Grani

“ Then Grani took a club and smote the ram, and wounded it, so that it ran away. Next he saw how at a little distance were Hallvard and Hallmund, who came and excused them of the doings of the sheep, which had strayed while the men slept. Grani answered nothing, though his sister wept; but Einar was nigh out of his mind for anger and despair, and cursed those twain, and Rolf their master, until Grani took him and led him into the house, when those two drove the sheep away. Einar was so spent with rage that he fell at last in a stupor; and Grani went and gathered all that remained of the grain. ”

“ He went abroad among the Iceland folk, and saw that they were a simple people, each man living upon his own farm and dressing in plain clothes, loving direct speech and homely ways. So Grani missed the best that was in the people, but thought them mean-spirited. He dressed always in colored clothes, and had attendants with him, and expected such respect from men as he had received when he was Ar's Fosterling. Now at Cragness honor was always showed him; but the neighbors of Einar were to Grani blunt of speech, sometimes biting ”

“ Grani, Gunnar’s son, and Gunnar, Lambi’s son, moreover, who most had egged them on, now hung back, and were more willing that others should go into danger than they themselves; they seemed ready on the slightest chance to slink away, for they were cowards. ”

“ Then another day passed, and men came home to sleep as tired as before; so then Grani took the bow and hid it up under the thatch, when all had gone to their beds.
In the morning nothing had happened save that the seats on the dais had all been moved, and the dais was found set up against the wall. Now the dais was heavy, and that work had been done with much strength. While men were marvelling the neatherd came in, and said he had been awake early in the byre, with a sick calf. Before sunrise he looked out of the window; the light was not strong, but he could see a little way. ”

“ Then a division of men was made, and Sweyn took the chapmen with him in the large ship, but Grani stayed on board the viking-ship as its master. They sailed together for the Orkney coast.
When night came Grani called Rolf and Frodi, and bade them watch by turns while he slept. "I will be a good master so long as ye serve me well." ”

“ But if the Orkneyingers refused, fire should be set to the hall and also to the roof of the church. And that was the same as offering them one small chance for their lives.
Grani asked: "What man will go out against Vemund?"
No one offered. Then Grani said: "He who goes against the baresark will die swiftest, therefore I am willing to go myself."
All the Orkneyingers cried out against that, saying they should die together within the hall; it might be Sweyn would come in time to save them. ”

“ She wanted her playfellow, and poor Honor by no means filled the blank. An old hen, sitting upon a clutch of eggs in a hole in the wall a little to the left of the fire, put its head out, and uttered a friendly interrogative cluck, by way of suggestion that it was there and would not object to a handful of oatmeal if it came in its way. Grania, however, took no notice, but sat, with her small brows{v.1-74} drawn close together, staring at the ash-covered heap of turf, below which a dull red glow still smouldered. ”

“ That was a ship of chapmen, and its master asked Grani who he was, and gave him food and drink, and carried him round the end of the Mainland to Hawksness; but those others who had reached the top of the cliff had no other way than to walk. Four leagues they fared on foot, reaching Hawksness after nightfall. ”

“ Oh! but it is a grand beast, I tell you, Grania O’Malley, a horse is! There is no other beast in the whole world so grand as a horse—not one anywhere—no, not anywhere at all.’
Grania listened to all this in perfect silence. These aspirations of Murdough found her very much colder than his more juvenile ones used to find her. ”

“ They had to feel their way as they best could round the outlying reefs, all but grinding against them, till they finally ran the curragh ashore upon the single spit of firm sand just below the old church of Cill-Cananach. Dark or light, hot or cold, sunlight, starlight, moonlight, it was all one that evening to Grania. The world itself seemed to have changed; to stand still; to be a new world. Everything about and around her had changed—the sea, the sky, the boat, the rocks, the shore—above all, herself; herself and Murdough. ”

“ Wurrah! wurrah! but it did make the noise, I tell you, Grania, and the people all turning round to look at him, and he pretending not to see one of them. My God! but a horse is a wonderful beast! I would sooner have a horse of my own, of my very own, that I could ride all over the world upon the back of, than I would have a ship or anything! ”

