The Hounds of the Morrigan (15 page)

Then Pidge fancied that he could see the semblance of a head at the end of The Pole that was furthest from the trunk of the tree; and he realized that The Pole was not a pole but a marvellous sort of worm.

It swayed.

It whispered.

‘Must I?’ it said and the whole of the dream was filled with sadness.

The hounds waited.

‘For what purpose this time must I obey?’

‘To bring her Olc-Glas who is her heart’s desire. He has been given into the care of The Lord Of The Waters by two mortal pups, under guidance from The Dagda.’

‘No,’ said the marvellous worm, who was the Brandling Breac.

At this, the hounds appeared puzzled beyond belief.

‘What means this?’ they asked each other. ‘We have obeyed in all things; he may not refuse.’

‘It means that the bond on me has been crossed out by a debt on me. I will not go against the two young mortals. I am beholden to them.’

‘What is this debt?’

‘The sun was fierce today and one of my tribe was weak and exposed. His small body twisted in pain as he struggled in vain against scorching. The two you speak of saw and understood. They placed him in safety and I may pay what I owe. I am not in revolt in this.’

‘This is true,’ the hounds agreed among themselves.

The Brandling Breac went smaller and smaller until he was as little as an ordinary earthworm and then he suddenly dimmed and went back inside the tree.

The dream changed.

The hounds were approaching the glasshouse where the three women stood in awful vividness. So clearly did Pidge see, that he remarked to himself the hounds’ eyes; soft, shiny butterscotch brown eyes, full of fear.

‘Oh, Great Queen,’ they said, ‘forgive us, we have failed.’

Although three women spoke, there was only one voice reaching Pidge’s mind.

‘What message?’

The bond on him is broken.’

‘Impossible!’

‘The human pups were kind to one of his people who was distressed.’

‘Interfering brats!’

The beautiful fair woman who was The Mórrígan herself, felt a slight anger and her eyebrows worked rapidly like two small electric eels on her forehead. She muttered a mild triple curse which she sent in three directions, not aimed at anyone in particular; but causing three unhappy things to fall on three innocent people in different parts of the land.

‘Go and tell that worm,’ she said, ‘that if he doesn’t do as I say, I’ve only to flex my big toe and all of his people will die. When they die, the earth will go sour, the grass will not grow and everything that lives will sicken and die. Better still, I’ll come myself and bring such trouble with me for him if he persists in this conceit, that he’ll wish he had never seen the light of day.’

Once more Pidge saw the coppice, with the Brandling Breac and The Mórrígan staring at each other. The Brandling Breac was as large and as bright as he had been before and he was saying:

‘If you kill everything, where then will you get your sport? And, forgive me for reminding one as great as you, it is not within your power in these times. Your old strength belongs to other days long past.’

The Mórrígan made a sign and out of the dense shadows which had now thickened on one side of the tree, a single shadow leaped and snatched the Brandling Breac and then everything was swallowed into a deep blue-green darkness that devoured the whole picture from Pidge’s sight.

In moments, the Brandling Breac, full-sized and in all his brightness, was there again; hanging in deep water, still in the grip of the shadow. He was being offered as bait to the Great Eel.

The Eel lay at the bottom of the lake, moving only with the weed.

His eyes were shut tight, and his whole being was one passionate wish not to look at what was being dangled up above his head. Every ounce of will and wish was focused on this one thing.

‘Alas,’ said the Brandling Breac. ‘I know you are there, Great Eel; and I know that you try not to see me.’

The Eel’s mind was a tight knot of will-power.

‘You may give way in the end and look.’

‘I know it,’ the Great Eel said.

‘This is not in the terms of the bond. I am here against my will.’

‘I know that too, but hunger is despot here.’

Hundreds of little faces, trout, chub, bream, moor-hen, wild duck, and a vast multitude of insect faces, appeared and lurked in shadows to watch the terrible drama. A strong feeling of sadness was everywhere and sympathy was fused with horror.

