Footsteps in the Dew , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Forde Hickey Edward

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209 pages

English

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Footsteps in the Dew is a novel which details the social history of rural Ireland between the two World Wars. In days when the immediacy of television was unavailable, the richness of human speech was the main source of daily entertainment.These tales are written in a similar lyrical language as used by a past generation of storytellers. They range from the uniqueness of family law to tales of heroes, adventurers and even murderers. There is a dichotomy expressed in the role of men and women towards nationalism, the gentry, the clergy and also alternative faiths (e.g. Protestantism and Quakerism).The freedom of men is noticeable (for it is only the men who spin tales) in contrast to the yearly struggles of women and childbearing. One tale includes the stain of illegitimacy and the ostracising of the young girl to lifelong 'laundry work' with the nuns. As might be expected, the book ends with a tale of romantic love - of reconciliation and jubilation.

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Historical fiction

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 octobre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838597511
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Edward Forde Hickey

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781838597511

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Frontispiece Days in Olde Tipp’rary

For Bedelia and Jack with gratitude
Contents
Author’s Note
Introduction

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen

Postscript
Author’s Note
I have tried to leave my footsteps carefully down on a literary journey – a journey similar to a laughing child attempting to make matching long strides behind a farmer as the two of them go out to fetch the cows in a field where the silver dewfall has clearly indicated the big man’s wellington footsteps. Footsteps in the Dew endeavours likewise to match the strides of a previous generation of oral storytellers, who frequented the evening cardplaying fireside during the late 1940s in north Tipperary.
Of course the written word will always be somewhat of a mongrel – in that it cannot record a pictorial image of those old storytellers – whether at the fireside or during their harvesting breaks in the meadow or the bog or on their daily journeys to the creamery with a child sitting next to them on the lace of the ass-and-car. Nor can a book of tales include the wondrous pauses within those stories of old or the facial, hand and shoulder mannerisms of the teller – not to mention the occasional spit at a fly. An author can but make an honest attempt to follow in these storytellers’ footsteps and it is left to the reader to gauge the extent to which I have succeeded.

