agnes, annoyed by her husband’s reiterative reply. "Whare did. ye hear this story?" "Stewartie Purdy heard tell of it at McIlveen’s auction rooms yesterday, and he told me the-day." Agnes turned to Sarah. "Did ye ever see the match of that man? The roof might he sold over our heads and he would never think o’ going up to see Mr Bourke and making sure that we’re no moved! I declare to Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 737 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna158 Manuscript Horizons, Blackbird English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna158 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna158_0.jpg LHL Archive 152 God, Sarah, there’s not his equal between here and Cork!" But Sarah did not appear to be very interested in the sale of the cottages, and when Andrew appeared again, she bade him get ready to go home. The boy’s horizons widened slowly. in those summer days he saw cattle moving over the fields other than the cattle of Rathard, dogs other than his own dog, and men other than Hami1ton and Frank. One evening as he played on the road, dipping along the cool cloisters of the hedge for wild strawberries, he come upon several young farm-labourers stretched out in the late sunshine at the mouth of a loanen opposite to Echlins. As he passed them, one of the young men raised himself on his elbow and spoke in a soft lazy voice to the boy. He was a handsome fellow with a smooth olive skin and dark eyes, "There's the wee by-blow," he said. "Son, you’re a wee by-blow, you’re a wee bastard." Andrew, shy but delighted at being spoken to by the man, smiled at him us he passed. One of the loungers laughed and the dark-skinned follow raised his voice softly and called after the boy, "You're a wee by-blow, son, ye doat know who you’re da is!" The boy, warmed by the man's soft voice and smile, turned and laughed gleefully, then he hurried homeward, skipping occasionely on the dusty loanen as he dipped into the hedges like a blackbird. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 738 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna159 Manuscript Carnations, Suspecting English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna159 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna159_0.jpg LHL Archive 153 Chapter Fourteen The three of them sat round the hearth, Sarah was flowering a piece of linen, Frank was filling the tobacco pipe which of late he was affecting, and Hamilton sat with his thumbs hooked in his belt, gazing at the rafters. The fire, subdued after its daylong struggle with the sun, was falling down in feathery puffs of ash. From the window opening out onto the garden came the spicy odour of carnations and the piping of homing bees. The woman and the men were silent and yet there was a feeling in the room as if a voice had but ceased and all three were weighing what had been said. Hamilton rose, and going a few steps into the open air, stood scratching, his chin and gazing at the fields between Knockndreemally and the lough. He came in and sat down without speaking and again took up his contemplation of the rafters, occasionally rasping his unshaven chin with his hand. Frank rose and sidled toward? the door. He walked out beyond the rowans, scarcely glancing at the fields that had held his brother's attention. He strolled round the farmhouse, aimlessly kicking stones and twigs across the floor of the rath. What ailed him that he had always to be suspecting the woman? She had told them about Bourke selling the cottages and the land as if she thought they had a right to know. And she had done right there, he had to admit. Bourke’s land lay into theirs from the road to the lough. And yet he had a notion that there was more behind her words than that.Was she thinking of her son that would come after Hamilton and himself? At that thought there arose upper- most in his mind something that had been irking him for weeks. He was Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 739 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna160 Manuscript Auction, Approval English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna160 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna160_0.jpg LHL Archive 154 growing away from this house. He was tiring of Sarah and her calm pale looks and her love in which there was neither passion nor endearment. Perhaps these lands might be a means of escape. He hurried round to the front of the house again and stood looking over the fields with even more attention than Hamilton had done. Potatoes and corn there, he noted, a bit o' flax along the side of that planting, grazing at the lough where the cattle could water. He regretted there wasnt a decent farmhouse on the land, and for a moment raised envious eyes to Quinn’s-o’-the-Hill, a snug homestead that crowned ihe opposite hill, atwin to Rathard. He went back into the kitchen and sat down again. Sarah glanced at his face and then dropped her eyes to her embroidery. Hamilton vas grunting a little as he tugged at his boots. "I think we might see your man Bourke, and lay him a reserve offer afore the auction," said teo young man looking at his brother. There was silence as Hamilton methodically drew the laces out of the holes. "I’ll sleep on it ’til the morn," he answered at last. His brother locked up sharply. "I’m for it," he said. "And I’m neither for it or against it, ’til the morn," replied the other, dropping his boots in the corner. "Sarah, get, us a bite o’ supper, there’s a good woman." But in the morning when Hamilton had walked round the fields, he was for it. At the dinner table the two men argued and calculated, going out half-a-dozen times to look at the fields, and between them, Sarah sat eating her dinner, as demure as a mouse. At last a bid was decided upon, safe, but not too extravagant. At the last moment it was increased as a result of Sarah's casual remark that they should expect to offer a bit more than the bidders whose farms lay some distance from the auctioned land. This opinion met with the approval of Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 740 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna161 Manuscript Carthouse, Pounds English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna161 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna161_0.jpg LHL Archive 155 the brothers and the offer wan raised by twentyfivw pounds. After dinner, Frank drove over to Bourke’s to make the offer. He came back dissatisfied and excited, like a gambler, to say that they were too late, by a day, to buy the land by private deni, that it was now In the hands of Messrs Gomm and Bean, Ardpatrick, and that Nr Bourke had agreed to write to these gentlemen, conveying the brother' offer. There was an air of restless- ness about Frank that evening and during tha next two or three days, and even Sarah found it difficult to conceal her excitement and apprehension. But the moment the offer had been decided upon, Hamilton seemed to have forgotten the matter, and went about his work without as much as glancing at the fields that might soon be his. At eleven o’clock on the morning of the auction Sarah climbed onto the rocf of the carthouse. A long procession of traps and carte crawled slowly up Knocknadreemallylly and down the other side until they were balanced, as it were, over the brow of the hill. There they halted, and the drivers got out and clustered round the auctioneer where he stood between the two cottages and at the head of the fields. She could almost imagine she saw the pale bewildered face of Bridie Dineen peering from the tiny window at the back of the cottage. Was the redhaired woman wondering now which of these men, tall or short,shouting noisily or bidding in dry silent nods, would be her new landlord? Sarah, for a moment, shared the other woman’s anxiety. Perhaps, for all she knew, the brothers had been outbid long ago. But Frank was there to raise the offer another twentyfive pounds. After what seemed a long time, but was really only fifteen minutes, the crowd of men dispersed slowly and went back to their vehicles. She descended from the roof, and drawing a shawl over her head, hurried down the loanen to the road. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 741 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna162 Manuscript Knocknadreemally, Rathard English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna162 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna162_0.jpg LHL Archive 156 Speeding down Knocknadreemally towards her with its slender spokes quivering in the sunlight, came a sulkie, drawn by a nutbrown high-stepping pony with yellow bandaged fetlocks. In it sat Frank and a man with a yellow vest. At a word from Frank the driver slackened as they approached the loanen-mouth where Sarah stood, withdrawn into the shade of the hedge. FTank did not dismount immediately but sat for a moment talking to his companion. Sarah, from the seclusion of the hedge recognised the driver as Mr Lalor Barke, the owner of the cottages. He was a cheerful pouchy- faced young man trigged out. in a tweed jacket, bedfords, and a yellow waistcoat with dark leather buttons. As he sat there, curbing the nervous animal that danced on the road, he did not seem to be downcast that still another part of his family lands, which, according to the old men, had once stretched as far as the eye could see from any hill in the three townlands, had been melted down into cash to be poured out on the race- courses of Leopardstown, the Curragh, or across the water in Aintree. At last, after shaking hands with Bourke, Frank got down and the pony and the sulkie shot away, the dapper driver touching his cap with his whip to Sarah. The girl rushed out impatiently. "Well, did ye come any speed?” "Aye, girl dear, 1 did indeed! And with the first bid, too! we were ten pounds above the best call, but ’ t'is better to be safe nor sorry! The woman stopped and turned to look over the newly-purchased fields. "And now its all Efchlin land as far as Quinn's-o’-tha-Hill." "Aye, ’tis," "Ye know, Frank, I’ve been thinking. When you are lifting the praties from that lough field it'll be a loug traich up to Rathard. Would it no be better to clear one o’ the cottages on top o’ the hill for a pratie-house?" Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 742 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna163 Manuscript Dineen, Frankie English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna163 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna163_0.jpg LHL Archive 157 The young man scratched his head and looked at the cottages referred to. "Ye know, 5arah, that’s a brave good idea," he said. "Clear one o’ the cottagers right away," "But no the Sampsons’." "No, we couldna clear the Sampsons." He looked at her but her eyes would not meet his. He knew now why she had told them about the sale of the land, and marvelled that spite against Bridie Dineen could drive this woman into such a torturous plan of achieving her desire. "Clear one o’ the cottages,” he repeated, and laughed as though something had dawned on him. They climbed the loanen together. The woman may have seen the noisy, living, little home with its smoking chimney turned into a potato-house with shuttered windows and hay-auction bills plastered on its padlocked door. But Frank saw a different picture. For him the cottage had been swept away completely, and he saw there a tall white house with a slated roof, low pebble-dashed walls facing on the road, fuschia at the gate, a green door, a shining knocker and a fanlight as handsome as the Bourkes.' And in the house? In the house he imagined a woman, dark, slim, light of foot, lighting up the rooms with her laughter. But she eluded him and he could not see her face. Hamilton came into the house shortly before supper. "Well, ye dont know what’s happened here!" said Sarah, as she slid a hot plate onto the table. The dark man smiled. "I know rightly. Stewartie yelled it at me over the breadth o’ three fields. Well, Frankie, how did we come out?" he continued, turning to his brother. Our first offer was ten pounds over the next best. But I suppose we canna reproach ourselves on that?" Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 743 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna164 Manuscript Harvest, Fiddling English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna164 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna164_0.jpg LHL Archive 158 Hamilton slapped him on the shoulder. "Dont be blething, man dear. What’s tenpounds when ye have to speak in hundreds? ye did bravely." "There's another thing,” said Frank as they sat down at the table, ”Quinn was at me about letting the grazing at the lough." "Well, we wont say aye, yes, nor no to that, ’til we have time to look round us," answered his brother. 'Our worry'll be the lifting o’ the praties and corn from Bourke’s fields. We may get another hand or two frae Banyil." ’And there’s the housing o’ the crops," said Sarah. "Aye, there’s the housing o’ the crops. We couldna get the barn door closed on the last harvest, and the haggard's no grown any since last year." "Ye may clear one o' the cottages on the hill." Hamilton laid down his spoon and stared at her. "In the name o’ God, woman! We canna put the craturs out on the road for a wheen av bags o' corn and praties!" "There’s no talk of them going out on the road. There's more cottages nor one in the countryside." "We didna buy the Dineens wi’ the land!" Frank burst out angrily. "And we're no going to be held up by the likes o' them. This thing's twist you and me," he continued pointedly. "And that’s my say, flat and plain." "You’ve taken a very sudden scunner at the Dineens." "I’ve taken no scunner at the Dineens. But there’s no good saying one thing and thinking another. »W’ll be looking that cottage afore the harvest, so what's the use of all this farting and fiddling around?" He paused, and then added, "As Sarah says, there’s more nor one place they Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 744 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna165 Manuscript Estate, Trees English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna165 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna165_0.jpg LHL Archive 159 can go to in the countryside." The three of them continued eating in silence, not one of them honestly believed that it was necessary to turn the Dineens out. Had it been any other family the brothers would have put themselves to any inconvenience to find another storage house. Yet they, and even Sarah, liked Owen Dineen. But deep down in all three the centuries-old enmity against the papist stirred, and neighbourliness and a more ancient kinship were forgotten, "Well, the both of ye seem to be set on this," said Hamilton, rising. "But we'll make no move 'til you've seen Mr Bourke, Frank, and got another place for Owen and his family. Are ye agreed to that?" Frank nodded without speaking. And Frank found them a house. Two mornings later, when he had been over to Bourke's estate, he came in to say that Bourke had agreed to let a cottage on his land, and that he had gone up to Knocknadreemally and given Owen his notice. "Where’s the house?" asked Sarah. The young man narrowed his eyes and smiled. "Ye know it well. Ye were bred in it.” "My mother’s house!" Hamilton laid his hand on her shoulder. "There,Sarah, dinna take on. Things will aye be someway. Your mother wouldna hae minded. I'm sure o’ that." she shook his hand from her shoulder and turned her back on them. From that moment she began to hate Frank. When the morning of Dineen's removal came she went to the door a score of times to look up at Knocknadreemally. She saw the smoke of the breakfast fire pluming up through the trees, and then at last, it vanished. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 745 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna166 Manuscript Road, Donkey English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna166 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna166_0.jpg LHL Archive 160 A short time later she hurried out and climbed up on the shed roof and gazed towards the distant road. A little procession was coming down the hill. First Owen leading a borrowed donkey and cart in which was piled the few furnishings of his house. On top of that were the two youngest babies. Then came the red-haired woman with a child at each hand. Before they had disappeared into the dip Sarah descended from the roof. Her face was grey and sullen. Now was the time of her triumph, and it had turned to ashes in her mouth. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 746 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna167 Manuscript Bird, Frank English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna167 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna167_0.jpg LHL Archive 161 Chapter Fifteen During the warm grey days, Andrew was rarely indoors with his mother. At four years of age he was nearing the day when he would have to go to school, but now he was growing hardened and knowledgeable in the outside world. He was not very intimate with Frank. Of the two brothers, Frank might have been the more entertaining and instructive, for he had inherited his father’s lore of the countryside. But when he and Andrew were together in the fields or the outhouses, the man always seemed shy or too voluble, until the boy, sensitive to the man’s unrest, wandered away. At that time the vivid memorable threads of his young life were inserted by Frank. It was he who took Andrew with him when the boy’s favourite heifer was driven off to be served by Hurdle's bull, when Sarah heard of this jaunt, she was very angry, but she dare not speak of it to the boy himself and did not care to tell Hamilton, so that, unwittingly, she was restrained from tainting the boy’s fresh unfolding curiosity. It was Frank who discovered the boy screaming with terror and anger in the rath, one afternoon. He was drawn up on the grassy wall, nursing his cheek, and before him danced a white cock, crowing boastfully. The man hurried away without speaking and came back with a broom. "Here, go for him. Gie him a dunt wi' that!" he ordered. Slowly and fearfully the boy clambered down towards the fuming cock. He charged the bird, struck him on the breast and knocked him spurs over comb. The cock picked himself up and went scuttling out of the rath with his wings trailing and Andrew racing after him. Frank overtook him as he Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 747 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna168 Manuscript Life, Bastard English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna168 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna168_0.jpg LHL Archive 162 leant against the corner of the house, breathless, between laughter and tears. But it was Hamilton who filled the weft of his life. With him he could walk the fields or sit for hours in the barn where Hamilton practised his hobby of basket-making. As the man bent and thumped the scobes the boy would patiently imitate him with lighter reeds until, his childish fancy tiring of the game, he would produce a knotty and cracked plait of grass. They sat together one day in the barn while Hamilton contrived an egg-basket for Sarah. The boy sat some little distance from the man, singing softly to himself, half-in and half-out of a beam of sunlight that slanted through the open