Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/265

 250

Drench: a form of the English drink, but used in a peculiar sense in Ireland. A drench is a philtre, a love-potion, a love-compelling drink over which certain charms were repeated during its preparation. Made by boiling certain herbs (orchis) in water or milk, and the person drinks it unsuspectingly. In my boyhood time a beautiful young girl belonging to a most respectable family ran off with an ill-favoured obscure beggarly diseased wretch. The occurrence was looked on with great astonishment and horror by the people—no wonder; and the universal belief was that the fellow's old mother had given the poor girl a drench. To this hour I cannot make any guess at the cause of that astounding elopement: and it is