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In spite of the previous year’s blight and the
scarcity of food, the quantity of potatoes planted that spring was even
greater than usual. Now the crop showed signs of being a bumper one. The
spring had been severe. There had been frost and snow even in the first
part of April. But June brought a heat that was almost tropical. Under
the urge of this heat, the potato plants grew to an enormous size and
their luxuriant foliage, dotted with beautiful white and pink blossoms,
made Black Valley look like a flower garden.
The people began to hope that their hardships were nearly over and that
God would again bless their labour.
On St. John’s Eve, they made bonfires in accordance with the
ancient custom. Then they took coals from the fires and carried them
around the boundaries of their gardens, to ward off evil from the
earth’s fruit. Next morning, they went out and plucked a few stalks
in each garden. Lo! the seed had increased abundantly. There was wild
rejoicing everywhere. Old Kilmartin was exalted.
‘What did I say?’ he shouted, as he spilt a small kish of the new
potatoes on the kitchen floor. ‘God doesn’t send hunger for
long. He sends it to remind us of our sins. But when we repent he sends
riches. The earth is rich. God has blessed our earth.’
At noon, on the feast of St. John, they sat down to a
meal that was for them a real feast. Mary had got a few young onions from
the plot at the back of the house. She chopped them up and mixed them
with the new potatoes. There was a piece of salt fish which Sally
O’Hanlon had given her, the result of another bit of thieving on
the part of that generous neighbour. Although there was no milk to
complete this favourite meal, hunger supplied its place as a savoury.
They all gorged themselves. Even Maggie had left her bed and taken her
place at table, excited by the wonderful news of the new crop. The dog
had his dish by the back door and the poor animal ate so much that his
stomach swelled out to a point on either side. Of late he had got
thin.
It was at this moment, while they were happily eating their meal, that
the destructive attitude of Divine Providence again manifested itself.
All morning, the sky had been spotless and the sun shone in all the glory
of its summer heat. And then, suddenly, the sky darkened. Lightning
flashed. A torrent of rain began to fall. Thunder rolled across the
firmament. It grew as cold as in the midst of winter. It was horrifying.
It all happened within the space of a few minutes. They were struck with
awe. They dropped their knives into the kish and stared at one another.
They crossed themselves.
Thomsy was the first to speak.
‘Has it come again?’ he whispered. ‘That’s how
it started last year.’
‘Silence,’ said the old man, rising from his stool.
‘Do you know what you’re saying?’
‘Let’s go on our knees,’ Mary said, ‘and ask
God to have pity on us.’
They all went on their knees and recited the rosary, begging God not
to send the blight on their crop. When they had finished, it seemed that
the Lord heard their prayer, for the storm ended as suddenly as it had
begun. The sky did not clear, but the thunder and lightning ceased. A
drizzling rain continued to fall and it became very hot. The old man then
suggested that they should sprinkle holy water on the gardens. Mary took
a bottle of holy water they had in the house and went with him. They
visited all the gardens and sprinkled the water on the plants here and
there, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. A number of other
families, seeing them so engaged, came forth and did likewise.
It was a strange sight, truly, in the drizzling rain, under a dark
sky, to see all those simple people going around their gardens with holy
water, asking pity of the Lord.
Next day, the sky cleared and the sun came forth. It had rained heavily
during the night and the blossoms had been washed from the stalks by the
downpour, but when the old man went out with his spade once more and dug,
he found that the crop was still wholesome.
‘Praised be God!’ he said.
Mary and Thomsy had come out with him and when they saw that the
potatoes he threw out with his spade were whole, they burst into tears
with joy.
‘Oh! Aren’t they big?’ Mary said, as she went on her
knees to pick them carefully. ‘I never saw them so big at this time
of year.’
‘True for you,’ said the old man, digging eagerly.
‘That proves to you how it pays people to stint themselves. There
are fools over there in Glenaree that ate some of their seeds and now
they’ll only have half a crop in spite of the great harvest
that’s coming. Two extra gardens I sowed. We’ll have seventy
bushels this year instead of the usual forty, or my name isn’t
Brian. Don’t be talking, woman, we’ll soon be on our feet
again. Never say die. If our stock is taken, we’ll begin again
little by little. While we have the land we have the riches. Now that the
tyrant is dead, we’re safe from persecution. The new agent that
will come to be over us might be a Christian man. He’ll give us
time over the rent and maybe the government might step in with a loan. It
happened before in the time of the great hunger. Ah! If only Martin was
here with us, to see this great crop. Poor man! Many a drop of his noble
sweat he gave sowing them.’
At the mention of Martin’s name, Mary stopped picking. She felt
a sharp pain in her bosom and then a terrible emptiness spread all over
her body, as if she had been suddenly disembowelled by a monstrous hand
that carried off at one scoop, her heart, her lungs, all her vital being.
With a rush, the agony passed into her brain and a feeling of shame made
her go weak, so that the colour left her cheeks and she rose to her feet
trembling. The thought flashed through her head.
