“A glass of what, in the name of Heaven?” said Lord Colambre.
“Potsheen, plase your honour;—beca-ase it’s the little whiskey that’s made in the private still or pot; and sheen, because it’s a fond word for whatsoever we’d like, and for what we have little of, and would make much of: after taking the glass of it, no man could go and inform to ruin the cratures; for they all shelter on that estate under favour of them that go shares, and make rent of ‘em—but I’d never inform again’ ‘em. And, after all, if the truth was known, and my Lord Clonbrony should be informed against, and presented, for it’s his neglect is the bottom of the nuisance—”
“I find all the blame is thrown upon this poor Lord Clonbrony,” said Lord Colambre.
“Because he is absent,” said Larry: “it would not be so was he prisint. But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour’s a stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would I mind the laws about whiskey, more than the quality, or the jidge on the bench?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why! was not I prisint in the court-house myself, when the jidge was on the bench judging a still, and across the court came in one with a sly jug of potsheen for the jidge himself, who prefarred it, when the right thing, to claret; and when I seen that, by the laws! a man might talk himself dumb to me after again’ potsheen, or in favour of the revenue, or revenue officers. And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their watching officers, and their coursing officers, setting ‘em one after another, or one over the head of another, or what way they will—we can baffle and laugh at ‘em. Didn’t I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten watching officers set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And the gauging rod, even! who fears it? They may spare that rod, for it will never mend the child.”
How much longer Larry’s dissertation on the distillery laws would have continued, had not his ideas been interrupted, we cannot guess; but he saw he was coming to a town, and he gathered up the reins, and plied the whip, ambitious to make a figure in the eyes of its inhabitants.
This town consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as if there had just been an earthquake—all the roofs sunk in various places—thatch off, or overgrown with grass—no chimneys, the smoke making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the top of the open door—dunghills before the doors, and green standing puddles—squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at the carriage.
“Nugent’s town,” said the postilion, “once a snug place, when my Lady Clonbrony was at home to white-wash it, and the like.”
As they drove by, some men and women put their heads through the smoke out of the cabins; pale women, with long, black, or yellow locks—men with countenances and figures bereft of hope and energy.