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diff --git a/35891.txt b/35891.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a25ec70 --- /dev/null +++ b/35891.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12852 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Humours of Irish Life, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Humours of Irish Life + +Author: Various + +Editor: Charles L. Graves + +Release Date: April 17, 2011 [EBook #35891] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMOURS OF IRISH LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Marius Masi, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + HUMOURS OF + IRISH LIFE + +[Illustration: Frank Webber wins the wager + + _Drawn by Geo. Morrow_] + + + + + HUMOURS + OF IRISH LIFE + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION + BY CHARLES L. GRAVES, M.A. + + [Illustration: Fiat Lux] + + + NEW YORK: + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + PRINTED BY THE + EDUCATIONAL COMPANY + OF IRELAND LIMITED + AT THE TALBOT PRESS + DUBLIN + + + + +Introduction. + + +The first of the notable humorists of Irish life was William Maginn, one +of the most versatile, as well as brilliant of Irish men of letters. + +He was born in Cork in 1793, and was a classical schoolmaster there in +early manhood, having secured the degree of LL.D. at Trinity College, +Dublin, when only 23 years of age. The success in "Blackwood's Magazine" +of some of his translations of English verse into the Classics induced +him, however, to give up teaching and to seek his fortunes as a magazine +writer and journalist in London, at a time when Lamb, De Quincey, +Lockhart and Wilson gave most of their writings to magazines. + +Possessed of remarkable sparkle and finish as a writer, considering with +what little effort and with what rapidity he poured out his political +satires in prose and verse, and his rollicking magazine sketches, it was +no wonder that he leaped into popularity at a bound. He was the original +of the Captain Shandon of Pendennis and though Thackeray undoubtedly +attributed to him a political venality of which he was never guilty, +whilst describing him during what was undoubtedly the latter and least +reputable period in his career, it is evident that he considered Maginn +to be, as he undoubtedly was, a literary figure of conspicuous +accomplishment and mark in the contemporary world of letters. + +Amongst his satiric writings, his panegyric of Colonel Pride may stand +comparison even with Swift's most notable philippics; whilst his Sir +Morgan O'Doherty was the undoubted ancestor of Maxwell's and Lever's +hard drinking, practical joking Irish military heroes, and frequently +appears as one of the speakers in Professor Wilson's "Noctes +Ambrosianae," of which the doctor was one of the mainstays. + +Besides his convivial song of "St. Patrick," his "Gathering of the +Mahonys," and his "Cork is an Eden for you, Love, and me," written by +him as genuine "Irish Melodies," to serve as an antidote to what he +called the finicking Bacchanalianism of Moore, he contributed, as Mr. D. +J. O'Donoghue conclusively proves, several stories, including "Daniel +O'Rourke," printed in this volume, to Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends +and Traditions of Ireland," first published anonymously in 1825--a set +of Folk Tales full of a literary charm which still makes them delightful +reading. For just as Moore took Irish airs, touched them up and +partnered them with lyrics to suit upper class British and Irish taste, +so Croker gathered his Folk Tales from the Munster peasantry with whom +he was familiar and, assisted by Maginn and others, gave them exactly +that form and finish needful to provide the reading public of his day +with an inviting volume of fairy lore. + +Carleton and the brothers John and Michael Banim, besides Samuel Lover, +whose gifts are treated of elsewhere in this introduction, followed with +what Dr. Douglas Hyde rightly describes as Folk Lore of "an incidental +and highly manipulated type." + +A more genuine Irish storyteller was Patrick Kennedy, twice represented +in this volume, whose "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celt" and +"Fireside Stories of Ireland" were put down by him much as he heard +them as a boy in his native county of Wexford, where they had already +passed with little change in the telling from the Gaelic into the +peculiar Anglo-Irish local dialect which is markedly West Saxon in its +character. + +His lineal successor as a Wexford Folklorist is Mr. P. J. McCall, one of +whose stories, "Fionn MacCumhail and the Princess" we reproduce, and a +woman Folk tale teller, Miss B. Hunt, adds to our indebtedness to such +writers by her recently published and delightful _Folk Tales of Breffny_ +from which "McCarthy of Connacht" has been taken for these pages. + +We have also the advantage of using Dr. Hyde's "The Piper and the Puca," +a foretaste, we believe, of the pleasure in store for our readers in the +volume of Folk Tales he is contributing to "Every Irishman's Library" +under the engaging title of "Irish Saints and Sinners." + +In a survey of the Anglo-Irish humorous novel of recent times, the works +of Charles Lever form a convenient point of departure, for with all his +limitations he was the first to write about Irish life in such a way as +to appeal widely and effectively to an English audience. We have no +intention of dwelling upon him at any length--he belongs to an earlier +generation--but between him and his successors there are points both of +resemblance and of dissimilarity sufficient to make an interesting +comparison. The politics and social conditions of Lever's time are not +those of the present, but the spirit of Lever's Irishman, though with +modifications, is still alive to-day. + +Lever had not the intensity of Carleton, or the fine humanity of +Kickham, but he was less uncompromising in his use of local colour, and +he was, as a rule, far more cheerful. He had not the tender grace or +simplicity of Gerald Griffin, and never wrote anything so moving or +beautiful as "The Collegians," which will form a special volume of this +Library, but he surpassed him in vitality, gusto, exuberance and +knowledge of the world. + +Overrated in the early stages of his career, Lever paid the penalty of +his too facile triumphs in his lifetime, and his undoubted talents have +latterly been depreciated on political as well as artistic grounds. His +heroes were drawn, with few exceptions, from the landlord class or their +faithful retainers. The gallant Irish officers, whose Homeric exploits +he loved to celebrate, held commissions in the British army. Lever has +never been popular with Nationalist politicians, though, as a matter of +fact no one ever exhibited the extravagance and recklessness of the +landed gentry in more glaring colours. And he is anathema to the +hierophants of the Neo-Celtic Renascence on account of his jocularity. +There is nothing crepuscular about Lever; you might as well expect to +find a fairy in a railway station. + +Again, Lever never was and never could be the novelist of literary men. +He was neither a scholar nor an artist; he wrote largely in instalments; +and in his earlier novels was wont to end a chapter in a manner that +rendered something like a miracle necessary to continue the existence of +the hero: "He fell lifeless to the ground, the same instant I was felled +to the earth by a blow from behind, and saw no more." In technique and +characterisation his later novels show a great advance, but if he lives, +it will be by the spirited loosely-knit romances of love and war +composed in the first ten years of his literary career. His heroes had +no scruples in proclaiming their physical advantages and athletic +prowess; Charles O'Malley, that typical Galway _miles gloriosus_, +introduces himself with ingenuous egotism in the following passage: + + "I rode boldly with fox-hounds; I was about the best shot within + twenty miles of us; I could swim the Shannon at Holy Island; I drove + four-in-hand better than the coachman himself; and from finding a hare + to cooking a salmon, my equal could not be found from Killaloe to + Banagher." + +The life led by the Playboys of the West (old style) as depicted in +Lever's pages was one incessant round of reckless hospitality, tempered +by duels and practical joking, but it had its justification in the +family annals of the fire-eating Blakes and Bodkins and the records of +the Connaught Circuit. The intrepidity of Lever's heroes was only +equalled by their indiscretion, their good luck in escaping from the +consequences of their folly, and their susceptibility. His womenfolk may +be roughly divided into three classes; sentimental heroines, who sighed, +and blushed and fainted on the slightest provocation; buxom Amazons, +like Baby Blake; and campaigners or adventuresses. But the gentle, +sentimental, angelic type predominates, and finds a perfect +representative in Lucy Dashwood. + +When Charles O'Malley was recovering from an accident in the hunting +field, he fell asleep in an easy-chair in the drawing-room and was +awakened by the "thrilling chords of a harp": + + "I turned gently round in my chair and beheld Miss Dashwood. She was + seated in a recess of an old-fashioned window; the pale yellow glow of + a wintry sun at evening fell upon her beautiful hair, and tinged it + with such a light as I have often since then seen in Rembrandt's + pictures; her head leaned upon the harp, and, as she struck its chords + at random, I saw that her mind was far away from all around her. As I + looked, she suddenly started from her leaning attitude, and, parting + back her curls from her brow, she preluded a few chords, and then + sighed forth, rather than sang, that most beautiful of Moore's + melodies-- + + 'She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps.' + + Never before had such pathos, such deep utterance of feeling, met my + astonished sense; I listened breathlessly as the tears fell one by one + down my cheek; my bosom heaved and fell; and when she ceased, I hid my + head between my hands and sobbed aloud." + +Lever's serious heroines, apart from the fact that they could ride, did +not differ in essentials from those of Dickens, and a sense of humour +was no part of their mental equipment. The hated rival, the dark-browed +Captain Hammersly, was distinguished by his "cold air and repelling +_hauteur_," and is a familiar figure in mid-Victorian romance. Lever's +sentiment, in short, is old-fashioned, and cannot be expected to appeal +to a Feminist age which has given us the public school girl and the +suffragist. There is no psychological interest in the relations of his +heroes and heroines; Charles's farewell to Lucy is on a par with the +love speeches in "The Lyons Mail." There is seldom any doubt as to the +ultimate reunion of his lovers; we are only concerned with the ingenuity +of the author in surmounting the obstacles of his own invention. He was +fertile in the devising of exciting incident; he was always able to eke +out the narrative with a good story or song--as a writer of convivial, +thrasonic or mock-sentimental verse he was quite in the first class--and +in his earlier novels his high spirits and sense of fun never failed. + +In his easy-going methods he may have been influenced by the example of +Dickens--the Dickens of the "Pickwick Papers"--but there is no ground +for any charge of conscious imitation, and where he challenged direct +comparison--in the character of Mickey Free--he succeeded in drawing an +Irish Sam Weller who falls little short of his more famous Cockney +counterpart. For Lever was a genuine humorist, or perhaps we should say +a genuine comedian, since the element of theatricality was seldom +absent. The choicest exploits of that grotesque Admirable Crichton, +Frank Webber, were carried out by hoaxing, disguise, or trickery of some +sort. But the scene in which Frank wins his wager by impersonating Miss +Judy Macan and sings "The Widow Malone" is an admirable piece of +sustained fooling: admirable, too, in its way is the rescue of the +imaginary captive in the Dublin drain. As a delineator of the humours of +University life, Lever combined the atmosphere of "Verdant Green" with +the sumptuous upholstery of Ouida. Here, again, in his portraits of dons +and undergraduates Lever undoubtedly drew in part from life, but fell +into his characteristic vice of exaggeration in his embroidery. Frank +Webber's antics are amusing, but it is hard to swallow his amazing +literary gifts or the contrast between his effeminate appearance and his +dare-devil energy. + +While "Lord Kilgobbin"--which ran as a serial in the "Cornhill Magazine" +from October, 1870, to March, 1872--was not wholly free from Lever's +besetting sin, it is interesting not only as the most thoughtful and +carefully written of his novels, but on account of its political +attitude. Here Lever proved himself no champion _a outrance_ of the +landlords, but was ready to admit that their joyous conviviality was too +often attended by gross mismanagement of their estates. The methods of +Peter Gill, the land steward, are shown to be all centred in craft and +subtlety--"outwitting this man, forestalling that, doing everything by +halves, so that no boon came unassociated with some contingency or other +by which he secured to himself unlimited power and uncontrolled +tyranny." The sympathy extended to the rebels of '98 is remarkable and +finds expression in the spirited lines:-- + + "Is there anything more we can fight or can hate for? + The 'drop' and the famine have made our ranks thin. + In the name of endurance, then, what do we wait for? + Will nobody give us the word to begin?" + +These must have been almost the last lines Lever ever wrote, unless we +accept the bitter epitaph on himself: + + "For sixty odd years he lived in the thick of it, + And now he is gone, not so much very sick of it, + As because he believed he heard somebody say, + 'Harry Lorrequer's hearse is stopping the way.'" + +The bitterness of the epitaph lies in the fact that it was largely true; +he had exhausted the vein of rollicking romance on which his fame and +popularity rested. For the rest the charge of misrepresenting Irish life +is met by so judicious a critic as the late Dr. Garnett with a direct +negative:-- + + "He has not actually misrepresented anything, and cannot be censured + for confining himself to the society which he knew; nor was his talent + adapted for the treatment of such life in its melancholy and poetic + aspects, even if these had been more familiar to him." + +Of the humorous Irish novelists who entered into competition with Lever +for the favour of the English-speaking public in his lifetime, two claim +special notice--Samuel Lover and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Lover has +always been bracketed with Lever, whom he resembled in many ways, but he +was overshadowed by his more brilliant and versatile contemporary. Yet +within his limited sphere he was a true humorist, and the careless, +whimsical, illogical aspects of Irish character have seldom been more +effectively illustrated than by the author of 'Handy Andy,' and 'The +Gridiron.' Paddy, as drawn by Lover, succeeds in spite of his +drawbacks, much as Brer Rabbit does in the tales of Uncle Remus. His +mental processes remind one of the story of the Hungarian baron who, on +paying a visit to a friend after a railway journey, complained of a bad +headache, the result of sitting with his back to the engine. When his +friend asked, "Why did not you change places with your _vis-a-vis_?" the +baron replied, "How could I? I had no _vis-a-vis_." Lover's heroes +"liked action, but they hated work": the philosophy of thriftlessness is +summed up to perfection in "Paddy's Pastoral":-- + + "Here's a health to you, my darlin', + Though I'm not worth a farthin'; + For when I'm drunk I think I'm rich, + I've a featherbed in every ditch!" + +For all his kindliness Lover laid too much stress on this happy-go-lucky +fecklessness to minister to Irish self-respect. His pictures of Irish +life were based on limited experience; in so far as they are true, they +recall and emphasise traits which many patriotic Irishmen wish to forget +or eliminate. An age which has witnessed the growth of Irish +Agricultural Co-operation is intolerant of a novelist who for the most +part represents his countrymen as diverting idiots, and therefore we +prefer to represent him in this volume by "The Little Weaver," one of +those mock heroic tales in which Irishmen have excelled from his day to +that of Edmund Downey. No better example could be given of his easy flow +of humour in genuine Hiberno-English or of his shrewd portraiture of +such simple types of Irish peasant character. + +The case of Le Fanu is peculiar. His best-known novels had no specially +characteristic Irish flavour. But his sombre talent was lit by +intermittent flashes of the wildest hilarity, and it was in this mood +that the author of "Uncle Silas" and "Carmilla" wrote "The Quare +Gandher" and "Billy Malowney's Taste of Love and Glory," two of the most +brilliantly comic extravaganzas which were ever written by an Irishman, +and which no one but an Irishman could ever have written. + +There is no Salic Law in letters, and since the deaths of Lever and Le +Fanu the sceptre of the realm of Irish fiction has passed to women. But +the years between 1870 and 1890 were not propitious for humorists, and +the admirable work of the late Miss Emily Lawless, who had already made +her mark in "Hurrish" before the latter date, does not fall within the +present survey. The same remark applies to Mrs. Hartley, but there is a +fine sense of humour in the delicate idylls of Miss Jane Barlow, twice +represented in this volume. + +By far the most widely read Irish novelist between 1880 and 1900 was the +late Mrs. Hungerford, the author of "Molly Bawn" and a score of other +blameless romances which almost rivalled "The Rosary" in luscious +sentimentality. The scenes of her stories were generally laid in +Ireland, and the stories themselves were almost invariably concerned +with the courtship of lovely but impecunious maidens by eligible and +affluent youths. No one in Mrs. Hungerford's novels ever seemed to have +any work to do. The characters lived in a paradise of unemployment, and +this possibly accounts for Mrs. Hungerford's immense popularity in +America, where even the most indolent immigrants become infected with a +passion for hard work. In the quality of gush she was unsurpassed, but +her good nature and her frank delight in her characters made her +absurdity engaging. Sentiment was her ruling passion; she did no more +than scrape the surface of Irish social life; and she had no humour but +good humour. But she had not enough of literary quality to entitle her +work to rank beside that of the other women writers represented in this +volume. + +The literary partnership of Miss Edith Somerville and Miss Violet +Martin--the most brilliantly successful example of creative +collaboration in our times--began with "An Irish Cousin" in 1889. +Published over the pseudonyms of "Geilles Herring" and "Martin Ross," +this delightful story is remarkable not only for its promise, afterwards +richly fulfilled, but for its achievement. The writers proved themselves +the possessors of a strange faculty of detachment which enabled them to +view the humours of Irish life through the unfamiliar eyes of a stranger +without losing their own sympathy. They were at once of the life they +described and outside it. They showed a laudable freedom from political +partisanship; a minute familiarity with the manners and customs of all +strata of Irish Society; an unerring instinct for the "sovran word;" a +perfect mastery of the Anglo-Irish dialect; and an acute yet +well-controlled sense of the ludicrous. The heroine accurately describes +the concourse on the platform of a small country station as having "all +the appearance of a large social gathering or _conversazione_, the +carriages being filled, not by those who were starting, but by their +friends who had come to see them off." When she went to a county ball in +Cork she discovered to her dismay that all her partners were named +either Beamish or Barrett:-- + + "Had it not been for Willy's elucidation of its mysteries, I should + have thrown away my card in despair. 'No; not _him_. That's _Long_ Tom + Beamish! It's _English_ Tommy you've to dance with next. They call him + English Tommy because, when his Militia regiment was ordered to + Aldershot, he said he was 'the first of his ancestors that was ever + sent on foreign service.'... I carried for several days the bruises + which I received during my waltz with English Tommy. It consisted + chiefly of a series of short rushes, of so shattering a character that + I at last ventured to suggest a less aggressive mode of progression. + 'Well,' said English Tommy confidentially, 'ye see, I'm trying to bump + Katie,' pointing to a fat girl in blue. 'She's my cousin, and we're + for ever fighting.'" + +As a set-off to this picture of the hilarious informality of high life +in Cork twenty-five years ago, there is a wonderful study of a cottage +interior, occupied by a very old man, his daughter-in-law, three +children, two terriers, a cat, and a half-plucked goose. The +conversation between Willy Sarsfield--who foreshadows Flurry Knox in +"Some Experiences of an Irish R.M." by his mingled shrewdness and +_naivete_--and Mrs. Sweeny is a perfect piece of realism. + + "Mrs. Sweeny was sitting on a kind of rough settle, between the other + window and the door of an inner room. She was a stout, comfortable + woman of about forty, with red hair and quick blue eyes, that roved + round the cabin, and silenced with a glance the occasional whisperings + that rose from the children. 'And how's the one that had the bad + cough?' asked Willy, pursuing his conversation with her with his + invariable ease and dexterity. 'Honor her name is, isn't it?'--'See, + now, how well he remembers!' replied Mrs. Sweeny. 'Indeed, she's there + back in the room, lyin' these three days. Faith, I think 'tis like the + decline she have, Masther Willy.'--'Did you get the Doctor to her?' + said Willy. 'I'll give you a ticket, if you haven't one.'--'Oh, + indeed, Docthor Kelly's afther givin' her a bottle, but shure I + wouldn't let her put it into her mouth at all. God-knows what'd be in + it. Wasn't I afther throwin' a taste of it on the fire to thry what'd + it do, and Phitz! says it, and up with it up the chimbley! Faith, I'd + be in dread to give it to the child. Shure, if it done that in the + fire, what'd it do in her inside?--'Well, you're a greater fool than I + thought you were,' said Willy, politely.--'Maybe I am, faith,' replied + Mrs. Sweeny, with a loud laugh of enjoyment. 'But, if she's for dyin', + the crayture, she'll die aisier without thim thrash of medicines; and + if she's for livin', 'tisn't thrusting to them she'll be. Shure, God + is good, God is good----'--'Divil a betther!' interjected old Sweeny, + unexpectedly. It was the first time he had spoken, and having + delivered himself of this trenchant observation, he relapsed into + silence and the smackings at his pipe." + +But the tragic note is sounded in the close of "An Irish Cousin"--Miss +Martin and Miss Somerville have never lost sight of the abiding dualism +enshrined in Moore's verse "Erin, the tear and the smile in thine +eyes"--and it dominates their next novel, "Naboth's Vineyard," published +in 1891, a sombre romance of the Land League days. Three years later +they reached the summit of their achievement in "The Real Charlotte," +which still remains their masterpiece, though easily eclipsed in +popularity by the irresistible drollery of "Some Experiences of an Irish +R.M." To begin with, it does not rely on the appeal to hunting people +which in their later work won the heart of the English sportsman. It is +a ruthlessly candid study of Irish provincial and suburban life; of the +squalors of middle-class households; of garrison hacks and "underbred, +finespoken," florid squireens. But secondly and chiefly it repels the +larger half of the novel-reading public by the fact that two women have +here dissected the heart of one of their sex in a mood of unrelenting +realism. While pointing out the pathos and humiliation of the thought +that a soul can be stunted by the trivialities of personal appearance, +they own to having set down Charlotte Mullen's many evil qualities +"without pity." They approach their task in the spirit of Balzac. The +book, as we shall see, is extraordinarily rich in both wit and humour, +but Charlotte, who cannot control her ruling passion of avarice even in +a death chamber, might have come straight out of the pages of the +_Comedie Humaine_. Masking her greed, her jealousy and her cruelty under +a cloak of loud affability and ponderous persiflage, she was a perfect +specimen of the _fausse bonne femme_. Only her cats could divine the +strange workings of her mind: + + "The movements of Charlotte's character, for it cannot be said to + possess the power of development, were akin to those of some + amphibious thing whose strong darting course under the water is only + marked by a bubble or two, and it required almost an animal instinct + to note them. Every bubble betrayed the creature below, as well as the + limitations of its power of hiding itself, but people never thought of + looking out for these indications in Charlotte, or even suspected that + she had anything to conceal. There was an almost blatant simplicity + about her, a humorous rough-and-readiness which, joined to her + literary culture, proved business capacity, and her dreaded temper, + seemed to leave no room for any further aspect, least of all of a + romantic kind." + +Yet romance of a sort was at the root of Charlotte's character. She had +been in love with Roddy Lambert, a showy, handsome, selfish squireen, +before he married for money. She had disguised her tenderness under a +bluff _camaraderie_ during his first wife's lifetime, and hastened Mrs. +Lambert's death by inflaming her suspicions of Roddy's fidelity. It was +only when Charlotte was again foiled by Lambert's second marriage to her +own niece that her love was turned to gall, and she plotted to compass +his ruin. + +The authors deal faithfully with Francie FitzPatrick, Charlotte's niece, +but an element of compassion mingles with their portraiture. Charlotte +had robbed Francie of a legacy, and compounded with her conscience by +inviting the girl to stay with her at Lismoyle. Any change was a +god-send to poor Francie, who, being an orphan, lived in Dublin with +another aunt, a kindly but feckless creature whose eyes were not formed +to perceive dirt nor her nose to apprehend smells, and whose ideas of +economy was "to indulge in no extras of soap or scrubbing brushes, and +to feed her family on strong tea and indifferent bread and butter, in +order that Ida's and Mabel's hats might be no whit less ornate than +those of their neighbours." In this dingy household Francie had grown +up, lovely as a Dryad, brilliantly indifferent to the serious things of +life, with a deplorable Dublin accent, ingenuous, unaffected and +inexpressibly vulgar. She captivates men of all sorts: Roddy Lambert, +who lunched on hot beefsteak pie and sherry; Mr. Hawkins, an amorous +young soldier, who treated her with a bullying tenderness and jilted her +for an English heiress; and Christopher Dysart, a scholar, a gentleman, +and the heir to a baronetcy, who was ruined by self-criticism and +diffidence. Francie respected Christopher and rejected him; was thrown +over by Hawkins, whom she loved; and married Roddy Lambert, her motives +being "poverty, aimlessness, bitterness of soul and instinctive leniency +towards any man who liked her." Francie had already exasperated +Charlotte by refusing Christopher Dysart: by marrying Lambert she dealt +a death-blow to her hopes and drove her into the path of vengeance. + +But the story is not only engrossing as a study of vulgarity that is +touched with pathos, of the vindictive jealousy of unsunned natures, of +the cowardice of the selfish and the futility of the intellectually +effete. It is a treasure-house of good sayings, happy comments, +ludicrous incidents. When Francie returned to Dublin we read how one of +her cousins, "Dottie, unfailing purveyor of diseases to the family, had +imported German measles from her school." When Charlotte, nursing her +wrath, went to inform the servant at Lambert's house of the return of +her master with his new wife, the servant inquired "with cold +resignation" whether it was the day after to-morrow:-- + + "'It is, me poor woman, it is,' replied Charlotte, in the tone of + facetious intimacy that she reserved for other people's servants. + 'You'll have to stir your stumps to get the house ready for + them.'--'The house is cleaned down and ready for them as soon as they + like to walk into it,' replied Eliza Hackett, with dignity, 'and if + the new lady faults the drawing-room chimbley for not being swep, the + master will know it's not me that's to blame for it, but the sweep + that's gone dhrilling with the Mileetia.'" + +Each of the members of the Dysart family is hit off in some memorable +phrase; Sir Benjamin, the old and irascible paralytic, "who had been +struck down on his son's coming of age by a paroxysm of apoplectic +jealousy "; the admirable and unselfish Pamela with her "pleasant +anxious voice"; Christopher, who believed that if only he could "read +the 'Field,' and had a more spontaneous habit of cursing," he would be +an ideal country gentleman; and Lady Dysart, who was "a clever woman, a +renowned solver of acrostics in her society paper, and a holder of +strong opinions as to the prophetic meaning of the Pyramids." With her +"a large yet refined bonhomie" took the place of tact, but being an +Englishwoman she was "constitutionally unable to discern perfectly the +subtle grades of Irish vulgarity." Sometimes the authors throw away the +_scenario_ for a whole novel in a single paragraph, as in this +compressed summary of the antecedents of Captain Cursiter: + + "Captain Cursiter was 'getting on' as captains go, and he was the less + disposed to regard his junior's love affairs with an indulgent eye, in + that he had himself served a long and difficult apprenticeship in such + matters, and did not feel that he had profited much by his + experiences. It had happened to him at an early age to enter + ecstatically into the house of bondage, and in it he had remained with + eyes gradually opening to its drawbacks until, a few years before, the + death of the only apparent obstacle to his happiness had brought him + face to face with its realisation. Strange to say, when this supreme + moment arrived, Captain Cursiter was disposed for further delay; but + it shows the contrariety of human nature, that when he found himself + superseded by his own subaltern, an habitually inebriated viscount, he + committed the imbecility of horsewhipping him; and finding it + subsequently advisable to leave his regiment, he exchanged into the + infantry with the settled conviction that all women were liars." + +Nouns and verbs are the bones and sinews of style; it is in the use of +epithets and adjectives that the artist is shown; and Miss Martin and +Miss Somerville never make a mistake. An episode in the life of one of +Charlotte's pets--a cockatoo--is described as occurring when the bird +was "a sprightly creature of some twenty shrieking summers." We read of +cats who stared "with the expressionless but wholly alert scrutiny of +their race"; of the "difficult revelry" of Lady Dysart's garden party +when the men were in a hopeless minority and the more honourable women +sat on a long bench in "midge-bitten dulness." Such epithets are not +decorative, they heighten the effect of the picture. Where adjectives +are not really needed, Miss Martin and Miss Somerville can dispense with +them altogether and yet attain a deadly precision, as when they describe +an Irish beggar as "a bundle of rags with a cough in it," or note a +characteristic trait of Roddy Lambert by observing that "he was a man in +whom jealousy took the form of reviling the object of his affections, if +by so doing he could detach his rivals"--a modern instance of +"displiceas aliis, sic ego tutus ero." When Roddy Lambert went away +after his first wife's funeral we learn that he "honeymooned with his +grief in the approved fashion." These felicities abound on every page; +while the turn of phrase of the peasant speech is caught with a fidelity +which no other Irish writer has ever surpassed. When Judy Lee, a poor +old woman who had taken an unconscionable time in dying was called by +one of the gossips who had attended her wake "as nice a woman as ever +threw a tub of clothes on the hills," and complimented for having +"battled it out well," Norry the Boat replied sardonically:-- + + "Faith, thin, an' if she did die itself she was in the want of it; + sure, there isn't a winther since her daughther wint to America that + she wasn't anointed a couple of times. I'm thinking the people th' + other side o' death will be throuncin' her for keepin' them waitin' on + her this way." + +Humour is never more effective than when it emerges from a serious +situation. Tragedy jostles comedy in life, and the greatest dramatists +and romancers have made wonderful use of this abrupt alternation. There +are many painful and diverting scenes in "The Real Charlotte," but none +in which both elements are blended so effectively as the story of Julia +Duffy's last pilgrimage. Threatened with eviction from her farm by the +covetous intrigues of Charlotte, she leaves her sick bed to appeal to +her landlord, and when half dead with fatigue falls in with the insane +Sir Benjamin, to be driven away with grotesque insults. On her way home +she calls in at Charlotte's house, only to find Christopher Dysart +reading Rossetti's poems to Francie FitzPatrick, who has just timidly +observed, in reply to her instructor's remark that the hero is a +pilgrim, "I know a lovely song called 'The Pilgrim of Love'; of course, +it wasn't the same thing as what you were reading, but it was awfully +nice, too." This interlude is intensely ludicrous, but its cruel +incongruity only heightens the misery of what has gone before and what +follows. + +"The Silver Fox," which appeared in 1897, need not detain us long, +though it is a little masterpiece in its way, vividly contrasting the +limitations of the sport-loving temperament with the ineradicable +superstitions of the Irish peasantry. Impartial as ever, the authors +have here achieved a felicity of phrase to which no other writers of +hunting novels have ever approached. Imagination's widest stretch cannot +picture Surtees or Mr. Nat Gould describing an answer being given "with +that level politeness of voice which is the distilled essence of a +perfected anger," or comparing a fashionable Amazon with the landscape +in such words as these:-- + + "Behind her the empty window framed a gaunt mountain peak, a lake that + frittered a myriad of sparkles from its wealth of restless silver, and + the gray and faint purple of the naked wood beyond it. It seemed too + great a background for her powdered cheek and her upward glances at + her host." + +But the atmosphere of "The Silver Fox" is sombre, and a sporting novel +which is at once serious and of a fine literary quality must necessarily +appeal to a limited audience. The problem is solved to perfection in +"Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," a series of loosely-knit episodes +which, after running a serial course in the "Badminton Magazine," were +republished in book form towards the close of 1899. There is only one +chapter to cloud the otherwise unintermittent hilarity of the whole +recital. The authors have dispensed with comment, and rely chiefly on +dialogue, incident, and their intimate and precise knowledge of horses, +and horse-copers of both sexes. An interested devotion to the noble +animal is here shown to be the last infirmity of noble minds, for old +Mrs. Knox, with the culture of a _grande dame_ and the appearance of a +refined scarecrow, went cub-hunting in a bath chair. In such a company a +young sailor whose enthusiasm for the chase had been nourished by the +hirelings of Malta, and his eye for points probably formed on circus +posters, had little chance of making a good bargain at Drumcurran horse +fair:-- + + "'The fellow's asking forty-five pounds for her,' said Bernard Shute + to Miss Sally; 'she's a nailer to gallop. I don't think it's too + much.'--'Her grandsire was the Mountain Hare,' said the owner of the + mare, hurrying up to continue her family history, 'and he was the + grandest horse in the four baronies. He was forty-two years of age + when he died, and they waked him the same as ye'd wake a Christian. + They had whisky and porther--and bread--and a piper in it.'--'Thim + Mountain Hare colts is no great things,' interrupted Mr. Shute's + groom, contemptuously. 'I seen a colt once that was one of his stock, + and if there was forty men and their wives, and they after him with + sticks, he wouldn't lep a sod of turf.'--'Lep, is it!' ejaculated the + owner in a voice shrill with outrage. 'You may lead that mare out + through the counthry, and there isn't a fence in it that she wouldn't + go up to it as indepindent as if she was going to her bed, and your + honour's ladyship knows that dam well, Miss Knox.'--'You want too much + money for her, McCarthy,' returned Miss Sally, with her air of + preternatural wisdom. 'God pardon you, Miss Knox! Sure a lady like you + knows well that forty-five pounds is no money for that mare. + Forty-five pounds!' He laughed. 'It'd be as good for me to make her a + present to the gentleman all out as take three farthings less for her! + She's too grand entirely for a poor farmer like me, and if it wasn't + for the long, weak family I have, I wouldn't part with her under twice + the money.'--'Three fine lumps of daughters in America paying his rent + for him,' commented Flurry in the background. 'That's the long, weak + family.'" + +The turn of phrase in Irish conversation has never been reproduced in +print with greater fidelity, and there is hardly a page in the book +without some characteristic Hibernianism such as "Whisky as pliable as +new milk," or the description of a horse who was a "nice, flippant +jumper," or a bandmaster who was "a thrifle fulsome after his luncheon," +or a sweep who "raised tallywack and tandem all night round the house to +get at the chimbleys." The narrative reaches its climax in the chapter +which relates the exciting incidents of Lisheen races at second-hand. +Major Yeates and his egregious English visitor Mr. Leigh Kelway, an +earnest Radical publicist, having failed to reach the scene, are +sheltering from the rain in a wayside public-house where they are +regaled with an account of the races by Slipper, the dissipated but +engaging huntsman of the local pack of hounds. The close of the meeting +was a steeplechase in which "Bocock's owld mare," ridden by one +Driscoll, was matched against a horse ridden by another local sportsman +named Clancy, and Slipper, who favoured Driscoll, and had taken up his +position at a convenient spot on the course, thus describes his mode of +encouraging the mare: + + "'Skelp her, ye big brute!' says I. 'What good's in ye that ye aren't + able to skelp her?'... Well, Mr. Flurry, and gintlemen,... I declare + to ye when owld Bocock's mare heard thim roars she stretched out her + neck like a gandher, and when she passed me out she give a couple of + grunts and looked at me as ugly as a Christian. 'Hah!' says I, givin' + her a couple o' dhraws o' th' ash plant across the butt o' the tail, + the way I wouldn't blind her, 'I'll make ye grunt!' says I, 'I'll + nourish ye!' I knew well she was very frightful of th' ash plant since + the winter Tommeen Sullivan had her under a sidecar. But now, in place + of havin' any obligations to me, ye'd be surprised if ye heard the + blaspheemious expressions of that young boy that was riding her; and + whether it was over-anxious he was, turning around the way I'd hear + him cursin', or whether it was some slither or slide came to owld + Bocock's mare, I dunno, but she was bet up against the last obstackle + but two, and before you could say 'Shnipes,' she was standin' on her + two ears beyant in th' other field. I declare to ye, on the vartue of + me oath, she stood that way till she reconnoithered what side Driscoll + would fall, an' she turned about then and rolled on him as cosy as if + he was meadow grass!' Slipper stopped short; the people in the doorway + groaned appreciatively; Mary Kate murmured 'The Lord save us'--'The + blood was druv out through his nose and ears,' continued Slipper, with + a voice that indicated the cream of the narration, 'and you'd hear his + bones crackin' on the ground! You'd have pitied the poor boy.'--'Good + heavens!' said Leigh Kelway, sitting up very straight in his chair. + 'Was he hurt, Slipper?' asked Flurry, casually. 'Hurt is it?' echoed + Slipper, in high scorn, 'killed on the spot!' He paused to relish the + effect of the _denouement_ on Leigh Kelway. 'Oh, divil so pleasant an + afthernoon ever you seen; and, indeed, Mr. Flurry, it's what we were + all sayin', it was a great pity your honour was not there for the + likin' you had for Driscoll.'" + +Leigh Kelway, it may be noted, is the lineal descendant of the pragmatic +English under-secretary in "Charles O'Malley," who, having observed that +he had never seen an Irish wake, was horrified by the prompt offer of +his Galway host, a notorious practical joker, to provide a corpse on the +spot. But this is only one of the instances of parallelism in which the +later writers though showing far greater restraint and fidelity to +type, have illustrated the continuance of temperamental qualities which +Lever and his forerunner Maxwell--the author of "Wild Sports of the +West"--portrayed in a more extravagant form. On the other hand it would +be impossible to imagine a greater contrast than that between Lever's +thrasonical narrator heroes and Major Yeates, R.M., whose fondness for +sport is allied to a thorough consciousness of his own infirmities as a +sportsman. There is no heroic figure in "Some Experiences of an Irish +R.M.," but the characters are all lifelike, and at least +half-a-dozen--"Flurry" Knox, his cousin Sally, and his old grandmother, +Mrs. Knox, of Aussolas, Slipper, Mrs. Cadogan, and the incomparable +Maria--form as integral a part of our circle of acquaintance as if we +had known them in real life. "The Real Charlotte" is a greater +achievement, but the R.M. is a surer passport to immortality. + +The further instalment of "Experiences," published a few years later did +not escape the common lot of sequels. They were brilliantly written, but +one was more conscious of the excellence of the manner than in any of +their other works. The two volumes of short stories and sketches +published in 1903 and 1906 under the titles of "All on the Irish Shore" +and some "Irish Yesterdays" respectively show some new and engaging +aspects of the genius of the collaborators. There is a chapter called +"Children of the Captivity," in which the would-be English humorist's +conception of Irish humour is dealt with faithfully--as it deserves to +be. The essay is also remarkable for the passage in which they set down +once and for all the true canons for the treatment of dialect. +Pronunciation and spelling, as they point out, are, after all, of small +account in its presentment:-- + + "The vitalising power is in the rhythm of the sentence, the turn of + phrase, the knowledge of idiom, and of, beyond all, the attitude of + mind.... The shortcoming is, of course, trivial to those who do not + suffer because of it, but want of perception of word and phrase and + turn of thought means more than mere artistic failure, it means want + of knowledge of the wayward and shrewd and sensitive minds that are at + the back of the dialect. The very wind that blows softly over brown + acres of bog carries perfumes and sounds that England does not know; + the women digging the potato-land are talking of things that England + does not understand. The question that remains is whether England will + ever understand." + +The hunting sketches in these volumes include the wonderful "Patrick +Day's Hunt," which is a masterpiece in the high _bravura_ of the brogue. +Another is noticeable for a passage on the affection inspired by horses. +When Johnny Connolly heard that his mistress was driven to sell the +filly he had trained and nursed so carefully, he did not disguise his +disappointment: + + "'Well, indeed, that's too bad, miss,' said Johnny comprehendingly. + 'There was a mare I had one time, and I sold her before I went to + America. God knows, afther she went from me, whenever I'd look at her + winkers hanging on the wall I'd have to cry. I never seen a sight of + her till three years afther that, afther I coming home. I was coming + out o' the fair at Enniscar, an' I was talking to a man an' we coming + down Dangan Hill, and what was in it but herself coming up in a cart! + An' I didn't look at her, good nor bad, nor know her, but sorra bit + but she knew me talking, an' she turned into me with the cart. 'Ho, + ho, ho!' says she, and she stuck her nose into me like she'd be + kissing me. Be dam, but I had to cry. An' the world wouldn't stir her + out o' that till I'd lead her on meself. As for cow nor dog nor any + other thing, there's nothing would rise your heart like a horse!'" + +And if horses are irresistible, so are Centaurs. That is the moral to be +drawn from "Dan Russel the Fox," the latest work from the pen of Miss +Somerville and Miss Martin, in which the rival claims of culture and +foxhunting are subjected to a masterly analysis. + +The joint authors of the "R.M." have paid forfeit for achieving +popularity by being expected to repeat their first resounding success. +Happily the pressure of popular demand has not impaired the artistic +excellence of their work, though we cannot help thinking that if they +had been left to themselves they might have given us at least one other +novel on the lines of "The Real Charlotte." Their later work, again, has +been subjected to the ordeal, we do not say of conscious imitation, but +of comparison with books which would probably have never been written or +would have been written on another plan, but for the success of the +"R.M." To regard this rivalry as serious would be, in the opinion of the +present writer, an abnegation of the critical faculty. But we have not +yet done with Irish women humorists. Miss Eleanor Alexander, the +daughter of the Poet Archbishop of Armagh and his poet wife has given us +in her "Lady Anne's Walk," a volume of a _genre_ as hard to define as it +has been easy to welcome, at times delicately allusive, now daringly +funny--an interblending of tender reminiscences and lively fancy, +reminding us perhaps most of old Irish music itself with its sweet, +strange and sudden changes of mood. Humorous contrasts of the kind will +be found in the chapter entitled "Old Tummus and the Battle of Scarva," +printed in these pages. + +Another woman contestant for humorous literary honours was the late Miss +Charlotte O'Conor Eccles, represented in this volume by the moving story +of "King William." Her "Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore" and "A +Matrimonial Lottery" achieved popularity by their droll situations and +exuberant fun, but her "Aliens of the West" contained work of much +finer quality. She lets us behind the shutters of Irish country shop +life in a most convincing manner, and the characters drawn from her +Toomevara are as true to type as those of Miss Barlow. The +disillusionment of Molly Devine "The Voteen," with her commonplace, not +to say vulgar surroundings, on her return from the convent school with +its superior refinements, her refusal to marry so-called eligible, but +to her, repulsive suitors, encouraged by her mother and stepfather and +her final resolve to become a nun in order to escape further persecution +of the kind, is told with convincing poignancy. A variant of this theme +is treated with even more power and pathos in "Tom Connolly's Daughter," +a story which we should like to see reprinted in separate form as it +sets one thinking furiously, and its general circulation might do much +to correct the love and marriage relations between young people in +provincial Ireland. + +And yet a final name has to be added to the long roll of Irishwomen who +have won distinction as writers of fiction, beginning with Miss +Edgeworth whose Irish writings will receive separate treatment in a +volume in "Every Irishman's Library" at the hands of Mr. Malcolm Cotter +Seton. Championed by Canon Hannay himself, who furnishes a genial, +whimsical, provocative introduction to her "The Folk of Furry Farm," +Miss Purdon there describes what, from the point of view of romance, is +a new part of Ireland, for West Leinster is a land more familiar to +fox-hunters than to poets. Miss Purdon has plenty of independence, but +it is not the frigid impartiality of the student who contemplates the +vagaries and sufferings of human nature like a connoisseur or collector. +She shows her detachment by giving us a faithful picture of Irish +peasant society without ever once breathing a syllable of politics, or +remotely alluding to the equipment and machinery of modern life. The +_dramatis personae_ are all simple folk, most of them poor; the entire +action passes within a radius of a few miles from a country village; and +only on one occasion, and at second hand do we catch so much as a +glimpse of "the quality." Throughout, Miss Purdon relies on the turn of +the phrase to give the spirit of the dialect, and uses only a minimum of +phonetic spelling. + +That is the true and artistic method. But Miss Purdon is much more than +a collector or coiner of picturesque and humorous phrases. She has a +keen eye for character, a genuine gift of description and a vein of pure +and unaffected sentiment; indeed, her whole volume is strangely +compounded of mirth and melancholy, though the dominant impression left +by its perusal is one of confidence in the essential kindliness of Irish +nature, and the goodness and gentleness of Irish women. + +But so far, the only formidable competitor Miss Martin and Miss +Somerville have encountered is the genial writer who chooses to veil his +identity under the freakish pseudonym of "George A. Birmingham." Canon +Hannay--for there can be no longer any breach of literary etiquette in +alluding to him by his real name--had already made his mark as a serious +or semi-serious observer of the conflicting tendencies, social and +political, of the Ireland of to-day before he diverged into the paths of +fantastic and frivolous comedy. "The Seething Pot," "Hyacinth," and +"Benedict Kavanagh" are extremely suggestive and dispassionate studies +of various aspects of the Irish temperament, but it is enough for our +present purpose to note the consequences of a request addressed to +Canon Hannay by two young ladies somewhere about the year 1907 that he +would "write a story about treasure buried on an island." The fact is +recorded in the dedication of "Spanish Gold," his response to the +appeal, and the first of that series of jocund extravaganzas which have +earned for him the gratitude of all who regard amusement as the prime +object of fiction. + +The contrast between his methods and those of the joint authors +discussed above is apparent at every turn. He maintains the impartiality +which marked his serious novels in his treatment of all classes of the +community, but it is the impartiality not of a detached and +self-effacing observer, but of a genial satirist. His knowledge of the +Ireland that he knows is intimate and precise, and is shown by a +multiplicity of illuminating details and an effective use of local +colour. But the co-operation of non-Irish characters is far more +essential to the development of his plots than in the case of the novels +of Miss Somerville and Miss Martin. The mainspring of their stories is +Irish right through. Canon Hannay depends on a situation which might +have occurred just as well in England or America, while employing the +conditions of Irish life to give it a characteristic twist or series of +twists. Even his most notable creation, the Reverend Joseph John Meldon, +is too restlessly energetic to be an altogether typical Irishman, to say +nothing of his unusual attitude in politics: "Nothing on earth would +induce me to mix myself up with any party." An Irishman of immense +mental activity, living in Ireland, and yet wholly unpolitical is +something of a freak. Again, while the tone of his books is admirably +clean and wholesome, and while his frankly avowed distaste for the +squalors of the problem novel will meet with general sympathy, there is +no denying that his treatment of the "love interest" is for the most +part perfunctory or even farcical. Again, in regard to style, he differs +widely from the authors of the "R.M." Their note is a vivid conciseness; +his the easy charm of a flowing pen, always unaffected, often +picturesque and even eloquent, never offending, but seldom practising +the art of omission. + +But it is ungrateful to subject to necessarily damaging comparisons an +author to whom we owe the swift passage of so many pleasant hours. It +might be hard to find the exact counterpart of "J.J." in the flesh, but +he is none the less an unforgettable person, this athletic, exuberant, +unkempt curate, unscrupulous but not unprincipled, who lied fluently, +not for any mean purpose, but for the joy of mystification, or in order +to carry out his plans, or justify his arguments. His strange friendship +with Major Kent, a retired English officer, a natty martinet, presents +no difficulties on the principle of extremes meeting, and thus from the +start we are presented with the spectacle of the reluctant but helpless +Major, hypnotised by the persuasive tongue of the curate, and dragged at +his heels into all sorts of grotesque and humiliating adventures, and +all for the sake of a quiet life. For "J.J.'s" methods, based, according +to his own account, on careful observation and a proper use of the +scientific imagination, involve the assumption by his reluctant +confederate of a succession of entirely imaginary roles. + +But if "J.J." was a trying ally, he was a still more perplexing +antagonist, one of his favourite methods of "scoring off" an opponent +being to represent him to be something other than he really was to third +persons. When the process brings the curate and the Major into abrupt +conflict with two disreputable adventurers, he defends resort to extreme +methods on grounds of high morality. Burglary, theft and abduction +become the simple duty of every well-disposed person when viewed as a +necessary means of preventing selfish, depraved and fundamentally +immoral people from acquiring wealth which the well-disposed might +otherwise secure. + +"J.J.'s" crowning achievement is his conquest of Mr. Willoughby, the +Chief Secretary, by a masterly vindication of his conduct on the lines +of Pragmatism: "a statement isn't a lie if it proves itself in actual +practice to be useful--it's true." "J.J." only once meets his match--in +Father Mulcrone, the parish priest of Inishmore, who sums up the +philosophy of government in his criticism of Mr. Willoughby's successor: +"A fellow that starts off by thinking himself clever enough to know +what's true and what isn't will do no good for Ireland. A simple-hearted +innocent kind of man has a better chance." + +Needless to say, the rival treasure-hunters, both of them rogues, are +bested at all points by the two padres, while poetic justice is +satisfied by the fact that the treasure falls into the adhesive hands of +the poor islanders, and "J.J.'s" general integrity is fully +re-established in the epilogue, where, transplanted to an English +colliery village, he devotes his energies to the conversion of +agnostics, blasphemers and wife-beaters. + +The extravagance of the plot is redeemed by the realism of the details; +by acute sidelights on the tortuous workings of the native mind, with +its strange blending of shrewdness and innocence; by faithful +reproductions of the talk of those "qui amant omnia dubitantius loqui" +and habitually say "it might" instead of "yes." And there are +delightful digressions on the subject of relief works, hits at the +Irish-speaking movement, pungent classifications of the visitors to the +wild West of Ireland, and now, and again, in the rare moments when the +author chooses to be serious, passages marked by fine insight and +sympathy. Such is the picture of Thomas O'Flaherty Pat, the patriarch of +the treasure island: + + "An elderly man and five out of the nine children resident on the + island stood on the end of the pier when Meldon and the Major landed. + The man was clad in a very dirty white flannel jacket and a pair of + yellowish flannel trousers, which hung in a tattered fringe round his + naked feet and ankles. He had a long white beard and grey hair, long + as a woman's, drawn straight back from his forehead. The hair and + beard were both unkempt and matted. But the man held himself erect and + looked straight at the strangers through great dark eyes. His hands, + though battered and scarred with toil were long and shapely. His face + had a look of dignity, of a certain calm and satisfied superiority. + Men of this kind are to be met with here and there among the Connacht + peasantry. They are in reality children of a vanishing race, of a lost + civilisation, a bygone culture. They watch the encroachments of + another race and new ideas with a sort of sorrowful contempt. It is as + if understanding and despising what they see around them, they do not + consider it worth while to try to explain themselves; as if, + possessing a wisdom of their own, an aesthetic joy of which the modern + world knows nothing, they are content to let both die with them rather + than attempt to teach them to men of a wholly different outlook upon + life." + +The element of extravaganza is more strongly marked in the plot of "The +Search Party," which deals with the kidnapping of a number of innocent +people by an anti-militant anarchist who has set up a factory of +explosives in the neighbourhood of Ballymoy. "J.J." does not appear _in +propria persona_, but most of his traits are to be found in Dr. O'Grady, +an intelligent but happy-go-lucky young doctor. The most attractive +person in the story, however, is Lord Manton, a genially cynical peer +with highly original views on local government and the advantages of +unpopularity. Thus, when he did not want Patsy Devlin, the drunken +smith, to be elected inspector of sheep-dipping, he strongly supported +his candidature for the following reasons:-- + + "There's a lot of stupid talk nowadays about the landlords having lost + all their power in the country. It's not a bit true. They have plenty + of power, more than they ever had, if they only knew how to use it. + All I have to do if I want a particular man not to be appointed to + anything is to write a strong letter in his favour to the Board of + Guardians or the County Council, or whatever body is doing the + particular job that happens to be on hand at the time. The League + comes down on my man at once, and he hasn't the ghost of a chance." + +Excellent, too, is the digression on the comparative commonness of earls +in Ireland, where untitled people tend to disappear while earls survive, +though they are regarded much as ordinary people. Canon Hannay makes +great play as usual with the humours of Irish officialdom, and his +_obiter dicta_ on the mental outlook of police officers are shrewd as +well as entertaining. District-Inspector Goddard had undoubted social +gifts, but he was an inefficient officer, being handicapped by indolence +and a great sense of humour. There is something attractive, again, about +Miss Blow, the handsome, resolute, prosaic young Englishwoman whose +heroic efforts to trace her vanished lover are baffled at every turn. +Everybody in Ballymoy told her lies, with the result that they seemed to +her heartless and cruel when in reality they wished to spare her +feelings. Others of the _dramatis personae_ verge on caricature, but the +story has many exhilarating moments. + +Exhilarating, too, is "The Major's Niece," which is founded on an +extremely improbable _imbroglio_. So precise and business-like a man as +Major Kent was not likely to make a mistake of seven or eight years in +the age of a visitor especially when the visitor happened to be his own +sister's child. However, the initial improbability may be readily +condoned in view of the entertaining sequel. "J.J." reappears in his +best form, Marjorie is a most engaging tomboy, and the fun never flags +for an instant. But much as we love "J.J.," we reluctantly recognise in +"The Simpkins Plot" that you can have too much of a good thing, and that +a man who would be a nuisance as a neighbour in real life is in danger +of becoming a bore in a novel. At the same time the digressions and +irrelevancies are as good as ever. It is pleasant to be reminded of such +facts as that wedding cake is invariably eaten by the Irish post office +officials, or to listen to Doctor O'Donoghue on the nutrition of +infants: + + "You can rear a child, whether it has the whooping cough or not, on + pretty near anything, so long as you give it enough of whatever it is + you do give it." + +Canon Hannay excels in the conduct of an absurd or paradoxical +proposition, but he needs a word of friendly caution against undue +reliance on the mechanism of the practical joke. Perhaps his English +cure has demoralized "J.J.," but we certainly prefer him as he was in +Inishgowlan, convinced by practical experience that he would rather do +any mortal thing than try to mind a baby and make butter at the same +time. + +Of Canon Hannay's later novels, two demand special attention and for +widely different reasons. In "The Red Hand of Ulster," reverting to +politics--politics, moreover, of the most explosive kind--he achieved +the well-nigh impossible in at once doing full justice to the dour +sincerity of the Orange North, and yet conciliating Nationalist +susceptibilities. In "The Inviolable Sanctuary," he has shown that a +first-rate public-school athlete, whose skill in pastime is confined to +ball games cuts a sorry figure alongside of a chit of a girl who can +handle a boat. This salutary if humiliating truth is enforced not from +any desire to further Feminist principles--Canon Hannay's attitude +towards women betrays no belief in the equality of the sexes--but +because he cannot be bothered with the sentimentality of conventional +love-making. It may be on this account that he more than once assigns a +leading role to an ingenuous young Amazon into whose ken the planet of +love will not swim for another four or five years. + +During the last thirty years the alleged decadence of Irish humour has +been a frequent theme of pessimistic critics. Various causes have been +invoked to account for the phenomenon, which, when dispassionately +considered, amounted to this, that the rollicking novel of incident and +adventure had died with Lever. So, for the matter of that, had novels of +the "Frank Fairleigh" type, with their authors. The ascendancy of +Parnell and the regime of the Land League did not make for gaiety, yet +even these influences were powerless to eradicate the inherent +absurdities of Irish life, and the authors of the "R.M." entered on a +career which has been a triumphal disproval of this allegation as far +back as 1889. At their best they have interpreted normal Irishmen and +Irishwomen, gentle and simple, with unsurpassed fidelity and sympathy. +But to award them the supremacy in this _genre_ both as realists and as +writers does not detract from the success won in a different sphere by +Canon Hannay. His goal is less ambitious and aim is less unfaltering, +but as an improvisor of whimsical situations and an ironic commentator +on the actualities of Irish life he has invented a new form of literary +entertainment which has the double merit of being at once diverting and +instructive. + +But as we believe this volume will sufficiently show, though these three +novelists have so far transcended the achievements of contemporary +writers on Irish life, they are being followed at no long distance by +younger writers, for whom they have helped to find a public and in whose +more mature achievements they may have to acknowledge a serious literary +rivalry. We have dealt with the women writers to be found in this new +group. It remains for us to criticise the work of the men who belong to +it. + +Mr. John Stevenson, otherwise Pat Carty, whose Rhymes have been so +charmingly set to music by Sir Charles Stanford, and so delightfully +sung by Mr. Plunket-Greene, possesses a whimsical gift, both in prose +and verse, which gives fresh evidence of the awakening of an Ulster +school of humorists. His "Boy in the Country" is descriptive of a +child's companionship in the country with farmers and their wives and +servants, his falling under the spell of a beautiful lady whose romance +he assists like a true young cavalier, and his association with that +formidable open-air imp, Jim, a little dare-devil poacher and hard +swearer, who sailed his boats with strips cut from his shirt tails and +could give a canting minister as good as he got, instead of cowering +under his preachment. The manners and customs of the farming class in +the "Nine Glens of Antrim" could not be more simply and humorously told, +and when the author divagates into such sketches as "The Wise Woman and +the Wise Man," and breaks into occasional verse faithfully descriptive +of his natural surroundings, he is equally delightful. + +Of course, he is not as old a craftsman as Mr. Shan Bullock, whose dry +drollery has given the readers of his novels and stories so much +pleasure, and whose serious purpose and close observation of Northern +Irish character are so well recognised by all serious students of Irish +life. He is represented in the volume by "The Wee Tea-Table," a +life-like sketch taken from his "Irish Pastorals." + +Mr. Frank Mathew, whose first literary work was his biography of his +illustrious grand-uncle Father Mathew, has also written some admirable +stories of Irish life, which appeared in "The Idler," and have been +collected in a volume called "At the Rising of the Moon." "The Last +Race," by which he is represented in this volume, will give our readers +a good taste of his graphic quality. + +Mr. Padric Colum will speak for himself on Irish fiction in his +introduction to an edition of Gerald Griffin's "Collegians," which is to +form part of this series of Irish volumes. His finely distinctive +literary style and intimate knowledge of Irish peasant life so clearly +exhibited in his poems, plays and stories, is shown in these pages by +that remarkable sketch of "Maelshaughlinn at the Fair," written with the +elemental abandon of Synge himself. + +Finally, in absolute contrast with Mr. Colum's idealistic work, comes +the humorous realism of Lynn Doyle's pictures of the Ulster Peasantry. +But their efforts to over-reach one another, their love of poaching, and +their marriage operations, afford the author of "Ballygullion" a +congenial field for the display of his observation, his high spirits, +and his genuine sense of the ridiculous. His comedy of "The Ballygullion +Creamery Society" which fitly concludes this volume, is good, hearty, +wholesome fun, and we only trust, in Ireland's best interests, that its +official stamp, a wreath of shamrocks and orange lilies--is not merely +an unlikely if amiable suggestion, but is yet to have its counterpart in +reality. + + + + +Preface. + + +The fiction of which this volume consists is in part fabulous in +character, in part descriptive of actual Irish life upon its lighter +side. + +The Heroic stories and Folk-tales are, on chronological grounds, printed +early in the book and are then followed by extracts from the writings of +the Irish novelists of the first half and third quarter of the 19th +Century--Maginn, Lever, Lover, and LeFanu. + +Then come the writers who have made their mark in recent times, such as +Miss Jane Barlow, the authors of "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," +and Canon Hannay, and lastly those of a new school amongst whom may be +named Mr. Padraic Colum, "Lynn Doyle," and Miss K. Purdon. + +This may be said to be the general order of the contents of "Humours of +Irish Life." But where artistic propriety, suggesting contrasts of local +colour and changes of subject, has called for it, a strict chronological +sequence has been departed from; yet enough of it remains to enable the +critic to observe what we believe to be a change for the better, both in +the taste and technique of these Irish stories and sketches, as time has +gone by. + +It remains for us to express our cordial obligations to the following +authors and publishers for the use of copyright material. To Messrs. +Macmillan and Miss B. Hunt for the story of "McCarthy of Connacht," from +"Folk Tales of Breffny"; to Canon Hannay and Messrs. Methuen for +chapters from "Spanish Gold" and "The Adventures of Dr. Whitty," +entitled "J. J. Meldon and the Chief Secretary," and "The Interpreters"; +to Mr. H. de Vere Stacpoole and Mr. Fisher Unwin for "The Meet of the +Beagles," from the novel of "Patsy"; to Miss O'Conor Eccles and Messrs. +Cassell for "King William," a story in the late Miss Charlotte O'Conor +Eccles's "Aliens of the West"; to Miss Eleanor Alexander and Mr. Edward +Arnold for "Old Tummus and the Battle of Scarva," from "Lady Anne's +Walk," and to the same publisher and to Mr. John Stevenson for a chapter +entitled "The Wise Woman" from "A Boy in the Country"; to Messrs. James +Duffy and Sons for Kickham's Story of "The Thrush and the Blackbird"; to +Mr. William Percy French for "The First Lord Liftenant"; to Mr. Frank +Mathew for "Their Last Race," from his volume "At the rising of the +Moon"; to Miss K. Purdon for a chapter entitled "The Game Leg," from her +novel "The Folk of Furry Farm," and to its publishers, Messrs. James +Nisbet and Co. Ltd.; to Dr. Douglas Hyde for his Folk-tale of "The Piper +and the Puca"; to Martin Ross and Miss E. [OE]. Somerville and Messrs. +Longmans, Green & Co., for the use of two chapters--"Trinket's Colt" and +"The Boat's Share"--from "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M." and +"Further Experiences of an Irish R.M." respectively; to Mr. Shan Bullock +for "The Wee Tea Table," from his "Irish Pastorals"; to Miss Jane Barlow +and Messrs. Hutchinson for "Quin's Rick," from "Doings and Dealings," +and for "A Test of Truth," from "Irish Neighbours"; to Mr. Padraic Colum +for his sketch "Maelshaughlinn at the Fair," from his "A Year of Irish +Life," and to the publishers of the book, Messrs. Mills and Boon, Ltd.; +to its author, "Lynn Doyle," and its publishers, Maunsel & Co., for "The +Ballygullion Creamery," from "Ballygullion"; and to Mr. P. J. McCall and +the proprietors of "The Shamrock" for the story "Fionn MacCumhail and +the Princess." + +Finally, acknowledgment is due to the courtesy of the Proprietors and +Editor of "The Quarterly Review" for leave to incorporate in the +Introduction an article which appeared in the issue of that periodical +for June, 1913. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + DANIEL O'ROURKE _Dr. Maginn_ 1 + + ADVENTURES OF GILLA NA CHRECK AN GOUR _Patrick Kennedy_ 9 + + THE LITTLE WEAVER OF DULEEK GATE _Samuel Lover_ 18 + + FIONN MACCUMHAIL AND THE PRINCESS _Patrick J. McCall_ 30 + + THE KILDARE POOKA _Patrick Kennedy_ 38 + + THE PIPER AND THE PUCA _Douglas Hyde_ 42 + + MCCARTHY OF CONNACHT _B. Hunt_ 46 + + THE MAD PUDDING OF BALLYBOULTEEN _William Carleton_ 58 + + FRANK WEBBER'S WAGER _Charles Lever_ 72 + + SAM WHAM AND THE SAWMONT _Sir Samuel Ferguson_ 82 + + DARBY DOYLE'S VOYAGE TO QUEBEC _Thomas Ettingsall_ 84 + + BOB BURKE'S DUEL _Dr. Maginn_ 92 + + BILLY MALONEY'S TASTE OF LOVE AND GLORY _Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu_ 105 + + A PLEASANT JOURNEY _Charles Lever_ 123 + + THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM _William Carleton_ 131 + + THE QUARE GANDER _Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu_ 139 + + THE THRUSH AND THE BLACKBIRD _Charles J. Kickham_ 148 + + THEIR LAST RACE _Frank Mathew_ 154 + + THE FIRST LORD LIFTINANT _William Percy French_ 159 + + THE BOAT'S SHARE _E. OE. Somerville and Martin Ross_ 167 + + "KING WILLIAM" _Charlotte O'Conor Eccles_ 179 + + QUIN'S RICK _Jane Barlow_ 200 + + MAELSHAUGHLINN AT THE FAIR _Padraic Colum_ 213 + + THE REV. J. J. MELDON AND THE CHIEF SECRETARY + _George A. Birmingham_ 220 + + OLD TUMMUS AND THE BATTLE OF SCARVA _Eleanor Alexander_ 235 + + THE GAME LEG _K. F. Purdon_ 244 + + TRINKET'S COLT _E. OE. Somerville and Martin Ross_ 258 + + THE WEE TEA TABLE _Shan Bullock_ 276 + + THE INTERPRETERS _George A. Birmingham_ 290 + + A TEST OF TRUTH _Jane Barlow_ 307 + + THE WISE WOMAN _John Stevenson_ 314 + + THE MEET OF THE BEAGLES _H. de Vere Stacpoole_ 324 + + THE BALLYGULLION CREAMERY SOCIETY, LIMITED _Lynn Doyle_ 336 + + + + +AUTHORS REPRESENTED + + + PAGE + ALEXANDER, ELEANOR 235 + + BARLOW, JANE 200, 307 + + BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE A. 220, 290 + + BULLOCK, SHAN 276 + + CARLETON, WILLIAM 58, 131 + + COLUM, PADRAIC 213 + + DOYLE, LYNN 336 + + ECCLES, CHARLOTTE O'CONOR 179 + + ETTINGSALL, THOMAS 84 + + FERGUSON, SIR SAMUEL 82 + + FRENCH, WILLIAM PERCY 159 + + HUNT, B. 46 + + HYDE, DOUGLAS 42 + + KENNEDY, PATRICK 9, 38 + + KICKHAM, CHARLES JOSEPH 148 + + LE FANU, JOSEPH SHERIDAN 105, 139 + + LEVER, CHARLES 72, 123 + + LOVER, SAMUEL 18 + + MAGINN, DR. 1, 92 + + MATHEW, FRANK 154 + + MCCALL, PATRICK J. 30 + + PURDON, K. F. 244 + + SOMERVILLE, E. OE. AND ROSS, MARTIN 167, 258 + + STACPOOLE, H. DE VERE 324 + + STEVENSON, JOHN 314 + + + + +HUMOURS OF IRISH LIFE + +Daniel O'Rourke. + +_From Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of +Ireland."_ + +BY DR. MAGINN (1793-1842). + + +People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke, but +how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and +below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the walls +of the Phooka's tower. I knew the man well: he lived at the bottom of +Hungry Hill. He told me his story thus:-- + +"I am often axed to tell it, sir, so that this is not the first time. +The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign parts; and sure +enough there was a dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle +and simple, high and low, rich and poor. Well, we had everything of the +best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drunk, and we danced. To make +a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy +almost. And so, as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of +Ballyasheenogh, I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water. +'Death alive!' thought I, 'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began +swimming, swimming, swimming away for dear life, till at last I got +ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon a +dissolute island. + +"I wandered, and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered, +until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as +day, or your lady's eyes, sir (with your pardon for mentioning her), and +I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing +did I see but bog, bog, bog. I began to scratch me head, and sing the +Ullagone--when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and +saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and +it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and +looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? So he +looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,' says he, +'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you sir,' says I; 'I hope you're +well'; wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to +speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?' says he. 'Nothing +at all, sir,' says I: 'only I wish I was safe home again.' 'Is it out of +the island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis, sir,' says I. 