Hudy XXa

Chapter XXa - The Still-Hunt: Arrival at the Still-House
[this story was not in the 1841 booklet]

Thae curst horse-leeches o' the excise,
Wha mak the whiskey-stills their prize,
Haud up thy hand, diel - ance, twice, thrice -
There - seize the blinkers,
And bake them up in brimstane pies
For poor damned drinkers.
* * * * * *
The diel cam fiddlin through the town,
And danced awa' wi' the exciseman. Burns

Tee-totalism! Faugh! The world saw merry days before the word was coined, and probably will after it has been forgotten. Common fame (but fame's a common story-teller) says it has reformed thousands - "Peut être qu' oui - peut être que non", or in plain English "Maybe aye - maybe no". One thing however is certain, "the pledge" has made many a man gnaw his nails with regret, and that is no source of wonderment; for when an old reformed toper sees "the glasses sparkle on the board" and reflects that he may not taste the nectar, is it at all surprising that his finger-ends should be in some peril? But, then say the tee-total advocates, "it has converted numbers fron the unenviable state of public sinners". - "Yes, yes, no doubt; and to that more reputable though not less execrable state of holy hypocrites", or in other words "out-door saints, in-door serpents". And, like Hudy McGuigan's hunting-cap, "thereby hangs a tail", and no pleasant one either for brewers or distillers; for isn't Father Mathew revolutionising this land? Moral revolution, say you - pooh! all saintly palaver; he is actually rebellionising the whole country, from Cunnemara to the Hill of Howth, from Cape Clear to - Stop there! He hasn't visited the Giant's Causeway yet. But is he not founding an exchequer, giving symbols, circulating a shibboleth? - What call ye that? Open rebellion, to be sure! And if you remain at all sceptical, you are referred for proof to the Mail and the Packet, the most pugnacious or veracious authorities to be found.

But what relation does this bear to the Quarterclift? The closest possible! That celebrated and exalted personage was a tee-totaller - but no niggard: he would allow a drop to his neighbour if his neighbour thought fit to take it, and not consign him to perdition for that same; and what's more, devil a boy in the country was fonder than himself of attending the still-house on "doubling days", or of witnessing "the real peat-reek" (in the classic language of Brieny Higgins, schoolmaster of "The Six Towns") "come wimpling, like a straim of pure liquid chrystyal, through a worm, unstained by the pestilential effluvia exhaled from the putrid lungs of a verminated 'land shark'".

But were you ever in a private still-house? Because not such another scene of fun, frolic, nervous excitement, and reckless dare-devil determination could the whole world exhibit, except a still-hunt. But did you ever see a still-hunt? Because if you didn't, you have yet to witness a scene that for personal prowess and native daring, ready strategy and successful artifice, would beggar the power of language to depict, or fancy in her most brilliant moments to portray; but naboclish!

On a darling morning early in spring, the Quarterclift and his good-natured friend Dick Keating found themselves by daybreak heading towards "The ould Screen Church", as gay a pair of boys as ever trod on a daisy. When the sunbeams began to gild the tave-lacht of Slieve Gallion, and objects were becoming perfectly distinct, Hudy, with one of his most gleesome bounds, exclaimed,

"Arrah Dick jewel, who do you think is that before us there?"

"Why you omadhon, how could I tell?"

"By dad then if you can't, I can. Sure that's Brieny Higgins, the Latiner, schoolmaster of "The Six Towns"; they call him Brieny Boccagh too, becase, ye see, he got a broken leg; and divil a joint of his carcage isn't out of its own place - just look at him! Bad luck to the ould fox! by my sowl, there's as many ups and downs in his walk as in a noggin of broth! There he goes now:

Tee-eedle, dee-eedle, dee-eedle!"

And in a species of recitative, and with admirable fitness of gesture, he kept time to the irregular motions, and mimicked the awkward gait of the unfortunate pedagogue.

"Bad luck to you," said Dick, "you're becoming ill-natured this morning."

"Divil a bit, ma bouchal; sure that's the effigy made the song on myself; did ye ivir hear it?"

"Not a word of it."

