Mary's Ireland

By Mark Eyles

The battles of the Crimea and the streets of Belfast veil the simple life of young barmaid Mary Cannon.

Walenty Nikodemski, a Polish sailor, who lives in the shadow of Russian wars and religious conflict, enters the Shamrock Hotel where she works. Mary feels his jade black eyes seeing right through her to her very soul. He pierces her heart.

Family, faith and humour shape Mary as she struggles with grief, her violent Ireland and uncertain love. Encased in detailed historical events and settings, Mary’s Ireland enshrines the human capacity to confront adversity and flourish within it, turning donkeys into racehorses.

Mary’s Ireland is the first book in a series of three. It is to be followed by Mary’s Poland and Mary’s War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aurora House
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9780994634290

Mark Eyles

I am a retired Primary School Teacher and Principal. Whilst I began teaching in 1972 in the New South Wales government system, the majority of my teaching and my school Principalships have been with the ACT Department of Education. I was a Principal for nineteen years and previously a curriculum consultant in social science with the department. Currently I work ‘very’ part-time as the Executive Officer of the ACT Principals Association.My wife and I raised three sons in the ACT region beginning in the rural town of Gundaroo initially at the former ‘Prickle Farm’ of Mike Hayes fame and then onto a 45 acre bush block of gum trees, kangaroos, birds, dams and acres of fun, family and friends. We returned to suburban Canberra giving the boys their early adulthood in this unique and wonderful city. With the boys now not at home, Toni and I now have much time to travel, garden, surf ‘down the coast’, walk and to enjoy our now larger family including three grandchildren.Although born in Macksville, the home of cricketer Phil Hughes and VC and BP Pick-a-Box winner Frank Partridge on the mid-North Coast New South Wales, my schooling was largely in Sydney. Childhood and teenage years were fun filled with life in a big family dabbling in schooling, rugby league, cricket, surfing and netball.I was never a reader in my younger days. Reading was hard, slow and uninteresting...for me. Reading was never modelled to me, except for the Tele’s racing form. It was simply part of school; even then it was only about passing or failing. The reading content of school was well beyond my experiences even as an older teenager. The content precluded my engagement.Teaching, however taught me much about reading and writing. As a younger teacher, I became set on the challenge of bringing literacy to all children. Whilst engaged in curriculum consultancy work with the ACT Department of Education, I was immersed in the skills and knowledge of a host of brilliant English literacy consultants. As a Principal, I took their teachings to a department school that I commenced and along with a band of wonderful literacy educators set about inculcating literacy as one corner stone of the school, culminating in a national award for literacy development for the school...and successful literacy for most of the kids.Literacy success for all children is the basis of their access to all other learning and schooling. Beyond the classroom successful literacy will provide access to society. As Professor Brian Cambourne of Wollongong University once said, “We may not be able to change the social wellbeing of any child but we can make them literate and that will be their social justice”.As a Principal, I needed to write. Obviously most of the writing was form filling but submissions, reports and school newsletters, all of which however allowed my newfound knowledge of and skills in writing to be practiced. Writing became a pleasure. It so challenged and enthused me that in retirement I chose to write. Whilst continuing to write for the ACT Principals Association in my retirement, I now have found time to write fiction.‘Mary’s Ireland’ has given me the opportunity to rework the initial phases and characters of ‘Keep ‘em Laughing’ to develop a better informed and readable work. ‘Fair, Strict and Impartial’ rehearsed an equality platform. ‘Mary’s Ireland’ is a work that hopes to touch on equality with Mary Cannon’s literacy underpinning her access to society, thus becoming her social justice.

Book preview

Walenty gagged phlegm into his throat and hacked the green-grey slug into the murky waters of the River Lagan. Parched and sweat drenched from the blistering heat of his engine room, he slumped his kit and greatcoat onto the deck of the Miren. Walenty welcomed the blast of arctic wind that washed across his body. With eyes closed in soft comfort, he stood absorbing the cool at the end of his eight-hour shift. Soon at ease and with rested breath, Walenty donned his greatcoat and quickly regained his sailor’s ways to scan Donegall Quay. Today it was grey, forlorn and somewhat sleepy, except for the wind-twisted squawking gulls scrounging the last of the fleet’s discards.

