Chapter 8
Expert Climbers—The
Crags—Something Red—The Horrible Edge—David Haggart—Fine Materials—The Greatest
Victory—Extraordinary Robber—The Ruling Passion.
Meanwhile I had become a daring cragsman, a
character to which an English lad has seldom opportunities of aspiring; for in
England there are neither crags nor mountains. Of these, however, as is well
known, there is no lack in Scotland, and the habits of individuals are
invariably in harmony with the country in which they dwell. The Scotch are
expert climbers, and I was now a Scot in most things, particularly in language.
The castle on which I dwelt stood upon a rock, a bold and craggy one, which, at
first sight, would seem to bid defiance to any feet save those of goats and
chamois; but patience and perseverance generally enable mankind to overcome
things which, at first sight, appear impossible. Indeed, what is there above
man's exertions? Unwearied determination will enable him to run with the horse,
to swim with the fish, and assuredly to compete with the chamois and the goat
in agility and sureness of foot. To scale the rock was merely child's play for
the Edinbro' callants. It was my own favourite diversion. I soon found that the
rock contained all manner of strange crypts, crannies, and recesses, where owls
nestled, and the weasel brought forth her young; here and there were small natural
platforms overgrown with long grass and various kinds of plants, where the
climber, if so disposed, could stretch himself, and either give his eyes to
sleep or his mind to thought; for capital places were these same platforms,
either for repose or meditation. The boldest features of the rock are descried
on the southern side, where, after shelving down gently from the wall for some
distance, it terminates abruptly in a precipice, black and horrible, of some
three hundred feet at least, as if the axe of nature had been here employed
cutting sheer down, and leaving behind neither excrescence nor spur—a dizzy
precipice it is, assimilating much to those so frequent in the flinty hills of
Northern Africa, and exhibiting some distant resemblance to that of Gibraltar,
towering in its horridness above the neutral ground.
It was now holiday time, and having nothing
particular wherewith to occupy myself, I not unfrequently passed the greater
part of the day upon the rocks. Once, after scaling the western crags, and
creeping round a sharp angle of the wall, overhung by a kind of watch tower, I
found myself on the southern side. Still keeping close to the wall, I was
proceeding onward, for I was bent upon a long excursion which should embrace
half the circuit of the castle, when suddenly my eye was attracted by the
appearance of something red, far below me; I stopped short, and, looking
fixedly upon it, perceived that it was a human being in a kind of red jacket,
seated on the extreme verge of the precipice, which I have already made a faint
attempt to describe. Wondering who it could be, I shouted; but it took not the
slightest notice, remaining as immovable as the rock on which it sat. "I
should never have thought of going near that edge," said I to myself;
"however, as you have done it, why should not I? And I should like to know
who you are." So I commenced the descent of the rock, but with great care,
for I had as yet never been in a situation so dangerous; a slight moisture
exuded from the palms of my hands, my nerves were tingling, and my brain was
somewhat dizzy—and now I had arrived within a few yards of the figure, and had
recognised it: it was the wild drummer who had turned the tide of battle in the
bicker on the Castle Brae. A small stone which I dislodged now rolled down the
rock, and tumbled into the abyss close beside him. He turned his head, and
after looking at me for a moment somewhat vacantly, he resumed his former
attitude. I drew yet nearer to the horrible edge; not close, however, for fear
was on me.
"What are you thinking of, David?" said
I, as I sat behind him and trembled, for I repeat that I was afraid.
David Haggart. I was thinking of Willie Wallace.
Myself. You had better be thinking of yourself,
man. A strange place this to come to and think of William Wallace.
David Haggart. Why so? Is not his tower just
beneath our feet?
Myself. You mean the auld ruin by the side of Nor'
Loch—the ugly stane bulk, from the foot of which flows the spring into the
dyke, where the watercresses grow?
David Haggart. Just sae, Geordie.
Myself. And why were ye thinking of him? The
English hanged him long since, as I have heard say.