"Then by the powers! you'll not have the same story to tell to-morrow;" and in a capityal voice he sung out the following rollicking stanzas:

Och have ye not heared of that hero so clivir,
That leaped at a bound o'er Mayola's broad river;
That slapped Atty Murphy and Manus McSwigan -
More power to yer elbow, bould Hudy McGuigan!

Och the heart in his breast was as light as a feather,
And fleet as the roe was this son of the heather;
For divil a garron, mare, gelding nor stallion
He couldn't run down on the side of Slieve Gallion.

The divil a hare casts a dew-drop behind her
So swift or so cunning but Hudy could find her;
The divil a fox ivir stole from his kennel
He couldn't scent out through the furze or the fennel.

And sure 'twas himself was good-natured and frisky,
Though divil a dhrop would he taste of the whiskey;
But just let him loose in a fair or a stramash,
Whew yer sowls! he would leather the famed Harry Hamish.

One twirl of his stick in the face of a foeman
Was signal sufficient for bailiff or yeoman;
'Arrah Dthigean tu shin', and with helmet or hat on,
Away in a jiffy flew baynit or baton.

And now for to finish this queerest of ditties,
That e'er he should die is the greatest of pities;
For divil a boy from 'the Cross' to Balbriggan
That wouldn't knock undher to Hudy McGuigan!

"How do you like that, Dick?"

"Why faith it's excellent! Divil a betther in all Munsther!"

"Aye, but bad luck to him, he left the best part out; he didn't put in a word about riding either the bulls or the horses; sure Shela desarved one varse at laist! Curse o' Cromwell on him! I'll nivir forgive him for that! Look at him now! by the powers he puts me in mind of an ill-hung flail; but naboclish, we'll be alongside of him this minute, and ye'll see how I'll cock his birces: he's a great scholar, ye parsave, and mighty polite; he dales largely in 'the long English', and loves to be traited like a gentleman; but wait a bit, it's myself that knows him to a hair in the wather, and maybe I won't play him like a throut!"

The droll humour and wild diablerie that first attracted Dick to the Quarterclift had lost none of their original raciness; his wit-slaps came so fresh, so natural, so sparkling - coruscations of light from a brilliant but disordered intellect - there was no escaping their influence; and under their present unbridled play the Corkonian was literally bursting his sides with laughter, delighted and astonished at his companion's volubility, as well as the ludicrous pictures he flung from him with so much ease and such apposite delineation. As they approached the schoolmaster, the light-bounding step, the excited countenance, the fiery sparkling eye, gave evidence, strong as demonstration, that our hero's "brain was barming prime". When fairly within hail, Hudy, in a tone that could suffer two readings, and with a mingled air of ridicule and respect, saluted him with:

"Good morrow Brieny - baugh! bad luck to that blundhering tongue of mine! - Masther, I should say - this is Mr Keating, all the ways from the County of Cork, a great Latiner too; but where might I ax are ye bound for this morning? Och faix it's an ould saying: 'the early bird always gets the first worm'."

The well-aimed arrow took effect - the wound was felt, and Brieny, in a tone of offended dignity, curtly replied-

"A short distance forward."

"Forward! augh bad luck to it man, sure we see ye're not advancing backwards. Throth, masther agrah! it's yerself that's as close as the mist on the mountain; but I'll wager a penorth o' boil'd snuff that I guess where ye're heading to, and that as sure as Atty McGeough's 'doubling' this blessed morning. Eh Brieny ma bouchal, it's yerself wouldn't throw a dhrop of the crayther over yer shouldher jist now."

Deeply irritated, but at the same time much dreading "the laughing devil" in his tormentor's eye, Brieny replied with dignity,

"I do not conceive that I am bound to reply either to your insolent interrogations, or to your vulgar and malicious insinuations. I am constrained, however, to say that I cannot recognise your acquaintance; or, to speak to your understanding, I do not know you at all."