‘For days I haven’t thought of him.’
Thomsy looked at her anxiously and said:
‘What ails you, Mary?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, laughing foolishly. ‘Only I got
so excited and ...’
‘Go on into the house,’ said the old man, too intent on
his own joy to notice that it was Martin’s name which had disturbed
her. ‘You’ve been doing too much lately. Rest yourself. Pick
those potatoes, Thomsy.’
Mary went towards the house. What heavy heat it was! The smell of the
growing plants was still in her nostrils even after she had left the
garden. It was sickening. Tears were now streaming down her cheeks.
‘Oh! darling,’ she muttered, ‘it wasn’t for
want of love of you that I didn’t think of you this while. I was
afraid to think of you. Oh! I’m afraid of the hunger, and the
little milk I have for our Michael.’
Indeed, such was the case. Every moment of the day and during most of the
night, her mind was tortured by the terrible thought that soon there
would be nothing for the little child and that she would have to go out
on the highways with him, begging. And this torture dulled all else,
dulled even the torture of Martin’s absence. Only once had she
heard of him since Chadwick’s death. A man brought news that he was
with a band of men on an island off the coast, away to the west, and that
he was safe there, at least for the present. But that was a poor
consolation. What of the future? What prospect was there of ever being
with him again, or of escaping from the country? It was this awful
thought which made her afraid to think of him.
Another violent storm came on the last day of the month. They did not
trouble greatly about this one, since the first had done no damage. even
so, a rumour got abroad that the blight had struck in the County Cork.
Would it come this far? Every day, they anxiously inspected the crop. But
the days passed without any sign of the evil. The potatoes that were dug
for food still remained wholesome. It promised to be a miraculous crop.
Even Mary began to take courage. And then, on the fifteenth of July, the
bolt fell from the heavens.
When old Kilmartin came into his yard shortly after dawn on that day,
he looked up the Valley and saw a white cloud standing above the Black
Lake. It was like a great mound of snow, hanging by an invisible chain,
above the mountain peaks. It was dazzling white in the glare of the
rising sun.
‘Merciful God!’ he said. ‘What can that
be?’
The rest of the sky was as clear as crystal. The old man stared at it
in awe for some time. Then he ran into the house and called out the
family to look at it. Mary and Thomsy came out. They were as startled as
the old man.
‘Did you ever see anything like that?’ the old man
said.
‘Never in my natural,’ said Thomsy. ‘It’s like
a ...’
‘Snow,’ Mary said. ‘It’s like a big heap of
snow.’
‘How could it be snow?’ said the old man. ‘And this
the middle of summer? It’s a miracle.’
‘Or would it be a bad sign, God between us and harm?’ said
Thomsy.
Other people came from their cabins and stared at the cloud. There was
a peculiar silence in the Valley. The air was as heavy as a drug. There
was not a breath of wind. The birds did not sing. And then, as the people
watched, the cloud began to move lazily down upon the Valley. It spread
out on either side, lost its form and polluted the atmosphere, which
became full of a whitish vapour, through which the sun’s rays
glistened; so that it seemed that a fine rain of tiny whitish particles
of dust was gently falling from the sky. Gradually a sulphurous stench
affected the senses of those who watched. It was like the smell of foul
water in a sewer. Yet, there was no moisture and the stench left an arid
feeling in the nostrils. Even the animals were affected by it. Dogs sat
up on their haunches and howled. Not a bird was to be seen, although
there had been flocks of crows and of starlings about on the previous
day. Then, indeed, terror seized the people and a loud wailing broke out
from the cabins, as the cloud overspread the whole Valley, shutting out
the sun completely.
All this time, the whole Kilmartin family had remained in the yard.
Mary clutched the baby in her arms. Nobody thought of preparing
breakfast, although the morning was now well advanced. It was only when
the wailing began and Maggie joined in it, that Mary came to her senses
and said:
‘Don’t frighten the child with your whining. There’s
no harm done yet. Hold the baby, mother, while I get breakfast
ready.’
‘True for you,’ said the old man. ‘There’s no
harm done yet. Into the house, all of you. Pooh! Afraid of a fog, is
it?’
Maggie stopped crying, but she went back to bed and closed the door of
her room. The others made an attempt to be cheerful. Like people who feel
the oncoming panic of despair, they gave voice to expressions of optimism
which they knew to be false.
‘I often saw fogs heavier than that,’ Ellen Gleeson said,
as she rocked the baby in the hearth corner.
‘As heavy as that?’ said Thomsy. ‘Sure that’s
not a heavy fog. I saw a fog once that was as thick as night. You can see
to the end of the yard in this one.’
‘You can see farther,’ said the old man. ‘On the
south side there, you can see as far as Patsy O’Hanlon’s
house. It’s not a thick fog. It’s funny the smell that comes
from fogs.’
‘I never smelt a fog before like that,’ said Mary.
‘It must be a new kind of fog. But a fog can do no harm in any
case. If it was rain now, that would be a different story. Rain might rot
the potatoes and they ...’
