Free An Irish Christmas Feast by John B. Keane

time came around that some boy or girl from the town or surrounding countryside did not call for hot water which was always freely available from Mary Scubble. Happy groups of turf-footers, turf-turners and stoolin-makers of all ages would seat themselves on turf sods or heather clumps under the open sky and relish every mouthful of the simple fare.
    â€˜Whatever it is about the bogland air,’ the elders would say, ‘it has no equal for improving the appetite.’
    â€˜I could eat frost-nails after it,’ another might be heard to say.
    Then in the late winter and early spring the proprietors of the bogland’s many turf reeks would arrive with their horses and rails or donkeys and rails to replenish depleted stocks in the sheds and gable-reeks adjoining their homes. Always when a thunderstorm suddenly intruded or when the rain proved too drenching there was shelter and scalding tea to be had under the thatched roof of the Scubble farmhouse.
    Martin and Mary Scubble were generous to a fault. All comers were welcome to their humble abode. There was, thanks be to the good God revered by both, never a cross word between them, never that is except Christmas alone when the solace beneath the thatched roof was fractured and when their conformable personalities changed utterly. Mercifully the transformation was of brief duration but it had succeeded in attracting the interest of young folk far and wide. They would arrive, unfailingly, to the boglands shortly before darkness on the Sunday before Christmas and conceal themselves in the decrepit out-houses which surrounded the farmhouse.
    The annual event was known to the young generation as the Scubblething. According to their elders it had taken place for over two score years and had begun shortly after Mary Scubble had established herself as the new mistress of the Scubble holding. Some insisted that it had survived because the Scubbles had nothing else to do but the older and more perceptive of the neighbours would argue otherwise. As the neighbours grew older they paid scant attention to the goings-on at Scubbles. For them the novelty had worn off and they had come to take the whole business for granted. Not so the young folk who would nod and wink at each other eagerly as the Sunday in question approached.
    â€˜See you at the Scubblething,’ they would whisper with a laugh. Many had built meaningful relationships on a first meeting at the event and there were a considerable number who had eventually married as a result. Such was its drawing power that upwards of two score of youngsters would present themselves at the Scubble environs, unknown to the principals, shortly before the winter sun reclined in, and sank into, the western horizon.
    In the early years no more than a handful would hide themselves from the ageing pair, taking great care to maintain the strictest of silences before the curtain went up on the annual drama. Then as the years went by and the Scubbles grew older and feebler there was hardly any need to sustain the earlier lulls which had been so essential if they were to avoid detection by Martin and Mary.
    Now in later years, the older teenagers would arrive with packs of beer and containers of Vodka. Smoking too was rife and although there was a general tipsiness to the occasion there was enough control over the proceedings to ensure that detection was avoided. Indoors Martin and Mary would settle down for the night after they had partaken of supper. Then would they seat themselves at either side of the open hearth while the rising flames from the roaring turf fire filled the kitchen with flickering tongues of light and mysterious ever-changing shadows. It could fairly be called a cosy time. Outside the young folk would silently leave their hiding places and advance to the front door and windows where they would crouch together in comforting closeness, swigging happily but noiselessly from their many bottles. Inside the ritual continued