ridden out to this point to deliver Michael back across the water, the day he had come to talk about Pakenham. As the water swept up around his feet, he wondered what it must be like to be the husband of such a woman. Soon he would return to the warmth of his parish house in Clonbur. He would change his wet clothes for dry ones. Yet, back there in the cabin, just himself and the woman across from each other, he had been conscious of something being present. Something that his priest’s house in Clonbur, with all its comforts, didn’t have. Even while under attack from this woman – her eyes and hair all ablaze in the firelight – he had felt alive, invigorated, unshackled.
As he looked back in the direction of Maamtrasna, he promised himself that – for the Church’s sake – he would not let the red-haired woman down.
The snow did come – big soft, downy flakes, dancing earthwards, decorating the valley in white. The children were delighted. Mary and Katie ambushed Patrick and some of the other village boys, who then pelted them with hard, hand-packed snow, sending the young warriors home to Ellen in tears. The tears soon passed, but the snow didn’t. It hung on to usher in a white New Year.
Ellen loved the stillness the snow brought. When the first new moon of the New Year came, she went to her place by the lake. She stood and watched the moon’s yellow light splash down on to the Mask. Unmoving, she listened to the rhythm of the land, the usual night sounds stifled by the blanket of snow. She had been thus occupied for some time when a scratching sound disturbed the tranquillity. It seemed to be coming from the far side of a nearby clump of bushes. Ellen crept up to the bush, expecting to see a fox or some other wild animal. Instead she found Roberteen Bawn.
The boy was bent over the snow-covered ground, apparently burying something. Intent on what he was doing, he had not heard her approach. That rascaleen’s up to some mischief again, thought Ellen. Out scratching around in the night, like that. Quietly she plucked a handful of berries from a hollybush, then cast them over the bushes at the crouching boy.
Roberteen Bawn leapt up swearing: ‘The divil! God’s curse on you – whoever’s there!’
He turned this way and that but could see no one. Then he heard her laughter. He knew it instantly: the red-haired woman, making a laugh at him again. All the same, when Ellen stepped out from the bushes, he was flushed with the gladness of seeing her.
‘Well, Roberteen, it’s only me,’ she greeted him as she approached. ‘What was it you were doing?’
‘Ah, nothing – nothing at all,’ he said, and put his hands behind his back.
‘Was it burying something you were – a secret trinket, a message from someone special – burying it under the new moon?’ she teased.
‘No, not that!’ He didn’t want her thinking there was someone else, that he had cast off his affections for her now that she was full with the child.
She walked round behind him. He kept turning with her. He had something in his hands. Something he was hiding from her. Something he hadn’t yet buried in the hole in the earth … Then she knew.
‘It’s the “Mayo moon” you’re doing, isn’t it, Roberteen?’ she asked, her eyes twinkling in its light. ‘Well, well … it is.’
Sheepishly the youth looked down at the ground. Then, slowly, he brought his hands to the front and held them out for Ellen to see. They were full of the earth he had taken from the hole in the ground. Only then did he look up at her.
‘’Tis an old custom,’ he began. ‘My mother told me … for the young men in Mayo and the West … the night of the first new moon in the New Year … to go and lift the clay out of the ground …’ he continued haltingly, embarrassed to be telling this to her.
‘I know, Roberteen,’ she said, helping him out. ‘And then, when you say the special words over the handful of earth, you will see your bride-to-be in a dream tonight.’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ he said shyly. ‘My mother said I should be thinking now of finding a girl for myself and getting married before the year is out.’
‘And you will, Roberteen, you will.’ Ellen reached out and gave his arm a squeeze. ‘She’ll be a fine girl, and a lucky girl too, to get a spirited young fellow like yourself.’
‘Well, I hope she’ll be half the woman you are, Ellen Rua,’ he blurted.
Now it was Ellen who flushed at the passion in his voice.
‘C’mon now, I’ll say the words with you,’ she said breezily, wanting to break off this conversation.
‘Does it matter, Ellen Rua, that we’re standing here in Galway, when it’s under a Mayo moon we’re supposed to be?’ he enquired with that childlike innocence he sometimes had.
‘Not at all, Roberteen,’ she assured him. ‘Sure, isn’t it all the one – Mayo/Galway, Galway/Mayo? The same moon is up over the lot of us. Let’s say the words.’
So, in the bright darkness of the Mayo moon, the lake behind them and the white fields before them, they recited the lovers’ prayer. He – young, bursting with manhood, holding out his handful of earth, in thrall to her. She, shining in the moonlight before him, all that his young heart desired.
New moon, new moon, new moon high Show to me my true love nigh Show her face, her skin so fair Show the colour of her hair
Light my dreams this night so she May in your light appear to me New moon, new moon, let me see If one day we will married be
As they said the last two lines, the young man looked at Ellen, and in his eyes she saw the misty look of lost love. The look she had seen there before – the night she had sung at the céilí. She felt that the boy wanted to kiss her, but that he would not do so, unless she gave him some indication that it was all right. A tenderness for him swept over her, and for a moment she was tempted to let him. But she mustn’t. It would be wrong, and he would interpret it for something else. Instead, she tightened her hold on his arm for a moment and then let go of it.
‘There! Now it’s done, Roberteen, and tonight you will have sweet dreams of your true love,’ she said, trying to dispel the awkwardness. But he didn’t answer. ‘Promise you’ll tell me who she is, Roberteen … won’t you?’ she said then.
At this, he shook himself away from her, and the intensity of his reply startled Ellen: ‘I’ll not be dreaming tonight, or any night, of some young slip of a girl for me to marry. There’s only the one I dream of every night, and the way it is, I’m thinking I never will marry at all.’
He flung the fistful of earth down at her feet, and then he was gone, hurrying, back up towards the village and away from her.
As the new year moved through January, Ellen stuck religiously to her old year resolution of teaching the children English. Each day, excepting Sunday of course, she saw to it that the Lessons, whatever else they covered, contained a large dose of the English language. The children had a good ear for the strange-sounding, narrow language, and so, with a mixture of both pride and regret, Ellen watched them progress.
Michael had decided that they should wait to see what the bishops would do about the landlords before taking action. He had never
