"BEFORE THE BEGINNIN’ OF EVERYTHIN’.”

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1285, 15 October 1896, Page 9

" BEFORE THE BEGINNIN’ OF EVERYTHIN’.”

In her vivid pictures of Irish life called “ Strangers at Lesconnel," Miss Jane Barlow, author of “ Irish Idylls," gives the following entertaining sketch of a little Irish lad’s amusing speculations about the occupations of the devil in prehistoric times : “ What was there in the world before the boginnin’ of everythin ’ ?’ asks a small boy who had spent a surprisingly considerable part of his six years in metaphysical speculations.— ‘ Sure, nothin’ at all,’ answered his elder brother Peter.— ‘ Then what was there before the beginnin’ of nothin’ ?’ pursued Thady.— 1 Dunno,’ said Peter indifferently, 4 unless it was more nothin’.’ —‘ Sure, not at all, that wouldn’t be the way of it/ Johanna said dreamily, yet with decision. 1 If there was nothin’ but nothin’ in it, there’d ha’ been apt to not be e’er an anythin’ ever. Wliere’d it ha’ come from ? Don’t be tellin’ the child lies, Peter. Why for one thing/ she said, her tone sharpening polemically, and taking a touch of triumph, ‘ there was always God Almighty in it and the Divil. Maybe that’s what you call nothing’.’—Peter evaded this point, saying,— ‘ Well, anyway, those times, if there was just the two of them in it, and no harm to be doin’, let alone any good people to know the differ, it’s only a quare sort of Divil he’d get the chance of bein’. I wouldn’t call him anythin’ much.' —* He wouldn’t be so very long, you may depend,’ Johanna pronounced. ‘ Masha, sure the Divil couldn’t stay con tint any while at all, till he’d take to some manner ofould mischief 'ud soon show you the sort of crathur he was—it’s his nathur. I should suppose the first thing he’d go to do, ’ud be mailin’ all the sorts of liijjis roarin’ great bastes and snakes and riptiles that he could think of, and the disolit black wet bogs, wid the could win’ over them fit to cut you in two, when you’re sleepin’ out at night and the workhouses—bad luck to the whole of thorn ! —where there’s rats in the cocoa and mad people frightenin’ you, and the cross matrons and the polis, and the say to drowned the fishin’ boats in, and dirty ould naygurs that put dacint peoplo out of ther little places.’— ‘ If it had Deen me,' said Peter, 4 I’d ha’ been very apt to just hit him a crack on the head when I noticed what ho was at, and bid him lave them sort of consthructions alone.’— ‘ I dunno the rights of it entirely/ Johanna admitted, 4 but it’s a cruel pity he ever got the chance to be carryin’ on the way he’s done.’— 4 Ah ! sure it can’t be helped now at all events/ said Peter, ready to take life aisy that fine sunny day.— 4 Belike it can’t,’ said Johanna, 4 but ’twould be real grand if it could. Suppose I was out on the hill there some fine evenin’, and I not thinkin’ of anythin’ in partic’lar, and all of a suddint I’d see a great big, ugly, black-lookin’ baste of a feller, the size of forty, skytin’ away wid himself, along the light of the sky over yonder, where the sun was about goin’ dowih frig

shadder the len’fch of an awful tall,tree ' slippin', streelin’ after him, till it was off over the edge of the world like ; and that same ’ud be just the Divil that they were after bundlin’ out of it body and bones, the way he wouldn’t get meddlin’ and mak- j in’ and annoyin’ people any more.’ —‘ Sure,’ | answers Thady, ‘1 know all about God ! Almighty and the Divil, I was on’y axin’ j what was in it before the beginnin’ of i everythin’, and you're not tellin’ me that.’ i — 1 There’s a dale of things little spalpeens 1 like you wouldn’t be told the rights of at all,’ said Peter loftily."