The Old Country

I Where every town was a tidy town and every garden a hanging garden. A half could be had for half a crown. Every major artery would harden since every meal was a square meal. Every clothesline showed a line of undies yet no house was in dishabille. Every Sunday took a month of Sundays till everyone got it off by heart every start was a bad start since all conclusions were foregone. Every wood had its twist of woodbine. Every cliff its herd of fatalistic swine. Every runnel was a Rubicon. II Every runnel was a Rubicon and every annual a hardy annual applying itself like linen to a lawn. Every glove compartment held a manual and a map of the roads, major and minor. Every major road had major roadworks. Every wishy-washy water diviner had stood like a bulwark against something worth standing against. The smell of incense left us incensed at the firing of the fort. Every heron was a presager of some disaster after which, we'd wager, every resort was a last resort. III Every resort was a last resort with a harbor that harbored an old grudge. Every sale was a selling short. There were those who simply wouldn't budge from the Dandy to the Rover. That shouting was the shouting but for which it was all over— the weekend, I mean, we set off on an outing with the weekday train timetable. Every tower was a tower of Babel that graced each corner of a bawn where every lookout was a poor lookout. Every rill had its unflashy trout. Every runnel was a Rubicon. IV Every runnel was a Rubicon where every ditch was a last ditch. Every man was "a grand wee mon" whose every pitch was another sales pitch now every boat was a burned boat. Every cap was a cap in hand. Every coat a trailed coat. Every band was a gallant band across the broken bridge and broken ridge after broken ridge where you couldn't beat a stick with a big stick. Every straight road was a straight up speed trap. Every decision was a snap. Every cut was a cut to the quick. V Every cut was a cut to the quick when the weasel's twist met the weasel's tooth and Christ was somewhat impolitic in branding as "weasels fighting in a hole," forsooth, the petrol smugglers back on the old sod when a vendor of red diesel for whom every rod was a green rod reminded one and all that the weasel was nowhere to be found in that same quarter. No mere mortar could withstand a ten-inch mortar. Every hope was a forlorn hope. So it was that the defenders were taken in by their own blood splendour. Every slope was a slippery slope. VI Every slope was a slippery slope where every shave was a very close shave and money was money for old rope where every grave was a watery grave now every boat was, again, a burned boat. Every dime-a-dozen rat a dime-a-dozen drowned rat except for the whitrack, or stoat, which the very Norsemen had down pat as a weasel-word though we know their speech was rather slurred. Every time was time in the nick just as every nick was a nick in time. Every unsheathed sword was somehow sheathed in rime. Every cut was a cut to the quick. VII Every cut was a cut to the quick what with every feather a feather to ruffle. Every whitrack was a whitterick. Everyone was in a right kerfuffle when from his hob some hobbledehoy would venture the whitterick was a curlew. Every wall was a wall of Troy and every hunt a hunt in the purlieu of a demesne so out of bounds every hound might have been a hellhound. At every lane end stood a milk churn whose every dent was a sign of indenture to some pig wormer or cattle drencher. Every point was a point of no return. VIII Every point was a point of no return for those who had signed the Covenant in blood. Every fern was a maidenhair fern that gave every eye an eyeful of mud ere it was plucked out and cast into the flame. Every rowan was a mountain ash. Every swath-swathed mower made of his graft a game and the hay sash went to the kemper best fit to kemp. Every secretary was a temp who could shift shape like the river goddesses Banna and Boann. Every two-a-penny maze was, at its heart, Minoan. Every escape was a narrow escape. IX Every escape was a narrow escape where every stroke was a broad stroke of an ax on a pig nape. Every pig was a pig in a poke though it scooted once through the Diamond so unfalt—so unfalteringly. The threshold of pain was outlimened by the bar raised at high tea now every scone was a drop scone. Every ass had an ass's jawbone that might itself drop from grin to girn. Every malt was a single malt. Every pillar was a pillar of salt. Every point was a point of no return. X Every point was a point of no return where to make a mark was to overstep the mark. Every brae had its own braw burn. Every meadow had its meadowlark that stood in for the laverock. Those Norse had tried fjord after fjord to find a tight wee place to dock. When he made a scourge of small whin cords, Christ drove out the moneylenders and all the other bitter-enders when the thing to have done was take up the slack. Whin was to furze as furze was to gorse. Every hobbledehoy had his hobbledyhobbyhorse. Every track was an inside track. XI Every track was an inside track where every horse had the horse sense to know it was only a glorified hack. Every graineen of gratitude was immense and every platitude a familiar platitude. Every kemple of hay was a kemple tossed in the air by a haymaker in a hay feud. Every chair at the barn dance a musical chair given how every paltry poltroon and his paltry dog could carry a tune yet no one would carry the can any more than Samson would carry the temple. Every spinal column was a collapsing stemple. Every flash was a flash in the pan. XII Every flash was a flash in the pan and every border a herbaceous border unless it happened to be an herbaceous border as observed by the Recorder or recorded by the Observer. Every widdie stemmed from a willow bole. Every fervor was a religious fervor by which we'd fly the godforsaken hole into which we'd been flung by it. Every pit was a bottomless pit out of which every pig needed a piggyback. Every cow had subsided in its subsidy. Biddy winked at Paddy and Paddy winked at Biddy. Every track was an inside track. XIII Every track was an inside track and every job an inside job. Every whitterick had been a whitrack until, from his hobbledehob, that hobbledehobbledehoy had insisted the whitterick was a curlew. But every boy was still "one of the boys" and every girl "ye girl ye" for whom every dance was a last dance and every chance a last chance and every letdown a terrible letdown from the days when every list was a laundry list in that old country where, we reminisced, every town was a tidy town.