Humours of Irish Life Part 3

THE REV. J. J. MELDON AND THE CHIEF SECRETARY _George A. Birmingham_ 220

OLD TUMMUS AND THE BATTLE OF SCARVA _Eleanor Alexander_ 235

THE GAME LEG _K. F. Purdon_ 244

TRINKET'S COLT _E. OE. Somerville and Martin Ross_ 258

THE WEE TEA TABLE _Shan Bullock_ 276

THE INTERPRETERS _George A. Birmingham_ 290

A TEST OF TRUTH _Jane Barlow_ 307

THE WISE WOMAN _John Stevenson_ 314

THE MEET OF THE BEAGLES _H. de Vere Stacpoole_ 324

THE BALLYGULLION CREAMERY SOCIETY, LIMITED _Lynn Doyle_ 336

AUTHORS REPRESENTED

PAGE ALEXANDER, ELEANOR 235

BARLOW, JANE 200, 307

BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE A. 220, 290

BULLOCK, SHAN 276

CARLETON, WILLIAM 58, 131

COLUM, PADRAIC 213

DOYLE, LYNN 336

ECCLES, CHARLOTTE O'CONOR 179

ETTINGSALL, THOMAS 84

FERGUSON, SIR SAMUEL 82

FRENCH, WILLIAM PERCY 159

HUNT, B. 46

HYDE, DOUGLAS 42

KENNEDY, PATRICK 9, 38

KICKHAM, CHARLES JOSEPH 148

LE FANU, JOSEPH SHERIDAN 105, 139

LEVER, CHARLES 72, 123

LOVER, SAMUEL 18

MAGINN, DR. 1, 92

MATHEW, FRANK 154

MCCALL, PATRICK J. 30

PURDON, K. F. 244

SOMERVILLE, E. OE. AND ROSS, MARTIN 167, 258

STACPOOLE, H. DE VERE 324

STEVENSON, JOHN 314

HUMOURS OF IRISH LIFE

Daniel O'Rourke.

_From Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland."_

BY DR. MAGINN (1793-1842).

People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke, but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the walls of the Phooka's tower. I knew the man well: he lived at the bottom of Hungry Hill. He told me his story thus:--

"I am often axed to tell it, sir, so that this is not the first time.

The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign parts; and sure enough there was a dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low, rich and poor. Well, we had everything of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drunk, and we danced. To make a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost. And so, as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenogh, I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water.

'Death alive!' thought I, 'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming away for dear life, till at last I got ash.o.r.e, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon a dissolute island.

"I wandered, and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was s.h.i.+ning as bright as day, or your lady's eyes, sir (with your pardon for mentioning her), and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog. I began to scratch me head, and sing the Ullagone--when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,' says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you sir,' says I; 'I hope you're well'; wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?' says he. 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I: 'only I wish I was safe home again.' 'Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis, sir,' says I. 'Dan,'

says he, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, yet, as you are a decent, sober man, who 'tends Ma.s.s well, and never flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields--my life for yours,' says he, 'so get on my back and grip me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever heard of riding horseback on an eagle before?' ''Pon the honour of a gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, 'I am quite in earnest: and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog--besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.'

"It was true enough, as he said, for I found the stone every minute going from under me. 'I thank your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up--up--up, dear knows how far he flew. 'Why, then,' said I to him--thinking he did not know the right road home--very civilly, because why? I was in his power entirely: 'sir,' says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your wors.h.i.+p.'

"'Arrah, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked off a cowld stone in a bog.' Well, sir, up he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he: 'mind your own business, and don't be interfering with the business of other people.'