A year had passed; the potato season was over, but old Morrison, who was making considerable improvements in his steading, had kept the squad to work for him two months longer than usual, and all the party of the previous year, with the exception of Dermod Flynn, Ellen, and Annie, was there. Nobody in the squad knew where Dermod had gone, but rumour had it that he worked during the previous winter as a farm hand on a farm near Paisley. It was also said that he had done very well and had sent ten pounds home to his people in Glenmornan.

Norah Ryan had spent the winter and spring at home; her mother was still alive, but seldom ventured outside the door of the cabin. “The coldness of the dead is creeping over me,” she told Norah when the girl was leaving for Scotland. “My feet are like lumps of ice, and when the cold reaches my heart it will be the end, thanks be to God!”

Norah felt deeply for her mother; the old woman had none now but her daughter in all the world. Fergus had not been heard of for the last three years; some said that the boy was dead, others that he was alive and making a big fortune. Norah always prayed for him nightly when she went down on her knees, asking the Virgin to send him safe home, and “if he is dead to intercede with her Son for the repose of his soul.”

At the end of each fortnight the girl, who earned twelve shillings weekly, sent sixteen home to her mother. In four months Norah sent six pounds eight shillings to Frosses, and a pound of this went towards the expense of the priest’s mansion. The same amount had been paid the year before and Norah was well-pleased, because now her father would rest easily in his grave. “He’ll rest in peace now that all his lawful debts are paid,” the old parish priest said.

Micky’s Jim had fallen in love with Oiney Dinchy’s daughter and it was said that he was going to get married to her when he went back to Ireland. Owen Kelly was as niggardly as ever. Once during the year he had bought a pennyworth of milk and at night he left it in a beer-bottle beside his bed. In the morning the milk was gone and Owen wept! So Micky’s Jim said; and Jim also circulated a story about a rat that drank the milk from the bottle.

“But that couldn’t be, as the man said.”

“But it could be. I saw it while all the rest of ye were snorin’.”

“There’s no standin’ your lies, Micky’s Jim.”

“True as death ’twas a rat that drunk the milk,” Jim explained. “I saw it meself. Stuck its tail down the neck of the bottle and licked its tail when it took it out. Took two hours to drink the whole lot. I once had a great fight and all about a bottle of milk——”

It was Christmas Eve. Norah sat beside the coal fire which burned in the large stove in Morrison’s cart shed, seeing pictures in the flames. Outside there was no moon, but a million stars shone in a heaven that was coldly clear. To-morrow the squad was going home.

“I haven’t seen that fellow, young Morrison, for a whole year,” said Maire a Glan, who was sewing patches on her dress. “I don’t like the look of yon fellow; it makes me sick to see him sittin’ here, askin’ us about how we do this and how we do that, what we do at home and how many acres of land have we got in Ireland, and hundreds of other things that the very priest himself wouldn’t ask ye.”

“He’s a good youngster, for all ye say,” remarked Owen Kelly, who once got a shilling as a tip from the young fellow. “That’s no reason for ye takin’ such an ill will against him, Maire a Glan.”

“I don’t like him atall, atall,” said the old woman doggedly. “There’s something about him that I care little for.”

“We all have our faults, Maire,” said old Biddy Wor. “And it goes against the grain with me to speak ill of anybody, no matter who they are. Ye’ve noticed that yerself.”

“I couldn’t fail to, seein’ you’ve told me so often,” said Maire a Glan.

“There are faults and faults,” remarked Eamon Doherty. “And some faults are worse at one time than another. D’ye mind the beansho?” he asked, turning to Biddy Wor. “Of course ye mind her. Well, the man that was the cause of—ye know yerself—he got drounded at the fishin’ before he could get married to Sheila. Her fault was not a great one atall, atall.”

“She was a brazen heifer, anyway,” said Biddy Wor.

“Where is she now?” Eamon Doherty enquired.

“No one knows atall, atall,” said Judy Carrol. “Maybe she’s a—a one like Gourock Ellen, God be good to us all!”

“I hear that she’s in Glasgow,” said Murtagh Gallagher.

