“We can stand hard knocks and square fighting, and possibly feel all the better for it; but when you speak of conciliation and all that sort of thing we get on our edge at once, as we know that we are going to be bamboozled.”
“But surely you will admit that we have done a good deal for the country. See the Church Disestablishment Act and the Land Act.”
“Only two patches on our ragged coats, my dear sir. We want independence, and that you won’t give us; nor will you offer us a quid pro quo, as you did with Scotland, because you know we would not accept it. No, Mr. Hawthorne, we’ll have to fight you for this, and our Irish members must do the Mrs. Caudle for John Bull, and give him sleepless and wretched nights in the big house at St. Stephen’s.”
“Have you any fault to find with the administration of the laws?”
“Fault! When we find ourselves gagged and fettered by a miserably weak administration, and hedged in by a set of uncertain and floating laws, we begin to think about righting ourselves. You send us a lord-lieutenant who knows as much about Ireland as he does of Bungaroo—who comes over with a hazy idea that there’s some one to be conciliated and some one to be hanged; a chief-secretary who knows less; an attorney-general who, if active, means a necessity for strengthening the garrison; and a commander of the forces who pants for a chance of manœuvring his flying columns over our prostrate bodies. But here comes Biddy Finnegan with a cutlet of mountain mutton, and I can give you a drop of the real mountain dew that never paid the Saxon gauger a farthing duty—or, at least, if we had our rights, ought not, according to Peter O’Brien.” And he laughed. “These subjects are much better worth discussing than English misrule. Quantum est in rebus inane.” And ushering Mr. Hawthorne to a seat upon his right hand, he proceeded to do the honors with a courtly grace blended with a fascinating hospitality.
“That poteen has its story. As I have already told you, it never paid duty. A friend of mine was anxious that I should keep it on tap, as he constantly comes this way. It is somewhat difficult to obtain it now, as the excise officers are, like you members of Parliament, particularly wide awake.” The M.P. bowed solemnly in recognition of the compliment. “At last, however, he managed to drop on a man, who knew another man, who knew another man, in whose cabin this particular crayture was to be found. My friend ferreted him out, and, upon asking the price per gallon, was informed by the manufacturer that he would only charge him eighteen shillings.
“‘Eighteen shillings!’ exclaimed my friend. ‘Why, that’s an enormous price.’
“‘Och! shure,’ replied the other, with a droll look perfectly indescribable, ‘I cudn’t part it for less, as the duty’s riz.’”
It took a considerable time to drive the point of Father O’Dowd’s fictitious narrative and the illicit distiller’s rejoinder into the head of the member for Doodleshire; and when he did manage to grapple it, wishing to lay it by in order to retail it in the House, it was found impossible to get him completely round it, as the word “riz” invariably balked him, and it is scarcely necessary to observe that his Anglican substitution failed in every way to improve the story. The cutlets were deliciously tender, and the potatoes in their jackets so mealy and inviting that the Saxon fell to with a vigor that fairly astonished me. As dish after dish of the diminutive shies disappeared, and potato after potato left its jacket in shreds behind it, I congratulated myself upon the signal success of this visit.
“My drive gave me an appetite, father,” he said. “I haven’t eaten luncheon for many months. In the House I generally pair off with some friend to a biscuit and a glass of sherry; but here I have—ahem!—eaten like a navvy.”