Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee Part 9

"Why, sir, you see only I was as I said, Sir--not tipsy, your honor, any way, but seein' things double or so; an' that was, I suppose, what made me offer for the farm double what I intinded. Every body knows, sir, that the 'crathur' gives the big heart to us, any how, your honor."

"But you know, Peter, we entered into no terms about it. I, therefore, have neither power nor inclination to hold you to the offer you made."

"Faith, sir, you're not the gintleman to do a shabby turn, nor ever was, nor one o' your family. There's not in all Europe"--

Ellish, who was a point blank dealer, could endure Peter's mode of transacting business no longer. She knew that if he once got into the true spirit of applying the oil of flattery to the landlord, he would have rubbed him into a perfect froth ere he quitted him. She, therefore, took up the thread of the discourse, and finished the compliment with much more delicacy than honest Peter could have displayed.

"Thrue for you, Pether," she added; "there is not a kinder family to the poor, nor betther landlords in the country they live in. Pether an'

myself, your honor, on layin' both our 'heads together, found that he offered more rint for the land nor any! tenant could honestly pay. So, sir, where's the use of keepin' back G.o.d's truth--Pether, sir"--

Peter here trembled from an apprehension that the wife, in accomplis.h.i.+ng some object of her own in reference to the land, was about to undeceive the landlord, touching the lie which he had so barefacedly palmed upon that worthy gentleman for truth. In fact, his anxiety overcame his prudence, and he resolved to antic.i.p.ate her.

"I'd advise you, sir," said he, with a smile of significant good-humor, "to be a little suspicious of her, for, to tell the truth, she draws the"--here he ill.u.s.trated the simile with his staff--"the long bow of an odd time; faith she does. I'd kiss the book on the head of what I tould you, sir, plase your honor. For the sacret of it is, that I tuck the moistare afore she left her bed."

"Why, Peter, alanna," said Ellish, soothingly, "what's comin' over you, at all, an' me; goin' to explain to his honor the outs and ins I of our opinion about the land? Faix, man, we're not thinkin' about you, good or bad."

"I believe the drop has scarcely left your head yet, Peter," said the landlord.

"Bud-an'-age, your honor, sure we must have our joke, any how--doesn't she deserve it for takin' the word out o' my mouth?"

"Whisht, avillish; you're too cute for us all, Pether. There's no use, sir, as I was sayin', for any one to deny that when they take a farm they do it to make by it, or at the laste to live comfortably an it.

That's the thruth, your honor, an' it's no use to keep it back from you, sir."

"I perfectly agree with you," said the landlord. "It is with these motives that a tenant should wish to occupy land; and it is the duty of every landlord who has his own interest truly at heart, to see that his land be not let at such a rent as will preclude the possibility of comfort or independence on the part of his tenantry. He who lets his land above its value, merely because people are foolish enough to offer more for it than it is worth, is as great an enemy to himself as he is to the tenant."

"It's G.o.d's thruth, sir, an' it's nothin' else but a comfort to hear sich words comin' from the lips of a gintleman that's a landlord himself."

"Ay, an' a good one, too," said Peter; "an' kind father for his honor to be what he is. Divil resave the family in all Europe"--

"Thrue for you, avourneen, an' even' one knows that. We wor talkin' it over, sir, betuxt ourselves, Pether an' me, an' he says very cutely, that, upon second thoughts, he offered more nor we could honestly pay out o' the land: so"--

"Faith, it's a thrue as gospel, your honor. Says I, 'Ellish, you beauty'"--

"I thought," observed Mr. Eccles, "that she sometimes drew the long bow, Peter."

"Oh, murdher alive, sir, it was only in regard of her cra.s.sin' in an'

whippin' the word out o' my mouth, that I wanted to take a rise out of her. Oh, bedad, sir, no; the crathur's thruth to the backbone, an'

farther if I'd say it."

"So, your honor, considherin' everything, we're willin' to offer thirty s.h.i.+llin's an acre for the farm. That rint, sir, we'll be able to pay, wid the help o' G.o.d, for sure we can do nothin' widout his a.s.sistance, glory be to his name! You'll get many that'll offer you more, your honor; but if it 'ud be plasin' to you to considher what manes they have to pay it, I think, sir, you'd see, out o' your own sinse, that it's not likely people who is gone to the bad, an' has nothin' could stand it out long."

"I wish to heaven," replied Mr. Eccles, "that every tenant in Ireland possessed your prudence and good sense. Will you permit me to ask, Mrs.

Connell, what capital you and your husband can command provided I should let you have it."

"Wid every pleasure in life, sir, for it's but a fair question to put.

An' sure, it is to G.o.d we owe it, whatever it is, plase your honor. But, sir, if we get the land, we're able to stock it, an' to crop it well an'

dacently; an' if your honor would allow us for sartin improvements, sir, we'd run it into snug fields, by plantin' good hedges, an' gettin' up shelther for the outlyin' cattle in the hard seasons, plase your honor, and you know the farm is very naked and bare of shelter at present."