'Dan,' +says he, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, +yet, as you are a decent, sober man, who 'tends Mass well, and never +flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields--my +life for yours,' says he, 'so get on my back and grip me well for fear +you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I am afraid,' says I, +'your honour's making game of me; for who ever heard of riding horseback +on an eagle before?' ''Pon the honour of a gentleman,' says he, putting +his right foot on his breast, 'I am quite in earnest: and so now either +take my offer or starve in the bog--besides, I see that your weight is +sinking the stone.' + +"It was true enough, as he said, for I found the stone every minute +going from under me. 'I thank your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of +your civility; and I'll take your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon +the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up +he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to +serve me. Up--up--up, dear knows how far he flew. 'Why, then,' said I to +him--thinking he did not know the right road home--very civilly, because +why? I was in his power entirely: 'sir,' says I, 'please your honour's +glory, and with humble submission to your better judgment, if you'd fly +down a bit, you're now just over my cabin, and I could be put down +there, and many thanks to your worship.' + +"'Arrah, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next +field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no +joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked +off a cowld stone in a bog.' Well, sir, up he kept, flying, flying, and +I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use. 'Where in the +world are you going, sir?' says I to him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says +he: 'mind your own business, and don't be interfering with the business +of other people.' + +"At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now, you can't +see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reaping-hook +sticking out of the side of the moon, this way' (drawing the figure thus +on the ground with the end of his stick). + +"'Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no notion +'twas so far.' 'And, my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world axed you +to fly so far--was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and beseech you to +stop half-an-hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,' says he; 'I'm +tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I +rest myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I; 'is it upon that +little round thing, then? why, sure, I'd fall off in a minute, and be +kilt and split, and smashed all to bits; you are a vile deceiver, so you +are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he; 'you can catch fast hold of the +reaping hook that's sticking out of the side of the moon, and 'twill +keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I. 'May be not,' said he, quite +quiet. 'But if you don't, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one +slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in +your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in +the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to +have come along with the likes of you'; and so, giving him a hearty +curse in Irish, for fear he'd know what I said, I got off his back, with +a heavy heart, took hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon the +moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that. + +"When he had me fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said, 'Good +morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he; 'I think I've nicked you +fairly now. You robbed me nest last year' ('twas true enough for him, +but how he found it out is hard to say), 'and in return you are freely +welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a cockthrow.' + +"'Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?' says +I. 'You ugly, unnatural baste, and is this the way you serve me at +last?' 'Twas all to no manner of use; he spread out his great, big +wings, burst out laughing, and flew away like lightning. I bawled after +him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever, without his +minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day to +this--sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I was in a disconsolate +condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when all at once a +door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on its hinges as +if it had not been opened for a month before--I suppose they never +thought of greasing 'em, and out there walks--who do you think, but the +man in the moon himself? I knew him by his bush. + +"'Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' says he; 'how do you do?' 'Very +well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.' 'What +brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how it was. + +"'Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff, when I was +done, 'you must not stay here.' + +"'Indeed, sir,' says I, ''tis much against my will I'm here at all; but +how am I to go back?' 'That's your business,' said he; 'Dan, mine is to +tell you that you must not stay, so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm +doing no harm,' says I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest +I fall off.' 'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' +says I, 'may I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a +poor traveller lodging; I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with +strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself, Dan,' +says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping hook.' 'And with your +leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more you bids me, the +more I won't let go;--so I will.' 'You had better, Dan,' says he again. +'Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the whole weight of him +with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two words to that bargain; and +I'll not budge, but you may if you like.' 'We'll see how that is to be,' +says he; and back he went, giving the door such a great bang after him +(for it was plain he was huffed) that I thought the moon and all would +fall down with it. + +"Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back again +he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without saying a +word he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping hook that was +keeping me up, and whap! it came in two. 'Good morning to you, Dan,' +says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me cleanly falling +down with a bit of the handle in my hand; 'I thank you for your visit, +and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not time to make any answer +to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and rolling, and rolling, at +the rate of a fox-hunt. 'This is a pretty pickle,' says I, 'for a decent +man to be seen at this time of night: I am now sold fairly.' The word +was not out of my mouth when, whizz! what should fly by close to my ear +but a flock of wild geese; all the way from my own bog of +Ballyasheenogh, or else, how should they know me? The ould gander, who +was their general, turning about his head, cried out to me, 'Is that +you, Dan?' 'The same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, +for I was by this time used to all kinds of bedevilment, and, besides, I +knew him of ould. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke; how +are you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you +kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mighty in want of some. 'I hope +your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,' says +he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all the +way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the drop, +and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how +the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the +moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you: put out your hand +and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' + +"'Sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though +all the time I thought within myself that I don't much trust you; but +there was no help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the +other geese flew after him as fast as hops. + +"We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide +ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking +up out of the water. 'Ah! my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought +it best to keep a civil tongue in my head, any way, 'fly to land if you +please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for a while, +because, you see, we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia!' said I; 'that's +surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why, then, +to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist, whist, you fool,' +said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent sort of +place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only there is a +little more sand there.' + +"Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful +before the wind; 'Ah! then, sir,' said I, 'will you drop me on the ship +if you please?' 'We are not fair over her,' said he. 'We are,' said I. +'We are not,' said he; 'If I dropped you now you would go splash into +the sea.' 'I would not,' says I; 'I know better than that, for it is +just clean under us, so let me drop now, at once.' 'If you must, you +must,' said he; 'there, take your own way,' and he opened his claw, and, +'deed, he was right--sure enough, I came down plump into the very bottom +of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went, and I gave myself up +then for ever, when a whale walked up to me, scratching himself after +his night's sleep, and looked me full in the face, and never the word +did he say, but, lifting up his tail, he splashed me all over again with +the cold, salt water till there wasn't a dry stitch on my whole carcase; +and I heard somebody saying--'twas a voice I knew, too--'Get up, you +drunken brute, off o' that'; and with that I woke up, and there was Judy +with a tub full of water which she was splashing all over me--for, rest +her soul! though she was a good wife, she never could bear to see me in +drink, and had a bitter hand of her own. 'Get up,' said she again: 'and +of all places in the parish would no place sarve your turn to lie down +upon but under the ould walls of Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am +sure you had of it.' And sure enough I had: for I was fairly bothered +out of my senses with eagles, and men of the moons, and flying ganders, +and whales driving me through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the +bottom of the green ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would +it be before I'd lie down in the same spot again, I know that." + + + + +Adventures of Gilla na Chreck an Gour. + +(THE FELLOW IN THE GOAT SKIN). + +_From "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts."_ + +BY PATRICK KENNEDY (1801-1873). + +(Told in the Wexford Peasant Dialect.) + + +Long ago a poor widow woman lived down by the iron forge near +Enniscorthy, and she was so poor, she had no clothes to put on her son; +so she used to fix him in the ash-hole, near the fire, and pile the warm +ashes about him; and, accordingly, as he grew up, she sunk the pit +deeper. At last, by hook or by crook, she got a goat-skin and fastened +it round his waist, and he felt quite grand, and took a walk down the +street. So, says she to him next morning, "Tom, you thief, you never +done any good yet, and you six-foot high, and past nineteen; take that +rope and bring me a _bresna_ from the wood." "Never say't twice, +mother," says Tom; "here goes." + +When he had it gathered and tied, what should come up but a big +_joiant_, nine-foot high, and made a lick of a club at him. Well become +Tom, he jumped a-one side and picked up a ram-pike; and the first crack +he gave the big fellow he made him kiss the clod. "If you have e'er a +prayer," says Tom, "now's the time to say it, before I make _brishe_ of +you." "I have no prayers," says the giant, "but if you spare my life +I'll give you that club; and as long as you keep from sin you'll win +every battle you ever fight with it." + +Tom made no bones about letting him off; and as soon as he got the club +in his hands he sat down on the bresna and gave it a tap with the +kippeen, and says, "Bresna, I had a great trouble gathering you, and run +the risk of my life for you; the least you can do is to carry me home." +And, sure enough, the wind of the word was all it wanted. It went off +through the wood, groaning and cracking till it came to the widow's +door. + +Well, when the sticks were all burned Tom was sent off again to pick +more; and this time he had to fight with a giant with two heads on him. +Tom had a little more trouble with him--that's all; and the prayers _he_ +said was to give Tom a fife that nobody could help dancing to when he +was playing it. _Begonies_, he made the big faggot dance home, with +himself sitting on it. Well, if you were to count all the steps from +this to Dublin, dickens a bit you'd ever arrive there. The next giant +was a beautiful boy with three heads on him. He had neither prayers nor +catechism no more nor the others; and so he gave Tom a bottle of green +ointment that wouldn't let you be burned, nor scalded, nor wounded. "And +now," says he, "there's no more of us. You may come and gather sticks +here till little Lunacy Day in harvest without giant or fairy man to +disturb you." + +Well, now, Tom was prouder nor ten paycocks, and used to take a walk +down the street in the heel of the evening; but some of the little boys +had no more manners nor if they were Dublin jackeens, and put out their +tongues at Tom's club and Tom's goat-skin. He didn't like that at all, +and it would be mean to give one of them a clout. At last, what should +come through the town but a kind of bellman, only it's a big bugle he +had, and a huntsman's cap on his head, and a kind of painted shirt. So +this--he wasn't a bellman, and I don't know what to call him--bugleman, +maybe--proclaimed that the King of Dublin's daughter was so melancholy +that she didn't give a laugh for seven years, and that her father would +grant her in marriage to whoever would make her laugh three times. +"That's the very thing for me to try," says Tom; and so, without burning +any more daylight, he kissed his mother, curled his club at the little +boys, and set off along the yalla highroad to the town of Dublin. + +At last Tom came to one of the City gates and the guards laughed and +cursed at him instead of letting him through. Tom stood it all for a +little time, but at last one of them--out of fun, as he said--drove his +_bagnet_ half an inch or so into his side. Tom did nothing but take the +fellow by the scruff of his neck and the waistband of his corduroys and +fling him into the canal. Some ran to pull the fellow out, and others to +let manners into the vulgarian with their swords and daggers; but a tap +from his club sent them headlong into the moat or down on the stones, +and they were soon begging him to stay his hands. + +So at last one of them was glad enough to show Tom the way to the Palace +yard; and there was the King and the Queen, and the princess in a +gallery, looking at all sorts of wrestling and sword-playing, and +_rinka-fadhas_ (long dances) and mumming, all to please the princess; +but not a smile came over her handsome face. + +Well, they all stopped when they seen the young giant, with his boy's +face and long, black hair, and his short, curly beard--for his poor +mother couldn't afford to buy razhurs--and his great, strong arms and +bare legs, and no covering but the goat-skin that reached from his waist +to his knees. But an envious, wizened _basthard_ of a fellow, with a red +head, that wished to be married to the princess, and didn't like how she +opened her eyes at Tom, came forward, and asked his business very +snappishly. "My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful +princess, God bless her, laugh three times." "Do you see all them merry +fellows and skilful swordsmen," says the other, "that could eat you up +without a grain of salt, and not a mother's soul of 'em ever got a laugh +from her these seven years?" So the fellows gathered round Tom, and the +bad man aggravated him till he told them he didn't care a pinch of snuff +for the whole bilin' of 'em; let 'em come on, six at a time, and try +what they could do. The King, that was too far off to hear what they +were saying, asked what did the stranger want. "He wants," says the +red-headed fellow, "to make hares of your best men." "Oh!" says the +King, "if that's the way, let one of 'em turn out and try his mettle." +So one stood forward, with sword and pot-lid, and made a cut at Tom. He +struck the fellow's elbow with the club, and up over their heads flew +the sword, and down went the owner of it on the gravel from a thump he +got on the helmet. Another took his place, and another and another, and +then half-a-dozen at once, and Tom sent swords, helmets, shields, and +bodies rolling over and over, and themselves bawling out that they were +kilt, and disabled, and damaged, and rubbing their poor elbows and hips, +and limping away. Tom contrived not to kill anyone; and the princess was +so amused that she let a great, sweet laugh out of her that was heard +all over the yard. "King of Dublin," says Tom, "I've the quarter of +your daughter." And the King didn't know whether he was glad or sorry, +and all the blood in the princess's heart run into her cheeks. + +So there was no more fighting that day, and Tom was invited to dine with +the royal family. Next day Redhead told Tom of a wolf, the size of a +yearling heifer, that used to be _serenading_ (sauntering) about the +walls, and eating people and cattle; and said what a pleasure it would +give the King to have it killed. "With all my heart," says Tom. "Send a +jackeen to show me where he lives, and we'll see how he behaves to a +stranger." + +The princess was not well pleased, for Tom looked a different person +with fine clothes and a nice green _birredh_ over his long, curly hair; +and besides, he'd got one laugh out of her. However, the King gave his +consent, and in an hour and a half the horrible wolf was walking in the +palace yard, and Tom a step or two behind, with his club on his +shoulder, just as a shepherd would be walking after a pet lamb. The King +and Queen and princess were safe up in their gallery, but the officers +and people of the court that were _padrowling_ about the great bawn, +when they saw the big baste coming in gave themselves up, and began to +make for doors and gates; and the wolf licked his chops, as if he was +saying, "Wouldn't I enjoy a breakfast off a couple of yez!" The King +shouted out, "O Gilla na Chreck an Gour, take away that terrible wolf +and you must have all my daughter." But Tom didn't mind him a bit. He +pulled out his flute and began to play like vengeance; and dickens a man +or boy in the yard but began shovelling away heel and toe, and the wolf +himself was obliged to get on his hind legs and dance _Tatther Jack +Walsh_ along with the rest. A good deal of the people got inside and +shut the doors, the way the hairy fellow wouldn't pin them; but Tom kept +playing, and the outsiders kept shouting and dancing, and the wolf kept +dancing and roaring with the pain his legs were giving him; and all the +time he had his eyes on Redhead, who was shut out along with the rest. +Wherever Redhead went the wolf followed, and kept one eye on him and the +other on Tom, to see if he would give him leave to eat him. But Tom +shook his head, and never stopped the tune, and Redhead never stopped +dancing and bawling and the wolf dancing and roaring, one leg up and the +other down, and he ready to drop out of his standing from fair +tiresomeness. + +When the princess seen that there was no fear of anyone being kilt, she +was so divarted by the stew that Redhead was in that she gave another +great laugh; and well become Tom, out he cried, "King of Dublin, I have +two quarters of your daughter." "Oh, quarters or alls," says the King, +"put away that divel of a wolf and we'll see about it." So Gilla put his +flute in his pocket, and, says he, to the baste that was sittin' on his +currabingo ready to faint, "Walk off to your mountains, my fine fellow, +and live like a respectable baste; and if ever I find you come within +seven miles of any town--." He said no more, but spit in his fist, and +gave a flourish of his club. It was all the poor divel wanted: he put +his tail between his legs and took to his pumps without looking at man +or mortial, and neither sun, moon, nor stars ever saw him in sight of +Dublin again. + +At dinner everyone laughed except the foxy fellow; and, sure enough, he +was laying out how he'd settle poor Tom next day. "Well, to be sure!" +says he, "King of Dublin, you are in luck. There's the Danes moidhering +us to no end. D---- run to Lusk wid 'em and if anyone can save us from +'em it is this gentleman with the goat-skin. There is a flail hangin' on +the collar-beam in Hell, and neither Dane nor Devil can stand before +it." "So," says Tom to the King, "will you let me have the other half of +the princess if I bring you the flail?" "No, no," says the princess, +"I'd rather never be your wife than see you in that danger." + +But Redhead whispered and nudged Tom about how shabby it would look to +reneague the adventure. So he asked him which way he was to go, and +Redhead directed him through a street where a great many bad women +lived, and a great many shibbeen houses were open, and away he set. + +Well, he travelled and travelled till he came in sight of the walls of +Hell; and, bedad, before he knocked at the gates, he rubbed himself over +with the greenish ointment. When he knocked, a hundred little imps +popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted. "I +want to speak to the big divel of all," says Tom; "open the gate." + +It wasn't long till the gate was _thrune_ open, and the Ould Boy +received Tom with bows and scrapes, and axed his business. "My business +isn't much," says Tom. "I only came for the loan of that flail that I +see hanging on the collar-beam for the King of Dublin to give a +thrashing to the Danes." "Well," says the other, "the Danes is much +better customers to me; but, since you walked so far, I won't refuse. +Hand that flail," says he to a young imp; and he winked the far-off eye +at the same time. So, while some were barring the gates, the young +devil climbed up and took down the iron flail that had the handstaff and +booltheen both made out of red-hot iron. The little vagabond was +grinning to think how it would burn the hands off of Tom, but the +dickens a burn it made on him, no more nor if it was a good oak sapling. +"Thankee," says Tom; "now, would you open the gate for a body and I'll +give you no more trouble." "Oh, tramp!" says Ould Nick, "is that the +way? It is easier getting inside them gates than getting out again. Take +that tool from him, and give him a dose of the oil of stirrup." So one +fellow put out his claws to seize on the flail, but Tom gave him such a +welt of it on the side of his head that he broke off one of his horns, +and made him roar like a divil as he was. Well, they rushed at Tom, but +he gave them, little and big, such a thrashing as they didn't forget for +a while. At last says the ould thief of all, rubbing his elbows, "Let +the fool out; and woe to whoever lets him in again, great or small." + +So out marched Tom and away with him without minding the shouting and +cursing they kept up at him from the tops of the walls. And when he got +home to the big bawn of the palace, there never was such running and +racing as to see himself and the flail. When he had his story told, he +laid down the flail on the stone steps, and bid no one for their lives +to touch it. If the King and Queen and princess made much of him before +they made ten times as much of him now; but Redhead, the mean +scruff-hound, stole over, and thought to catch hold of the flail to make +an end of him. His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of +him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept flinging his +arms about and dancing that it was pitiful to look at him. Tom run at +him as soon as he could rise, caught his hands in his own two, and +rubbed them this way and that, and the burning pain left them before you +could reckon one. Well, the poor fellow, between the pain that was only +just gone, and the comfort he was in, had the comicalest face that ever +you see; it was such a mixerumgatherum of laughing and crying. Everyone +burst out a-laughing--the princess could not stop no more than the +rest--and then says Gilla, or Tom, "Now, ma'am, if there were fifty +halves of you I hope you will give me them all." Well, the princess had +no mock modesty about her. She looked at her father, and, by my word, +she came over to Gilla, and put her two delicate hands into his two +rough ones, and I wish it was myself was in his shoes that day! + +Tom would not bring the flail into the palace. You may be sure no other +body went near it; and when the early risers were passing next morning +they found two long clefts in the stone where it was, after burning +itself an opening downwards, nobody could tell how far. + +But a messenger came in at noon and said that the Danes were so +frightened when they heard of the flail coming into Dublin that they got +into their ships and sailed away. + +Well, I suppose before they were married Gilla got some man like Pat +Mara of Tomenine to larn him the "principles of politeness," fluxions, +gunnery, and fortifications, decimal fractions, practice, and the +rule-of-three direct, the way he'd be able to keep up a conversation +with the royal family. Whether he ever lost his time larning them +sciences, I'm not sure, but it's as sure as fate that his mother never +more saw any want till the end of her days. + + + + +The Little Weaver of Duleek Gate. + +_From "Legends and Stories of Ireland."_ + +BY SAMUEL LOVER (1791-1868.) + + +There was a waiver lived, wanst upon a time, in Duleek here, hard by the +gate, and a very honest, industherous man he was. He had a wife, an' av +coorse, they had childre, and small blame to them, so that the poor +little waiver was obleeged to work his fingers to the bone a'most to get +them the bit and the sup, and the loom never standin' still. + +Well, it was one mornin' that his wife called to him, "Come here," says +she, "jewel, and ate your brekquest, now that it's ready." But he never +minded her, but wint an workin'. "Arrah, lave off slavin' yourself, my +darlin', and ate your bit o' brekquest while it is hot." + +"Lave me alone," says he, "I'm busy with a pattern here that is brakin' +my heart," says the waiver; "and antil I complate it and masther it +intirely I won't quit." + +"You're as cross as two sticks this blessed morning, Thady," says the +poor wife; "and it's a heavy handful I have of you when you are cruked +in your temper; but, stay there if you like, and let your stirabout grow +cowld, and not a one o' me 'ill ax you agin;" and with that off she +wint, and the waiver, sure enough, was mighty crabbed, and the more the +wife spoke to him the worse he got, which, you know, is only nath'ral. +Well, he left the loom at last, and wint over to the stirabout and what +would you think, but whin he looked at it, it was as black as a +crow--for, you see, it was in the heighth o' summer, and the flies lit +upon it to that degree that the stirabout was fairly covered with them. + +"Why, thin," says the waiver, "would no place sarve you but that? and is +it spyling my brekquest yiz are, you dirty bastes?" And with that, he +lifted his hand, and he made one great slam at the dish o' stirabout, +and killed no less than three score and tin flies at the one blow, for +he counted the carcases one by one, and laid them out an a clane plate +for to view them. + +Well, he felt a powerful sperit risin' in him, when he seen the +slaughter he done, at one blow; and not a sthroke more work he'd do that +day, but out he wint and was fractious and impident to every one he met, +and was squarin' up into their faces and sayin', "Look at that fist! +that's the fist that killed three score and tin at one blow--Whoo!" + +With that all the neighbours thought he was crack'd, and the poor wife +herself thought the same when he kem home in the evenin', afther +spendin' every rap he had in dhrink, and swaggerin' about the place, and +lookin' at his hand every minit. + +"Indeed, an' your hand is very dirty, sure enough, Thady, jewel," says +the poor wife. "You had betther wash it, darlin'." + +"How dar' you say dirty to the greatest hand in Ireland?" says he, going +to bate her. + +"Well, it's nat dirty," says she. + +"It is throwin away my time I have been all my life," says he, "livin' +with you at all, and stuck at a loom, nothin' but a poor waiver, when it +is Saint George or the Dhraggin I ought to be, which is two of the siven +champions of Christendom." + +"Well, suppose they christened him twice as much," says the wife, "sure, +what's that to uz?" + +"Don't put in your prate," says he, "you ignorant sthrap," says he. +"You're vulgar, woman--you're vulgar--mighty vulgar; but I'll have +nothin' more to say to any dirty, snakin' thrade again--sorra more +waivin' I'll do." + +"Oh, Thady, dear, and what'll the children do then?" + +"Let them go play marvels," says he. + +"That would be but poor feedin' for them, Thady." + +"They shan't want feedin'?" says he, "for it's a rich man I'll be soon, +and a great man, too." + +"Usha, but I'm glad to hear it, darlin'--though I dunno how it's to be, +but I think you had betther go to bed, Thady." + +"Don't talk to me of any bed, but the bed o' glory, woman," says he, +lookin' mortial grand. "I'll sleep with the brave yit," says he. + +"Indeed, an' a brave sleep will do you a power o' good, my darlin," says +she. + +"And it's I that will be a knight!" says he. + +"All night, if you plaze, Thady," says she. + +"None o' your coaxin'," says he. "I'm detarmined on it, and I'll set off +immediately, and be a knight arriant." + +"A what?" says she. + +"A knight arriant, woman." + +"What's that?" says she. + +"A knight arriant is a rale gintleman," says he; "going round the world +for sport, with a soord by his side, takin' whatever he plazes for +himself; and that's a knight arriant," says he. + +Well, sure enough he wint about among his neighbours the next day, and +he got an owld kittle from one, and a saucepan from another, and he +took them to the tailor, and he sewed him up a shuit o' tin clothes like +any knight arriant, and he borrowed a pot lid, and that he was very +particular about, bekase it was his shield, and he went to a friend o' +his, a painter and glazier, and made him paint an his shield in big +letthers:-- + + "I'M THE MAN OF ALL MIN, + THAT KILL'D THREE SCORE AND TIN + AT A BLOW." + +"When the people sees that," says the waiver to himself, "the sorra one +will dar for to come near me." + +And with that he towld the wife to scour out the small iron pot for him, +"for," says he, "it will make an illegent helmet;" and when it was done, +he put it an his head, and his wife said, "Oh, murther, Thady, jewel; is +it puttin' a great, heavy, iron pot an your head you are, by way iv a +hat?" + +"Sartinly," says he, "for a knight arriant should always have a weight +on his brain." + +"But, Thady, dear," says the wife, "there's a hole in it, and it can't +keep out the weather." + +"It will be the cooler," says he, puttin' it an him; "besides, if I +don't like it, it is aisy to stop it with a wisp o' sthraw, or the like +o' that." + +"The three legs of it look mighty quare, stickin' up," says she. + +"Every helmet has a spike stickin' out o' the top of it," says the +waiver, "and if mine has three, it's only the grandher it is." + +"Well," says the wife, getting bitter at last, "all I can say is, it +isn't the first sheep's head was dhress'd in it." + +"Your sarvint, ma'am," says he; and off he set. + +Well, he was in want of a horse, and so he wint to a field hard by, +where the miller's horse was grazin', that used to carry the ground corn +round the counthry. "This is the identical horse for me," says the +waiver; "he's used to carryin' flour and male, and what am I but the +flower o' shovelry in a coat o' mail; so that the horse won't be put out +iv his way in the laste." + +So away galloped the waiver, and took the road to Dublin, for he thought +the best thing he could do was to go to the King o' Dublin (for Dublin +was a great place thin, and had a King iv its own). When he got to the +palace courtyard he let his horse graze about the place, for the grass +was growin' out betune the stones; everything was flourishin' thin in +Dublin, you see. Well, the King was lookin' out of his dhrawin'-room +windy, for divarshin, whin the waiver kem in; but the waiver pretended +not to see him, and he wint over to the stone sate, undher the +windy--for, you see, there was stone sates all round about the place, +for the accommodation o' the people--for the King was a dacent obleeging +man; well, as I said, the waiver wint over and lay down an one o' the +seats, just undher the King's windy, and purtended to go asleep; but he +took care to turn out the front of his shield that had the letthers an +it. Well, my dear, with that the King calls out to one of the lords of +his coort that was standin' behind him, howldin' up the skirt of his +coat, accordin' to rayson, and, says he: "Look here," says he, "what do +you think of a vagabone like that, comin' undher my very nose to sleep? +It is thrue I'm a good king," says he, "and I 'commodate the people by +havin' sates for them to sit down and enjoy the raycreation and +contimplation of seein' me here, lookin' out a' my dhrawin'-room windy, +for divarsion; but that is no rayson they are to make a hotel o' the +place, and come and sleep here. Who is it, at all?" says the King. + +"Not a one o' me knows, plaze your majesty." + +"I think he must be a furriner," says the King, "because his dhress is +outlandish." + +"And doesn't know manners, more betoken," says the lord. + +"I'll go down and circumspect him myself," says the King; "folly me," +says he to the lord, wavin' his hand at the same time in the most +dignacious manner. + +Down he wint accordingly, followed by the lord; and when he wint over to +where the waiver was lying, sure the first thing he seen was his shield +with the big letthers an it, and with that, says he to the lord, "This +is the very man I want." + +"For what, plaze your majesty?" says the lord. + +"To kill the vagabone dhraggin', to be sure," says the King. + +"Sure, do you think he could kill him," says the lord, "when all the +stoutest knights in the land wasn't aiquil to it, but never kem back, +and was ate up alive by the cruel desaiver?" + +"Sure, don't you see there," says the king, pointin' at the shield, +"that he killed three score and tin at one blow; and the man that done +that, I think, is a match for anything." + +So, with that, he wint over to the waiver and shuck him by the shouldher +for to wake him, and the waiver rubbed his eyes as if just wakened, and +the King says to him, "God save you," said he. + +"God save you kindly," says the waiver, purtendin' he was quite +unknownst who he was spakin' to. + +"Do you know who I am," says the king, "that you make so free, good +man?" + +"No, indeed," says the waiver, "you have the advantage o' me." + +"To be sure, I have," says the king, moighty high; "sure, ain't I the +King o' Dublin?" says he. + +The waiver dhropped down on his two knees forninst the King, and, says +he, "I beg your pardon for the liberty I tuk; plaze your holiness, I +hope you'll excuse it." + +"No offince," says the King; "get up, good man. And what brings you +here?" says he. + +"I'm in want of work, plaze your riverence," says the waiver. + +"Well, suppose I give you work?" says the king. + +"I'll be proud to sarve you, my lord," says the waiver. + +"Very well," says the King. "You killed three score and tin at one blow, +I understan'," says the King. + +"Yis," says the waiver; "that was the last thrifle o' work I done, and +I'm afraid my hand 'ill go out o' practice if I don't get some job to do +at wanst." + +"You shall have a job immediately," says the King. "It is not three +score and tin or any fine thing like that; it is only a blaguard +dhraggin that is disturbin' the counthry and ruinatin' my tinanthry wid +aitin' their powlthry, and I'm lost for want of eggs," said the King. + +"Och, thin, plaze your worship," says the waiver, "you look as yellow as +if you swallowed twelve yolks this minit." + +"Well, I want this dhraggin to be killed," says the King. "It will be +no trouble in life to you; and I am sorry that it isn't betther worth +your while, for he isn't worth fearin' at all; only I must tell you that +he lives in the County Galway, in the middle of a bog, and he has an +advantage in that." + +"Oh, I don't value it in the laste," says the waiver, "for the last +three score and tin I killed was in a soft place." + +"When will you undhertake the job, thin?" says the King. + +"Let me at him at wanst," says the waiver. + +"That's what I like," says the King, "you're the very man for my money," +says he. + +"Talkin' of money," says the waiver, "by the same token, I'll want a +thrifle o' change from you for my thravellin' charges." + +"As much as you plaze," says the King; and with the word he brought him +into his closet, where there was an owld stockin' in an oak chest, +bursting wid goolden guineas. + +"Take as many as you plaze," says the King; and sure enough, my dear, +the little waiver stuffed his tin clothes as full as they could howld +with them. + +"Now I'm ready for the road," says the waiver. + +"Very well," says the King; "but you must have a fresh horse," says he. + +"With all my heart," says the waiver, who thought he might as well +exchange the miller's owld garron for a betther. + +And maybe it's wondherin' you are that the waiver would think of goin' +to fight the dhraggin afther what he heerd about him, when he was +purtendin' to be asleep, but he had no sich notion, all he intended +was--to fob the goold, and ride back again to Duleek with his gains and +a good horse. But, you see, cute as the waiver was, the King was cuter +still, for these high quality, you see, is great desaivers; and so the +horse the waiver was an was learned on purpose; and sure, the minit he +was mounted, away powdhered the horse, and the sorra toe he'd go but +right down to Galway. Well, for four days he was goin' evermore, until +at last the waiver seen a crowd o' people runnin' as if owld Nick was at +their heels, and they shoutin' a thousand murdhers, and cryin'--"The +dhraggin, the dhraggin!" and he couldn't stop the horse nor make him +turn back, but away he pelted right forninst the terrible baste that was +comin' up to him; and there was the most nefaarious smell o' sulphur, +savin' your presence, enough to knock you down; and, faith, the waiver +seen he had no time to lose; and so threwn himself off the horse and +made to a three that was growin' nigh-hand, and away he clambered up +into it as nimble as a cat; and not a minit had he to spare, for the +dhraggin kem up in a powerful rage, and he devoured the horse body and +bones, in less than no time; and then began to sniffle and scent about +for the waiver, and at last he clapt his eye on him, where he was, up in +the three, and, says he, "You might as well come down out o' that," says +he, "for I'll have you as sure as eggs is mate." + +"Sorra fut I'll go down," says the waiver. + +"Sorra care I care," says the dhraggin; "for you're as good as ready +money in my pocket this minit, for I'll lie undher this three," says he, +"and sooner or later you must fall to my share;" and sure enough he sot +down, and began to pick his teeth with his tail afther a heavy brekquest +he made that mornin' (for he ate a whole village, let alone the horse), +and he got dhrowsy at last, and fell asleep; but before he wint to sleep +he wound himself all round about the three, all as one as a lady windin' +ribbon round her finger, so that the waiver could not escape. + +Well, as soon as the waiver knew he was dead asleep, by the snorin' of +him--and every snore he let out of him was like a clap o' thunder--that +minit the waiver began to creep down the three, as cautious as a fox; +and he was very nigh hand the bottom when a thievin' branch he was +dipindin' an bruck, and down he fell right a top o' the dhraggin; but, +if he did, good luck was an his side, for where should he fall but with +his two legs right acrass the dhraggin's neck, and my jew'l, he laid +howlt o' the baste's ears, and there he kept his grip, for the dhraggin +wakened and endayvoured for to bite him, but, you see, by rayson the +waiver was behind his ears he could not come at him, and, with that, he +endayvoured for to shake him off; but not a stir could he stir the +waiver; and though he shuk all the scales an his body, he could not turn +the scale agin the waiver. + +"Och, this is too bad, intirely," says the dhraggin; "but if you won't +let go," says he, "by the powers o' wildfire, I'll give you a ride +that'll astonish your siven small senses, my boy"; and, with that, away +he flew like mad; and where do you think he did fly?--he flew sthraight +for Dublin. But the waiver, bein' an his neck, was a great disthress to +him, and he would rather have had him an inside passenger; but, anyway, +he flew till he kem slap up agin the palace o' the king; for, bein' +blind with the rage, he never seen it, and he knocked his brains +out--that is, the small trifle he had, and down he fell spacheless. An' +you see, good luck would have it, that the King o' Dublin was looking +out iv his dhrawin'-room windy, for divarshin, that day also, and whin +he seen the waiver ridin' an the fiery dhraggin (for he was blazin' like +a tar barrel) he called out to his coortyers to come and see the show. + +"Here comes the knight arriant," says the King, "ridin' the dhraggin +that's all a-fire, and if he gets into the palace, yiz must be ready wid +the fire ingines," says he, "for to put him out." + +But when they seen the dhraggin fall outside, they all run downstairs +and scampered into the palace yard for to circumspect the curiosity; and +by the time they got down, the waiver had got off o' the dhraggin's +neck; and runnin' up to the King, says he-- + +"Plaze, your holiness, I did not think myself worthy of killin' this +facetious baste, so I brought him to yourself for to do him the honour +of decripitation by your own royal five fingers. But I tamed him first, +before I allowed him the liberty for to dar' to appear in your royal +prisince, and you'll oblige me if you'll just make your mark with your +own hand upon the onruly baste's neck." And with that, the King, sure +enough, dhrew out his swoord and took the head aff the dirty brute, as +clane as a new pin. + +Well, there was great rejoicin' in the coort that the dhraggin was +killed; and says the King to the little waiver, says he-- + +"You are a knight arriant as it is, and so it would be no use for to +knight you over agin; but I will make you a lord," says he "and as you +are the first man I ever heer'd tell of that rode a dhraggin, you shall +be called Lord Mount Dhraggin'," says he. + +"And where's my estates, plaze your holiness?" says the waiver, who +always had a sharp look-out afther the main chance. + +"Oh, I didn't forget that," says the King. "It is my royal pleasure to +provide well for you, and for that rayson I make you a present of all +the dhraggins in the world, and give you power over them from this out," +says he. + +"Is that all?" says the waiver. + +"All!" says the king. "Why, you ongrateful little vagabone, was the like +ever given to any man before?" + +"I believe not, indeed," says the waiver; "many thanks to your majesty." + +"But that is not all I'll do for you," says the king, "I'll give you my +daughter, too, in marriage," says he. + +Now, you see, that was nothin' more than what was promised the waiver in +his first promise; for, by all accounts, the King's daughter was the +greatest dhraggin ever was seen. + + + + +Fionn MacCumhail and the Princess. + +_From "The Shamrock."_ + +BY PATRICK J. MCCALL (1861--). + +(In Wexford Folk Speech.) + + +Wance upon a time, when things was a great'le betther in Ireland than +they are at present, when a rale king ruled over the counthry wid four +others undher him to look afther the craps an' other indhustries, there +lived a young chief called Fan MaCool. + +Now, this was long afore we gev up bowin' and scrapin' to the sun an' +moon an' sich like raumash (nonsense); an' signs an it, there was a +powerful lot ov witches an' Druids, an' enchanted min an' wimen goin' +about, that med things quare enough betimes for iverywan. + +Well, Fan, as I sed afore, was a young man when he kem to the command, +an' a purty likely lookin' boy, too--there was nothin' too hot or too +heavy for him; an' so ye needn't be a bit surprised if I tell ye he was +the mischief entirely wid the colleens. Nothin' delighted him more than +to disguise himself wid an ould coatamore (overcoat) threwn over his +showlder, a lump ov a kippeen (stick) in his fist and he mayanderin' +about unknownst, rings around the counthry, lookin' for fun an' foosther +(diversion) ov all kinds. + +Well, one fine mornin', whin he was on the shaughraun, he was waumasin' +(strolling) about through Leinster, an' near the royal palace ov +Glendalough he seen a mighty throng ov grand lords and ladies, an', my +dear, they all dressed up to the nines, wid their jewels shinin' like +dewdrops ov a May mornin', and laughin' like the tinkle ov a deeshy +(small) mountain strame over the white rocks. So he cocked his beaver, +an' stole over to see what was the matther. + +Lo an' behould ye, what were they at but houldin' a race-meetin' or +faysh (festival)--somethin' like what the quality calls ataleticks now! +There they were, jumpin', and runnin', and coorsin', an' all soorts ov +fun, enough to make the trouts--an' they're mighty fine leppers +enough--die wid envy in the river benaith them. + +The fun wint on fast an' furious, an' Fan, consaled betune the trumauns +an' brushna (elder bushes and furze) could hardly keep himself quiet, +seein' the thricks they wor at. Peepin' out, he seen, jist forninst him +on the other bank, the prencess herself, betune the high-up ladies ov +the coort. She was a fine, bouncin' geersha (girl) with gold hair like +the furze an' cheeks like an apple blossom, an' she brakin' her heart +laughin' an' clappin' her hands an' turnin her head this a-way an' that +a-way, jokin' wid this wan an' that wan, an' commiseratin', moryah! +(forsooth) the poor gossoons that failed in their leps. Fan liked the +looks ov her well, an' whin the boys had run in undher a bame up to +their knees an' jumped up over another wan as high as their chins, the +great trial ov all kem on. Maybe you'd guess what that was? But I'm +afeerd you won't if I gev you a hundhred guesses! It was to lep the +strame, forty foot wide! + +List'nin' to them whisperin' to wan another, Fan heerd them tellin' that +whichever ov them could manage it wud be med a great man intirely ov; he +wud get the Prencess Maynish in marriage, an' ov coorse, would be med +king ov Leinster when the ould king, Garry, her father, cocked his toes +an' looked up through the butts ov the daisies at the shky. Well, whin +Fan h'ard this, he was put to a nonplush to know what to do! With his +ould duds on him, he was ashamed ov his life to go out into the open, to +have the eyes ov the whole wurruld on him, an' his heart wint down to +his big toe as he watched the boys makin' their offers at the lep. But +no one of them was soople enough for the job, an' they kep on tumblin', +wan afther the other, into the strame; so that the poor prencess began +to look sorryful whin her favourite, a big hayro wid a colyeen (curls) a +yard long--an' more betoken he was a boy o' the Byrnes from Imayle--jist +tipped the bank forninst her wid his right fut, an' then twistin', like +a crow in the air scratchin' her head with her claw, he spraddled wide +open in the wather, and splashed about like a hake in a mudbank! Well, +me dear, Fan forgot himself, an' gev a screech like an aigle; an' wid +that, the ould king started, the ladies all screamed, an' Fan was +surrounded. In less than a minnit an' a half they dragged me bould Fan +be the collar ov his coat right straight around to the king himself. + +"What ould geochagh (beggar) have we now?" sez the king, lookin' very +hard at Fan. + +"I'm Fan MaCool!" sez the thief ov the wurruld, as cool as a frog. + +"Well, Fan MaCool or not," sez the king, mockin' him, "ye'll have to +jump the sthrame yander for freckenin' the lives clane out ov me +ladies," sez he, "an' for disturbin' our spoort ginerally," sez he. + +"An' what'll I get for that same?" sez Fan, lettin' on (pretending) he +was afeered. + +"Me daughter, Maynish," sez the king, wid a laugh; for he thought, ye +see, Fan would be drowned. + +"Me hand on the bargain," sez Fan; but the owld chap gev him a rap on +the knuckles wid his specktre (sceptre) an' towld him to hurry up, or +he'd get the ollaves (judges) to put him in the Black Dog pres'n or the +Marshals--I forgets which--it's so long gone by! + +Well, Fan peeled off his coatamore, an' threw away his bottheen ov a +stick, an' the prencess seein' his big body an' his long arums an' legs +like an oak tree, couldn't help remarkin' to her comrade, the craythur-- + +"Bedad, Cauth (Kate)," sez she, "but this beggarman is a fine bit of a +bouchal (boy)," sez she; "it's in the arumy (army) he ought to be," sez +she, lookin' at him agen, an' admirin' him, like. + +So, Fan, purtendin' to be fixin' his shoes be the bank, jist pulled two +lusmores (fox-gloves) an' put them anunder his heels; for thim wor the +fairies' own flowers that works all soort ov inchantment, an' he, ov +coorse, knew all about it; for he got the wrinkle from an ould lenaun +(fairy guardian) named Cleena, that nursed him when he was a little +stand-a-loney. + +Well, me dear, ye'd think it was on'y over a little creepie +(three-legged) stool he was leppin' whin he landed like a thrish jist at +the fut ov the prencess; an' his father's son he was, that put his two +arums around her, an' gev her a kiss--haith, ye'd hear the smack ov it +at the Castle o' Dublin. The ould king groaned like a corncrake, an' +pulled out his hair in hatfuls, an' at last he ordhered the bowld +beggarman off to be kilt; but, begorrah, when they tuck off weskit an' +seen the collar ov goold around Fan's neck the ould chap became +delighted, for he knew thin he had the commandher ov Airyun (Erin) for a +son-in-law. + +"Hello!" sez the king, "who have we now?" sez he, seein' the collar. +"Begonny's," sez he, "you're no boccagh (beggar) anyways!" + +"I'm Fan MaCool," sez the other, as impident as a cocksparra'; "have you +anything to say agen me?" for his name wasn't up, at that time, like +afther. + +"Ay lots to say agen you. How dar' you be comin' round this a-way, +dressed like a playacthor, takin' us in?" sez the king, lettin' on to be +vexed; "an' now," sez he, "to annoy you, you'll have to go an' jump back +agen afore you gets me daughter for puttin' on (deceiving) us in such a +manner." + +"Your will is my pleasure," sez Fan; "but I must have a word or two with +the girl first," sez he, an' up he goes an' commences talkin' soft to +her, an' the king got as mad as a hatther at the way the two were +croosheenin' an' colloguin' (whispering and talking), an' not mindin' +him no more than if he was the man in the moon, when who comes up but +the Prence of Imayle, afther dryin' himself, to put his pike in the hay +too. + +"Well, avochal (my boy)," sez Fan, "are you dry yet?" an' the Prencess +laughed like a bell round a cat's neck. + +"You think yourself a smart lad, I suppose," sez the other; "but there's +one thing you can't do wid all your prate!" + +"What's that?" sez Fan. "Maybe not" sez he. + +"You couldn't whistle and chaw oatenmale," sez the Prence ov Imayle, in +a pucker. "Are you any good at throwin' a stone?" sez he, then. + +"The best!" sez Fan, an' all the coort gother round like to a +cock-fight. "Where'll we throw to?" sez he. + +"In to'ards Dublin," sez the Prence ov Imayle; an' be all accounts he +was a great hand at cruistin (throwing). + +"Here goes pink," sez he, an' he ups with a stone, as big as a castle, +an' sends it flyin' in the air like a cannon ball, and it never stopped +till it landed on top ov the Three Rock Mountain. + +"I'm your masther!" sez Fan, pickin' up another clochaun (stone) an' +sendin' it a few perch beyant the first. + +"That you're not," sez the Prence ov Imayle, an' he done his best, an' +managed to send another finger stone beyant Fan's throw; an' sure, the +three stones are to be seen, be all the world, to this very day. + +"Well, me lad," says Fan, stoopin' for another as big as a hill, "I'm +sorry I have to bate you; but I can't help it," sez he, lookin' over at +the Prencess Maynish, an' she as mute as a mouse watchin' the two big +men, an' the ould king showin' fair play, as delighted as a child. +"Watch this," sez he, whirlin' his arm like a windmill, "and now put on +your spectacles," sez he; and away he sends the stone, buzzin' through +the air like a peggin'-top, over the other three clochauns, and then +across Dublin Bay, an' scrapin' the nose off ov Howth, it landed with a +swish in the say beyant it. That's the rock they calls Ireland's Eye +now! + +"Be the so an' so!" sez the king, "I don't know where that went to, at +all, at all! what direct did you send it?" sez he to Fan. "I had it in +view, till it went over the say," sez he. + +"I'm bet!" sez the Prence ov Imayle. "I couldn't pass that, for I can't +see where you put it, even--good-bye to yous," sez he, turnin' on his +heel an' makin' off; "an' may yous two be as happy as I can wish you!" +An' back he went to the butt ov Lugnaquilla, an' took to fret, an I +understand shortly afther he died ov a broken heart; an' they put a +turtle-dove on his tombstone to signify that he died for love; but I +think he overstrained himself, throwin', though that's nayther here nor +there with me story! + +"Are you goin' to lep back agen?" sez ould King Garry, wantin' to see +more sport; for he tuk as much delight in seein' the like as if he was a +lad ov twenty. + +"To be shure I will!" sez Fan, ready enough, "but I'll have to take the +girl over with me this time!" sez he. + +"Oh, no, Fan!" sez Maynish, afeered ov her life he might stumble an' +that he'd fall in with her; an' then she'd have to fall out with +him--"take me father with you," sez she; an' egonnys, the ould king +thought more about himself than any ov them, an' sed he'd take the will +for the deed, like the lawyers. So the weddin' went on; an' maybe that +wasn't the grand blow-out. But I can't stay to tell yous all the fun +they had for a fortnit; on'y, me dear, they all went into kinks ov +laughin', when the ould king, who tuk more than was good for him, stood +up to drink Fan's health, an' forgot himself. + +"Here's to'ards your good health, Fan MaCool!" sez he, as grand as you +like--"an' a long life to you, an' a happy wife to you--an' a great many +ov them!" sez he, like he'd forgot somethin'. + +Well, me dear, every one was splittin' their sides like the p'yates, +unless the prencess, an' she got as red in the face as if she was +churnin' in the winther an' the frost keepin' the crame from crackin'; +but she got over it like the maisles. + +But I suppose you can guess the remainder, an' as the evenin's gettin' +forrard I'll stop; so put down the kittle an' make tay, an' if Fan and +the Prencess Maynish didn't live happy together--that we may! + + + + +The Kildare Pooka. + +_From "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts."_ + +BY PATRICK KENNEDY.. + + +Mr. H---- H----, when he was alive, used to live a good deal in Dublin, +and he was once a great while out of the country on account of the +"ninety-eight" business. But the servants kept on in the big house at +Rath--all the same as if the family was at home. Well, they used to be +frightened out of their lives, after going to their beds, with the +banging of the kitchen door and the clattering of fire-irons and the +pots and plates and dishes. One evening they sat up ever so long keeping +one another in heart with stories about ghosts and that, when--what +would have it?--the little scullery boy that used to be sleeping over +the horses, and could not get room at the fire, crept into the hot +hearth, and when he got tired listening to the stories, sorra fear him, +but he fell dead asleep. + +Well and good. After they were all gone, and the kitchen raked up, he +was woke with the noise of the kitchen door opening, and the tramping of +an ass in the kitchen floor. He peeped out, and what should he see but a +big ass, sure enough, sitting on his curabingo and yawning before the +fire. After a little he looked about him, and began scratching his ears +as if he was quite tired, an', says he, "I may as well begin first as +last." The poor boy's teeth began to chatter in his head, for, says he, +"Now he's going to ate me"; but the fellow with the long ears and tail +on him had something else to do. He stirred the fire, and then brought +in a pail of water from the pump, and filled a big pot that he put on +the fire before he went out. He then put in his hand--foot, I mean--into +the hot hearth, and pulled out the little boy. He let a roar out of him +with fright. But the pooka only looked at him, and thrust out his lower +lip to show how little he valued him, and then he pitched him into his +pew again. + +Well, he then lay down before the fire till he heard the boil coming on +the water, and maybe there wasn't a plate, or a dish, or a spoon on the +dresser, that he didn't fetch and put into the pot, and wash and dry the +whole bilin' of 'em as well as e'er a kitchen maid from that to Dublin +town. He then put all of them up on their places on the shelves; and if +he didn't give a good sweepin' to the kitchen, leave it till again. Then +he comes and sits fornent the boy, let down one of his ears, and cocked +up the other, and gave a grin. The poor fellow strove to roar out, but +not a _dheeg_ (sound) ud come out of his throat. The last thing the +pooka done was to rake up the fire and walk out, giving such a slap o' +the door, that the boy thought the house couldn't help tumbling down. + +Well, to be sure, if there wasn't a hullabuloo next morning when the +poor fellow told his story! They could talk of nothing else the whole +day. One said one thing, another said another, but a fat, lazy scullery +girl said the wittiest thing of all. "Musha," says she, "if the pooka +does be cleaning up everything that way when we are asleep, what should +we be slaving ourselves for doing his work?" "_Sha gu dheine_" (yes, +indeed), says another, "them's the wisest words you ever said, Kauth; +it's meeself won't contradict you." + +So said, so done, not a bit of a plate or dish saw a drop of water that +evening, and not a besom was laid on the floor, and everyone went to bed +after sundown. Next morning everything was as fine as fine in the +kitchen, and the Lord Mayor might eat his dinner off the flags. It was +great ease to the lazy servants, you may depend, and everything went on +well till a foolhardy gag of a boy said he would stay up one night and +have a chat with the pooka. He was a little daunted when the door was +thrown open and the ass marched up to the fire. + +"And then, sir," says he, at last, picking up courage, "if it isn't +taking a liberty, might I ax you who you are, and why you are so kind as +to do a half a day's work for the girls every night?" "No liberty at +all," says the pooka, says he: "I'll tell you and welcome. I was a +servant in the time of Squire H----'s father, and was the laziest rogue +that was ever clothed and fed, and done nothing for it. When my time +came for the other world, this is the punishment was laid on me to come +here and do all this labour every night, and then go out in the cold. It +isn't so bad in the fine weather; but if you only knew what it was to +stand with your head between your legs, facing the storm from midnight +to sunrise on a bleak winter night." "And could we do anything for your +comfort, my poor fellow?" says the boy. "Musha, I don't know," says the +pooka: "but I think a good quilted frieze coat would help me to keep the +life in me them long nights." "Why, then, in truth, we'd be the +ungratefullest of people if we didn't feel for you." + +To make a long story short, the next night the boy was there again; and +if he didn't delight the poor pooka, holding a fine, warm coat before +him, it's no matther! Betune the pooka and the man, his legs was got +into the four arms of it, and it was buttoned down the breast and +belly, and he was so pleased he walked up to the glass to see how he +looked. "Well," says he, "it's a long lane that has no turning. I am +much obliged to you and your fellow servants. You have made me happy at +last. Good night to you." + +So he was walking out, but the other cried, "Och! sure you're going too +soon. What about the washing and sweeping?" "Ah, you may tell the girls +that they must now get their turn. My punishment was to last till I was +thought worthy of a reward for the way I done my duty. You'll see me no +more." And no more they did, and right sorry they were for having been +in such a hurry to reward the ungrateful pooka. + + + + +The Piper and the Puca. + +_From "An Sgeuluidhe Gaodhalach."_ + +BY DOUGLAS HYDE (1860--). + + +In the old times there was a half-fool living in Dunmore, in the County +Galway, and though he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to +learn more than one tune, and that was the "Black Rogue." He used to get +a deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out of +him. One night the Piper was coming home from a house where there had +been a dance, and he half-drunk. When he came up to a little bridge that +was by his mother's house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing +the "Black Rogue." The Puca came behind him, and flung him on his own +back. There were long horns on the Puca, and the Piper got a good grip +of them, and then he said:-- + +"Destruction on you, you nasty beast; let me home I have a tenpenny +piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff." + +"Never mind your mother," said the puca, "but keep your hold. If you +fall you will break your neck and your pipes." Then the Puca said to +him, "Play up for me the 'Shan Van Vocht.'" + +"I don't know it," said the Piper. + +"Never mind whether you do or you don't," said the Puca. "Play up, and +I'll make you know." + +The Piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself +wonder. + +"Upon my word, you're a fine music-master," says the Piper, then; "but +tell me where you're bringing me." + +"There's a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh +Patric to-night," says the Puca, "and I'm for bringing you there to play +music, and, take my word, you'll get the price of your trouble." + +"By my word, you'll save me a journey, then," says the Piper, "for +Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me because I stole the +white gander from him last Martinmas." + +The Puca rushed him across hills and bog and rough places, till he +brought him to the top of Croagh Patric. + +Then the Puca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened, +and they passed in together into a fine room. + +The Piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of +old women sitting round about it. + +The old woman rose up and said, "A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you +Puca of November. Who is this you have with you?" + +"The best Piper in Ireland," says the Puca. + +One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in +the side of the wall, and what should the Piper see coming out but the +white gander which he had stolen from Father William. + +"By my conscience, then," says the Piper, "myself and my mother ate +every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Red Mary, +and it's she told the priest I stole his gander." + +The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Puca said, +"Play up music for these ladies." + +The Piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they danced +till they tired. Then the Puca said to pay the Piper, and every old +woman drew out a gold piece and gave it to him. + +"By the tooth of Patric," says he, "I'm as rich as the son of a lord." + +"Come with me," says the Puca, "and I'll bring you home." + +They went out then, and just as he was going to ride on the Puca, the +gander came up to him and gave him a new set of pipes. + +The Puca was not long until he brought him to Dunmore, and he threw the +Piper off at the little bridge, and then he told him to go home, and +says to him, "You have two things now that you never had before--you +have sense and music." The Piper went home, and he knocked at his +mother's door, saying, "Let me in, I'm as rich as a lord, and I'm the +best Piper in Ireland." + +"You're drunk," says the mother. + +"No, indeed," says the Piper, "I haven't drunk a drop." + +The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, "Wait, +now," says he, "till you hear the music I play." + +He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music there came a sound as if +all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He +wakened all the neighbours, and they were all mocking him, until he put +on the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after +that he told them all he had gone through that night. + +The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there +was nothing there but the leaves of a plant. + +The Piper went to the priest and told him his story, but the priest +would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and +then the screeching of the ganders and the geese began. + +"Leave my sight, you thief," says the priest. + +But nothing would do the Piper till he put the old pipes on him to show +the priest that his story was true. + +He buckled on his old pipes, and played melodious music, and from that +day till the day of his death there was never a Piper in the County +Galway was as good as he was. + + + + +M'Carthy of Connacht. + +_From "Folk Tales of Breffny."