Where the wares of the world are sold,
And the wares are little children,
Traded for pieces of gold."
—From Good Bargains.
My master's name was Bennet—Joe Bennet. He owned a farm of some eighty acres and kept ten milch cows, two cart-horses, and twenty sheep. He possessed a spring-cart, but he seldom used it. It had been procured at one time for taking the family to church, but they were ashamed to put any of the cart-horses between the shafts, and no wonder. One of the horses was spavined and the other was covered with angleberries.
He brought me home from Strabane on the old cart drawn by the spavined horse, and though it was well past midnight when we returned I had to wash the vehicle before I turned into bed. My supper consisted of buttermilk and potatoes, which were served up on the table in the kitchen. The first object that encountered my eye was a large picture of King William Crossing the Boyne, hung from a nail over the fireplace and almost brown with age. I hated the picture from the moment I set eyes on it, and though my dislikes are short-lived they are intense while they last. This picture almost assumed an orange tint before I left, and many a time I used to spit at it out of pure spite when left alone in the kitchen.
The household consisted of five persons, Bennet, his father and mother, and two sisters. He was always quarrelling with his two sisters, who, in addition to being wasp-waisted and spider-shanked, were peppery-tongued and salt-tempered, but he never got the best of the argument. The two hussies could talk the head off a drum. The old father was half-doting, and he never spoke to anybody but me. He sat all day in the chimney-corner, rubbing one skinny hand over the other, and kicking the dog if ever it happened to draw near the fire. When he spoke to me it was to point out some fault which I had committed at my work.
The woman of the house was bent like the rim of a dish from constant stooping over her work. She got up in the morning before anyone else and trudged about in the yard all day, feeding the hens, washing the linen, weeding the walk or seeing after the cows. I think that she had a liking for me. One day when I was working beside her in the cabbage patch she said these words to me:
"It's a pity you're a Papist, Dermod."
I suppose she meant it in good part, but her talk made me angry.