Walenty squinted as coal dust eddied around the deck of the steamship. He licked his soot-parched lips in anticipation of a creamy thick porter at the pub across the Square. He had been there before. He could taste the burnt brown malt and the pub’s smoky warmth. Clearing his throat and mouth of coal-dusted mucus, he again spat a glob into the harbour sludge. As the seaman followed the glob’s trajectory, he caught sight of a dark greasy mass floating just off the wharf.

A man. A vagrant blob of a man lying face down in a flotsam of weed, paper, hemp and dung.

Walenty fumed, contemplating walking away thinking, not now. Not this again! He shook his head and wiped his coal-stained hand across his eyes. The vision stayed. Frowning, he fought the trickle of morality seeping into his conscience. Drown you bastard…hopefully already dead. Bastard!

Dropping his kit bag and ripping off his greatcoat Walenty spat at the man. With his resentful fury tempering the blasting cold, he grabbed a boat gaff from one of the Miren’s lighters.

Securing the man with the gaff’s hook, he dragged the blubbery mass to a shell-crusted wharf ladder. Withdrawing the gaff, he slammed it onto the dock and slipped down four or five rungs. Holding the slimy green ladder with his left hand, he grabbed the man’s sodden gluggy coat. A coalman’s hooded coat.

He hauled. Hauled and plunged…a lumping welling oily plunge. Blackness oozed through Walenty’s fingers as the greasy lump slipped from his grasp and plopped back to its watery berth.

Get yourself out then! he sneered to himself.

He looked at the man. Sighing, Walenty returned to his task. He stretched and strained. He grabbed, bounced and ducked the inert lump of a man. In a sudden choking spray of water, the man clutched the sailor’s arm.

A whiskered lumpy-faced man began spluttering water as he drew gasps of the biting air. He was still alive, but his blood-popped eyes and pungent odour oozed the truth. The man was dead drunk.

Drań! Drań! Walenty bellowed.

With mumbled curses broadcasting his anger, Walenty tried again to haul the slippery walrus of a mass from the water. His right hand clutched the coalman’s leather coat and his left hand locked on to a rung. To gain greater leverage, Walenty edged into the blackened freezing water.

Through aging boots, needles of icy pain pierced Walenty’s feet and frozen barbs knifed his legs. One crusted slimy rung at a time, Walenty began to lug the jellied lump – the moaning dribbling lump. Desperately clinging to the man, Walenty climbed. His arms pained. Gouged by shells, his straining hand trickled blood. Cold and salt stung.

Just as numbing cramps had begun to cripple his hands, a green uniformed arm provided timely help. It hauled the man onto the quay as Walenty pushed from below. With his fleecy shirt, woollen trousers and boots now lanolin-dank from the rescue, Walenty climbed up the ladder. A mob of spectators cheered, applause seeming to be the only assistance they could muster.

Extending his hand to Walenty, the rescuing reinforcement introduced himself, I be Sergeant Griffin, sir. Whack to ya, sir, for you’ve done Belfast the grand deed today. But, as we are knowin’, this fella’s not the full shillin’. He’s always in the horrors from the hard tack. I will be charging him with being drunk, and he’ll be before the court yet again. He will be doing time. He does be no good.

Walenty did not understand every word. Although he had often heard them speak, he found the Irish hard. Then again, he didn’t care to understand this man but the message seemed clear. He shook the sergeant’s hand. Police? You are policeman?

I am, sir. The sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary.

Walenty fixed his eyes on the officer but saw only the violence and corruption of police officers and military of the Russian Empire, who had controlled his part of Poland for about one hundred years. His mind raced through the many times Russian police and soldiers had violently bashed, slaughtered, swindled or stole from his fellow Poles, his Polacky. He remembered his young friend Boleslaw. Despite his vengeance demanding justice, Walenty kept his peace, even as he watched the officer riffle through the coalman’s pockets.

He’ll no be needing any of these where he be going. Raising one silver and three copper coins, Griffin greedily sniggered as he squirrelled them into his money belt.

Walenty nodded to Sergeant Griffin, placed the gaff back in the lighter, retrieved his kit and coat and squelched along the quay into the town proper.

Belfast’s skyline was a bleak dirty grey from shipbuilding, linen mills, rope making, tanneries, iron foundries, whisky distilleries, breweries, tobacco and engineering works. Standing pride of place was the expansive shipbuilding firm of Harland and Wolff, which had established their works at Queen’s Island.

Harland and Wolff built the SS Merin in 1872, although Walenty was reminded by the compound engine’s identification plate that Forrester and Co. in Liverpool built the engine.

