by Anne Doughty
Sarah eyed him carefully, noting the clean shirt and the well-polished boots. He was not a vain man, but as a young man his mother had always insisted that he dress for the task in hand. It was one thing, she had said, wearing much-mended and stained clothes in the forge, but that was no excuse for not being well-turned-out when there was no dirty work to be done.
Sarah felt sure she was a good woman, from all John had said about her, but one who had never had good health. Several of her children had died in infancy and she herself died soon after her much older husband, just as John, her youngest surviving son, had completed his apprenticeship with Robert Ross of Killuney. A hard time it had been for John taking over his father’s house and forge, trying to make enough money single-handedly to pay for his food as well as the rent to the local landlord, Molyneux of Castle Dillon, never mind learning to cook and bake bread with no woman in the house to do it for him.
Sarah had listened regularly to the stories he told against himself: about how he kept burning the spuds, tripping over the bread left to prove on the harnen stand on the hearth, or leaving the milk on the larder floor and finding their neighbour’s cat had got through the tiny window designed to let the air in and left its hair in the jug.
He was never angry or frustrated; he always laughed at his mistakes and never failed to admire her well-practised skills. That was when she’d first used the phrase: ‘And what about all the matching horseshoes?’ – words that had become a joke between them.
The chairs scraped on the stone floor as the two men stood up.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hamilton,’ said Scottie with a little nod, before he put his cap back on and disappeared out the back door, the way he’d come in.
John lingered a little longer, knowing it would take Scottie and Ben, the older apprentice, a few minutes to put the mare into the trap, check out the buckles and straps on her harness and make sure she had the nosebag she’d be needing before their return.
‘Is there anythin’ you need for the house? Tea or sugar or suchlike?’ he asked, slipping his arm round her.
‘No, we’re fine for provisions till we go in together on Saturday. You’ve enough to do today and plenty to carry. Will you be late?’
‘Ach no. Shure they know me and are well useta what I need. But it’ll be after dinnertime. Ye may give the boys their share and keep mine under a plate fer when I get in.’
‘I’ll keep ours for when you get in,’ she said, correcting him.
‘Aye well,’ he nodded, pleased. ‘Don’t go empty in the meantime. Have a bite to keep ye goin’. Sure goin’ empty might not be a good thing,’ he added, with a sly smile.
‘There’s no knowing, as the saying is,’ she replied, laughing, knowing what he was thinking.
She held him for a moment after he kissed her before they got to the front door. The pony and trap stood waiting in beside the great stone pillars that marked the house as a place of business and not just a home. She watched him as he walked out, stepped up lightly into the driver’s seat and took the reins from Scottie.
As the mare responded to his words, he raised a hand in salute and they moved off onto the roadway, turning right into the green sunlit countryside that spread out all around them, clear in the fresh morning air and visible for miles around from this high point on Drumilly Hill.
CHAPTER TWO
As the sun rose higher it bathed the hilly landscape in sunlight and cast short shadows beneath the hawthorn hedgerows. Sarah Hamilton went round the house, opened all the downstairs windows, ran upstairs to the bedroom, struggled with the window there – it had a habit of sticking – and then propped open the front and back doors with the heavy metal doorstops John had made as practice pieces when he was still an apprentice.
She was hoping to bring some freshness into the kitchen where she had baked bread for most of the morning and was now boiling potatoes for the midday meal. Standing for a moment at the front door, leaning her tired back against the doorpost, her eyes shaded from the bright light, she decided it was not just mild, it was actually warm, the first day of real warmth after the winter. Not that the winter had been a hard one, she reflected, but for days on end it had been so wet and dreary she would have welcomed snowfall for the bright reflected light and the patches of blue sky that had been absent for so long.
She paused only briefly before going back to her work, well aware that until she had done all the dusty and dirty jobs and no longer needed to lean over the griddle or the fire, she couldn’t go back upstairs with a bowl of hot water. Perspiring and uncomfortable, dusty from both flour and fine ash, she longed to wash and change from her working clothes. Indeed, as the morning proceeded, she realised it would be warm enough to wear the lighter of her two better skirts with one of her pretty handmade blouses that hadn’t seen daylight since the shortening September days had brought the first chilly mornings.
