Mr Pearson's iron
works, sir."
I proceeded, and in about half-an-hour saw a man walking before me
in the same direction in which I was. He was going very briskly,
but I soon came up to him. He was a small, well-made fellow, with
reddish hair and ruddy, determined countenance, somewhat tanned.
He wore a straw hat, checkered shirt, open at the neck, canvas
trousers and blue jacket. On his feet were shoes remarkably thin,
but no stockings, and in his hand he held a stout stick, with
which, just before I overtook him, he struck a round stone which
lay on the ground, sending it flying at least fifty yards before
him on the road, and following it in its flight with a wild and
somewhat startling halloo.
"Good-day, my friend," said I; "you seem to be able to use a
stick."
"And sure I ought to be, your honour, seeing as how my father
taught me, who was the best fighting man with a stick that the
Shanavests ever had. Many is the head of a Caravaut that he has
broken with some such an Alpeen wattle as the one I am carrying
with me here."
"A good thing," said I, "that there are no Old Waist-coats and
Cravats at present, at least bloody factions bearing those names."
"Your honour thinks so! Faith! I am clane of a contrary opinion.
I wish the ould Shanavests and Caravauts were fighting still, and I
among them. Faith! there was some life in Ireland in their days."
"And plenty of death too," said I. "How fortunate it is that the
Irish have the English among them to prevent their cutting each
other's throats."
"The English prevent the Irish from cutting each other's throats!
Well, if they do, it is only that they may have the pleasure of
cutting them themselves. The bloody tyrants! too long has their
foot been upon the neck of poor old Ireland."
"How do the English tyrannise over Ireland?"
"How do they tyrannise over her? Don't they prevent her from
having the free exercise of her Catholic religion, and make her
help to support their own Protestant one?"
"Well, and don't the Roman Catholics prevent the Protestants from
having the free exercise of their religion, whenever they happen to
be the most numerous, and don't they make them help to support the
Roman Catholic religion?"
"Of course they do, and quite right! Had I my will, there
shouldn't be a place of Protestant worship left standing, or a
Protestant churl allowed to go about with a head unbroken."
"Then why do you blame the Protestants for keeping the Romans a
little under?"
"Why do I blame them? A purty question! Why, an't they wrong, and
an't we right?"
"But they say that they are right and you wrong."
"They say! who minds what they say?
