The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  He kept an eye out for a likely place. A cart-house would be great, he thought.

  The day was almost entirely gone when they found themselves close to a pine forest.

  They looked behind and saw no movement of any kind in the broad sweep of land they had crossed. Even in the gloom they would have seen movement, if any of the hounds had actually been following them, Pidge was sure. Hoping he was right in thinking this, he held Brigit’s hand and they ran the last bit.

  There is nothing in the world as enticing as a wood of any kind, because of its mysteries. They went inside to see what it was like. Pidge was pleased to find that it was dry underfoot and that the air trapped inside by the roof of branches was warmer than when they were outside. It felt cosy and safe.

  When it was dark, they had made a snug for themselves and lay down on the thick flooring of dry pine-needles.

  The resinous scent was wonderful.

  When it was pitch-dark, they fell asleep.

  In the morning when they woke up early, so early that it was the day’s beginning, they found that they had slept very close to a part of the forest that was cleared of trees, where a small spring came out of the ground and threw itself in a modest waterfall over a few small boulders.

  The sky was streaked with long, ruby gashes frilled with apricot clouds and they felt breathless at the sight of it, for there was not only colour but amazing light, so that the whole, mad, beautiful concourse, with the sun glinting behind it, could truly be the doorstep of Paradise.

  For a long time they stood—heads tilted—and filled their eyes.

  By and by, they went to the spring and drank; and Brigit whispered that she wished this little spring were in the Field Of The Seven Maines, so that they could look at it every day, it was so pretty.

  The water tasted perfect.

  It was a morning of wonderful stillness and the wood was a beautiful place to be; not the smallest movement of wind to make the trees rustle and sigh. And then the birds burst into the fullest flood of song, almost as if they had waited a little longer than usual to see the dawn themselves and were triumphant that it was so splendid and they were justified.

  The boy and the girl touched the trees and smelled them: they saw the bright green of the ferns and the darker green of the pines, with smokey blue shadows all about the trunks of those further away, ready to faint away altogether if anyone came too close. They tasted the air with as much pleasure as when they had tasted the water, and they listened to the sound of the birds.

  The forest satisfied everything, and most of all—the sense of mystery.

  They walked through it in what Pidge hoped was the right direction, enjoying the birdsong until the very last note was sung. As they walked, they were visited by every wild thing, curious to see the creatures that walked on two legs through their world.

  All of the birds flew down to low branches and observed them with their heads cocked sideways, for all the world as if they each had only one good eye to see out of—some old people, and a lot of pirates, seem to do this too. Squirrels scampered all around them, pausing at times to look, pleating the skin round their nostrils as they sniffed and tried to know them by scent. Rabbits sat in groups and did the same thing with greater bravura, as though it was their special skill. Other small animals watched keeping well-hidden, peering from behind boulders or clumps of bracken or fallen dead wood in a shy kind of prying, just as though they were people who were nosey but respectable; but they were only nervous, and far too natural to be respectable.

  In the blue shadows, there was the outline of a small herd of deer which kept in a close bunch around a stag—all heads up and alert and his crowned with his proud antlers.

  If they made a noise at all, the animals were careful to break the silence gently as if in church, and the dawn chorus of the birds had been a glorification; to be properly followed by a time of quiet, as the day was still so young. Later they would chatter and argue and sing again, when the sun was big enough to give permission.

  Pidge and Brigit were totally wrapped up in this quietness: the whole world existed in what they were seeing with their wide-open eyes.

  It was shocking then, when they heard from deeper in the wood, the sound of an axe going hard against a tree, as a woodcutter went to work:

  BOK! BOK! BOK!

  All the small creatures took offence at this brutal sound and, leaving the children, they made for their homes and safety.

  And the chopping went on without mercy.

  Chapter 7

  IT is easy to travel through a pine wood because the undergrowth is always sparse. Apart from the fallen dead wood which may be climbed over or walked round, there is little else that might be called an obstacle. True, there are always the occasional patches of fern and bramble, but these are never dense and are not the stubborn barriers that they can be, in an old wood of mixed trees that is mostly untrodden. Some people prefer one kind of wood to the other; some people are fond of both kinds.

  It didn’t take long for Pidge and Brigit to come in sight of the woodcutter. When they were near enough, they called out to him; but he, muffled in a heavy overcoat and big, shapeless hat, did not reply. He saw them, Pidge was sure. One hasty look and he turned his back on them very quickly, but not so quickly that Pidge couldn’t see quite clearly, that the man did not want to speak. Brigit noticed it too.

  ‘Sir? Why are you chopping that tree?’ she shouted, and he paused for just a second before swinging at the trunk again.

  He was a hunched kind of a man and there was a curious awkwardness in the way he handled the hatchet.

  ‘I’ll bet you he’s a rustler; one of the kind who steals trees,’ Brigit whispered. ‘He didn’t want to talk to us did he?’

  ‘Come on, we’d best not bother him,’ Pidge said.

  Even though he was clumsy in his movements, the woodcutter kept up a good rhythm. Brigit looked back at him at intervals as she trailed after Pidge, holding on to the hem of his jacket for guidance.

