Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/244

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
238
ANNALS OF THE

second trial told me that thus far severity had not exaggerated. I paid my passage at Limerick for Cork, went to Fermoy without any serious difficulty; here vehicles and horses were changed, my trunk placed beyond my care, new passengers seated till the car was quite overcharged, when the carman said with insolence, as he saw me waiting for a seat, "Get on and stand up, or else stop till to-morrow, I'll not wait for ye." "My passage is paid to Cork, my trunk is beyond my reach, or I would wait," was the answer. "Get on quick and stand there, or you're left." I ascended the seat, and holding by the luggage, rode ten miles standing in much peril, while the carman occasionally looked around, and made some waggish joke, much to the amusement of decently-clad gentlemen, not one of whom offered me a seat. The reader may justly inquire—Is this the Irish politeness, of which so much has been said in those pages? It is not instinctive Irish politeness—this is always pure and always abundant; but it is the habit put on and cultivated, by such as having no claim to family or rank, have, mushroom-like, started suddenly from a manure-heap into a little higher business, and having no education that has in the least disciplined the mind, they at once assume the airs of imperious landlords, and keepers of "whisky-shops," as the best means of establishing their advanced standing.

The county of Cork is the largest county in Ireland, and once had four walled towns:—Cork, Youghal, Kinsale, and Bandon. It has an extensive sea-coast,