Hudy threw an arch look at Dick (more intelligent than "Corporal Trim's bow", because it was all Irish) which plainly said "I have him on the hook"; and then, turning to his victim, he exclaimed in a tone of affected surprise-

"Augh blood-an-oundhers! not know me at all! Then how the divil, Brieny darlin', did ye conthrive to make the song upon me? But bad luck to the thraneen it's worth anyhow. By my sowl! I could make a betther one myself, wid all yer knowledge of the Latin."

Poetry, it is said, is allied to madness - the thought, perhaps, is not well expressed - poets are therefore allied to madmen, but that's not the way to chop logic. Well then, madmen are poets. Not a doubt of it, and the thing is proved even to demonstration by the genius displayed by Hudy McGuigan who, on his last reply to Brieny, with his "eye in a fine frenzy rolling" - his ear naturally tuned to melody - with all the easy confidence of an ancient bard, or a more modern Troubadour, sung out extemporaneously,

Och have ye not h'ard of Brien boccagh O'Higgins,
That hop-and-go-aisy, so fond of the Swiggins;
Wid a head like a bushel, chop full of all knowledge,
That bate John O'Hagan from Thrinity College.

"Now by the powers! Dick, I'll lave it to ye if that isn't over any varse the boccagh ivir made."

Dick was silent through sheer amazement; but the schoolmaster, who could as little brook an allusion to his personal infirmities as a slur cast on his literary fame, answered with deep indignation,

"If you were worthy the notice of a man of sense, I might reply to your ribaldry; but as it is, I scorn to hold converse with you, and have only to add that you become offensive."

"Och! murdher in Irish! was ivir the likes heard! - Offensive! then sure it's myself might return the compliment, for it happens, Brieny avourneen, that ye're betwixt me and the wind".

And with a sly glance at Dick and a curled nostril he rather insultingly resigned the little man's lee, and assumed the weather gage. Cut to the quick, and fairly out of temper, the pedagogue keenly and haughtily replied,

"You mushroom puppy! you spontaneous production of a dunghill! All mindless as you are, you must know that I meant your language had become gratuitously vituperative and grossly insulting."

"Och mile murdher! what a shower of jaw-breakers. Dick darlin', you that undherstands the dixinary, tell us what all that means - is it anything to ate?"

Dick was absolutely unable to contain himself; yet, while deeply amused, he did not like to give futher pain to the little man; he therefore exclaimed, as sharply as repressed laughter would permit,

"Divil burn ye for an omadhon!"

"By my own sowl, an' if he did he would lose his coals! for ne'er a wink's upon myself this blissed morning; and that Brieny knows right well! - bad luck to him! I'll never forgive the miscarriage for not mentioning the bull-ride, or the time that I flew from the top of 'Carrig-na-Sheogh'."

And thus, for an hour's walk, did he keep peppering away at the unfortunate pedant, till a change came over his humour on arriving at the still-house, where a company of one hundred slashing young fellows were assembled, for the double purpose of patronising home manufacture and protecting it from the greedy voracity of the insatiable "land-sharks", a race of reptiles held in peculiar bad odour by the Irish peasantry in general.

The still-house was an extensive excavation in a sand rock; but whether it was the work of art or nature it boots not to say. It rose however from the bank of a small river, tributary to the Mayola, that wound its way through a deep glen, the sides of which were thickly covered with furze and other bramble. The entrance to the "sanctum" was so nicely closed by a natural wicket of ivy, woodbine, and other creeping shrubs that the uninitiated observer would never deem it the haunt of man; yet, the screen removed, and a spacious cave presented itself, affording every fitting accommodation for illicit distillation on no confined scale. The necessary water was introduced through a subterranean lead from a dam formed by a natural weir in the river some forty perches distant; and the smoke arising from the fire was carried off by a similarly constructed flue, ascending amidst a tuft of scrogs so far distant from the hearth as to destroy all suspicion, or at least to prevent furnishing a clue to the exact locality of this "temple of the rosy god". The superfluous water, the refuse of pot-ale, grains, wash, and singlings &c. being carried through a trough or spout to the very bed of the river; and in this abode of jollity thousands of gallons of the real "mountain dew" had been manufactured without attracting the notice of the gauger, or of that still more dreaded, more detested, and withal the basest of the reptile tribes, the professional informer.