David Haggart. I was thinking that I should wish
to be like him.
Myself. Do ye mean that ye would wish to be
hanged?
David Haggart. I wad na flinch from that, Geordie,
if I might be a great man first.
Myself. And wha kens, Davie, how great you may be,
even without hanging? Are ye not in the high road of preferment? Are ye not a
bauld drummer already? Wha kens how high ye may rise? perhaps to be general, or
drum-major.
David Haggart. I hae na wish to be drum-major; it
were na great things to be like the doited carle, Else-than-gude, as they call
him; and, troth, he has nae his name for naething. But I should have nae
objection to be a general, and to fight the French and Americans, and win
myself a name and a fame like Willie Wallace, and do brave deeds, such as I
have been reading about in his story book.
Myself. Ye are a fule, Davie; the story book is
full of lies. Wallace, indeed! the wuddie rebel! I have heard my father say
that the Duke of Cumberland was worth twenty of Willie Wallace.
David Haggart. Ye had better sae naething agin
Willie Wallace, Geordie, for, if ye do, de'il hae me, if I dinna tumble ye doon
the craig.
*****
Fine materials in that lad for a hero, you will
say. Yes, indeed, for a hero, or for what he afterwards became. In other times,
and under other circumstances, he might have made what is generally termed a
great man, a patriot, or a conqueror. As it was, the very qualities which might
then have pushed him on to fortune and renown were the cause of his ruin. The
war over, he fell into evil courses; for his wild heart and ambitious spirit
could not brook the sober and quiet pursuits of honest industry.
"Can an Arabian steed submit to be a vile
drudge?" cries the fatalist. Nonsense! A man is not an irrational
creature, but a reasoning being, and has something within him beyond mere
brutal instinct. The greatest victory which a man can achieve is over himself,
by which is meant those unruly passions which are not convenient to the time
and place. David did not do this; he gave the reins to his wild heart, instead
of curbing it, and became a robber, and, alas! alas! he shed blood—under
peculiar circumstances, it is true, and without malice prepense—and for that
blood he eventually died, and justly; for it was that of the warden of a prison
from which he was escaping, and whom he slew with one blow of his stalwart arm.
Tamerlane and Haggart! Haggart and Tamerlane! Both
these men were robbers, and of low birth, yet one perished on an ignoble
scaffold, and the other died emperor of the world. Is this justice? The ends of
the two men were widely dissimilar—yet what is the intrinsic difference between
them? Very great indeed; the one acted according to his lights and his country,
not so the other. Tamerlane was a heathen, and acted according to his lights;
he was a robber where all around were robbers, but he became the avenger of
God—God's scourge on unjust kings, on the cruel Bajazet, who had plucked out
his own brothers' eyes; he became to a certain extent the purifier of the East,
its regenerator; his equal never was before, nor has it since been seen. Here
the wild heart was profitably employed the wild strength, the teeming brain.
Onward, Lame one! Onward, Tamurlank! Haggart. . . .
But peace to thee, poor David! why should a mortal
worm be sitting in judgment over thee? The Mighty and Just One has already
judged thee, and perhaps above thou hast received pardon for thy crimes, which
could not be pardoned here below; and now that thy feverish existence has
closed, and thy once active form become inanimate dust, thy very memory all but
forgotten, I will say a few words about thee, a few words soon also to be
forgotten. Thou wast the most extraordinary robber that ever lived within the belt
of Britain; Scotland rang with thy exploits, and England, too, north of the
Humber; strange deeds also didst thou achieve when, fleeing from justice, thou
didst find thyself in the Sister Isle; busy wast thou there in town and on
curragh, at fair and race-course, and also in the solitary place. Ireland
thought thee her child, for who spoke her brogue better than thyself?—she felt
proud of thee, and said, "Sure, O'Hanlon is come again." What might
not have been thy fate in the far west in America, whither thou hadst turned
thine eye, saying, "I will go there, and become an honest man!" But
thou wast not to go there, David—the blood which thou hadst shed in Scotland
was to be required of thee; the avenger was at hand, the avenger of blood. Seized,
manacled, brought back to thy native land, condemned to die, thou wast left in
thy narrow cell, and told to make the most of thy time, for it was short; and
there, in thy narrow cell, and thy time so short, thou didst put the crowning
stone to thy strange deeds, by that strange history of thyself, penned by thine
own hand in the robber tongue. Thou mightest have been better employed,
David!—but the ruling passion was strong with thee, even in the jaws of death.
