Lucinda Sly

by Maidhc Dain

  The attorney looked at Sly.

  ‘Is that your understanding, Walter,’ he asked him, ‘or is there something you want to add to it or maybe make some corrections?’

  Sly spent a little while in thought.

  ‘That is exactly what we have agreed,’ he said quietly.

  ‘All right,’ the attorney continued. ‘You may go out in town for an hour or so. That will afford me an opportunity to draw up the document and you both can read and sign it on your return. I will keep it under lock and key in the safe and it will be there in the event of any disagreement later on.’

  Lucinda felt much better leaving the office than she did on going in. It wouldn’t be long before the bargain was sealed and in the attorney’s safe. Now all that was to be done was to go to the minister to solemnise the marriage and she would have a happy and contented life from then on.

  ‘I have a couple of hunks of bread in a bag in my cart and a bottle of this morning’s buttermilk,’ Lucinda told Walter. ‘Will you come and eat with me? We will have to wait for an hour for the attorney to prepare his paper.’

  ‘I have some business in town,’ Sly lied. ‘I’ll meet you here in an hour.’ Lucinda believed him. What was in Sly’s head was to have a word in private with the attorney. When Lucinda had gone out of sight, he turned in to the office again.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Sly began, ‘but could you add one more thing to the document – that if Lucinda doesn’t discharge her duties properly I can change my will?’

  There is no need,’ the attorney informed him. ‘You have a right to do that without putting anything in writing. But you will have to make a will soon because, what with the document I am currently putting together, if any accident should befall you, everything would be null and void if Lucinda is not mentioned in your will. You may alter your will at any time in the future. Married women don’t understand this, but they have little power when it comes to having a claim on land or possession of a house because if the holding was originally the husband’s, he puts his wife’s name in his will. The husband can change his will during their marriage and the wife will not get even what she brought with her as a dowry the day they married.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Sly.

  He put a half sovereign in the attorney’s coat pocket.

  ‘Have a drink on me later on,’ Sly said, winking at the attorney.

  Sly walked out the door with a smile on his face.

  The glass of whiskey he had in Langstrom’s a few minutes later went down well. He met some of his old cronies who wanted to know why he hadn’t been seen much in the taverns for over six months.

  ‘Oh! I got sense,’ he replied and left it at that.

  He kept an eye on the clock. He didn’t want to make any mistake until they were safely married and Lucinda was under his roof for some time.

  Sly and Lucinda were both going in the attorney’s door at virtually the same time.

  ‘Did you get your business done?’ Lucinda asked him.

  ‘I did,’ Sly lied. ‘There was a few pounds coming to me from a man who bought a horse from me. We had a drop of whiskey in Langstrom’s to seal the bargain.’

  ‘Hum,’ was all Lucinda said, pretending to be disgusted and letting him know that she still remembered the day they first met on the side of the street.

  ‘I understand that you don’t like drink,’ Sly offered, ‘but believe me I had too much to drink the first time we met. That won’t happen again.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Lucinda warned him.

  The attorney offered the document to Lucinda.

  ‘Read what is written in this document,’ he advised her, ‘and, if you are satisfied that everything is in order, sign your name or make your mark where I have made a cross.’

  Lucinda pretended to read the document, but she had had little education in her youth. Then she took the pen in her hand and signed it. Sly signed it after her without so much as reading one sentence. They thanked the attorney and walked towards the door. When they were out on the street they both stopped. Sly was first to speak.

  ‘Yes, now,’ he cleared this throat, ‘that’s the most important thing discussed and set right. I suppose we should go to the minister and fix a date for the wedding.’

  ‘We should,’ Lucinda agreed. ‘And we each will have to get a witness. I’ll ask my next-door neighbour, Mary Joy. She is a member of the Church of Ireland like myself.’

  ‘I’ll ask your son, Thomas,’ Sly informed her. ‘All my neighbours in Oldleighlin are Catholics and they hate anybody sympathetic to the Crown. Isn’t it usual for the couple to tie the knot in the woman’s local church?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Lucinda replied.

  ‘You can go to the minister and fix a date and I will see you at the market next Thursday,’ Sly said.

  ‘And what will happen if the date doesn’t suit you?’ Lucinda questioned him.

  ‘Any date will suit me,’ Sly assured her.

  ‘Right,’ Lucinda smiled. ‘I’ll be shortening the road home and I will have news for you on Thursday. We won’t make with a big day’s drinking out of it, Walter Sly, but maybe the four of us will have a few quiet drinks after the wedding. We’re too long in the tooth for that.’

  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.

  Chapter Seven

  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.