The Girl from Galloway by Anne Doughty

Author:Anne Doughty [Anne Doughty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The arrival of Neddy, the name chosen by Sam, who insisted that all the donkeys in books were called Neddy, was much celebrated in the McGinley cottage in Ardtur.

Patrick took on the new task agreed with Jonathan with enthusiasm, not only delivering the flour and meal provided by money donated to the Quaker charities, but keeping his eyes open and talking to those he met, finding out if they knew any others in need. And there were many.

By November, families had already used up their diminished potato crop and so had none available to sell to help them pay the half-yearly rent, now due in late December. Quite a few of them, reluctant to admit their difficulties, had sold all their winter clothes and household tools so they could buy enough food to tide them over till the new crop was ready in late May or June.

Patrick quickly learnt to watch for children playing outside cottages, ill-clothed even for the unusual mildness of the winter weather, and then to make further tactful enquiries.

It had taken him only a couple of days to do a deal on the donkey from Tullygobegley and to find, in a nearby market, a good, robust cart built for pulling heavy loads of turf from the bog.

‘Sure, isn’t everythin’ easy if ye’ve money in yer pocket,’ he said, unsmiling, when he arrived back home, late and tired, driving instead of walking.

It was only some days later, as Hannah waved him goodbye when he set off for Dunfanaghy to collect flour, brought in by boat from Derry, that she realised she too had received a gift with the arrival of the donkey and cart. Another day, Patrick might well be picking up supplies in Ramelton and if it were a day when she was not teaching, she could visit her friends, the Rosses, whom she’d seen only seldom since the arrival of Rose and Sam.

Catriona Ross was a good deal older than Hannah, but she’d been brought up in Dundrennan and knew Hannah’s father and mother and her older sisters, when they were still at school. She’d never revisited Scotland after her marriage to Joseph, the grandson of some distant cousins, who had come to Donegal, bought a small hotel and never went back. Catriona enjoyed sharing her memories of the fathers and mothers of children Hannah had been to school with, or even the grandparents of the children Hannah herself had taught when she became a monitor.

As for Rose and Sam, the good-natured little donkey was their greatest friend. Patrick reckoned he was the best-groomed donkey in Donegal and Hannah agreed with him. She said she never had to be concerned as to where they were and what was keeping them for so long, when they disappeared ‘to look after Neddy’.

Now that Patrick was helping with the household tasks and John well settled in his teaching duties, she had more time to herself. She was able not only to keep up with her sewing, but

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