“Murphy!”
My voice had an accent of forced bravery in it and
I was ashamed of my paltry stratagem. I had to
call the name again before Mahony saw me and hallooed
in answer. How my heart beat as he came running
across the field to me! He ran as if to bring
me aid. And I was penitent; for in my heart I
had always despised him a little.
North Richmond street being blind,
was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian
Brothers’ School set the boys free. An
uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind
end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground
The other houses of the street, conscious of decent
lives within them, gazed at one another with brown
imperturbable faces.
The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died
in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having
been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the
waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old
useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered
books, the pages of which were curled and damp:
The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communnicant
and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best
because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden
behind the house contained a central apple-tree and
a few straggling bushes under one of which I found
the late tenant’s rusty bicycle-pump. He
had been a very charitable priest; in his will he
had left all his money to institutions and the furniture
of his house to his sister.
When the short days of winter came dusk fell before
we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in
the street the houses had grown sombre. The space
of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet
and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their
feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we
played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed
in the silent street. The career of our play
brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the
houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes
from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping
gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the
dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and
combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.
When we returned to the street light from the kitchen
windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was
seen turning the corner we hid in the shadow until
we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan’s
sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother
in to his tea we watched her from our shadow peer up
and down the street. We waited to see whether
she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we
left our shadow and walked up to Mangan’s steps
resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure
defined by the light from the half-opened door.
Her brother always teased her before he obeyed and
I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress
swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her
hair tossed from side to side.
