There were still no clouds in the sky and the heat was intense. The
police when not in motion lay sweating and gasping under the walls
with their tunics unbuttoned. They were not attractive, and I kept
comparing them with the islandmen, who walked up and down as cool
and fresh-looking as the sea-gulls.
When the last eviction had been carried out a division was made:
half the party went off with the bailiff to search the inner plain
of the island for the cattle that had been hidden in the morning,
the other half remained on the village road to guard some pigs that
had already been taken possession of.
After a while two of these pigs escaped from the drivers and began a
wild race up and down the narrow road. The people shrieked and
howled to increase their terror, and at last some of them became so
excited that the police thought it time to interfere. They drew up
in double line opposite the mouth of a blind laneway where the
animals had been shut up. A moment later the shrieking began again
in the west and the two pigs came in sight, rushing down the middle
of the road with the drivers behind them.
They reached the line of the police. There was a slight scuffle, and
then the pigs continued their mad rush to the east, leaving three
policemen lying in the dust.
The satisfaction of the people was immense. They shrieked and hugged
each other with delight, and it is likely that they will hand down
these animals for generations in the tradition of the island.
Two hours later the other party returned, driving three lean cows
before them, and a start was made for the slip. At the public-house
the policemen were given a drink while the dense crowd that was
following waited in the lane. The island bull happened to be in a
field close by, and he became wildly excited at the sight of the
cows and of the strangely-dressed men. Two young islanders sidled up
to me in a moment or two as I was resting on a wall, and one of them
whispered in my ear - 'Do you think they could take fines of us if we
let out the bull on them?'
In face of the crowd of women and children, I could only say it was
probable, and they slunk off.
At the slip there was a good deal of bargaining, which ended in all
the cattle being given back to their owners. It was plainly of no
use to take them away, as they were worth nothing.
When the last policeman had embarked, an old woman came forward from
the crowd and, mounting on a rock near the slip, began a fierce
rhapsody in Gaelic, pointing at the bailiff and waving her withered
arms with extraordinary rage.
'This man is my own son,' she said; 'it is I that ought to know him.
He is the first ruffian in the whole big world.'
Then she gave an account of his life, coloured with a vindictive
fury I cannot reproduce. As she went on the excitement became so
intense I thought the man would be stoned before he could get back
to his cottage.
On these islands the women live only for their children, and it is
hard to estimate the power of the impulse that made this old woman
stand out and curse her son.
In the fury of her speech I seem to look again into the strangely
reticent temperament of the islanders, and to feel the passionate
spirit that expresses itself, at odd moments only, with magnificent
words and gestures.
Old Pat has told me a story of the goose that lays the golden eggs,
which he calls the Phoenix: -
A poor widow had three sons and a daughter. One day when her sons
were out looking for sticks in the wood they saw a fine speckled
bird flying in the trees. The next day they saw it again, and the
eldest son told his brothers to go and get sticks by themselves, for
he was going after the bird.
He went after it, and brought it in with him when he came home in
the evening. They put it in an old hencoop, and they gave it some of
the meal they had for themselves; - I don't know if it ate the meal,
but they divided what they had themselves; they could do no more.
That night it laid a fine spotted egg in the basket. The next night
it laid another.
At that time its name was on the papers and many heard of the bird
that laid the golden eggs, for the eggs were of gold, and there's no
lie in it.
When the boys went down to the shop the next day to buy a stone of
meal, the shopman asked if he could buy the bird of them. Well, it
was arranged in this way. The shopman would marry the boys'
sister - a poor simple girl without a stitch of good clothes - and get
the bird with her.
Some time after that one of the boys sold an egg of the bird to a
gentleman that was in the country. The gentleman asked him if he had
the bird still. He said that the man who had married his sister was
after getting it.
'Well,' said the gentleman, 'the man who eats the heart of that bird
will find a purse of gold beneath him every morning, and the man who
eats its liver will be king of Ireland.'
The boy went out - he was a simple poor fellow - and told the shopman.
