The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  ‘Shut up, you bally Normin!’

  ‘I am not a Norman, Da.’

  Now that they were close by, Pidge carefully took notice of how they looked.

  They were about the same height and their faces too, were alike, except that one was really an old man. Now that he could see him better, he saw that the younger man was not young; maybe about fifty, Pidge guessed. He was wearing a rough jumper of a kind of rust colour and his father wore the same kind of jumper but it was coloured a deep blue. They both wore homespun jackets without sleeves and baggy trousers of the same material. Their faces were tanned as leather from working in the open in all weathers and this made the whites of their eyes seem very white, and the blue, very blue. They were just ordinary country people he decided, looking at their thick-soled boots; a bit like Aran Islanders in dress, that was all. The older man wore a cap.

  Brigit stood with her thumb in her mouth, uncertain of them because they were having a row.

  ‘I saw you ahead and whistled so that I wouldn’t put a start in you, in a lonely place,’ the younger one said.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Pidge replied.

  ‘Fine day,’ said the old one to Brigit. ‘How’s your health?’

  She took her thumb from her mouth and looked at them with a serious expression on her face. She chose one out of the many things that came into her head, all of them untrue:

  ‘I never talk to strangers,’ she said.

  Pidge had to suppress a smile that stole over his face. He knew well that Brigit delighted in talking to strangers whenever she got the chance. He wondered what the two men would make of this reply and was intrigued to see that they were also trying not to smile. A person would imagine that they knew her as well as I do myself, he thought.

  ‘And what has made you so wise?’ the older man asked her, bending down.

  ‘I was born like it,’ she answered grandly, losing her new-found wisdom in the same second.

  ‘If I had a good, stout-hearted, wise companion like you, I’d go round the country on springs,’ the old man said and Brigit beamed.

  ‘You’re already doing that,’ she said impudently. ‘I saw you lepping like a hare.’

  ‘And where do you go, this fine day?’

  ‘We’re just on a journey,’ Pidge said quickly.

  ‘Are you going our way?’

  ‘How do they know that, Da? They don’t know which way we’re going,’ the younger one said.

  ‘Don’t be so smart,’ said his father.

  ‘We follow this cart-track to the road that butts onto it there ahead. We turn left on the road for a good while and after that, we go right through a thick bordering of trees and down into the Hidden Valley,’ the younger one explained, adding: ‘My name is Finn Spellman and that’s my father. Everyone calls him Skin-the-Goat, he’s so mean.’

  ‘They do not! They call me Daire for that’s my name: Daire Spellman. Don’t mind the brat.’

  While Brigit was telling them their names in return, Pidge stood doubtful about what to do. While he was considering, there was a cry from up above and he saw just two wild geese flying. They flew straight ahead, turned left for some time and then went right, before dwindling out of sight in the distance. It was the drawing of a map in the sky that matched the directions mentioned by Finn. So that was all right.

  ‘We’ll go with you,’ he said happily.

  ‘Hup!’ said Finn to the ass, who was standing and waiting patiently, and they got going again.

  ‘I was going to say “Hup!” ’ complained Daire.

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Did I get the chance?’

  Brigit walked by the ass and looked at her closely. She wasn’t Serena but she had a lovely humorous face.

  ‘Woah!’ shouted Old Daire. The ass stopped.

  ‘Oh Glory,’ moaned Finn, ‘what are you stopping the ass for, at all?’

  ‘So that I can start her. Hup!’ the old man shouted quickly.

  The ass started again.

  ‘Don’t mind the oul’ fella,’ said Finn.

  ‘And who are you calling an oul’ fella! Are you calling me an oul’ fella?’

  ‘You’re seventy-seven, Da.’

  ‘And if I am?’

  ‘It’s not young.’

  ‘I am in my late middle-age,’ Daire said with almighty dignity, ‘and don’t you forget it, you Sprout, you!’

  ‘He’s always like this till he’s had his breakfast, and sparring with me keeps him perky,’ Finn explained.

