Lucinda Sly (7 page)

Sly ripped the reins for her and helped her into the cart, then he drew a swipe of his crop across the horse’s flank and he trotted off down the road.

Sly stood until Lucinda and her horse had disappeared from sight at the bottom of the street. ‘A good day’s work,’ he was
thinking
to himself. Then he headed for Langstrom’s …

Lucinda Singleton and Walter Sly were married on the third Saturday of August, 1831. There were very few people in the church apart from Thomas Singleton and Mary Joy who were standing with the couple and half a dozen or so of Lucinda’s
neighbours
who were curious about what kind of man she was marrying. It was a simple service without even a flower on the altar. The
service
began on the stroke of midday. They were standing outside the church door half an hour later, a newly married couple.

They travelled by horse and trap to Carlow town where there
was a meal waiting for them in Fitzgerald’s Hotel. Their meal was boiled pork with potatoes, green cabbage and turnips. Lucinda was very impressed as few people would have had such fare before them in those times.

Thomas did most of the talking during the meal, telling the other three how difficult a policeman’s life had become during the previous few years. The tenants of smallholdings in the west of the county were getting agitated and threatening the landlords because their rent was rising every year. According to the tenants, with every improvement they made on their holdings the
landlords
would raise their rent a shilling or two every quarter. If a
family
was being evicted from their land, the farmers of the parish would gather outside that family’s house and chase off the bailiffs. It was the policemen’s lot then to evict the family. That gave rise to bad feelings between the police and the ordinary people.

‘There is one cure for those criminals,’ Sly blurted out
ignorantly
. ‘The government should bring in the army and any farmer who refuses to leave his holding should be shot.’ On hearing this statement from Sly, Mary Joy almost choked on the meat she was chewing.

‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘if the landlords reduced the rent on smallholdings by half, the poor creatures wouldn’t have to come together and break the law.’

Thomas cleared his throat vigorously but Sly didn’t take the hint.

‘The dogs of the town know what the small farmers around here are up to,’ Sly continued. ‘Aren’t most of them Catholics and
don’t they want to get rid of the Empire from this island? Yes, and if that happens they’ll get rid of all the Protestants.’

Just then Sly realised that Lucinda had a smallholding.

‘It’s the Catholics I’m talking about, Lucinda,’ he said by way of appeasing her. ‘You know that.’

‘You’re saying that because I’m a Protestant and a tenant on a smallholding, that it doesn’t concern me,’ she retorted. ‘Listen now. The British government doesn’t care about what God any of us have as long as we pay our rent to the landlords every quarter.’

They had almost finished their meal and it was time to
celebrate
the wedding. Sly beckoned to the waitress to bring out four glasses and the bottle of whiskey he had left with the hoteliers when he had made the reservation for the meal. The four of them drank to each other’s health and then they toasted the newly
married
couple and wished them a long and happy life together.

No sooner was Lucinda out of the bed the morning after the
wedding
than she hung a skillet on the crook over the fire. She would make a bowl of porridge for her husband that would stick to his ribs and get him through the day’s work, a handful of potatoes and a mug of milk after that and a hunk of the wheaten bread she had baked the previous day. ‘There is nothing like a bowl of porridge made from cows’ milk,’ she thought to herself. She put two eggs boiling on the coals at the side of the fire.

Lucinda had the breakfast on the table before Walter rose. He entered the room stretching himself like a man who had had a good night’s sleep.

‘Eat your breakfast before we milk the cows,’ Lucinda
suggested
, pointing to the substantial breakfast that was laid out at the head of the table.

When they both were seated comfortably, Walter spoke:

‘What have you planned to do today, Lucinda?’

Lucinda thought for a minute.

‘Because yesterday was our wedding day, there is no need for us
to go to church two days in a row,’ she replied.

‘Oh yes, today is Sunday,’ Sly observed.

‘I was examining the churn at the bottom of the house,’ Lucinda continued. ‘It looks like the hoops are rusty and could burst when it is full of cream.’

‘I intended to buy a new churn,’ Sly told her, ‘but you know, a man puts everything on the long finger until the worst happens.’

‘Listen,’ Lucinda suggested, ‘we will milk the cows and while we have the time we could bring my own churn over from my house. It is almost new. Yes, and while we are there, I might as well harness my horse. With two horses we will be able to transport my furniture and any other personal belongings over here. We could drive my two cows before us also.’

Sly’s heart rose when she mentioned that they could bring the two cows to Oldleighlin and he agreed that Sunday was the right day to do it. According to him, the sooner she broke her ties with her old homestead the better because he intended to sell her house and land together when Lucinda was settled in Oldleighlin. But he would not reveal to her what was in his mind just yet.

It was late that Sunday evening when Walter and Lucinda Sly guided their two horses down the boreen towards their house. Both carts were piled up back to the heels and to the top of the rails. She even brought her own bed. Sly was breathless from trying to drive the two cows on the long road home without any chance of stopping at Langstrom’s to relax and quench his thirst, but he considered it too early in the marriage to be causing ripples when they hadn’t yet gotten to know each other properly.
He would have another day!