“ The mountain-top is sunlit; Brünnhilda's horse Grani is contentedly at graze; Brünnhilda, covered with her shield, her spear by her side, sleeps, motionless. Siegfried comes over some rocks at the back of the stage, gazes around him in wonder, finally discovers Brünnhilda, and with a kiss awakens her. At first the godhood has not quite gone out of her, and "Woe! woe!" she cries, as she realises her fate. But womanhood is strong within her; she yields; hails Siegfried as the highest hero of all the world, and the opera ends.
The music is nearly throughout the superb Wagner. ”

“ Outside the wind howled, sweeping with a vicious whirl over the long naked ledges, loosening here and there a thin flake of stone, which spun round and round for a moment like a forest leaf, then fell with a light pattering noise upon the ridge below. Inside the sods crackled dully, as the fire blown by Grania ran along their ragged brown sides, or shot into a flame whenever a stray fibre helped it on. ”

“ From the general look of the water around, it began to be clear to Grania that they must by this time have got amongst some of the outlying reefs, for there were rocks now to right of them, as well as to left. The tide, too, was running swiftly, and kept drawing them insensibly shorewards. Twice she caught a glimpse of a pale green monster only just in time to avoid running full upon it. Ought she to go on, or ought she to stop? Ought she to try to turn round? ”

“ Murdough’s astonishment and delight burst out then and there like a fountain; burst into a torrent of words—vague, iridescent, incoherent. Projects of every sort—races to be won, victories over rivals, money, much money, to be earned in the future—they all poured forth; flew and hurtled through the air; one golden scheme jostling against another in its hurry to express itself. Grania listened, but her eyes never lost that oddly intent, wistful expression. ”

“ Upon that particular morning, as upon nearly every other morning throughout the year, Grania had left the cabin early, after settling Honor in her usual corner for the day, and had taken down the cow to pasture it upon the bent-grass growing upon the seashore at the foot of the hill, not far from where the two sisters owned a small strip of potato-ground. ”

“ Grania, a born aristocrat—all children are born aristocrats—shared this feeling in the strongest degree, and was well aware that Teige was in some way or other immensely inferior to herself, and therefore a person only to be tolerated when no more attractive company was to be had. She sat for some time longer with her feet dangling over the top of the fort, a quaint little red-petticoated figure, the solitary spot of colour in all that desolate greyness. ”

“ Grania stood for a moment on the edge of the cliff, staring down at it; her black brows almost meeting in the intensity of her gaze, her arms locked one over the other on her chest, her face working. Suddenly she turned with a gesture of impatience, and looked away from it towards the other side, the side where there was no villa, and where there was nothing to be seen, nothing, that is, but the sea and the bare sea-washed sheets of limestone. Ledge above ledge, layer above layer, these last rose ”

“ CHAPTER IV The stirabout ready, the two sisters ate their meal together. Honor’s was that of a blackbird. In vain Grania coaxed her with the best-mixed corner of the pot; in vain added milk, breaking in little bits of carefully-treasured white bread, brought from the mainland. The sick woman pretended to eat, but in reality barely moistened her lips with the milk and touched a corner of the bread. When she could persuade her to take no more Grania settled down to her own share, and with the aid of her yellow auxiliary speedily cleared the pot. ”

“ Grania for all answer thrust her foot again amongst the turf, making it flare and sputter like a Catherine wheel.
‘Then I don’t believe it—nor want to believe it—nor to hear it, what’s more—not though every priest in Ireland or the world were to say it!’ she suddenly burst out angrily. ‘And it is all very well for you, Honor, a saint born, wanting nothing and caring for nothing, only just the bit to keep you alive and the spot to pray on. But all women are not made like that. ”

“ Perhaps it was Phelim’s presence, for whom it had always shown a particular aversion; perhaps it was the rocking of the boat as Grania pushed her oar against the sand. Anyhow, with a sudden demoniac mew of fury, the yellow cat sprang up again; darted frantically, like a thing possessed, from side to side, up and down the thwarts, one after the other ”

