Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee Part 5

Next in order are the curses of priests in their private capacity, pilgrims, mendicants, and idiots. Of those also Paddy entertains a wholesome dread; a circ.u.mstance which the pilgrim and mendicant turn with great judgment to their own account. Many a legend and anecdote do such chroniclers relate, when the family, with whom they rest for the night, are all seated around the winter hearth. These are often ill.u.s.trative of the baneful effects of the poor man's curse. Of course they produce a proper impression; and, accordingly, Paddy avoids offending such persons in any way that might bring him under their displeasure.

A certain cla.s.s of cursers much dreaded in Ireland are those of the widow and the orphan. There is, however, something touching and beautiful in this fear of injuring the sorrowful and unprotected. It is, we are happy to say, a becoming and prominent feature in Paddy's character; for, to do him justice in his virtues as well as in his vices, we repeat that he cannot be surpa.s.sed in his humanity to the lonely widow and her helpless orphans. He will collect a number of his friends, and proceed with them in a body to plant her bit of potato ground, to reap her oats, to draw home her turf, or secure her hay. Nay, he will beguile her of her sorrows with a natural sympathy and delicacy that do him honor; his heart is open to her complaints, and his hand ever extended to a.s.sist her.

There is a strange opinion to be found in Ireland upon the subject of curses. The peasantry think that a curse, no matter how uttered, will fall on something; but that it depends upon the person against whom it is directed, whether or not it will descend on him. A curse, we have heard them say, will rest for seven years in the air, ready to alight upon the head of the person who provoked the malediction. It hovers over him, like a kite over its prey, watching the moment when he may be abandoned by his guardian angel: if this occurs, it shoots with the rapidity of a meteor on his head, and clings to him in the shape of illness, temptation, or some other calamity.

They think, however, that the blessing of one person may cancel the curse of another; but this opinion does not affect the theory we have just mentioned. When a man experiences an unpleasant accident, they will say, "He has had some poor body's curse;" and, on the contrary, when he narrowly escapes it, they say, "He has had some poor body's blessing."

There is no country in which the phrases of good-will and affection are so strong as in Ireland. The Irish language actually flows with the milk and honey of love and friends.h.i.+p. Sweet and palatable is it to the other s.e.x, and sweetly can Paddy, with his deluding ways, administer it to them from the top of his mellifluous tongue, as a dove feeds her young, or as a kind mother her babe, shaping with her own pretty mouth every morse of the delicate viands before it goes into that of the infant. In this manner does Paddy, seated behind a ditch, of a bright Sunday, when he ought to be at Ma.s.s, feed up some innocent girl, not with "false music," but with sweet words; for nothing more musical or melting than his brogue ever dissolved a female heart. Indeed, it is of the danger to be apprehended from the melody of his voice, that the admirable and appropriate proverb speaks; for when he addresses his sweetheart, under circ.u.mstances that justify suspicion, it is generally said--"Paddy's feedin' her up wid false music."

What language has a phrase equal in beauty and tenderness to _cushla machree_--_pulse of my heart?_ Can it be paralleled in the whole range of all that are, ever were, or ever will be spoken, for music, sweetness, and a knowledge of anatomy? If Paddy is unrivalled at swearing, he fairly throws the world behind him at the blarney. In professing friends.h.i.+p, and making love, give him but a taste of the native, and he is a walking honey-comb, that every woman who sees him wishes to have a lick at; and Heaven knows, that frequently, at all times, and in all places, does he get himself licked on their account.

Another expression of peculiar force is _vick machree_--or, son of my heart. This is not only elegant, but affectionate, beyond almost any other phrase except the foregoing. It is, in a sense, somewhat different from that in which the philosophical poet has used it, a beautiful comment upon the sentiment of "the child's the father of the man,"

uttered by the great, we might almost say, the glorious, Wordsworth.

We have seen many a youth, on more occasions than one, standing in profound affliction over the dead body of his aged father, exclaiming, "_Ahir, vick machree--vick machree--wuil thu marra wo'um? Wuil thu marra wo'um?_ Father, son of my heart, son of my heart, art thou dead from me--art thou dead from me?" An expression, we think, under any circ.u.mstances, not to be surpa.s.sed in the intensity of domestic affection which it expresses; but under those alluded to, we consider it altogether elevated in exquisite and poetic beauty above the most powerful symbols of Oriental imagery.

A third phrase peculiar to love and affection, is "_Manim asthee hu--or_, My soul's within you." Every person acquainted with languages knows how much an idiom suffers by a literal translation. How beautiful, then, how tender and powerful, must those short expressions be, uttered, too, with a fervor of manner peculiar to a deeply feeling people, when, even after a literal translation, they carry so much of their tenderness and energy into a language whose genius is cold when compared to the glowing beauty of the Irish.

