Eleven on a hot June morning, and the little town was crowded, like some old-time immigrant ship. Women in plaid shawls and frilled caps, men in somber black as befitted a monthly occasion. Squawking of ducks and hens, trudging of donkeys, creaking of carts, unbelievably stubborn bullocks and heifers being whacked by ash-plants, colts frisking. Girls with baskets of eggs and butter; great carts of hay and straw. Apple-women with bonnets of cabbage-leaves against the sun. Herring-men bawling like auctioneers. Squealing of young pigs. An old clothes dealer hoarse with effort. A ballad singer split the air with an English translation of Bean an Fhir Ruaidh, "The Red-haired Man's Wife."
Ye Muses Nine,
Combine, and lend me your aid,
Until I raise
the praise of a beautiful maid—
The crash of a drover driving home a bargain:
"Hold out your hand now, by God! till I be after making you an offer. Seven pound ten, now. Hell to my soul if I give you another ha' penny. Wait now. I 'll make it seven pound fifteen."
"Is it insulting the fine decent beast you are?"
"Eight pounds five and ten shillings back for a luck-penny?"
"Is it crazy you've gone all of a sudden, dealing man. If the gentle creature was in Dublin town, sure they'd be hanging blue ribbons around her neck until she wilted with the weight of them."
"It's hanging their hats on the bones of her they'd be, and them sticking out the like of branches from a bush."
"Yerra Jasus! Do you hear the man, and her round as a bottle from the fine filling feeding. You could walk your shin-bones off to the knee, and you'd not find a cow as has had the treatment of this cow. Let you be on our way now."
"Look, honest man. Put out your hand, and wait till I spit on my fist—"