I thravelled France an’ Spain, an’ likewise in Asia,Fal de ral, &c &c.And spint many a long day at my aise in Arabia,Fal de ral, &c &c.Pur-shoeing of their ways, their sates an’ their farims,But sich another place as the lakes o’ KillarneyI never saw elsewhere, the air being most charming,Fal de ral, &c &c.There the Muses came to make it their quarthers,Fal de ral, &c &c.An’ for their ray-creation they came from Castalia,Fal de ral, &c &c.With congratulations playing for his lordship,A viewing of that place, I mean sweet Killarney,That the music been so sweet, the lake became enchanted,Fal de ral, &c &c.
I thravelled France an’ Spain, an’ likewise in Asia,Fal de ral, &c &c.And spint many a long day at my aise in Arabia,Fal de ral, &c &c.Pur-shoeing of their ways, their sates an’ their farims,But sich another place as the lakes o’ KillarneyI never saw elsewhere, the air being most charming,Fal de ral, &c &c.There the Muses came to make it their quarthers,Fal de ral, &c &c.An’ for their ray-creation they came from Castalia,Fal de ral, &c &c.With congratulations playing for his lordship,A viewing of that place, I mean sweet Killarney,That the music been so sweet, the lake became enchanted,Fal de ral, &c &c.
I thravelled France an’ Spain, an’ likewise in Asia,Fal de ral, &c &c.And spint many a long day at my aise in Arabia,Fal de ral, &c &c.Pur-shoeing of their ways, their sates an’ their farims,But sich another place as the lakes o’ KillarneyI never saw elsewhere, the air being most charming,Fal de ral, &c &c.There the Muses came to make it their quarthers,Fal de ral, &c &c.An’ for their ray-creation they came from Castalia,Fal de ral, &c &c.With congratulations playing for his lordship,A viewing of that place, I mean sweet Killarney,That the music been so sweet, the lake became enchanted,Fal de ral, &c &c.
I thravelled France an’ Spain, an’ likewise in Asia,
Fal de ral, &c &c.
And spint many a long day at my aise in Arabia,
Fal de ral, &c &c.
Pur-shoeing of their ways, their sates an’ their farims,
But sich another place as the lakes o’ Killarney
I never saw elsewhere, the air being most charming,
Fal de ral, &c &c.
There the Muses came to make it their quarthers,
Fal de ral, &c &c.
An’ for their ray-creation they came from Castalia,
Fal de ral, &c &c.
With congratulations playing for his lordship,
A viewing of that place, I mean sweet Killarney,
That the music been so sweet, the lake became enchanted,
Fal de ral, &c &c.
Early on a clear sunny morning after this, a man with a horse and truckle car was observed to enter the town of Killarney from the west. He trolled forth before the animal, which, checked by some instinctive dread, with much reluctance allowed himself to be dragged along at the full length of his hair halter. On the rude vehicle was laid what seemed a quantity of straw, upon which was extended a human being, whose greatly attenuated frame appeared fully developed beneath an old flannel quilt. His face, that appeared above its tattered hem, looked the embodiment of disease and famine, which seemed to have gnawed, in horrid union, into his inmost vitals. His distorted features pourtrayed rending agony; and as the rude vehicle jolted along the rugged pavement, he groaned hideously. This miserable man was our acquaintance Shane Glas, and he that led the strange procession no other than Paddy Corbett, who thus experimented to smuggle his “taste o’ tibaccy,” which lay concealed in well-packed bales beneath the sick couch of the wretched simulator.
As they proceeded along, Shane Glas uttered a groan, conveying such a feeling of real agony that his startled companion, supposing that he had in verity received the suddenjudgment of his deception, rushed back to ascertain whether he had not been suddenly stricken to death.
“Paddy, a chorra-na-nea,” he muttered in an undergrowl, “here’s the vagabone thief of a guager down sthreet! Exert yerself, a-lea, to baffle the schamer, an’ don’t forget ’tis the spotted faver I have.”
Sure enough, the guager did come; and noticing, as he passed along, the confusion and averted features of Paddy Corbett, he immediately drew up.
