“Irish Curiosity” is the name of a short story published by Augusta Browne in 1848, one hundred seventy-five years ago. The theme of the humorous story is curiosity, which is considered a commendable thirst for knowledge in a man, but in a woman, curiosity is regarded as inappropriate interference in the affairs of others. Further, as Browne expressed in deliberately misspelled language that gave the flavor of an Irish brogue, a woman “of coorse can’t kape a saycret.”
Read more: Irish Curiosity (in Honor of St. Patrick’s Day)Augusta Browne was born in Dublin but came to North America as an infant. Her parents were Irish Protestants. They probably did not speak Gaelic, but like Irish people scattered worldwide, they knew common Gaelic words and expressions used in everyday speech. Browne incorporated Irish expressions throughout the story: terms of affection, including agra, astore, and mavourneen; exclamations of surprise such as och! and arrah; plus, Irish words in common use: dudeen for a clay pipe and shelelah for a thick wooden club.
“Irish Curiosity” is a tale of Irish peasants and fairies. The story is written in verbose Victorian style, totaling some five thousand words. It was published in a weekly newspaper called M’Makins Model American Courier that promised to “instruct, amuse, elevate and refine” its readership. The American Courier was an example of the huge newspaper format known as mammoths in circulation before the Civil War. The weekly issue was only four pages, but each page measured something like two feet wide and almost three feet in length. The mammoth papers were supposed to be a bargain because they held so much news and entertainment for the family. A single issue would take the whole week to read in full.
Published in Philadelphia by Andrew M’Makin, the Model American Courier is rare even in special collections. The paper was thin, and poor condition is typical for the fragile pages. The oversize sheets demanded that the issue be folded to mail or handle, with resulting damage along the creases and edges over the decades. I transcribed this story from the newspaper collection at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.
M’Makin’s Model American Courier, August 12, 1848
Original Tales
Written for the Model American Courier
Irish Curiosity; or, the Story of Shane MacTeig O’Callaghan and His Wife Nelly.
By Miss Augusta Browne
“Curiosity, thy name is Woman.”
There cannot be the slightest shadow of a doubt, but that some carping, captious critic, may take it into his crabbed cranium to insinuate, nay, insist, that in the original text the sentiment runs thus:
‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’
Well! and what if it does, we should like to know; is not curiosity one of the many species of frailty, and is not frailty a species of curiosity, pray? So it may be seen that on our side we have the best of lawyer’s logic, logic which everybody knows to be founded and grounded on the solid and immovable basis of indomitable truth, to prove the correctness of the quotation, despite the cavils of the aforesaid critics.
Curiosity must be exclusively a female quality, for who ever saw, or even heard of such a being a curious gentleman? Nobody; the imputation is deservedly scorned, and flouted with universal derision. We believe that in foreign languages, pretty generally, the word curiosity figures as a noun feminine, an incontrovertible and mournful proof that it is the dower of every hapless daughter of Eve. Fearfully long, and frightfully direful, is the list of calamities attributed to this sad frailty. What induced mother Eve to partake of the fatal apple? Curiosity. What induced the lady of Epimetheus to open Pandora’s box, from which issued such a woeful and endless train of fell diseases? Alas! curiosity. We might go on, till the pen dropped from our weary fingers, through sheer exhaustion, in the bootless task of recounting a tithe of the enormities perpetrated by this grievous female sin. But gentlemen are not curious, oh no! What in woman is termed curiosity, entirely changes its signification in their case, and becomes only a laudable and noble thirst for knowledge, which thirst has, from time immemorial, set them to peering into their neighbors’ affairs, and diving into people’s secrets; and it is a well attested fact, that whosoever excels most in these elegant exploits, is styled an enterprising man.
It is a most blessed circumstance that the excavation of Herculanium and Pompeii was not the project of a woman; or that one of the sex did not set out on a Nile hunting expedition; or that a cargo of them did not signalize themselves by a Polar excursion; or that the discovery of America was not the fruit of their curiosity; or that it was not Mrs. or Miss, instead of Mr. Stephens, who scoured Central America, and various other parts of the globe in quest of curios—no! relics, we mean, of the past. These glorious schemes were not originated by women, avaunt with their greatness, it would never in that case have been appreciated or even acknowledged. Doubtless female curiosity has been the cause of some mischief on this terrestrial sphere, as instance the case of poor Shane MacTeig O’Callaghan, of whose sad story we shall endeavor to sketch an outline, by way of salutary warning to all who may chance to be similarly tempted. Curiosity proved to him an irremediable evil and misfortune.
