Chapter XIV

For they tould me this day little Nelly had died o’ the fever last night,
An’ the frettin’; so nothin’ that matthers a thraneen’s left under the light.
What’s the differ if people believe ’twas meself shoved him into the pool?
They can’t help her or harm her. But, faith, sir, ye’ll think me a powerful fool,
Or ye’d scarce have the face to be biddin’ me spake out the truth now, afore
’Tis too late; an’ yourself sittin’ there tellin’ lies this last half-hour an’ more,
Wid your little black book full o’ blatheremskyte as its leaves is o’ print;
Sure, I’d heard all your stories; an’ sorra a wan ye’ve the wit to invint
That ’ill show folk the sinse o’ the life where they’ve come, an’ the death where they’ll go,
If there’s sinse in’t at all; wan thing’s certin: it isn’t the likes o’ yez know--
Wid your chapels an’ churches, Heaven walled up in each, an’ Hell’s blazes all round.
Och, the Divil _I_ keep is contint plaguin’ crathurs that bide above ground,
Widout blatherin’ afther thim into the dark; that’s the Divil for me;
Tho’ he wouldn’t suit you, sir: the folk’s aisier frighted wid things they can’t see.
But just leave me in paice wid your glory an’ joy--they’re as bad as the rest.
If there’s anythin’ manes me a good turn at all, let it give me what’s best--
The great sleep, that’s all sleep, ne’er a fear wan could wake, ne’er a thought to creep in;
Ne’er a dhrame--or I’d maybe hear Nelly call Felix her darlint agin.

PAST PRAYING FOR

OR, THE SOUPER’S WIDOW

‘_Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans._’

PAST PRAYING FOR

OR, THE SOUPER’S[2] WIDOW

[2] _Souper_ is a term applied to the few Irish Catholic peasants who, during famine years, professed Protestantism in order to obtain the relief, often intrusted for distribution to the clergy of the then Established Church, who occasionally made a grant conditional upon attendance at their services, etc., though as a rule acting impartially and humanely.

(A.D. 184-)

I

Sure he’d never ha’ done it, not he, if I’d on’y but held o’ me tongue;
Och, the fool that I was, the black fool--for the same I’d deserve to be hung;
But, bedad thin, the tongue o’ ye’s harder than aught in the world else to hould,
An’ that mornin’ we all was disthracted an’ perished wid hunger an’ could.

II

It was right in the worst o’ the famine, the first years the praties wint black--
Tho’ ye’re scarce of an age, Sisther Frances, to remember o’ things so far back;
But in coorse ye’ve heard tell o’ thim times, whin the people was dyin’ be the score,
Ay, be hundrids an’ thousinds, the like was ne’er seen in the counthry before.
An’ what else should the crathurs ha’ done, wid the food o’ thim rotted to dirt?
Och, to see thim--ye’d meet ne’er a man but his face was as white as his shirt.
And ourselves had been starved all the winther, the childher, an’ Micky, an’ me,
An’ poor Micky’s ould mother, till, comin’ on spring, not a chance could we see;
For there wasn’t a house far or near where they’d give ye the black o’ your eye,
And our Praste he was down wid the fever, an’ clane ruinated forby.