LITMIR.BIZ

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of Portumna and my unworthy self bringing up the rear.

      When, many a year afterwards, the hard ground of a mountain bivouac, with its pitiful portion of pickled cork-tree yclept mess-beef, and that pyroligneous aquafortis they call corn-brandy have been my hard fare, I often looked back to that day’s dinner with a most heart-yearning sensation, – a turbot as big as the Waterloo shield, a sirloin that seemed cut from the sides of a rhinoceros, a sauce-boat that contained an oyster-bed. There was a turkey, which singly would have formed the main army of a French dinner, doing mere outpost duty, flanked by a picket of ham and a detached squadron of chickens carefully ambushed in a forest of greens; potatoes, not disguised à la maître d’hôtel and tortured to resemble bad macaroni, but piled like shot in an ordnance-yard, were posted at different quarters; while massive decanters of port and sherry stood proudly up like standard bearers amidst the goodly array. This was none of your austere “great dinners,” where a cold and chilling plateau of artificial nonsense cuts off one-half of the table from intercourse with the other; when whispered sentences constitute the conversation, and all the friendly recognition of wine-drinking, which renews acquaintance and cements an intimacy, is replaced by the ceremonious filling of your glass by a lackey; where smiles go current in lieu of kind speeches, and epigram and smartness form the substitute for the broad jest and merry story. Far from it. Here the company ate, drank, talked, laughed, – did all but sing, and certainly enjoyed themselves heartily. As for me, I was little more than a listener; and such was the crash of plates, the jingle of glasses, and the clatter of voices, that fragments only of what was passing around reached me, giving to the conversation of the party a character occasionally somewhat incongruous. Thus such sentences as the following ran foul of each other every instant: —

      “No better land in Galway” – “where could you find such facilities” – “for shooting Mr. Jones on his way home” – “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” – “kiss” – “Miss Blake, she’s the girl with a foot and ankle” – “Daly has never had wool on his sheep” – “how could he” – “what does he pay for the mountain” – “four and tenpence a yard” – “not a penny less” – “all the cabbage-stalks and potato-skins” – “with some bog stuff through it” – “that’s the thing to” – “make soup, with a red herring in it instead of salt” – “and when he proposed for my niece, ma’am, says he” – “mix a strong tumbler, and I’ll make a shake-down for you on the floor” – “and may the Lord have mercy on your soul” – “and now, down the middle and up again” – “Captain Magan, my dear, he is the man” – “to shave a pig properly” – “it’s not money I’m looking for, says he, the girl of my heart” – “if she had not a wind-gall and two spavins” – “I’d have given her the rights of the church, of coorse,” said Father Roach, bringing up the rear of this ill-assorted jargon.

      Such were the scattered links of conversation I was condemned to listen to, till a general rise on the part of the ladies left us alone to discuss our wine and enter in good earnest upon the more serious duties of the evening.

      Scarcely was the door closed when one of the company, seizing the bell-rope, said, “With your leave, Blake, we’ll have the ‘dew’ now.”

      “Good claret, – no better,” said another; “but it sits mighty cold on the stomach.”

      “There’s nothing like the groceries, after all, – eh, Sir George?” said an old Galway squire to the English general, who acceded to the fact, which he understood in a very different sense.

      “Oh, punch, you are my darlin’,” hummed another, as a large, square, half-gallon decanter of whiskey was placed on the table, the various decanters of wine being now ignominiously sent down to the end of the board without any evidence of regret on any face save Sir George Dashwood’s, who mixed his tumbler with a very rebellious conscience.

      Whatever were the noise and clamor of the company before, they were nothing to what now ensued. As one party were discussing the approaching contest, another was planning a steeple-chase, while two individuals, unhappily removed from each other the entire length of the table, were what is called “challenging each other’s effects” in a very remarkable manner, – the process so styled being an exchange of property, when each party, setting an imaginary value upon some article, barters it for another, the amount of boot paid and received being determined by a third person, who is the umpire. Thus a gold breast-pin was swopped, as the phrase is, against a horse; then a pair of boots, then a Kerry bull, etc., – every imaginable species of property coming into the market. Sometimes, as matters of very dubious value turned up, great laughter was the result. In this very national pastime, a Mr. Miles Bodkin, a noted fire-eater of the west, was a great proficient; and it is said he once so completely succeeded in despoiling an uninitiated hand, that after winning in succession his horse, gig, harness, etc., he proceeded seriatim to his watch, ring, clothes, and portmanteau, and actually concluded by winning all he possessed, and kindly lent him a card-cloth to cover him on his way to the hotel. His success on the present occasion was considerable, and his spirits proportionate. The decanter had thrice been replenished, and the flushed faces and thickened utterance of the guests evinced that from the cold properties of the claret there was but little to dread. As for Mr. Bodkin, his manner was incapable of any higher flight, when under the influence of whiskey, than what it evinced on common occasions; and as he sat at the end of the table fronting Mr. Blake, he assumed all the dignity of the ruler of the feast, with an energy no one seemed disposed to question. In answer to some observations of Sir George, he was led into something like an oration upon the peculiar excellences of his native country, which ended in a declaration that there was nothing like Galway.

      “Why don’t you give us a song, Miles? And may be the general would learn more from it than all your speech-making.”

      “To be sure,” cried the several voices together, – “to be sure; let us hear the ‘Man for Galway’!”

      Sir George having joined most warmly in the request, Mr. Bodkin filled up his glass to the brim, bespoke a chorus to his chant, and clearing his voice with a deep hem, began the following ditty, to the air which Moore has since rendered immortal by the beautiful song, “Wreath the Bowl,” etc. And, although the words are well known in the west, for the information of less-favored regions, I here transcribe —

THE MAN FOR GALWAY

      To drink a toast,

      A proctor roast,

      Or bailiff as the case is;

      To kiss your wife,

      Or take your life

      At ten or fifteen paces;

      To keep game-cocks, to hunt the fox,

      To drink in punch the Solway,

      With debts galore, but fun far more, —

      Oh, that’s “the man for Galway.”

      CHORUS: With debts, etc.

      The King of Oude

      Is mighty proud,

      And so were onst the Caysars;

      But ould Giles Eyre

      Would make them stare,

      Av he had them with the Blazers.

      To the devil I fling – ould Runjeet Sing,

      He’s only a prince in a small way,

      And knows nothing at all of a six-foot wall;

      Oh, he’d never “do for Galway.”

      CHORUS: With debts, etc.

      Ye think the Blakes

      Are no “great shakes;”

      They’re all his blood relations.

      And the Bodkins sneeze

      At the grim Chinese,

      For they come from the Phenaycians.

      So fill the brim, and here’s to him

      Who’d drink in punch the Solway,

      With

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