Once upon a time, there dwelt in the County D., in Ireland, an honest, industrious farmer, named Shane MacTeig O’Callaghan, a cognomen adopted from one of his royal ancestors, who had been wickedly cheated out of his kingly rights by invading tyrants. At the period of his marriage, and for a long time after, Shane was in comfortable circumstances, and what is usually termed, well-to-do in the world. His spouse, Nelly, was a good tempered, tidy, brisk little body, full of cheerfulness and activity, and with but one notable failing, which failing was, that she was decidedly and unmitigatedly curious, and possessed a terrible penchant for prying into everything, whether it concerned herself or not. If one of the neighbors sported a new cap, Nelly rested not until she has ascertained all the circumstances attending its acquisition. Not a bit of gossip could be bruited about the village, but the redoubtable Nelly was sure to sift it to the very bottom. Her ears actually ached for news; she hungered for it with an insatiable appetite. But save, and excepting this little foible, Nelly was an amiable woman, and the kindest of neighbors, always ready with friendly offices to any requiring her assistance, and such requirements were by no means limited. Unhappily, misfortunes fell thick and fast upon Shane and Nelly. One inauspicious year their crops completely failed, their cattle died, and to crown all, a fit of heavy sickness visited poor Shane, rendering him totally helpless for several months. When at last he arose from his couch of affliction, frowning ruin stared him broadly in the face, and no resource was left whereby to mend his broken fortunes, but the dernier one of emigrating to America. So the dear old farm must be sold; the old homestead, around which clustered the holy reminiscences of years. This was a bitter pang, and many and sore were the lamentations of himself and Nelly over their hard fate and prostrated hopes. One day, during his slow convalescence, Shane was sauntering through his deserted pasture field, ruminating over his troubles, when he stopped to rest beside a beautiful blackthorn bush, which, on account of his respect for the fairies, whose favorite rendezvous it was, he had always kept well-trimmed, and in the nicest order.
It was a very lovely morning in early spring. The birds warbled joyously amidst the budding branches, and the first flowers of the season peeped cautiously forth from their leafy coverts here and there, like stray jewels. But poor Shane was too sad at heart to enter with full zest into the charms of the scene. “Ah,” said he, apostrophizing the thorn bush, which, loaded with blossoms, breathed perfume on the air, “Ay! if ye’re owner, the ‘good people,’ would only help me out of my troubles, its meself that I’d be grateful to the latest day of my life.”
No sooner had the words passed his lips, than sweet sounds seemed to issue from the ground at his feet; at first like the tuning of an orchestra much subdued, and then swelling out into a grand March Triumphale, at the end of which performance the bush was violently agitated, and out popped a little old fellow and stood before him. And a queer looking little wee epitome he was, to be sure; not more than two feet in height. He wore a bright red mantle, bright red-top boots, and, set jauntily on one side of his caput, he sported a bright red cap, with a heavy gold tassel sweeping his shoulder. The brilliant hue of his costume contrasted oddly enough with his little old weasoned face, resembling a roasted crab-apple, hooked beak, keen piercing eyes, and puckered up mouth. Forsooth to say, he had delicately small pretensions to beauty, this little old gentleman.
Making a low bow, and casting his optics up towards Shane, who could scarce recover from his sudden surprise, he inquired, with much suavity of tone:
“Your servant, Mr. O’Callaghan; what might be your will of the ‘good people’?”
“Och, yer worship, it’s sore throuble I’m in, intirely.”
“And what can the ‘good people’ do for you? Spake freely, and tell me. I’m Murdough Fitz-Oberon, one of the fairy chiefs, and it’s proud and happy we’ll be to serve you or yours any day.”
Shane’s heart warmed at this kind address from the famous Murdough Fitz-Oberon, of whom he had often heard; so with much magnaloquencia he began, and related to the puissant little man all his manifold afflictions and distresses, concluding with his unalterable determination of going to America.
“Arrah, then, Mr. O’Callaghan, don’t make a fool of yourself by thinking of the like. To America, did you say!—to the savages? Why, man alive, they’d ate you up without pepper or salt. Sure there’s never a one of the good people there; they couldn’t exist in such a dissolute ragion, where there’s never a blackthorn nor daisy, and where they’ve only a bit of a miserable moon, that wouldn’t make one of our stars. It’s ralely ashamed of your taste I am, Mr. O’Callaghan.”
