Ugh! Keep away from me! The Lower Hillside epidemic.9 Keep away, or God help you. Your uncle Big Brian’s house was an inhospitable place to call on.
What’s that you said, now? … You know only too well how inhospitable it was! … You fell out with him? … You didn’t go near his house for the past year? You were none the worse for that, sister dear … You may say that again, sister dear. Isn’t that what I said a while ago? Devil a drop of water that fellow splashed on himself since he was born … By japers, you could be telling me the truth: that your father was a clean man. You wouldn’t recognise a trace of him in that other streak of misery? Your father took after his mother! He was a mild-mannered man? … You went to Big Brian a year ago? … You asked him if you could give him spiritual assistance? Oh, you were badly employed offering that ugly streak of misery any sort of assistance! … Ah, it was for the Legion of Mary10 you visited him! … True for you, devil a Family Rosary he said since he was born … That’s what he said to you? … That he wouldn’t accept any spiritual assistance from you! … He told you the Legion was full of jennets! That man has no fear of God or the Virgin Mary …
The streak of misery is ailing at last. The devil take him, it’s about time for him … Is that what he said: “I think I’ll take a tour back there any day now … And I’ll guarantee you this much, there’ll be ructions in those holes back there … If Páidín’s mule …” You’re certain he didn’t finish what he was saying …
Haven’t I told you already I don’t want … what’s this you call it? … spiritual assistance… Nell’s talking about building a new slated house? … They’re breaking rocks for it. Ababúna! That’s what the little hunchback said: that they had to do it, now that the new road was built up as far as the door. Oh, the little crupper! … “that there’d be a priest in the house soon, if God spares the people.” Oh, the bitch! … Her legs are giving up? It would serve her right if she was never able to walk the new road … The things you don’t know now, you’ll know all about them in a week’s time. But they were all scared to come to the house to you.
What’s that you said? … That Jack the Scológ was very ill. That’s the fatal illness now. The St. John’s Gospel. Nell and Big Brian’s daughter will get another lump of money … You didn’t hear anything about the St. John’s Gospel … You didn’t know that Jack needed spiritual assistance. He needs all the assistance he can get now, the poor man …
Beartla Blackleg was anointed … Little Cáit and Bid Shorcha are poorly, you say … They don’t stir out of the house at all now. They won’t be stretching or keening any more stiffs from now on, so …
They put up the cross over Máirtín Pockface the other day … and over Red-haired Tom too. Of course, that red good-for-nothing is no length at all here … That’s what you heard: that Nell advised Pádraig not to put a cross of Island limestone over me … You’ll know all about it in a week’s time. Thanks very much! … Oh, you may be sure, sister dear, that it’s true. She would say that — the bitch — and Big Brian’s daughter and Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter urging her on … Big Brian said that: “If I were Pádraig, I’d give that babbling little hag her fill of Island limestone … I’d dig her up out of yonder hole … I’d whisk her into the Island … I’d cock her up on the highest pinnacle of stone there … like the man on the Big Stone in Dublin …” Oh, indeed, it isn’t the word of the Lord that’s on his lips even though death has him on a halter … I tell you I don’t want any spiritual assistance …
Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter, Nell and Big Brian’s daughter talking again? Easily known. Arrah, devil the fight was ever there, just that little prattler of Pádraig Labhráis’s telling lies … True for you, sister dear. The Battle of the Hornless Cows.11 Tinkers, the whole lot of them … You’ll know more in a week’s time …
A letter must have come so? … She didn’t say who she’d leave the money to … Oh, she wrote to Pádraig too … Wasn’t she the meddlesome stump to go writing to Big Brian’s house where she has no kith or kin … She said for certain that she was poorly … And that she had made her will. Had Dad! … And that she’d ordered a tomb in Boston graveyard. A tomb! Like the Earl has. A tomb over our Baba. Bad luck to her, couldn’t she make do with something more modest than a tomb! … She put money in a bank for the tomb to be perpetually maintained. By God, now … And money for Masses! Two and a half thousand pounds for Masses! Two and a half thousand pounds! The will isn’t worth much now. Big Brian’s family in America will pilfer the rest of it. Couldn’t suit me better. Nell’s share must be tiny now. She won’t be singing “Eleanor of the Secrets” any more, going up past our house …
You think Pádraig didn’t write back to Baba. He’s gone to the devil if he didn’t! … Will you stop annoying me about how you’ll know more in a week’s time! What use is it to me what you’ll know in a week’s time? … The Small Master doesn’t write letters for anybody now … Too busy … What did you say he was doing? … Studying form. That’s very strange talk indeed … Betting on racehorses. Oh, you’re not serious! He doesn’t do a tap in school except reading about them … The priest has turned against him. My God, I thought the pair of them went for walks together. Or was that not true? One shouldn’t believe a word you hear in this place … He gave a sermon about him … Of course, everybody would know who he was talking about, without mentioning his name or surname … “Wasting their time and their money on gambling, and going around with drunkard women in Brightcity,” he said … “I heard of a man from this parish who drank forty-two pints, but little gluttons of women who can guzzle a small barrel of brandy without having to powder their noses afterwards …” By Dad, if he’d known about Nóra Sheáinín! … There’s talk that he’ll get rid of the Small Master … Oh, here we go again! You’ll know more in a week’s time … You’ll know things in a week’s time, alright, my sister oh! …
Ababúna! The Small Master forgot to post the American letters he wrote for Pádraig … Ó Céidigh’s wife found them in old clothes he left behind when he moved into new lodgings … Ababúna! She told Nell all that was in the letters …
Pádraig has some sort of jinx on him: why didn’t he take the letters himself and post them? Do you think that I’d ever leave my letters behind me with the Small Master, or with the Big Master? Schoolmasters are a strange lot. It was always obvious to me that they had more on their minds than my letters. When the Big Master was writing for me didn’t I see him going like a weaver’s shuttle from table to window to try and glimpse the Schoolmistress going along the road! …
The Schoolmistress wouldn’t write a letter for anybody either, you say? … Too busy looking after Billyboy, the thieving hussy! Oh, if only Pádraig had taken my advice and gone in to Mannion the Counsellor he wouldn’t have to depend on anybody. That’s the man who wouldn’t be long writing a powerful letter for seven shillings and sixpence. But Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter would be loath to part with as much as a penny … You heard Pádraig was half-hearted enough about the will? … That’s more of Nell’s deception. Surely you don’t think she has scruples about deceiving my son when she’s deceiving her own husband … “That Pádraig was alright since Bessy died.” Big Brian would say that … Will you leave off about your spiritual assistance! …