I asked Mr. Bodkin where he lived.
“Ah! then where should it be but at Connemara?” said he.
“And what’s your trade or calling, when you’re at home, Mr. Bodkin?” inquired I.
“Why, plase your honour, no poor man could live upon one calling now-a-days as we did in owld times, or no calling at all, as when the squire was in it. Now I butchers a trifle, your honour! and burns the kelp when I’m entirely idle. Then I take a touch now and then at the still, and smuggle a few in Sir Neil’s cutter when the coast is clear.”
“Any thing else, Mr. Bodkin?”
“Ough yes, your honour; ’tis me that tans the brogue leather for the colonel’s yeomen: (God bless them!) besides, I’m bailiff-bum of the town lands, and make out our election registries; and when I’ve nothing else to do, I keep the squire’s accounts: and by my sowl that same is no asy matter, plase your honour, till one’s used to it! but, God bless him, up and down, wherever he goes, here or hereafter! he’s nothing else but a good master to us all.”
“Mr. Ned Bodkin,” continued I, “every body says the king’s writ does not run in Connemara?”
“Ough! then whoever towld your honour that is a big liar. By my sowl, when the King George’s writ (crossing himself) comes within smell of the big house, the boys soon make him run as if the seven red devils was under his tail, saving your presence. It’s King George’s writ that does run at Connemara, plase your worship, all as one as a black greyhound. O the devil a stop he stays till he gets into the court-house of Galway again!”
Mr. Bodkin talked allegorically, so I continued in the same vein:—“And pray if you catch the king’s writ, what do you do then?”
“Plase your honour, that story is asy towld. Do, is it? I’ll tell your honour that. Why, if the prossy-sarver is cotched in the territories of Ballynahinch, by my sowl if the squire’s not in it, he’ll either eat his parchments every taste, or go down into the owld coal-pit sure enuff, whichever is most agreeable to the said prossy-sarver.”