Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  —You talking about stealing, Road-End Man, and you’d steal the honey from the hive. You sold every sod of your own turf. Not a sod to call your own from All Saints’ Day and still you had a roaring fire in the kitchen, and in the parlour, and in the rooms upstairs … I was visiting in your house one night. I recognised the turf I’d brought from the bog myself the day before. “Upon my soul, as you say, there’s neither fire nor flame in that turf,” says you. “It should be better than that … the best sods have all been stolen from us …”

  —You’re talking about stealing, and you’d steal the shroud off a corpse. You stole the drift-weed7 I collected from off the island. “Since we can’t bring all this ashore on our backs or with the horse,” says I to the wife, “we’d better tie strings8 to the stems to show that we’ve claimed it. It wouldn’t cost this crowd up at Road-End a thought to take it tomorrow morning when the tide casts it up.”

  “Surely to God they wouldn’t go stealing drift-weed,” says the wife.

  “God grant you sense,” said I. “If you had it spread out on your own field they’d take it, never mind anywhere else.”

  The next morning on my way from the top of the village I met your daughter in the Deep Hollow, and she had a load of seaweed on her donkey.

  —Oh, that temptress my eldest son is keeping company with!

  —I recognised my drift-weed immediately, even though some of the strings were taken off the stems. “In Colm’s Cove you collected that,” I said.

  “In the Middle Cove,” said she.

  “Indeed it was not,” said I, “but in Colm’s Cove. Seaweed from the island would never come into the Middle Cove with the wind due south and a springtide running. That’s my seaweed. If you have any scruples you’ll lay down that load and let me have it …”

  “I’ll have the law on you for attacking me like this in a lonely place,” she said. “I’ll swear on oath against you. You’ll be transported …”

  —You stole my little lump-hammer. I saw you with it when you were building the back kitchen …

  —You stole my sickle …

  —You stole the rope I left outside …

  —You stole the scallops9 I left ready pointed in the barn after my two days’ hard work cutting them in Banishment Wood … I knew my own two notches on each scallop …

  —Faith then, a small heap of periwinkles was stolen from me. I had them in bags at the top of the boreen. “Faith then,” says I to the young lad, “if we gather that much every week till next November we’ll have the best part of the price of a colt.” There were seven fine fat bagfuls of them. The next morning I went down to meet the Periwinkle Man. He looked at them. “This bag is a couple of stone short,” says he. He was right. It had been opened and a couple of stone stolen out of it the night before. It’s best to tell the truth: I had my doubts about Caitríona Pháidín …

  —Ababúna! …

  —I did indeed. She had a great liking for periwinkles. I’ve heard people say they’re great for the heart. But I didn’t know at the time that I had a bad heart, God help us! But I wrenched my …

  —You old sourpuss! Don’t believe him …

  —Listen, Seáinín Liam, usen’t I see my own father. The poor man, he’d drink tea at all hours of the day. The devil a penny of his pension I ever saw in the house, Seáinín, nor did I know where he put it. But there was plenty of tea to be had at the time, and he used to buy a pound and a half or two pounds of it every Friday. Siúán the Shop told me he often bought as much as two and a half pounds. “Might as well enjoy it while it lasts,” he always used to say, the poor man.

  Every Friday Caitríona would lie in wait for him on his way home, and she’d spirit him into her house. He was easily led like that, the poor man. “You’ll have a cup of tea,” she’d say.

  “Indeed I will,” he’d say. “There’s two pounds of it there. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”

  He’d go over the whole story again and again at home with me. He was simple like that, the poor man. So the tea was made. And tea was made twice, maybe. But no more than a half pound of all that tea was ever brought home to me. May God forbid that I’d tell a lie about him, Seáinín! …

  “I bought two pounds,” he’d always say. “Unless I lost it! See if there’s any hole in them pockets. Maybe I left some of it behind me in Caitríona Pháidín’s. I’ll get it the next day. And even if I don’t, what harm? Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Caitríona’s household can knock back an awful amount of tea, God bless them! …” He was simple like that, the poor man …

  —That’s a damned lie, you slut! Didn’t he have me robbed trying to keep him in tea! Running over to my house at every stroke of a clock or watch, because you had him poisoned, Bríd Terry, with your spotty potatoes and salt-water dip, you beggarwoman you. Don’t believe her …

  —Peace and quiet is all I want! Peace and quiet! Spare me the lash of your tongue, Caitríona. I don’t deserve all your snarling. Peace and quiet! Peace and quiet!