"Sowl, will we, sir, an' far more nor that if we get it. I'll undhertake, sir, to level"--

"No, Pether, we'll promise no more nor we'll do; but anything that his honor will be plased to point out to us, if we get fair support, an'

that it remains on the farm afther us, we'll be willin' to do it."

"Willin'!" exclaimed Peter!--"faith, whether we're willin' or not, if his honor but says the word"----

"Mrs. Connell," said their landlord, "say no more. The farm is yours, and you may, consider yourselves as my tenants."

"Many thanks to you, sir, for the priference. I hope, sir, you'll not rue what you did in givin' it to us before them that offered a higher rint. You'll find, sir, wid the help o' the Almighty, that we'll pay you your rint rigular an' punctual."

"Why, thin, long life, an' glory, an' benedication to your honor! Faith, it's only kind father for you, sir, to be what you are. The divil resave the family in all Europe"--

"Peter, that will do," replied the landlord, "it would be rather hazardous for our family to compete with all Europe. Go home, Peter, and be guided by your wife, who has more sense in her little finger than ever your family had either in Europe or out of it, although I mean you no offense by going beyond Europe."

"By all the books that never wor opened an' shut," replied Peter, with the intuitive quickness of perception peculiar to Irishmen, "an innocenter boy than Andy Connell never was sent acra.s.s the water. I proved as clear an alibi for him as the sun in the firmanent; an' yit, bad luck to the big-wig O'Grady, he should be puttin' in his leek an me afore the jury, jist whin I had the poor boy cleared out dacently, an'

wid all honor. An' bedad, now, that we're spakin about it, I'll tell your honor the whole conclusions of it. You see, sir, the Agint was shot one night; an' above all nights in the year, your honor, a thief of a toothache that I had kep me"--

"Pether, come away, abouchal: his honor kaows as much about it as you do, Come, aroon; you know we must help to scald an' sc.r.a.pe the pig afore night, an' it's late now."

"Bodad, sir, she's a sweet one, this."

"Be guided by her, Peter, if you're wise, she's a wife you ought to be proud of."

"Thrue for you, sir; divil resave the word o' lie in that, any how.

Come, Ellish; come, you deludher, I'm wid you."

"G.o.d bless your honor, sir, an' we're ob'laged to you for you kindness an' patience wid the likes o' us."

"I say ditto, your honor. Long life an' glory to you every day your honor rises!"

Peter, on his way home, entered into a defence of his apology for offering so high a rent to the landlord; but although it possessed both ingenuity and originality, it was, we must confess, grossly defective in those principles usually inculcated by our best Ethic writers.

"Couldn't you have tould him what we agreed upon goin' up," observed Ellish; "but instead o' that, to begin an' tell the gintlemen so many lies about your bein' dhrunk, an' this bein' your birth-day, an' the day we wor marrid, an',----Musha, sich quare stories to come into your head?"

"Why," said Peter, "what harm's in all that, whin he didn't _find me out?_"

"But why the sarra did you go to say that I was in the custom o' tellin'

lies?"

"Faix, bekase I thought you wor goin' to let out all, an' I thought it best to have the first word o' you. What else?--but sure I brought myself off bravely."

"Well, well, a hudh; don't be invintin' sich things another time, or you'll bring yourself into a sc.r.a.pe, some way or other."

"Faix, an' you needn't spake, Ellish; you can let out a nate bounce yourself, whin it's to sarve you. Come now, don't run away wid the story!"

"Well, if I do, it's in the way o' my business; whin I'm batin' them down in the price o' what I'm buyin', or gettin' thim to bid up for any thing I'm sellin': besides, it's to advance ourselves in the world that I do it, abouchal."

"Go an, go an; faix, you're like the new moon, sharp at both corners: but what matther, you beauty, we've secured the farm, at any rate, an', by this an' by that, I'll show you tip-top farmin' an it."

A struggle now commenced between the husband and wife, as to which of them should, in their respective departments, advance themselves with greater rapidity in life. This friendly contest was kept up princ.i.p.ally by the address of Ellish, who, as she knew those points in her husband's character most easily wrought upon, felt little difficulty in shaping him to her own purposes. Her great object was to acquire wealth; and it mostly happens, that when this is the ruling principle in life, there is usually to be found, in a.s.sociation with it, all those qualities which are best adapted to secure it. Peter, on finding that every succeeding day brought something to their gains, began to imbibe a portion of that spirit which wholly absorbed Ellish. He became worldly; but it was rather the worldliness of habit than of principle. In the case of Ellish, it proceeded from both; her mind was apt, vigorous, and conceptive; her body active, her manners bland and insinuating, and her penetration almost intuitive. About the time of their entering upon the second farm, four children had been, the fruit of their marriage--two sons and two daughters. These were now new sources of anxiety to their mother, and fresh impulses to her industry. Her ignorance, and that of her husband, of any kind of education, she had often, in the course of their business, bitter cause to regret. She now resolved that their children should be well instructed; and no time was lost in sending them to school, the moment she thought them capable of imbibing the simplest elements of instruction.