by Pat O'Shea
‘Sure somebody has to, or you’d be up to your ears in them.’
‘What do they taste like?’
‘Sometimes they do taste of one thing and sometimes another. Roast quail and chicken or sausages, anything the like of that,’ Mawleogs explained.
‘I see,’ Brigit said, and carried on with her potatoes.
Pidge was relieved that nobody was the slightest bit offended.
‘These are very good Golden Wonders; we always grow them at home,’ he said; and then looked quickly at Brigit, fearing that she might suddenly be upset at his thoughtless use of the word ‘home’; but she was drinking her milk and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, quite untroubled.
‘The ram and sheep up above stamped them out of a field and pushed them along with their noses until they dropped through the holes in the roof onto the safety-net. Nora gave us the milk,’ Mawleogs said.
‘Who’s Nora?’ Brigit asked.
‘A very sweet person, dear,’ Anastasia replied; ‘she lets the kids do a high wire act between her horns anytime they care to. But we’re friends mostly because we catch the flies that drive her demented. We made the butter from her cream. Is it nice?’
‘It’s great,’ Brigit said.
‘And all my wool is a gift from the sheep. The flies do terrible things to them, poor creatures,’ she dropped her voice to a whisper; ‘maggots, you know.’
‘Hush, Anastasia—the children!’ Mawleogs said.
‘We doesn’t be often having ’puds,’ the littlest spider ventured, and then his bravery astounded him so much that he choked on a particle and had to be held upside-down by Anastasia and slapped gently on the back until it fell out. As soon as he had his breath back he bent his head and searched the ground until he spied it and then he jumped up and down on the potato particle to get his revenge. He climbed back up onto his seat and drank some milk.
‘Isn’t the cricket going to have any?’ Brigit asked.
‘Oh, Batty don’t eat this early; he only just got up,’ the littlest spider said, now fully recovered.
At this, Batty emerged from the back of the fire, brushing the turf-ashes from his clothes and blowing them off his fiddle. He took off his flat cap and beat it against a seat-edge and the dust flew in clouds. Everyone started coughing and when the dust had settled again, Batty stood revealed.
He wore an old tweed suit and the cap, of course; and his small face was almost overshadowed out of existence by a great pair of bulging spectacles.
‘Hallo, the house,’ he said, taking off his cap briefly.
‘Hallo, yourself,’ all the spiders answered.
‘I’ll ate me spuds by and by when you’re all snoring,’ he said and tuned the fiddle.
‘Begob! We’ll make a night of it!’ Mawleogs said: ‘We’ll have a bit of a hooley.’ He smiled broadly and took a flute, a bodhran and a set of pipes from a cubby-hole behind where he was sitting. He nodded his head at the young ones.
‘But you’ll wash the delph, first,’ he said, and all the small spiders with the exception of the littlest one, rushed and scuttled and splashed and argued and the dishes were done in a trice. The littlest one climbed up and sat on the crown of Mawleogs’ hard hat.
‘Who’ll give us a few steps of a dance?’ Mawleogs inquired as he gave a preliminary blow into his flute.
‘I’ll do the Fly Land Hing,’ a young spider offered shyly.
With a nod to Batty, and a one, two, three of a foot on the ground, Mawleogs and the cricket began to play. With his first pair of legs, Mawleogs played the flute; the second pair of legs beat the bodhran, held sideways to be out of the way of the third pair of legs that performed vigorously on the pipes. Batty fiddled; puffs of dust rising from him again and again from the energy of his elbow.
The little spider, with more than the usual number of legs at his disposal, danced the most amazing Hing that the world has ever seen. All of the others clapped in time with the music, and on Mawleogs’ hat the littlest one drummed the crown with his fists. Anastasia’s knitting-needles went as fast as the music and by the time the shy dancer reached the end of his dance, she had done at least five inches on each garment. Everyone clapped and cheered; the dancer bowed low and went to his seat, giggling.
‘Next item!’ Mawleogs cried; and two more spiders took the floor. One of them played The Flight of The Bumblebee’ on paper and comb and the other mimed it. Gusts of laughter greeted this performance as all the spiders found it immensely funny.
