“Ah! then where should it be but at Connemara?” said he.
“And what’s your trade or calling, when you’re at home, Mr. Bodkin?”
inquired I.
“Why, plase your honour, no poor man could live upon one calling
now-a-days as we did in owld times, or no calling at all, as when the
squire was _in it_. Now I butchers a trifle, your honour! and burns the
kelp when I’m entirely idle. Then I take a touch now and then at the
still, and smuggle a few in Sir Neil’s cutter when the coast is clear.”
“Any thing else, Mr. Bodkin?”
“Ough yes, your honour; ’tis me that tans the brogue leather for the
colonel’s yeomen: (God bless them!) besides, I’m bailiff-bum of the town
lands, and make out our election registries; and when I’ve nothing else
to do, I keep the squire’s accounts: and by my sowl that same is no asy
matter, plase your honour, till one’s used to it! but, God bless him, up
and down, wherever he goes, here or hereafter! he’s nothing else but a
good master to us all.”
“Mr. Ned Bodkin,” continued I, “every body says the king’s writ does not
_run_ in Connemara?”
“Ough! then whoever towld your honour that is a big liar. By my sowl,
when the King George’s writ (crossing himself) comes within smell of the
big house, the boys soon make him run as if the seven red devils was
under his tail, saving your presence. It’s King George’s writ that _does
run_ at Connemara, plase your worship, all as one as a black greyhound.
O the devil a stop he stays till he gets into the court-house of Galway
again!”
Mr. Bodkin talked allegorically, so I continued in the same vein:—“And
pray if you catch the king’s writ, what do you do then?”
“Plase your honour, that story is asy towld. _Do_, is it? I’ll tell your
honour that. Why, if the _prossy-sarver_ is _cotched_ in the territories
of Ballynahinch, by my sowl if the squire’s not _in it_, he’ll either
eat his parchments every taste, or go down into the owld coal-pit sure
enuff, whichever is most _agreeable_ to the said prossy-sarver.”
“And I suppose he generally prefers eating his parchments?” said I.
“Your honour’s right enuff,” replied Mr. Bodkin. “The _varment_
generally gulps it down mighty glib; and, by the same token, he is
seldom or ever obstrepulous enuff to go down into the said coal-pit.”
“_Dry_ food, Mr. Bodkin,” said I.
“Ough! by no manner of manes, your honour. We always give the
prossy-sarver, poor crethur! plenty to moisten his said food with and
wash it down well, any how; and he goes back to the ’sizes as merry as a
water-dog, and swears (God forgive him!) that he was _kilt_ at Connemara
by people unknown; becaize if he didn’t do that, he knows well enuff
he’d soon be kilt dead by people he did know, and that’s the truth,
plase your honour, and nothing else.”
“Does it often happen, Mr. Bodkin?” said I.
“Ough! plase your honour, only that our own bailiffs and yeomen soldiers
keep the sheriffs’ officers out of Connemara, we’d have a rookery of
them afore every ’sizes and sessions, when the master’s amongst the
Sassanachs in London city. We made one lad, when the master was in said
foreign parts, eat every taste of what he towld us was a chancellor’s
bill, that he brought from Dublin town to sarve in our quarter. We laid
in ambush, your honour, and cotched him on the bridge; but we did not
throw him over that, though we made believe that we would. ‘We have you,
you villain!’ said I. ‘Spare my life!’ says he. ‘What for?’ said I. ‘Oh!
give me marcy!’ says the sarver. ‘The devil a taste,’ said I. ‘I’ve
nothing but a chancellor’s bill,’ said he. ‘Out with it,’ says I. So he
ups, and outs with his parchment, plase your honour:—by my sowl, then,
there was plenty of that same!
“‘And pray, what name do you go by when you are at home?’ said I. ‘Oh
then, don’t you know Burke the _bum_?’ said he. ‘Are you satisfied to
_eat_ it, Mr. Burke?’ said I. ‘If I was as hungry as twenty hawks, I
could not eat it all in less than a fortnight any how,’ said the sarver,
‘it’s so long and crisp.’ ‘Never fear,’ said I.
