Lucinda Sly Read online

  ‘My best years have passed me by with my head bent in slavery,’ she complained, ‘and look at me now – poor, destitute, crushed. The son I reared in poor times when I often went without doesn’t bother to come looking for me or to put a shilling in my pocket. No, he spends his time sucking up to bigwigs who would cut the legs off you with a scythe at the turn of a penny.’

  She sat by the fire that night with the cat stretched across the ashes in front of her. She looked at the cat.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, ‘but Lucinda Singleton won’t be much longer on her own staring into the fire with nothing but the cold night waiting for her under the blanket.’

  The following Thursday when she had caught the horse and put him under the cart, she packed her butter in the basket and the loaves of bread with it as usual. Then she went down to the bedroom. She planned to wear her Sunday best and she took down from the hook a new shawl she had bought at the market before this. She combed and fixed her hair.

  Off she went in the direction of the kitchen, humming the air of a song she heard her mother singing when she was about ten years old:

  My young love said to me my mother won’t mind

  And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind

  And she carried on humming until she had the basket in the cart. She untied the reins from a crook on the pier of the gate and jumped into the front of the cart. She took a blackthorn stick that she kept in the cart in case some stranger would attack her when she returned in the dark of night. She hit the horse across the flank to speed him on the road.

  When she arrived in town she thought that it was busier than usual.

  ‘Ah yes!’ she remembered. ‘This is the day of the big fair for in-calf heifers. It falls on the same date every year and it just happens that it falls on a Thursday this year.’

  It took her a good while to find a convenient place on the side of the street as there were cattle in the patch where she usually traded. If Lucinda had realised that it was the day of the big fair, she would have set out earlier that morning.

  Eventually she found a trading place. It wasn’t in the centre of the town but she would have to make do with it. Lucinda usually sold her butter and bread early every Thursday but, because of the two markets, it was late in the evening before she sold the last loaf. The men at the fair were more interested in buying and selling cattle than in buying bread.

  There were four young heifers that weren’t yet in calf gathered by a farmer on the pavement near Lucinda’s horse and cart. Lucinda had neither rest nor peace that day. When the cattle weren’t shitting and pissing on the street, they were bellowing and looking in the direction of Lucinda’s horse so that few customers came near her stall. The owner of the cattle came out of the pub every twenty minutes or so to see if any buyer was sizing up his beasts and as the day progressed he was getting more scattered with the dint of drink.

  It was late in the evening when Lucinda was squeezing the bellyband on the horse. The poor animal was restless having spent the entire day standing under the cart on the side of the street.

  ‘Did you see any buyer looking at my cattle?’ the owner asked her. He was barely able to stand after the day’s carousing.

  ‘There were five or six buyers around during the day and if you were here instead of having your belly to the counter in Langstrom’s tavern, you would have your cattle sold and your money would be in your pocket by now,’ Lucinda told him with disdain.

  ‘Ah! My good woman,’ he replied, ‘there’s no need for you to be so sour in the tail of the evening.’

  Lucinda tied the basket in the middle of the cart and spoke impatiently:

  ‘I had to stand near your cattle from morning avoiding their dung not to mention their piss running under my feet,’ she retorted.

  Drunk and awkwardly the farmer begged her pardon.

  ‘My name is Walter Sly,’ he informed her. ‘It’s hard for me to be right without a wife at home to bake a cake of bread for me or to patch a hole in my trousers, not to mention to keep me company by the fire.’

  Though she gave no sign, Lucinda’s heart softened when she heard that, especially since she was in the same predicament herself.

  ‘It’s time for me to be heading for home,’ she said, yanking the horse’s reins to guide him out to the middle of the street.

  ‘A thousand pardons for the way the cattle behaved. Two of them were bulling. That is why they were so restless when I left them standing. I didn’t get your name,’ the farmer replied drunkenly.