“Ah, yer honour, what else can I do?—maybe ye’d condescend to favour me wid yer kind advice. Ye know I always had a mighty lovin’ heart towards yer tribe.”
“You spake the truth, Shane; you do desarve well of us; for many and many’s the good turn you did us in protecting and attending our blackthorns; nor is that all—we don’t forget how you always gave the respectful word, and never spoke unpolitely of us when many another was doing it. Therefore, sore sorry have we been for your troubles, and nothing would have delighted us more than to have had the pleasure and privilege of assisting you, if you had only called on us; but maybe you didn’t know that we are never free to offer help to any one until asked distinctly to do so.”
“Sorra a bit of it, my lord; (he was a might polite man, was Shane,) I knew nothing at all about it, or glad would I have been long ago to have axed yer kind assistance.”
“And it’s sorry I am for the same; for often and often I’ve gone to your door when you lay in the faver, listening in the hope that you would ask our help, for though we haven’t the power over life and death, yet we could have supplied you with many a comfort that makes sickness fall lightly; and we wouldn’t have begrudged you anything. Now, just take my advice, and it is a good one. Give up all thought of going to America, to the haythin, and of selling the farm that belonged to the father before you, but go home, wait patiently, and tomorrow you will find what strong friends you have among the ‘good people.’ But mind, this is all sub rosa, as a far-off outlandish people say, you’re not to let on to a living soul about it, not even to Nelly, for the instant you do, your luck’s at an end.”
“Ah, yer honour’s glory,” said Shane, who had certain misgivings as to the practicability of keeping a secret from his loving spouse, “Ah, if I might only tell Nelly atself; sure the poor crathur’s heart’s near broke wid the throuble.”
“No, no, Mr. O’Callaghan; I know that Nelly is a good wife, but she’s a woman, and of coorse can’t kape a saycret.”
So saying, the funny little chap doffed his flaming chapeau with a magnificent obeisance, in response to which, Shane, not to be outdone in politeness, performed one of the grandest Hibernian salutes on record, scraping up a quantity of earth with the heel of his brogue in executing the requisite flourish, and nearly touching the ground with his nose. With this mutual display of etiquette they separated; the wee fellow retired into his bush, and Shane MacTeig O’Callaghan, with a light heart, returned whistling home.
At the earliest peep of day, the fairy’s protegé awoke, though it was little he had slept with conjecturing as to the shape his luck would assume, and gazed anxiously around; but nothing more than usual greeted his vision. This, however, gave him no manner of uneasiness, well knowing, as he did, that the fairies are always as good as their word. He ate his meager breakfast of stirabout in such exhilaration of spirits, that poor Nelly was wonder struck by the sudden and unaccountable change in her late melancholy lord.
“Sure it’s glad I am, Shane dear, to see ye is such sperits the day. What’s come over ye acushla?”
But never a bit did Shane let on; he only executed an erratic caper on the clay floor, and then sat down in the chimney corner to smoke his dudeen, when lo! on reaching out his hand to take it from a little private nook, he was saluted by a merry laugh, and spied lying beside the humble pipe a bright golden guinea, a veritable coin of the realm. Remembering his promise of secrecy, he glanced quickly around for Nelly, but fortunately she had previously left the room, and so was incognizant of the wonder. The ensuing morn there was another shining guinea, and the next another, and so on regularly.
Affairs began to brighten, and comforts to flow in upon the desolate dwelling. Although Shane cautiously refrained from displaying any extra flushness of means, and went out every day to work, as a ruse to lull her suspicions, yet Nelly began to be alarmed as to the source of his dawning prosperity. But her astonishment was such as nearly to deprive her of speech, when, one day, he returned from a neighboring fair, driving with high glee before him a beautiful cow, and declaring that it was utterly impossible to exist any longer without the luxuries of milk and butter.
“Och hone! Och hone!” cried Nelly, bursting into a tremendous fit, quite a deluge of tears, “has it come this pass wid ye, that ye must stale for it!”
“Whisht! ye foolish woman, I didn’t stale, I bought her honestly; wasn’t it a sin and a shame to have such a splendid pasture goin’ to loss, widout a single baste to ate the grass off it?”
“Ye bought her, did ye, avic? Och, but she’s the darlint, purty crathur!” said the delighted woman, affectionately caressing the animal; “but, Shane, honey, where did ye get the money from?”
“Never ye mind that, agra, but make haste and boil some good stirabout, and let us have supper.”
