'It was shortly then the rain grew weak, the sun shone, and the
wind rose. I moved on, and I smothered and drowned in wet, till I
came to a little house, and there was a welcome before me. Many
quarts of water I squeezed from my skirt and my cape. I hung my hat
on a nail, and I lying in a sweet flowery bed. But I was up again
in a little while. We began sports and pleasures; and it was with
pride we spent the night.'
But there is a verse in his 'Argument with Whisky' that seems to have a
wistful thought in it, perhaps of the settled home of his rival,
Callinan:--
'Cattle is a nice thing for a man to have, and his share of land to
reap wheat and barley. Money in the chest, and a fire in the
evening time; and to be able to give shelter to a man on his road;
a hat and shoes in the fashion--I think, indeed, that would be much
better than to be going from place to place drinking _uisge
beatha_.'
And there is a little sadness in the verses he made in some house, when
a stranger asked who he was:--
'I am Raftery the poet, full of hope and love; with eyes without
light, with gentleness without misery.
'Going west on my journey with the light of my heart; weak and
tired to the end of my road.
'I am now, and my back to a wall, playing music to empty pockets.'
'He was a thin man,' I am told by one who knew him, 'not very tall, with
a long frieze coat and corduroy trousers. He was very strong; and he
told my father there was never any man he wrestled with but he could
throw him, and that he could lie on his back and throw up a bag with
four hundred of wheat in it, and take it up again. He couldn't see a
stim; but he would walk all the roads, and give the right turn, without
ever touching the wall. My father was wondering at him one time they
were out together; and he said: "Wait till we come to the turn to
Athenry, and don't tell me of it, and see if I don't make it out right."
And sure enough, when they came to it, he gave the right turn, and just
in the middle.' This is explained by what another man tells me:--'There
was a blind piper with him one time in Gort, and they set out together
to go to Ballylee, and it was late, and they couldn't find the stile
that led down there, near Early's house. And they would have stopped
there till somebody would come by, but Raftery said he'd go back to Gort
and step it again; and so he did, turned back a mile to Gort, and
started from there. He counted every step that he stepped out; and when
he got to the stile, he stopped straight before it.' And I was told also
there used to be a flagstone put beside the bog-holes to leap from, and
Raftery would leap as well as any man. He would count his steps back
from the flag, and take a run and alight on the other side.