_Mauourneen dheelish_, too, is only a short phrase, but, coming warm and mellowed from Paddy's lips into the ear of his _colleen dhas_, it is a perfect spell--a sweet murmur, to which the _lenis susurrus_ of the Hybla bees is, with all their honey, jarring discord. How tame is "My sweet darling," its literal translation, compared to its soft and lulling intonations. There is a dissolving, entrancing, beguiling, deluding, flattering, insinuating, coaxing, winning, inveigling, roguish, palavering, come-overing, comedhering, consenting, blarneying, killing, willing, charm in it, worth all the philters that ever the gross knavery of a withered alchemist imposed upon the credulity of those who inhabit the other nations of the earth--for we don't read that these shrivelled philter-mongers ever prospered in Ireland.

No, no--let Paddy alone. If he hates intensely and effectually, he loves intensely, comprehensively, and gallantly. To love with power is a proof of a large soul, and to hate well is, according to the great moralist, a thing in itself to be loved. Ireland is, therefore, through all its sects, parties, and religions, an amicable nation. Their affections are, indeed, so vivid, that they scruple not sometimes to kill each other with kindness: but we hope that the march of love and friends.h.i.+p will not only keep pace with, but outstrip, the march of intellect.

Peter Cornell was for many years of his life a pattern and proverb for industry and sobriety. He first began the world as keeper of a shebeen-house at the cross-roads, about four miles from the town of Ballypoteen. He was decidedly an honest man to his neighbors, but a knave to excis.e.m.e.n, whom he hated by a kind of instinct that he had, which prompted him, in order to satisfy his conscience, to render them every practicable injury within the compa.s.s of his ingenuity.

Shebeen-house keepers and excis.e.m.e.n have been, time out of mind, destructive of each other; the exciseman pouncing like a beast or bird of prey upon the shebeen man and his illicit spirits; the shebeen man staving in the exciseman, like a barrel of doublings, by a knock from behind a hedge, which sometimes sent him to that world which is emphatically the world of spirits. For this, it some happened that the shebeen man was hanged; but as his death only multiplied that of the excis.e.m.e.n in a geometrical ratio, the sharp-scented fraternity resolved, if possible, not to risk their lives, either by exposing themselves to the necessity of travelling by night, or prosecuting by day. In this they acted wisely and prudently: fewer of the unfortunate peasantry were shot in their rencounters with the yeomanry or military on such occasions, and the retaliations became by degrees less frequent, until, at length, the murder of a gauger became a rare occurrence in the country.

Peter, before his marriage, had wrought as laboring servant to a man who kept two or three private stills in those caverns among the remote mountains, to which the gauger never thought of penetrating, because he supposed that no human enterprise would have ever dreamt of advancing farther into them than appeared to him to be practicable. In this he was frequently mistaken: for though the still-house was in many cases inaccessible to horses, yet by the contrivance of slipes--a kind of sledge--a dozen men could draw a couple of sacks of barley with less trouble, and at a quicker pace, than if horses only had been employed.

By this, and many other similar contrivances, the peasantry were often able to carry on the work of private distillation in places so distant, that few persons could suspect them as likely to be chosen for such purposes. The uncommon personal strength, the daring spirit, and great adroitness of Peter Connell, rendered him a very valuable acquisition to his master in the course of his illicit occupations. Peter was, in addition to his other qualities, sober and ready-witted, so that whenever the gauger made his appearance, his expedients to baffle him were often inimitable. Those expedients did not, however, always arise from the exigency of the moment; they were often deliberately, and with much exertion of ingenuity, planned by the proprietors and friends of such establishments, perhaps for weeks before the gauger's visit occurred. But, on the other hand, as the gauger's object was to take them, if possible, by surprise, it frequently happened that his appearance was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. It was then that the prompt ingenuity of the people was fully seen, felt, and understood by the baffled exciseman, who too often had just grounds for bitterly cursing their talent at outwitting him.

Peter served his master as a kind of superintendent in such places, until he gained the full knowledge of distilling, according to the processes used by the most popular adepts in the art. Having acquired this, he set up as a professor, and had excellent business. In the meantime, he had put together by degrees a small purse of money, to the amount of about twenty guineas--no inconsiderable sum for a young Irishman who intends to begin the world on his own account. He accordingly married, and, as the influence of a wife is usually not to be controlled during the honey-moon, Mrs. Connell prevailed on Peter to relinquish his trade of distiller, and to embrace some other mode of life that might not render their living so much asunder necessary. Peter suffered himself to be prevailed upon, and promised to have nothing more to do with private distillation, as a distiller. One of the greatest curses attending this lawless business, is the idle and irregular habit of life which it gradually induces. Peter could not now relish the labor of an agriculturist, to which he had been bred, and yet he was too prudent to sit down and draw his own and his wife's support from so exhaustible a source as twenty guineas. Two or three days pa.s.sed, during which "he cudgelled his brains," to use his own expression, in plans for future subsistence; two or three consultations were held with Ellish, in which their heads were laid together, and, as it was still the honey-moon, the subject-matter of the consultation, of course, was completely forgotten. Before the expiration of a second month, however, they were able to think of many other things, in addition to the fondlings and endearments of a new-married couple. Peter was every day becoming more his own man, and Ellish by degrees more her own woman.