“‘Why shu’dn’t I fear?’ said he.
“‘What’s that to you?’ said I. ‘Open your mouth, and take a bite, if you
plase.’ ‘Spare my life!’ said he. ‘Take a bite, if you plase, Mr.
Burke,’ again said I.
“So he took a bite, plase your honour; but I saw fairly it was too dry
and tough for common eating, so I and the rest of _the boys_ brought the
bum to my little cabin, and we soaked _the chancellor_ in potsheen in my
little keg, and I towld him he should stay his own time till he eat it
all as soon as it was _tinder_, and at three meals a day, with every
other little nourishment we could give the crethur. So he stayed very
agreeable till he had finished the chancellor’s bill every taste, and
was drunk with it every day twice, at any rate; and then I towld him he
might go back to Galway town and welcome. But he said he’d got kinder
treatment and better liquor nor ever the villain of a sub-sheriff gave
any poor fellow, and if I’d let him, he’d fain stay another day or two
to bid us good bye. ‘So, Mary,’ said I to the woman my wife, ‘’commodate
the poor officer a day or two more to bid us good bye.’—‘He’s kindly
welcome,’ says she. So Burke stayed till the ’sizes was over, and then
swore he lay for dead on the road-side, and did not know what became of
the chancellor’s bill, or where it was deposited at said time. I had
towld him, your honour, I’d make good his oath for him; and,
accordingly, we made him so drunk, that he lay all as one as a dead man
in the ditch till we brought him home, and then he said he could kiss
the holy ’pistle and gospel safe in the court-house, that he lay for
dead in a ditch by reason of the treatment he got at Connemara; and Mr.
Burke turned out a good fellow; and the devil a prossy-sarver ever came
into Connemara for a year after, but he sent a gossoon aforehand to tell
us where we’d cotch the sarver afore sarvice. Oh! God rest your sowl,
Bum Burke, and deliver it safe! it’s us that were sorry enuff when we
heard the horse kilt you dead—oh bad cess to him! the likes of ye didn’t
come since to our quarter.”
This mode of making process-servers _eat_ the process was not at all
confined to Connemara. I have myself known it practised often at the
colliery of Doonan, the estate of my friend Hartpole, when his father
Squire Robert was alive. It was quite the custom; and if a person in
those times took his residence in the purlieus of that colliery, serving
him with any legal process was entirely out of the question; for if a
bailiff attempted it, he was sure to have either a meal of sheepskin or
a dive in a coal-pit, for his trouble.
This species of outrage was, however, productive of greater evil than
merely making the process-server eat his bill. Those whose business it
was to serve processes in time against the assizes, being afraid to
fulfil their missions, took a short cut, and swore they _had_ actually
served them, though they had never been on the spot;—whereby many a
judgment was obtained surreptitiously, and executed on default upon
parties who had never heard one word of the business:—and thus whole
families were ruined by the perjury of one process-server.
The magistrates were all country gentlemen, very few of whom had the
least idea of law proceedings further than when they happened to be
directed against themselves; and the common fellows, when sworn on the
holy Evangelists, conceived they could outwit the magistrates by kissing
their own thumb, which held the book, instead of the cover of it; or by
swearing, “By the vartue of my oath it’s through (true), your worship!”
(putting a finger through a button-hole.)
So numerous were the curious acts and anecdotes of the Irish magistrates
of those days, that were I to recite many of them, the matter-of-fact
English (who have no idea of Irish freaks of this nature) would, I have
no doubt, set me down as a complete romancer.
I conceived it would much facilitate the gratification of my desire to
learn the customs of the Irish magisterial justices by becoming one
myself. I therefore took out my _didimus_ at once for _every_ county in
Ireland; and being thus a magistrate for thirty-two counties, I of
course, wherever I went, learned all their doings; and I believe no body
of men ever united more _authority_ and less _law_ than did the Irish
justices of thirty years since.