The Merin, a four-masted, single-screw iron barque, was similar to many that rested in the harbour, a combination of sail and steam, although, increasingly, full steamships were becoming more common.

As Walenty crossed Corporation Square, he felt at odds with the young industrial port. He knew he benefitted from the place and industry in general. It gave him work. Good pay too as first engineer. Industry…coal, steel, ships, linen, rope…was his life-source, but he longed for the clean. He wanted the crystal air of the pristine forest that edged his family’s farm. Then there was the sea…he loved its vast freshness. Peaceful. It gave him a life well beyond any life the world’s industrial cities could offer, like Ireland’s burgeoning Belfast…especially from the farm, from his father.

From the window of The Shamrock Hotel in Gamble Street, Mary Cannon had noticed the commotion down at the quay…another poor soul in the Lagan…but her thoughts were with the young girls playing a skipping game in the street. They appeared unaware of the biting winds whistling through the streets. Mary too felt content on this cold Candlemas afternoon. Mary liked the cold and if old proverbs were to be believed, the remainder of Belfast’s winter would be wet and bleak…

‘If Candlemas Day be fair and bright

Winter will have another fight,

If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain

Winter will no be coming again.’

It was its usual quiet at the hotel. Rubbing her hands, Mary stood warming herself in the gentle sunshine drifting through the hotel window, while her only patron, the resident drunkard, Mr Stewart, sat dazed over his porter. He had been that way since the death of his eldest child. The publican was also asleep on his chair behind the bar. Gamble Street and Corporation Square seemed similarly drowsy, except for the energy of the girls skipping and singing a refrain from Mary’s childhood:

‘When I was a young girl, a young girl, a young girl,

When I was a young girl, how happy I was.

And this way and that way and this way and that way

And this way and that way and this way I went.’

With two girls turning the rope and one skipping, the song repeated itself through schoolgirl, teacher, sweetheart, husband and baby. If one was talented enough to keep skipping and not missing a turn, darker verses were evoked involving the baby dying, washing, scrubbing, wife beating and the husband dying.

Holding back another urge to cough, Mary smiled, remembering the times when she and her older sisters Margaret and Catherine and even older brother Patrick, the only boy in the family, had played games on their small country croft back in Killybegs, County Donegal…on the west coast. Like these girls, they too had fun, singing, skipping, laughing and dreaming. Simply being together in the lush green fields that rise up from the deep blue waters of Donegal Bay.

Mary admired the Gamble Street girls’ clothes…full broadcloth dresses of rich greens and reds, fresh white cotton pinafores, fine tanned leather shoes and warm woollen stockings, embroidered linen caps and bows…beautiful, beautiful bows. Mary laughed at the memory of the Cannon girls’ patched dresses of rough woollen frieze, bare dust-covered feet, and those harsh hand-me-down coats for winter warmth. The Cannons used to be poor, like most crofters, struggling to find food let alone clothing.

These Belfast girls must be thirteen or fourteen years old. They are healthy, they could be younger, Mary thought. The games ended for us Cannon girls when we were younguns.

For most crofters, childhood stopped by ten or eleven years when work had to be found in the local flax farms, dairies or perhaps as domestic servants for the rich landlord, although the Cannons kept their girls well away from any of the landlords’ homes.

Mary and her sisters worked on flax farms…long hard hours during the season…not on Sunday of course…and the pay was only enough to put a few more mouthfuls of food on the table each week, or to help pay the rent on their tiny crumbling gaff. These Gamble Street girls were much richer…well clothed, fed and played as long as they liked. They could afford to be children. They were lucky.

Now that Mary was eighteen, and since their father, Thomas, and mother, Sarah, had moved the family to Belfast some seven years ago, she felt that life had somewhat improved for the Cannons. Catherine had left the dust-clouded work at the Belfast Linen Mill. There was family money coming in from the wharf labourer jobs of her father and Patrick and her work at The Shamrock. They had food, clothing and a home…together, laughing, singing and sharing stories each night around the family table. Mary smiled with approval…they were lucky too.

A coughing bout in Mary ceased at the sudden presence of a strongly built man at the hotel door. Through the partially stained-glass door, Mary sensed he was that sailor again, wearing a heavy greatcoat over stained cream trousers. He had been in The Shamrock before with his sailor muckers. It was him. His black knitted cap bordered a face smudged with a tell-tale mix of grease, coal dust and sweat. He worked below decks of a steamship. It was the fella, sure. As he opened the door and began to move into the foyer, Mary could see that his boots and trousers were quite wet, creating a grey sludge on the floor.

