Looking Back

ON a morning in August, in making another of his parish rounds, the Minister turned in past Emo (just then being builded again) and went down through the fields to the Thrasna River. The day was close and hot, one of those relaxing Irish days when even the grasshopper is a burden, with a low sky and a haze wrapped about the hills. The world seemed empty or gone asleep, no birds in it, no sound of man or beast; nothing but a great murmur of gnats in the air and a distant whir in the river meadow. Far away (so it seemed that morning in little Emo) haymakers were working on the slopes, women stooping among the heather ; but these kept silent in the noon, closed in and vague like figures in a waking dream. The day was lifeless ; and even the Minister, usually so vigorous, plodded wearily, hat in hand and his staff beneath his arm.

Once come, however, within hail of the white cottage which stands on the river brink (the home once of Thady Sheeran, now of Wee James and Annie his wife), his step quickened. Something was toward down there and life in plenty. Fowls were cackling, a dog stood barking, and from the open doorway that looked upon the river came a tumult of children, one squalling, another howling, a third striving to pacify both with piercing threats. And to greet the Minister did the pig start squealing in its sty, and the dog come baying like a fury. “ Good dog,” said he ; then turned from the littered yard straight into the riot of Annie’s kitchen.

His figure in the doorway brought sudden peace ; soon his eyes grew used to the smoky dimness and he saw about the room. It was small, with whitewashed walls, sooty rafters, and a narrow window; here an open hearth, there a little dresser, everywhere pots and pans, stools and tubs, strewn upon the clay floor, and among them three children, one seated on the hearth, another tied in a chair, the third in a cotton gown standing by the dresser. All were grimed ; the faces of two were swollen and streaked ; but the eldest, aflush with shame, stood looking at her bare feet. She might be eight years old. She had long dark hair tied back with a red ribbon. Already she gave promise of that lithe beauty which once, in the good old days, had made Annie her mother famous in Gorteen.

A minute the Minister stood in the doorway, his figure dark against the sky; then he stepped amid the litter.

“ Well, Annie,” said he. “ So you ’re keeping house, I see.” The child stood silent, twisting a corner of her apron. From hearth and chair came stifled sounds of sobbing. “ Where’s your mother, Annie ? ” asked the Minister, bending low, his hat behind him, and the dog sniffing at his heels. “ Is she out ? ”

“ Yes, sir.” Annie looked up. “Please, sir — yes, sir.”

“ Ah ! ” The Minister laid hat and stick upon the dresser, pulled a chair from a corner and sat down. “Perhaps she ’ll be back soon ? ”

“ Please, sir, I dunno.”

“ Where is she, Annie ? ”

“ Please, sir, I dunno.”

“ Ah ! ” The Minister pulled the child toward him and sat her on his knee. “ Has she been gone long ? ”

“ Please, sir, a good while.” Annie sat looking at her hands, fingers twisting ceaselessly in her apron, her cheeks burning. “Father was cross at breakfast time, sir, an’ — an’ ” —

“ Then your mother went out, Annie ? ”

“ Please, sir — yes, sir.”

The Minister’s face fell grave. He nodded slowly, with his eyes upon the prospect of hill and river that was framed by the doorway, telling himself that he understood. Ten years of plodding from door to door through a Loughside parish had perfected him in the art of drawing apt conclusions from scanty evidence. Father was cross at breakfast time. — Yes; but where was Annie, and why had she left her children ? Think of the open fire, the river out there, and only this child to watch and keep ! “ Has mother left you like this before?” he asked.

“ No, sir ; not ever.”

“ And you don’t know which way she went? ”

“ Please, sir, that way,” answered the child, and nodded toward the Crockan and the big river meadow.

“ Yes. Well, we must find her, Annie. Meantime, let us make things tidy a little.”

The Minister rose, stripped off his coat, and helped Annie to clear the kitchen. Stools and chairs were put in their places, pots and pans set beneath the dresser, tubs and baskets moved into the yard ; the floor was sprinkled and swept, the hearth cleaned with a heather besom, a fire built beneath the kettle. Then, all being in order, the Minister held a basin whilst Annie washed the children’s faces ; sat holding a bowl of bread and milk whilst Annie fed them with an iron spoon ; sat rocking the cradle with one quiet within it, and another on his knee sucking its thumb, and Annie spelling in a book on a stool beside him. He was flushed and hot. Sometimes he sang softly, and then Annie looked pensive ; sometimes helped her with a word or stroked her hair, and then she smiled over her book. He felt happy; and when both children were hushed asleep, one in the cradle, the other on a cot in the little bedroom, he took up hat and coat unwillingly.