  ‘That’s true,’ Old Daire agreed. The ass stopped dead and brayed, amazed that they had agreed on something. The end of the braying had a kind of gurgling sound.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Finn, ‘I’d swear that ass laughed.’

  ‘It takes one to know one,’ his father responded tartly, and away they went along the cart track towards the road.

  ‘I could ate a holly-hedge and follow it up with a bucketful of nettles, I’m that hungry,’ Old Daire declared.

  ‘You’ve only yourself to blame if you are. Nothing would do you, but to get out and underway to show off to our relations, the Lawless family, and our connections, the Power family, how good you are, that you can get out of bed!’

  It was at that moment that a hound wailed from somewhere a long way behind and Pidge stopped to listen; not noticing that the two men, who had also stopped, listened as intently as he did. Brigit halted the ass and stroked its face.

  An answering wail came from somewhere even further off, to be followed almost at once by a third cry from a point farther away still.

  Pidge felt a hand on his shoulder giving him a reassuring pat and looked up into Old Daire’s face and saw a very kind smile. Finn walked to Brigit and placed her on the ass’s back, in front of the panniers.

  ‘We’d better walk on,’ he said.

  No mention was made of the hounds’ crying.

  In a moment Old Daire had resumed his battle.

  ‘About them potatoes an’ onions,’ he began.

  ‘Aw Da—stop it.’

  ‘I keep telling you that you put them in upside down!’

  By now Pidge and Brigit had realized that the argument was a sort of game being played only for fun. Pidge was glad that the men were with them at this particular time and that they kept talking all the time too. It made the hounds seem less of a threat.

  Finn laughed.

  ‘It’s true—you put them in upside down!’ Old Daire insisted.

  ‘How can I be putting them in upside down—if they grow? They grow well enough, don’t they?’

  ‘But half of them come up on the other side of the world! There’s a lot of fine, big, strong men in Australia. Why wouldn’t there be—when they’re ’atin’ our spuds an’ onions?’

  They had been walking faster and were now almost at the turning onto the road.

  ‘Will you stop barging out of you? You want a say in everything!’ Finn said, and casually looked back over his shoulder. Seeing this, Pidge looked back as well. Not a living thing to be seen.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I have a say in everything?’

  ‘You’ve had your day and this is my day; my turn has come.’

  ‘Well, you’ve said it now! The last straw to break me back! But I’ll put a halt to your gallop. I’ll fix you well—I’ll get married!’

  At this Finn stopped and throwing his head back, he roared with laughter until the tears came running down his face.

  ‘That’s what I’ll do—I’ll bring you a stepmother; as true as there’s a nose on my naked face. Now!’ Old Daire shouted with passionate jubilation.

  Pidge and Brigit joined in the laughter with Finn who wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and exchanged a pleased look with his father and they all walked on.

  ‘And where will you get her?’ he asked genially, as they turned left at the road.

  ‘I’ll get her all right,’ his father answered darkly.

  ‘Faith, I admire your hope!’

&n
bsp; ‘I’ll get her,’ roared Old Daire, ‘if I have to go through the country ringing a handbell.’

  Everybody laughed at this, including the ass and Old Daire himself.

  ‘And what kind would you get if you did that?’

  ‘The worst kind and isn’t that what I’m looking for? I want one that’d raise lumps on you.’

  ‘Be quiet, you old prawn, or I’ll pull your nose.’

  ‘Pull away!’

  ‘I will!’

  ‘And why wouldn’t you? That’s what them oul’ Normins always did—went round pulling noses.’

  So they went on like this, with sometimes the old man leaping and springing about in pretended temper and Finn answering him back at every stroke. As they went along, Finn glanced in his casual way but more frequently, at the spread of land to their left. Each time Pidge followed his example.

  The hounds had not yet come. But he knew that they would and was resigned to it.

  Chapter 11

  BRIGIT stopped listening to the men and talked to the ass instead. The ass turned her ears back and listened, and Brigit told her a story all about an ass named Serena, while she stroked the rough neck affectionately.