"The purple light of love," which had changed Peter's red head into a rich auburn, and his swivel eye into a knowing wink, exceedingly irresistible in his bachelors.h.i.+p, as he made her believe, to the country girls, had pa.s.sed away, taking the aforesaid auburn along with it and leaving nothing but the genuine carrot behind. Peter, too, on opening his eyes one morning about the beginning of the third month, perceived that his wife was, after all, nothing more than a thumping red-cheeked wench, with good eyes, a mouth rather large, and a nose very much resembling, in its curve, the seat of a saddle, allowing the top to correspond with the pummel.

"Pether," said she, "it's like a dhrame to me that you're neglectin'

your business, alanna."

"Is it you, beauty? but, maybe, you'd first point out to me what business, barrin' b.u.t.therin' up yourself, I have to mind, you phanix bright?"

"Quit yourself, Pether! it's time for you to give up your ould ways; you caught one bird wid them, an' that's enough. What do you intind to do!

It's full time for you to be lookin' about you."

"Lookin' about me! What do you mane Ellish?"

"The d.i.c.kens a bit o' me thought of it," replied the wife, laughing at the unintentional allusion to the circ.u.mspect character of Peter's eyes,--"upon my faix, I didn't--ha, ha, ha!"

"Why, thin, but you're full o'your fun, sure enough, if that's what you're at. Maybe, avourneen, if I had looked right afore me, as I ought to do, it's Katty Murray an' her snug farm I'd have, instead of"--

Peter hesitated. The rapid feelings of a woman, and an Irishwoman, quick and tender, had come forth and subdued him. She had not voluntarily alluded to his eyes; but on seeing Peter offended, she immediately expressed that sorrow and submission which are most powerful when accompanied by innocence, and when meekly a.s.sumed, to pacify rather than to convince. A tear started to her eye, and with a voice melted into unaffected tenderness, she addressed him, but he scarcely gave her time to speak.

"No, avourneen, no, I won't say what I was goin' to mintion. I won't indeed, Ellish, dear; an' forgive me for woundin' your feelin's _alanna dhas_. (* My pretty child.) h.e.l.l resave her an' her farm! I dunna what put her into my head at all; but I thought you wor jokin' me about my eyes: an' sure if you war, acushla, that's no rason that I'd not allow you to do that an' more wid your own Pether. Give me a slewsther, (* a kiss of fondness) agrah--a sweet one, now!"

He then laid his mouth to hers, and immediately a sound, nearly resembling a pistol-shot, was heard through every part of the house. It was, in fact, a kiss upon a scale of such magnitude, that the Emperor of Morocco might not blush to be charged with it. A reconciliation took place, and in due time it was determined that Peter, as he understood poteen, should open a shebeen house. The moment this resolution was made, the wife kept coaxing him, until he took a small house at the cross-roads before alluded to, where, in the course of a short time, he was established, if not in his own line, yet in a mode of life approximating to it as nearly as the inclination of Ellish would permit.

The cabin which they occupied had a kitchen in the middle, and a room at each end of it, in one of which was their own humble chaff bed, with its blue quilted drugget cover; in the other stood a couple of small tables, some stools, a short form, and one chair, being a present from his father-in-law. These const.i.tuted Peter's whole establishment, so far +as it defied the gauger. To this we must add! a five-gallon keg of spirits hid in the garden, and a roll of smuggled tobacco. From the former he bottled, over night, as much as was usually drank the following day; and from the tobacco, which was also kept under ground, he cut, with the same caution, as much as to-morrow's exigencies might require. This he kept in his coat-pocket, a place where the gauger would never think of searching for it, divided into halfpenny and pennyworths, ounces or half-ounces, according as it might be required; and as he had it without duty, the liberal spirit in which he dealt it out to his neighbors soon brought him a large increase of custom.

Peter's wife was an excellent manager, and he himself a pleasant, good-humored man, full of whim and inoffensive mirth. His powers of amus.e.m.e.nt were of a high order, considering his station in life and his want of education. These qualities contributed, in a great degree, to bring both the young and old to his house during the long winter nights, in order to hear the fine racy humor with which he related his frequent adventures and battles with excis.e.m.e.n. In the summer evenings, he usually engaged a piper or a fiddler, and had a dance, a contrivance by which he not only rendered himself popular, but increased his business.