E.F.H
December 2016

A superb collection delivered by a natural storyteller . . . charming, poignant and thoroughly entertaining.
from Addison and Cole’s senior editor, Ben Evans
Stories that are unnervingly impressive . . . the language highly evocative . . . the emotions powerful.
from The London School of Journalism
Introduction
It was Wednesday evening on Tipperary’s Rookery Rally hillside. As usual the two candles were lit reflectively on the back and front tables. The glass globe of the oil-lamp had been cleaned of its brown stains for this special occasion and it shone its flame all round the Welcoming Room, making huge spectral shadows across the back wall.
Suddenly the rhythm of hobnail boots could be heard echoing across the stream’s flagstones in front of Dowager’s cabin. The poachers (led by Ayres ‘n’ Graces) opened the door and they took off their hats. The house-light sparkled out behind them onto the yard and on towards the stream in a long silver ribbon.
“God save all here!” they said and into the warmth of the Welcoming Room they brought a pair of fat rabbits for Dowager’s pot. They hung them on the nail behind the door so as to bring her good luck.
The card-table was then pulled out onto the middle of the floor for the game to begin. The players sat round, waiting for the deck of cards to be cut and dealt out. They lit their pipes and soon sent clouds of smoke spiraling up to the rafters. The silence of the cardgame was marred only by the ticking of the clock on the dresser.
An hour later and it was time for the last hand of cards. Blue-eyed Jack gave a polite little cough as he leaned back on his chair. Then his eyes glittered and he rapped the table with his knuckles, getting a woebegone look from the rest of the players at the sight of his big trump – the Ace-of-hearts. Showers of pennies were sent flying round the table and he quickly scooped the money up in his fists. With the games at an end it was time for the evening story to begin.
“Who will tell this evening’s tale?” said Dowager, her eyes scanning the men.
The players turned their chairs away from the table and they made a little scurry for the hearthstone, forming a semicircle beneath the hob.
By this time Blue-eyed Jack had managed to heap half-a-dozen whitethorn logs and a bucketful of turf on top of the fire, causing the flames to flicker fiercely and the sparks to fly straight up the chimney. It wasn’t long before the six players were roasting their shins red-raw from the tremendous heat of the blaze.
They knew of course whose turn it would be this Wednesday to tell the latest historical tale of events. Ayres ‘n’ Graces beckoned Rambling Jack to take the place of honour on the cushioned bench in the depths of the chimney corner.
There followed a delicious pause of childish expectation among the listeners. It was always the same thing of a Wednesday once the cards were over and done with – a time for one tale or another to while away the rest of the evening before the door was closed and the latch bolted for the rest of the night.
Rambling Jack now leaned forward towards his friends across the firelight. He spat into the midst of the sizzling flames. This was the signal and they each waited breathlessly. Then without further ado he began the evening’s tale.
One
The Black and Tan War Days
and how a young girl called Soolah Patricia
saw heaven above and beyond the stars.
We Had Our Anti-heroes
And now it’s my own turn to spin the tales and I have to tell you this: there were among us not only genuine heroes worthy of posterity, but also a list of what you’d call anti-heroes here, whose names we should hastily scrub from the book of celebrations. Formost of these was that old slyboots-of-a-fox (Renardine). Unlike the weasel, he’d prefer to snap a henhouse of chickens into a million feathers rather than select a single hen for his supper – at least until By-Jiggery and Taedspaddy put an end to his life.
The ferret too was a rascal that needed a good deal of our attention. The older children (as soon as their parents were abroad at the woodpile cutting logs) might be seen opening the hasp of the little creature’s cage and letting him loose round the room. Spotting his chance for freedom, the wily little devil (if you tried to trap him with the yardbrush) would sink his teeth into your fingers till the blood came squirting out onto the floor and the bone broke with a painful crack. There was but one answer: to stick a burning sod-of-turf up into his arse and send him howling out the half-door – never to be seen again. The hawk or the fox would soon make bits of him.
We also had our unfriendly badger on the upper side of The Bull-Paddock. And though we knew that he (like the ferret) would hold onto your leg till he heard the bone crack, Brandy (Old Sam’s dog) failed to heed this valuable lesson the day he came to tangle with that old curmudgeon below at the rotten tree near John’s Gate. The poor dog was seen walking with a distinctive limp for the rest of his days – his right paw having been snapped asunder by Badger. If we had been there to witness this fierce battle we would never have allowed such a fate to happen to him; for our years of training had taught us that if one of our dogs was ever faced with the enclosed teeth of any badger we’d only to reach for a stout stick and crack it in two across our knee – the sound of the stick’s crack being enough to distract the rascal and make him dislodge his teeth from any poor dogs’ leg – thinking (the old fool) that the crack of the stick had broken it.
There were times, however, when our dogs were so badly damaged in conflicts with a family of badgers that we were forced to forget our hedging, fishing and shooting and go off and look for the sett where these particular villains had set up home. Each of us took hold of a crowbar and a shovel from behind the half-door. As soon as we arrived (man and boy alike) we dug out the entire family – Badger’s wife as well as himself and all their innocent children. Then we gave each of them the quick death with our shovels, belting them into their pig-like snouts and chastising them once and for all.
The Little Children
Apart from the day-to-day torment of these animal anti-heroes, we had one or two other worries to think about – worries about our children and their childish fears. For, like little children of former days, they were full of a rich and (at times) unwanted imagination. As a result of this they spent many a sleepless night preoccupied with a list of hallucinations as long as your arm – dreams of slimy, scaly serpents crawling round the yard and sitting on the windowsills and looking in at them in their beds, causing them to screw up their eyes and close the flaps of their ears with their fingers – as though that was the way to send these cruel fiends away.
And if such vivid illuminations weren’t enough to put them in a trance and make them wet themselves, then the older boys (the minute their parents were abroad milking the morning cows) took a mischievous joy in frightening them with further gruesome tales – tales (it might be) of some imaginary horseman from The Bog Wood, str