end up in the cellar is equally difficult to convey to the reader. What is certain is that a stratagem which had been pitilessly devised to serve the purpose of ultímate punishment, to effectively cripple Pat’s spirit to the point where he would in future pursue his broom throughout the length and breadth of the house like a hapless ghost for the remainder of his mortal days, can be said to have failed utterly in its purpose. Had the independent observers referred to heretofore been calmly evaluating Pat at this point, however, this is the last thing they would have concluded from his general demeanor as he sat crouched in die dankest of corners. Their conclusion—if his wide, extended grin and happy, dancing eyes, were to be considered any indication—could but be that here was a man very much at ease with his surroundings, and indeed—aside, perhaps, from the whitish skin which stretched across the bones of his face which seemed about to snap at any time—deriving nothing less than great pleasure from them. And which, they would undoubtedly feel, explained the intermittent chuckles into the twins of his bunched fists and the occasional address to a visiting mouse who considered him insouciantly from a nearby air vent, along the lines of, “Putting me in prison now, if you don’t mind! Well, boys O boys! Have you any idea what next, mouse? For I’m afraid I don’t!”
There may be a school of thought which subscribes to the theory that periods in confined darkness must inevitably result in the mind drawing on its infinite resources—even in hopelessly adverse circumstances—and ensuing in creating, imaginatively, of course, surroundings of a much more congenial nature; I cannot say for certain. What is certain, however, is that it was the course of action decided upon and most emphatically followed by Pat McNab, as became plainly evident when he woke up one morning to find himself, not burdened by damp and dark and the asphyxiation-inducing aroma of crumbling plaster, but bearing witness to one of the brightest of sunny days that it is possible for the mind to conceive, sitting within that very cellar with his mother—seeing them both beneath a spreading elm, chaining daisies. Such was his happiness at being with her once again that he was as giddy as a young goat you would see prancing about any mountainside.
“But what I can’t get over, Mammy,” he continued—they were discussing Mrs. Tubridy—”is the big hole in her chin!”
His mother shook her head.
“Aye! With the hair coming out of it, I declare to God, for all the world like a coiled spring! God help poor Mattie Tubridy, Pat! Having to look at that every morning of his life!”
Pat nodded and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Aye!” he said. “But sure he’s dead now, God rest him!”
Just then, his mother opened the lid of the picnic basket.
“Pat?” she smiled. “Would you like a sup of lemonade?”
Pat beamed.
“Yes, Mammy,” he replied.
He was a litde unsure as to whether he had noted a litde twinkle in his mother’s eye. But this was confirmed as she continued, “Or maybe something a bit stronger?”
“Now you’re talking, Mammy!” cried Pat, slapping his hands together as the bottle of Johnnie Walker gleamed golden in the afternoon summer sun.
He smiled as his mother ran her fingers through his hair.
“Now who’s good to you!” she cried. “It’d be a long time before that old haverel, that old haybag you-know-who’d let you have a little glugeen, Pat! Am I right?”
“Now you’re talking, Mammy!” Pat cried, filling his mouth up with whiskey.
“Just because you’d need a hose to get it down her auld tight gob!”
Pat nearly fell over when he heard his mother saying this. He certainly spilled whiskey all down the front of his coat!
“Ha ha, Mammy!” he cried helplessly. “A hose! Oh, God bless us!”
“Have another drop, son!” his mother encouraged him. “Get it down you!”
Pat shook his head and rubbed whiskey beads off his chin with his sleeve.
“Oh, Mammy, you’re an awful case!” he cried.
Then his mother went and spilled some whiskey.
“God bless us, I think I’m stocious myself! Get up out of that, Pat McNab, you boy you!”
“Wo-ho! Mrs. McNab, fine girl you are! Cripes but you’re powerful! C’mere out of that till I give you a dance!”
“Bejapers now make sure and mind me corns!” yelped his mother as she took his hand and rose to her feet.
The sunlight was like a shoal of arrows cast by some invisible medieval army showering through