You will no be comin’ in here like that, my good fella, Mary protested, pointing to the sailor’s wet clothing. Mr John Kerr’s hotel is clean, so it is. And it will be staying that way. As she was talking, Mary could feel her anxiety. He had only been at the pub when it was busy after the shift. At this first chance to chat, she was chastising him. More genially she continued, But, by the bye, what are you doing, being wet and all on this fine aul Belfast day? Tis not raining, no. She smiled.

Walenty stopped, turned and pointed to the harbour, attempting to show this plain faced dark haired Irish woman where he had been.

Before the sailor could speak, Mary held her arms in open puzzlement. Don’t be telling me you be falling in the Lagan. You foolish sailor, I see the crowd over there creating a lot of the blether and you being in Belfast before, I ask you now. You should be knowing your way. Then again you’re wet, tis true enough, but not wet enough to be doing the falling or even the jumping into the Lagan’s putrid icy depths. You are up to something funny now and you the sailor and all. If I not be…

Walenty held his index finger to Mary’s mouth. Shocked. Interested. She could just taste the sea, the grease, the man. She glimpsed into his eyes. They shone jade black, glistening mystery.

His eyes took her in. Her face, her mouth, her body and back to her face. She swallowed. The fella’s looking at me! Seeing right through to the very white of my skin. She shuddered, heart racing. Embarrassed and affronted, Mary darted her head away from the stranger’s finger and his stare. His eyes shadowed into her mind, stabbing her heart. Mary shook herself back to reality. I am wagering that he looks at all barmaids that way…like some drunken fellas at the closing.

Nei. I helped cold man in woda, eventually smiled Walenty, taking off his coat. At wharf.

Mary paused, gathering her thoughts. He helped what? By the sound of it, he’s not from around here…not Italian like the fellas near the home, but he is speaking some kind of English. He helped the cold fella? He is messing up the pub, I know.

Down at wharf, I helped man in woda.

Rubbing her fingertips over the worked skin of her palms Mary rambled on, Oh, be forgiving me, sir. You helped the fella in the water? You are the rescuer?

Walenty nodded, slowly.

I be sorry, my ears are not bothering to hear your funny words now. Grand, you are the hero but. You be rescuing the man? Tis the funny thing now, with me about to boot you out of the door. Come in. Come in. Give me the coat and kit and stand by the fire to dry your boots. I’ll get you the jar of porter. Tis grand. Tis grand. Take a…

Walenty interrupted, asking where he could wash his hands and face. Mary glanced at his bloodied greasy hand…strong hard work.

Hanging Walenty’s coat on the hallstand near the fire, Mary pointed to the washroom.

Dziekuje, thank you, nodded Walenty, and proceeded to the small doorway beside the bar. Ginquia, thank you, Ginquia…what is that he is speaking? Mary wiped away the puddle at the door. My fellas will be handling that one if he keeps darting his eyes through me. He seems nice but he cares and brave enough to help the fella in the ‘woda’.

Walenty returned. He placed his left boot on the hearth, soaking up the drying warmth of the glowing peat. Water seeped from the worn sole. Mary walked towards him with a jar of porter held firmly by her short pale work-worn fingers. She admired his strong back, the back of a man used to hard work. The strong fella, the fine cut of the fella to be sure.

The hero’s drink for the hero, the jar of Ireland’s best porter, praised Mary, presenting it to the sailor.

Walenty turned.

Mary was taken by his clean, long and angular face, those deep dark eyes and his laughing happy smile. She smiled. For an instant, she again sank into his eyes. His skin had no sailor’s wrinkles but was ash-stained, highlighting his ebony eyes that glistened with flecks of golden brown. He’s looking again. I’m looking too. She lowered her head, distracting herself by dusting the jar rail with the damp bar cloth. She smiled, almost girlishly tittered. Enough Mary now, enough.

Placing his cap in his back pocket, Walenty raised the jar of porter to Mary, saluting her in appreciation, and drank long and deeply. He sighed, returning Mary’s smile. I have money for paying.

No, sir. Tis on the house…besides Mr Kerr, the publican, is sleeping like the wee lamb…he will know naught. Anywise, what was happening at the quay...over at the wharf?