On the present occasion, however, the people had their fears. Rumours were afloat that a visit from the revenue officers, accompanied by a party of the "Killyman Wreckers", was every way probable; and as the information must have been furnished by a traitor, it was not doubted that a strong force would be employed to break up the establishment; and therefore did the surrounding district, with good feeling and becoming spirit, send forth its best nerve and sinew to repel the invasion, to protect their neighbour Atty McGeough's "peat-reek", and thrash the gaugers or shoot the "wreckers", should circumstances demand either course of action. To carry this generous resolve into successful operation, one hundred muskets and no lack of ammunition were in ready requisition, while a hearty inclination to the job and a practical knowledge of the weapons pervaded their breasts, and instilled a self-confidence that shone in every countenance with gay recklessness, as marked a trait in the Irish character as daring courage or unflinching bravery in the hour of peril.

At previous meetings the plan of resistance, and if necessary attack, had been duly arranged; and Dick Keating, familiar with such splores, having served in various tithe campaigns in his own county, was found a valuable acquisition on the present occasion: he was unanimously elected chief, and the entire management of the affair was entrusted to his direction. "Becase why," as Hudy sagely observed, "he was a stranger and couldn't be known, and, more-be-token, he had the gift of the gab, and the Munsther brogue was upon his tongue, and that would bother the gaugers entirely". Our hero was appointed aide-de-camp, and devil a one ever took orders from the Duke of Wellington possessed so much devotion, energy, acuteness, or activity, as the Quarterclift displayed in the cause which this day called his abilities into play.

Every measure that could contribute to success had been adopted; every precaution to prevent surprise had been prudently taken. Scouts had been despatched to rouse the country, and if needed were to organize an army of reserve; while spies were placed on every hill-top and other eminence to sound the tocsin of alarm, and give the earliest intimation of approaching danger.

Thus stood affairs when our travellers approached the still-house. The chosen band was ready for any and every emergency. Hudy and Dick were welcomed with three cheers, while Brieny was kindly received as an ordinary acquaintance.

"Bad luck to you for a pack of vagabonds, what are you all about here?" was the Irish salutation of the volatile Quarterclift.

"Waiting for the mad dog," was the ready reply.

"Then by the powers! you'll not have long to wait, for as sure as the sun's in the lift, they'll be here before two hours; and whew! bad luck to me if ivir I was in betther tune - but have you christened the creature yet?"

"Divil a dhrop was ivir cast on its countenance; the first shot's as pure as when it came into the world."

"That's right, yer sowls - let the boys have a dhrop till we get them at some sport."

And the stimulating bowl (noggin) circulated through the already excited party, the boccagh coming in for a very liberal allowance.

"And now, yer sowls, for leaping or throwing the stone," and off went the great-coat.

"Stop!" said Dick Keating, "a word or two to the boys before you begin - could every man among you find his own post without confusion on the first 'bark of the dog'?"

"Every sowl of us," was the general reply.

"Well then you see, as it wouldn't be wise to be taken unawares, you had betther prove what you say; so bate off this moment, and musther here again on Hudy's whistle."

And at the word they scampered in different directions, sinking into bush or brake till perfectly concealed from human eye.

"Isn't that capityal, Dick darlin'," said the delighted Quarterclift- "cros-christhie, if that doesn't put me in mind of the good people; and I'm sure the divil a betther Leprahaun's among them than Brien boccagh, bad luck to him for an atomy!"

And the wild inspiration of his countenance on seeing the rapid and well-executed movement of the rustic army, settled down, with his allusion to the pedagogue, into that arch expression so much at his command, and so cuttingly effective on every object of his dislike.

"Come Hudy my boy, give over your devilry, and summon the lads to their sports as soon as you like," said Keating playfully.

A whistle! and two minutes saw the whole party bounding from their ambuscade, with as much alacrity as ever Robin Hood's "yeomen good" answered to their master's signal, and ready for any exercise on the green banks of the river, at the very base of the "devil's tether-stake" - a conical rock some thirty feet high, and so nearly approaching the perpendicular that no animal less active than a wild cat could gain its summit.

