“Filthy!” replied Mrs. Purcel, who felt herself called upon to defend the character of the pig, as well as her own, “why, one would think, sir, that any crathur that's among Christyen childhre, like one o' themselves, couldn't be filthy. I could take it to my dyin' day, that there's not a claner or dacenter pig in the kingdom, than the same pig. It never misbehaves, the crathur, but goes out, as wise an' riglar, jist by a look, an' that's enough for it, any day—a single look, your haner, the poor crathur!”
“I think,” observed Phil, from the hob, “that nobody has a betther right to the run of the house, whedher up stairs or down stairs, than him that pays the rint.”
“Well said, my lad!” observed the landlord, laughing at the quaint ingenuity of Phil's defence. “His payment of the rent is the best defence possible, and no doubt should cover a multitude of his errors.”
“A multitude of his shins, you mane, sir,” said Phil, “for thruth he's all shin.”
In fact, Phil from his infancy had an uncommon attachment to these animals, and by a mind naturally shrewd and observing, made himself as intimately acquainted with their habits and instincts, and the best modes of managing them, as ever the celebrated Cahir na Cappul* did with those of the horse. Before he was fifteen, he could drive the most vicious and obstinate pig as quietly before him as a lamb; yet no one knew how, nor by what means he had gained the secret that enabled him to do it. Whenever he attended a fair, his time was principally spent among the pigs, where he stood handling, and examining, and pretending to buy them, although he seldom had half-a-crown in his pocket. At length, by hoarding up such small sums as he could possibly lay his hand on, he got together the price of a “slip,” which he bought, reared, and educated in a manner that did his ingenuity great credit. When this was brought to its ne plus ultra of fatness, he sold it, and purchased two more, which he fed in the same way. On disposing of these, he made a fresh purchase, and thus proceeded, until, in the course of a few years, he was a well-known pig-jobber.
* I subjoin from Townsend's Survey of the county of
Cork a short but authentic account of this most
extraordinary character:—“James Sullivan was a native
of the county of Cork, and an awkward ignorant rustic
of the lowest class, generally known by the appellation
of the Whisperer, and his profession was horse-
breaking. The credulity of the vulgar bestowed that
epithet upon him, from an opinion that he communicated
his wishes to the animal by means of a whisper; and the
singularity of his method gave some color to the
superstitious belief. As far as the sphere of his
control extended, the boast of Veni, Vidi, Vici, was
more justly claimed by James Sullivan, than by Caesar,
or even Bonaparte himself. How his art was acquired, or
in what it consisted, is likely to remain for ever
unknown, as he has lately left the world without
divulging it. His son, who follows the same occupation,
possesses but a small portion of the art, having either
never learned its true secret, or being incapable of
putting it in practice. The wonder of his skill
consisted in the short time requisite to accomplish his
design, which was performed in private, and without any
apparent means of coercion. Every description of horse,
or even mule, whether previously broke, or unhandled,
whatever their peculiar vices or ill habits might have
been, submitted, without show of resistance, to the
magical influence of his art, and, in the short space
of half an hour, became gentle and tractable. The
effect, though instantaneously produced, was generally
durable. Though more submissive to him than to others,
yet they seemed to have acquired a docility, unknown
before. When sent for to tame a vicious horse, he
directed the stable in which he and the object of his
experiment were placed, to be shut, with orders not to
open the door until a signal given. After a tete-a-
tete between him and the horse for about half an hour,
during which little or no bustle was heard, the signal
was made; and upon opening the door, the horse was
seen, lying down, and the man by his side, playing
familiarly with him, like a child with a puppy dog.
From that time he was found perfectly willing to submit
to discipline, however repugnant to his nature before.
Some saw his skill tried on a horse, which could never
be brought to stand for a smith to shoe him. The day
after Sullivan's half hour lecture, I went, not without
some incredulity, to the smith's shop, with many other
curious spectators, where we were eye-witnesses of the
complete success of his art. This, too, had been a
troop-horse; and it was supposed, not without reason,
that after regimental discipline had failed, no other
would be found availing. I observed that the animal
seemed afraid, whenever Sullivan either spoke or looked
at him. How that extraordinary ascendancy could have
been obtained, it is difficult to conjecture, in common
eases, this mysterious preparation was unnecessary. He
seemed to possess an instinctive power of inspiring
awe, the result, perhaps, of natural intrepidity, in
which, I believe, a great part of his art consisted;
though the circumstance of his tete-a-tete shows, that,
upon particular occasions, something more must have
been added to it. A faculty like this would, in other
hands, have made a fortune, and great offers have been
made to him for the exercise of his art abroad; but
hunting, and attachment to his native soil, were his
ruling passions. He lived at home, in the style most
agreeable to his disposition, and nothing could induce
him to quit Dunhalow and the fox-hounds.”
Phil's journeys as a pig-driver to the leading seaport towns nearest him, were always particularly profitable. In Ireland, swine are not kept in sties, as they are among English feeders, but permitted, to go at liberty through pasture fields, commons, and along roadsides, where they make up as well as they can for the scanty pittance allowed them at home during meal-times. We do not, however, impeach Phil's honesty; but simply content ourselves with saying, that when his journey was accomplished, he mostly found the original number with which he had set out increased by three or four, and sometimes by half a dozen. Pigs in general resemble each other, and it surely was not Phil's fault if a stray one, feeding on the roadside or common, thought proper to join his drove and see the world. Phil's object, we presume, was only to take care that his original number was not diminished, its increase being a matter in which he felt little concern. He now determined to take a professional trip to England, and that this might be the more productive, he resolved to purchase a lot of the animals we have been describing. No time was lost in this speculation. The pigs were bought up as cheaply as possible, and Phil sat out, for the first time in his life, to try with what success he could measure his skill against that of a Yorkshireman. On this occasion, he brought with him a pet, which he had with considerable pains trained up for purposes hereafter to be explained.
There was nothing remarkable in the passage, unless that every creature on board was sea-sick, except the pigs; even to them, however, the change was a disagreeable one; for to be pent up in the hold of a ship was a deprivation of liberty, which, fresh as they were from their native hills, they could not relish. They felt, therefore, as patriots, a loss of freedom, but not a whit of appetite; for, in truth, of the latter no possible vicissitude short of death could deprive them.
Phil, however, with an assumed air of simplicity absolutely stupid, disposed of them to a Yorkshire dealer at about twice the value they would have brought in Ireland, though as pigs went in England it was low enough. He declared that they had been fed on tip-top feeding: which was literally true, as he afterwards admitted that the tops of nettles and potato stalks constituted the only nourishment they had got for three weeks before.
The Yorkshireman looked with great contempt upon what he considered a miserable essay to take him in.