Free Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh Page B

McArdle’s field. He had encouraged his mother that a calf out of the famous double-dairy shorthorn that Reilly’s had at that time would be a real wonder, and when the calf grew up his mother was never done praising it. The only trouble in a case like this was that the cow mightn’t keep the bull the first time, and then you’d have to go back and would have the money spent. So he let the heifer go as she was inclined. She galloped up the road. He had a mind to go back for the bicycle, but changed his mind and slowly followed the heifer. He wondered if he would see Mary and he also hoped that the father had not been a joke and a jeer about his mother’s remarks in the market the previous week.
    Callan’s gate was open but luckily enough she did not see it. The heifer went out of sight round the turn where the hedge was high and overhung the lane. A slight shower had fallen making the dust of the road like velvet. His business seldom took him up this way, so that this evening’s walk was for him a mystical adventure.
    Places which he had not seen for a week seemed so mysterious, like places in a fantastic foreign land.
    As he passed Callan’s back lane he looked up towards the house where the trees were dark with greenery. He could see Mrs Callan standing on top of a pit of rotten mangolds staring into the distances of the southern townland. The father’s whistle which never became an air – he had no ear for music, nor one belonging to him for that matter – could be heard from theregion of the dunghill behind the wooden sheds. May was not visible.
    He hurried to catch up with the heifer and found when he went round the next turn that she had strayed into Cassidy’s haggard and was nibbling in her wild way at some wizened old potatoes that lay against the wall of the boiler house. Mat Ward, the half-wit (an iron fool really), who worked off and on for Eusebius was squaring a dunghill in the yard; it was strange how Eusebius and his father could always get these loose-idiots to work for them for jaw-wages.
    â€˜Will you give us a hand with this heifer?’ said Tarry.
    Mat laid down the graip with an air of profound wisdom and came slowly towards Tarry and the heifer.
    â€˜Nice wee stuff ye have,’ said he. ‘A bit rough o’ the head all the same.’
    â€˜She’ll have to be doing, Mat,’ said Tarry, anxious to get the beast away from the dangerous potatoes which could easily choke a cow beast.
    â€˜She’ll take no hurt,’ said Mat.
    They drove the nervous animal on to the road again; Mat’s knowing scrutiny as he tried to get a line on the heifer from behind, amused Tarry very much.
    â€˜She has the makings of a good bag,’ he said, ‘a bit shy in the left back quarter, but the makings of a good bag all the same.’
    Mat helped Tarry with the heifer round the next turn. Then he stood rubbing the seat of his trousers as he stared after them. There were no gates or gaps on the next stretch of road – until he would be passing Toole’s house. He was able to relax and nibble at the leaves of whitethorn as he went along. He wondered if he would see Mary Reilly. He did not wonder too much for she was far beyond his dreams. A man cannot love the impossible.
    On either side of him were the little fields. Three fields across was Carlin’s half-derelict house. The thatched part of the dwelling was down. The three brothers and two sisters lived in the small slated part. Queer.
    A woman was coming down the grass-grown path from Carlins’, and Tarry hung on to see who it might be. The gap ontothe main Drumnay lane was at this point, so she’d have to pass him. The woman was Eusebius’ mother, a very fresh woman for her years and light on her feet. She had a sharp tongue, Tarry knew.
    â€˜You’ll soon have a free house down there,’ she said right out for a start as if she had been thinking about the