Irishmen in all ages have been most unjustly treated - that is, so far as Britain and her dependencies have been concerned; devil an act ever performed by one of them worthy of record - whether in politics, religion, literature, the arts and sciences, in bold inventions, or in daring deeds - did they ever get credit for. In all and every case they have been sadly wronged. For some rapscallion of an Englishman or a Scotchman is sure to come in just in time to steal the gold off our ginger-bread. Here is a case in point. Who hasn't read "The Lady of the Lake"? Sir Walter Scott, before he published that beautiful poem, was made acquainted with the trick just mentioned; and what does the sly Scotsman do, but transfer the whole honour of the act from Hudy McGuigan to "Roderick Dhu"! He says-

His whistle garrisoned the glen,
With full five hundred armed men.

And to cover his injustice, he deals largely in hyperbole - the real number being only one hundred. So much for the fair dealing of the Baronet!

But at all events there the boys were, at the foot of the "devil's tether-stake", ready for their sports, and all agreed on throwing the stone.

"Well, by the powers! here's a copy for you all;" and the Quarterclift, seizing a crag, hurled it high in air a full perch beyond what the most expert present could hope to reach; and here by way of parenthesis it may be remarked that the same Sir Walter Scott has stolen this very feat, and in the sports of his burghers has bestowed all its merits upon "Lord James of Douglas". But naboclish... Hudy had scarcely discharged the stone when some bright thought struck his fancy, and he roared out,

"Stop boys! by the powers, we must have a judge of the sports; and who so fit as the schoolmaster of 'The Six Towns'?"

And with the rapidity of thought and the ready decision of genius, he placed his head between the short (and unequal) legs of the boccagh, raised him with a jerk upon his shoulders, ran up the "tether-stake" like a squirrel, and placed him on the summit before one of your ordinary characters could calculate the prudence of the act! A burst, a wild roar, of laughter from the crowd below, replied to a scream of terror from the boccagh above; while Dick, perfectly convulsed, exclaimed,

"Thonomon dioul! you omadhon, what have you done?"

"What you couldn't undo, my bouchal bawn, nor ivir any man in the county Cork for your sake."

"Well, by the powers! one thing is clear," marvelled Dick, "poets must have second sight - for there sits the reality of the vision so well depicted - Patience on a monument."

But the loud laughter continued, increased by the Clift's respectful address to poor Brieny:

"And there you are, masther jewel; and haven't I placed you nicely in the sate of honour, and faix it's yourself desarves it. Divil a man in the county could fill it betther; I wish you joy of it wid all my heart. Arrah boys darlin's," and his eye shot the combined fire of devilry and drollery, "wouldn't he make the beautiful target for the Killyman Wreckers, bad luck attend them this blissed morning - amen."

The ruthless deeds of this savage band of yeomanry were well known to the people of the surrounding country, and to none better than the unfortunate boccagh. Hudy's wicked hint acted with electric force upon his already shattered nerves, and from his perilous elevation he uttered a deep groan of agony, exclaiming in the wildness of despair,

"Take me down, Hudy McGuigan! for the love of mercy take me down!"

But the Clift with wicked composure replied, "Divil a foot indeed! bad luck to you, I'll nivir forgive you for laving out the bull-ride in the song - I pray cruite that the wreckers may make a riddle of your crooked body!"

Under the influence of fear, the pedant lost all his measured dignity of speech, and adopting the natural, he appealed vehemently to the sympathy of those below: "Take me down, boys darlin's; take me down, and don't leave me to be shot by the wreckers."

"Och by my sowl, Brieny agrah! that would pass their thumb just now - bad luck to you, what's become of all your long English?"

"Curse upon you for an ill-natured omadhon, take the creature down," appealed Dick Keating.

"Thry it yourself, Dick - but wheesht! did you hear that?" A bound - a wild scream. "Whew, your sowls! The mad dog! Aye, by the powers of Moll Kelly, there's the gaugers and wreckers in airnest."

This page was last updated 9 Nov 2018