door and set his hair gleaming every time ho raised his head to watch a butterfly lurch across the sunlight, or a hen trot in, pause with upraised leg, and then retreat with a querulous matter. The boy, who was scooping the white pith from a piece of boretree, turned round to pick up a pretty speckled feather which he could use as a sail. For the first time the words of his song became audible to Hamilton: I'm a wee by-blow, I'm a wee bastard - The man threw down the basket and springing across the barn plucked the child to his feet. "What was that I heard ye singing!" he shouted. Andrew, who had burst into a gleeful laugh at Hamilton's rush, was frozen into silence at the sight of the man's glowering face, "What were those words ye were singing?" Hamilton shouted and shook him roughly. Frightened by the shaking and the angry persistent questions, Andrew burst into tears, Hamilton raised his hard cupped hand and then paused and looked down at the boy's face. Gathering him up under his arm he hurried into the house with him. At his repeated calls, Sarah appeared from the dairy. "Ach, what's wrong wi' the Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 748 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna169 Manuscript Andrew, Kitchen English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna169 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna169_0.jpg LHL Archive 163 wean?" she crooned, taking him on her lap. Realising that the boy was not hurt she looked up at Hamilton, and like Andrew was startled at what she saw there. "What’s wrong, Hami?" she demanded sharply. "I heard him calling himsel a bastard. Where did he hear that word? Who learned him to call himself that?" Sarah raised the boy’s head from her shoulder. "Son, what was it ye said?" In a voice broken by sobs, Andrew repeated the words to his mother. Hamilton knelt before him as he sat in Sarah’s lap. "Andra, who telt ye that? What body did ye hear saying that?" Encouraged by his mother, the boy pointed out of the window in the direction of the road. "A man down there. He raid I had no Da." The man and the women gazed at each other dumbly. Slowly Hamilton rose to his feet and rested his arms and head against the mantelshelf. He spoke over his shoulder to Sarah. "Tell him those are bad words. He mauna use them." Without looking at Sarah and the boy again, he turned and left the kitchen, dragging his feet like an old man. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 749 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna170 Manuscript Rathard, Dineens English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna170 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna170_0.jpg LHL Archive 164 Chapter Sixteen On the following morning Frank was told what the child had said. There was something ludicrous about the words as his brother repeated them, that he burst out laughing. Then as the realisation of what had happened dawned upon him, his laughter ceased abruptly. He left the house and walked aim- lessly into the fields. He was not surprised that someone had called the child a bastard, for a moment, as he stood looking down at the lough, he was filled with anger and contempt for the creature who had taught the boy those words. But that was no longer any concern of his. Hamilton could attend to that. His brother loved the child and the woman. He had been prepared for something like this to happen. He had a prescience that a judgement had been slowly forming at the hundreds of hearths around Rathard. Sooner or later he knew it must become articulate. But he had been preparing for it, like a man making ready to flee from an approaching storm and yet lingering on in those last few hours of stifling calm. One by one the ties that bound him to Rathard had broken. His desire for Sarah had dwindled long ago. Throughout the past year their intimacy had become less and less frequent. The separation had grown between them, naturally and without reproach: on his part, because he had wearied of her, and realised how empty and futile his life had become; on hers, because she needed him no longer, and he had alienated her by many of the things he had done such as setting the Dineens in her old home. He felt no jealousy when he knew Hamilton was with her. Indeed he was glad, for it made him feel free and innocent again. And out of this weariness had risen a desire, the most powerful and seemingly worthwhile, he had ever known. He wanted a woman of his own choice, he wanted a home and children of his own. Many times recently he had felt impelled to break Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 750 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna171 Manuscript Beach, Death English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna171 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna171_0.jpg LHL Archive 165 away from Rathard, but indolence, fear of a rebuff, and a reluctance to see Sarah step into his place in the household had combined to frustrate him and keep him tied to his old home. And all the time he knew that the people of the town- lands were watching them, nodding, whispering, turning their eyes up at the hill farm, until that whispering and insinuatio and obloquy had merged into a popular judgement. But he had always promised himself that he would always anticipate the actual word and render it harmless by some swift action, such as marriage. Now Andrew's misadventure had brought it very close to him, swiftly and without warning, and he had been unprepared, in his indolence and indecision. Perhaps it was already too late? At that thought he stopped abruptly on the steep descent to the lough. Perhaps no woman would look at him now. He might never get the chance to show that he was wholesome and honest in heart and worthy of affection. That would mean going away from his own countryside. He almost cried out at that thought, for love of his own scene was very deep in him, and the house on Knocknadreemally was inextricably woven into his dreams. His feet rattled on the loose stones of the beach as he crossed towards the boathouse. The keel rollers, like slow burrowing animals, had settled down into the shingle and sand. He tore them up and laid them close together under the bow of tne dinghy, as he heaved the boat forward the top of the rudderboard crumbled to dust in his hands, and he saw how dried and sprung were the curving timbers of the skin. A faint squealing noise made him turn round. He had uncovered the nest of a brown rat in a fragment of rope under the boat, as he turned he saw the sinhous body of the bitch-rat disappear into the dry-stone wall of the shed. He trampled the blind puling creatures to death and kicked their bodies out onto the shingle. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 751 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna172 Manuscript Islands, Sunlight English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna172 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna172_0.jpg LHL Archive 166 The tide was high and by lifting the rollers and repla ing them under the prow he worked the boat down to the edge, climbed in, and drew out on the grey gently-breathing water. At first the water seeped heavily and he had to draw in his oar and bail. Then the timbers filled and he lengthened his strok and sped out between the islands. On his left hand he saw the soft green hummock where the boat had foundered and his father had been drowned. On that dark wind-torn evening it had appeared like a jagged, over- hanging rock. It gave him courage to see it now, in the clear daylight, a small green mound of earth and grass with its crumbling feet lapped by the waves. Perhaps his own fear was nothing more than a green hillock, and the voice that threat- ened his peace nothing more than the voice of a frightened sheep. The sky was filled with motionless goose-grey cloud, threadbare toward the east, where the sun pierced fitfully, striking an island alight with emerald fire or launching a swift glittering commotion in the channels as if a shoal of silver fish had broken water. Each little island was crowned by shrubs and plants, the fruits of bird-borne and aeolian seeds. The silver willow nodded in the water, and in the green gloom of ash, briar, and dwarfed beech, marigold and celandine glowed like clotted sunlight . He rowed among the islands, peering into their secret glades and marking the thread-like tracks of birds and rats. Suddenly before him lay the stony beach of Pentland’s island. He pulled vigorously on the oars three times, shipped them, and waited for the impact of the keel on the shingle. When the boat struck he took off his boots and socks and stepped out into the warm languid surf. He drew the boat up, put on his footwear again, and climbed up through the coarse grass towards the farm. His path ran close to the broken walls of the monastery, upwards through a thicket of fuschia and blossoming thorn, and Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 752 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna173 Manuscript Fergus, Pentland English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna173 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna173_0.jpg LHL Archive 167 then rose steeply about twenty yards to the plateau. When he had climbed to the level ground he saw before him a man with two dogs walking slowly towards the farmhouse. He shouted, and the dogs came back and circled round him warily, their barks echoing and lingering in the hollow of the island. The man turned and looked back, and after a moment raised his hand in salute. At that sign the dogs ceased to bark and fell in behind Frank as he approached his cousin. As he took Pentland's hand he noticed that