"A man to be a herd now, and to be sent back out of the fair with beasts, the very time the sport would begin, or to be landing fish from a hooker and to be made take the tide at the very minute maybe the crowds would be gathering for a race, or an assizes, or a thing of the kind, it is down-hearted you would be coming into your own little place, and all the stir left after you."
Only Arthur Sinclair could properly "sound out" that speech. And this one could come with the right nuances only from the mouth of Joseph O'Rourke:
"The towns do be in an uproar and do be crowded, and the roads do be wet and wide; and as to the villages, there is spies in them, and traitors, and people you wouldn't like to be talking with. Too venomous they are and too corrupted with drink. I'd like to keep my own company, and I have no way of living but the berries of the bush."
