Norah would be a light girl for heavy work on the Scottish farms, Jim thought, as he stooped down and lifted a rung of the bearer. Could he take her with him? That was a ticklish question. She was clever with the needles, he knew, but she had not done any heavy manual work for the last two years. Learning lessons was to Jim an idle task. But the movement of her body, and especially of her legs when bending over the fire, appealed to Jim. The grace of her carriage, the poise of her head, the soft hair that fell over her shoulders, all these found favour in the eyes of the healthy young man.
“My cripes, I’ll take her with me next year!” he said under his breath. He spoke in English and had learned many strange oaths abroad.
II
OUTSIDE a large crowd of people were waiting; the women dressed in red flannel petticoats and woollen shawls, the men in white wrappers and corduroy trousers. The coffin bearer was raised on high; four men placed their shoulders under it; a bottle of holy water was sprinkled over bearers and burden indiscriminately; the men and women crossed themselves many times, and the mournful procession started.
Mary Ryan stood at the door and watched it wending its way across the dreary, uneven fields, past the Three Rocks, now getting lost in some hollow, again rising to the shoulders of a hillock, the coffin swaying unevenly on the shoulders of the bearers, the red petticoats of the women in the rear shaking in the breeze. The widow, almost too weak to move, was with difficulty restrained from going to the churchyard. Norah, having arranged the hassock in the corner for her mother, had followed the procession, and now the old woman thought that she could detect her child a quarter of a mile away, following in the rear of the party. Micky’s Jim, who had not gone away yet, was engaged in sorting a rope on the thatch which had been blown askew by the wind of the previous nights.
“I’ll overtake the funeral, Mary,” he said when he completed the work. “I was just making the thatch strong against the breeze and I have tied a broken rope.”
“Mother of God be good to you, Jim, but it is yourself that has the kindly heart!” said Mary in a tremulous whisper. “Could you take Norah with you beyond the water next year?”
Jim called to mind the movements of the girl’s body when she stooped to lift peat for the fire, and the remembrance filled him with pleasure. “When next summer comes round, I’ll see, Mary Ryan,” he answered. “If there is a place to spare in the squad I’ll let you know and your Norah will have the very first chance of it.”
“Mother of God bless you, Jim, for the kindness is in you!” said the old woman. “It is me that is the lone body this very minute, with never a penny in my house and not even the old curragh left to me to make a penny by.”
“Well, I’m off, Mary,” said Jim. “The coffin is going out of sight and they’ll be needing new blood under it.” He hurried across the fields, his long legs covering an enormous spread of earth at every stride. Over the brae he hurried, and at the turn of the road halted for a moment and looked back at Mary Ryan’s cabin. The woman still stood at the door, one hand shading her eyes, looking towards the Frosses churchyard, which lay more than three miles away. “Thinkin’ that she could get anything for an old curragh!” he muttered contemptuously, as he resumed his stride. “She’s an old fool; but Norah! Ah! she’s a soncy lass, and she was good to look at when making that fire!”