“A fine morning, Mr Mowlds,” was my address.
“Yes, sur, thank God, a very fine morning; shure iv we don’t have fine weather in July, when will we have it?”
“What a great space of ground this is to lie waste—what a quantity of provisions it would produce—what a number of people it would employ and feed!” said I.
“Oh, that’s very thrue, sur; but was it all sown in pittaties, what would become ov the poor sheep? Shure we want mutton as well as pittaties—besides, all the devarshin we have every year.——Why, thin, maybe ye have e’er an ould newspaper or ballit about ye?”
I said I had not, but a couple of Penny Journals should be at his service which I had in my pocket.
“Och, any thing at all that will keep a body amused, though I have got a great many of them; but among them all I don’t see any picther or any account of the round tower ferninst ye; nor any account ov the fire Saint Bridget kept in night an’ day for six hundred years; nor any thing about the raison why it was put out; nor any thing about how Saint Bridget came by this piece ov ground; nor any thing about the ould Earl ov Kildare, who rides round the Curragh every seventh year with silver spurs and silver reins to his horse—God bless ye, sur, have ye e’er a bit of tobacky?—there’s not a word about this poor counthry at all.”
My senses were now driven to anxiety—I gave him some tobacco. He then resumed:—
“Och, an’ faix it’s myself that can tell all about those things. Shure my grandfather was brother to one of the ould anshint bards who left him all his books, and he left them to my mother, who left them to me.”
“Well, Mr Mowlds,” I said, “you must have a perfect knowledge of those things—let us hear something of their contents.”
“Why, thin, shure, sur, I can’t do less. Now, you see, sur, it’s my fashion like the priests and ministhers goin’ to praich: they must give a bit ov a text out ov some larned book, and that’s the way with me. So here goes—mind the words: