The sky was
grey and threatening; the hills looked bleak and hostile. But this was his
chance. He climbed the low stone wall at the back of the cottage and ran up the
heathery slope. As he ran he expected at any moment to hear someone calling him
back as they had always done before. But this time his father was away from
home and the talkative woman from up the hill had just dropped in with a fresh
piece of gossip for his mother and she had a powerful thirst for tea.
He ran as
hard as he could go until he knew he was out of earshot. But as he went on and
on, he began to realise how high and far away the hills really were for no
matter how far he ran, they seemed to walk backwards out of reach. His heart
pounded and his lungs seemed to be bursting and he was more than a little
scared of the strange silence around him. But he was not giving in.
He reached
the top of the first hill and paused to look around. Before him lay a little
declivity and then another, steeper rise. He had never been up there before for
he was only five and his mother did not like him wandering too far away. He was
her only child and she was a nervous woman who had never grown used to living
in this remote place among the hills and Patrick had had to content himself
with playing by himself round the cottage where she could keep an eye on him.
He had
invented many exciting games for himself and always appeared happy with his
lonely lot. Nobody guessed that he was filled with curiosity about what lay
beyond the hills behind the house. He thought about them a great deal and
imagined that on the other side there was a sunny little village with pleasant
neighbours and plenty of children to play with. The more he imagined it, the
stronger grew his curiosity until it had become a burning ambition to climb the
hills and see for himself.
As he
struggled up the final slope Patrick forgot his fear of the lonely silence for
he was sure that any minute now he would see the village of his dreams and hear
the voices of children shouting to each other.
He reached
the top. Before him lay an immense stretch of moss and moor land. A cold wave
of disappointment passed over him. There was no village; no sign of life
anywhere. But then his eye caught a gleam of white in the distance and
gradually he picked out the shape of a little cottage a long distance away. He
stared at it, straining his eyes for any sign of movement, but there was none.
However the distant blue haze might just be smoke from the chimney and he was
full of curiosity about the lonely little cottage.
He
hesitated on the hill top and turned to look back in the direction of his own
cottage, which lay at the foot of the hill like a little matchbox. Above him in
the big sky a lark was singing. Its tiny, sweet song made the whole lifeless
expanse of land and sky seem emptier and more lonely and he felt very small and
frightened. Whichever way he went, he was a long way from anyone. So he decided
to go on.
As he ran
down the hill towards the cottage the sky seemed to grow darker and more
threatening and the whole empty landscape seemed to hold its breath and listen
and watch his every movement. When he reached the lower slope where the hedges
began, he kept closely to their shade. He wanted to see the cottage without
being seen.
Within a
few minutes, although they seemed like hours, he was quite close to the
cottage. He crouched down in the shadow of a thorn tree and stared at the
place. He was gasping for breath; a sick feeling clutched at his stomach; he
was alone in strange territory and cold with fear.
The cottage
was old and derelict; there was no sign of life at all. Patrick stared at it a
long time, hoping against hope that something would move. It fascinated him and
filled him with dread. He wanted to run away and at the same time, he wanted
terribly to go and explore.
Keeping low
in the tangled grass and brambles he crept slowly nearer and nearer till at
last he could touch the cold, grey stone at the base of the wall. He inched
himself up to his feet and moved across till he could peer in through a broken
window pane.
There was
nobody inside, but this did not relieve his feeling of terror. An acute sense
of danger, which had been growing since first he came face to face with this
deserted cottage, warned him to run for his life. But curiosity drove him and
he was a very small, scared little boy as he moved along by the wall till he
reached the door-step. He put his hand to the door and pushed. It creaked
slowly open. Something moved in the gloom inside. Patrick screamed. The rat
stared up at him. He could see its wet, quivering nose in the shadow. Then it
turned tail and fled.