“Where do you live, honest man, an’ how far might you be goin’?” said the keen exciseman.
“O, wisha! may the heavens be yer honour’s bed!—ye must be one o’ the good ould stock, to ax afther the consarns of a poor angishore like me: but, a yinusal-a-chree, ’tisn’t where I lives is worse to me, but where that donan in the thruckle will die with me.”
“But how far are you taking him?”
“O, ’tis myself would offer a pather an’ ave on my two binded knees for yer honour’s soul, if yer honour would tell me that. I forgot to ax the crathur where heshouldbe berrid when we kim away, an’ now he’s speechless out an’ out.”
“Come, say where is your residence,” said the other, whose suspicion was increased by the countryman’s prevarication.
“By jamine, yer honour’s larnin’ bothers me intirely; but if yer honour manes where the woman that owns me and the childre is, ’tis that way, west at Tubber-na-Treenoda; yer honour has heard tell o’ Tubber-na-Treenoda, by coorse?”
“Never, indeed.”
“O, wisha! don’t let yer honour be a day longer that way. If the sickness, God betune us an’ harum, kim an ye, ’twould be betther for yer honour give a testher to the durhogh there, to offer up a rosary for ye, than toshell outthree pounds to Doctor Crump.”
“Perhaps you have somesoft goodsconcealed under the sick man,” said the guager, approaching the car. “I frequently catch smuggled wares in such situations.”
“The devil a tastegoodorsaftunder him, sir dear, but the could sop from the top o’ the stack.Ketch!why, the devil a haporth ye’llketchhere but the spotted faver.”
“Fever!” repeated the startled exciseman, retiring a step or two.
“Yes, faver, yer honour; what else? Didn’t Father Darby that prepared him say that he had spotted faver enough for a thousand min! Do, yer honour, come look in his face, an’ thin throw the poor dying crathur, that kem all the way from Decie’s counthry, by raisin of a dhream, to pay a round for his wife’s sowl at Tubber-na-Treenoda: yes, throw him out an the belly o’ the road, an’ let his blood, the blood o’ the stranger, be on yer soul an’ his faver in yer body.”
Paddy Corbett’s eloquence operating on the exciseman’s dread of contagion, saved the tobacco.
Our adventurers considering it rather dangerous to seek a buyer in Killarney, directed their course eastward to Kanturk. The hour of evening was rather advanced as they entered the town; and Shane, who could spell his way without much difficulty through the letters of a sign-board, seeing “entertainment for man and horse” over the door, said they would put up there for the night, and then directed Paddy to the shop of the only tobacconist in town, whither for some private motive he declined to attend him. Mr Pigtail was after dispatching a batch of customers when Paddy entered, who, seeing the coast clear, gave him the “God save all here,” which is the usual phrase of greeting in the kingdom of Kerry. Mr Pigtail was startled at the rude salutation, which, though a beautiful benediction, and characteristic of a highly religious people, is yet too uncouth for modern “ears polite,” and has, excepting among the lowest class of peasants, entirely given way to that very sincere and expressive phrase of address, “your servant.”
Now, Mr Pigtail, who meted out the length of his replies in exact proportion to the several ranks and degrees of his querists, upon hearing the vulgar voice that uttered the more vulgar salute, hesitated to deign the slightest notice, but, measuring with a glance the outward man of the saluter, he gave a slight nod of acknowledgement, and the dissyllabic response “servant;” but seeing Paddy Corbett with gaping mouth about to open his embassy, and that, like Burns’s Death,
“He seemed to make a kind o’ stan’,But naething spak,”
“He seemed to make a kind o’ stan’,But naething spak,”
“He seemed to make a kind o’ stan’,But naething spak,”
“He seemed to make a kind o’ stan’,
But naething spak,”
he immediately added, “Honest man, you came from the west, I believe?”
“Thrue enough for yer honour,” said Pat; “my next door neighbours at that side are the wild Ingins of Immeriky. A wet and could foot an’ a dhry heart I had coming to ye; but welkim be the grace o’ God, sure poor people should make out an honest bit an’ sup for the weeny crathurs at home; an’ I have thirteen o’ thim, all thackeens, praise be to the Maker.”
