“Rory was right, then, and so I said while ago, when he tould me part of the story; for you'd no business to bate him,—had you, now?—But what makes you wait, sir? If you don't come at once, why, then, good night!—For it's not agreeable to be houlding a conversation such weather as this, with one on a mile-stone under a big umbrella.—Is it coming you are?”
The gentleman talked of borrowing a boat, or backing the car into the pool: but Corney said he couldn't get the one, and wouldn't do the other; and, moreover, that the umbrella must be sacrificed to St. Swithin, for he wasn't reprobate enough to ride in its company. After many more words, the gentleman got down from the mile-stone, with his dog under his arm, and walked through the water like a cat through a puddle. At first he insisted on being allowed his umbrella; but Corney was resolute; and away it wint, at last, scudding over the bog,—frightening up thousands of birds, which flew screaming after it,—until it suddenly sunk in what's called “The Saint's Piggin.” The gentleman wasn't well seated on the car, before Corney thrust a bottle of whiskey into his hand, and threatened him with a quantity of discipline from his wooden leg, if he didn't take a good pull at it.
“It's merry we'll be, as whiskey and good stories can make us,” said the piper: “I don't care a bawbee for St. Swithin, while I've a cork, or even a thumb left, to keep him out of my bottle. But I'll not be disrespectful to the Saint, though, any way why should I?—He does me no more harm than my betters; and if I offended him, mightn't he follow me, far and near, and rain on me wherever I went? May be, you never heard how he served the little nation that lived here long ago how should you, that didn't know where you were, and you sitting on Henniker's folly? Why, then, I'll tell you:—Once upon a time—long ago it was, in the days of our forefathers—this place was peopled by Mathawns, and one King Ounshough reigned over them, and he and his subjects were all believers in blarney. Well, who should come to the king one day, but a man that said, if he got the weight of what he could ate during nine days, in gold, and had his own people to wait on him, he'd make all the spiders grow so big, that the ladies might wear their webs by the way of veils; and after that, may be, for more gold, he'd carry his invention to such a pitch, that the insects should weave fishing-nets, strong enough to catch whales themselves,—to say nothing of salmon and smaller fish.—Well, while he was at work, along comes another, who sould them a secret for planting trees in such a way, that they'd grow of themselves into ships: and, says he, 'for a trifle, I'll teach you how to sow hemp and flax, in little pots, on their branches, so that they may shoot up into ready-made sails and rigging; and all by philosophy, without a morsel of magic.'—Wasn't this more than men could wish? The boobies bit at the bait,—high and low; and thinks they to themselves, 'what fine fellows we'll be, to catch whales and conquer the world by philosophy!'—While the trees were growing, and the spiders were spinning, there comes another man, and says he, 'Don't you know me, any of you?'—And some suspected they did; and others was almost sure he was related to them by their mother's side; but nobody owned him. So then, says he, 'I'll tell you who I am: that moon yonder, that lights you, is my property; you've had the use of it for years, but I've been too generous. I'm grown poor, and can't be liberal any longer:—you sha'n't have the light of my moon gratis; so pay five hundred a year, or I'll put it out: and then what'll you do?'—Well, what they'd do, sure enough, they didn't know; but before they'd done debating upon it, up comes a smart little man—a foreigner—who advised them to pay what was asked for the present, and if they'd subscribe for him, he'd get up an opposition moon, that should shine better, and be full all the year round, for half the expense of the ould one. Wasn't that too good an offer to be rejected?—It was; and the Mathawns bit at that too. But this wasn't all:—before the new moon was made, or the trees grown into ships, or the spiders' webs big enough for veils, the people was persuaded by a traveller to let him build them an umbrella, that should be large enough to keep the rain off every inch of the country; and it was to be so contrived that they could let it down by machinery, if the land wanted water, and put it up when they'd just as much wet as they liked. Now this was so great an insult to St. Swithin, that he began raining at once, and before they could put up their umbrella, dispersed the whole people;—making the country a bog, as you see it; and never ceasing to pelt away with his little pellets of water, from that day to this. But though they were scattered, the boobies wasn't destroyed. You may find some of their descendants in every corner of the world, who are as staunch believers in blarney, as ever their forefathers were in the days of ould Ounshough the king.—Isn't that a fine story for you, now, such a murdering wet evening as this?”
“Bathershin, man!” says the gentleman, with a sneer of contempt; “call it a lie, and give me the bottle, for I'm cold after it.”
“Don't you believe it, then?”
“How could I,” says the gentleman, “when it's lies, and you know it?”
“Then sorrow the sup out of my bottle you get, sir, and sorrow the step goes the garron, until you believe it. Arrah! Rory,—pturr-r!”
“Pturr-r!” roared Rory, at the top of his voice, and stock-still stood the horse, as in duty bound.
“Is it quite mad you are, you dirty blackguard?” says the gentleman.
“Blackguard your betters!” says Corney: “Musha! then, if the likes o' you was rolled in the bog, what harm?—You couldn't be worse than you were; for it's dirt itself you are!—I'll say that for you, since you put me up.”