The Girl from Galloway: A stunning historical novel of love, family and overcoming the odds. Anne DoughtyЧитать онлайн книгу.
then said: ‘Are you worried there’ll be nowhere for our pair to go?’
She couldn’t help but laugh, for he had taken her by surprise. So often, it was she who read his thoughts, but this time he had tried to read hers. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t got it quite right. It just somehow made it easier for what she needed to say.
‘Daniel was wondering if I would come and give him a hand,’ she replied. ‘Apparently, I told him once years ago that I was a monitor back in my own old school in Dundrennan. He has an extraordinary memory,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘An’ wou’d ye like that?’ he said quickly, his eyes widening. ‘Sure, it wou’d be company fer ye when I’m away,’ he went on, brightening as she looked across at him.
‘It wouldn’t pay very much, Patrick,’ she said cautiously. ‘Certainly not as much as the sewing.’
‘Aye, I can see that might be the way of it,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘Sure, none of the families up here has much to spare. There must be childer Daniel takes in that can’t go beyond their pieces of turf for the fire. I know some of them bring cakes of bread and a bit of butter for Daniel himself,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘but that would be because there was no tuppence that week, or whatever it is these days, that wou’d otherwise be forthcomin’. How does Daniel manage at all? Sure, everyone knows the masters of these hedge schools don’t see a penny when times are bad and Daniel wou’d never be the one to turn a chile away if it hadn’t brought its few pence.’
Patrick himself had never been to school and he’d never figured out why people called these local places where children could learn to read and write ‘hedge schools’. But Daniel’s house, which he used for the school, was not typical. Most of the other schools in the area were far less robust: abandoned cottages, or caves, or even old cattle pens with a bit of a roof thrown over. But then, there was a time when running a school would have got you into trouble. There were laws against schools, like there were laws against celebrating Mass.
‘Maybe yer da will give us all a bit more money this year, if the price of cattle keeps going up,’ he offered cheerfully. ‘Are you thinking about doin’ it?’ he asked directly.
‘Well …’
‘Well, indeed. What wou’d stan’ in yer way if you had a mind to do it? Sure, Sam and Rose wou’d be there with ye … and sure, what’ll they do if Daniel has to give up? Though you could teach them yourself like you taught me, couldn’t you? Sure, you’re a great teacher and me no scholar,’ he ended sheepishly.
Hannah laughed and felt her anxiety drain away. She remembered again how she’d offered to help her father’s harvesters to write their letters home, and how, in the process, she had ended up learning Irish. Patrick had been a diligent pupil. He had learnt not only how to read and write, but also to make his way in English. It might well be English with a strong Scottish accent but it still stood him and his fellows in good stead when work called from south of the border around Carlisle, or even Lancaster.
She could still see the scrubbed wooden table in the farm kitchen where they had normally sat at mealtimes, covered with reading books in the evenings. Her own school, where she was then a monitor, had let her borrow what she needed for when she taught the haymakers, while her sister, Flora, the youngest of the three older sisters, still living nearby in those years, had bought jotters and notepaper for her pupils out of her egg money until she and her husband, Cameron, moved to take up a new job in Dumfries.
‘My Irish isn’t that great,’ Hannah said feebly now, remembering her own difficulties when she had first begun to teach the Irishmen and found they had so very little English to begin with.
‘An’ when have I ever not been able to understan’ you?’ he asked, his voice gentle, his eyes looking at her directly. ‘I’m for it, if it’s what ye want. Sure, why don’t we sleep on it,’ he added, standing up and putting his hand on her shoulder.
*
It was still dark next morning when Patrick picked up his piece from the kitchen table and kissed her goodbye. She walked out of the cottage with him, pausing on the doorstep as they looked up at the sky.
‘That’s better,’ he said, slipping his arm round her and pulling her close for a few moments.
It was a fine-weather sky, the sunrise clouds tinted pink, the air calm with a distinct hint of mildness. As she stood watching him make his way down towards the lough, she found herself hoping that the mildness might go on to the end of the week. If it did, then the last few days of the roofing job would not be as taxing as it had been, especially during the last weeks when the turbulent west wind had made the exposed site bitterly cold and the pitched roof more hazardous.
He stopped and waved to her as he reached the bend in the track. Beyond this point he would be hidden by a cluster of hawthorns and the last group of cottages before the steep slope to the main track. She stood a moment longer till he was out of sight and then, already thinking of all she had to do, she turned and went back into the big kitchen.
She stood for a moment looking at the table, the empty bowls and crumbs from her breakfast with Patrick, as if they would help her to decide what to do. Certainly, she would always want to help Daniel in any way she could. Patrick was indeed keen for her to have company in the long months when he was away, but he had paid little attention to the possible loss of her earnings from the sewing.
This winter he had found quite a few jobs locally, but there were other years when there was no work of any kind. Then the only income was from her sewing. Without her sewing money and the savings she had made while he was away, she couldn’t have kept them in food and turf.
If she went to help Daniel teach, with the house still to run and the children to care for, the hours to spend sewing would be very hard to find, even with the better light of the long, summer evenings.
She glanced out of the open door as if there was some answer to be found out there. The light was strengthening and a few gleams of sunlight were reflecting off the whitewashed cottage walls. Whatever her decision would be, there was no need to delay her visit to Daniel.
She made up her mind to go up to Casheltown and see what Daniel had to say. She knew she needed to wake the children right away so that she had extra time to fit in washing and dressing herself, something she usually left till after they’d gone and she’d done the dustiest and dirtiest of the morning jobs.
They were both fast asleep in the tiny bedrooms Patrick had partitioned off from the single, large bedroom of their two-room dwelling, the bedroom where they had begun their married life, in October 1835, ten years ago this coming autumn.
Sam woke up the moment she touched him, threw his arms round her and hugged her. Rose was always harder to wake and was very often involved in some complicated dream that, given any possible opportunity, she would talk about until they were both ready to leave. This morning, Hannah knew she would have to discourage her usual recital if they were all to leave the house on time.
They did manage it, though as Hannah pulled the front door closed behind her, she was only too aware of all the tasks she had had to leave aside. Out of her normal morning’s routine, only the making up of the fire had been done.
Stepping into the brightness of the April morning, she set aside the crowding thoughts and focused on Rose and Sam who were now telling her what they were going to do with Miss McGee today and what story the master had promised them if they all did their work well.
Hannah listened carefully but as they picked their steps through the broken stones of the track and turned right towards Casheltown, she found herself looking up at the great stone mound, once a fortified place, that looked out over the waters of Lough Gartan. She thought of her own very different walks to school in the softer green countryside of Galloway. There, the sea was almost always in sight, the fields a rich green, the school itself a sturdy, stone building with separate entrances marked Girls and Boys, and a patch of land at the back where the older boys learnt gardening.
She remembered Flora taking her by