his cousin had changed considerably. His face had lost flesh and was darker and netted with little wrinkles at the jaw and eyes. His eyes and mouth were less mobile, and his smile seemed to disentangle itself from something within him. His vest and shirt were stained with clay and the top of his breeches gaped, disclosing his small ugly belly. As he looked at him, Echlin suddenly felt his old boyhood affection for his cousin. He stretched out his left hand also and grasped him by the forearm. "Are ye bravely, Fergus?" "I can't complain." It's many a long day since ye set your foot in these parts." "It is. But I just took the notion thatl would pull across and see ye." "Well, you’re welcome. Look, I've been out gathering these." Pentiand held out his cap and showed half-a-dozen eggs in the lining. "I’m searching the nettle thickets like an ould wife these days." "Aye, I remember your mother miscalling the fowl. It was a bad blow when she went, Fergus." "It was that." "How are ye getting on now?" "I've two men from the Ards stopping at the farm. One lays claim to be a sea-cook, but b’God ye could bate the fried eggs against the wall." "That's not a thing to persevere in, Fergus, for nothing murders a man like bad cooking. D'ye never think of getting Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 753 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna174 Manuscript Cousin, Fergus English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna174 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna174_0.jpg LHL Archive 168 yourself married?" Pentland looked sharply at the other man. "It could happen," he said and hastened his step. They entered the close and passed the two farmhands on their way to the house. "Make us a drop o' tea," said Fergus to one of them. The man followed them into the house and lowered the kettle on the fire. When the men, with whom they had shared the meal, had gone out again, and Fergus and he were seated with their pipes alight, Frank ran his eye over the mellow-tiled floor that cast its bloom on the wails and varnished ceiling. But he noticed also the burst horsehair sofa, the smoked lamp-funnel and the grey dust of whin kindling littering the once shining range. "Its time ye had a woman here, Fergus. Ye know," he continued thoughtfully, gazing at the fire. "I thought ye were set on Sarah Gomartin at one time?" Pentland flushed angrily and stole a bitter glance at Frank's lowered head. But when his cousin looked up question- ingly he saw no trace of derision in his candid eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth. "I was." "And what came betwixt ye?" Pentland paused with his pipe halfway to his mouth, a look of angry amazement on his face. "Are ye out o' your senses, man?" he shouted. Frank nodded understandingly. "Oh - that?" "Aye, that - what else!" "Well, b'God, Fergus, you're hardly the one to hold that against the woman - hadn't ye a hand in it yourself?" Pentland went white. He sprang to his feet hurling his chair against the wail, "Damn ye, Echlin, ye know rightly I hadn't!" Frank had risen swiftly, for he thought his cousin was going to strike him. He lowered his hands and sighed. "I'm sorry, Fergus. I shouldna have asked ye that. I didn't know the right way o' things." Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 754 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna175 Manuscript Echlin, Frank English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna175 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna175_0.jpg LHL Archive 169 Pentland had crossed over to the window and stood beating the tips of his fingers on the table. Suddenly he turned to his cousin and shouted: "That woman near killed me! I was stooned for days after it!" Frank laughed irritably. "After what, man? Ye threw in your hand meekly enough. Your want for her wasna very big if ye couldna take her as she was." "as she was? wi' another man's wean in her belly?" A shadow crossed Echlin's face at the coarseness and spite in the other's voice. Pentland turned again to the window, drumming his fingers on the table, his head jerking ih peevish indignation, like a woman's. Frank seated himself again and idly probed the glowing turf with a twig. When he spoke his voice was low, with a dreaming note in it. "D’ye know what I think, Fergus? Its an ill thing for a man or woman to be aye looking behind them Yesterday and the-morrow dont yoke over well at times." "Aye, and its a worse thing to be standing betwixt them as I was," answered Pentland, as if he had caught a note of criticism in Echlin's remark. "All men stand betwixt them," said Frank rising and taking his cap from behind the door. The two men left the house and took the path towards the beach. Fergus stopped when they came in sight of the water. "Answer me one question, Frank. Are ye free?" "As free as a swallow." Pentland smiled slowly. "I thought that. There's a soiree at Ravara on Saturday's a week. D'ye think would ye go?" "Like a swallow." "I'll pull over to Purdy's rock at seven in the evening I'll see ye if you're there." "I’ll be there at seven, Fergus, if we're spared." Pentland watched his cousin crunch over the shingly beach. When Frank had pushed off, he turned and climbed leisurely back towards his house. At the top of the rise Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 755 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna176 Manuscript Rathard, Woman English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna176 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna176_0.jpg LHL Archive 170 he paused, and leaning his arms on the fence looked across at the dark clump of trees that shrouded Rathard. He stood there long enough to smoke a cigarette, and as he tossed the stump away he straightened up and spoke aloud. "One man's enough for any woman." He whistled lightly as he crossed the close. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 756 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna177 Manuscript Fergus, Communal English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna177 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna177_0.jpg LHL Archive 171 Chapter Seventeen The soiree of which Fergus had spoken was really the 'treat' and sports that followed the yearly religious examination of the Presbyterian children of the townlands. But the event had, over many years, acquired a much greater significance than that. It was now known in the countryside as Ravara Fete to which the young men and women of all religious persuasions came. The afternoon was given up to the children with their scriptural examinations and 'treat.' At the treat great quantities of strong tea, currant bread, barmbrack and coarse wholesome cakes were consumed. Children of tender years had been known to drink four or five pints of dark scalding tea as well as gorging them selves with baker's breed. But relief was gained by a run round the field to 'joggle up their guts' and the surfiet of tea and currant-bread was ejected in a brown liquid stream, then a handful of sourleek was chewed to sweeten the mouth. After that the feaster, with a steady head and a clear eye, was ready lor the games and trials of skill. Later in the day, as the air grew cool, the young men and women dressed in their finery arrived, and the wearied children left them the field and wandered homeward. It was now that the took on its fuller significacance as a communal gathering and a puritan propitiation to amorous merrymaking. As the treble voices of the children dwindled, the clamour from the gathering became deeper, taking on an excited passion- ate note. Everything gesture and word seemed heightened and intensified. The foot races round the great tree in the field were fought out with clenched teeth, streaming hair, pounding bare feet, and vicious elbows. The games, taken over from the children, remained the same in name, but their nature changed to the pursuit of one sex by the other. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 757 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna178 Manuscript Bruised, Ireland English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna178 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna178_0.jpg LHL Archive 172 figures mingled together in bewildering confusion, the women running with breathless despairing laughter, the men pursuing silently with outstretched hands. These young men and women burst away in chase of each other from slowly revolving rings of singers whose rhyme ended with a demand that the man should kiss his partner. Sometime the girl entered into the climax with such ardour that the youth again took his place in the ring, tenderly feeling bruised lips; sometime long after the round had ended they were still wrestling vigorously until the perspiring and wrathful face of the girl was drawn back by her hair, and lustily kissed. In other parts of the field races were being run, billets hurled at upright stakes and in a hollow by the road some barefoot men were trying to leap over an osier wand resting on the shoulders of two of their companions. There was no liquor at this merrymaking, for these people were sporting under the eye of their minister, their joy and ardour needed no enhancing, and even the wildest among them remembered that this day had been a festival of the children. There was no country dancing. Long ago they had lost the arts of the ballad and the dance, which, as kin, they had once shared with the ancient people of Ireland A solitary man sat in the hedge playing a melodeon, and the air was failed with the odour of bruised grass. There were many people in the field when Frank and Fergus arrived. Fergus stopped to speak to several young men at the gate while Frank