‘To give you an idea of my ill fortune: Me brother-‘n-law Burke once sent me three colts of his to sell at this very fair of Ballinasloe, and, for all I could do I could only get a bid for one of ‘em, and sold her for sixteen pound. And d’ye know what that mare was, sir?’ says Mr. Bodkin, giving a thump that made the spoon jump out of the punch-glass for fright. ‘D’ye know who she was? she was Water-Wagtail, sir,—Water-Wagtail! She won fourteen cups and plates in Ireland before she went to Liverpool; and you know what she did there?’ (We said, ‘Oh! of course.’) ‘Well, sir, the man who bought her from me sold her for four hunder’ guineas; and in England she fetched eight hunder’ pounds.
‘Another of them very horses, gentlemen (Tim, some hot wather—screeching hot, you divil—and a sthroke of the limin)—another of them horses that I was refused fifteen pound for, me brother-in-law sould to Sir Rufford Bufford for a hunder’-and-fifty guineas. Wasn’t that luck?
‘Well, sir, Sir Rufford gives Burke his bill at six months, and don’t pay it when it come jue. A pretty pickle Tom Burke was in, as I leave ye to fancy, for he’d paid away the bill, which he thought as good as goold; and sure it ought to be, for Sir Rufford had come of age since the bill was drawn, and before it was due, and, as I needn’t tell you, had slipped into a very handsome property.
‘On the protest of the bill, Burke goes in a fury to Gresham’s in Sackville Street, where the baronet was living, and (would ye believe it?) the latter says he doesn’t intend to meet the bill, on the score that he was a minor when he gave it. On which Burke was in such a rage that he took a horsewhip and vowed he’d beat the baronet to a jelly, and post him in every club in Dublin, and publish every circumstance of the transaction,’
‘It does seem rather a queer one,’ says one of Mr. Bodkin’s hearers.
‘Queer indeed: but that’s not it, you see; for Sir Rufford is as honourable a man as ever lived; and after the quarrel he paid Burke his money, and they’ve been warm friends ever since. But what I want to show ye is our infernal luck. Three months before, Sir Rufford had sold that very horse for three hunder guineas.’
The worthy gentleman had just ordered in a fresh tumbler of his favourite liquor, when we wished him good-night, and slept by no means the worse, because the bedroom candle was carried by one of the prettiest young chambermaids possible.
Next morning, surrounded by a crowd of beggars more filthy, hideous, and importunate than any I think in the most favoured towns of the south, we set off, a coach-load, for Dublin. A clergyman, a guard, a Scotch farmer, a butcher, a bookseller’s hack, a lad bound for Maynooth and another for Trinity, made a varied pleasant party enough, where each, according to his lights, had something to say.
I have seldom seen a more dismal and uninteresting road than that which we now took, and which brought us through the ‘old, inconvenient, ill-built, and ugly town of Athlone.’ The painter would find here, however, some good subjects for his sketch-book, in spite of the commination of the Guide-book. Here, too, great improvements are taking place for the Shannon navigation, which will render the town not so inconvenient as at present it is stated to be; and hard by lies a little village that is known and loved by all the world where English is spoken. It is called Lishoy, but its real name is Auburn, and it gave birth to one Noll Goldsmith, whom Mr. Boswell was in the habit of despising very heartily. At the Quaker town of Moate, the butcher and the farmer dropped off, the clergyman went inside, and their places were filled by four Maynoothians, whose vacation was just at an end. One of them, a freshman, was inside the coach with the clergyman, and told him, with rather a long face, of the dismal discipline of his college. They are not allowed to quit the gates (except on general walks); they are expelled if they read a newspaper; and they begin term with ‘a retreat’ of a week, which time they are made to devote to silence, and, as it is supposed, to devotion and meditation.
I must say the young fellows drank plenty of whisky on the road to prepare them for their year’s abstinence; and, when at length arrived in the miserable village of Maynooth, determined not to go into college that night, but to devote the evening to ‘a lark.’ They were simple, kind-hearted young men, sons of farmers or tradesmen seemingly; and, as is always the case here, except among some of the gentry, very gentlemanlike, and pleasing in manners. Their talk was of this companion and that; how one was in rhetoric, and another in logic, and a third had got his curacy. Wait for a while; and with the happy system pursued within the walls of their college, those smiling good-humoured faces will come out with a scowl, and downcast eyes that seem afraid to look the world in the face. When the time comes for them to take leave of yonder dismal-looking barracks, they will be men no longer, but bound over to the Church, body and soul; their free thoughts chained down and kept in darkness, their honest affections mutilated: well, I hope they will be happy to-night at any rate, and talk and laugh to their hearts’ content. The poor freshman, whose big chest is carried off by the porter yonder to the inn, has but twelve hours more of hearty, natural human life. To-morrow, they will begin their work upon him; cramping his mind, and bitting his tongue, and firing and cutting at his heart,—breaking him to pull the Church chariot. Ah! why didn’t he stop at home, and dig potatoes and get children?