The Purcell Papers — Volume 1Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
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The Purcell Papers — Volume 1
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Fantasy fiction, English; Ireland -- Fiction
'"I'll take a little sup," says the squire, rachin' over his hand to the
bottle, "to keep up my courage," says he, lettin' an to be very wake in
himself intirely. But, as cute as he was, he was out here, for he tuk
the wrong one. "Here's to your good health, Terence," says he; "an' now
pull like the very divil." An' with that he lifted the bottle of holy
wather, but it was hardly to his mouth, whin he let a screech out, you'd
think the room id fairly split with it, an' made one chuck that sent the
leg clane aff his body in my father's hands. Down wint the squire over
the table, an' bang wint my father half-way across the room on his back,
upon the flure. Whin he kem to himself the cheerful mornin' sun was
shinin' through the windy shutthers, an' he was lying flat an his back,
with the leg iv one of the great ould chairs pulled clane out iv the
socket an' tight in his hand, pintin' up to the ceilin', an' ould Larry
fast asleep, an' snorin' as loud as ever. My father wint that mornin' to
Father Murphy, an' from that to the day of his death, he never neglected
confission nor mass, an' what he tould was betther believed that he
spake av it but seldom. An', as for the squire, that is the sperit,
whether it was that he did not like his liquor, or by rason iv the loss
iv his leg, he was never known to walk agin.'
THE FORTUNES OF SIR ROBERT ARDAGH.
Being a second Extract from the Papers of the late Father Purcell.
'The earth hath bubbles as the water hath--
And these are of them.'
In the south of Ireland, and on the borders of the county of Limerick,
there lies a district of two or three miles in length, which is rendered
interesting by the fact that it is one of the very few spots throughout
this country, in which some vestiges of aboriginal forest still remain.
It has little or none of the lordly character of the American forest,
for the axe has felled its oldest and its grandest trees; but in the
close wood which survives, live all the wild and pleasing peculiarities
of nature: its complete irregularity, its vistas, in whose perspective
the quiet cattle are peacefully browsing; its refreshing glades, where
the grey rocks arise from amid the nodding fern; the silvery shafts of
the old birch trees; the knotted trunks of the hoary oak, the grotesque
but graceful branches which never shed their honours under the tyrant
pruning-hook; the soft green sward; the chequered light and shade; the
wild luxuriant weeds; the lichen and the moss--all, all are beautiful
alike in the green freshness of spring, or in the sadness and sere of
autumn. Their beauty is of that kind which makes the heart full with
joy--appealing to the affections with a power which belongs to nature
only. This wood runs up, from below the base, to the ridge of a long
line of irregular hills, having perhaps, in primitive times, formed but
the skirting of some mighty forest which occupied the level below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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