  ‘He’s no good with that hatchet,’ she said derisively, when she knew they were out of earshot.

  ‘It might be that heavy coat hampering him,’ Pidge suggested.

  ‘What does he want a coat like that for? It’s not cold.’

  ‘Some people feel the cold more than other people; something to do with thin blood, I’ve heard.’

  ‘Thin blood? What’s that! I’ve never heard of anything so daft. Is there fat blood, too? Have you ever heard of anyone with fat blood?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That just proves it! If there’s supposed to be thin blood—there should be fat blood or it’s just silly. Anyway, he’s a cranky oul’ devil, whatever way his blood is.’

  They discovered now that they were at the far boundary of the forest, roughly opposite to where they had come into it the night before. The trees ended at a wall that was partly tumbled and scattered and there was a road running by it, alongside. Across the road, the countryside was hidden by a heavy-grown hedge of fuschia and bramble and other bushes, rising very high.

  They went over the scattered stones and out onto the road.

  It was hard to leave the forest—they might never, ever, see it again—and it was a perfect place to spend time.

  The more Pidge racked his brains, the less sure he was of the way. Again he was puzzled as to whether they should go right or left. Should they not bother with the road at all, but try to get through the hedge and over the fields?

  ‘Where do we go now, Pidge?’

  ‘I can’t seem to remember.’

  ‘Don’t you know the way?’

  ‘No. I did last night but now I’m not sure.’

  ‘Why don’t we go this way,’ she suggested, pointing to the right. ‘We could try it for a little while, anyway.’

  ‘We might as well. If we get to a place that isn’t so boxed in, perhaps I’ll get a better idea of where to go.’

  And I really hope so, he thought to himself gravely; for what w
ill happen if we don’t know which way to try for, and just go any way, hoping it’s right? We could just drift around aimlessly and be of no use.

  They had gone no more than ten paces and Brigit was just going to mention something about breakfast although she really wasn’t hungry, when the sound from the forest stopped and for a little while, there was silence.

  Then, from inside the wood, a hound bayed: a long, lingering, unearthly cry.

  And they knew that the woodcutter was no woodcutter and his hunched back was only a disguise for his height; and the thick old coat was only to hide his thinness and the old hat was for hiding his face.

  They stopped dead in their tracks and looked at each other, Pidge overcome by dismay.

  ‘That sounds very bad,’ he managed to say after a moment.

  A thrill of horror rushed through him and he stood, daunted, not knowing what to do. Brigit watched his face and waited until he would think of something.

  He stood, tense with shock and the awful knowledge that one of the hounds had traced them already and was now calling to the others.

  A little wind came and smacked him gently in the face, and his hand went into his pocket and reached into the leather bag. His fingers grasped a nut—obeying something other than his mind.

  He held it out and they watched it split open.

  Something that was coiled up inside it, spiralled out and flew up into the sky, and Pidge was holding a string that was taut and strong, while up above, there flew a kite.

  It was the most glorious kite that they had ever seen, with an old ship painted on it and long ribbons of violet satin billowing out from it; and on one of the ribbons were glittering silver words, that said:

  The ribbons were long and thick and shiny and they couldn’t help but stand and admire, in spite of the certainty that danger was close.

  The string in Pidge’s hand gave a small tug and lifted him about three inches off the ground.

  ‘It’s very strong: grab on to it!’ he shouted at Brigit, as he began to get an idea of what was happening, and they each held onto the string with both hands gripping.

  As soon as they had a firm hold, the kite began to move across the sky and they were carried along with it.

  At first they were only inches above the ground, skimming along above the road’s surface, but in a moment, the kite lifted them higher and they were above and over the fuschia hedge. They sailed across the fields, low enough to notice the splashy patterns of yellow lichens on grey walls, the velvet mosses on rocks and the veinings in stones.

  The kite lifted them up into the sky where some of the clouds lay thick as spilled cream and others danced along in gauzy wisps.

  It was wonderful.

  The air was so gentle; and below them was an incomprehensible distance of patchwork fields, spreading in generous colours as a quilting on the earth.

  From behind, they heard again the awful cry, and Pidge wondered if the hound could spy on them and work out where they were being taken; just as he himself had been able to get a bearing from the geese flying the day before.

  But the earth wore the sunshine like a dress, and a little burst of small birds came quickly from a treetop and flew beside them with curiosity, it seemed. He forgot about the hound when all this was so much fun.

  The string wasn’t hard on their hands at all; it felt like soft cotton wool.

  Lightly they went, like thistledown in the slight breeze, rising higher and higher. A field of rippling wheat went as small as a postage stamp. Pidge turned his head to look back and saw, with surprise, that the forest was not very big, quite a small plantation really, and only about half as big again as the wheatfield below. Still, it had felt like a forest while they were inside it. I suppose, he told himself, because even in a gigantic forest, you can only be in a little bit of it at a time, so it doesn’t matter if it’s big or small.

