— The devil a word of a lie he said about the slate-roofed houses …
— Baba left him two hundred pounds in her will, and bloody tear and ’ounds, of course he didn’t take his snout out of the drink since. Nell’s house is too far up from the pubs for him …
— The useless yoke, Tomás Inside …
— Useless yoke indeed. That’s the honest truth, Caitríona. Useless yoke indeed. Bloody tear and ’ounds, didn’t I often say it myself, that he was a useless yoke. Any man who left Nell’s house in a huff because he wasn’t allowed into the motor car …
— But Beartla, wasn’t he just as good as the rabble who were allowed into it? …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitríona, when Nell first got the motor car he hardly got out of it at all. Taking the air around the countryside with that silly grin on his face every day — to Brightcity, to Lakeside, to Headland Harbour — himself and Big Brian …
— The streak of misery …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Peadar Nell couldn’t sit into the car without the two of them sitting in by his thigh. He was trying to earn a bit of money, and it didn’t suit him to have those old scarecrows making their nest in his car. Some say it was the cause of Big Brian’s failing health — being banned from the car. At least it was around that time he began to keep to the house …
— The wrath of Friday’s King4 on him, but wasn’t it time for him! Blundering Brian was a fine sight in a motor car!
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitríona, wasn’t he as fine a sight in a motor car as Tomás Inside! Road-End’s son hired Peadar Nell one night to bring himself and the priest’s sister to a dance in Brightcity. Tomás Inside had just come home from Peadar the Pub’s, and bloody tear and ’ounds, what do you think he did but sit into the motor car! “I’ll go to the dance too,” he said. “By the docks, there’ll be fine-looking women there.”
— The old grimacer …
— He was smoking tobacco for all he was worth, and bloody tear and ’ounds didn’t he throw out a huge gob of spittle! No great remarks were passed, Caitríona, but I heard that Big Brian said afterwards that the priest’s sister had to change her trousers before going to the dance …
— That was coming to her, the shameless little slut, for getting into nosey Nell’s motor car …
— Peadar Nell told Tomás to go in home. “By the docks, I won’t,” he said …
— May God grant him his life and health! …
— Big Brian’s daughter told him to go in … “By the docks, I’ll go to the dance,” he said.
— He did right, not to heed ugly Brian’s daughter …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, didn’t Road-End’s son grab him by the arse and throw him out head over heels on the road, and give him two good “salamanders”5 of kicks! Bloody tear and ’ounds, didn’t he go down to your Pádraig’s house, there and then, and he’s sheltering there ever since …
— That left Nell in a pretty fix! He’ll leave the land outright to Pádraig now.
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitríona, nobody knows who Tomás Inside will leave his patch of land to. When they were going around in the motor car together Big Brian used to be at him to sign it over to his daughter, but to no avail!
— That’s the stuff for that streak of misery Brian and for mat-haired Nell! You didn’t hear anything about a cross, Beartla?
— Crosses. Bloody tear and ’ounds, there’s talk of nothing else in the townlands. Seáinín Liam’s cross, Bríd Terry’s cross, Red-haired Tom’s cross, Jack the Scológ’s cross that’s not finished yet … Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitríona, what does it matter beneath the horns of the moon whether a person has a cross or not! “Hoh-roh, my Mary …”
— You won’t say that, Beartla, when you’ve spent a while here listening to Nóra Sheáinín. You’d think she was the Earl’s mother. But you didn’t hear that Pádraig was to put a cross over me soon?
— Nell and himself are often away in the motor car, since Jack the Scológ was buried. Business about crosses, or wills …
— Oh! He won’t do what’s good for him, going around with that sleeky pussface …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitríona, isn’t he thriving, God bless the man! He never had as many cattle on his land. He sold two batches of pigs very recently: huge big pigs with hams as hot as loaves from the oven. Bloody tear and ’ounds, aren’t two children of his going to college …
— Two?
— Two. Yes. The eldest girl and the one after that …
— May God spare them! …
— And the one after that again will be going in the autumn, they say. Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that what Big Brian said! … “Hoh-roh, my Mary, your wares and your bags …”
— What did the streak of misery Brian say?
—“Hoh-roh, my Mary, your wares and your bags and belts …”
— But what did he say, Beartla?
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, that was a slip of the tongue, Caitríona! “Hoh-roh …”
— But what harm, Beartla. You know I won’t be able to throw it back in his face. The blessings of God on you, Beartla, and tell me. It’ll do me good …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, it won’t do you any good, Caitríona, any good at all. “Hoh-roh, my Mary …”
— It’ll do me good, Beartla. You wouldn’t believe the good a bit of news does a person here. The people of this graveyard wouldn’t tell you anything, not even if it brought them back to life again. Jack the Scológ, for example, who’s in the graveyard for the past three weeks. Jack the Scológ! Jack …
—“Hoh-roh, my Mary …”
— Ah, tell me. Good man, Beartla Blackleg! … Quickly now. Those people up above us will soon find out this is the wrong grave …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitríona, it doesn’t make any difference to a person which grave his old bones are thrown into …
— Ah! tell me, Beartla, what Brian the Blubberer said …
— If there’s going to be trouble, let there be trouble, Caitríona: “Everything’s going well for Pádraig,” he said, “since he left that little bess of a mother of his in that hole back there. A long, long time ago he should have turned a pot upside-down on her, put a red ember under it and have her die like a cat in the smoke …”
— They’ve swept you off again, Beartla Blackleg! … Jack the Scológ! Jack the Scológ! … Jack the Scológ! …
3
— … My heart turned to dust when the Graf Spee6 was sent to the bottom. I was here a week from that day …
— The mine barely managed to kill us. Only for that, Murchaín would have robbed the Five of Trumps …
— … To stab me through the edge of my liver. The foul blow was always the hallmark of the One-Ear Breed …
— … A cold I caught from sweat and sleeping in the open, the time I cycled to Dublin to see Concannon …
— … I fell off a stack of oats and broke my thigh …
— A pity you didn’t break your tongue as well! …
— Wasn’t it a long way up your legs brought you, on a stack of oats!
— I’ll bet you won’t fall off a stack of oats again. You may be sure you won’t …
— Only for you fell off a stack of oats you’d die some other way. A horse would kick you; or your legs would give up …