Soon Shane aspired to the possession of a few sheep for the pasture ground, at which Nelly’s suspicions and sorrows broke out afresh. She begged and prayed him to make known to her the secret spring of his good luck, broadly hinting at the same time, fears that his wealth was obtained surreptitiously, but without avail, Shane was on his guard, and only returned evasive and unsatisfactory answers. The neighbors came in shoals to congratulate them on their mending fortunes, mingling gentle reproaches therewith, because they had not in their time of trouble applied to each and every individual of themselves for assistance and sympathy, cunningly forgetting, however, that they had done so, and with but poor success.
There was one sweet drop in Nelly’s mingled cup, and that was the assurance that Shane’s extraordinary accession of wealth had not led him into bad company. Of this she rested sure, for his farm was the best tilled in the country, and his evenings were invariably spent at home, or in her society elsewhere. Not that home, either, was at the time the most desirable or pleasant place for the unlucky-lucky man, for she tormented him incessantly; but he humanely and kindly considered, that as he was depriving her of the grand charm of a woman’s existence—a secret, he ought, at least, as some small remuneration for said deprivation, to enliven her as often as possible with the light of his countenance. Sorely worried as he was, it is not to be wondered at, that Shane often felt his cherished secret burning on the end of his tongue, and was only restrained during such spells of indiscretion from divulging it, by low groans from the chimney corner, or the vision of tiny fists shook threateningly outside the door.
So things progressed. One fine day he went to a celebrated fair, and bought Mrs. Callaghan a gown and cap, a grass-green robe, besprigged with prodigious yellow blossoms, and a high-crowned cap, decorated with multitudinous bows of brilliant scarlet ribbons, and richly garnished with six or eight deep frills. Never was the like witnessed in the village before. The only thing that cast a shade on the triumph and importance of Nelly on this occasion was the galling fact that the mystery as to how they were obtained still remained unsolved. Nevertheless, she shone out at mass the ensuing Sabbath in great style; her splendor and dignity exciting the envy of nearly every female heart in the chapel, who, melancholy to relate, thought much more about Mrs. O’Callaghan’s finery, than of their devotions, the ostensible motive for assemblage “To make their sowls.”((Augusta Browne noted: This very graphic expression was used by an Irish girl to a relative of the writer’s. It was during the lamentable house-hunting season, and the Hibernian was showing a room, the only window of which opened close upon the plain brick side of the next house. On the lady’s objecting that it was a very dull room, she very naively replied, “Arrah! but, ma’am, dear, sure it’s a fine place to make your sowl in,” meaning, thereby, that it was a retired place for meditation.)) Nay! worse than all, a tumultuous spirit of jealousy was aroused among ever her dear friends, which burst forth in such expressions as the following:
“Och, musha thin! to think of Peggy Rafferty’s daughter taking such grand airs on herself, though, poor crathur as the mother was, the little she had was got honestly.”
“Well, now, Mrs. Murphy, dear,” said another particular friend, “did ye ever know of the like! It’s not long since we heard that they hadn’t the vally of a farthing in their cabin.”
“Troth, then,” muttered an old crone, who had often and often partaken of Shane’s bounty, “sure, it well becomes her to play the lady, when we all know how near they were to beggin’’ but some people have quare acquaintances—too fine to be good, I’m thinkin’.”
“Arrah! to see the bouldness and presumption of some people, d’ye see the poor fool speakin’ to his riverence with all the consate in the world? The dear knows but that purty cap ill becomes her ugly face, and the comfortable brogues that’d be good for her betters, won’t do for her, but she must have fine creakin’ shoes.”
“Whisht, now, Sheela Rooney, sure you’ve small right to talk ill of her, anyway. Do you forget how she attended you in the faver, when your own kith and kin desarted you; how that, night afther night, she sat up with you, wetting yer parched lips, until by His marcy, she brought you through? Oh! give me the grateful heart, that’s always bubbling up like a holy spring; for unthankfulness, the good Book says, is a poisoned well of bitterness. And I will say it, that never a one desarved luck betther nor Nelly, for her’s was always the kind heart for all.”
“And it’s mighty odd, too, where such great luck comes from,” sneered another. “Mighty odd, if it comes honestly.”
“They were always the best of friends to the ‘good people,’” timidly chimed in pretty Kathleen O’Fay. “Ye know that Shane took great care of the blackthorn bushes where they hould their balls, and Nelly always was sure to set the clane vessel of wather for them at night.”
“That’s thrue for you, Kathleen mavournin,” continued Nelly’s first retainer, “that’s thrue for you, but it’s my humble opinion, by her laves, that it’s none of your business at all, at all. Shane’s a hard-working man, and thin, maybe some rich friend far-off has left him a fortin’; I know he has great relations at the other end of the kingdom, and good luck may what he’s got do him, I say.”
“Amin,” ejaculated two or three of the kindly disposed, whilst from the others proceeded animadversions, “not loud, but deep.”
These disquisitions were common between the friends and foes of Shane, but although floating rumors thereof reached his ears, and the men came around him, endeavoring to inveigle him, by every cunningly devised art, into a confession, his equanimity was in no ways disturbed. “They may laugh that win,” says a quaint old proverb. The happiness of success, or good fortune, produces in different dispositions, different effects. In a strong and generous mind, it stirs up the fountains of all that is noble and beautiful, causing the more elevated faculties to expand and blossom to full fruition, and the heart to glow with cordial and earnest philanthropy towards the whole world.
In a weak and low mind, the effects of success and good fortune, are, of course, exactly contrary. The unhappy individual, who is the miserable recipient of favors undeserved, running mad with the riot of inebriated vanity, provokes his own fate and falls a speedy and unpitied victim to the contempt of his insulted fellows. Shane MacTeig O’Callaghan’s character partook more of the former cast than of the latter.
Nearly every day witnessed some new accession of property. Now a drove of brisk calves trotted past the mud edifices of the tantalized neighbors, anon, a flock of chickens or geese, and again and again, a herd of choice sheep; not one in the annals of the country ever throve as well as did Shane. At last, as a crowning achievement, he treated himself to an out-and-out suit of fine broadcloth, bright blue, with huge gilt buttons, not forgetting to surmount all with a remarkably tall, aspiring hat, the full worth of his money. This was a fell enormity; so thought [all the?] boys; (which class of humanity in Ireland includes every bachelor under seventy-five, or thereabouts.) It was a gross invasion of their rightful province, a most unjust eclipse of their due luster. Nelly was justly proud of her husband’s handsome appearance, so superior, so elegant, but alas! notwithstanding this, and her many other cause of thankfulness, there was still a canker “like a worm i’ the bud,” gnawing at the root of her happiness—baffled curiosity.
“Arrah, now, Shane avic, and am’nt I yer wedded wife? Didn’t I lave my father’s house, where was full and plinty to the fore, to folly yer fortins; and how can ye have the heart to kape anything from me? Now tell me, jewel dear, where did ye get the money—ye know well that I’ll niver let on to a sowl at all? Maybe ye found it? Well! And what if ye did atself? Sure there’s no disgrace in that; (a pause, during which she rocked violently backwards and forwards, and broke her thread more than once). Or maybe, ye belong to a still? Small blame to ye if ye do; it’s a fine thing, to be sure, i’ an honest body must’nt make as much as a dhrop of medicine, bad cess to them English; (another breathing spell); but, maybe, och! can’t ye spake, honey: ye’ll dhrive me mad? Maybe then thiefs of smugglers have inticed ye wid them, and thin ye know, my poor Shane, if ye’re caugh, ye’ll be hanged—och, hone! And what’ll become of yer disconsolate widdy?”
Mr. O’Callaghan’s “native hue of resolution,” was well nigh sicklies o’er by the “pale cast of thought,” before her pertinacity, but an ominous cough from the chimney recalled him to himself, and hermetically sealed his lips. Nelly thought his silence a favorable symptom of hesitation, and so with skillful generalship, pursued her conjectured advantage.
“It’s not meeself that’d be afther hidin’ anything from ye, Shane, no! it’s sorry I’d be to be brakin’ the solemn vow, that way. But as I’m only yer poor despised wife, of coorse, I’m not worth tellin’ anything to!”
And she pursed up her mouth, and spun away vehemently with the air of a deeply injured woman.
“Well, thin, Nelly agra, if I must tell ye, but mind yer not to whisper it to a livin’ sowl, (her eyes and mouth opened involuntarily) a friend have, lint it to me, and whin I’m able, I’m to pay him back every penny. There now, are ye satisfied?”
“I am, hone; but who is the friend?” whispered the inexorable plague.
“No matter to you who he is; I promised not to tell, and I won’t,” retorted Shane, provokedly.
In spite of this bit of magnanimous confidence, Shane’s persecutions abated not one jot; he was worn to a shadow by fretting. So at last, he sought and obtained an interview with his benefactor, Chief Murdough Fitz-Oberon at the blackthorn bush, to entreat him for liberty to make a confidante of his wife, but alack! In vain, for the ungallant old fellow was obstinate in his refusal, absolutely storming at the very idea.