In this mode of life, the greatest source of anxiety to Peter and Ellish was the difficulty of not offending their friends by refusing to give them credit. Many plans, were, with great skill and forethought, devised to obviate this evil; but all failed. A short board was first procured, on which they got written with chalk--

"No credit giv'n--barrin' a thrifle to Pether's friends."

Before a week pa.s.sed, after this intimation, the number of "Pether's friends" increased so rapidly, that neither he nor Ellish knew the half of them. Every scamp in the parish was hand and glove with him: the drinking tribe, particularly, became desperately attached to him and Ellish. Peter was naturally kind-hearted, and found that his firmest resolutions too often gave way before the open flattery with which he was a.s.sailed. He then changed his hand, and left Ellish to bear the brunt of their blarney. Whenever any person or persons were seen approaching the house, Peter, if he had reason to suspect an attack upon his indulgence, prepared himself for a retreat. He kept his eye to the window, and if they turned from the direct line of the road, he immediately slipped into bed, and lay close in order to escape them. In the meantime they enter.

"G.o.d save all here. Ellish, agra machree, how are you?"

"G.o.d save you kindly! Faix, I'm mid-dim', I thank you, Condy: how is yourself, an' all at home?"

"Devil a heartier, barrin' my father, that's touched wid a loss of appet.i.te afther his meals--ha, ha, ha!"

"Musha, the d.i.c.kens be an you, Condy, but you're your father's son, any way; the best company in Europe is the same man. Throth, whether you're jokin' or not, I'd be sarry to hear of anything to his disadvantage, dacent man. Boys, won't you go down to the other room?"

"Go way wid yez, boys, till I spake to Ellish here about the affairs o' the nation. Why, Ellish, you stand the cut all to pieces. By the contints o' the book, you do; Pether doesn't stand it half so well. How is he, the thief?"

"Throth, he's not well, to-day, in regard of a smotherin' about the heart he tuck this mornin' afther his breakfast. He jist laid himself on the bed a while, to see if it would go off of him--G.o.d be praised for all his marcies!"

"Thin, upon my _sole_vation, I'm sarry to hear it, and so will all at home, for there's not in the parish we're sittin' in a couple that our family has a greater regard an' friends.h.i.+p for, than him and yourself.

Faix, my modher, no longer ago than Friday night last, argued down Bartle Meegan's throath, that you and Biddy Martin wor the two portliest weemen that comes into the chapel. G.o.d forgive myself, I was near quarrelin' wid Bartle on the head of it, bekase I tuck my modher's part, as I had a good right to do."

"Thrath, I'm thankful to you both, Condy, for your kindness."

"Oh, the sarra taste o' kindness was in it at all, Ellish, 'twas only the truth; an' as long as I live, I'll stand up for that."

"Arrah, how is your aunt down at Carntall?"

"Indeed, thin, but middlin', not gettin' her health: she'll soon give the crow a puddin', any way; thin, Ellish, you thief, I'm in for the yallow boys. Do you know thim that came in wid me?"

"Why, thin, I can't say I do. Who are they, Condy?"

"Why one o' them's a bachelor to my sisther Norah, a very dacent boy, indeed--him wid the frieze jock upon him, an' the buckskin breeches.

The other three's from Teernabraighera beyant. They're related to my brother-in-law, Mick Dillon, by his first wife's brother-in-law's uncle.

They're come to this neighborhood till the 'Sizes, bad luck to them, goes over; for you see, they're in a little throuble."

"The Lord grant them safe out of it, poor boys!"

"I brought them up here to treat them, poor fellows; an', Ellish, avourneen, you must credit me for whatsomever we may have. The thruth is, you see, that when we left home, none of us had any notion of drinkin' or I'd a put somethin' in my pocket, so that I'm taken at an average.--Bud-an'-age! how is little Dan? Sowl, Ellish, that goorsoon, when he grows up, will be a credit to you. I don't think there's a finer child in Europe of his age, so there isn't."

"Indeed, he's a good child, Condy. But Condy, avick, about givin'

credit:--by thim five cra.s.ses, if I could give score to any boy in the parish, it 'ud be to yourself. It was only last night that I made a promise against doin' such a thing for man or mortual. We're a'most broken an' harrish'd out o' house an' home by it; an' what's more, Condy, we intend to give up the business. The landlord's at us every day for his rint, an' we owe for the two last kegs we got, but hasn't a rap to meet aither o' thim; an' enough due to us if we could get it together: an' whisper, Condy, atween ourselves, that's what ails Pettier, although he doesn't wish to let an to any one about it."

"Well, but you know I'm safe, Ellish?"