Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

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! …

Máirín is to go back to college again? She’ll get on fine this time. Oh! She wasn’t sent home at all the last time; she came home of her own accord! The creature was homesick? You don’t know what she’s going to be? … A schoolmistress, I suppose … That’s all you heard about her? …

Pádraig has a lot of cattle on the land. More power to him! …

Tomás Inside has moved out of his own house? … The leaking roof shifted him … It should have shifted him a long time ago. That’s what he said: “By the docks, the drop was hitting me between my gob and my eye, no matter where in the house I moved the bed to. I think I’ll go rubbing shoulders with the gentry for the rest of my life” … He came to Pádraig’s house for two nights and then moved permanently into Nell’s? The land is left to Nell, so … You don’t know whether he signed it over to her or not. Only Mannion the Counsellor would know that! … It’s of no damn interest what you’ll know more exactly in a week’s time! It’s what you know now! … Tomás Inside said that: “Nell was much more good-natured than Caitríona. I prefer to stay in Nell’s where I’ll be rubbing shoulders with the gentry. None of the gentry go near Caitríona’s.” Tomás Inside’s blenny-head will make a fine sight indeed for gentry! … “The gentry have the best of tobacco and they have fine women around them.” That little pussface will soon give him his bellyful of women. If she feels any ailment coming on she’ll get the St. John’s Gospel from the priest and make Tomás Inside hit the road. A pity there isn’t some good soul above ground to alert the poor unfortunate! How the world has changed! Tomás Inside the grinner rubbing shoulders with the gentry …

Lord Cockton came fishing to Nell’s place every day this year. He was able to bring the car up to her door … The priest brings the car to her door too … Ababúna! Lord Cockton brought that bedraggled head out in the car … Brought her to Headland Harbour to take the air. He has little respect for his car, putting bitches like her into it …

The priest’s sister was up there fowling too. Was she wearing trousers or a dress, then? … Trousers … Herself and Lord Cockton were fowling together. Isn’t it a wonder the priest wouldn’t stop them! I suppose the same Lord Cockton is a black heretic. There was a lot of talk that she was going to marry the Wood of the Lake schoolmaster … Oh! Here we go! You’ll know exactly in a week’s time! We’ll have to get you permission to go back up above again for a week …

You think the marriage has been abandoned? I thought the Wood of the Lake master was a decent man and that he didn’t touch a drop … What did you say? My ears are stuffed … That she’s keeping company with Road-End’s son? That the priest’s sister is keeping company with Road-End’s son! By God, it’s a funny world! …

Road-End’s son warned Lord Cockton: not to go fowling with her any more unless he himself was there with them… Seáinín Liam’s son heard him say that to him …

What’s this? Where are you? … They’re carrying you off … They know now this isn’t your grave … God speed you, my friend! Even though you’re related to Big Brian you can speak pleasantly to a person. Not like that useless lump, Red-haired Tom …

6

— … Me giving a word for each pint to the Gaelic Enthusiast …

— … The Big Butcher often told me he had great regard for me on account of the regard his father had for my father …

— … And me down to my last shilling …

— I wonder is the Small Master down to his last shilling now …

— … “I laid an egg! I laid an egg! …”

— C’est l’histoire des poules, n’est-ce pas?

— … Honest , Dotie. My mind is extremely sluggish this past while. I am as much in need of culture as the head of corn is in need of sunlight. But there’s no culture at all here now. It’s a crying shame for the Big Master. When a person comes to the graveyard he should leave the futile pettiness of life above behind him and use his time to develop his mind. I often tell the Master that but it’s no use. He can’t talk of anything now but the Schoolmistress and Billyboy the Post. Something has to be done to rescue him. Honest , Dotie. We don’t have that many cultured people that we can afford to do without any one of them. He must be prevented from imitating Caitríona Pháidín’s scolding. Words like “bitch” and “hussy” and “snot-face” are forever on his lips now. Caitríona is a bad influence on him. That one belongs down in the Wastelands of the Half-Guinea …