[From Manxiana, 1870]

THE SULBY PUMP.

Here come the village folks,
With a hey, oh! and a skip and a jump,
The old and the young, with kettles and pans,
With buckets, and jugs, and watering cans,
All crowding round the pump?
My pump, near the kitchen door,
Ah ! what a sad grievance it is,
As out runs the servant to hold her chat.
And learn what the village folks are at,
And show her own merry phiz.
Says one, I wish you'd lend
A gridiron my herring to fry;
Another a spade, another a grill,
Another this bottle with wine you'd fill
For neighbour who's like to die.
Chattering and borrowing all,
Pumping and pumping goes on;
News within doors — priest's friends and his foes,
His doings and sayings, his library, his nose,
Are chatted and commented on.
Does he smoke ?. — does he snuff ? —
Is he a good or a bad master, I say
" As a doctor we like him" — I heard some tell, "
He has physic enough to make us well,
And will tend us without any pay."
Consult the vicar I must,
This grievance, then, how to abate; "
Put up with it, my brother, I pray,.
" A bench put around your pump to — . — .
Hold converse with small and great."
His advice was surely good,
Of liberty licence they made;
The garden they ranged, and cut up the kale,
And borrow'd (or took) beans and peas wholesale,
And never return'd me my spade.
' I said this never will do,
A pump I'll sink near the road if I can ;
Says Actney, the mason, " I'll find you a man
Who'll sink you a pump on the following plan,
If you'll fill with rum a quart-can:-
Place it right over the spot
Where the well you would wish for to sink;
First sight of water is first taste of rum,
This tell him — and water right quickly will come,
And o'erflow all over the brink."
One day did. the work in hand,
The man from Ballaugh did the job;
He early set to, and ere evening hour,
There ran in his well a full water-power,
To quench the thirst of the mob.
The pump the carpenter made,
He made it by means of a pipe,
Right through it so leading, that every pump stroke
Gave me plenty of water, enough for to soak
My garden ground, just as I'd like.