  Finn walked at her side, smiling as he heard snatches of Brigit’s tale in between answering his father.

  Now they had reached the part of the road that was bordered by oak and beech trees, growing in a belt that was about six or eight deep, in to the right of the road. The undergrowth of bracken and bramble had sprung up thickly and reached up to the lowest branches of the trees, so that it could not be known what lay behind it all.

  At some mysterious point along this fringing, the men stopped.

  Finn went in first, parting the ferns and bushes carefully to let the ass, with Brigit still on her back, come in after him without damaging anything. Old Daire signalled to Pidge to follow them and he came last himself, making sure that everything sprang back into place as they passed through.

  On coming out into the open again, Pidge was astonished to see that they were faced with a sheer rising of living rock, that ranged for some distance on either side of where they stood. It looked insurmountable and impenetrable and he could feel his heart sinking; the men had been so quietly sure of where they were going. And now, this unbelievable obstacle!

  Calmly, Finn lifted Brigit down onto the ground and he took the panniers off the ass. Daire hooked one of them to the handle of his scythe, replaced the scythe against his shoulder and grinned. Finn did exactly the same thing with the other one, attaching it to his spade.

  ‘Now—suck in your breath and follow me,’ he said cheerfully.

  He walked in straight at the rock. Pidge followed, with Brigit, the ass and the old man in a line behind him.

  Now that he was right up to it, he saw that there was a cleft in its structure; hard to distinguish at first because the main colour of the rock didn’t vary. The split wasn’t edge-to-edge but overlapped, and the front part was about three feet nearer to them than the section behind. Some bushes and plants had taken root on the rock and reached across the gap and they tangled with each other and helped to hide and match it, like patterned wallpaper.

  Pidge followed Finn through the breach. He was obliged to turn left almost immediately, and then right. As he walked along this twisting, narrow and deep passage, he was thinking what a great hiding-place it was and how hard it would be for the hounds to find it. He knew that Brigit was behind him safely; for he could hear her telling the ass not to be afraid.

  The passage grew even narrower and he understood why the panniers had to come off; there simply wasn’t room to spare. The path now sloped upwards very gradually.

  After what seemed a long time, he finally stepped out into the open and the sunshine, to find that Finn was sitting waiting for him. Brigit popped out in a moment with the ass and Old Daire at her heels.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Finn, ‘the Hidden Valley.’

  It was as if they were standing on the rim of an enormous bowl.

  They looked down on a broad, shallow valley, bare of trees and scrub, that was a vast mosaic of small stony fields. A road ran down ahead of them, slightly winding. It went all the way to the far end of the valley, where it seemed to come to a finish at the rising wall of rock which formed the opposite end of the bowl where they now stood.

  The base of the valley was level. There looked to be miles and miles of it with people all over it working busily, cutting and burning small furze bushes as they cleared the land for cultivation. The distance made each of those who were furthest away seem smaller than a finger-nail. There were a great many fires going and the smoke rose up in straight plumes to the sky as steady as telegraph poles, because there was no wind.

  Pidge had never seen such a host of people working together in one place; so many that they couldn’t be counted.

  Everything sparkled and was radiant under the sun’s blaze. Wherever there was the smallest drop of water even, it shone like a mirror and the bits of quartz in rocks, glittered and flashed. The men wore homespuns and brightly-coloured jumpers, some red as cherries and others peacock-blue, and they were scattered all over the valley in dabs, like spatters of paint. The women’s petticoats were of scarlet; the grass was a brilliant green.

  As they walked down into the valley, people stopped work and greeted them when they passed by, and some, a long way off, paused to wave.

  ‘There’ll be time for you to get a bit of breakfast,’ said Finn.

  ‘Good,’ said Brigit. ‘But no hollyhedges or nettles, for me.’

  From end to end, the valley was easily four miles long. The houses of the people were of the traditional long, low type, whitewashed and thatched. The roofs of straw had darkened like old honey.

