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The Grey Horse
R.A. MacAvoy
To the people of Carraroe
Names of the People
Anraí Ó Reachtaire — Henry Raftery, sometimes called Anraí Thurlaigh, or Henry, son of Turlough, after his father
Áine NíAnluain — Anne Raftery, his wife
Seosamh Ó Reachtaire — Joe Raftery, their son
Ruairí MacEibhir — Rory MacEever
Eibhear, pronounced “Eever” — Granite: Ruairí’s father
Gaoth, pronounced “Gwee” — Wind: Ruairí’s mother
Donncha MacSiadhail — Donald MacSheel
Máire NíStandún — Mary Stanton
Eibhlín NíStandún — Eileen Stanton, her sister
Seán Standún — John Stanton, their father
Tadhg Ó Murchú — Tim Murphy, priest of the parish
Diarmuid Ó Cadhain — Dermitt Cain
I went from door to door in Carraroe, with an introduction from Peig Bean Uí Cheallaigh and accompanied by one of the Ó Ceallaigh boys, trying to find out the history of the place. Everyone told me there had been none: that the great events of the last century and more in Ireland had passed that parish cleanly by.
At last, in the parlor of the rectory, I discovered one fact: that in the early years of the Land League, a group of Carraroe women had held off an eviction by their combined strength. Around this one bit of history I have woven a great deal of fiction.
None of my characters are based on real people of the time. Tadhg Ó Murchú was not priest of the parish. I expect there was always more than one. There are many Ó Reachtaires in Connaught, none of them related to Anraí, the trainer. Standún, or Stanton, is another common name.
MacEibhir is a name I made up.
I am indebted to the Ó Ceallaigh family of An Sruthán for their hospitality to a stranger and for the “protection of their name” all the time I was with them. And I am indebted to Dr. Peadar Macanlomaire for his support in an effort he may have thought a little bit mad. I feel a great debt to all the people of the Cois Fhairrge area of Connemara, because folk such as they are the hope of the world.
Chapter One
An Sruthán, or The Eddies
The sky was full of the grey scum of a soup kettle on the boil. The wind blew from the east, or the north, or south from Galway Bay; it was always changing. Anraí Ó Reachtaire came along the Cois Fhairrge Road holding his hand up against his forehead as a sort of makeshift hatbrim, equally ineffective against the pinching hail and the unexpected flashes of sunlight that made his eyes water.
Anraí’s hair was thin on top, and the wind was doing its best to thin it further. It might have been that years of leaving his hat behind in places as far from home as Dublin and London had worked the damage, but the weathers of Connemara were enough cause for baldness by themselves. He was a man of approximately seventy years and had never been noted for either grace of body or beauty of feature: not even in his coming-up years. His pride in those early days had always been the length of time passed (once, five years, and another time, seven) since a horse had unseated him. At this time in his life Anraí was wary of that subject, and it was his study to get the better of the animals that were his occupation without undue risk. He always carried a rope halter concealed under his shirt, to save trips to the stable.
He had come this route last night, delivering a yearling filly to a man at Doleen Harbor, but his own mount had begun the day lame, and Anraí had decided to walk until he could catch a ride on some passing wagon. There had been no wagons and a lot of weather.
Anraí stopped to breathe, for the way from here to Carraroe was uphill, and he let the wind turn his face toward the water. He braced his feet and locked his knees.
So much activity in the air and on the ruffled water, and even grass sods being blown, root, dirt, and all, over the road … Only the granite of the hills was safe from it. Anraí found himself wishing he himself had a few more of the characteristics of stone, but as the eroded clods blew over the toes of his boots it struck him with some satisfaction that even the earth could not keep its hair on. He laughed out loud in a social fashion, as though he’d have been glad for someone to hear him.
There was someone to hear and to answer him. Anraí saw a movement of grey against grey and he heard a surprised throaty sound. He shifted his head and received a spatter of hail across his nose.
There was a bare, round hillock of stone, with sparks of quartz shining in the wet. It was thirty feet high, and the road went unambitiously around it. Anraí put his face into a squint and made out the shape of a horse or pony at the top of the hill.
A horse on a hill was as common a thing as a dog on a front stoop, but Anraí, being who he was, could never have left it alone; it was necessary he go up and see what horse it was.
The slope was slippery and gave him a twinge in the lower back. The horse looked down upon Anraí’s slow progress. There was something laughable in the position of the man: hair in his face, and hands as much as booted feet scrabbling over the bright stone and oozing mud. There was also something undecided about him, for Anraí was neither looking at the beast nor approaching it directly. Despite the effort he was expending, it did not seem the man had any interest in the horse at all, but instead only wanted the small increase in view the elevation would give him.
And perhaps because of this inconsequentiality, the horse stood and allowed Anraí to scuffle up beside him, and even to use his untrimmed mane as a handhold when he painfully straightened his back. All this—the air of inconsequentiality and seeming purposelessness—was Anraí’s art and the study of his lifetime, for a man cannot catch and hold a horse by main force.
