HANDY ANDY

The night was pitch dark, and on rounding the adjacent corner no vehicle could be seen; but a peculiar whistle from Dick was answered by the sound of approaching wheels and the rapid footfalls of a horse, mingled with the light rattle of a smart gig. On the vehicle coming up, Dick took his little mare, that was blacker than the night, by the head, the apron of the gig was thrown down, and out jumped a smart servant-boy.

“You have the horse ready, too, Billy?”

“Yis, sir,” said Billy, touching his hat.

“Then follow, and keep up with me, remember.”

“Yis, sir.”

“Come to her head, here,” and he patted the little mare's neck as he spoke with a caressing “whoa,” which was answered by a low neigh of satisfaction, while the impatient pawing of her fore foot showed the animal's desire to start. “What an impatient little devil she is,” said Dick, as he mounted the gig; “I'll get in first, Murphy, as I'm going to drive. Now up with you—hook on the apron—that's it—are you all right?”

“Quite,” said Murphy.

“Then you be into your saddle and after us, Billy,” said Dick; “and now let her go.”

Billy gave the little black mare her head, and away she went, at a slapping pace, the fire from the road answering the rapid strokes of her nimble feet. The servant then mounted a horse which was tied to a neighbouring palisade, and had to gallop for it to come up with his master, who was driving with a swiftness almost fearful, considering the darkness of the night and the narrowness of the road he had to traverse, for he was making the best of his course by cross-ways to an adjacent roadside inn, where some non-resident electors were expected to arrive that night by a coach from Dublin; for the county town had every nook and cranny occupied, and this inn was the nearest point where they could get any accommodation.

Now don't suppose that they were electors whom Murphy and Dick in their zeal for their party were going over to greet with hearty welcomes and bring up to the poll the next day. By no means. They were the friends of the opposite party, and it was with the design of retarding their movements that this night's excursion was undertaken. These electors were a batch of plain citizens from Dublin, whom the Scatterbrain interest had induced to leave the peace and quiet of the city to tempt the wilds of the country at that wildest of times—during a contested election; and a night coach was freighted inside and out with the worthy cits, whose aggregate voices would be of immense importance the next day; for the contest was close, the county nearly polled out, and but two days more for the struggle. Now, to intercept these plain unsuspecting men was the object of Murphy, whose well-supplied information had discovered to him this plan of the enemy, which he set about countermining. As they rattled over the rough by-roads, many a laugh did the merry attorney and the untameable Dick the Devil exchange, as the probable success of their scheme was canvassed, and fresh expedients devised to meet the possible impediments which might interrupt them. As they topped a hill Murphy pointed out to his companion a moving light in the plain beneath.

“That's the coach, Dick—there are the lamps, we're just in time—spin down the hill, my boy—let me get in as they're at supper, and 'faith they'll want it, after coming off a coach such a night as this, to say nothing of some of them being aldermen in expectancy perhaps, and of course obliged to play trencher-men as often as they can, as a requisite rehearsal for the parts they must hereafter fill.”

In fifteen minutes more Dick pulled up before a small cabin within a quarter of a mile of the inn, and the mounted servant tapped at the door, which was immediately opened, and a peasant, advancing to the gig, returned the civil salutation with which Dick greeted his approach.

“I wanted to be sure you were ready, Barny.”

“Oh, do you think I'd fail you, Misther Dick, your honour?”

“I thought you might be asleep, Barny.”

“Not when you bid me wake, sir; and there's a nice fire ready for you, and as fine a dhrop o' potteen as ever tickled your tongue, sir.”

“You're the lad, Barny!—good fellow—I'll be back with you by-and-by;” and off whipped Dick again.

After going about a quarter of a mile further, he pulled up, alighted with Murphy from the gig, unharnessed the little black mare, and then overturned the gig into the ditch.

“That's as natural as life,” said Dick.

“What an escape of my neck I've had!” said Murphy.

“Are you much hurt?” said Dick.

“A trifle lame only,” said Murphy, laughing and limping.

