CHAPTER II.
RIVER SHANNON—DERRY CARNE—OUR FARM—MY SISTERS GET MARRIED—CAVE—STILL-HOUSE—STILL AND WORM—PROCESS—INTERIOR—REVENUE POLICE—IRISH WAKE—FUNERAL.
Our residence was situated on a beautiful bay of the River Shannon in the County of Leitrim.
The month was July, and nothing could be more exhilarating than the breezes which played over the green fields that were now radiant with the light which was flooded down upon them from the cloudless sun. Around them, in every field, were the tokens of that pleasant labour from which the hope of an ample and abundant harvest always springs.
The bay was bounded on the east by a large wood which abounds in game of every description. Gentlemen from the surrounding counties were frequently invited by its owner, Francis Nesbitt, Esq., Derry Carne, during the shooting and fishing season. Many times I have been out with them, coming home foot-sore in the evening, after traversing the woods all day with the sportsmen. Those were happy days.
My father and the hired man, with the help of my two sisters managed to sow and gather in the produce of the small farm. I, being the only son, was kept at school till about sixteen years old, after which I had to make myself useful around the house and farm. I was about twelve years old when my eldest sister was married; about two years afterwards my other sister took unto herself a partner, for better, for worse. After those events our family dwindled down to three, viz., my father, stepmother, and myself.
About this time I roamed about the country a good deal. In the evenings a few other boys and myself assembled in a "Potteen Still-house" to see the men who manufactured the potteen, and hear them tell stories. It was situated about two miles in a north-western direction from our residence. The country was very rugged and wild, but picturesque. Although a portion of the same landscape, nothing could be more strikingly distinct in character than the position of those hills. They formed a splendid pasture lane for sheep. In approaching these hills you struck into a "Borheen," or lane which conducted you to the front of a steep precipice of rocks about fifty feet high. In the northern cover of this ravine there was an entrance to a subterraneous passage twenty feet long, which led to a large chamber or deep cave, having every convenience for a place of private distillation. Under the rocks which met over it was a kind of gothic arch, and a stream of water just sufficient for the requisite purpose fell in through a fissure from above, forming such a little cascade in the cavern as human design itself could scarcely have surpassed in perfect adaptation for the object of an illicit distiller. To this cave, then, we must take the liberty of transporting our readers, in order to give them an opportunity of getting a peep at the inside of a "Potteen Still-house." In that end which constituted the termination of the cave, and fixed upon a large turf fire which burned within a circle of stones that supported it, was a tolerably sized still made of copper. The mouth of this still was enclosed by an air-tight cover, also of copper, called the head, from which a tube of the same metal projected into a large condenser that was kept always filled with cold water by an incessant stream from the cascade I have already described, which always ran into and overflowed it.
The arm of this head was made air-tight, fitting into a spiral tube of copper, called the worm, which rested in the water of the cooler; and as it consisted of several twists like a corkscrew, its effect was to condense the hot vapour which was transmitted to it from the glowing still into that description of alcohol known as potteen whiskey or "mountain dew."
At the bottom of the cooler the worm terminated in a small cock, from which the spirits passed in a slender stream about the thickness of a pipe-stem into a vessel placed for its reception. Such was the position of the still, head, and worm, when in full operation.