PAT AND THE BEES

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 3

PAT AND THE BEES

In Charles Lever's delightful " O'Dcnoghue" there occurs a remarkably rich passage illustrating the relations subsisting between an improving English landlord and an untutored tenant. 'I he scene is on the lawn ol Inc O’Donoghue’s castle in Kerry. The tenants have assembled to meet the worthy English baronet who has purchased the properly, and who with his agent standing in the parlour-window, watches eagerly for some result of the many “ improvements" which at great cost he has endeavoured to introduce to the wild and untutored peasants of the district. The agent presents the tenants to the worthy innovator who enquires into the condition of the grumbling and dissatisfied recipients of his favours. At length, on a tenant presenting himsed, whom the agent failed to recognise the baronet turns to the figure before him, which, with face and head swollen out oi all proportion, and showing distorted features and fiery eyes through the folds of a cotton handkerchief, awaits his address in sullen silence. , "Who are you my good man? wnai has happened to you ?" " Faix, an’ it's well ye may ax ; me own mother wouldn't know me this blessed morning! ’Tisall your own doin’ entoircly. "My doing!" replies the astonished baronet. “ What can I have todo with the state you are in my good man ?’’ " Yes it is your doin'," answers the enraged proprietor of the swollen head, - 'Tis all your doin’, and well ye may be nroud of it. ’Twas thim blessed bees ye oev me We brought the divels into the house last night, an’ where did we but in the pig’s corner. Well, after Katty an' the childer, an’ meself was awhile ir, bed the pig goes rootin’ about the house, and’ he wasn’t aisy till he hooked his nose into the hive, and spilt the bees out about the flure; and thin whin 1 got out of bid to i e t out the pig that was a-roanng through Te house, the bees sittleddown on me, an ) egan stingin’. me an’ I jumped into bid • train wid the whole of thim after me and (Tatty and the childer; and thin, what wid che bees a-buzzin' an’ a-stingin' us under the clothes out we all jumped agin' an such a night was never spent in Ireland as we Pint last night, What wid. Katty and the childer a-roarin’ an’ a-hflUuV fth the pig farin' up and down like mad, an' Katty wid Ihe besom, an' myself wid the fry in -pan flattenin' the bees agin the wall till morning . an’ thin the sight ws wot in the mormn - I begot if# ashamed 9i yefseJf y* ou|bt to 1 bei" — —