The Ned M'Keown Stories. William Carleton

Upon some odd occasions he was a ready and willing drudge at

       everything, and as strong as a ditch. Give him only a good

       fog-meal—which was merely a trifle, just what would serve

       three men or so—give him, we say, a fog-meal of this kind,

       about five times a day, with a liberal promise of more, and

       never was there a Scotch Brownie who could get through so

       much work. He knew no fatigue; frost and cold had no power

       over him; wind, sleet, and hail he laughed at; rain! it

       stretched his skin, he said, after a meal—and that, he

       added, was a comfort. Notwithstanding all this, he was

       neither more nor less than an impersonation of laziness,

       craft, and gluttony. The truth is, that unless in the hope

       of being gorged he would do nothing; and the only way to get

       anything out of him was, never to let the gorge precede the

       labor, but always, on the contrary, to follow it. Bob's

       accomplishments were not only varied, but of a very elevated

       order, and the means of holding him in high odor among us.

       Great and wonderful, Heaven knows, did we look upon his

       endowments to be. No man, wise or otherwise, could “hunt the

       brock,” alias the badger, within a hundred miles of Bob; for

       when he covered his mouth with his two hands, and gave forth

       the very sounds which the badger is said to utter, did we

       not look upon him—Bob—with as much wonder and reverence as

       we would have done upon the badger himself? Phup-um-phup—

       phup-um-phup—phup-um—phup-um—phup-um-phup. Who but a

       first-rate genius could accomplish this feat in such a

       style? Bob could crow like a cock, bark like a dog, mew like

       a cat, neigh like a horse, bray like an ass, or gobble like

       a turkey-cock. Unquestionably, I have never heard him

       equalled as an imitator of birds and beasts. Bob's crack

       feat, however, was performing the Screw-pin Dance, of which

       we have only this to say, that by whatsoever means he became

       acquainted with it, it is precisely the same dance which is

       said to have been exhibited by some strolling Moor before

       the late Queen Caroline. It is, indeed, very strange, but no

       less true, that many of the oriental customs are yet

       prevalent in the remote and isolated parts of Ireland. Had

       the late Mr. O'Brien, author of the Essay on Irish Round

       Towers, seen Bob perform the dance I speak of, he would have

       hailed him as a regular worshipper of Budh, and adduced his

       performance as a living confirmation of his theory. Poor

       Bob! he is gone the way of all fools, and all flesh.

      “Indeed, childher, it's no wonder for yez to enquire! Where did I get him, Dick?—musha, and where would I get him but in the ould place, a-hagur; with the ould set: don't yez know that a dacent place or dacent company wouldn't sarve Ned?—nobody but Shane Martin, and Jimmy Tague, and the other blackguards.” *

      * The reader, here, is not to rely implicitly upon the

       accuracy of Nancy's description of the persons alluded to.

       It is true the men were certainly companions and intimate

       acquaintances of Ned's, but not entitled to the epithet

       which Nancy in her wrath bestowed upon them. Shane was a

       rollicking fighting, drinking butcher, who cared not a fig!

       whether he treated you to a drink or a drubbing, indeed, it

       was at all times extremely difficult to say whether he was

       likely to give you the drink first or the drubbing

       afterwards, or vice versa. Sometimes he made the drubbing

       the groundwork for the drink and quite as frequently the

       drink the groundwork for the drubbing. Either one or other

       you were sure to receive at his hands; but his general

       practice was to give both. Shane, in fact, was a good-

       humored fellow, well liked, and nobody's enemy but his own.

       Jemmy Tague was a quiet man, who could fight his corner,

       however, if necessary. Shane,was called Kittogue Shane, from

       being left-handed. Both were butchers, and both, we believe,

       alive and kicking at this day.

      “And what will you do with him, Nancy?”

      “Och! thin, Dick, avourneen, it's myself that's jist tired thinking of that; at any rate, consamin' to the loose foot he'll get this blessed month to come, Dick, agra!”

      “Throth, Nancy,” another mischievous monkey would exclaim, “if you hadn't great patience entirely, you couldn't put up with such threatment, at all at all.”

      “Why thin, God knows it's true for-you, Barney. D'ye hear that, 'graceless?' the very childhre making a laughing-stock and a may-game of you!—but wait till we get under the roof, any how.”

      “Ned,” a third would say, “isn't it a burning shame for you to break the poor crathur's heart this a-way? Throth, but you ought to hould down your head, sure enough—a dacent woman! that only for her you wouldn't have a house over you, so you wouldn't.”

      “And throth, and the same house is going, Tim,” Nancy would exclaim, “and when it goes, let him see thin who'll do for him; let him thry if his blackguards will stand to him, when he won't have poor foolish Nancy at his back.”

      During these conversations, Ned would walk on between his two guards with a dogged-looking and condemned face; Nancy behind him, with his own cudgel, ready to administer an occasional bang whenever he attempted to slacken his pace, or throw over his shoulder a growl of dissent or justification.

      On getting near home, the neighbors would occasionally pop out their heads, with a smile of good-humored satire on their faces, which Nancy was very capable of translating:

      “Ay,” she would say, addressing them, “I've caught him—here he is to the fore. Indeed you may well laugh, Kitty Rafferty; not a one of myself blames you for it.—Ah, ye mane crathur,” aside to Ned, “if you had the blood of a hen in you, you wouldn't have the neighbors braking their hearts laughing at you in sich a way; and above all the people in the world, them Rafferty's, that got the decree against us at the last sessions, although I offered to pay within fifteen shillings of the differ—the grubs!”

      Having seen her hopeful charge safely deposited on the hob, Nancy would throw her cloak into this corner, and her bonnet into that, with the air of a woman absorbed by the consideration of some vexatious trial; she would then sit down, and, lighting her doodeen, (* a short pipe) exclaim—

      “Wurrah, wurrah! but it's me that's the heart-scalded crathur with that man's four quarters! The Lord may help me and grant me patience with him, any way!—to have my little honest, hard-earned penny spint among a pack of vagabonds, that don't care if him and me wor both down the river, so they could get their skinful of drink out of him! No matther, agra, things can't long be this a-way; but what does Ned care?—give him drink and fighting, and his blackguards about him, and that's his glory. There