“Alas!” replied my uncle, “it was a melancholy accident; and as I perceive you take an interest in their fate, I will relate it to you. But first fill your glass, Jack; you need not be afraid of this stuff; it never saw the face of a gauger. Come, no skylights; ’tis as mild as new milk; there’s not a head-ache in a hogshead of it.”
To encourage me by his example, my uncle grasped the huge black case-bottle which stood before him, and began to manufacture a tumbler of punch according to Father Tom’s popular receipt.
Whilst he is engaged in this pleasing task, I will give my readers a pen-and-ink sketch of my respected relative. Fancy a man declining from his fiftieth year, but fresh, vigorous, and with a greenness in his age that might put to the blush some of our modern hotbed-reared youths, with the best of whom he could cross a country on the back of his favourite hunter, Cruiskeen, and when the day’s sport was over, could put a score of them under the aforementioned oak table—which, by the way, was frequently the only one of the company that kept its legs upon these occasions of Hibernian hospitality. I think I behold him now, with his open, benevolent brow, thinly covered with grey hair, his full blue eye and florid cheek, which glowed like the sunny side of a golden-pippin that the winter’s frost had ripened without shrivelling. But as he has finished the admixture of his punch, I will leave him to speak for himself.
“You know, Jack,” said he, after gulping down nearly half the newly-mixed tumbler, by way of sample, “you know that our family can lay no claim to antiquity; in fact, our pedigree ascends no higher, according to the most authentic records, than Shawn Duffy, my grandfather, who rented a small patch of ground on the sea-coast, which was such a barren, unprofitable spot, that it was then, and is to this day, called ‘The Devil’s Half-acre.’ And well it merited the name, for if poor Shawn was to break his heart at it, he never could get a better crop than thistles or ragweed off it. But though the curse of sterility seemed to have fallen on the land, Fortune, in order to recompense Shawn for Nature’s niggardliness, made the caverns and creeks of that portion of the coast which bounded his farm towards the sea the favourite resort of smugglers. Shawn, in the true spirit of Christian benevolence, was reputed to have favoured those enterprising traders in their industry, by assisting to convey their cargoes into the interior of the country. It was on one of those expeditions, about five o’clock on a summer’s morning, that a gauger unluckily met my grandfather carrying a bale of tobacco on his back.”
Here my uncle paused in his recital, and leaning across the table till his mouth was close to my ear, said, in a confidential whisper—
“Jack, do you consider killing a gauger—murder?”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“You do?” he replied, nodding his head significantly. “Then heaven forgive my poor grandfather. However, it can’t be helped now. The gauger was found dead, with an ugly fracture in his skull, the next day; and, what was rather remarkable, Shawn Duffy began to thrive in the world from that time forward. He was soon able to take an extensive farm, and, in a little time, began to increase in wealth and importance. But it is not so easy as some people imagine to shake off the remembrance of what we have been, and it is still more difficult to make our friends oblivious on that point, particularly if we have ascended in the scale of respectability. Thus it was, that in spite of my grandfather’s weighty purse, he could not succeed in prefixing Mister to his name; find he continued for a long time to be known as plain ‘Shawn Duffy, of the Devil’s Half-acre.’ It was undoubtedly a most diabolic address; but Shawn was a man of considerable strength of mind, as well as of muscle, and he resolved to become a juntleman, despite this damning reminiscence. Vulgarity, it is said, sticks to a man like a limpet to a rock. Shawn knew the best way to rub it off would be by mixing with good society. Dress, he always understood, was the best passport he could bring for admission within the pale of gentility; accordingly, he boldly attempted to pass the boundary of plebeianism, by appearing one fine morning at the fair of Ballybreesthawn in a flaming red waistcoat, an elegant oarline22. A beaver hat. hat, a pair of buckskin breeches, and a new pair of yellow-topped boots, which, with the assistance of large plated spurs, and a heavy silver-mounted whip, took the shine out of the smartest squireens at the fair.
“Fortunately for the success of my grandfather’s invasion of the aristocratic rights, it occurred on the eve of a general election, and as he had the command of six or eight votes in the county, his interest was a matter of some importance to the candidates. Be that as it may, it was with feelings little short of absolute dismay, that the respectable inhabitants of the extensive village of Ballybreesthawn beheld the metamorphosed tenant of ‘The Devil’s Half-acre,’ walking arm-in-arm down the street with Sir Denis Daly, the popular candidate. At all events, this public and familiar promenade had the effect of establishing Mister John Duffy’s dubious gentility. He was invited to dine the same day by the attorney; and on the following night the apothecary proposed his admission as a member of the Ballybreesthawn Liberal reading-room. It was even whispered that Bill Costigan, who went twice a-year to Dublin for goods, was trying to strike up a match between Shawn, who was a hale widower, and his aunt, an ancient spinster, who was set down by report as a fortune of seven hundred pounds. Negotiations were actually set on foot, and several preliminary bottles of potteen had been drunk by the parties concerned, when, unfortunately, in the high road to happiness, my poor grandfather caught a fever, and popped off, to the inexpressible grief of the expectant bride, who declared her intention of dying in the virgin state; to which resolution, there being no dissentient voice, it was carried nem. con.
“Thus died the illustrious founder of our family; but happy was it for posterity that the yellow-topped boots did not die along with him; these, with the red waistcoat, the leather breeches, and plated spurs, remained to raise the fortunes of our house to a higher station. The waistcoat has been long since numbered with the waistcoats before the flood; the buckskins, made of ‘sterner stuff,’ stood the wear and tear of the world for a length of time, but at last were put out of commission; while the boots, more fortunate or tougher than their leathern companions, endured more than forty years of actual service through all the ramifications of our extensive family. In this time they had suffered many dilapidations; but by the care and ingenuity of the family cobbler, they were always kept in tolerable order, and performed their duty with great credit to themselves, until an unlucky accident deprived me of my old and valued friends.”