“The Irish will never agree,” said old Oiney Dinchy, a one-eyed ancient who had just risen from his knees by the bedside. “That is the worst of the Irish; they never agree. Look at them now in the House of Commons; one member is always fighting against another member, and it was ever the same, for contrairiness is in their blood to the very last drop of it.”
“There is always bound to be two parties,” said Master Diver with dogmatic assurance. “In England and America there are always two parties, sometimes more.”
“They’ll never get on, then,” said Eamon Doherty. “There are no two parties in the holy Church, and that’s why it gets on so well.”
The door opened and Sheila Carrol, the beansho, entered, her child, now a chubby little boy of three, toddling at her heels. Without looking round she went down on her knees by the bedside, and a couple of women who were praying crossed themselves and rose hurriedly. A few of the younger men winked knowingly and turned their thumbs towards the new-comer. Old Mary Ryan muttered something under her breath and turned a look of severe disapproval on the kneeling woman, then on the little boy who had run forward to the fire, where he was holding out his hands to the blaze.
“Who’ll be the ones that will go to Greenanore and get tea, bread, snuff, and tobacco for the wake?” asked Mary Ryan.
“I’ll go if Eamon Doherty comes along with me,” said old Oiney Dinchy, getting to his feet and putting a live peat to the bowl of his pipe.
“The two of you always get drunk if you go to Greenanore together,” said the old woman. “I’d as soon send the——” she pointed with her thumb over her shoulder at the beansho but did not mention her name, “to Greenanore, as send you two.”
“It is not everyone that would be treated that way if they offered to help a person,” Eamon Doherty remarked in a loud voice to Oiney Dinchy.
“I’ll go if Willie the Duck comes with me,” said a long, lank, shaggy youth, rising from one corner of the room and stretching his arms.
“You’re the man for the job, Micky’s Jim,” answered Mary Ryan, coming from the bedside and tottering through the press of neighbours to the dresser where the Delft tea-pot stood. She raised the lid, dipped her hand into the tea-pot and drew out a fistful of money.