The last of her jobs was bringing water from the well just behind the forge. It was in no way a ‘dirty’ job, given the cobbles were not muddy and were already bone dry after the light showers in the night, but it was a job better done before she went upstairs to add her bowl of hot water to what remained in the jug on the washstand.
However careful you were balancing the two heavy buckets, it was easy enough to trip on a stray bit of metal and spill water all over your skirt and shoes. It was even more likely to spill when her back was as painful as it had become this morning.
As she stepped out of the door and moved along the whitewashed, south-facing front of the house, she heard Sam Keenan’s hammer beating on the anvil. Even if John hadn’t been in Armagh, she would have known it was Sam, the tall, angular journeyman. John had taken him on as his first employee when Sam had finished serving his time with one of the Rosses a couple of miles away at Mullanisilla.
His hammering was heavy and steady; the long, strong strokes were interspersed with lighter ones to disperse the tension built up in the body from the impact of the heavy blows. John’s hammering was much less dense and the small dancing pattern between the heavy blows, which all blacksmiths used to offset the vibrations of the weighty blows, was much lighter than Sam’s. She always felt there was almost a hint of gaiety in John’s rhythm and texture.
As for Scottie and Ben, it was easy to tell when they were at work. With both of them, despite the difference of two years in their apprenticeships, there was a hesitancy in the rhythm. That was something that would go, John had explained to her. By the time they had served their full seven years’ apprenticeship their muscles would be developed. By then they would each be able to lift the heavy anvil unaided. Only then would you hear the pattern that marked out the man, in the same way as his writing would, the way he signed his name, for example. That was, of course, if it was something he could do in the first place.
She had just removed the wooden cover from the well and was about to prime the pump from the jug of water kept under a bucket in the grass beside it, when Scottie dashed out of the forge and stopped abruptly beside her.
‘Let me do that, missus,’ he said quickly. ‘Ye shou’dnae carry them heavy buckets no more than ye shou’d pump up water,’ he said, without looking at her.
She smiled to herself, remembering sadly how protective he had been when briefly, last year, she had carried their first child.
John had been so delighted that as soon as they knew themselves he’d told the good news to all three workers in the forge. Sam, Ben and Scottie had all nodded. Sam and Scottie wished him joy. Sam, married with two children and one on the way, kept his thoughts to himself. When he saw Scottie dash off to carry her buckets, he just smiled knowingly. He had more idea of how a woman would cope when there was no one there to help her.
Ben, of course, despite his extra years of experience in the forge, was so overcome with shyness that he said nothing. To be honest he was silent most of the time. Unlike Scottie, who would have lifted even a sheet of paper if he thought it would help her, Ben seemed indifferent to other people
, speaking only when he was spoken to and even then in a halting and stilted way.
Scottie was certainly the lively one of the three. He had a deftness of manner both with objects, like the pump or the bellows, and also with the handling of animals. Whenever there was a young horse, or one known to be nervous, due to be shod, John made sure Scottie was there to hold him, that Sam had not sent him to deliver a repaired or sharpened tool to some farmer who lived nearby, nor was he on some other errand like collecting a bag of turf for making the fire on the stone circle outside the forge when there was the broken hooping on a cartwheel to mend.
Ben had already begun shoeing horses and doing it quite well under John’s sharp eye, but John thought Scottie was still too young and too light of build to begin shoeing himself. He told her that he felt sure Scottie’s soothing manner with animals would make him a great success with the many horses and ponies that came to the forge.
Sure he was still only fourteen and had a bit yet to grow. It would be all the same to Scottie whether his clients were as different in temperament as the tall, nervous hunters kept by the local gentry and the heavy, plodding horses owned by the ploughmen who moved from farm to farm, working for more than one farmer. Scottie would settle them all.