  ‘Lucinda Singleton,’ she informed him. ‘Go on,’ she urged the horse on the road.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely for you to be going home to your husband and family,’ Sly ventured.

  ‘The side of my hearth is as empty as your own,’ she told him.

  ‘Lucinda Singleton? … Is there any chance you would be related to Thomas Singleton, the policeman in Bilboa barracks?’ he wondered.

  Lucinda didn’t tell him how her son left her without a word of thanks for all she had done for him in his early years and she hadn’t forgotten the beating he gave her before he left.

  ‘Maybe there would, but it would be far out,’ she replied as she took to the road.

  Walter Sly was just about to go back into the pub when a buyer he knew from Ballinasloe came the way. Although they were never over overly friendly, the buyer badly wanted the cattle and Sly wanted rid of them before another hard winter hit him with his farm bared to the earth because he had too much stock. As soon as he examined Sly’s cattle, the buyer couldn’t find fault with them because they were well-fed, big-boned and bred for meat.

  ‘Put a price on them,’ said Power, the buyer.

  By this time, Walter Sly realised that Power badly wanted his cattle.

  ‘Seven pounds apiece,’ Sly demanded.

  Power stepped backwards.

  ‘The drink has gone to your head,’ he replied. ‘I’ll give you five pounds ten shillings apiece for them and if you aren’t satisfied with that we’ll split up immediately.’

  Walter Sly knew that he had got a good offer for the cattle. He spat on the palm of his right hand and stretched it out to Power.

  ‘It’s a bargain,’ he said.

  They both headed for Langstrom’s where Sly would get his money and they would drink to the bargain.

  On his way home that night, Walter Sly couldn’t put the woman he had wrangled with only that evening on the side of the street out of his mind. Instead of guiding his horse home to Oldleighlin, it occurred to him that it would be a good plan to go to Bilboa barracks to have a chat with Constable Thomas Singleton. What that woman said to him was still irritating him.

  This wasn’t Walter Sly’s first time looking for a wife. But he had failed miserably every time because of his drinking and the bad reputation he had among women. But he was determined to straighten himself out, that is if he were able to entice Lucinda Singleton into his household before too long.

  Walter was a few years with the half century and he felt that Lucinda was about the same age. He badly wanted a woman around the house to milk the cows with him morning and evening, who would do the churning once a week during the milking season and who would do the baking. He considered himself to be reasonably good-looking even though his eyes were clouded by drink when he had spoken with her. Most of the women he knew during his life were unscrupulous women who would drink with him in the back room of the pub until they had spent his every last penny and not one of them had ever milked a cow. Some of them, perhaps, were already married but had no regard for man or for sacrament. Often Sly would have to fight the husband when he was found with the wife. Fighting and misfortune were Walter Sly’s lot since he came to the age of reason, that is, if he ever attained it.

  He almost fell from his horse when he stuck his boot in the stirrup outside Bilboa barracks. He tied the reins to the pier of the garden gate and took a bottle of whiskey from a pocket in the saddle. He staggered up the pavem
ent and knocked drunkenly on the door.

  The door opened and there stood Constable Thomas Singleton.

  ‘Is it yourself, Walter?’ he greeted him. ‘What’s up with you so late in the night? Don’t tell me you had a row with horse traders again or is some woman’s husband after you?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ spluttered Sly. ‘But something entirely different.’

  When the constable saw the bottle of whiskey, and bearing in mind the desire for the drop they both had, he opened the door.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ he said. ‘It’s a while since we had a drink together. It’s not the smell of the wind I’m getting from your breath, whatever tavern you left.’

  Singleton took the bottle of whiskey from Sly and led him into the office. Then he went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses.

  Sly sat on a sugawn chair at the side of the table pondering how he would convey what was in his mind to his friend, particularly as there was a chance that Singleton might be related to the woman at the fair.

  ‘I’m coming straight from the market in Carlow town,’ Sly informed the constable.

  Singleton looked at him keenly with a smile on his face.

