— … It was the Poet composed it, I’d say …
— Oh, was it that cheeky brat? …
— Indeed then, it was not. He wouldn’t be able to. It was Big Micil Ó Conaola composed it:
“Nursing an old Yank there was Baba Pháidín
And no finer damsel could be found in Maine …”
— Honest, Muraed, I have forgotten everything concerning Caitríona’s affairs on the plain above us. Culture, Muraed. It elevates the mind to the lofty peaks and opens the fairy palaces in which is stored the protoplasm of colour and sound, as Nibs says in Sunset Tresses. One loses all interest in the paltry trivia of doleful life. A glorious disorder has filled my mind for some time now, brought on by an avalanche of culture …
— … “And no finer damsel could be found in Maine.
She came home dressed in gaudy clothing
For she coaxed the hoard from the grey-haired dame …”
— … Baba Pháidín never married, as she was looking after the old hag ever since she went to America. What do you think but didn’t the old hag leave her all her money — or almost all — when she was dying … Baba Pháidín could fill every grave in this graveyard with golden guineas, Dotie, or that’s the reputation she has …
— … Cóilí himself made up that rigmarole. Who else:
“‘Oh, Baba my dear,’ said Caitríona’s cat,
‘Don’t heed her my dear,’ said the cat of Nell.
‘If I got the gold,’ said Caitríona’s cat,
‘It’s mine now my dear,’ said the cat of Nell.”
— Caitríona would sooner do Nell out of Baba’s will than get a thousand leases on her own life …
— … “‘I’ve a lovely pocket,’ said Caitríona’s kitten,
‘I’ve a lovely pocket,’ said the kitten of Nell.”
“‘For an old hag’s money,’ said Caitríona’s kitten,
‘You’ve no promise from Baba,’ said the kitten of
Nell …”
— She had all the schoolmasters for years back worn out with writing to America for her …
— And Mannion the Counsellor …
— The Big Master told me he wrote very cultural letters for her. He picked up a lot of Americanisms from the cinema …
— The time he used to bring the Schoolmistress into Brightcity in the motor car …
— What’s galling Caitríona now is that she died before Nell. When I was alive I often heard her going along the boreen muttering to herself, “I’ll bury Nell before me in the graveyard clay” …
— … Tell the truth, Cóilí. Was it yourself made up that rigmarole?
— It was Big Micil Ó Conaola composed it. It was he composed “The Song of Caitríona” and “The Song …”
— … But Nell is still alive. She’ll get Baba’s inheritance now. There’s no other brother or sister but herself …
— Don’t be so sure of that, Muraed. Baba was very fond of Caitríona.
— Do you know what my better half used to say about the Páidín clan: “Weathercocks,” he’d say. “If one of them went to the fair to buy a cow he’d come home in half an hour with a donkey. And the first person to pass some remark about the donkey, he’d say to him: ‘I wish I’d bought a cow instead of that old lazybones of a donkey! She’d be of more use …’”
— … “Would you yourself come home with me?
There’s room beneath my shawl;
And by my book, Jack the Scológ,
We’ll have songs forevermore …”
— … Why would it be a peculiar nickname for a person, Dotie … Yes. “Jack the Scológ.” He’s up there above the townland where Caitríona and myself lived … I saw the Scológ himself, Jack’s father … The Scológ. He was one of the Ó Fíne clan by right … It’s no laughing matter, Dotie … Dotie! “Scológ” is as good as “Dotie” any day of the year. Let me tell you that even if you are from the fair plains of East Galway we weren’t hatched out under a hen either …
— De grâce Marguerita …
— … “‘I’ll marry Jack,’ said Caitríona’s dog,
‘I’ll marry Jack,’ said the dog of Nell …”
— Caitríona refused many a man. Big Brian was one of them. He had a tract of land, and a wealth of stock on it. Her father asked her to move in there, but she wouldn’t have given the potato-water for him.
— … Begin that song again and sing it properly …
— “Up got Son of Scológ …”
— … You wouldn’t think God had put a soul into Jack the Scológ until he began to sing. But if you heard his voice just once it’d haunt you for the rest of your life. I don’t know how to put it now …
— A dream of music.
— That’s it, Nóra. Like a strange dream, exactly. You’re in distress on a clifftop. The abyss yawns beneath you. You’re trembling with fear … Then you hear Jack the Scológ’s voice coming up to you out of the depths. The singing overcomes your fear. You’re letting yourself go … Feeling yourself sliding down … down … to draw closer to that voice …
— Oh my, Muraed! How thrilling! Honest …
— I never saw anyone who could remember which song it was she heard Jack the Scológ sing. We’d forget everything but the passion he could put into his voice. There wasn’t a young woman in the neighbouring townlands who wasn’t wearing the rugged path smooth up to his house, tracing his footprints. I often saw young women above on the bogs, and as soon as they got a sight of Jack the Scológ on his own bog or working round the house, they’d be stealing away, crawling through mud-holes and marshes for love of hearing him singing to himself. I saw Caitríona Pháidín doing it. I saw her sister Nell doing it …
— Smashing, Muraed! The eternal triangle is the cultural name for that …
— … “Up got Son of Scológ in the morning with the day,
And flirting after women he headed for the fair …”
— … It was indeed on the Day of the Great Pig Fair that Nell Pháidín and Jack the Scológ eloped. Her people were raging, for all they could do about it. I don’t know if you had that custom in East Galway, Dotie, that the eldest daughter must marry first …
— … “She carried him through swamp-holes,
Through marshes and through mud,
And no one cared but curlews
That were driven off their brood …”
— Up on the moor Jack lived, with nothing but wasteland and quagmires …
— Well, Muraed Phroinsiais, I never in all my life saw a path as rocky as the one up to the Scológ’s house. Didn’t I twist my ankle that night coming home from the wedding …
— … You did, because you made a glutton of yourself there, as you often did …
— … The night before the wedding in Páidín’s, Caitríona was stuck in a corner of the back room, with a face on her as long as a shadow at midnight. There was a bunch of us there. Nell was there. She started a bit of fun with Caitríona: “Bedamn, Caitríona, but I think you should marry Big Brian,” says she. Caitríona had refused him before that …
— I was there, Muraed. “I’ve got Jack,” says Nell. “We’ll leave Big Brian for you, Caitríona.”
— Caitríona went crazy. She tore out, and she wouldn’t go near the room again till morning. Nor would she go near the chapel next day …
— I was cutting a ropeful of heather that day, Muraed, and where did I see her but wandering about up in the marsh at Yellow Hillock, even though the wedding was going on in the Scológ’s house …
— She didn’t set foot across the threshold of Jack the Scológ’s that day or any day since. You’d think Nell had the spotted plague the way Caitríona used to pass her by. She never forgave her about Jack …