The Poor Scholar: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
General
The Poor Scholar: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“Throth, an' here's the same, Jimmy. There's Jack Stuart, an' if there's
a cool corner in hell, the same Jack will get it--an' that he may, I
pray Gor this day, an' amin. The Lord sind it to him! for he richly
desarves it. Kind, neighborly, and frindly, is he an' all belongin' to
him; an' I wouldn't be where a hard word 'ud be spoken of him, nor a dog
in connection wid the family ill-treated; for which reason may he get a
cool corner in hell, I humbly sufflicate.”
“What do you think of Jack Taylor? Will he be cosey?”
“Throth, I doubt so--a blessed youth is Jack: yit myself 'ud hardly wish
it. He's a heerum-skeemm, divil-may-care fellow, no doubt of it, an'
laughs at the priests, which same I'm thinkin' will get him below
stairs more nor a new-milk heat, any way; but thin agin, he thrates thim
dacent, an' gives thim good dinners, an' they take all this rolliken
in good part, so that it's likely he's not in airnest in it, and surely
they ought to know best, Jimmy.”
“What do you think of Yallow Sam?--honest Sam, that they say was born
widout a heart, an' carries the black wool in his ears, to keep out
the cries of the widows an' the orphans, that are long rotten in their
graves through his dark villany!--He'll get a snug birth!”*
* This was actually said of the person alluded to--a
celebrated usurer and agent to two or three estates,
who was a little deaf, and had his ears occasionally
stuffed with black wool.
“Yallow Sam,” replied the old man, slowly, and a dark shade of intense
hatred blackened his weather-beaten countenance, as he looked in the
direction from which the storm blew: “'twas he left us where we're
standin', Jimmy--undher this blast, that's cowldher an' bittherer nor a
step-mother's breath, this cuttin' day! 'Twas he turned us on the wide
world, whin your poor mother was risin' out of her faver. 'Twas he
squenched the hearth, whin she wasn't able to lave the house, till I
carried her in my arms into Paddy Cassidy's--the tears fallin' from my
eyes upon her face, that I loved next to God. Didn't he give our farm to
his bastard son, a purple Orangeman? Out we went, to the winds an' skies
of heaven, bekase the rich bodagh made intherest aginst us. I tould him
whin he chated me out o' my fifteen goolden guineas, that his masther,
the landlord, should hear of it; but I could never get next or near to
him, to make my complaint. Eh? A snug birth! I'm only afeard that hell
has no corner hot enough for him--but lave that to the divil himself:
if he doesn't give him the best thratement hell can afford, why I'm not
here.”
“Divil a one o' the ould boy's so bad as they say, father; he gives it
to thim hot an' heavy, at all evints.”
“Why even if he was at a loss about Sam, depind upon it, he'd get a hint
from his betthers above, that 'ud be sarviceable.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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