“It ought to be,” answered Sir John; “for (searching his pockets) I got a bill from my brother Joe of, I think, two hundred pounds, only for nails, iron cramps, and holdfasts—for a single winter.”
The queries of Miss Ball innocently proceeded, and, I think, the replies were among the pleasantest and most adroit I ever heard. The lady seemed quite delighted, and nearly expressed a wish to go down to the castle as soon as possible. “As Sir John’s rents may not come in instantly,” said she, “I have, I fancy, a few thousand pounds in the bank just now, and that may take us down and new-furnish, at least, a wing of the castle!”
This took poor Sir John dreadfully aback. Glinsk was, he told me, actually in a tumbling state. Not a gravel walk within twenty miles of it: and as to timber, “How the devil,” said he, “could I support both my trees and my establishment at the same time?—Now,” he pursued, “Barrington, my good friend, do just tell her what I told you about my aunt Margaret’s ghost, that looks out of the castle window on every anniversary of her own death and birth-day, and on other periodical occasions. She’ll be so frightened (for, thank God! she’s afraid of ghosts), that she’ll no more think of going to Glinsk than to America.”
“Tell her yourself, Sir John,” said I:—“nobody understands a romance better; and I’m sure, if this be not a meritorious, it is certainly an innocent one.”
In fine, he got his groom to tell her maid all about the ghost: the maid told the mistress, with frightful exaggerations: Sir John, when appealed to, spoke mysteriously of the matter; and the purchase of Glinsk Castle could not have induced Miss Ball to put her foot in it afterwards. She is a particularly mild and gentlewomanly lady, and, I fancy, would scarcely have survived a visit to Glinsk, even if the ghost of Madam Margaret had not prevented her making the experiment.
SWEARING NO VICE.
English slang contrasted with Irish imprecation—The chase of St. Chrysostom, and his rescue—Meet garnish for an Hibernian anecdote—Futile attempts at imitation by English dramatists, &c.—Remarks of a puritan on the author and his book—A caution, and a shrewd way of observing it—Michael Heney, steward of the author’s father—His notions concerning swearing—Curious dialogue between him and the author—New mode of teaching children filial respect.
Though I have more than ordinary cause to be gratified by the reception the first two volumes of this work so unexpectedly met with, and am extremely grateful for that reception, yet I am well aware that certain starched moralists may conceive, and perhaps, primâ facie, with reason, that there is too much “imprecation,” and what the fastidious of Bond-street call vulgarity introduced into the Irish colloquies. I admit that a person who has never been in the interior of Ireland, or accustomed to the Irish people and their peculiarities, might naturally think so. I therefore feel it a duty to such critics, to give them at least one or two reasons why they should not consider Irish oaths immoral, or Irish colloquy vulgar.
The outrageous blasphemy and indecency, so copious in the slang of England, with neither wit, point, or national humour, to qualify it, might indeed disgust even the seven hundred imps whom the devil sent into this world to capture St. Chrysostom.[[13]] The curses and imprecations of Ireland are of a nature totally different. They have no great variety; they are neither premeditated, nor acquired through habits of dissipation. They are idiomatic, a part and parcel of the regular language of the country, and repeated in other countries as a necessary appendage to the humour of an Irish story, though they would be utterly unadapted to any other people. Walter Scott’s delightful writings, with all the native simplicity and idiomatic dialect of the ancient Celtic, would be totally spoiled, for instance, had he mingled or introduced in them the oaths and idioms indispensable as a seasoning to Irish colloquy; an observation sufficiently illustrated by the absurd and stupid attempts to imitate Irish phraseology made by English dramatic mimics and grimacers.