Black man; the man who accompanies a suitor to the house of the intended father-in-law, to help to make the match.
{ 216} Black of one's nail. 'You just escaped by the black of your nail': 'there's no cloth left--not the size of the black of my nail.' (North and South.)
Black swop. When two fellows have two wretched articles--such as two old penknives--each thinking his own to be the worst in the universe, they sometimes agree for the pure humour of the thing to make a _black swop_, i.e. to swop without first looking at the articles. When they are looked at after the swop, there is always great fun. (See Hool.)
Blarney; smooth, plausible, cajoling talk. From Blarney Castle near Cork, in which there is a certain stone hard to reach, with this virtue, that if a person kisses it, he will be endowed with the gift of _blarney_.
Blast; when a child suddenly fades in health and pines away, he has got a blast,--i.e. a puff of evil wind sent by some baleful sprite has struck him. _Blast_ when applied to fruit or crops means a blight in the ordinary sense--nothing supernatural.
Blather, bladdher; a person who utters vulgarly foolish boastful talk: used also as a verb--to blather. Hence _blatherumskite_, applied to a person or to his talk in much the same sense; 'I never heard such a blatherumskite.' Ulster and Scotch form _blether_, _blethering_: Burns speaks of stringing 'blethers up in rhyme.' ('The Vision.')
Blaze, blazes, blazing: favourite words everywhere in Ireland. Why are you in such a blazing hurry? Jack ran away like blazes: now work at that job like blazes: he is blazing drunk. Used also by the English _peasantry_:--'That's a blazing strange { 217} answer,' says Jerry Cruncher in 'A Tale of Two Cities.' There's a touch of slang in some of these: yet the word has been in a way made classical by Lord Morley's expression that Lord Salisbury never made a speech without uttering 'some blazing indiscretion.'
Blind Billy. In coming to an agreement take care you don't make 'Blind Billy's Bargain,' by either overreaching yourself or allowing the other party to overreach you. Blind Billy was the hangman in Limerick, and on one particular occasion he flatly refused to do his work unless he got £50 down on the nail: so the high sheriff had to agree and the hangman put the money in his pocket. When all was over the sheriff refused point-blank to send the usual escort without a fee of £50 down. So Blind Billy had to hand over the £50--for if he went without an escort he would be torn in pieces--and had nothing in the end for his job.