One morning they were pacing on their journey. The eyes of the little troop were actively scanning the fields on either hand. They were all hungry, for they had eaten nothing since the previous midday. But these fields were barren of food. Great stretches of grass stretched away to either horizon, and there was nothing here that could be eaten except by the donkey.
As they went they saw a man sitting on a raised bank. His arms were folded; he had a straw in his mouth; there was a broad grin on his red face; a battered hat was thrust far back on his head, and from beneath this a brush of stiff hair poked in any direction like an ill-tied bundle of black wire.
Mac Cann stared at that red joviality.
“There’s a man,” said he to Caeltia, “that hasn’t got a care in the world.”
“It must be very bad for him,” commented Caeltia.
“Holloa, mister,” cried Patsy heartily, “how’s everything?”
“Everything’s fine,” beamed the man, “how’s yourself?”
“We’re holding up, glory be to God!”
“That’s the way.”
He waved his hand against the horizon.
“There’s weather for you,” and he spoke with the proud humility of one who had made that weather, but would not boast. His eye was steady on Mac Cann.
“I’ve got a hunger on me that’s worth feeding, mister.”
“We’ve all got that,” replied Patsy, “and there’s nothing in the cart barring its timbers. I’m keeping an eye out, though, and maybe we’ll trip over a side of bacon in the middle of the road or a neat little patch of potatoes in the next field and it full of the flowery boyoes.”
“There’s a field a mile up this road,” said the man, “and everything you could talk about is in that field.”
“Do you tell me!” said Patsy briskly.
“I do: every kind of thing is in that field, and there’s rabbits at the foot of the hill beyond it.”
“I used to have a good shot with a stone,” said Patsy.
“Mary,” he continued, “when we come to the field let yourself and Art gather up the potatoes while Caeltia and myself take stones in our hands to kill the rabbits.”
“I’m coming along with you,” said the man, “and I’ll get my share.”
“You can do that,” said Patsy.
The man scrambled down the bank. There was something between his knees of which he was very careful.
“What sort of a thing is that?” said Mary.
“It’s a concertina and I do play tunes on it before the houses, and that’s how I make my money.”
“The musicianer will give us a tune after we get a feed,” said Patsy.
“Sure enough,” said the man.
Art stretched out his hand.
“Let me have a look at the musical instrument,” said he.
The man handed it to him and fell into pace beside Patsy and Caeltia. Mary and Finaun were going as usual one on either side of the ass, and the three of them returned to their interrupted conversation. Every dozen paces Finaun would lean to the border of the road and pluck a fistful of prime grass or a thistle or a clutch of chickweed, and he would put these to the ass’s mouth.
Patsy was eyeing the man.
“What’s your name, mister?” said he.
“I was known as Old Carolan, but now the people call me Billy the Music.”
“How is it that I never met you before?”
“I’m from Connemara.”
“I know every cow track and bohereen in Connemara, and I know every road in Donegal and Kerry, and I know everybody that’s on them roads, but I don’t know you, mister.”
The man laughed at him.
“I’m not long on the roads, so how could you know me? What are you called yourself?”
“I’m called Padraig Mac Cann.”
“I know you well, for you stole a hen and a pair of boots off me ten months ago when I lived in a house.”
“Do you tell me?” said Mac Cann.
“I do; and I never grudged them to you, for that was the day that everything happened to me.”
Mac Cann was searching his head to find from whom he had stolen a hen and a pair of boots at the one time.
“Well, glory be to God!” he cried. “Isn’t it the queer world! Are you old Carolan, the miserly man of Temple Cahill?”
The man laughed and nodded.
“I used to be him, but now I’m Billy the Music, and there’s my instrument under the boy’s oxter.”
Patsy stared at him.
“And where’s the house and the cattle, and the hundred acres of grass land and glebe, and the wife that people said you used to starve the stomach out of?”
“Faith, I don’t know where they are, and I don’t care either,” and he shook with the laughter as he said it.
“And your sister that killed herself climbing out of a high window on a windy night to search for food among the neighbours?”
“She’s dead still,” said the man, and he doubled up with glee.
“I declare,” said Patsy, “that it’s the end of the world.”
The man broke on his eloquence with a pointed finger.
“There’s the field I was telling you about and it’s weighty to the ribs with potatoes and turnips.”
Patsy turned to his daughter.
“Gather in the potatoes; don’t take them all from the one place, but take them from here and there the way they won’t be missed, and then go along the road with the cart for twenty minutes and be cooking them. Myself and Caeltia will catch up on you in a little time and we’ll bring good meat with us.”
Caeltia and he moved to the right where a gentle hill rose against the sky. The hill was thickly wooded, massive clumps of trees were dotted every little distance, and through these one could see quiet, green spaces drowsing in the sun.
When they came to the
