Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— Oh! Faith then, he’s the gunner, alright …

— He hasn’t stirred out, Caitríona, since he went to see Red-haired Tom after Tom was anointed. 3He was grief-stricken after Tom …

— They were well matched, the red-haired sourpuss and the snotty streak of misery …

— I was listening to him that night giving Tom advice up in the room. “ Bloody tear and ’ounds ,” he said, “if you should take a tour over there, Red-haired Tom, and if you should meet herself in your travels, take care you don’t tell her anything. Unless she’s greatly changed she’ll be looking for gossip …”

— But who is “herself,” Beartla?

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, it wouldn’t be right or proper for me to answer a question like that …

— Oh! Beartla, for the love of God, don’t make a Red-haired Tom of yourself. That’s how he’s going on ever since he came into the graveyard clay …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , if there’s going to be trouble let there be trouble. Yourself. Who else, Caitríona?

— Myself, Beartla? Me looking for gossip! He’s a damned liar. That man’s big mouth will keep getting him into trouble till death puts its latch-pin in his tongue …

— I’d say that won’t be too long now, Caitríona.

— The devil’s welcome to him …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , don’t you know he’s a dying man when he didn’t have the courage to go to Jack the Scológ’s funeral! …

— Ababúna búna! Jack the Scológ’s funeral! Jack the Scológ’s funeral! Jack! Jack! Spouting lies you are, son of Blackleg …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , isn’t he here for the past three weeks!

— Alas! and woe forever! Jack the Scológ here that long and Muraed and the others didn’t tell me. Oh! This place has been turned upside-down by Nóirín Filthy-Feet, Beartla. Guess what she’s planning now? … Rotary! …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Rotary! “Hoh-roh, my Mary, your wares and your bags …”

— Jack the Scológ! Jack the Scológ! Jack the Scológ is here! Easily known he wouldn’t live long. The St. John’s Gospel …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , the St. John’s Gospel, Caitríona! …

— The St. John’s Gospel, wheedled out of the priest by that pussface, what else? Jack the Scológ! Jack the Scológ! Jack the Scológ in the graveyard for the past three weeks and I didn’t know. Those boobies here wouldn’t tell a person anything, especially since that cursed Election. Seáinín Liam the dullard and Bríd Terry the strap and Red-haired Tom the sourpuss would all have been bundled down in the one grave with me. Jack! Jack the Scológ …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, sure it doesn’t matter to a person — unless he wants to be silly about it! — who’s going to share a grave with him. “Hoh-roh, my Mary …”

— I’ll bet Nell was at her boastful best the day of the funeral! Showing off and capers, and not the slightest bit of pity for the poor creature who was laid out. She buried him in the Pound Plot, of course? …

— In a grave beside Siúán the Shop …

— That slut, Siúán the Shop. Poor Jack has a bad article beside him. That sharp-tongued jade will slander him. But what would mat-haired Nell care but to throw him down in any old hole …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, didn’t she get a dry pound grave for him beside Siúán the Shop and Peadar the Pub; didn’t she put a hearse under him; wasn’t there plenty of everything at the wake and funeral, except that she didn’t let anyone fall down drunk; wasn’t there a High Mass for him, as there was for Peadar the Pub and for Siúán the Shop; four or five priests singing, and the Earl above on the gallery with Lord Cockton and that other fowler who comes there …

Bloody tear and ’ounds , what else could she have done? …

— She’s still very fond of the priests and the Lords. But I’ll wager any bet she didn’t shed as much as a tear for the poor man. Arrah, herself and Big Brian’s daughter didn’t give a damn but to get the poor creature out of the house, out of their way …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, herself and Big Brian’s daughter keened him tearfully. And everybody says they never heard a finer outburst from Bid Shorcha …

— Bid Shorcha! I thought that sponger was confined to her bed now …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , she is too! Didn’t Big Brian say about herself and Little Cáit and Billyboy the Post: “The priest has rubbed so much oil on those three,” he said, “that there won’t be a drop left for us when we need it …”

— Indeed, that streak of misery Brian doesn’t deserve any oil! And Bid Shorcha came to Nell? …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , didn’t Nell send a motor car to fetch herself and Little Cáit! But Cáit decided to walk …

— The scent of the corpse, what else? …

—“ Bloody tear and ’ounds ,” she said, as she was laying Jack out, “if I were to go on the bier-poles tomorrow myself I couldn’t but come, seeing who sent for me.”

— Bid Shorcha the sponger! Little Cáit the grinner! They went to Nell but they wouldn’t come to decent people at all. I wouldn’t begrudge it to Jack the Scológ, the poor creature, only for that other dishevelled little bitch. Jack the Scológ! Jack …

— It won’t be long till somebody will have to keen Bid Shorcha herself. Bloody tear and ’ounds , didn’t she fall on her way home from Jack’s funeral and didn’t they have to send the motor car back to the house with her again …

— Drunk! As she often was …

— She took ill. She didn’t get up since. “Hoh-roh, my Mary, your wares and your bags and belts …”

— Has Nell herself any notion of coming here?

— She says she’s not well. But bloody tear and ’ounds for a story, she came to see me, and I think I never saw her looking so young.

— That’s because she’s delighted she got Jack shifted. Jack! Jack …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, isn’t it easy for her, with a motor car under her backside to go wherever she wants …

— In Lord Cockton’s motor car. Hasn’t she little decency or shame, to be off gallivanting! Jack the Scológ …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , she doesn’t have to, Caitríona. She has a car of her own!

— A car of her own?

— The only regret I had about leaving life was that I didn’t get a ride in it. Herself and Peadar had promised to bring me anywhere in the county I wanted, but bloody tear and ’ounds , I lay back with no life left! …

— Ababúna! It can’t be that the motor car is her own, Son of Blackleg! …

— Her own and her son Peadar’s. Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, didn’t you hear she bought a car for Peadar?

— Oh! She didn’t! She didn’t, Beartla Blackleg …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona, she did. He’s not fit for hard work on account of his leg. He’ll never put much strain on it, even though you wouldn’t notice any lameness in his step. He’s earning great money with the motor car, bringing people places in a hurry.

— I suppose there’s no end to the noise she makes with it going past our house. Amn’t I lucky I’m not alive, Beartla …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , and she wears a hat any day she travels far from home! …

— Oh! Beartla! Beartla Blackleg! A hat …

— A hat as fancy as the Earl’s wife wears …

— I’m absolutely convinced, Beartla, that she has charmed some of the money out of Baba …