“ Grania shivered and felt sick. Something in the look and extraordinary apathy of the woman, something in the hideous squalor of the house, affected her as no poverty—not even that of the Dalys at home—had ever done before. She raked together the embers, and put a few fresh sods of turf on the fire—seeing that the woman of the house was either too ill or too indifferent to do anything—then sat down on a low creepy opposite to her, feeling chilled to the bone and utterly miserable. ”

“ As for the scenery,{v.2-107} certainly a stranger would have seen little variation, save in point of size, between its stoniness and the stoniness of Inishmaan. To Grania, however, as to all whose eyes are not spoiled by too varied and too early an acquaintanceship with many landscapes, small differences made great ones, and there was enough variety in that morning tramp through those stone-encumbered pastures to cause an exhilarated sense of travel and enlarged acquaintanceship with a world as yet imperfectly known and visited. ”

“ Grania O’Malley had{v.1-111} reaped hers, or rather it had come to her without any sowing or reaping, which is the best and most natural way. She had a special faculty, too, for such living—one which all cannot hope either to have or to acquire. She could dig, she could chop, she could carry, she could use her muscles in every sort of outdoor labour as a man uses his, and, moreover, could find a joy in it all. For words, unlike Murdough, she had no talent. ”

“ Grania looked up. A new idea, a sudden curiosity, was stirring in her mind.
‘But did you never care for e’er a one, Honor?’ she asked, reddening and speaking quickly: ‘never for e’er a one at all—not when you were young? Sure, Honor, you must! Think a bit, sister, and tell me. Arrah! why wouldn’t you tell me? Isn’t it all past and done now?’
‘“Care”? Is it I, child? “Care”! God keep you, no! What would ail me to care?’ the elder sister asked in tones of genuine astonishment. ‘Auch! men is a terrible trouble, Grania, first and last. ”

“ Whether he would have cared to do so or no, Grania certainly would not, and they were shortly to be married. To her Inishmaan was much more than home, much more than a place she lived in, it was practically the world, and she wished for no bigger, hardly for any more prosperous, one. It was not merely her own little holding and cabin, but every inch of it that was in this peculiar sense hers. It belonged to her as the rock on which it has been born belongs to the young seamew. She had grown to it, and it had grown to her. ”

“ Lame as he was, Teige, being nearer to the door, contrived to scramble after her, and caught her up just as she reached the other side.
‘Auch, Grania! Grania O’Malley!—’tisn’t angry you’d be with one who hasn’t the sense of life in her at all, at all?’ he cried deprecatingly—‘a creature that can’t speak with her tongue, nor hear with her ears, nor understand, nor a thing! What is she but a poor old lost one out and out, old Biddy, God help her! Sure, Grania O’Malley, ’tisn’t yourself would turn upon such a one as that? ”

“ They are chased all over Ireland, and the dolmens in that country are popularly associated [pg 300] with them, being called in the traditions of the peasantry “Beds of Dermot and Grania.”
Grania's character is drawn throughout with great consistency. She is not an heroic woman—hers are not the simple, ardent impulses and unwavering devotion of a Deirdre. The latter is far more primitive. Grania is a curiously modern and what would be called “neurotic” type—wilful, restless, passionate, but full of feminine fascination. ”

“ Grania was hardly listening. She wanted—she hardly herself knew what she wanted{140}—but certainly it was not words. Why would Murdough always go on talk, talk, talking? she thought irritably. She admired his interminable flow of words of course—she would not have been Irish had she not done so—at the same time she was conscious of a vague grudge against them. They seemed always to be coming between them. They were her rivals after a fashion, and she was not of a temper to put up patiently with rivals, even invisible ones.
‘Man above! but it is late ’tis getting!’ she suddenly exclaimed. ”

“ His future had always held her as a matter of course, just as hers had always held him, and use, more than all the other ingredients of existence, possesses a tremendous leverage upon beings of Murdough’s type. The end of his brooding was that one evening, about a fortnight after their quarrel, and a couple of days after the scene between Grania and Shan Daly, he waylaid her as she was coming back from the kelp fire, hiding for that purpose in an old clump of hawthorn bushes till she should pass by. ”