The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
General
The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
* In Irish the proverb is--“Ha naha la na guiha la na
scuilipagh:” that is, the windy or stormy day is not that on
which the scollops should be cut. Scollops are osier twigs,
sharpened at both ends, and inserted in the thatch, to bind
it at the eave and rigging. The proverb inculcates
preparation for future necessity.
“Soon after Tom's marriage, he comes to Larry one day and says 'Larry,
you and I are now going to face the world; we're both young', healthy,
and willin' to work--so are our wives; and it's bad if we can't make out
bread for ourselves, I think.'
“'Thrue for you, Tom,' says Larry, 'and what's to hinder us? I only wish
we had a farm, and you'd see we'd take good bread out of it: for my
part there's not another _he_ in the country I'd turn my back upon for
managing a farm, if I had one.'
“' Well,' says the other, 'that's what I wanted to overhaul as we're
together; Squire Dickson's steward was telling me yesterday, as I
was coming up from my father-in-law's, that his master has a farm of
fourteen acres to set at the present time; the one the Nultys held, that
went last spring to America--'twould be a dacent little take between
us.'
“'I know every inch of it,' says Larry, 'and good strong land it is, but
it was never well wrought; the Nultys weren't fit for it at all; for one
of them didn't know how to folly a plough. I'd engage to make that land
turn out as good crops as e'er a farm within ten miles of it.'
“'I know that, Larry,' says Tom, 'and Squire Dickson knows that no man
could handle it to more advantage. Now if you join me in it, whatever
means I have will be as much yours as mine; there's two snug houses
under the one roof, with out-houses and all, in good repair--and if
Sally and Biddy will pull manfully along with us, I don't see, with the
help of Almighty Grod, why we shouldn't get on dacently, and soon be
well and comfortable to live.'
“'Comfortable!' savs Larry, 'no, but wealthy itself, Tom: and let us
_at_ it at wanst; Squire Dickson knows what I can do as well as any man
in Europe; and I'll engage won't be hard upon us for the first year or
two; our best plan is to go to-morrow, for fraid some-other might get
the foreway of us.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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