PAT AND THE BEES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 225, 5 October 1901, Page 4

PAT AND THE BEES.

kp> Qbarles Lever's delightful "O'Donogfine" there occurs a remarkably rich passage illustrating the relations subsisting between an improving English landlord and an untutored tenant. The scene is on the lawn of the O'Donoghue's castfe in Kerry. The tenants have assembled to meet the worthy English baronet who has purchased the property, 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 bis favours. Al length, on a tenant presenting himself, whom the agent failed to recognise, the baronet turns to the figure before him, which, with face and head swollen ont of ■ll proportion, and showing distorted features and fiery eyes through the folds of a cotton handkerchief, awaits his address in *vUen silence. "Who are you my good man? What has happened to you ?" " Fat*, an' it's well ye may ax; me own mother wouldn't know me this blessed morning I 'Tis all yonr own doin' entoirely." "My doing I" replies the astonished baronet. " What can I have to do 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 proud of it. 'Twas thim blessed bees ye gev me. We brought the divels into the house last night, an' where did we put them but in the pig's corner. Well, after Katty, an' the childer, art' meself was a while in bed, the pig goes roolin' 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 I got out of bid' to let out the pig that was a-roaring through the house, the bees sittkd down on me, an' began stingin' me an' I jumped into bid again wid the whole of thlm after me and Kitty and the childer; and thin, what wid the 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 spint last night. What wid Katty and the childer a-roarin' an' a-ballin' an' the pig ta-in' up and down like mad, an' Katty wid the besom, an' myself wid the fryin'-pan the bees agin the wall till morning', an' thin the sight we wor in the mornin'— begor it'* ashamed of yerself to ought to bel"