“ Don’t — don’t go, please, sir,” pleaded Annie, her eyes in tears.

“ But I must, Annie. I ’m going to find mother, you know.” He stooped and kissed her. " Now be a good girl, and sit there by the door till I come back.”

“ You will come back, sir ? ”

“ Oh yes — I ’ll come back, Annie,” said the Minister; and turned for the Crockan and the big meadow.

His path went along the river bank for a little way, past a fishing cot, a shallow well, and a few crab trees ; then across a ditch and straight up a conical hill, with its bristle of oak stumps and scattering of stunted trees, which in Emo is called the Crockan. It was quite steep, and once on its top the Minister had wide view of the countryside. He saw the haymakers at work in the big meadow and in the meadows along the winding river valley ; saw misty hills crowding this way toward Bunn town and that toward the woods of Curleck; saw Emo standing high before the dim mountain, and the cattle in the rushy fields, and the sheep nibbling almost at his feet — then, of a sudden, a gleam of red and white halfway down the Crockan’s river slope. — Red and white ? That of a surety was Annie.

Softly the Minister went down; he stopped soon in full sight of a woman lying flat upon the grass, feet crossed, and head resting upon her clasped hands. She wore a red bodice and a spotted cotton skirt. Her hair was unkempt; her face, still handsome and keeping its roses, was set and hard. She must have heard the Minister’s foot, for presently she twisted over on an elbow and looked back, then bent upright, clasped her drawn-up knees with both hands, and sat looking across the river.

“ Well, Annie.” The Minister came down and stood beside her. “ I’ve been looking for you.”

“ Have ye ? ” came back, short and cold, without word or sign of greeting.

“ Yes. I’ve just come from the cottage. I found the children there.”

“ Did ye ? ”

“ I don’t think, Annie, it’s quite right to leave them alone like that.”

“ Don’t ye ? ”

“ Something might happen to them, you know.”

“ Maybe if something did it’d be all the better.”

This was strange talk. The Minister sat down upon the slope, a little way from Annie and behind her, so that he might see her face.

“ What a view one has from here.” Annie kept silent. “ I fear the weather will soon change.” Annie’s lips kept tight. “ I suppose James is working in the meadow there,” ventured the Minister ; and with that Annie spoke.

“ I don’t care where he is,” she said, her voice keen and bitter. “ I care nothin’ about him.”

“ Nor for the children ? ” asked the Minister.

“ No; nor for them. I—I hate them,” said Annie, with sudden fierceness. “ Yes ; I do.”

Again the Minister thought it well to change the talk. A minute he sat pondering, his eyes sideways on the woman’s face. Then, “ You ’re not yourself today, Annie,” he said ; and getting no answer tried again. “ What’s wrong ? ” he asked, turning and leaning upon an elbow.

“ Wrong?” A hard smile gathered upon her face, and she sat repeating the word to herself with quick little jerks of the head. “ Wrong — wrong — what is n’t wrong ? Life’s wrong. The world’s wrong.— Ah, I wish to glory I was dead. Then — then all ’d be over. Everything. Everything in this miserable world.”

The Minister, knowing the unburdening power of words, hoped she might keep on ; but she did not; so he said, “ But would everything be over then, Annie ? ”

“ Ay. ’T would. Better be dead an’ burnin’ than endurin’ here. Only I’m a coward I’d be in the river there now, only for ”—

“ The children ? ”

Her face softened a shade, but she hardened it quickly and went on: —

“ An hour ago I was as near doin’ it as woman ever was. What kept me ? What kept me back ? Ah, my God, what I’ve been through this day! What I’ve seen. What I’ve endured.”

She buried her face in her hands, and drew long breaths that shivered down her ; of a sudden she looked around, face flushed, eyes wild, and broke out : —

“ What is it to you what I’ve endured ? What is it to any man ? You ’re all the same — all selfish an’ hard an’ cruel. Women ? Oh, God help poor women in this miserable world! A month an’ it’s all over with them, only drudges an’ slaves, fit for nothin’ but child-bearin’, an’ carryin’ meat to pigs, an’ servin’ meals to the men that owns them. Fit ? No ; not even for that. For let ye drudge your life out an’ you ’ve only to keep them hungry five minutes too long an’ you ’re not fit to wipe their boots. Ah, I know it; I know it well; ” and, resting elbows on knees and cheeks in her hands, Annie sat looking hopelessly across the valley, rigid as a figure of stone.

The Minister wanted to speak, but could not. Fit words, in such circumstances, were hard to find. He understood, yet knew it vain to say so ; sympathized, yet feared to show his sympathy ; could no more than sit there silently waiting for what might come.

