“O, stop! and God reward you! stop! Sure I’m Mr. Mungavan!”
“O, thunder, and pratees, and buttermilk! Why didn’t you tell me so before! Sure I wouldn’t do such a thing if I didn’t know it was you. Come in to the house. Poor man! are you much hurt?”
And now, many were the explanations on both sides. When they came in, Brian set to work, and called up all that were in the house, as it was now daylight. “And,” said he, “here, in the name of all that’s good and bad, let’s have breakfast, for I’m famished, not to spake of the scaldin’ and batin’ I got; but sure it’s all accidents, and can’t be helped.”
Breakfast was prepared and finished, and Brian got, gradually however, into better humor. But when that was over, his wife called him aside, and said,
“Now, Brian, all these accidents happened through your own fault; so, by all the books in Connemara, you must take my advice to-day. Have a fine dinner, and make them ate and drink enough; and if it’s Eileen that boy wants, faith, he’s a smart young man, and we couldn’t do better. Say you’ll give her a hundred pounds, or two, if one wont satisfy him; but, for goodness sake, give that Mehicle enough to ate.”
What a truly sensible speech was this. Here was the proper view of the question. Brian Mungavan overcame himself for once, and was generous. And there was such a dinner! Eileen took good care of that. Turkeys, geese, and all manner of delicacies, graced the board. Take the words of a contemporaneous poet:—
“Mutton, and good fat bacon
Was there, like turf in creels.”
Or rather in the language of the old song:—
“There was lashins of beef there,