Anastasia now put down her knitting and went to her silver web.
‘Get to your harps, Class Five,’ she cried; and a couple of dozen young ones ran to the shadows and sat at small webs part-hidden in corners and waited for their cues. Anastasia played a beautiful haunting air. As she completed each passage, she rested; and gentle echoes of her music rippled in from the little musicians, who really sounded as if they were all masters of their work.
‘When Anastasia plays like that, it pulls the heart out of me,’ Mawleogs whispered to Pidge, his voice filled with emotion.
The music came to an end in a shower of grace notes and after a hush, there was the wildest applause possible and cries for more.
The harpers all bowed and began a selection of lively dance tunes, sliding from one into another time after time without as much as a single wrong note, ending on a rush of counter-pointing notes that rang around the cave. In the silence that followed, a peal of echoes came back from passages to other caves, unnoticed until this, by Brigit and Pidge.
After all the mad applause had died away, Anastasia and her harpers stood up and bowed and then went back to their places; the young ones all beaming at each other.
‘Always keep your limbs supple and your shoulder muscles relaxed, my dears,’ Anastasia said, going back to her knitting at once.
‘How’s the time, Batty?’ Mawleogs asked.
‘Moving on, as usual,’ came the answer.
‘Time the kids danced a couple of hammocks,’ Anastasia said, clicking away.
‘Right. You’ll all dance a couple of hammocks for Pidge and Brigit, now,’ Mawleogs said.
‘Will she pay us?’ one young spider asked.
‘What?’ Anastasia cried.
‘He’s a money spider,’ a small one beside Brigit whispered loudly.
‘No I’m not,’ the first one said, as bright as a tomato.
‘Nothing wrong with money spiders—they bring a lot of luck,’ Mawleogs said.
‘I’m not a money spider, at all. I only meant would she pay us after we do the dancin’, by playin’ yoyos with us same as she did with you.’
‘Of course I will,’ Brigit said, and every one of the younger spiders cheered.
‘That’s settled. Line up for the Haymaker’s Jig. We want two hammocks so that’s four lines.’
So, after a lot of scrambling, the young spiders formed two pairs of long lines in the middle of the cave.
‘Threads … out!’ Mawleogs shouted when they were ready and every little spider reached behind himself and pulled a thread from his rear.
‘Stick them in pairs,’ Mawleogs instructed them and as Batty tuned his fiddle, the spiders joined the threads two-by-two and stuck them down on the ground behind them.
‘One, two, three and off,’ Mawleogs shouted, and away went the first bars of the jig and the little spiders began to dance and weave in and out; and on the floor of the cave, the threads met and crossed and looped. At first, they could hardly be seen but they were getting thicker bit by bit. Pidge and Brigit watched with delight. The dancers danced with grace and agility and they made arches and went under them and swung each other in the centre and did chains.
‘The Siege Of Ennis,’ Mawleogs cried, changing the music; and the spiders faced each other in ranks of fours, and danced and spun and passed over and under, and the spinning on the floor looked whiter and whiter.
‘The Walls Of Limerick—last dance, lads and lassies!’ Mawleogs announced; and they danced
the dance as thoroughly as possible and by the time it was finished, there was an incredible pair of weavings on the ground.
‘Cast off,’ Mawleogs instructed them and they released their threads and brought them together in pairs.
They ought to finish those off with a nice hop jig round the edges, dearest,’ Anastasia suggested: ‘It would give a pretty picôt touch to it.’
So, once more, there was music and dance and then all was finished.
‘Well,’ Mawleogs said appreciatively, ‘don’t talk about Hargreaves and his Spinning Jenny after that! A perfect job in each case. Gather them up with great care now.’
The hammocks were lifted carefully by groups of spiders at the corners and carried nearer to the fire, where they were attached to spaces in the walls.
Anastasia sent other groups to get the bedding from her bedding boxes and they came back with their arms piled high with blankets, some knitted in wool and some made from spun silk, and thistledown pillows, and they gave them to Anastasia who arranged them in the hammocks.