The Great Eel trembled and his head moved a fraction of almost nothing upwards, causing a shock of greater horror to ripple through the watching faces. They all joined their unified will with the Eel’s will, and his head was steady again and his eyes were firmly shut.

Pidge saw water-boatmen rowing like maniacs all over the lake. Three of them found Puddeneen Whelan who was lying on a lily-pad. The water-boatmen twittered excitedly as they told him what was happening. Puddeneen looked terrified.

Again Pidge saw the Brandling Breac dangling in the dark water and the Great Eel struggling to keep his eyes closed.

Then BLINK; the eyes finally opened and they were full of hunger.

The Great Eel looked upwards.

A murmur arose from the onlookers and a whisper:

‘The Lord Of The Waters is about to be ensnared.’

The Eel’s body began to drift and he moved upwards towards the Brandling Breac.

All of a sudden, the whole thing was interrupted by what seemed to be dozens of frogs who leaped between the Brandling Breac and the Great Eel and began to perform the most spectacular and amazing underwater ballet imaginable. The Eel recoiled and lay on the bed of the lake again. At once the Brandling Breac went very small and the horrible tension was completely broken and the terrifying hunger was gone from the eyes of the Great Eel. The multitude of watchers laughed and created a great wave of happiness and Puddeneen in a magnificent leap upwards clasped the Brandling Breac and, holding him tightly and safely, he swam away.

In an eye’s twinkling, the Brandling Breac was safely beached on a broad lily-pad and was being given artificial respiration by a team of frogs who queued to take turns: a healing-fish came to apply medicinal-slime for his wounds and when these things were done, a frog recognized by Pidge as Bagsie Curley, did up the Brandling Breac in a splint and a bandage.

Last of all, a sign was hung up on a bending reed which said:

This pleased all the waiting well-wishers and it especially pleased Pidge because near the end, the Brandling Breac had looked so horribly pale and languid.

T
HEY
both slept late the next morning. Auntie Bina had to call them several times.

In the end, she shouted that she would come and pull them out of bed by the heels, if they didn’t hurry up and come to their breakfast, because she had to begin the churning and they were delaying her.

In the summer, Auntie Bina churned the gathered cream twice a week and she liked everything to be out of the way, before she began.

‘If you’re not down in two minutes I’ll give your breakfast to the hens,’ she threatened from the foot of the ladder-stairs; and they reluctantly dragged themselves away from sleep and out of bed.

Presently, they were sitting at table and eating with queer far-away looks on their faces, hardly noticing what they were swallowing and Brigit peculiarly silent.

Auntie Bina was puzzled and watched them for a while, wondering when they would notice her.

‘Why are you so quiet this morning?’ she asked at last.

They looked at her with great surprise, not aware of anything at all unusual about themselves. All the while, they had been clinging to the dream and with eyes wide open, they saw nothing; while inside their heads, bits of the dream went on, but in a softer way than when they were asleep.

‘You look as if you are away with the fairies! Didn’t you sleep well?’

‘Oh yes,’ Pidge said vaguely.

Brigit came fully to life. She put the dream somewhere at the back of her mind so that she could think of it again later, if she wanted to.

‘Like a snuggard,’ she said, thinking it sounded right.

‘You’re sitting there—with the eyes falling out of your heads for want of sleep, and showing about as much life as two dead bees; you look as if you didn’t get a wink.’

Pidge, too, let go of the dream for the present.

‘I slept very well Auntie Bina,’ he assured her.

‘And I slept like a baby. It’s just that I had a funny dream and I was thinking about it,’ Brigit said.

Pidge looked at her with curiosity and said nothing.

Auntie Bina laughed at Brigit and, missing the important part about the dream, said:

‘I’m glad to hear you slept like a baby, Brigit. The sooner you finish eating and get out in the fresh air, the better. And if you haven’t sparked up by dinner-time, we’ll have to see about a remedy.’

