“Ye kick like a colt.”
“Will I do?” asked Willie the Duck.
“Ye do!” cried Micky’s Jim, “ye that was chased out of the graveyard with a squad of worms. None of ye will sleep with me; Dermod Flynn is the man I want. Help me to make the bed, Dermod Flynn,” he said to the youth who was standing beside him.
“It’s a fine place, this,” said Gourock Ellen as she spread a pile of hay over the boxes in the stalls. “A gey guid place!”
“D’ye know who slept in that stall last night?” asked Jim.
“A heifer like mysel’ maybe,” said Ellen. “And indeed it had a muckle better place than I had under the bridge.”
“The potatoes are nearly ready,” shouted Maire a Glan, sticking her wrinkled head round the corner of the door.
There was a hurried rush down to the midden. Boxes were upended to serve as seats, the maid-servant at the farm came out in brattie,[D] shorgun,[E] and brogues, and sold milk at a penny a pint to the diggers. All, with the exception of Annie, Ellen, and Owen Kelly, bought a pennyworth; Micky’s Jim bought a pennyworth for Ellen, Maire a Glan shared her milk with Annie, and Owen Kelly bought only a halfpennyworth, half of which he kept for his breakfast on the following morning.
The potatoes were not ready yet; the water bubbled and spluttered in the pot and shot out in little short spurts on every side. Ellen complained of her legs; they had been horribly gashed during the day and were now terribly sore. She lifted up her clothes as far as her thighs and rubbed a wet cloth over the wounds. Micky’s Jim tittered; Dermod Flynn blushed, turned away his head and looked at Norah Ryan. Ellen noticed this and, smiling sarcastically, began to hum:
“When I was a wee thing and lived wi’ my granny,
Oh! it’s many a caution my granny gied me;
She said: ‘Now, be wise and beware of the boys,
And don’t let yer petticoats over yer knee!’ ”