The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 18

He was wont to reward his car-driver with a gla.s.s of whisky, and gave it to him in an antique gla.s.s, which did not contain as much as cabby wished for.

'That's a very quare gla.s.s, captain,' says he.

'Yes,' replied Captain Stevens; 'that's blown gla.s.s.'

'Why, Captain,' says the carman, 'the man must have been d.a.m.ned short in the breath that blew that.'

This would no doubt have been the opinion of a Dublin carman who was in the habit of bringing a present to an acquaintance of mine from a lady living at some distance, and being recompensed with a gla.s.s of grog. By degrees, however, the water grew to be the predominant partner in the union within the gla.s.s, so at last he burst out in disgust:--

'If you threw a tumbler of whisky over Carlisle Bridge, it would be better grog than that at the Pigeon House.'

Which being interpreted into c.o.c.kneyism would read, 'If you threw a gla.s.s of whisky over Westminster Bridge it would be better grog than that at Greenwich Pier.'

Still all consumption of liquor is not confined to Ireland, and I well remember when I was with Bogue in Scotland, that one night he had a fellow-farmer of the very best type to dine with him, and about ten o'clock, with much difficulty, my man and I hoisted him into the saddle.

An hour afterwards we heard a knock at the door, and a voice rather quaveringly inquired:--

'Pleash, can you tell me the way to X., I have lost my way?'

The tracks next morning revealed he had been riding round and round the house without once quitting the vicinity, which was almost as bad as Mark Twain's famous nocturnal perambulation with his pedometer, when he went on a tramp abroad!

Of potation stories I could tell scores more, and the Tralee Club has seen enough whisky imbibed within its walls to drown all the members.

A quaint character named Mullane was at one time steward, and decidedly astonished a member, who was a total abstainer, by charging him in his bill for three tumblers of punch.

'Well,' explained Mullane, 'it's this way. Some take six tumblers, and some takes none, so I strikes an average--and to tell you the truth, it's mighty convenient for the great majority.'

A quaint member of the club was Mr. Edward Morris. He was extremely diminutive, and he wore an eyegla.s.s. One evening he was standing on the first landing, pondering in a bemused state whether he could get downstairs without falling, when a pursey little doctor trotted past him without even touching the bannister.

This inspired Morris with courage, so he let go his hold of the bal.u.s.trade, whereupon he promptly fell on the physician, and both rolled to the bottom of the stairs.

Thence in hiccuping tones were heard:--

'Waiter! Waiter, put the gla.s.s in my eye, and let me see who the scoundrel was who struck me.'

On another evening in the club, when he had imbibed very freely, he ordered an additional gla.s.s of grog, and began to moralise aloud, addressing it after this fas.h.i.+on:--

'Gla.s.s of grog, if I drink you now, you'll cut the legs from under me.

And yet I want you, and I will not do without you. So I know what I will do. I'll go to bed and I'll drink you there, for I don't care a d.a.m.n what you do to me then.'

The indifference of a drunken man to subsequent consequences was rather quaintly shown by that weird individual Dr. Tanner, when he went up to Sir Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in the lobby of the House of Commons, and abruptly observed:--

'You're a fool.'

Sir Ellis fixed him with his eyegla.s.s, and, in disgusted tones, replied:--

'You're drunk.'

'I suppose so,' retorted the Irishman, 'but then I'll be sober to-morrow'--in the most plaintive tone, then in a crescendo of scorn--'

whereas you'll always be a fool.'

Moreover as he slouched down the lobby, he was heard to say:--

'If I do get a headache, I've a head to have it in, not a frame on which to hang an eyegla.s.s.'

That is a political amenity on which I will not dwell.

Very little money-lending is to be heard of in the south of Ireland, and in all my experience I only remember one case in Kerry. Tenants in Ireland, however, have great horror of breaking bulk, and many of them will do a bill for a neighbour when they have deposits in the bank for themselves. As it is a point of honour never to refuse a friend in this respect, you can easily imagine the amount of 'paper' which is fluttering.

Even when a farmer has a tidy sum of money on deposit with the bank at one per cent., if he wants to employ a sum for a short time, say for the purchase of cattle, he prefers to raise the money on a bill at six per cent.

That is to say, the bank is lending him his own money at five per cent.--a truly Hibernian trait, which it would be difficult to beat anywhere.

A bill for drink is not recoverable, but occasionally an insidious publican will take a man's I.O.U. and sue on that.

One applied to me to help him to get the money from a tenant.

'You must show me the account,' said I.

As I suspected, there was whisky in it, and I declined on the spot.

All drink in Ireland is on cash down terms only.

If they gave tick, they would never recover the money, and if every Irishman is a knowing scoundrel, the publican is a trifle more knowledgable than the customer, whose brains are besodden.

A man, who had been a servant of mine, started a public near Tralee, and thinking he would get customers from the other whisky stores, he gave tick. His popularity lasted just as long as the tick did, and a week later he was broke. I do not say so much about Tralee being able to support one hundred and sixty liquor shops, because there is a little s.h.i.+pping, but how Cahirciveen can enable fifty publicans to thrive is a melancholy mystery to me.

I was animadverting once, at Dingle, on the topic, when one of my labourers remarked:--

'It's the gentry does the drinking.'

'Now that's very curious,' said I, 'for as there are only two of us, and as I never touch spirits, the other must have such a thirst that he'd consume the bay if only it were made of whisky.'

In these democratic days, it is as well to resist any undue aspersion on the upper cla.s.ses.

To pa.s.s any aspersion on the bibulous propensities of a tenant of mine named Flaherty would be impossible. When he was buying his farm, I told him the Government ought to take him on very easy terms, when they became his landlords.

'And for why?' he asked.

'Because,' I replied, 'the duty you pay on the whisky you drink is more than twenty times your annual rent.'

I had, however, one personal ill.u.s.tration of the drinking propensity in Scotland, which I think is worth preserving. It is some years now since I went to see a certain farmer who, his wife told me, on noticing my approach, was compelled to go upstairs to cool his head as it was after dinner. She said this much in the same casual tone, as I should mention that my wife had gone up early to dress for that meal.

Next, I heard heavy splas.h.i.+ng of water, and then a crash which portended that the farmer had fallen over the washstand, making a fearful clatter.

In rushed the drab of a servant maid, perfectly indifferent to my presence, shrieking:--

'O missus, come up, come up, the maister is just miraculous among the chaney!'