Page:Daniel O'Rourke's wonderful voyage to the moon (1).pdf/2

 Wonderful Voyage to the Moon.

PEOPLE may have heard of the renowned of Daniel O’Rourke, but how  are there who know that the cause of all his  above and below, was neither more nor less  his having slept under the walls of the  tower. I knew the man well; he lived at the of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand  of the road as you go towards Bantry. An man was he at the time that he told me the story with grey hair, and a red nose; and it was on  25th of June, 1813, that I heard it from his  lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old  tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone  the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Island, having spent the morning at Glengariff.

'I am often axed to tell it, sir,' said he, 'so this is not the first time. The master’s son, see, had come from beyond foreign parts in  and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go,  Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and  enough there was a dinner given to all the  on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low rich and poor. The ould gentlemen were the, alter all, saving your honour’s They’d swear at a body a little, to be sure, and may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then but we were no losers by it in the end;—and