“And I dare say you have brought a trifle in my line of business in your road?”
“Faith, ’tis yerself may book it: I have the natest lafe o’ tibaccy that ever left Connor Cro-ab-a-bo. I was going toskinan the honest man—Lord betune us an’harum, I’d be the first informer of my name, any how. But, talking o’ the tibaccy, the man that giv it said a sweether taste never left the hould of his ship, an’ that’s a great word. I’ll give it dog chape, by raison o’ the long road it thravelled to yer honour.”
“You don’t seem to be long in this business,” said Mr Pigtail.
“Thrue for ye there agin, a-yinusal; ’tis yourself may say so. Since the priest christened Paddy an me, an’ that’s longer than I can remimber, I never wint an the sachrawn afore. God comfort poor Jillian Dawly, the crathur, an’ the grawls I left her. Amin, a-hierna!”
Now, Mr Pigtail supposed from the man’s seeming simplicity, and his inexperience in running smuggled goods, that he should drive a very profitable adventure with him. He ordered him to bring the goods privately to the back way that led to his premises; and Paddy, who had the fear of the guager vividly before him, lost no time in obeying the mandate. But when Mr Pigtail examined the several packages, he turns round upon poor Paddy with a look of disapprobation, and exclaims, “This article will not suit, good man—entirely damaged by sea water—never do.”
“Seewather, anagh!” returns Paddy Corbett; “bad luck to the dhrop o’ wather, salt or fresh, did my taste o’ tibaccy eversee. The Colleen Ayrigh that brought it could dip an’ skim along the waves like a sea-gull. There are two things she never yet let in, Mr Pigtail, avourneen—wather nor wather-guards: the one ships off her, all as one as a duck; and the Boochal Fadda on her deck keeps t’other a good mile off, more spunk to him.” This piece of nautical information Paddy had ventured from gleanings collected from the rich stores which the conversation of Shane Glas presented along the road, and in the smugglers’ cave.
“But, my good man, you cannot instruct me in the way of my business. Take it away—no man in the trade would venture an article like it. But I shall make a sacrifice, rather than let a poor ignorant man fall into the hands of the guager. I shall give you five pounds for the lot.”
Paddy Corbett, who had been buoyed up by the hope of making two hundred per cent. of his lading, now seeing all his gainful views vanish into thin air, was loud and impassioned in the expression of his disappointment. “O, Jillian Dawly!” he cried, swinging his body to and fro, “Jillian, a roon manima, what’ll ye say to yer man, afther throwing out of his hand the half year’s rint that he had to give the agint? O! what’ll ye say, aveen, but that I med a purty padder-napeka of myself, listening to Shane Glas, the yellow schamer; or what’ll Sheelabeg, the crathur, say, whin Tim Murphy won’t take her without the cows that I won’t have to give her? O, Misther Pigtail, avourneen, be marciful to an honest father’s son; don’t take me short, avourneen, an’ that God might take you short. Give me the tin pounds it cost me, an’ I’ll pray for yer sowl, both now an’ in the world to come. O! Jillian, Jillian, I’ll never face ye, nor Sheelabeg, nor any o’ the crathurs agin, without the tin pound, any how. I’ll take the vestmint, an’ all the books in Father Darby’s house of it.”
“Well, if you don’t give the tobacco to me for less than that, you can call on one Mr Prywell, at the other side of the bridge; he deals in such articles too. You see I cannot do more for you, but you may go farther and fare worse,” said the perfidious tobacconist, as he directed the unfortunate man to the residence of Mr Paul Prywell, the officer of excise.
With heavy heart, and anxious eye peering in every direction beneath his broad-leafed hat, Paddy Corbett proceeded till he reached a private residence having a green door and a brass knocker. He hesitated, seeing no shop nor appearance of business there; but on being assured that this was indeed the house of Mr Prywell, he approached, and gave the door three thundering knocks with the butt end of his holly-handled whip. The owner of the domicile, roused by this very unceremonious mode of announcement, came forth to demand theintruder’s business, and to wonder that he would not prefer giving a single rap with the brass knocker, as was the wont of persons in his grade of society, instead of sledging away at the door like a “peep-o’-day boy.”
