The next day the Petty Sessions were to be held at Roundstone, a little town which has lately sprung up near the noble bay of that name. I was glad to see some specimens of Connemara litigation, as also to behold at least one thousand beautiful views that lie on the five miles of road between the town and Ballynahinch. Rivers and rocks, mountains and sea, green plains and bright skies, how (for the hundred-and-fiftieth time) can pen-and-ink set you down? But if Berghem could have seen those blue mountains, and Karel du Jardin could have copied some of these green airy plains, with their brilliant little coloured groups of peasants, beggars, horsemen, many an Englishman would know Connemara upon canvas, as he does Italy or Flanders now.
CHAPTER XVIII
ROUNDSTONE PETTY SESSIONS
‘THE temple of august Themis,’ as a Frenchman would call the Sessions-room at Roundstone, is an apartment of some twelve feet square, with a deal table and a couple of chairs for the accommodation of the magistrates, and a Testament with a paper cross pasted on it to be kissed by the witnesses and complainants who frequent the court. The law-papers, warrants, etc., are kept on the Session-clerk’s bed in an adjoining apartment, which commands a fine view of the courtyard—where there is a stack of turf, a pig, and a shed beneath which the magistrates’ horses were sheltered during the sitting. The Sessions-clerk is a gentleman ‘having,’ as the phrase is here, both the English and Irish languages, and interpreting for the benefit of the worshipful bench.
And if the cockney reader suppose that in this remote country spot, so wild, so beautiful, so distant from the hum and vice of cities, quarrelling is not, and Litigation never shows her snaky head, he is very much mistaken. From what I saw, I would recommend any ingenious young attorney whose merits are not appreciated in the Metropolis, to make an attempt upon the village of Roundstone; where as yet, I believe, there is no solicitor, and where an immense and increasing practice might speedily be secured. Mr. O’Connell, who is always crying out ‘Justice for Ireland,’ finds strong supporters among the Roundstonians, whose love of justice for themselves is inordinate. I took down the plots of the five first little litigious dramas which were played before Mr. Martin and the stipendiary magistrate.
Case 1.—A boy summoned a young man for beating him so severely that he kept his bed for a week, thereby breaking an engagement with his master, and losing a quarter’s wages.
The defendant stated, in reply, that the plaintiff was engaged—in a field through which defendant passed with another person—setting two little boys to fight; on which defendant took plaintiff by the collar and turned him out of the field. A witness who was present swore that defendant never struck plaintiff at all, nor kicked him, nor ill-used him, further than by pushing him out of the field.
As to the loss of his quarter’s wages, the plaintiff ingeniously proved that he had afterwards returned to his master, that he had worked out his time, and that he had in fact received already the greater part of his hire. Upon which the case was dismissed, the defendant quitting court without a stain upon his honour.
Case 2 was a most piteous and lamentable case of killing a cow; the plaintiff stepped forward with many tears and much gesticulation to state the fact, and also to declare that she was in danger of her life from the defendant’s family.
It appeared on the evidence that a portion of the defendant’s respectable family are at present undergoing the rewards which the law assigns to those who make mistakes in fields with regard to the ownership of sheep which sometimes graze there. The defendant’s father, O’Damon, for having appropriated one of the fleecy bleaters of O’Melibœus, was at present past beyond sea to a country where wool, and consequently mutton, is so plentiful, that he will have the less temptation. Defendant’s brothers tread the Ixionic wheel for the same offence. Plaintiff’s son had been the informer in the case, hence the feud between the families, the threats on the part of the defendants, the murder of the innocent cow.