“There was a great boccagh [Footnote: Lame beggar.] lost in you, Murphy. Wait; let me rub a handful of mud on your face—there—you have a very upset look, 'pon my soul,” said Dick, as he flashed the light of his lantern on him for a moment, and laughed at Murphy scooping the mud out of his eye, where Dick had purposely planted it.

“Devil take you,” said Murtough; “that's too natural.”

“There's nothing like looking your part,” said Dick.

“Well, I may as well complete my attire,” said Murtough, so he lay down in the road and took a roll in the mud; “that will do,” said he; “and now, Dick, go back to Barny and the mountain dew, while I storm the camp of the Philistines. I think in a couple of hours you may be on the look-out for me; I'll signal you from the window, so now good bye;” and Murphy, leading the mare, proceeded to the inn, while Dick, with a parting “Luck to you, my boy,” turned back to the cottage of Barny.

The coach had set down six inside and ten out passengers (all voters) about ten minutes before Murphy marched up to the inn door, leading the black mare, and calling “ostler” most lustily. His call being answered for “the beast,” “the man” next demanded attention; and the landlord wondered all the wonders he could cram into a short speech, at seeing Misther Murphy, sure, at such a time; and the sonsy landlady, too, was all lamentations for his illigant coat and his poor eye, sure, all ruined with the mud:—and what was it at all? an upset, was it? oh, wirra! and wasn't it lucky he wasn't killed, and they without a spare bed to lay him out dacent if he was—sure, wouldn't it be horrid for his body to be only on sthraw in the barn, instead of the best feather-bed in the house; and, indeed, he'd be welcome to it, only the gintlemen from town had them all engaged.

“Well, dead or alive, I must stay here to-night, Mrs. Kelly, at all events.”

“And what will you do for a bed?”

“A shake down in the parlour, or a stretch on a sofa, will do; my gig is stuck fast in a ditch—my mare tired—ten miles from home—cold night, and my knee hurt.” Murphy limped as he spoke.

“Oh! your poor knee,” said Mrs. Kelly; “I'll put a dhrop o' whisky and brown paper on it, sure—”

“And what gentlemen are these, Mrs. Kelly, who have so filled your house?”

“Gintlemen that came by the coach a while agone, and supping in the parlour now, sure.”

“Would you give my compliments, and ask would they allow me, under the present peculiar circumstances, to join them? and in the meantime, send somebody down the road to take the cushions out of my gig; for there is no use in attempting to get the gig out till morning.”

“Sartinly, Misther Murphy, we'll send for the cushions; but as for the gentlemen, they are all on the other side.”

“What other side?”

“The Honourable's voters, sure.”

“Pooh! is that all?” said Murphy,—“I don't mind that, I've no objection on that account; besides, they need not know who I am,” and he gave the landlord a knowing wink, to which the landlord as knowingly returned another.

The message to the gentlemen was delivered, and Murphy was immediately requested to join their party; this was all he wanted, and he played off his powers of diversion on the innocent citizens so successfully, that before supper was half over they thought themselves in luck to have fallen in with such a chance acquaintance. Murphy fired away jokes, repartees, anecdotes, and country gossip, to their delight; and when the eatables were disposed of, he started them on the punch-drinking tack afterwards so cleverly, that he hoped to see three parts of them tipsy before they retired to rest.

“Do you feel your knee better now, sir?” asked one of the party, of Murphy.

“Considerably, thank you; whisky punch, sir, is about the best cure for bruises or dislocations a man can take.”

“I doubt that, sir,” said a little matter-of-fact man, who had now interposed his reasonable doubts for the twentieth time during Murphy's various extravagant declarations, and the interruption only made Murphy romance the more.

“You speak of your fiery Dublin stuff, sir; but our country whisky is as mild as milk, and far more wholesome; then, sir, our fine air alone would cure half the complaints without a grain of physic.”

“I doubt that, sir!” said the little man.

“I assure you, sir, a friend of my own from town came down here last spring on crutches, and from merely following a light whisky diet and sleeping with his window open, he was able to dance at the race ball in a fortnight; as for this knee of mine, it's a trifle, though it was a bad upset too.”

“How did it happen, sir? Was it your horse—or your harness—or your gig—or—”

“None o' them, sir; it was a Banshee.”

