"Well," said I, "I suppose you have Irish: here's slainte - "
"Slainte yuit a shaoi," said the girl, tasting her peppermint.
"Well: how do you like it?'
"It's very nice indeed."
"That's more than I can say of the ale, which, like all the ale in
these parts, is bitter. Well, what part of Ireland do you come
from?"
"From no part at all. I never was in Ireland in my life. I am
from Scotland Road, Manchester."
"Why, I thought you were Irish?"
"And so I am; and all the more from being born where I was.
There's not such a place for Irish in all the world as Scotland
Road."
"Were your father and mother from Ireland?"
"My mother was from Ireland: my father was Irish of Scotland Road,
where they met and married."
"And what did they do after they married?"
"Why, they worked hard, and did their best to get a livelihood for
themselves and children, of which they had several besides myself,
who was the eldest. My father was a bricklayer, and my mother sold
apples and oranges and other fruits, according to the season, and
also whiskey, which she made herself, as she well knew how; for my
mother was not only a Connacht woman, but an out-and-out Connamara
quean, and when only thirteen had wrought with the lads who used to
make the raal cratur on the islands between Ochterard and Bally na
hinch. As soon as I was able, I helped my mother in making and
disposing of the whiskey and in selling the fruit. As for the
other children, they all died when young, of favers, of which there
is always plenty in Scotland Road. About four years ago - that is,
when I was just fifteen - there was a great quarrel among the
workmen about wages. Some wanted more than their masters were
willing to give; others were willing to take what was offered them.
Those who were dissatisfied were called bricks; those who were not
were called dungs. My father was a brick; and, being a good man
with his fists, was looked upon as a very proper person to fight a
principal man amongst the dungs. They fought in the fields near
Salford for a pound a side. My father had it all his own way for
the first three rounds, but in the fourth, receiving a blow under
the ear from the dung, he dropped, and never got up again, dying
suddenly. A grand wake my father had, for which my mother
furnished usquebaugh galore; and comfortably and dacently it passed
over till about three o'clock in the morning, when, a dispute
happening to arise - not on the matter of wages, for there was not
a dung amongst the Irish of Scotland Road - but as to whether the
O'Keefs or O'Kellys were kings of Ireland a thousand years ago, a
general fight took place, which brought in the police, who, being
soon dreadfully baten, as we all turned upon them, went and fetched
the military, with whose help they took and locked up several of
the party, amongst whom were my mother and myself, till the next
morning, when we were taken before the magistrates, who, after a
slight scolding, set us at liberty, one of them saying that such
disturbances formed part of the Irish funeral service; whereupon we
returned to the house, and the rest of the party joining us, we
carried my father's body to the churchyard, where we buried it very
dacently, with many tears and groanings."
"And how did your mother and you get on after your father was
buried?"
"As well as we could, yere hanner; we sold fruit, and now and then
a drop of whiskey, which we made; but this state of things did not
last long, for one day my mother seeing the dung who had killed my
father, she flung a large flint stone and knocked out his right
eye, for doing which she was taken up and tried, and sentenced to a
year's imprisonment, chiefly it was thought because she had been
heard to say that she would do the dung a mischief the first time
she met him. She, however, did not suffer all her sentence, for
before she had been in prison three months she caught a disorder
which carried her off. I went on selling fruit by myself whilst
she was in trouble, and for some time after her death, but very
lonely and melancholy. At last my uncle Tourlough, or, as the
English would call him, Charles, chancing to come to Scotland Road
along with his family, I was glad to accept an invitation to join
them which he gave me, and with them I have been ever since,
travelling about England and Wales and Scotland, helping my aunt
with the children, and driving much the same trade which she has
driven for twenty years past, which is not an unprofitable one."
"Would you have any objection to tell me all you do?"
"Why I sells needles, as I said before, and sometimes I buys things
of servants, and sometimes I tells fortunes."
"Do you ever do anything in the way of striopachas?"
"Oh no! I never do anything in that line; I would be burnt first.
I wonder you should dream of such a thing."
"Why surely it is not worse than buying things of servants, who no
doubt steal them from their employers, or telling fortunes, which
is dealing with the devil."
"Not worse? Yes, a thousand times worse; there is nothing so very
particular in doing them things, but striopachas - Oh dear!"
"It's a dreadful thing I admit, but the other things are quite as
bad; you should do none of them."
"I'll take good care that I never do one, and that is striopachas;
them other things I know are not quite right, and I hope soon to
have done wid them; any day I can shake them off and look people in
the face, but were I once to do striopachas I could never hold up
my head"
