The Apprentice Thief
IT was a lee long time ago when ould Ireland was happy and contented, with lavin’s and lashin’s—plenty to ait and little to do; and we had our own kings—half-a-dozen of them in every county—and our own Parlymint, and we had mines of all sorts and descriptions, both coal and copper and silver and goold—and, more betoken, the guineas was as common as tenpennies; and the farmers had fields of wheat that it was a day’s journey to walk over, and the smell of them was a’most enough to satisfy a hungry man, if the like could be found in the kingdom—but that would be onpossible, barrin’ on a fast day, when (the ould sinners that they were!) they used to schame it by goin’ out and sniftherin’ up the smell of the wheat, and fillin’ themselves (the villains!) that way, till their fren’s would a’most have to sweel some of them (the rascals) with ropes, for feared they’d bust; and the blight or the rot was nivir known on the praties, and they had tatties that big (the Cups, they called them) that I heerd me gran’father say that he heered his gran’father say that he heerd his great gran’father (I wish him rest!) tellin’ him, that in the harvest time they often scooped wan of them out, and put to say in it to fish for mackerel—and more betoken, the say in them days swarmed with every description of fish that ever put a fin in wather, and the fishermen never used hook or net, but just baled the fishes into their boats with an ould bucket. Well, howandivir, it was in them glor’us days of full and plenty that Billy Brogan lived as a sort of a cotthar to the King of Ballyshanny, and Billy had one son, Jack, that turned out to be very handy like with his fingers when he wanted anything that didn’t belong to him. Well, that fared well till Jack grew up to be a stout, strappin’, able lump of a garsun, when the king comes to ould Billy, his father, to make complaints on Jack, seein’ that he wasn’t leaving a movable thing about his castle or grounds but he was hoising off wid him.