Lucinda Sly by Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé Page B

Thursday and because she had done the churning on the previous Saturday, she churned more during the day on the Wednesday. That took the edge from the strange thoughts that were running through her mind since the previous Sunday’s events. On the Monday, she was saying to herself that she still had three days to accept or reject his offer although she had given Walter Sly to understand that the match was made. Matters hadn’t quite come to a head by that Tuesday. But, when she sat in front of her turf fire on the Wednesday evening, when all the work was done and with nothing before her but her fateful day, she was both frightened and excited. She was sitting in her own comfortable corner independent of husband or government. But would things be like that after she married? ‘Oh! God direct me on the right road in my time of need,’ she prayed. Then, shaking herself, she said: ‘I will always have my own little house here.’
    She spent the whole night weighing up her situation. ‘I’ll go ahead with the wedding,’ she would determine one minute, and, a little while later, she’d think, ‘am I gone completely astray in my head?’ The more she worried about it, the more confused she became. She tried to divert her thoughts, but in a moment they would have returned to the same old story again. It was getting late in the night and still she could get no proper sleep. If she didn’t get at least eight hours’ sleep, neither her mind nor her body would function properly the following day. And, perhaps, one of the most important days of her life was staring her in the face.
    She got up, put a mug of milk into a saucepan and laid it on a few coals on the side of the fire. A saucepan of hot milk would put her to sleep any time she was troubled in her mind. When the milk was hot, she cut a hunk of wheaten bread and sat down again on the chair in front of the fire. First she ate a bite of bread and followed it with a mouthful of milk. What with the heat of the fire and the hot milk, Lucinda began to relax. ‘Right, Lucinda,’ she determined, ‘put your head on the pillow before the night’s sleep completely evades you.’ She banked up the fire and returned to bed. She was barely a few minutes on her back when she fell into a deep sleep. She spent the entire night dreaming: her wedding to Walter Sly caused her nightmares that night.
    When Lucinda woke the following morning she was in a cold sweat. She was as tired waking up as she was when she went to bed the previous night. Every bone in her body was weary as if she had just put in a hard day’s work. After she had milked her two cows, skimmed the cream from the previous day’s milk and cleaned andscalded the dishes she poured the morning’s milk into the dishes. Just then she found herself getting hungry. She took a handful of potatoes that were roasting in the ashes of the fire and put them on a plate on the table. She satisfied her appetite as usual with a bowl of buttermilk along with the potatoes. She put Sly and the attorney to the back of her mind until the horse was harnessed and her bread and butter were secured in the cart. She jumped into the front of the cart and guided the horse down the King’s road in the direction of Carlow town …
    When Lucinda had found the stand she had stored in one of Langstrom’s sheds, she stood it on the side of the street as usual. She was a couple of minutes earlier than the other women. She tied her horse to an iron ring that was on the side of the street and put an armful of hay under his head. She was waiting for her usual customers who came for their choice of the twenty fresh cakes of bread not to mention her butter that was in such high demand. Lucinda wanted to be finished early that day more than any other.
    When she had a few moments to herself, she would look down the street expecting that she would see Walter Sly. By the time she had sold her last cake of bread, the sun was high in the sky. Just as she was