The Emigrants Of Ahadarra. William Carleton

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СКАЧАТЬ I shall feel obliged, as your respectable wife has just said, if you will allow me to eat, and if possible, live in peace.”

      “I'm speakin' only for your—”

      “That will do now—hush—silence if you please.”

      “Hycy dear,” said the mother; “why would you ax him another question about it? Drop the thing altogether.”

      “I will, mother, but I pity you; in the meantime, I thank you, ma'am, of your advice.”

      “Hycy,” she continued, with a view of changing the conversation; “did you hear that Tom M'Bride's dead?”

      “No ma'am, but I expected it; when did he die?”

      Before his father could reply, a fumbling was heard at the hall-door; and, the next moment, Hogan, thrust in his huge head and shoulders began to examine the lock by attempting to turn the key in it.

      “Hogan, what are you about?” asked Hycy.

      “I beg your pardon,” replied the ruffian; “I only wished to know if the lock wanted mendin'—that was all, Misther Hycy.”

      “Begone, sirra,” said the other; “how dare you have the presumption to take such a liberty? you impudent scoundrel! Mother, you had better pay them,” he added; “give the vagabonds anything they ask, to get rid of them.”

      Having dined, her worthy son mixed a tumbler of punch, and while drinking it, he amused himself, as was his custom, by singing snatches of various songs, and drumming with his fingers upon the table; whilst every now and then he could hear the tones of his mother's voice in high altercation with Hogan and his brothers. This, however, after a time, ceased, and she returned to the parlor a good deal chafed by the dispute.

      “There's one thing I wonder at,” she observed, “that of all men in the neighborhood, Gerald Cavanagh would allow sich vagabonds as they an Kate Hogan is, to put in his kiln. Troth, Hycy,” she added, speaking to him in a warning and significant tone of voice, “if there wasn't something low an' mane in him, he wouldn't do it.”

      “'Tis when the cup is smiling before us.

       And we pledge unto our hearts—'

      “Your health, mother. Mr. Burke, here's to you! Why I dare say you are right, Mrs. Burke. The Cavanagh family is but an upstart one at best; it wants antiquity, ma'am—a mere affair of yesterday, so what after all could you expect from it?”

      Honest Jemmy looked at him and then groaned. “An upstart family!—that'll do—oh, murdher—well, 'tis respectable at all events; however, as to havin' the Hogans about them—they wor always about them; it was the same in their father's time. I remember ould Laghlin Hogan, an' his whole clanjamfrey, men an' women, young an' old, wor near six months out o' the year about ould Gerald Cavanagh's—the present man's father; and another thing you may build upon—that whoever ud chance to speak a hard word against one o' the Cavanagh family, before Philip Hogan or any of his brothers, would stand a strong chance of a shirtful o' sore bones. Besides, we all know how Philip's father saved Mrs. Cavanagh's life about nine or ten months after her marriage. At any rate, whatever bad qualities the vagabonds have, want of gratitude isn't among them.”

      “'———That are true, boys, true,

       The sky of this life opens o'er us,

       And heaven—'

      M'Bride, ma'am, will be a severe loss to his family.”

      “Throth he will, and a sarious loss—for among ourselves, there was none o' them like him.”

      “'Gives a glance of its blue—'

      “I think I ought to go to the wake to-night. I know it's a bit of a descent on my part, but still it is scarcely more than is due to a decent neighbor. Yes, I shall go; it is determined on.”

      “'I ga'ed a waefu' gate yestreen,

       A gate I fear I'll dearly rue;

       I gat my death frae twa sweet een,

       Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue.'

      “Mine are brown, Mrs. Burke—the eyes you wot of; but alas! the family is an upstart one, and that is strongly against the Protestant interest in the case. Heigho!”

      Jemmy Burke, having finished his after-dinner pipe and his daily tumbler both together, went out to his men; and Hycy, with whom he had left the drinking materials, after having taken a tumbler or two, put on a strong pair of boots, and changed the rest of his dress for a coarser 'suit, bade his mother a polite good-bye, and informed her, that as he intended to be present at M'Bride's wake he would most probably not return until near morning.

CHAPTER IV.—A Poteen Still-House at Midnight—Its Inmates.

       Table of Contents

      About three miles in a south-western direction from Burke's residence, the country was bounded by a range of high hills and mountains of a very rugged and wild, but picturesque description. Although a portion of the same landscape, yet nothing could be more strikingly distinct in character than the position of the brown wild hills, as contrasted with that of the mountains from which they abutted. The latter ran in long and lofty ranges that were marked by a majestic and sublime simplicity, whilst the hills were of all shapes and sizes, and seemed as if cast about at random. As a matter of course the glens and valleys that divided them ran in every possible direction, sometimes crossing and intersecting each other at right angles, and sometimes running parallel, or twisting away in opposite directions. In one of those glens that lay nearest the mountains, or rather indeed among them, was a spot which from its peculiar position would appear to have been designed from the very beginning as a perfect paradise for the illicit distiller. It was a kind of back chamber in the mountains, that might, in fact, have escaped observation altogether, as it often did. The approach to it was by a long precipitous glen, that could be entered only at its lower end, and seemed to terminate against the abrupt side of the mountain, like a cul de sac. At the very extremity, however, of this termination, and a little on the right-hand side, there was a steep, narrow pass leading into a recess which was completely encompassed by precipices. From this there was only one means of escape independently of the gut through which it was entered. The moors on the side most approachable were level, and on a line to the eye with that portion of the mountains which bounded it on the opposite side, so that as one looked forward the space appeared to be perfectly continuous, and consequently no person could suspect that there lay so deep and precipitous a glen between them.

      In the northern corner of this remarkable locality, a deep cave, having every necessary property as a place for private distillation, ran under the rocks, which met over it in a kind of gothic arch. A stream of water just sufficient for the requisite purposes, fell in through a fissure from above, forming such a little subterraneous cascade in the cavern as human design itself could scarcely have surpassed in felicity of adaptation to the objects of an illicit distiller.

      To this cave, then, we must take the liberty of transporting our readers, in order to give them an opportunity of getting a peep at the inside of a Poteen Still-house, and of hearing a portion of conversation, which, although not remarkable for either elegance or edification, we are, nevertheless, obliged СКАЧАТЬ