1 The only lapsus linguar, resembling a bull, which I heard
during our tour, was from a fellow-passenger, in Connamara,
who was repeating a conversation, of which he declared
himself to have been an eye-witness.
And they say, moreover, that beneath these waters (which we ventured to designate Cowesharbour, in allusion to the mysterious kine), lies the plate-chest of the Macarthys, about the size of a gasometer, and never to be raised until once again a Macarthy shall be lord of Blarney. It will be a busy day for the butler, and a happy one for those who deal in plate-powder, whenever this restoration shall occur.
Our driver gave us, as we returned, a taste of his autobiography. I wish that I could repeat it verbatim, for Irish humour loses its bloom if it is not faithfully rendered; but my memory only retains the incidents, and, here and there, a phrase of his story.
He was in England several years ago, at the time of harvest, travelling, sickle in hand, with a dozen of “the boys,” and looking out for employment in the neighbourhood of, or, as he termed it, “contagious to th'ould castle of Newark-upon-Trent.” A hot wind blew the dust along the road, for “the good people were a-going their journeys;” 1 and they were resting awhile, and looking at a fine crop of wheat, by the wayside, when two young men on horseback stopped, and asked them “whether they wanted work?”
1 “The Irish have a superstition, that when the dust is
caught up and blown about by the wind, it is a sign that the
fairies are travelling.”—Tales and Novels by Maria
Edgeworth, vol. iv. p. 72.
Now, it seems, that there lived in these parts, at the period of our history, one of those unhappy malcontents whose counsel, like Moloch's, is for open war with everything and everybody about them; who can believe no good of their neighbours, because they find none in themselves; who murmur at the rich, and are mean and merciless to the poor; who go to meeting house to spite the parson, and to church to vex the preacher; who attend parish-meetings to stir up quarrels, and to set one class against another; who poison foxes, and put their great ugly boots into partridge-nests; and sedulously devote themselves in every way to promote the misery of mankind.
A bear of this calibre, calling himself a farmer, was tenant of the field on which the Irishman gazed; and a plan occurred to the merry young gentlemen by which they might amuse themselves, occupy the reapers, and annoy “that mangy old hunks.” Accordingly, they at once retained our friend the car-driver, and his company, to cut the crop before them, giving them particular directions to get it down as quickly as they could, and agreeing to pay them liberally by the acre, as “their father was anxious to get it stacked, and would not mind their doing the work a bit slovenly, if only they lost no time.” And then, having warned them “not to take any notice of a poor half-witted fellow, who lived near, and who, fancying that all the land about was his own, might possibly try to interrupt their proceedings,” the horsemen wished them “good-day.”
They had been at work for nearly an hour, and had left behind them, in their anxious haste, such an untidy example of sheaf and stubble as would have broken Mr. Mechi's heart, when a loud bellowing in the distance announced the arrival of the unhappy lunatic! He came on, roaring and raving, shaking his fist, and foaming at the mouth. He actually danced with rage among the sickles, until the reapers, fearing the excision of his legs, forcibly removed him, and with twisted strawbands, secured him to his own gate! There, trussed and pinioned, he sent forth such howlings through “the alarmed air,” as scared every crow from the parish, and very speedily attracted the surprised attention of the British public travelling upon the Great North Road.
The reapers, eventually, found it expedient to retire with considerable agility, much disgusted and discomfited, at being “sich a distance on the wrong side of the wage, bedad,” until they were met by their delighted employers, who not only presented them with a couple of sovereigns, but introduced them, with the anecdote, to a jolly old gentleman, hard by, from whom they had employment until the end of harvest.
In allusion to the subject of Irishmen in England, I asked the car man, when he had concluded his story, whether he was aware that there were as many of his countrymen living in London as in the city of Dublin itself? 1 And his reply, to the effect, that I had “brought away a dale o' vartue from th' ouldstone a top o Blarney,” reminded me of an observation made, when I was at school, by our French master, to a boy named Drake. “Monsieur Canard, I shall not call you a liar but I do not believe von vord of vot you say!”