AT TULLY FAIR.
moment, and then, abandoning itself to panic, endeavour to retrace its steps. During three or four miles these recontres became more and more frequent, till at length, when the mist lifted at the top of a hill, we found that we had reached their source. In the hollow between the two hills was a village, its single street black with people, and the roads leading to it full of cattle and pigs. In other words, we had hit off the fair of Tully.
My cousin and I began to wonder how we were to get to the other side of it. We drove down into the town with dignity and circumspection, hoping that our aristocratic appearance might clear the way for us; but after a minute or two we were forced to the conclusion that the peasantry were not impressed. Not till Sibbie’s aggrieved visage was thrust into their midst did the groups separate, and even then they could scarcely spare time from the ardours of debate to give us more than a passing stare of bewilderment. An obstacle that seemed for a time likely to prevent our ever getting to Renvyle was a donkey-cart, with its shafts propped on a barrel so as to make a stall for the sale of sugar-stick, gooseberries, and piles of the massive biscuits known as “crackers.” The press of customers and their friends round this brought us to a standstill, and my cousin, in a politely dignified voice, asked those nearest us to move aside. There was a movement and a turning to stare.
“Holy Biddy! What’s thim?” exclaimed a girl, pushing back against the donkey-cart, and in so doing sending some of the “crackers” sliding down into the mud.
The proprietress, an old woman with protruding teeth and generally terrific aspect, made a futile attempt to avert the catastrophe, and then whirled round upon us with a ferocity whetted by this disaster and matured by long combat with small boys.
“That the divil may blisther yerself and thim!” she screamed. “What call have thim dirty thravellers here throwin’ down all before thim? Aha! I knew ye,” she said, addressing herself to my second cousin in tones of thunder, “and yer owld mother before ye, the time ye were thravelling the counthry in a pack on her back, puckin’ at every hall-doore in the counthry beggin’ spuds! For so grand as ye are, with yer specs on yer nose and yer fine sailor hat on the back of yer head!”
My cousin and I should, of course, have passed on with a pale hauteur, as if we had not heard this amazing effort of biographical romance, but we are, unfortunately, not of the complexion that turns pale with ease; on the contrary, we became a violent turkey-cock scarlet, and ended by a collapse into unsuppressible laughter, in which the crowd joined with unfeigned delight, as they at length made a way for us to pass.