  They followed the track down and along the valley-floor and the people all stopped in turn, leaving their chopping and burning and digging-out of roots, to say a greeting. Old Daire and Finn were very well-liked it seemed; and beneath all the friendliness, there was an undertone of great respect.

  Finn had lifted Brigit back on to the ass and she had a good view of all that they passed.

  ‘Are all these your relations and corrections?’ she asked, impressed by their numbers.

  ‘Yes,’ Finn replied seriously while the other two smiled.

  ‘I hope you don’t have to buy them all birthday presents,’ she said with sympathy.

  ‘Ah, they’re far too old for that,’ said Old Daire.

  In one of the fields that was well-in from the track and butting right against the base of the rock wall, Pidge noticed a whole herd of donkeys, who left off browsing to watch them go by.

  At length they turned in at one of the small fields near the far end and the people there came to meet them. Now as Pidge looked back, the people at the entrance to the valley were the ones who looked small.

  There was talk of breakfast for the arrivals. Pidge wasn’t at all sure if they had time and mentioned this in a vague way to the company in general.

  ‘You’ll be all right for a while, I’m thinking. Throw your length down on the grass and we’ll bring the food outside. Isn’t it all ready and all you have to do is eat,’ Old Daire said reassuringly, and then he went with the people into the nearest house.

  Pidge sat on the grass and watched Brigit flash away, chattering to this one and that. He called her but she paid no heed. There she goes not talking to strangers, he thought, laughing quietly. She was following Finn who had gone into the next field to talk with the people there. Everywhere he went, she was behind him; like a pet lamb.

  A relaxed feeling stole over Pidge; he lay on his side with an elbow on the ground and his hand propping up his head, as he enjoyed the sun and the air; and the noises the people made while working. His eyes were closing with the languor of it all. From the house there came the homely sounds of crockery being moved and a kettle whistling. He lay flat on his back in the sun and stretched himself out.

  Under his head, he heard a sound like a m
uffled gong. At first he fancied that he was only sensing the vibrations made by the blows of implements, as they struck against stones lying unsuspected in the soil near the roots of the furze bushes; but realizing that it was too quick a rate for a man with a spade to work at, and far more muffled than the sounds around him anyway, he turned his ear to the earth.

  As soon as it had taken his attention, the sound stopped and he heard a whispering, distinct and audible though very low.

  It said:

  ‘Sow the wheat here.’

  It was something like the Voice in the chimney.

  Again, Pidge was overcome, but not by shock this time and not by fear; it was pure surprise.

  ‘Do you mean the seed of The Maines?’ he whispered back.

  ‘Sow the seed here,’ the Voice said in answer.

  There are no other seeds, he thought and felt in his pocket. He had wrapped the grains of wheat in his handkerchief. He scraped away a little earth, undid the hankie and dropped the seeds in the hole and covered them. He watched the spot, waiting for something to happen, some marvellous thing to begin.

  Nothing at all happened.

  ‘Did I do right?’ he asked the earth quietly, as he doubted.

  ‘You did,’ the Voice whispered back.

  Then from the house came a small procession of people, Old Daire leading. Two men carried a long table and four men carried two benches that matched the table for length. Three women came carrying trays of crockery and food.

  ‘Come on, Your Nibs—your bit to eat is ready!’ Old Daire shouted.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Finn shouted back.

  ‘Wait-A-Minute lost the ducks!’ Old Daire yelled back. He was surreptitiously heeling in the little patch of seeds with his boot, but Pidge saw him do it out of the corner of his eye.

  The table was set and Brigit and Finn came back, and everybody sat down to eat.

  There were baskets of boiled eggs, and platters with wholemeal bread, and small dishes of butter for everyone and mugs of hot sweet tea. There were two plates of specially scrambled eggs with herbs of some kind for Brigit and Pidge, and they drank some unusual fruit juice that they had never tasted before. All the crockery had a lovely dandelion pattern; rich yellow and green colours on a cream background in the glazing. Brigit especially admired the egg-cups that the other people were using.