Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 4 | Page 8

town in the southeast
of Ireland, and was succeeded by a languor proportioned to the wild
excitement it never failed to create. But of all in the village, its
publicans suffered most under the reaction of great bustle. Few of their
houses appeared open at broad noon; and some--the envy of their
competitors--continued closed even after that late hour. Of these latter,
many were of the very humblest kind; little cabins, in fact, skirting the
outlets of the village, or standing alone on the roadside a good distance
beyond it.
About two o'clock upon the day in question, a house of "Entertainment
for Man and Horse," the very last of the description noticed to be found
between the village and the wild tract of mountain country adjacent to
it, was opened by the proprietress, who had that moment arisen from
bed.
The cabin consisted of only two apartments, and scarce more than

nominally even of two; for the half-plastered wicker and straw partition,
which professed to cut off a sleeping-nook from the whole area
inclosed by the clay walls, was little higher than a tall man, and
moreover chinky and porous in many places. Let the assumed
distinction be here allowed to stand, however, while the reader casts his
eyes around what was sometimes called the kitchen, sometimes the
tap-room, sometimes the "dancing-flure." Forms which had run by the
walls, and planks by way of tables which had been propped before
them, were turned topsy-turvy, and in some instances broken. Pewter
pots and pints, battered and bruised, or squeezed together and flattened,
and fragments of twisted glass tumblers, lay beside them. The clay
floor was scraped with brogue-nails and indented with the heel of that
primitive foot-gear, in token of the energetic dancing which had lately
been performed upon it. In a corner still appeared (capsized, however)
an empty eight-gallon beer barrel, recently the piper's throne, whence
his bag had blown forth the inspiring storms of jigs and reels, which
prompted to more antics than ever did a bag of the laughing-gas.
Among the yellow turf-ashes of the hearth lay on its side an old
blackened tin kettle, without a spout,--a principal utensil in brewing
scalding water for the manufacture of whisky-punch; and its soft and
yet warm bed was shared by a red cat, who had stolen in from his own
orgies, through some cranny, since day-break. The single four-paned
window of the apartment remained veiled by its rough shutter, that
turned on leather hinges; but down the wide yawning chimney came
sufficient light to reveal the objects here described.
The proprietress opened her back door. She was a woman of about
forty; of a robust, large-boned figure; with broad, rosy visage, dark,
handsome eyes, and well-cut nose: but inheriting a mouth so wide as to
proclaim her pure aboriginal Irish pedigree. After a look abroad, to
inhale the fresh air, and then a remonstrance (ending in a kick) with the
hungry pig, who ran, squeaking and grunting, to demand his
long-deferred breakfast, she settled her cap, rubbed down her
prauskeen [coarse apron], tucked and pinned up her skirts behind, and
saying in a loud, commanding voice, as she spoke into the
sleeping-chamber, "Get up now at once, Jer, I bid you," vigorously if
not tidily set about putting her tavern to rights.

During her bustle the dame would stop an instant, and bend her ear to
listen for a stir inside the partition; but at last losing patience she
resumed:--
"Why, then, my heavy hatred on you, Jer Mulcahy, is it gone into a
sauvaun [pleasant drowsiness] you are, over again? or maybe you stole
out of bed, an' put your hand on one o' them ould good-for-nothing
books, that makes you the laziest man that a poor woman ever had
tinder one roof wid her? ay, an' that sent you out of our dacent shop an'
house, in the heart of the town below, an' banished us here, Jer
Mulcahy, to sell drams o' whisky an' pots o' beer to all the riff-raff o'
the counthry-side, instead o' the nate boots an' shoes you served your
honest time to?"
She entered his, or her chamber, rather, hoping that she might detect
him luxuriantly perusing in bed one of the mutilated books, a love of
which (or more truly a love of indolence, thus manifesting itself) had
indeed chiefly caused his downfall in the world. Her husband, however,
really tired after his unusual bodily efforts of the previous day, only
slumbered, as Mrs. Mulcahy had at first anticipated; and when she had
shaken and aroused him, for the twentieth time that morning, and
scolded him until the spirit-broken blockhead whimpered,--nay, wept,
or pretended to weep,--the dame returned to her household duties.
She did not neglect, however, to keep calling to