Across the River Read Online Free

what way around that should be.”
    “Either way will do,” Jack told him. “I suppose in many ways I had a lot to do with the rearing of your father.”
    “And me too.”
    “And yet you’re very different.”
    “Do you think so, Jack?” Peter asked in a troubled voice, and Jack realised that he was treading on sensitive ground.
    Herself inside must have done the devil about the Phelans
, hethought.
    “Well, yes and no,” Jack told him. “You have his clear thinking and you’ll make a great farmer just like he was, but you don’t have his patience. But then he did not get that from old Edward Phelan. A mighty man but would walk over you if you came in his way.”
    “He’s the one who had the tangle with the Conways, wasn’t he?” Peter asked.
    “He was indeed,” Jack agreed
    “Tell me about that again,” Peter asked thoughtfully.
    “Dad told me a long time ago, but I’m not so sure I understood it at the time.”
    “I’ll give it to you short and precise now, lad,” Jack said.
    “Your great-grandfather, Edward Phelan, and Rory Conway across the river grew up together and were great friends. Conway got into financial difficulties and your great-grandfather secured him in the bank for a loan.
    When Conway got out of the financial hole, instead of paying back the loan he bought land at the other side of the hill with the money. Edward Phelan was left holding the baby, but not for long. He went and measured the piece of land that Conway had bought and then fenced off the exact same amount of Conway land along his own boundary by the river and took possession. There was a court case and your great-grandfather won and got those two fields, but they have caused trouble ever since.”
    “But wasn’t it strange that those two fields ever belonged to the Conways in the first place, because they are at our side of the river? It would make more sense if they were our land because the river is usually the boundary.”
    “That was probably the case away back, because my father always said that the Conways moonlighted those fields off the Phelans when that kind of thing was going on.”
    “In ancient times,” Peter said.
    “But not forgotten.”
    “The young crowd don’t want to remember any of that kind of thing.”
    “Not always wise,” Jack advised, “because if you know the seed and breed of a crowd, you’ll have a fair idea what to expect from them.”
    “Do you really think so, Jack?”
    “Well, I wouldn’t take it to extremes now,” Jack cautioned, “and there are exceptions to every rule, but usually you don’t get apples off a crab tree.”
    “If it was properly pruned, Jack, you might,” Peter laughed.
    Just then they heard the sound of hooves and the pony and cart came into the yard with Davy Shine sitting on the setlock. His smiling round face under a pudding-bowl haircut was aglow with good health. When he saw Peter and Jack sitting in the corner, he shouted across at them, “Ye two lazy bums dossing in the shade and me and poor Paddy here dead from work.” He guided the pony over close to them and whipping off his cap he aimed it at Peter. Peter ducked and the cap hit Jack, who shot it back at Davy, getting him on the side of the head.
    “Bad job,” Jack laughed at him, “when an old fella like me has a better aim than a young lad like you. You can’t be much good on the football field.”
    “We’ll give you a place on the Kilmeen team,” Davy teased.
    “Is there training tonight?” Peter asked.
    “There is, so get up off your bum, young fellow, and help me get these churns out of the cart so that we’ll get finished early this evening. This is no time for lazy lumps sitting in the sun,” Davy said as he pulled the reins andguided the pony over to the milk stand, scattering hens before him.
    “That’s no way to talk to your elders and betters,” Jack called after him.
    “I’d agree about the elders whatever about betters,” Davy shouted back. “Are you going