“Woods and corn-fields, and the abode of men, Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke, Arising from _such_ rustic roofs”
as are only to be seen in Ireland, and so come to _Inchigeela_.
_À propos_ of cornfields, I must not forget a striking example of scientific ingenuity, which we saw in this neighbourhood. A small cornstack had been raised, so grievously out of the perpendicular, that the tower of _Pisa_ would have looked severely straight by it. But the builder saw his error, before it was too late, and had gloriously saved his cereal structure, by erecting another, opposite to and abutting towards it, until they supported each other, like the commencement of those card houses, which we built in early youth, a chevron in heraldry, or two drunken sots “seeing each other home.”
At _Inchigeela's_ clean and comfortable inn, we had a capital luncheon for ninepence, and then “lionised” the village. The first object of interest was a pig, asleep under a tree by the brookside.
(I may add bene _curandâ_, as the bacon that is to be cannot possibly hear), and so serenely dignified in its complete repose, so “mildly majestical,” that one almost expected to see a point-lace nightcap, and fair girls fanning away the flies! He looked as happy as _Gryllus_, that companion of _Ulysses_, who, being transformed into a pig by _Circe_, and, being subsequently offered redintegration, preferred the swinish estate; huge and handsome as the famous boar, who ate _the Reverend Mr. Haydn_, after the victory of the rebels at _Enniscorihy_; 1 obese and sleepy, as _Silenus_, when found by the shepherds, _Chromis and Mnasylus_; 2 refreshed and comfortable, like that great _O'Neill_, who (_Camden_ says so) was wont to plunge himself into the mire, as a cooler and restorative, after great excess.
1 Sir Jonah Barrington's Personal Sketches, vol. iii., p. 422.
Progressing, we come to the Constabulary Barracks, where a couple of constables, with such moustaches as would make a young Cornet groan, are polishing up their carbines. Our London police are well-favoured in appearance, but if the Irish constables were to take their place, there would not be a single female-servant, to be “warranted heart-whole,” in the great Metropolis, and the very name of Meat-safe would become a by-word and a laughing-stock.