“You might know by this time, after your long probation, Mr. O’Callaghan, if you had the laste knowledge of human nature, that women can’t keep a secret, at all; why, even we ourselves can’t trust our women with anything; all the mischief among us, and that same’s never slack, is owing intirely to them, So I, by your lave, just warn you again, that the moment you tell Nelly a word of the matter, that same moment you shall lose all your luck forever: so good day to you.”
And the ancient chieftain’s withered visage contracted as if he had been biting fresh persimmons, as he marched off in high dudgeon, whistling Donnybrook Fair, and twirling his shelelagh in the fiercest manner.
At last, one bright day, the climax was capped by the astounding proclamation of Shane, that he had actually purchased a horse and wagon. A horse and wagon! A piece of grandeur so far transcending the loftiest imaginations of his ancestors, that they had never even dared to dream of the like. This was too much; Nelly’s cup of woe, was not only full to the brim, but it also ran over in torrents. With a wild shriek, she fell on her knees, and rent her locks.
“Tell me, tell me, Shane astore, where ye got the money. I know well it was never lent ye; maybe ye’ve kilt some traveler, or perhaps ye’ve found a treasure? Och, tell me, or I’ll die!”
Shane was terribly disturbed; he mused in fearful perturbation One thing was certain; his life was nought but a misery to him, through his wife’s inquisitiveness: far preferable was his former peaceful poverty, to the luxurious life of incessant torment which he had endured for the last six months. Whilst he mentally weighed these considerations, a loud shrill cough outside the door startled him from his revery, and he caught a dim glimpse of a pair of vengeful eyes flashing ferociously at him; but a fresh volley of entreaties from Nelly, who had been recovering breath for the charge, rendered these warnings null and void and conquered his last bit of firmness.
The secret was imparted.
A dreadful howl of execration followed, accompanied by a raging whirlwind, which nearly uprooted the cabin. But make the contrary nature of woman. When Nelly heard the secret, and the penalty attached thereunto, her excitement was terrible; she burst forth into wild phililu’s, called herself a fool, an idiot, and finally blamed, nay even violently abused the wretched Mr. O’Callaghan for having yielded to her mad solicitation. That evening was spent in mutual recriminations; and in the morning, behold! the cabin presented a doleful scene of devastation and confusion. The little furniture was all smashed; Nelly’s recherché cap and gown, together with Shane’s Sunday suit, lay on the hearth, carefully torn into the fractions of atoms, and there was no guinea. Even this was not the worst of the catastrophe; that same day the new horse died, the cow followed suit, and a freshet arose the next night in the low pasture where they were kept, and drowned all the sheep; a deadly malaria carried off the remaining stock, and a finale of woe and destruction, the luxuriant and promising crops, the admiration of the whole country round, unaccountably and totally failed. Nor was “the winter of Shane’s discontent made glorious summer by” any bit of sun in the guise of ameliorating circumstances, alas! no. Nelly’s tongue had found out the secret of perpetual motion, and wagged incessantly, venting cruel reproaches on him for his weak and sinful complaisance. ’Twas of no avail his weary way on many a visit to the old blackthorn bush, and called on his former patron in pathetic beseechment; no answer was deigned, no symptom of leniency tinted with golden light or silver brilliancy, the gloomy clouds which loured like malicious spectres upon him, no notice whatever was taken of him, save once by a yell of displeasure, and again by a ponderous blow on the back, such as might be inflicted by a stout shelelah, accompanied by a screech of “sorra, sorra on ye.”
The farm was ultimately sold, to the malicious delight of the neighbors, that is, the envious ones, and Mr. and Mrs. O’Callaghan emigrated to America, ‘The land of the free and the home of the brave,’ where, for ought we know to the contrary, they are at this moment entertaining each other with direful retrospections of the past, and declaiming the one against the sin and iniquity of curiosity, and the other against that of weakly yielding in spite of one’s better judgment.
“Och, musha, Nelly, it was all owin’ to yer bad tongue, and abominable curiosity, that I lost my luck!”
“Arrah, thin, Shane, ye poor omedhoun, ye ought to blush to won it, that ye hadn’t the strength of mind to kape a saycrit.”
“No, Mrs. O’Callaghan, ma’am, it was all owin’ to yer curiosity, ma’am.”
Response, ad infinitum, and exit through opposite doors in a rage.