Thou mightest have been better employed!—but peace be with thee, I repeat, and
the Almighty's grace and pardon.
Chapter 9
Napoleon—The Storm—The Cove—Up
the Country—The Trembling Hand—Irish—Tough Battle—Tipperary Hills—Elegant
Lodgings—A Speech—Fair Specimen—Orangemen.
Onward, onward! and after we had sojourned in
Scotland nearly two years, the long continental war had been brought to an end,
Napoleon was humbled for a time, and the Bourbons restored to a land which
could well have dispensed with them; we returned to England, where the corps
was disbanded, and my parents with their family retired to private life. I
shall pass over in silence the events of a year, which offer little of interest
as far as connected with me and mine. Suddenly, however, the sound of war was
heard again, Napoleon had broken forth from Elba, and everything was in
confusion. Vast military preparations were again made, our own corps was levied
anew, and my brother became an officer in it; but the danger was soon over,
Napoleon was once more quelled, and chained for ever, like Prometheus, to his
rock. As the corps, however, though so recently levied, had already become a
very fine one, thanks to my father's energetic drilling, the Government very
properly determined to turn it to some account, and, as disturbances were
apprehended in Ireland about this period, it occurred to them that they could
do no better than despatch it to that country.
In the autumn of the year 1815 we set sail from a
port in Essex; we were some eight hundred strong, and were embarked in two ships,
very large, but old and crazy; a storm overtook us when off Beachy Head, in
which we had nearly foundered. I was awakened early in the morning by the
howling of the wind, and the uproar on deck. I kept myself close, however, as
is still my constant practice on similar occasions, and waited the result with
that apathy and indifference which violent sea-sickness is sure to produce. We
shipped several seas, and once the vessel missing stays—which, to do it
justice, it generally did at every third or fourth tack—we escaped almost by a
miracle from being dashed upon the foreland. On the eighth day of our voyage we
were in sight of Ireland. The weather was now calm and serene, the sun shone
brightly on the sea and on certain green hills in the distance, on which I
descried what at first sight I believed to be two ladies gathering flowers,
which, however, on our nearer approach, proved to be two tall white towers,
doubtless built for some purpose or other, though I did not learn for what.
We entered a kind of bay, or cove, by a narrow
inlet; it was a beautiful and romantic place this cove, very spacious, and
being nearly land-locked, was sheltered from every wind. A small island, every
inch of which was covered with fortifications, appeared to swim upon the waters,
whose dark blue denoted their immense depth; tall green hills, which ascended
gradually from the shore, formed the background to the west; they were carpeted
to the top with turf of the most vivid green, and studded here and there with
woods, seemingly of oak; there was a strange old castle half way up the ascent,
a village on a crag—but the mists of the morning were half veiling the scene
when I surveyed it, and the mists of time are now hanging densely between it
and my no longer youthful eye; I may not describe it;—nor will I try.
Leaving the ship in the cove, we passed up a wide
river in boats till we came to a city, where we disembarked. It was a large
city, as large as Edinburgh to my eyes; there were plenty of fine houses, but
little neatness; the streets were full of impurities; handsome equipages rolled
along, but the greater part of the population were in rags; beggars abounded;
there was no lack of merriment, however; boisterous shouts of laughter were
heard on every side. It appeared a city of contradictions. After a few days'
rest we marched from this place in two divisions. My father commanded the
second, I walked by his side.