“Yer honour will excuse my bouldness,” said Paddy, taking off his hat, and scraping the mud before and behind him a full yard; “excuse my bouldness, for I never seed such curifixes on a dure afore, an’ I wouldn’t throuble yer honour’s house at all at all, only in regard of a taste of goods that I was tould wouldshootyer honour. Ye can have it, a yinusal, for less than nothing, case I don’t find myself in heart to push on farther; for the baste is slow, the crathur, an’ myself that’s saying it, making buttons for fear o’ the guager.”
“Who, might I ask,” said the astonished officer of excise, “directed you here to sell smuggled tobacco?”
“A very honest gintleman, but a bad buyer, over the bridge, sir. He’d give but five pound for what cost myself tin—foreer dhota, that I had ever had a hand in it! I put the half year’s rint in it, yer honour; and my thirteen femul grawls an’ their mother, God help ’em, will be soon on the sachrawn. I’ll never go home without the tin pound, any how. High hanging to ye, Shane Glas, ye tallow-faced thief, that sint me smuggling. O! Jillian, ’tis sogering I’ll soon be, with a gun an my shoulder.”
“Shane Glas!” said the exciseman; “do you know Shane Glas; I’d give ten pounds to see the villain.”
“’Tis myself does, yer honour, an’ could put yer finger an him, if I had ye at Tubber-na-Treenoda, saving yer presence; but as I was setting away, he was lying undher an ould quilt, an’ I heard him telling that the priest said he had spotted faver enough for a thousand min.”
“That villain will never die of spotted fever, in my humble opinion,” said the exciseman.
“A good judgment in yer mouth, sir, achree. I heard the rogue himself say, ‘Bad cess to the thief! that a cup-tosser tould him he’d die of stoppage of breath.’ But won’t yer honour allow me to turn in the lafe o’ tibaccy?”
The officer of excise was struck with deep indignation at the villany of him who would ruin a comparatively innocent man when he failed in circumventing him, and was resolved to punish his treachery. “My good fellow,” said he, “you are now before the guager you dread so much, and I must do my duty, and seize upon the tobacco. However, it is but common justice to punish the false-hearted traitor that sent you hither. Go back quickly, and say that he can have the lot at his own terms; I shall follow close, and yield him the reward of his treachery. Act discreetly in this good work of biting the biter, and on the word of a gentleman I shall give you ten pounds more.”
Paddy was on his knees in a twinkling, his hands uplifted in the attitude of prayer, and his mouth opened, but totally unable between terror and delight to utter a syllable of thanks.
“Up, I say,” exclaimed the exciseman, “up and be doing; go earn your ten pounds, and have your sweet revenge on the thief that betrayed you.”
Paddy rapidly retraced his steps, ejaculating as he went along, “O, the noble gintleman, may the Lord make a bed in Heaven for his sowl in glory! O, that chating imposthor, ’twas sinding the fox to mind the hins sure enough. O, high hanging to him of a windy day!—the informer o’ the world, I’ll make him sup sorrow.”
“Have you seen the gentleman I directed you to?” said Mr Pigtail.
“Arrah, sir dear, whin I came to the bridge an looked about me, I thought that every roguish-looking fellow I met was the thief of a guager, an’ thin afther standing a while, quite amplushed, with the botheration and the dread upon me, I forgot yer friend’s name, an’ so kim back agin to ax it, if ye plase.”
“You had better take the five pounds than venture again; there’s a guager in town, and your situation is somewhat dangerous.”
“A guager in town!” cried Paddy Corbett, with well-affected surprise, “Isas Mauri! what’ll I do at all at all? now I’m a gone man all out. Take it for any thing ye like, sir dear, an’ if any throuble like this should ever come down an ye, it will be a comfort an’ a raycreation to yer heart to know that ye had a poor man’s blessing,avick deelish machree, an’ I give it to ye on the knees of my heart, as ye desarved it, an’ that it may go in yer road, an’ yer childre’s road, late an’ early, eating an’ dhrinking, lying an’ rising, buying an’ selling.”
