A Man in a Distant Field. Theresa Kishkan
the fishermen in the area all favoured. He settled with the storekeeper, packed his groceries and the packet of letters, and returned to his skiff, keeping wide of the steamship, which had docked with a host of volunteers securing its lines; they were now watching a horse, its eyes covered with a blindfold, being lowered to the wharf in a canvas sling.
Coming back with a good wind behind him, Declan eased on the rowing to watch a pair of geese guarding a nest on one of the rocky islets at the mouth of his bay. He had heard they mated for life, and there was a story told of a goose who followed his wounded mate, patient in the sky, while she walked with her broken wing. How did the story end? He couldn’t remember. But these geese watched him, alert to his movements, ready to challenge him should he enter their nursery. He called to them that they had nothing to fear from him and chuckled as they hissed and gabbled back.
At the MacIsaac farm, he was offered a dram for his trouble. “It was no trouble at all, I assure ye,” he told them, handing their letters over and accepting a glass with a generous measure of whiskey. The men raised their glasses to toast, in Gaelic, each to the other’s surprise. Despite differences in accent and emphasis, they could understand each other, though MacIsaac confessed he had forgotten more of his parents’ language than he’d retained.
“I have enough yet for toasts and cursing and the occasional song,” he said cheerfully, downing his dram. It was redolent of peat and oak, a distillation of weather, sweet water, and barley malt. “I mind to share a whiskey now and then with someone who knows the old language. Come again!”
As they approached World’s End, Argos began to whimper and moan. Her hackles rose, and Declan heard growls coming from her throat, not yet articulated in her mouth. He followed her looking as best he could and was startled to see a dark shape reaching for his herring rake. By now Argos was barking, her voice full and fearsome. The shape turned to see what made such a noise, and Declan recognized the bear. He used his oars to steady the boat, to push against the movement of the tide so that they remained the short distance from the shore. The bear abandoned its attentions to the rake, raising its head to the air, shaking it from side to side, sniffing for them on the wind. Argos barked and scrambled for a foothold on the gunwales in order to jump from the boat, but Declan ordered her to sit. He had never seen a bear so close. He wanted to look at it as long as possible, memorize the heavy head and small eyes, the glossy coat hanging from the body like a cloak several sizes too large. The bear made a noise, as though clacking its teeth together, then turned and ambled away, rake abandoned. Declan waited for it to disappear into the woods before bringing the boat into shore.
The rake still leaned against the cabin. What had been the attraction, he wondered. He brought the tines close to his face and sniffed them. Fish. Of course. Fish had brought the bear. Although he always cleaned his fishing gear when he returned from the water, the smell of the herring impaled on the rake for bait would remain. But surely a bear would not return for the smell if there was no actual fish for it eat? Judging from the scats he found near the creek, the bear was feeding on grasses anyway. Great dark piles of scat, threaded through with long strands of undigested grass, weighted with seedy heads. The Neils told him that there would be many bears on the estuary in the fall when the salmon were running. That made sense, an animal the size of the one he had just seen feeding on salmon. But he marvelled at the thought of such a large beast sustaining itself on grass. Idly he pulled on the ripe head of a tall stalk of grass growing near the rake. The stem came free from its sheath and he chewed on the tender end of it contemplatively. It tasted mild and sweet. He chewed a little further up. It was coarser, more fibrous. But the tender part? He could see making a simple meal of those, maybe finishing up with a handful or two of ripe berries. He laughed out loud to think he shared such a thing in common with a bear.
The girl was standing by his open door. He’d looked up from his books to ease out a kink in his neck and had seen her there, looking in. On her face was an expression of intense curiosity, a palpable yearning. He followed her eyes to the pile of books on his table.
“Rose! Have ye been there long? I’m sorry to have been so absorbed that I did not notice ye until now.”
She told him not long, she’d not been there long, but had come to ask if the bedding had been enough. Her mother could provide more blankets if he needed them.
“Indeed what I have is grand. Yer mother has been very kind to think of my comfort as she has, with all her tasks for the doing. Now, can I give ye a cup of tea?”
She came in, moving in her shy way to one of the stumps which served as chairs. Declan found the extra mug and poured from the pot of tea stewing on the woodstove. At her nod, he poured in a little milk. He followed her eyes to the small stack of books on the table, his pen and bottle of ink to one side.
“It’s the story again, Rose. I told ye the other time how it was a world unto itself and how true that is! I sent for a few books to make my work with it easier and I collected them off the steamship this morning. Would ye like to see them?”
He handed her the little volume he had ordered on a whim, Tales of Ancient Greece, by Sir George W. Cox. It was a pretty book, bound in blue cloth with gold stamping on the spine. Rose held it as though it were alive, carefully, and with great attention. She put it to her face and smelled the cloth, inhaling deeply, her eyes closed. She opened the book to the title page and ran her index finger gently over the illustration bordering the text—cherubic faces and bunches of grapes and winged fairies.
“That’s a ‘t’,” she said reverently, touching the ornate initial beginning the quote, This is fairy gold, boy; and twill prove so.
“Aye, ’tis, Rose. And can ye read any more of it?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head and handed the book back. Taking up her mug, she sipped her tea, glancing at the papers on the table. It was very quiet in the cabin, only a droning of bees in the thimbleberry bushes outside the door to punctuate the still air. She had the look of one of his daughters when taking a pause between tasks, able to deeply relax at a moment’s notice.
“Will I read one of the stories to ye, Rose?” Declan suggested, moved at the sight of her in his cabin, his books all around and her not being able to read them. Her reverence for the Cox made him want to give her something, and there was no point in sending her home with a book. Stories were all he could think to offer.
She smiled her assent. Almost at random, he chose “The Sorrow of Demeter,” remembering incompletely the myth of the corn goddess and her young daughter.
In the fields of Enna, in the happy island of Sicily, the beautiful Persephone was playing with the girls who lived there with her. She was the daughter of the Lady Demeter, and everyone loved them both, for Demeter was good and kind to all, and no one could be more gentle and merry than Persephone.
Rose sighed deeply and rested her cheek against her clasped hands. Declan would learn that she loved being read to; it was one of her favourite things. Mostly her mother was too busy, she told him, but sometimes, particularly if Rose was ill, she would sit on the bed with one of the mildewy books that she’d brought from her childhood home in Glengarry County and read a story while stroking Rose’s hair.
She and her companions were gathering flowers from the field to make crowns for their long flowing hair. They had picked many roses and lilies and hyacinths which grew in clusters around them ...
“We do that, Mr. O’Malley! My sister taught me how to make a chain of daisies by splitting their stems with my fingernail! I’ve never tried roses, although when we pick them for Mum, they fall apart in our hands. The wild ones, I mean. And there are lilies here, too, the orange ones. Those girls are like us!”
She was very animated, her hands touching her head as though placing a crown of wildflowers upon it, her face bright with excitement. Declan was moved to see what the telling of a story could do to a shy girl, a girl left on shore while her brothers and sister sailed off to school, a girl whose arms bloomed with someone’s anger.
“To be sure, Rose. And isn’t that the