_ + +BY B. HUNT. + + +There was a fine young gentleman the name of M'Carthy. He had a most +beautiful countenance, and for strength and prowess there was none to +equal him in the baronies of Connacht. But he began to dwine away, and +no person knew what ailed him. He used no food at all and he became +greatly reduced, the way he was not able to rise from his bed and he +letting horrid groans and lamentations out of him. His father sent for +three skilled doctors to come and find out what sort of disease it might +be, and a big reward was promised for the cure. + +Three noted doctors came on the one day and they searched every vein in +young M'Carthy's body, but they could put no name on the sickness nor +think of a remedy to relieve it. They came down from the room and +reported that the disease had them baffled entirely. + +"Am I to be at the loss of a son who is the finest boy in all Ireland?" +says the father. + +Now one of the doctors had a man with him who was a very soft-spoken +person, and he up and says: + +"Maybe your honours would be giving me permission to visit the young +gentleman. I have a tongue on me is that sweet I do be drawing the +secrets of the world out of men and women and little children." + +Well, they brought him up to the room and they left him alone with +M'Carthy. He sat down beside the bed and began for to flatter him. The +like of such conversation was never heard before. + +At long last he says, "Let your Lordship's honour be telling--What is it +ails you at all?" + +"You will never let on to a living soul?" asks M'Carthy. + +"Is it that I'd be lodging an information against a noble person like +yourself?" says the man. + +With that, the young gentleman began telling the secrets of his heart. + +"It is no disease is on me," says he, "but a terrible misfortune." + +"'Tis heart scalded I am that you have either a sorrow or a sickness, +and you grand to look on and better to listen to," says the other. + +"It is in love I am," says M'Carthy. + +"And how would that be a misfortune to a fine lad like yourself?" asks +the man. + +"Let you never let on!" says M'Carthy. "The way of it is this: I am +lamenting for no lady who is walking the world, nor for one who is dead +that I could be following to the grave. I have a little statue which has +the most beautiful countenance on it that was ever seen, and it is +destroyed with grief I am that it will never be speaking to me at all." + +With that he brought the image out from under his pillow, and the +loveliness of it made the man lep off the chair. + +"I'd be stealing the wee statue from your honour if I stopped in this +place," says he. "But let you take valour into your heart, for that is +the likeness of a lady who is living in the world, and you will be +finding her surely." + +With that he went down to the three doctors and the old man who were +waiting below. For all his promises to young M'Carthy, he told the lot +of them all he was after hearing. The doctors allowed that if the +gentleman's life was to be saved he must be got out of his bed and sent +away on his travels. + +"For a time he will be hopeful of finding her," says the oldest doctor. +"Then the whole notion will pass off him, and he seeing strange lands +and great wonders to divert him." + +The father was that anxious for the son's recovery that he agreed to +sell the place and give him a big handful of money for the journey. + +"It is little I'll be needing for myself from this out, and I an old man +near ripe for the grave," says he. + +So they all went up to the room and told young M'Carthy to rise from his +bed and eat a good dinner, for the grandest arrangements out were made +for his future and he'd surely meet the lady. When he seen that no +person was mocking him he got into the best of humour, and he came down +and feasted with them. + +Not a long time afterwards he took the big handful of money and set out +on his travels, bringing the statue with him. He went over the provinces +of Ireland, then he took sea to England, and wandered it entirely, away +to France with him next, and from that to every art and part of the +world. He had the strangest adventures, and he seen more wonders than +could ever be told or remembered. At the latter end he came back to the +old country again, with no more nor a coin or two left of the whole +great fortune of money. The whole time he never seen a lady who was the +least like the wee statue; and the words of the old doctor were only a +deceit for he didn't quit thinking of her at all. M'Carthy was a +handsome young gentleman, and if it was small heed he had for any +person he met it was great notice was taken of him. Sure it was a queen, +no less, and five or six princesses were thinking long thoughts on +himself. + +The hope was near dead in his heart, and the sickness of grief was on +him again when he came home to Ireland. Soon after he landed from the +ship he chanced to come on a gentleman's place, and it a fine, big house +he never had seen before. He went up and inquired of the servants if he +would get leave to rest there. He was given a most honourable reception, +and the master of the house was well pleased to be entertaining such an +agreeable guest. Now himself happened to be a Jew, and that is the why +he did not ask M'Carthy to eat at his table, but had his dinner set out +for him in a separate room. The servants remarked on the small share of +food he was using, it was scarcely what would keep the life in a young +child; but he asked them not to make any observation of the sort. At +first they obeyed him, yet when he used no meat at all on the third day, +didn't they speak with their master. + +"What is the cause of it at all?" he says to M'Carthy. "Is the food in +this place not to your liking? Let you name any dish you have a craving +for, and the cook will prepare it." + +"There was never better refreshment set before an emperor," says +M'Carthy. + +"It is civility makes you that flattering," answers the Jew. "How would +you be satisfied with the meat which is set before you when you are not +able to use any portion of it at all?" + +"I doubt I have a sickness on me will be the means of my death," says +M'Carthy. "I had best be moving on from this place, the way I'll not be +rewarding your kindness with the botheration of a corpse." + +With that the master of the house began for to speak in praise of a +doctor who was in those parts. + +"I see I must be telling you what is in it," says M'Carthy. "Doctors +have no relief for the sort of tribulation is destroying me." + +He brought out the statue, and he went over the whole story from start +to finish. How he set off on his travels and was hopeful for a while; +and how despair got hold of him again. + +"Let you be rejoicing now," says the Jew, "for it is near that lady you +are this day. She comes down to a stream which is convenient to this +place, and six waiting maids along with her, bringing a rod and line for +to fish. And it is always at the one hour she is in it." + +Well, M'Carthy was lepping wild with delight to hear tell of the lady. + +"Let you do all I'm saying," the Jew advises him. "I'll provide you with +the best of fishing tackle, and do you go down to the stream for to fish +in it, too. Whatever comes to your line let you give to the lady. But +say nothing which might scare her at all, and don't follow after her if +she turns to go home." + +The next day M'Carthy went out for to fish; not a long time was he at +the stream before the lady came down and the six waiting maids along +with her. Sure enough she was the picture of the statue, and she had the +loveliest golden hair ever seen. + +M'Carthy had the luck to catch a noble trout, and he took it off the +hook, rolled it in leaves, and brought it to the lady, according to the +advice of the Jew. She was pleased to accept the gift of it, but didn't +she turn home at once and the six waiting maids along with her. When +she went into her own house she took the fish to her father. + +"There was a noble person at the stream this day," she says, "and he +made me a present of the trout." + +Next morning M'Carthy went to fish again, and he seen the lady coming +and her six waiting maids walking behind her. He caught a splendid fine +trout and brought it over to her; with that she turned home at once. + +"Father," says she, when she went in, "the gentleman is after giving me +a fish which is bigger and better nor the one I brought back yesterday. +If the like happens at the next time I go to the stream I will be +inviting the noble person to partake of refreshment in this place." + +"Let you do as best pleases yourself," says her father. + +Well, sure enough, M'Carthy got the biggest trout of all the third time. +The lady was in the height of humour, and she asked would he go up to +the house with her that day. She walked with M'Carthy beside her, and +the six waiting maids behind them. They conversed very pleasantly +together, and at last he found courage for to tell her of how he +travelled the world to seek no person less than herself. + +"I'm fearing you'll need to set out on a second journey, the way you +will be coming in with some other one," says she. "I have an old father +who is after refusing two score of suitors who were asking me off him. I +do be thinking I'll not be joining the world at all, unless a king would +be persuading himself of the advancement there is in having a son-in-law +wearing a golden crown upon his head. The whole time it is great freedom +I have, and I walking where it pleases me with six waiting maids along +with me. The old man has a notion they'd inform him if I was up to any +diversion, but that is not the way of it at all." + +"It is funning you are, surely," says M'Carthy. "If himself is that +uneasy about you how would it be possible you'd bring me to the house to +be speaking with him?" + +"He is a kindly man and reasonable," says she, "and it is a good +reception you'll be getting. Only let you not be speaking of marriage +with me, for he cannot endure to hear tell of the like." + +Well, the old man made M'Carthy welcome, and he had no suspicion the two +were in notion of each other. But didn't they arrange all unbeknownt to +him, and plan out an elopement. + +M'Carthy went back to the Jew, and he told him all. "But," says he, "I +am after spending my whole great fortune of money travelling the +territory of the world. I must be finding a good situation the way I'll +make suitable provision for herself." + +"Don't be in the least distress," says the Jew. "I did not befriend you +this far to be leaving you in a bad case at the latter end. I'll oblige +you with the loan of what money will start you in a fine place. You will +be making repayment at the end of three years when you have made your +profit on the business." + +The young gentleman accepted the offer, and he fair wild with delight. +Moreover, the Jew gave himself and the lady grand assistance at the +elopement, the way they got safe out of it and escaped from her father, +who was raging in pursuit. + +M'Carthy was rejoicing surely, and he married to a wife who was the +picture of the statue. Herself was in the best of humour, too, for it +was small delight she had in her own place, roaming the fields or +stopping within and six waiting maids along with her. A fine, handsome +husband was the right company for her like. They bought a lovely house +and farm of land with the money which was lent by the Jew; and they +fixed all the grandest ever was seen. After a while M'Carthy got a good +commission to be an officer, the way nothing more in the world was +needful to their happiness. + +M'Carthy and his lady had a fine life of it, they lacking for no comfort +or splendour at all. The officer's commission he had brought himself +over to England from time to time, and the lady M'Carthy would mind all +until he was home. He saved up what money was superfluous, and all was +gathered to repay the loan to the Jew only for a few pounds. + +Well, it happened that M'Carthy went to England, and there he fell in +with a droll sort of a man, who was the best company. They played cards +together and they drank a great power of wine. In the latter end a +dispute came about between them, for they both claimed to have the best +woman. + +"I have a lady beyond in Ireland," says M'Carthy, "and she is an +ornament to the roads when she is passing alone. But no person gets +seeing her these times, and that is a big misfortune to the world." + +"What's the cause?" asks the Englishman. + +"I'd have a grief on me to think another man might be looking on her and +I not standing by," says M'Carthy. "So she gives me that satisfaction on +her promised word: all the time I do be away she never quits the house, +and no man body is allowed within." + +The Englishman let a great laugh out of him at the words. + +"You are simple enough!" says he. "Don't you know rightly when you are +not in it, herself will be feasting and entertaining and going on with +every diversion?" + +M'Carthy was raging at the impertinence of him, and he offered for to +fight. + +"What would that be proving?" says the Englishman. "Let you make a +powerful big bet with myself that I will not be able for to bring you a +token from your lady and a full description of her appearance." + +"I'll be winning the money off you, surely!" says M'Carthy. + +"Not at all," says the Englishman. "I'm not in the least uneasy about +it, for I'm full sure it's the truth I'm after speaking of how she does +be playing herself in your absence." + +"You'll find me in this place and you coming back." says M'Carthy. "Let +you be prepared with the money to have along with you." + +The Englishman took ship to Ireland, and he came to the house of the +lady M'Carthy. Herself was in the kitchen making a cake, and she seen +the man walking up to the door. Away she run to the parlour, and in the +hurry she forgot the lovely pearl ring she took off her finger when she +began at the cooking. Well, he found the door standing open, and he seen +the ring on the kitchen table. It was easy knowing it was no common +article would be in the possession of any one but the mistress of the +house. What did the lad do, only slip in and put it in his pocket. With +that the waiting maid came and asked his business, the lady M'Carthy was +after sending her down. + +"Oh, no business at all," says he. "But I am weary travelling and I +thought I might rest at this place." + +He began for to flatter the girl and to offer her bribes, and in the +latter end he got her to speak. She told him all what the mistress of +the house was like; how she had a mole under her right arm, and one on +her left knee. Moreover she gave him a few long golden hairs she got out +of the lady's comb. + +The Englishman went back to M'Carthy, brought him the tokens, and +demanded the payment of the bet. And that is the way the poor gentleman +spent the money he had saved up for the Jew. + +M'Carthy sent word to his wife that he was coming home, and for her to +meet him on the ship. She put her grandest raiment upon her and started +away at once. She went out to the ship and got up on the deck where she +seen her husband standing. When she went over to him he never said a +word at all, but he swept her aside with his arm the way she fell into +the water. Then he went on shore full sure he had her drowned. + +But there was another ship coming in, and a miller that was on her seen +the lady struggling in the sea. He was an aged man, yet he ventured in +after her and he saved the poor creature's life. + +Well, the miller was a good sort of a man and he had great compassion +for herself when she told him her story. She had no knowledge of the +cause of her husband being vexed with her, and she thought it hard to +believe the evidence of her senses that he was after striving to make +away with her. The miller advised the lady M'Carthy to go on with the +ship, which was sailing to another port, for maybe if she went home +after the man he would be destroying her. + +When the ship came into the harbour the news was going of a great +lawsuit. + +The miller heard all, and he brought word to the lady that M'Carthy was +in danger of death. + +"There are three charges against him," says the miller. "Your father has +him impeached for stealing you away, and you not wishful to be with him: +that is the first crime." + +"That is a false charge," says she, "for I helped for to plan the whole +elopement. My father is surely saying all in good faith, but it is a lie +the whole time." + +"A Jew has him accused for a sum of money he borrowed, and it was due +for repayment: that is the second crime," says the miller. + +"The money was all gathered up for to pay the debt," says the lady. +"Where can it be if M'Carthy will not produce it?" + +"The law has him committed for the murder of yourself: and that is the +third crime," says the miller. + +"And a false charge, too, seeing you saved me in that ill hour. I am +thinking I'd do well to be giving evidence in a court of law, for it's +maybe an inglorious death they'll be giving him," says she. + +"Isn't that what he laid out for yourself?" asks the miller. + +"It is surely, whatever madness came on him. But I have a good wish for +him the whole time." + +"If that is the way of it we had best be setting out," says he. + +The lady and the miller travelled overland, it being a shorter journey +nor the one they were after coming by sea. When they got to the court of +law wasn't the judge after condemning M'Carthy; and it was little the +poor gentleman cared for the sentence of death was passed on him. + +"My life is bitter and poisoned on me," says he; "maybe the grave is the +best place." + +With that the lady M'Carthy stood up in the court and gave out that she +had not been destroyed at all, for the miller saved her from the sea. + +They began the whole trial over again, and herself told how she planned +the elopement, and her father had no case at all. She could not tell why +M'Carthy was wishful to destroy her, and he had kept all to himself at +the first trial. But by degrees all was brought to light: the villainy +of the Englishman and the deceit was practised on them by him and the +servant girl. + +It was decreed that the money was to be restored by that villain, and +the Jew was to get his payment out of it. + +The lady M'Carthy's father was in such rejoicement to see his daughter, +and she alive, that he forgave herself and the husband for the +elopement. Didn't the three of them go away home together and they the +happiest people who were ever heard tell of in the world. + + + + +The Mad Pudding of Ballyboulteen. + +BY WILLIAM CARLETON (1794-1869). + + +"Moll Roe Rafferty, the daughter of ould Jack Rafferty, was a fine, +young bouncin' girl, large an' lavish, wid a purty head of hair on +her--scarlet--that bein' one of the raisons why she was called Roe, or +red; her arms and cheeks were much the colour of her hair, an' her +saddle nose was the purtiest thing of its kind that ever was on a face. + +"Well, anyhow, it was Moll Rafferty that was the dilsy. It happened that +there was a nate vagabone in the neighbourhood, just as much +overburdened wid beauty as herself, and he was named Gusty Gillespie. +Gusty was what they call a black-mouth Prosbytarian, and wouldn't keep +Christmas Day, except what they call 'ould style.' Gusty was rather +good-lookin', when seen in the dark, as well as Moll herself; anyhow, +they got attached to each other, and in the end everything was arranged +for their marriage. + +"Now this was the first marriage that had happened for a long time in +the neighbourhood between a Prodestant and a Catholic, and faix, there +was of the bride's uncles, ould Harry Connolly, a fairyman, who could +cure all complaints wid a secret he had, and as he didn't wish to see +his niece married to sich a fellow, he fought bitterly against the +match. All Moll's friends, however, stood up for the marriage, barrin' +him, and, of coorse, the Sunday was appointed, as I said, that they were +to be dove-tailed together. + +"Well, the day arrived, and Moll, as became her, went to Mass, and Gusty +to meeting, afther which they were to join one another in Jack +Rafferty's, where the priest, Father McSorley was to slip up afther Mass +to take his dinner wid them, and to keep Mister McShuttle, who was to +marry them, company. Nobody remained at home but ould Jack Rafferty an' +his wife, who stopped to dress for dinner, for, to tell the truth, it +was to be a great let-out entirely. Maybe if all was known, too, Father +McSorley was to give them a cast of his office over and above the +ministher, in regard that Moll's friends were not altogether satisfied +at the kind of marriage which McShuttle could give them. The sorrow may +care about that--splice here, splice there--all I can say is that when +Mrs. Rafferty was goin' to tie up a big bag pudden, in walks Harry +Connolly, the fairyman, in a rage, and shouts, 'Blood and +blunder-bushes, what are yez here for?' + +"'Arrah, why, Harry? Why, avick?' + +"'Why, the sun's in the suds, and the moon in the high Horricks; there's +a clip-stick comin' on, and there you're both as unconsarned as if it +was about to rain mether. Go out an' cross yourselves three times in the +name o' the four Mandromarvins, for, as the prophecy says:--'Fill the +pot, Eddy, supernaculum--a blazin' star's a rare spectaculum.' Go out, +both of you, an' look at the sun, I say, an' ye'll see the condition +he's in--off!' + +"Begad, sure enough, Jack gave a bounce to the door, and his wife leaped +like a two-year-ould, till they were both got on a stile beside the +house to see what was wrong in the sky. + +"'Arrah, what is it, Jack?' says she, 'can you see anything?' + +"'No,' says he, 'sorra the full of my eye of anything I can spy, barrin' +the sun himself, that's not visible, in regard of the clouds. God guard +us! I doubt there's something to happen.' + +"'If there wasn't, Jack, what'd put Harry, that knows so much, in that +state he's in?' + +"'I doubt it's this marriage,' says Jack. 'Betune ourselves, it's not +over an' above religious of Moll to marry a black-mouth, an' only for--; +but, it can't be helped now, though you see it's not a taste o' the sun +is willing to show his face upon it.' + +"'As to that,' says his wife, winkin' with both eyes, 'if Gusty's +satisfied with Moll, it's enough. I know who'll carry the whip hand, +anyhow; but in the manetime let us ax Harry within what ails the sun?' + +"Well, they accordingly went in, and put this question to him, 'Harry, +what's wrong, ahagur? What is it now, for if anybody alive knows 'tis +yourself?' + +"'Ah,' said Harry, screwin' his mouth wid a kind of a dry smile, 'The +sun has a hard twist o' the colic; but never mind that, I tell you, +you'll have a merrier weddin' than you think, that's all'; and havin' +said this, he put on his hat and left the house. + +"Now, Harry's answer relieved them very much, and so, afther callin' to +him to be back for dinner, Jack sat down to take a shough o' the pipe, +and the wife lost no time in tying up the pudden, and puttin' it in the +pot to be boiled. + +"In this way things went on well enough for a while, Jack smokin' away +an' the wife cookin' an' dressin' at the rate of a hunt. At last, Jack, +while sittin', I said, contently at the fire, thought he could persave +an odd dancin' kind of motion in the pot that puzzled him a good deal. + +"'Katty,' says he, 'what in the dickens is in this pot on the fire?' + +"'Nerra a thing but the big pudden. Why do you ax?' says she. + +"'Why,' says he, 'if ever a pot tuk it into its head to dance a jig, +this did. Thunder and sparbles, look at it!' + +"Begad, and it was thrue enough; there was the pot bobbin' up an' down, +and from side to side, jiggin' it away as merry as a grig; an' it was +quite aisy to see that it wasn't the pot itself, but what was inside it, +that brought about the hornpipe. + +"'Be the hole o' my coat,' shouted Jack, 'there's somethin' alive in it, +or it would niver cut sich capers!' + +"'Begorra, there is, Jack; something sthrange entirely has got into it. +Wirra, man alive, what's to be done?' + +"Jist as she spoke the pot seemed to cut the buckle in prime style, and +afther a spring that'd shame a dancin' masther, off flew the lid, and +out bounced the pudden itself, hoppin' as nimble as a pea on a drum-head +about the floor. Jack blessed himself, and Katty crossed herself. Jack +shouted and Katty screamed. 'In the name of goodness, keep your +distance; no one here injured you!' + +"The pudden, however, made a set at him, and Jack lepped first on a +chair, and then on the kitchen table, to avoid it. It then danced +towards Katty, who was repatin' her prayers at the top of her voice, +while the cunnin' thief of a pudden was hoppin' an' jiggin' it around +her as if it was amused at her distress. + +"'If I could get a pitchfork,' says Jack, 'I'd dale wid it--by goxty, +I'd thry its mettle.' + +"'No, no,' shouted Katty, thinkin' there was a fairy in it; 'let us +spake it fair. Who knows what harm it might do? Aisy, now,' says she to +the pudden; 'aisy, dear; don't harm honest people that never meant to +offend you. It wasn't us--no, in troth, it was ould Harry Connolly that +bewitched you; pursue him, if you wish, but spare a woman like me!' + +"The pudden, bedad, seemed to take her at her word, and danced away from +her towards Jack, who, like the wife, believin' there was a fairy in it, +an' that spakin' it fair was the best plan, thought he would give it a +soft word as well as her. + +"'Plase your honour,' said Jack, 'she only spakes the truth, an' upon my +voracity, we both feels much obliged to you for your quietness. Faith, +it's quite clear that if you weren't a gentleman pudden, all out, you'd +act otherwise. Ould Harry, the rogue, is your mark; he's jist down the +road there, and if you go fast you'll overtake him. Be my song, your +dancin'-masther did his duty, anyway. Thank your honour! God speed you, +and may you niver meet wid a parson or alderman in your thravels.' + +"Jist as Jack spoke, the pudden appeared to take the hint, for it +quietly hopped out, and as the house was directly on the roadside, +turned down towards the bridge, the very way that ould Harry went. It +was very natural, of coorse, that Jack and Katty should go and see how +it intended to thravel, and as the day was Sunday, it was but natural +too, that a greater number of people than usual were passin' the road. +This was a fact; and when Jack and his wife were seen followin' the +pudden, the whole neighbourhood was soon up and after it. + +"'Jack Rafferty, what is it? Katty, ahagur, will you tell us what it +manes?' + +"'Why,' replied Katty, 'it's my big pudden that's bewitched, an' it's +out hot pursuin'--here she stopped, not wishin' to mention her brother's +name--'someone or other that surely put pishrogues (a fairy spell) an +it.' + +"This was enough; Jack, now seein' he had assistance, found his courage +comin' back to him; so says he to Katty, 'Go home,' says he, 'an' lose +no time in makin' another pudden as good, an' here's Paddy Scanlan's +wife Bridget says she'll let you boil it on her fire, as you'll want our +own to dress for dinner; and Paddy himself will lend me a pitchfork, for +pursuin' to the morsel of that same pudden will escape, till I let the +wind out of it, now that I've the neighbours to back an' support me,' +says Jack. + +"This was agreed to, an' Katty went back to prepare a fresh pudden, +while Jack an' half the townland pursued the other wid spades, graips, +pitchforks, scythes, flails, and all possible description of +instruments. On the pudden went, however, at the rate of about six Irish +miles an hour, an' sich a chase was never seen. Catholics, Prodestants, +and Prosbytarians were all afther it, armed, as I said, an' bad end to +the thing but its own activity could save it. Here it made a hop, there +a prod was made at it, but off it went, and someone, as eager to get a +slice at it on the other side, got the prod instead of the pudden. Big +Frank Farrell, the miller, of Ballyboulteen, got a prod backwards that +brought a hullabulloo out of him that you might hear at the other end of +the parish. One got a slice of the scythe, another a whack of a flail, a +third a rap of the spade, that made him look nine ways at wanst. + +"'Where is it goin'?' asked one. 'My life for you, it's on its way to +meeting. Three cheers for it, if it turns to Carntaul!' 'Prod the sowl +out of it if it's a Prodestan,' shouted the others; 'if it turns to the +left, slice it into pancakes. We'll have no Prodestan' puddens here.' + +"Begad, by this time the people were on the point of begginnin' to have +a regular fight about it, when, very fortunately, it took a short turn +down a little by-lane that led towards the Methodist praychin'-house, +an' in an instant all parties were in an uproar against it as a +Methodist pudden. 'It's a Wesleyan,' shouted several voices; 'an' by +this an' by that, into a Methodist chapel it won't put a foot to-day, or +we'll lose a fall. Let the wind out of it. Come, boys, where's your +pitchforks?' + +"The divil pursuin' to the one of them, however, ever could touch the +pudden, and jist when they thought they had it up against the gravel of +the Methodist chapel, begad, it gave them the slip, and hops over to the +left, clane into the river, and sails away before their eyes as light as +an egg-shell. + +"Now, it so happened that a little below this place the demesne wall of +Colonel Bragshaw was built up to the very edge of the river on each side +of its banks; and so, findin' there was a stop put to their pursuit of +it, they went home again, every man, woman, and child of them, puzzled +to think what the pudden was at all, what it meant, or where it was +goin'. Had Jack Rafferty an' his wife been willin' to let out the +opinion they held about Harry Connolly bewitchin' it, there is no doubt +of it but poor Harry might be badly trated by the crowd, when their +blood was up. They had sense enough, howaniver, to keep that to +themselves, for Harry, bein' an ould bachelor, was a kind friend to the +Raffertys. So, of coorse, there was all kinds of talk about it--some +guessin' this, an' some guessin' that--one party sayin' the pudden was +of their side, and another denyin' it, an' insisting it belonged to +them, an' so on. + +"In the meantime, Katty Rafferty for 'fraid the dinner might come short, +went home and made another pudden much about the same size as the one +that had escaped, an' bringing it over to their next neighbour, Paddy +Scanlan's, it was put into a pot, and placed on the fire to boil, hopin' +that it might be done in time, espishilly as they were to have the +ministher, who loved a warm slice of a good pudden as well as e'er a +gentleman in Europe. + +"Anyhow, the day passed; Moll and Gusty were made man an' wife, an' no +two could be more lovin'. Their friends that had been asked to the +weddin' were saunterin' about in the pleasant little groups till +dinner-time, chattin' an' laughin'; but, above all things, sthrivin' to +account for the figaries of the pudden; for, to tell the truth, its +adventures had now gone through the whole parish. + +"Well, at any rate, dinner-time was drawin' near, and Paddy Scanlan was +sittin' comfortably wid his wife at the fire, the pudden boilin' before +their eyes when in walks Harry Connolly in a flutter, shoutin' 'Blood +and blunder-bushes, what are yez here for?' + +"'Arrah, why, Harry--why, avick?' said Mrs. Scanlan. + +"'Why,' said Harry, 'the sun's in the suds, an' the moon in the high +Horricks! Here's a clipstick comin' on, an' there you sit as +unconsarned as if it was about to rain mether! Go out, both of you, an' +look at the sun, I say, an' ye'll see the condition he's in--off!' + +"'Ay, but, Harry, what's that rowled up in the tail of your cothamore +(big coat)?' + +"'Out wid yez,' says Harry, 'an' pray against the clipstick--the sky's +fallin'!' + +"Begad, it was hard to say whether Paddy or the wife got out first, they +were so much alarmed by Harry's wild, thin face and piercin' eyes; so +out they went to see what was wonderful in the sky, an' kep lookin' in +every direction, but not a thing was to be seen, barrin' the sun shinin' +down wid great good-humour, an' not a single cloud in the sky. + +"Paddy an' the wife now came in laughin' to scould Harry, who, no doubt, +was a great wag in his way when he wished. 'Musha, bad scran to you, +Harry--' and they had time to say no more, howandiver, for, as they were +goin' into the door, they met him comin' out of it, wid a reek of smoke +out of his tail like a limekiln. + +"'Harry,' shouted Bridget, 'my sowl to glory, but the tail of your +cothamore's afire--you'll be burned. Don't you see the smoke that's out +of it?' + +"'Cross yourselves three times,' said Harry, without stoppin' or even +lookin' behind him, 'for as the prophecy says, Fill the pot, Eddy--' +They could hear no more, for Harry appeared to feel like a man that +carried something a great deal hotter than he wished, as anyone might +see by the liveliness of his motions, and the quare faces he was forced +to make as he went along. + +"'What the dickens is he carryin' in the skirts of his big coat?' asked +Paddy. + +"'My sowl to happiness, but maybe he has stolen the pudden,' said +Bridget, 'for it's known that many a sthrange thing he does.' + +"They immediately examined the pot, but found that the pudden was there, +as safe as tuppence, an' this puzzled them the more to think what it was +he could be carryin' about with him in the manner he did. But little +they knew what he had done while they were sky-gazin'! + +"Well, anyhow, the day passed, and the dinner was ready an' no doubt but +a fine gatherin' there was to partake of it. The Prosbytarian ministher +met the Methodist praycher--a divilish stretcher of an appetite he had, +in throth--on his way to Jack Rafferty's, an' as he knew he could take +the liberty, why, he insisted on his dining wid him; for, afther all, in +thim days the clergy of all descriptions lived upon the best footin' +among one another not all at one as now--but no matther. Well, they had +nearly finished their dinner, when Jack Rafferty himself axed Katty for +the pudden; but jist as he spoke, in it came, as big as a mess-pot. + +"'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I hope none of you will refuse tastin' a bit of +Katty's pudden; I don't mane the dancin' one that took to its thravels +to-day, but a good, solid fellow that she med since.' + +"'To be sure we won't,' replied the priest. 'So, Jack, put a thrifle on +them three plates at your right hand, and send them over here to the +clargy, an' maybe,' he said, laughin'--for he was a droll, good-humoured +man--'maybe, Jack, we won't set you a proper example.' + +"'Wid a heart an' a half, your riverence an' gintlemen; in throth, it's +not a bad example ever any of you set us at the likes, or ever will set +us, I'll go bail. An' sure, I only wish it was betther fare I had for +you; but we're humble people, gintlemen, an' so you can't expect to meet +here what you would in higher places.' + +"'Betther a male of herbs,' said the Methodist praycher, 'where pace +is--' He had time to go no further, however; for, much to his amazement, +the priest an' the ministher started up from the table, jist as he was +going to swallow the first mouthful of the pudden, and, before you could +say Jack Robinson, started away at a lively jig down the floor. + +"At this moment a neighbour's son came runnin' in, and tould them that +the parson was comin' to see the new-married couple, an' wish them all +happiness; an' the words were scarcely out of his mouth when he made his +appearance. What to think he knew not, when he saw the ministher footin' +it away at the rate of a weddin'. He had very little time, however, to +think; for, before he could sit down, up starts the Methodist praycher, +an', clappin' his fists in his sides, chimes in in great style along wid +him. + +"'Jack Rafferty,' says he, and, by the way, Jack was his tenant, 'what +the dickens does all this mane?' says he; 'I'm amazed!' + +"'Then not a particle o' me can tell you,' says Jack; 'but will your +reverence jist taste a morsel o' pudden, merely that the young couple +may boast that you ait at their weddin'; 'for sure, if you wouldn't, who +would?' + +"'Well,' says he, to gratify them, I will; so, just a morsel. But, Jack, +this bates Banagher,' says he again, puttin' the spoonful of pudden into +his mouth; 'has there been drink here?' + +"'Oh, the divil a spudh,' says Jack, 'for although there's plenty in +the house, faith, it appears the gentlemen wouldn't wait for it. Unless +they tuck it elsewhere, I can make nothin' o' this.' + +"He had scarcely spoken when the parson, who was an active man, cut a +caper a yard high, an' before you could bless yourself, the three clargy +were hard at work dancin', as if for a wager. Begad, it would be +unpossible for me to tell you the state the whole meetin' was in when +they see this. Some were hoarse wid laughin'; some turned up their eyes +wid wondher; many thought them mad; and others thought they had turned +up their little fingers a thrifle too often. + +"'Be Goxty, it's a burnin' shame,' said one, 'to see three black-mouth +clargy in sich a state at this early hour!'" 'Thunder an' ounze, what's +over them all?' says others; 'why, one would think they were bewitched. +Holy Moses, look at the caper the Methodist cuts! An' as for the +Recthor, who would think he could handle his feet at sich a rate! Be +this, an' be that, he cuts the buckle, an' does the threblin' step +aiquil to Paddy Horaghan, the dancin'-masther himself! An' see! Bad cess +to the morsel of the parson that's not too hard at "Pease upon a +Trancher," and it upon a Sunday, too! Whirroo, gintlemen, the fun's in +yez, afther all--whish! more power to yez!' + +"The sorra's own fun they had, an' no wondher; but judge of what they +felt when all at once they saw ould Jack Rafferty himself bouncin' in +among them, an' footin' it away like the best of them. Bedad, no play +could come up to it, an' nothin' could be heard but laughin', shouts of +encouragement, an' clappin' of hands like mad. Now, the minute Jack +Rafferty left the chair, where he had been carvin' the pudden, ould +Harry Connolly come over and claps himself down in his place, in ordher +to send it round, of coorse; an' he was scarcely sated when who should +make his appearance but Barney Hartigan, the piper. Barney, by the way, +had been sent for early in the day, but, bein' from home when the +message for him came, he couldn't come any sooner. + +"'Begorra' says Barney, 'you're airly at the work, gintlemen! But what +does this mane? But divel may care, yez shan't want the music, while +there's a blast in the pipes, anyhow!' So sayin' he gave them "Jig +Polthogue," and afther that, "Kiss my Lady" in his best style. + +"In the manetime the fun went on thick and threefold, for it must be +remembered that Harry, the ould knave, was at the pudden; an' maybe, he +didn't sarve it about in double-quick time, too! The first he helped was +the bride, and before you could say chopstick she was at it hard and +fast, before the Methodist praycher, who gave a jolly spring before her +that threw them all into convulsions. Harry liked this, and made up his +mind soon to find partners for the rest; an', to make a long story +short, barrin' the piper an' himself, there wasn't a pair of heels in +the house but was busy at the dancin' as if their lives depended on it. + +"'Barney,' says Harry, 'jist taste a morsel o' this pudden; divil the +sich a bully of a pudden ever you ett. Here, your sowl! thry a snig of +it--it's beautiful!' + +"'To be sure I will,' says Barney. 'I'm not the boy to refuse a good +thing. But, Harry, be quick, for you know my hands is engaged, an' it +would be a thousand pities not to keep them in music, an' they so well +inclined. Thank you, Harry. Begad, that is a fine pudden. But, blood an' +turnips! what's this for?' + +"The words was scarcely out of his mouth when he bounced up, pipes an' +all, and dashed into the middle of the party. 'Hurroo! your sowls, let +us make a night of it! The Ballyboulteen boys for ever! Go it, your +reverence!--turn your partner--heel and toe, ministher. Good! Well done, +again! Whish! Hurroo! Here's for Ballyboulteen, an' the sky over it!' + +"Bad luck to sich a set ever was seen together in this world, or will +again, I suppose. The worst, however, wasn't come yet, for jist as they +were in the very heat' an' fury of the dance, what do you think comes +hoppin' in among them but another pudden, as nimble an' merry as the +first! That was enough; they had all heard of it--the ministhers among +the rest--an' most of them had seen the other pudden, an' knew that +there must be a fairy in it, sure enough. Well, as I said, in it comes, +to the thick o' them; but the very appearance of it was enough. Off the +three clergymen danced, and off the whole weddiners danced, afther them, +everyone makin' the best of their way home, but not a sowl of them able +to break out of the step, if they were to be hanged for it. Troth, it +wouldn't lave a laff in you to see the parson dancin' down the road on +his way home, and the ministher and Methodist praycher cuttin' the +buckle as they went along in the opposite direction. To make short work +of it, they all danced home at last wid scarce a puff of wind in them; +and the bride an' bridegroom danced away to bed." + + + + +Frank Webber's Wager. + +_From "Charles O'Malley."_ + +BY CHARLES LEVER (1806-1872). + + +I was sitting at breakfast with Webber, when Power came in hastily. + +"Ha, the very man!" said he. "I say, O'Malley, here's an invitation for +you from Sir George to dine on Friday. He desired me to say a thousand +civil things about his not having made you out, regrets that he was not +at home when you called yesterday, and all that." + +"By the way," said Webber, "wasn't Sir George Dashwood down in the West +lately? Do you know what took him there?" + +"Oh," said Power, "I can enlighten you. He got his wife west of the +Shannon--a vulgar woman. She is now dead, and the only vestige of his +unfortunate matrimonial connexion is a correspondence kept up with him +by a maiden sister of his late wife's. She insists upon claiming the +ties of kindred upon about twenty family eras during the year, when she +regularly writes a most loving and ill-spelled epistle, containing the +latest information from Mayo, with all particulars of the Macan family, +of which she is a worthy member. To her constant hints of the acceptable +nature of certain small remittances the poor General is never +inattentive; but to the pleasing prospects of a visit in the flesh from +Miss Judy Macan, the good man is dead." + +"Then, he has never yet seen her?" + +"Never, and he hopes to leave Ireland without that blessing?" + +"I say, Power, and has your worthy General sent me a card for his ball?" + +"Not through me, Master Frank. Sir George must really be excused in this +matter. He has a most attractive, lovely daughter, just at that budding, +unsuspecting age when the heart is most susceptible of impressions; and +where, let me ask, could she run such a risk as in the chance of a +casual meeting with the redoubted lady-killer, Master Frank Webber?" + +"A very strong case, certainly," said Frank; "but still, had he confided +his critical position to my honour and secrecy, he might have depended +on me; now, having taken the other line, he must abide the consequences. +I'll make fierce love to Lucy." + +"But how, may I ask, and when?" + +"I'll begin at the ball, man." + +"Why, I thought you said you were not going?" + +"There you mistake seriously. I merely said that I had not been +invited." + +"Then, of course," said I, "Webber, you can't think of going, in any +case, on my account." + +"My very dear friend, I go entirely upon my own. I not only shall go, +but I intend to have most particular notice and attention paid me. I +shall be prime favourite with Sir George--kiss Lucy--" + +"Come, come! this is too strong." + +"What do you bet I don't? There, now, I'll give you a pony a-piece, I +do. Do you say done?" + +"That you kiss Miss Dashwood, and are not kicked downstairs for your +pains; are those the terms of your wager?" inquired Power. + +"With all my heart. That I kiss Miss Dashwood, and am not kicked +downstairs for my pains." + +"Then I say, done!" + +"And with you, too, O'Malley?" + +"I thank you," said I, coldly; "I'm not disposed to make such a return +for Sir George Dashwood's hospitality as to make an insult to his family +the subject of a bet." + +"Why, man, what are you dreaming of? Miss Dashwood will not refuse my +chaste salute. Come, Power, I will give you the other pony." + +"Agreed," said he. "At the same time, understand me distinctly--that I +hold myself perfectly eligible to winning the wager by my own +interference; for, if you do kiss her, I'll perform the remainder of the +compact." + +"So I understand the agreement," said Webber, and off he went. + +I have often dressed for a storming party with less of trepidation than +I felt on the evening of Sir George Dashwood's ball. It was long since I +had seen Miss Dashwood; therefore, as to what precise position I might +occupy in her favour was a matter of great doubt in my mind, and great +import to my happiness. + +Our quadrille over, I was about to conduct her to a seat, when Sir +George came hurriedly up, his face greatly flushed, and betraying every +semblance of high excitement. + +"Read this," said he, presenting a very dirty-looking note. + +Miss Dashwood unfolded the billet, and after a moment's silence, burst +out a-laughing, while she said, "Why, really, papa, I do not see why +this should put you out much, after all. Aunt may be somewhat of a +character, as her note evinces; but after a few days----', + +"Nonsense, child; there's nothing in this world I have such a dread of +as this--and to come at such a time! O'Malley, my boy, read this note, +and you will not feel surprised if I appear in the humour you see me." + +I read as follows:-- + + "Dear brother,--When this reaches your hand I'll not be far off. I'm + on my way up to town, to be under Dr. Dease for the ould complaint. + Expect me to tea; and, with love to Lucy, believe me, yours in haste, + + "Judith Macan. + +"Let the sheets be well aired in my room; and if you have a spare bed, +perhaps you could prevail upon Father Magrath to stop, too." + +I scarcely could contain my laughter till I got to the end of this very +free-and-easy epistle, when at last I burst forth in a hearty fit, in +which I was joined by Miss Dashwood. + +"I say, Lucy," said Sir George, "there's only one thing to be done. If +this horrid woman does arrive, let her be shown to her room, and for the +few days of her stay in town, we'll neither see nor be seen by anyone." + +Without waiting for a reply he was turning away, when the servant +announced, in his loudest voice, "Miss Macan." + +No sooner had the servant pronounced the magical name than all the +company present seemed to stand still. About two steps in advance of the +servant was a tall, elderly lady, dressed in an antique brocade silk, +with enormous flowers gaudily embroidered upon it. Her hair was powdered +and turned back, in the fashion of fifty years before. Her short, skinny +arms were bare, while on her hands she wore black silk mittens; a pair +of green spectacles scarcely dimmed the lustre of a most piercing pair +of eyes, to whose effect a very palpable touch of rouge on the cheeks +certainly added brilliancy. There she stood, holding before her a fan +about the size of a modern tea-tray, while at each repetition of her +name by the servant she curtseyed deeply. + +Sir George, armed with the courage of despair, forced his way through +the crowd, and taking her hand affectionately, bid her welcome to +Dublin. The fair Judy, at this, threw her arms about his neck, and +saluted him with a hearty smack, that was heard all over the room. + +"Where's Lucy, brother? Let me see my little darling," said the lady, in +a decided accent. "There she is, I'm sure; kiss me, my honey." + +This office Miss Dashwood performed with an effort at courtesy really +admirable; while, taking her aunt's arm, she led her to a sofa. + +Power made his way towards Miss Dashwood, and succeeded in obtaining a +formal introduction to Miss Macan. + +"I hope you will do me the favour to dance next set with me, Miss +Macan?" + +"Really, Captain, it's very polite of you, but you must excuse me. I was +never anything great in quadrilles: but if a reel or a jig----" + +"Oh, dear aunt, don't think of it, I beg of you!" + +"Or even Sir Roger de Coverley," resumed Miss Macan. + +"I assure you, quite equally impossible." + +"Then I'm certain you waltz," said Power. + +"What do you take me for, young man? I hope I know better. I wish Father +Magrath heard you ask me that question; and for all your laced +jacket----" + +"Dearest aunt, Captain Power didn't mean to offend you; I'm certain +he----" + +"Well, why did he dare to--(sob, sob)--did he see anything light about +me, that he--(sob, sob, sob)--oh, dear! oh, dear! is it for this I came +up from my little peaceful place in the West?--(sob, sob, sob)--General, +George, dear; Lucy, my love, I'm taken bad. Oh, dear! oh, dear! is there +any whiskey negus?" + +After a time she was comforted. + +At supper later on in the evening, I was deep in thought when a dialogue +quite near me aroused me from my reverie. + +"Don't, now! don't, I tell ye; it's little ye know Galway, or ye +wouldn't think to make up to me, squeezing my foot." + +"You're an angel, a regular angel. I never saw a woman suit my fancy +before." + +"Oh, behave now. Father Magrath says----" + +"Who's he?" + +"The priest; no less." + +"Oh! bother him." + +"Bother Father Magrath, young man?" + +"Well, then, Judy, don't be angry; I only means that a dragoon knows +rather more of these matters than a priest." + +"Well, then, I'm not so sure of that. But, anyhow, I'd have you to +remember it ain't a Widow Malone you have beside you." + +"Never heard of the lady," said Power. + +"Sure, it's a song--poor creature--it's a song they made about her in +the North Cork when they were quartered down in our county." + +"I wish you'd sing it." + +"What will you give me, then, if I do?" + +"Anything--everything--my heart--my life." + +"I wouldn't give a trauneen for all of them. Give me that old green ring +on your finger, then." + +"It's yours," said Power, placing it gracefully upon Miss Macan's +finger; "and now for your promise." + +"Well, mind you get up a good chorus, for the song has one, and here it +is." + +"Miss Macan's song!" said Power, tapping the table with his knife. + +"Miss Macan's song!" was re-echoed on all sides; and before the luckless +General could interfere, she had begun:-- + + "Did ye hear of the Widow Malone, + Ohone! + Who lived in the town of Athlone, + Alone? + Oh! she melted the hearts + Of the swains in them parts, + So lovely the widow Malone, + Ohone! + So lovely the Widow Malone. + + "Of lovers she had a full score, + Or more; + And fortunes they all had galore, + In store; + From the Minister down + To the Clerk of the Crown, + All were courting the Widow Malone, + Ohone! + All were courting the Widow Malone. + + "But so modest was Mrs. Malone, + 'Twas known + No one ever could see her alone, + Ohone! + Let them ogle and sigh, + They could ne'er catch her eye, + So bashful the Widow Malone, + Ohone! + So bashful the Widow Malone. + + "Till one Mr. O'Brien from Clare,-- + How quare, + It's little for blushing they care, + Down there, + Put his arm round her waist, + Gave ten kisses, at laste,-- + 'Oh,' says he, 'you're my Molly Malone,' + My own; + 'Oh,' says he, 'you're my Molly Malone.' + + "And the widow they all thought so shy, + My eye! + Ne'er thought of a simper or sigh; + For why? + But 'Lucius,' says she, + 'Since you've now made so free, + You may marry your Mary Malone, + Ohone! + You may marry your Mary Malone.' + + "There's a moral contained in my song, + Not wrong; + And, one comfort, it's not very long, + But strong; + If for widows you die, + Larn to kiss, not to sigh, + For they're all like sweet Mistress Malone, + Ohone! + Oh! they're very like Mistress Malone." + +Never did song create such a sensation as Miss Macan's. + +"I insist upon a copy of 'The Widow,' Miss Macan," said Power. + +"To be sure; give me a call to-morrow--let me see--about two. Father +Magrath won't be at home," said she, with a coquettish look. + +"Where pray, may I pay my respects?" + +Power produced a card and pencil, while Miss Macan wrote a few lines, +saying, as she handed it-- + +"There, now, don't read it here before all the people; they'll think it +mighty indelicate in me to make an appointment." + +Power pocketed the card, and the next minute Miss Macan's carriage was +announced. + +When she had taken her departure, "Doubt it who will," said Power, "she +has invited me to call on her to-morrow--written her address on my +card--told me the hour she is certain of being alone. See here!" At +these words he pulled forth the card, and handed it to a friend. + +Scarcely were the eyes of the latter thrown upon the writing, when he +said, "So, this isn't it, Power!" + +"To be sure it is, man. Read it out. Proclaim aloud my victory." + +Thus urged, his friend read:-- + + "Dear P.,--Please pay to my credit--and soon, mark ye--the two ponies + lost this evening. I have done myself the pleasure of enjoying your + ball, kissed the lady, quizzed the papa and walked into the cunning + Fred Power.--Yours, + + "FRANK WEBBER. + +"'The Widow Malone, Ohone!' is at your service." + + + + +Sam Wham and the Sawmont. + +BY SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON (1810-1886). + + +"Knieving trouts" (they call it tickling in England) is good sport. You +go to a stony shallow at night, a companion bearing a torch; then, +stripping to the thighs and shoulders, wade in, grope with your hands +under the stones, sods, and other harbourage, till you find your game, +then grip him in your "knieve" and toss him ashore. + +I remember, when a boy, carrying the splits for a servant of the family, +called Sam Wham. Now, Sam was an able young fellow, well-boned and +willing, a hard headed cudgel player, and a marvellous tough wrestler, +for he had a backbone like a sea serpent--this gained him the name of +the Twister and Twiner. He had got into the river, and with his back to +me was stooping over a broad stone, when something bolted from under the +bank on which I stood, right through his legs. Sam fell with a great +splash on his face, but in falling jammed whatever it was against the +stone. "Let go, Twister!" shouted I; "'Tis an otter, he will nip a +finger off you." "Whist!" sputtered he, as he slid his hand under the +water. "May I never read a text again if he isna a sawmont wi' a +shoulther like a hog!" "Grip him by the gills, Twister," cried I. "Saul +will I!" cried the Twiner; but just then there was a heave, a roll, a +splash, a slap like a pistol-shot: down went Sam, and up went the +salmon, spun like a shilling at a pitch-and-toss, six feet into the air. +I leaped in just as he came to the water, but my foot caught between +two stones, and the more I pulled the firmer it stuck. The fish fell +into the spot shallower than that from which he had leaped. Sam saw the +chance, and tackled to again; while I, sitting down in the stream as +best I might, held up my torch, and cried, "Fair play!" as, shoulder to +shoulder, through, out, and about, up and down, roll and tumble, to it +they went, Sam and the salmon. The Twister was never so twined before. +Yet, through cross-buttocks and capsizes innumerable, he still held on; +now haled through a pool; now haling up a bank; now heels over head; now +head over heels; now, head over heels together, doubled up in a corner; +but at last stretched fairly on his back, and foaming for rage and +disappointment; while the victorious salmon, slapping the stones with +its tail, and whirling the spray from its shoulders at every roll, came +boring and snoring up the ford. I tugged and strained to no purpose; he +flashed by me with a snort, and slid into deep water. Sam now staggered +forward with battered bones and pilled elbows, blowing like a grampus, +and cursing like nothing but himself. He extricated me, and we limped +home. Neither rose for a week; for I had a dislocated ankle, and the +Twister was troubled with a broken rib. Poor Sam! He had his brains +discovered at last by a poker in a row, and was worm's meat within three +months; yet, ere he died, he had the satisfaction of feasting on his old +antagonist, who was man's meat next morning. They caught him in a net. +Sam knew him by the twist in his tail. + + + + +Darby Doyle's Voyage to Quebec. + +_From "The Dublin Penny Journal," 1832._ + +BY THOMAS ETTINGSALL (17----1850). + + +I tuck the road one fine morning in May, from Inchegelagh, an' got up to +the Cove safe an' sound. There I saw many ships with big broad boords +fastened to ropes, every one ov them saying "The first vessel for +Quebec." Siz I to myself, those are about to run for a wager; this one +siz she'll be first, and that one siz she'll be first. I pitched on one +that was finely painted. When I wint on boord to ax the fare, who shou'd +come up out ov a hole but Ned Flinn, an ould townsman ov my own. + +"Och, is it yoorself that's there, Ned?" siz I; "are ye goin' to +Amerrykey?" + +"Why, an' to be shure," sez he; "I'm _mate_ ov the ship." + +"Meat! that's yer sort, Ned," siz I; "then we'll only want bread. Hadn't +I betther go and pay my way?" + +"You're time enough," siz Ned; "I'll tell you when we're ready for +sea--leave the rest to me, Darby." + +"Och, tip us your fist," siz I; "you were always the broath of a boy; +for the sake ov ould times, Ned, we must have a dhrop ov drink, and a +bite to ate." + +Many's the squeeze Ned gave my fist, telling me to leave it all to him, +and how comfortable he'd make me on the voyage. Day afther day we spint +together, waitin' for the wind, till I found my pockets begin to grow +very light. At last, siz he to me, one day afther dinner:-- + +"Darby, the ship will be ready for sea on the morrow--you'd betther go +on boord an' pay your way." + +"Is it jokin' you are, Ned?" siz I; "shure you tould me to leave it all +to you." + +"Ah! Darby," siz he, "you're for takin' a rise out o' me. But I'll stick +to my promise; only, Darby, you must pay your way." + +"O, Ned," says I, "is this the way you're goin' to threat me after all? +I'm a rooin'd man; all I cou'd scrape together I spint on you. If you +don't do something for me, I'm lost. Is there no place where you cou'd +hide me from the captin?" + +"Not a place," siz Ned. + +"An' where, Ned, is the place I saw you comin' up out ov?" + +"O, Darby, that was the hould where the cargo's stow'd." + +"An' is there no other place?" siz I. + +"Oh, yes," siz he, "where we keep the wather casks." + +"An' Ned," siz I, "does anyone live down there?" + +"Not a mother's soul," siz he. + +"An' Ned," siz I, "can't you cram me down there, and give me a lock ov +straw an' a bit?" + +"Why, Darby," siz he (an' he look'd mighty pittyfull), "I must thry. But +mind, Darby, you'll have to hide all day in an empty barrel, and when it +comes to my watch, I'll bring you down some prog; but if you're +diskiver'd, it's all over with me, an' you'll be put on a dissilute +island to starve." + +"O Ned," siz I, "leave it all to me." + +When night cum on I got down into the dark cellar, among the barrels; +and poor Ned every night brought me down hard black cakes an' salt meat. +There I lay snug for a whole month. At last, one night, siz he to me:-- + +"Now, Darby, what's to be done? we're within three days' sail ov Quebec; +the ship will be overhauled, and all the passengers' names call'd over." + +"An' is that all that frets you, my jewel," siz I; "just get me an empty +meal-bag, a bottle, an' a bare ham bone, and that's all I'll ax." + +So Ned got them for me, anyhow. + +"Well, Ned," siz I, "you know I'm a great shwimmer; your watch will be +early in the morning; I'll just slip down into the sea; do you cry out +'There's a man in the wather,' as loud as you can, and leave all the +rest to me." + +Well, to be sure, down into the sea I dropt without as much as a splash. +Ned roared out with the hoarseness of a brayin' ass-- + +"A man in the sea, a man in the sea!" + +Every man, woman, and child came running up out of the holes, and the +captain among the rest, who put a long red barrel, like a gun, to his +eye--I thought he was for shootin' me! Down I dived. When I got my head +over the wather agen, what shou'd I see but a boat rowin' to me. When it +came up close, I roared out-- + +"Did ye hear me at last?" + +The boat now run 'pon the top ov me; I was gript by the scruff ov the +neck, and dragg'd into it. + +"What hard look I had to follow yees, at all at all--which ov ye is the +masther?" says I. + +"There he is," siz they, pointin' to a little yellow man in a corner of +the boat. + +"You yallow-lookin' monkey, but it's a'most time for you to think ov +lettin' me into your ship--I'm here plowin' and plungin' this month +afther you; shure I didn't care a thrawneen was it not that you have my +best Sunday clothes in your ship, and my name in your books." + +"An' pray, what is your name, my lad?" siz the captain. + +"What's my name! What i'd you give to know?" siz I, "ye unmannerly +spalpeen, it might be what's your name, Darby Doyle, out ov your +mouth--ay, Darby Doyle, that was never afraid or ashamed to own it at +home or abroad!" + +"An', Mr. Darby Doyle," siz he, "do you mean to persuade us that you +swam from Cork to this afther us?" + +"This is more ov your ignorance," siz I--"ay, an' if you sted three days +longer and not take me up, I'd be in Quebec before ye, only my +purvisions were out, and the few rags of bank notes I had all melted +into paste in my pocket, for I hadn't time to get them changed. But +stay, wait till I get my foot on shore; there's ne'er a cottoner in Cork +iv you don't pay for leavin' me to the marcy ov the waves." + +At last we came close to the ship. Everyone on board saw me at Cove but +didn't see me on the voyage; to be sure, everyone's mouth was wide open, +crying out, "Darby Doyle!" + +"It's now you call me loud enough," siz I, "ye wouldn't shout that way +when ye saw me rowlin' like a tub in a mill-race the other day fornenst +your faces." When they heard me say that, some of them grew pale as a +sheet. Nothin' was tawked ov for the other three days but Darby Doyle's +great shwim from Cove to Quebec. + +At last we got to Ammerykey. I was now in a quare way; the captain +wouldn't let me go till a friend of his would see me. By this time, my +jewel, not only his friends came, but swarms upon swarms, starin' at +poor Darby. At last I called Ned. + +"Ned, avic," siz I, "what's the meanin' ov the boords acrass the stick +the people walk on, and the big white boord up there?" + +"Why, come over and read," siz Ned. I saw in great big black letters:-- + + THE GREATEST WONDHER IN THE WORLD!!! + TO BE SEEN HERE, + + A Man that beats out Nicholas the Diver! + He has swum from Cork to Amerrykey!! + Proved on oath by ten of the crew and twenty passengers. + Admittance Half a Dollar. + +"Ned," siz I, "does this mean your humble sarvint?" + +"Not another," siz he. + +So I makes no more ado, than with a hop, skip, and jump, gets over to +the captain, who was now talkin' to a yallow fellow that was afther +starin' me out ov countenance. + +"Ye are doin' it well," said I. "How much money have ye gother for my +shwimmin'?" + +"Be quiet, Darby," siz the captain, and he looked very much frickened. +"I have plenty, an' I'll have more for ye iv ye do what I want ye to +do." + +"An' what is it, avic?" siz I. + +"Why, Darby," siz he, "I'm afther houldin a wager last night with this +gintleman for all the worth ov my ship, that you'll shwim against any +shwimmer in the world; an', Darby, if ye don't do that, I'm a gone man." + +"Augh, give us your fist," siz I; "did ye ever hear ov Paddies dishaving +any man in the European world yet--barrin' themselves?" + +"Well, Darby," siz he, "I'll give you a hundred dollars; but, Darby, you +must be to your word, and you shall have another hundred." + +So sayin', he brought me down to the cellar. + +"Now, Darby," siz he, "here's the dollars for ye." + +But it was only a bit of paper he was handin' me. + +"Arrah, none ov yer tricks upon thravellers," siz I; "I had betther nor +that, and many more ov them, melted in the sea; give me what won't wash +out of my pocket." + +"Well, Darby," siz he, "you must have the real thing." + +So he reckoned me out a hundred dollars in goold. I never saw the like +since the stockin' fell out ov the chimly on my aunt and cut her forred. + +"Now, Darby," siz he, "ye are a rich man, and ye are worthy of it all." + +At last the day came that I was to stand the tug. I saw the captain +lookin' very often at me. At last-- + +"Darby," siz he, "are you any way cow'd? The fellow you have to shwim +agenst can shwim down watherfalls an' catharacts." + +"Can he, avic?" siz I; "but can he shwim up agenst them?" + +An' who shou'd come up while I was tawkin' to the captain but the chap I +was to shwim with, and heard all I sed. He was so tall that he could eat +bread an' butther over my head--with a face as yallow as a kite's foot. + +"Tip us the mitten," siz I, "mabouchal," siz I; "Where are we going to +shwim to? What id ye think if we swum to Keep Cleer or the Keep ov Good +Hope?" + +"I reckon neither," siz he. + +Off we set through the crowds ov ladies an' gintlemen to the shwimmin' +place. And as I was goin' I was thript up by a big loomp ov iron struck +fast in the ground with a big ring to it. + +"What d'ye call that?" siz I to the captain, who was at my elbow. + +"Why, Darby," siz he, "that's half an anchor." + +"Have ye any use for it?" siz I. + +"Not in the least," siz he; "it's only to fasten boats to." + +"Maybee you'd give it to a body," siz I. + +"An' welkim, Darby," siz he; "it's yours." + +"God bless your honour, sir," siz I, "it's my poor father that will pray +for you. When I left home the creather hadn't as much as an anvil but +what was sthreeled away by the agint--bad end to them. This will be jist +the thing that'll match him; he can tie the horse to the ring while he +forges on the other part. Now, will ye obleege me by gettin' a couple ov +chaps to lay it on my shoulder when I get into the wather, and I won't +have to be comin' back for it afther I shake hands with this fellow." + +Oh, the chap turned from yallow to white when he heard me say this. An' +siz he to the gintleman that was walkin' by _his_ side-- + +"I reckon I'm not fit for the shwimmin' to-day--I don't feel _myself_." + +"An', murdher an' Irish, if you're yer brother, can't you send him for +yerself, an' I'll wait here till he comes. An' when will ye be able for +the shwim, avic?" siz I, mighty complisant. + +"I reckon in another week," siz he. + +So we shook hands and parted. The poor fellow went home, took the fever, +then began to rave. "Shwim up catharacts!--shwim to the Keep ov Good +Hope!--shwim to St. Helena!--shwim to Keep Clear!--shwim with an anchor +on his back!--oh! oh! oh!" + +I now thought it best to be on the move; so I gother up my winners; and +here I sit undher my own hickory threes, as independent as anny Yankee. + + + + +Bob Burke's Duel. + +_From "Tales from Blackwood."_ + +BY DR. MAGINN. + + + HOW BOB BURKE, AFTER CONSULTATION WITH WOODEN-LEG WADDY, FOUGHT THE + DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY FOR THE SAKE OF MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA, + SUPPOSED HEIRESS TO HER OLD BACHELOR UNCLE, MICK MACNAMARA OF + KAWLEASH. + +"At night I had fallen asleep fierce in the determination of +exterminating Brady; but with the morrow, cool reflection came--made +probably cooler by the aspersion I had suffered. How could I fight him, +when he had never given me the slightest affront? To be sure, picking a +quarrel is not hard, thank God, in any part of Ireland; but unless I was +quick about it, he might get so deep into the good graces of Dosy, who +was as flammable as tinder, that even my shooting him might not be of +any practical advantage to myself. Then, besides, he might shoot me; +and, in fact, I was not by any means so determined in the affair at +seven o'clock in the morning as I was at twelve o'clock at night. I got +home, however, dressed, shaved, etc., and turned out. 'I think,' said I +to myself, 'the best thing I can do, is to go and consult Wooden-Leg +Waddy; and, as he is an early man, I shall catch him now.' The thought +was no sooner formed than executed; and in less than five minutes I was +walking with Wooden-Leg Waddy in his garden, at the back of his house, +by the banks of the Blackwater. + +"Waddy had been in the Hundred-and-First, and had seen much service in +that distinguished corps. + +"Waddy had served a good deal, and lost his leg somehow, for which he +had a pension besides his half-pay, and he lived in ease and affluence +among the Bucks of Mallow. He was a great hand at settling and arranging +duels, being what we generally call in Ireland a judgmatical sort of +man--a word which, I think, might be introduced with advantage into the +English vocabulary. When I called on him, he was smoking his meerschaum, +as he walked up and down his garden in an old undressed coat, and a fur +cap on his head. I bade him good morning; to which salutation he +answered by a nod, and a more prolonged whiff. + +"'I want to speak to you, Wooden-Leg,' said I, 'on a matter which nearly +concerns me,' to which I received another nod, and another whiff in +reply. + +"'The fact is,' said I, 'that there is an Ensign Brady of the 48th +Quartered here, with whom I have some reason to be angry, and I am +thinking of calling him out. I have come to ask your advice whether I +should do so or not. He has deeply injured me, by interfering between me +and the girl of my affection. What ought I to do in such a case?' + +"'Fight him, by all means,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy. + +"'But the difficulty is this--he has offered me no affront, direct or +indirect--we have no quarrel whatever--and he has not paid any addresses +to the lady. He and I have scarcely been in contact at all. I do not see +how I can manage it immediately with any propriety. What then can I do +now?' + +"'Do not fight him, by any means,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy. + +"'Still, these are the facts of the case. He, whether intentionally or +not, is coming between me and my mistress, which is doing me an injury +perfectly equal to the grossest insult. How should I act?' + +"'Fight him by all means,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy. + +"'But then, I fear if I were to call him out on a groundless quarrel, or +one which would appear to be such, that I should lose the good graces of +the lady, and be laughed at by my friends, or set down as a dangerous +and quarrelsome companion.' + +"'Do not fight him, by any means,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy. + +"'Yet, as he is a military man, he must know enough of the etiquette of +these affairs to feel perfectly confident that he has affronted me; and +the opinion of the military man, standing, as of course, he does, in the +rank and position of a gentleman, could not, I think, be overlooked +without disgrace.' + +"'Fight him, by all means,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy. + +"'But then, talking of gentlemen, I own he is an officer of the 48th, +but his father is a fish-tackle seller in John Street, Kilkenny, who +keeps a three-halfpenny shop, where you may buy everything from a cheese +to a cheese-toaster, from a felt hat to a pair of brogues, from a pound +of brown soap to a yard of huckaback towels. He got his commission by +his father's retiring from the Ormonde Interest, and acting as +whipper-in to the sham freeholders from Castlecomer; and I am, as you +know, of the best blood of the Burkes--straight from the De Burgos +themselves--and when I think of that I really do not like to meet this +Mr. Brady.' + +"'Do not fight him, by all means,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy. + +"'Why,' said I, 'Wooden-Leg, my friend, this is like playing battledore +and shuttlecock; what is knocked forward with one hand is knocked back +with the other. Come, tell me what I ought to do.' + +"'Well,' said Wooden-Leg, taking the meerschaum out of his mouth, 'in +dubiis auspice, etc. Let us decide by tossing a halfpenny. If it comes +down 'head,' you fight--if 'harp' you do not. Nothing can be fairer.' + +"I assented. + +"'Which,' said he, 'is it to be--two out of three, as at Newmarket, or +the first toss to decide?' + +"'Sudden death,' said I, 'and there will soon be an end of it.' + +"Up went the halfpenny, and we looked with anxious eyes for its descent, +when, unluckily, it stuck in a gooseberry bush. + +"'I don't like that,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy, 'for it's a token of bad +luck. But here goes again.' + +"Again the copper soared to the sky, and down it came--Head. + +"'I wish you joy, my friend' said Waddy; 'you are to fight. That was my +opinion all along; though I did not like to commit myself. I can lend +you a pair of the most beautiful duelling-pistols ever put into a man's +hand--Wogden's, I swear. The last time they were out, they shot Joe +Brown, of Mount Badger, as dead as Harry the Eight.' + +"'Will you be my second?' said I. + +"'Why, no,' replied Wooden-leg, 'I cannot; for I am bound over by a +rascally magistrate to keep the peace, because I nearly broke the head +of a blackguard bailiff, who came here to serve a writ on a friend of +mine, with one of my spare legs. But I can get you a second at once. My +nephew, Major Mug, has just come to me on a few days' visit, and, as he +is quite idle it will give him some amusement to be your second. Look up +at his bedroom--you see he is shaving himself.' + +"In a short time the Major made his appearance, dressed with a most +military accuracy of costume. There was not a speck of dust on his +well-brushed blue surtout--not a vestige of hair, except the regulation +whiskers, on his closely-shaven countenance. His hat was brushed to the +most glossy perfection--his boots shone in the jetty glow of Day and +Martin. There was scarcely an ounce of flesh on his hard and +weather-beaten face, and as he stood rigidly upright, you would have +sworn that every sinew and muscle of his body was as stiff as whipcord. +He saluted us in military style, and was soon put in possession of the +case. Wooden-Leg Waddy insinuated that there were hardly, as yet, +grounds for a duel. + +"'I differ,' said Major Mug, 'decidedly--the grounds are ample. I never +saw a clearer case in my life, and I have been principal or second in +seven-and-twenty. If I collect your story rightly, Mr. Burke, he gave +you an abrupt answer in the field, which was highly derogatory to the +lady in question, and impertinently rude to yourself?' + +"'He certainly,' said I, 'gave me what we call a short answer; but I did +not notice it at the time, and he has since made friends with the young +lady.' + +"'It matters nothing,' observed Major Mug, 'what you may think, or she +may think. The business is now in my hands, and I must see you through +it. The first thing to be done is to write him a letter. Send out for +paper--let it be gilt-edged, Waddy,--that we may do the thing genteelly. +I'll dictate, Mr. Burke, if you please.' + +"And so he did. As well as I can recollect, the note was as follows:-- + + "'Spa-Walk, Mallow, June 3, 18-- + + "'Eight o'clock in the morning. + + "'Sir,--A desire for harmony and peace, which has at all times + actuated my conduct, prevented me, yesterday, from asking you the + meaning of the short and contemptuous message which you commissioned + me to deliver to a certain young lady of our acquaintance whose name I + do not choose to drag into a correspondence. But, now that there is no + danger of its disturbing anyone, I must say that in your desiring me + to tell that young lady she might consider herself as d----d, when she + asked you to tea after inadvertently riding over you in the hunting + field, you were guilty of conduct highly unbecoming of an officer and + a gentleman, and subversive of the discipline of the hunt. I have the + honour to be, sir, + + "'Your most obedient humble servant, + + "'ROBERT BURKE. + + "'P.S.--This note will be delivered to you by my friend, Major Mug, of + the 3rd West Indian; and you will, I trust, see the propriety of + referring him to another gentleman without further delay.' + +"'That, I think, is neat,' said the Major. 'Now, seal it with wax, Mr. +Burke, with wax--and let the seal be your arms. That's right. Now direct +it.' + +"'Ensign Brady?' + +"'No--no--the right thing would be, 'Mr. Brady, Ensign, 48th Foot,' but +custom allows 'Esquire,' that will do.--'Thady Brady, Esquire, Ensign, +48th Foot, Barracks, Mallow.' He shall have it in less than a quarter of +an hour.' + +"The Major was as good as his word, and in about half-an-hour he brought +back the result of his mission. The Ensign, he told us, was extremely +reluctant to fight, and wanted to be off on the ground that he meant no +offence, did not even remember having used the expression, and offered +to ask the lady if she conceived for a moment he had any idea of saying +anything but what was complimentary to her. + +"'In fact,' said the Major, 'he at first plumply refused to fight; but I +soon brought him to reason. 'Sir,' said I, 'you either consent to fight +or refuse to fight. In the first case, the thing is settled to hand, and +we are not called upon to inquire if there was an affront or not--in the +second case, your refusal to comply with a gentleman's request is, of +itself, an offence for which he has a right to call you out. Put it, +then, on the grounds, you must fight him, it is perfectly indifferent to +me what the grounds may be; and I have only to request the name of your +friend, as I too much respect the coat you wear to think that there can +be any other alternative.' This brought the chap to his senses, and he +referred me to Captain Codd, of his own regiment, at which I felt much +pleased, because Codd is an intimate friend of my own, he and I having +fought a duel three years ago in Falmouth, in which I lost the top of +this little finger, and he his left whisker. It was a near touch, he is +as honourable a man as ever paced a ground; and I am sure that he will +no more let his man off the field until business is done than I would +myself.' + +"I own," continued Burke, "I did not half relish this announcement of +the firm purpose to our seconds; but I was in for it, and could not get +back. I sometimes thought Dosy a dear purchase at such an expense; but +it was no use to grumble. Major Mug was sorry to say that there was a +review to take place immediately at which the Ensign must attend, and it +was impossible for him to meet me until the evening; 'but,' he added, +'at this time of the year it can be of no great consequence. There will +be plenty of light till nine, but I have fixed seven. In the meantime +you may as well divert yourself with a little pistol practice, but do it +on the sly, as, if they were shabby enough to have a trial it would not +tell well before the jury.' + +"Promising to take a quiet chop with me at five, the Major retired, +leaving me not quite contented with the state of affairs. I sat down and +wrote a letter to my cousin, Phil Burdon, of Kanturk, telling him what I +was about and giving directions what was to be done in the case of any +fatal event. I communicated to him the whole story--deplored my unhappy +fate in being thus cut off in the flower of my youth--left him three +pairs of buckskin breeches--and repented my sins. This letter I +immediately packed off by a special messenger, and then began a +half-a-dozen others, of various styles of tenderness and sentimentality, +to be delivered after my melancholy decease. The day went off fast +enough, I assure you; and at five the Major, and Wooden-Leg Waddy, +arrived in high spirits. + +"'Here, my boy,' said Waddy, handing me the pistols, 'here are the +flutes; and pretty music, I can tell you, they make.' + +"'As for dinner,' said Major Mug, 'I do not much care; but, Mr. Burke, +I hope it is ready, as I am rather hungry. We must dine lightly, +however, and drink not much. If we come off with flying colours, we may +crack a bottle together by-and-by; in case you shoot Brady, I have +everything arranged for our keeping out of the way until the thing blows +over--if he shoots you, I'll see you buried. Of course, you would not +recommend anything so ungenteel as a prosecution? No. I'll take care it +shall appear in the papers, and announced that Robert Burke, Esq., met +his death with becoming fortitude, assuring the unhappy survivor that he +heartily forgave him, and wished him health and happiness.' + +"'I must tell you,' said Wooden-Leg Waddy, 'it's all over Mallow and the +whole town will be on the ground to see it. Miss Dosy knows of it, and +she is quite delighted--she says she will certainly marry the survivor. +I spoke to the magistrate to keep out of the way, and he promised that, +though it deprived him of a great pleasure he would go and dine five +miles off--and know nothing about it. But here comes dinner, let us be +jolly.' + +"I cannot say that I played on that day as brilliant a part with the +knife and fork as I usually do, and did not sympathise much in the +speculations of my guests, who pushed the bottle about with great +energy, recommending me, however, to refrain. At last the Major looked +at his watch, which he had kept lying on the table before him from the +beginning of dinner--started up--clapped me on the shoulder, and +declaring it only wanted six minutes and thirty-five seconds of the +time, hurried me off to the scene of action--a field close by the +castle. + +"There certainly was a miscellaneous assemblage of the inhabitants of +Mallow, all anxious to see the duel. They had pitted us like game-cocks, +and bets were freely taken as to the chances of our killing one another, +and the particular spots. One betted on my being hit in the jaw, another +was so kind as to lay the odds on my knee. The tolerably general opinion +appeared to prevail that one or other of us was to be killed; and much +good-humoured joking took place among them while they were deciding +which. As I was double the thickness of my antagonist, I was clearly the +favourite for being shot, and I heard one fellow near me say, 'Three to +two on Burke, that he's shot first--I bet in tenpennies.' + +"Brady and Codd soon appeared, and the preliminaries were arranged with +much punctilio between our seconds, who mutually and loudly extolled +each other's gentleman-like mood of doing business. Brady could scarcely +stand with fright, and I confess that I did not feel quite as Hector of +Troy, or the Seven Champions of Christendom are reported to have done on +similar occasions. At last the ground was measured--the pistols handed +to the principals--the handkerchief dropped--whiz! went the bullet +within an inch of my ear--and crack! went mine exactly on Ensign Brady's +waistcoat pocket. By an unaccountable accident, there was a five +shilling piece in that very pocket, and the ball glanced away, while +Brady doubled himself down, uttering a loud howl that might be heard +half-a-mile off. The crowd was so attentive as to give a huzza for my +success. + +"Codd ran up to his principal, who was writhing as if he had ten +thousand colics, and soon ascertained that no harm was done. + +"'What do you propose,' said he to my second--'What do you propose to +do, Major?' + +"'As there is neither blood drawn nor bone broken,' said the Major, 'I +think that shot goes for nothing.' + +"'I agree with you,' said Captain Codd. + +"'If your party will apologise,' said Major Mug, 'I'll take my man off +the ground.' + +"'Certainly,' said Captain Codd, 'you are quite right, Major, in asking +the apology, but you know that it is my duty to refuse it.' + +"'You are correct, Captain,' said the Major; 'I then formally require +that Ensign Brady apologise to Mr. Burke.' + +"'I, as formally, refuse it,' said Captain Codd. + +"'We must have another shot then,' said the Major. + +"'Another shot, by all means,' said the Captain. + +"'Captain Codd,' said the Major, 'you have shown yourself in this, as in +every transaction of your life, a perfect gentleman.' + +"'He who would dare to say,' replied the Captain, 'that Major Mug is not +among the most gentleman-like men in the service, would speak what is +untrue.' + +"Our seconds bowed, took a pinch of snuff together, and proceeded to +load the pistols. Neither Brady nor I were particularly pleased at these +complimentary speeches of the gentlemen, and, I am sure, had we been +left to ourselves, would have declined the second shot. As it was, it +appeared inevitable. + +"Just, however, as the process of loading was completing, there appeared +on the ground my cousin Phil Purdon, rattling in on his black mare as +hard as he could lick-- + +"'I want to speak to the plaintiff in this action--I mean, to one of +the parties in this duel. I want to speak to you, Bob Burke.' + +"'The thing is impossible, sir,' said Major Mug. + +"'Perfectly impossible, sir,' said Codd. + +"'Possible or impossible is nothing to the question,' shouted Purdon; +'Bob, I must speak to you.' + +"'It is contrary to all regulation,' said the Major. + +"'Quite contrary,' said the Captain. + +"Phil, however, persisted, and approached me: 'Are you fighting about +Dosy Mac?' said he to me, in a whisper. + +"'Yes,' I replied. + +"'And she is to marry the survivor, I understand?' + +"'So I am told,' said I. + +"'Back out, Bob, then; back out, at the rate of a hunt. Old Mick +MacNamara is married.' + +"'Married!' I exclaimed. + +"'Poz,' said he. 'I drew the articles myself. He married his housemaid, +a girl of eighteen; and,' here he whispered. + +"'What,' I cried, 'six months!' + +"'Six months,' said he, 'an' no mistake.' + +"'Ensign Brady,' said I, immediately coming forward, 'there has been a +strange misconception in this business. I here declare, in presence of +this honourable company, that you have acted throughout like a man of +honour, and a gentleman; and you leave the ground without a stain on +your character.' + +"Brady hopped three feet off the ground with joy at the unexpected +deliverance. He forgot all etiquette, and came forward to shake me by +the hand. + +"'My dear Burke,' said he, 'it must have been a mistake: let us swear +eternal friendship.' + +"'For ever,' said I. 