Cold man fell into woda…sorry, in English you say water. Tak water. I pulled him to wharf and green policeman helped me, explained Walenty, pointing towards Donegall Quay. I think he had too many good times with drinking.

The drunk coal fella! clarified Mary, shaking her head. People are always in that water. They may be thinking they are the Lord Jaysus Himself trying to walk across the Lagan. Sometimes the poor souls jump in trying to end their hard times, which we all be having, so we do. Sometimes it is the accident, especially with the sailors who should know better now. Often they are just drunk like your man. Mary shook her head with concern and then asked, The policeman who be helping you, was he the sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary, by any chance?

Tak, sergeant wit’ stripes on his sleeve and helmet wit’ spike, like Prussians wear. Walenty reflected on the sight of spike-helmeted Prussian soldiers so common in the Baltic region, with Prussia along with Austria being partners with Russia in the partitioned occupation of Poland.

I am hoping that he was not the Sergeant Griffin. He lodges next door at the boarding house of Mrs Stewart, noted Mary, pointing her head in the direction of number three Gamble Street. Watch that fella. He’s always looking to get the money for himself and not be carrying out the law. He even used some gombeen scheme to trick my Uncle Patrick and his muckers to be joining the English Army, leading to their heroic deaths in the horrors of the Crimea fighting the Russians. Being the Irish fellas they be the grand soldiers but…the heroes, true. God bless their souls. Mary rapidly made the sign of the cross.

Your uncle fought for English against Russians in Crimea War? asked the sailor, mirroring Mary’s blessing.

Catholic. This foreign fella is the Catholic now. He best stop the looking but. Aye, our Uncle Patrick was the brave poor soul who was tricked into fighting for the evil English Army and he be killed. Enough of that but. It is well in the past with some twenty years gone. Do be enjoying the drink and all Ulster does be thanking you, sir.

Walenty.

I beg your pardon, sir? Mary responded. My ears did not hear you true.

My name is Walenty. My name is not sir. Walenty laughed.

This fella’s the right joker now. Nice. Valenty? Valenty!

Tak, Walenty Nikodemski. Swapping his jar to his left hand, Walenty extended his right hand in a greeting gesture.

Mary looked at his firm work-stained hand, slightly bloodied. She smiled instantly, rubbing her thumb across her fingers. Mary took his hand. Confident, strong and secure, if still a little dirty, but what did he say his name was? She smiled. Ah, you do have the fine name, sir. I am doubting I will be getting my tongue around all them wonderful musical sounds you have in it, sir, but I do be pleased to be meeting you. I am Mary Cannon, so I be.

Miss Cannon, Walenty replied, nodding his head in recognition.

Miss Cannon? Now that does be right proper of you, sir. You’ll be going to heaven for your manners alone, but do be calling me Mary. The fellas here call me Mary.

Mary?

Yes! Mary Cannon! insisted the soft hazel-eyed barmaid. Call me Mary.

Mary. Good. You call me, Nikoda.

Nikoda? I thought your name had all those musical notes and sounds. Why would I be calling you Nikoda? Is this some malarkey now?

Nikoda looked puzzled, shrugging his shoulders saying, All crewmen name me Nikoda. It is better than Walenty Nikodemski. It is short and friendly. Tak, call me Nikoda.

Nikoda? Grand. Your name is Nikoda. Mary hesitated, and then cheekily added, Your name is Nikoda…tak?

Tak, Nikoda…yes, laughed Nikoda. His eyes laughed.

With a relaxed giggle Mary ended the conversation saying, Ah well, I must get back to the work. Grand to be meeting you…Nikoda. Tak grand. Gink-quia?

Tak dziekuje…thank you…dziekuje.

Ginquia.

Dobrze! Tak very nice to see you. Nikoda smiled as Mary, coughing slightly, returned to the bar thinking it was grand to be talking at last.

From behind the bar, Mary darted glances at the sailor. He was watching her too, both smiling. She dared not look for long, but did. He nodded and raised his glass, saluting the cheery faced young woman. She smiled. A thud bounced on the shingled roof. Then another.

Fellas lobbing the roof! called Mary, reaching under the bar for an old gnarled shillelagh. I do be fixing those fellas.

Mr Kerr started awake, grabbing the bar for balance. With his head fogged and heart racing he mumbled, What be? What be the blether?

Nikoda stood switching his head from Mary to the door to Mary and Mr Kerr.