  ‘I’d believe that,’ he laughed. ‘Were you buying or selling?’

  Walter Sly stirred in his chair.

  ‘Oh, selling,’ he informed him, ‘and I’m very glad to have gotten rid of my cattle before I’d have to graze them on the side of the road again this winter. I had to do it last winter and I hadn’t a day’s peace until the land dried in the spring and the grass began to grow.’

  ‘I remember,’ Singleton assured him. ‘Your neighbours had a path worn to the barracks telling me to take you to court and to confiscate your cattle and horses. But I was always able to come around them.’

  ‘Oh, Thomas, isn’t that why I brought you the bottle of whiskey. I’m very grateful for what you did for me,’ Sly lied.

  Singleton poured a generous measure into each glass. They spent the next half hour discussing the ups and downs of the world while all the time Sly was awaiting an opportunity to question him about the woman he met at the market. Eventually he got his chance.

  ‘I can’t understand, Walter,’ the constable said, ‘why a strong, healthy man like you with a nice farm of land within four miles of the town never took a wife.’

  Sly moved uncomfortably in his chair and cleared his throat.

  ‘Twice,’ he told him, ‘the match was made with two different women. I don’t know what happened to the first woman but she went away two nights before the knot was to be tied. I got a note that was pushed under my door in the dark of night telling me that she was breaking the match. I think one of my neighbours must have told her that I was fond of the drink. When the second woman sent her intermediary to discuss the terms of the match and I told him I was a Protestant, he took off down the road and I haven’t had trace nor tidings of him since.’

  Singleton poured more whiskey in Sly’s glass and remarked:

  ‘You were unfortunate in life without a doubt. Those Catholics, you know, were always as obstinate as a tinker’s mule when it comes to the question of religion. But, Walter, it might be no harm if you eased off on the drink. I’ve noticed lately that even the slightest irritation makes you impatient.’

  Sly waited a few seconds before he answered him; then he straightened himself in his chair.

  ‘You’re entirely right, Thomas,’ he agreed. ‘But if I had a wife at home who would cook my meals and work hand-in-hand with me, I’d not be in the pub but sitting by the fire at night laying out the farm work for the coming season. Oh boy! Wouldn’t I be comfortable and happy in my chair with the love of my life across the hearth darning the sole of a stocking or putting a patch in my trousers. Talking of fine women, I met one today at the market, a handsome woman about my own age.’

  When Singleton heard this, he tried to make light of the matter.

  ‘For God’s sake, Walter,’ he advised him, ‘stay away from the women you meet in the back rooms of pubs. They’ll rob you or else one of their husbands will kill you.’

  Sly jumped to his feet.

  ‘But Thomas,’ he began, ‘you don’t understand at all. This woman I’m talking about, I didn’t meet her in any back room but on the side of the street selling her bread and butter. I can tell you, Thomas, though she is moving on in years she was energetic and spirited. To tell you the truth she gave out to me for leaving my cattle and for being drunk, and she was entirely right.’

  Singleton looked sharply at Sly.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if she’s that handsome I suppose she has a fine strong man at home minding the farm.’

  ‘No,’ Sly informed him. ‘In the short conversation we had, it slipped from her that she was a widow. And wait until you hear her name … it’s your own, Singleton’.

  The policeman sat back staring Walter directly in the eye.

  ‘By any chance,’ he said, ‘did she call herself Lucinda Singleton?’

  ‘Look, now that you mention Lucinda,’ Walter replied, ‘that’s the name she gave herself.’

  Singleton thought for a minute. He had had no contact with his mother since that fateful day he left her house and he hadn’t been next or near her since then. Then, suddenly, she crops up in the conversation between himself and Walter Sly. He had intended many times to go home and beg forgiveness for the beating he gave her. But his courage failed every time.

  ‘Had she a horse and cart with her butter and bread in a wicker basket?’ he asked, tears welling up in his eyes.

