"How many people moved to Gilford out of the two counties?"
"Peradventure there might be a hundred found, peradventure there might be fifty, thirty, twenty, ten."
"Guess again. Give it up? Not a single solitary soul accepted Mr. McMaster's offer. These are the people who are waiting for Home Rule. Much good may it do them."
A little Galway man became irate. "'Tis our birthright to hate England. That's why we want Home Rule that we may tache thim their place. I'd fight England, an' I'd do more." Here he looked sternly at the Ulsterman. "I'd do more, I say, I'd fight thim that'd shtand up for her. D'ye see me now?"
The Belfast man proved an awkward customer. He said, "You're too busy to fight anybody just now, you Nationalists. Wait till you've settled your differences, wait till you've cut each other's throats, wait till you've fought over the plunder, like the Kilkenny cats, till there's nothing left of you but the tail. Then we'll send down an army of owld women with besoms to sweep ye into the Atlantic. 'Twill be the first bath your Army of Independence ever got. 'Twill cool their courage and clean their hides at the same time."
The small Separatist was about to make an angry reply, when I interposed with an inquiry as to his estimate of Mr. Gladstone.
"Ah," said the little man, with a pucker of his little nose, and a grand gesture of contempt, "sure he's not worth as much powdher as would blow him to hell."
His sentiment lacks novelty, but I quote him for the picturesqueness of his style.
Salthill, May 18th.