stood silently at his elbow. A ring circled erratically a few yards away, and suddenly as it swerved towaids them, two young girls caught Pentland by the arms and swept him away. Frank smiled to himself as he observed the sudden change that came over his cousin’s face, one moment he had been standing talking to his neighbours, his head bent to Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 758 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna179 Manuscript Sport, Boyhood English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna179 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna179_0.jpg LHL Archive 173 one side, his mouth slightly open and a frown on his forehead as he listened. He stood with his legs apart and his paunch drooping, so that he looked like a man of middle age. Now he was prancing round with a girl on each arm, throwing up his knees like a horse, his mouth wide open in laughter in his brickred face and the black locks dancing on his brow. Frank hunched his shoulders and pushed further into the throng. As he passed slowly over the crowded field, gazing into little groups of frolicking folk, he caught the glances of neighbours and old school-friends and nodded and smiled in reply to their greetings, but no one asked him to stop and join in the sport. Once, as if by accident, he looked back and saw that the people were watching him and whispering together. He felt that he must turn and rush away from the field and never stop until he was back on the lonely slope overlooking the lough. But pride or obstinacy kept dragging him toward the great beech tree in the middle of the field, when he reached it he turned and leant against its muscular trunk and studied the grey soil at his feet where neither the sun, nor the rain, ever fell. After a time his attention was attracted to a little group of men who were following the minister through the crowd. At each game they would pause, and the minister, on the advice of the young man at his side, would call a man from his sport and ask him to join the party that he led. As they came ciose to the tree, Frank heard his name called aloud. He looked up and saw Willie Gill, a boyhood companion, beckoning to him. "Put down Frankie Echlin's name, Nr Hunter. He’s the boy that can run.” The young clergyman approached Frank. "Would you like to join in this?" he asked. "Its a scarf game." He put his arm in Frank's and drew him along with the others. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 759 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna180 Manuscript Art, Hunter English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna180 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna180_0.jpg LHL Archive 174 Mr hunter stopped and turned to face the fifteen or twenty young men following him. "I think we'll divide the sides into one from Ravara and one from Banyil. But first, we want seven scarves from the young ladies, perhaps you would rather pick your own." One or two of the men hastened away and brought back the scarves. Meanwhile, Gill, for Ravara had picked his ten men, and a great lumbering fellow, Robbie Art, nicknamed Moiley, because of his high bald forehead, had selected the men from Banyil. The two teams lined up, facing each other, and about forty paces apart, Mr hunter walked down between the teams, dropping tno scarves on the ground, at eqUal dinstances. Gill numbered his men from one to ten and Frank was number seven. Art numbered his team and he himself was number seven. When he got back to his place in the line, he took off his jacket and threw it behind him. He dragged his bare feer in the grass and smiled threateningly across at Frank. The other games in the field had dispersed and most of the people were gathered in a great circle around the contestants in the scarf game, shouting encouragement to the men of their own townlands. "Are you ready?" calldu Mr Hunter. At a nod from Gill and Art he trotted lightly down the row o£ scarves, paused at one, pointing to it with his toe, and then, when he was clear of the lines, called "three!" A man shot out from either side, racing for the scarf. The Ravara man was Willie Gill and he reached the prize first, braced himself over it for a fraction of a second, and then as his opponent rushed in, he suddenly lunged forward with his open hands striking the Banyil man on the chest and knocking him flat on the grass. Then he lilfed the scarf end trotted back to his own line. Cheers and counter-cheers greeted this first score, and the Banyil men glared grimly at each other and poised themselves for the next call. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 760 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna181 Manuscript Knocknadreemally, Hunter English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna181 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna181_0.jpg LHL Archive 175 The next number called was nine and both men reached scarf together, closed and wrestled over it, until Frank’s team-mate feeling himself overborne, put out his foot and touched the scarf. "Burnt';' cried the watchful crowd, and Mr Hunter waved both men back to their lines. Another scarf was won by the Havara men, and then in quick succession two were lost to their opponents. And in between these scores were always several ’burnts’ or other infringements, until Frank, his number lost apparently in Mr hunter’s mind, allowed his attention to stray from the game and his eye to the crowd that pressed in on the contest. He saw Fergus among the onlookers, his arms still encircling the two girls who had caught him up in the ring. Perhaps, he thought, if I wasnt tied to this foolishness, I might have met a woman in the crowd, a stranger perhaps, from a distant townland, who didnt know me, or didnt care about what had happened in the past. He imagined what she should be like; medium height, her eyes level with his shoulders, tawny hair darker than his own, her skin would take kindly to the sun with maybe a freckle or two, and there would be a smooth creamy hollow at her throat. That was the face that had eluded him in the tall house on Knocknadreemally. He was suddenly aware of Gill shouting angrily at him and the laughter of the onlookers. His eyes searched for Bobbie Art. The big man had tossed a scarf on the grass behind him. When Mr Hunter had the attention of the contestants again, he ran lightly up the line, tipped a scarf and called a number, one by one the scarves were lifted until there was but one left. Two men were running for it now. The Banyil man, much the faster, stooped as he ran, but he glanced at his opponent and missed his aim. The other man overan it and then they were wrestling until a foot kicked the scarf. "Burnt!” cried Mr Hunter, and they went back to their places. Again Frank allowed his eyes to wander to the crowd. Suddenly he straightened up from his runner’s position, for Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 761 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna182 Manuscript Wrestling, Fergus English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna182 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna182_0.jpg LHL Archive 176 there, looking over the shoulders of two youths, was the face of the girl he had pictured to himself. The cool evening breeze loosened a strand of hair over her brow. He saw her brush it back and then allow her hand to rest at her throat. Her scarf was a prize in the contest. He wondered had it already been won. Then he saw the little smile and frown as the wrestling men trod upon the piece of cloth on the grass. Then he saw that he marked where she stood and then crouched down waiting for his number. Four was called. Nine was called, but Frank knew that none of these men was to win the last scarf. He changed his position, standing further from the scarf and at an oblique angle so that he wouldnt meet Robbie head-on. The word had barely left Hunter’s lips before Frank dropped like a stopping hawk from his place, swooped and picked up the scarf from under the hurtling shadow of Art, sped on, circled behind the bewildered man, and was back among his team-mates. "Like a bird!" shouted Gill, thumping his back. The contestants, after putting on their jackets and shoes, mingled with the crowd. Some hurried away to join in the games that had started again, some sat on the grass among their admirers, those who had won scarves searched for their owners. Frank stood with the scarf drooping from his fingers. He saw Pentland moving in the crowd, still with his arms around the two girls. Hurrying towards him he caught him by the elbow and held up the piece of coloured cloth. "Whose would this be, Fergus?" The other man threw back his head and laughed. "How would I know, man? Sure, there's girls galore here wi' scarves like that! Put it in your pocket and you’ll find the owner soon enough!" and still laughing, his cousin rushed off across the field dragging the two girls with him. At a loss, Frank turned away and found himself face to face with a group of girls who seemed to be encouraging one of their number towards him with pushes and laughter. As he Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 762 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna183 Manuscript Freckles, Question English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna183 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna183_0.jpg LHL Archive 177 met her eyes he saw that she was the auburn-haired girl he had noticed in the crowd. At the moment her face was flushed in vexation, yet she could not bear to meet his gaze and looked away from him, half in shyness, half in anger. Then suddenly she turned her back on him. Her companions, aware now that the young man