“Aye, sure,” answered Willie without raising his head.
“I wish that I was goin’ home in it,” she said plaintively.
“Ireland’s much better than this dirty country,” said Maire a Glan, speaking loud enough for the Scotchwoman Annie to hear her.
II
WHEN six o’clock came round Jim pulled out his watch, looked at it severely for a moment and shouted: “Down graips and run home to yer warm supper!”
“Home!” repeated Maire a Glan, rising awkwardly to her knees. “Mother of Jesus; it is a home! An old byre and no less, as the man said. Shame be on ye, Micky’s Jim!”
“We have no grub and no siller,” said Gourock Ellen, rising briskly and loosing the claycoated sack from around her waist. “I’m up to my thighs in clabber,” she added.
“We’ll not let ye starve as long as there’s a bit at all goin’,” said Micky’s Jim.
“We’d be pigs if we ate all ourselves when other people have nothin’,” remarked Maire a Glan.
When the squad went back to the farm a ploughman, a flat-footed, surly fellow with a hare-lip, showed them their quarters in the steading. “First I’ll show ye where ye’re to roost,” said the man, and led the way into an evil-smelling byre, the roof of which was covered with cobwebs, the floor with dung. A young fellow, with a cigarette in his mouth, was throwing the manure through a trap-door into a vault underneath. On both sides of the sink, which ran up the middle, was a row of stalls, each stall containing two iron stanchions to which chains used for tying cattle were fastened.