  —I’ll tell you the truth now, Bríd Terry. We had the Rape Field sown the same year and we had heaps of old potatoes left. It was out towards the end of May. Micil and myself were on the bog every day that dawned for the previous two weeks. We’d have been there that particular day too only for Micil was bringing up a lock of dry seaweed from the shore until dinner-time. He went into the barn after his dinner to get an armful of straw to put in the donkey’s straddle, since he was going to spend the rest of the day on the bog. “You’d think, Cite,” he says, “the heap of old potatoes out there in the barn wouldn’t have gone down so much. I wouldn’t mind but the pigs have been sold for the past two weeks.”

  “Faith then, Micil,” says I, “I didn’t set right foot or left in that barn for the past three weeks. I had no call to. The children bring in the potatoes for the meal.”

  “We should have kept it locked since we started going to the bog,” says he. “Anybody could get in there during the day, when we’re not at home and the children are at school.”

  “They could indeed, Micil, or during the night,” says I.

  “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 …

  —Lis
ten, 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 …

  —They’d be better off not to, sometimes. You heard the Big Master yourself just now. But who’s the fair lady?

  —A young woman from Brightcity. A fine-looking woman, indeed! The day I was getting my photograph taken for going to England I saw the two of them together. They went into the Western Hotel.

  —What shape of a woman was she?

  —A tall slender woman. With fair hair in plaits …

  —A ring in her ear?

  —Yes …

  —Dark eyes?

  —The devil do I know what sort of eyes she had. It wasn’t her I was worrying about …

  —A bright smile?

  —She was smiling at the Small Master right enough. But she wasn’t smiling at me …

  —Did you hear where she’s living?

  —I didn’t. But I think she works in Barry’s Betting Office, if there is such a place. The Wood of the Lake Master and the priest’s sister are getting married next month. They say he’ll get the new school.

  —The woman with the trousers?

  —That’s her.

  —Isn’t it a wonder she’d marry him?

  —Why? Isn’t he a fine handsome man, and he doesn’t touch a drop.

  —But even so. It seems to me that a trousers-woman wouldn’t be content to marry just any man. They’d be choosier than other women …

  —Arrah, have an ounce of sense! My own son is married in England to a Frenchwoman, and you wouldn’t know what in the world she’s saying, any more than that babbler buried over here. Wouldn’t she be choosier than a trousers-woman …

  —Never mind your Frenchwoman! My son is married in England to an Eyetalian.

  What do you think of that?

  —Yourself and your Eyetalian. My son is married in England to a black! What do you think of that, now?

  —A black! My son is married in England to a Jewess. It’s not every man a Jewess would be willing to marry …

  —It’s not every man would marry her. A fellow would have an aversion to her …

  —A fellow would have much more of an aversion to the woman who’s married to your son. A black. Ugh!

  —The big boss is to be married to a woman from Glen of the Pasture. That young fellow of Seáinín Liam’s has finished the stable, and they say he’s on the lookout for a wife. He was refused wh
en he asked for Road-End’s daughter.

  —Road-End, who spent every day of his life stealing my turf …

  —And mine …

  —And my lump-hammer …

  —Oh, the devil pierce her! Trying to get in on my big holding …

  —She’s the one who threatened to have the law on me over my drift-weed. Seáinín Liam’s son wouldn’t marry that one, would he?

  —She’s good enough for him. What the devil did Seáinín Liam ever have? Periwinkles. What the devil does he have now? Periwinkles …

  —Faith then, periwinkles were not to be sneezed at, so they weren’t. Myself and the young fellow earned the best part of the price of a colt on them. We have more than what you people say we have: we have a fine big colt and a stable that only needs a roof. I told him when he’d have finished the stable to look out for a little rump of a girl for himself …

  —The young fellow was refused in the house on the hill too, and for the Red’s daughter in Donagh’s Village, and for the Little Carpenter’s daughter in Mangy Field …

  —There’s no go in that young fellow. Did he say that we’d earned the best part of the price of a colt on the periwinkles; that we’d just finished building a new stable, and that we bought a fine big colt after Christmas? He’ll never settle down, I’m afraid. Only for I died so suddenly myself …

  —Listen, Seáinín Liam, the Red of Donagh’s Village is my first cousin. He was damn right to refuse your son. I refused you yourself for my daughter. Do you remember the time you came asking for her?

  —I didn’t have a colt or a stable that time.

  —You sound so full of self-importance the way you talk about the Red of Donagh’s Village, by the way. You’d think he was the Earl himself, and didn’t my father refuse him about a wife! “Do you think, Red,” said my father, “that I’d send my daughter to Donagh’s Village to live on nettles and the chirping of grasshoppers?”

  —Your father refused the Red! My mother refused your father about a wife! “There’s two score pounds and a cow coming with my daughter,” says she, “and by my soul it’s not on the flea-infested hillocks of your village I’m going to settle herself or her two score pounds.”