The big,
lofty kitchen was dark and musty. Dust and litter lay everywhere. Among the
rubbish he could make out the broken bits and pieces of what once had been a
family's precious possessions: a chair leg, a broom without bristles, a broken
basket, a rusted alarm clock, the head and shoulders of a china doll. People
had lived here one time and there had been children, laughter and weeping. Now
there was silence and dust and nothing moving except the scurrying feet of the
rat.
Patrick no
longer felt frightened. The gentle melancholy of the little house made him feel
sad and yet strangely comforted. He began to explore in every nook and corner,
turning over the dusty relics of a family story. Everything fascinated him,
especially the old alarm clock which still had most of its works. He thought of
taking it home with him and put it carefully on one side. Then his eye fell on
the whistle.
It was on
the mantelpiece, gleaming and not dust-covered like the other things. He
reached up for it and, as his finger-tips touched it, some strange, haunting
feeling ran through him. He did not know how to play a tin whistle, but he put
it to his lips and began to blow.
The most
beautiful music he had ever heard filled the room. It rose and swelled till it
filled the whole cottage the very walls seemed to vibrate with the echo. The
air misted with music till it was completely dark.
For a few
moments Patrick could see nothing. Then the air cleared and he saw a big turf
fire blazing on the hearth and the kettle hissing steam above it. The kitchen
was bright and shining and full of laughing, singing, dancing people. He was in
the middle of a cottage ceilidh.
"Come
on, me boy", someone said, "give us a reel now". He had hardly
started until they were on the floor again: young men and old men their faces
shining with sweat, young women with their hair flying and old women with their
long skirts lifted so you could see their petticoats. Even the little children
were dancing in their own corner. They moved to the music of his tin whistle
and the music he made was lovely and gay. He tapped his feet in time to the
music and the heart in him was as light and merry as the dancers on the
fire-lit floor.
Patrick
awoke to find himself under an unfamiliar thorn bush. It was nearly dusk, but
he could still see his own home at the foot of the hill. With scarcely a glance
at the higher hill that loomed all dark and shadowy beyond the shallow decline,
he turned his face to home. He ran all the way downhill and burst excitedly
into the kitchen. His mother was standing by the window looking strained and
anxious. He brushed her nervous reproof aside and began to babble out his
strange story. His father, who had come home, looked at him in puzzlement as he
rambled on.
"There's
no cottage over there", he said. "I heard tell there was family lived
there one time, but there's not hilt nor hair of their house left. They do say
they were the great ones for the ceilidhs and dancing. But that was long before
my time. They went to America at the time of the Famine. I used to hear my
grandfather talkin' about them. But there has been no house there for as long
as I remember."
"But
there is, daddy," the child insisted. "Come and I'll show you."
"Very
well, then", he promised, "we'll go and see some time when it's
daylight."
The next
evening his father finished work earlier than usual and when Patrick reminded
him of his promise, he agreed to go. The mother thought the two of them were
mad as they started out to cross the hills.
"The
child will be tired out," she complained.
"I'll
carry him when he gets tired," her husband reassured her.
When they
neared the top of the high hill Patrick ran ahead, eager to point out the
cottage to his father. The sun was setting and the whole sky and the hills were
filled with a golden light. There was great silence and peace on the landscape
and Patrick had no sense of fear or loneliness with his father just behind him.
He reached
the top; and stared down across the waste of moss and moor land. There was no
cottage; not even a trace of a cottage anywhere. His eyes began to fill with
tears. Then he felt his father's arm around him.
"It
was a dream you had, son," he said.
"It
wasn't a dream," Patrick insisted, his voice sharp with disappointment.
"It was there ..... down there where the bushes are. I saw it. I was in
it. I saw the people dancing. I played the magic whistle."
"Of
course you did, son," his father answered, "of course you did. Many's
the time the like happened to myself. Many's the time indeed."
Before his
father lifted him to his shoulder, Patrick took a last look out across the
golden landscape. And, as he looked. the music of the tin whistle rose once
more from among the clump of bushes and swelled and echoed around the lonely
hills.