Anne Doughty - The Girl from Galloway

Shortly after noon, the pupils all came outside carrying the pieces they had taken from their satchels. Hannah waved to Rose and Sam, then watched Mary O’Donoghue as she left her piece with Rose and came to ask the three adults if they would like mugs of tea. She and her friend then went and made it, Mary carrying it back outside to them on a tray, her friend carrying the milk jug separately so it wouldn’t spill on the clean tray as they moved over the bumpy ground.

Hannah was impressed and said so. Daniel smiled and said nothing. Marie and Hannah sat watching today’s class of twelve finish up the last crumbs of their lunch and begin their half hour of playtime. Some of them walked down to the lough shore in the hope of seeing the swans, others fetched a book and sat reading in the sunshine, and some played marbles on the flattest piece of ground they could find. Two of the older boys came and said they were sorry they had to go now. They explained they were needed at home to help plant the new crop of potatoes.

Hannah studied the two boys as they talked to Daniel. Scantily dressed, but robust, they smiled at him as he listened to them and then gave them a message for their parents.

‘Tell them,’ he said, pausing for effect, ‘you’ve divided up a whole bag of big numbers with Miss McGee this morning and planted a few rows of new words forby. If you do as well with your potatoes, you’ll have plenty to put by for the winter.’

Hannah had to smile when he got each of the boys to repeat his message until he was sure they had it word-perfect. Then he told them both to be sure to come tomorrow, even if it wasn’t for the whole day.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said one. ‘We’ll do our best,’ said the other, and they ran off cheerfully to pick up their battered satchels, which now contained only a pencil and an exercise book, all trace of the morning’s piece having disappeared. As they said their goodbyes she suddenly felt quite overwhelmed by sadness.

She was back in the grey stone school in Dundrennan where her sisters had sat before her. In that school, there were plenty of pencils and pens and a monitor to fill their inkpots when they practised their writing in copybooks. Behind the teacher’s desk there was a cupboard full of books, as well as those they each had in their satchels. There were proper wooden desks, and chairs, and maps, and pictures, hung around the walls. But in that Scottish school, where she herself had worked for three years as a monitor, the children were often too anxious to speak, even when asked a question during lessons.

‘ Silence was golden ’ indeed, in that school. If pupils were ever caught talking at any time except ‘playtime’ they would most certainly be caned.

But then the master, Mr McMurray, was a rigorous, older man who had no great love of children. In his youth he had wanted to be a minister but he had failed in his examinations to get enough marks in theology. The mistress was an elderly spinster whose favourite word was ‘discipline’.

The contrast between the two schools was stark indeed. While the parents of children in the small farms around Dundrennan were not particularly well off, their school was entirely free of charge and no child came to school hungry. Here on this mountain, where the meagre soil occurred only in patches, and parents struggled to feed their families, the pupils had little equipment to work with in this makeshift school, but Hannah was now absolutely clear in her mind they had something valuable that had been sadly lacking in Dundrennan.

She felt herself grow thoughtful, as memories of happy times with her sisters when she came home from school continued to flood back. She remembered how they had encouraged her to paint, and embroider, to read aloud to them and write poems. How fortunate she had been.

As they sat together in the warm sunshine enjoying the last of their tea, Hannah decided it would be much more fitting to celebrate all that Marie and Daniel had achieved in this unlikely situation, than regret what might be missing.

She had so many questions she wanted to ask in the remaining minutes of playtime, she hardly knew where to begin, but when Marie came and sat down again after picking up and comforting the littlest girl who had fallen and cut her knee, Hannah told Daniel she had one question, not of an educational nature, that just wouldn’t wait any longer, as she’d been puzzling about it all morning.

‘And what would that be?’ he demanded, turning towards her, his blue eyes twinkling in a way that seemed to suggest he ‘saw’ more than most sighted people.

‘Well, you did ask me to come when I could spare the time,’ she began, looking at him and smiling, ‘but you greeted me this morning before I’d even said a single word. How did you know I was there?’

‘Shall I tell her, Marie, or shall I keep it a secret?’ he asked, leaning towards his niece with a conspiratorial whisper.

‘Well, to tell you the truth, I was wonderin’ about that myself?’ Marie replied promptly, her large, dark eyes opening wide.

‘Well then, if I have double my usual audience, my vanity will always get the better of my inherent modesty,’ he said, smiling and turning from one to the other and then seeming to rest his gaze on Hannah.

‘It is entirely a process of deduction,’ he began. ‘I heard footsteps and recognised Sam, and Rose, and Mary, as I would always do, when they walk towards me. But, I then observed that Sam was not talking to Rose in the way he usually does. Mary, however, had just finished making a comment that I did not hear properly, but I deduced from her tone that it had not been addressed to either Sam, or Rose, but probably to an older female companion. The most likely candidate was you, Hannah, my dear. You have a way of inspiring confidence in young people. And you are a very good listener. Don’t you agree, Marie?’

‘I do indeed, Uncle Daniel,’ she said warmly. ‘If I knew Hannah was going to come and help you here I could go off happy,’ she went on, turning to Hannah herself. ‘You see, Hannah, I think my Liam is really thinking of America when it comes to the bit, but he knows I don’t want to leave Uncle Daniel and the scholars if there’s no one to help him, so he’s not admitting it,’ she said, shaking her head.

Hannah looked away, touched by the real concern in her eyes. She knew, in that moment, that however much thought she should give to taking this new opportunity being offered to her, some part of her had already decided.

A handful of children in an out-of-the-way place in a remote westerly corner of Ireland, with few prospects of work, or betterment, and no one apart from their ill-provided parents concerned for them. How could she turn her back on them any more than Daniel had, if there was anything she could do to help?

At the end of playtime, when Marie rose to go back to work, Hannah decided she needed some time to herself. She had not intended to stay so long and had brought no piece to eat. If she went back home she could have a bite by the fireside, and come back in time for Daniel’s story, which always ended the school day.

She was concerned that neither Marie nor Daniel had had anything to eat themselves, but when she mentioned it to Daniel he explained that he preferred his piece after playtime, while Marie was at work with the children. Marie, he explained, would have a cooked meal waiting for her at her mother’s house as soon as school ended, so she only brought food when her mother was away staying with one of her sisters.

One thing was very clear to Hannah as she walked back home to Ardtur and stirred up the dying fire – and that was how well Daniel and Marie worked together. She tried to remember how long it was now since they had begun their work. She counted on her fingers. Rose had been six and Sam not quite five. Rose was now nine and Sam just eight, so it was three years ago.