When they had moved the furniture into the house, while they were unyoking the horses, Lucinda surprised Walter.

‘As soon as we have the cows milked,’ she told him, ‘why don’t you saddle the white mare? She is out in pasture all day. Have a few drinks in Carlow town. You have it well earned.’

Sly’s heart rose when he heard that. But Lucinda added:

‘And don’t let it be bright morning when you come home.’

When Walter Sly had stabled his horse in Langstrom’s stables, he walked to the front door of the tavern. The moon was almost full and the sky was clear. He looked over and back in case any policeman was patrolling the street as they usually did on Sunday nights. There was neither human nor spirit to be seen nor sound to be heard in any direction. He knocked gently on the door. It wasn’t long before he heard the bolt being drawn inside. The door opened by two inches.

‘Walter,’ a voice whispered, ‘come in quickly. A new policeman has come to town and he has nothing better to do but march up and down the street listening at every tavern door.’

There were only five people drinking inside and Walter knew every one of them.

‘How is it that none of you are playing cards?’ Sly wanted to know.

‘Because Langstrom won’t let us play until he finds out what kind of policeman this stranger is that has come to town,’ John Moore, one of the town’s shopkeepers, answered him.

Suddenly he looked at Sly.

‘Was I dreaming,’ he asked him, ‘or is it true that you got
married
yesterday?’

On hearing this, the other four customers finished their drinks as it was the custom that a newly married man would stand to his friends particularly if there was no wedding feast at his house.

‘Ah here!’ Sly instructed the man of the house. ‘Fill them a drink and have one yourself. I knew I wouldn’t get away easily with this.’

‘Do we know the woman you married?’ Francis Ware, a small, useless article who had a habit of sticking his nose in other people’s business, enquired.

‘Lucinda Singleton is her name,’ Sly informed him. ‘A widow who spent her life working hard. We are both nearly the same age. She is well used to farm work and if it gets lonely up there on the side of the hill during the long winter nights when I am at home, she will be company for me.’

‘Isn’t she the one the women at the market call the hag with the butter?’ Ware persisted.

Well, when Sly heard the insult coming from Ware’s mouth, he caught him by the windpipe and shoved him into the corner. He jumped on him like a fox would jump on a hen. It took three
customers
as well as the owner to pull Sly off him.

When Sly had cooled down somewhat, the three customers put him sitting at the bottom of the counter as far as possible from Francis Ware, who was fit to shit in his pants so afraid was he that Sly would kill him.

‘Listen, Walter,’ Ware pleaded. ‘It wasn’t out of badness I said it
but it was my own wife who told me.’

‘Will I include him in the round?’ Langstrom asked Sly when everybody was seated on their stools again.

‘Fill the drink,’ Sly ordered him, ‘and don’t leave anybody out.’

Sly drank his fill of whiskey that night. But he didn’t stay too late. He had to mend ditches between his land and Connors’s. Connors had come complaining about his horses three times in the space of a month.

When Walter Sly awoke the following morning, his breakfast was on the table for him and Lucinda was churning at the bottom of the kitchen. She threw a hard eye in his direction.

‘You had a good drop in when you came home last night,’ she began. ‘You spent the night shouting in a nightmare. I didn’t sleep a wink because you were tossing and turning beside me. I left you in bed this morning, I milked the cows and your breakfast is on the table. It doesn’t bother me if you have a few drinks. But if you come home with too much to drink there will be no peace between us.’

Sly didn’t open his mouth but he was grinding his teeth with rage. It was too early in their marriage to be arguing. He sat at the table and ate his breakfast. He got up from the table without a word. As he was going out, he stopped at the door and spoke in a harsh voice:

‘I’m going to mend the ditches,’ he said, ‘in order to keep the neighbours from my door. I’ll be home early in the evening.’

‘I’ll bake a couple of cakes for the market,’ Lucinda replied,
letting
him know that she wouldn’t be idle.

The marriage worked well for the first couple of months as Walter Sly was drinking very little. As well as that he went only to the horse fairs that were nearby so that he could be home in time for milking the cows. But he had other plans. He was failing to get anyone to lease the grazing of Lucinda’s holding. As well as that nobody had any interest in leasing her house. One day he was in Carlow while Lucinda was selling her butter and bread on the side of the street. Walter went across to the tavern for a drink. Because autumn was over and the cold of winter was in the wind blowing from the north, he knew that Lucinda wouldn’t be long selling what little butter she had. The cows were heavy in calf and were almost dry.

‘Give me two small whiskies in the one glass,’ Sly ordered,
shaking
himself with the cold.

Nobody was in the tavern only himself and the owner.

‘Do you know,’ Langstrom began, ‘since there are only the two of us here, I’ll have a dram with you. Leave your money in your pocket, Walter. You have been a good customer down through the years.’

Langstrom never stood to anybody without getting his own back in one way or another. He filled their glasses a second time and drew up his stool closer to Walter.

‘Walter,’ he enquired, ‘did you let the grazing of Lucinda’s farm yet?’

‘I didn’t even have an enquiry,’ Walter lamented. ‘There’s a fine top of grass and not an animal grazing it this past year. It is my opinion that the holding is too small not to mention that it is too
far from my farm at home. Do you know anybody who would be interested in buying the house and the holding together?’

