Sit ye down, my heartie, and gie us a crack,
Let the wind tak’ the care o’ the world on his back.’”
“You maunna attempt English poethry, my freend Quell; for it must be confessed ye’e a damnable accent of your ain.”
“Milesian-Phoenician-Corkacian; nothing more, my boy, and a coaxing kind of recitative it is, after all. Don’t tell me of your soft Etruscan, your plethoric. Hoch-Deutsch, your flattering French. To woo and win the girl of your heart, give me a rich brogue and the least taste in life of blarney! There’s nothing like it, believe me,—every inflection of your voice suggesting some tender pressure of her soft hand or taper waist, every cadence falling on her gentle heart like a sea-breeze on a burning coast, or a soft sirocco over a rose-tree. And then, think, my boys,—and it is a fine thought after all,—what a glorious gift that is, out of the reach of kings to give or to take, what neither depends upon the act of Union nor the Habeas Corpus. No! they may starve us, laugh at us, tax us, transport us. They may take our mountains, our valleys, and our bogs; but, bad luck to them, they can’t steal our ‘blarney;’ that’s the privilege one and indivisible with our identity. And while an Englishman raves of his liberty, a Scotchman of his oaten meal, blarney’s our birthright, and a prettier portion I’d never ask to leave behind me to my sons. If I’d as large a family as the ould gentleman called Priam we used to hear of at school, it’s the only inheritance I’d give them, and one comfort there would be besides, the legacy duty would be only a trifle. Charley, my son, I see you’re listening to me, and nothing satisfies me more than to instruct inspiring youth; so never forget the old song,—
‘If at your ease, the girls you’d please,
And win them, like Kate Kearney,
There’s but one way, I’ve heard them say,
Go kiss the Stone of Blarney.’”
“What do you say, Shaugh, if we drink it with all the honors?”
“But gently: do I hear a trumpet there?”
“Ah, there go the bugles. Can it be daybreak already?”
“How short the nights are at this season!” said Quill.
“What an infernal rumpus they’re making! It’s not possible the troops are to march so early.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” quoth Maurice; “there is no knowing what the commander-in-chief’s not capable of,—the reason’s clear enough.”