The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-08-16 00:00:00

meaningto
_write to you
DEAR M. SuusAN,—l

st week, but couldn't by reason of the_conflaiTa-

tion I was in,L; sure any poor. girl might feel it, seeing
that I was far away among furrmers, 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
Mary Anne

nmg man that's

great
g big ould place, likethe Jail at Limerick, on
with little windows,. and a Hite of stairs out of every conic
in it. And th.e.furnishing isn't a bit newer. It's a bit of
rag here and a rag there, an ould cabbinet, a hard sofia,
and maybe four,vcooden chairs that would take a ladder to
get into ! Eatin' and.drinkin' likewise the same. Biled

nd ste(

cow-comers, slice

Evens preserve

Ile, with rasberry jam and
musheroons, for they tries the human stomich with every
ingradiant they can think of !
But the great favourite of all is a salad made out of
potatoes, biled hard, 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

Then a dish of roas.

verybody sits

n to coffee, and doesn't distress
themselves about anything for a matter of two hours.
And, indeed, I must make the remark that " manias"
isn't as badly treated:anywhere in the whole 'Versal Globe
as in Ireland, and if it wasn't that I hear the people is
runnin' away o' themselves, I'd write a letter to the Papers
about it ! 'Tis exactly like Pigs you are, no better ; pota-
toes and butter-milk all the year round I deny it if you can.
Could you offer a Pig less wages than four pound a year !

I =lst say, too, Shusan, that eatin' one's fill molly-fies
ther nature, and subdues tiler hasty dispositions in a won-
derful 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 full-
ness 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 chas-
tezin' 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, whe-
ther 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 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 spoke to her alone. We meet them walkin' in the
lonesomest places together; and Toddy 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.
" Doesn'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 under-
stood well.
" You're a Hussy," 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 couldn'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—l make them just the same !
I wasn't in my room when Mary Anne wa.s after me.

" Ain't you a 'fool, Betty ?" say; she, puttin' a hand on
my shoulder.
Maybe I axn, Miss," says I; "but there's others fools
as well as me !"

" But I mean," says she, " isn't it silly to fall out with
Mamma—that was always so good, and so kind, and so
fond of you ?"

I saw at once, Shusy, how the wind was, and so I just
went on, folding up my collars and settling my things
without a word.

" I'm sure," says she, " you couldn't leave her in a far-
away country like this 1"