'I resign you Miss Theodosia.' + +"'You are too generous,' he said, 'but I cannot abuse your generosity.' + +"'It is unprecedented conduct,' growled Major Mug. 'I'll never be second +to a Pekin again.' + +"'My principal leaves the ground with honour,' said Captain Codd, +looking melancholy, nevertheless. + +"'Humph!' grunted Wooden-Leg Waddy, lighting his meerschaum. + +"The crowd dispersed much displeased, and I fear my reputation for +valour did not rise among them. I went off with Purdon to finish a jug +at Carmichael's, and Brady swaggered off to Miss Dosy's. His renown for +valour won her heart. It cannot be denied that I sunk deeply in her +opinion. On that very evening Brady broke his love, and was accepted. +Mrs. Mac. opposed, but the red-coat prevailed. + +"'He may rise to be a general,' said Dosy, 'and be a knight, and then I +will be Lady Brady.' + +"'Or, if my father should be made an earl, angelic Theodosia, you would +be Lady Thady Brady,' said the Ensign. + +"'Beautiful prospect!' cried Dosy, 'Lady Thady Brady! What a harmonious +sound!' + +"But why dally over the detail of my unfortunate loves? Dosy and the +Ensign were married before the accident which had befallen her uncle was +discovered; and if they were not happy, why, then, you and I may. They +have had eleven children, and, I understand, he now keeps a comfortable +eating-house close by Cumberland Basin, in Bristol. Such was my duel +with Ensign Brady of the 48th." + + + + +Billy Malowney's Taste of Love and Glory. + +_From "The Purcell Papers."_ + +BY JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU (1814-1873). + + +Let the reader fancy a soft summer evening, the fresh dews falling on +bush and flower. The sun has just gone down, and the thrilling vespers +of thrushes and blackbirds ring with a wild joy through the saddened +air; the west is piled with fantastic clouds, and clothed in tints of +crimson and amber, melting away into a wan green, and so eastward into +the deepest blue, through which soon the stars will begin to peep. + +Let him fancy himself seated upon the low mossy wall of an ancient +churchyard, where hundreds of grey stones rise above the sward, under +the fantastic branches of two or three half-withered ash-trees, +spreading their arms in everlasting love and sorrow over the dead. + +The narrow road upon which I and my companion await the tax-cart that is +to carry me and my basket, with its rich fruitage of speckled trout, +away, lies at his feet, and far below spreads an undulating plain, +rising westward into soft hills, and traversed (every here and there +visibly) by a winding stream which, even through the mists of evening, +catches and returns the funeral glories of the skies. + +As the eye traces its wayward wanderings, it loses them for a moment in +the heaving verdure of white-thorns and ash, from among which floats +from some dozen rude chimneys, mostly unseen, the transparent blue film +of turf smoke. There we know, although we cannot see it, the steep old +bridge of Carrickdrum spans the river; and stretching away far to the +right the valley of Lisnamoe; its steeps and hollows, its straggling +hedges, its fair-green, its tall scattered trees, and old grey tower, +are disappearing fast among the discoloured tints and blaze of evening. + +Those landmarks, as we sit listlessly expecting the arrival of our +modest conveyance, suggest to our companion--a bare-legged Celtic +brother of the gentle craft, somewhat at the wrong side of forty, with a +turf-coloured caubeen, patched frieze, a clear brown complexion, +dark-grey eyes and a right pleasant dash of roguery in his features--the +tale, which, if the reader pleases, he is welcome to hear along with me +just as it falls from the lips of our humble comrade. + +His words I can give, but your own fancy must supply the advantages of +an intelligent, expressive countenance, and what is, perhaps, harder +still, the harmony of his glorious brogue, that, like the melodies of +our own dear country, will leave a burden of mirth or of sorrow with +nearly equal propriety, tickling the diaphragm as easily as it plays +with the heart-strings, and is in itself a national music that, I trust, +may never, never--scouted and despised though it be--never cease, like +the lost tones of our harp, to be heard in the fields of my country, in +welcome or endearment, in fun or in sorrow, stirring the hearts of +Irishmen and Irish women. + +My friend of the caubeen and naked shanks, then, commenced, and +continued his relation, as nearly as possible, in the following words:-- + +Av coorse ye often heerd talk of Billy Malowney, that lived by the +bridge of Carrickadrum. "Leumarinka" was the name they put on him, he +was sich a beautiful dancer. An' faix, it's he was the rale sportin' +boy, every way--killin' the hares, and gaffin' the salmons, an' fightin' +the men, an' funnin' the women, and coortin' the girls; an', be the same +token, there was not a colleen inside iv his jurisdiction but was +breakin' her heart wid the fair love iv him. + +Well, this was all pleasand enough, to be sure, while it lasted; but +inhuman beings is born to misfortune, an' Bill's divarshin was not to +last always. A young boy can't be continually coortin' and kissin' the +girls (an' more's the pity) without exposin' himself to the most eminent +parril; an' so signs an' what should happen Billy Malowney himself, but +to fall in love at last wid little Molly Donovan, in Coolamoe. + +I never could ondherstand why in the world it was Bill fell in love wid +her, above all the girls in the country. She was not within four stone +weight iv being as fat as Peg Brallaghan; and as for redness in the +face, she could not hould a candle to Judy Flaherty. (Poor Judy! she was +my sweetheart, the darlin', an' coorted me constant, ever entil she +married a boy of the Butlers; an' it's twenty years now since she was +buried under the ould white-thorn in Garbally. But that's no matther!). + +Well, at any rate, Molly Donovan tuck his fancy an' that's everything! +She had smooth brown hair--as smooth as silk--an' a pair iv soft coaxin' +eyes--an' the whitest little teeth you ever seen; an', bedad, she was +every taste as much in love wid himself as he was. + +Well, now, he was raly stupid wid love: there was not a bit of fun left +in him. He was good for nothin' an airth bud sittin' under bushes, +smokin' tobacky, and sighin' till you'd wonder how in the world he got +wind for it all. + +An', bedad, he was an illigant scholar, moreover an', so signs by, it's +many's the song he made about her; an' if you'd be walkin' in the +evening, a mile away from Carrickadrum, begorra you'd hear him singing +out like a bull, all across the country, in her praises. + +Well, ye may be sure, ould Tim Donovan and the wife was not a bit too +well plased to see Bill Malowney coortin' their daughter Molly; for, do +ye mind, she was the only child they had, and her fortune was +thirty-five pounds, two cows, and five illigant pigs, three iron pots, a +skillet, an' a trifle iv poultry in hand; and no one knew how much +besides, whenever the Lord id be plased to call the ould people out of +the way into glory! + +So, it was not likely ould Tim Donovan id be fallin' in love wid poor +Bill Malowney as aisy as the girls did; for, barrin' his beauty, an' his +gun, an' his dhudheen, an' his janious, the divil a taste of property iv +any sort or description he had in the wide world! + +Well, as bad as that was, Billy would not give in that her father and +mother had the smallest taste iv a right to intherfare, good or bad. + +"An' you're welcome to rafuse me," says he, "whin' I ax your lave," says +he; "an' I'll ax your lave," says he, "whenever I want to coort +yourselves," says he; "but it's your daughter I'm coortin' at the +present," says he, "an' that's all I'll say," says he; "for I'd a soon +take a doase of salts as be discoursin' ye," says he. + +So it was a rale blazin' battle betune himself and the ould people; an', +begorra, there was no soart iv blaguardin' that did not pass betune +them; an' they put a solemn injection on Molly again seein' him or +meetin' him for the future. + +But it was all iv no use. You might as well be pursuadin' the birds agin +flying, or sthrivin' to coax the stars out of the sky into your hat, as +be talking common sinse to them that's fairly bothered and burstin' wid +love. There's nothin' like it. The toothache and colic together id +compose you betther for an argyment than itself. It leaves you fit for +nothin' bud nansinse. + +It's stronger than whisky, for one good drop iv it will make you drunk +for one year, and sick, begorra, for a dozen. + +It's stronger than the say, for it'll carry you round the world an' +never let you sink, in sunshine or storm; an', begorra, it's stronger +than Death himself, for it is not afeard iv him, bedad, but dares him in +every shape. + +Bud lovers has quarrels sometimes, and, begorra, when they do, you'd +a'most imagine they hated one another like man and wife. An' so, signs +an', Billy Malowney and Molly Donovan fell out one evening at ould Tom +Dundon's wake; an' whatever came betune them, she made no more about it +but just draws her cloak round her, and away wid herself and the +sarvant-girl home again, as if there was not a corpse, or a fiddle, or a +taste of divarsion in it. + +Well, Billy Malowney follied her down the boreen, to try could he +deludher her back again; but, if she was bitther before, she gave it to +him in airnest when she got him alone to herself, and to that degree +that he wished her safe home, short and sulky enough, an' walked back +again, as mad as the devil himself, to the wake, to pay respect to poor +Tom Dundon. + +Well, my dear, it was aisy seen there was something wrong wid Billy +Malowney, for he paid no attintion for the rest of the evening to any +soart of divarsion but the whisky alone; an' every glass he'd drink it's +what he'd be wishing the divil had the woman, an' the worst iv bad luck +to all soarts iv courting, until, at last, wid the goodness iv the +sperits, an' the badness iv his temper, an' the constant flusthration iv +cursin', he grew all as one as you might say almost, saving your +presince, bastely drunk! + +Well, who should he fall in wid, in that childish condition, as he was +deploying along the road almost as straight as the letter S, an' cursin' +the girls, an' roarin' for more whisky, but the recruiting-sargent iv +the Welsh Confusileers. + +So, cute enough, the sargent begins to convarse him, an' it was not long +until he had him sitting in Murphy's public-house, wid an elegant dandy +iv punch before him, an' the king's money safe an' snug in the lowest +wrinkle of his breeches pocket. + +So away wid him, and the dhrums and fifes playing, an' a dozen more +unforthunate bliggards just listed along with him, an' he shakin' hands +wid the sargent, and swearin' agin the women every minute, until, be the +time he kem to himself, begorra, he was a good ten miles on the road to +Dublin, an' Molly and all behind him. + +It id be no good tellin' you iv the letters he wrote to her from the +barracks there, nor how she was breaking her heart to go and see him +just wanst before he'd go; but the father and mother would not allow iv +it be no manes. + +An' so in less time than you'd be thinkin' about it, the colonel had him +polished off into a rale elegant soger, wid his gun exercise, and his +bagnet exercise, and his small sword, and broad sword, and pistol and +dagger, an' all the rest, an' then away wid him on board a man-a-war to +furrin parts, to fight for King George agin Bonypart, that was great in +them times. + +Well, it was very soon in everyone's mouth how Billy Malowney was batin' +all before him, astonishin' the ginerals, and frightenin' the inimy to +that degree, there was not a Frinchman dare say parley voo outside of +the rounds iv his camp. + +You may be sure Molly was proud iv that same, though she never spoke a +word about it; until at last news kem home that Billy Malowney was +surrounded an' murdered be the Frinch army, under Napoleon Bonypart +himself. The news was brought by Jack Bryan Dhas, the pedlar, that said +he met the corporal iv the regiment on the quay iv Limerick, an' how he +brought him into a public-house and thrated him to a naggin, and got all +the news about poor Billy Malowney out iv him while they war dhrinkin' +it; an' a sorrowful story it was. + +The way it happened, accordin' as the corporal tould him, was jist how +the Dook iv Wellington detarmined to fight a rale tarin' battle wid the +Frinch, and Bonypart at the same time was aiqually detarmined to fight +the divil's own scrimmidge wid the British foorces. + +Well, as soon as the business was pretty near ready at both sides, +Bonypart and the general next undher himself gets up behind a bush, to +look at their inimies through spy-glasses, and thry would they know any +iv them at the distance. + +"Bedad!" says the gineral, afther a divil iv a long spy, "I'd bet half a +pint," says he, "that's Billy Malowney himself," says he, "down there," +says he. + +"Och!" says Bonypart, "do you tell me so?" says he--"I'm fairly +heart-scalded with that same Billy Malowney," says he; "an' I think if I +wanst got shut iv him, I'd bate the rest of them aisy," says he. + +"I'm thinking so myself," says the general, says he; "but he's a tough +bye," says he. + +"Tough!" says Bonypart, "he's the divil," says he. + +"Begorra, I'd be better plased," says the gineral, says he, "to take +himself than the Duke iv Willinton," says he, "an' Sir Edward Blakeney +into the bargain," says he. + +"The Duke of Wellinton and Gineral Blakeney," says Bonypart, "is great +for planning, no doubt," says he; "but Billy Malowney's the boy for +action," says he--"an' action's everything, just now," says he. + +So with that Bonypart pushes up his cocked hat, and begins scratching +his head, and thinking and considherin' for the bare life, and at last +says he to the gineral: + +"Gineral Commandher iv all the Foorces," says he, "I've hot it," says +he: "ordher out the forlorn hope," says he, "an' give them as much +powdher, both glazed and blasting," says he, "an' as much bullets, do ye +mind, an' swan-dhrops an' chainshot," says he, "an' all soorts iv +waipons an' combustables as they can carry; an' let them surround Bill +Malowney," says he, "an' if they can get any soort iv an advantage," +says he, "let them knock him to smithereens," says he, "an' then take +him presner," says he; "an' tell all the bandmen iv the Frinch army," +says he, "to play up 'Garryowen,' to keep up their sperits," says he, +"all the time they're advancin'. And you may promise them anything you +like in my name," says he; "for, by my sowl, I don't think it's many iv +them 'ill come back to throuble us," says he, winkin' at him. + +So away with the gineral, an' he ordhers out the forlorn hope, an' tells +the band to play, an' everything else, just as Bonypart desired him. An' +sure enough whin Billy Malowney heerd the music where he was standin' +taking a blast of the dhudheen to compose his mind for murdherin' the +Frinchmen as usual, being mighty partial to that tune intirely, he cocks +his ear a one side, an' down he stoops to listen to the music; but, +begorra, who should be in his rare all the time but a Frinch grannideer +behind a bush, and seeing him stooped in a convenient forum, bedad he +let flies at him straight, and fired him right forward between the legs +an' the small iv the back, glory be to God! with what they call (saving +your presence) a bum-shell. + +Well, Bill Malowney let one roar out iv him, an' away he rolled over the +field iv battle like a slitther (as Bonypart and the Duke iv Wellington, +that was watching the manoeuvres from a distance, both consayved) into +glory. + +An' sure enough the Frinch was overjoyed beyant all bounds, an' small +blame to them--an' the Duke of Wellington, I'm toult, was never all out +the same man sinst. + +At any rate, the news kem home how Billy Malowney was murdhered by the +Frinch in furrin parts. + +Well, all this time, you may be sure, there was no want iv boys comin' +to coort purty Molly Donovan; but one way ar another, she always kept +puttin' them off constant. An' though her father and mother was +nathurally anxious to get rid of her respickably, they did not like to +marry her off in spite iv her teeth. + +An' this way, promising one while and puttin' it off another, she +conthrived to get on from one Shrove to another, until near seven years +was over and gone from the time when Billy Malowney listed for furrin +sarvice. + +It was nigh hand a year from the time whin the news iv Leum-a-rinka +bein' killed by the Frinch came home, an' in place iv forgettin' him, as +the saisins wint over, it's what Molly was growin' paler and more +lonesome every day, antil the neighbours thought she was fallin' into a +decline; and this is the way it was with her whin the fair of Lisnamoe +kem round. + +It was a beautiful evenin', just at the time iv the reapin' iv the oats, +and the sun was shinin' through the red clouds far away over the hills +iv Cahirmore. + +Her father an' mother, an' the biys an' girls, was all away down in the +fair, and Molly sittin' all alone on the step of the stile, listenin' to +the foolish little birds whistlin' among the leaves--and the sound of +the mountain-river flowin' through the stones an' bushes--an' the crows +flyin' home high overhead to the woods iv Glinvarlogh--an' down in the +glen, far away, she could see the fair-green iv Lisnamoe in the mist, +an' sunshine among the grey rocks and threes--an' the cows an' horses, +an' the blue frieze, an' the red cloaks, an' the tents, an' the smoke, +an' the ould round tower--all as soft an' as sorrowful as a dhrame iv +ould times. + +An' while she was looking this way, an' thinking iv Leum-a-rinka--poor +Bill iv the dance, that was sleepin' in his lonesome glory in the fields +of Spain--she began to sing the song he used to like so well in the ould +times: + + "Shule, shule, shule a-roon;" + +an' when she ended the verse, what do you think but she heard a manly +voice just at the other side iv the hedge, singing the last words over +again! + +Well she knew it; her heart fluttered up like a little bird that id be +wounded, and then dhropped still in her breast. It was himself. In a +minute he was through the hedge and standing before her. + +"Leum!" says she. + +"Mavourneen cuishla machree!" says he; and without another word they +were locked in one another's arms. + +Well, it id only be nansinse for me thryin' to tell ye all the foolish +things they said, and how they looked in one another's faces, an' +laughed, an' cried, an' laughed again; and how, when they came to +themselves' and she was able at last to believe it was raly Billy +himself that was there, actially holdin' her hand, and lookin' in her +eyes the same way as ever, barrin' he was browner and boulder, an' did +not, maybe, look quite as merry in himself as he used to do in former +times--an' fondher for all, an' more lovin' than ever--how he tould her +all about the wars wid the Frinchmen--an' how he was wounded, and left +for dead in the field of battle, bein' shot through the breast, and how +he was discharged, an' got a pinsion iv a full shillin' a day--and how +he was come back to live the rest iv his days in the sweet glen iv +Lisnamoe, an' (if only she'd consint) to marry herself in spite iv them +all. + +Well, ye may aisily think they had plinty to talk about, afther seven +years without seeing one another; and so signs on, the time flew by as +swift an' as pleasant as a bird on the wing, an' the sun wint down, an' +the moon shone sweet, yet they didn't mind a ha'port about it, but kept +talkin an' whisperin', an' whisperin' an' talkin'; for it's wondherful +how often a tinder-hearted girl will bear to hear a purty boy tellin' +her the same story constant over an' over; ontil at last, sure enough, +they heerd the ould man himself comin' up the boreen, singin' the +"Colleen Rue"--a thing he never done barrin' whin he had a dhrop in; an' +the misthress walkin' in front iv him an' two illigant Kerry cows he +just bought in the fair, an' the sarvint biys dhriving them behind. + +"Oh, blessed hour!" says Molly, "here's my father." + +"I'll spake to him this minute," says Bill. + +"Oh, not for the world," says she; "he's singin' the 'Colleen Rue,'" +says she, "and no one dar raison with him," says she. + +"An' where'll I go?" says he, "for they're into the haggard an top iv +us," says he, "an' they'll see me iv I lep through the hedge," says he. + +"Thry the pig-sty," says she, "mavourneen," says she, "in the name iv +God," says she. + +"Well, darlint," says he, "for your sake," says he, "I'll condescend to +them animals," says he. + +An' wid that he makes a dart to get in; bud, begorra, it was too +late--the pigs was all gone home, and the pig-sty was as full as the +Birr coach wid six inside. + +"Och! blur-an'-agers," says he, "there is not room for a suckin'-pig," +says he, "let alone a Christian," says he. + +"Well, run into the house, Billy," says she, "this minute," says she, +"an' hide yourself antil they're quiet," says she, "an' thin you can +steal out," says she, "anknownst to them all," says she. + +"I'll do your biddin'," says he, "Molly asthore," says he. + +"Run in thin," says she, "an' I'll go an' meet them," says she. + +So wid that away wid her, and in wint Billy, an' where did he hide +himself bud in a little closet that was off iv the room where the ould +man and woman slep'. So he closed the doore, and sot down in an ould +chair he found there convanient. + +Well, he was not well in it when all the rest iv them comes into the +kitchen, an' ould Tim Donovan singin' the "Colleen Rue" for the bare +life, an' the rest i' them sthrivin' to humour him, an doin' exactly +everything he bid them, because they seen he was foolish be the manes of +the liquor. + +Well, to be sure all this kep' them long enough, you may be sure, from +goin' to bed, so that Billy could get no manner iv an advantage to get +out iv the house, and so he sted sittin' in the dark closet in state, +cursin' the "Colleen Rue," and wondhering to the divil whin they'd get +the ould man into his bed. An', as if that was not delay enough, who +should come in to stop for the night but Father O'Flaherty, of +Cahirmore, that was buyin' a horse at the fair! An' av course, there was +a bed to be med down for his Raverance, an' some other attintions; an' a +long discoorse himself an' ould Mrs. Donovan had about the slaughter iv +Billy Malowney, an' how he was buried on the field of battle; an' his +Raverance hoped he got a dacent funeral, an' all the other convaniences +iv religion. An' so you may suppose it was pretty late in the night +before all iv them got to their beds. + +Well, Tim Donovan could not settle to sleep at all at all, an' he kep' +discoorsin' the wife about the new cows he bought, an' the strippers he +sould, an' so on for better than an hour, ontil from one thing to +another he kem to talk about the pigs, an' the poulthry, and at last, +having nothing betther to discoorse about, he begun at his daughter +Molly, an' all the heartscald she was to him be raisin iv refusin' the +men. An' at last says he: + +"I onderstand," says he, "very well how it is," says he. "It's how she +was in love," says he, "wid that bliggard, Billy Malowney," says he, +"bad luck to him!" says he; for by this time he was coming to his +raison. + +"Ah!" says the wife, says she, "Tim darlint, don't be cursin' them +that's dead an' buried," says she. + +"An' why would not I," says he, "if they desarve it?" says he. + +"Whisht," says she, "an' listen to that," says she. "In the name of the +Blessed Vargin," says she, "what is it?" says she. + +An' sure enough what was it bud Bill Malowney that was dhroppin' asleep +in the closet, an' snorin' like a church organ. + +"Is it a pig," says he, "or is it a Christian?" + +"Arra! listen to the tune iv it," says she; "sure a pig never done the +like iv that," says she. + +"Whatever it is," says he, "it's in the room wid us," says he. "The Lord +be marciful to us!" says he. + +"I tould you not to be cursin'," says she; "bad luck to you," says she, +"for an ommadhaun!" for she was a very religious woman in herself. + +"Sure, he's buried in Spain," says he; "an' it is not for one little +innocent expression," says he, "he'd be comin' all that way to annoy the +house," says he. + +Well, while they war talkin,' Bill turns in the way he was sleepin' into +an aisier imposture; and as soon as he stopped snorin' ould Tim +Donovan's courage riz agin, and says he. + +"I'll go to the kitchen," says he, "an' light a rish," says he. + +An' with that away wid him, an' the wife kep' workin' the beads all the +time, an' before they kem back Bill was snorin' as loud as ever. + +"Oh! bloody wars--I mane the blessed saints above us!--that deadly +sound," says he; "it's going on as lively as ever," says he. + +"I'm as wake as a rag," says his wife, says she, "wid the fair +anasiness," says she. "It's out iv the little closet it's comin'," says +she. + +"Say your prayers," says he, "an' hould your tongue," says he, "while I +discoorse it," says he. "An' who are ye," says he, "in the name iv all +the holy saints?" says he, givin' the door a dab iv a crusheen that +wakened Bill inside. + +"I ax," says he, "who you are?" says he. + +Well, Bill did not rightly remember where in the world he was, but he +pushed open the door, an' says he: + +"Billy Malowney's my name," says he, "an' I'll thank ye to tell me a +betther," says he. + +Well, whin Tim Donovan heard that, an' actially seen that it was Bill +himself that was in it, he had not strength enough to let a bawl out iv +him, but he dhropt the candle out iv his hand, an' down wid himself on +his back in the dark. + +Well, the wife let a screech you'd hear at the mill iv Killraghlin, +an'-- + +"Oh," says she, "the spirit has him, body an' bones!" says she. "Oh, +holy St. Bridget--oh Mother iv Marcy--oh, Father O'Flaherty!" says she, +screechin' murdher from out iv her bed. + +Well, Bill Malowney was not a minute rememberin' himself, an' so out wid +him quite an' aisy, an' through the kitchen; bud in place iv the door iv +the house, it's what he kem to the door iv Father O'Flaherty's little +room, where he was jist wakenin' wid the noise iv the screechin' an' +battherin'; an', bedad, Bill makes no more about it, but he jumps, wid +one boult, clever an' clane into his Raverance's bed. + +"What do ye mane, you uncivilised bliggard?" says his Raverance. "Is +that a venerable way," says he, "to approach your clargy?" says he. + +"Hould your tongue," says Bill, "an' I'll do ye no harum," says he. + +"Who are you, ye schoundhrel iv the world?" says his Raverance. + +"Whisht!" says he, "I'm Bill Malowney," says he. + +"You lie!" says his Raverance--for he was frightened beyont all +bearin'--an' he makes bud one jump out iv the bed at the wrong side, +where there was only jist a little place in the wall for a press, an' +his Raverance could not as much as turn in it for the wealth iv +kingdoms. "You lie," says he; "but for fear it's the thruth you're +tellin'," says he, "here's at ye in the name iv all the blessed saints +together!" says he. + +An' wid that, my dear, he blazes away at him wid a Latin prayer iv the +strongest description, an', as he said to himself afterwards, that was +iv a nature that id dhrive the divil himself up the chimley like a puff +iv tobacky smoke, wid his tail betune his legs. + +"Arra, what are ye sthrivin' to say," says Bill, says he; "if ye don't +hould your tongue," says he, "wid your parly voo," says he, "it's what +I'll put my thumb on your windpipe," says he, "an' Billy Malowney never +wint back iv his word yet," says he. + +"Thunder-an-owns," says his Raverance, says he--seein' the Latin took no +infect on him, at all at all, an' screechin' that you'd think he'd rise +the thatch up iv the house wid the fair fright--"an' thundher and +blazes, boys, will none of yes come here wid a candle, but lave your +clargy to be choked by a spirit in the dark?" says he. + +Well, be this time the sarvint boys and the rest iv them wor up an' half +dressed, an' in they all run, one on top iv another, wid pitchforks and +spades, thinkin' it was only what his Raverance slep' a dhrame iv the +like, by means of the punch he was afther takin' just before he rowl'd +himself into the bed. But, begorra, whin they seen it was raly Billy +Malowney himself that was in it, it was only who'd be foremost out agin, +tumblin' backways, one over another, and his Raverance roarin' an' +cursin' them like mad for not waitin' for him. + +Well, my dear, it was betther than half an hour before Billy Malowney +could explain to them all how it raly was himself, for begorra they were +all iv them persuadin' him that he was a spirit to that degree it's a +wondher he did not give in to it, if it was only to put a stop to the +argiment. + +Well, his Raverance tould the ould people then there was no use in +sthrivin' agin the will iv Providence an' the vagaries iv love united; +an' whin they kem to undherstand to a sartinty how Billy had a shillin' +a day for the rest iv his days, begorra they took rather a likin' to +him, and considhered at wanst how he must hav riz out of all his +nansinse entirely, or His gracious Majesty id never have condescinded to +show him his countenance every day of his life on a silver shillin'. + +An' so, begorra, they never stopt till it was all settled--an' there was +not sich a weddin' as that in the counthry sinst. It's more than forty +years ago, an' though I was no more nor a gossoon meself, I remimber it +like yesterday. Molly never looked so purty before, an' Billy Malowney +was plisant beyont all hearin', to that degree that half the girls in it +was fairly tarin' mad--only they would not let on--they had not him to +themselves in place iv her. An' begorra, I'd be afeared to tell ye, +because you would not believe me, since that blessid man Father Mathew +put an ent to all soorts of sociality, the Lord reward him, how many +gallons iv pottieen whisky was dhrank upon that most solemn and tindher +occaison. + +Pat Hanlon, the piper, had a faver out iv it; an' Neddy Shawn Heigue, +mountin' his horse the wrong way, broke his collar-bone, by the manes iv +fallin' over his tail while he was feelin' for his head; an' Payther +Brian, the horse-docther, I am tould, was never quite right in the head +ever afther; an' ould Tim Donovan was singin' the "Colleen Rue" night +and day for a full week; an', begorra the weddin' was only the +foundation iv fun, and the beginning iv divarsion, for there was not a +year for ten years afther, an' more, but brought round a christenin' as +regular as the sasins revarted. + + + + +A Pleasant Journey. + +_From the Confessions of Harry Lorrequer._ + +BY CHARLES LEVER. + + +I, Harry Lorrequer, was awaiting the mail coach anxiously in the Inn at +Naas, when at last there was the sound of wheels, and the driver came +into the room, a spectacle of condensed moisture. + +"Going on to-night, sir," said he, addressing me; "severe weather, and +no chance of its clearing--but, of course, you're inside." + +"Why, there is very little doubt of that," said I. "Are you nearly full +inside?" + +"Only one, sir; but he seems a real queer chap; made fifty inquiries at +the office if he could not have the whole inside for himself, and when +he heard that one place had been taken--yours, I believe, sir,--he +seemed like a scalded bear." + +"You don't know his name, then?" + +"No, sir, he never gave a name at the office, and his only luggage is +two brown paper parcels, without any ticket, and he has them inside: +indeed, he never lets them from him, even for a second." + +Here the guard's horn sounded. + +As I passed from the inn-door to the coach, I congratulated myself that +I was about to be housed from the terrific storm of wind and rain that +raged without. + +"Here's the step, sir," said the guard; "get in, sir, two minutes late +already." + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said I, as I half fell over the legs of my +unseen companion. "May I request leave to pass you?" While he made way +for me for this purpose, I perceived that he stooped down and said +something to the guard, who, from his answer, had evidently been +questioned as to who I was. + +"And how did he get here if he took his place in Dublin?" asked the +unknown. + +"Came half an hour since, sir, in a chaise-and-four," said the guard, as +he banged the door behind him, and closed the interview. + +"A severe night, sir," said I. + +"Mighty severe," briefly and half-crustily replied the unknown, in a +strong Cork accent. + +"And a bad road, too, sir," said I. + +"That's the reason I always go armed," said the unknown, clinking at the +same moment something like the barrel of a pistol. + +Wondering somewhat at his readiness to mistake my meaning, I felt +disposed to drop any further effort to draw him out, and was about to +address myself to sleep as comfortably as I could. + +"I'll just trouble ye to lean off that little parcel there, sir," said +he, as he displaced from its position beneath my elbow one of the paper +packages the guard had already alluded to. + +In complying with this rather gruff demand one of my pocket pistols, +which I carried in my breast-pocket, fell out upon his knee, upon which +he immediately started, and asked, hurriedly: "And are you armed, too?" + +"Why yes," said I laughingly; "men of my trade seldom go without +something of this kind." + +"I was just thinking that same," said the traveller with a half sigh to +himself. + +I was just settling myself in my corner when I was startled by a very +melancholy groan. + +"Are you ill, sir?" said I, in a voice of some anxiety. + +"You may say that," replied he, "if you knew who you were talking to; +although, maybe, you've heard enough of me, though you never saw me till +now." + +"Without having that pleasure even yet," said I, "it would grieve me to +think you should be ill in the coach." + +"Maybe it might. Did ye ever hear tell of Barney Doyle?" said he. + +"Not to my recollection." + +"Then I'm Barney," said he, "that's in all the newspapers in the +metropolis. I'm seventeen weeks in Jervis Street Hospital, and four in +the Lunatic, and the sorra bit better, after all. You must be a +stranger, I'm thinking, or you'd know me now." + +"Why, I do confess I've only been a few hours in Ireland for the last +six months." + +"Aye, that's the reason; I knew you would not be fond of travelling with +me if you knew who it was." + +"Why, really, I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting you." + +"It's pleasure ye call it; then there's no accountin' for tastes, as Dr. +Colles said, when he saw me bite Cusack Rooney's thumb off." + +"Bite a man's thumb off!" + +"Aye," said he, with a kind of fiendish animation, "in one chop, I wish +you'd see how I scattered the consultation;--they didn't wait to ax for +a fee." + +"A very pleasant vicinity," thought I. "And may I ask, sir," said I, in +a very mild and soothing tone of voice--"may I ask the reason for this +singular propensity of yours?" + +"There it is now, my dear," said he, laying his hand upon my knee +familiarly, "that's just the very thing they can't make out. Colles says +it's all the cerebellum, ye see, that's inflamed and combusted, and some +of the others think it's the spine; and more the muscles; but my real +impression is, not a bit they know about it at all." + +"And have they no name for the malady?" said I. + +"Oh, sure enough they have a name for it." + +"And may I ask----" + +"Why, I think you'd better not, because, ye see, maybe I might be +troublesome to ye in the night, though I'll not, if I can help it; and +it might be uncomfortable to you to be here if I was to get one of the +fits." + +"One of the fits! Why, it's not possible, sir," said I, "you would +travel in a public conveyance in the state you mention; your friends +surely would not permit it?" + +"Why, if they knew, perhaps," slily responded the interesting +invalid--"if they knew, they might not exactly like it; but ye see, I +escaped only last night, and there'll be a fine hubbub in the morning +when they find I'm off; though I'm thinking Rooney's barking away by +this time." + +"Rooney barking!--why, what does that mean?" + +"They always bark for a day or two after they're bit, if the infection +comes first from the dog." + +"You are surely not speaking of _hydrophobia_?" said I, my hair actually +bristling with horror and consternation. + +"Ain't I?" replied he; "maybe you've guessed it, though." + +"And you have the malady on you at present?" said I trembling for the +answer. + +"This is the ninth day since I took to biting," said he, gravely. + +"And with such a propensity, sir, do you think yourself warranted in +travelling in a public coach, exposing others----" + +"You'd better not raise your voice that way. If I'm roused it'll be +worse for ye, that's all." + +"Well, but, is it exactly prudent, in your present delicate state, to +undertake a journey?" + +"Ah," said he, with a sigh, "I've been longing to see the fox-hounds +throw off near Kilkenny; these three weeks I've been thinking of nothing +else; but I'm not sure how my nerves will stand the cry; I might be +troublesome." + +"Well," thought I, "I shall not select that morning for my debut in the +field." + +"I hope, sir, there's no river or watercourse in this road; anything +else I can, I hope, control myself against; but water--running water +particularly--makes me troublesome." + +Well knowing what he meant by the latter phrase, I felt the cold +perspiration settling on my forehead as I remembered that we must be +within about ten or twelve miles of a bridge, where we should have to +pass a very wide river. I strictly concealed this fact from him, +however. He now sank into a kind of moody silence, broken occasionally +by a low, muttering noise, as if speaking to himself. + +How comfortable my present condition was I need scarcely remark, sitting +vis-a-vis to a lunatic, with a pair of pistols in his possession, who +had already avowed his consciousness of his tendency to do mischief, +and his inability to master it--all this in the dark, and in the narrow +limits of a mail-coach, where there was scarcely room for defence, and +no possibility of escape. If I could only reach the outside of the coach +I would be happy. What were rain and storm, thunder and lightning +compared with the chance that awaited me here?--wet through I should +inevitably be: but, then, I had not yet contracted the horror of +moisture my friend opposite laboured under. Ha! what is that?--is it +possible he can be asleep;--is it really a snore? Ah, there it is +again;--he must be asleep, surely;--now, then, is my time, or never. I +slowly let down the window of the coach, and, stretching forth my hand, +turned the handle cautiously and slowly; I next disengaged my legs, and +by a long, continuous effort of creeping, I withdrew myself from the +seat, reached the step, when I muttered something very like thanksgiving +to Providence for my rescue. With little difficulty I now climbed up +beside the guard, whose astonishment at my appearance was indeed +considerable. + +Well, on we rolled, and very soon, more dead than alive, I sat a mass of +wet clothes, like a morsel of black and spongy wet cotton at the bottom +of a schoolboy's ink-bottle, saturated with rain and the black dye of my +coat. My hat, too, had contributed its share of colouring matter, and +several long, black streaks coursed down my "wrinkled front," giving me +very much the air of an Indian warrior who had got the first priming of +his war paint. I certainly must have been a rueful object, were I only +to judge from the faces of the waiters as they gazed on me when the +coach drew up at Rice and Walsh's Hotel. + +Cold, wet, and weary as I was, my curiosity to learn more of my late +agreeable companion was strong as ever within me. I could catch a +glimpse of his back, and hurried after the great unknown into the coffee +room. By the time I entered, he was spreading himself comfortably, _a +l'Anglais_, before the fire, and displayed to my wandering and stupefied +gaze the pleasant features of Dr. Finucane. + +"Why, Doctor--Doctor Finucane," cried I, "is it possible? Were you, +then, really the inside in the mail last night?" + +"Not a doubt of it, Mr. Lorrequer; and may I make bould to ask were you +the outside?" + +"Then what, may I beg to know, did you mean by your story about Barney +Doyle, and the hydrophobia, and Cusack Rooney's thumb--eh?" + +"Oh!" said Finucane, "this will be the death of me. And it was you that +I drove outside in all the rain last night? Oh, it will kill Father +Malachi outright with laughing when I tell him." And he burst out into a +fit of merriment that nearly induced me to break his head with a poker. + +"Am I to understand, then, Mr. Finucane, that this practical joke of +yours was contrived for my benefit and for the purpose of holding me up +to the ridicule of your acquaintances?" + +"Nothing of the kind," said Fin., drying his eyes, and endeavouring to +look sorry and sentimental. "If I had only the least suspicion in life +that it was you, I'd not have had the hydrophobia at all--and, to tell +you the truth, you were not the only one frightened--you alarmed me, +too." + +"I alarmed you! Why, how can that be?" + +"Why, the real affair is this: I was bringing these two packages of +notes down to my cousin Callaghan's bank in Cork--fifteen thousand +pounds, and when you came into the coach at Naas, I thought it was all +up with me. The guard just whispered in my ear that he saw you look at +the priming of your pistols before getting in. Well, when you got +seated, the thought came into my mind that maybe, highwayman as you +were, you would not like dying an unnatural death, more particularly if +you were an Irishman; and so I trumped up that long story about the +hydrophobia, and the gentleman's thumb, and dear knows what besides; +and, while I was telling it, the cold perspiration was running down my +head and face, for every time you stirred I said to myself--Now he'll do +it. Two or three times, do you know, I was going to offer you ten +shillings in the pound, to spare my life; and once, God forgive me, I +thought it would not be a bad plan to shoot you by 'mistake,' do you +perceive?" + +"Why, I'm very much obliged to you for your excessively kind intentions; +but, really, I feel you have done quite enough for me on the present +occasion. But, come now, doctor, I must get to bed, and, before I go, +promise me two things--to dine with us to-day at the mess, and not to +mention a syllable of what occurred last night: it tells, believe me, +very badly for both. So keep the secret; for if these fellows of ours +ever get hold of it I may sell out, and quit the army;--I'll never hear +the end of it!" + +"Never fear, my boy; trust me. I'll dine with you, and you're as safe as +a church mouse for anything I'll tell them; so now, you'd better change +your clothes, for I'm thinking it rained last night." + + + + +The Battle of Aughrim. + +_From "Anna Cosgrave," an unpublished Novel._ + +BY WILLIAM CARLETON. + + +Many of our readers will be surprised at what we are about to relate. +Nay, what is more, we fear they will not yield us credence, but impute +it probably to our own invention; whereas we beg to assure them that it +is strictly and literally true. The period of the scene we are about to +describe may be placed in the year 1806. At the time neither party +feeling nor religious animosity had yet subsided after the ferment of +the '98 insurrection and the division between the Catholic and +Protestant population was very strong and bitter. The rebellion, which +commenced in its first principles among the northern Presbyterians and +other Protestant classes in a spirit of independence and a love of +liberty, soon, in consequence of the influence of some bigots, assumed +the character of a civil war between the two religions,--the most +internecine description of war that ever devastated a country or +drenched it in blood. + +A usual amusement at the time was to reproduce the "Battle of Aughrim," +in some spacious barn, with a winnowing-cloth for the curtain. This +play, bound up with "The Siege of Londonderry," was one of the +reading-books in the hedge schools of that day, and circulated largely +among the people of all religions: it had, indeed, a most extraordinary +influence among the lower classes. "The Battle of Aughrim," however, +because it was written in heroic verse, became so popular that it was +rehearsed at almost every Irish hearth, both Catholic and Protestant, +in the north. The spirit it evoked was irresistible. The whole country +became dramatic. To repeat it at the fireside in winter nights was +nothing: the Orangemen should act it, and show to the whole world how +the field of Aughrim was so gloriously won. The consequence was that +frequent rehearsals took place. The largest and most spacious barns and +kilns were fitted up, the night of representation was given out, and +crowds, even to suffocation, as they say, assembled to witness the +celebrated "Battle of Aughrim." + +At first, it was true, the Orangemen had it all to themselves. This, +however, could not last. The Catholics felt that they were as capable of +patronising the drama as the victors of Aughrim. A strong historic +spirit awoke among them. They requested of the Orangemen to be allowed +the favour of representing the Catholic warriors of the disastrous +field, and, somewhat to their surprise, the request was immediately +granted. The Orangemen felt that there was something awkward and not +unlike political apostasy in acting the part of Catholics in the play, +under any circumstances, no matter how dramatic. It was consequently +agreed that the Orangemen should represent the officers of the great man +on whose name and title their system had been founded, and the Catholics +should represent their own generals and officers under the name of St. +Ruth, Sarsfield, and Colonel O'Neill. The first representation of this +well-known play took place in the town of Au----. During the few weeks +before the great night nothing was heard but incessant repetitions and +rehearsals of the play. + +The fact of this enactment of the play by individuals so strongly +opposed to each other both in religion and politics excited not only an +unusual degree of curiosity, but some apprehension as to the result, +especially when such language as this was heard:-- + +"We licked them before," said the Orangemen, "an' by japers, we'll lick +them again. Jack Tait acts General Jingle, an' he's the boy will show +them what chance a Papist has against a Prodestan!" + +"Well, they bate us at Aughrim," said the Catholics, "but with Tam +Whiskey at our head, we'll turn the tebles and lick them now." + +Both parties on that night were armed with swords for the battle scene, +which represented the result of the engagement. Unfortunately, when the +scene came on, instead of the bloodless fiction of the drama they began +to slash each other in reality, and had it not been for the interference +of the audience there is no doubt that lives would have been lost. After +this, swords were interdicted and staves substituted. The consequence, +as might have been expected, was that heads were broken on both sides, +and a general fight between Protestant and Catholic portions of the +actors and the audience ensued. + +In the meanwhile the dramatic mania had become an epidemic. Its +fascination carried overt opposition before it. A new system was +adopted. The Orange party was to be represented by staunch Catholics, +all probably Ribbonmen, and the Catholics by the rankest and most +violent Orangemen in the parish. This course was resorted to in order to +prevent the serious quarrels with which the play generally closed. Such +was the state which the dramatic affairs of the parish had reached when +the occasion, a summer evening, arrived that had been appointed by the +herculean manager, John Tait, for the exhibition of "The Battle of +Aughrim," in a large and roomy barn of a wealthy farmer named Jack +Stuart, in the townland of Rark. + +His house stood on a little swelling eminence beside which an old road +ran, and into which the little green before the door sloped. The road, +being somewhat lower, passed close to his outhouses, which faced the +road, but in consequence of their positions a loft was necessary to +constitute the barn, so that it might be level with the haggard on the +elevation. The entrance to the barn was by a door in one of the gables, +whilst the stable and cow-house, or byre as it was called, were beneath +the loft, and had their door open to the road. This accurate description +will be found necessary in order to understand what followed. + +In preparing the barn for the entertainment, the principal embarrassment +consisted in want of seats. + +Necessity, however, is well-known to be the mother of invention; and in +this case that fact was established at the expense of honest Jack +Stuart. Five or six sacks of barley were stretched length-wise on that +side of the wall which faced the road. Now, barley, although the juice +of it makes many a head light, is admitted to be the heaviest of all +grain. On the opposite side, next the haggard, the seats consisted of +chairs and forms, some of them borrowed from the neighbours. The curtain +(i.e., the winnowing-cloth) was hung up at the south end, and +everything, so far as preparation went, was very well managed. Of +course, it was unnecessary to say that the entertainment was free to +such as could find room, for which there was many an angry struggle. + +We have said that from an apprehension that the heroes on both sides +might forget the fiction and resort to reality by actual fighting, it +had generally been arranged that the Catholic party should be +represented by the Orangemen, and _vice versa_; and so it was in this +instance. The caste of the piece was as follows:-- + + Baron de Ginckel (General of the English forces) Tom Whiskey. + (A perfect devil at the cudgels when sober, especially against an + Orangeman.) + + Marquis de Ruvigny Denis Shevlin. + (Ditto with Tom Whiskey as to fighting.) + + General Talmash Barney Broghan. + (A fighting Blacksmith.) + + General Mackay Dandy Delaney. + (At present on his keeping--but place of birth unknown.) + + Colonels Herbert and Earles Tom M'Roarkin, of Springstown, and + Paddy Rafferty, of Dernascrobe. + (Both awfully bellicose, and never properly at peace unless when in + a fight.) + +The cast of the Catholic leaders was this:-- + + Monsieur St. Ruth (General of the Irish Forces) Jacky Vengeance. + (An Orangeman who had lost a brother at the battle of Vinegar Hill, + hence the nickname of Vengeance.) + + Sarsfield Big Jack Tait. + (Master of an Orange Lodge.) + + (We know not how far the belief in Sarsfield's immense size is true + to fact; but be this as it may, we have it from the tradition that + he was a man of prodigious stature, and Jack was six feet four in + height, and strong in proportion.) + + General Dorrington George Twin. + (Of Mallybarry, another man of prowess in party fights, and an + Orangeman.) + + Colonel Talbot Lick-Papish Nelson. + + Colonel Gordon O'Neill Fighting Grimes. + + Sir Charles Godfrey (a young English gentleman of fortune, in love with + Colonel Talbot's Daughter, and volunteer in the Irish army) + Jemmy Lynch, the fighting tailor. + (He fought for his customers, whether Orange or Green, according as + they came in his way.) + + Jemima (Colonel Talbot's daughter) Grasey (Grace) Stuart. + (A bouncing virago, at least twelve stone weight.) + + Lucinda (wife of Colonel Herbert) Dolly Stuart. + (Her sister, much of the same proportions.) + + Ghost Cooney Mullowney. + (Of the Bohlies, a townland adjoining.) + +On the chairs and forms, being the seats of honour, were placed the +Protestant portion of the audience, because they were the most wealthy +and consequently the most respectable, at least in the eyes of the +world--by which we mean the parish. On the barley-sacks were deposited +the "Papishes," because they were then the poor and the downtrodden +people, so that they and "the Prodestants" sat on opposite sides of the +barn. There were no political watch-words, no "three cheers" for either +this man or that, owing to the simple reason that no individual present +had ever seen a theatre in his life. The only exception was that of an +unfortunate flunkey, who had seen a play in Dublin, and shouted "up +with the rag," for which, as it was supposed that he meant to turn the +whole thing into ridicule, he was kicked out by the Ghost, who, by the +way, was one of the stoutest fellows among them, and would have been +allotted to a higher part were it not for the vileness of his memory. + +At length the play commenced, and went on with remarkable success. The +two batches of heroes were in high feather--King William's party (to +wit, Tom Whiskey and his friends) standing accidentally on that side of +the barn which was occupied by the barley-sacks and the Papishes, and +the Catholic generals ranged with the Orange audience on the opposite +side. It was now the Ghost's cue to enter from behind the +winnowing-cloth, but before the apparition had time to appear, the +prompter's attention was struck by a sudden sinking of the party on the +sacks, which seemed rather unaccountable. Yet, as it did not appear to +have been felt by the parties themselves, who were too much wrapped up +in the play, it excited neither notice nor alarm. At length the Ghost +came out, dressed in a white sheet his face rendered quite spectral by +flour. Sir Charles Godfrey, alias Jemmy Lynch, the tailor, had just +concluded the following words, addressed to the Ghost himself, who in +life it appeared had been his father:-- + + "Oh, I'll sacrifice + A thousand Romish sowls who, shocked with woe, + Shall, bound in shackles, fill the shades below." + Ghost.--"Be not so rash, wild youth----" + +He had scarcely uttered the words when a noise like the "crack of doom" +was heard: one-half of the barn-floor had disappeared! The Ghost made a +step to approach Sir Charles, his son, when the last object we saw was +his heels--his legs dressed in blue woollen stockings and his sturdy +hinder parts cased in strong corduroys, in the act of disappearing in +the abyss beneath. Down he and the others went, and were lodged in the +cow-house below amid the warm manure. + +The consternation, the alarm, the fright and terror among the safe and +Protestant side of the audience, could not be described. But the +disaster proved to be one of the most harmless for its nature that ever +occurred, for it was only destructive to property. Not a single injury +was sustained with the exception of that which befell the Ghost, who had +his arm dislocated at the elbow. The accident now resumed a religious +hue. The Catholics charged the others with the concoction of a +Protestant plot, by putting them together on what they called the rotten +side of the house. The wrangle became high and abusive, and was fast +hastening into polemical theology, when the _dramatis personae_ offered +to settle it in a peaceable way, by fighting out the battle on the +green. It was the scene of terrible and strong confusion, so much so +that all we can glean from our recollection is the image of a desperate +personal conflict between the actors whose orange and green ribbons were +soon flung off as false emblems of the principles which they had adopted +only for the sake of ending the play in a peaceable manner. + + + + +The Quare Gander. + +_From "The Purcell Papers."_ + +BY JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU + + +Terence Mooney was an honest boy and well-to-do--an' he rinted the +biggest farm on this side iv the Galties, an' bein' mighty cute an' a +sevare worker, it was small wonder he turned a good penny every harvest; +but, unluckily, he was blessed with an ilegant large family iv +daughters, an' iv coorse his heart was allamost bruck, strivin' to make +up fortunes for the whole of them--an' there wasn't a conthrivance iv +any sort of description for makin' money out iv the farm but he was up +to. Well, among the other ways he had iv gettin' up in the world, he +always kep' a power iv turkies, and all soarts iv poultry; an' he was +out iv all raison partial to geese--an' small blame to him for that +same--for twiste a year you can pluck them as bare as my hand--an' get a +fine price for the feathers, and plenty of rale sizeable eggs--an' when +they are too ould to lay any more, you can kill them, an' sell them to +the gintlemen for goslings, d'ye see,--let alone that a goose is the +most manly bird that is out. Well, it happened in the coorse iv time, +that one ould gandher tuck a wondherful likin' to Terence, an' sorra a +place he could go serenadin' about the farm, or lookin' afther the men, +but the gandher id be at his heels, an' rubbin' himself agin his legs, +and lookin' up in his face just like any other Christian id do; and the +likes iv it was never seen, Terence Mooney an' the gandher wor so great. +An' at last the bird was so engagin' that Terence would not allow it to +be plucked any more; an' kept it from that time out for love an' +affection; just all as one like one iv his children. But happiness in +perfection never lasts long; an' the neighbours begin'd to suspect the +nathur and intentions iv the gandher; an' some iv them said it was the +divil, and more iv them that it was a fairy. Well Terence could not but +hear something of what was sayin', and you may be sure he was not +altogether aisy in his mind about it, an' from one day to another he was +gettin' more ancomfortable in himself, until he detarmined to sind for +Jer Garvan, the fairy docthor in Garryowen, an' it's he was the ilegant +hand at the business, and sorra a sperit id say a crass word to him, no +more nor a priest; an' moreover, he was very great wid ould Terence +Mooney, this man's father that was. So without more about it, he was +sent for; an' sure enough, not long he was about it, for he kem back +that very evening along wid the boy that was sint for him; an' as soon +as he was there, an' tuk his supper, an' was done talkin' for a while, +he bigined, of coorse, to look into the gandher. Well, he turned it this +way an' that way, to the right and to the left, an' straight-ways, an' +upside down, an' when he was tired handlin' it, says he to Terence +Mooney: + +"Terence," says he, "you must remove the bird into the next room," says +he, "an' put a petticoat," says he, "or any other convaynience round his +head," says he. + +"An' why so?" says Terence. + +"Becase," says Jer, says he. + +"Becase what?" says Terence. + +"Becase," says Jer, "if it isn't done--you'll never be aisy agin," says +he, "or pusilanimous in your mind," says he; "so ax no more questions, +but do my biddin," says he. + +"Well," says Terence, "have your own way," says he. + +An' wid that he tuk the ould gandher, and giv' it to one iv the +gossoons. + +"An' take care," says he, "don't smother the crathur," says he. + +Well, as soon as the bird was gone, says Jer Garvan, says he, "Do you +know what that ould gandher is, Terence Mooney?" + +"Sorra a taste," says Terence. + +"Well, then," says Jer, "the gandher is your own father," says he. + +"It's jokin' you are," says Terence, turnin' mighty pale; "how can an +ould gandher be my father?" says he. + +"I'm not funnin' you at all," says Jer, "it's thrue what I tell +you--it's your father's wandherin' sowl," says he, "that's naturally tuk +pissession iv the ould gandher's body," says he; "I know him many ways, +and I wondher," says he, "you do not know the cock iv his eye yourself," +says he. + +"Oh!" says Terence, "what will I ever do, at all, at all," says he; +"it's all over wid me, for I plucked him twelve times at the laste," +says he. + +"That can't be helped now," says Jer, "it was a sevare act, surely," +says he, "but it's too late to lamint for it now," says he; "the only +way to prevint what's past," says he, "is to put a stop to it before it +happens," says he. + +"Thrue for you," says Terence, "but how did you come to the knowledge iv +my father's sowl," says he, "bein' in the ould gandher?" says he. + +"If I tould you," says Jer, "you would not understand me," says he, +"without book-larnin' an' gasthronomy," says he; "so ax me no +questions," says he, "an I'll tell you no lies; but b'lieve me in this +much," says he, "it's your father that's in it," says he, "an' if I +don't make him spake to-morrow mornin'," says he, "I'll give you lave to +call me a fool," says he. + +"Say no more," says Terence, "that settles the business," says he; "an' +oh! is it not a quare thing," says he, "for a dacent, respictable man," +says he, "to be walkin' about the counthry in the shape iv an ould +gandher," says he; "and, oh, murdher, murdher! is it not often I plucked +him," says he, "an' tundher and turf, might not I have ate him," says +he; and wid that he fell into a could parspiration, savin' your +prisince, an' was on the pint iv faintin' wid the bare notions iv it. + +Well, whin he was come to himself agin, says Jerry, to him, quite an +aisy--"Terence," says he, "don't be aggravatin' yourself," says he, "for +I have a plan composed that'll make him spake out," says he, "an' tell +what it is in the world he's wantin'," says he; "an' mind an' don't be +comin' in wid your gosther an' to say agin anything I tell you," says +he, "but jist purtind, as soon as the bird is brought back," says he, +"how that we're goin' to sind him to-morrow mornin' to market," says he; +"an' if he don't spake to-night," says he, "or gother himself out iv the +place," says he, "put him into the hamper airly, and sind him in the +cart," says he, "straight to Tipperary, to be sould for aitin'," says +he, "along wid the two gossoons," says he; "an' my name isn't Jer +Garvan," says he, "if he doesn't spake out before he's half way," says +he; "an' mind," says he, "as soon as ever he says the first word," says +he, "that very minute bring him off to Father Crotty," says he, "an' if +his Raverance doesn't make him ratire," says he, "into the flames of +Purgathory," says he, "there's no vartue in my charms," says he. + +Well, wid that the ould gandher was let into the room agin, an' they all +begined to talk iv sindin' him the nixt mornin' to be sould for roastin' +in Tipperary, jist as if it was a thing andoubtingly settled; but not a +notice the gandher tuk, no more nor if they wor spaking iv the Lord +Liftenant; an' Terence desired the boy to get ready the _kish_ for the +poulthry "an' to settle it out wid hay soft and shnug," says he, "for +it's the last jauntin' the poor ould gandher 'ill get in this world," +says he. + +Well, as the night was getting late, Terence was growin' mighty +sorrowful an' down-hearted in himself entirely wid the notions iv what +was going to happen. An' as soon as the wife an' the crathurs war fairly +in bed, he brought out some illigant potteen, an' himself and Jer Garvan +sot down to it, an' the more anasy Terence got, the more he dhrank, and +himself and Jer Garvan finished a quart betune them: it wasn't an +imparial though, an' more's the pity, for them wasn't anvinted antil +short since; but sorra a much matther it signifies any longer if a pint +could hould two quarts, let alone what it does, sinst Father Mathew +begin'd to give the pledge, an' wid the blessin' iv timperance to +deginerate Ireland. An' sure I have the medle myself; an' it's proud I +am iv that same, for abstamiousness is a fine thing, although it's +mighty dhry. + +Well, whin Terence finished his pint, he thought he might as well stop, +"for enough is as good as a faste," says he, "an' I pity the vagabone," +says he, "that is not able to conthroul his liquor," says he, "an' to +keep constantly inside iv a pint measure," says he, an' wid that he +wished Jer Garvan a good night, an' walked out iv the room. But he wint +out the wrong door, being a trifle hearty in himself, an' not rightly +knowin' whether he was standin' on his head or his heels, or both iv +them at the same time, an' in place iv gettin' into bed, where did he +thrun himself but into the poulthry hamper, that the boys had settled +out ready for the gandher in the mornin'; an', sure enough, he sunk down +snug an' complate through the hay to the bottom; an' wid the turnin' an' +roulin' about in the night, not a bit iv him but was covered up as snug +as a lumper in a pittaty furrow before mornin'. + +So wid the first light, up gets the two boys that war to take the +sperit, as they consaved, to Tipperary; an' they cotched the ould +gandher, an' put him in the hamper and clapped a good whisp iv hay on +the top iv him, and tied it down sthrong wid a bit iv a coard, an med +the sign iv the crass over him, in dhread iv any harum, an' put the +hamper up on the car, wontherin' all the while what in the world was +makin' the ould burd so surprisin' heavy. + +Well, they wint along on the road towards Tipperary, wishin' every +minute that some iv the neighbours bound the same way id happen to fall +in with them, for they didn't half like the notions iv havin' no company +but the bewitched gandher, an' small blame to them for that same. But, +although they wor shakin' in their skins in dhread iv the ould bird +beginin' to convarse them every minute, they did not let on to one +another, bud kep' singin' and whistlin', like mad to keep the dhread out +iv their hearts. Well, afther they wor on the road betther nor half an +hour, they kem to the bad bit close by Father Crotty's, an' there was +one rut three feet deep at the laste; an' the car got sich a wondherful +chuck goin' through it, that wakened Terence within the basket. + +"Oh!" says he, "my bones is bruck wid yer thricks, what are ye doin' wid +me?" + +"Did ye hear anything quare, Thady?" says the boy that was next to the +car, turnin' as white as the top iv a musharoon; "did ye hear anything +quare soundin' out iv the hamper?" says he. + +"No, nor you," says Thady, turnin' as pale as himself, "it's the ould +gandher that's gruntin' wid the shakin' he's gettin'," says he. + +"Where have ye put me into," says Terence, inside; "let me out," says +he, "or I'll be smothered this minute," says he. + +"There's no use in purtending," says the boy; "the gandher's spakin', +glory be to God!" says he. + +"Let me out, you murdherers," says Terence. + +"In the name iv all the holy saints," says Thady, "hould yer tongue, you +unnatheral gandher," says he. + +"Who's that, that dar call me nicknames," says Terence inside, roaring +wid the fair passion; "let me out, you blasphamious infiddles," says he, +"or by this crass, I'll stretch ye," says he. + +"Who are ye?" says Thady. + +"Who would I be but Terence Mooney," says he, "It's myself that's in it, +you unmerciful bliggards," says he; "let me out, or I'll get out in +spite iv yez," says he, "an' I'll wallop yez in arnest," says he. + +"It's ould Terence, sure enough," says Thady; "isn't it cute the fairy +docthor found him out," says he. + +"I'm on the p'int iv suffication," says Terence; "let me out, I tell +ye, an' wait till I get at ye," says he, "for sorra a bone in your body +but I'll powdher," says he; an' wid that he bigined kickin' and flingin' +in the hamper, and drivin' his legs agin the sides iv it, that it was a +wondher he did not knock it to pieces. Well, as the boys seen that, they +skelped the ould horse into a gallop as hard as he could peg towards the +priest's house, through the ruts, an' over the stones; an' you'd see the +hamper fairly flyin' three feet in the air with the joultin'; so it was +small wondher, by the time they got to his Raverance's door, the breath +was fairly knocked out iv poor Terence; so that he was lyin' speechless +in the bottom iv the hamper. Well, whin his Raverance kem down, they up +an' they tould him all that happened, an' how they put the gandher into +the hamper, an' how he begined to spake, an' how he confissed that he +was ould Terence Mooney; and they axed his honour to advise them how to +get rid iv the sperit for good an' all. So says his Raverance, says he: + +"I'll take my booke," says he, "an' I'll read some rale sthrong holy +bits out iv it," says he, "an' do you get a rope and put it round the +hamper," says he, "an' let it swing over the runnin' wather at the +bridge," says he, "an' it's no matther if I don't make the sperit come +out iv it," says he. + +Well, wid that, the priest got his horse, an' tuk his booke in undher +his arum, an' the boys follied his Raverance, ladin' the horse, and +Terence houldin' his whisht, for he seen it was no use spakin', an' he +was afeard if he med any noise they might thrait him to another gallop +an' finish him intirely. Well, as soon as they wur all come to the +bridge the boys tuk the rope they had with them, an' med it fast to the +top iv the hamper an' swung it fairly over the bridge; lettin' it hang +in the air about twelve feet out iv the wather; and his Raverance rode +down to the bank iv the river, close by, an' begined to read mighty loud +and bould intirely. + +An' when he was goin' on about five minutes, all at onst the bottom iv +the hamper kem out, an' down wint Terence, falling splash dash into the +wather, an' the ould gandher a-top iv him; down they both wint to the +bottom wid a souse you'd hear half-a-mile off; an' before they had time +to rise agin, his Raverance, wid a fair astonishment, giv his horse one +dig iv the spurs, an' before he knew where he was, in he went, horse and +all, a-top iv them, an' down to the bottom. Up they all kem agin +together, gaspin' an puffin', an' off down the current with them like +shot, in undher the arch iv the bridge, till they kem to the shallow +wather. The ould gandher was the first out, an' the priest and Terence +kem next, pantin' an' blowin' an' more than half dhrounded: an' his +Raverance was so freckened wid the dhroundin' he got, and wid the sight +iv the sperit, as he consaved, that he wasn't the better iv it for a +month. An' as soon as Terence could spake, he said he'd have the life iv +the two gossoons; but Father Crotty would not give him his will; an' as +soon as he got quieter they all endeavoured to explain it, but Terence +consayved he went raly to bed the night before, an' his Raverance said +it was a mysthery, an' swore if he cotched anyone laughin' at the +accident, he'd lay the horsewhip across their shoulders; an' Terence +grew fonder an' fonder iv the gandher every day, until at last he died +in a wondherful ould age, lavin' the gandher afther him an' a large +family iv childer; an' to this day the farm is rinted by one iv Terence +Mooney's lineal legitimate postariors. + + + + +The Thrush and the Blackbird. + +BY CHARLES JOSEPH KICKHAM (1828-1882). + + +A stranger meeting Sally Cavanagh, as she tripped along the mountain +road, would consider her a contented and happy young matron, and might +be inclined to set her down as a proud one; for Sally Cavanagh held her +head rather high, and occasionally elevated it still higher with a toss +which had something decidedly haughty about it. She turned up a short +boreen for the purpose of calling upon the gruff blacksmith's wife, who +had been very useful to her for some time before. The smith's habits +were so irregular that his wife was often obliged to visit the pawn +office in the next town, and poor Sally Cavanagh availed herself of +Nancy Ryan's experience in pledging almost everything pledgeable she +possessed. The new cloak, of which even a rich farmer's wife might feel +proud, was the last thing left. It was a present from Connor, and was +only worn on rare occasions, and to part with it was a sore trial. + +Loud screams and cries for help made Sally Cavanagh start. She stopped +for a moment, and then ran forward and rushed breathless into the +smith's house. The first sight that met her eyes was our friend Shawn +Gow choking his wife. A heavy three-legged stool came down with such +force upon the part of Shawn Gow's person which happened to be the most +elevated as he bent over the prostrate woman, that, uttering an +exclamation between a grunt and a growl, he bounded into the air, and, +striking his shins against a chair, tumbled head over heels into the +corner. When Shawn found that he was more frightened than hurt, and saw +Sally with the three-legged stool in her hand, a sense of the ludicrous +overcame him, and, turning his face to the wall, he relieved his +feelings by giving way to a fit of laughter. It was of the silent, +inward sort, however, and neither his wife nor Sally Cavanagh had any +notion of the pleasant mood he was in. The bright idea of pretending to +be "kilt" occurred to the overthrown son of Vulcan, and with a fearful +groan he stretched out his huge limbs and remained motionless on the +broad of his back. + +Sally's sympathy for the ill-used woman prevented her from giving a +thought to her husband. Great was her astonishment then when Nancy flew +at her like a wild cat. "You kilt my husband," she screamed. Sally +retreated backwards, defending herself as best she could with the stool. +"For God's sake, Nancy, be quiet. Wouldn't he have destroyed you on'y +for me?" But Nancy followed up the attack like a fury. "There's nothing +the matter with him," Sally cried out, on finding herself literally +driven to the wall. "What harm could a little touch of a stool on the +back do the big brute?" + +Nancy's feelings appeared to rush suddenly into another channel, for she +turned round quickly, and kneeling down by her husband, lifted up his +head. "_Och! Shawn, avourneen, machree_," she exclaimed, "won't you +spake to me?" Shawn condescended to open his eyes. "Sally," she +continued, "he's comin' to--glory be to God! Hurry over and hould up his +head while I'm runnin' for somethin' to rewive him. Or stay, bring me +the boulster." + +The bolster was brought, and Nancy placed it under the patient's head; +then, snatching her shawl from the peg where it hung, she disappeared. +She was back again in five minutes, without the shawl, but with +half-a-pint of whiskey in a bottle. + +"Take a taste av this, Shawn, an' 'twill warm your heart." + +Shawn Gow sat up and took the bottle in his hand. + +"Nancy," says he, "I believe, afther all, you're fond o' me." + +"Wisha, Shawn, achora, what else'd I be but fond av you?" + +"I thought, Nancy, you couldn't care for a divil that thrated you so +bad." + +"Och, Shawn, Shawn, don't talk that way to me. Sure, I thought my heart +was broke when I see you sthretched there 'idout a stir in you." + +"An' you left your shawl in pledge again to get this for me?" + +"To be sure I did; an' a good right I had; an' sorry I'd be to see you +in want of a dhrop of nourishment." + +"I was a baste, Nancy. But if I was, this is what made a baste av me." + +And Shawn Gow fixed his eyes upon the bottle with a look in which hatred +and fascination were strangely blended. He turned quickly to his wife. + +"Will you give in it was a blackbird?" he said. + +"A blackbird," she repeated, irresolutely. + +"Yes, a blackbird. Will you give in it was a blackbird?" + +Shawn Gow was evidently relapsing into his savage mood. + +"Well," said his wife, after some hesitation, "'twas a blackbird. Will +that plase you?" + +"An' you'll never say 'twas a thrish agin?" + +"Never. An' sure, on'y for the speckles on the breast, I'd never say +'twas a thrish; but sure, you ought to know betther than +me--an'--an'--'twas a blackbird," she exclaimed, with a desperate +effort. + +Shawn Gow swung the bottle round his head and flung it with all his +strength against the hob. The whole fireplace was for a moment one blaze +of light. + +"The Divil was in id," says the smith, smiling grimly; "an' there he's +off in a flash of fire. I'm done wid him, any way." + +"Well, I wish you a happy Christmas, Nancy," said Sally. + +"I wish you the same, Sally, an' a great many av 'em. I suppose you're +goin' to first Mass? Shawn and me'll wait for second." + +Sally took her leave of this remarkable couple, and proceeded on her way +to the village. She met Tim Croak and his wife, Betty, who were also +going to Mass. After the usual interchange of greetings, Betty surveyed +Sally from head to foot with a look of delighted wonder. + +"Look at her, Tim," she exclaimed, "an' isn't she as young an' as hearty +as ever? Bad cess to me but you're the same Sally that danced wid the +master at my weddin', next Thursday fortnight'll be eleven years." + +"Begob, you're a great woman," says Tim. + +Sally Cavanagh changed the subject by describing the scene she had +witnessed at the blacksmith's. + +"But, Tim," said she, after finishing the story, "how did the dispute +about the blackbird come first? I heard something about it, but I forget +it." + +"I'll tell you that, then," said Tim. "Begob, ay," he exclaimed +abruptly, after thinking for a moment; "'twas this day seven years, for +all the world--the year o' the hard frost. Shawn Gow set a crib in his +haggard the evenin' afore, and when he went out in the mornin' he had a +hen blackbird. He put the _goulogue_[1] on her nick, and tuk her in his +hand; and wud' one _smulluck_ av his finger knocked the life out av her; +he walked in an' threw the blackbird on the table. + +"'Oh, Shawn,' siz Nancy, 'you're afther ketchin' a fine thrish.' Nancy +tuk the bird in her hand an' began rubbin' the feathers on her breast. +'A fine thrish,' siz Nancy. + +"''Tisn't a thrish, but a blackbird,' siz Shawn. + +"'Wisha, in throth, Shawn,' siz Nancy, ''tis a thrish; do you want to +take the sight o' my eyes from me?' + +"'I tell you 'tis a blackbird," siz he. + +"'Indeed, then, it isn't, but a thrish,' siz she. + +"Anyway, one word borrowed another, an' the end av it was, Shawn flailed +at her an' gev her the father av a batin'. + +"The Christmas Day afther, Nancy opened the door an' looked out. + +"'God be wud this day twelve months,' siz she, 'do you remimber the fine +thrish you caught in the crib?' + +"''Twas a blackbird,' siz Shawn. + +"'Och,' siz Nancy, beginnin' to laugh, 'that was a quare blackbird.' + +"'Whisht, now, Nancy, 'twas a blackbird,' siz Shawn. + +"'Och,' siz Nancy, beginnin' to laugh, 'that was the quare blackbird.' + +"Wud that, one word borrowed another, an' Shawn stood up an' gev her the +father av a batin'. + +"The third Christmas Day kem, an' they wor in the best o' good humour +afther the tay, an' Shawn, puttin' on his ridin'-coat to go to Mass. + +"'Well, Shawn,' siz Nancy, I'm thinkin' av what an unhappy Christmas +mornin' we had this day twelve months, all on account of the thrish you +caught in the crib, bad cess to her.' + +"''Twas a blackbird,' siz Shawn. + +"'Wisha, good luck to you, an' don't be talkin' foolish,' siz Nancy; +'an' you're betther not get into a passion agin, on account av an ould +thrish. My heavy curse on the same thrish,' siz Nancy. + +"'I tell you 'twas a blackbird,' siz Shawn. + +"'An' I tell you 'twas a thrish,' siz Nancy. + +"'Wud that, Shawn took a _bunnaun_ he had _saisonin'_ in the chimley, +and whaled at Nancy, an' gev her the father av a batin'. An' every +Christmas morning from that day to this 'twas the same story, for as +sure as the sun, Nancy'd draw down the thrish. But do you tell me, +Sally, she's afther givin' in it was a blackbird?" + +"She is," replied Sally. + +"Begob," said Tim Croak, after a minute's serious reflection, "it ought +to be put in the papers. I never h'ard afore av a wrong notion bein' got +out av a woman's head. But Shawn Gow is no joke to dale wud, and it took +him seven years to do id." + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [1] A forked stick + + + + +Their Last Race. + +_From "At the Rising of the Moon."