— … Hitler is my darling! When he comes over to England! … I think he’ll shovel that same England down to hell altogether: he’ll sweep away that scuttering bloated pig of an England like the donkey that was carried away by the wind: he’ll place million-ton mines under her navel …
— May God save us! …
— Faith then, England is not to be condemned. There’s great employment there. What would the youth of Donagh’s Village do without her, or the people of Mangy Field, or Sive’s Rocks? …
— Or this old gadfly over here who has a patch of land at the top of the village that can’t be beaten for fattening cattle …
— … Après la fuite de Dunkerque et le bouleversement de Juin 1940, Monsieur Churchill a dit qu’il retournerait pour libérer la France, la terre sacrée …
— … You shouldn’t allow any black heretic to insult your religion like that, Peadar. Oh, Lord, I wish it had been me! I’d question him like this, Peadar: “Do you even know there is a God? Of course, you’re like a cow or a calf, or like … or like a puppy.” All a dog worries about is filling his belly. A dog would eat meat on a Friday17 too, so he would. Oh, he wouldn’t have the least aversion to it. But, all the same, it’s not every dog would do it … I had a bit of meat left over at home once. “I’ll put it aside till Saturday,” says I. “Tomorrow is ‘avoid-the-joint’ day.” After dinner-time on Friday I was coming in from the garden with a handful of potatoes when I saw the Protestant Minister passing by, on his way up the mountain after fowl. “You would, you black heretic,” said I. “You’ll not even let Friday pass without fresh meat. You’re like a cow or a calf … or like a puppy.” When I went in with my handful of potatoes, the staple was off the dresser door. Every scrap of the meat was gone! “A cat or a dog for certain,” said I. “When I catch hold of you, you won’t get away with it. To go eating meat on a Friday. It serves me right, for not putting them out and closing the door after me!” I found them at the back of the house. The Minister’s dog was gobbling the meat and my own dog barking at him, trying to stop him. I grabbed the pitchfork. “Easily known whose dog you are,” says I, “eating meat on a Friday.” I tried to bury the pitchfork up to the handle in him. The dirty thing managed to escape. I offered the meat to our own dog. May God forgive me! I shouldn’t be tempting him. He wouldn’t go next or near it. Devil a bit of him. Now, what do you think! He knew it wasn’t right … Why didn’t you tell him that, Peadar, and not allow him to insult your religion. Lord, if I’d been there! …
— How could I? The Minister’s dog never stole a bit of meat off me …
— But the Spanish eat meat every Friday of their life, and they are Catholics.
— That’s a lie, you windbag!
— The Pope gave them permission …
— That’s a lie. You’re a black heretic …
— … Do you tell me that, Master dear? If they’d rubbed me with — what’s this you call it, Master? — methylated spirits — in time, I’d have no bedsores. Oh, Master dear, I had nobody to give me proper care. Dimwits. You can’t beat the learning after all. Methylated spirits. Pity I didn’t know about that! It comes in a bottle, you say. By Dad, Master, they must be the bottles the Schoolmistress buys from Peadar the Pub’s daughter. I was told she buys an awful lot of them. For Billyboy …
— Not them, Máirtín Pockface. They’d never be in a pub. She’s drinking, the hussy. Drinking for certain. Or else Billyboy is drinking. Or the pair of them. What a way to spend good money, Máirtín Pockface …
— I assure you, Máirtín Pockface, even if it cost me my life’s blood, I would have been at your funeral. I owed it to you to come to your funeral, Máirtín Pockface, if I had to go there on my knees …
— Muraed! Muraed! … Do you hear Sweet-talking Stiofán babbling again? He’d turn your stomach. Hey, Muraed! Do you hear me? Hey, Muraed … You’re not paying much heed recently. Do you hear me, Muraed? … It was time for you to speak … I was talking about that babbler, Sweet-talking Stiofán. I didn’t know he had arrived at all till very recently. They’re a very unmannerly bunch here, Muraed. They wouldn’t tell a person anything. See how they kept the news about Sweet-talking Stiofán from me …
Oh, I know that Máirtín Pockface has arrived, Muraed. I was talking to him. They tried to bury him on top of me …
True for you, Muraed: if a person has a cross over him, it’s easy to identify the grave. It won’t be too long now till my own cross is ready, but they say the Island limestone is being used up: that it’s difficult to get a proper headstone for a cross there. Máirtín Pockface says you have to curry favour to get a stone there at all now. But he told me my own cross is being speeded up all the same …
You say he didn’t, Muraed … There’s so much limestone on the island that it will never be used up! Now, Muraed, that sort of dishonesty will get you nowhere. Why would I tell a lie about the good man? Neither he nor I has been conniving in the land of lies, since we were stacked away in this haggard …
You say my son’s wife said that, Muraed: “We’ll be very well off in life before we start buying crosses.” I see, faith. You were listening at back doors again, Muraed, as you were in the Land Above … Now Muraed, it’s no use denying it. You used to listen at back doors. The tale you told Dotie and Nóra Sheáinín here about my life, where else did you get it but at my back door?
Oh, you were listening to me talking to myself going the road! … and behind the wall when I was working in the field! Well, Muraed, isn’t it as decent to listen at the back door as it is to listen in the roadway and behind the wall …
Listen here to me, Muraed! Why has everyone in the graveyard turned against me? Why don’t they get someone else to chew the cud over? It’s because …
It’s not because of having no cross over me, you say! What else? What else, so?
The people of the cemetery didn’t like me since I refused to co-operate! How do you mean, I didn’t co-operate, Muraed? …
I see, now. I voted against Nóra Sheáinín! Don’t you know in your heart and soul, Muraed, that I couldn’t do anything else. That scruffy Filthy-Feet. That godsend to sailors, that So-an’-so …
She was the Fifteen-Shilling joint-candidate after all, you say. And you didn’t mind filthy feet or ducks or sailors or drinking behind closed doors, or being a So-an’-so, Muraed …
What did you say the Master called me? … “Scab.” He called me “Scab” for voting against the Fifteen-Shilling crowd, Muraed. But I didn’t vote against the Fifteen-Shilling crowd. I voted against Nóra fat-arse Sheáinín. You know yourself that our people above ground always voted the same way. Nell is the one who changed. It was Nell, the pussface, who was disloyal. She voted for this new crowd because she got a road built to her house …
The Master called me that too. Say it again, Muraed … “Bowsie!”18 “Bowsie,” Muraed! … because I spoke to Siúán the Shop even though she’d insulted me before that! Good God! I never spoke to her, Muraed. She spoke to me, Muraed. I’ll tell the Master that. I will indeed, I’ll tell him out straight. “Caitríona,” she said, “Caitríona Pháidín, do you hear me?” she said. “I’m thankful to you for giving us your vote. You were a courageous woman …”