Our story has approached its close: the tobacco was safely stowed inside, in order to be consigned to Mr Pigtail’s private receptacle for such contraband articles. Paddy had just pocketed his five pounds, and at that moment in burst Mr Prywell. The execration which ever after pursued the tobacconist for his treacherous conduct, and the heavy fine in which he was amerced, so wrought upon his health and circumstances, that in a short time he died in extreme poverty. His descendants became homeless wanderers, and it is upon record, among the brave and high-minded men of Duhallow, that Jeffrey Pigtail of Kanturk was the only betrayer that ever disgraced the barony.
E. W.
Speed on Railways.—In the first of a course of lectures on railways, delivered in the early part of last year at Manchester by Dr Lardner, he gave the following account of the speed attained by locomotive engines at different periods: “Since the great questions which had been agitated respecting the effect which an increased width of rails would have on railway transit, and the effect which very large drawing wheels, of great diameter, would have on certain railways, the question of very vastly increased speed had acquired considerable interest. Very recently two experiments had been made, attended with most surprising results. One was the case of the Monmouth express. A dispatch was carried from Twyford to London on the Great Western Railway, a distance of thirty miles, in thirty-five minutes. This distance was traversed very favourably, and being subject to less of those casual interruptions to which a longer trip would be liable, it was performed at the rate of six miles in seven minutes, or six-sevenths of a mile in one minute (very nearly fifty-one and a half miles an hour). He had experimented on speed very largely on most of the railways of the country, and he had never personally witnessed that speed. The evaporating power of those engines was enormous. Another performance, which he had ascertained since he arrived in this neighbourhood, showed that great as was the one just mentioned, they must not ascribe it to any peculiar circumstance attending the large engines and wide gauge of the Great Western Railway. An express was dispatched a short time since from Liverpool to Birmingham, and its speed was stated in the papers. One engine, with its tender, went from Liverpool, or rather from the top of the tunnel at Edge Hill, to Birmingham, in two hours and thirty-five minutes. But he had inquired into the circumstances of that trip, and it appeared that the time the engine was actually in motion, after deducting a variety of stoppages, was only one hour and fifty minutes in traversing ninety-seven miles. The feat on the Great Western was performed on a dead level, while on the Grand Junction the engine first encountered the Whiston incline, where the line rises 1 in 96 for a mile and a half; and after passing Crewe, it encountered a plane of three miles to the Madeley summit, rising 20 feet a mile, succeeded by another plane, for three miles more, rising 30 feet a mile; yet with all these impediments it performed the ninety-seven miles in one hour and fifty minutes, or 110 minutes; consequently the distance traversed in each minute was 97 divided by 110, or 52 ¹⁰⁄₁₁ths, nearly 53 miles an hour—a speed which, he confessed, if he had not evidence of it, he could scarcely have believed to be within the bounds of mechanical possibility. The engine which performed this feat had driving wheels of 5½ feet diameter; their circumference would be 17¼ feet. Taking the speed at 53 miles an hour, it was within a very minute fraction of 80 feet in a second of time. This was not the greatest speed of the engine, but the average speed spread over 97 miles and there could be little doubt that it must have exceeded sixty miles an hour during a considerable portion of the distance.”
That man should be happy, is so evidently the intention of the Creator, the contrivances to that end are so multitudinous and so striking, that the perception of the aim may be called universal. Whatever tends to make men happy, becomes a fulfilment of the will of God. Whatever tends to make them miserable, becomes opposition to his will.—Harriet Martineau.
Printed and published every Saturday byGunnandCameron, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.—Agents:—R. Groombridge, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London;SimmsandDinham, Exchange Street, Manchester;C. Davies, North John Street, Liverpool;SlocombeandSimms, Leeds;FraserandCrawford, George Street, Edinburgh; andDavid Robertson, Trongate, Glasgow.
Printed and published every Saturday byGunnandCameron, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.—Agents:—R. Groombridge, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London;SimmsandDinham, Exchange Street, Manchester;C. Davies, North John Street, Liverpool;SlocombeandSimms, Leeds;FraserandCrawford, George Street, Edinburgh; andDavid Robertson, Trongate, Glasgow.