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Bog-land Studies

By J. Barlow: 3rd ed
Barlow, Jane (1857?-1917)

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TH' OULD MASTER
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WALLED OUT
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LAST TIME AT M'GURK'S
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BY THE BOG-HOLE
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PAST PRAYING FOR OR, THE SOUPER'S WIDOW
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MISS HONOR'S WEDDING
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A CURLEW'S CALL

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VI

And in throth I've no call to be laid on the shelf yet, as ould as I be:
There's Thady O'Neill up above, that's a year or so senior to me,
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An' passin' his meadow just now, I seen it was mowin', and bedad,
There's himself in it stoopin' away as limber an' soople as a lad.
An' the Widdy Maclean, that was married afore I was three fut high,
She'll thramp her three mile to the town every market day that comes by.
'Twas the fever, last Lent was a twelvemonth, disthroyed me; I'm fit for nought since.
The way of it was: Our ould cow had sthrayed off thro' the gap in the fence,
An' Long Daly he met me an' tould me. Sez he: ‘An ye'll need to make haste,
If it's dhry-fut ye'd find her this night.’ For away o'er the hills to the aist
The hail-showers were slantin' in sthrakes; an' thin wanst clane across wid a swipe
Wint the lightnin'. An': ‘Look-a,’ sez he, ‘there's Saint Pether a-kindlin' his pipe;
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That 'ill take a good sup to put out.’ An', thrue for him, he'd scarce turned his back,
Whin it settled to polther an' pour, an' the sky overhead grew as black
As the botthomless pit; not a stim could I see, nor a sight o' the baste,
But, sthravadin' about in the bog, I slipped into a hole to me waist,
An' was never so nigh dhrownin' dead, forby bein' dhrenched to the skin;
So I groped me way home thro' the dark in the teeth of a freezin' win'.
An' next mornin' I couldn't move finger nor fut, all me limbs were that sore,
And I lay there a-ravin' like wild in me bed for a month an' more;
For me head was on fire, an' the pains was like gimlits an' knives in me bones,
Till the neighbours a-goin' the road 'ud be hearin' me groans an' me moans.
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An' thin, whin I'd over'd the worst, as the Docther'd not looked for at all,
Sure, the strenth was gone out o' me clane, an' I scarcely was able to crawl,
An' that stooped, any rapin'-hook's sthraighter than me, an' the jints o' me stift,
An' me fingers as crookt as the claws of a kite, wid no use in thim lift;
An' whin first I got on me ould brogues, I stuck fast like a wheel in a rut,
I seemed raisin' the weight o' the world every time that I lifted me fut.
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