The Golden West

When the blight came...

And the harvest failed...

Many prayed to their God...

But he would not answer.

Others fled to far-off lands.

Some died of sickness.

Most, of hunger.

And some...

Like our Daddy...

Went mad.

We lost everything to the ground.

But when you've nothing left to lose...

Well, sure, that's when there's something to find.

You've just got to know where to look.

Give it here.

Talk to me, Fionnuala. What is it?

Did I find one? Is it a shiny little fecker, is it so?

Quiet, Noreen!

It's your tooth.

What?

Which tooth?

Wait, Fionnuala!

'Twas me molar.

Will you stop with your humming, Noreen?

I've a tune stuck in me head.

Told you we should have gone to America.

Aye, and you don't know what you're talking about.

All millionaires they are now, in America.

We'd have had better luck there.

Well, if you love America so much,

why don't I cut you loose and you can feck off there yourself, so?

They say a hundred thousand men-

Jaysus, Noreen!

If a hundred thousand men go searching for gold in America...

Well then don't you know they end up splitting that gold a hundred thousand ways?

Whereas I'll be keeping my treasure all to myself...

'Cos there's no other fecker here to be splitting it with.

I'm here, Fionnuala.

That's the one thing...

That I like about you,Thomas-

Sorry, Thomas.

I have to- Thomas, I think I dropped it.

Found it, Thomas. I found it.

Round the back.

Sorry, Thomas.

Anything?

It gets awful lonesome in the dark, Fionnuala.

Stop with your grousing.

I told you, it was an accident.

Terrible lonesome.

You awake, Fionnuala?

No.

What'll you do with your gold?

Go to sleep.

I'll buy myself seven purple dresses...

One for each day of the week.

And when people pass me in the street, they'll say...

'Old Noreen does be keeping her purple dress awful clean.'

And I won't tell them I've six more hanging in the wardrobe.

All identical.

I won't be telling them that.

And I'll have a little cottage out West...

With a wee stable, where Thomas can grow old.

There'll be a little window...

Where you can see the sun come down on the water every night...

All golden, like.

Do you suppose we'll ever go home, Fionnuala?

There's no home for us there anymore.

But what if we can't be finding any treasure after all?

Then we're not looking hard enough.

It's just - with the winter coming in-

You were always a quitter, Noreen.

Always looking for the easy way out.

Lord knows I'd have found my treasure long ago

If it wasn't for lumps like you always lagging two steps behind.

We'll be putting a bullet through our skulls before we give up here, Noreen...

And that's the end of it.

'Half a pound of tuppeny rice...'

'Half a pound of treacle...'

'Half a pound of tuppeny rice...'

'Half a pound of treacle...'

'That's the way the money goes...'

Noreen!

What? What is it?

Did you get something?

No.

'Up and down the city streets...'

'In and out the Eagle...'

'That's the way the money goes...'

Come on!

Any luck?

There's no gold round these parts.

They all say that...

Until somebody finds some.

You ought to be careful, mind, with winter on its way.

I like the cold.

My brother's off to America...

Sure you wouldn't have better luck there?

Then again, I suppose you'd only end up competing

with him and the other hundred thousand already there.

Exactly.

America's loss, if you ask me.

Pickaxe.

What about 'water'?

Water.

What's 'handsome'?

Fionnuala?

Who are you talking to?

Give me a minute there now, Noreen.

Morning, Miss!

Who's that?

Is there a man in the water, so?

Noreen-

What's that, secret chats with men in the water, is it?

And me panning away over yonder like a goon.

I said just give me a minute.

Sorry about her...

She's going loony in her old age.