‘Why was she spinning, that Jenny?’ one of the young spiders asked wonderingly.
‘Drunk!’ said a little voice from the top of Mawleogs’ hat.
‘Yoyos!’ the spiders cried, drumming their heels on the floor.
‘You’ll have to help me, Pidge,’ Brigit said and they took them in groups of about three and four at a time depending on size. Lifting their hands high, with each little spider clinging on to its thread with expressions of intense concentration, they made throwing gestures and spiders shot out in all directions with delighted cries of fear and excitement; and then they all rolled quickly back up until they were just under the palms of the outstretched hands, and then they were thrown again. Each group got twelve goes; all outdoing each other in thrilled shrieks.
The littlest spider was last of all. Brigit hooked him on to her finger. His tiny legs trembled and he was very scared.
‘I be’s afraid her’ll play conkers with me,’ he said, looking round.
‘No I won’t, don’t worry. I’ll be very careful,’ Brigit said, and she dropped him gently and he rolled back very efficiently; said ‘Hurrah!’ weakly; and ‘That’s enough,’ very quickly.
Everyone gave him a well-deserved round of applause.
Then Batty told a story and they all gazed into the fire, their eyes going vacant as they listened. When it was finished, they still gazed hypnotized, until Mawleogs gave it a dig with the poker and a sheaf of sparks flew, graceful as the tail of an imagined firebird. For a while, the only sound to be heard was the clicking of the knitting-needles and it was all very peaceful until suddenly, Anastasia gave a shriek and went rigid.
‘Hark! I hear a voice!’ she cried; ‘I feel them; the invisibles are here!’
The knitting dropped from her lifeless hands.
The little spiders shuffled in close together.
‘Oh, Janey!’ they whispered, and all of their eyes stood out in their heads and were like dozens of tiny full moons.
‘She’s gone off,’ Mawleogs said, relighting his pipe: ‘Now we should hear something worth hearing.’
‘She’s gone funny,’ one of the kids said while they waited, and he shook with nervous giggles.
‘Hush!’ Mawleogs admonished him and puffed his pipe, to all appearances extremely calm.
Anastasia’s eyes went glassy.
‘There’s a message …. I’m getting a message …. the voice is faint …. I’m getting “Midget”, yes, that’s it, I think,’ she said.
Pidge gave Brigit a half-smile, thinking that Anastasia was putting on a show for them.
‘The voice is saying that I’m not getting it right … “Bridge! Midget!” … I see him! I see him! A tall man wearing white who is shaking his head and wagging his finger at me. Not “Midget” and not “Bridge” … I’ve got it! He’s saying “Brigit and Pidge”. Is there anyone here called “Brigit”? Is there anyone here named “Pidge”? If there is—speak! The message is for you.’
Pidge smiled and nudged Brigit because he thought it great fun.
‘She knows we’re here,’ Brigit said.
‘Not when she’s like this. She doesn’t know her own name when she’s like this. Answer her,’ said Mawleogs quietly.
‘Yes,’ Pidge said, ‘we’re here.’
‘The man in white is making passes with his hands and showing me a picture as I’m having trouble hearing him. I see a picture—as plain as anything.’
Her voice changed and she made a solemn chant:
‘The One whose bone is made of stone,
The One whose height turns day to night;
Granite hard is now his hide,
But he is still alive inside.
On his head, there are two trees,
And for your sake, he’ll bend his knees;
With whelk, you’ll find his name doth rhyme,
He’s been for Ages trapped in time … .
Here, she heaved a deep, lingering sigh and said more normally: ‘Sorry about the last two lines—the man dressed in white is laughing at me. Now he is nodding and smiling and saying that, two hours before dawn, you must go to that One. I’ve got it right! He’s pleased. He’s fading, smiling, nodding—fading, fading …. he’s going, going, gone!’
She fluttered briefly and woke up.
‘How was it—was it any good at all?’ she asked, taking up her knitting.
Mawleogs had taken his pipe from his mouth and he was staring at her. He looked flabbergasted. All of the kids shivered and sighed. Batty laid down his fiddle very softly with hands that trembled.
