The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three by William Carleton
page 4 of 179 (02%)
page 4 of 179 (02%)
|
"Yallow Sam," replied the old man, slowly, and a dark shade of intense
hatred blackened his weather-beaten countenance, as he looked in the direction from which the storm blew: "'twas he left us where we're standin', Jimmy--undher this blast, that's cowldher an' bittherer nor a step-mother's breath, this cuttin' day! 'Twas he turned us on the wide world, whin your poor mother was risin' out of her faver. 'Twas he squenched the hearth, whin she wasn't able to lave the house, till I carried her in my arms into Paddy Cassidy's--the tears fallin' from my eyes upon her face, that I loved next to God. Didn't he give our farm to his bastard son, a purple Orangeman? Out we went, to the winds an' skies of heaven, bekase the rich bodagh made intherest aginst us. I tould him whin he chated me out o' my fifteen goolden guineas, that his masther, the landlord, should hear of it; but I could never get next or near to him, to make my complaint. Eh? A snug birth! I'm only afeard that hell has no corner hot enough for him--but lave that to the divil himself: if he doesn't give him the best thratement hell can afford, why I'm not here." "Divil a one o' the ould boy's so bad as they say, father; he gives it to thim hot an' heavy, at all evints." "Why even if he was at a loss about Sam, depind upon it, he'd get a hint from his betthers above, that 'ud be sarviceable." "They say he visits him as it is, an' that Sam can't sleep widout some one in the room wid him. Dan Philips says the priest was there, an' had a Mass in every room in the house; but Charley Mack tells me there's no! thruth in it. He was advised to it, he says; but it seems the ould boy has too strong ahoult of him, for Sam said he'd have the divil any time sooner nor the priest, and its likest what he would say." |
|