The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  ‘NO!’ said Findepath forcefully.

  ‘Why so?’ asked Fierce.

  ‘The striplings are under the protection of The Dagda, The Lord of Great Knowledge. There are bonds on us not to kill them except in the hunt.’

  (‘Findepath is the boss!’ murmured Brigit. ‘Sssshhhh!’ Pidge said again.)

  ‘We must find a way of making them run. I, Gnawbone, undertake this.’

  ‘Not yet. It is not time. Now that there is a beginning, there is an imperative on us to follow the course. It must be so. We must play our correct part,’ Greymuzzle declared.

  ‘Our chance will come,’ said the voice of the one named Fierce.

  A small breath of wind touched Pidge on the back of the neck.

  ‘Be still!’ commanded Findepath. ‘I have a scent. We are not in close concealment here and the two-legged cubs are close-by. It is time to disperse. Let us melt away like snow-flakes!’

  Then there was silence, broken suddenly by some magpies chattering in their castanet-like way. They sounded louder than was normal, as though they had held their noise for so long that it was unbearable.

  Pidge peeped over the wall.

  The coppice was empty. The tall bracken was moving and swaying as if battling against a gale and yet there was the merest breeze blowing. He saw the hind-quarters of a hound disappearing through a white cloud of marguerites before it vanished from sight completely, in the cover of the thickly-growing bracken.

  ‘Did you see them, Pidge?’ Brigit asked breathlessly.

  ‘I saw the back-end of a hound, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t like them. They talked in a funny way and I had the feeling that they were talking about us some of the time,’ Brigit said.

  ‘So did I!’

  ‘Did you really see a hound?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And no people? Who was talking?’

  ‘To judge by the names they called each other—a whole pack of hounds!’

  ‘Dogs! I don’t want any old dogs thinking they can kill me!’

  They said they couldn’t because of bonds or something.’

  ‘Unless they can make us run. Wasn’t that it? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Pidge. They’ll never make me run. And I hope they all get worms!’

  ‘And the mange,’ Pidge said fervently.

  ‘Do you really think that hounds were talking?’ Brigit asked.

  ‘I don’t know. It seems too strange. Maybe there were people there and we just didn’t see them.’

  It really does seem too strange a thing to be true, he thought. But then, well, there were the peculiar names.

  ‘I only saw the back-end of one hound you know,’ he said aloud.

  ‘I wonder who daft old Mórrígan is? And Scald Crow. And the other one they talked of, Queen of something.’

  ‘Well, we know already that they are one and the same person. The Great Eel said so. She’s The Battle Goddess or something.’

  ‘Who does she think she is, coming here to Shancreg and messing about with us? Herself and her oul’ Battles. Whoever she is, she’ll find out a thing or two from us.’

  ‘I think she must be very powerful,’ Pidge said.

  ‘Powerful, me eye!’ Brigit said gruffly and they set off again on their journey home.

  Chapter 6

  SUDDENLY, there was the roar of an engine and a motor-bike came behind them as if from nowhere—as if it had been skulking behind a hedge waiting for them to pass and then leaped out and chased after them.

  Pidge jumped on to the grassy verge just in time.

  The motor-bike almost grazed his right side, travelled on a few yards and then pulled up. The children saw that it was being ridden by the two ladies who had rented Mossie’s glasshouse. Pidge thought he heard the one with the blue hair say:

  ‘Oh drat it! We missed him!’

  ‘Sssshhhh! They’ll hear you,’ the one with the red hair replied, and then she sniggered. She looked back over her shoulder and shouted:

  ‘I say! Are you all right?’

  She dismounted from the pillion and walked back.

  ‘Frightfully sorry, old bean. Let me help you up.’

  ‘It’s all right. I can manage,’ said Pidge.

  ‘He’s able to stand by himself,’ Brigit said firmly.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said the woman. ‘I must assist you. After all, what are fiends for? I beg your pardon! What I meant was—what are friends for. Dear, dear, I really must learn to listen to what I say.’

  She leaned forward and grasped Pidge by the arm and jerked him to his feet. She closed her eyes and held him for a moment like one in a trance.

  Before letting him go, she gave him a nasty, nippy little pinch. She smiled at him and then she aimed and spat a tobacco spit over the roadside wall.

