В разделе Механика и техника активно живут две темы про колокола, и одна про колокол подводный, - но пристраиваться к ним с эпизодом из одной ирландской байки, записанной/написанной Сэмуэлем Лавером в первой половине XIX в. будет бессовестно оффтопично.
В целом это побасенка о самонадеянном и смелом рыбаке, увязавшемся за большим кораблем в
Бенгалию, в целях восстановления своего пошатнувшегося авторитета, - и счастливом возвращении. А в эпизоде-прелюдии деревенские рыбаки ведут неспешную беседу за кружкой эля о том, как господа инженеры могут хоть жить под водой, пока звонят в маленький колокольчик (речь конечно о водолазном колоколе), и далее мнения разделяются, - благословенный ли это колокольчик или что. Чтение на любителя, по-моему очень забавно, есть
на Гутенберге(Samuel Lover, Barny O'Reirdon the Navigator, эпизод)
Цитата:
"Whoo! and what o' that? Sure I heered the long sailor say, that come from the Aystern Injees, that the ingineers there can a'most live under wather; and goes down looking for diamonds, and has a sledge-hammer in their hand, brakin' the diamonds when they're too big to take them up whole, all as one as men brakin' stones an the road."
"Well, I don't want to go beyant that; but the way the lord's ingineer goes down is, he has a little bell wid him, and while he has that little bell to ring, hurt nor harm can't come to him."
"Arrah be aisy."
"Divil a lie in it."
"Maybe it's a blissed bell," said O'Reirdon, crossing himself.
"No, it is not a blissed bell."
"Why thin now do you think me sich a born nathral as to give in to that? as if the ringin' iv the bell, barrin' it was a blissed bell, could do the like. I tell you it's unpossible."
"Ah, nothin' 's unpossible to God."
"Sure I wasn't denyin' that; but I say the bell is unpossible."
"Why," said O'Sullivan, "you see he's not altogether complete in the demonstheration o' the mashine; it is not by the ringin' o' the bell it is done, but—"
"But what?" broke in O'Reirdon impatiently. "Do you mane for to say there is a bell in it at all at all?"
"Yis, I do," said O'Sullivan.
"I towld you so," said the promulgator of the story.
"Aye," said O'Sullivan, "but it is not by the ringin' iv the bell it is done."
"Well, how is it done then?" said the other, with a half-offended, half-supercilious air.
"It is done," said O'Sullivan, as he returned the look with interest,—"it is done entirely by jommethry."