knew the owner of the scarf, ran off leaving the girl alone. As he slowly approached her, he could see the nape of her neck, spangled with freckles under her gold-flecked hair, for her head was bent. "Would this be yours?" he asked, dangling the scarf before her eyes. He was too quick for her and plucked it away as she snatched at it. "I didn't get it easy to give it away easy," he said, putting it behind his back. She swung round on him. "Give me my scarf, Frankie Echlin!" she cried. She made another fruitless effort to grasp the scarf and he felt the faintest touch of her soft breast against him before she drew back. "Oh, so ye know my name!" he laughed. "I know who ye are, all right she replied, her lip curling slightly. A shadow passed over the young man's face. He gazed at her until she raised her head and looked at him, and the pain and disappointment she saw there filled her young heart with pity. He held out the scarf in silence. She took it and folded it and put it around her neck. But she did not move away, in twos and threes the revellers were leaving the field. Prom the road the melancholy notes of a piper were heard as a band of merry-makers set out for a distant townland. "Are ye going now?" asked Frank. The girl turned and moved towards the gate. Suddenly she stopped and looked again into his face. There was doubt and perplexity in her eyes as they searched the face of the young man. Frank stood silent, anxiously watching her, unable to plead in his own defence. She moved away a lew steps. Then, as though she were answering a question, she said "But Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 763 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna184 Manuscript Grass, Moths English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna184 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna184_0.jpg LHL Archive 178 ye canna leave me home." Yet in spite of this decision - perhaps because he felt that her mind had dwelt on the unspoken request, perhaps because of the faint shade of regret in her voice, Frank's heart leapt. So, when they came out onto the road both turned away from Ravara towards the townland of Banyil. Here and there in the hedges could be seen the dim outlines of courting couples, half-hidden in the lush grass. The murmurous sound of their words and their stifled laughter came to Frank and the girl as they walked along the dusky road. The dew felt chill on the young man's face, white moths flitted silently under the trees and against the silver-green light of the sky, bats fled like polished stones, unce, as they approached, a dark gateway, he touched her arm, but he felt it withdrawn under his fingers, and they passed the place in silence. At last, at the head of a loanen where several men sat, she paused. A voice from the blackness of the hedge bade her good-night. She answered, and then hastened her steps and drew the young man further up the loanen. "Well, good-night, now," she said. "but wait, I dont know your name!" cried Frank, reach- ing out to touch her. She withdrew a little, "Molly McFirbis. That was my father and my brothers wi' those men at the heado' the loanen." "'Molly McFirbis'" he repeated. "And 1 didnt get my reward for the scarf." She said nothing. "Molly," he asked, bending towards her, "will ye go to husky Woods dance wi' me?" Again he felt the girl's eyes trying to read his face in the dark, "i'll be going anyway," she said at last. "Aye, but will ye go wi' me? Molly, will ye go wi' me?" She came close to him. "Yes. I’ll meet ye here at eight in the evening." Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 764 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna185 Manuscript Loanen, Cigarette English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna185 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna185_0.jpg LHL Archive 179 He bent swiftly and kissed her. She stood there for a moment and he could hear the soft catch of her breath. Then turning she ran from him into the gloom of the loanen. Not until her steps had died away did Frank go down to the road, as he passed the men at the corner he spoke. He saw a head, silhouetted against the green afterglow, wag silently in response, and down in the blackness of the hedge a cigarette glowed suddenly and viciously. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 765 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna186 Manuscript Ravara, Piping English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna186 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna186_0.jpg LHL Archive 180 Chapter Eighteen The road that ran from the scene of the fete across the townland of Ravara and past Rathard, lay silent. Then, in the distance was heard the chanting of pipes and a harmonious murmur of voices. In the owl-light there appeared over a rise in the road the piper followed by twenty or thirty lads and girls. Some of them, arm-in-arm, were prancing before him as he played, others, weary-footed, trailed behind him, and the rest, on wavering slowly- moved bicycles, brought up the rear, when they reached the cross formed by Echlin’s loanen and the loanen on the opposite side of the road, where the banks were gently sloping and smooth, they stopped and laid themselves and their bicycles on the grass. The piper stepped into the middle of the road and fingered a jig, Tomelty's Verdant Breeks. High above them in Rathard close, Hamilton heard the piping and shouting on the road. He went indoors and call- ed on Andrew. "Come on down to the road wi' me,son, and see the feters coming home." Andrew, turning a deaf ear to his mother's demur that the night was dropping, twisted restively in her hands as she pinned a shawl around. Then he hastened out to Hamilton who was trimming a hurricane lamp before the door and tapping a foot to the distant music. They descended the loanen hand-in-hand, the noise of the revellers becoming clearer as they neared the road. The piping had brought out the old men from their cottages in the fields and now they were seated with the young folk enjoying the music, the laughter, and the air. Retie had brought his flute and sat tapping it impatiently as he waited for the piper to tire. Hamilton and Andrew joined Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 766 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna187 Manuscript Townland, Dancers English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna187 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna187_0.jpg LHL Archive 161 him on the roadside as several young men and women, Roman Catholics from a townland beyond Ravara, set themselves to dance to the piper's music. The others fell silent, not quite sure what to make of this, watching shyly and with pleasure, and nodding and smiling to each other in the dusk. And when the dancers ceased the people on the roadside applauded with shouts and handclaps. Andrew watched the shuttling dancers with a smile of delight. When they had finished he looked up with a laugh at the men. Then his interest seemed to be distracted by something else. He sat very silent between Hamilton's knees, peering through the gloom at the people on the other side of the road, suddenly he raised his finger and turning to Petie said, "I know that man laughing wi' Eileen Purdy." "Dae ye, son?" nodoed Petie, absently, and turned again to Hamilton, hut the boy felt Hamilton's knees grow hard and rigid and suddenly he felt afraid. The man behind him raised his eyes under his hanging brows and examined the faces of the men opposite them. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder and said "was that the man ye heard them words frae, Andra?" The boy was silent, but Hamilton raised him up end turned him round so that he could see his face. He did not need to ask again. The crest-fallen and frightened face ol the child answered him. He thrust the boy into Petie’s arms and stood up. His action was so abrupt that it escaped none of the people seated opposite him. The brown-faced laugning young man saw it too, and his glance shifted for a moment to Andrew. He withdrew his arm from Aileen's waist and eased himself up on the grass, his eyes fixed on the man clambering slowly down the opposite bank towards him. Several of the younger men had applauded ironically when Hamilton stood up, as though he were about to sing. But there was such an impression of malignance about that slow groping step and out-thrust head that they fell silent. Everyone watched him as he stepped slowly over the verge. "What's wrong Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 767 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna188 Manuscript Petie' Hamilton English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna188 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna188_0.jpg LHL Archive 182 wi' Echlin? What' s biting the baste?" they whispered to each other. Suddenly his foot sounded on the naked road. The young mnan sprang up, raced along the ditch and disappeared up the loanen that lay opposite Echlin's. Hamilton, heavier and slower of foot, started after him and was immediately swallowed up in the gloom. The pursuit had started so unexpectedly that for a moment the crowd, sprawled at ease on the roadside, stared at each other open-mouthed. Then two or three youths sprang up with a whoop and raced after the two men whose footsteps could be heard receding on the stony track. The rest clattered after them according to their age and pace. Petie, who had been astonished as the others, tucked his flute into the breast of his jacket, took Andrew's hand, and hurried up the loanen after his neighbours. They were soon left far behind and the old man paused for breath. "*What came over Hami to go hunting after that