  ‘My name is Breda Fairfoul,’ she said chattily. ‘This is my friend, Melodie Moonlight.’

  Melodie turned the bike round and purred back to where they stood.

  ‘Why do you chew tobacco?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘Like to bite something that bites back. Puts me in a hot mood,’ she said. She smiled again.

  Melodie Moonlight looked penetratingly at her.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Too late,’ said Breda Fairfoul. ‘Another moment in time, peradventure.’

  ‘Foiled, then,’ commented Melodie Moonlight. ‘The question is—by whom?’ She turned to the children.

  ‘Do come home with us and have some tea,’ she said silkily.

  Pidge thought that her voice sounded like a cat singing the death song of a mouse.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Try and persuade him, my little duck,’ said Breda Fairfoul turning to Brigit.

  ‘Yes do, my fubsy one,’ said Melodie Moonlight, ‘and you shall have Red Cap Pasty, Peggy’s Leg, Kiss Pie and Walking Stick, Hafner’s Sausages and Soup Of The Day.’

  ‘No,’ said Brigit. ‘I’ve took against you.’

  ‘You’ve took against us? But why?’ Breda Fairfoul cried theatrically.

  ‘Cos you’re a pair of road hogs. You might have killed Pidge just then.’

  ‘Yes—we might have, mightn’t we,’ said Melodie Moonlight, rather regretfully, Pidge thought. He wasn’t quite sure what she was regretting; nearly killing him or just missing him.

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Melodie artificially while she lit a cigar, ‘now I’m feeling in a fuss. Forward Fairfoul! We must regroup.’

  As she got back on the motor-bike, Pidge noticed that she carried a dagger in her garter.

  ‘Don’t boggle at me, it’s rude!’ she snapped.

  ‘Bogglers get fits of the braxy if they’re not very careful,’ Breda added. ‘Especially when they boggle into things that don’t concern them—don’t they, Melodie?’

  ‘Not half,’ said Melodie and she kick-started the bike. Breda remounted the pillion and with a roar of the engine, they shot away ahead of the children, shrieking with loud laughter.

  Before they were lost to sight over a small hill, Breda made her hair stand up and wave goodbye.

  ‘Aren’t they queer,’ said Brigit. They gave me the running willies up and down my backbone. What’s this they dropped?’

  She bent down and picked up a small white card from the road. Pidge read it aloud:

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘It means that they’re witches, I think.’

  ‘But they told Mossie Flynn that they were artists!’

  ‘I know,’ said Pidge. ‘That must be to throw people off the scent in case they did anything peculiar.’

  ‘Brazen Liars!’ said Brigit.

  They walked on in the heat.

  As soon as they were back inside the glasshouse, Melodie Moonlight filled a crystal dish with water. She set it carefully down on the floor and then she sat on a little stool beside it.

  Breda Fairfoul sat ready with her harp.

  The surface of the water became a picture; a moving picture like a
film. It showed Brigit and Pidge as they trailed along the boreen.

  Melodie Moonlight laughed.

  ‘Begin the Calling Music,’ she said.

  Breda ran her tapering fingers over the harpstrings.

  A faint, delicate music whispered into the air. It was lighter than a summer breeze, it was more quiet than dust-motes in a ray of sunlight, yet its strength was greater than iron chains.

  Pidge and Brigit stopped walking. The music touched them and caught hold of them and yet they heard nothing. It began to pull gently. It was inaudible and very powerful, in the same way that electricity is invisible but full of force.

  ‘Don’t you suddenly feel that it would be very nice to take the footpath across the fields for the rest of the way?’ Pidge said.

  ‘I feel that nothing in the whole world could be nicer,’ said Brigit.

  They climbed over the wall into the field.

  As they walked along the little footpath, a wonderful feeling reached the soles of their feet from the earth, so that every step gave a marvellous tingle of pleasure. It came right through the soles of their sandals. The awful heat of the day seemed to lift and the air felt gentle on their faces. It was all part of the way the harp music called them. They began to hop, skip and jump along the path.

  Ahead of them, the track split in two directions. One way, turning right, led to home; and the other way, turning left, went to Old Mossie Flynn’s. As they approached this division, Brigit shouted exuberantly:

  ‘Why don’t we go to the glasshouse and peep in at the witches?’