“A Banshee!” said the little man; “what's that?”

“A peculiar sort of supernatural creature that is common here, sir. She was squatted down on one side of the road, and my mare shied at her, and being a spirited little thing, she attempted to jump the ditch and missed it in the dark.”

“Jump a ditch, with a gig after her, sir?” said the little man.

“Oh, common enough to do that here, sir; she'd have done it easy in the daylight, but she could not measure her distance in the dark, and bang she went into the ditch: but it's a trifle, after all. I am generally run over four or five times a year.”

“And you alive to tell it!” said the little man, incredulously.

“It's hard to kill us here, sir, we are used to accidents.”

“Well, the worst accident I ever heard of,” said one of the citizens, “happened to a friend of mine, who went to visit a friend of his on a Sunday, and all the family happened to be at church; so on driving into the yard there was no one to take his horse, therefore he undertook the office of ostler himself, but being unused to the duty, he most incautiously took off the horse's bridle before unyoking him from his gig, and the animal, making a furious plunge forward—my friend being before him at the time—the shaft of the gig was driven through his body, and into the coach-house gate behind him, and stuck so fast that the horse could not drag it out after; and in this dreadful situation they remained until the family returned from church, and saw the awful occurrence. A servant was despatched for a doctor, and the shaft was disengaged, and drawn out of the man's body—just at the pit of the stomach; he was laid on a bed, and every one thought of course he must die at once, but he didn't; and the doctor came next day, and he wasn't dead—did what he could for him—and, to make a long story short, sir, the man recovered.”

“Pooh! pooh!” said the diminutive doubter.

“It's true,” said the narrator.

“I make no doubt of it, sir,” said Murphy; “I know a more extraordinary case of recovery myself.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the cit; “I have not finished my story yet, for the most extraordinary part of the story remains to be told; my friend, sir, was a very sickly man before the accident happened—a very sickly man, and after that accident he became a hale healthy man. What do you think of that, sir?”

“It does not surprise me in the least, sir,” said Murphy; “I can account for it readily.”

“Well, sir, I never heard It accounted for, though I know it to be true; I should like to hear how you account for it?”

“Very simply, sir,” said Murphy; “don't you perceive the man discovered a mine of health by a shaft being sunk in the pit of his stomach?”

Murphy's punning solution of the cause of cure was merrily received by the company, whose critical taste was not of that affected nature which despises jeu de mots, and will not be satisfied under a jeu d'esprit; the little doubting man alone refused to be pleased.

“I doubt the value of a pun always, sir. Dr. Johnson said, sir—”

“I know,” said Murphy; “that the man who would make a pun would pick a pocket; that's old, sir,—but is dearly remembered by all those who cannot make puns themselves.”

“Exactly,” said one of the party they called Wiggins. “It is the old story of the fox and the grapes. Did you ever hear, sir, the story of the fox and the grapes? The fox one day was—”

“Yes, yes,” said Murphy, who, fond of absurdity as he was, could not stand the fox and the grapes by way of something new.

“They're sour, said the fox.”

“Yes,” said Murphy, “a capital story.”

“Oh, them fables is so good!” said Wiggins.

“All nonsense!” said the diminutive contradictor.

“Nonsense, nothing but nonsense; the ridiculous stuff of birds and beasts speaking! As if any one could believe such stuff.”

“I do—firmly—for one,” said Murphy.

“You do?” said the little man.

“I do—and do you know why?”

“I cannot indeed conceive,” said the little man, with a bitter grin.

“It is, sir, because I myself know a case that occurred in this very country of a similar nature.”

“Do you want to make me believe you knew a fox that spoke, sir?” said the mannikin, almost rising into anger.

“Many, sir,” said Murphy, “many.”

“Well! after that!” said the little man.

“But the case I immediately allude to is not of a fox, but a cat,” said Murphy.

“A cat? Oh, yes—to be sure—a cat speak, indeed!” said the little gentleman.

“It is a fact, sir,” said Murphy; “and if the company would not object to my relating the story, I will state the particulars.”

