And with neither butter nor meat,
And milk that was sourer than apples in harvest--
That's what Raftery got from Burke of Kilfinn.'

'And Mr. Burke begged him to rhyme no more, but to come back, and he
would be well taken care of.' I am told of another house he abused and
that is now deserted: 'Frenchforth of the soot, that was wedded to the
smoke, that is all that remains of the property.... There were some of
them on mules, and some of them unruly, and the biggest of them were
smaller than asses, and the master cracking them with a stick;' 'but he
went no further than that, because he remembered the good treatment used
to be there in former times, and he wouldn't have said that much if it
wasn't for the servants that vexed him.' A satire, that is remembered
in Aran, was made with the better intention of helping a barefooted
girl, who had been kept waiting a long time for a pair of shoes she had
ordered. Raftery came, and sat down before the shoemaker's house, and
began:--

'A young little girl without sense, the ground tearing her feet, is
not satisfied yet by the lying Peter Glynn. Peter Glynn, the liar,
in his little house by the side of the road, is without the
strength in his arms to slip together a pair of brogues.'

'And, before he had finished the lines, Peter Glynn ran out and called
to him to stop, and he set at work on the shoes then and there.' He even
ventured to poke a little satire at a priest sometimes. 'He went into
the chapel at Kilchreest one time, and there was some cabbage after
being stolen from a garden, and the priest was speaking about it.
Raftery was at the bottom of the chapel, and at last he called out in
verse:--"What a lot of talk about cabbage! If there was meat with it, it