_ + +BY FRANK MATHEW (1865--). + +I.--THE FACTION FIGHT. + + +In the heart of the Connemara Highlands, Carrala Valley hides in a +triangle of mountains. Carrala Village lies in the corner of it towards +Loch Ina, and Aughavanna in the corner nearest Kylemore. Aughavanna is a +wreck now: if you were to look for it you would see only a cluster of +walls grown over by ferns and nettles; but in those remote times, before +the Great Famine, when no English was spoken in the Valley, there was no +place more renowned for wild fun and fighting; and when its men were to +be at a fair, every able-bodied man in the countryside took his +kippeen--his cudgel--from its place in the chimney, and went out to do +battle with a good heart. + +Long Mat Murnane was the king of Aughavanna. There was no grander sight +than Mat smashing his way through a forest of kippeens, with his enemies +staggering back to the right and left of him; there was no sweeter sound +than his voice, clear as a bell, full of triumph and gladness, shouting, +"Hurroo! whoop! Aughavanna for ever!" Where his kippeen flickered in the +air his followers charged after, and the enemy rushed to meet him, for +it was an honour to take a broken head from him. + +But Carrala Fair was the black day for him. That day Carrala swarmed +with men--fishers from the near coast, dwellers in lonely huts by the +black lakes, or in tiny, ragged villages under the shadow of the +mountains, or in cabins on the hill-sides--every little town for miles, +by river or sea-shore or mountain built, was emptied. The fame of the +Aughavanna men was their ruin, for they were known to fight so well that +every one was dying to fight them. The Joyces sided against them; Black +Michael Joyce had a farm in the third corner of the valley, just where +the road through the bog from Aughavanna (the road with the cross by it) +meets the high-road to Leenane, so his kin mustered in force. Now Black +Michael, "Meehul Dhu," was long Mat's rival; though smaller, he was near +as deadly in fight, and in dancing no man could touch him, for it was +said he could jump a yard into the air and kick himself behind with his +heels in doing it. + +The business of the Fair had been hurried so as to leave the more time +for pleasure, and by five of the afternoon every man was mad for the +battle. Why, you could scarcely have moved in Callanan's Field out +beyond the churchyard at the end of the village, it was so packed with +men--more than five hundred were there, and you could not have heard +yourself speak, for they were jumping and dancing, tossing their +caubeens, and shouting themselves hoarse and deaf--"Hurroo for Carrala!" +"Whoop for Aughavanna!" + +Around them a mob of women, old men and children, looked on +breathlessly. It was dull weather, and the mists had crept half way down +the dark mountain walls, as if to have a nearer look at the fight. + +As the chapel clock struck five, Long Mat Murnane gave the signal. Down +the village he came, rejoicing in his strength, out between the two last +houses, past the churchyard and into Callanan's Field; he looked every +inch a king; his kippeen was ready, his frieze coat was off, with his +left hand he trailed it behind him holding it by the sleeve, while with +a great voice he shouted--in Irish--"Where's the Carrala man that dare +touch my coat? Where's the cowardly scoundrel that dare look crooked at +it?" + +In a moment Black Michael Joyce was trailing his own coat behind him, +and rushed forward, with a mighty cry "Where's the face of a trembling +Aughavanna man?" In a moment their kippeens clashed; in another, +hundreds of kippeens crashed together, and the grandest fight ever +fought in Connemara raged over Callanan's Field. After the first roar of +defiance the men had to keep their breath for the hitting, so the shout +of triumph and the groan as one fell were the only sounds that broke the +music of the kippeens clashing and clicking on one another, or striking +home with a thud. + +Never was Long Mat nobler; he rushed ravaging through the enemy, +shattering their ranks and their heads; no man could withstand him; Red +Callanan of Carrala went down before him; he knocked the five senses out +of Dan O'Shaughran, of Earrennamore, that herded many pigs by the sedgy +banks of the Owen Erriff; he hollowed the left eye out of Larry Mulcahy, +that lived on the Devil's Mother Mountain--never again did Larry set the +two eyes of him on his high mountain-cradle; he killed Black Michael +Joyce by a beautiful swooping blow on the side of the head--who would +have dreamt that Black Michael had so thin a skull. + +For near an hour Mat triumphed, then suddenly he went down under foot. +At first he was missed only by those nearest him, and they took it for +granted that he was up again and fighting. But when the Aughavanna men +found themselves outnumbered and driven back to the village, a great +fear came on them, for they knew that all Ireland could not outnumber +them if Mat was to the fore. Then disaster and rout took them, and they +were forced backwards up the street, struggling desperately, till hardly +a man of them could stand. + +And when the victors were shouting themselves dumb, and drinking +themselves blind, the beaten men looked for their leader. Long Mat was +prone, his forehead was smashed, his face had been trampled into the +mud--he had done with fighting. His death was untimely, yet he fell as +he would have chosen--in a friendly battle. For when a man falls under +the hand of an enemy (as of any one who differs from him in creed or +politics) revenge and black blood live after him; but he who takes his +death from the kindly hand of a friend leaves behind him no ill-will, +but only gentle regret for the mishap. + + +II. THEIR LAST RACE. + +When the dead had been duly waked for two days and nights, the burying +day came. All the morning long Mat Murnane's coffin lay on four chairs +by his cabin, with a kneeling ring of dishevelled women keening round +it. Every soul in Aughavanna and their kith and kin had gathered to do +him honour. And when the Angelus bell rang across the valley from the +chapel, the mourners fell into ranks, the coffin was lifted on the rough +hearse, and the motley funeral--a line of carts with a mob of peasants +behind, a few riding, but most of them on foot--moved slowly towards +Carrala. The women were crying bitterly, keening like an Atlantic gale; +the men looked as sober as if they had never heard of a wake, and spoke +sadly of the dead man, and of what a pity it was that he could not see +his funeral. + +The Joyces, too, had waited, as was the custom, for the Angelus bell, +and now Black Michael's funeral was moving slowly towards Carrala along +the other side of the bog. Before long either party could hear the +keening of the other, for you know the roads grow nearer as they +converge on Carrala. Before long either party began to fear that the +other would be there first. + +There is no knowing how it happened, but the funerals began to go +quicker, keeping abreast; then still quicker, till the women had to +break into a trot to keep up; then still quicker, till the donkeys were +galloping, and till everyone raced at full speed, and the rival parties +broke into a wild shout of "Aughavanna abu!" "Meehul Dhu for ever!" + +For the dead men were racing--feet foremost--to the grave; they were +rivals even in death. Never did the world see such a race, never was +there such whooping and shouting. Where the roads met in Callanan's +Field the horses were abreast; neck and neck they dashed across the +trampled fighting-place, while the coffins jogged and jolted as if the +two dead men were struggling to get out and lead the rush; neck to neck +they reached the churchyard, and the horses jammed in the gate. Behind +them the carts crashed into one another, and the mourners shouted as if +they were mad. + +But the quick wit of the Aughavanna men triumphed, for they seized their +long coffin and dragged it in, and Long Mat Murnane won his last race. +The shout they gave then deafened the echo up in the mountains, so that +it has never been the same since. The victors wrung one another's hands; +they hugged one another. + +"Himself would be proud," they cried, "if he hadn't been dead!" + + + + +The First Lord Liftinant. + +BY WILLIAM PERCY FRENCH (1854--). + +(AS RELATED BY ANDREW GERAGHTY, PHILOMATH.) + + +"Essex," said Queen Elizabeth, as the two of them sat at breakwhist in +the back parlour of Buckingham Palace, "Essex, me haro, I've got a job +that I think would suit you. Do you know where Ireland is?" + +"I'm no great fist at jografy," says his lordship, "but I know the place +you mane. Population, three millions; exports, emigrants." + +"Well," says the Queen, "I've been reading the Dublin Evening Mail and +the Telegraft for some time back, and sorra one o' me can get at the +trooth o' how things is goin', for the leadin' articles is as +conthradictory as if they wor husband and wife." + +"That's the way wid papers all the world over," says Essex; "Columbus +told me it was the same in Amerikay, when he was there, abusin' and +conthradictin' each other at every turn--it's the way they make their +livin'. Thrubble you for an egg-spoon." + +"It's addled they have me betune them," says the Queen. "Not a know I +know what's goin' on. So now, what I want you to do is to run over to +Ireland, like a good fella, and bring me word how matters stand." + +"Is it me?" says Essex, leppin' up off his chair. "It's not in airnest +ye are, ould lady. Sure it's the hoight of the London saison. Every +one's in town, and Shake's new fairy piece, 'The Midsummer's Night +Mare,' billed for next week." + +"You'll go when ye're tould," says the Queen, fixin' him with her eye, +"if you know which side yer bread's buttered on. See here, now," says +she, seein' him chokin' wid vexation and a slice o' corned beef, "you +ought to be as pleased as Punch about it, for you'll be at the top o' +the walk over there as vice-regent representin' me." + +"I ought to have a title or two," says Essex, pluckin' up a bit. "His +Gloriosity the Great Panjandhrum, or the like o' that." + +"How would His Excellency the Lord Liftinant of Ireland sthrike you?" +says Elizabeth. + +"First class," cries Essex. "Couldn't be betther; it doesn't mean much, +but it's allitherative, and will look well below the number on me hall +door." + +Well, boys, it didn't take him long to pack his clothes and start away +for the Island o' Saints. It took him a good while to get there, though, +through not knowin' the road; but by means of a pocket compass and a tip +to the steward, he was landed at last contagious to Dalkey Island. Going +up to an ould man who was sittin' on a rock, he took off his hat, and, +says he-- + +"That's great weather we're havin'?" + +"Good enough for the times that's in it," says the ould man, cockin' one +eye at him. + +"Any divarshun' goin on?" says Essex. + +"You're a sthranger in these parts, I'm thinkin'," says the ould man, +"or you'd know this was a 'band night' in Dalkey." + +"I wasn't aware of it," says Essex; "the fact is," says he, "I only +landed from England just this minute." + +"Ay," says the ould man, bitterly, "it's little they know about us over +there. I'll hould you," says he, with a slight thrimble in his voice, +"that the Queen herself doesn't know there is to be fireworks in the +Sorrento Gardens this night." Well, when Essex heard that, he +disrembered entirely he was sent over to Ireland to put down rows and +ructions, and away wid him to see the fun and flirt wid all the pretty +girls he could find. And he found plenty of them--thick as bees they +wor, and each one as beautiful as the day and the morra. He wrote two +letters home next day--one to Queen Elizabeth and the other to Lord +Mountaigle, a playboy like himself. I'll read you the one to the Queen +first:-- + + "Dame Sthreet, April 16th, 1599. + + "Fair Enchantress,--I wish I was back in London, baskin' in your sweet + smiles and listenin' to your melodious voice once more. I got the + consignment of men and the post-office order all right. I was out all + the mornin' lookin' for the inimy, but sorra a taste of Hugh O'Neill + or his men can I find. A policeman at the corner o' Nassau Street told + me they wor hidin' in Wicklow. So I am makin' up a party to explore + the Dargle on Easter Monda'. The girls here are as ugly as sin, and + every minute o' the day I do be wishin' it was your good-lookin' self + I was gazin' at instead o' these ignorant scarecrows. + + "Hopin' soon to be back in ould England, I remain, your lovin' subject + + Essex." + + "P.S.--I hear Hugh O'Neill was seen on the top o' the Donnybrook tram + yesterday mornin'. If I have any luck the head'll be off him before + you get this. + + E." + +The other letter read this way:-- + + "Dear Monty--This is a great place, all out. Come over here if you + want fun. Divil such play-boys ever I seen, and the girls--oh! don't + be talkin'--'pon me secret honour you'll see more loveliness at a tay + and a supper ball in Rathmines than there is in the whole of England. + Tell Ned Spenser to send me a love-song to sing to a young girl who + seems to be taken wid my appearance. Her name's Mary, and she lives in + Dunlary, so he oughtn't to find it hard. I hear Hugh O'Neill's a + terror, and hits a powerful welt, especially when you're not lookin'. + If he tries any of his games on wid me, I'll give him in charge. No + brawlin' for your's truly + + Essex." + +Well, me bould Essex stopped for odds of six months in Dublin, +purtendin' to be very busy subjugatin' the country, but all the time +only losin' his time and money widout doin' a hand's turn, and doin' his +best to avoid a ruction with "Fighting Hugh." If a messenger came to +tell him that O'Neill was camping out on the North Bull, Essex would up +stick and away for Sandycove, where, after draggin' the forty-foot hole, +he'd write off to Elizabeth, saying that, "owing to their suparior +knowledge of the country the dastard foe had once more eluded him." + +The Queen got mighty tired of these letters, especially as they always +ended with a request to send stamps by return, and told Essex to finish +up his business and not be makin' a fool of himself. + +"Oh, that's the talk, is it," says Essex; "very well, me ould sauce-box" +(that was the name he had for her ever since she gev him the clip on the +ear for turnin' his back on her), "very well me ould sauce-box," says +he, "I'll write off to O'Neill this very minute, and tell him to send in +his lowest terms for peace at ruling prices." + +Well, the threaty was a bit of a one-sided one--the terms being-- + + 1. Hugh O'Neill to be King of Great Britain. + + 2. Lord Essex to return to London and remain there as Viceroy of + England. + + 3. The O'Neill family to be supported by Government, with free passes + to all theatres and places of entertainment. + + 4. The London Markets to buy only from Irish dealers. + + 5. All taxes to be sent in stamped envelopes, directed to H. O'Neill, + and marked "private." Cheques crossed and made payable to H. O'Neill. + Terms cash. + +Well, if Essex had had the sense to read through this treaty he'd have +seen it was of too graspin' a nature to pass with any sort of a +respectable sovereign, but he was that mad he just stuck the document in +the pocket of his pot-metal overcoat, and away wid him hot foot for +England. + +"Is the Queen widin?" says he to the butler, when he opened the door o' +the palace. His clothes were that dirty and disorthered wid travellin' +all night, and his boots that muddy, that the butler was not for littin' +him in at the first go off, so says he, very grand; "Her Majesty is +above stairs and can't be seen till she's had her breakwhist." + +"Tell her the Lord Liftinant of Ireland desires an interview," says +Essex. + +"Oh, beg pardon, me lord," says the butler, steppin' to one side, "I +didn't know 'twas yourself was in it; come inside, sir; the Queen's in +the dhrawin'-room." + +Well, Essex leps up the stairs and into the dhrawin'-room wid him, muddy +boots and all; but not a sight of Elizabeth was to be seen. + +"Where's your misses?" says he to one of the maids-of-honour that was +dustin' the chimbley-piece. + +"She's not out of her bed yet," said the maid, with a toss of her head; +"but if you write your message on the slate beyant, I'll see"--but +before she had finished, Essex was up the second flight and knockin' at +the Queen's bedroom door. + +"Is that the hot wather?" says the Queen. + +"No, it's me,--Essex. Can you see me?" + +"Faith, I can't," says the Queen. "Hould on till I draw the +bed-curtains. Come in now," says she, "and say your say, for I can't +have you stoppin' long--you young Lutharian." + +"Bedad, yer Majesty," says Essex, droppin' on his knees before her (the +delutherer he was), "small blame to me if I am a Lutharian, for you have +a face on you that would charm a bird off a bush." + +"Hould your tongue, you young reprobate," says the Queen, blushin' up to +her curl-papers wid delight, "and tell me what improvements you med in +Ireland." + +"Faith, I taught manners to O'Neill," cries Essex. + +"He had a bad masther then," says Elizabeth, lookin' at his dirty boots; +"couldn't you wipe yer feet before ye desthroyed me carpets, young man?" + +"Oh, now," says Essex, "is it wastin' me time shufflin' about on a mat +you'd have me, when I might be gazin' on the loveliest faymale the world +ever saw." + +"Well," says the Queen, "I'll forgive you this time, as you've been so +long away, but remimber in future that Kidderminster ain't oilcloth. +Tell me," says she, "is Westland Row Station finished yet?" + +"There's a side wall or two wanted yet, I believe," says Essex. + +"What about the Loop Line?" says she. + +"Oh, they're gettin' on with that," says he, "only some people think the +girders a disfigurement to the city." + +"Is there any talk about that esplanade from Sandycove to Dunlary?" + +"There's talk about it, but that's all," says Essex; "'twould be an +odious fine improvement to house property, and I hope they'll see to it +soon." + +"Sorra much you seem to have done, beyant spendin' me men and me money. +Let's have a look at that treaty I see stickin' out o' your pocket." + +Well, when the Queen read the terms of Hugh O'Neill she just gev him one +look, an' jumpin' from off the bed, she put her head out of the window, +and called out to the policeman on duty-- + +"Is the Head below?" + +"I'll tell him you want him, ma'am," says the policeman. + +"Do," says the Queen. "Hello," says she, as a slip of paper dhropped out +o' the dispatches. "What's this? 'Lines to Mary.' Ho! ho! me gay fella, +that's what you've been up to, is it?" + + "Mrs. Brady + Is a widow lady, + And she has a charmin' daughter I adore; + I went to court her + Across the water, + And her mother keeps a little candy-store. + She's such a darlin', + She's like a starlin', + And in love with her I'm gettin' more and more, + Her name is Mary, + She's from Dunlary; + And her mother keeps a little candy-store." + +"That settles it," says the Queen. "It's the gaoler you'll serenade +next." + +When Essex heard that, he thrimbled so much that the button of his +cuirass shook off and rowled under the dhressin'-table. + +"Arrest that man," says the Queen, when the Head-Constable came to the +door; "arrest that thrayter," says she, "and never let me set eyes on +him again." + +And, indeed, she never did, and soon after that he met with his death +from the skelp of an axe he got when he was standin' on Tower Hill. + + + + +The Boat's Share. + +_From "Further Experiences of an Irish R.M."_ + +BY E. OE. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS. + + +The affair on the strand at Hare Island ripened, with complexity of +summonses and cross-summonses, into an imposing Petty Sessions case. Two +separate deputations presented themselves at Shreelane, equipped with +black eyes and other conventional injuries, one of them armed with a +creelful of live lobsters to underline the argument. To decline the +bribe was of no avail: the deputation decanted them upon the floor of +the hall and retired, and the lobsters spread themselves at large over +the house, and to this hour remain the nightmare of the nursery. + +The next Petty Sessions day was wet; the tall windows of the Court House +were grey and streaming, and the reek of wet humanity ascended to the +ceiling. As I took my seat on the bench I perceived with an inward groan +that the services of the two most eloquent solicitors in Skebawn had +been engaged. This meant that Justice would not have run its course till +heaven knew that dim hour of the afternoon, and that that course would +be devious and difficult. + +All the pews and galleries (any Irish court-house might, with the +addition of a harmonium, pass presentably as a dissenting chapel) were +full, and a line of flat-capped policemen stood like church-wardens near +the door. Under the galleries, behind what might have answered to +choir-stalls, the witnesses and their friends hid in darkness, which +could, however, but partially conceal two resplendent young ladies, +barmaids, who were to appear in a subsequent Sunday drinking case. I was +a little late, and when I arrived Flurry Knox, supported by a couple of +other magistrates, was in the chair, imperturbable of countenance as was +his wont, his fair and delusive youthfulness of aspect unimpaired by his +varied experiences during the war, his roving, subtle eye untamed by +four years of matrimony. + +A woman was being examined, a square and ugly country-woman, with wispy +fair hair, a slow, dignified manner, and a slight and impressive +stammer. I recognised her as one of the bodyguard of the lobsters. Mr. +Mooney, solicitor for the Brickleys, widely known, and respected as +"Roaring Jack," was in possession of that much-enduring organ, the ear +of the Court. + +"Now, Kate Keohane!" he thundered, "tell me what time it was when all +this was going on?" + +"About duskish, sir. Con Brickley was slashing the f-fish at me mother +the same time. He never said a word but to take the shtick and fire me +dead with it on the sthrand. He gave me plenty of blood to dhrink, too," +said the witness, with acid decorum. She paused to permit this agreeable +fact to sink in, and added, "his wife wanted to f-fashten on me the same +time, an' she havin' the steer of the boat to sthrike me." + +These were not precisely the facts that Mr. Murphy, as solicitor for the +defence, wished to elicit. + +"Would you kindly explain what you mean by the steer of the boat?" he +demanded, sparring for wind in as intimidating a manner as possible. The +witness stared at him. + +"Sure, 'tis the shtick, like, that they pulls here and there to go in +their choice place." + +"We may presume that the lady is referring to the tiller," said Mr. +Mooney, with a facetious eye at the Bench. "Maybe now, ma'am, you can +explain to us what sort of a boat is she?" + +"She's that owld that if it wasn't for the weeds that's holding her +together she'd bursht up in the deep." + +"And who owns this valuable property?" pursued Mr. Mooney. + +"She's between Con Brickley and me brother, an the saine[1] is between +four, an' whatever crew does be in it should get their share, and the +boat has a man's share." + +I made no attempt to comprehend this, relying with well-founded +confidence on Flurry Knox's grasp of such enigmas. + +"Was Con Brickley fishing the same day?" + +"He was not, sir. He was at Lisheen Fair; for as clever as he is, he +couldn't kill two birds under one slat!" + +Kate Keohane's voice moved unhurried from sentence to sentence, and her +slow, pale eyes turned for an instant to the lair of the witnesses under +the gallery. + +"And you're asking the Bench to believe that this decent man left his +business in Lisheen in order to slash fish at your mother?" said Mr. +Mooney, truculently. + +"B'lieve me, sorra much business he laves afther him wherever he'll go!" +returned the witness. "Himself and his wife had business enough on the +sthrand when the fish was dividing, and it is then themselves put every +name on me." + +"Ah, what harm are names!" said Mr. Mooney, dallying elegantly with a +massive watch-chain. + +"Come, now, ma'am! will you swear you got any ill-usage from Con +Brickley or his wife?" He leaned over the front of his pew, and waited +for the answer with his massive red head on one side. + +"I was givin' blood like a c-cow that ye'd shtab with a knife!" said +Kate Keohane, with unshaken dignity. "If it was yourself that was in it +ye'd feel the smart as well as me. My hand and word on it, ye would! The +marks is on me head still, like the prints of dog-bites!" + +She lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and exhibited a +sufficiently repellent injury. Flurry Knox leaned forward. + +"Are you sure you haven't that since the time there was that business +between yourself and the post-mistress at Munig? I'm told you had the +name of the post-office on your forehead where she struck you with the +office stamp! Try, now, sergeant, can you read Munig on her forehead?" + +The Court, not excepting its line of church-wardens, dissolved into +laughter; Kate Keohane preserved an offended silence. + +"I suppose you want us to believe," resumed Mr. Mooney, sarcastically, +"that a fine, hearty woman like you wasn't defending yourself!" Then, +with a turkey-cock burst of fury, "On your oath, now! What did you +strike Honora Brickley with? Answer me that now! What had you in your +hand?" + +"I had nothing only the little rod I had after the ass," answered Miss +Keohane, with a child-like candour. "I done nothing to them; but as for +Con Brickley, he put his back to the cliff and he took the flannel wrop +that he had on him, and he threw it on the sthrand, and he said he would +have blood, murdher, or f-fish!" + +She folded her shawl across her breast, a picture of virtue assailed, +yet unassailed. + +"You may go down now," said "Roaring Jack," rather hastily, "I want to +have a few words with your brother." + +Miss Keohane retired, without having moulted a feather of her dignity, +and her brother Jer came heavily up the steps and on to the platform, +his hot, wary, blue eyes gathering in the Bench and the attorneys in one +bold, comprehensive glance. He was a tall, dark man of about five and +forty, clean-shaved, save for two clerical inches of black whiskers, and +in feature of the type of a London clergyman who would probably preach +on Browning. + +"Well, sir!" began Mr. Mooney, stimulatingly, "and are you the biggest +blackguard from here to America?" + +"I am not," said Jer Keohane, tranquilly. + +"We had you here before us not so very long ago about kicking a goat, +wasn't it? You got a little touch of a pound, I think?" + +This delicate allusion to a fine that the Bench had thought fit to +impose did not distress the witness. + +"I did, sir." + +"And how's our friend the goat?" went on Mr. Mooney, with the furious +facetiousness reserved for hustling tough witnesses. + +"Well, I suppose she's something west of the Skelligs by now," replied +Jer Keohane with great composure. + +An appreciative grin ran round the Court. The fact that the goat had +died of the kick and been "given the cliff" being regarded as an +excellent jest. + +Mr. Mooney consulted his notes: + +"Well, now, about this fight," he said, pleasantly, "did you see your +sister catch Mrs. Brickley and pull her hair down to the ground and drag +her shawl off of her?" + +"Well," said the witness, airily, "they had a bit of a scratch on +account o' the fish. Con Brickley had the shteer o' the boat in his +hand, and says he, 'is there any man here that'll take the shteer from +me?' The man was dhrunk, of course," added Jer charitably. + +"Did you have any talk with his wife about the fish?" + +"I couldn't tell the words that she said to me!" replied the witness, +with a reverential glance at the Bench, "and she over-right three crowds +o' men that was on the sthrand." + +Mr. Mooney put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the witness. + +"You're a very refined gentleman, upon my word! Were you ever in +England?" + +"I was, part of three years." + +"Oh, that accounts for it, I suppose!" said Mr. Mooney, accepting this +lucid statement without a stagger, and passing lightly on. "You're a +widower, I understand, with no objection to consoling yourself?" + +No answer. + +"Now, sir! Can you deny that you made proposals of marriage to Con +Brickley's daughter last Shraft?" + +The plot thickened. Con Brickley's daughter was my kitchen maid. + +Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly. "Ah! that was a thing o' nothing." + +"Nothing!" said Mr. Mooney, with a roar of a tornado. "Do you call an +impudent proposal of marriage to a respectable man's daughter nothing! +That's English manners, I suppose!" + +"I was goin' home one Sunday," said Jer Keohane, conversationally, to +the Bench, "and I met the gerr'l and her mother. I spoke to the gerr'l +in a friendly way, and asked her why wasn't she gettin' marrid, and she +commenced to peg stones at me and dhrew several blows of an umbrella on +me. I had only three bottles of porther taken. There now was the whole +of it." + +Mrs. Brickley, from the gallery, groaned heavily and ironically. + +I found it difficult to connect these coquetries with my impressions of +my late kitchenmaid, a furtive and touzled being, who, in conjunction +with a pail and scrubbing brush, had been wont to melt round corners and +into doorways at my approach. + +"Are we trying a breach of promise?" interpolated Flurry; "if so, we +ought to have the plaintiff in." + +"My purpose, sir," said Mr. Mooney, in a manner discouraging to levity, +"is to show that my clients have received annoyance and contempt from +this man and his sister such as no parents would submit to." + +A hand came forth from under the gallery and plucked at Mr. Mooney's +coat. A red monkey face appeared out of the darkness, and there was a +hoarse whisper, whose purport I could not gather. Con Brickley, the +defendant, was giving instructions to his lawyer. + +It was perhaps as a result of these that Jer Keohane's evidence closed +here. There was a brief interval enlivened by coughs, grinding of heavy +boots on the floor, and some mumbling and groaning under the gallery. + +"There's great duck-shooting out on a lake on this island," commented +Flurry to me, in a whisper. "My grand-uncle went there one time with an +old duck-gun he had, that he fired with a fuse. He was three hours +stalking the ducks before he got the gun laid. He lit the fuse then, and +it set to work spluttering and hissing like a goods-engine till there +wasn't a duck within ten miles. The gun went off then." + +This useful side-light on the matter in hand was interrupted by the +cumbrous ascent of the one-legged Con Brickley to the witness-table. He +sat down heavily, with his slouch hat on his sound knee, and his wooden +stump stuck out before him. His large monkey face was immovably serious; +his eye was small, light grey, and very quick. + +McCaffery, the opposition attorney, a thin, restless youth, with ears +like the handles of an urn, took him in hand. To the pelting +cross-examination that beset him Con Brickley replied with sombre +deliberation, and with a manner of uninterested honesty, emphasising +what he said with slight, very effective gestures of his big, supple +hands. His voice was deep and pleasant; it betrayed no hint of so +trivial a thing as satisfaction when, in the teeth of Mr. McCaffery's +leading questions, he established the fact that the "little rod" with +which Miss Kate Keohane had beaten his wife was the handle of a +pitch-fork. + +"I was counting the fish the same time," went on Con Brickley, in his +rolling basso profundissimo, "and she said, 'Let the divil clear me out +of the sthrand, for there's no one else will put me out!' says she." + +"It was then she got the blow, I suppose!" said McCaffery, venomously; +"you had a stick yourself, I daresay?" + +"Yes. I had a stick. I must have a stick," (deep and mellow pathos was +hinted at in the voice), "I am sorry to say. What could I do to her? A +man with a wooden leg on a sthrand could do nothing!" + +Something like a laugh ran at the back of the court. Mr. McCaffery's +ears turned scarlet and became quite decorative. On or off a strand Con +Brickley was not a person to be scored off easily. + +His clumsy, yet impressive, descent from the witness stand followed +almost immediately, and was not the least telling feature of his +evidence. Mr. Mooney surveyed his exit with the admiration of one artist +for another, and, rising, asked the Bench's permission to call Mrs. +Brickley. + +Mrs. Brickley, as she mounted to the platform, in the dark and nun-like +severity of her long cloak, the stately blue cloth cloak that is the +privilege of the Munster peasant woman, was an example of the +rarely-blended qualities of picturesqueness and respectability. As she +took her seat in the chair, she flung the deep hood back on her +shoulders, and met the gaze of the court with her grey head erect; she +was a witness to be proud of. + +"Now, Mrs. Brickley," said "Roaring Jack," urbanely, "will you describe +this interview between your daughter and Keohane." + +"It was last Sunday in Shrove, your Worship, Mr. Flurry Knox, and +gentlemen," began Mrs. Brickley nimbly, "meself and me little gerr'l was +comin' from mass, and Mr. Jer Keohane came up to us and got on in a most +unmannerable way. He asked me daughter would she marry him. Me daughter +told him she would not, quite friendly like. I'll tell you no lie, +gentlemen, she was teasing him with the umbrella the same time; an' he +raised his shtick and dhrew a sthroke on her in the back, an' the little +gerr'l took up a small pebble of a stone and fired it at him. She put +the umbrella up to his mouth, but she called him no names. But as for +him, the names he put on her was to call her 'a nasty, long, slopeen of +a proud thing, and a slopeen of a proud tinker.'" + +"Very lover-like expressions!" commented Mr. Mooney, doubtless +stimulated by the lady-like titters from the barmaids; "and had this +romantic gentleman made any previous proposals for your daughter?" + +"Himself had two friends over from across the water one night to make +the match, a Sathurday it was, and they should land the lee side o' the +island, for the wind was a fright," replied Mrs. Brickley, launching her +tale with the power of easy narration that is bestowed with such amazing +liberality on her class. "The three o' them had dhrink taken, an' I went +to shlap out the door agin them. Me husband said then we should let them +in, if it was a Turk itself, with the rain that was in it. They were +talking in it then till near the dawning, and in the latther end all +that was between them was the boat's share." + +"What do you mean by 'the boat's share'?" said I. + +"'Tis the same as a man's share, me worshipful gintleman," returned Mrs. +Brickley, splendidly; "it goes with the boat always, afther the crew and +the saine has their share got." + +I possibly looked as enlightened as I felt by this exposition. + +"You mean that Jer wouldn't have her unless he got the boat's share with +her?" suggested Flurry. + +"He said it over-right all that was in the house, and he reddening his +pipe at the fire," replied Mrs. Brickley, in full-sailed response to the +helm. "'D'ye think,' says I to him, 'that me daughter would leave a +lovely situation, with a kind and tendher masther, for a mean, hungry +blagyard like yerself,' says I, 'that's livin' always in this backwards +place!' says I." + +This touching expression of preference for myself, as opposed to Mr. +Keohane, was received with expressionless respect by the Court. Flurry, +with an impassive countenance, kicked me heavily under cover of the +desk. I said that we had better get on to the assault on the strand. +Nothing could have been more to Mrs. Brickley's taste. We were minutely +instructed as to how Katie Keohane drew the shawleen forward on Mrs. +Brickley's head to stifle her; and how Norrie Keohane was fast in her +hair. Of how Mrs. Brickley had then given a stroke upwards between +herself and her face (whatever that might mean) and loosed Norrie from +her hair. Of how she then sat down and commenced to cry from the use +they had for her. + +"'Twas all I done," she concluded, looking like a sacred picture, "I +gave her a stroke of a pollock on them." + +"As for language," replied Mrs. Brickley, with clear eyes, a little +uplifted in the direction of the ceiling, "there was no name from heaven +or hell but she had it on me, and wishin' the divil might burn the two +heels off me, and the like of me wasn't in sivin parishes! And that was +the clane part of the discoorse, yer Worships!" + +Mrs. Brickley here drew her cloak more closely about her, as though to +enshroud herself in her own refinement, and presented to the Bench a +silence as elaborate as a drop scene. It implied, amongst other things, +a generous confidence in the imaginative powers of her audience. + +Whether or no this was misplaced, Mrs. Brickley was not invited further +to enlighten the Court. After her departure the case droned on in +inexhaustible rancour, and trackless complications as to the shares of +the fish. Its ethics and its arithmetic would have defied the allied +intellects of Solomon and Bishop Colenso. It was somewhere in that dead +afternoon, when it was too late for lunch and too early for tea, that +the Bench, wan with hunger, wound up the affair, by impartially binding +both parties in sheaves "to the Peace." + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [1] A large net. + + + + +"King William." + +_From "Aliens of the West."_ + +BY CHARLOTTE O'CONOR ECCLES. + + +Mrs. Macfarlane was a tall, thin, and eminently respectable woman of +fifty, possessed of many rigid virtues. She was a native of the north of +Ireland, and had come originally to Toomevara as maid to the Dowager +Lady Dunanway. On the death of her mistress, whom she served faithfully +for many years, Lord Dunanway offered to set her up in business, and at +the time our story opens she had been for two years proprietress of the +buffet, and made a decent living by it; for as Toomevara is situated on +the Great Southern and Western Railway, a fair amount of traffic passes +through it. + +The stationmaster, familiarly known as "Jim" O'Brien, was Toomevara +born, and had once been a porter on that very line. He was an +intelligent, easy-going, yet quick-tempered man of pronounced Celtic +type, with a round, good-natured face, a humorous mouth, shrewd, +twinkling eyes, and immense volubility. + +Between him and Mrs. Macfarlane the deadliest warfare raged. She was +cold and superior, and implacably in the right. She pointed out Jim's +deficiencies whenever she saw them, and she saw them very often. All day +long she sat in her refreshment room, spectacles on nose, her Bible open +before her, knitting, and rising only at the entrance of a customer. Jim +had an uneasy consciousness that nothing escaped her eye, and her +critical remarks had more than once been reported to him. + +"The bitther ould pill!" he said to his wife. "Why, the very look ov her +'ud sour a crock o' crame. She's as cross as a bag ov weasels." + +Jim was a Catholic and a Nationalist. He belonged to the "Laygue," and +spoke at public meetings as often as his duties allowed. He objected to +being referred to by Mrs. Macfarlane as a "Papish" and a "Rebel." + +"Papish, indeed!" said he. "Ribbil, indeed! Tell the woman to keep a +civil tongue in her head, or 'twill be worse for her." + +"How did the likes ov her iver get a husban'?" he would ask, +distractedly, after a sparring match. "Troth, an' 'tis no wondher the +poor man died." + +Mrs. Macfarlane was full of fight and courage. Her proudest boast was of +being the granddaughter, daughter, sister, and widow of Orangemen. + +She looked on herself in Toomevara as a child of Israel among the +Babylonians, and felt that it behoved her to uphold the standard of her +faith. To this end she sang the praises of the Battle of the Boyne with +a triumph that aggravated O'Brien to madness. + +"God Almighty help the woman! Is it Irish at all she is--or what? To see +her makin' merry because a parcel o' rascally Dutchmen----! Sure, +doesn't she know 'twas Irish blood they spilt at the Boyne? An' to see +her takin' pride in it turns me sick, so it does. If she was English, +now, I could stand it, but she callin' herself an Irishwoman--faith, she +has the bad dhrop in her, so she has, to be glad at her counthry's +misforchins." + +Jim's rage was the greater because Mrs. Macfarlane, whatever she said, +said little or nothing to him. She passed him by with lofty scorn and +indifference affecting not to see him; and while she did many things +that O'Brien found supremely annoying, they were things strictly within +her rights. + +Matters had not arrived at this pass all at once. The feud dated from +Mrs. Macfarlane's having adopted a little black dog--a mongrel--on which +she lavished a wealth of affection, and which, as the most endearing +title she knew, she named "King William." This, of course, was nobody's +concern save Mrs. Macfarlane's own, and in a world of philosophers she +would have been allowed to amuse herself unheeded, but Jim O'Brien was +not a philosopher. + +Unlike most Irishmen, he had a great love for flowers. His garden was +beautifully kept, and he was prouder of his roses than of anything on +earth save his eldest daughter, Kitty, who was nearly sixteen. Picture, +then, his rage and dismay when he one day found his beds scratched into +holes and his roses uprooted by "King William," who had developed a +mania for hiding away bones under Jim's flowers. O'Brien made loud and +angry complaints to the dog's owner, which she received with unconcern +and disbelief. + +"Please, Mr. O'Brien," she said, with dignity, "don't try to put it on +the puir wee dog. Even if yu _du_ dislike his name, that's no reason for +saying he was in your garden. He knows betther, so he does, than to go +where he's not wanted." + +After this it was open war between the stationmaster and the widow. + +Under the windows of the refreshment room were two narrow flower-beds. +These Jim took care never to touch, affecting to consider them the +exclusive property of Mrs. Macfarlane. They were long left +uncultivated, an eyesore to the stationmaster; but one day Kelly, the +porter, came to him with an air of mystery, to say that "th ould +wan"--for by this term was Mrs. Macfarlane generally indicated--"was +settin' somethin' in the beds beyant." + +Jim came out of his office and walked up and down the platform with an +air of elaborate unconsciousness. Sure enough, there was Mrs. Macfarlane +gardening. She had donned old gloves and a clean checked apron, and, +trowel in hand, was breaking up the caked earth, preparatory, it would +seem, to setting plants. + +"What the dickens is she doin'?" asked Jim, when he got back. + +"Not a wan ov me knows," said Kelly. "She's been grubbin' there since +nine o'clock." + +From this time Mrs. Macfarlane was assiduous in the care of her two +flower-beds. Every day she might be seen weeding or watering, and though +Jim steadily averted his gaze, he was devoured by curiosity as to the +probable results. What on earth did she want to grow? The weeks passed. +Tiny green seedlings at last pushed their way through the soil, and in +due course the nature of the plants became evident. Jim was highly +excited, and rushed home to tell his wife. + +"Be the hokey, Mary," he said, "'tis lilies she has there, an may I +never sin, but it's my belief they're orange lilies, an' if they are, +I'll root ev'ry wan ov thim out, if I die for it." + +"Be quiet, now," said Mary. "How d'ye know they're lilies at all? For +the love o' God keep her tongue off ov ye, an' don't be puttin' yersel' +in her way." + +"Whist, woman, d'ye think I'm a fool? 'Tis lilies th' are annyways, an' +time'll tell if they're orange or not, but faith, if th'are, I won't +shtand it.' I'll complain to the Boord." + +"Sure the Boord'll be on her side, man. Don't yeh know the backin' she +has? They'll say 'Why shouldn't she have orange lilies if she likes?'" + +"Ah, Mary, 'tis too sinsible y'are inthirely. Have ye no sperrit, woman +alive, to let her ride rough-shod over uz this way? 'Make a mouse o' +yerself an' the cat'll ate ye,' 's a thrue saying. Sure, Saint Pether +himself cuddn't shtand it, an' be the piper that played before Moses, I +won't!" + +"Ye misfortunit man, don't be dhrawin' down ructions on yer head. +Haven't yeh childer to think about? An' don't be throublin' yerself over +what she does. 'Tis plazin' her y'are whin she sees y're mad. Take no +notice, man, an' p'raps she'll shtop." + +"The divil fly away wid her for a bitther ould sarpint. The vinom's in +her, sure enough. Why should I put up wid her, I'd like to know?" + +"Ah, keep yer tongue between yer teeth, Jim. 'Tis too onprudent y'are. +Not a worrd ye dhrop but is brought back to her be some wan. Have sinse, +man. You'll go sayin' that to Joe Kelly, an' he'll have it over the town +in no time, an' some wan'll carry it to her." + +"An' do ye think I care a thrawneen[1] for the likes ov her? Faith, not +a pin. If you got yer way, Mary, ye'd have me like the man that was +hanged for sayin' nothin'. Sure, I never did a hand's turn agin her, an' +'tis a low, mane thrick ov her to go settin' orange lilies over +foreninst me, an' she knowin' me opinions." + +"Faith, I'll not say it wasn't, Jim, if they _are_ orange lilies; but +sure, ye don't know rightly yet what th'are, an' in God's name keep +quite till you do." + +The days went by. The lilies grew taller and taller. They budded, they +bloomed, and, sure enough, Jim had been in the right--orange lilies they +proved to be. + +"They'll mek a fine show for the twelfth of July, I'm thinkin'," said +Mrs. Macfarlane, complacently, as she walked by her beds, swinging a +dripping watering-pot. + +At the time of the blossoming of the orange lilies, James O'Brien was +not at home, having had to go some twenty miles down the line on +official business. The obnoxious flowers took advantage of his absence +to make a gay show. When he returned, as luck would have it Mrs. +Macfarlane was away, and had shut up the refreshment room, but had not +locked it. No one locks doors in Toomevara unless their absence is to be +lengthy. She had left "King William" behind, and told Joe Kelly to take +care of the dog, in case he should be lonely, for she had been invited +to the wedding of an old fellow servant, the late butler at Lord +Dunanway's, who was to be married that day to the steward's daughter. + +All this Joe Kelly told the stationmaster on his return, but he did not +say a word about the orange lilies, being afraid of an explosion, and, +as he said, "detarmined not to meddle or make, but just to let him find +it out himself." + +For quite a time Jim was occupied over way-bills in his little office; +but at last his attention was distracted by the long continued howling +and yelping of a dog. + +"Let the baste out, can't ye?" he at length said to Kelly. "I can't +stand listening to um anny longer." + +"I was afeared 'twas run over he might be, agin' she came back," said +Kelly, "'an so I shut um up." + +"Sure, there's no danger. There won't be a thrain in for the next two +hours, an' if he was run over itself, God knows he'd be no loss. 'Tisn't +meself 'ud grieve for um, th' ill-favoured cur." + +"King William" was accordingly released. + +When O'Brien had finished his task, he stood for a time at the office +door, his hands crossed behind him, supporting his coat tails, his eyes +fixed abstractedly on the sky. Presently he started for his usual walk +up and down the platform, when his eye was at once caught by the flare +of the stately rows of orange lilies. + +"Be the Holy Poker!" he exclaimed. "But I was right. 'Tis orange th' +are, sure enough. What'll Mary say now? Faith, 'tis lies they do be +tellin' whin they say there's no riptiles in Ireland. That ould woman +bangs Banagher, an' Banagher bangs the divil." + +He stopped in front of the obnoxious flowers. + +"Isn't it the murthering pity there's nothing I can plant to spite her. +She has the pull over me entirely. Shamerogues makes no show at +all--ye'd pass them unbeknownst--while orange lilies yeh can see a mile +off. Now, who but herself 'ud be up to the likes o' this?" + +At the moment he became aware of an extraordinary commotion among the +lilies, and, looking closer, perceived "King William" in their midst, +scratching as if for bare life, scattering mould, leaves, and bulbs to +the four winds, and with every stroke of his hind legs dealing +destruction to the carefully-tended flowers. + +The sight filled Jim with sudden gladness. + +"More power to the dog!" he cried, with irrepressible glee. "More power +to um! Sure, he has more sinse than his missus. 'King William,' indeed, +an' he rootin' up orange lilies! Ho, ho! Tare an' ouns! but 'tis the +biggest joke that iver I hard in me life. More power to ye! Good dog!" + +Rubbing his hands in an ecstasy of delight, he watched "King William" at +his work of devastation, and, regretfully be it confessed, when the dog +paused, animated him to fresh efforts by thrilling cries of "Rats!" + +"King William" sprang wildly hither and thither, running from end to end +of the beds, snapping the brittle lily stems, scattering the blossoms. + +"Be gum, but it's great! Look at um now. Cruel wars to the Queen o' +Spain if iver I seen such shport! Go it, 'King William!' Smash thim, me +boy! Good dog! Out wid them!" roared Jim, tears of mirth streaming down +his cheeks. "Faith, 'tis mad she'll be. I'd give sixpence to see her +face. O Lord! O Lord! sure, it's the biggest joke that iver was." + +At last "King William" tired of the game, but only when every lily lay +low, and Mrs. Macfarlane's carefully tended flower beds were a chaos of +broken stalks and trampled blossoms. + +As O'Brien, in high good humour, having communicated the side-splitting +joke to Mary and Finnerty, was busy over his account books, Kelly came +in. + +"She's back," he whispered, "an she's neither to hold nor to bind. I was +watchin' out, an' sure, 'twas shtruck all of a hape she was whin she +seen thim lilies; an' now I'll take me oath she's goin' to come here, +for, begob, she looks as cross as nine highways." + +"Letter come," chuckled O'Brien; "I'm ready forrer." + +At this moment the office door was burst open with violence, and Mrs. +Macfarlane, in her best Sunday costume, bonnet, black gloves, and +umbrella included, her face very pale save the cheek bones, where two +bright pink spots burned, entered the room. + +"Misther O'Brien," she said in a high, stilted voice that trembled with +rage, "will yu please to inform me the meanin' o' this dasthardly +outrage?" + +"Arrah, what outrage are ye talkin' ov ma'am?" asked O'Brien, +innocently. "Sure, be the looks ov ye I think somethin' has upset ye +entirely. Faith, ye're lookin' as angry as if you were vexed, as the +sayin' is." + +"Oh, to be sure. A great wonder, indeed, that I should be vexed. +'Crabbit was that cause had!'" interrupted Mrs Macfarlane with a sneer. +"You're not decavin' me, sir. I'm not takin in by yur pretinces, but if +there's law in the land, or justice, I'll have it of yu." + +"Would ye mind, ma'am," said O'Brien, imperturbably, for his +superabounding delight made him feel quite calm and superior to the +angry woman--"would ye mind statin' in plain English what y're talkin' +about for not a wan ov me knows?" + +"Oh, yu son of Judas! Oh, yu deceivin' wretch! As if it wasn't yu that +is afther desthroyin' my flower-beds!" + +"Ah, thin, it is y'r ould flower-beds y're makin' all this row about? +Y'r dirty orange lilies'. Sure, 'tis clared out o' the place they ought +t've been long ago for weeds. 'Tis mesel' that's glad they're gone, an' +so I tell ye plump an' plain; bud as for me desthroyin' them, sorra +finger iver I laid on thim; I wouldn't demane mesel'." + +"An' if yu please, Misther O'Brien," said Mrs. Macfarlane with +ferocious politeness, "will yu kindly mintion, if yu did not do the job, +who did?" + +"Faith, that's where the joke comes in," said O'Brien, pleasantly. +"'Twas the very same baste that ruinated me roses, bad cess to him, y'r +precious pet, 'King William'!" + +"Oh! is it lavin' it on the dog y'are, yu traitorous Jesuit! The puir +wee dog that never harmed yu? Sure, 'tis only a Papist would think of a +mane thrick like that to shift the blame." + +The colour rose to O'Brien's face. + +"Mrs. Macfarlane, ma'am," he said, with laboured civility, "wid yer +permission we'll lave me religion out o' this. Maybe, if ye say much +more, I might be losin' me timper wid ye." + +"Much I mind what yu lose," cried Mrs. Macfarlane. "It's thransported +the likes o' yu should be for a set o' robbin', murderin', desthroyin', +thraytors." + +"Have a care, ma'am, how yer spake to yer betthers. Robbin', deceivin', +murdherin', desthroyin', thraytors, indeed! I like that! What brought +over the lot ov yez, Williamites an' Cromwaylians an' English an' +Scotch, but to rob, an' desave, an' desthroy, an' murdher uz, an' stale +our land, an' bid uz go to hell or to Connaught, an' grow fat on what +was ours before iver yez came, an' thin jibe uz for bein' poor? +Thraytors! Thraytor yerself, for that's what the lot ov yez is. Who +wants yez here at all?" + +Exasperated beyond endurance, Mrs. Macfarlane struck at the +stationmaster with her neat black umbrella, and had given him a nasty +cut across the brow, when Kelly interfered, as well as Finnerty and Mrs. +O'Brien, who rushed in, attracted by the noise. Between them O'Brien +was held back under a shower of blows, and the angry woman hustled +outside, whence she retreated to her own quarters, muttering threats all +the way. + +"Oh, Jim, avourneen! 'tis bleedin' y'are," shrieked poor anxious Mary, +wildly. "Oh, wirra, why did ye dhraw her on ye? Sure, I tould ye how +'twould be. As sure as God made little apples she'll process ye, an' she +has the quality on her side." + +"Letter," said Jim; "much good she'll get by it. Is it makin' a liar ov +me she'd be whin I tould her I didn't touch her ould lilies? Sure, I'll +process her back for assaultin' an' battherin me. Ye all saw her, an' me +not touchin' her, the calliagh!"[2] + +"Begorra, 'tis thrue for him," said Kelly. "She flagellated him wid her +umbrelly, an' sorra blow missed bud the wan that didn't hit, and on'y I +was here, an' lit on her suddent, like a bee on a posy, she'd have had +his life, so she would." + +Not for an instant did Mrs. Macfarlane forget her cause of offence, or +believe O'Brien's story that it was the dog that had destroyed her +orange lilies. After some consideration she hit on an ingenious device +that satisfied her as being at once supremely annoying to her enemy and +well within the law. Her lilies, emblems of the religious and political +faith that were in her, were gone; but she still had means to testify to +her beliefs, and protest against O'Brien and all that he represented to +her mind. + +Next day, when the midday train had just steamed into the station, Jim +was startled by hearing a wild cheer-- + +"Hi, 'King William'! Hi, 'King William'! Come back, 'King William'! +'King William,' my darlin', 'King William'!" + +The air rang with the shrill party cry, and when Jim rushed out he found +that Mrs. Macfarlane had allowed her dog to run down the platform just +as the passengers were alighting, and was now following him, under the +pretence of calling him back. There was nothing to be done. The dog's +name certainly was "King William," and Mrs. Macfarlane was at liberty to +recall him if he strayed. + +Jim stood for a moment like one transfixed. + +"Faith, I b'leeve 'tis the divil's grandmother she is," he exclaimed. + +Mrs. Macfarlane passed him with a deliberately unseeing eye. Had he been +the gate-post, she could not have taken less notice of his presence, as, +having made her way to the extreme end of the platform, cheering her +"King William," she picked up her dog, and marched back in triumph. + +Speedily did it become evident that Mrs. Macfarlane was pursuing a +regular plan of campaign, for at the arrival of every train that entered +the station that day, she went through the same performance of letting +loose the dog and then pursuing him down the platform, waving her arms +and yelling for "King William." + +By the second challenge Jim had risen to the situation and formed his +counterplot. He saw and heard her in stony silence, apparently as +indifferent to her tactics as she to his presence, but he was only +biding his time. No sooner did passengers alight and enter the +refreshment room, than, having just given them time to be seated, he +rushed up, threw open the door of his enemy's headquarters, and, putting +in his cried, cried:-- + +"Take yer places, gintlemin immaydiately. The thrain's just off. Hurry +up, will yez? She's away!" + +The hungry and discomfited passengers hurried out, pell mell, and Mrs. +Macfarlane was left speechless with indignation. + +"I bet I've got the whip hand ov her this time," chuckled Jim, as he +gave the signal to start. + +Mrs. Macfarlane's spirit, however, was not broken. From morning until +night, whether the day was wet or fine, she greeted the arrival of each +train with loud cries for "King William," and on each occasion Jim +retorted by bundling out all her customers before they could touch bite +or sup. + +The feud continued. + +Each day Mrs. Macfarlane, gaunter, fiercer, paler, and more resolute in +ignoring the stationmaster's presence, flaunted her principles up and +down the platform. Each day did Jim hurry the departure of the trains +and sweep off her customers. Never before had there been such +punctuality known at Toomevara, which is situated on an easy-going line, +where usually the guard, when indignant tourists point out that the +express is some twenty minutes' late, is accustomed to reply, + +"Why, so she is. 'Tis thrue for ye." + +One day, however, Mrs. Macfarlane did not appear. She had come out for +the first train, walking a trifle feebly, and uttering her war cry in a +somewhat quavering voice. When the next came, no Mrs. Macfarlane greeted +it. + +Jim himself was perplexed, and a little aggrieved. He had grown used to +the daily strife, and missed the excitement of retorting on his foe. + +"Maybe 'tis tired of it she is," he speculated. "Time forrer. She knows +now she won't have things all her own way. She's too domineerin' by +half." + +"What's wrong with the ould wan, sir?" asked Joe Kelly, when he met +O'Brien. "She didn't shtir out whin she hard the thrain." + +"Faith, I dunno," said Jim. "Hatchin' more disturbance, I'll bet. Faith, +she's like Conaty's goose, nivir well but whin she's doin' mischief. +Joe," he said, "maybe y'ought to look in an' see if anythin' is wrong +wid th' ould wan." + +A moment more, and Jim heard him shouting, "Misther O'Brien, Misther +O'Brien!" He ran at the sound. There, a tumbled heap, lay Mrs. +Macfarlane, no longer a defiant virago, but a weak, sickly, elderly +woman, partly supported on Joe Kelly's knee, her face ghastly pale, her +arms hanging limp. + +"Be me sowl, but I think she's dyin'," cried Kelly. "She just raised her +head whin she saw me, an' wint off in a faint." + +"Lay her flat, Joe; lay her flat." + +"Lave her to me," he said, "an' do you run an' tell the missus to come +here at wanst. Maybe she'll know what to do." + +Mary came in to find her husband gazing in a bewildered fashion at his +prostrate enemy, and took command in a way that excited his admiration. + +"Here," said she, "give uz a hand to move her on to the seat. Jim, run +home an' get Biddy to fill two or three jars wid boilin' wather, an' +bring thim along wid a blanket. She's as cowld as death. Joe, fly off +wid yeh for the docther." + +"What docther will I go for, ma'am?" + +"The first ye can git," said Mary, promptly beginning to chafe the +inanimate woman's hands and loosen her clothes. + +When the doctor came he found Mrs. Macfarlane laid on an impromptu couch +composed of two of the cushioned benches placed side by side. She was +wrapped in blankets, had hot bottles to her feet and sides, and a +mustard plaster over her heart. + +"Bravo! Mrs. O'Brien," he said, "I couldn't have done better myself. I +believe you have saved her life by being so quick--at least, saved it +for the moment, for I think she is in for a severe illness. She will +want careful nursing to pull her through." + +"She looks rale bad," assented Mary. + +"What are we to do with her?" said the doctor. "Is there no place where +they would take her in?" + +Mary glanced at Jim, but he did not speak. + +"Sure, there's a room in our house," she ventured, after an awkward +pause. + +"The very thing," said the doctor, "if you don't mind the trouble, and +if Mr. O'Brien does not object." + +Jim made no answer, but walked out. + +"He doesn't, docther," cried Mary. "Sure, he has the rale good heart. +I'll run off now, an' get the bed ready." + +As they passed Jim, who stood sulkily at the door, she contrived to +squeeze his hand. "God bless yeh, me own Jim. You'll be none the worse +forrit. 'Tis no time for bearin' malice, an' our Blessed Lady'll pray +for yeh this day." + +Jim was silent. + +"'Tis a cruel shame she should fall on uz," he said, when his wife had +disappeared; but he offered no further resistance. + +Borne on an impromptu stretcher by Jim, Joe, Finnerty, and doctor, Mrs. +Macfarlane was carried to the stationmaster's house, undressed by Mary, +and put to bed in the spotlessly clean, whitewashed upper room. + +The cold and shivering had now passed off, and she was burning. Nervous +fever, the doctor anticipated. She raved about her dog, about Jim, about +the passengers, her rent, and fifty other things that made it evident +her circumstances had preyed upon her mind. + +Poor Mary was afraid of her at times; but there are no trained nurses at +Toomevara, and, guided by Doctor Doherty's directions, she tried to do +her best, and managed wonderfully well. + +There could be no doubt Jim did not like having the invalid in the +house. But this did not prevent him from feeling very miserable. He +became desperately anxious that Mrs. Macfarlane should not die, and +astonished Mary by bringing home various jellies and meat extracts, that +he fancied might be good for the patient; but he did this with a shy and +hang-dog air by no means natural to him, and always made some ungracious +speech as to the trouble, to prevent Mary thinking he was sorry for the +part he had played. He replied with a downcast expression to all +enquiries from outsiders as to Mrs. Macfarlane's health, but he brought +her dog into the house and fed it well. + +"Not for her sake, God knows," he explained; "but bekase the poor baste +was frettin' an' I cudn't see him there wid no wan to look to him." + +He refused, however, to style the animal "King William," and called it +"Billy" instead, a name which it soon learned to answer. + +One evening, when the whitewashed room was all aglow with crimson light +that flooded through the western window, Mrs. Macfarlane returned to +consciousness. Mary was sitting by the bedside, sewing, having sent out +the children in charge of Kitty to secure quiet in the house. For a long +time, unobserved by her nurse, the sick woman lay feebly trying to +understand. Suddenly she spoke-- + +"What is the matter?" + +Mary jumped. + +"To be sure," she said, laying down her needlework, "'tis very bad you +were intirely, ma'am; but, thanks be to God, you're betther now." + +"Where am I?" asked Mrs. Macfarlane, after a considerable pause. + +"In the station house, ma'am. Sure, don't ye know me? I'm Mary O'Brien." + +"Mary O'Brien--O'Brien?" + +"Yis, faith! Jim O'Brien's wife." + +"An' this is Jim O'Brien's house?" + +"Whose else id it be? But there now, don't talk anny more. Sure, we'll +tell, ye all about it whin y're betther. The docthor sez y're to be kep' +quiet." + +"But who brought me here?" + +"Troth, 'twas carried in ye were, an' you near dyin'. Hush up now, will +ye? Take a dhrop o' this, an' thry to go to shleep." + +When Jim came into his supper his wife said to him, "That craythure +upstairs is mad to get away. She thinks we begrudge her the bit she +ates." + +Jim was silent. Then he said, "Sure, annythin' that's bad she'll b'leeve +ov uz." + +"But ye've nivir been up to see her. Shlip into the room now, an' ax her +how she's goin' on. Let bygones be bygones, in the name of God." + +"I won't," said Jim. + +"Oh, yes, ye will. Sure, afther all, though ye didn't mane it, ye're the +cause ov it. Go to her now." + +"I don't like." + +"Ah, go. 'Tis yer place, an' you sinsibler than she is. Go an' tell her +to shtay till she's well. Faith, I think that undher all that way of +hers she's softher than she looks. I tell ye, Jim, I seen her cryin' +over the dog, bekase she thought 'twas th' only thing that loved her." + +Half pushed by Mary, Jim made his way up the steep stair, and knocked at +the door of Mrs. Macfarlane's attic. + +"Come in," said a feeble voice, and he stumbled into the room. + +When Mrs. Macfarlane saw who it was, a flame lit in her hollow eyes. + +"I'm sorry," she said, with grim politeness, "that yu find me here, +Misther O'Brien; but it isn't my fault. I wanted tu go a while ago, an' +your wife wouldn't let me." + +"An' very right she was; you're not fit for it. Sure, don't be talkin' +ov goin' till ye're better, ma'am," said Jim, awkwardly. "Y're heartily +welcome for me. I come up to say--to say, I hope y'll be in no hurry to +move." + +"Yu're very good, but it's not to be expected I'd find myself easy under +this roof, where, I can assure yu, I'd never have come of my own free +will; an' I apologise to yu, Misther O'Brien, for givin' so much +trouble--not that I could help myself." + +"Sure, 'tis I that should apologise," blurted out Jim; "an' rale sorry I +am--though, maybe, ye won't b'lieve me--that I ever dhruv the customers +out." + +For a long time Mrs. Macfarlane did not speak. + +"I could forgive that easier than your rootin' up my lilies," she said, +in a strained voice. + +"But that I never did. God knows an' sees me this night, an' He knows +that I never laid a finger on thim. I kem out, an' foun' the dog there +scrattin' at thim, an' if this was me last dyin' worrd, 'tis thrue." + +"An' 'twas really the wee dog?" + +"It was, though I done wrong in laughin' at him, an' cheerin' him on; +but, sure, ye wouldn't mind me whin I told ye he was at me roses, an' I +thought it sarved ye right, an' that ye called him 'King William' to +spite me." + +"So I did," said Mrs. Macfarlane, and, she added, more gently, "I'm +sorry now." + +"Are ye so?" said Jim, brightening. "Faith, I'm glad to hear ye say it. +We was both in the wrong, ye see, an' if you bear no malice, I don't." + +"Yu have been very good to me, seein' how I misjudged you," said Mrs. +Macfarlane. + +"Not a bit ov it; an' 'twas the wife anyhow, for, begorra, I was +hardened against ye, so I was." + +"An' yu've spent yer money on me, an' I----" + +"Sure, don't say a worrd about id. I owed it to you, so I did, but, +begorra, ye won't have to complain ov wantin' custom wanst yer well." + +Mrs. Macfarlane smiled wanly. + +"No chance o' that, I'm afraid. What with my illness an' all that went +before it, business is gone. Look at the place shut up this three weeks +an' more." + +"Not it," said Jim. "Sure, sence y've been sick I put our little Kitty, +the shlip, in charge of the place, an' she's made a power o' money for +ye, an' she on'y risin' sixteen, an' havin' to help her mother an' all. +She's a clever girl, so she is, though I sez it, an' she ruz the prices +all round. She couldn't manage with the cakes, not knowin' how to bake +thim like yerself; but sure I bought her plenty ov biscuits at +Connolly's; and her mother cut her sandwidges, an' made tay, an' the +dhrinks was all there as you left them, an' Kitty kep' count ov all she +sould." + +Mrs. Macfarlane looked at him for a moment queerly then she drew the +sheet over her face, and began to sob. + +Jim, feeling wretchedly uncomfortable, crept downstairs. + +"Go to the craythure, Mary," he said. "Sure, she's cryin'. We've made it +up--an' see here, let her want for nothin'." + +Mary ran upstairs, took grim Mrs. Macfarlane in her arms, and actually +kissed her; and Mrs. Macfarlane's grimness melted away, and the two +women cried together for sympathy. + + * * * * * + +Now, as the trains come into Toomevara station, Jim goes from carriage +to carriage making himself a perfect nuisance to passengers with +well-filled luncheon baskets. "Won't ye have a cup o' tay, me lady? +There's plinty ov time, an' sure, we've the finest tay here that you'll +get on the line. There's nothin' like it this side o' Dublin; A glass o' +whiskey, sir? 'Tis on'y the best John Jameson that's kep', or sherry +wine? Ye won't be shtoppin' agin annywheres that you'll like it as well. +Sure, if ye don't want to get out--though there's plinty o' time--I'll +give the ordher an' have it sent over to yez. Cakes, ma'am, for the +little ladies? 'Tis a long journey, an' maybe they'll be hungry--an +apples? Apples is mighty good for childher. She keeps fine apples if ye +like thim." + +Mrs. Macfarlane has grown quite fat, is at peace with all mankind, takes +the deepest interest in the O'Brien family, and calls her dog "Billy." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] A blade of grass. + + [2] Hag + + + + +Quin's Rick. + +_From "Doings and Dealings."_ + +BY JANE BARLOW. + + +Clear skies and gentle breezes had so favoured Hugh Lennon's harvesting +that his threshing was all safely done by the first week in October, and +as the fine weather still continued, he took his wife, according to +promise, for a ten days' stay at the seaside. Mrs. Hugh was rather young +and rather pretty, and much more than rather short-tempered. The +neighbours often remarked that they would not be in Hugh Lennon's coat +for a great deal--at times specifying very considerable sums. + +From her visit to Warrenpoint, however, she returned home in high good +humour, and ran gaily upstairs to remove her flowery hat, announcing +that she would do some fried eggs, Hugh's favourite dish, for their tea. +Hence, he was all the more disconcerted when, as he followed her along +the little passage, she suddenly wheeled round upon him, and confronted +him with a countenance full of wrath. She had merely been looking for a +moment out of the small end window, and why, in the name of fortune, +marvelled Hugh, should that have put her in one of her tantrums? But it +evidently had done so. "Saw you ever the like of that?" she demanded +furiously, pointing through the window. + +"The like of what at all?" said Hugh. + +"Look at it," said Mrs. Hugh, and drummed with the point of her umbrella +on a pane. + +Hugh looked, and saw, conspicuous at a short distance beyond their +backyard, a portly rick of straw, which their neighbour, Peter Quin, had +nearly finished building. A youth was tumbling himself about on top of +it with much agility, and shouting "Pull!" at each floundering fall. +"Sure," said Hugh, "it's nothing, only young Jim Quin leppin' their +rick." + +"I wisht he'd break every bone in his ugly body, then, while he's at +it," declared Mrs. Hugh. + +"It's a quare wish to be wishin' agin the poor, decent lad," said her +husband, "and he lepping plenty of ricks for ourselves before now." + +"And what call have they to be cocking up e'er a one there," said Mrs. +Hugh, "where there was never such a thing seen till this day?" + +"Why wouldn't they?" said Hugh. "It's a handy place enough for a one, I +should say, there on the bit of a headland." + +"How handy it is!" said his wife, "and it shutting out the gap in the +fence on me that was the only glimpse I had into our lane." + +"Well, supposing it does, where's the odds?" said Hugh. "There's ne'er a +much in the lane for anybody to be glimpsing at." + +"The greatest convenience in the world it was," declared Mrs. Hugh, "to +be able to see you crossing it of a morning, and you coming in from the +lower field, the way I could put the bit of bacon down ready for the +breakfast." + +"Musha, good gracious, woman alive, if that's all's ailing you, where's +the need to be so exact?" said Hugh. + +"Exact, is it?" said Mrs. Hugh. "Maybe you'd like to have the whole of +it melted away into grease with being set on the fire half an hour too +soon. Or else you to be standing about open-mouthed under me feet, like +a starving terrier, waiting till it's fit to eat. That's how it'll be, +anyway, like it or lump it. And I used to be watching for old Matty +Flanaghan going by with the post-bag, and the Keoghs coming back from +early Mass--'twas as good as an extra clock for telling the time. But +now, with that big lump of a thing stuck there, I might as well be shut +up inside of any old prison. Them Quins done it a-purpose to annoy me, +so they did. Sorra another raison had they, for what else 'ud make them +take and build it behind our backs? But put up with it is what I won't +do. Stepping over to them I'll be this night, and letting them know how +little I think of themselves and their mean tricks. And if I see old +Peter, I'll tell him you'll have the law of him unless he gets it +cleared away out of that to-morrow. Bedad will I; and yourself 'ud say +the same, if you had as much spirit in you as a moulting chicken." + +"Have sense, Julia," Hugh remonstrated, wedging in a protest with +difficulty. "Stop where you are, now, quiet and peaceable. It's only +making a show of yourself you'd be, running out that way raging about +nothing What foolish talk have you about the man moving his rick, that +he's just after building? You might as well be bidding him move +Knockrinkin over yonder; and he more betoken with his haggart bursting +full this minyit. What annoyance is there in the matter, Julia woman? +Sure in any case it won't be any great while standing there, you may +depend, and they bedding cattle with it, let alone very belike sending +in cartloads of it every week to the market. Just content yourself and +be aisy." + +But, as he had more than half expected, Hugh spoke to no purpose. His +wife would not be said by him, and his expostulations, in fact, merely +hastened her impetuous departure on her visit to the Quins. She returned +even more exasperated than she had set out, and from her report of the +interview Hugh gathered that she had stormed with much violence, giving +everybody "the height of abuse." He was fain to console himself with the +rather mortifying reflection that "the Quins knew well enough she did be +apt to take up with quare nonsensical fantigues, that nobody minded." + +A hope that the morrow might find her more reasonable proved entirely +vain, as many additional grievances, resented with increasing +bitterness, had been evolved during the night. When Hugh went out to his +work, he left her asserting, and believing, that the noise of the wind +whistling round the rick hadn't let her get a wink of sleep, and when he +came in again he found her on the point of setting off to the police +barracks that she might charge the Quins with having "littered her yard +all over with wisps of straw blown off their hijjis old rick, till the +unfortunate hens couldn't see the ground under their feet." This +outrage, it appeared, had been aggravated by Micky Quinn, who remarked +tauntingly, that "she had a right to feel herself obligated to them for +doing her a fine piece of thatching"; and an interchange of similar +rejoinders had taken place. On the present occasion Hugh was indeed able +forcibly to stop her wild expedition by locking both the house doors. +But as he knew that these strong measures could not be more than a +temporary expedient, and as arguments were very bootless, he was at a +loss to determine what he should do next. She had begun to drop such +menacing hints about lighted matches and rags soaked in paraffin, that +he felt loth to leave her at large within reach of those dangerous +materials. Already it had come to his knowledge that rumours were afloat +in the village about how Mrs. Lennon was threatening to burn down the +Quin's rick. The truth was that she had said as much to several calling +neighbours in the course of that day. + +Hugh's perplexity was therefore not a little relieved when, early on the +following morning, his wife's eldest married sister, Mrs. Mackay, from +beyond Kilcraig, looked in on her way to market. Mrs. Mackay, an +energetic person with a strong will regulated by abundant common sense, +was one among the few people of whom her flighty sister Julia stood in +awe. In this emergency her own observations, together with her +brother-in-law's statements, soon showed her how matters stood, and she +promptly decided what steps to take. "Our best plan," she said to Hugh +apart, "is for Julia to come along home with me. She'll be out of the +way there of aught to stir up her mind, and she can stop till she gets +pacified again. 