“I'm afraid your friend's cabin won't afford much accommodation for a gentleman.”
“Why, then,” says Corney, “I'll just give you a bit of a bird's-eye view of it, and you'll judge for yourself. As you go in, there's a remarkably fine dunghill, on each side of the door, built up as straight as two walls,—only a little loose at the top,—so that they forms a sort of artificial porch, or portico, to the house; and, at the other side o' the window, there's another wall o' dung, that reaches chuck up to the gable. When you go in, if you look to the right, there's a place where Luke sits and makes brogues, when he's in the humour for it; and you'll see a pair of channel-pumps, hanging by wooden pegs in the wall, which he made when he worked in Waterford; and among the tools,—I mane, the awl, and strap, and stone,—no doubt but there's the broken crockery he had his dinner in, this day six months, when he'd a fit o' work on him, and wouldn't, for a moment, quit the brogues he was then making, and which ar'n't finished yet, nor never will: for the next time he sits down to work, he'll begin another pair, and lave off again, when he's just done three quarters of each of them. Though he's the finest workman, they say, within seven baronies, Luke and his family are the best customers to Jack Sheelan the shoemaker, in the whole place: for Luke has other ways o' getting money than with his hammer and awl,—it's himself that has, then! He's come of a fine family too,—though I say it, that's his cousin,—for he's a Sweeney by birth, and has a right to be called so: he was, long ago, and would be now, if he hadn't quarrelled with his father's family, and sworn, out of spite, never to wear their name again as long as he breathed: so he took to his mother's—she was a Fogarty;—and you couldn't offend him more any way in the world than you would if you upset his whiskey, singed his nose while he was asleep, or called him Luke Sweeney.”
“He's a room above stairs, I hope,” says the gentleman.
“He had; and the floor of it went three parts across the kitchen; and when you got up, you could look over a board and see your peathees boiling below for breakfast:—and you might, to this day, if the rain hadn't soaked through the ould thatch and rotted the timber, so that it fell down with nineteen of us, one night at a dance, years and years ago.”
“Then I'll be compelled to sleep with nothing above me but the bare thatch!”
“That, and the cobwebs:—and you'll see how the big spiders will run down their little ropes, and dangle over the table, when I'm playing Garry-hone-a-gloria!—But there's no harm in the cratures; nor much in ould Ramilies herself, if she hasn't been drinking. I've known her get so drunk, on beer-grounds they gave her at The Beg, that it took seven men and a boy to bring her home, with Luke Fogarty's sister going before, pinching one o' the little pigs, so as to make him squeal out, by the way of wheedling her on quietly.”
“Right glad am I that I've my dog to watch me:—but, of course, they'll keep her out if I ask it,” says the gentleman.
“They will, if she'll let them; but her word isn't worth a bad song, if you could get her to give it;—and you couldn't, could you?—But, na boeklish! hav'n't you your dog!—I'll promise to persuade Fogarty to give you up his own little black oak bedstead, that stands beside the chimney: and then who knows but you'll get the canvass bed stuffed with louchaun—that's the chaff that comes from the oats when they're winnowed—and three rugs to cover you! But what's better than all, though we shouldn't be there till midnight,—and, faith! then, we won't at this rate,—there'll be an iligant supper, and all the gorlochs—except Susey, the eldest—put to bed. What'll we have, you'd like to know, eh?—Well, then, I'd tell you, if I could, but I can't. May be, if Luke's had luck lately, we'll get a bonnov,—that's a little pig, you know and if not, there'll be a cobbler's nob, and a dish of caulcannon at any rate, we're sure of hot ghindogues and praupeen, or stirabout, or shloucaun,—that's the sea-weed,—the dillosk, you know, that the girls gather, boiled down to a nicety, and which, as they say, is what Saint Ambrose lived upon, and the same thing you rade of in books, by the name of ambrosia. Rory tells me they'd a breast of mutton,—he don't precisely remember what day, but it was lately,—and we'll get that made up into beggar's-dish, with onions, and a bit of tripe, may be, if it's not eat, and Ramilies hasn't stolen it. That pig's a witch, as I tould you before; but sure you needn't mind her with your dog, need you?—If it comes to the worst, we're certain of peathees, trundled out hot from the crock in the middle of the big table, with a clane hoop on it to keep them from rolling off: and what's finer than peathees when they're smoking, and grinning at you through their red jackets? With them and milk (I'll engage for him, Luke will be able to give you your choice, sour milk or new) and two or three piggins o' pothien,—we'll be gay as drovers, and sleep sound wherever we fall. But I'm houlding out all these fine things to you, only to shew you what good luck you'll miss, if you don't tell me who you are, and what is it you'd be doing at The Beg; for it wouldn't be well of me to bring home any one, without knowing head nor hair of him, to my cousin Fogarty's,—would it, now?”
“It isn't at all necessary that I should satisfy your curiosity,” says the gentleman.
“May be, not; but I think so:—so we'd better settle the point before we go further. Arrah! Rory,—Pturr-r!”