  A small animal was running at his fastest speed along the ground at some distance behind and a long way below them. For a few seconds, Pidge watched it wonderingly, before he realized that it was the hound, trying desperately to keep up with them.

  He knows that the others can easily follow his scent, he thought.

  At that, the little birds left them and flew away into the distance, looking at first like a spray of moving freckles on the sky; and then they were dots as small as grains of pepper spilled on a cloth and at last, they disappeared altogether.

  Then came white birds in their thousands, as thick as snowflakes in a blizzard, and Pidge only just had time to notice the hound coming to a standstill, almost skidding in surprise, before they were entirely surrounded by clouds and clouds of birds that flew steadily along beside them. There was an infinity of wings beating and numberless little heads with bright eyes and yellow and orange and black bills. In among the mass, some swans flew, pure white; and it seemed to the children that one pair was linked with chains of silver, before they were swallowed from sight in the masses of beating wings. Look any way they pleased, and try as hard as they could, they saw nothing but white birds flying as thickly below and above as they were on either side. Now and again, there was a glimpse of the swans wearing their chains.

  Once, a single feather floated down, dislodged from one of the beating wings up above, and Pidge watched it, knowing that if feathers landed on the ground, the hounds could follow them like a marked trail. It was too far away for him to reach. But even as he worried about it, a bird captured it with its bill and held it fast, and then looked at Pidge with a bright eye, as much as to say: ‘You needn’t worry; we’ve thought of that.’

  Looking around, he saw that other feathers were lost from time to time and that each one was caught and held. At times, a small gap would appear in the living white floor that was a good bit below them, as a bird dived for, and caught, a stray feather from the bottom layer of birds.

  This will put a halt to their gallop, Pidge thought, and giggles bubbled up from somewhere deep inside him and he laughed aloud with great merriment.

  Brigit was laughing too.

  They both felt intensely happy.

  Chapter 8

  A TIME came when there was a diminishing of the flocks and flocks of birds that flew with Pidge and Brigit, and when they could see speckles of blue sky through the dense mass of whiteness, they realized that the birds had been quietly going apart from them for some time. The bits of sky gradually went from speckles to scraps and from scraps to patches, until in the end, only a few dozen birds were left and it was possible to see the gorgeous kite again and the earth below.

  The swans had gone.

  The birds who stayed longest were the ones who had flown closest to them all of the way. Now they cocked their heads and swooped and rose and did tricks of flying such as looping-the-loop and triple-somersaulting and formation-spiralling, before they came in close and dipped, as they said goodbye.

  Soon there was only a single bird left in all the sky and they watched it going far away, and at last, it went gliding through a valley and looked like a piece of white paper borne by the wind. And then it was gone, like all the others.

  They were near mountainy country now.

  Far away to the left, the mountains were high and close together and all of their valleys were narrow and deep, Pidge could guess. On the right, the country was still quite mountainous but in a far broader sweep of land, so that each mountain stood alone like a hermit or a strong chieftain in his own domain.

  The kite took them smoothly for a little while more and then came down slowly, slowly—until they could reach the ground with their feet. The pull of the string lessened and they didn’t have to run to keep hold of it.

  They had come to earth where there were many sheep tracks, and old, bleached rabbit droppings; where the land was poor with sparse grass and lines of granite showing through, like the earth’s ribs. The sun was hot. There was a shelf of stone like a low bench nice and handy, so they sat down.

  Dreamily they relived in their minds the way t
hey had just travelled and how it had felt to be surrounded by the thunder of whispering wings. Languidly, Pidge still held on to the kite string.

  It was strange to be back on the ground and their legs felt wobbly and weak, in exactly the same way that they would be from sitting in the trap after the long journey home from a trip to Galway on market day. The ground always feels wrong after such a journey, because of legs that are benumbed.

  So they sat, half-liking the odd sensations and thinking about the birds; and Pidge feeling very safe because he was so sure that The Mórrígan wouldn’t have the least idea of where they had got to and the hounds wouldn’t have the smallest notion of where to look.

  And the kite billowed quietly up above and its ribbons streamed out from it, held by the breath of a breeze.

  Well, said Pidge in his mind, this has certainly been splendid and easy up till now. The lightning and hearing the hound cry out were the worst bits and we have been very greatly helped. If it all goes like this, it’s going to be easier than I first thought. And I could just sit here all day and think of The Maines and the birds and the little wood, and be really happy and satisfied, somehow. And even the worst bits weren’t too bad when I think it over: it was mostly the way I was taken by surprise that made me a bit nervous.

  He thought about ‘a bit nervous’ and decided he meant ‘fearful’.

  Brigit was thinking her own thoughts about the birds. Presently she said:

  ‘I’ve made up my mind; I know what I’m going to be when I grow up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A flyer. It’s so lovely up there. I’m going to be a kind of bird myself.’

  ‘It won’t ever be as good, you know.’

  ‘I know all right. But it would be near to it.’

  ‘You could be a glider—that would be almost as good, I suppose,’ Pidge said after considering.

  The kite suddenly tugged out of his hand and drifted away.