Puckoon Read Online Free PDF Page A

but he lived by the trap.
    There was nothing like it. To sit on the banks of the Puckoon, eating a whole fresh salmon
when the nobs in
London
were payin' ten shillings a slice for it.
    To walk on a silver cold moonlight
night, in ankle-deep mist swirling in from the Atlantic; the repetitive crunch
of boots on hard frost, hearing a barn owl shriek from the soot-black line of
the venal trees, and the best of all the barking of a dog fox across the
winter-tight countryside.
    'Yarowwwww!' he gave an imitation.
'If that sound doesn't give you a thrill, youse dead,' he grinned, then upended a box of dominoes on the table.
    ' I'll give
you a game,' said Foggerty, eagerly. ' No you bloody
well don't!' ' I beat you last time.'
    'I know you did and I haven't lived
that down! Being beat by you is an admission of insanity, you stupid bloody
idiot! No offence meant, mark you.'
    Behind the bar, Mr O'Toole was speaking
to the pig-of-a-face that was his wife. He had married her twenty years ago,
but still woke up white and sweating. On leave from France, he had come out of
a drinking-hole in Sackville Street and bumped into a girl. It was dark, he was
drunk, she was keen. He awoke next morning to find her
in bed with him. He ran screaming from the house, her purse under his arm. He
didn't get away with it. Seven weeks later, a giant of a man, seven foot high
and smothered in red hair, walked through the door holding her by the hand.
    The monster lifted O'Toole off the
floor and told him to get ready 'for marriage or death'. He had started to
object, whereupon the monster had started to hit him with great bone-crunching
knuckles. All he remembered was birds twittering and her shouting 'Don't ruin
him for the honeymoon, hit him above the waist.' Leaving a trail of broken
teeth he was dragged to the altar in the grip of two monsters who looked like kinfolk of Grendel.
    Finally, when the priest asked 'Will
you take this woman - ' a hired ventriloquist from Cork said, 'I do.' And he
was done. The marriage hadn't turned out too bad, well, actually it had, but
otherwise it wasn't too bad.
    The red monster, her father, had died
mysteriously of heart failure after falling under a train but not before
willing them the Holy Drinker.
    'Where's the Milligan tonight,
Maudie?'
    'I don't know. He was here this
morning trying to cadge a drink,' she replied, looking over his shoulder at the
handsome O'Brien.
    She had, in moments of dreaming
eroticism, imagined herself clutching his members under the sheets. Whenever
she saw a sign ' Members Only' she thought of him.
    The pub door opened, and in bore a
podgy police uniform carrying the body of Sgt MacGillikudie. There was a rush
for the door. He held up a calming hand but was knocked flat by the exodus.
    Arising, he dusted himself.
    'I'll be glad when dis town gets
prison cells with locks on. Now - '
    he felt in
his breast pocket, '- I'm here to read a brief notice.' He removed his helmet
and inadvertently placed it over Blind Devine's beer. 'To all Citizens of the
Free State,' he commenced.
    His speech was hesitant and clipped;
a black Lord Kitchener moustache cut his face in two.' Next week military and
civil members of the Ulster Boundary Commission will be passing through this
area. Any hostility towards them will be penalized with fines from a shilling
up to death.
    Ah, tank you - ' he accepted a free
beer from O'Toole. 'Cheers!' he said and drained it to eternity. Blind Devine
was groping.
    ' Some thievin' swine's stolen me beer!' he shouted angrily as only the blind have
courage to.
    ' You might ha'
drunk it.'
    ' I never
forget any beer I drink!' shouted Devine. He flourished his stick, striking
Foggerty a sickening blow on the shin.
    'Owwww!' screamed Foggerty, clutching
his elbow.
    'Here, man,' said O'Toole, giving
Devine a beer, ' drink this on the house and calm down.'
    'Well, I'll be on me way now,' said
MacGillikudie, picking up his helmet.
    'What's this, then?' said O'Toole,
pointing to the glass