“You have milk?”
“I’d have plenty of that stuff, counsellors, only (oh my poor cow, and the three heifers!) Sir Neil’s voters are generally so dry, and by my sowl, I believe not far from hungry either, that they, five or six times a day if they can, get a drink out of the poor animals. They have been milked, indeed, till their teats are raw, gentlemen, and that’s the truth, and nothing else but the true truth.” Recollecting himself, however, he added—“But, counsellors, dear, if your honours can put up with our own little breakfast, you’ll be more welcome nor the flowers of May, and there will be plenty of that, gentlemen, such as it is, and I’ll tell you what it is. First and foremost, there’s no better than the apple pratees, and they are ready hot and smothering for ourselves and that d——’d sow and her childer, and be cursed to them! but the devil a one they will get this day, for affronting yees, gentlemen!—And next to the pratees, there’s the potsheen. I still’d it myself a year ago, and hid it under ground when the elections came on; but I get a bottle or two out always. And then, gentlemen, I can broil for you (but that’s a secret, plase your honours,) a few beautiful rashers out of the two flitches I have hid on a little shelf up the chimney for fear of the two-guinea freeholders;—it’s more like clear horn nor bacon, counsellors dear,” pursued he, hauling down a side of it as he spoke, and cutting out several large rashers.
“I suppose,” said I, “this is some of your good sow’s family;—if so, I shall have great pleasure in paying her off in her own style?”
“Why, then, counsellor,” said Mr. Martin, laughing and rubbing his hands—“you are the very devil at finding out things!—ha! ha!—By my sowl, it is a sister of the said sow’s, sure enuff—bad luck to the whole breed for eating the buttered toast this blessed morning!”
The result was, that we got rashers, potatoes, and potsheen, for our breakfast; at the end of which Mr. Martin brought in a jug of capital home-brewed ale;—and the possession of this, also, he said was a secret, or the gauger would play the deuce with him. We fared, in a word, very well; I much doubt, to speak truth, if it were not a more appropriate meal for a desperate bad day and much hard work than a lady’s teapot would afford; and, in pursuance of this notion, I had a rasher, potatoe, and draught of good ale, every day afterward during my stay at that abominable election.
English people would hardly credit the circumstances attending an electioneering contest in Ireland, so late as twenty-three years ago. Little attention was then paid by the country gentlemen to their several assize towns; and there was not a single respectable inn at Ballinrobe. Somebody indeed had built the shell of an hotel; but it had not been plastered either within or without, or honoured by any species of furniture: it had not indeed even banisters to the stairs.
Perhaps the time of year and desperate state of the weather (uncheckered by one ray of sunshine) tended to disgust me with the place: but I certainly never in my lifetime was so annoyed as at the election of Ballinrobe, though every thing that could possibly be done for our comfort was done by Sir John Brown—than whom I never met any gentleman more friendly or liberal.
NEW MODE OF SERVING A PROCESS.
The author at Rock House—Galway election—Searching for voters—Mr. Ned Bodkin—Interesting conversation between him and the author—Process-serving at Connemara—Burke, the bailiff—His hard treatment—Irish method of discussing a chancery bill—Ned Bodkin’s “Lament”—False oaths, and their disastrous consequences—Country magistrates in Ireland.
The election for County Galway was proceeding whilst I was refreshing myself at Rock House, Castlebar, after various adventures at Ballinrobe—as already mentioned. I met at Rock House an old fellow who told me his name was Ned Bodkin, a Connemara boy; and that he had come with two or three other lads only to search for voters to take to Galway for Squire Martin’s poll. Bodkin came to Mrs. Burke’s house to consult Counsellor Moore, and I determined to have a full conversation with him as to the peninsula of Connemara and its statistics. He sent off eight or nine freeholders (such as they were) in eight-and-forty hours; they were soon polled for the squire, and came back as happy as possible.