“Glasgow is the town to be in,” remarked Micky’s Jim, scraping the wet tobacco from the bottom of his pipe. “By the hokey! It was a great place for fightin’. One night I had seven fights hand running. A fellow named Droughty Tom was shootin’ out his neck on the Docks. ‘What are ye chewin’ the rag for, old slobber chops?’ I ups to him and says, shovin’ my fist under his nose: ‘There’s a smell of dead men off that fist,’ I said——”

“We’re sick to the bottom of the grave of hearin’ about yer fightin’, Micky’s Jim,” said Dora Doherty, who entered the shed at that moment. “D’ye know who’s out there?” she asked.

“No.”

“It’s that youngster, Morrison,” said the woman. “I saw somethin’ black in the darkness, and I thought it would be the farmer’s son.”

Norah Ryan started forward in her seat, turned round, looked at Maire a Glan, rose, and went outside.

SHE had not seen Morrison for close on fourteen months, and he had never written to her; but time and again she intended to post one of the letters which she spent part of her time in writing to him. But they were never posted, and often she wondered why she had written them. Why, he wouldn’t care for her, she told herself many times. He was far above her, a gentleman; she was only a poor worker, a little potato gatherer. He had never written and perhaps he did not love her one little bit. She felt angry and resentful with him, as she went out from the stuffy shed and looked up at the starlit sky.

Alec Morrison was waiting. Norah could see his dark form showing against the white gable of the byre, and could hear the crunch of his boots on the gravel as he changed his position. He had just come from Glasgow; he was working there now and he had come down to see Norah before she went back to Ireland. He had often intended to write to her but never did. Other more pressing problems, relating to a new sweetheart, a pretty little damsel in wonderful dresses and with no more morals than a bird, took up his attention. He held out his hand to Norah when she approached.

“I’m glad you’ve come out,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve been waiting here for quite a long while.”

He had been waiting for her! Norah’s heart gave a bound of gladness.

“But you never wrote to me,” she said reproachfully.

“You didn’t write to me and I didn’t know your address.”

That was really why he hadn’t written! How strange she had never thought of that.

“And ye would write?”

“Certainly, Norah,” he said. He had not let her hand go, now he imprisoned the other. How coarse they were and hard from her season’s work! The hands of the Glasgow girl.... But he felt that he was doing something wrong in comparing the two women at that moment.

“Do you mind the last night you were here?”

“I have often been thinkin’ of that night,” said Norah.

“Are you going to run away from me to-night?”

“No.”

“Why did you run away the last time?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was that I was afraid.”

She looked back at the shed as she spoke, saw old Maire a Glan bending over the fire, Willie the Duck playing his fiddle; could hear the loud laughter of Micky’s Jim. Norah looked up at the face of the man beside her and was not in the least afraid.

“We’ll go along the lane a bit,” he said.

They went together hand in hand along the hazel-lined gravel pathway. Overhead the stars sparkled, the trees, showing thin against the sky, waved their bare arms in the slight breeze and moaned plaintively. Willie the Duck was playing “Way down upon the Swanee River,” and it seemed as if the melody drifted in from a great distance.

“That’s a wonderful melody,” said the young man. “In it is the heart and soul of a persecuted people.”

He had heard somebody make that remark in the club and it appealed to him. The girl made no answer to his words. They stopped as if by mutual consent opposite the large shed in the stack yard.

“It’s very cold,” said Morrison.

“Is it? No.”

“We’ll go in here,” said the young man. He pulled the gate of the stack yard apart and went in, Norah following. A vague sense of danger, of some impending menace, suddenly took possession of the girl. The sight of the fire shining would be comforting, but she could not see the shed now. Between her and it the farmhouse stood up white and lonesome. A light glimmered for a moment in one of the rooms, then went out. Somewhere near a dog barked loudly, another joined in the outcry; an uneasy bird rose from the copse and fluttered off into the night.

They entered the shed. Inside it was warm and quiet and the scent of old hay pervaded the place. A strange fear, blending in some measure with joy, came over Norah. Morrison’s arms were round her and she felt as if she wanted to tell him some great secret. No thought of danger was now in her mind. The problems of existence had never given her a moment’s thought. All things were to her a matter of course, the world, the trees, the flowers and stars, and men and women. Love in some vague way she knew was related to marriage just as faith had some relation to heaven. But the faith in God which was hers was something which she never strove to analyse, and the love for the young man filled her being so much at present that she could not draw herself apart from it and consider the rights and wrongs of her position.

