John McGahern - By the Lake

“Master Hunt was as decent, as straight a man as ever wore shoe leather. He wasn’t like the savages we had for masters.”

“We were finishing the tea. After chatting for a while he said he wanted a word with us on our own. When we walked a bit out towards the car he told us that he had come on only one or two others as good as Jim in all his years of teaching. He felt sure he’d win a county scholarship the next year but not if he was kept from school.”

“We were only delighted. The only reason we kept him from school is that we never thought it mattered,” Jamesie said.

“Master Hunt brought the results himself. He had never been to the house before. His hands were shaking when he handed us the letter. You’d think he was the child that had won the scholarship.”

“Well, in a way he had,” Ruttledge said.

“Nothing would do this omadhaun but make the Master sit down. Though it was morning he opened a fresh bottle of whiskey. I declare to God the pair finished the bottle.”

“What did Jim say? He must have been in heaven.”

“He got to say nothing with this fella ravelling on with Master Hunt. I was afraid the Master would drive into a ditch with that much whiskey. Master Hunt wasn’t used to whiskey.”

“He was very apt,” Jamesie said defensively. “He was a big strong man.”

“When the Master left, Jamesie got on his bicycle and cycled all over the country full to the gills as he was with whiskey.” Mary laughed maliciously, but her eyes were full of deep affection. “They called him First-in-the-County for a long time afterwards.”

“They were jealous,” he said.

“You should have known enough about people by then not to blow. You were long enough in the world to know.”

“What was it but the truth?” he said. “There were a few who were glad.”

“A rare few,” she responded.

“To hell with them,” he said. “Nobody counted but Jim and Master Hunt.”

“You’d have been better to let them find it out for themselves. Jamesie here can keep nothing in,” Mary said wistfully.

“Mary was never the same again after Jim went away to college that September,” Jamesie had said many times before. “Her heart was broken. She was never to be the same again. The life left the place.”

“What does Margaret here think hearing about her father when he was young?” Ruttledge asked.

“Father never talks about when he was young. Only Mother does,” the child said matter-of-factly.

“They’ll all come down for Margaret as soon as they get back from abroad,” Mary said, and the child drew closer to Mary.

Outside on the street Jamesie looked anxiously down at the fallen meadows and then at the sky where a jet was chalking a path on the cloudless blue of evening. He felt anxious and exposed: the whole country would laugh at his greed if the heavens opened.

“I’ll be over early in the morning,” Ruttledge said. “There’ll be no rain.”

“Please God. Whenever suits,” he said almost absently as Mary and Margaret waved from the doorway. The casualness was studied; he would not know ease again until his meadows were safe.

Along the shore a boy was fishing out on the stones, casting a glittering spoon out over the water and then reeling it slowly in. The heron rose out of the reeds and flapped ahead before swinging away towards the farther shore. A glaring red sun was sinking below the rim of the sky.

“We were expecting you over,” Ruttledge said to Kate.

“I couldn’t get away. The Shah arrived. He wanted to talk to you about something. Then I had Bill Evans and it was too late.”

“Had Bill any news?” Ruttledge asked idly, tiredly: Bill Evans never had news.

“Big news,” Kate said. “One day every week from now on he is going to town on the bus. He’ll get a meal and be generally tended to.”

“He must be in heaven.”

“In pure heaven.”

The next morning a white mist obscured even the big trees along the shore. Gossamer hung over the pear and plum and apple trees in the orchard and a pale spiderwebbing lay across the grass in the fields. A robin was trapped in the glasshouse and set free before it became prey for the black cat. The heavy mower was uncoupled from the tractor and replaced by the tedder. The very quiet and coolness of the morning was delicious with every hour promising later heat. When the sun had burned away the mist and dried the dew on the swards, the tedding began. The tedder was new and working perfectly, turning the flat neat swards into a green stream of grass, and when it was done the spread grass lay like a raised green floor to the sun. Then the tractor and tedder went slowly round the lake to Jamesie.

The dogs met the tractor as it came down to the house. They were all in the meadows. Jamesie and Mary were shaking out the heavy swards with pitchforks while Margaret played with the dogs.

“Those pitchforks aren’t a great sign of faith in the machines,” Ruttledge said as they gathered around the running tractor to watch him move the tedder into its working position and connect the drive shaft.

“We were just putting in time,” Jamesie said defensively.

“Which would you prefer — to be in Italy or in the meadow?” Ruttledge asked Margaret when the tedder was set for working and he was warning her not to come too close to the tines.

“In the meadows,” she answered and drew closer to Mary.

On the television forecast of the night before, the map of Ireland was shown covered with small suns, like laughing apples. Soon after midday all the small meadows were tedded. By evening the mown grass rustled like hay to the touch. The next morning they were swept into rows. The swept ground between the rows had already turned golden. Because of Jamesie’s anxiety Ruttledge went round the shore to bale his meadows first. Kate came with him to help stack the bales. Though the balers were a familiar sight in meadows for years, Jamesie watched in a kind of disbelief as the cumbersome red machine gathered in the loose rows and spat them out in neat tied bales. In a break in the baling, when Mary came with a can of sweetened tea, all his anxiety and lack of trust surfaced.

“If the thing was to break down now we’d be able to get up what’s left with the forks.”

“What about my poor meadows?”

“You wouldn’t care a frig.”

“I’d care but there’s not much I could do.”

“Please God, it’ll hold,” he said.

The bales were too heavy for the child but the two women and Jamesie were able to stack them almost as quickly as the baler spat them out. Two bales were placed sideways, sufficiently close to be crossed by two other bales but far enough apart to allow air to circulate. The stack was completed by a single bale on top, the uncut side turned upwards to cast the rain. When they were all stacked, they stood like abstract sculptures in swept empty space.

Then they all followed the tractor and baler round the shore to work in Ruttledge’s meadows, the two dogs trotting ahead. By evening, when the sun had gone round behind the house, all the meadows were baled and stacked under the long shadows of the trees stretching out into the lake. When the last bale was lifted to crown the last small stack, Jamesie gave a loud cheer. The sound was of triumph and heartfelt relief.

“All that work done in a few hours,” he repeated over and over. “Several men and horses would need days and not get it done.”

“It’s safe now,” Kate said gently.

“Not in the shed yet,” Jamesie warned.

“If there was rain we could take it in tomorrow. What could it do but heat in its own sap now?”

Inside the house a reading lamp with a green shade was lit on the big table. On the red-and-white squares of the tablecloth stood a blue bowl filled with salad and large white plates of tongue and ham, a cheeseboard with different cheeses, including the Galtee Jamesie liked wrapped in its silver paper, a cut loaf, white wine, a bottle of Powers, lemonade. There was a large glass jug of iced water in which slices of lemon floated.