“But I am old.”
“More of that to you, ma’am, dear.”
“Do you wish me to be old?”
“I wish you, with all my heart and soul, to grow old,” I says, and from my heart I spoke, and she felt it; but, seeing she was melancholy, I thought to rouse her a bit. “Indeed, ma’am, I never saw you better in my life (that was true;) you’re as heavy again as you were when I first had the blessing of looking in yer sweet face, and sure your eyes are as bright as diamonds (that was a bit of a stretch,) and there’s thousands of dimples in your cheeks this minute (that was another).”
“There, there,” she says, smiling her calm smile, “you will not have me old.”
“Oh, the Holies forbid!” I said again, “it’s I that will have you old—but not yet.”
She took up wonderful after that. Sure we all like a taste of the flattery: some wish it addressed to their head—some to their heart—some to their great families, taking their pride out of blood, so thick, you could cut it with a knife—some (musheroons I call them) to their wealth—more to their beauty, which, though dead and buried to the world, is alive to them. Aunt dear, all like it: somehow, the thing to know is, when and how to give it. Well, my mistress bought a new bonnet, and such elegant caps, and altogether took a turn for the best. She was amused, too, at the notion of a little election, which I wondered at, seeing she was so timid in general.
“I’ll engage Cranley Hurst is a fine, strong house, ma’am,” I made bold to say.
“Oh, no, it’s a long, rambling, wandering sort of place, Ellen; all odd windows and odd gables—all odd and old.” So I said that I’d go bail his honor her cousin’s faction (his people, I meant) would keep off the other party at election times, when they break in, and knock every thing to bits; and I told her how my father remembered when the Kilconnel boys broke into Kilmurray-house, and the master canvassing—destroying, right and left—burning and murdering every one that was not of their way of thinking, and shouting over their ashes for liberty and freedom of election. That was the time, when knowing that more of the Kilconnel boys were forced to come over the Crag-road—where no road was ever made, only all bog—the Kilmurray men laid wait for them, and snared them into a gamekeeper’s lodge, making believe it was a whiskey-still—just a place where they had plenty of the mountain-dew—which (bad luck to it) is a wonderful strengthener of sin, and kept them there drinking and dancing until the election was over; and then, leaving the Kilconnel boys sleeping, the Kilmurray men disappeared in the night. When the poor fellows staggered out in the rising sun and found how it was, they grew very savage, and just fair and easy burnt the lodge. And may-be murderings and destructions did not grow out of that, and lawsuits—and persecutions—that made men of two attorneys, who never had cross or coin to bless themselves with before the burning of Crag-road lodge!
My mistress says they manage things more quietly here. I can’t say whether or not I’m glad of it, for I like a bit of a spree, now and then, to keep the life in me—for the English are wonderful quiet; you might as well travel with a lot of dummies, as with them: and the suspicious looks they cast on you, if you only speak civil to them, or look twice their way; the ladies rowling themselves up in shawls, in the corners of the railway carriage, and keeping their eyes fixed, as if it was a sin to be civil. I travel with my mistress, FIRST CLASS—aunt dear, let all the people know that, coming from mass, Sunday morning—so I see their ways; and the gentlemen bury their noses in a mighty perplexing sort of paper-covered book, called “Bradshaw,” or in a newspaper, which they read to themselves and keep to themselves, never offering to lend the “news” to any one, only shifting it into their pockets, as if they could get more out of it there. They scramble in and out of the carriages, without ever moving their hats, or offering to help the ladies out or in. The truth is they’re a good people; but uncommon surly, or uncommon shy. And as to that book, “Bradshaw,” I thought it must be diverting; people bought it so fast at the railway stations; and you see it sticking out of the pockets of the little scutty coats that are all the fashion, and out of the bags the ladies nurse like babies on their laps, and which they spend months of their time on, to make them look as if made of odds and ends of carpet—which, indeed, they do. I asked my mistress if she would not like to have “Bradshaw,” it must be such pleasant reading. So, with the same quiet smile with which she does every thing, she bought it, and gave it to me, saying: