They began talking
and laughing about the dispute last night and the noise made at it.
'The worst fights do be made here over nothing,' said an old man
next me. 'Did Mourteen or any of them on the big island ever tell
you of the fight they had there threescore years ago when they were
killing each other with knives out on the strand?'
'They never told me,' I said.
'Well,' said he, 'they were going down to cut weed, and a man was
sharpening his knife on a stone before he went. A young boy came
into the kitchen, and he said to the man - "What are you sharpening
that knife for?"'
'"To kill your father with," said the man, and they the best of
friends all the time. The young boy went back to his house and told
his father there was a man sharpening a knife to kill him.
'"Bedad," said the father, "if he has a knife I'll have one, too."
'He sharpened his knife after that, and they went down to the
strand. Then the two men began making fun about their knives, and
from that they began raising their voices, and it wasn't long before
there were ten men fighting with their knives, and they never
stopped till there were five of them dead.
'They buried them the day after, and when they were coming home,
what did they see but the boy who began the work playing about with
the son of the other man, and their two fathers down in their
graves.'
When he stopped, a gust of wind came and blew up a bundle of dry
seaweed that was near us, right over our heads.
Another old man began to talk.
'That was a great wind,' he said. 'I remember one time there was a
man in the south island who had a lot of wool up in shelter against
the corner of a wall. He was after washing it, and drying it, and
turning it, and he had it all nice and clean the way they could card
it. Then a wind came down and the wool began blowing all over the
wall. The man was throwing out his arms on it and trying to stop it,
and another man saw him.
'"The devil mend your head!" says he, "the like of that wind is too
strong for you."
'"If the devil himself is in it," said the other man, "I'll hold on
to it while I can."
'Then whether it was because of the word or not I don't know, but
the whole of the wool went up over his head and blew all over the
island, yet, when his wife came to spin afterwards she had all they
expected, as if that lot was not lost on them at all.'
'There was more than that in it,' said another man, 'for the night
before a woman had a great sight out to the west in this island, and
saw all the people that were dead a while back in this island and
the south island, and they all talking with each other.
