We would gladly record some other instances of Paddy’s humour, but our limits will not permit us; and we can only add a few words on one or two other traits in his character.
We have already stated that Paddy, despite of his humble condition, and that loss of sight which would be deemed by most persons as one of the greatest of human calamities, is a happy man--a happier one we never saw. He is always singing--in sunny weather, sprightly airs, and in gloomy weather, pathetic ones; but he never looks or is sad, except when a tale of sorrow excites his pity, or when he is about to separate from friends. The calamity of want of sight he thinks of little moment, and inferior to the loss of any other organ--that of hearing, in particular, which he considers as the greatest of all possible bodily afflictions. “I don’t remember,” said Paddy, “ever wishing for sight but once in my life; ’twas when I went to a horse race. I went with two friends, and somehow we got parted in the throng, and I could not make them out. There was a great deal of bustle and confusion, and I knew that the race would soon begin; and I was a long way from the starting-post, and had not any one to lead me to it. Dear, dear, said I, if I had my _sight_ now, I might be able to _hear_ the horses starting. Just then I heard some one calling Paddy, Paddy! It was one of my friends looking for me; and I think I never seen men so distressed when they found they had lost me. It was mighty pleasant; they never let me go all day after, and we were just in time to hear the horses start.”
We are, indeed, reluctantly constrained to confess that Paddy, notwithstanding his humanity, is, like many other benevolent men of higher grade, who are equally blind in this respect, an ardent lover of field sports, as an instance will show. We were seated at our breakfast in the hotel at Maam one morning, when our ears were assailed by a strange din, composed of the barking of dogs and the shouting of men. We started to the oriel window which commands a view of the road beyond the bridge for a mile or more, and the reader may judge of our astonishment when we saw Paddy Coneely hand in hand with Paddy Lee, one of our car-drivers from Clifden, racing at their utmost speed--Paddy throwing his heels twice as high in the air as the other--both shouting joyously, and attended by a number of greyhounds and terriers, who barked in chorus--and so they raced till they were out of sight. “What in the world,” we inquired of our host, Rourke, “is the meaning of that?” “It’s Paddy and Lee, Sir, who have borrowed my dogs, and are gone off to course!”