'Twill be no great while before she's glad enough to +come back here, rick or no rick, you may depend; for we're all +through-other up at our place the now, with one of the childer sick, and +ne'er a girl kept. I'll give her plenty to do helping me, and it's much +if she won't be very soon wishing she was at home in her own comfortable +house. She doesn't know when she's well off, bedad," Mrs. Mackay added, +glancing half enviously round the tidy little kitchen. + +Hugh fell in with her views at once. The Mackays lived a couple of miles +at the other side of Kilcraig, so that Julia would be safely out of +harm's way, and he could trust her sister to keep her from doing +anything disastrously foolish. So he cheerfully saw his wife depart, and +though her last words were a vehement asseveration that she would +"never set foot next or nigh the place again, as long as there did be +two straws slanting together in Quin's dirty old rick," he confidently +expected to see her there once more without much delay. + +Up at the Mackay's struggling farmstead on the side of Knockrinkin, Mrs. +Hugh found things dull enough. Internally the house was incommodious and +crowded to uncomfortable excess, and its surroundings externally were +desolate and lonesome. Mrs. Hugh remarked discontentedly that if the +inside and outside of it were mixed together, they'd be better off, +anyway, for room to turn round in, and quiet to hear themselves speak; +but the operation appeared impracticable. Nor were the domestic tasks +with which Mrs. Mackay provided her by any means to her taste, and her +discontent continued. One evening, shortly after her arrival, she grew +so tired of hearing the children squabble and squawl, that as soon as +supper was over she slipped out at the back door into the soft-aired +twilight. She proposed to wile away some time by searching the furzy, +many-bouldered field for mushrooms and blackberries, but neither could +she find, and in her quest she wandered a long way down the swarded +slope, until she came to a low boundary wall. There she stopped, and +stood looking across the valley towards a wooden patch beyond the +village, which contained her own dwelling, as well as that of the +hateful Quins. Her wrath against them burned more fiercely than ever at +the reflection that they were clearly to blame for her present tedious +exile. The thought of going home, she said to herself, she couldn't +abide, by reason of their old rick. + +Through the dusk, the darker mass of those trees loomed indistinctly +like a stain on the dimness, and Mrs. Hugh fancied that she could make +out just the site of the Quin's rick--the best of bad luck to it. Why +didn't some decent tramp take and sling a spark of a lighted match into +it, and he passing by with his pipe? As she strained her eyes towards +it, she suddenly saw on the very spot the glimmer of a golden-red light, +glancing out among the shadowy trees. For a moment she was startled and +half scared, but then she remembered that it would be nothing more than +the harvest moon rising up big through the mist. Hadn't she seen it the +night before looking the size of ten? This explanation, at least, half +disappointed her, and she said to herself with dissatisfaction, watching +the gleam waver and brighten, that it looked as red as fire, and she +wished to goodness it was the same as it looked. "There'd be nothing +aisier than setting the whole concern in a blaze standing so convanient +to the road," she thought, while she gazed and gazed with tantalised +vindictiveness over the low, tumble-down wall. + + * * * * * + +More than two hours later Mrs. Hugh Lennon came hurrying in at the +Mackay's back-door. By this time it was dark night outside, and she +found only Mrs. Mackay in the kitchen, for himself and the children had +gone to bed. + +"Where in the world have you been all the evening?" Mrs. Mackay +inquired, with some indignation. "Leaving me with nobody to give me a +hand with the childer or anything, and keeping me now waiting up till +every hour of the night." + +"Quin's rick's burnt down," burst out Mrs. Hugh, who evidently had not +heard a word of her sister's remonstrance. She looked excited and +exultant; her hair was roughened by the wind, and her skirts were +bedraggled with a heavy dew brushed off tussocks and furze bushes. Mrs. +Mackay eyed her with a start of vague suspicion. + +"And who did you get that news from," she said, "supposing it's true?" + +"Amn't I after seeing it with me own eyes?" triumphed Mrs. Hugh. +"Watching it blazing this long while down below there by Connolly's +fence. First of all I thought it was only the old moon rising, that +would do us no good; but sure not at all, glory be! Burnt down to the +ground it is, every grain of it; and serve them very right." + +"What took you trapesing off down there, might I ask?" inquired Mrs. +Mackay, her scrutiny of her sister growing more mistrustful. + +"Is it what took me?" said Mrs. Hugh. "I dunno rightly. Och, let me see; +about getting some mushrooms I was, I believe, and blackberries." + +"A likely time of night it was to be looking for such things," said Mrs. +Mackay, "and a dale of them you got." + +"There isn't a one in it; all of them's as red as coals of fire yet, or +else as green as grass--sure, what matter?" said Mrs. Hugh. "Anyway, I +was took up with watching the baste of an old rick flaring itself into +flitters; and a rale good job." + +"A job it is that you're very apt to have raison to repent of," Mrs. +Mackay said severely, "if so be you had act or part in it." + +"Is it me?" Mrs. Hugh said, and laughed derisively. "Raving you are, if +that's your notion. A great chance I'd have to be meddling or making +with it, and I stuck up here out of reach of everything. I only wisht +I'd been at our own place to get a better sight." + +"How can I tell what chances you have or haven't, and you after running +wild through the country for better than a couple of hours?" Mrs. Mackay +said. "Plenty of time had you for the matter, to be skyting there and +back twice over, if you was up to any sort of mischief; let alone going +about talking and threatening, and carrying on, till everybody in the +parish is safe to be of the opinion yourself was contriving it with +whoever done it, supposing you didn't do it all out. And it's the quare +trouble you might very aisy get yourself into for that same, let me tell +you. There was a man at Joe's place that got three years for being +concerned in setting a light to a bit of an old shed, no size to speak +of; so, if the next thing we see of you is walking off between a pair of +police constables, yourself you'll have to thank for it. I only hope +poor Hugh won't be blaming me for letting you out of me sight this +evening." + +"Och, good luck to yourself and your polis!" Mrs. Hugh said, defiantly. +"It's little I care who lit the old rick, and its little I care what any +people's troubling theirselves to think about it. I'd liefer be after +doing it than not--so there's for you. But what I won't do is stop here +listening to your fool's romancing. So good-night to you kindly." + +With that Mrs. Hugh flounced clattering up the little steep stairs, and +hurled herself like a compressed earthquake-wave into her bedroom. Mrs. +Mackay, following her, stumped along more slowly. "Goodness forgive me +for saying so," she reflected, "but Julia's a terrific woman to have any +doings or dealings with. She's not to hold or bind when she takes the +notion, and the dear knows what she's been up to now; something +outrageous most likely. The Lord Chief Justice himself couldn't control +her. Beyond me she is entirely." + +Nevertheless, her warnings were not without effect, and at their next +interview, she found her sister in a meeker mood. + +It was when Mrs. Mackay was in the cowhouse milking, before breakfast, +that Julia appeared to her, hurrying in with a demeanour full of dismay. +"Och, Bridgie, what will I do?" she said. + +"What's happint you now?" Bridgie replied, with a studied want of +sympathy. + +"I'm just after looking out of me window," Julia said, "and there's two +of the polis out of the barracks below standing at the roadgate, having +great discoursing with Dan Molloy, and about coming into this place they +are. Ne'er a bit of me knows what's bringing them so outlandish early; +but I'll take me oath, Bridgie darlint, I'd nought to do, good or bad, +with burning the rick. It might ha' went on fire of itself. Hand nor +part I hadn't in it. So you might be telling them that to your certain +knowledge I was up here the whole time, and sending them about their +business--there's a good woman." + +On further reflection Mrs. Mackay had already concluded that Julia +probably was not guilty of incendiarism; still, she considered her +sister's alarmed state a favourable opportunity for a lesson on the +expediency of behaving herself. Therefore she was careful to give no +reassuring response. + +"'Deed, now, I dunno what to say to it all," she declared, "and I +couldn't take it on me conscience to go swear in a court of justice +that I knew where you might be yesterday late. More betoken there was +the bad talk you had out of you about the Quins before you come here, +that they'll be bringing up agin you now, you may depend. An ugly +appearance it has, sure enough, the two of them coming over at this +hour. As headstrong you are as a cross-tempered jennet; but if you'll +take my advice you'll keep yourself out of their sight the best way you +can, till I see what they want with you, and then if it's a warrant +they've got, I might try persuade them to go look for you somewheres +else. That's the best I can do, and, of course, I can't say whether they +will or no, but maybe--" + +For a wonder Mrs. Hugh did take this advice, and most promptly, rushing +with a suppressed wail out of the cowhouse and into a shed close by, +where she crouched behind a heap of hay, the first hiding-place that +presented itself to her in her panic. She had spent a great part of the +past night in meditation on her sister's alarming statements; and now +the ominous arrival of the police put a finishing touch to her fright. +How was she to escape from them, or to exculpate herself? Bridgie +evidently either could or would do little or nothing. At this dreadful +crisis in her affairs her thoughts turned longingly towards her own +house down below, where there was Hugh, poor man, who would certainly +have, somehow, prevented her from being dragged off to Athmoran gaol, +even if he did believe her to have burnt the rick. Through the dusty +shed window she saw two dark, flat-capped, short-caped figures +sauntering up to the front door, whereupon with a sudden desperate +impulse, she stole out, and fled down the cart-track along which they +had just come. Getting a good start of them, she said to herself, she +might be at home again with Hugh before they could overtake her--and one +of them, she added, as fat as a prize pig. + +As Mrs. Hugh ran most of the road's two long miles, she was considerably +out of breath when she came round a turn which brought into view an +expected and an unexpected object. The one was Hugh walking out of his +own gate, the other Quin's rick, still rearing its glistening yellow +ridge into the sunshine. + +"Well, now, Julia woman, and is it yourself?" Hugh said, as she darted +across the road to him. "What's took you to be tearing along at that +rate, and without so much as a shawl over your head?" + +"Thinking I was to meet you before this--kilt I am, running all the +way," she said, panting. "And I do declare there's the big rick in it +yet." + +Hugh's face fell. "Whethen now, if it's with the same old blathers +you're come back," he said, in a disgusted tone, "there was no need for +you to be in any such great hurry." + +"Ne'er a word was I going to say agin it at all," said his wife, "and I +making sure the constables would be after me every minyit for burning it +down." + +"What the mischief put that notion in your head?" said Hugh. + +"I seen the blaze of a great fire down here last night," she said, "and +I thought it would be Quin's rick, and they knowing I had some talk +about it." + +"Sure 'twas just the big heap of dead branches and old trunks," said +Hugh, "that's lying at the end of the cow-lane ever since the big wind. +It took and went on fire yesterday evening; raison good, there was a +cartful of Wexford tinkers went by in the afternoon, and stopped to +boil their kettle close under it. A fine flare-up it made, and it as dry +as tinder; but I'd scarce ha' thought you'd see it that far. Lucky it is +the old sticks was fit for nothing much, unless some poor bodies may be +at a loss for firewood this next winter. Come along in, Julia, and wet +yourself a cup of tay. You'd a right to be tired trotting about that +way. And as for the polis, bedad, they'd have their own work cut out for +them, if they was to be taking up everybody they heard talking foolish." + +Not long after Mrs. Hugh had finished her cup, Mrs. Mackay arrived, +alighting flurriedly from a borrowed seat on a neighbour's car. + +"So it's home you ran, Julia," she said, sternly. "Well, now, I wonder +you had that much sense itself. Looking for you high and low we were, +after the polis had gone, that only come to get the number of our +chickens--counting the feathers on them next, I suppose they'll be--and +all romancing it was about anything happening the rick. But frightened I +was out of me wits, till little Joey said he seen you quitting out at +the gate. So then I come along to see what foolish thing you might be +about doing next." + +"She's likely to be doing nothing foolisher than giving you a cup of +tay, Bridgie," Hugh interposed, soothingly. "And mightn't you be frying +us a few eggs in the pan, Julia? Old Nan Byrne's just after bringing in +two or three fresh ones she got back of the Quins' rick, where our hins +do be laying." + +"'Twill be a handy place for finding them in," Mrs. Hugh said, blandly. +And both her experienced hearers accepted the remark as a sign that +these hostilities were over. + + + + +Maelshaughlinn at the Fair. + +_From "My Irish Year."_ + +BY PADRAIC COLUM. + + +It was about horses, women, and music, and, in the mouth of +Maelshaughlinn, the narrative had the exuberance of the fair and the +colour of a unique exploit. I found Maelshaughlinn alone in the house in +the grey dawn succeeding his adventure. "This morning," he said, "I'm +the lonesome poor fellow without father or mother, a girl's promise, nor +my own little horse." He closed the door against a reproachful sunrise, +and, sitting on a little three-legged stool, he told me the story. + +Penitentially he began it, but he expanded with the swelling narrative. +"This time last week," said Maelshaughlinn, "I had no thought of parting +with my own little horse. The English wanted beasts for a war, and the +farmers about here were coining money out of horseflesh. It seemed that +the buyers were under a pledge not to refuse anything in the shape of a +horse, and so the farmers made horses out of the sweepings of the +knackers' yards, and took horses out of ha'penny lucky-bags and sold +them to the English. Yesterday morning I took out my own little beast +and faced for Arvach Fair. I met the dealer on the road. He was an +Englishman, and above all nations on the face of the earth, the English +are the easiest to deal with in regard of horses. I tendered him the +price--it was an honest price, but none of our own people would have +taken the offer in any reasonable way. An Irishman would have cursed +into his hat, so that he might shake the curses out over my head. The +Englishman took on to consider it, and my heart went threshing my ribs. +Then he gave me my price, paid me in hard weighty, golden sovereigns and +went away, taking the little horse with him. + +"I sat down on the side of a ditch to take a breath. Now you'll say that +I ought to have gone back to the work, and I'll say that I agree with +you. But no man can be wise at all times. Anyway, I was sitting on a +ditch, with a lark singing over every foot of ground, and nothing before +me but the glory of the day. A girl came along the road, and, on my +soul, I never saw a girl walking so finely. 'She'll be a head above +every girl in the fair,' said I, 'and may God keep the brightness on her +head.' 'God save you, Maelshaughlinn,' said the girl. 'God save you, my +jewel,' said I. I stood up to look after her, for a fine woman, walking +finely, is above all the sights that man ever saw. Then a few lads +passed, whistling and swinging their sticks. 'God give you a good day,' +said the lads. 'God give you luck boys,' said I. And there was I, +swinging my stick after the lads, and heading for the fair. + +"'Never go into a fair where you've no business.' That's an oul' saying +and a wise saying, but never forget that neither man nor immortal can be +wise at all times. Satan fell from heaven, Adam was cast out of +Paradise, and even your Uncle broke his pledge. + +"When I came into the fair there was a fiddler playing behind a tinker's +cart. I had a shilling to spend in the town, and so I went into Flynn's +and asked for a cordial. A few most respectable men came in then, and I +asked them to take a treat from me. Well, one drank, and another drank, +and then Rose Heffernan came into the shop with her brother. Young +Heffernan sent the glasses round, and then I asked Rose to take a glass +of wine, and I put down a sovereign on the counter. The fiddler was +coming down the street, and I sent a young lad out to him with silver. I +stood for a while talking with Rose, and I heard the word go round the +shop concerning myself. It was soon settled that I had got a legacy. The +people there never heard of any legacies except American legacies, and +so they put my fortune down to an uncle who had died, they thought, in +the States. Now, I didn't want Rose to think that my money was a common +legacy out of the States, so by half-words I gave them to understand +that I had got my fortune out of Mexico. Mind you, I wasn't far out when +I spoke of Mexico, for I had a grand-uncle who went out there, and his +picture is in the house this present minute. + +"Well, after the talk of a Mexican legacy went round, I couldn't take +any treats from the people, and I asked everyone to drink again. I think +the crowds of the world stood before Flynn's counter. A big Connachtman +held up a Mexican dollar, and I took it out of his hand and gave it to +Rose Heffernan. I paid him for it, too, and it comes into my mind now, +that I paid him for it twice. + +"There's not, on the track of the sun, a place to come near Arvach on +the day of a fair. A man came along leading a black horse, and the size +of the horse and the eyes of the horse would terrify you. There was a +drift of sheep going by, and the fleece of each was worth gold. There +were tinkers with their carts of shining tins, as ugly and quarrelsome +fellows as ever beat each other to death in a ditch, and there were the +powerful men, with the tight mouths, and the eyes that could judge a +beast, and the dark, handsome women from the mountains. To crown all, a +piper came into the town by the other end, and his music was enough to +put the blood like a mill-race through your heart. The music of the +piper, I think, would have made the beasts walk out of the fair on their +hind legs, if the music of the fiddler didn't charm them to be still. +Grace Kennedy and Sheela Molloy were on the road, and Rose Heffernan was +talking to them. Grace Kennedy has the best wit and the best discourse +of any woman within the four seas, and she said to the other girls as I +came up, 'Faith, girls, the good of the Mission will be gone from us +since Maelshaughlinn came into the fair, for the young women must be +talking about his coming home from the sermon.' Sheela Molloy has the +softest hair and the softest eyes of anything you ever saw. She's a +growing girl, with the spice of the devil in her. 'It's not the best +manners,' said I, 'to treat girls to a glass across the counter, but +come into a shop,' said I, 'and let me pay for your fancy.' Well, I +persuaded them to come into a shop, and I got the girls to make Sheela +ask for a net for her hair. They don't sell these nets less than by the +dozen, so I bought a dozen nets for Sheela's hair. I bought ear-rings +and brooches, dream-books and fortune books, buckles, and combs, and I +thought I had spent no more money than I'd thank you for picking up off +the floor. A tinker woman came in and offered to tell the girls their +fortunes, and I had to cross her hand with silver. + +"I came out on the street after that, and took a few turns through the +fair. The noise and the crowd were getting on my mind, and I couldn't +think, with any satisfaction, so I went into Mrs. Molloy's, and sat for +a while in the snug. I had peace and quiet there, and I began to plan +out what I would do with my money. I had a notion of going into Clooney +on Tuesday, and buying a few sheep to put on my little fields, and of +taking a good craftsman home from the fair, a man who could put the fine +thatch on my little house. I made up my mind to have the doors and +windows shining with paint, to plant a few trees before the door, and to +have a growing calf going before the house. In a while, I thought, I +could have another little horse to be my comfort and consolation. I +wasn't drinking anything heavier than ginger ale, so I thought the whole +thing out quietly. After a while I got up, bid good-bye to Mrs. Molloy, +and stood at the door to watch the fair. + +"There was a man just before me with a pea and thimble, and I never saw +a trick-of-the-loop with less sense of the game. He was winning money +right and left, but that was because the young fellows were before him +like motherless calves. Just to expose the man I put down a few pence on +the board. In a short time I had fleeced my showman. He took up his +board and went away, leaving me shillings the winner. + +"I stood on the edge of the pavement wondering what I could do that +would be the beating of the things I had done already. By this time the +fiddler and the piper were drawing nigh to each other, and there was a +musician to the right of me and a musician to the left of me. I sent +silver to each, and told them to cease playing as I had something to +say. I got up on a cart and shook my hat to get silence. I said, 'I'm +going to bid the musicians play in the market square, and the man who +gets the best worth out of his instrument will get a prize from me.' +The words were no sooner out of my mouth than men, women and children +made for the market square like two-year-olds let loose. + +"You'd like the looks of the fiddler, but the piper was a black-avis'd +fellow that kept a troop of tinkers about him. It was the piper who +said, 'Master, what's the prize to be?' Before I had time to think, the +fiddler was up and talking. 'He's of the oul' ancient race,' said the +fiddler, 'and he'll give the prizes that the Irish nobility gave to the +musicians--a calf, the finest calf in the fair, a white calf, with skin +as soft as the fine mist on the ground, a calf that gentle that the +smoothest field under him would look as rough as a bog.' And the fiddler +was that lifted out of himself that he nearly lept over a cart. Somebody +pushed in a young calf, and then I sat down on a stone, for there was no +use in saying anything or trying to hear anything after that. The +fiddler played first, and I was nearly taken out of my trouble when I +heard him, for he was a real man of art, and he played as if he were +playing before a king, with the light of heaven on his face. The piper +was spending his silver on the tinkers, and they were all deep in drink +when he began to play. At the first sound of the pipes an old +tinker-woman fell into a trance. It was powerful, but the men had to tie +him up with a straw rope, else the horses would have kicked the slates +off the market-house roof. Nobody was quiet after that. There were a +thousand men before me offering to sell me ten thousand calves, each +calf whiter than the one before. There was one party round the fiddler +and another party round the piper. I think it was the fiddler that won; +anyway, he had the strongest backing, for they hoisted the calf on to a +cart, and they put the fiddler beside it, and the two of them would +have got out of the crowd, only the tinkers cut the traces of the yoke. +I was saved by a few hardy men, who carried me through the market-house +and into Flynn's by a back way, and there I paid for the calf. + +"When I came out of Flynn's the people were going home quiet enough. I +got a lift on Fardorrougha's yoke, and everybody, I think, wanted me to +come to Clooney on Tuesday next. I think I'd have got out of Arvach with +safety, only a dead-drunk tinker wakened up and knew me, and he gave a +yell that brought the piper hot-foot after me. First of all, the piper +cursed me. He had a bad tongue, and he put on me the blackest, bitterest +curses you ever heard in your life. Then he lifted up the pipes, and he +gave a blast that went through me like a spear of ice. + +"The man that sold me the calf gave me a luck-penny back, and that's all +the money I brought out of Arvach fair. + +"Never go into the fair where you have no business." + + + + +The Rev. J. J. Meldon and the Chief Secretary. + +_From "Spanish Gold."_ + +BY GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM (1865--). + + +The Chief Secretary lay back in Higginbotham's hammock-chair. There was +a frown on his face. His sense of personal dignity was outraged by the +story he had just heard. He had not been very long Chief Secretary of +Ireland, and, though not without a sense of humour, he took himself and +his office very seriously. He came to Ireland intending to do justice +and show mercy. He looked forward to a career of real usefulness. He was +prepared to be opposed, maligned, misunderstood, declared capable of +every kind of iniquity. He did not expect to be treated as a fool. He +did not expect that an official in the pay of one of the Government +Boards would assume as a matter of course that he was a fool and believe +any story about him, however intrinsically absurd. He failed to imagine +any motive for the telling of such a story. There must, he assumed, have +been a motive, but what it was he could not even guess. + +Meldon entered the hut without knocking at the door. + +"Mr. Willoughby, I believe," he said, cheerily. "You must allow me to +introduce myself since Higginbotham isn't here to do it for me. My name +is Meldon, the Rev. J. J. Meldon, B.A., of T.C.D." + +The Chief Secretary intended to rise with dignity and walk out of the +hut. He failed because no one can rise otherwise than awkwardly out of +the depths of a hammock-chair. + +"Don't stir," said Meldon, watching his struggles. "Please don't stir. I +shouldn't dream of taking your chair. I'll sit on the corner of the +table. I'll be quite comfortable, I assure you. How do you like +Inishgowlan, now you are here? It's a nice little island, isn't it?" + +Mr. Willoughby succeeded in getting out of his chair. He walked across +the hut, turned his back on Meldon, and stared out of the window. + +"I came up here to have a chat with you," said Meldon. "Perhaps you +wouldn't mind turning round; I always find it more convenient to talk to +a man who isn't looking the other way. I don't make a point of it, of +course. If you've got into the habit of keeping your back turned to +people, I don't want you to alter it on my account." + +Mr. Willoughby turned round. He seemed to be on the point of making an +angry remark. Meldon faced him with a bland smile. The look of +irritation faded in Mr. Willoughby's face. He appeared puzzled. + +"It's about Higginbotham's bed," said Meldon, "that I want to speak. +It's an excellent bed, I believe, though I never slept in it myself. +But,----" + +"If there's anything the matter with the bed," said Mr. Willoughby +severely, "Mr. Higginbotham should himself represent the facts to the +proper authorities." + +"You quite misunderstand me. And, in any case, Higginbotham can't move +in the matter because he doesn't, at present, know that there's anything +wrong about the bed. By the time he finds out, it will be too late to +do anything. I simply want to give you a word of advice. Don't sleep in +Higginbotham's bed to-night." + +"I haven't the slightest intention of sleeping in it." + +"That's all right. I'm glad you haven't. The fact is"--Meldon's voice +sank almost to a whisper--"there happens to be a quantity of broken +glass in that bed. I need scarcely tell a man with your experience of +life that broken glass in a bed isn't a thing which suits everybody. +It's all right, of course, if you're used to it, but I don't suppose you +are." + +Mr. Willoughby turned, this time towards the door. There was something +in the ingenuous friendliness of Meldon's face which tempted him to +smile. He caught sight of Higginbotham standing white and miserable on +the threshold. He made a snatch at the dignity which had nearly escaped +him and frowned severely. + +"I think, Mr. Higginbotham," he said, "that I should like to take a +stroll round the island." + +"Come along," said Meldon. "I'll show the sights. You don't mind +climbing walls, I hope. You'll find the place most interesting. Do you +care about babies? There's a nice little beggar called Michael Pat. Any +one with a taste for babies would take to him at once. And there's a +little girl called Mary Kate, a great friend of Higginbotham's. She's +the granddaughter of old Thomas O'Flaherty Pat. By the way, how are you +going to manage about Thomas O'Flaherty's bit of land? There's been a +lot of trouble over that?" + +Mr. Willoughby sat down again in the hammock-chair and stared at Meldon. + +"Of course, it's your affair, not mine," said Meldon. "Still, if I can +be of any help to you, you've only got to say so. I know old O'Flaherty +pretty well, and I may say without boasting that I have as much +influence with him as any man on the island." + +"If I want your assistance I shall ask for it," said Mr. Willoughby, +coldly. + +"That's right," said Meldon. "I'll do anything I can. The great +difficulty, of course, is the language. You don't talk Irish yourself, I +suppose. Higginbotham tells me he's learning. It's a very difficult +language, highly inflected. I'm not very good at it myself. I can't +carry on a regular business conversation in it. By the way, what is your +opinion of the Gaelic League?" + +A silence followed. Mr. Willoughby gave no opinion of the Gaelic League. +Meldon sat down again on the corner of the table and began to swing his +legs. Higginbotham still stood in the doorway. Mr. Willoughby, with a +bewildered look on his face, lay back in the hammock-chair. + +"I see," said Meldon, "that you've sent your yacht away. That was what +made me think you were going to sleep in Higginbotham's bed. I suppose +she'll be back before night." + +"Really----" began Mr. Willoughby. + +Meldon replied at once to the tone in which the word was spoken. + +"I don't want to be asking questions. If there's any secret about the +matter you're quite right to keep it to yourself. I quite understand +that you Cabinet Ministers can't always say out everything that's in +your mind. I only mentioned the steamer because the conversation seemed +to be languishing. You wouldn't talk about Thomas O'Flaherty Pat's +field, and you wouldn't talk about the Gaelic League, though I thought +that would be sure to interest you. Now you won't talk about the +steamer. However, it's quite easy to get on some other subject. Do you +think the weather will hold up? The glass has been dropping the last two +days." + +Mr. Willoughby struggled out of the hammock-chair again. He drew himself +up to his full height and squared his shoulders. His face assumed an +expression of rigid determination. He addressed Higginbotham: + +"Will you be so good as to go up to the old man you spoke of----" + +"Thomas O'Flaherty Pat," said Meldon. "That's the man he means, you +know, Higginbotham." + +"And tell him----" went on Mr. Willoughby. + +"If you're to tell him anything," said Meldon, "don't forget to take +someone with you who understands Irish." + +"And tell him," repeated Mr. Willoughby, "that I shall expect him here +in about an hour to meet Father Mulcrone." + +"I see," said Meldon. "So that's where the yacht's gone. You've sent for +the priest to talk sense to the old boy. Well, I dare say you're right, +though I think we could have managed with the help of Mary Kate. She +knows both languages well, and she'd do anything for me, though she is +rather down on Higginbotham. It's a pity you didn't consult me before +sending the steamer off all the way to Inishmore. However, it can't be +helped now." + +Higginbotham departed on his errand and shut the door of the hut after +him. The Chief Secretary turned to Meldon. + +"You've chosen to force your company on me this afternoon in a most +unwarrantable manner." + +"I'll go at once if you like," said Meldon. "I only came up here for +your own good, to warn you about the state of Higginbotham's bed. You +ought to be more grateful to me than you are. It isn't every man who'd +have taken the trouble to come all this way to save a total stranger +from getting his legs cut with broken glass. However, if you hunt me +away, of course, I'll go. Only, I think, you'll be sorry afterwards if I +do. I may say without vanity that I'm far and away the most amusing +person on this island at present." + +"As you are here," said Mr. Willoughby, "I take the opportunity of +asking you what you mean by telling that outrageous story to Mr. +Higginbotham. I'm not accustomed to having my name used in that way, +and, to speak plainly, I regard it as insolence." + +"You are probably referring to the geological survey of this island." + +"Yes. To your assertion that I employed a man called Kent to survey this +island. That is precisely what I refer to." + +"Then you ought to have said so plainly at first, and not have left me +to guess at what you were talking about. Many men couldn't have guessed, +and then we should have been rambling at cross purposes for the next +hour or so without getting any further. Always try and say plainly what +you mean, Mr. Willoughby. I know it's difficult, but I think you'll find +it pays in the end. Now that I know what's in your mind, I'll be very +glad to thrash it out with you. You know Higginbotham, of course?" + +"Yes." + +"Intimately?" + +"I met him this afternoon for the first time." + +"Then you can't be said really to know Higginbotham. That's a pity, +because without a close and intimate knowledge of Higginbotham, you're +not in a position to understand that geological survey story. Take my +advice and drop the whole subject until you know Higginbotham better. +After spending a few days on the island in constant intercourse with +Higginbotham you'll be able to understand the whole thing. Then you'll +appreciate it. In the meanwhile, I'm sure you won't mind my adding, +since we are on the subject,--and it was you who introduced it--that you +ought not to go leaping to conclusions without a proper knowledge of the +facts. I said the same thing this morning to Major Kent, when he +insisted that you had come here to search for buried treasure." + +Mr. Willoughby pulled himself together with an effort. He felt a sense +of bewilderment and hopeless confusion. The sensation was familiar. He +had experienced it before in the House of Commons when the Irish members +of both parties asked questions on the same subject. He knew that his +only chance was to ignore side-issues, however fascinating, and get back +at once to the original point. + +"I'm willing," he said, "to listen to any explanation you have to offer; +but I do not see how Mr. Higginbotham's character alters, or can alter, +the fact that you told him what I can only describe as an outrageous +lie." + +"The worst thing about you Englishmen is that you have such blunt minds. +You don't appreciate the lights and shades, the finer nuances, what I +may perhaps describe as the chiaroscuro of things. It's just the same +with my friend Major Kent. By the way, I ought to apologise for him. He +ought to have come ashore and called upon you this afternoon. It isn't a +want of loyalty which prevented him. He's a strong Unionist and on +principle he respects His Majesty's Ministers, whatever party they +belong to. The fact is, he was a bit nervous about this geological +survey business. He didn't know exactly how you'd take it. I told him +that you were a reasonable man, and that you'd see the thing in a proper +light, but he wouldn't come." + +"Will you kindly tell me what is the proper light in which to view this +extraordinary performance of yours?" + +"Certainly. It will be a little difficult, of course, when you don't +know Higginbotham, but I'll try." + +"Leave Mr. Higginbotham out," said the Chief Secretary, irritably. "Tell +me simply this: Were you justified in making a statement which you knew +to be a baseless invention? How do you explain the fact that you told a +deliberate--that you didn't tell the truth?" + +"I've always heard of you as an educated man. I may assume that you know +all about pragmatism." + +"I don't." + +"Well, you ought to. It's a most interesting system of philosophy quite +worth your while to study. I'm sure you'd like it if you understand it. +In fact, I expect you're a pragmatist already without knowing it. Most +of us practical men are." + +"I'm waiting for an explanation of the story you told Mr. Higginbotham." + +"Quite right. I'm coming to that in a minute. Don't be impatient. If +you'd been familiar with the pragmatist philosophy it would have saved +time. As you're not--though as Chief Secretary for Ireland I think you +ought to be--I'll have to explain. Pragmatism may be described as the +secularising of the Ritschlian system of theological thought. You +understand the Ritschlian theory of value judgments, of course?" + +"No, I don't." Mr. Willoughby began to feel very helpless. It seemed +easier to let the tide of this strange lecture sweep over him than to +make any effort to assert himself. + +"Do you mind if I smoke?" he said. "I think I could listen to your +explanation better if I smoked." + +He took from his pocket a silver cigar-case. + +"Smoke away," said Meldon. "I don't mind in the least. In fact, I'll +take a cigar from you and smoke, too. I can't afford cigars myself, but +I enjoy them when they're good. I suppose a Chief Secretary is pretty +well bound to keep decent cigars on account of his position." + +Mr. Willoughby handed over the case. Meldon selected a cigar and lit it. +Then he went on-- + +"The central position of the pragmatist philosophy and the Ritschlian +theology is that truth and usefulness are identical." + +"Eh?" + +"What that means is this. A thing is true if it turns out in actual +practice to be useful, and false if it turns out in actual practice to +be useless. I daresay that sounds startling to you at first, but if you +think it over quietly for a while you'll get to see that there's a good +deal in it." + +Meldon puffed at his cigar without speaking. He wished to give Mr. +Willoughby an opportunity for meditation. Then he went on-- + +"The usual illustration--the one you'll find in all the text-books--is +the old puzzle of the monkey on the tree. A man sees a monkey clinging +to the far side of a trunk of a tree--I never could make out how he did +see it, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the illustration. He +(the man) determines to go round the tree and get a better look at the +monkey. But the monkey creeps round the tree so as always to keep the +trunk between him and the man. The question is, whether, when he has +gone round the tree, the man has or has not gone round the monkey. The +older philosophers simply gave that problem up. They couldn't solve it, +but the pragmatist--" + +"Either you or I," said Mr. Willoughby, feebly, "must be going mad." + +"Your cigar has gone out," said Meldon. "Don't light it again. There's +nothing tastes worse than a relighted cigar. Take a fresh one. There are +still two in the case and I shall be able to manage along with one +more." + +"Would you mind leaving out the monkey on the tree and getting back to +the geological survey story?" + +"Not a bit. If it bores you to hear an explanation of the pragmatist +theory of truth, I won't go on with it. It was only for your sake I went +into it. You can just take it from me that the test of truth is +usefulness. That's the general theory. Now apply it to this particular +case. The story I told Higginbotham turned out to be extremely +useful--quite as useful as I had any reason to expect. In fact, I don't +see that we could very well have got on without it. I can't explain to +you just how it was useful. If I did, I should be giving away Major +Kent, Sir Charles Buckley, Euseby Langton, and perhaps old Thomas +O'Flaherty Pat; but you may take it that the utility of the story has +been demonstrated." + +Mr. Willoughby made an effort to rally. He reminded himself that he was +Cabinet Minister and a great man, that he had withstood the fieriest +eloquence of Members for Munster constituencies, and survived the most +searching catechisms of the men from Antrim and Down. He called to mind +the fact that he had resolutely said "No" to at least twenty-five per +cent. of the people who came to him in Dublin Castle seeking to have +jobs perpetrated. He tried to realise the impossibility of a mere +country curate talking him down. He hardened his heart with the +recollection that he was in the right and the curate utterly in the +wrong. He sat up as well as he could in the hammock-chair and said +sternly-- + +"Am I to understand that you regard any lie as justifiable if it serves +its purpose?" + +"Certainly not," said Meldon; "you are missing the whole point. I was +afraid you would when you prevented me from explaining the theory of +truth to you. I never justify lies under any circumstances whatever. The +thing I'm trying to help you grasp is this: A statement isn't a lie if +it proves itself in actual practice to be useful--it's true. There, now, +you've let that second cigar go out. You'd better light that one again. +I hate to see a man wasting cigar after cigar, especially when they're +good ones." + +Mr. Willoughby fumbled with the matches and made more than one attempt +to relight the cigar. + +"The reason," Meldon went on, "why I think you're almost certain to be a +pragmatist is that you're a politician. You're constantly having to make +speeches, of course; and in every speech you must, more or less, say +something about Ireland. When you are Chief Secretary the other fellow, +the man in opposition who wants to be Chief Secretary but isn't, gets up +and says you are telling a pack of lies. That's not the way he expresses +himself, but it's exactly what he means. When his turn comes round to be +Chief Secretary, and you are in opposition, you very naturally say that +he's telling lies. Now, that's a very crude way of talking. You are, +both of you, as patriotic and loyal men, doing your best to say what is +really useful. If the things you say turn out in the end to be useful, +why, then, if you happen to be a pragmatist, they aren't lies." + +Mr. Willoughby stuck doggedly to his point. Just so his countrymen, +though beaten by all the rules of war, have from time to time clung to +positions which they ought to have evacuated. + +"A lie," he said, "is a lie. I don't see that you've made your case at +all." + +"I know I haven't, but that's because you insist on stopping me. If +you'll allow me to go back to the man who went round the tree with the +monkey on it----" + +"Don't do that, I can't bear it." + +"Very well. I won't. I suppose we may consider the matter closed now, +and go on to talk of something else." + +"No. It's not closed," said Mr. Willoughby, with a fine show of spirited +indignation. "I still want to know why you told Mr. Higginbotham that I +sent Major Kent to make a geological survey of this island. It's all +very well to talk as you've been doing, but a man is bound to tell the +truth and not to deceive innocent people." + +"Look here, Mr. Willoughby," said Meldon, "I've sat and listened to you +calling me a liar half-a-dozen times, and I havn't turned a hair. I'm +not a man with remarkable self-control, and I appreciate your point of +view. You are irritated because you think you are not being treated with +proper respect. You assert what you are pleased to call your dignity, by +trying to prove that I am a liar. I've stood it from you so far, but I'm +not bound to stand it any longer, and I won't. It doesn't suit you one +bit to take up that high and mighty moral tone, and I may tell you it +doesn't impress me. I'm not the British Public, and that bluff honesty +pose isn't one I admire. All these platitudes about lies being lies +simply run off my skin. I know that your own game of politics couldn't +be played for a single hour without what you choose to describe as +deceiving innocent people. Mind you, I'm not blaming you in the least. I +quite give in that you can't always be blabbing out the exact literal +truth about everything. Things couldn't go on if you did. All I say is, +that, being in the line of life you are, you ought not to set yourself +up as a model of every kind of integrity and come out here to an island, +which, so far as I know, nobody ever invited you to visit, and talk +ideal morality to me in the way you've been doing. Hullo! here's +Higginbotham back again. I wonder if he has brought Thomas O'Flaherty +Pat with him. You'll be interested in seeing that old man, even if you +can't speak to him." + +Higginbotham started as he entered the hut. He did not expect to find +Meldon there. He was surprised to see Mr. Willoughby crumpled up, +crushed, cowed in the depths of the hammock-chair, while Meldon, +cheerful and triumphant, sat on the edge of the table swinging his legs +and smoking a cigar. + +"You'd better get that oil stove of yours lit, Higginbotham," said +Meldon. "The Chief Secretary is dying for a cup of tea. You'd like some +tea, wouldn't you, Mr Willoughby?" + +"I would. I feel as if I wanted some tea. You won't say that I'm posing +for the British Public if I drink tea, will you?" + +It was Meldon who lit the stove, and busied himself with the cups and +saucers. Higginbotham was too much astonished to assist. + +"There's no water in your kettle," said Meldon. "I'd better run across +to the well and get some. Or I'll go to Michael Pat's mother and get +some hot. That will save time. When I'm there I'll collar a loaf of +soda-bread and some butter if I can. I happen to know that she has some +fresh butter because I helped her to make it." + +Mr. Willoughby rallied a little when the door closed behind Meldon. + +"Your friend," he said to Higginbotham, "seems to me to be a most +remarkable man." + +"He is. In college we always believed that if only he'd give his mind to +it and taken some interest in his work, he could have done anything." + +"I haven't the slightest doubt of it. He has given me a talking to this +afternoon such as I haven't had since I left school--not since I left +the nursery. Did you ever read a book on pragmatism?" + +"No." + +"You don't happen to know the name of the best book on the subject?" + +"No, but I'm sure that Meldon--" + +"Don't," said Mr. Willoughby. "I'd rather not start him on the subject +again. Have you any cigars? I want one badly. I got no good of the two I +half smoked while he was here." + +"I'm afraid not. But your own cigar-case has one in it. It's on the +table." + +"I can't smoke that one. To put it plainly, I daren't. Your friend +Meldon said he might want it. I'd be afraid to face him if it was gone." + +"But it's your own cigar! Why should Meldon----" + +"It's not my cigar. Nothing in the world is mine any more, not even my +mind, or my morality, or my self-respect is my own. Mr. Meldon has taken +them from me, and torn them in pieces before my eyes. He has left me a +nervous wreck of a man I once was. Did you say he was a parson?" + +"Yes. He's curate of Ballymoy." + +"Thank God, I don't live in that parish! I should be hypnotised into +going to church every time he preached, and then----. Hush! Can he be +coming back already? I believe he is. No other man would whistle as loud +as that. If he begins to illtreat me again, Mr Higginbotham, I hope +you'll try and drag him off. I can't stand much more." + + + + +Old Tummus and the Battle of Scarva. + +_From "Lady Anne's Walk."_ + +BY ELEANOR ALEXANDER. + + +I found old Tummus scuffling Lady Anne's walk; that is to say, he was +busy looking pensively at the weeds as he leaned on his hoe. He never +suddenly pretends to be at work when he is not at work, but always +retains the same calm dignity of carriage. He too frankly despises his +employers to admit that either his occasional lapses into action, or his +more frequent attitude of storing his reserve force are any concern of +theirs. + +Gathering that he was graciously inclined for conversation by a not +unfriendly glance which he cast in my direction after he had spat on the +ground, I settled myself to listen. + +"Do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye?" + +With this he generally prefaces his remarks. It is, however, merely +rhetorical. He does not expect an answer; unless one were at least a +minor prophet it would be impossible to give one, except in the +negative. "Do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye?" he repeated, gently, +raising a weed with his hoe into what looked like a sitting position, +where he held it as if he were supporting it in bed to receive its last +communion. "There's not a hair's differ betwixt onny two weemen." I was +speechless, and he continued: "There is thon boy o' mine, and though I +say it that shouldn't, he's a fine boy, so he is, and no ways blate, and +as brave a boy as you'd wish for te see. From the time he was six year +old he was that old-fashioned he wouldn't go to church without his boots +was right jergers (creakers) that ye'd hear all over the church when he +cum in a wee bit late: and he cud say off all the responses as bowld as +brass. Did I no' learn him his releegion mesel, and bid him foller after +him that has gone before?" + +A solemn pause seemed only appropriate here, though I had my doubts. + +"But whiles he tuk te colloque-in' with the wee fellers round the corner +there in Irish street. That's so. But I soon quet him o' that. Says I te +him: 'Do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye? Me heart's broke with ye, so +it is. I'll have no colloque-in' from onny boy o' mine, so I won't. +Ye'll have no traffickin', no, nor passin' o' the time o' day with them +that's not yer own sort, and that differs from the Reverend Crampsey; +him and me and Johnston of Ballykilbeg, and the Great Example. What's +that ye say? Who is the Great Example? Now! Now! Who wud it be, but him +on the white horse?'" + +This is not, as might be supposed, from the vision of the Apocalypse, +but is easily recognised by those who are in the know, as an allusion to +William of Orange, of "Glorious, pious, and immortal memory," who is +always represented on a white horse. + +"But," I argued, "he did traffic with those who disagreed with him; it +is even said, you know, that when he came to England he subsidised the +Pope." + +Tummus appeared not to have heard this remark. + +"As I was sayin', thon boy o' mine, he has a mind to get hisself +marriet. So says I te him, 'There's not a hair's differ between onny +two o' them.' Ye see, it's this way. He has the two o' them courted down +to the askin', and he's afeard that if he asks the wan he'll think long +for the other, or maybe he'll think he'd sooner have had the other." + +"He is not behaving well. He can't, of course, marry them both, and yet +he has raised hopes which _must_ in one case be disappointed; he might +break the poor girl's heart." + +"Break her heart! Hoot. Blethers. Heart is it?" + +"But," I interjected again, merely, of course, to make conversation, for +I have many times and oft heard his opinion on the subject, and it is +not favourable, "Don't you believe in love?" + +Tummus had been twice married. His first wife was called Peggy-Anne, and +only lived a year after her marriage. I try to persuade myself and him +that this was the romance of his life, but it is up-hill work. The +present Mrs. Thomas, who has been his wife for five-and-twenty-years, he +always speaks of as "Thon widdy wumman." She was the relict of one John +M'Adam, whose simple annal in this world seems to be, that he was the +first husband of Tummus's second wife; for the other world, his +successor considers that, owing to his theological views, he is +certainly--well--not in heaven. + +"Do I no believe in love? Why, wumman, dear, have I no seen it mesel? +Sure, and I had an uncle o' me own, me own mother's brother, that was +tuk that way, and what did he do? but went and got the whole o' Paul's +wickedest Epistle off, so he did, and offered for te tell it till her, +all at the wan sitting. Boys, oh! but he was the quare poet! And she got +marriet on a boy out o' Ballinahone on him, and do ye know what I'm +goin' te tell ye? he tuk to the hills and never did a hand's turn +after." + +"Surely, Thomas, you have been in love yourself, too, now, with +Peggy-Anne, and your present wife? When you asked them to marry you, you +had to pretend it anyhow. What did you say to them?" + +"Is it me? Well it was this way; me and Peggy-Anne, we went the pair of +us to Scarva on the twelfth. Did ever ye hear tell of the battle o' +Scarva? I mind it well. I had a wheen o' cloves in me pocket, and +Peggy-Anne she had a wee screw o' pepperment sweeties. Says I te her: + +"'Peggy-Anne, wud ye conceit a clove?' + +"And says she te me: + +"'Tak a sweetie, Tummus!' + +"And I went in the mornin' and giv in the names till the Reverend +Crampsey; so I did." + +After all, there are many worse ways of concluding the business, and few +that would be more full of symbol. There is the mutual help; the +inevitable "give and take" of married life; the strength and pungency of +the manly clove; the melting sweetness of the maidenly peppermint; two +souls united in the savour of both scents combined rising to heaven on +the summer air. + +I could not recall in the tale or history, or the varied reminiscences +of married friends on this interesting topic, any manner of "proposal" +more delicate and less ostentatious. Tummus graciously accepted my +congratulations on his elegant good taste, but when I inquired about the +preliminaries of his second alliance, he only shook his head and +muttered, "Them widdies! Them widdies!" + +In this there is almost a suggestion that, like Captain Cuttle, he was +taken at a disadvantage, but one can scarcely credit it. It seems +impossible that he would not have extricated himself with the inspired +dexterity of a Sherlock Holmes, or the happy resource of a Stanley +Weyman hero, from whatever dilemma. + +"As I was sayin'," he resumed, "Did ever ye hear tell o' the battle o' +Scarva?" + +Of course I had heard of it. Who has not heard of the Oberammergau of +the North? There, in a gentleman's prettily wooded park, on a large open +meadow sloping down to a clear running brook, is yearly enacted a +veritable Passion Play of the Battle of the Boyne. + +"I suppose you have often seen it, Thomas." + +"I have that; many and many's a time. But there was wan battle that bate +all--do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye? I would give a hundred pounds +te see thon agin--so I wud. Boys, oh! it was gran'. There was me own +aunt's nephew was King William, and him on the top of the beautifullest +white horse ever ye seen, with the mane o' him tied with wee loops o' +braid, or'nge and bleue. Himself had an or'nge scarfe on him and bleue +feathers te his hat, just like one o' them for'n Princes, and his +Field-marshal and Ginerals just the same, only not so gran'. And King +James, they had a fine young horse for him that Dan Cooke bought off the +Reverend Captain Jack in Moy Fair. But he set his ears back, and let a +squeal out o' him, and got on with quare maneuvers whenever Andy Wilson +came near him, and Andy--that was King James--he says: + +"'I am no used with horse exercise, and I misdoubt thon baste.' + +"'But,' says Dan Cooke, 'up with ye sonny, and no more about it.' + +"Well, with that Andy turned about, and, says he, 'I'll ride no blooded +horse out of Moy. I'd sooner travel. I'll ride none, without I have me +own mare that drawed me and hersel' and the childer out of +Poyntzpass--so I won't.' + +"With that the Field-marshals and the Ginerals and the Aiden-scampses +away with them, and they found Andy's mare takin' her piece by the +roadside, and not agreeable to comin' forbye. Howsumever she was coaxed +along with an Aiden-scamp sootherin' her and complimentin' her: 'There's +a daughter, and a wee jooel,' and a Field-marshal holdin' a bite o' +grass in the front o' her, and a Gineral persuadin' her in the rare; and +they got King James ontil her, and the two armies was drawed up on the +banks o' the wee burn that stood for the Boyne Watter. Then they began, +quite friendly and agreeable-ike, temptin' other. + +"'Come on, ye thirsty tyrant ye,' says William. + +"'Come on, ye low, mane usurper,' says James. + +"'Come on ye heedious enemy to ceevil and releegious liberty, ye,' says +William. + +"'Come on, ye glorious, pious, and immortal humbug, ye,' says James. + +"'Come on ye Glad-stone ye, and Parnell, and Judas, and Koran--and +Dathan--and Abiram,' says William. + +"'Come on ye onnatural parasite ye, and Crumwell, and Shadrach--and +Mesech--and Abednego,' says James. + +"'Come on ye auld Puseyite, and no more about it,' says William. With +that he joined to go forrard, and James he should have come forrard +fornenst him, but Andy's mare, she just planted the fore-feet o' her +and stud there the same as she was growed in the ground. With that there +was two of the Aiden-scampses come on, and of all the pullin' and +haulin'! But de'il a toe would she budge, and all the boys began +larfin', so they did, and William says, says he: + +"'Come on till I pull the neck out o' ye.... Come on, me brave boy.... +Fetch her a clip on the lug. Hit her a skelp behint. Jab her with yer +knee, man alive. Och, come on, ye Bap, ye.' + +"Well, the skin o' a pig couldn't stand that, and Andy, he was middlin' +smart at a repartee, so 'Bap yersel',' says he, and with that he let a +growl out o' him ye might have heared te Portadown. Ye never heared the +like, nor what's more, Andy Wilson's mare, she never heared the like, +and she just made the wan lep and landed in the strame fornenst William; +then James he tuk a howlt o' William, and 'Bap yersel', says he; and +with that he coped him off his gran' white horse, and he drooked him in +the watter. + +"Then there was the fine play, and the best divarsion ever ye seen. Some +they were for William, and some they were for James, and every wan he up +with his fut or his fist, or onny other weepon that come convenient, and +the boys they were all bloodin' other, and murder and all sorts." + +"I thought you were all friends at Scarva?" + +"And so we were--just friends fightin' through other." + +"Was any one hurt?" + +"Was anyone hurted? Sure, they were just trailin' theirselves off the +ground. Ye wud have died larfin'. There's Jimmy Hanlon was never his own +man since, and I had me nose broke on me--I find it yet--and some says +there was a wee girl from Tanderagee got herself killed." + +"What became of William?" + +"He was clean drowned." + +"And King James?" + +"He's in hell with Johnny M'Adam." + +I tried to explain that I had not meant the King himself, but the actor +in whom nature had been stronger than dramatic instinct, but Tummus +either could not or would not dissociate the two. He really was not +attending to me: I had perceived for some time that his thoughts were +wandering far from our conversation. Suddenly a spasm convulsed his +features. With one hand he raised his hoe in the air like a tomahawk, +disregarding the weed of his afternoon's toil, which was left limp and +helpless on the gravel; with the other he grasped his side. I feared the +old man was going to have a fit, but it was only uncontrollable laughter +at some joke as yet hidden from me. + +"Well, do ye know what I'm goin' te tell ye? I wud just allow William +was a middlin' polished boy, so he was. He subsidised the Pope o' Rome, +did he? Man, oh! Do ye tell me that? That bates all, and him goin' to +take just twiste what he let on." + +Old Tummus unquestionably was absolutely sober at the beginning of our +interview, and had remained "dry" during it, but he now became gradually +intoxicated with what had appeared to him to be his hero's splendid +cunning. The thought of a genius which could overreach someone else in a +bargain rose to his brain like champagne. He swayed on his feet; he ran +his words into each other; he assumed a gaiety of manner and expression +quite unusual to him. + +I watched him lurch down the walk, and then pause on the bridge. He +supported himself by the wooden railing, which creaked as he swayed to +and fro, and addressed the stream and the trees-- + +"Do ye know what I'm goin' to tell ye? I wud just allow he was a +middlin' polished boy--so he was." + + + + +The Game Leg. + +_From "The Furry Farm."_ + +BY K. F. PURDON. + + +Heffernan's house at the Furry Farm stood very backwards from the +roadside, hiding itself, you'd really think, from anyone that might be +happening by. As if it need do that! Why, there was no more snug, +well-looked-after place in the whole of Ardenoo than Heffernan's always +was, with full and plenty in it for man and beast, though it wasn't to +say too tasty-looking. + +And it was terrible lonesome. There wasn't a neighbour within the bawl +of an ass of it. Heffernan, of course, had always been used to it, so +that he didn't so much mind; still, he missed Art, after he going off +with little Rosy Rafferty. That was nigh hand as bad upon him as losing +the girl herself. He had got to depend on Art for every hand's turn, a +thing that left him worse, when he was without him. And he was very +slow-going. As long as Julia was there, she did all, and Heffernan might +stand to one side and look at her. And so he missed her now, more than +ever; and still he had no wish to see her back, though even to milk the +cows came awkward to him. + +He was contending with the work one evening, and the calves in +particular were leaving him distracted; above all, a small little white +one that he designed for Rosy, when he'd have her Woman of the House at +the Furry Farm. That calf, I needn't say, was not the pick of the bunch, +but as Mickey thought to himself, a girl wouldn't know any better than +choose a calf by the colour, and there would be no good wasting +anything of value on her. At all events, it would be "child's pig and +Daddy's bacon" most likely with that calf. But sure, what matter! Rosy +was never to have any call to it, or anything else at the Furry Farm. + +Those calves were a very sweet lot, so that Mickey might have been +feeling all the pleasure in life, just watching them, with their soft, +little muzzles down in the warm, sweet milk, snorting with the pure +enjoyment. But Mickey was only grousing to get done, and vexed at the +way the big calves were shoving the little ones away, and still he +couldn't hinder them. Art used to regulate them very simple by means of +a little ash quick he kept, to slap the forward calves across the face +when they'd get too impudent. But as often as Mickey had seen him do +that, he couldn't do the same. The ash quick was so close to him that if +it had been any nearer it would have bitten him. Stuck up in a corner of +the bit of ruin that had once been Castle Heffernan it was. But it might +as well have been in America for all the good it was to Mickey. + +"I wish to God I was rid of the whole of yous, this minute!" says he to +himself, and he with his face all red and steamy, and the milk +slobbering out of the pail down upon the ground, the way the calves were +butting him about the legs. + +That very minute, he heard a sound behind him. He turned about, and, my +dear! the heart jumped into his mouth, as he saw a great, immense red +face, just peeping over the wall that shut in his yard from the boreen. +That wall was no more than four feet high. Wouldn't anyone think it +strange to see such a face, only that far from the ground! and it with a +bushy, black beard around it, and big rolling eyes, and a wide, old hat +cocked back upon it? You'd have to think it was something "not right"; +an Appearance or Witchery work of some kind. + +But, let alone that, isn't there something very terrifying and frightful +in finding yourself being watched, when you think you're alone; and of +all things, by a man? The worst of a wild beast wouldn't put the same +bad fear in your heart. + +"Good evening, Mr. Heffernan," says the newcomer, with a grin upon him, +free and pleasant; "that's a fine lot of calves you have there!" + +Heffernan was so put about that he made no answer, and the man went on +to say, "Is it that you don't know me? Sure, you couldn't forget poor +old Hopping Hughie as simple as that!" + +And he gave himself a shove, so that he raised his shoulders above the +wall. A brave, big pair they were, too, but they were only just held up +on crutches. Hughie could balance himself upon them, and get about, as +handy as you please. But he was dead of his two legs. + +"Oh, Hughie...!" says Heffernan, pretty stiff; "well, and what do you +want here?" + +"Och, nothing in life...." + +"Take it, then, and let you be off about your business!" says Mickey, as +quick as a flash, for once; and he that was proud when he had it said! + +Hughie had a most notorious tongue himself, but he knew when to keep it +quiet, and he thought it as good to appear very mild and down in himself +now, so he said, "My business! sure, what word is that to say to a poor +old fellah on chrutches! Not like you, Mr. Heffernan, that'll be off to +the fair of Balloch to-morrow morning, bright and early, with them grand +fine calves of yours. The price they'll go! There isn't the peel of them +in Ardenoo!" + +"Do you tell me that?" says Heffernan, that a child could cheat. + +"That's what they do be telling me," says Hughie. He could build a nest +in your ear, he was that cunning. He thought he saw a chance of getting +to the fair himself, and a night's lodging as well, if he managed right. + +"I wish to goodness I could get them there, so," says Mickey, "and +hasn't one to drive them for me!" + +"Would I do?" says Hughie. + +Heffernan looked at him up and down. + +"Sure you'd not be able!" + +"Whoo! me not able? Maybe I'm like the singed cat, better than I look! +I'm slow, but fair and easy goes far in a day! Never you fear but I'll +get your calves to Balloch the same way the boy ate the cake, very +handy...." + +The simplest thing would have been for Heffernan to take and drive the +calves himself. But he never had the fashion of doing such things. +Anyway, it wouldn't answer for the people to see a man with a good means +of his own, like Mickey, turning drover that way. + +So he thought again, while Hughie watched him, and then says he, "You'll +have to be off out of this before the stars have left the sky!" + +"And why wouldn't I?" says Hughie; "only give me a bit of supper and a +shakedown for the night, the way I'll be fresh for the road to-morrow." + +Hughie was looking to be put sitting down in the kitchen alongside +Heffernan himself, and to have the settle-bed foreninst the fire to +sleep in. But he had to content himself with the straw in the barn and a +plateful carried out to him. Queer and slow-going Heffernan might be, +but he wasn't thinking of having the likes of Hopping Hughie in his +chimney-corner, where he had often thought to see little Rosy Rafferty +and she smiling at him. + +Hughie took it all very contented. Gay and happy he was after his +supper, and soon fell asleep on the straw, with his ragged pockets that +empty that the divil could dance a hornpipe in them and not strike a +copper there; while Mickey above in bed in his own house, with his fine +farm and all his stock about him, calves and cows and pigs, not to speak +of the money in the old stocking under the thatch ... Mickey couldn't +sleep, only worrying, thinking was he right to go to sell the calves at +all; and to be letting Hughie drive them! + +"I had little to do," he thought, "to be letting him in about the place +at all, and couldn't tell what divilment he might be up to, as soon as +he gets me asleep! Hughie's terrible wicked, and as strong as a ditch! I +done well to speak him civil, anyway. But I'll not let them calves stir +one peg out of this with him! I'd sooner risk keeping them longer...." + +There's the way he was going on, tossing and tumbling and tormenting +himself, as if bed wasn't a place to rest yourself in and not be raking +up annoyances. + +So it wasn't till near morning that Mickey dozed off, and never wakened +till it was more than time to be off to the fair. + +Up he jumped and out to stop Hughie. But the yard was silent and empty. +Hughie and the calves were gone. + +Mickey was more uneasy than ever. + +"A nice bosthoon I must be," he thought, "to go trust my good-looking +calves to a k'nat like Hughie! And he to go off without any breakfast, +too...!" + +Heffernan was a good warrant to feed man or beast. But he mightn't have +minded about Hughie, that had plenty of little ways of providing for +himself. His pockets would be like sideboards, the way he would have +them stuck out with meat and eggs, and so on, that he would be given +along the road. Hughie was better fed than plenty that bestowed food +upon him. + +Balloch, where the fair is held, is the wildest and most lonesome place +in Ardenoo, with a steep, rough bit of road leading up to it, very +awkward to drive along. Up this comes Heffernan, on his sidecar, driving +his best, and in a great hurry to know where he would come on Hughie. He +had it laid out in his own mind that sight nor light of his calves he +never would get in this world again. So it was a great surprise to him +to find them there before him, safe and sound. His heart lightened at +that as if a mill-stone was lifted off it. + +And the fine appearance there was upon them. Not a better spot in the +fair-green than where Hughie had them, opposite a drink-tent where the +people would be thronging most! And it was a choice spot for Hughie too. +Happy and contented he was, his back against a tree, leaning his weight +on one crutch and the other convenient to his hand. + +"So there's where you are," says Hughie, a bit scornful. Sure it was a +foolish remark to pass and the man there before him, as plain as the +nose on your face. But Hughie was puzzled too by the look of relief he +saw on Mickey's face. He understood nothing of what Heffernan was +passing through. It's an old saying and a true one, "Them that has the +world has care!" but them that hasn't it, what do they know about it? + +While Hughie was turning this over in his mind, Mickey was throwing an +eye upon the calves, and then, seeing they were all right, he was +bandying off with himself, when Hughie said, "Terrible dry work it is, +driving stock along them dusty roads since the early morning," and he +rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth with a grin. + +At that, Mickey put his hand into his pocket and felt round about, and +then pulled it out empty. + +"I'll see you later, Hughie," says he, "I'll not forget you, never fear! +Just let you wait here till I have the poor mare attended to that drew +me here...." + +So he went off to do this, and then into the drink-tent with him, the +way he could be getting a sup himself. But no sign of he to give +anything to Hughie. And there now is where Mickey made a big mistake. + +He met up with a couple or three that he was acquainted with in the +tent, and they began to talk of this thing and that thing, so that it +was a gay little while before Mickey came out again. + +When he did: "What sort is the drink in there, Mr. Heffernan?" says +Hughie. + +Now what Mickey had taken at that time was no more than would warm the +cockles of his heart. So he looked quite pleasant and said, "Go in +yourself, Hughie, and here's what will enable you to judge it!" + +And he held out a shilling to Hughie. + +"A bird never yet flew upon the one wing, Mr. Heffernan!" said Hughie, +that was looking to get another shilling, and that would be only his due +for driving the calves. + +Mickey said nothing one way or the other, only went off, and left Hughie +standing there, holding out his hand in front of him with the shilling +in it, lonesome. + +He that was vexed! He got redder in the face than ever, and gave out a +few curses, till he remembered there wasn't one to hear him. So he +stopped and went into the tent and I needn't say he got the best value +he could there. + +But all the time he was thinking how badly Heffernan was after treating +him, putting him off without enough to see him through the fair even, +let alone with a trifle in his pockets to help him on his rounds. He +began planning how he could pay out Mickey. + +He got himself back to the same spot, near the calves, to see what would +happen. After a time, he saw Heffernan coming back, and little Barney +Maguire with him. A very decent boy Barney was, quiet and agreeable; +never too anxious for work, but very knowledgable about how things +should be done, from a wake to a sheep-shearing. Heffernan always liked +to have Barney with him at a fair. + +The two of them stood near the calves, careless-like, as if they took no +interest in them at all. + +A dealer came up. + +"How much for them calves? Not that I'm in need of the like," says he. + +"Nobody wants you to take them, so," says Barney, "but the price is +three pounds ... or was it guineas you're after saying, Mr. Heffernan?" + +Heffernan said nothing, and the dealer spoke up very fierce; "Three +pounds! Put thirty shillings on them, and I'll be talking to ye!" + +Mickey again only looked at his adviser, and says Barney, "Thirty +shillings! 