" The dea;est friends must part, Miss," says I.
" Not to speak of your own desolate and deserted condi-
tion," says she.
"There's them thafwon't lave me dissolute and discon-
soled, Miss," says I. And with that, Shusy, I told her
that Taddy Hetzler had made me honourable proposials.
" But you'd not think of Taddy," says she. " He's only
a Herd," says she.
" We must take what we can get, Miss," says I, " and
be thankful, in this life."
And she blushed red up to the eyes, Shusy ; for she
knew well what I meant by that?
" But a nice girl, and a purty girl like you, Betty," says
she, "sleudering" me, " isn t it throwing yourself away ;
sure, ye have only to wait a little to make an illigant
match here on the Continent. Don't be precipitonous,"
says she, "but see the effect you'll make with that beau-
tiful pink gownd ;" and here, Shusan, she gave me all as
one as a bran new silk of the Mistress's, with five flounces,
and lace trimmins down the front ! It's what they call
glassy silk, and shines like it !
"I'm sorry,
Miss," says I, "that as I took the Mis-
I'm obleeged to refuse you."
tress's warnin',
ty
" Nonsense, Bet," says she, " arrange
all that."
" But my feelins, Miss, my feelins."
" Well, I'll even engage to smooth these," says she,
laughing.
And so, Shusy, I had to laugh too; for my nature is
plahozlepit. with
~
always to be easy and complyiant ; and when anybody
means well to me, theycad but I can'towhattheyme.
notlt' s
aabwleeakto bpearsteinlfish, my
character,Miss Mary Anne," says I.
"No, Betty, that you are not," says she, pattingmy cheek.
But for all that, Shusy, I'm not going to give up Toddy
till I know why—tho' I didn't say so to her. So I just
put up the pink gownd in my drawer, and went up and
told the Mistress I'd stay ; but beggedor m
sheytit
oowouldn'tnsititZ my nerves that way another time, f
wouldn't bear repated shocks ! I saw she was burstin' to
say something, but darn't, Shusy, and she tore a lace cuff
to tatters while I was talkin'. Well, well, there's no
denyin' it any how ; manials has many troubles, but they
can give a great deal of annoyance and misery, if they set
about it right !
You'd like to hear about Taddy, and I'll be candid and
own that he isn't what would be called handsome in Ire-
land, though here he is reckoned a fine-looking man !
He is six feet four and a half, without shoes, a little bent
in:the shoulders, has long red hair, and sore eyes ; that
aims from the snow, for .he's out in all weathers—after
the pigs. You're surprised at that, and well you may ; for
instead of keeping the craytures in a house as we do, and
giving them all the filth we can find to eat, they turns
them out wild into the woods, to eat beech-nuts, and
acorns, and chestnuts ; and the beasts grow so wicked,
that it's not safe for a stranger to go near them ; and even
the man that guides them is a " swine-fearer." Taddy is
one of these ; and when he's dressed in a goat-skin coat
and cap, leather gaiters buttoned on his legs, and reachin'
to the hips, and a long pole, with an iron hook and a
hatchet at the end of it, and a naked knife, two feet long,
at his side, you'd think the pigs would be more likely to
be afraid of him ! Indeed, the first time I saw him come
into the kitchen, with a great hairy dog they call a fang-
hound at his heels, I schreeched out with frite, for I
thought them—God forgive me !—the ugliest pare I ever
set eyes on. To be sure, the green shade he wore over his
eyes, and the beard that grew down to his breast, didn't
improve him; but I've trimmed him up since that; and
it's only a slight squint, and two teeth that sticks out at
the side of his mouth, that Ie
can't remedy at all !
Paddy Byrne spends his tim mockin' him, and makin'
pictures of him on the servants' hall with a bit of charcoal.
It well becomes a dirty little spalpeen like him to make
fun of a man four times his size. His notion of manly
beauty is four foot eight, short legs, long breeches and
gaiters, with a waistcoat over the hips, and a Jim Crow !
A Monkey is graceful compared to it !
Toddy is not much given to talkin', but he has told me
that he has been on the estate, " with the pigs," he calls
it, since he was eight years old; and, as he said another
time, that "he was nine and twenty years a herd ;" you
can put the two together, and it makes him out thirty-
three or thirty-four years of age. He never had any
father or mother, which is a great advantage, and, as he
remarks, " it's the same to him if there came another flood
and drowned all the world to-morrow!"
_

_ .
Our plans is, to live here till we can go and take a bit
of land for ourselves, and as Taddy has saved something,
and has very good idais about his own advantage, I trust,
with the Blessin' of the Virgin, that we'll do very well.
This that I tell you now, Shusan, is all in confidence,
because to the neighbours, and to Sam Healey, you can
say that I am going to be married to a rich farmer that
has more pigs—and that's thrue—than ye'd see in Ballina-
sloe Fair.
What distresses me most of all is, I can't make out what
religion he's of, if he has any at all ! I try him very
hard about penance and lama punishments, but all he
says is, " When we're married I'll know all about that."
As the Mistress writ all about Mary Anne's marriage to
Mrs. Gallagher, at the House, I don't say anything about
it; but he's an ugly crayture, Shusan, dear, and there's a
hang-dog, treach'rous look about him, I wonder any young
girl could like. The servants, too, knows more of him
than they lets on, but, by rayson of their furrin language,
there's no coming at it.

Between ourselves, she doesn't take to the marriage sit
all ! for I seen her twieetryjn' in her room over some ould
letters, but she bundled them up whiz eke A= use, and
hied W laugh.