There was room at the top of the hill for six legs, and Anraí leaned against the animal’s dirty white side and waited for his heart to stop banging him. With the horse he looked out over four stone cottages—one of which had a slate roof—thirteen granite-piled low fences, and the little pier of An Sruthán, where one of Seán Standún’s fishing hookers was tied.
It was a beautiful boat, high fronted and slim, and it rocked against the bags full of kelp that padded its contact with the stones of the pier. A man in a black guernsey and a very dirty tam was handing out fish in a wooden bucket to Seán’s big, dark daughter, who took the bucket over her arm like a handbag and turned back away from the water, the weight thumping against her hip.
“It’s beyond me what you find to keep you here, my lad,” said Anraí, who had no maritime interest whatsoever, and he put his arm companionably over the broad back. The horse turned a huge, mild eye upon him—mild, but ironical about the furry edges—and in that instant the hail and wind gave up its work and the sun struck silver out of the horse’s coat. Anraí lifted his eyes in astonishment to a sky gone mostly blue.
The boat was green and gold above a brilliance of water that hurt to see. Máire Standún was carrying enamelwork fishes set in with diamonds and rubies and other stones Anraí couldn’t name. Her bored, sullen face lit as the sun touched it, in such a manner that Anraí did not know whether it had been a trick of light or of her own mood. The sailor put both arms to his head and tore his tam off. He shouted something Anraí could not make out, but certainly expressed enthusiasm.
“Well,” said Anraí, thumping the dirty fur. “Pretty picture, isn’t it?
Certainly that was worth some puffing and blowing. In the winter, too.” Then, having established rapport and communality of interest with the horse, he dared turn to look it straight on.
“God bless you, I don’t know you at all, and if you’ll take no offense by it, I’d like to have a good look now.”
The horse shifted its very small ears, as though to say that no offense had been taken so far, and Anraí let his resting arm slip over the horse’s withers and down the point of the brawny shoulder, for it was Anraí’s habit, with winter-coated horses, to look with his hands.
It was a laudably straight and clean foreleg he felt, free from swelling or splints. The fetlock was hard and the pastern remarkably well angled and long, considering the animal’s solidity. None of its other legs seemed a whit worse, and when Anraí, using a little shove and pinch, unweighted and lifted a foot, the ragged-edged hoof was as healthy and symmetrical as that of any of the ponies of Connemara. Which is to say, as perfect as can be.
His neck was long and his chest oval, and beneath a beard that might have concealed as well the head of a camel as that of a horse, he had the platter jaw and delicate face of a mountain pony. He gazed blandly at Anraí and sighed at the liberties the man was taking.
Anraí Ó Reachtaire walked a circle around the grey horse, one hand always on the beast’s body, mumbling to himself. An excitement almost painful was growing on him. His heart, which had its problems, had not settled from the effort of the climb and now beat drumrolls down his legs and arms, but he did not care greatly.
It was important to him that he find something wrong with this beast, or else he felt he might die here, on top of this little mammary dome, and never see Áine or his own barns again. It had been years …
He pulled firmly on the tail of the horse, walking behind, because it was common belief that a horse would not kick one in that position. Anraí did not believe this horse had such an ungenerous intention, and he had been kicked by horses whose tails he’d been holding, but still he pulled as he stepped behind. It did no harm.
What he saw, standing behind the horse, was not a fault exactly, but it did change the complexion of the matter. This was a stallion standing alone on the hill, without hobble or halter.
There were stallions enough roaming the hills to the north, certainly. Little stallions. It was easier and far cheaper to allow it so than to try to control the breeding, for a stallion was less use and more trouble than his board was worth.
But they weren’t welcome in society, as it were, and the man owning a “better” class of mare was their sworn enemy. The stallions of the improved lines were kept on straw and under roof. Thoroughbreds, Hackneys, Welsh Cobs—and any man who desired a profitable foal took his mares to one of these.
This was a native horse, thought Anraí. As certain as he was a native man. A very perfect native horse, he thought further, and did not continue the analogy. Anraí bred Thoroughbreds and half-breds, for a man must make a living, and he understood and respected the blood horse. But as he stroked the muddy hindquarters and the very yellow tail of the horse on the hilltop, he was very glad that its perfection was clearly not due to any influx of imported blood.
“You’re a fine horse,” whispered Anraí. “Please God, there’s nothing wrong to say about you. And if you were with me, I’d feed you as much oats as was good for you!”
The horse cocked a listening ear, and his brown eye was warm in the sunlight. At the word “oats” he nodded his head forcefully, as a horse does when it tastes something sweet.
Anraí laughed at him. “Oats,” he said once more, experimentally, and the animal gave a low rumble in its chest. “Indeed, you’re no wild animal; you have the flavor of Irish speech too well. Can you speak English, too, I wonder?” He gave him the word in English as well, but the horse merely stared.
Anraí pulled on its mane in a teasing manner. “That was wasted breath. Only a Gael would keep a horse like you. You’re not leggy enough for the exalted tastes of the English. You’ve too much brain, I bet, and not enough temperament by half!”
