"Oh, dear! such a climate 'tis death to be in— I surely shall die in the 'Bights of Benin'!"
"All look for your death, and the more shall we rue it, Since the sups, not the 'Bights,' will, alas! bring you to it." R. J.
DARBY THE SWIFT;
OR,
THE LONGEST WAY ROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME.
"He who runs may read."
CHAPTER 1.
"A century or two ago, there was a class of dependents or hangers-on to the great families in Ireland, denominated 'running-footmen,' who may truly be looked upon as originals in their singular, laborious, and sometimes even dangerous calling. Though ostensibly mere letter-carriers, or light-parcel bearers, across the difficult parts of the country, as yet inaccessible to carriages, or even quadrupeds, (or rendered passable by that style of road-making which the Colossus of Roads, Macadam, pretended was his discovery,) the running-footmen had occasionally charges of more serious import. They were often suspected of being the agents by whom political measures of local warfare were transmitted from baronial sovereigns to their distant clanships or allies,—of being walking, or rather running, telegraphs (for their speed was prodigious) of some plot of treason against the rights of the invader, and often cruelly and unjustly sacrificed to his fury, when intercepted on their secret but seldom hostile missions. They carried their notions of honour on the point of their trust, whatever it might be, to a romantic scrupulosity. No matter whether it was a love-letter or a challenge, a purse or a process, a curse or a blessing, the faithful runner never revealed it to any one but the person for whom it was intended. Though journeying by the most difficult passes, and undergoing the most severe privations, those extraordinary fellows seldom failed in their undertakings. This may be partially accounted for by the reverence they were held in by their own people; for as the lower Irish still continue to believe in the strange notion of their Oriental ancestors, that the souls of 'innocents' (in plainer English, 'fools,') are in heaven, and that their 'muddy vesture of decay' on earth is entitled to superstitious respect, these motleys, in either their real or assumed garb of folly, were treated with a kind of familiar or affectionate reverence wherever they went amongst their own countrymen. On the other hand, the paths of their treading, when they went out upon distant journeys, were so little known to the hostile strangers, that they ran but little chance of receiving injury at their hands, or even meeting with them. Such were the running-footmen of other days; but they are gone,—their race is ended,—and those who pride themselves upon their descent from the stock seem to have retained but few of the qualifications of their ancestors. Everything romantic and happy in Ireland seems to be dwindling away. No longer do we hear the pleasant announcements of 'Blind Connal the harper, sir,' and 'Miss Biddy Maquillian the fiddler, my lady,' and 'Dermot O'Dowd the piper, boys,' and——"