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

meaning to write to you

by reason of the e,onft

it feel it, seeit

and had nobody to

my wickec

o the father of the
It's a

Alary Anne

ut of every corm

musheroons, for they tries the human stomich with every
ingradiant they can think of !
But the great favourite of all is
potatoes, tiled hard, sliced and pickled the sam
cow-comers ! A bowl of that, Mrs. SI

salad Towle out of
sy as the
lone

dinner

s a-fire I couldn't run !

i't dist

themselves about anything for a matter of two hours.
And, indeed, I must make the remark that " manials"
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 ! deny it if you can.
Could you offer a Pig less wages than four pound a year !
I must say, too, Shusan, that eatin' one's fill molly-fies
ther nature, and subdues ther 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 I 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 ns
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 to 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 spake to her alone. We meet them walkin' in the
lonesomest places together ; and Taddy 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 ?" . .

--;`iioyou call marriage wickedness P" says she.
" Sometimes it is, Ma'am," says I, with a look she under-
stood well.

"You're a Hussy,"
next Saturday."
~

says she ; " and I'll give you Nvarnin'

"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 servants !
And, indeed, that's the way I become such an iligant
linguist; and it's no differ to me now between talkie'
French and Jarman—l make them just the same !
I wasn't in my room when Mary Anne was after me.
"Ain't you a fool, Betty ?" says she, puttin' a hand on
nlYVayb shoulder.
Maybe am, 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 !"

" The dearest friends must part, Miss," says I.
" Not to speak of your own desolate and deserted comb-
" says she.

" There's them that won'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.

`ltre must take what we can get, Miss," says I,
be thankful, in this life." _

And she blushed red up to the eyes, Sbusy for she
knew well what I meant by that ?

" But a nice girl, and urty 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 precipitouous,"
says she, "but see the effect you'll snake 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 trimming down the front ! It's what they call
glassy silk, and shines like it !
"I'm
wa Miss," says I, "that as I took the Mis-
tress's I'm obleeged to refuse you."
srnorrii;'
" Nonsense, betty," says she, " I'll 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
always to be easy and complyiant ; and when anybody
means well to me, they can do what they plaze with me.
It's a weak part in my character, but I can't help it. " I'm
not able to be selfish, Miss Mary Anne," says I.
"No, Betty, that youare not," says she, pattingmy cheek.

But for all that, Shusy, I'm not going to give up Taddy
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 begged she wouldn't try
my nerves that way another time, for my constitution
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
cums 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
them out wild into the woods, to eat b

hey turns
nd

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." Taddv 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 sehreeched 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 I can't remedy at all !
Paddy Byrne spends his time 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 !
Taddy 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 g.00,d idais about his own advantage, I trust,
with the Blessm 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 throe—than ye'd see in Ballin,a-
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 'carnal 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'i•ous 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 •to4he marriage at
all ! for I seen her twice cryin' her•room over,some ould
letters, but she bundled them up in elle.eeenzte, and
tried W