Bat won't own he's a Boroo; but we all call him that name in the face of him; and when he goes off,—what will they write on the stone by his grave, if he gets one, think you?—Why, then, “Here lies Bat Boroo, who died of doing nothing.”
And, faith! it's nothing he does, but walk about like a half-sir as he is,—smoking his pipe the whole blessed morning, for the sake, he says, of getting himself an appetite for dinner. But he needn't take the trouble; for it's just as needless, in my mind, as whistling to the sea, when the tide's coming in; and come it will, like Bat's appetite, whether you whistle or no, devouring almost everything in its way. Without a word of a lie, Bat's the biggest eater in all the barony, and the biggest brag,—that is, he was,—to the tail o' that. But, poor fellow! he don't know his infirmity; and thinks his appetite a sign of weakness, instead of sound health: it's the only living thing he takes on about. “There's nothing, Jimmy Fitzgerald,” says he, to me, one day; “there's nothing, in the universal world, I can keep on my stomach,—bad luck to the bit!—for if I ate half a rack of mutton, with peeathees and milk, or a pound of pig's face, or eight or ten red herrings, for my breakfast,—it's hungry I am, in an hour or two again, as though nothing had happened to me that day in the way of provision.”—What think you of that for digestion?
There's three things Bat thinks about, and that's all first, his belly;—secondly, making believe he's not to be frightened, by man or beast, nor even the good people that lives in the moats, and frolics away all night on the heath, and goes to bed in the butter-cups and daisies—it's a wonder to some they've played no tricks with him yet and lastly, that he has much better blood in his body than the people about him.
Now I'll tell you what happened Bat. 'While ago,—three or four years back,—we'd a cunning woman came here,—and it's but little she got,—how would she, when there was little to give?—it was going to a goat's house to look for wool: and plenty of bad luck she prophesied, for nobody had enough to pay for better. Some of it came true enough; and if she spoke truth, there's more mischief behind. She said to me, I'd have my roof down; but it's safe yet, for I trusted in Providence, and put a new beam across it the week after she wint. At last, when she'd tould a power of ill-tidings to many, and no one would go near her for fear, and she'd stood by the abbey-wall for a long hour, waiting for customers, with the people,—men, women, and children,—making a circle about her, who should come up but Misther Bat Boroo, just after taking a good dinner with Paddy Doolan?—“What's the murther here?” says he. So they up and tould him, that nobody dared to have their fates from the cunning-woman.
This was a windfall for Bat,—a glorious occasion for making much of himself. Up he marched to the woman, as though he was going to attack an entrenchment, and crossing her ould yellow hand with the copper,—the best his pocket could afford,—he desired she'd say what would happen him. “Speak bouldly,” says he, “for Bat Muggleburgh isn't the man that's to be frightened by a bulrush.”
“Man,” says she, looking up to him, “you've been a soldier.”
“What then?” says he.
“Here's a line in your hand,”—says she, “a line which tells me, that before another year has gone over your head, you'll be more frightened by a bulrush than ever you was by a baggonet;—and that's saying much.”
Bat bullied her, but bit his lip for vexation; and, by-and-by, you'll hear how he got on, and what came of the cunning-woman's foreboding. But wait a little, for I'm before my story, and must go back.—You heard me say, Bat called himself by the name of Bat Muggleburgh, awhile ago; and so he did: for, as I tould you, he denied the name of Boroo, because he said he'd no call to it; and that Muggleburgh was what he'd a right to,—and he'd own to it, and nothing else. Now, all this may be true enough; Bat's name may be Muggleburgh, and he Dick Boroo's son for all that:—for did any one ever know, or take the trouble to inquire, what was ould Dick's rale name—if he had one—besides Dick?—Boroo was a nick-name he got for some saying or prank, that was past by and forgotten entirely in my time, though the name still stuck to him. He wasn't an Irishman; but where he came from,—except he was a bit of a Dutch smuggler or something in his young days,—myself neither knows nor cares.
It's often he brags,—Bat does,—of the brave coat of arms that belongs to him, if he had his rights; and what great men the Muggleburghs was in times gone by. But that's no matter at all:—there's a regular descendant of the honourable kings of Meath sells butter at Cashel, and is as big a rogue as one here and there. I myself came from a fine family by my mother's side; but what's all the famous blood of her ancestors now?—One of the grandfathers of the worm you trod on o' Monday, had some of the best of it; and for my own part, I don't value that of great Bryan himself a rush and a half: but my mother didn't think so, poor thing,—rest her soul!