“Thin I'll bring you the same that Father Maguire got last night on his way home afther anointin' 'ould Katty Duffy,” replied Brady. “I'm sure, whatever I might be afther giving to strangers, Tim, I'd be long sorry to give yous anything but the right sort.”
“That's a gay man, Barny,” said Traynor, “but off wid you like a shot, and let us get it under our tooth first, an' then we'll tell you more about it—A big rogue is the same Barny,” he added, after Brady had gone to bring in the poteen, “an' never sells a dhrop that's not one whiskey and five wathers.”
“But he couldn't expose it on you; Jack,” observed Connell; “you're too ould a hand about the pot for that. Warn't you in the mountains last week?”
“Ay: but the curse of Cromwell upon the thief of a gauger, Simpson—himself and a pack o' redcoats surrounded us when we war beginnin' to double, and the purtiest runnin' that ever you seen was lost; for you see, before you could cross yourself, we had the bottoms knocked clane out of the vessels; so that the villains didn't get a hole in our coats, as they thought they would.”
“I tell you,” observed O'Neil, “there's a bad pill* somewhere about us.”
* This means a treacherous person who cannot depended
upon.
“Ay, is there, Owen,” replied Traynor; “and what is more, I don't think he's a hundhre miles from the place where we're sittin' in.”
“Faith, maybe so Jack,” returned the other.
“I'd never give into that,” said Murphy. “'Tis Barny Brady that would never turn informer—the same thing isn't in him, nor in any of his breed; there's not a man in the parish I'd thrust sooner.”
“I'd jist thrust him,” replied Traynor, “as far as I could throw a cow by the tail. Arrah, what's the rason that the gauger never looks next or near his place, an' it's well known that he sells poteen widout a license, though he goes past his door wanst a week?”