The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-08 00:00:00

A POTTEEN SMUGGLER'S DARLINT.-A
man who was known to have a large mountain farm and
extensive homestead in these hills, was observed very fre-
quently to ride into the town of ; and he never
made his appearance without a woman, supposed to be
his wife, jogging steadily and uprightly on a pillion
behind him. He was tall and gaunt in look; she large
and rotund, and encumbered, as is the mode of all
country wives, with a multitude of petticoats : they
always rode into the yard of a man who kept a public-
house; and before they alighted off their horse, thet
gate was carefully shut. It was known, moreover, tha
this publican acted us factor for this farmer in the sal°
of his butter ; and so for a length of time things went
on in a quiet and easy way, until one day it so hap-
pened (as indeed it is very common for idlers in a very
idle country town to stand making remarks on the
people as they come by), that the gauger, the innkeeper,
and a squircen were lounging away their day, when the
farmer slowly paced by, with his everlasting wife behind
him. " 'Well," says the squircen, "of all the women I
ever saw bumping on a pillion, that lump of a woman sits
the awkwardest; she don't sit like a natural born crathur
at all; and do you see how modest she is, what with her
flapped down beaver hat, and all the frills and fallals about
her, not an inch of her snort face is to be seen, no more
than an owl from out the ivy ? I have a great mind to run
up alongside of her, and give her a pinch in the toe, to
make old buckram look about her for once. " Oh, let her
alone," says the innkeeper, " they're a decent couple
from Joyce country. I'll be bound, what makes her sit
so stiff is all the eggs she is bringin' in to Mrs. O'Mealey,
who factors the butter for them." There was, while he
said this, a cunning leer about the innkeeper's mouth, as
mock' as to denote that there was, to his knowledge, how-
ever he came by it, something mysterious about this said
couple ; this was not lost on the subtle gauger, and he
thought it no harm just to try more about the matter ;
and so he says in' a frolicsome way, " Why, then, for
cur'osity sake, I will just run up to them, and give the
mistress a pinch—somewhere; she won't notice me at
all in the crowd, and maybe then she'll look up, and
we'll see her own purty face." Accordingly, no sooner
said than done : he ran over to where the farmer was
getting on slowly through the market crowd; and on
the side of the pillion to which the woman's back was
turned, attempted to give a sly pinch, but he might as
well have pinched a pitcher; nor did the woman even lift
up her head, or ask " Who is it that's hurting me.? "
This emboldened him to give another knock with his
knuckles ; and this assault he found not opposed as it
should be by petticoats and flesh, but by what he felt
to be petticoats and metal. This is queer, thought the
guager ; be now was more bold, and with the butt-end
of his walking-stick he hit what was so hard a bang
which sounded as if he had struck a tin pot ; " Stop
here, honest man," cried the guager. " Let my wife
alone, will yon, before the people ?" cried the farmer.
" Not till I FCC what this honest woman is made of,"
roared the guager. So he pulled, and the farmer due: his
heels into his colt to get on, but all would not do ; in the
struggle down came the wife into the street; and as she
fell on theipavement, the whole street rang with the squash,
and in a moment there is a gurgling as from a burst barrel,
and a strong smelling water comes flowing all about; and
flat poor Norah lies, there being an irruption of all her
intestines; which flowed down the gutter as like potteen
whiskey as eggs are like eggs, 'file fact was, that our
friend from the land of Joyce had got made, by some tinker,
a tin vessel with head and body the, shape_ola-wonsan, and
dressed it -out—tta a." P-roPii-Cotiniry dame; in this way he
carried his darlint behind him, and mado much of her,—
Otway's Tour in Connaught.