'Tis you that's bidding wide, this day! May the Lord forgive +you! Is it wanting a present you are of the finest calves in Ardenoo?" + +Heffernan swelled out with delight at that; as if Barney's word could +make his calves either better or worse. + +"Wasn't it fifty-seven and sixpence you're after telling me you were +offered only yesterday, Mr. Heffernan," says Barney, "just for the small +ones of the lot?" + +"Och! I dare say! don't you?" says the dealer; "the woman that owns you +it was that made you that bid, to save your word!" + +Poor Mickey! and he hadn't a woman at all! The dealer of course being +strange couldn't know that, nor why Hughie gave a laugh out of him. + +But that didn't matter. Mickey took no notice. A man that's a bit +"thick" escapes many a prod that another would feel sharp. So in all +things you can see how them that are afflicted are looked after in some +little way we don't know. + +The dealer looked at the calves again. + +"Troth, I'm thinking it's the wrong ones yous have here! Yous must have +forgotten them fine three-pound calves at home!" + +And Mickey began looking very anxiously at them, as he thought maybe he +had made some mistake. + +"Them calves," says the dealer, slowly, "isn't like a pretty girl, that +everyone will be looking to get! And, besides, they're no size! A +terrible small calf they are!" + +"Small!" said Barney, "It's too big they are! And if they're little +itself, what harm! Isn't a mouse the prettiest animal you might ask to +see?" + +"Ay, it is," says the dealer, "but it'll take a power of mice to stock a +farm!" and off with him in a real passion--by the way of. + +But Barney knew better than to mind. The dealer came back, and at long +last the calves were sold and paid for. Then the lucky-penny had to be +given. Hard-set Barney was to get Heffernan to do that. In the end +Mickey was so bothered over it that he dropped a shilling just where +Hughie was standing leaning his weight on the one crutch as usual. + +As quick as a flash, he had the other up, and made a kind of a lurch +forward, as if to look for the money. But he managed to get the second +crutch down upon the shilling, to hide it; and then he looked round +about the ground as innocent as a child, as if he was striving his best +to find the money for Mickey. + +"Where should it be, at all, at all?" says Mickey; "bewitched it should +be, to say it's gone like that!" + +And Heffernan, standing there with his mouth open, looked as if he had +lost all belonging to him. Then he began searching about a good piece +off from where the shilling fell. + +"It's not there you'll get it!" said Barney, "sure you ought always look +for a thing where you lost it!" + +He went over to Hughie. + +"None of your tricks, now! It's you has Mr. Heffernan's money, and let +you give it up to him!" + +"Is it me have it? Sure if I had, what would I do, only hand it over to +the man that owns it!" says Hughie. + +On the word, he let himself down upon the ground, and slithered over on +top of the shilling. + +But, quick and all as he was, Barney was quicker. + +"Sure, you have it there, you vagabone, you! Give it up, and get off out +of this with yourself!" + +And he caught Hughie a clip on the side of the head that sent him +sprawling on the broad of his back. And there, right enough, under him, +was the shilling. + +So Barney picked it up, and for fear of any other mistake, he handed it +to the dealer. + +"It's an ugly turn whatever, to be knocking a poor cripple about +that-a-way!" said the dealer, dropping the lucky-penny into his pocket. + +"Ach, how poor he is, and let him be crippled, itself!" says Barney; +"it's easy seeing you're strange to Ardenoo, or you'd not be +compassionating Hughie so tender!" + +No more was said then, only in the tent with them again to wet the +bargain. Hughie gathered himself up. He was in the divil's own temper. +Small blame to him, too! Let alone the disappointment about the +shilling, and the knock Barney gave him, the people all had a laugh at +him. And he liked that as little as the next one. You'd think he'd curse +down the stars out of the skies this time, the way he went on. + +And it wasn't Barney's clout he cared about, half as much as Mickey's +meanness. It was that had him so mad. He felt he must pay Heffernan out. + +He considered a bit; then he gave his leg a slap. + +"I have it now!" he said to himself. + +He beckoned two young boys up to him, that were striving to sell a load +of cabbage plants they had there upon the donkey's back, and getting bad +call for them. + +"It's a poor trade yous are doing to-day," said Hughie; "and I was +thinking in meself yous should be very dry. You wouldn't care to earn +the price of a pint?" + +"How could we?" says the boys. + +"I'll tell you! Do you see that car?" and Hughie pointed to where +Heffernan had left his yoke drawn up, and the old mare cropping a bit as +well as she could, being tied by the head; "well, anyone that will pull +the linch-pin out of the wheel, on the far side of the car, needn't be +without tuppence to wet his whistle...." and Hughie gave a rattle to a +few coppers he had left in his pocket. + +"Yous'll have to be smart about it, too," said he, "or maybe whoever +owns that car will have gone off upon it, afore yous have time to do the +primest bit of fun that ever was seen upon this fair green!" + +"Whose is the car?" + +"Och, if I know!" says Hughie; "but what matter for that? One man is as +good as another at the bottom of a ditch! ay, and better. It will be the +height of divarshin to see the roll-off they'll get below there at the +foot of the hill...." + +"Maybe they'd get hurted!" said the boys. + +"Hurted, how-are-ye!" says Hughie; "how could anyone get hurted so +simple as that? I'd be the last in the world to speak of such a thing in +that case! But if yous are afraid of doing it...." + +"Afraid! that's queer talk to be having!" says one of them, very stiff, +for like all boys, he thought nothing so bad as to have "afraid" said to +him; "no, but we're ready to do as much as the next one!" + +"I wouldn't doubt yiz!" said Hughie; "h-away with the two of you, now! +Only mind! don't let on a word of this to any sons of man...." + +Off they went, and Hughie turned his back on them and the car, and +stared at whatever was going on the other end of the fair. He hadn't +long to wait, before Heffernan and Barney and the dealer came out of the +drink-tent. Hughie took a look at them out of the corner of his eye. + +"Ah!" he said to himself, "all 'purty-well-I-thank-ye!' after what they +drank inside! But, wait a bit, Mickey Heffernan...." + +The three men went over to where Heffernan's car was waiting. The boys +were gone. The other two men helped Mickey to get his yoke ready. Then +he got up, and they shook hands a good many times. Heffernan chucked at +the reins and started off. + +Hughie was watching, and when he saw how steadily the old mare picked +her way down the steep boreen, he began to be afraid he hadn't hit on +such a very fine plan at all. And if Mickey had only had the wit to +leave it all to the poor dumb beast, she might have brought him home +safe enough. + +But nothing would to him, only give a shout and a flourish of the whip, +half-way down the hill. The mare started and gave a jump. She was big +and awk'ard, much like Mickey himself. Still it was no fault of her +that, when she got to the turn, the wheel came off, and rolled away to +one side. Down came the car, Mickey fell off, and there he lay, till +some people that saw what was going on ran down the hill after him, and +got the mare on to her feet, and not a scratch on her. + +But poor Mickey! It was easy to see with half an eye that he was badly +hurt. + +"Someone will have to drive him home, whatever," said Barney, coming up +the hill to look for more help, after doing his best to get Mickey to +stand up; and sure, how was he to do that, upon a broken leg? "A poor +thing it is, too, to see how a thing of the kind could occur so simple! +and a decent man like Heffernan to be nigh hand killed...." + +"'Deed, and he is a decent man!" said Hughie; "and why wouldn't he? I'd +be a decent man meself if I had the Furry Farm and it stocked...." + +"He's in a poor way now, in any case," said Barney. "I doubt will he +ever get over this rightly! That's apt to be a leg to him all his life!" + +"Well, and so, itself!" said Hughie; "haven't I two of them lame legs? +and who thinks to pity Hughie?" + +"It's another matter altogether, with a man like Mr. Heffernan," said +Barney; "what does the like of you miss, by not being able to get about, +compared with a man that might spend his time walking a-through his +cattle, and looking at his crops growing, every day in the week?" + +"To be sure, he could be doing all that!" said Hughie, "but when a thing +of this kind happens out so awkward, it's the will of God, and the will +of man can't abate that!" + + + + +Trinket's Colt. + +_From "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M."_ + +BY E. OE. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS. + + +It was petty sessions day in Skebawn, a cold, grey day in February. A +case of trespass had dragged its burden of cross-summonses and +cross-swearing far into the afternoon, and when I left the bench my head +was singing from the bellowings of the attorneys, and the smell of their +clients was heavy upon my palate. + +The streets still testified to the fact that it was market day, and I +evaded with difficulty the sinuous course of carts full of soddenly +screwed people, and steered an equally devious one for myself among the +groups anchored round the doors of the public-houses. Skebawn possesses, +among its legion of public-houses, one establishment which timorously, +and almost imperceptibly, proffers tea to the thirsty. I turned in +there, as was my custom on court days, and found the little dingy den, +known as the Ladies' Coffee Room, in the occupancy of my friend Mr. +Florence McCarthy Knox, who was drinking strong tea and eating buns with +serious simplicity. It was a first and quite unexpected glimpse of that +domesticity that has now become a marked feature in his character. + +"You're the very man I wanted to see," I said, as I sat down beside him +at the oilcloth covered table; "a man I know in England who is not much +of a judge of character has asked me to buy him a four-year-old down +here, and as I should rather be stuck by a friend than a dealer, I wish +you'd take over the job." + +Flurry poured himself out another cup of tea, and dropped three lumps of +sugar into it in silence. + +Finally he said, "There isn't a four-year-old in this country that I'd +be seen dead with at a pig fair." + +This was discouraging, from the premier authority on horseflesh in the +district. + +"But it isn't six weeks since you told me you had the finest filly in +your stables that was ever foaled in the County Cork," I protested; +"what's wrong with her?" + +"Oh, is it that filly?" said Mr. Knox, with a lenient smile; "she's gone +these three weeks from me. I swapped her and L6 for a three-year-old +Ironmonger colt, and after that I swapped the colt and L19 for that +Bandon horse I rode last week at your place, and after that again I sold +the Bandon horse for L75 to old Welply, and I had to give him back a +couple of sovereigns luck-money. You see, I did pretty well with the +filly after all." + +"Yes, yes--oh, rather," I assented, as one dizzily accepts the +propositions of a bimetallist; "and you don't know of anything +else----?" + +The room in which we were seated was closed from the shop by a door with +a muslin-curtained window in it; several of the panes were broken, and +at this juncture two voices, that had for some time carried on a +discussion, forced themselves upon our attention. + +"Begging your pardon for contradicting you, ma'am," said the voice of +Mrs. McDonald, proprietress of the tea-shop, and a leading light in +Skebawn Dissenting circles, shrilly tremulous with indignation, "if the +servants I recommend you won't stop with you, it's no fault of mine. If +respectable young girls are set picking grass out of your gravel, in +place of their proper work, certainly they will give warning!" + +The voice that replied struck me as being a notable one, well-bred and +imperious. + +"When I take a bare-footed slut out of a cabin, I don't expect her to +dictate to me what her duties are!" + +Flurry jerked up his chin in a noiseless laugh. "It's my grandmother!" +he whispered. "I bet you Mrs. McDonald don't get much change out of +her!" + +"If I set her to clean the pig-sty I expect her to obey me," continued +the voice in accents that would have made me clean forty pig-stys had +she desired me to do so. + +"Very well, ma'am," retorted Mrs. McDonald, "if that's the way you treat +your servants, you needn't come here again looking for them. I consider +your conduct is neither that of a lady nor a Christian!" + +"Don't you, indeed?" replied Flurry's grandmother. "Well, your opinion +doesn't greatly distress me, for, to tell you the truth, I don't think +you're much of a judge." + +"Didn't I tell you she'd score?" murmured Flurry, who was by this time +applying his eye to the hole in the muslin curtain. "She's off," he went +on, returning to his tea. "She's a great character! She's eighty-three, +if she's a day, and she's as sound on her legs as a three-year-old! Did +you see that old shandrydan of hers in the street a while ago, and a +fellow on the box with a red beard on him like Robinson Crusoe? That old +mare that was on the near side, Trinket her name is--is mighty near +clean bred. I can tell you her foals are worth a bit of money." + +I had heard of old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas; indeed, I had seldom dined out +in the neighbourhood without hearing some new story of her and her +remarkable menage, but it had not yet been my privilege to meet her. + +"Well, now," went on Flurry, in his low voice, "I'll tell you a thing +that's just come into my head. My grandmother promised me a foal of +Trinket's the day I was one-and-twenty, and that's five years ago, and +deuce a one I've got from her yet. You never were at Aussolas? No, you +were not. Well, I tell you the place there is like a circus with horses. +She has a couple of score of them running wild in the woods, like deer." + +"Oh, come," I said, "I'm a bit of a liar myself----" + +"Well, she has a dozen of them, anyhow, rattling good colts, too, some +of them, but they might as well be donkeys for all the good they are to +me or any one. It's not once in three years she sells one, and there she +has them walking after her for bits of sugar, like a lot of dirty +lapdogs," ended Flurry with disgust. + +"Well, what's your plan? Do you want me to make her a bid for one of the +lapdogs?" + +"I was thinking," replied Flurry, with great deliberation, "that my +birthday's this week, and maybe I could work a four-year-old colt of +Trinket's she has out of her in honour of the occasion." + +"And sell your grandmother's birthday present to me?" + +"Just that, I suppose," answered Flurry, with a slow wink. + +A few days afterwards a letter from Mr. Knox informed me that he had +"squared the old lady, and it would be all right about the colt!" He +further told me that Mrs. Knox had been good enough to offer me, with +him, a day's snipe shooting on the celebrated Aussolas bogs, and he +proposed to drive me there the following Monday, if convenient, to +shoot the Aussolas snipe bog when they got the chance. Eight o'clock on +the following Monday morning saw Flurry, myself, and a groom packed into +a dog-cart, with portmanteaus, gun-cases, and two rampant red setters. + +It was a long drive, twelve miles at least, and a very cold one. We +passed through long tracts of pasture country, filled for Flurry, with +memories of runs, which were recorded for me, fence by fence, in every +one of which the biggest dog-fox in the country had gone to ground, with +not two feet--measured accurately on the handle of the whip--between him +and the leading hound; through bogs that imperceptibly melted into +lakes, and finally down and down into a valley, where the fir-trees of +Aussolas clustered darkly round a glittering lake, and all but hid the +grey roofs and pointed gables of Aussolas Castle. + +"There's a nice stretch of a demesne for you," remarked Flurry, pointing +downwards with the whip, "and one little old woman holding it all in the +heel of her fist. Well able to hold it she is, too, and always was, and +she'll live twenty years yet, if it's only to spite the whole lot of us, +and when all's said and done, goodness knows how she'll leave it!" + +"It strikes me you were lucky to keep her up to her promise about the +colt," said I. + +Flurry administered a composing kick to the ceaseless strivings of the +red setters under the seat. + +"I used to be rather a pet with her," he said, after a pause; "but mind +you, I haven't got him yet, and if she gets any notion I want to sell +him I'll never get him, so say nothing about the business to her." + +The tall gates of Aussolas shrieked on their hinges as they admitted +us, and shut with a clang behind us, in the faces of an old mare and a +couple of young horses, who, foiled in their break for the excitements +of the outer world, turned and galloped defiantly on either side of us. +Flurry's admirable cob hammered on, regardless of all things save his +duty. + +"He's the only one I have that I'd trust myself here with," said his +master, flicking him approvingly with the whip; "there are plenty of +people afraid to come here at all, and when my grandmother goes out +driving, she has a boy on the box with a basket full of stones to peg at +them. Talk of the dickens, here she is herself!" + +A short, upright old woman was approaching, preceded by a white woolly +dog with sore eyes and a bark like a tin trumpet; we both got out of the +trap and advanced to meet the Lady of the Manor. + +I may summarise her attire by saying that she looked as if she had +robbed a scarecrow; her face was small and incongruously refined, the +skinny hand that she extended to me had the grubby tan that bespoke the +professional gardener, and was decorated with a magnificent diamond +ring. On her head was a massive purple velvet bonnet. + +"I am very glad to meet you, Major Yeates," she said, with an +old-fashioned precision of utterance; "your grandfather was a dancing +partner of mine in old days at the Castle, when he was a handsome young +aide-de-camp there, and I was--you may judge for yourself what I was." + +She ended with a startling little hoot of laughter, and I was aware that +she quite realised the world's opinion of her, and was indifferent to +it. + +Our way to the bogs took us across Mrs. Knox's home farm, and through a +large field in which several young horses were grazing. + +"There, now, that's my fellow," said Flurry, pointing to a fine-looking +colt, "the chestnut with the white diamond on his forehead. He'll run +into three figures before he's done, but we'll not tell that to the ould +lady!" + +The famous Aussolas bogs were as full of snipe as usual, and a good deal +fuller of water than any bogs I had ever shot before. I was on my day, +and Flurry was not, and as he is ordinarily an infinitely better snipe +shot than I, I felt at peace with the world and all men as we walked +back, wet through, at five o'clock. + +The sunset had waned and a big white moon was making the eastern tower +of Aussolas look like a thing in a fairy tale or a play when we arrived +at the hall door. An individual, whom I recognised as the Robinson +Crusoe coachman, admitted us to a hall, the like of which one does not +often see. The walls were panelled with dark oak up to the gallery that +ran round three sides of it, the balusters of the wide staircase were +heavily carved, and blackened portraits of Flurry's ancestors on the +spindle side, stared sourly down on their descendant as he tramped +upstairs with the bog mould on his hobnailed boots. + +We had just changed into dry clothes when Robinson Crusoe shoved his red +beard round the corner of the door, with the information that the +mistress said we were to stay for dinner. My heart sank. It was then +barely half-past five. I said something about having no evening clothes, +and having to get home early. + +"Sure, the dinner'll be in another half-hour," said Robinson Crusoe, +joining hospitably in the conversation; "and as for evening clothes--God +bless ye!" + +The door closed behind him. + +"Never mind," said Flurry, "I dare say you'll be glad enough to eat +another dinner by the time you get home," he laughed. "Poor Slipper!" he +added, inconsequently, and only laughed again when I asked for an +explanation. + +Old Mrs. Knox received us in the library, where she was seated by a +roaring turf fire, which lit the room a good deal more effectively than +the pair of candles that stood beside her in tall silver candlesticks. +Ceaseless and implacable growls from under her chair indicated the +presence of the woolly dog. She talked with confounding culture of the +books that rose all round her to the ceiling; her evening dress was +accomplished by means of an additional white shawl, rather dirtier than +its congeners; as I took her in to dinner she quoted Virgil to me, and +in the same breath screeched an objurgation at a being whose matted head +rose suddenly into view from behind an ancient Chinese screen, as I have +seen the head of a Zulu woman peer over a bush. + +Dinner was as incongruous as everything else. Detestable soup in a +splendid old silver tureen that was nearly as dark in hue as Robinson +Crusoe's thumb; a perfect salmon, perfectly cooked, on a chipped kitchen +dish; such cut glass as is not easy to find nowadays; sherry that, as +Flurry subsequently remarked, would burn the shell off an egg; and a +bottle of port, draped in immemorial cobwebs, wan with age, and probably +priceless. Throughout the vicissitudes of the meal Mrs. Knox's +conversation flowed on undismayed, directed sometimes at me--she had +installed me in the position of friend of her youth, and talked to me as +if I were my own grandfather--sometimes at Crusoe, with whom she had +several heated arguments, and sometimes she would make a statement of +remarkable frankness on the subject of her horse-farming affairs to +Flurry, who, very much on his best behaviour, agreed with all she said, +and risked no original remark. As I listened to them both, I remembered +with infinite amusement how he had told me once that "a pet name she had +for him was 'Tony Lumpkin,' and no one but herself knew what she meant +by it." It seemed strange that she made no allusion to Trinket's colt or +to Flurry's birthday, but, mindful of my instructions, I held my peace. + +As, at about half-past eight, we drove away in the moonlight, Flurry +congratulated me solemnly on my success with his grandmother. He was +good enough to tell me that she would marry me to-morrow if I asked her, +and he wished I would, even if it was only to see what a nice grandson +he'd be for me. A sympathetic giggle behind me told me that Michael, on +the back seat, had heard and relished the jest. + +We had left the gates of Aussolas about half-a-mile behind, when, at the +corner of a by-road, Flurry pulled up. A short, squat figure arose from +the black shadow of a furze bush and came out into the moonlight, +swinging its arms like a cabman, and cursing audibly. + +"Oh, murdher, oh, murdher, Misther Flurry! What kept ye at all? 'Twould +perish the crows to be waiting here the way I am these two hours--" + +"Ah, shut your mouth, Slipper!" said Flurry, who, to my surprise, had +turned back the rug and was taking off his driving coat, "I couldn't +help it. Come on, Yeates, we've got to get out here." + +"What for?" I asked, in not unnatural bewilderment. + +"It's all right. I'll tell you as we go along," replied my companion, +who was already turning to follow Slipper up the by-road. "Take the trap +on, Michael, and wait at the River's Cross." He waited for me to come up +with him, and then put his hand on my arm. "You see, Major, this is the +way it is. My grandmother's given me that colt right enough, but if I +waited for her to send him over to me I'd never see a hair of his tail. +So I just thought that as we were over here we might as well take him +back with us, and maybe you'll give us a help with him; he'll not be +altogether too handy for a first go off." + +I was staggered. An infant in arms could scarcely have failed to discern +the fishiness of the transaction, and I begged Mr. Knox not to put +himself to this trouble on my account, as I had no doubt I could find a +horse for my friend elsewhere. Mr. Knox assured me that it was no +trouble at all, quite the contrary, and that, since his grandmother had +given him the colt, he saw no reason why he should not take him when he +wanted him; also, that if I didn't want him he'd be glad enough to keep +him himself; and, finally, that I wasn't the chap to go back on a +friend, but I was welcome to drive back to Shreelane with Michael this +minute, if I liked. + +Of course, I yielded in the end. I told Flurry I should lose my job over +the business, and he said I could then marry his grandmother, and the +discussion was abruptly closed by the necessity of following Slipper +over a locked five-barred gate. + +Our pioneer took us over about half-a-mile of country, knocking down +stone gaps where practicable, and scrambling over tall banks in the +deceptive moonlight. We found ourselves at length in a field with a +shed in one corner of it; in a dim group of farm buildings; a little way +off a light was shining. + +"Wait here," said Flurry to me in a whisper; "the less noise the better. +It's an open shed, and we'll just slip in and coax him out." + +Slipper unwound from his waist a halter, and my colleagues glided like +spectres into the shadow of the shed, leaving me to meditate on my +duties as Resident Magistrate, and on the questions that would be asked +in the House by our local member when Slipper had given away the +adventure in his cups. + +In less than a minute three shadows emerged from the shed, where two had +gone in. They had got the colt. + +"He came out as quiet as a calf when he winded the sugar," said Flurry; +"it was well for me I filled my pockets from grandmamma's sugar basin." + +He and Slipper had a rope from each side of the colt's head; they took +him quickly across a field towards a gate. The colt stepped daintily +between them over the moonlit grass; he snorted occasionally, but +appeared on the whole amenable. + +The trouble began later, and was due, as trouble often is, to the +beguilements of a short cut. Against the maturer judgment of Slipper, +Flurry insisted on following a route that he assured us he knew as well +as his own pocket, and the consequence was, that in about five minutes I +found myself standing on top of a bank hanging on to a rope, on the +other end of which the colt dangled and danced, while Flurry, with the +other rope, lay prone in the ditch, and Slipper administered to the +bewildered colt's hindquarters such chastisement as could be ventured +on. + +I have no space to narrate in detail the atrocious difficulties and +disasters of the short cut. How the colt set to work to buck, and went +away across a field, dragging the faithful Slipper, literally +_ventre-a-terre_, after him, while I picked myself in ignominy out of a +briar patch, and Flurry cursed himself black in the face. How we were +attacked by ferocious cur dogs and I lost my eyeglass; and how, as we +neared the river's Cross, Flurry espied the police patrol on the road, +and we all hid behind a rick of turf, while I realised in fulness what +an exceptional ass I was, to have been beguiled into an enterprise that +involved hiding with Slipper from the Royal Irish Constabulary. + +Let it suffice to say that Trinket's infernal offspring was finally +handed over on the highroad to Michael and Slipper, and Flurry drove me +home in a state of mental and physical overthrow. + +I saw nothing of my friend Mr. Knox for the next couple of days, by the +end of which time I had worked up a high polish on my misgivings, and +had determined to tell him that under no circumstances would I have +anything to say to his grandmother's birthday present. It was like my +usual luck that, instead of writing a note to this effect, I thought it +would be good for my liver to walk across the hills to Tory Cottage and +tell Flurry so in person. + +It was a bright, blustery morning, after a muggy day. The feeling of +spring was in the air, the daffodils were already in bud, and crocuses +showed purple in the grass on either side of the avenue. It was only a +couple of miles to Tory Cottage, by the way across the hills; I walked +fast, and it was barely twelve o'clock when I saw its pink walls and +clumps of evergreens below me. As I looked down at it, the chiming of +Flurry's hounds in the kennels came to me on the wind; I stood still to +listen, and could almost have sworn that I was hearing the clash of +Magdalen bells, hard at work on May morning. + +The path that I was following led downwards through a larch plantation +to Flurry's back gate. Hot wafts from some hideous cauldron at the other +side of a wall apprised me of the vicinity of the kennels and their +_cuisine_, and the fir-trees round were hung with gruesome and unknown +joints. I thanked heaven that I was not a master of hounds, and passed +on as quickly as might be to the hall door. + +I rang two or three times without response; then the door opened a +couple of inches, and was instantly slammed in my face. I heard the +hurried paddling of bare feet on oilcloth, and a voice, "Hurry, Bridgie, +hurry! There's quality at the door!" + +Bridgie, holding a dirty cap on with one hand, presently arrived and +informed me that she believed that Mr. Knox was out about the place. She +seemed perturbed, and she cast scared glances down the drive while +speaking to me. + +I knew enough of Flurry's habits to shape a tolerably direct course for +his whereabouts. He was, as I had expected, in the training paddock, a +field behind the stable-yard, in which he had put up practice jumps for +his horses. It was a good-sized field with clumps of furze in it, and +Flurry was standing near one of these with his hands in his pockets, +singularly unoccupied. I supposed that he was prospecting for a place to +put up another jump. He did not see me coming, and turned with a start +as I spoke to him. There was a queer expression of mingled guilt and +what I can only describe as divilment in his grey eyes as he greeted me. +In my dealings with Flurry Knox, I have since formed the habit of +sitting tight, in a general way, when I see that expression. + +"Well, who's coming next, I wonder!" he said, as he shook hands with me; +"it's not ten minutes since I had two of your d----d peelers here +searching the whole place for my grandmother's colt!" + +"What!" I exclaimed, feeling cold all down my back; "do you mean the +police have got hold of it?" + +"They haven't got hold of the colt, anyway," said Flurry, looking +sideways at me from under the peak of his cap, with the glint of the sun +in his eye. "I got word in time before they came." + +"What do you mean?" I demanded; "where is he? For Heaven's sake don't +tell me you've sent the brute over to my place!" + +"It's a good job for you I didn't," replied Flurry, "as the police are +on their way to Shreelane this minute to consult you about it. You!" He +gave utterance to one of his short, diabolical fits of laughter. "He's +where they'll not find him, anyhow. Ho! ho! It's the funniest hand I +ever played!" + +"Oh, yes, it's devilish funny, I've no doubt," I retorted, beginning to +lose my temper, as is the manner of many people when they are +frightened; "but, I give you fair warning that if Mrs. Knox asks me any +questions about it, I shall tell her the whole story." + +"All right," responded Flurry; "and when you do, don't forget to tell +her how you flogged the colt out on to the road over her own bound's +ditch." + +"Very well," I said, hotly, "I may as well go home and send in my +papers. They'll break me over this--" + +"Ah, hold on, Major," said Flurry, soothingly, "it'll be all right. No +one knows anything. It's only on spec' the old lady sent the Bobbies +here. If you'll keep quiet it'll all blow over." + +"I don't care," I said, struggling hopelessly in the toils; "if I meet +your grandmother, and she asks me about it, I shall tell her all I +know." + +"Please God you'll not meet her! After all, it's not once in a blue moon +that she----" began Flurry. Even as he said the words his face changed. +"Holy fly!" he ejaculated, "isn't that her dog coming into the field? +Look at her bonnet over the wall! Hide, hide, for your life!" He caught +me by the shoulder and shoved me down among the furze bushes before I +realised what had happened. + +"Get in there! I'll talk to her." + +I may as well confess that at the mere sight of Mrs. Knox's purple +bonnet my heart had turned to water. In that moment I knew what it would +be like to tell her how I, having eaten her salmon, and capped her +quotations, and drunk her best port, had gone forth and helped to steal +her horse. I abandoned my dignity, my sense of honour; I took the furze +prickles to my breast and wallowed in them. + +Mrs. Knox had advanced with vengeful speed; already she was in high +altercation with Flurry at no great distance from where I lay; varying +sounds of battle reached me, and I gathered that Flurry was not--to put +it mildly--shrinking from that economy of truth that the situation +required. + +"Is it that curby, long-backed brute? You promised him to me long ago, +but I wouldn't be bothered with him." + +The old lady uttered a laugh of shrill derision. "Is it likely I'd +promise you my best colt? And still more, is it likely that you'd refuse +him if I did?" + +"Very well, ma'am," Flurry's voice was admirably indignant. "Then I +suppose I'm a liar and a thief." + +"I'd be more obliged to you for the information if I hadn't known it +before," responded his grandmother with lightning speed; "if you swore +to me on a stack of Bibles you knew nothing about my colt I wouldn't +believe you! I shall go straight to Major Yeates and ask his advice. I +believe him to be a gentleman, in spite of the company he keeps!" + +I writhed deeper into the furze bushes, and thereby discovered a sandy +rabbit run, along which I crawled, with my cap well over my eyes, and +the furze needles stabbing me through my stockings. The ground shelved a +little, promising profounder concealment, but the bushes were very +thick, and I had hold of the bare stem of one to help my progress. It +lifted out of the ground in my hand, revealing a freshly-cut stump. +Something snorted, not a yard away; I glared through the opening, and +was confronted by the long, horrified face of Mrs. Knox's colt, +mysteriously on a level with my own. + +Even without the white diamond on his forehead I should have divined the +truth; but how in the name of wonder had Flurry persuaded him to couch +like a woodcock in the heart of a furze brake? For a minute I lay as +still as death for fear of frightening him, while the voices of Flurry +and his grandmother raged on alarmingly close to me. The colt snorted, +and blew long breaths through his wide nostrils, but he did not move. I +crawled an inch or two nearer, and after a few seconds of cautious +peering I grasped the position. They had buried him! + +A small sandpit among the furze had been utilised as a grave; they had +filled him in up to his withers with sand, and a few furze bushes, +artistically disposed round the pit had done the rest. As the depth of +Flurry's guile was revealed, laughter came upon me like a flood; I +gurgled and shook apoplectically, and the colt gazed at me with serious +surprise, until a sudden outburst of barking close to my elbow +administered a fresh shock to my tottering nerves. + +Mrs. Knox's woolly dog had tracked me into the furze, and was now baying +the colt and me with mingled terror and indignation. I addressed him in +a whisper, with perfidious endearments, advancing a crafty hand towards +him the while, made a snatch for the back of his neck, missed it badly, +and got him by the ragged fleece of his hind-quarters as he tried to +flee. If I had flayed him alive he could hardly have uttered a more +deafening series of yells, but, like a fool, instead of letting him go, +I dragged him towards me, and tried to stifle the noise by holding his +muzzle. The tussle lasted engrossingly for a few seconds, and then the +climax of the nightmare arrived. + +Mrs. Knox's voice, close behind me, said, "Let go my dog this instant, +sir! Who are you----" + +Her voice faded away, and I knew that she also had seen the colt's head. + +I positively felt sorry for her. At her age there was no knowing what +effect the shock might have on her. I scrambled to my feet and +confronted her. + +"Major Yeates!" she said. There was a deathly pause. "Will you kindly +tell me," said Mrs. Knox, slowly, "am I in Bedlam, or are you? And what +is that?" + +She pointed to the colt, and the unfortunate animal, recognising the +voice of his mistress, uttered a hoarse and lamentable whinny. Mrs. Knox +felt around her for support, found only furze prickles, gazed +speechlessly at me, and then, to her eternal honour, fell into wild +cackles of laughter. + +So, I may say, did Flurry and I. I embarked on my explanation and broke +down. Flurry followed suit and broke down, too. Overwhelming laughter +held us all three, disintegrating our very souls. Mrs. Knox pulled +herself together first. + +"I acquit you, Major Yeates, I acquit you, though appearances are +against you. It's clear enough to me you've fallen among thieves." She +stopped and glowered at Flurry. Her purple bonnet was over one eye. +"I'll thank you, sir," she said, "to dig out that horse before I leave +this place. And when you've dug him out you may keep him. I'll be no +receiver of stolen goods!" + +She broke off and shook her fist at him. "Upon my conscience, Tony, I'd +give a guinea to have thought of it myself!" + + + + +The Wee Tea Table. + +_From "Irish Pastorals."_ + +BY SHAN BULLOCK (1865--). + + +Somewhere near the hill-hedge, with their arms bare, skirts tucked up, +and faces peering from the depths of big sunbonnets, Anne Daly and Judy +Brady were gathering the hay into long, narrow rows; one raking this +side of a row, the other that, and both sweetening toil with laughter +and talk. Sometimes Anne leaned on her rake and chattered for a while; +now Judy said a word or two and ended with a titter; again, both bobbed +heads and broke into merriment. I came nearer to them, got ready my +rake, and began on a fresh row. + +The talk was of a woman, of her and her absurdities. + +"I've come to help you to laugh, Anne," said I. "What friend is this of +yours and Judy's that you're stripping of her character?" + +"The lassie," said Anne, "we were talkin' about is a marrit woman--one +Hannah Breen be name--an' she lives in a big house on the side of a hill +over there towards the mountain. The husband's a farmer--an easy-goin', +bull-voiced, good-hearted lump of a man, wi' a good word for ould Satan +himself, an' a laugh always ready for iverything. But the wife, Hannah, +isn't that kind. Aw, 'deed she isn't. 'Tisn't much good-speakin' or +laughin' Hannah'll be doin'; 'tisn't herself'd get many cars to follow +her funeral in these parts. Aw, no. 'Tisn't milkin' the cows, an' makin' +the butter, an' washin' John's shirts, an' darnin' his socks, an' +mendin' her own tatters, an' huntin' the chickens from the porridge-pot, +Hannah was made for. Aw, no. It's a lady Hannah must be, a real live +lady. It's step out o' bed at eight o'clock in the mornin', Hannah must +do, an' slither down to her tay an' have it all in grandeur in the +parlour; it's sittin' half the day she must be, readin' about the doin's +o' the quality, an' the goin's on o' the world, an' squintin' at +fashion-pictures, an' fillin' her mind wi' the height o' nonsense an' +foolery; it's rise from the table in a tantrum she must do because John +smacks his lips, an' ates his cabbage wi' his knife; it's worry the poor +man out o' his mind she'd be after because he lies and snores on the +kitchen table, an' smokes up to bed, an' won't shave more'n once a week, +an' says he'd rather be hanged at once nor be choked up in a white shirt +an' collar o' Sundays. An' for herself--aw, now, it'd take me from this +till sunset to tell ye about all her fooleries. If you'd only see her, +Mr. John, stalkin' in through the chapel gates, wi' her skirts tucked up +high enough to show the frillin' on her white petticoat, an' low enough +to hide the big tear in it; an' black kid gloves on her fists; an' a +bonnet on her wi'out a string to it; an' light shoes on her; an' a big +hole in the heel o' her stockin'; and her nose in the air; an' her +sniffin' at us all just as if we were the tenants at the butter-show an' +herself My Lady come to prance before us all an' make herself agreeable +for five minutes or so.... Aw, Lord, Lord," laughed Anne, "if ye could +only see her, Mr. John." + +"An' to see her steppin' down Bunn Street," Anne went on, as we turned +at the hedge, and set our faces once more towards the river, "as if the +town belonged to her--a ribbon flutterin' here, an' a buckle shinin' +there, an' a feather danglin' another place--steppin' along wi' her +butter-basket on her arm, an' big John draggin' at her heels, an' that +look on her face you'd expect to see on the face o' the Queen o' France +walkin' on a gold carpet, in goold slippers, to a goold throne! An' to +see the airs of her when someone'd spake; an' to see the murderin' look +on her when someone'd hint at a drop o'whiskey for the good of her +health; an' to hear the beautiful talk of her to the butter-buyers--that +soft an' po-lite; an' to see her sittin' in the ould ramshackle of a +cart goin' home, as straight in the back an' as stiff as a ramrod, an' +her face set like a plaster image, an' her niver lettin' her eye fall on +John sittin' beside her, an' him as drunk an' merry as a houseful o' +fiddlers! Aw, sure," cried Anne, flinging up a hand, "aw, sure, it's +past the power o' mortial tongue to tell about her." + +"Yours, Anne, makes a good attempt at the telling, for all that," said +I. + +"Ach, I'm only bleatherin'," said Anne. "If ye only knew her--only did." + +"Well, tell me all about her," said I, "before your tongue gets tired." + +"Ah, sure, an' I will," replied she; "sure, an' I'll try me hand at it." + +"One day, then, sometime last summer, Hannah--beggin' her ladyship's +pardon," said Anne, a sudden note of scorn rasping in her voice, "but I +meant Mrs. Breen--decks herself out, ties on her bonnet, pulls on her +kid gloves, an' steps out through the hall door. Down she goes, over the +ruts an' the stones, along the lane, turns down the main road; after a +while comes to the house o' Mrs. Flaherty--herself that told +me--crosses the street, an' knocks po-lite on the door. + +"'Aw, is Mrs. Flaherty at home, this fine day?' axes Hannah when the +door opens, an' wee Nancy put her tattered head between it an' the post. +'Is Mrs. Flaherty at home?' says she. + +"'She is so,' answers Nancy; 'but she'd be out at the well,' says the +wee crature. + +"'I see,' says Hannah, 'I see. Then, if you please, when she comes +back,' says she, 'would you be kindly handin' her that, wi' Mrs. Breen's +compliments'--an' out of her pocket Hannah pulls a letter, gives it to +Nancy, says good evenin' to the wee mortial, gathers up her skirt, an' +steps off in her grandeur through the hens an' ducks back to the road. +Well, on she goes another piece, an' comes to the house of Mary Dolan; +an' there, too, faith, she does the genteel an' leaves another letter +an' turns her feet for the house of Mrs. Hogan; an' at Sally's she +smiles, an' bobs her head, an' pulls another letter from her pocket, an' +leaves it at the door; then twists on her heel, turns back home an' +begins dustin' the parlours, an' arrangin' her trumpery an' readin' +bleather from the fashion papers. + +"Very well, childer. Home Jane comes from the well, an' there's Nancy +wi' the letter in her fist. 'What the divil's this?' says Jane, an' +tears it open; an' there, lo an' behold ye, is a bit of a card--Jane +swears 'twas a piece of a bandbox, but I'd be disbelievin' her--an' on +it an invite to come an' have tay with me bould Hannah, on the next +Wednesday evenin' at five o'clock p.m.--whativer in glory p.m. may be +after meanin'; when Mary Dolan opens hers, there's the same invite; an' +when Sally Hogan opens hers, out drops the same bit of a card on the +floor; an' Sally laughs, an' Mary laughs, an' Jane laughs, an' the three +o' them, what wi' the quareness o' the business, an' the curiosity of +them to see Hannah at her capers, put their heads together, an' laughs +again, an' settles it that sorrow take them, but go they'll go. An' go +they did. Aw, yis ... Aw, Lord, Lord," laughed Anne, turning up her +eyes. "Lord, Lord!" + +"Aw, childer, dear," giggled Judy, with a heaving of her narrow +shoulders. "Aw, go they did!" + +"Good girl, Anne," said I, and slapped my leg "my roarin' girl! Aw, an' +go they did, Judy--go they did." + +"Well, hearts alive," Anne went on, "Wednesday evenin' comes at last; +an' sharp at five o'clock up me brave Jane Flaherty steps along the +lane, crosses the yard, an' mindin' her manners, knocks twice on +Hannah's back door--then turns, an' wi' the dog yelpin' at her, an' the +gander hissin' like a wet stick on a fire, waits like a beggarwoman on +the step. But divil a one comes to the door; aw, not a one. An' sorrow a +soul budged inside; aw, not a soul. So round turns Jane, lifts her fist +again, hits the door three thundering bangs, an' looks another while at +the gander. Not a budge in the door, not a move inside; so Jane, not to +be done out of her tay, lifts the latch,--an', sure as the sun was +shinin', but the bolt was shot inside. 'Well, dang me,' says Jane, an' +hits the door a kick, 'but this is a fine way to treat company,' says +she, an' rattles the latch, an' shakes it. At last, in the divil of a +temper, spits on the step, whips up her skirts, an' cursin' Hannah high +up an' low down, starts for home. + +"She got as far as the bend in the lane, an' there meets Mary Dolan. + +"'What's up?' axes Mary. 'What's floostered ye, Jane Flaherty? Aren't ye +goin' to have your tay, me dear?' says Mary. + +"'Aw, may the first sup she swallows choke the breath in her,' shouts +Jane, an' goes on to tell her story; an' before she'd said ten words, up +comes Sally Hogan. + +"'Am I too late?' says Sally, 'or am I too early?' says she, 'or what in +glory ails the two o' ye?' + +"'Ails?' shouts Jane. 'Ye may well say that, Sally Hogan. Ye may turn on +your heel,' says she, an' begins her story again; an' before she was +half through it Sally laughs out, and takes Jane by the arm, an' starts +back to the house. + +"'Come away,' says she; 'come away an' have your tay, Jane; sure, ye +don't know Hannah yet.' + +"So back the three goes--but not through the yard. Aw, no. 'Twas through +the wee green gate, an' down the walk, an' slap up to the hall door +Sally takes them; an' sure enough the first dab on the knocker brings a +fut on the flags inside, an' there's Kitty, the servant girl, in her +boots an' her stockin's, an' her Sunday dress an' a white apron on her, +standin' before them. + +"'Aw, an' is that you, Kitty Malone,' says Sally. 'An' how's yourself, +Kitty, me dear? An' wid Mrs. Breen be inside?' says she. + +"'She is so, Mrs. Hogan,' answers Kitty, an' bobs a kind of curtsy. 'Wid +ye all be steppin' in, please?' + +"'Aw, the Lord's sake,' gasps Sally on the door step, at all this +grandeur; 'the Lord's sake,' says she, an' steps into the hall; an' in +steps Mary Dolan, an' in steps Jane Flaherty, an' away the three o' them +goes at Kitty's heels up to the parlour.... 'Aw, heavenly hour,' cried +Anne, and turned up her eyes. + +"Well, dears," Anne went on, "in the three walks, bonnets an' all, an' +sits them down along the wall on three chairs, an' watches Kitty close +the door; then looks at each other in a puzzled kind o' way, an', after +that, without openin' a lip, casts their eyes about the room. 'Twas the +funniest kind of a place, Jane allowed, that iver she dropped eyes on. +There was a sheep-skin, lyin' woolly side up, in front o' the fireplace, +an' a calf-skin near the windy, an' a dog's skin over be the table, an' +the floor was painted brown about three fut all round the walls. There +was pieces of windy-curtain over the backs o' the chairs; there was a +big fern growin' in an ould drain-pipe in the corner; there was an ould +straw hat o' John's stuffed full o' flowers an' it hangin' on the wall, +an' here an' there, all round it an' beside it were picters cut from the +papers an' then tacked on the plaster. Ye could hardly see the +mantelshelf, Jane allowed, for all the trumpery was piled on it, +dinglum-danglums of glass an' chaney, an' shells from the say, an' a +sampler stuck in a frame, an' in the middle of all a picter of Hannah +herself got up in all her finery. An' there was books, an' papers, an' +fal-lals, an' the sorrow knows what, lyin' about; an' standin' against +the wall, facin' the windy, was a wee table, wi' a cloth on it about the +size of an apron, an' it wi' a fringe on it, no less, an' it spread +skew-wise an' lookin' for all the world like a white ace o' diamonds; +an' on the cloth was a tray wi' cups an' saucers, an' sugar an' milk, +an' as much bread an' butter, cut as thin as glass, as you'd give a sick +child for its supper.... 'Aw, heavenly hour,' cried Anne, 'heavenly +hour!' + +"Aw, childer, dear," cried Judy. + +"Aw, woman alive," said I. "Aw, Judy, dear." + +"Well, childer, the three looks at all, an' looks at each other, an' +shifts on their chairs, an' looks at each other again, an' says Mary +Dolan at last:-- + +"'We're in clover, me dears,' says she, 'judgin' be the spread +beyont'--and she nods at the wee table. + +"'Ah that'il do for a start,' says Sally Hogan; 'but where in glory are +we all to put our legs under that wee table? Sure it'l be an ojus +squeeze.' + +"'It will so,' says Jane Flaherty, 'it will so. But isn't it powerful +quare o' Hannah to keep us sittin' here so long in our bonnets an' +shawls, an' us dreepin' wi' the heat?' + +"'It's the quarest hole I iver was put in,' says Mary Dolan, 'an' if +this is grandeur, give me the ould kitchen at home wi' me feet on the +hearth an' me tay on a chair.... Phew,' says Mary, an' squints round at +the windy, 'phew, but it's flamin' hot! Aw,' says she, an' makes a dart +from her chair, 'dang me, but I'll burst if I don't get a mouthful o' +fresh air.' An' just as she had her hand on the sash to lift it, the +door opens an' in steps me darlin' Hannah. + +"'Good evenin', ladies all," says Hannah, marchin' in wi' some kind of a +calico affair, made like a shroud wi' frills on it, hangin' on her, +'Good evenin', ladies,' says she, an' wi' her elbow cocked up in the air +as if she was strivin' to scrape it against the ceilin', goes from one +to another an' shakes hands. 'It's a very pleasant afternoon' (them was +the words), says she, makin' for a chair beside the wee table; 'an' I'm +very pleased to see ye all,' says she. + +"'Aw, an' the same here,' says Mary Dolan, in her free way, 'the same +here; an' ojus nice ye look in that sack of a calico dress, so ye do,' +says Mary, wi' a wink at Jane Flaherty. 'But it's meself'd feel obliged +to ye if so be ye'd open the windy an' give us a mouthful o' fresh air,' +says Mary. + +"An' Hannah sits down in her shroud wi' the frills on it, an' smiles, +an' says she, 'I'm rather delicate' (them were the words) 'this +afternoon, Mrs. Dolan, an' afeered o' catchin' cold; an', forby that,' +says she, 'the dust is so injurious for the parlour.' + +"'Aw, just so,' answers Mary, 'just so. Sure, I wouldn't for worlds have +ye spoil your parlour for the likes of us. But I'll ax your leave, Mrs. +Breen, seein' ye don't ax me yourself, to give me own health a chance,' +says she, 'be throwin' this big shawl off me shoulders.' + +"'But it's afternoon tay, Mrs. Dolan,' answers Hannah, in her cool way; +'an' it's not fashionable at afternoon tay for ladies to remove--' + +"'Then afternoon tay be danged,' says Mary, an' throws the shawl off her +across the back of her chair; 'an' it's meself'll not swelter for all +the fashions in the world,' says she, an' pushes her bonnet back an' +lets it hang be the strings down her back. 'Aw, that's great,' says she, +wi' a big sigh; an' at that off goes Jane's shawl an' bonnet, an' off +goes Sally's; an' there the three o' them sits, wi' Hannah lookin' at +them disgusted as an ass at a field of thistles over a gate.... Aw, +glory be," cried Anne. + +"Aw, me bould Anne," cried Judy; "me brave girl." + +"Well, dears, Hannah sits her down, puts her elbow on a corner o' the +ace o' diamonds, rests her cheek on her hand, an' goes on talking about +this and that. She hoped Mrs. Flaherty, an' Mrs. Dolan, an' Mrs. Hogan +were well an' prosperous; she hoped the crops were turnin' out well; +she hoped all the childer were in the best o' good health. Aw, like the +Queen o' Connaught Hannah talked, an' smiled, an' aired herself an' her +beautiful English, but sorrow a move did she make to shift her elbow off +the wee table-cloth, an' divil a sign or smell o' tay was there to be +seen. Aw, not a one. Ten minutes went, an' twenty, an' half an hour; an' +at that, up Mary Dolan stretched her arms, gives a powerful big yawn, +an', says she, 'Och, dear Lord,' says she, 'dear Lord, but the throat's +dry in me! Och, och,' says she--an' with the hint up gets Hannah in her +frilled shroud, crosses the calf-skin, opens the door, an' calls for +Kitty. 'Yis, Mrs. Breen,' answers Kitty from the Kitchen. 'Serve tay,' +calls Hannah; then closes the door an' steps back to her chair by the +wee table. + +"In about ten minutes, here comes me darlint Kitty, boots an' stockin's +an' all; carries the taypot on a plate over to the table, an' plants it +down slap in the middle o' the ace o' diamonds. Up jumps Hannah wi' a +bounce. + +"'What are you doin' Kitty?' says she, with a snap of her jaw, an' lifts +the taypot, an' glares at the black ring it had made on her brand new +cloth. 'D'ye see what you've done?' says she, pointin' her finger, +'stand back and mend your manners, ye ignorant little baggage, ye!'-- + +"'Yis, ma'am,' answers Kitty, an' stands back; then turns her head, when +she gets to the calf-skin, an' winks at the three sittin' by the wall; +an' out Mary Dolan bursts into a splutter of a laugh. + +"'Aw, Lord,' says Mary, an' holds her ribs; 'aw, dear Lord,' says she. +But Hannah, standin' pourin' tay into the wee cups, just kept her face +as straight as if Mary was a dummy, an' in a minute she turns round to +Kitty. + +"'Hand the cups to the ladies,' says she, an' sits her down. + +"Well, childer dear, Kitty steps from the calf-skin, lifts two cups an' +saucers from the tray, carries them across the floor, an' offers one to +Jane Flaherty, wi' this hand, an' t'other to Sally Hogan wi' that hand. +An' Sally looks at the cup, an' then at Kitty; an' Jane looks at Kitty, +an' then at the cup, an' says Sally: + +"'Is it take it from ye you'd have me do, Kitty Malone?' says she. + +"'It is so,' answers Kitty wi' a grin. + +"'An' where in glory wid ye have me put it, Kitty Malone?' asks Sally +an' looks here an' there. 'Sure--sure, there's no table next or near +me,' says she. + +"'It's afternoon tay, Mrs. Hogan,' says Hannah across the floor; 'an' at +afternoon tay, tables aren't fashionable,' says she, an' grins to +herself. + +"'Well, thank God, Hannah Breen,' says Mary Dolan, 'that afternoon tay, +as ye call it, has only come my way once in me life. Take the cup in +your fist, Sally Hogan,' says Mary, 'an' if ye break it, bad luck go +with it, an' if ye don't, you've been a lady for once in your life; an' +when you're done, stick it there on the floor. I'm obliged to ye, Kitty +Malone,' says Mary again, an' takes a cup; 'an' if so be I choke meself +wi' the full o' this thimble wi' a handle on it,' says Mary, an' squints +at the cup, 'you'll do me the favour to tell Pat I died a fool. An' if +such things go well wi' afternoon tay, Kitty, agra, I'd trouble ye for a +look at a spoon.' "... Aw, me bould Mary," cried Anne and laughed in her +glee. "Ye were the girl for Hannah, so ye were." + +"Aw, 'deed ay," cried Judy, and tittered most boisterously. "Aw, me +brave Hannah." + +"Then begins the fun, me dears. First of all, Sally Hogan, in trying to +lift a bit o' bread an' butter from a plate that Kitty held before her, +must spill her tay over her lap an' start screechin' that she was kilt. +Then Mary Dolan must finish her cup at a gulp, an' forgettin' it was in +Hannah's parlour she was at afternoon tay, an' not at home in the +kitchen, must give the dregs a swirl an' sling them over her shoulder +against the wall. Then Sally Hogan again, in tryin' to keep back a laugh +at the tay leaves on the wall, an' the glare of Hannah across at them, +must get a crumb in her throat an' bring the whole room to thump her on +the back. + +"Then Jane Flaherty gets a second cup wi' no sugar in it, an' makes a +face like a monkey's, an' gives a big splutter, an' sets Kitty Malone +off into a fit o' laughin'; an' Kitty sets Jane off, an' Jane sets Mary +off, an' Mary sets Sally off; an' there sits Hannah in her calico +shroud, beside the ace of diamonds, wi' a face on her like a child +cuttin' its teeth, an' her arm out, an' her shoutin' for Kitty to take +herself out o' the room. An' in the middle o' the whole hubbub the door +opens, an' in tramps big John in his dirty boots, wi' his shirt-sleeves +turned up, an' hay ropes round his legs, an' his hat on the back o' his +head, an' his pipe in his mouth--in steps John, an' stands lookin' at +them all. + +"'Ho, ho,' roars John, an' marches across the calf-skin. 'What have we +here? A tay party,' says he, 'as I'm a livin' sinner--an' me not to know +a thing about it! Well, better late nor niver,' says he, then turns an' +looks at Hannah. 'Aw, how d'ye do, Mrs. Breen? says he, wi' a laugh. 'I +hope I see ye well in your regimentals. An' how the blazes are the rest +o' ye, me girls?' says he to the three along the wall. 'I'm glad to see +ye all so hearty an' merry, so I am. But what in glory are ye all doin' +over there, away from the table? Why don't ye sit an' have your tay like +Christians?' says he. 'Come over, girls--come over this mortial minute,' +says John,'an' I'll have a cup wi' ye meself, so I will.' + +"Then Hannah rises in her calico shroud. + +"'John,' says she, 'it's afternoon tay it'll be, an tables--' + +"'Aw, sit ye down, Hannah,' shouts John, 'sit ye down, woman, an' be +like another for once in a way.' + +"'John,' says Hannah, again, an' looks knives an' forks at him, 'where's +your manners the day?' + +"'Aw, manners be danged,' roars John, an' throws his hat into the +corner; 'give us a cup o' tay an' quit your nonsense. Come on, girls,' +says he to the women, 'come over, an' have a cup in comfort wi' me here +at the table.' + +"'John!' says Hannah again, 'ye can't sit at this table; it's--it's too +small,' says she. + +"'Then pull it out from the wall,' roars John, 'pull it out and let us +get round it. Come on,' says he, an' grips an end o' the table, 'give it +a lift across the floor!' + +"'No, no, John,' shouts Hannah, an' grips t'other end to keep it from +goin'; 'ye mustn't, John!' + +"'Out wi' it,' roars John again. + +"'No, no,' shouts Hannah, 'ye can't--aw, ye can't--aw, ye mustn'--no, +no, John!' + +"'Aw, to glory wi' you an' it,' shouts John. 'Here let me at it +meself!...' + +"An' the next minute Hannah was screechin' in her shroud; an' there was +a clatter o' crockery, like as if a bull had gone slap at a dresser; an' +John was standin' like as if he was shot, in the middle of the floor; +an' lyin' at his feet was the wee table, an' the ace of diamonds, an' +the whole o' Hannah's cups an' saucers, an' the taypot, an' all, in a +thousand pieces.... Aw, heart alive ... heart alive!..." + +Anne leant upon her rake and bowed her head in laughter. Two minutes +grace she had; then said I: + +"What had happened, Anne?" + +She looked at me. "Happened? Sure, the table was only an ould +dressin'-table, an' had only three legs, an' was propped wi' the lame +side against the wall; an' when John put it down in the middle of the +floor--Aw, now," cried Anne, "that's enough, that's enough.... Aw, me +sides--me sides." + +"Aw, me sides--me sides," cried Judy, shaking below her big sun-bonnet. +"Te-he!" + +"Aw, women alive," cried I, sinking back on the hay. "Haw, haw!" + + + + +The Interpreters. + +_From "The Adventures of Dr. Whitty."_ + +BY GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM. + + +At the end of January, after three weeks of violently stormy weather, +the American barque, "Kentucky," went ashore at Carrigwee, the headland +which guards the northern end of Ballintra. She struck first on some +rocks a mile from the shore, drifted over them and among them, and was +washed up, frightfully shattered, on the mainland. The captain and the +crew were saved, and made their way into the town of Ballintra. They +were dispatched thence to Liverpool, all of them, except one sailor, a +forecastle hand, whose right leg had been broken by a falling spar. This +man was brought into Ballintra in a cart by Michael Geraghty, and taken +to the workhouse hospital. He arrived in a state of complete collapse, +and Dr. Whitty was sent for at once. + +The sailor turned out to be a man of great strength and vigour. He +recovered from the effects of the long exposure rapidly, had his leg +set, and was made as comfortable as the combined efforts of the whole +workhouse hospital staff could make him. Then it was noticed that he did +not speak a word to anyone, and was apparently unable to understand a +word that was said to him. The master of the workhouse, after a +consultation with the matron and the nurse, came to the conclusion that +he must be a foreigner. Dr. Whitty was sent for again and the fact +reported to him. + +"I was thinking," said the master, "that you might be able to speak to +him, doctor, so as he'd be able to understand what you said." + +"Well, I can't," said the doctor. "I'm not a professional interpreter, +but I don't see that it much matters whether you're able to talk to him +or not. Give him his food. He'll understand the meaning of a cup of tea +when it's offered him, whatever language he's accustomed to speak. +That's all you need care about. As a matter of fact, he'll be just as +well off without having you and the nurse and the matron sitting on the +end of his bed and gossiping with him all day long." + +"What's troubling me," said the master, "is that I've no way of finding +out what religion he is." + +"I don't see," said the doctor, "that his religion matters in the least +to us. He's not going to die." + +"I know that. But I have to enter his religion in the book. It's the +rule that the religion of every inmate of the house or the hospital must +be entered, and I'll get into trouble after if I don't do it." + +"Well," said the doctor, "there's no use asking me about it. I can't +talk to him any better than you can, and there isn't any way of telling +by the feel of a man's leg whether he's a Catholic or a Protestant." + +"That may be," said the master, who disliked this sort of flippant +materialism, "but if I was to enter him down as a Catholic, and it +turned out after that he was a Protestant, there'd be a row I'd never +hear the end of; and if I was to have him down as a Protestant, and him +being a Catholic all the time, there'd be a worse row." + +Dr. Whitty was a good-natured man, and was always ready to help anyone +who was in a difficulty. He felt for the master of the workhouse. He +also had a natural taste for solving difficult problems, and the +question of the sailor's religion attracted him. + +"Tell me this, now," he said. "Had he any kind of a Prayer Book or a +religious emblem of any sort on him when you were taking the clothes off +him?" + +"Not one. I looked myself, and the nurse went through his pockets after. +Barring a lump of ship's tobacco and an old knife, there wasn't a thing +on him." + +"That's not much use to us," said the doctor. "I never heard of a +religion yet that forbid the use of tobacco or objected to people +carrying penknifes. If you'd found a bottle of whiskey on him, now, it +might have helped us. We'd have known then that he wasn't a Mohammedan." + +"What'll I do at all?" + +"I'll tell you what it is," said the doctor. "I'll go round the town and +I'll collect all the people in it that can speak any language besides +English. I'll bring them up here and let them try him one by one. It'll +be a queer thing if we can't find somebody that will be able to make him +understand a simple question." + +Dr. Whitty called first at the Imperial Hotel, and had an interview with +Lizzie Glynn. + +"Lizzie," he said, "you've had a good education at one of the most +expensive convents in Ireland. Isn't that a fact?" + +"It is," she said. "And I took a prize one time for playing the piano." + +"It's not piano-playing that I expect from you now," said the doctor, +"but languages. You speak French, of course?" + +"I learned it," said Lizzie, "but I wouldn't say I could talk it very +fast." + +"Never mind how slow you go," said the doctor, "so long as you get it +out in the end. Are you good at German?" + +"I didn't learn German." + +"Italian?" + +"There was one of the sisters that knew Italian," said Lizzie, "but it +wasn't taught regular." + +"Russian? Spanish? Dutch?" + +Lizzie shook her head. + +"That's a pity. Never mind. I'll put you down for French, anyway. I'll +take you up with me to the workhouse hospital at six o'clock this +evening. I want you to speak French to a man that's there, one of the +sailors out of the ship that was wrecked." + +"I mightn't be fit," said Lizzie, doubtfully. + +"Oh, yes, you will. Just look up the French for religion before you +start, and get off the names of the principal kinds of religion in that +language. All you have to do is to ask the man, 'What is your religion?' +and then understand whatever it is he says to you by the way of an +answer." + +Dr. Whitty next called on Mr. Jackson and explained the situation to +him. The rector, rather unwillingly, offered French, and seemed relieved +when he was told that that language was already provided for. + +"I thought," said the doctor, "that you'd be sure to know Greek." + +"I do," said the Rector, "but not modern Greek." + +"Is there much difference?" + +"I don't know. I fancy there is." + +"Well, look here, come up and try the poor fellow with ancient Greek. I +expect he'll understand it if you talk slowly. All we want to get out +of him is whether he's a Protestant or a Catholic." + +"If he's a Greek at all," said the rector, "he'll probably not be either +the one or the other." + +"He's got to be one or the other while he's here. He can choose +whichever happens to be the nearest thing to his own religion, whatever +that is. Does Mrs. Jackson know Italian or Spanish?" + +"No. I rather think she learned German at school, but I expect----" + +"Capital. I'll put her down for German." + +"I'm sure she's forgotten it now." + +"Never mind. She can brush it up. There's not much wanted and she has +till six o'clock this evening. I shall count on you both. Good-bye." + +"By the way, doctor," said Mr. Jackson on the doorstep, "now I come to +think of it, I don't believe there's a word in ancient Greek for +Protestant." + +"There must be. It's one of the most important and useful words in any +language. How could the ancient Greeks possibly have got on without it?" + +"There _isn't_. I'm perfectly sure there isn't." + +"That's awkward. But never mind, you'll be able to get round it with +some kind of paraphrase. After all, we can't leave the poor fellow +without the consolations of religion in some form. Good-bye." + +"And--and--Catholic in ancient Greek will mean something quite +different, not in the least what it means now." + +The doctor was gone. Mr. Jackson went back to his study and spent two +hours wrestling with the contents of a lexicon. He arrived at the +workhouse in the evening with a number of cryptic notes, the words +lavishly accented, written down on small slips of paper. + +Father Henaghan was the next person whom Dr. Whitty visited. At first he +absolutely declined to help. + +"The only language I could make any shift at speaking," he said "is +Latin. And that would be no use to you. There isn't one sailor out of +every thousand, outside of the officers of the Royal Navy, that would +know six words of Latin." + +"They tell me," said the doctor, "that there's no great difference +between Latin and Spanish or Italian. Anyone that knows the one will +make a pretty good push at understanding the others." + +"Whoever told you that told you a lie," said the priest; "and, anyway, +I'm not going near that man until I'm sure he's a Catholic." + +"Don't be hard-hearted, Father. Think of the poor fellow lying there and +not being able to tell any of us what religion he belongs to." + +"I'll tell you why I won't go," said the priest. "There was one time +when I was a curate in Dublin, I used to be attending one of the +hospitals. People would be brought in suffering from accidents and +dying, and you wouldn't know what they were, Catholic and Protestant. I +got into the way of anointing them all while they were unconcious, +feeling it could do them no harm, even if they were Protestants. Well, +one day I anointed a poor fellow that they told me was dying. What did +he do but recover. It turned out then that he was a Protestant, and, +what's more, an Orangeman, and when he heard what was done he gave me +all sorts of abuse. He said his mother wouldn't rest easy in her grave +when she heard of it, and more talk of the same kind." + +"This is quite a different sort of case," said the doctor. "This man's +not dying or the least likely to die." + +"I'll not go near him," said the priest. + +"I'm sorry to hear you say that, Father. The Rev. Mr. Jackson is coming +up, and he's prepared to ask the man what religion he is in ancient +Greek--ancient Greek, mind you, no less. It wouldn't be a nice thing to +have it said about the town that the Protestant minister could talk +ancient Greek and that you weren't fit to say a few words in Latin. +Come, now, Father Henaghan, for the credit of the Church say you'll do +it." + +This last argument weighed greatly with the priest. Dr. Whitty saw his +advantage and pressed the matter home. + +"I'll put you down," he said, "for Spanish and Italian." + +"You may put me down if you like, but I tell you he won't know a word I +speak to him." + +"Try him," said the doctor. + +"I'll not be making a public fool of myself to please you," said the +priest. "If I do it at all I'll have no one with me in the room at the +time, mind that now." + +"Not a soul. You shall have him all to yourself. To tell you the truth, +I expect everybody will feel the same as you do about that. The Rev. Mr. +Jackson didn't seem very keen on showing off his ancient Greek." + +Colonel Beresford, when Dr. Whitty called on him, confessed to a slight, +a very slight, acquaintance with the Russian language. + +"I took it up," he said, "a long time ago when I was stationed in +Edinburgh. There was a Russian scare on at the time and everybody +thought there was going to be a war. I happened to hear that there were +a couple of Russian medical students in the University, and I thought if +I picked up a little of the language I might fall in for a staff +appointment. I've nearly forgotten it all now, and I didn't make any +special study of religious terms at the time, but I'll do the best I can +for you. You've got all the other languages you say." + +"I think so. I have"--the doctor took a list from his pocket--"French, +Miss Lizzie Glynn. She was educated at a first-rate convent, and speaks +French fluently. Greek (ancient and modern), the Rev. Mr. Jackson. +German and allied tongues, Mrs. Jackson. Italian, Spanish and +Portuguese, Father Henaghan. That, with your Russian, makes a tolerably +complete list." + +"I'd no idea," said the colonel, "that we were such a polyglot in +Ballintra. By the way, you haven't got Norwegian." + +"No," said the doctor, "I haven't and when you come to think of it, a +sailor is more likely to be that, or a Swede, than any thing else. Can +you speak it?" + +"Not a word." + +"Do you happen to have a dictionary, Norwegian or Swedish, in the +house?" + +"No." + +"That's a pity. I'd have tried to work it up a little myself if you +had." + +"All I have," said the Colonel, "is a volume of Ibsen's plays." + +"Give me that," said the Doctor, "and I'll do my best." + +"It's only a translation." + +"Never mind. I'll pick up something out of it that may be useful. I have +two hours before me. Do you mind lending it to me?" + +Dr. Whitty went home with a copy of a translation of "Rosmersholm," +"Ghosts," and "An Enemy of Society." + +At six o'clock the whole party of linguists assembled in the private +sitting-room of the master of the workhouse. Dr. Whitty gave them a +short address of an encouraging kind, pointing out that, in performing +an act of charity they were making the best possible use of the +education they had received. He then politely asked Mrs. Jackson if she +would like to visit the foreigner first. She did not seem anxious to +push herself forward. Her German, she confessed, was weak; and she hoped +that if she was reserved until the last he might possibly recognise one +of the other languages before her turn came. Everybody else, it turned +out, felt very much as Mrs. Jackson did. In the end Dr. Whitty decided +the order of precedence by drawing lots. The colonel, accepting loyally +the decision of destiny, went first and returned with the news that the +sailor showed no signs of being able to understand Russian. Lizzie Glynn +went next, and was no more fortunate with her French. + +"I'm not sure," she said, "did I speak it right. But, right or wrong, he +didn't know a word I said to him." + +Mr. Jackson arranged his notes carefully and was conducted by the doctor +to the ward. He, too, returned without having made himself intelligible. + +"I knew I should be no use," he said. "I expect modern Greek is quite +different from the language I know." + +Father Henaghan's Latin was a complete failure. He seemed irritated and +reported very unfavourably of the intelligence of the patient. + +"It's my belief," he said, "that the man's mind's gone. He must have got +a crack on the head somehow, as well as breaking his leg, and had the +sense knocked out of him. He looks to me like a man who'd understand +well enough when you talked to him if he had his right mind." + +This view of the sailor's condition made Mrs. Jackson nervous. She said +she had no experience of lunatics, and disliked being brought into +contact with them. She wanted to back out of her promise to ask the +necessary question in German. In the end she consented to go, but only +if her husband was allowed to accompany her. She was back again in five +minutes, and said definitely that the man knew no German whatever. + +"Now," said the colonel, "it's your turn, doctor. Go at him with your +Norwegian." + +"The fact is," said the doctor, "that, owing to the three plays you lent +me being merely translations, I've only been able to get a hold of one +Norwegian word. However, as it happens, it is an extremely useful word +in this particular case. The Norwegian for a clergyman," he said, +triumphantly, "is 'Pastor.' What's more, I've got a hold of the name of +one of their clergy. If this man is a Norwegian, and has been in the +habit of going to the theatre, I expect he'll know all about Pastor +Manders." + +"It's clever of you to have fished that out of the book I lent you," +said the colonel. "But I don't quite see how it will help you to find +out whether our friend with the broken leg is a Protestant or a Roman +Catholic." + +"It will help if it's worked properly, if it's worked the way I mean to +work it, that is to say, if the man is a Norwegian, and I don't see what +else he can be." + +"He might be a Turk," said Father Henaghan. + +"No he couldn't. I tried him with half a glass of whiskey this morn, and +he simply lapped it up. If he had been a Turk the smell of it would have +turned him sick. We may fairly assume that he is, as I say, a Norwegian, +and if he is I'll get at him. I shall want you, Father Henaghan, and +you, Mr. Jackson, to come with me." + +"I've been twice already," said Mr. Jackson. "Do you really think it +necessary for me----" + +"I shan't ask you to speak another word of ancient Greek," said the +doctor. "You needn't do anything except stand where I put you and look +pleasant." + +He took the priest and the rector, seizing each by the arm, and swept +them with him along the corridor to the ward in which the injured sailor +lay. He set them one on each side of the bed, and stood at the foot of +it himself. The sailor stared first at the priest and next at the +rector. Then he looked the doctor straight in the face and his left +eyelid twitched slightly. Dr. Whitty felt almost certain that he winked; +but there was clearly no reason why he should wink with any malicious +intent, so he put the motion down to some nervous affection. + +"Pastor," said the doctor, in a loud, clear tone, pointing to Father +Henaghan. + +The sailor looked vacantly at the priest. + +"Pastor," said the doctor again, indicating Mr. Jackson, with his +finger. + +The sailor turned his face and looked at Mr. Jackson, but there was no +sign of intelligence on his face. + +"Take your choice," said the doctor; "you can have either one or the +other. We don't want to influence you in the slightest, but you've got +to profess a religion of some sort while you're here, and these +clergymen represent the only two kinds we have. One or other of them you +must choose, otherwise the unfortunate master of this workhouse will get +into trouble for not registering you. Hang it all! I don't believe the +fool knows a single word I'm saying to him." + +Again, the man's eyelid, this time his right, eyelid, twitched. + +"Don't do that," said the doctor; "it distracts your attention from what +I'm saying. Listen to me now. Pastor Manders!" He pointed to the priest. +"Pastor Manders!" He indicated the rector. + +Neither Father Henaghan nor Mr. Jackson had ever read "Ghosts," which +was fortunate. If they had they might have resented the name which the +doctor imposed on them. Apparently, the sailor did not know the play +either. "Manders" seemed to mean no more to him than "Pastor" did. + +"There's no use our standing here all evening," said Father Henaghan. +"You told me to look pleasant, and I have--I haven't looked so pleasant +for a long time--but I don't see that any good is likely to come of it." + +"Come on," said the doctor. "I've done my best, and I can do no more. +I'm inclined to think now that the man must be either a Laplander or an +Esquimaux. He'd have understood me if he'd been a Dane, a Swede, a +Norwegian, or even a Finn." + +"I told you, as soon as ever I set eyes on him," said the priest, "that +he was out of his mind. My own belief is, doctor, that if you give him +some sort of a soothing draught, and get him back into his right senses, +he'll turn out to be an Irishman. It's what he looks like." + +Michael Geraghty, who had carted the injured sailor from the shipwreck, +called on Dr. Whitty next day at breakfast-time. + +"I hear," he said, "that you had half the town up yesterday trying could +they get a word out of that fellow that's in the hospital with the +broken leg." + +"I had. We spoke to him in every language in Europe, and I'm bothered if +I know what country he belongs to at all. There wasn't one of us he'd +answer." + +"Did you think of trying him with the Irish?" + +"I did not. Where would be the good? If he could speak Irish he'd be +sure to be able to speak English." + +"Would you have any objection to my saying a few words to him, doctor?" + +"Not the least in the world. If you've nothing particular to do, go up +there and tell the master I sent you." + +An hour later Michael Geraghty re-appeared at the doctor's door. He was +grinning broadly and seemed pleased with himself. + +"Well, Michael, did you make him speak?" + +"I didn't like to say a word to you, doctor, till I made sure for fear +of what I might be bringing some kind of trouble on the wrong man; but +as soon as ever I seen that fellow put into my cart beyond at Carrigwee, +I said to myself: 'You're mighty like poor Affy Hynes that's gone, only +a bit older. I took another look at him as we were coming along the +road, and, says I, 'If Affy Hynes is alive this minute you're him. +You'll recollect, doctor, that the poor fellow couldn't speak at the +time, by reason of the cold that was on him and the broken leg and all +the hardships he'd been through. Well, looking at him off and on, till I +got to the workhouse I came to be pretty near certain that it was either +Affy Hynes or a twin brother of his; and Mrs. Hynes, the mother, that's +dead this ten years, never had but the one son." + +"And who was Affy Hynes?" + +"It was before your time, of course, and before Father Henaghan was +parish priest; but the colonel would know who I mean." Michael sank his +voice to an impressive whisper. "Affy Hynes was the boy that the police +was out after in the bad times, wanting to have him hanged on account of +the way that the bailiff was shot. But he made off, and none of us ever +knew where he went to, though they did say that it might be to an uncle +of his that was in America." + +"Did he murder the bailiff?" + +"He did not; nor I don't believe he knew who did, though he might." + +"Then what did he run away for?" + +"For fear they'd hang him," said Michael Geraghty. "Amn't I just after +telling you?" + +"Go on," said the doctor. + +"Well, when Affy came to himself after all the hardship he had it wasn't +long before he found out the place he was in. 