The proposal was received with acclamation; and Murphy, in great enjoyment of the little man's annoyance, cleared his throat, and made all the preparatory demonstrations of a regular raconteur; but, before he began, he recommended the gentlemen to mix fresh tumblers all round that they might have nothing to do but listen and drink silently. “For of all things in the world,” said Murtough, “I hate a song or a story to be interrupted by the rattle of spoons.”

They obeyed; and while they are mixing their punch, we will just turn over a fresh page, and devote a new Chapter to the following

MARVELLOUS LEGEND

CHAPTER XXIII

MURTOUGH MURPHY'S STORY; BEING YE MARVELLOUS LEGEND OF TOM CONNOR'S CAT

“There was a man in these parts, sir, you must know, called Tom Connor, and he had a cat that was equal to any dozen of rat-traps, and he was proud of the baste, and with rayson; for she was worth her weight in goold to him in saving his sacks of meal from the thievery of the rats and mice; for Tom was an extensive dealer in corn, and influenced the rise and fall of that article in the market, to the extent of a full dozen of sacks at a time, which he either kept or sold, as the spirit of free trade or monopoly came over him. Indeed, at one time, Tom had serious thoughts of applying to the government for a military force to protect his granary when there was a threatened famine in the county.”

“Pooh! pooh! sir,” said the matter-of-fact little man: “as if a dozen sacks could be of the smallest consequence in a whole county—pooh! pooh!”

“Well, sir,” said Murphy, “I can't help if you don't believe; but it's truth what I am telling you, and pray don't interrupt me, though you may not believe; by the time the story's done you'll have heard more wonderful things than that,—and besides, remember you're a stranger in these parts, and have no notion of the extraordinary things, physical, metaphysical, and magical, which constitute the idiosyncrasy of rural destiny.”

The little man did not know the meaning of Murphy's last sentence—nor Murphy either; but, having stopped the little man's throat with big words, he proceeded—

“This cat, sir, you must know, was a great pet, and was so up to everything, that Tom swore she was a'most like a Christian, only she couldn't speak, and had so sensible a look in her eyes, that he was sartin sure the cat knew every word that was said to her. Well, she used to sit by him at breakfast every morning, and the eloquent cock of her tail, as she used to rub against his leg, said, 'Give me some milk, Tom Connor,' as plain as print, and the plenitude of her purr afterwards spoke a gratitude beyond language. Well, one morning, Tom was going to the neighbouring town to market, and he had promised the wife to bring home shoes to the childre' out o' the price of the corn; and sure enough, before he sat down to breakfast, there was Tom taking the measure of the children's feet, by cutting notches on a bit of stick; and the wife gave him so many cautions about getting a 'nate fit' for 'Billy's purty feet,' that Tom, in his anxiety to nick the closest possible measure, cut off the child's toe. That disturbed the harmony of the party, and Tom was obliged to breakfast alone, while the mother was endeavouring to cure Billy; in short, trying to make a heal of his toe. Well, sir, all the time Tom was taking measure for the shoes, the cat was observing him with that luminous peculiarity of eye for which her tribe is remarkable; and when Tom sat down to breakfast the cat rubbed up against him more vigorously than usual; but Tom, being bewildered between his expected gain in corn and the positive loss of his child's toe, kept never minding her, until the cat, with a sort of caterwauling growl, gave Tom a dab of her claws, that went clean through his leathers, and a little further. 'Wow!' says Tom, with a jump, clapping his hand on the part, and rubbing it, 'by this and that, you drew the blood out o' me,' says Tom; 'you wicked divil—tish!—go along!' says he, making a kick at her. With that the cat gave a reproachful look at him, and her eyes glared just like a pair of mail-coach lamps in a fog. With that, sir, the cat, with a mysterious 'mi-ow'' fixed a most penetrating glance on Tom, and distinctly uttered his name.

“Tom felt every hair on his head as stiff as a pump-handle; and scarcely crediting his ears, he returned a searching look at the cat, who very quietly proceeded in a sort of nasal twang—

“'Tom Connor,' says she.

“'The Lord be good to me!' says Tom, 'if it isn't spakin' she is!'

“'Tom Connor,' says she again.

“'Yes, ma'am,' says Tom.

