A Man in a Distant Field Read Free Page A

never gotten over the warmth. And the storms, coming in to wrap the bowl of the valley in mists like the smoke from incense, and just as fragrant. Declan wondered if there were any similarities between his own Delphi and the temple of the same name. Both of them high in the mountains, tucked into clefts in the rock. The weathers would be different, of course. Ireland’s rain, the intense sun of Greece. And no silvery olives, but the sallies by the river had their own soft leaves and music. And as for being a language of its time, why, the problem Declan could foresee was to find words to tell of honour, how a man would lay down his life for something noble and larger than himself. Where the actions of men reflected something foretold by gods. To find equivalencies for olives, the magnanimity of kings.
    There was a knock at the door. Opening it, he was surprised to find a girl. He recognized her from the creek, one of the Neil children at play in the reeds. She was fair, like the others, in a skimpy dress of sprigged cotton, with a pullover knotted aroundher waist. The girl was holding a small black puppy in her arms. It was struggling to get down, whimpering as it wriggled this way and that, a stream of urine falling to the threshold. The girl looked up and met Declan’s eyes. Hers were a startling green, like new leaves, and there was a dusting of freckles across the ridge of her upper cheeks and nose.
    â€œPlease, sir, my mother thought you might want one of Queenie’s pups. They’re old enough to leave her now.”
    â€œPut the lad down so I can see what ye’ve brought me,” Declan said, coming outside. He rubbed his eyes against the sunshine, which was heating the wet ground around the cabin. Steam rose and there was a smell of damp earth. Birds trilled in the thickets of salmonberry and gulls careened above the receding tide.
    â€œSir, it’s a girl, not a lad. Will that matter to you? Queenie’s boy pups have already been promised.”
    The puppy sat for moment on the step and then put its tiny nose in the air, sniffing for its bearings, and, finding something worth following, it moved in a clumsy way toward the creek.
    â€œI’ve no preference, one way or the other. This little dog will suit me fine. I’ll call her Argos and hope that she will be half as loyal to me as the original Argos was to his master, Odysseus,” he told the girl, smiling.
    â€œSir, I don’t know what you mean,” she replied, looking puzzled.
    â€œAh, I’m rambling again. It’s the book I’m looking at, ye see. It’s like a world unto itself, and when I’ve been at it for a wee time, it surrounds me and I must work for a bit to leave it off. Have ye ever had a book take ye like that?”
    The girl told him no, she couldn’t read, and they had only a few books, but there were stories told by her mother that seemed so real she was sad to have them finished.
    â€œIs it the same for all of ye, with the reading?”

    The girl retrieved the puppy from its investigations of water and brought her back to where they stood. “Well, my oldest brother and my sister have gone to school more regular, like, but it’s over around the point and there’s only room in the skiff for Dad to take three, and Tom goes to keep David company. I stay home with my little brother Jack. There is a school boat, it comes to take children from all over the harbour, but my dad had an argument with the man who operates it and won’t let it come for us. And anyway, Dad doesn’t think we need the learning. He never went to school, and he says we’re needed here. My mother went to school when she was a girl in Ontario, and she tried at first to make time for lessons, but it makes my father angry.”
    She stopped talking suddenly, afraid perhaps of giving a stranger too much of a family’s secret drama. Then, in a rush: “I’ve got to get back now, if