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will you?` Moira now turned to Pattie, saying, `Well, what do you think, Pattie?`
    During the process of decorating the cake Daniel felt that Moira's heavy-handedness now and again was very well put on, and his liking for her grew. And when the cake was decorated with as much trimming as it could hold it was Maggie Ann who said, `Now wouldn't a cup of tea and a current bun go down nice? Sit yourselves down there around the fire. Oh, it's like home when folks are in the kitchen. I miss Rosie, you know, now she leaves at six o'clock. But as herself said, "Ten hours is enough for anybody to work". And she's got her own man and house to see to. We get on fine now, you know, Rosie and me. Oh aye, we do.`
    Daniel was pleased Pattie made no objection to sitting round the fire, because he himself wanted to stay in the kitchen with these two warm women. And when they were settled, each with a cup of tea in their hand and with a plate of buns set on a stool between them, Pattie's question, coming out of the blue, seemed to startle them for a moment, for she said, Ìs it true that you lived in a castle in Ireland?Ànd then there was some consternation when Maggie Ann answered, Àye, it is,` while at the same time Moira said, `Not really.`
    `Well, it was, it was--`
    Maggie Ann's voice was cut off by Moira saying, in an unusually harsh tone, `Be quiet! Maggie Ann. For once in your 55 life see things as they really are, or really were.Ànd now turning to Pattie, she said, Ìt wasn't really a castle. It was a house, but had the name of castle.
    Castlemere it was called, and it could deceive people into thinking it was a castle because the man who had built it early in the century had big ideas. He was a rich Protestant. Oh my! Oh my!` She put her hand over her eyes, but she didn't laugh now. Then looking at Pattie again, she said, `Well, you know what I mean. It was such of those that had the large properties and land.`
    Ànd still have.`
    Moira cast a baneful glance at Maggie Ann before going on, Ìt should happen that my grandfather was a bailiff to a Mr Jardine. But when the troubles arose in the great famine the family went hurriedly back to England, and they took most of their stuff with them, leaving just curtains here and there and a few floor coverings. But what they did was to ask my grandfather to take over the house until they came back; that is, to move his family into it so it wouldn't be rifled and the place torn to bits, especially the beautiful woodwork
    which would have been used for fuel. Well, years went on and, as in many parts of the country, the tenant became a sort of part owner of the land. Such was the law that in those days the tenant could even sell his leasehold without making a new contract with the owner of the place. Things were topsy-turvy, like the landlord having the rent yet not owning the place. Oh`-- she shook her head--ìt was a funny business. But anyway, it allowed my grandfather to bring up his family in that house. And then my father took over, by which time a lot of the land had been sold, and what is left now gives but a scratch living, if you know what I mean. As for the house, it would take a fortune to put that in order, because there's not a bit of the roof whole. Because owners have no money to spend on timber and new slates there's hardly a room in the house now that doesn't let water in.` Now her laughter broke her flow as she ended, Ìt's true what I'm telling you. Everybody that sleeps in that house has a bucket or basin or chamber pot to catch the drips; often not only one of these appliances, but two or three.`
    Daniel now laughed with Moira and Maggie Ann, but Pattie's face remained impassive as she said, `Then if it's 57 so bad, why do the family stay there?`
    Òh, dear God in heaven! listen to her.` Maggie Ann was flapping her hand towards Pattie now. `Where d'you think the family would go, child? And it's a fine big brick-built house. And if anybody's been turned out to the road from