Upon some odd occasions he was a ready and willing drudge at
everything, and as strong as a ditch. Give him only a good
fog-meal—which was merely a trifle, just what would serve
three men or so—give him, we say, a fog-meal of this kind,
about five times a day, with a liberal promise of more, and
never was there a Scotch Brownie who could get through so
much work. He knew no fatigue; frost and cold had no power
over him; wind, sleet, and hail he laughed at; rain! it
stretched his skin, he said, after a meal—and that, he
added, was a comfort. Notwithstanding all this, he was
neither more nor less than an impersonation of laziness,
craft, and gluttony. The truth is, that unless in the hope
of being gorged he would do nothing; and the only way to get
anything out of him was, never to let the gorge precede the
labor, but always, on the contrary, to follow it. Bob's
accomplishments were not only varied, but of a very elevated
order, and the means of holding him in high odor among us.
Great and wonderful, Heaven knows, did we look upon his
endowments to be. No man, wise or otherwise, could “hunt the
brock,” alias the badger, within a hundred miles of Bob; for
when he covered his mouth with his two hands, and gave forth
the very sounds which the badger is said to utter, did we
not look upon him—Bob—with as much wonder and reverence as
we would have done upon the badger himself? Phup-um-phup—
phup-um-phup—phup-um—phup-um—phup-um-phup. Who but a
first-rate genius could accomplish this feat in such a
style? Bob could crow like a cock, bark like a dog, mew like
a cat, neigh like a horse, bray like an ass, or gobble like
a turkey-cock. Unquestionably, I have never heard him
equalled as an imitator of birds and beasts. Bob's crack
feat, however, was performing the Screw-pin Dance, of which
we have only this to say, that by whatsoever means he became
acquainted with it, it is precisely the same dance which is
said to have been exhibited by some strolling Moor before
the late Queen Caroline. It is, indeed, very strange, but no
less true, that many of the oriental customs are yet
prevalent in the remote and isolated parts of Ireland. Had
the late Mr. O'Brien, author of the Essay on Irish Round
Towers, seen Bob perform the dance I speak of, he would have
hailed him as a regular worshipper of Budh, and adduced his
performance as a living confirmation of his theory. Poor
Bob! he is gone the way of all fools, and all flesh.
“Indeed, childher, it's no wonder for yez to enquire! Where did I get him, Dick?—musha, and where would I get him but in the ould place, a-hagur; with the ould set: don't yez know that a dacent place or dacent company wouldn't sarve Ned?—nobody but Shane Martin, and Jimmy Tague, and the other blackguards.” *
* The reader, here, is not to rely implicitly upon the
accuracy of Nancy's description of the persons alluded to.
It is true the men were certainly companions and intimate
acquaintances of Ned's, but not entitled to the epithet
which Nancy in her wrath bestowed upon them. Shane was a
rollicking fighting, drinking butcher, who cared not a fig!
whether he treated you to a drink or a drubbing, indeed, it
was at all times extremely difficult to say whether he was
likely to give you the drink first or the drubbing
afterwards, or vice versa. Sometimes he made the drubbing
the groundwork for the drink and quite as frequently the
drink the groundwork for the drubbing. Either one or other
you were sure to receive at his hands; but his general
practice was to give both. Shane, in fact, was a good-
humored fellow, well liked, and nobody's enemy but his own.
Jemmy Tague was a quiet man, who could fight his corner,
however, if necessary. Shane,was called Kittogue Shane, from
being left-handed. Both were butchers, and both, we believe,
alive and kicking at this day.
“And what will you do with him, Nancy?”
“Och! thin, Dick, avourneen, it's myself that's jist tired thinking of that; at any rate, consamin' to the loose foot he'll get this blessed month to come, Dick, agra!”
“Throth, Nancy,” another mischievous monkey would exclaim, “if you hadn't great patience entirely, you couldn't put up with such threatment, at all at all.”
“Why thin, God knows it's true for-you, Barney. D'ye hear that, 'graceless?' the very childhre making a laughing-stock and a may-game of you!—but wait till we get under the roof, any how.”
“Ned,” a third would say, “isn't it a burning shame for you to break the poor crathur's heart this a-way? Throth, but you ought to hould down your head, sure enough—a dacent woman! that only for her you wouldn't have a house over you, so you wouldn't.”
“And throth, and the same house is going, Tim,” Nancy would exclaim, “and when it goes, let him see thin who'll do for him; let him thry if his blackguards will stand to him, when he won't have poor foolish Nancy at his back.”
During these conversations, Ned would walk on between his two guards with a dogged-looking and condemned face; Nancy behind him, with his own cudgel, ready to administer an occasional bang whenever he attempted to slacken his pace, or throw over his shoulder a growl of dissent or justification.
On getting near home, the neighbors would occasionally pop out their heads, with a smile of good-humored satire on their faces, which Nancy was very capable of translating:
“Ay,” she would say, addressing them, “I've caught him—here he is to the fore. Indeed you may well laugh, Kitty Rafferty; not a one of myself blames you for it.—Ah, ye mane crathur,” aside to Ned, “if you had the blood of a hen in you, you wouldn't have the neighbors braking their hearts laughing at you in sich a way; and above all the people in the world, them Rafferty's, that got the decree against us at the last sessions, although I offered to pay within fifteen shillings of the differ—the grubs!”
Having seen her hopeful charge safely deposited on the hob, Nancy would throw her cloak into this corner, and her bonnet into that, with the air of a woman absorbed by the consideration of some vexatious trial; she would then sit down, and, lighting her doodeen, (* a short pipe) exclaim—
“Wurrah, wurrah! but it's me that's the heart-scalded crathur with that man's four quarters! The Lord may help me and grant me patience with him, any way!—to have my little honest, hard-earned penny spint among a pack of vagabonds, that don't care if him and me wor both down the river, so they could get their skinful of drink out of him! No matther, agra, things can't long be this a-way; but what does Ned care?—give him drink and fighting, and his blackguards about him, and that's his glory. There