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
Our readers must have heard of the old and well known luxury
of “potatoes and point,” which, humorous as it is, scarcely
falls short of the truth. An Irish family, of the cabin
class, hangs up in the chimney a herring, or “small taste” of
bacon, and as the national imagination is said to be strong,
each individual points the potato he is going to eat at it,
upon the principle, I suppose, of _crede et habes_. It is
generally said that the act communicates the flavor of the
herring or bacon, as the case may be, to the potato; and
this is called “potatoes and point.”
** This proverb, which is always used as above, but without
being confined in its application, to only one sex, is a
general one in Ireland. In delicacy and beauty I think it
inimitable.
“In this way lived Jack and his mother, as happy and continted as two
lords; except now and thin, that Jack would feel a little consarn for
not being able to lay past anything for the _sorefoot_,* or that might
enable him to think of marrying--for he was beginning to look about him
for a wife; and why not, to be sure? But he was prudent for all that,
and didn't wish to bring a wife and small family into poverty and
hardship without means to support them, as too many do.
* Accidents--future calamity--or old age.
“It was one fine, frosty, moonlight night--the sky was without a cloud,
and the stars all blinking that it would delight anybody's heart to look
at them, when Jack was crassing a bog that lay a few fields beyant his
own cabin. He was just crooning the '_Humors of Glynn_' to himself and
thinking that it was a very hard case that he couldn't save anything at
all, at all, to help him to the wife, when, on coming down a bank in the
middle of the bog, he saw a dark-looking man leaning against a clamp of
turf, and a black dog, with a pipe of tobacky in his mouth, sitting at
his ase beside him, and he smoking as sober as a judge. Jack, however,
had a stout heart, bekase his conscience was clear, and, barring being
a little daunted, he wasn't very much afeard. 'Who is this coming down
towards us?' said the black-favored man, as he saw Jack approaching
them. 'It's Jack Magennis,' says the dog, making answer, and taking the
pipe out of his mouth with his right paw; and after puffing away the
smoke, and rubbing the end of it against his left leg, exactly as a
Christian (this day's Friday, the Lord stand betune us and harm) would
do against his sleeve, giving it at the same time to his comrade--'It's
Jack Magennis,' says the dog, 'honest Widow Magennis's dacent son.' 'The
very man,' says the other, back to him, 'that I'd wish to sarve out of a
thousand. Arrah, Jack Magennis, how is every tether-length of you?' says
the old fellow, putting the _furrawn_* on him--'and how is every bone
in your body, Jack, my darling? I'll hould a thousand guineas,' says he,
pointing to a great big bag that lay beside him, 'and that's only the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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