“'Come here,' says she; 'whisper—I want to talk to you, Tom,' says she, 'the laste taste in private,' says she—rising on her hams, and beckoning him with her paw out o' the door, with a wink and a toss o' the head aiqual to a milliner.

“Well, as you may suppose, Tom didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels, but he followed the cat, and off she went and squatted herself under the edge of a little paddock at the back of Tom's house; and as he came round the corner, she held up her paw again, and laid it on her mouth, as much as to say, 'Be cautious, Tom.' Well, divil a word Tom could say at all, with the fright, so up he goes to the cat, and says she—

“'Tom,' says she, 'I have a great respect for you, and there's something I must tell you, becase you're losing character with your neighbours,' says she, 'by your goin's on,' says she, 'and it's out o' the respect that I have for you, that I must tell you,' says she.

“'Thank you, ma'am,' says Tom.

“'You're goin' off to the town,' says she, 'to buy shoes for the childre',' says she, 'and never thought o' gettin' me a pair.'

“'You!' says Tom.”

“'Yis, me, Tom Connor,' says she; 'and the neighbours wondhers that a respectable man like you allows your cat to go about the counthry barefutted,' says she.”

“'Is it a cat to ware shoes?' says Tom.”

“'Why not?' says she; 'doesn't horses ware shoes?—and I have a prettier foot than a horse, I hope,' says she, with a toss of her head.”

“'Faix, she spakes like a woman; so proud of her feet,' says Tom to himself, astonished, as you may suppose, but pretending never to think it remarkable all the time; and so he went on discoursin'; and says he, 'It's thrue for you, ma'am,' says he, 'that horses wares shoes—but that stands to rayson, ma'am, you see—seeing the hardship their feet has to go through on the hard roads.'”

“'And how do you know what hardship my feet has to go through?' says the cat, mighty sharp.”

“'But, ma'am,' says Tom, 'I don't well see how you could fasten a shoe on you,' says he.”

“'Lave that to me,' says the cat.”

“'Did any one ever stick walnut shells on you, pussy?' says Tom, with a grin.”

“'Don't be disrespectful, Tom Connor,' says the cat, with a frown.”

“'I ax your pard'n, ma'am,' says he, 'but as for the horses you wor spakin' about wearin' shoes, you know their shoes is fastened on with nails, and how would your shoes be fastened on?'”

“'Ah, you stupid thief!' says she, 'haven't I illigant nails o' my own?' and with that she gave him a dab of her claw, that made him roar.”

“'Ow! murdher!' says he.”

“'Now, no more of your palaver, Misther Connor,' says the cat; 'just be off and get me the shoes.'”

“'Tare an' ouns!' says Tom, 'what'll become o' me if I'm to get shoes for my cats?' says he, 'for you increase your family four times a year, and you have six or seven every time,' says he; 'and then you must all have two pair a piece—wirra! wirra!—I'll be ruined in shoe-leather,' says Tom.

“'No more o' your stuff,' says the cat; 'don't be stand in' here undher the hedge talkin', or we'll lose our karacthers—for I've remarked your wife is jealous, Tom.'

“'Pon my sowl, that's thrue,' says Tom, with a smirk.

“'More fool she,' says the cat, 'for, 'pon my conscience, Tom, you're as ugly as if you wor bespoke.'

“Off ran the cat with these words, leaving Tom in amazement. He said nothing to the family, for fear of fright'ning them, and off he went to the town as he pretended—for he saw the cat watching him through a hole in the hedge; but when he came to a turn at the end of the road, the dickings a mind he minded the market, good or bad, but went off to Squire Botherum's, the magisthrit, to sware examinations agen the cat.”

“Pooh! pooh!—nonsense!!” broke in the little man, who had listened thus far to Murtough with an expression of mingled wonder and contempt, while the rest of the party willingly gave up the reins to nonsense, and enjoyed Murtough's Legend and their companion's more absurd common sense.

“Don't interrupt him, Goggins,” said Mister Wiggins.

“How can you listen to such nonsense?” returned Goggins. “Swear examinations against a cat, indeed! pooh! pooh!”