‘Malt?’ Brigit asked.

‘Senna,’ Auntie Bina said brightly.

‘Yerk!’ said Brigit pulling a horrible face. ‘It’s a poor look-out if you get senna for only not saying anything.’

They finished eating and went across the yard to the stable to have another look at the new mare.

Michael was up in the hay-loft over the stable, forking down hay to her manger—and there she was, calmly standing and champing as normally as could be.

When they came in, she turned and regarded them and her looks were gentle and her eyes were innocent. She just looked like a nice-tempered animal.

They fussed and patted her, and she was pleased and nuzzled them and made friendly sounds of horse-gossip as they got to know each other.

Michael came down.

Pidge looked at him anxiously, in dread that he would be as strange as he was the night before.

‘Oh,’ said Michael. ‘Here you are, at last! She’s lovely, isn’t she?’

He spoke with pride; but now he was entirely like himself, with nothing left of the distant and cold stranger he had seemed the night before.

He doesn’t even remember yesterday, Pidge thought, and he was very happy about that, but he wondered in his mind about Sally and what had happened to her.

‘She is,’ he replied.

‘Good enough for a King,’ Brigit said.

‘If only Sally were here; I’d be the happiest man in the county. It couldn’t be known, how much I miss her. What came on her at all—to run away like that, I’ll never know,’ Michael said softly.

‘Maybe she’ll find her way back?’ Pidge suggested.

‘You often hear about things like that,’ Brigit said. They’re always doing it—going off somewhere just to show they can find their way back. I’ve heard about it, often.’

‘We couldn’t reply on
that
—we might never see her again,’ Pidge said.

I’m going to phone all the newspapers in Dublin to advertise her loss and offer a reward for her safe return,’ Michael said.

‘Oh good,’ Pidge smiled.

‘I’m keeping the mare in here for today, so that she gets used to things. She can have the place to herself. You two could take a walk down as far as Fouracre and Thornfield and see if the others are all right. I’ll go and phone the papers; I’ll feel a lot better when that’s done.’

All the other mares and young horses were out to pasture on the summer grass.

‘I should have gone down myself last night to look at them, after the heat yesterday. I can’t think why I forgot,’ Michael continued, looking very uncertain as he tried to remember the evening before, exactly.

It was obvious that he couldn’t remember how he had been, at all.

Everything was wonderfully right.

Pidge knew that, throughout the day, interested neighbours would be calling in to see the mare and to nod their heads wisely and knowingly as they admired her many fine qualities, and, in the ordinary way, he would be sorry to miss any of this clever talk. Now, however, he was glad of the chance to get off somewhere with Brigit, to be by themselves so that he could find out about her dream, at last.

They had left the farmyard through the way between the cow-house and the turf-shed, when Pidge suddenly remembered something.

‘Have you got your brooch?’ he asked.

Brigit opened her cardigan; the brooch was pinned on her dress.

‘Where are your other things?’

‘Under my bed; hidden,’ she said.

‘Wait here a minute; I won’t be long,’ he told her, and ran back to the house.

The kitchen was empty and the churn was scalded and standing ready to be filled. He could hear Auntie Bina in the dairy, humming to herself as she skimmed the cream from the big, wide-necked crocks of milk. So that was all right; he wouldn’t have to answer any awkward questions.

He hurried up the stairs to his room and got his scrying-glass and the bag of nuts and put them into his pockets. He went into Brigit’s room and put her Swapping Sweets and her penny whistle inside her school satchel and fastened up the buckle. And then he came back downstairs, glad to find the kitchen still empty, and went out into the farmyard again.

The mare was in her loose-box, gazing out over the half-door at a small part of her new world; so, his father must have already gone to the phone-box to ring the papers. That meant that there was no one to ask: “What have you got there?” or: “Where did you get those things?” and he didn’t have the difficult problem of trying to explain without really explaining, and that was an ease to his mind. Later, perhaps, he could tell everything; but not yet.