‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, addressing the man, ‘do you know what will happen to you, if you do that—when you go to the next world?’
‘O no, yer Riverence. And sure how could I?—What is it now?’ pulling off his hat and looking greatly frightened.
‘You will be turned into a horse, and devils will be employed to flog you, just as you're flogging now that poor beast of yours.’
‘Ah, don't, yer Riverence—don't say that now! for the love of heaven, sir, don't! An' I'll promise on my two knees to give him the best of thratement from this out, and never to lay whip into him that way again.’
The beggars in towns are often very caustic in their remarks, and indulge in personalities more witty than polite, when unsuccessful in their demands.
A late well-known Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, remarkable for a peculiarly shaped and very ugly nose, resisting the importunities of a woman for ‘a ha'penny for the honour of the blessed Vargin,’ she turned upon him with: ‘The Lord forgive you! And that He may presarve yer eyesight, I pray; for faix 'tis yerself has the bad nose for spectacles.’
Another spiteful old beldam of the same stamp attacked Sir A. B. for alms, following him down the whole length of Sackville Street. The baronet had tender feet, which with other uncomely infirmities, caused his gait to be none of the most graceful.
‘Ye won't give it—won't ye?’ broke out the woman in an angry whine. ‘O thin, God help the poor! And look now; if yer heart was as soft as yer feet, it wouldn't be in vain we'd be axing yer charity this day.’
‘That the “grace of God” may never enter into your house but on parchment!’ was the terse and bitter anathema in which another gave vent to her wrathful disappointment. She knew that all writs are on parchment, and had probably learned from cruel experience the formula with which they commence: ‘Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen, &c.’