By now a stiff wind was blowing over the barren hills and a chill came over us. We returned to our caravan just before sunset and climbed into bed wearing sweaters and slippers, with four blankets. At 8:50, bells from a small church across the field began to chime. Before long, families began arriving on foot along the narrow, blacktopped road. Since Camp consisted only of the pub, a grocery store and a few houses, the people apparently walked from nearby farms. A hearse drew up and some of the men carried a coffin into the church. About a half hour later the bells chimed again and the people departed the church. The coffin was left inside.
The wind picked up during the night and we hardly slept as the caravan shook. At times we actually felt it roll uphill under the force of the gusts. Next morning we found the blocks of wood we had placed behind the wheels were some three feet behind the caravan.
Bob had been fed and watered and turned loose in a pasture of about two acres for the night. In the morning we went out to catch him, but he didn’t have any desire to be caught. It became a game with him and a desperate struggle of man over beast with us. We would ease him toward a corner and, just when we were sure we had him, he would take a run at Becky and she (wisely) would choose to step aside. I figured a bucket of grain might tempt him within reach; I was wrong. Then Becky remembered some sugar lumps we had purchased at a neighborhood store in Tralee. Bob’s weakness was found: he came for the sugar. For the rest of the week, he and Becky were inseparable.
It wasn’t long before we found that Bob was quite pleased with carrots and apples, too. When Bob took a notion, he would just stop and munch grass along the road. I was determined to have the upper hand; no horse was going to tell me when it was time for him to quit work. I would slap the manila reins lightly on his back and say the equivalent of "giddup" in Gaelic. Mr. Slattery said the horse only understood Gaelic and we had learned stop, go, left and right in Bob’s native tongue. When Gaelic "giddup" didn’t get Bob moving, I would climb down from the caravan and take his head and lead him.
For the next few days we drove to places with names like Castelgregory (where we camped on a narrow spit between Brandon Bay and Tralee Bay) and Cloghane (on the bay between Stradbally and Brandon mountains). We’d cross ancient looking stone-arch bridges and stop to graze Bob and to record the scene on film.