  ‘She had a horse and cart with a basket sure enough,’ Walter replied, ‘but she had sold everything by the time we had our conversation.’

  Sly looked straight at Singleton.

  ‘She is your mother, isn’t she?’ he demanded.

  ‘She is,’ the policeman admitted, ‘though it’s likely she would deny that she is any relation of mine.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake! And I was thinking on my way here from Carlow that if you were any way related to her you would put in a good word for me,’ Sly ventured.

  Singleton laughed when he heard that.

  ‘Oh, you scoundrel,’ he rounded on him. ‘That’s what brought you here and it wasn’t for friendship or the good of my health. To tell you the truth, if I put in a word for you, it would have the opposite effect … but I’ll tell you how to get to her and if she is willing to go to the well, so to speak, the second time you should listen carefully to me. She never liked to see a man drunk. Now, if you want to attract her, she sells her bread and butter in Carlow every Thursday during the milking season. My advice to you is to keep off the drink on the day you meet her and dress yourself in your Sunday clothes. When she has everything sold and the work of the day is behind her invite her to have a meal with you.’

  Walter Sly’s eyes were jumping in his head with excitement.

  ‘I’ll do better than that,’ he offered. ‘I’ll buy a couple of loaves of bread from her. Oh, Thomas, I’m more than grateful to you and I promise you that if things work out between me and your mother that I won’t forget you when the time comes. I have neither chick nor child and I have a fine farm of land.’

  They finished the bottle of whiskey before Sly faced for home.

  Chapter Three

  The morning after the fair, it was the cattle bellowing out in the field that woke Walter Sly, his head hanging from the side of the bed, his mouth as dry as a coarse bag, his head throbbing. He sat up in the bed and slowly and carefully put a foot out on the cold clay floor. He pulled up his trousers and walked unsteadily towards the kitchen. Bran, his dog, was sitting on the floor; he hadn’t had a bite of food from his master since the previous morning.

  Sly headed for the dresser at the bottom of the kitchen, took the jug of sour milk and raised it to his head. He drank the contents of the jug, lifted his left leg and broke wind.

  ‘Ah, boy,’ he exclaimed, ‘I feel better now.’

  It was then he remembere
d that he hadn’t milked the cows when he returned the previous night. He poured water from a bucket that was on a stool at the bottom of the kitchen into a dish on the table, plunged his hands into the dish and splashed the water on his face. A person couldn’t find a better way to wake himself up.

  ‘I’d better milk the cows before breakfast,’ he said, ‘before their udders burst.’

  By the time he had eight cows milked and the milk strained into the dishes in the dairy he was sweating profusely.

  ‘Oh! The scourge of drink,’ he lamented.

  When he had the cream skimmed from the previous morning’s milk, mess from the buttermilk made in the three-legged pot hanging on the crane over the fire, the potatoes heating in the hot ashes ready for breakfast and four hens’ eggs boiled in a saucepan on the embers at the side of the fire, Sly was starving. Bran would have to wait until his master had his belly full.

  When he had eaten his fill, he put the two potatoes that were left over as well as a splash of fresh milk and a hunk of meat in Bran’s bowl; he made mess for the hens and threw it out to them at the bottom of the haggard. His cows had knocked a strip off the boundary ditch between his land and Ben Stacey’s, his neighbour. There was an ongoing dispute about this over the years. Sly had the same trouble with John Griffin, another neighbour. What seldom happens is wonderful and he saw no trace of his neighbours that day, something for which he was extremely grateful. His head was splitting from the previous day’s drinking and he would need all his wits to come around Lucinda Sly without spoiling things.

  ‘Maybe this is my last chance to get a wife,’ Sly considered, ‘I don’t want to grow old on my own.’

  He planned to have a couple of glasses of whiskey and a couple of bottles of porter every night until Monday and then he wouldn’t taste a drop again until Friday. He expected he would have made contact with Lucinda Singleton by then and that he would have a good idea as to what his chances were.