The Gift Horse

Niall, Gary and Margareth , with the Driscolls, sat in the circle of firelight, their shadows running like spokes into the outside darkness. The island of vision touched the caravan and the tent, but only made them look darker in the half-light. These and the hedgerows drifted in and out with the ebb and flow of the firelight, but the two piebald horses were too far away to be seen, although they could be heard occasionally, blowing and stamping.

Gary and Margareth were talking in low tones with the two tinker boys, Nenan and Aengus, but Niall scarcely heard them. It was long past his usual bed time and he was drugged by the heat of the fire. He had his eyes on Old Mr. Driscoll, trying to keep his eyelids up, watching the magic flashing of the cutters.

The lean fingers worked them confidently; the blades moved through the tin without hesitation, making a crisp crunching noise as they cut. The narrow strip of trimming curled into spirals like apple pealing, going around and around towards the ground. As the sheet of tin moved about in the old man's hands, it shot spotlights of fire turned silver over his face, blinding out the creases, so that sometimes Niall could see how he must have looked years ago, long before he, Niall, was born - or Gary or Margareth, either.

The blades came to the end of their path with a sharp snip; one hand caught the strip before it could fall and laid it down carefully among a neat pile of equally-curled strips. The face looked at Niall and caught his stare and all the lines turned up, the lips parted and Niall could see the yellow teeth in darkness behind.

Niall tried to smile back at him, but was too drowsy for the effort. Leaning forward, he nearly fell off the box he was seated on.

He heard a call somewhere out in the dark beyond the fire; it was a three-note call and one of the notes was his name.

Gary and Margareth got up briskly. Nenan and Aengus rose with them.

"Come on, Niall, Mam is calling."

They pulled him to his feet and faced him out against the cold and dark. Gary had one of his hands, Margareth the other. The call came again.

"Coming!" yelled Gary.

Niall could hear Margareth's voice saying, "Goodbye", followed by Gary's, as they left the fire behind. Nenan and Aengus came with them, one on each side.

"Goodbye," muttered Niall. He tried to look back at Old Mr. Driscoll, but Gary and Margareth relentlessly pulled him onwards.

"Come on, Niall, move your feet."

Two broad shapes loomed up at the side of the road and Niall smelt horse flesh.

"Good night, Andy, good night, Jack," he whispered.

He couldn't stroke them. Margareth had too firm a grip on his hand and she tightened it as he tried to wiggle free. Low talk was going on, on both sides of him, sometimes words passed over his head. He heard "woods" and "nuts" and strained his ears to hear more. If they were going to the woods for hazelnuts tomorrow, he was going with them - why shouldn't he? He started to prepare his argument in readiness, but at that moment they came up to their mother and

all talk died away.

"In with you," she said to her children. "Your supper's waiting."

"'Evening, Mrs Kelleher," said Nenan and Aengus together, always polite with other people's parents.

"Good night, Nenan, Aengus," returned their mother, and then Niall found her behind him, lifting him up the steps.

Next morning was bright. The fresh smell of the outside came in the open doorway as Niall sat eating his breakfast, watching Gary and Margareth doubtfully. He had fully intended, even in the drowsiness of sleep the night before, to talk to them about going to the wood, the first chance he got. But sleep had won out then and now they were talking about everything except hazelnuts until he began to think that what he had seem to hear last evening, he had only imagined.

But the first time he went to his room for something, they were gone when he came back. The complete suddenness of it made him suspicious and he went out and searched around outside. They weren't there, of course. He went out into the boreen and made his way over to the camp. But he had no hope. He knew they had given him the slip.

Wood smoke was rising up from the camp fire. Even from that distance the smell of it came to him sharply on the air. Mrs Driscoll was doing something in the caravan; through the open door he could see her moving about. Old Mr. Driscoll was poking something into the fire. There was no sign of anyone else.

Niall paused by the two horses and rubbed their noses. They blew warm air at him through their nostrils and slobbered all over him with their great fat lips. His disappointment began to ebb a little.

"You're looking for your brother and sister?"

Startled and confused, Niall glanced at the fire. Old Mr. Driscoll was standing upright there, his hands on his hips, looking at him keenly. Near his trouser leg the handle of a soldering iron stuck out from the fire.

Niall nodded and said a hesitant "Yes."

"They’re not here," the old tinker told him.

Niall nodded again, dumbly. He was wondering how to go away without giving the impression he was being sent, when the old man spoke again.

"You like horses?"

The tone was friendly and confidential.

"Yes," admitted Niall shyly. The thought burst upon him that Old Mr. Driscoll was going to give him one of the horses. He would get up on its back and they would go off clopping down the boreen. He would go in and show his mother first and then he would ride up to the woods, where the others would stop picking nuts off the trees to look at him in astonishment...