man, son?" he asked. The boy looked up and shook his small pale face in silence. Then suddenly, ahead of them, they heard the shattering roar of a gun. The boy, whose hand was pressed close to Petie’s leg felt the man’s thigh quiver at the sound. For a moment o Xxxgtt-fcfxl silence iilxfcdxklaaxnigfri more frightful than the explosion flooded the darkness, and then the cries and counter-cries of the country-folk broke out again. Petie hurried on again dragging the child after him. They airived at the low cottage that stood at the head of the loanen, where several men and women stood at the doorway gesticulating and talking excitedly. Peering through the men's legs, Andrew saw Hamilton leaning back in a chair while two women bent over him. The lamp, swinging from the rafters, had been lit hurriedly with the funnel awry, and it threw a waving smoky light over the crowded room, in a corner, on a settle, sat the dark young man who had run away. Two candles were touched into life on the mantel shelf and by the added light Petie saw his wife raising a Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 768 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna189 Manuscript Gilmore, Agnes English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna189 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna189_0.jpg LHL Archive 183 stained cloth from Hamilton's shoulder. An old woman sat rocking herself at the fire while little moaning noises came from her lips. "What happened, wife?" asked Petie. "I heard the clap o' a gun as I came up the loanen." "Ye can see what happened, Tammie Gilmore tried tae blow Hami's head off, and Hami got him by the thrapple. Look at that child! bring him up tae the lire and not liae him catching his death at the door!" Petie brought Andrew to the fire where the child stared in fear at the crooning woman with the silver loops of spittle on her chin. There was a stir in the room as Hamilton rose. The man on the settle sat up too, fingering his throat, Several men come forward, tucking their pipes into their waistcoat pockets, disregarding Hamilton's protests they raised his arms on their shoulders and helped him towards the door, the wounded man paused. "Did i see wee Andra here?" ne asked. "Ye did," answered Agnes. "He's as right as rain. He's wi' Petie." "How's Gilmore?" asked Hamilton, looking back into the room. The man on the bed felt his throat and swallow- ed painfully. One of Hamilton's helpers stepped forward into the open pulling the wounded man so that he winced, "Bugger Gilmore," he said brusquely "I'm sorry I pulled ye aff him." Someone with a lamp led them across the close. As Hamilton and the men who were assisting him went down the loanen, they passed women with their shawls drawn over their heads, whispering in tne hedge. When they came to the road, the men and women who had been in Gilmore's kitchen parted from the few people who continued their way up towards Rathard. First went Agnes with the boy, then Hamilton on the shoulders oi the men, and then close on their heels, Petie with a lamp that threw grotesque Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 769 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna190 Manuscript Farm, Business English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna190 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna190_0.jpg LHL Archive 184 staggering shadows up the dark tunnel of the loanen. The boy was reeling against Agnes with fatigue and excitement so she picked him up and carried him in her arms, as they started to climb the last ascent to the farm, Petie heard quick footsteps behind him and the lilting whistle of a man. in a few seconds Frank overtook them. Petie explain- ed in a whisper what had happened. The strange glow that had lighted up the young man's face died away as he listen- ed. He strode ahead, turning as he passed, to look into Hamilton's face, and then he took the wearied boy from Agnes, telling her to go on and prepare Sarah for their homecoming. When they were still some distance from the farm they saw Sarah hurrying down the hill towards them. She pushed one of the men aside, and drawing Hamilton's arm over her shouj.der, put her strong arm around his waist. They lowered Hamilton into a chair in the kitchen and then the two neighbour-men stood around, twisting their caps in their hands, unable to keep their eyes from wandering round the kitchen. "Is there anything more we can do?" asked the men with the lantern. Agnes touched his arm. "Say no more of this business than you can help," she whispered. "Now go, men, before yw have to refuse a sup o' tea, for the poor woman will have enough to do." The men needed no second bidding but pulling on their caps and waving aside Hamilton's thanks, they left the house. Sarah, who had rushed Andrew off to bed, returned with towels and a basin, Agnes had cut away the torn shirt from the wound, and when Frank saw the mangled shoulder he drew in his breath with a hiss. "God's curse on Gilmore!" he said in a low voice. "I'll fix him - I’ll put him where he'll never lift a gun again!" "Behave yourself, man!" retorted Agnes sharply. "D'ye want the countryside filled wi' polis, nebbing intae every- body's business? Tammie Gilmore's suffered enough the- Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 770 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna191 Manuscript Kilt, Love English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna191 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna191_0.jpg LHL Archive 185 night - this near kilt his old mother." "Aye, but he near kilt Hami!" cried Sarah. "Now, Sarah, take my word. Let the thing rest, for the mair ye tramp in dung, the mair ye spread it around. Let there be no more said about it, like a good woman, and fetch me a knitting-needle. vVhen the knitting-needle was brought the old woman reddened it in the fire and then, with skilful fingers, she coaxed out the pickles of shot from the wounded flesh. At last she straightened herself, and Hamilton opened his eyes. "Is it all out? he asked. "Aye, its all out. We'll put a clean clout on it tae keep it from festering." she patted Hamilton's cheek. "Ye bore it like a kiltie, son. Hae ye nothing in the house tae give the man?" she asked, turning to Frank. He smiled suddenly. "Yes," he said, "I have." He left them and went down to the parlour. They heard him fumbling in the sideboard, and then he appeared again, with an untouched half-bottle of whiskey in his hand. "Ye remember the day I bought this?" he asked, drawing the cork. He ofiered some whiskey in a cup to his brother, which Hamilton drank, as he handed back the cup Hamilton winked slowly at Frank and the younger brother turned away, the tears rising in his eyes, easily stiried to either love or anger, and still glowing with the happiness of the evening, this added emotion was too great to be borne by the young man, and he went out into the dark close and remained there until he felt calm again. When he came back he found that Hamilton had been undressed and laid on the trestle bee in the kitchen. "Let him bide there," said Agnes, "and I'll be up to see him in the morn." Frank slipped his arm fondly round the old woman's waist. "I'll see ye down to the road," he said. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 771 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna192 Manuscript Sarah, Impression English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna192 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna192_0.jpg LHL Archive 186 Chapter Nineteen Hamilton’s shoulder mended rapidly under the hands of Agnes with, her herbs and clouts. But during those days of his enforced idleness a change came over the people of Rathard. It was nothing dramatic, but more a subtle sxidt anu shift in the pattern they wove ceaselessly and unfittingly as a background to their lives. The weight of the farm-work had fallen on Frank. The young man found himself immersed once more in those duties that he had relinquished, in his despondency, to Hamilton. Now he undertook them so cheerfully and painstakingly that a suspicion naturally entered Sarah’s mind. Naturally, that is to say, because having the clay of avarice in her own heart, she assumed that Hamilton's brother was now seizing this chance to reinstate himself as master of the Echin farm. Yet she knew that her suspicion was foolish, in a week or two Hamilton would be well again. And Frank himself had never been so considerate in his attitude to his brother, so genial and yet non-commitai with herself. But she could not rid herself of the impression that something of great importance had happened to Frank on the evening that Hamilton had been wounded.As she watched she realised that Frank’s happiness had no connection with his brother s mishap. Once more she went over the events of that evening. Frank had been to the school fete, already sne had thought of him meeting a girl there but had thrust the idea out of her mind for reasons that she declined to examine too closely, but now, the more she pondered on it, the more she realised that this was the only explanation. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 772 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna193 Manuscript Cottage, McFirbis English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna193 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna193_0.jpg LHL Archive 187 A week after the attack Hamilton could raise his arm stiffly from his side. "Gie the whangs o' your shoulder time to supple up," counselled Petie when he brought up another dressing from his cottage. But Hamilton was in a hurry to be well again. He hadn't missed the brisk and lighthearted manner of his brother in the house, nor his light step as he went about the labour of the farm. Nor had he missed the shrewd and hostile exptession that came on Sarah's face, as she looked at Frank. One evening Frank came up from his bedroom clad in his Sunday clothes. "Are ye away, the-night?" asked Hamilton, as his brother passed through the kitchen. Frank paused uncertainly for a moment. "Aye. I'm going over to Lusky Grange Hall t' the dance." Hamilton nodded absently. "Aye, just so" he said. Unwillingly Frank looked at Sarah. The glance that passed between pierced and dissolved the geniality of the past week. There was a question in Sarah's eyes, held in check by angry disdain, and in response the young man's eyes dilated in anger. Then the woman pulled her knitting back into her lap with a movement that seemed a shrug of the shoulders. Frank went down into the parlour and came up with his best cap in his hand. He drew it on and left the house without speaking again. The evening sky was still suffused with light as he set off towards McFirbis's farm. The warmth of the day, drawn down from the hills, still lingered in the deep road, and for that reason and also that he wanted to meet his sweetheart unobserved, he walked slowly, so that he might not overtake any of his neighbours who were going to the dance. He walked between hedgerows from behind which came the clink and rattle of tired horses being released from reapers. And, as he loitered along, hearing it seemed for Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 773 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna194 Manuscript Molly, Frank English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna194 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna194_0.jpg LHL Archive 188 the first time, the full lazy serenade of a thrash, gild on a branch by the reddening son, he tasted the sweetnes. of lover's meeting. As he approached the loanen that led up to the McFirbis farm, he heard men's voices from somewhere close at hand. He looked up the loanen; it was deserted and the voices had fallen silent. He knew it was early yet for Molly to ariive so he leant over a gate on the opposite side of the road and drew out his pipe and tobacco, as he pressed the first few shreds into his pipe he heard someone breaking through the hedge, and glancing over his shoulder saw a young man whom he recognised as Greer McFirbis, free himself from the bushes and spring onto the road. He carried a heavy stick in his hand, as Frank watched the young man, he heard footsteps behind him. Turning round he saw old Sam McFirbis, Molly's father, and a youth of about seventeen years come out of the loanen. They also carried cudgels, for a moment the three men stood looking at Frank in silence. "What's your business here, Echlin?" asked old McFirbis, taking a step forward. His sons closed in with him. "D'ye hear me speaking, Echlin? What d'ye want here?" "I'm waiting on Molly," answered Frank stepping back towards the gate as McFirbis advanced. "Ye bloody whore-monger," said the old man: "so ye wanted tae foul another decent home?" "No, no," said Frank: "No - ye dont understand -" He was close to the gate, his hand fumbling kkm behind him for the hasp. McFirbis saw the movement. "Watch him, the whelp!" he shouted and poked at Frank with his stick. The abrupt gesture was all that was necessary to release the savagery in the McFirbis men. As Frank drew his hands from behind him to ward the blow, the elder son struck him on the forearm. With a shout of pain the trapped man turned and swung his fist at his assailant Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 774 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna195 Manuscript Frank, Echlin English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna195 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna195_0.jpg LHL Archive 189 and as he did so old McFirbis struck down fiercely at his unprotected head, Frank stumbled out onto the road with his hand to his split ear. Then young McFirbis who had been convulsively grasping his stick struck him across the belly. With a sucking whoop the wretched manEchlin fought for breath, and actually caught two of the descei ding cudgels and clung to them for a moment in agony. They shook him loose and closing in began to thrash him in a dull savage rhythm of blows. Yet he did not fall, but staggered over the dusty road, his arms raised unavaiin over his head, while tears and blood streamed down his face and neck. The blows of his assailants became less cruel. They caught glimpses of each other’s faces now filled with fear and a realisation of what they were doing. As the others drew back the youth, who watched his father and brother beat the defenceless man, now rushed in and smashed his club across Echlin’s back. Echlin drew himse up, stretched his open hands to the sky, and gave a loud scream of pain. At this, young McFirbis threw his shatter ed club away and turning, ran blindly down the road, his hands over his face. For a moment Echlin stood drawn up in agony, then he crumpled and fell face forward on the road. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 775 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna196 Manuscript Heaven, Hamilton English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna196 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna196_0.jpg LHL Archive 190 Chapter Twenty In teaching little Andrew to say his prayers, Sarah revealed one of those inconsistencies in her behaviour, which, when considered sympathetically, showed plainly that her estrangement from her church was not one of conviction, but of fear and shame. Fear of her neighbours partly, but also, let it be said, shame and remorse when she thought of the life that she was unrolling, day by day, before the sight of God and her mother in Heaven. So she knelt beside the child and prompted him when he faltered and in this way garnered some grains of solace for herself. But tonight as she knelt at the bed, helping the boy as he laboured through the Lord's Prayer, her attention was divided. She was thinking of Frank, for she was now fully convinced that whether he had gone to the dance in Lusky Woods or not, he had gone out to meet a girl. And all the tragic possibilities for herself and her child that might arise out of that were quite clear in her mind. She knew that it would be impossible to live with another woman - a married woman - in Rathard. And there gathered slowly in her mind the intention to ask Hamilton that evening to marry her. She had no doubt about how that request would be received by the man who now sat at the kitchen fire, listening unconsciously for her returning step. Andrew finished his prayers and sprang into bed. As Sarah bent to touch his head she heard the slow heavy tread of men in the close. Running to the window she saw four men carrying a door between them and on it lay the figure of a man with a horse-rug thrown over him. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 776 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna197 Manuscript Frank, Cry English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna197 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna197_0.jpg LHL Archive 191 -Chapter. fwentyone For the next few days there was a numbness among the people in Rathard. Frank did not tell the full story of how he had received his injuries, and Hamilton and Sarah did not press him to tell. Meantime, little Andrew with wide wondering eyes, crept silently among his maimed and downcast elders. The swift series of blows dealt at the inhabitants of his little world planted in the child a fear of everyone beyond the shadow of the farmhouse. If, from his eyrie on the rath wall, he saw a cart crawling on the road below, the driver, perhaps some jolly country youth, was to him a malignant creature eager to shoot, kick or beat any member of the Rathard household unlucky enough to cross his path. Even the company of old Petie could not entice him to Knocknadreemally again. His whole day was spent like a tethered goat, circling close to the dwelling-house of the farm. Then came the sleepy afternoon when he was playing in the rath. Suddenly he heard a high wavering cry of pain from his mother's window that overlooked him. As he paused, crouched on his hunkers, he heard Hamilton calling on him again and again, as he raced round the corner into the close Hamilton caught him roughly by the shoulder. "Damn ye, where were yei Stay in the kitchen 'til I come back, and listen if you're called by your mother!" Hamilton ran to the trap-shed and through the window the child saw him swing out the springcart and yoke in the horse. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 777 Part Two Linen Hall Library 1951 Linen Hall Library Thursday, April 7, 2016 TIFF Hanna198 Manuscript Mother, Sarah English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna198 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna198_0.jpg LHL Archive 192 When the cart had bumped out of the close, Andrew crept down to his mother's door and listened. He heard her laboured painful breathing and a stifled groan which filled him with fear. Silently he tip-toed back to the kitchen, afraid that his mother might hear him, and call on him. Several times he stole backwards and forwards between the fire and the passage to his mother's room. Then at last he heard the ’wheels of the cart on the close, and running to the door saw Agnes Sampson clambering down from the cart. She came into the kitchen, and pausing only to tell Andrew to fill the kettle and lower it on the crane, hurried down the house to Sarah's room. That evening Sarah gave birth to a daughter. Text ​Sam Hanna Bell Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 16:00 778