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I receive this statement cum grano salis (always appropriate to bacon), as I do Phil Purcel's, that “there was in Ireland an old breed of swine, which is now nearly extinct, except in some remote parts of the country, where they are still useful in the hunting season, if dogs happen to be scarce;” 1 and (with all deference to the lady).
1 Carleton's “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.”
Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's, “an acquaintance of ours taught one to point, and the animal found game as correctly as a pointer. He gave tongue, too, after his own fashion, by grunting in a sonorous tone, and understood when he was to take the field as well as any dog.” 1 But, however this may be, everything in the Claddagh is done to “please the pigs:”
“Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
You see them, lords of all around, pass by;”
and Og reigneth once more in Basan. He is precious and he has his privileges. “I think” (said Phil from the hob) “that nobody has a better right to the run of the house, whedher up stairs or down stairs, than him that pays the rint” Such is the great destiny of the Irish pig. He is not associated in the prospective contemplations of his owner with low views of pork and sausages; for Paddy says, with Launcelot, “if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money,” and
“As for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fryed in. 1
but he represents the generous friend and benefactor, who is about to render an important service at considerable personal discomfort.
1 In their pleasant volume, “The West and Connamara.”
Goldsmith's “Letter to Lord Clare.”
It was washing-day at one of the cabins, and a great variety of wearing apparel was hung out to dry. We could not discover a single article which at all resembled anything known to us, or which a schoolboy would have accepted for any part of his Faux.