LIFE IN IRELAND 207 



Or in any other place which he finds more pleasant ; 

 so that he never visits poor dear Ireland, no one cares 

 what becomes of discord and all his crew. 



Blake had promised Brian Boru to give him 

 an insight into the characters of all ivithi?i the walls, 

 and was ready to fulfil his promise; and as Swan 

 was a very odd and unaccountable character — but 

 what Irishman is not often odd and unaccountable 

 in his ways, means, and manners — Blake proposed 

 that he should give his own history by way of a 

 prelude. 



Faith and I '11 do that same, said Swan ; for 1 never 

 did a shameful thing in my life but once, and that was 

 when I got married, and hadn't a halfpenny to jingle 

 on a tombstone : so the wife went to sarve the parson 

 of the parish, which was no sarvice to me, and I went 

 to sarve my King as a recruiting serjeant and crimp to 

 the Dragoon Guards. 



The openness of this communication made Brl\n 

 Boru much interested in the history of Swan — it was 

 not expected to be white as the swan's bosom, nor as 

 black as black and all black upon the toppin of a 

 jackdaw, still Brl-yn thought that the man who an- 

 nounced courage to confess his sins, had virtue to 

 venture upon a reformation ; and he secretly deter- 

 mined, if upon inquiry he found the conduct of Swan 

 to be as he expected, neither darkened by any shades 

 of crime, or glittering with unclouded virtues — allow- 

 ances Brian could make for all the failings of human 

 nature : and although in Galway an exciseman is an 

 outlaw, put out of the pale of Christian charity, and 

 doomed to perdition, yet Brian was not so severe ; 



