“It’s shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted,” says Micil.
Out I went myself to the barn on the spur of the moment, Bríd. I looked at the potatoes.
“Faith then, Micil,” says I when I came in. “It’s shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, right enough. There was a fine heap of potatoes there two weeks ago, but it’s shrunk to nothing now. There’s not near enough left to keep us going till the new potatoes. Would you have any clue, Micil, who’s stealing them?”
“I’ll go to the bog,” says Micil. “Let you go up to Meadow Height, Cite, pretending you’re going to the bog like you do every day, and come down into the stony hollows at the back, and lie down and hide in the sallies.”10
So I did that, Bríd. I lay down in the sallies, turning the heel on a stocking and keeping an eye out on the barn. I was a long time there, and I think I was on the verge of falling asleep when I heard a noise at the barn door. I jumped through the low gap in the wall. There she was, Bríd, and what you might call a fine hump of spuds on her back …
“You may as well take them with you and sell them to Siúán the Shop, as you did with your own all year,” says I. “You haven’t a potato to put in your mouth since May Day now. I wouldn’t mind one year, but that’s your carry-on every year.”
“I had to give them to Tomás Inside,” says she. “His own lot failed.”
“Failed! Because he didn’t look after them,” I said. “He didn’t earth them up and he didn’t weed them or put a squirt of spray on them …”
“I humbly implore you not to tell anyone, Cite,” says she, “and I’ll make it up to you. I wouldn’t mind who’d hear about it so long as that pussface Nell doesn’t get wind of it.”
“Very well, Caitríona,” says I, “I won’t tell.”
And by the oak of this coffin, I didn’t, Bríd …
— Listen, Shitty Cite of the ash-potatoes, I always had lashings of potatoes of my own, thanks be to God …
— … Dotie! Dotie! She left Tomás Inside penniless. I often met him in the village. “By the docks, I haven’t a red cent left that she hasn’t stolen from me, Nóra,” he’d say. Honest, he would. I used to give him the price of a few glasses of whiskey, Dotie. Honest. He was to be pitied, the creature, and his tongue like parched flowers in a pot …
But what am I talking about, Dotie? Didn’t my own daughter play the same trick? It was here I found out about it … She did it to my son in Mangy Field straight away after my death. Himself and the wife were going to a fair in Brightcity. My daughter offered to come over and look after the house till they came home. She gathered up everything of value in the house and threw them into a big chest. She had the horse and cart outside. She told four or five young lads who were there to put the chest onto the cart. They didn’t know a thing in the world about it. She threw them the price of a drink. “It’s my mother’s chest,” says she. “She left it to me.” Honest, that’s what she said. She brought it off home with her. Honest, Dotie. It was a fine chest of the old-fashioned Irish style. It was as strong as iron. And lovely looking as well. Utility and beauty combined, Dotie … Not to mention the money’s worth that was in it! Silver spoons and knives. A silver toilette set I had myself when I was in Brightcity. Valuable books bound in calfskin. Sheets, blankets, sacking, wrappers … If Caitríona Pháidín had been able to mind them properly she wouldn’t have been laid out in a dirty shroud …
Exactly, Dotie! That’s the chest Caitríona is forever talking about …
— Silver knives and spoons in Mangy Field of the Ducks! Oh, Holy Mother of God! Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her! The So-an’-so. Muraed! Muraed! Did you hear what Mangy Nóirín said? … and Seáinín Liam … and Bríd Terry … and Cite … I’ll explode! I’ll explode …
4
— … A little white-faced mare. She was the best …
— A little mare you had. A colt we have …
— A little white-faced mare, indeed. At St. Bartholomew’s Fair I bought her …
— After Christmas we bought that colt of ours.
— A little white-faced mare. A ton and a half was no bother to her …
— A fine big colt we have, God bless her! We were building a new stable for her …
— … “Golden Apple” won: a hundred to one.
— Galway won. They beat Kerry …
—“Golden Apple” won, I tell you.
— You’re confused, like that eejit who’s forever arguing that Kerry won. Galway won, I tell you …
— But there was no “Galway” in the big three o’clock race.
— There was no “Golden Apple” on the team that won the football final in 1941. Concannon, you meant to say, maybe …
— … “Tom-á-ás Inside was there …”
— … There are seventeen houses in my village and every single vote in them going to Éamon de Valera …
— Seventeen houses! And yet not a shot was fired at a Black-and-Tan11 in your village! The devil as much as a single shot. Not as much as a shot, or even the sound of a shot.
— Mind you, they laid an ambush. Late on a dark night. They wounded Glutton’s donkey that was getting into Curraoin’s Roadside Field.
— I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
— … You’re one of Pádraig Labhráis’s? … The third lad. You used to come to school to me. You were a fine sturdy lad. With a head of fair hair. Brown eyes. Glowing cheeks. You were a splendid handballer … So the Wood of the Lake crowd have gone off to England … The Schoolmistress is in the best of form, you tell me! Aha! Billyboy the Post is very ill … very ill …
— He is, Master. Rheumatism, they say. He was reported for giving the letters to the first person he’d meet, and he had to start bringing them to the houses again …
— That’s the stuff for him! The scoundrel! …
— He was caught in a downpour on his way to the mountain homesteads. He got an awful drenching … When he got home he took to his bed …
— Good enough for him! The beggar! The thief! The …
— He had great talk of going off to England, Master, before he was struck down …
— Going to England! Going to England! … Out with it. Don’t be shy …
— People say, Master, that he wasn’t in great health since he got married …
— Oh, the intruder! The greedy little grabber! …
— She didn’t want him to go, herself. The time I was ready to go, she was talking to my father about it, and she said that if Billyboy went away there was nothing in store for her but death …
— The harlot …
— She brought three doctors from Dublin to see him, Master …
— With my money! She wouldn’t bring a doctor to see me, the hussy … arse in the bracken …
— De grâce, Master!
— … “Tomás Inside was there with an urge to ma-a-rry …”
— I had no intention of getting married. I’d have gone to England only for I got ill. The Donagh’s Village crowd and the Mangy Field crowd had gone …
— And Glen of the Pasture and Wood of the Lake. I know as well as yourself who’s gone. But is there any old fogey getting married? …
— Tomás Inside has great talk of getting married.
— Talk of it is all he’ll do, the useless yoke. Who else?
— The Red-haired Policeman, to a nurse from Brightcity. The Small Master too …
— The Small Master, indeed? Schoolteachers seem to be in a devil of a rush to marry. They must be expecting another pay rise …