“My dear sir,” said Murtough, “remember this is a fair story, and that the country all around here is full of enchantment. As I was telling you, Tom went off to swear examinations.”

“Ay, ay!” shouted all but Goggins; “go on with the story.”

“And when Tom was asked to relate the events of the morning, which brought him before Squire Botherum, his brain was so bewildered between his corn, and his cat, and his child's toe, that he made a very confused account of it.

“'Begin your story from the beginning,' said the magistrate to Tom.

“'Well, your honour,' says Tom, 'I was goin' to market this mornin', to sell the child's corn—I beg your pard'n—my own toes, I mane, sir.'

“'Sell your toes!' said the Squire.

“'No, sir, takin' the cat to market, I mane—'

“'Take a cat to market!' said the Squire. 'You're drunk, man.'

“'No, your honour, only confused a little; for when the toes began to spake to me—the cat, I mane—I was bothered clane—'

“'The cat speak to you!' said the Squire. 'Phew! worse than before—you're drunk, Tom.'

“'No, your honour; it's on the strength of the cat I come to spake to you—'

“'I think it's on the strength of a pint of whisky, Tom—'

“'By the vartue o' my oath, your honour, it's nothin' but the cat.' And so Tom then told him all about the affair, and the Squire was regularly astonished. Just then the bishop of the diocese and the priest of the parish happened to call in, and heard the story; and the bishop and the priest had a tough argument for two hours on the subject; the former swearing she must be a witch; but the priest denying that, and maintaining she was only enchanted; and that part of the argument was afterwards referred to the primate, and subsequently to the conclave at Rome; but the Pope declined interfering about cats, saying he had quite enough to do minding his own bulls.

“'In the meantime, what are we to do with the cat?' says Botherum.

“'Burn her,' says the bishop, 'she's a witch.'

“Only enchanted,' said the priest—'and the ecclesiastical court maintains that—'

“'Bother the ecclesiastical court!' said the magistrate; 'I can only proceed on the statutes;' and with that he pulled down all the law-books in his library, and hunted the laws from Queen Elizabeth down, and he found that they made laws against everything in Ireland, except a cat. The devil a thing escaped them but a cat, which did not come within the meaning of any act of parliament:—the cats only had escaped.

“'There's the alien act, to be sure,' said the magistrate, 'and perhaps she's a French spy, in disguise.'

“'She spakes like a French spy, sure enough,' says Tom; 'and she was missin', I remember, all last Spy-Wednesday.'

“'That's suspicious,' says the squire—'but conviction might be difficult; and I have a fresh idea,' says Botherum.

“''Faith, it won't keep fresh long, this hot weather,' says Tom; 'so your honour had betther make use of it at wanst.'

“'Right,' says Botherum,—'we'll make her subject to the game laws; we'll hunt her,' says he.

“'Ow!—elegant!' says Tom;—'we'll have a brave run out of her.'

“'Meet me at the cross roads,' says the Squire, 'in the morning, and I'll have the hounds ready.'

“'Well, off Tom went home; and he was racking his brain what excuse he could make to the cat for not bringing the shoes; and at last he hit one off, just as he saw her cantering up to him, half-a-mile before he got home.

“'Where's the shoes, Tom?' says she.

“'I have not got them to-day, ma'am,' says he.

“'Is that the way you keep your promise, Tom?' says she;—'I'll tell you what it is, Tom—I'll tare the eyes out o' the childre' if you don't get me shoes.'

“'Whisht! whisht!' says Tom, frightened out of his life for his children's eyes. 'Don't be in a passion, pussy. The shoemaker said he had not a shoe in his shop, nor a last that would make one to fit you; and he says, I must bring you into the town for him to take your measure.'

“'And when am I to go?' says the cat, looking savage.

“'To-morrow,' says Tom.

“'It's well you said that, Tom,' said the cat, 'or the devil an eye I'd leave in your family this night'—and off she hopped.

“Tom thrimbled at the wicked look she gave.

“'Remember!' says she, over the hedge, with a bitter caterwaul.

“'Never fear,' says Tom. Well, sure enough, the next mornin' there was the cat at cock-crow, licking herself as nate as a new pin, to go into the town, and out came Tom with a bag undher his arm, and the cat afther him.

