A Girl Called Eilinora Read Free

an oatcake and broken it up, although I’m not sure that someone in her state should eat too much at all for the first time. Cook says there have been some who have died in the poor house once they have eaten their first meal. I’ve crumbled the biscuit; you add some water.’
    Owen dribbled water onto the crumbs and mixed them into a grey and unappetizing dough, then fed her a little at a time. It took her five whole minutes to swallow the first crumbs. It seemed as though she had almost forgotten how to swallow. Most of the water ran down her neck when he tried to get her to drink.
    ‘The sky is getting darker,’ Shevlin said. ‘That rain is surely heading this way. It’s straight above Bangor Erris now. If we want to ride her back to Ballyford, we had best do it right away.’
    The girl grasped at Owen’s hand and, in a whisper clearly audible to both Owen and Shevlin, she said, ‘You came, you came.’
    ‘She is delirious,’ said Owen. ‘I doubt she has long.’
    He looked up at the gathering clouds. Shevlin was right; the wind was blowing the rain across much quicker than either of them had anticipated.
    He tried once more to encourage the girl to swallow. Thinking that the water bottle was about to be taken away from her, she tried frantically to grab it.
    ‘Steady, steady,’ said Owen. ‘Don’t worry, we aren’t going to leave you here. We’re taking you on the horse with us. Let’s lift her up now,’ he said to Shevlin.
    Owen mounted his horse first and Shevlin lifted the girl up. Owen felt her flop against him, as he circled her waist with his arm. It was the last time she moved, but he clearly heard her say again, ‘You came.’
    ‘The ride back to Ballyford will take us at least two hours,’ said Shevlin, mounting his own horse. ‘She will very likely be dead by the time we reach the castle. I’ve no idea what you think we’re going to do with the body if she dies on the way home. If we pass the county constabulary or even the soldiers on the way, may I suggest we hand her over? Although God knows, they won’t be interested. There are hundreds of poor people like her to be found on the road outside of Belmullet.’
    Owen was slightly irritated, afraid that the girl might have heard Shevlin’s words and he glanced down to check. Her head was flopping from side to side in time with the rolling gait of the horse. The skin on her face looked like parchment.
    He lowered his head to her ear, to check that she was still breathing and so that she could hear him.
    ‘Hold on young miss, just a couple more hours and we can get you out of the damp. I have an excellent cook and she will feed some nourishing soup into you. You’ll be back to good health in no time.’ He saw a light in her blue eyes flash back at him gratefully. She had heard and he was sure she understood him.
    The return journey was more difficult than their ride out had been earlier that morning. Word had got out. As they reached Geesala, a small gang of men and boys, almost too exhausted to stand, tried to intercept them. Owen thought he recognized one of the boys as one who had left Ballyford, to travel to Liverpool.
    ‘Is that Liam Toohey?’
    ‘Aye, it is, but for God’s sake, show no sign of knowing him. There are at least ten of them.’
    The men had chosen their spot with care. The road was narrow, a bottleneck, just wide enough for the horses to ride two abreast. The hills rose steeply away on either side of the road which was bordered by deep, water-filled ditches. The houses in the village they had just passed through had been largely uninhabited and the farm cottages which straggled along the road, tumbled to the ground. The men, dispossessed by their landlord, had nowhere to go. Homeless, wet, and starving, their homes destroyed, they began to form a straggling line across the road. Some of them swayed as they stood, as though their legs struggled to support the weight of their bodies.
    At the sound of Owen’s