‘I thought you promised Lucinda that it would be let,’ Langstrom ventured.

‘That’s what I planned but nobody is interested in it,’ Sly told him. ‘I’d sell the house and land if I got a decent offer.’

That is exactly what Langstrom wanted to hear. Sly didn’t know that Langstrom had come into possession of a piece of land. His uncle had died and left fifty acres to him in his will.

‘What kind of money would you want for the house and land together?’ Langstrom queried. ‘And take it from me that it should be reasonable.’

Sly drank a mouthful of whiskey and looked at Langstrom.

‘Because it is so far from my own holding I’d sell it for a
hundred
and twenty pounds,’ Sly offered.

When he heard that, Langstrom jumped from his stool.

‘I thought you were anxious to sell it,’ he thundered. ‘For the money you are asking, I could buy half the land around the town of Tullow.’

Sly thought for a moment.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘you can have it for a hundred, but I will have to get the money into my hand. Christ, how could I face Lucinda and tell her that I didn’t get a decent price for the farm where she made her living for forty-odd years in bad times?’

‘All right,’ Langstrom agreed. ‘But you will have to give me five pounds luck.’

‘Three pounds,’ Sly offered.

‘It’s a bargain,’ Langstrom said.

They agreed on the spot that they would go to the attorney to seal the bargain. They drank their whiskey and Langstrom stood another round before he shut the door behind them and both of them walked down the street to the attorney’s office. John Burke was seated in his chair, busily poring over documents when the two walked in. Within a minute he raised his eyes from the papers in front of him.

‘Ah, God be with you, men,’ he welcomed them. ‘And what brings you to an attorney’s office this cold winter’s day?’

‘Do you remember the holding my wife gave me as a dowry before we married?’ Sly began.

‘Oh yes,’ the lawyer replied, ‘have you found somebody to rent it from you?’

‘Well,’ Sly stuttered, ‘the place isn’t being let. I have sold house and land to Mister Langstrom.’

‘Oh,’ the lawyer continued, ‘has your wife changed her mind? I thought she wanted to lease it for grazing rather than sell it.’

‘I tried my best to lease it and honour my wife’s wishes but I failed,’ Sly informed him. ‘It isn’t every day a buyer comes along. Is it in the marriage agreement that I can’t sell it?’

‘There’s nothing legally binding written down but I thought that you both had agreed to hold on to the house and farm,’ the lawyer reminded him.

‘When we said that, neither of us knew how difficult it is to lease land,’ Sly insisted.

‘Look, Walter,’ the attorney looked him in the eye. ‘It’s none of
my business. The land is legally in your name. Right so, gentlemen, we’ll get down to business because I have enough to do besides dawdling with two men who have time to waste.’

No two in the town of Carlow were more satisfied in their minds than John Langstrom and Walter Sly that cold Thursday in winter: Langstrom had bought the land he wanted at a reasonable price and Sly had gotten rid of the millstone around his neck. Yes, and dry cash in his pocket for the horse fair in Ballinasloe. But how would he tell Lucinda? Well, he need not break the news until after the Ballinasloe fair. He could be complaining little by little to her how difficult it was to do any work on land so far from the main farm.

Walter Sly was making his way to the tavern along with Langstrom in order to collect his money. Sly was goggle-eyed when he saw Langstrom counting from a wad of notes that he brought down from one of the upstairs rooms.

‘In the name of God, John, wouldn’t your money be safer in a bank than under your bed?’ Sly reproached him.

Langstrom looked at Sly and the stamp of the rogue was on his forehead. ‘I like to lay it out on the table now and then,’ he said, ‘and, since you mentioned it, I don’t trust strangers.’

Sly handed the three pounds luck money to Langstrom who threw a pound on the bar counter.

‘We’ll drink the pound to celebrate the bargain,’ he insisted.

‘I’ll have one more drink,’ Sly replied, ‘but I’ll have to go home with Lucinda.’

‘Yes!’ Langstrom smiled. ‘We know who wears the trousers in your house.’

Sly wasn’t a man to let it be known that he would be led and said by a woman.

‘All right so,’ he retorted, ‘since you are buying, fill the glasses.’

Lucinda finished her business at the market and harnessed the horse. She spent some time waiting for Walter and when he wasn’t coming to her she had a good idea where she would find him. She tied the horse to the ring and hurried towards the tavern. The two were still drinking Langstrom’s pound. Lucinda stood at the threshold.

‘Walter,’ she said firmly, ‘the horse is harnessed and it’s time to go home.’

Sly almost choked on his whiskey he got such a fright.

‘I’ll be straight out to you. Release the reins,’ he said in order to calm the situation.

He hurried out of the tavern and jumped into the front of the cart. Neither of them spoke on the long road home.

Strange thoughts were running through Lucinda’s mind: that whatever affection was between herself and Walter at first was beginning to wane. He was becoming more abusive by the day and insulted her in every move she made. The day before the fair in Ballinasloe he told her for the first time that she was expecting too much from the marriage.