'It's Ballintra,' says he +to himself, 'or it's mighty like it.' There did be a great dread on him +then that the police would be out after him again, and have him took; +and, says he, into himself like, so as no one would hear him, 'I'll let +on I can't understand a word they say to me, so as they won't know my +voice, anyway.' And so he did; but he went very near laughing one time +when you had the priest and the minister, one on each side of him, and +'Pastor,' says you----" + +"Never mind that part," said the doctor. + +"If it's displeasing to you to hear about it, I'll not say another word. +Only, I'd be thankful if you'd tell me why you called the both of them +Manders. It's what Affy was saying to me this minute: 'Michael,' says +he, 'is Manders the name that's on the priest that's in the parish +presently?' 'It is not,' says I, 'but Henaghan.' 'That's queer,' said +he. 'Is it Manders they call the minister?' 'It is not,' I says; 'it's +Jackson. There never was one in the place of the name of Manders, priest +or minister.' 'That's queer,' says he 'for the doctor called both the +two of them Manders.'" + +"So he understood every word we said to him all the time?" said the +doctor. + +"Not the whole of it, nor near the whole," said Michael Geraghty. "He's +been about the world a deal, being a sailor and he said he could make +out what Miss Glynn was saying pretty well, and knew the minister's lady +was talking Dutch, though he couldn't tell what she was saying, for it +wasn't just the same Dutch as he'd been accustomed to hearing. The +colonel made a middling good offer at the Russian. Affy was a year one +time in them parts, and he knows; but he said he'd be damned if he could +make any kind of a guess at what either the priest or the minister was +at, and he told me to be sure and ask you what they were talking because +he'd like to know." + +"I'll go up and see him myself," said the doctor. + +"If you speak the Irish to him he'll answer you," said Michael. + +"I will, if he likes," said the doctor. "But why won't he speak +English?" + +"There's a sort of dread on him," said Michael Geraghty. "I think he'd +be more willing to trust you if you'd speak to him in the Irish, it +being all one to you. He bid me say to you, and it's a good job I didn't +forget it, that if so be he's dying, you might tell Father Henaghan he's +a Catholic, the way he'd attend on him; but if he's to live, he'd as +soon no one but yourself and me knew he was in the place." + +Dr. Whitty went up to the workhouse, turned the nurse out of the ward, +and sat down beside Affy Hynes. + +"Tell me this now," he said, "why didn't you let me know who you were? I +wouldn't have told on you." + +"I was sorry after that I didn't," said Affy, "when I seen all the +trouble that I put you to. It was too much altogether fetching the +ladies and gentlemen up here to be speaking to the like of me. It's what +never happened to me before, and I'm sorry you were bothered." + +"Why didn't you tell me then?" + +"Sure, I did my best. Did you not see me winking at you once, when you +had the priest and the minister in with me, as much as to say: 'Doctor, +if I thought I could trust you I'd tell you the truth this minute.' I +made full sure you'd understand what it was I was meaning the second +time, even if you didn't at the first go-off." + +"That's not what I gathered from your wink at all," said the doctor. "I +thought you'd got some kind of a nervous affection of the eye." + +"It's a queer thing, now," said Affy, "that the two of them reverend +gentlemen should have the same name, and that Manders." + +"We'll drop that subject," said the Doctor. + +"We will, of course, if it's pleasing to you. But it is queer all the +same, and I'd be glad if I knew the reason of it, for it must be mighty +confusing for the people of this place, both Catholic and Protestant. +Tell me now, doctor, is there any fear that I might be took by the +police?" + +"Not a bit. That affair of yours, whatever it was, is blown over long +ago." + +"Are you certain of that?" + +"I am." + +"Then as soon as I'm fit I'll take a bit of a stroll out and look at the +old place. I'd like to see it again. Many's the time I've said to +myself, me being, may be, in some far-away country at the time, 'I'd +like to see Ballintra again, and the house where my mother lived, and +the bohireen that the asses does be going along into the bog when the +turf's brought home.' Is it there yet?" + +"I expect it is," said the doctor. + +"God is good," said Affy. "It's little ever I expected to set eyes on +it." + + + + +A Test of Truth. + +_From "Irish Neighbours."_ + +BY JANE BARLOW. + + +Jim Hanlon, the cobbler, was said by his neighbours to have had his own +share of trouble, and they often added, "And himself a very dacint man, +goodness may pity him!" His misfortunes began when poor Mary Anne, his +wife, died, leaving him forlorn with one rather sickly little girl, and +they seemed to culminate when one frosty morning a few years later he +broke his leg with a fall on his way to visit Minnie in hospital. The +neighbours, who were so much impressed by her father's good qualities +and bad luck, did not hold an equally favourable opinion about this +Minnie, inclining to consider her a "cross-tempered, spoilt little +shrimp of a thing." But Jim himself thought that the width of the world +contained nothing like her, which was more or less true. So when she +fell ill of a low fever, and the doctor said that the skilled nursing in +a Dublin hospital would be by far her best chance, it was only after a +sore struggle that Jim could make up his mind to let her go. And then +his visit to her at the first moment possible had brought about the +unwary walking and slip on a slide, which resulted so disastrously. + +It was indeed a most deplorable accident. If it had happened somewhere +near Minnie's hospital, he said to himself, it might have been less +unlucky, but, alas, the whole city spread between them and the +institution whither he was brought. The sense of his helplessness +almost drove him frantic, as he lay in the long ward fretting over the +thought that he was tied by the leg, unable to come next or nigh her, +whatever might befall, or even to get a word of news about her. But on +this latter point his forebodings were not fulfilled, his neighbours +proved themselves to be friends in need. At the tidings of his mishap +they made their way in to see him from unhandy little Ballyhoy, +undeterred by what was often to them no very trivial expense and +inconvenience. Nor were they slow to discover that they could do him no +greater service than find out for him "what way herself was at all over +at the other place." Everybody helped him readily in this matter, more +especially three or four good-natured Ballyhoy matrons. On days when +they came into town to do their bits of marketing they would augment +their toils by long trudges on foot, or costly drives on tramcars, that +they might convey to Jim Hanlon the report for which he pined. They +considered neither their heavy baskets, nor the circumstance that they +were folk to whom time was time, and a penny a penny indeed. + +Yet, sad to say, great as was Jim's relief and his gratitude, their very +zeal did in some degree diminish the value of their kindness. For their +evident desire to please and pacify him awakened in his mind doubts +about the means which they might adopt; and it must be admitted that his +mistrust was not altogether ungrounded. The tales which they carried to +him from "the other place" were not seldom intrinsically improbable, and +sounded all the more so to him because of his intimate acquaintance with +their subject. When Mrs. Jack Doyle averred that Minnie was devouring +all before her, and that the nurse said a strong man would scarce eat +as much as she did, Jim remembered Minnie's tomtit-like meals at home, +and found the statement hard to accept. It was still worse when they +gave him effusively affectionate messages, purporting to come from +Minnie, who had always been anything in the world but demonstrative and +sentimental. His heart sank as Mrs. Doran assured him that Minnie had +sent her love to her own darling treasure of a precious old daddy, for +he knew full well that no such greeting had ever emanated from Minnie, +and how could he tell, Jim reflected, but that they might be as apt to +deceive him about one thing as another? Perhaps there was little or no +truth in what they told him about the child being so much better, and +able to sit up, and so forth. Like enough one couldn't believe a word +they said. On this terribly baffling question he pondered continually +with a troubled mind. + +Saturday mornings were always the most likely to bring him visitors, and +on a certain Saturday he rejoiced to hear that somebody was asking for +him. He was all the more pleased because the lateness of the hour had +made him despair of seeing any friends, and because this portly, +good-humoured Mrs. Connolly was just the person he had been wishing to +come. She explained that she would have paid him a visit sooner, had not +all her children been laid up with colds, and then, as he had hoped, she +went on to say that she was going over to see after little Minnie. "And +the Sister here's promised me," said Mrs. Connolly, "she'll let me in to +bring you word on me way back, even if I'm a trifle beyond the right +visitin' time itself." + +Thereupon Jim produced a sixpence from under his pillow, where he had +kept it ready all the long morning. "If it wouldn't be throublin' you +too much, ma'am," he said, "I was wonderin' is there e'er a place you +would be passin' by where you could get some sort of a little doll wid +this for Minnie." + +"Is it a doll?" said Mrs. Connolly. "Why to be sure I will, and welcome. +I know a shop in O'Connell Street where they've grand sixpenny dolls, +dressed real delightful. I'll get her a one of them as aisy as +anythin'." Mrs. Connolly knew that the price of the dolls she had in her +eye was actually sixpence-halfpenny, but she at once resolved to pay the +halfpenny herself and not let on. + +"And you might maybe be gettin' her an orange wid this," Jim said, +handing her a penny. + +"Well, now, it's the lucky child poor Minnie is," Mrs. Connolly +declared, "to have such a good daddy. Finely set up she will be wid a +doll and an orange. I'll bring her the best in Dublin, Jim, no fear." + +"She might fancy the orange, anyway," Jim said, half to himself, with a +queer remorseful sort of look. + +Mrs. Connolly having gone, he began to expect her back again with an +unreasonable promptitude which lengthened the afternoon prodigiously. He +had suffered innumerable apprehensions, and fidgetted himself into a +fever of anxiety before she could possibly have returned. At last, +however, when her broad, cheerful countenance did reappear to him, +looming through the misty March dusk, he felt that he would almost have +chosen a further delay. For he had staked so much upon this venture that +the crisis of learning, whether it had failed or succeeded could not but +be rather terrible. + +There was nothing apparently alarming in Mrs. Connolly's report. She +had found Minnie doing finely. Her nurse said she would be out of bed +next week, and was very apt to get her health better than before she +took bad. The orange had pleased her highly, and she had bid Mrs. +Connolly tell her daddy that he might be sending her another one next +Saturday if he liked. All this was good as far as it went, but about the +doll, Mrs. Connolly kept silence, and it struck Jim that she shrank away +from anything which seemed leading towards a reference to the subject. +Jim, who at first had half dreaded and half longed every moment to hear +her speak of it, began to think that she might go away without +mentioning it, which would not do at all. In the end he had to introduce +it himself. + +"And how about the bit of a doll, ma'am?" he inquired as unconcernedly +as he could. "Was you able to get her e'er a one?" + +Unmistakably Mrs. Connolly was much disconcerted by the question. Her +face fell, and she hesitated for a while before she replied, with +evident reluctance-- + +"Sure, now, man alive, you never can tell what quare notions childer'll +take up wid when they're sick, and more especially when they do be about +gettin' well agin, the way Minnie is now. Quiet enough the crathurs do +be as long as they're rale bad. But, tellin' you the truth, Jim, not a +bit of her would look at the doll. Some fantigue she had agin it, +whatever ailed her, an' it a great beauty, wid a pink sash on it and all +manner. Slingin' it into the middle of the floor she was, only the nurse +caught a hould of it, an' biddin' me to take it away out of that. So +says I to her, 'What at all should I do wid the lovely doll, after your +poor daddy sendin' it to yourself?' And, says she to me, 'Give the ugly +big lump of a thing to the ould divil,' says she, 'an' let him give it +to the little young black-leggy divils to play wid if they like.' I +declare to you, Jim, thim was the very words of her, sittin' up in her +bed, not lookin' the size of anythin'. 'Deed, now, she's the comical +child. But sure who'd be mindin' her? And the nurse says she'll keep the +doll till to-morrow, an' if Minnie doesn't fancy it then, she'll give it +to the little girl in the next cot that does be frettin' after her +mother, so it won't go to loss. An' besides--" + +She stopped short in surprise, for Jim, who had been laughing silently +to himself, now broke out in tones of positive rapture-- + +"'The little young black-leggy divils'--that's Minnie herself, and no +mistake this time, glory be to God! Sorra the fantigue it was, but just +the nathur of her, for the thoughts of a doll she never could abide all +the days of her life. She'd as lief be playin' wid a snake or a toad. So +if you'd let on to me that she liked it, ma'am, well I'd know 'twas only +romancin' to me you were. But the truth you tould me, right enough, and +thank you kindly. The little villin'll be runnin' about before I am, +plaze goodness. Och, bedad, I can see her slingin' it neck an' crop out +of the bed." + +As Jim fell to laughing again, Mrs. Connolly looked at him puzzled, and +with some disapproval, though she would not express the latter sentiment +to him in his invalided condition. But she soon afterwards took leave, +and on her homeward way she said to herself, "Musha, good gracious, +mightn't one suppose Jim Hanlon 'ud have more since than to go sind the +poor imp of a child a prisint only for the sake of annoyin' her? 'Twas +the quare, foolish way to be spendin' a sixpence, in my opinion. But +sure, 'twas be way of a joke, an' the poor man hasn't much chance of +e'er a one lyin' there. It's wonderful the store men set by nonsense. +Sometimes you'd think they were all born fools, they do be that aisy +amused. You'll hear thim guffawin' like a jackass bewitched over silly +ould blathers that an infant child 'ud have more wit than to be +mindin'." + +Certainly, Jim was so well satisfied with his joke, if joke it were, +that when he grew drowsy towards evening, his last thoughts made him +chuckle contentedly. "The little black-leggy divils," he said to +himself. "Glory be to God! she's finely." And he fell asleep with a glad +and grateful heart. + + + + +The Wise Woman. + +_From "A Boy in the Country."_ + +BY JOHN STEVENSON. + + +That she knew far more than all the doctors put together was commonly +considered, in the territory of her operations, as truth beyond +question. Sometimes a man body, with a pain for which he could not +account, fearing the inquisition and expense of the qualified +practitioner, would make believe to doubt the potency of her medicines, +the reality of her cures. But even the discernment of a boy was +sufficient to detect the insincerity of his contemptuous talk about +"auld wife's doctorin'," and to find lurking behind his brave words the +strong desire to consult the wise woman. With much show of impatience, +and pretence of anger, at the over-persuasion of his womankind, he would +give a seemingly reluctant consent to see Mrs. Moloney, "if she should +happen to look in." He knew as well as that he lived that her coming +would be by invitation. + +Such a one, receiving in the field the message that "Mrs. Moloney's in," +would probably say, "Hoots, nonsense," and add that he had his work to +look after. But, very soon, he would find that he needed a spade or a +hook, a pot of paint, or a bit of rope, from home, and he must needs go +home for it himself. He believed in a man's doing a thing for himself if +he wanted it well done; as like as not a messenger would spend half a +day in looking for what he wanted, and bring the wrong thing in the end. +At home he would make a fine show of searching out-houses and lofts, +passing and repassing, with some noise, the kitchen windows, finally +looking in to see if the thing is in the kitchen; and there, of course, +quite accidentally, he would see Mrs. Moloney and would not be rude +enough to leave without passing the time o' day. Then the womankind took +hold of the case, drew out the man's story of distress, took notes of +the remedy, and saw to it that the medicine was taken according to +direction. + +"The innards o' man is tough, and need to be dealt with accordin'," said +Mrs. Moloney, and for man she prescribed a dose which gave him some pain +and, usually, cured him. It may be that Nature, provoked by the irritant +remedy, got rid of it, and the ailment at once; or it may be that the +man body, after the racket in "his innards," found his ailment, by +comparison, easy to live with, and imagined himself cured. In either +case, the result was counted as cure to the credit of Mrs. Moloney. + +By profession a seller of needles, pins, buttons, and such small wares, +she owed her livelihood, in reality, to payment for her medical skill. +Not that she took money for her prescription or advice--"Thanks be to +God," she said, "I never took wan penny for curin' man, woman, or +child"; but then, no one ever asked her advice without buying something, +and if her charges were just a little more than shop prices, she was +entitled to something extra for bringing the shop to the customer. Then +she got her meals from grateful and believing patients, and her basket +had an uncommercial end, covered with a fair, white cloth, into which +the good wife, with some show of doing good by stealth, introduced the +useful wreck of a boiled fowl, or a ham-bone with broth possibilities. + +She did not meddle with diseases of children, except in cases of +measles, for which she prescribed whisky and sulphur, and a diet of +sweet milk warm from the cow. Decline, she considered to be due to "a +sappin' o' the constitution," and she shared the old-time belief in the +noxious effect of night air on consumptives, and would have them warm in +curtained four-posters, in rooms into which little light and no fresh +air could enter. Beyond a recommendation of port wine, she had no +message for healing for these poor sufferers. Her strength lay in the +treatment of adults' ailments which do not necessarily kill. Her list of +diseases was a short one. For the numerous forms of hepatic trouble +known to the professional, she had one comprehensive title-- + + Liver Complent, + +and for it one remedy, varied only in magnitude of dose. She recognised +also as a common ailment-- + + Stomach Complent, + +differentiating under this heading, Andygestion, Waterbrash, and +Shuperfluity o' phlegm on the stomach. She knew, too-- + + Bowel Complent, + Rheumatism, + Gineral Wakeness, + and + Harry Siplars.[1] + +The foundation of her great reputation was, indeed, largely built on her +celebrated cure of this last, in the case of Peggy Mulligan. She shall +tell of it herself:-- + +"She come to me, an' she ses, 'Mary,' ses she, 'can ye cure me, for I'm +heart-sick o' them doctors at the dispinsary, an' they're not doin' me +wan pick o' good.' Ses I to her, ses I, 'What did they give ye?' ses I. +'O the dear knows,' ses she. 'I haven't tuk anythin' they said, for I +didn't believe they would do me no good.' An' I had pity on the cratur, +for her face was the size o' a muckle pot, an' lek nothin' under the +sun. Ses I to her, ses I, 'I can cure you, my good woman, but ye'll hev +to do what you're tould,' ses I, 'an' I'll make no saycret about it,' +ses I--'it's cow-dung and flour mixed, an' ye'll put it on your face, +an' lave it there for a fortnight,' ses I, 'an' when ye'll wash it off, +ye'll have no Harry Siplars.' An' nether she had." + +She had a fine professional manner, and she knew how to set at ease the +anxious patient. The concerned man body, wishful to appear unconcerned, +she took at his own valuation; appearing more interested in a bit of +chat or gossip of the country than in particulars of pains and aches. +And while she talked with him of crops and kine, and the good and +ill-doings of men's sons, the wife would urge John to tell Mrs. Moloney +about that bit of pain of his and how he could not sleep for it o' +nights. Then the wise woman would mention something which the good wife +"might" get for the good man--it would cure him in no time, but--turning +to the man,--"'deed, an' there's not much the matter with ye. It's +yerself that's gettin' younger lookin' every year--shows the good care +the mistress takes o' ye." And the gratified creature would retire, +proud to think that he had acted so well the part of the unconcerned, +and filled with respect for Mrs. Moloney as a woman of "great sinse and +onderstandin'." + +Of new-fangled diseases she had a perfect horror, speaking of them more +in anger than in sorrow, as of things which never should have been +introduced. Even the New Ralgy she declined to entertain, dismissing the +mention of it, contemptuously, in the formula, "New Ralgy or Ould Ralgy, +I'll have nothing to do with it." To it, however, as Tic Doloro,[2] she +gave a qualified recognition, allowing its right to existence, but +condemning it as outlandish, and a gentry's ailment, which the gentry +should keep to themselves. And while she did not refuse to treat it +(with "Lodelum" in "sperrits," hot milk, and a black stocking tied round +the jaws), the patient was made to feel a certain degree of culpability +in touching a thing with which she should not have meddled, and that +Mrs. Moloney had reason for feeling displeased. + +Very different was her attitude to one suffering from Gineral Wakeness. +This was her pet diagnosis, and one much craved by overworked and ailing +farmers' wives, for it meant for them justification of rest, and +indulgence in food and drink which they would have been afraid or +ashamed to ask or take, unfortified by an authoritative command. No man +ever suffered from Gineral Wakeness--it was a woman's trouble, and never +failed to draw from Mrs. Moloney a flood of understanding sympathy, +which was to the despairing one like cool water on the hot and thirsty +ground, making hope and health revive ere yet medicament had been +prescribed. Seated before the patient, she would sway slowly back and +forward, gently patting the while the afflicted's hand, and listening, +with rapt attention, to the longest and dreariest tale of woe. + +The Patient.--O, but it's the weary woman I am, waitin' and hopin' that +you would come roun'. 'Deed, and if it hadn't been for the hope o' +seein' ye I would have give up altogether. + +Mrs. M.--Puir dear; tell me all aboot it. + +The Patient.--It's a cough and a wakeness and a drappin'-down feelin', +as if my legs were goin' from under me; and I could no more lift that +girdle o' bread there than I could fly--not if ye were to pay me a +thousand pound. + +Mrs. M.--I know, dear; if it were writ out I cudn't see it plainer. + +The Patient.--And when I get up in the mornin', I declare to ye, I have +to sit on the edge o' the bed for five minutes before puttin' fut to +groun', and if I didn't take a sup of cold water I couldn't put on my +clothes. + +Mrs. M.--That's it, dear; that's just the way it goes. + +The Patient.--And as for breakfast, I declare to ye, ye couldn't see +what I ate. + +Mrs. M.--That's a sure sign, a sure sign. + +The Patient.--And all through the day it's just the same thing. I'm just +in a state of collops the whole time. Niver a moment's aise the day +through, especially in the afternoon. It's just hingin' on I am; that's +what it raly is. + +After an hour of alternating symptomatic description and sympathetic +response, interrupted only by the making and drinking of tea, the wise +woman is prepared to utter, and the patient to hear, the words of +healing. + +"Now, dearie, listen to me, that's a good woman. It's Gineral Wakeness +that ails ye. I knew it the minute I set fut inside the dure. Ses I to +myself, ses I, 'There's Gineral Wakeness writ on the mistress's face; +it's prented on her face like a book,' ses I, 'before ever she says a +word to me.' Now listen, dearie, and do what I tell ye. Ye'll get a +bottle o' sherry wine, and ye'll take a bate-up egg in milk every day, +with a sup o' sherry in it, at eleven o'clock. And ye'll fill that pot +there with dandelion leaves and roots, and a handful o' mint on the top +o' it, and ye'll put as much water on it as'll cover it, and ye'll let +it sit at the side o' the fire all day until all the vartue is out o' +it. And ye'll take a tablespoonful o' it three times a day, immajintly +before your meals. And every day, whin it comes to three o'clock, ye'll +go to your bed and lie down for an hour, and when ye get up ye'll take a +cup o' tay. Do that now, an' ye'll not know yerself whin I come back." + +As Mrs. Moloney's list of legitimate and proper country diseases was a +short one, so was her pharmacop[oe]ia a small book. Besides such common +remedies as Epsom salts, senna, ginger, and powdered rhubarb, it took +account of-- + + Lodelum which is Laudanum, + Hickery pickery " Hiera picra, + Gum Go Whackem " Gum guaiacum, + Assy Fettidy " Asafoetida, + +as chemist's stuff fit for her practice, and of various herbs +(pronounced yarbs), alterative or curative, such as dandelion, camomile, +peppermint, and apple-balm. As she said herself, she made no "saycret" +of many of her remedies, but she was wise enough to carry and dispense +certain agents; for, to the benefit of the wise woman, these free gifts +constituted a claim for the liberal purchase of small wares, and the use +of one of these gave a certain cachet to an ailment which, with a +prescription of hot milk and pepper, or of ginger tea, would have been +sufficiently commonplace. These secret remedies were kept in little +bottles, each of which had its own sewed compartment in a large linen +pocket hanging at the mistress's waist, between the gown and the +uppermost petticoat. A certain solemnity attached to their +production--three, four, or five being invariably drawn and set out on +the table, even when, as in most cases, the contents of one only was +needed. Mrs. Moloney would contemplate the range, attentively and +silently, for a few minutes; lifting one after another, wrinkling her +brows the while, and, finally, selecting and uncorking one, while she +requested "a clane bottle and a good cork." The selected drug was +generally a crystal; the bottle, by request, was half-filled with hot +water, in which, through vigorous shaking, the crystal rapidly +disappeared. Handing the bottle to the patient, the instruction would be +given to take a tablespoonful immediately after eating. Silly young +folks, who had no need of the good woman's services, were known to say +that Mrs. Moloney knew perfectly well what she was going to use, that +the consideration was simulated, and that the oft-used crystal was +common washing-soda and nothing else. But these flighty children took +care not to say such things in the hearing of their mothers, who had +been treated for Gineral Wakeness. + +Doubtless the prescriptions of Mrs. Moloney lacked precision on the +quantitative side. A cure of rheumatism was threepence-worth of "Hickery +Pickery in a naggin o' the best sperrits." To be well shaken and taken +by the teaspoonful, alternative mornings, on a fasting stomach. +"Sixpence worth o' Gum Go Wackem," also made up in the "best sperrits," +was a remedy supposed to acquire special potency from a prodigious +amount of shaking. "Show me how ye'll shake it," the medicine-woman +would say, and when the patient made a great show of half-a-minute's +shaking, she--it was oftenest she--would be surprised to hear that +_that_ was no shaking, and an exhibition of what was good and sufficient +shaking would be made by Mrs. Moloney. In the case of her sovran remedy +for sore eyes, to be used very sparingly--a pennorth o' Red +Perspitherate,[3] in a tablespoonful of fresh butter--the quantity for +an application was always indicated in special and dramatic fashion. She +asked, "And how much will ye be puttin' in your eye, now?--jist show +me." The patient, desiring to avoid a mean or niggardly use of the +remedy, would probably indicate on the finger a lump as large as an eye +of liberal measurements could be supposed to accommodate. Then the good +woman would lean back and sigh. A pin would be withdrawn from some part +of her clothing, and held between the thumb and finger so that only the +head appeared. + +"Do ye see that pin-head?" + +The afflicted nods in acquiescence. + +"Do ye see that pin-head? Now take a good look at it." + +Again the sore-eyed indicates accurate observation. + +"Well, not a pick more nor that, if ye want to keep your eyesight." + +Other quantitative directions were given in "fulls"--"the full o' yer +fist," "the full o' an egg-cup," even "the full o' yer mooth." Or, by +sizes of objects, as, "the size o' a pay," "the size o' a marble." Or by +coin areas, "what'll lie on a sixpence," or on a shilling, or on a +penny. Or by money values, as in the Hickery Pickery prescription. +Fists, peas, marbles vary considerably in size, and in the case of +money-values a change of chemist might mean a considerable variation in +quantity; but, with the possible exception of "Lodelum," prescribed in +drops, the quantities of the good woman's remedies bore variation to a +considerable extent without serious difference in result. That "the best +sperrits" were so frequently the medium for "exhibition" of her remedies +may account for the great popularity with adults which these remedies +enjoyed. These were the days when hospitality was not hospitality +without "sperrits" free from medicinal addition, and, late in the +afternoon, Mrs. Moloney was accustomed to accept graciously "the full o' +an egg-cup," qualified by the addition of sugar and hot water. Once, +while sipping her punch, she asked that a little should be given to me +as a treat, and when the pungent spirit, in the unaccustomed throat, +produced a cough, she promptly diagnosed "a wake chist." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] Erysipelas. + + [2] Tic douloureux. + + [3] Red Precipitate--red oxide of mercury. + + + + +The Meet of the Beagles. + +_From "Patsy."_ + +BY H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. + + +Directly Patsy had left the news that the "quality" were coming to the +meet and returned to the house the crowd in front of the Castle Knock +Inn thickened. + +Word of the impending event went from cabin to cabin, and Mr. Mahony, +the chimney sweep, put his head out of his door. + +"What's the news, Rafferty?" cried Mr. Mahony. + +"Mimber of Parlymint and all the quality comin' to the meet!" cried a +ragged-looking ruffian who was running by. + +"Sure, it'll be a big day for Shan Finucane," said Mrs. Mahony, who was +standing behind her husband in the doorway with a baby in her arms. + +Mr. Mahony said nothing for a while, but watched the crowd in front of +the inn. + +"Look at him," said Mr. Mahony, breaking out at last--"look at him in +his ould green coat! Look at him with the ould whip undher his arm, and +the boots on his feet not paid for, and him struttin' about as if he was +the Marqus of Waterford! Holy Mary! did yiz ever see such an objick! Mr. +Mullins!" + +"Halloo!" replied Mr. Mullins, the cobbler across the way, who, with his +window open owing to the mildness of the weather, was whaling away at a +shoe-sole, the only busy man in the village. + +"Did y' hear the news?" + +"What news?" + +"Shan's going to get a new coat." + +"Faith, thin, I hope he'll pay first for his ould shoes." + +"How much does he owe you?" + +"Siven and six--bad cess to him!" + +"He'll pay you to-night, if he doesn't drink the money first, for +there's a Mimber of Parlymint goin' to the meet, and he'll most like put +a suverin in the poor box." + +Mr. Mullins made no reply, but went on whaling away at his shoe, and Bob +Mahony, having stepped into his cottage for a light for his pipe, came +back and took up his post again at the door. + +The crowd round the inn was growing bigger and bigger. Sneer as he +might, Mr. Mahony could not but perceive that Shan was having the centre +of the stage, a worshipping audience, and free drinks. + +Suddenly he turned to his offspring, who were crowding behind him, and +singling out Billy, the eldest: + +"Put the dunkey to," said Mr. Mahony. + +"Sure, daddy," cried the boy in astonishment, "it's only the tarriers." + +"Put the dunkey to!" thundered his father, "or it's the end of me belt +I'll be brightenin' your intellects with." + +"There's two big bags of sut in the cart and the brushes," said Billy, +as he made off to do as he was bidden. + +"Lave them in," said Mr. Mahony; "it's only the tarriers." + +In a few minutes the donkey, whose harness was primitive and composed +mainly of rope, was put to, and the vehicle was at the door. + +"Bob!" cried his wife as he took his seat. + +"What is it?" asked Mr Mahony, taking the reins. + +"Won't you be afther givin' your face the lick of a tow'l?" + +"It's only the tarriers," replied Mr. Mahony; "sure, I'm clane enough +for them. Come up wid you, Norah." + +Norah, the small donkey, whose ears had been cocking this way and that, +picked up her feet, and the vehicle, which was not much bigger than a +costermonger's barrow, started. + +At this moment, also, Shan and the dogs and the crowd were getting into +motion, making down the road for Glen Druid gates. + +"Hulloo! hulloo! hulloo!" cried Mr. Mahony, as he rattled up behind in +the cart, "where are yiz off to?" + +"The meet of the baygles," replied twenty voices; whilst Shan, who had +heard his enemy's voice, stalked on, surrounded by his dogs, his old, +battered hunting horn in one hand, and his whip under his arm. + +"And where are they going to meet?" asked Mr. Mahony. + +"Glen Druid gate," replied the camp followers. "There's a Mimber of +Parlymint comin', and all the quality from the Big House." + +"Faith," said Mr. Mahony, "I thought there was somethin' up, for, by the +look of Shan, as he passed me house this mornin', I thought he'd +swallowed the Lord Liftinant, Crown jew'ls and all. Hulloo! hulloo! +hulloo! make way for me carridge! Who are you crowdin'? Don't you know +the Earl of Leinsther when y' see him? Out of the way, or I'll call me +futman to disparse yiz." + +Shan heard it all, but marched on. He could have killed Bob Mahony, who +was turning his triumph into a farce, out he contented himself with +letting fly with his whip amongst the dogs, and blowing a note on his +horn. + +"What's that nize?" enquired Mr. Mahony, with a wink at the delighted +crowd tramping beside the donkey cart. + +"Shan's blowin' his harn," yelled the rabble. + +"Faith, I thought it was Widdy Finnegan's rooster he was carryin in the +tail pockit of his coat," said the humourist. + +The crowd roared at this conceit, which was much more pungent and +pointed as delivered in words by Mr. Mahony; but Shan, to all +appearances, was deaf. + +The road opposite the park gates was broad and shadowed by huge elm +trees, which gave the spot in summer the darkness and coolness of a +cave. Here Shan halted, the crowd halted, and the donkey-cart drew up. + +Mr. Mahony tapped the dottle out of his pipe carefully on the rail of +his cart, filled the pipe, replaced the dottle on the top of the +tobacco, and drew a whiff. + +The clock of Glen Druid House struck ten, and the notes came floating +over park and trees; not that anyone heard them, for the yelping of the +dogs and the noise of the crowd filled the quiet country road with the +hubbub of a fair. + +"What's that you were axing me?" cried Mr. Mahony to a supposed +interrogator in the crowd. "Is the Prince o' Wales comin'? No, he ain't. +I had a tellygrum from him this mornin' sendin' his excuzes. Will some +gintleman poke that rat-terrier out that's got under the wheels of me +carridge--out, you baste!" He leaned over and hit a rabbit-beagle that +had strayed under the donkey-cart a tip with his stick. The dog, though +not hurt, for Bob Mahony was much too good a sportsman to hurt an +animal, gave a yelp. + +Shan turned at the sound, and his rage exploded. + +"Who are yiz hittin'? cried Shan. + +"I'm larnin' your dogs manners," replied Bob. + +The huntsman surveyed the sweep, the cart, the soot bags, and the +donkey. + +"I beg your pardin'," said he, touchin his hat, "I didn't see you at +first for the sut." + +Mr. Mahony took his short pipe from his mouth, put it back upside down, +shoved his old hat further back on his head, rested his elbows on his +knees, and contemplated Shan. + +"But it's glad I am," went on Shan, "you've come to the meet and brought +a mimber of the family with you." + +Fate was against Bob Mahony, for at that moment Norah, scenting another +of her species in a field near by, curled her lip, stiffened her legs, +projected her head, rolled her eyes, and "let a bray out of her" that +almost drowned the howls of laughter from the exulting mob. + +But Shan Finucane did not stir a muscle of his face, and Bob Mahony's +fixed sneer did not flicker or waver. + +"Don't mention it, mum," said Shan, taking off his old cap when the last +awful, rasping, despairing note of the bray had died down into silence. + +Another howl from the onlookers, which left Mr. Mahony unmoved. + +"They get on well together," said he, addressing an imaginary +acquaintance in the crowd. + +"Whist and hould your nize, and let's hear what else they have to say to +wan another." + +Suddenly, and before Shan Finucane could open his lips, a boy who had +been looking over the rails into the park, yelled: + +"Here's the Mimber of Parlyment--here they come--Hurroo!" + +"Now, then," said the huntsman, dropping repartee and seizing the +sweep's donkey by the bridle, "sweep yourselves off, and don't be +disgracin' the hunt wid your sut bags and your dirty faces--away wid +yiz!" + +"The hunt!" yelled Mahony, with a burst of terrible laughter. "Listen to +him and his ould rat-tarriers callin' thim a hunt! Lave go of the +dunkey!" + +"Away wid yiz!" + +"Lave go of the dunkey, or I'll batter the head of you in wid me stick! +Lave go of the dunkey!" + +Suddenly seizing the long flue brush beside him, and disengaging it from +the bundle of sticks with which it was bound, he let fly with the +bristle end of it at Shan, and Shan, catching his heel on a stone, went +over flat on his back in the road. + +In a second he was up, whip in hand; in a second Mr. Mahony was down, a +bag half-filled with soot--a terrible weapon of assault--in his fist. + +"Harns! harns!" yelled Mahony, mad with the spirit of battle, and +unconsciously chanting the fighting cry of long-forgotten ancestors. +"Who says cruckeder than a ram's harn!" + +"Go it, Shan!" yelled the onlookers. "Give it him, Bob--sut him in the +face--Butt-end the whip, y'idgit--Hurroo! Hurroo! Holy Mary! he nearly +landed him then--Mind the dogs--" + +Armed with the soot-bag swung like a club, and the old hunting-whip +butt-ended, the two combatants formed the centre of a circle of yelling +admirers. + +"Look!" said Miss Lestrange, as the party from the house came in view of +the road. "Look at the crowd and the two men!" + +"They're fighting!" cried the general. "I believe the ruffians dared to +have the impudence to start fighting!" + +At this moment came the noise of wheels from behind, and the "tub," +which had obtained permission to go to the meet, drew up, with Patsy +driving the children. + +"Let the children remain here," said the General. "You stay with them, +Violet. Come along, Boxall, till we see what these ruffians mean." + +So filled was his mind with the objects in view that he quite forgot +Dicky Fanshawe. + +"You have put on the short skirt," said Dicky, who at that moment would +scarcely have turned his head twice or given a second thought had the +battle of Austerlitz been in full blast beyond the park palings. + +"And my thick boots," said Violet, pushing forward a delightful little +boot to speak for itself. + +The children were so engaged watching the proceedings on the road that +they had no eyes or ears for their elders. + +"Have you ever been beagling before?" asked Dicky. + +"Never; but I've been paper-chasing." + +"You can get through a hedge?" + +"Rather!" + +"That'll do," said Dicky. + +"Mr. Fanshawe," cried Lord Gawdor from the "tub," "look at the chaps in +the road--aren't they going for each other!" + +"I see," said Mr. Fanshawe, whose back was to the road--"Violet--" + +"Yes." + +"No one's looking--" + +"That doesn't matter--No--not here--Dicky, if you don't behave, I'll get +into the tub--Gracious! what's that?" + +"He's down!" cried Patsy, who had been standing up to see better. + +"Who?" asked Mr. Fanshawe. + +"The Mimber of Parlyment--Misther Boxall--Bob Mahony's grassed him--" + +"They're all fighting!" cried Violet. "Come, Mr. Fanshawe--Patsy--" She +started for the gates at a run. + +When the General had arrived on the scene, Shan had just got in and +landed his antagonist a drum-sounding blow on the ribs with the butt of +his whip. + +"Seize the other chap, Boxall!" cried General Grampound, making for +Mahony. + +He was just half a second too late; the soot bag, swung like a club, +missed Shan, and, catching Mr. Boxall fair and square on the side of the +face, sent him spinning like a tee-totum across the road, and head over +heels into the ditch. + +That was all. + +A dead silence took the yelling crowd. + +"He's kilt!" came a voice. + +"He isn't; sure, his legs is wavin'." + +"Who is he?" + +"He's the Mimber of Parlyment! Run for your life, and don't lave off +runnin' till you're out of the country." + +"Hold your tongue!" cried General Grampound. "Boxall--hullo! Boxall! are +you hurt?" + +"I'm all right," replied Mr. Boxall, who, from being legs upwards, was +now on hands and knees in the ditch. "I've lost something--dash it!" + +"What have you lost?" + +"Watch." + +"Come out and I'll get some of these chaps to look." + +Mr. Boxall came out of the ditch with his handkerchief held to the left +side of his forehead. + +"Why, your watch and chain are on you!" cried the General. + +"So they are," said Mr. Boxall, pulling the watch out with his left +hand, and putting it back. "I'm off to the house--I want to wash." + +"Sure, you're not hurt?" + +"Not in the least, only my forehead scratched." + +"What's up?" cried Dicky Fanshawe, who had just arrived. + +"Nothing," replied his uncle. "Fellow hit him by mistake--no bones +broken. Will you take the governess cart back to the house, Boxall?" + +"No, thanks--I'll walk." + +"His legs is all right," murmured the sympathetic crowd, as the injured +one departed still with his handkerchief to his face, "and his arums. +Sure, it's the mercy and all his neck wasn't bruck." + +"Did yiz see the skelp Bob landed him?" + +"Musha! Sure, I thought it would have sent his head flying into Athy, +like a gulf ball." + +Patsy, who had pulled the governess cart up, rose to his feet; his sharp +eye had caught sight of something lying on the road. + +"Hould the reins a moment, Mr. Robert," said he, putting them into Lord +Gawdor's hands. He hopped out of the cart, picked up the object in the +road, whatever it was, put it in his trousers' pocket, and then stood +holding the pony's head; whilst the Meet, from which Bob Mahony had +departed as swiftly as his donkey could trot, turned its attention to +the business of the day, and Shan, collecting his dogs, declared his +intention of drawing the Furzes. + +"Was that a marble you picked up, Patsy?" asked Lord Gawdor, as the +red-headed one, hearing Shan's declaration, climbed into the "tub" again +and took the reins. + +Patsy grinned. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Mr. Fanshawe had been writing three important letters in the +library. When he had finished and carefully sealed them, he placed them +one on top of the other, and looked at his watch. + +The three letters he had just written would make everything all right at +the other end. This was the hot end of the poker, and it had to be +grasped. + +Patsy was the person who would help him to grasp it. Patsy he felt to be +a tower of strength and 'cuteness, if such a simile is permissible. And, +rising from the writing-table and putting the letters in his pocket, he +went to find Patsy. He had not far to go, for as he came into the big +hall Patsy was crossing it with a tray in hand. + +"Patsy," said Mr. Fanshawe, "when does the post go out?" + +"If you stick your letters in the letter box by the hall door, sir," +said Patsy, "it will be cleared in half-an-hour. Jim Murphy takes the +letter-bag to Castle Knock." + +"Right!" said Mr. Fanshawe. "And, see here, Patsy!" + +"Yes, sir?" + +"I'm in a bit of a fix, Patsy, and you may be able to help." + +"And what's the fix, sir?" asked Patsy. + +"You know the young lady you gave the note to this morning--by the way, +how did you give it?" + +"I tried to shove it undher her door, sir." + +"Yes?" + +"It wouldn't go, so I give a knock. 'Who's there?' says she. 'No one,' +says I; 'it's only hot wather I'm bringin' you,' for, you see, sir, the +ould missis, her ladyship, was in the next room, and she's not as deaf +as she looks, and it's afraid I was, every minnit, her door'd open, and +she and her ear-trumpet come out in the passidge. 'I have hot wather,' +says she. 'Niver mind,' says I, 'this is betther. Open the door, for the +love of God, for I can't get it under the door, unless I rowl it up and +shove it through the keyhole.' Wid that she opens the door a crack and +shoves her head out. 'Who's it from?' she says. 'I don't know,' says I; +'it's just a letther I found on the stairs I thought might belong to +you.' 'Thanks,' says she, 'it does,' and wid that she shut the door, and +I left her." + +"Well, see here, Patsy!" + +"Yes, sir?" + +"I'm going to marry Miss Lestrange." + +"Faith, and I guessed that," said Patsy; "and it's I that'd be joyful to +dance at your weddin', sir." + +"There won't be any dancing in the business," said Mr. Fanshawe, grimly. +"You know Mr. Boxall, Patsy?" + +"The Mimber of Parlymint?" + +"Yes. Well, he wants to marry Miss Lestrange; and the worst of it is, +Patsy, that my uncle, General Grampound, wants him to marry her, too." + +"Yes, sir," said Patsy. "And, Mr. Fanshawe?" + +"Yes." + +"I forgot to tell you, sir, you needn't be afear'd of Mr. Boxall for the +next few days." + +"How's that?" + +"When Bob Mahony hit him the skelp on the head wid the sut bag, his eye +popped out of his head on the road." + +"His what?--Oh, I remember--" + +"Finders is keepers, sir," said Patsy, with a grin. + +"Why, good heavens--you don't mean to say--" + +"I've got his eye in my pocket, sir," said Patsy, in a hoarse whisper. +"He's sint a telygram for another wan but till it comes he's tethered to +his bed like a horse to a--" + +"That's enough--that's enough," said Mr. Fanshawe. "Here's half a crown +for you, Patsy, for--carrying my cartridges." + + + + +The Ballygullion Creamery Society, Limited. + +_From "Ballygullion."_ + +BY LYNN DOYLE. + + +'Twas the man from the Department of Agriculture comin' down to give a +lecture on poultry an' dairy-farmin', that set the ball a-rollin'. + +The whole farmers av the counthry gathered in to hear him, an' for days +afther it was over, there was no talk at all barrin' about hens an' +crame, an' iverybody had a schame av their own to propose. + +Ould Miss Armitage ap at the Hall was on for encouragin' +poultry-farmin'; an' give a prize for the best layin' hen in +Ballygullion, that riz more scunners in the counthry than the twelfth av +July itself. There was a powerful stir about it, an' near iverybody +enthered. + +Deaf Pether of the Bog's wife was an easy winner if her hen hadn't died, +an' nothin' would satisfy her but it was poisoned; though divil a all +killed it but the gorges of Indian male the ould woman kept puttin' +intil it. + +Ivery time the hen laid she give it an extra dose of male, "to encourage +the crather," as she said; an' wan day it laid a double-yolked wan, she +put a charge intil it that stretched it out stiff in half-an-hour. + +Afther that there was no doubt but Larry Thomas's wife would win the +prize; for, before the end av the month Miss Armitage had allowed for +the test, her hen was above a dozen ahead av iverybody else's. + +Howiver, when it came to the countin' there was a duck-egg or two here +an' there among the lot that nayther Mrs. Thomas nor the hen could well +account for, so the both of thim was disqualified. + +An' whin it came to the bit, an' Mrs. Archy Doran won the prize, she +counted up an' made out that between corn an' male, she had paid away +double the value of it, so she wasn't very well plazed; an' thim that +had spent near as much on feedin'-stuff, an' had got no prize, was worse +plazed still. + +The only one that came out av it well was Miss Armitage herself; for she +kept all the eggs, an' made above twice the prize-money out av thim. But +there was nobody else as well plazed about that as she was. + +So all round the hen business was a failure; an' it looked as if there +was nothin' goin' to come of the lecture at all. + +However, iverybody thought it would be a terrible pity if Ballygullion +should be behind the other places; an' at last there was a move made to +start a cramery, an' a committee was got up to set things goin'. + +At first the most av us thought they got the crame in the ould-fashioned +way, just be skimmin'; but presently it begin to be talked that it was +all done be machinery. Some av us was very dubious about that; for +sorrow a bit could we see how it was to be done Thomas McGorrian +maintained it would be done wi' blades like the knives av a +turnip-cutter, that it would just shave the top off the milk, an' sweep +it intil a pan; but then he couldn't well explain how they'd avoid +shavin' the top off the milk-dish, too. + +Big Billy Lenahan swore it was done with a worm like a still; but, +although we all knowed Billy was well up on potheen, there was few had +iver seen him havin' much to do wi' milk; so nobody listened to him. + +At last the Committee detarmined they'd have a dimonsthration; and they +trysted the Department man to bring down his machine an' show how it was +done; for all iv thim was agin spendin' money on a machine till they +were satisfied it would do its work. + +The dimonsthration was to be held in Long Tammas McGorrian's barn, an' +on the night set above forty av us was there. We all sat round in a +half-ring, on chairs an' stools, an' any other conthrivance we could +get, for all the world like the Christy Minstrels that comes to the +Market House av a Christmas. + +The dimonsthrator had rigged up a belt to Tammas's threshin'-machine, +an' run it from that to the separator, as he called it. + +The separator itself was a terrible disappointin' conthrivance at the +first look, an' no size av a thing at all for the money they said it +cost. But whin the dimonsthrator begin to tell us what it would do, an' +how by just pourin' the milk intil a metal ball an' bizzin' it round, ye +could make the crame come out av one hole, an' the milk out av another, +we began to think more av it. + +Nobody liked to spake out wi' the man there, but there was a power av +whisperin'. + +"It's a mighty quare conthrivance," sez wan. + +"Did ye iver see the like av it?" sez another. + +"Boy-a-boys," sez James Dougherty, "the works av man is wonderful. If my +ould grandmother could see this, it would break her heart. 'Twas herself +was the handy dairy-woman, too; but what'd she be till a machine?" + +But most av thim wouldn't say one thing or another till they seen it +workin'; an', 'deed, we were all wishin' he'd begin. We had to thole, +though; for the dimonsthrator was a bumptious wee man, an' very fond av +the sound av his own voice, an' kept talkin' away wi' big, long words +that nobody knowed the manin' av but himself, till we were near deaved. + +So we were powerful glad whin he sez to Mrs. McGorrian: "Now, Madam, if +you'll be good enough to bring in the milk, I will proceed to give an +actual demonstration." + +But Mrs. McGorrian is a quiet wee woman, an' wi' all the crowd there, +an' him callin' her Madam, she was too backward to get up out av the +corner she was in; an' she nudges Tammas to go, tellin' him where to get +the milk. + +So Tammas goes out, an' presently he staggers in wi' a big crock in his +arms, an' sets it down. + +"Now," sez the demonsthrator, "if you'll just get the horses goin', an' +pour the milk into that receptacle, I'll start the separator working." + +Tammas in wi' the milk, an' the wee son whips up the horses outside, an' +away goes the separator bizzin' like a hive av bees. + +"In a few seconds, gentlemen and ladies," sez the dimonsthrator, "you +will see the milk come out here, an' the cream here. Kindly pay +attention, please." + +But he needn't have spoke; for iverybody was leanin' forrard, holdin' +their breath, an' there wasn't a sound to be heard but the hummin' of +the separator. + +Presently there comes a sort av a thick trickle out av the milk-hole, +but divil a dhrap av crame. + +The dimonsthrator gathered up his brow a bit at that, an' spakes out av +the barn windy to Tammas's wee boy to dhrive faster. The separator hums +harder than iver, but still no crame. Wan begin to look at the other, +an' some av the wimmen at the back starts gigglin'. + +The dimonsthrator begin to get very red an' flusthered-lookin'. "Are ye +sure this milk is fresh an' hasn't been skimmed?" he sez to Tammas, very +sharp. + +"What do you say, Mary?" sez Tammas, lookin' over at the wife. "Sartin, +sir," sez Mrs. Tammas. "It's just fresh from the cows this very +evenin'." + +"Most extraordinary," sez the dimonsthrator, rubbin' his hair till it +was all on end. "I've niver had such an experience before." + +"It's the way Tammas feeds his cows," sez Big Billy Lenahan from the +back; "sure, iverybody knows he gives them nothin' but shavin's." + +There was a snigger av a laugh at this; for Tammas was well known to be +no great feeder av cattle. + +But Tammas wasn't to be tuk down so aisy. + +"Niver mind, Billy," sez he; "av you were put on shavin's for a week or +two, ye'd maybe see your boots again before you died." + +There was another laugh at this, an' that started a bit av jokin' all +round--a good dale av it at the dimonsthrator; till he was near beside +himself. For, divil a dhrop av crame had put in an appearance yet. + +All at wanst he stoops down close to the milk. + +"Bring me a candle here," sez he, very sharp. + +Tammas reaches over a sconce off the wall. The dimonsthrator bends over +the can, then dips the point av his finger in it, an' puts it in his +mouth. + +"What's this?" sez he, lookin' very mad at Tammas. "This isn't milk at +all." + +"Not milk," sez Tammas. "It must be milk. I got it where you tould me, +Mary." + +The wife gets up an' pushes forward. First she takes a look at the can +av the separator, an' thin wan at the crock. + +"Ye ould fool," she sez to Tammas; "ye've brought the whitewash I mixed +for the dairy walls!" + +I'll say this for the dimonsthrator, he was a game wee fellow; for the +divil a wan laughed louder than he did, an' that's sayin' something; but +sorrow a smile Tammas cracked, but stood gapin' at the wife wi' his +mouth open; an' from the look she gave him back, there was some av us +thought she was, maybe, more av a tarther than she looked. + +Though troth 'twas no wondher she was angry, for the joke wint round the +whole counthry, an' Tammas gets nothin' but "Whitewash McGorrian" iver +since. + +Howaniver, they got the machine washed out, an' the rale milk intil it, +an' there was no doubt it worked well. The wee dimonsthrator was as +plazed as Punch, an' ivery body wint away well satisfied, an' set on +havin' a cramery as soon as it could be got started. + +First av all they wint round an' got the names av all thim that was +goin' to join in; an' the explainin' of the schame took a dale av a +time. The co-operatin' bothered them intirely. + +The widow Doherty she wasn't goin' to join an' put in four cows' milk, +she said, whin she'd only get as much out av it as Mrs. Donnelly, across +the field, that had only two. Thin, whin they explained to the widow +that she'd get twice as much, ould mother Donnelly was clane mad; for +she'd thought she was goin' to get the betther av the widow. + +Thin there was tarrible bother over barrin' out wee Mrs. Morley, because +she had only a goat. Some was for lettin' her in; but the gineral +opinion was that it would be makin' too little av the Society. + +Howiver, all was goin' brave an' paceable till ould Michael Murray, the +ould dunderhead, puts in his oar. + +Michael was a divil of a man for pace-makin', an' riz more rows than all +the county, for all that; for whin two dacent men had a word or two av a +fair-day, maybe whin the drink was in them, an' had forgot all about it, +the next day ould Michael would come round to make it up, an' wi' him +mindin' them av what had passed, the row would begin worse than iver. + +So, whin all was set well agoin', an' the committee met to call a +gineral meetin' av the Society, ould Michael he gets up an' says what a +pity it would be if the Society would be broke up wi' politics or +religion; an' he proposed that they should show there was no ill-feelin' +on either side by holdin' this giniral meetin' in the Orange Hall, an' +the nixt in the United Irish League rooms. He named the Orange Hall +first, he said, because he was a Nationalist himself, an' a Home Ruler, +an' always would be. + +There was one or two Orangemen beginnin' to look mighty fiery at the +tail-end av Michael's speech, an' there's no tellin' what would a' +happened if the chairman hadn't whipped in an' said that Michael's was a +very good idea, an' he thought they couldn't do betther than folly it +up. + +So, right enough, the first gineral meetin' was held in the Ballygullion +Orange Hall. + +Iverything was very quiet an' agreeable, except that some av the red-hot +Nationalists kept talkin' quare skellys at a flag in the corner wi' +King William on it, stickin' a man in a green coat wi' his sword. + +But, as fortune would have it, little Billy av the Bog, the sthrongest +wee Orangeman in Ulsther, comes in at half-time as dhrunk as a fiddler, +sits down on a form an' falls fast asleep. An' there he snored for the +most av half an hour, till near the end av the meetin', whin the +chairman was makin' a speech, there was a bit av applause, an' ap starts +Billy all dazed. First he looked up an' seen King William on the flag. +Thin hearin' the chairman's voice, he gives a stamp wi' his fut on the +flure, an' a "hear, hear," wi' a mortial bad hiccup between the "hears." +The wee man thought he was at a lodge-meetin'. + +All av a sudden he sees ould Michael Murray, an', beside him, Tammas +McGorrian. + +Wi' that he lepps to his feet like a shot, dhrunk as he was, an' hits +the table a terrible lick wi' his fist. + +"Stap, brethren," sez he, glarin' round the room. + +"Stap! There's Papishes present." + +Ye niver seen a meetin' quicker broke up than that wan. Half the men was +on their feet in a minit, an' the other half pullin' thim down be the +coat-tails. Iverybody was talkin' at the wan time, some av thim swearin' +they'd been insulted, an' others thryin' to make pace. + +Thin the wimmin begin to scrame an' hould back men from fightin' that +had no notion av it at the start, an' only begin to think av it whin +they were sure they wouldn't be let. + +Altogether there was the makin's of as fine a fight as iver ye seen in +your life. + +However, there was a lot of dacent elderly men on both sides, and wi' +arguin' an' perswadin', and houldin' back wan, an' pushin' out the +other, the hall was redd without blows, an', bit by bit, they all went +home quiet enough. + +But the Cramery Society was clane split. It wasn't wee Billy so much; +for whin people begin to think about it the next mornin', there was more +laughed at him than was angry; but the party feelin' was up as bitther +as could be. + +The Nationalists was mad at themselves for givin' in to go to a meetin' +in the Orange Hall, for fear it might be taken that they were weakenin' +about Home Rule; an' the Orange party were just as afeard at the papers +makin' out that they were weakenin' about the Union. Besides, the ould +King William in the corner av the Hall had done no good. + +I'm no party man, myself; but whin I see William Robinson, that has been +me neighbour this twinty years, goin' down the road on the Twelfth av +July wi' a couple av Orange sashes on, me heart doesn't warm to him as +it does av another day. The plain truth is, we were bate at the Boyne +right enough; but some av us had more than a notion we didn't get fair +play at the fightin'; an' between that and hearin' about the batin' iver +since, the look of ould Billy on his white horse isn't very soothin'. + +Anyway, the two parties couldn't be got to join again. The red-hot wans +av both av thim had meetin's, wee Billy leadin' wan side, and Tammas +McGorrian the other, an' the nixt thing was that there was to be two +Crameries. + +The moderate men seen that both parties were makin' fools av themselves, +for the place wasn't big enough for two; but moderate men are scarce in +our parts, an' they could do nothin' to soothe matthers down. Whin the +party work is on, it's little either side thinks av the good av +thimselves or the counthry either. + +It's "niver mind a dig yourself if ye get a slap at the other fellow." + +So notices was sent out for a meetin' to wind up the Society, an' there +was a powerful musther av both sides, for fear either of them might get +an advantage over the other wan. + +To keep clear av trouble it was to be held in the Market house. + +The night av the meetin' come; an' when I got into the room who should I +see on the platform but Major Donaldson an' Father Connolly. An' thin I +begin to wondher what was on. + +For the Major was too aisy-goin' and kindly to mix himself up wi' +party-work, an' Father Connolly was well known to be terrible down on +it, too. + +So a sort av a mutther begin to run through the meetin' that there was +goin' to be an attempt to patch up the split. + +Some was glad and not afraid to say it; but the most looked sour an' +said nothin'; an' wee Billy and Tammas McGorrian kept movin' in an' out +among their friends an' swearin' them to stand firm. + +When the room was well filled, an' iverybody settled down, the Major +gets on his feet. + +"Ladies an' gentlemen," sez he--the Major was always polite if it was +only a travellin' tinker he was spakin' to--"Ladies an' gentlemen, you +know why we've met here to-night--to wind up the Ballygullion Cramery +Society. I wish windin' up meant that it would go on all the better; +but, unfortunately, windin' up a Society isn't like windin' up a clock." + +"Now, I'm not going to detain you; but before we proceed, I'd like you +to listen to Father Connolly here for a minute or two. I may tell you +he's goin' to express my opinion as well as his own. I needn't ask you +to give him an' attentive hearin'; ye all know, as well as I do, that +what he says is worth listenin' to." An' down the Major sits. + +Thin Father Connolly comes forward an' looks roun' a minit or so before +spakin'. Most av his own people that catched his eye looked down mighty +quick, for they all had an idea he wouldn't think much av what had been +goin' on. + +But wee Billy braces himself up an' looks very fierce, as much as to say +"there'll no praste ordher me about," and Tammas looks down at his feet +wi' his teeth set, much as if he meant the same. + +"Men an' wimmin av Ballygullion," sez Father Connolly--he was aye a +plain-spoken wee man--"we're met here to end up the United Cramery +Society, and after that we're goin' to start two societies, I hear. + +"The sinsible men av Ballygullion sees that it would be altogether +absurd an' ridiculous for Catholics an' Protestants, Home Rulers an' +Unionists, to work together in anything at all. As they say, the two +parties is altogether opposed in everything that's important. + +"The wan keep St. Patrick's Day for a holiday, and the other the Twelfth +av July; the colours of the one is green, an' the colours of the other +orange; the wan wants to send their Mimbers av Parliament to College +Green, and the other to Westminster; an' there are a lot more +differences just as important as these. + +"It's thrue," goes on the Father, "that some ignorant persons says that, +after all, the two parties live in the same counthry, undher the same +sky, wi' the same sun shinin' on them an' the same rain wettin' thim; +an' that what's good for that counthry is good for both parties, an' +what's bad for it is bad for both; that they live side by side as +neighbours, an' buy and sell among wan another, an' that nobody has iver +seen that there was twinty-one shillin's in a Catholic pound, an' +nineteen in a Protestant pound, or the other way about; an' that, +although they go about it in different ways, they worship the same God, +the God that made both av thim; but I needn't tell ye that these are +only a few silly bodies, an' don't riprisint the opinion av the +counthry." + +A good many people in the hall was lookin' foolish enough be this time, +an' iverybody was waitin' to hear the Father tell them to make it up, +an' most av them willin' enough to do it. The major was leanin' back, +looking well satisfied. + +"Now," sez Father Connolly, "after what I've said, I needn't tell ye +that I'm av the opinion av the sinsible men, and I think that by all +manes we should have a Catholic cramery and a Protestant wan." + +The Major sits up wi' a start, an' wan looks at the other all over the +room. + +"The only thing that bothers me," sez the Father, goin' on an' takin' no +notice, "is the difficulty av doin' it. It's aisy enough to sort out the +Catholic farmers from the Protestant; but what about the cattle?" sez +he. + +"If a man rears up a calf till it becomes a cow, there's no doubt that +cow must be Nationalist or Orange. She couldn't help it, livin' in this +country. Now, what are you going to do when a Nationalist buys an Orange +cow? Tammas McGorrian bought a cow from wee Billy there last month that +Billy bred an' reared himself. Do ye mane to tell me that's a +Nationalist cow? I tell ye what it is, boys," sez the Father, wi' his +eyes twinklin', "wan can av that cow's milk in a Nationalist cramery +would turn the butther as yellow as the shutters av the Orange Hall." + +By this time there was a smudge av a laugh on iverybody's face, an' even +Tammas an' wee Billy couldn't help crackin' a smile. + +"Now," sez Father Connolly, "afther all, it's aisy enough in the case of +Tammas's cow. There's no denyin' she's an Orange cow, an' either Tammas +may go to the Orange cramery or give the cow back to Billy." + +Tammas sits up a bit at that. + +"But, thin, there's a lot of mighty curious cases. There's my own wee +Kerry. Iverybody knows I bred her myself; but, thin, there's no denyin' +that her father--if that's the right way to spake av a bull--belonged to +Major Donaldson here, an' was called 'Prince of Orange.' Now, be the +law, a child follows its father in these matters, an' I'm bound be it to +send the wee Kerry's milk to the Orange cramery, although I'll maintain +she's as good a Nationalist as ever stepped; didn't she thramp down +ivery Orange lily in Billy Black's garden only last Monday? + +"So, boys, whin you think the matter out, ye'll see it's no aisy matther +this separatin' av Orange an' Green in the cramery. For, if ye do it +right--and I'm for no half-measures--ye'll have to get the pedigree av +ivery bull, cow, and calf in the counthry, an' then ye'll be little +further on, for there's a lot av bastes come in every year from Americay +that's little better than haythin'. + +"But, if ye take my advice, those av ye that isn't sure av your cows'll +just go on quietly together in the manetime, an' let thim that has got a +rale thrue-blue baste av either persuasion just keep her milk to +themselves, and skim it in the ould-fashioned way wi' a spoon." + +There was a good dale av sniggerin' whin the Father was spakin'; but ye +should have heard the roar of a laugh there was whin he sat down. An' +just as it was dyin' away, the Major rises, wipin' his eyes-- + +"Boys," sez he, "if it's the will av the prisint company that the +Ballygullion Cramery Society go on, will ye rise an' give three cheers +for Father Pether Connolly?" + +Ivery man, woman, an' child--Protestant and Catholic--was on their feet +in a minit; an' if the Ballygullion Market-house roof didn't rise that +night, it's safe till etarnity. + +From that night on there was niver another word av windin' up or +splittin' either. An' if ever ye come across a print av butther wi' a +wreath of shamrocks an' orange-lilies on it, ye'll know it come from the +Ballygullion Cramery Society, Limited. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Humours of Irish Life, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMOURS OF IRISH LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 35891.txt or 35891.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/8/9/35891/ + +Produced by Marius Masi, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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