— … “Briany is handsome, with land, stock and wealth,
And outside of marriage he won’t get his health …”
— … But in spite of all his wealth that same Big Brian was a complete failure at getting a wife. Devil a bone in his body but came asking Caitríona again …
— … “‘By the devil,’ says Tríona, ‘Here’s a fine pig for scalding,
The kettle off the fire, to welcome the stalwart.’”
— The pot-hook is what they used in cases like that east of Brightcity. The time Peats Mac Craith came …
— That mode of refusal is found west of Brightcity too, Dotie. Honest. Myself, for example …
— Did you hear what the Tailor’s sister did when some old loafer from Wood of the Lake came in asking her to marry him? She got a long knife out of the chest and began to sharpen it in the middle of the house. “Hold him down for me,” she said …
— Oh, she would do that indeed. The One-Ear Breed …
— What do you think, after all that, but didn’t Caitríona marry Seán Thomáis Uí Loideáin from our neighbourhood without a yea or a nay when he came to ask for her …
— By God, Muraed, Seán Thomáis was too good for her …
— He had a big holding of the best sandy land …
— And he was the man to work it too …
— He had a grand big house …
— It was the place she coveted, of course. To have more means and money than Nell. To be close enough for Nell to see, every day that dawned, that Caitríona had more means and money than she herself would ever have …
— … “‘I’ve a fine big haggard,’ says Caitríona’s kitten,
‘I have strippings22 of cows, butter and fat …’”
— “‘I’m gentle and useful, loving and decent,
Which cannot be said for Nell’s little cat …’”
— To show Nell it wasn’t Caitríona that drew the short straw, and that Nell was welcome to the leavings and the longings. From Caitríona’s very own mouth I heard it. That was her revenge …
— Oh my, but that’s an interesting story. I think I won’t bother with the Big Master’s reading session today … Hey, Master … We won’t bother with the novelette today … I have other intellectual work on hand. Au revoir …
— Caitríona was hard-working and thrifty and clean in Seán Thomáis Uí Loideáin’s house. I should know it, since I lived next door to her. The rising sun never caught her in bed, and her card23 and her spinning-wheel often chattered into the night …
— Her house was the better for it, Muraed. She had wealth and means …
— … Dropping into Barry’s the Bookmakers in Brightcity. My hand in my pocket as bold as if there was something in it. And me down to the one shilling. Making a great rattle throwing it down on the counter. “‘Golden Apple,’” I said. “The three o’clock race. A hundred to one … It might win,” says I, putting my hand in my pocket and turning it out …
— … A pity it wasn’t me, Peadar the Pub, I wouldn’t have let him away with it. It wasn’t right of you to let any black heretic insult your religion like that, Peadar.
“Faith of our fathers holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death,
We will be true to thee till death …”
You had no red blood in you, Peadar, to let him away with talk like that. If that had been me …
— To hell with yourselves and your religion. Neither of you has shut his mouth in the last five years but arguing about religion …
— … Indeed, Muraed, they say that after all Caitríona’s bitching about Nell she was glad to have her, after her husband died. She was in a bad state at that time, for Pádraig was still fairly young …
— That I was glad to have Nell! That I was glad to have Nell! That I’d accept anything from Nell! Sweet Jesus tonight, that I’d accept anything from that pussface! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …
7
— … The nettly groves of Donagh’s Village, you said.
— Even nettles wouldn’t grow on the hillocks of your village, there are so many fleas on them …
— … I fell off a stack of oats …
— Faith then, as you say, the Menlo man and myself used to write to each other …
— … “I wonder is this the War of the Two Foreigners?”24 says I to Paitseach Sheáinín …
— Wake up, man! That war’s over since 1918 …
— It was still going on when I was dying …
— Wake up, I tell you. Aren’t you nearly thirty years dead? The second war is on now …
— I’m thirty-one years here. I can boast of something that none of you can boast of: I was the first corpse in this graveyard. Don’t you think the oldest inhabitant of the graveyard should have something to say? Permission to speak. Permission to speak …
— … Indeed then, Caitríona had wealth and means, Muraed …
— She had. But though her place was much better than Nell’s, Nell never left a tithe unpaid either …
— Oh, God bless your innocence, Muraed. The devil a tap of work herself or Jack ever did but looking into one another’s eyes and singing songs, till their son Peadar was strong enough to cultivate some of the moor and the bog and clear those wild wastelands.
— Nell didn’t have a brass farthing till Big Brian’s Mag’s dowry came into her house.
— For all your criticism of her place, what stood to her in the end was its nearness to the river and the lake and the grouse. There’s no telling the amount of money fowlers and anglers from England left with that one. I saw the Earl myself pressing a pound note into her hand one day — a brand new pound note …
— … “Fens” is what you call marshes, on the fair plains of East Galway, Dotie. I also heard that your name for the cat is “rat-hunter,” and “fireside son” for the tongs … Oh indeed then, Dotie, that’s not the real Old Irish …
— God help us forever and ever …
— … “‘We’ll send pigs to the fair,’ said Caitríona’s cat,
‘It’s the bullocks are dearest,’ said the cat of Nell.”
— … I’m not exaggerating when I say Caitríona used to put an extra aspiration into her prayers to bring want and waste down on Nell. She used to be delighted if a calf of hers died or her potatoes failed …
— I wouldn’t tell a lie about anyone, Muraed. May God forbid that I should! But the time the lorry injured Peadar Nell’s leg Caitríona said to my face, “Why didn’t he stay clear of it? The road was long and wide enough for him. That’s the stuff for her, the pussface! …”
—“Nell has won that trick,” she said, the day Seán Thomáis Uí Loideáin, her husband, was buried.
—’Twas in the east cemetery he was buried. I remember it well and I have good reason to. I twisted my ankle when I slipped on a flagstone …
— When you made a glutton of yourself, as you often did …
— … To have more potatoes than Nell; to have more pigs, hens, turf, hay; to have a cleaner, neater, house; to have better clothes on her children: It was part of her revenge. It was all revenge …
— … “She came ho-ome dressed in gaudy clo-oth-ing
For she coaxed the ho-ard from the grey-haired dame.”
— Baba Pháidín got a bout of sickness in America that brought her to death’s door. It was Big Brian’s Mag who looked after her. She brought Mag home with her …
— … “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Baba took shelter …”
— She seldom went near Nell. She was too far up and the path was too rugged for her, after her illness. She felt more at home with Caitríona somehow …