‘Ther’yar,’ he said, opening the wooden lower doors of a tall, glass-fronted cupboard in the kitchen. He swung the buckets and set them down inside without spilling a drop on the recently scrubbed floor. ‘Ye need to mind yersel’,’ he added hastily, as he disappeared at speed back to the shears he’d been sharpening when they’d heard her footsteps on the cobbles.
Sarah sat down in the nearest chair, suddenly very weary, a shooting pain in her stomach momentarily taking her breath away.
‘Perhaps,’ she said to herself in a whisper as she put a hand to her sore back. ‘Perhaps John will have his wish.’
Early last week he’d dropped a shy hint that unless he was mistaken she’d not bled for a wee while now. She’d admitted that she’d been thinking that too, but she then told him the reason she hadn’t said anything was because she didn’t want to raise his spirits and then for him to be disappointed again.
They’d lost their first child after three or four months and John had been distraught, anxious during the day when she was poorly and in pain, and beside himself at night when she couldn’t sleep. Finally, the next day, he’d overruled all her protests and sent Sam to fetch the doctor from Armagh. He was so agitated when the man himself arrived that to begin with the doctor told him firmly he’d never yet lost a father to a miscarriage.
‘Look on it as a try-out,’ he’d added, more gently when he’d examined Sarah, told her what would happen next and gave her strict instructions as to what she was to do. ‘The body needs to be sure all is in order before it goes on,’ he insisted, addressing them both. ‘Don’t hurry to make up for this loss. Give yourselves time. Sure you’ve plenty of time for a fine, long family, if that’s what ye want. This is no setback at all in the longer view.’
But it was Sarah’s neighbour, Mary-Anne Halligan, at the foot of the hill, who had come to visit and spoken even more directly than the Armagh doctor. She was well-known as a midwife even though she’d never had any formal training except what her own mother and grandmother had taught her when she was old enough to help with their work.
‘I’ve hardly iver met a wumman who went the full way wi’ the first’un,’ she began, settling herself comfortably by the fire with a mug of tea and a fresh scone. ‘But the doctors wou’d niver tell ye that. Ach, I suppose they don’ want t’upset ye or get ye worryin’, but shure ask any wumman ye know an’ she’ll likely tell you it were the second, or the third, aye, or even the fourth, God help us, that brought a fine, healthy baby. Don’t pay one bit of attenshun to the Job’s comforters. Ye might well be a ma the nixt time, but give yerself a wee while first to let yer inside settle down. Just tell yer good man when it’s a bit chancy.’
Sarah had no idea what she meant and had to ask.
Mary-Anne looked at her in amazement: ‘Did yer ma niver tell you ’bout these things afore ye got married?’
She’d explained then how she’d lost both parents to the fever one summer long ago and how she’d been brought up by her grandmother who was actually her own mother’s nurse. The old woman had lived with the family for many years and had never married or had a child herself.
Mary-Anne had nodded, said ‘Ach, aye,’ and settled down to tell her how women that were neither rich, nor even well-off, managed to space their children at two-year intervals.
‘If ye don’t believe me, take a luk at the parish register,’ she went on, when Sarah had listened wide-eyed. ‘Clear as spring water, and written there for those that can read, a chile ivery two years for as many as ye want, if ye just keep to the safe times o’ the month. Am not sayin’ but there’s ither ways o’ doing it, an’ some wimen are glad just to say “no”, but shure if yer fond of other, like you and yer man, isn’t it a nicer way o’ doing it?’
Sarah thought over again what Mary-Anne had said as she went upstairs and peeled off her clothes. She stood naked, looking down at her body. Perhaps she was larger, but if she was, it hardly showed. She couldn’t be sure but she thought her nipples were larger and certainly they tingled very often like they had done the year previously. Despite all her doubts, the notebook she kept in the chest of drawers, with her underwear and the folded cloths she used every month, made one thing quite clear. The last time she’d bled was the end of January. It was now the third week in April.