‘Good?’ Mawleogs said. ‘You described The Very Lonely One and you did it in poetry. Our friends must go to him two hours before dawn’.
‘Who is The Very Lonely One?’ Pidge asked faintly, by now greatly impressed.
Chapter 25
‘THE Very Lonely One is a great being. I tend to him once a year,’ Mawleogs said.
‘Oooooooh!’ all the little spiders said, and they quivered with jittery rapture and snuggled in to each other and waited for more.
‘I bring him flowers,’ Mawleogs said, staring into the fire.
‘Ooooooh!’ they all said again; and the littlest one asked:
‘Does he be liking them?’
‘I don’t know for he never speaks; and how could he, poor thing, when he’s stone dead.’
This was too much for some of them and there were a few half-stifled shrieks.
Anastasia looked at them sharply.
‘Bed for you and for all of us; and well time for it,’ she said, ‘we have to be up before dawn.’
‘Aaaaaaw, they all said, ‘we’re not a bit tired.’
Brigit grinned.
‘Tired or not, off you go; you’re excited enough, and if you have any more of it we’ll be kept awake all night with you roaring. Batty, you’ll have to be wound up to go off two hours before cockshout, my dear.’
‘Whatever you say, ma’am,’ Batty answered obligingly.
‘You’ll see to the fire as usual?’
‘Faith, I will, ma’am.’
Pidge and Brigit climbed into their hammocks and settled down. They saw Mawleogs wind up the cricket by turning one of his feelers a few times, knocking on his forehead gently and giving him a bit of a shake to make sure that he was working. Puffs of dust rose from Batty in the usual way. Anastasia had already settled herself in a silken nest a little way off and all of the young ones were safely cocooned and hanging in garlands on the walls near to the fire. Mawleogs wished Batty and everyone else goodnight and away he went to his own bed at the far side of the cave, near the place where they had first come in.
I’ll never sleep this night, Pidge thought.
He stared down through the meshes of the hammock at the fire. The hammock was cosy and comfortable. Batty started to play his fiddle very, very softly; and from Brigit’s hammock nearby, Pidge could hear her breathing; and knew by it that she was already fast asleep. He
got no answer when he whispered, ‘Are you awake?’
Presently, there came the blowing and the whistling of dozens of little snores as the young ones slept and, before Pidge could think anymore, he was fast asleep himself.
The next thing he knew was that Mawleogs was standing by him, pulling at his sleeve, saying:
‘Wake up, Pidge. The cricket went off five minutes ago, didn’t you hear him?’; and that Brigit was already sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with her fists.
Anastasia had stirred up the fire that Batty had minded all night; and in a few seconds, they joined her there.
‘I never slept a wink thinking of you,’ she said to them.
‘You’re all very kind and good to us,’ Pidge said.
‘I wish we hadn’t got to say goodbye to you at all,’ Brigit added.
‘Drink a sup of milk before you go,’ Mawleogs said, handing them two full mugs.
‘All the children are still asleep,’ Brigit said, sounding disappointed.
‘We would have liked to say goodbye,’ Pidge said, wishing that they were awake.
‘They’re better left alone; they’d be bawling and crying and roaring after you and they’d make you late,’ Anastasia said.
And then the milk was finished and it was time to go. Mawleogs held a piece of resinous wood in the fire for a few moments to make a flare.
He held it aloft.
‘We’d best be off,’ he said.
‘Goodbye, Anastasia, goodbye, Batty. Thanks for everything,’ they said.
‘Not at all, not at all,’ both replied, and then Pidge and Brigit followed Mawleogs across the cave to where it was darkest, turning round to wave silently before they disappeared after him into a dark tunnel.
Then it came forward in Brigit’s mind that she was going to see someone who was dead.
‘I don’t like this a bit, Pidge,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry. There can’t be any harm in it or The Dagda wouldn’t allow it,’ he answered softly.
The passage twisted and went one way for a while, and then it turned and went another way, and then for a long time it didn’t do anything but was just a straight passage. Then it seemed to go uphill for a bit and then downhill and Pidge wondered how far into the earth they were going.