The Poacher; Or, Joseph RushbrookMarryat, Frederick
General
The Poacher; Or, Joseph Rushbrook
Marryat, Frederick
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Murder -- Fiction; Poachers -- Fiction
We should be further obliged to the same party, or indeed, any
other, it they would favour us with an idea of what was implied by a
king of Ireland in those days; that is to say, whether he held a court,
taxed his subjects, collected revenue, kept up a standing army, sent
ambassadors to foreign countries, and did all which kings do nowadays?
or whether his shillelagh was his sceptre, and his domain some
furze-crowned hills and a bog, the intricacies of which were known only
to himself? whether he was arrayed in jewelled robes, with a crown of
gold weighing on his temples? or whether he went bare-legged and
bare-armed, with his bare locks flowing in luxurious wildness to the
breeze? We request an answer to this in full simplicity. We observe
that even in Ireland now, a fellow six feet high, and stout in
proportion, is called a "prince of a fellow," although he has not
wherewithal to buy a paper of tobacco to supply his dhudeen: and,
arguing from this fact, we are inclined to think that a few more inches
in stature, and commensurate muscular increase of power, would in former
times have raised the "heir-apparent" to the dignity of the Irish
throne. But these abstruse speculations have led us from our history,
which we must now resume.
Whatever may once have been the importance of the house of O'Donahue,
one thing is certain, that there are many ups and downs in this world;
every family in it has its wheel of fortune, which revolves faster or
slower as the fates decree, and the descendant of kings before the
O'Connor's time was now descended into a species of Viceroy, Squireen
O'Donahue being the steward of certain wild estates in the county of
Galway, belonging to a family who for many years had shown a decided
aversion to the natural beauties of the country, and had thought proper
to migrate to where, if people were not so much attached to them, they
were at all events more civilised. These estates were extensive, but
not lucrative. They abounded in rocks, brushwood, and woodcocks during
the season; and although the Squireen O'Donahue did his best, if not for
his employer, at least for himself; it was with some difficulty that he
contrived to support, with anything like respectability (which in that
part of the country means "dacent clothes to wear"), a very numerous
family, lineally descended from the most ancient of all the kings of
Ireland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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