During ten minutes or more he waited ; with Annie silent beside him, hands crossed on her upgathered knees and chin resting upon them ; then, drawing a long breath she raised her head and looked from hill to hill, slowly as might one who has just wakened from sleep.

“ Ah, but this weather’s woeful,” she said, her voice softer now and deep with plaintiveness. “It weighs one down like lead. I can feel it in me very blood. It’s just as if the world was in a temper, an’ everything goin’ wrong in it. Ah, yes. Well I knew when I woke this mornin’ that somethin’ was goin’ to happen. I felt it strong in me. If it had n’t come soon it’d have come late ; an’ maybe — maybe ’t was better soon. Better get bad over an’ done with. Better — Ah, dear Heaven, the little it takes to blacken one’s heart. Just somethin’ in the air, just a mouthful o’ hot words, an’ there ’s one runnin’ like a mad thing with the whole world failin’ in an’ crushin’ one down. Never before has such a thing come to me — never — never before.”

Face in hands, Annie sat looking before her out into the haze that wrapped the hills, still with that waking look in her eyes, that pensive shadow upon her face. A little while longer, thought the Minister, a little more unburdening of herself in words, and she would be herself again, awake and seeing. She looked at him.

“ Have ye ever thought till your eyes burned ? ” She pressed a finger against her forehead. “ Have ye ever thought till ye were afire just there ? Ye think So ? Well, that’s how I’ve been these hours an’ hours. Think ? I’ve been mad with thinkin’. I’ve lain here lookin’ an’ lookin’ — back an’ forward — till me head blazed. I’ve lived through every hour of me life as far back as I can mind till this hour; an’ I’ve gone on seem’ an’ seein’ for years — Ah, the blessed old days! If only one could know in time. The free happy hour’s when one was a child, a wee thoughtless child, without care or pain; the days when one was a girl an’ there was only sunshine in the world; the times I had, away back, when Jan Farmer was here in Emo, an’ Harry Thomson made love to me, an’ every man in the country would ha’ given his eyes to have me ! To think o’ what I was then. I could run miles. I could dance all night. The days went like minutes. Ah, dear heart, the tomboy I was, the times I had, the chances — the chances ! I wonder ” — Her voice died out, and her chin sank upon her hands.

What was she wondering ? thought the Minister, his mind busy among bygone things. Was she deep in the might-have-beens, wishing, regretting, contrasting them with what had been ; seeing herself the wife of another than Wee James, maybe a lady in big London, maybe mistress in Emo, maybe contented and happy ? All she said was true. Ten years ago she had had a countryside at her willful feet; now, in these vain hours of revolt, she saw herself only a hillside drudge, neglected, forgotten, tortured with memories of lost gifts and chances. It was hard enough, thought the Minister; yet surely was not too hard. Others had to bear burdens. Not she only, even among the patient toilers of the hills, had hours of torture and rebellion, questionings, wonderings. They came to every one. They had to be faced and borne — and borne alone.

“ An’ now,” Annie went on, unclasping her hands and folding them in her lap, “ all’s gone — gone — gone. Never can I be young again, or merry any more. All the wishin’ in life can’t bring back one day — not one hour; an’ no strivin’ can keep back what’s comin’. Ah, to think of it, to think of it! All that behind me,” she said, and jerked her head backwards ; “ all that before me,” she moaned, and shivered, and sat looking into the future. “ Drudgery an’ heart-break ; work, work from dawn to dark ; trouble an’ trial an’ pain ; every day just the same, risin’, toilin’, goin’ to bed, every day a little nearer to the end. Ah, but it’s hard. Ah, but it’s bitter hard ! ”

“ It is, Annie,” said the Minister. “ But it has to be met.”

“ Ay. It’s got to be met.”

“ And after all maybe it won’t be so bitter. There are bright things even there,” said the Minister, and waved a hand toward the valley. “ To-morrow the sky may be clear ; to-night, perhaps, we may see the moon. Let us live in hope.”

She did not answer ; so the Minister looked at his watch and rose.

“ It’s nearly dinner time,” he said. “ Soon James will be coming from the meadow.”

She smiled, but did not move.

“ I promised the children I’d find you for them,” the Minister went on. “ Poor little mites, there all alone! Annie, suppose you go back and find ” —

She looked up quickly, dread in her eyes; then, with a cry, sprang to her feet and ran up the slope, down through the trees, and along the river bank. “Annie,” she kept calling. “Annie — Annie ! ”

Slowly the Minister followed her; but when he reached the cottage, such a sound of joyful weeping came to him through the doorway that he paused, turned, and softly went away.

Shan Bullock.