The sun went in at this, as though it could not endure the force of Anraí’s criticism, and the grey horse (suddenly dim) took a step away from him. It occurred to Anraí that he did not, in fact, own this horse, and that he had forgotten his hat. Slipping and scuffing, he headed down the hill.
The horse stood and watched him, its head turned on its long neck and its tail swishing in an unsettled manner. As Anraí reached the road, groaned, and rubbed his spine, the horse let out a shrill, commanding whinny.
The old man had to stop and look, and he turned just in time to see the horse launch itself from the top of the hill. It jumped like a cat, with back bent and its nose between its knees, and landed in a controlled skid on the granite. Another pounce and it was on the road behind Anraí, who stood with mouth open and hand over heart. The horse danced toward him, quite conscious of the effect of its performance. Its neck was arched and its head at the vertical. With every step, it made proud little gestures with its forefeet.
“God be praised,” said Anraí, on the intake of breath. But as the horse grew closer, Anraí’s manner changed completely and his dry old face wrinkled in anger. “That’s the way to break your feet, my lad, and when your coffin bones have come out the bottoms of your blood-red and crushed foot soles, then what use will you be, to yourself or to living man?”
Taken aback, the horse halted three paces away. It gave a disgusted snort and pounded its near forefoot against the stone of the roadway. Anraí saw that foot in the air and feared the worst. He closed the gap between them and demanded the hoof. Obediently, the horse gave it.
Anraí took a pick out of his pocket and poked the perfect horse foot with it. He squeezed and prodded, but to his surprise and secret satisfaction it seemed quite sound. “You haven’t taken yourself to the knackers this time, lad,” he said, and dropped the foot.
It seemed he had dropped the whole horse with it, for there was the great beast, on its front knee on the road. It looked up at him and grunted, nodding its head impatiently. Anraí blinked, but he was wary.
As a lad, he had trained a horse to bow for a lady. Once. He had vowed after that never to teach such a demeaning trick to a noble animal. A lady that couldn’t mount with a block and the aid of a groom’s hand might as well stay within doors. It had been many years since he had come across a beast taught in this manner.
Still the horse knelt and nodded. Anraí rubbed his hand over the bristle of his chin. “Are you soliciting me, my boy? Have you so much regard for my grey hairs that you’d sooner carry me down the road than see me walk?” He grinned at the idea, especially since the horse was at least as grey as the man. “Or is it that you want to take me at a disadvantage, and as soon as I’m up you’ll fling yourself into the bay and drown me, as Other Folk do to Christian souls?”
The horse looked away. It bit a fly on its knee, lost interest in the matter, rose, and walked away, ahead of Anraí, who felt he’d been rather impolite. It took him a few minutes to catch up with the beast (without seeming to chase it) and offer a full apology.
“You see, it’s a hard world, lad, and one gets more used to a neighbor’s opposition than his help. It’s rarely enough that one’s fellow creature offers charity, and I should not have scorned you so. But you must remember that the stories are …”
As though it had been shot, the horse dropped again on the road, where it knelt, nodding. The force of Anraí’s grin tickled his ears. “Well, I can’t in conscience refuse again, after that, can I?” He pulled out the scapular from around his neck, kissed it, reached for the rope halter, and stepped onto the horse.
A little moment later, as the horse was rising up (very fast, as though on springs) it occurred to Anraí that the thing to have done was to put the halter on the horse before climbing on. Simple mistake. Because now that the animal had bounded off, striking sparks from the road in its flight, there really would be no opportunity to do so.
The horse ran with his head forward and low, in relaxed fashion, and his gait was very easy to sit. For Anraí, there was nothing very disturbing in being run away with, for he was as at ease on horseback as he was on foot: more so, for on horseback his back did not hurt him, and his wind did not suffer. If the animal had a brain in its head—if it were a Connemara horse, let’s say—it would take care of the rider as part and parcel of taking care of itself. There was the rare animal that would purposely slam its side into a wall or a tree to do a rider damage, and Anraí’s experience with these had made him a spritely mover. He would have staked his winter’s hay that this beast was neither homicidal nor hysterical, and so Anraí was without fear for himself. But embarrassed he was, for allowing a horse such liberties had a bad effect on its training, and therefore Anraí cursed himself roundly for a spavined, sickle-hocked, soft-pated, hammerheaded ass as the grey horse flung itself down the road.
To the right of the road lay Lochan an Bhuilín, a lake of some two dozen acres in size, circled by black winter gorse. Its waters were mirror bright now that the wind had quieted down. Straight ahead was Carraroe—An Cheathrú Rúa, The Rough Quarter—which was called the poorest town in the poorest parish in Ireland. The first plaster-finished stone cottage rose up on the right of the road.
Anraí Ó Reachtaire coughed into his cupped hands. “I’m sure you don’t want to do this to me, my lad. Shooting me down the main avenue of the town in this unconstrained manner, like some equestrian exhibition in Galway.” The horse’s fox-sharp ears folded back attentively, and it made a sound of animal enthusiasm and nodded its white pony head. It gave a smooth little hop and shuffle and entered Carraroe dancing.
The Grey Horse Page 1