Our route lay up the country; the country at first
offered no very remarkable feature; it was pretty, but tame. On the second day,
however, its appearance had altered, it had become more wild; a range of
distant mountains bound the horizon. We passed through several villages, as I
suppose I may term them, of low huts, the walls formed of rough stones without
mortar, the roof of flags laid over wattles and wicker-work; they seemed to be
inhabited solely by women and children; the latter were naked, the former, in
general, blear-eyed beldames, who sat beside the doors on low stools, spinning.
We saw, however, both men and women working at a distance in the fields.
I was thirsty; and going up to an ancient crone,
employed in the manner which I have described, I asked her for water; she
looked me in the face, appeared to consider a moment, then tottering into her
hut, presently reappeared with a small pipkin of milk, which she offered to me
with a trembling hand. I drank the milk; it was sour, but I found it highly
refreshing. I then took out a penny and offered it to her, whereupon she shook
her head, smiled, and, patting my face with her skinny hand, murmured some
words in a tongue which I had never heard before.
I walked on by my father's side, holding the
stirrup-leather of his horse; presently several low uncouth cars passed by,
drawn by starved cattle: the drivers were tall fellows, with dark features and
athletic frames—they wore long loose blue cloaks with sleeves, which last,
however, dangled unoccupied: these cloaks appeared in tolerably good condition,
not so their under garments. On their heads were broad slouching hats: the
generality of them were bare-footed. As they passed, the soldiers jested with
them in the patois of East Anglia, whereupon the fellows laughed, and appeared
to jest with the soldiers; but what they said who knows, it being in a rough
guttural language, strange and wild. The soldiers stared at each other, and
were silent.
"A strange language that!" said a young
officer to my father, "I don't understand a word of it; what can it
be?"
"Irish," said my father, with a loud
voice, "and a bad language it is; I have known it of old, that is, I have
often heard it spoken when I was a guardsman in London. There's one part of
London where all the Irish live—at least all the worst of them—and there they
hatch their villanies to speak this tongue; it is that which keeps them
together and makes them dangerous: I was once sent there to seize a couple of
deserters—Irish—who had taken refuge amongst their companions; we found them in
what was in my time called a ken, that is, a house where only thieves and desperadoes
are to be found. Knowing on what kind of business I was bound, I had taken with
me a sergeant's party; it was well I did so. We found the deserters in a large
room, with at least thirty ruffians, horrid-looking fellows, seated about a
long table, drinking, swearing, and talking Irish. Ah! we had a tough battle, I
remember; the two fellows did nothing, but sat still, thinking it best to be
quiet; but the rest, with an ubbubboo, like the blowing up of a
powder-magazine, sprang up, brandishing their sticks; for these fellows always
carry sticks with them even to bed, and not unfrequently spring up in their
sleep, striking left and right."
"Did you take the deserters?" said the
officer.
"Yes," said my father; "for we
formed at the end of the room, and charged with fixed bayonets, which compelled
the others to yield notwithstanding their numbers; but the worst was when we
got out into the street; the whole district had become alarmed and hundreds
came pouring down upon us—men, women, and children. Women, did I say!—they
looked fiends, half-naked, with their hair hanging down over their bosoms; they
tore up the very pavement to hurl at us sticks rang about our ears, stones, and
Irish—I liked the Irish worst of all, it sounded so horrid, especially as I did
not understand it. It's a bad language."
"A queer tongue," said I, "I wonder
if I could learn it?"
"Learn it!" said my father; "what
should you learn it for?—however, I am not afraid of that. It is not like
Scotch, no person can learn it, save those who are born to it, and even in
Ireland the respectable people do not speak it, only the wilder sort, like
those we have passed."
Within a day or two we had reached a tall range of
mountains running north and south, which I was told were those of Tipperary;
along the skirts of these we proceeded till we came to a town, the principal
one of these regions. It was on the bank of a beautiful river, which separated
it from the mountains. It was rather an ancient place, and might contain some
ten thousand inhabitants—I found that it was our destination; there were
extensive barracks at the farther end, in which the corps took up its quarters;
with respect to ourselves, we took lodgings in a house which stood in the
principal street.