  ‘Why not!’ Pidge shouted back, and that was strange from someone as cautious as Pidge. Neither of them gave the matter another thought but skipped along the left-hand way in obedience to the music.

  As they neared the glasshouse, they went on tip-toes, making it a game of spying. When they got closer they noticed the closed Venetian blinds,

  ‘They’ve got some of those slatted blinds, but there might be a place to peep in,’ Brigit said.

  Then they noticed the sign saying:

  and they burst into delighted laughter.

  ‘What you laffin’ at?’ said the frog as he sprang into view from behind an old up-turned bucket. Then he remembered that he was on guard and said:

  ‘Halt! Who goes dere? Friend or Foe?’

  Pidge and Brigit were astounded and delighted and they stared at the frog in happy disbelief.

  ‘You can’t talk,’ Brigit ventured after a while, her eyes wide and her voice full of doubt and hope at the same time.

  ‘You hear me awright,’ the frog said accusingly.

  ‘A frog just spoke to us, Pidge,’ Brigit whispered and she looked at him with a broad smile.

  ‘It’s wonderful! I don’t really believe it,’ Pidge answered with laughter breaking into his speech.

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’ Brigit asked, gazing down at the frog a little doubtfully.

  ‘I did, didden I? I’m doin’ it again,’ the frog asserted as though answering a slur.

  ‘How can you do it?’ Brigit asked in a conspiratorial way. She knelt on the ground beside him.

  ‘Same as you!’

  ‘But it isn’t possible,’ said Pidge, kneeling down as well for a closer look.

  ‘Doan tell me it izzen possible when da times are so queer,’ the frog replied tartly.

  Then Pidge asked:

  ‘What is it? Is it magic?’

  The frog looked wildly at the glasshouse before whispering:

  ‘It’s da queer ones, doan ask me any more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Brigit whispered back.

  But the frog pretended not to hear. The children were waiting for an answer to Brigit’s question, and were perplexed when, instead, the frog said:

  ‘Well?’ loudly, and then nothing else.

  ‘Well what?’ Brigit demanded after a time.

  ‘Who goes dere? Friend or Foe?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Pidge and he laughed.

  ‘Doan know what to do about a Neither,’ said the frog looking baffled. Then he remembered that he was supposed to say something more.

  ‘Tress … um, tress … ah! . . passers! Tresspassers will be … will be …’ He forgot the rest.

  ‘What?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘Tresspassers will be kilt stone dead!’ the frog said brightly.

  ‘Oh really?’ said Brigit.

  ‘Yis!’ said the frog. ‘Thim’s fonda kids, mingled wit’ herbs in a big black pot wit’ onyins bilin’ in it. Thim’s not fonda frogs, thanksfully.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’ whispered Pidge.

  ‘Thim two in dere.’

  ‘Don’t you like them?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘Hate um. Dey is pisen—pure pisen. Hate um wit’ da whole strength of me back legs, so I do.’

  ‘Why do you work for them so?’ asked Pidge.

  ‘Cos of da mallet,’ said the frog. ‘Dey got it inside da door an “One False Move From You” dey said, an’ I get a crack on me pate.’

  ‘Well, if they’re like that, why are you working for them?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘Cos I diden know. I haden any idea. Oh, dey shambizzle me nicely,’ was the glum reply.

  ‘How?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘Lass night in da gloamen, I wuz hoppen along as is me wont, when what did I see but dis big blue van. Its back doors wuz wide open and dere wuz happy, careless music comen out of it, an’ it made me feel all rollicksome an’ skipperish. An dere wuz a big sign on a Neasel. I hop over to da sign. It said: “Gala Night Tonight. Frogs Free ‘Till Ten O’Clock.” I never even stop to dither. Oh, what a froggy fool I wuz!’

  At this point, the frog’s eyes glistened and he looked as sad as a soggy bun.

  ‘What happened?’ whispered Pidge.

  The frog sniffled for a moment or two and then he carried on with his story.

  ‘All lighthearted, I hop inside. I taught I’d be dancin’ a fundango and de pokey-hokey, an’ atin’ thim Roshyian fish eggs—Havacare, dey’s called or sumthin like that—thim that comes from far away over the Ballthrick Sea—an’ drinkin’ cordials an’ everythin’ until the cows come home. I taught wrong, diden I?’