But the old man didn't say any more. Instead he took the iron out of the fire and examined it. The head was white hot. He thrust it in among the glowing embers again and sat down on a box. From behind him he took a sheet of tin that had been curved into a broad tube with the ends joined together in a neat line. Gripping it firmly between his knees, he next took up a circle of tin and carefully placed it into position at one end of the tube.

Niall moved nearer, drawn by curiosity.

The old tinker took a stick of solder from a bag at his side and laid its tip against where the edges of the tube and the circle met. Then he pulled the iron out of the fire again. The head was still white-hot, but a faint shadow moved back and forth in the depths of the glow.

Sparks were jumping from it as he placed the head against the tip of the solder. The solder collapsed in bubbles. Keeping the two together, he moved them slowly around the joining. As soon as the heat left it, the solder hardened almost at once into a crusty silver line. When the head of the soldering iron began to darken, Old Mr. Driscoll pushed it back into the fire and looked at Niall with his bright eyes.

Niall looked into the fire. The shadows of horses were pulsing in the bright heart of it. Old Mr. Driscoll took up a newly-made tin can and began to polish it with a soft rag. Niall sat on the grass and watched him. In the curved, mirror-clear sides of the tin the world was squeezed and drawn out, first one way, then another, as it moved around on the old man's knees.

"Here!" said Mrs Driscoll. "You must be hungry."

Before he could even think to protest, she put a tin bowl full of soup in his hands. It was so hot that he almost dropped it. He laid it down on the ground between his knees and sucked his burnt fingers. Mrs Driscoll rubbed a large spoon on her apron and handed it to him. He wasn't really hungry, but he didn't know how to refuse, now that it had been given to him. Also, he was curious to find out what it tasted like. He sipped a little carefully from the spoon and found it had a strong flavour. He slowly chewed the lumps of meat and vegetable, watching the pictures in the embers.

All at once, he was startled by voices around him. When he looked up, there were Gary and Margareth, Nenan and Aengus.

He knew he must have dozed, for time could not have gone so quickly. He got to his feet and stared at them resentfully, but they did not seem to be aware of having committed any treachery. They greeted him in high spirits, thrusting handfuls of nuts towards him.

"Look, Niall! We've brought some for you!"

"Loads."

While he was wondering whither to accept them or reject them scornfully, he took them into his hands, anyway. But his cupped hands quickly overflowed and he had to clasp them to his chest. Gary and Margareth piled them on generously. Even Nenan and Aengus added a few.

"Enough!" Niall protested, bending to pick up the ones that had fallen and letting another shower fall as he did so.

The next morning, early before breakfast, Nenan and Aengus came over and Niall heard, with shock, that they were leaving. They had been camped in the boreen so long, the first night they had come seemed almost outside memory.

But now everything was packed up and ready. The camp site had a lonely look with its yellowed patches of grass where the tent had been and where the wheels of the caravan had stood. Inside the blackened circle of stones where the fire had burned, perpetually it seemed, there was nothing left but cold grey ashes.

Niall, Gary and Margareth had gone over to see them off.

One of the horses was harnessed to the caravan, the other to the butt, which was heaped with the tent and the pots and pans.

The caravan moved off first, with Mrs Driscoll inside and Old Mr. Driscoll sitting up front, driving. Nenan drove the butt while Aengus sat at the back, dangling his legs over the tailboard. Slowly they lumbered along the boreen, while Gary, Margareth and Niall walked alongside. Old Mr. Driscoll glanced back at them from time to time from the front of the caravan. Suddenly he stopped the caravan and called back:

"Hoi! Little One!"

Niall found all eyes on him. Gary gave him a push.

"Go on - he's calling you."

Bashful, Niall went forward and stood by the shaft, waiting. Old Mr. Driscoll was fumbling under the seat. He took out something small, wrapped in a rag. As he leaned towards Niall, their eyes met.

"This is for you," he said.

Niall took the package in his hand. It felt light. As he looked up, the caravan moved on again and the butt rolled past him with a creak. Gary and Margareth remained with him, their eyes brimming with curiosity. The butt was barely out of sight around a bend before they were telling him to open it. With trembling fingers, Niall unwound the rag and let it drop to the ground. In his hands he held a shining horse cut from tin, perfect in every way.

"You lucky thing," said Margareth.

"You didn't say thanks," said Gary.

They walked back home, Niall clopping his horse along through the air. He didn't mind that he couldn't ride it. Some horses were beyond that sort of thing.

^

Biography

I have been writing for many years and had occasional publication in New Irish Writing (The Irish Press), Irelands Own, Cork Weekly Examiner (long, long gone), The Cork Yule Book and Paddy Magazine (now known as Ireland's
Eye). I have two websites, one for supernatural fiction, articles and verse: freespace.com/art/moonwriter the other for writing in general:
h ttp://www.angelfire.com/journal/specimen