Volume I Part 17 (2/2)
says I to myself, ”I believe you well, and it would puzzle wiser heads nor you!”
And now, Misses Shusan dear, is it any wonder that our tempers get spoiled? seein' the lives we lade, and the dreadful turns and twists we are obleeged to give our natral dispositions. It's for all the world like play-actin'.
There's many things different betune this and home, and first and foremost religion, Shusan. Religion is n't the same at all. To begin, there's no fastin' at all, or next to none; maybe that's bekase, by the nature of the cookery, n.o.body could tell what it was he was eatin'.
Then, there 's little penance,--and the little there is ye can get off of it by a thrifle. Ye go to confessin' whin ye like, and ye keep any-thing back for another time that ye don't wish to tell just then. In fact, my dear, it comes to this,--it's harder to go to Heaven in Ireland than any place ever I heerd of, and costs more money into the bargain!
The priests has n't half the power they have in Ireland, they 're not as well paid, and they can't curse a congregation, nor do any other good action that isn't set down in their duty. It's the polis, Shusy, that makes ye tremble abroad, and that's the great difference between the two countries.
As to morils, my dear, I 'm afraid we 're not supariar, for it's the women always makes love to the men, which, till you get used to it, has a mighty ugly appearance. I b'l'eve it's the smokin' leads to this, for a German would n't take his pipe out of his mouth for anything; so that courtin' is n't what it is at home.
These is my general remarks on the habits of furriners, which I give you as free as you ask for them. As to the family, n.o.body knows where the money comes from, but that they're spendin' it in las.h.i.+ns, is true as I'm here. And they 're broke up, Shusy, and not the way they used to be.
The master walks out alone, or with Miss Caraline. Miss Mary Anne stays with the mother; and Master James, that's now a grone man, and as bowld as bra.s.s besides, is always phelanderin' about with Mrs. G., the lady that lives with us. I mistrust her, Shusan dear, and Mamsel Virginy, her made, too, though she's mighty kind and polite to _me_, and says she has so many ”bounties” for the whole family.
Paddy Byrne is exactly what you suspect. There's nothin' would put the least polish on him. The very way he ates at the table doat disgraces us; whenever he gets a thing he likes, instead of helpin' himself and pa.s.sin' it on, he takes the whole dish before him, and conshumes it all.
As he is always ready to fite, they let him do as he likes, and he is become now the terror of the place. I have towld ye now about everybody but the ould currier, Mounseer Gregory, an invetherate ould Frinsh bla'guard, that never has a dacent word in his month, though he has n't a good tooth in it, and ye'd say 't was at his prayers the ould hardened sinner should be. The very laff he has, and the way his bleery eyes twinkle, is a shame to see! It's nigh to fifty years since he took to the road, so that you may think, Shusan dear, what a dale of inequity he's seen in that time. It's dreadful sometimes to listen to him.
If I was n't ashamed to write them, I 'd tell you two or three of his stories, but I will when we meet; and now with my hearty blessin' and love, I remane yours to command,
Betty Cobb.
What's this I heer about one of the M'Carthys dyin', and levin' his money to the mistress? Get the news right for me, Shusan dear, for I mane to ask for more wagis if it's true, and if Mrs. D. won't decrease them, I'll lave the sarvis. Mamsel Virginy towl me last nite there was a duchs here that wants a confidenshal made to tache her only daughter English, and that's exactly the thing to shoot me; five hundred franks a year is equal to twenty pounds, all eatin' and was.h.i.+n', not to mention the hoith of respect from all the men-ials in the house. I'm takin'
Frinsh lessons from ould Gregory every evenin', and he says I 'll be in my ”accidents” next week.
LETTER XX. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
You guessed rightly, my dear Bob; my letter to Vickars has turned out confoundedly ill, though I must say, all from his total want of gentlemanlike feeling. To my ineffable horror the other morning, the post arrived with a large packet for the governor, containing my ”strictly private and confidential” epistle, which this infernal son of a pen-wiper sends coolly back to be read by my father.
Matters were not going on exactly quite smooth before. We had had a rather stormy sitting of the Cabinet the evening previous on the estimates, which struck the President of the Council as out of all bounds; and yet, all things considered, were reasonable enough. You know, Bob, we are a strongish party. Mrs. G. H., with maid and courier; Lord George and man; the Dodd family five, with two native domestics, and two foreign supernumeraries; occupying the first floor of the first hotel at Bonn, with a capital table, and a considerable quant.i.ty of wine, of one kind or other; these--without anything that one can call extravagance--swell up a bill, and at the end of a month give it an actually formidable look.
”What are these?” said the governor, peering through his gla.s.ses at a long battalion of figures at the foot of the score,--”what are these?
Groschen, eh?”
”Pardon, Monsieur le Comte,” said the other, bowing, ”dey are Prussian thalers!”
I wish you saw his face when he heard it! George and I were obliged to bolt out of the room, or we should have infallibly exploded.
”You 'd better go back,” said George to me after we had our laugh out; ”I 'll take a stroll with the womenkind till you smooth him down a bit.”
A pleasant office this for me; but there was no help for it, so in I went.
The first shock of his surprise was not over as I entered, for he stood holding the bill in one hand, while he pressed the other on his forehead, with a most distracted expression of face.
”Do you suspect,” said he--”have you any notion of what rate we are living at, James?”
”Not the slightest,” replied I.
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