‘Nothing will rot the potatoes,’ said the old man.
‘God forgive you for saying such a thing.’
Mary cooked some Indian meal and turnips, of which a few still
remained. While they were eating, a further astonishing thing happened.
The sky cleared almost instantaneously. The sun shone brillantly. Yet
this change, which should have cheered the watchers, only increased their
awe, for the stench still remained. They all stopped eating. The old man
got to his feet. He reached for his hat and fumbled with it, looking
about him at the others with the expression of a small boy who has
committed some offence of which he is ashamed.
‘Blood an ouns!’ Thomsy said, jumping to his feet.
With his mouth wide open, he stared at the old man. Then they both
clapped their hats on their heads and rushed from the house. Mary ran to
the cradle, picked up the child and pressed it to her bosom.
‘What ails ye?’ her mother said.
Maggie began to wail in the bedroom. All the colour had gone from
Mary’s cheeks and her eyes seemed to have enlarged. She handed the
baby to her mother and whispered:
‘I’m going out to look at the gardens.’
Thomsy and the old man, one after the other and with their hands
behind their backs, were walking slowly down towards the potato gardens.
Mary ran until she reached them. Ahead she could see the gardens, still
shining in all the glory of their dark-green foliage, under the radiant
sun. But the stench was now terrible. In single file, they came to the first
garden and leaned over the stone fence close together, staring at the
plants.
‘They’re alright,’ said the old man.
‘There’s nothing on them.’
‘Whist!’ said Thomsy. ‘What’s that I
hear?’
Towards the north, in the direction towards which Thomsy pointed, Mary
and the old man saw people looking over fences, just as they themselves
were doing. These people had begun to wail. In this wailing there was a
note of utter despair. There was no anger in it, no power, not even an
appeal for mercy. It was just like the death groan of a mortally wounded
person, groaning in horror of inevitable death.
‘It’s the blight,’ Mary whispered. ‘Oh! God in
Heaven!’
‘Look,’ gasped the old man through his teeth. ‘Look
at it. It’s the devil. It’s the devil himself.’
With outstretched hand, that trembled as if palsied, he pointed to a
little hollow about ten yards within the fence. Here the growth was
particularly luxuriant and the branches of the potato stalks were matted
as thickly as a carpet. Mary and Thomsy followed the direction of his
hand and while he babbled foolishly they saw the evil appear on the
leaves. A group of little brown spots had appeared and they spread, as if
by magic, while they watched. It was just like the movement of an
incoming tide over a flat, sandy shore. It was a rain of spot spreading
rapidly in all directions.
‘Oh! God Almighty!’ Thomsy cried. ‘Save us, oh,
Lord! Jesus! Mary and Joseph!’
Rubbing his short, fat arms against his sides as if he itched, with
his round, bearded face turned towards the sky, he prayed for mercy. Mary
felt the same emptiness within her as on that other day when the old man
mentioned Martin’s name. Now, however, she did not think of Martin.
The whole world seemed to have become emptied. The hand had scooped out
everything. There seemed to be weights at the back of her eyes and her
forehead became deeply ridged by the labour of keeping them open. Then a
violent sobbing shook her. She closed her pained eyes and covered them
with her hands. She leaned against the fence and gave way to a fit of
sobbing. Yet no tears came from her eyes.
‘The devil,’ shouted the old man, ‘he’s on us.
He’s on us.’
Uttering shriek after shriek, he climbed over the fence, fumbling so
much that he dislodged several stones. He strode through the stalks, that
came up to his waist, across the ridges, until he came to the affected
spot. The stench was now that of active corruption. The old man seized
the stalks that were marked with spots and began to pull them. The leaves
withered when he touched them and the stalks snapped like rotten wood.
But the potatoes clinging to the uprooted stalks were whole. The old man
dug into several of them with his nails.
‘They’re not rotten,’ he cried, laughing
hysterically. ‘Come on, Thomsy. Pull the stalks that are rotten. We
must stop it spreading. Mary, you come as well. Pull the stalks. Pull.
Stop it spreading.’
Excited by the old man’s frenzy, Thomsy also climbed over the
fence and waddled through the stalks, but he halted when he was a few
yards from the old man, who was pulling feverishly and shouting. The old
man was now surrounded by a widening lake of spots.
‘Sure, it’s flying all over the garden,’ said
Thomsy. ‘Look, man. It’s all round you. You can’t stop
it.’
‘What’s that?’ said the old man, raising his
head.
He looked all round him pathetically. Then his mouth fell open and he
stood up straight. His hands dropped to his sides.
‘You’re right,’ he said faintly. ‘It’s
the hand of God. God’s will be done.’
Thereupon he crossed himself and bowed his head. Not troubling even to
collect the potatoes he had pulled up with the stalks, he marched slowly
back to the fence, carelessly trampling over the stalks that were still
untouched. Mary turned away from the fence as he approached. She began to
walk back to the house.
The wailing was now general all over the Valley.
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