"You never saw more elegant lodgings than
these, captain," said the master of the house, a tall, handsome, and
athletic man, who came up whilst our little family were seated at dinner late
in the afternoon of the day of our arrival; "they beat anything in this
town of Clonmel. I do not let them for the sake of interest, and to none but
gentlemen in the army, in order that myself and my wife, who is from
Londonderry, may have the advantage of pleasant company, a genteel company; ay,
and Protestant company, captain. It did my heart good when I saw your honour
ride in at the head of all those fine fellows, real Protestants, I'll engage,
not a Papist among them, they are too good-looking and honest-looking for that.
So I no sooner saw your honour at the head of your army, with that handsome
young gentleman holding by your stirrup, than I said to my wife, Mistress Hyne,
who is from Londonderry, 'God bless me,' said I, 'what a truly Protestant
countenance, what a noble bearing, and what a sweet young gentleman. By the
silver hairs of his honour—and sure enough I never saw hairs more regally
silver than those of your honour—by his honour's gray silver hairs, and by my
own soul, which is not worthy to be mentioned in the same day with one of
them—it would be no more than decent and civil to run out and welcome such a
father and son coming in at the head of such a Protestant military.' And then
my wife, who is from Londonderry, Mistress Hyne, looking me in the face like a
fairy as she is, 'You may say that,' says she. 'It would be but decent and
civil, honey.' And your honour knows how I ran out of my own door and welcomed
your honour riding in company with your son, who was walking; how I welcomed ye
both at the head of your royal regiment, and how I shook your honour by the
hand, saying, I am glad to see your honour, and your honour's son, and your
honour's royal military Protestant regiment. And now I have you in the house,
and right proud I am to have ye one and all; one, two, three, four, true
Protestants every one, no Papists here; and I have made bold to bring up a
bottle of claret which is now waiting behind the door; and, when your honour
and your family have dined, I will make bold too to bring up Mistress Hyne,
from Londonderry, to introduce to your honour's lady, and then we'll drink to
the health of King George, God bless him; to the 'glorious and immortal'—to
Boyne water—to your honour's speedy promotion to be Lord Lieutenant, and to the
speedy downfall of the Pope and Saint Anthony of Padua."
Such was the speech of the Irish Protestant
addressed to my father in the long lofty dining-room with three windows,
looking upon the high street of the good town of Clonmel, as he sat at meat
with his family, after saying grace like a true-hearted respectable soldier as
he was.
"A bigot and an Orangeman!" Oh, yes! It
is easier to apply epithets of opprobrium to people than to make yourself
acquainted with their history and position. He was a specimen, and a fair
specimen, of a most remarkable body of men, who during two centuries have
fought a good fight in Ireland in the cause of civilization and religious
truth; they were sent as colonists, few in number, into a barbarous and unhappy
country, where ever since, though surrounded with difficulties of every kind,
they have maintained their ground; theirs has been no easy life, nor have their
lines fallen upon very pleasant places; amidst darkness they have held up a
lamp, and it would be well for Ireland were all her children like these her
adopted ones. "But they are fierce and sanguinary," it is said. Ay,
ay! they have not unfrequently opposed the keen sword to the savage pike.
"But they are bigoted and narrow-minded." Ay, ay! they do not like
idolatry, and will not bow the knee before a stone! "But their language is
frequently indecorous." Go to, my dainty one, did ye ever listen to the
voice of Papist cursing?
The Irish Protestants have faults, numerous ones;
but the greater number of these may be traced to the peculiar circumstances of
their position: but they have virtues, numerous ones; and their virtues are
their own, their industry, their energy, and their undaunted resolution are
their own. They have been vilified and traduced—but what would Ireland be
without them? I repeat, that it would be well for her were all her sons no
worse than these much calumniated children of her adoption.
