When the steamer was getting near, the whole drove was moved down on
the slip and the curaghs were carried out close to the sea. Then
each beast was caught in its turn and thrown on its side, while its
legs were hitched together in a single knot, with a tag of rope
remaining, by which it could be carried.
Probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut
their eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the
suggestion of the noise became so intense that the men and women who
were merely looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs
waiting their turn foamed at the mouth and tore each other with
their teeth.
After a while there was a pause. The whole slip was covered with a
mass of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman
crouching among the bodies, and patting some special favourite to
keep it quiet while the curaghs were being launched.
Then the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and
laid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep
them from damaging the canvas. They seemed to know where they were
going, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble
desperation that made me shudder to think that I had eaten of this
whimpering flesh. When the last curagh went out I was left on the
slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar who sat
looking out over the sea.
The women were over-excited, and when I tried to talk to them they
crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am
not married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could
not understand all that they were saying, yet I was able to make out
that they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to
give me the full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were
listening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the
seaweed, and the young girls grew red with embarrassment and stared
down into the surf.
For a moment I was in confusion. I tried to speak to them, but I
could not make myself heard, so I sat down on the slip and drew out
my wallet of photographs. In an instant I had the whole band
clambering round me, in their ordinary mood.
When the curaghs came back - one of them towing a large kitchen table
that stood itself up on the waves and then turned somersaults in an
extraordinary manner - word went round that the ceannuighe (pedlar)
was arriving.
He opened his wares on the slip as soon as he landed, and sold a
quantity of cheap knives and jewellery to the girls and the younger
women.