  ‘Then what happened?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘Dey got me inside an’ clang da doors. Den, off on a joy-ride, so I taught, until dey ended up here at dis glasshouse. I knew sumthin wuz wrong, when dey made da van vanish.’

  ‘The van vanish?’ Brigit repeated in a puzzled voice.

  ‘Dey made it disappear an’ dere I wuz standen on dis very spot. “Are you up to da mark?” dey said. “What mark?” I ask nawnchalonkly. “No lip from you” dey said. I taught to meself, “Dis creshin is da better part of valour,” so I kep’ quiet. “You’re mean an’ ugly an’ you got big eyeballs,” dey said, “You’ll do fine.” I said nuffin. Den, dey learned me all about “HALT” an’ “TRESSASSERS” an’ den dey showed me da mallet. “See dis?” dey said. I seen it awright. “One false move from you an’ you get a crack on yer pate. An’ after you’ve been batted on da crust,” dey said, “we’ll give ya to thim Frenchie Ones an’ dey’ll ate da leggies off ya. Or failen dat,” dey said, “We’ll putcha down a swally-hole an’ you’ll get swoggled.” Oh, dey gev me da wobblies when dey said dat about me legs. Still, dat’s life—as da Philloppytors say.’

  The frog made an obvious attempt at perking himself up by means of Philosophy. He managed to look more cheerful.

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Pidge softly.

  ‘Dat’s all, an’ if you ask me, it’s moren enuff,’ said the frog.

  ‘What’s your name? Have you got one?’ Brigit asked.

  ‘Course I got one! What do you think I am, a nonny mush? I doan go round all nonny mush like a bit of pondweed,’ the frog said scornfully.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I never tell. Wild Frenchie Cooks cudden drag it outa me.’

  ‘Then you’re only an oul’ nonny mush, after all,’ said Brigit.

  ‘No I’m not,’ t
he frog said. ‘But, “Dis creshin is da better part of valour,” is what I say; an’ I wudden like dem two in dere to find out me name, in case dey got more power over me. Oh! I could end up turned into a prince in a sailor-suit, or sumsuch calamity, if I diden watch out. Oh!’ And he went quite glassy-eyed with horror.

  ‘I’d look cute in a sailor-suit,’ he continued after a moment, ‘an’ I’d never see Miss Fancy Finnerty, me own true love again.’

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘What? Never heard of Miss Fancy Finnerty? Her what I’ll never see agen?’

  ‘Of course you’ll see her again,’ Pidge said gently.

  ‘No I won’t,’ said the frog. ‘I gotta stay here.’

  ‘Why don’t you just hop off?’ asked Brigit.

  The frog gave her a stupid look full of pity.

  ‘Cos dat’d be one false move, wudden it?’ he said, in a tone that implied that Brigit was a fool who couldn’t see the obvious.

  ‘But, if you hopped off when they weren’t here, or when they weren’t looking, they couldn’t do anything to you, could they? You’re a bit stupid, aren’t you?’

  ‘I got me quirks,’ muttered the frog.

  ‘How much is two and two?’ Brigit asked briskly.

  ‘A lot!’

  ‘That’s not the answer.’

  ‘A few?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not a lot an’ not a few—dat’s what two an’ two is,’ said the frog.

  ‘You’re hopeless,’ said Brigit.

  ‘What are they doing in there now?’ Pidge asked softly.

  ‘Doan know. Torchurin’ sumthin wit’ dat mallet, I serpose. Or knocken back da crab’s blood cocktail, or da orange juice wit’ sumthin in it to give it a kick.’

  ‘I’m going to try to get a look inside,’ said Brigit, getting to her feet.

  ‘Brigit! Don’t!’ said Pidge, scrambling after her.

  ‘What harm is it?’ she said, and she pressed her nose to the glass where there was a gap between the blinds and the glasshouse frame.

  ‘Whose little nib is that, pressed against our window?’ called a mocking voice from within.

  Pidge froze for a second, then he grabbed Brigit’s hand and prepared to run. To his horror, he found that they couldn’t move. And then, the two women were standing in the door-way.