Chapter 10
protestant young gentlemen—the
greek letters—open chimney—murtagh—paris and salamanca—nothing to do—to whit,
to whoo!—christmas
We continued at this place for some months, during
which time the soldiers performed their duties, whatever they were; and I,
having no duties to perform, was sent to school. I had been to English schools,
and to the celebrated one of Edinburgh; but my education, at the present day,
would not be what it is—perfect, had I never had the honour of being alumnus in
an Irish seminary.
'Captain,' said our kind host, 'you would, no
doubt, wish that the young gentleman should enjoy every advantage which the
town may afford towards helping him on in the path of genteel learning. It's a
great pity that he should waste his time in idleness—doing nothing else than
what he says he has been doing for the last fortnight—fishing in the river for
trouts which he never catches; and wandering up the glen in the mountain, in
search of the hips that grow there. Now, we have a school here, where he can
learn the most elegant Latin, and get an insight into the Greek letters, which
is desirable; and where, moreover, he will have an opportunity of making
acquaintance with all the Protestant young gentlemen of the place, the handsome
well-dressed young persons whom your honour sees in the church on the Sundays,
when your honour goes there in the morning, with the rest of the Protestant
military; for it is no Papist school, though there may be a Papist or two
there—a few poor farmers' sons from the country, with whom there is no
necessity for your honour's child to form any acquaintance at all, at all!'
And to the school I went, where I read the Latin
tongue and the Greek letters, with a nice old clergyman, who sat behind a black
oaken desk, with a huge Elzevir Flaccus before him, in a long gloomy kind of
hall, with a broken stone floor, the roof festooned with cobwebs, the walls
considerably dilapidated, and covered over with strange figures and
hieroglyphics, evidently produced by the application of burnt stick; and there
I made acquaintance with the Protestant young gentlemen of the place, who, with
whatever éclat they might appear at church on a Sunday, did assuredly not
exhibit to much advantage in the schoolroom on the week days, either with
respect to clothes or looks. And there I was in the habit of sitting on a large
stone, before the roaring fire in the huge open chimney, and entertaining
certain of the Protestant young gentlemen of my own age, seated on similar
stones, with extraordinary accounts of my own adventures, and those of the
corps, with an occasional anecdote extracted from the story-books of
Hickathrift and Wight Wallace, pretending to be conning the lesson all the
while.
And there I made acquaintance, notwithstanding the
hint of the landlord, with the Papist 'gossoons,' as they were called, the
farmers' sons from the country; and of these gossoons, of whom there were
three, two might be reckoned as nothing at all; in the third, however, I soon
discovered that there was something extraordinary.
He was about sixteen years old, and above six feet
high, dressed in a grey suit; the coat, from its size, appeared to have been
made for him some ten years before. He was remarkably narrow-chested and
round-shouldered, owing, perhaps as much to the tightness of his garment as to
the hand of nature. His face was long, and his complexion swarthy, relieved,
however, by certain freckles, with which the skin was plentifully studded. He
had strange wandering eyes, grey, and somewhat unequal in size; they seldom
rested on the book, but were generally wandering about the room, from one
object to another. Sometimes he would fix them intently on the wall, and then
suddenly starting, as if from a reverie, he would commence making certain
mysterious movements with his thumbs and forefingers, as if he were shuffling
something from him.
One morning, as he sat by himself on a bench,
engaged in this manner, I went up to him, and said, 'Good-day, Murtagh; you do
not seem to have much to do?'
'Faith, you may say that, Shorsha dear!—it is
seldom much to do that I have.'
'And what are you doing with your hands?'
'Faith, then, if I must tell you, I was e'en
dealing with the cards.'
'Do you play much at cards?'
'Sorra a game, Shorsha, have I played with the
cards since my uncle Phelim, the thief, stole away the ould pack, when he went
to settle in the county Waterford!'
'But you have other things to do?'
'Sorra anything else has Murtagh to do that he
cares about; and that makes me dread so going home at nights.'
