of a very affluent young man. He was my father, of whom we will not speak,’ he said abruptly, pausing and staring away towards the far horizon.
‘It was his father, and not him, who made some attempt at reparations to my mother’s family when she died in childbirth and I lost what little sight I might ever have had. He provided for me in childhood, sending me first to school and later to live with my aunt, Marie’s grandmother. It was he who set up a pension for my lifetime.’
Hannah realised suddenly that she did know something of Daniel’s background but it had seemed such a long time since he’d told her that his mother had died at his birth and that he’d been brought up by her older sister. She cast her mind back, trying to remember details of what had not seemed all that important at the time.
‘It was that pension and your encouragement that let me set up this school in the first place,’ Daniel continued. ‘Without his provision and your good sense, the children you saw today would have no possibility of betterment. I do have hopes for them and whether my hopes succeed or fail, I’d still like to share them with you as I did in the first place.’
Hannah was about to say she had done very little to help him apart from listen and write a few letters on his behalf, but he did not even pause. Staring away across the rocky path that led down to the lake, he went on quickly, his voice softer.
‘Do you remember the story you told me one of those afternoons when I came to see you, when I first talked about starting the school? You told me of your father’s family being evicted from Strathnaver and the way your father and uncle travelled the length of Scotland on “burn water and the kindness of the poor”.’ He turned towards her and dropped his voice as he quoted her exact words.
For a moment, Hannah couldn’t speak, tears jumping unbidden to her eyes. How could she ever forget that story, one her father had told over and over again?
Daniel was repeating the words ‘burn water and the kindness of the poor’ to himself, as if they had some special significance for him. When he spoke to her again, his tone was firmer.
‘If I can somehow find the resources to go on with the school, I have a project in mind as ambitious as your father’s wanting to own a farm,’ he announced firmly. ‘I want to teach these children English. Or Scotch, as they call it in these parts,’ he added, laughing wryly, ‘so that, whether they go, or stay, they’ll have more possibilities open to them than they have at present.’
‘But how would you do that, Daniel?’ she asked, baffled at the very idea of it.
‘Very easily, my friend, if I still had a school to teach in.’ He hesitated and then went on: ‘If I’ve had the foolishness to deny all knowledge of English, and indeed of having been educated, because of the nationalistic fervour of my youth, then I think it’s time I found some way of reversing that limiting decision.’
Hannah was completely taken aback. He had switched to English, had spoken firmly, and fluently, when she’d never heard him speak anything other than a soft and eloquent Irish. To her amazement, he had moved completely away from the captivating, melodic voice so admired by all who gathered nightly to listen to his stories and poems. He was speaking just as fluently as he spoke in Irish, but his English was more formal in tone and had a much sharper edge than anything she had ever heard him say in Irish. But the real shock for Hannah was that she recognised an accent rarely to be heard in the hills of Donegal.
She thought how the villagers or even her own dear Patrick might react if he heard someone speak in this manner.
‘Sure, he’s gentry at the least and maybe some lord or other. I’ve only heard one man talk like that and he was a lord, some visitor or other from England to Stewart of Ards,’ she imagined her husband saying.
‘You can see there would be a problem for me,’ Daniel went on quickly, before she had recovered herself. ‘My change of approach to the language of our overlords could cause problems with people who have known me for a long time. They might find it hard to accommodate their view of me to my new way of speaking.’
‘But would you feel you had to speak English outside the classroom?’ she asked, now moving to English herself.
It would be a shock indeed for all the friends and neighbours who were just as unaware of this part of Daniel’s history as she had been herself.
To her surprise, he did not answer her question directly. Instead, he began to explain how this state of affairs had come about.
‘My pension comes from the estate of an English lord you’ll probably never have heard of. His family once had land in Donegal, but sold it off at the turn of the last century to concentrate on their English lands. Some of the family are well known for their interest in agriculture and the improvements and innovations they’ve made and written about.
‘Over the years of my life those estates have been divided up between a number of sons. Some flourished, some didn’t. Last week, I had a letter telling me that as the pension I received was discretionary and in the gift of the title holder, now deceased, I would have to provide evidence “of my right to continue receiving the aforementioned sum”,’ he said, the now familiar sharpness of his tone moving towards real bitterness.
‘You know yourself, Hannah, that these days, between trying to improve their land and not always getting their rents, any more than the landlords here, English landlords are looking for savings on their outgoings just as much as the ones in Ireland are. I would imagine it’s not even a personal thing. It’s probably just some man of business looking to see where economies could be made for his employer.’
‘So you could lose your pension?’ she asked anxiously.
‘To be strictly accurate, I’ve already lost it. It has been suspended for the moment, until I make an appeal. Meantime, I can afford a bite to eat, but I may not have enough to pay the quarter’s rent and it’s due at the end of the month.’
Hannah took a deep breath, utterly distressed at the thought of Daniel being without money.
‘Don’t distress yourself, my dear,’ he said quickly, his voice softening, as he moved back to speaking Irish. ‘Much worse things have been happening to my countrymen for several centuries now. If all else fails I would at least be eligible for the new workhouse in Dunfanaghy where I could continue speaking Irish and thereby keep hidden the secret of my unfortunate birth.’
Hannah worried about Daniel and the future of the school. It had been very discouraging to begin with, but they had persisted in their efforts and eventually one trader in Dunfanaghy produced a sum of money quite beyond their expectations. At the very same time, Marie finished her training as a teacher and decided that instead of staying in Dublin as she had planned, she would come home to be near the young man with whom she’d fallen in love. At that point, Marie and Daniel had made their plans, had decided to travel hopefully, and things had gone rather well.
It was a very different situation now. Marie was going and without Daniel’s pension there was not enough money to support a master, never mind an assistant. Keeping the school going looked almost impossible and the project of teaching English seemed highly doubtful, if not already condemned to failure.
*
Apart from Sam saying that he was hungry, and very thirsty, neither of the children said very much on the way home. The temperature was dropping rapidly as the sun fell yet lower behind the mountain, but the late afternoon was still bright.
Hannah
