'If the devil came by, do you think he would take me or you?'

The labourer never hesitated, but replied:--

'He'd take me, your honour.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Oh, he would,' says he, 'because he's sure of your honour at any time.'

The Irishman is not so black as he may seem to the Saxon, who reads with
disgust the horrors that mar the beauty of the Emerald Isle, and I
should say that his finest trait is patience under adversity. No nation,
for example, could have more calmly endured the terrible sufferings of
the famine, more especially as the high-strung nerves of the Celt render
him physically and mentally the very reverse of a stoic.

Again, in no other nation are the family ties closer.

The first thought of those who emigrate to America is to remit money to
the old folk in the cabin at home. So soon as the emigrants have
obtained a reasonable degree of comfort they will send home the passage
money to pay for bringing out younger brothers or sisters to them.

Did you ever hear the story of the homesick Kerry undergraduate at
Oxford, at his first construe with his tutor, translating _contiguare
omnes_ as 'all of them County Kerry men'?

It was a true home touch, though not exactly a classical reading of the
passage.

In the same way, in my boyish days at Dingle, we all of us firmly
believed that King John had asked in what part of Kerry Ireland was.
That question was our local Magna Charta, though what the origin of the
tradition was I have no idea.

But then things do differ according to the point of view, and ours of
history was not stranger than many others of far more importance.

As an example of lack of comprehension I would cite the following
incident.

An English gentleman was shooting grouse in Ireland. He got very few
birds, and said to the keeper:--

'Why, these actually cost me a pound apiece.'

'Begorra, your honour, it's lucky there are not more of them,' was the
unexpected answer.

This allusion to sport reminds me of the Frenchman's description of
hunting in Ireland, which was to the effect that about thirty horsemen
and sixty dogs chased a wretched little animal ten miles, which resulted
in seven casualties, and when they caught the poor beast not one of them
would eat him.

The French do not always appreciate our institutions. One of them
landing at Queenstown in the middle of the day asked if there was
anything he could amuse himself with between then and dinner-time.