'I should like to know all about you; where do you
live, joy?'
'Faith, then, ye shall know all about me, and
where I live. It is at a place called the Wilderness that I live, and they call
it so, because it is a fearful wild place, without any house near it but my
father's own; and that's where I live when at home.'
'And your father is a farmer, I suppose?'
'You may say that; and it is a farmer I should
have been, like my brother Denis, had not my uncle Phelim, the thief, tould my
father to send me to school, to learn Greek letters, that I might be made a
saggart of, and sent to Paris and Salamanca.'
'And you would rather be a farmer than a priest?'
'You may say that!—for, were I a farmer, like the
rest, I should have something to do, like the rest—something that I cared
for—and I should come home tired at night, and fall asleep, as the rest do,
before the fire; but when I comes home at night I am not tired, for I have been
doing nothing all day that I care for; and then I sits down and stares about
me, and at the fire, till I become frighted; and then I shouts to my brother
Denis, or to the gossoons, "Get up, I say, and let's be doing something;
tell us the tale of Finn-ma-Coul, and how he lay down in the Shannon's bed, and
let the river flow down his jaws!" Arrah, Shorsha! I wish you would come
and stay with us, and tell us some o' your sweet stories of your own self and
the snake ye carried about wid ye. Faith, Shorsha dear! that snake bates
anything about Finn-ma-Coul or Brian Boroo, the thieves two, bad luck to them!'
'And do they get up and tell you stories?'
'Sometimes they does, but oftenmost they curses
me, and bids me be quiet! But I can't be quiet, either before the fire or abed;
so I runs out of the house, and stares at the rocks, at the trees, and
sometimes at the clouds, as they run a race across the bright moon; and, the
more I stares, the more frighted I grows, till I screeches and holloas. And
last night I went into the barn, and hid my face in the straw; and there, as I
lay and shivered in the straw, I heard a voice above my head singing out "To
whit, to whoo!" and then up I starts, and runs into the house, and falls
over my brother Denis, as he lies at the fire. "What's that for?"
says he. "Get up, you thief!" says I, "and be helping me. I have
been out into the barn, and an owl has crow'd at me!"'
'And what has this to do with playing cards?'
'Little enough, Shorsha dear!—If there were
card-playing, I should not be frighted.'
'And why do you not play at cards?'
'Did I not tell you that the thief, my uncle
Phelim, stole away the pack? If we had the pack, my brother Denis and the
gossoons would be ready enough to get up from their sleep before the fire, and
play cards with me for ha'pence, or eggs, or nothing at all; but the pack is
gone—bad luck to the thief who took it!'
'And why don't you buy another?'
'Is it of buying you are speaking? And where am I
to get the money?'
'Ah! that's another thing!'
'Faith it is, honey!—And now the Christmas
holidays is coming, when I shall be at home by day as well as night, and then
what am I to do? Since I have been a saggarting, I have been good for nothing
at all—neither for work nor Greek—only to play cards! Faith, it's going mad I
will be!'
'I say, Murtagh!'
'Yes, Shorsha dear!'
'I have a pack of cards.'
'You don't say so, Shorsha ma vourneen?—you don't
say that you have cards fifty-two?'
'I do, though; and they are quite new—never been
once used.'
'And you'll be lending them to me, I warrant?'
'Don't think it!—But I'll sell them to you, joy,
if you like.'
'Hanam mon Dioul! am I not after telling you that
I have no money at all!'
'But you have as good as money, to me, at least;
and I'll take it in exchange.'
'What's that, Shorsha dear?'
'Irish!'
'Irish?'
'Yes, you speak Irish; I heard you talking it the
other day to the cripple. You shall teach me Irish.'
'And is it a language-master you'd be making of
me?'
'To be sure!—what better can you do?—it would help
you to pass your time at school. You can't learn Greek, so you must teach
Irish!'
Before Christmas, Murtagh was playing at cards
with his brother Denis, and I could speak a considerable quantity of broken
Irish.
