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UNDER THE THUMB.
Duck Davie's wife's brother, Paddy Doolan, lives among his pigs, poultry, and potatos, over-right Mick's place,—the man that saw the little Fairy in the oysther-shells. Paddy gets his bread by rearing turkies and geese, and similar commodities, and buying bits o' pigs about here and there, where he can, and selling them at the market in the next town,—may be, once a month or so;—and many's the penny Pat has turned one way or another, any how. Well,—Pat has a wife,—and not a bad one, he ought to think, if he looks about him and sees what other men's are, and draws comparisons. She's not very big; but she has a black eye, and bustles about; and though she wears a whiskey-bottle, she keeps Pat from doing himself harm from much drinking: and if she does have a drop between whiles, more than does her good exactly, why, she keeps up appearances, by always making wry faces whenever she takes a sup of comfort afore her neighbours. She has a limp in her gait, but cooks a cobbler's nob dilicately; and her temper's not bad, though not much better than just middling like the peathees, as we say: still, there's few in the barony with less holes, and holes sooner mended too, in her sherkeen, than Mistress Doolan; and, as wives go, as I said, there's worse than Pat's. She's forty-nine years of age, come Candlemas; but does not keep the house so clane as she might:—but then, to be sure, there's the pigs—
Now for Pat:—he's bow-legged,—which comes, as his wife, who admires him, says, from his riding so much to and fro across the panniers on his garron to market and back: but some think he was so from a boy,—still that doesn't matter;—his legs are quite good enough for every-day work, and nature wouldn't be wise to give holiday limbs to a higgler—would she now? Pat's forefathers must have been from beyond-sea parts, I think; or how would he have such a pale face, and large dull black eyes, without one feature, barring the cocked nose, of us raal ould Irish? If he was a fisherman, may be, he'd get a colour; but, as it is, though he never knows a day's sickness, he's as pale as a white night-cap; and his big eye looks like a piece of sea-coal in milk, or a town chimney-sweep in a snow-storm.
Pat seems so innocent, that many suspect him to be a rogue,—a little sly, or that way inclined;—but Pat says no, and so does Mistress Doolan, and that's something. People tell how much some men and their wives are alike,—faith! so much, as often to be taken for brother and sister; and its true of Dick Reardon who buys Pat's poultry wholesale and sells them out retail, that he and his good woman are as like one another, as a couple of ducks. But that's not the case with Pat and his deary, for they don't match, and you'd wonder what made them mate.
Seventeen or eighteen years ago,—I can't say precisely to a year, but I'll swear to the day,—it was a Tuesday; by token, that it happened the day after Luna mon moch,—the good woman's Monday,—Pat's wife was looking out for him coming home from market; and as he rode down the hill, she saw one of the panniers on the poney weighed down as if it had a load, and the other up in the air. Pat, I must tell you, was the first who brought panniers into this part of the country; the likes o' them was never seen here before, and few with any but himself since. “What ails you, Pat?” said the wife, as soon as Pat came within reach of her voice; it's a little voice when you're near, but it goes a good way for all that:—“what ails you?” says she; “couldn't you sell your turkies?”
“May be, I couldn't; what then?” says he.