Everything was so peaceful and quiet that it seemed as if all the world were asleep and dreaming. Some words, hazy as the remembrance of almost forgotten dreams, drifted into her mind. They were words once spoken by Sheila Carrol at the hour of midnight on Dooey Strand.

“When the earth is asleep, child, that will be a dangerous hour, for you may then commit the mortal sin of love.”

What did Sheila mean when she spoke like that? Why was she thinking of those words now? Norah did not know. Before her was a great mystery, something unexplainable, terrible. The great fundamental truths of life were unknown to Norah; no one had ever explained to her why she was and how she had come into being. She walked blindly in a world of pitfalls and perils; unhelped by anyone she groped futilely in the dark for one sure resting place, looked for one illuminating ray of certainty to light up her path. At that moment the soul within the fair body of hers warned her in some vague way of the danger which lay before her. “You may commit the mortal sin of love.”

What did those words mean? She wanted to run away, but instead she clung closer to the man; she could feel his lips hot on hers and his breath warm on her cheek.

III

SOMETHING terrible had happened. The maiden’s purity, never sullied by a careless thought, was sullied for ever. To the girl it appeared as if something priceless which she loved and treasured had suddenly been broken to pieces. Morrison stood beside her, his hands resting on her shoulders, his breath short and husky; and his whole appearance became suddenly repulsive to the girl. And the man wanted to be gone from her side. He had desired much, obtained what he desired, but was now far from satisfied. He felt in some vague, inexplicable way that she had suddenly become distasteful to him. With other women he had often before experienced the same feeling. He bent over the girl, who quivered like a reed under his hands.

“Are you going into the house?” he asked. He almost said “byre.”

“I’ll go in myself,” she answered in a low voice. “Go away and leave me.... Go away!”

“Are you angry with me?” he asked. He was now ashamed of all that had taken place, ashamed of himself and ashamed of the girl. In some subconscious way it was borne to him that the girl was to blame. He thrust the thought away for a moment but when it returned again he hugged it eagerly. He wanted to believe it; he chose to believe it.

“Good-night, Norah. I’ll see you again to-morrow before you go away.” He released her arms and went out through the gateway. She could hear his footsteps for a long while but never looked after him. A great fear settled on her heart; she was suddenly conscious of having done something terribly wrong, and it seemed as if the very fabric of her life had been torn to shreds. Weeping, she stole back to the shed like a frightened child.

The party was in a great state of excitement. A rat chased by some prowling dog had just run into the shed and passed between the legs of Maire a Glan, who was warming her hands at the fire.

“Mercy be on us! a dirty, big grey rat,” Maire was saying. “It was that long, as the man said.” She stretched a long lean arm out in front of her as she spoke.

“If we caught it we’d put paraffin oil all over it and set fire to its hair,” said Micky’s Jim. “That’s what scares the rats!”

“Ye wouldn’t set fire to a dumb animal, would ye?” asked Brigid Doherty.

“Wouldn’t I? What would yerself do with it?”

“One might kill it in an easier way.”

“Any way at all, for it’s all the same,” said Micky’s Jim. “Last year me and Dermod Flynn killed a lot on yon farm in Rothesay. The farmer gave us a penny a tail and we made lots of tin. How much did we make, Norah Ryan?” he asked. “It’s yerself that has the memory and ye were always concerned about Dermod.” “I don’t remember,” said Norah, who was standing at the door of the shed.

“The old mad farmer was goin’ to cheat us out of a tanner, anyway,” said Micky’s Jim. “But I soon put up my fives to him. ‘Smell them fists,’ I says to him——”

“Ye never stop talkin’ about fights,” said Biddy Wor.

“That’s the kind of him,” said Maire a Glan. “His people had the contrary drop in their veins always. D’ye mind, Norah Ryan, the way that——”

But when the old woman looked round Norah had disappeared. She had stolen out through the starlight to her bed, her mind groping blindly with a terrible mystery which she could not fathom.