Fellas lobbing the roof again!

I be getting the bastards! screamed Mr Stewart, falling from his stool.

Mary raced from the bar. Waving his sleepy arms Mr Kerr sighed, Mary, it will only be the young fellas up to the bit of malarkey. Pay them no mind.

Nikoda followed Mary.

With the solid blackthorn weapon at the ready, Mary was on the street all but frothing enough to scare the bejesus out of any fella. There was nobody there but the skipping girls, who simply pointed towards the docks. Nobody! Thumping the shillelagh against her left hand, Mary turned to see Nikoda. All smiles. Mary became aware of her warrior stance as she fumed, her eyes combing up and down the street. She did not return the smile. Nikoda followed her back into the pub. He strode in front and opened the door for her.

Pay them no mind, Mary, pleaded Mr Kerr, who was standing at the entrance. He took the shillelagh. It just be shenanigans.

Young Prody fellas no doubt, lobbing your Shamrock.

Too young to be causing any blether now.

Aye, but they will be growing into big dumb fellas who will be lobbing kidneys or lead bullets around, and then it be more than just the shenanigans. It be more of the killing!

Mumbling to himself, Mr Kerr returned to the bar. He picked up Mr Stewart from the floor, straightened him up and suggested he go home. Shrugging away the advice, Mr Stewart resumed his stool and porter. Mary was left seething at the entrance.

Nikoda finished his porter, collected his kit and nodded a farewell to Mary as he left The Shamrock. She watched him go. The foreign sailor…Norway, German? He’s not at all like the Italian fellas on Ritchie Place. He’ll be back sure. Those Prody fellas’ best stay away. She returned to work.

Who be the sailor you be chatting with, darling girl? asked a calm Mr Kerr.

Oh, just the sailor, just the sailor. Mary paused, looking towards the front doors. He’s just the sailor, but not from around here. I almost booted him out of your pub on account of his wet and dirty clothes. Boots completely wet. He is after being here before.

Wet completely, were they? Tis the bother now!

Aye, he was bringing the mess into the pub, but I was cutting him short for he had been the hero rescuing the poor drunk fella from the Lagan. I’ll cut those Prody fellas short if they be attacking our pub again.

Leave them be. Leave them be, ordered the old man, waiting for silence from Mary. So the sailor be the hero, the hero now, rescuing the fella. You should be welcoming him in and shouting him the drink on the house.

You have all the grand ideas, Mr Kerr. You are the wonder.

Mmm it be my upbringing…looking after those less fortunate and those that be doing us good.

That Griffin be helping the hero sailor. I no be giving that Griffin the drink but.

Griffin helping you say, mmm? Aye, girl, not the drop for that fella and wait till yer good da finds out, just wait. Aye, but where be I when all this carry on be happening?

The usual for this time of day.

Mmm…resting my eyes again? Well we had the hard night again last night. Mrs Kerr was seeing all sorts of strange things and had me running around the house chasing everything from the banshees to the bugs. She was in the poor way, the dear lady.

She was fine this morning. You must have settled her. I dropped into your house with the paper on my way to the pub well after you had left the home. I got her to wash and dress and gave her some tea, bread and jam as I read the paper to her. I gave her two of our lace handkerchiefs, nothing much but she liked them. She was grand…for the poor lady. Kitty will be dropping in for the lunch now.

Ah, bless you, my girl, and your sister there. You both be the saints.

We no be saints, but we are praying to the good Lord on the Sunday and all, not like other people I could mention now.

You be referring to my good self now?

Well I amn’t seeing you at St Mary’s on the Sunday now, nor any other day, for that matter!

Mary, you be telling no lie now, but you should be spending your time talking to the Lord on the Sunday and not be worrying your good self about who be coming to His church now.

I am taking your advice for you are the wise fella, and I will be having the word to the Lord asking Him to be treating you kindly.

No be wasting your praying on me. The Lord knows all about me. Just pray for Mrs Kerr, God love her. We need to be doing everything we can to be keeping the dear lady out of the lunatic asylum now. She has the heart of gold, just not the mind to match.

Aye, it was the grand idea for Mrs Kerr and your good self to be moving out of the wee room at the back of the pub to the house in Victoria Street. Mrs Kerr is much better there.

And be keeping her away from taking the secret nip from the pub at night?

Aye, Mr Kerr. Keep her away from the grog.

She was just after thinking it be the medicine! Nothing more.