AN IRISH ORIGINAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3051, 14 August 1893, Page 3

AN IRISH ORIGINAL.

Well, Pat, how are your potatoes turning out this year ?" v, " Well, your Reverence, about as bad as bad could be. If you put a Hieland piper playing his pipes at wan good stalk, and walked from that till you came to another good one, you wouldn't hear his music. There's the truth for you, now. An' now, your Reverence, how can the landlord be expectin' rint such times as these? It's against nature. Did I tell you what I said to the agent lately ?" "No." "Well, sure enough, I went to the office such a day ; and be the same token there was a bacon strike goin' on in the country at the same time, and I says to the agent, < Sir,' says I, • I have seven good store pigs in me yard, an' a lot of fine manure, an' I've some ay the finest hay in the parish, an' I want nothin' but a little time. I can pay ye well,' says I, when I sell some of my little property.' 'The divil a day,' says he, * Mr. O'Mulligan' (savin' your Reverence's presence for makin' use of such a word),' the divil a day longer can ye have,' says he. Well, me timper riz, your Reverence, for I'm a man who lives very near his timper, as the sayin< is ; and I says back again to him, I says, 'To the divil I pitch you/ says I,' where Darby Keeffe pitched the Judge, and do your best,' says I. But isn't it cruel, your Reverence, isn't it cruel for me an' the likes of me to be like this, under the scourge and under the harrow and under the axe and under the saw and under the flail and under the whip and under the hammer and under the bailiff and under the agent and under the peeler—isn't it now ?'' Mr. O'Mulligan paused here to take breath, for we most imperfectly reproduce his torrent of eloquence. In the interval we observed : —" King Solomon says,' The hand of the diligent maketh rich,' so you should be well off." " Yes, your Reverence, that's right; I know man is born to 'industre.' My duties are very erroneous (?onerous), but, as Holy Scripture says, ' Work out your own Salvation, an' let us cast off the works of darkness ; blessed are the dead —for them I mourn.' I was a man who wanst had £700 of diy money, an' now, savin' your presence, I haven't the price of a shave, an' that's fourpence, left of it; an' what's more, I've a young, weighty family to'contind'with. Me money is all gone with lawyers.an' rint an' costs, for I'm not that ' insipid' drunkard at al! that the people says I am. If your Reverence would only be plased to look at them some day, I could show you me papers, for I have as many of them as would boil a pot of spuds." " It's a great pity you were not made a Sawyer yourself, Mr. O'Mulligon; you would have been a great man to address a jury." " Well now, sir, don't be joking me; It's yourself is the pleasant gentleman. Still, I have no great taste for the law ; there was a great scholar in this parish wanst, an' he could spake Latin like the alphabet; and I heard tell he used to say that there was a piece of Latin about a man not gett'n' to be a bad man all at wanst, an' the way he give it put himself was—* It takes two years to make an attorney.' It's well I knows them. Sure enough I wanst took a bill of costs to a friend to look over, and by-and-by he says—' Pat, this man will be saved yet,' says he. ' What do you mane by that ? says I. ' I mane by it,' says he, ' that Attorney So-and-so isn't that bad man after all,' says he, ' if this is his bill,' says he,' he have a chance of gettin' to heaven after all,'says he. See that now, sir! Well, after all, it's worth while to get a rowl of the Coort out of yer money, anyway. Tom Luby, who was half-aiqual to a lawyer himself, because he was so often at Sessions and Assizes wid cases, tuk great pride out of a clever attorney; an' he used to say he had more roguery in his belly than fifty mjn. But I mu^ be taking lave of ypu nqw ? sir, an' I hope Mr. Balfour will call in here before he goes home—l can let his honour see that I haven't a trescawn of praties in mp whole little garden, glory be to God !" But how poor and faint an idea all this conveys of the volubility of Mi O'Mulligan! Fuller said that the bam, bald style of the schoolmen was, tv be attributed to design, *' lest any oi the vermin of equivocation should hide themselves under the nap of their words." In whatever other respects the poorest Irishman may be bald and bare, he never experiences any of the pangs of poverty of language.— Spectator,