Dear Mrs. Shusan,--I was meaning to write to you for the last week, but
could n't by reason of the conflagration I was in, for sure any poor
girl might feel it, seeing that I was far away among furriners, and had
nobody to advise, barrin' the evil counsels of my wicked heart. We cam
here two weeks gone, on a visit to the father of the young man that 's
going to marry "Mary Anne." It's a great big ould place, like the jail
at Limerick, only darker, with little windows, and a flite of stairs out
of every corner in it. And the furnishing is n't a bit newer. It's a bit
of rag here and a rag there, an ould cabbinet, a hard sofa, and maybe
four wooden chairs that would take a ladder to get into! Eatin' and
drinkin' likewise the same. Biled beef--biled first for the broth,
and sarved afterwards with cow-comers, sliced and steeped in oil--the
Heavens preserve us! Then a dish of roast vale, with rasberry jam and
musheroons, for they tries the human stomich with every ingradiant
they can think of! But the great favorite of all is a salad made out of
potatoes, biled bard, sliced and pickled the same way as the cow-comers!
A bowl of that, Mrs. Shusan, after a long dinner, makes you feel as full
as a tick, and if the house was afire I could n't run! To be sure, when
the meal is over everybody sits down to coffee, and does n't distress
themselves about anything for a matter of two hours. And, indeed, I must
make the remark that "manials" isn't as badly treated anywhere in the
whole 'versal globe as in Ireland, and if it was n't that I hear the
people is runnin' away o' themselves, I 'd write a letter to the papers
about it! 'T is exactly like pigs you are, no better; potatoes and
butter-milk all the year round! deny it if you can. Could you offer a
pig less wages than four pound a year?
I must say, too, Shusan, that eatin' one's fill molly-fies ther nature,
and subdues ther hasty dispositions in a wonderful way; I know it
myself; and that after a strong supper now I can bear more from the
mistress than I used at home, only giving a sigh now and then out of the
fulness of my heart. But it's not them things I wanted to tell you, but
of the state of my infections. Don't be angry with me, Mrs. Shusan. I
don't forget the iligant lessons you gave me long ago, about thrusting
the men; I know well how thrue every word you said is. They 're
base, and wicked, and deceatful! Flatterin' us when we 're young and
beautiful, and gibin' and jeerin' when we 're ould as yourself! But
what's the use of fiting agin the will of Providence? Sure, if he
intended us to have better husbands it's not them craytures he'd have
left us to! My sentiments is these, Shusy: 'Tis a way of chastezin'
us is marriage! The throubles and tumults we have with a man are our
crosses, and it's only cowardly to avoid them. Meet your feat, say I,
whatever it be,--whether it be a man or the measles, don't be afraid!
I 'm shure and sartain it's nothing but fear makes young girls go and be
nuns; they're afraid, and no wonder, of the wickedness of the world; but
somehow, Shusan, like everything else in this life, one gets used to it.
I know it well, there 's many a thing I see now, without minding, that
long ago I dared not look at. "Live and learn," they say, and there's
nothing so thrue! And talking of that, you 'd be shocked to see how Mary
Anne goes on wid the young Baron. She, that would scarce let poor Doctor
Belton spake to her alone. We meet them walk in' in the lonesomest
places together; and Taddy and I never goes into the far part of the
wood without seeing them! And that's not all of it, my dear, but she
must get the mistress to give me a lecture about going off myself with a
man.
"Does n't your daughter do it, ma'am?" says I. "Is all the wickedness of
this world," says I, "to be kept for one's betters?"
"Do you call marriage wickedness?" says she.
"Sometimes it is, ma'am," says I, with a look she understood well.
"You 're a huzzy," says she; "and I 'll give you warnin' next Saturday."
"I'll take it now," says I, "ma'am, for I'm going to better myself."
If ye saw her face, Shusy, as I said this! She knows in her heart that
she could n't get on at all without me. Not a word of a furrin lingo
can she say; and I 'm obleeged to traduce her meanin' to all the other
sarvants! And, indeed, that's the way I become such an iligant linguist;
and it's no differ to me now between talkin' French and Jarman,--I make
them just the same!