She laughed suddenly. ‘Sure time will tell all,’ she said aloud.
It was a favourite expression of John’s. The logic of it was perfectly clear, but she always insisted that time itself wasn’t the problem. What was hard to deal with was the not knowing. So many things, she insisted, you could cope with, no matter how difficult they were, if you knew exactly what they were in the first place.
He had a way of looking at her, his face immobile, his eyes wide as he took in every word. Well, he was, of course, taking it all in. It was one of the first things she had noticed about him. He listened to what people were saying. If his responses were simple, or homely, it meant he was still thinking about it. Sooner or later, when he’d given his mind to it, he’d come back to the subject again and ask her what she thought of his conclusions.
John had been to school, could read and write, as most blacksmiths could, but as far as she could see it had been a very limited schooling. To her surprise, he knew very little of Irish history, though he had once recited for her the kings and queens of England. He possessed only a few books, but read the local newspapers avidly each week. When encouraged he could tell stories about local characters and events going back well into the previous century.
As she buttoned her blouse and straightened her skirt, which did indeed feel a little tighter on the waist, she remembered him describing in great detail the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598 and explaining why the lane connecting the road over Church Hill with the rectory to the east of it was called Bloody Lane.
She felt better as she glanced in the mirror and lifted the heavy jug from the washstand. She made her way down the steep stairs and threw the soapy water away outside the back door, but she left the jug sitting by the door instead of refilling it at the well. She didn’t want to distract Scottie again from his jobs. Sam and Ben might well cope with the extra work, but John was not due back till after dinner time.
She fried up chopped onions and mashed them into the potato with a generous lump of butter, ready to serve onto the three warm plates. Then remembering what John had said, she buttered a piece of fresh bread and poured a glass of milk for herself. She had just brought in a jug of buttermilk and another dish of butter for the table when she heard the scrape of boots outside the front door.
Sam took off his cap and led the way, sniffing appreciatively while Ben and Scottie sat down in their usual places.
‘Are ye off yer food, missus dear?’ asked
Sam, dropping his cap on the floor by his chair and making sure the two apprentices had done likewise.
‘No, Sam, I’m not,’ she replied, realising she was indeed very hungry. ‘Boss’s orders. He said if I was going to have my meal with him when he came back I was to be sure and eat a bite to keep me going.’
‘Aye, he was right there,’ he nodded, glancing up at her as she brought the piled-up plates to the table.
She caught the glance and wondered. Sam was the family man and maybe saw what she could not see. Mary-Anne from the foot of the hill came up to see her now and again. She’d spoken more than once of the clues a woman might get if she did but notice them. She said men picked them up as well, but they noticed different things.
‘I mind once a man tellin’ me that he always knew when a wumman was “that way” as he called it, because she had a good colour. “Lit up”, wos what he said. “A brightness in the eyes and a spring in the step” … afore they got too big that wou’d be,’ she added, just to make things plain. ‘An’ indade, I think now he was right. I’ve often seen the signs that a wumman would be sending for me, long before she thought of it hersel’.’
They were all hungry and the food was tasty; all three men nodded when she looked at the cleaned plates and asked if they’d like to scrape the pot. She got up, brought the blackened pot to the table and shared out the remains between them, glad that, as always, she made sure there was plenty. Simple food it might be and very seldom was there meat or fish, but as her grandmother used to say when they sat down to food in their tiny cottage, ‘Isn’t hunger the best relish you could have, and how better to get it than to do your work well.’
There was no doubt the work in the forge made for clean plates.
It was an hour or two later, the dishes washed, two meals safe under enamel plates on the hearth, when Sarah took out her sewing and sat down gratefully by the fire. The morning tasks had been no different from other mornings but she admitted she felt more tired today than usual. Perhaps, she thought to herself, after John came home and they’d had their meal together, she’d walk down to see Mary-Anne while he changed his clothes and went back to the forge. But as she made up her mind that’s what she’d do, she heard a clatter on the cobbles outside.