“'Now git into this, and I'll carry you into the town,' says Tom, opening the bag.

“'Sure I can walk with you,' says the cat.

“'Oh, that wouldn't do,' says Tom; 'the people in the town is curious and slandherous people, and sure it would rise ugly remarks if I was seen with a cat afther me:—a dog is a man's companion by nature, but cats does not stand to rayson.'

“Well, the cat, seeing there was no use in argument, got into the bag, and off Tom set to the cross roads with the bag over his shoulder, and he came up, quite innocent-like, to the corner, where the Squire, and his huntsman, and the hounds, and a pack o' people were waitin'. Out came the Squire on a sudden, just as if it was all by accident.

“'God save you, Tom,' says he.

“'God save you kindly, sir,' says Tom.

“'What's that bag you have at your back?' says the Squire.

“'Oh, nothin' at all, sir,' says Tom—makin' a face all the time, as much as to say, I have her safe.

“'Oh, there's something in that bag, I think,' says the Squire; 'and you must let me see it.'

“'If you bethray me, Tom Connor,' says the cat in a low voice, 'by this and that I'll never spake to you again!'

“'Pon my honour, sir,' said Tom, with a wink and a twitch of his thumb towards the bag, 'I haven't anything in it.'

“'I have been missing my praties of late,' says the Squire; 'and I'd just like to examine that bag,' says he.

“'Is it doubting my charackther you'd be, sir?' says Tom, pretending to be in a passion.

“'Tom, your sowl!' says the voice in the sack, 'if you let the cat out of the bag, I'll murther you.'

“'An honest man would make no objection to be sarched,' said the Squire; 'and I insist on it,' says he, laying hold o' the bag, and Tom purtending to fight all the time; but, my jewel! before two minutes, they shook the cat out o' the bag, sure enough, and off she went with her tail as big as a sweeping brush, and the Squire, with a thundering view halloo after her, clapt the dogs at her heels, and away they went for the bare life. Never was there seen such running as that day—the cat made for a shaking bog, the loneliest place in the whole country, and there the riders were all thrown out, barrin' the huntsman, who had a web-footed horse on purpose for soft places; and the priest, whose horse could go anywhere by reason of the priest's blessing; and, sure enough, the huntsman and his riverence stuck to the hunt like wax; and just as the cat got on the border of the bog, they saw her give a twist as the foremost dog closed with her, for he gave her a nip in the flank. Still she went on, however, and headed them well, towards an old mud cabin in the middle of the bog, and there they saw her jump in at the window, and up came the dogs the next minit, and gathered round the house with the most horrid howling ever was heard. The huntsman alighted, and went into the house to turn the cat out again, when what should he see but an old hag lying in bed in the corner?

“'Did you see a cat come in here?' says he.

“'Oh, no—o—o—o!' squealed the old hag, in a trembling voice; 'there's no cat here,' says she.

“'Yelp, yelp, yelp!' went the dogs outside.

“'Oh, keep the dogs out o' this,' says the old hag—'oh—o—o—o!' and the huntsman saw her eyes glare under the blanket, just like a cat's.

“'Hillo!' says the huntsman, pulling down the blanket—and what should he see but the old hag's flank all in a gore of blood.

“'Ow, ow! you old divil—is it you? you ould cat!' says he, opening the door.

“In rushed the dogs—up jumped the old hag, and changing into a cat before their eyes, out she darted through the window again, and made another run for it; but she couldn't escape, and the dogs gobbled her while you could say 'Jack Robinson.' But the most remarkable part of this extraordinary story, gentlemen, is, that the pack was ruined from that day out; for after having eaten the enchanted cat, the devil a thing they would ever hunt afterwards but mice.”

CHAPTER XXIV

Murphy's story was received with acclamation by all but the little man.

“That is all a pack of nonsense,” said he.

“Well, you're welcome to it, sir,” said Murphy, “and if I had greater nonsense you should have it; but seriously, sir, I again must beg you to remember that the country all around here abounds in enchantment; scarcely a night passes without some fairy frolic; but, however you may doubt the wonderful fact of the cat speaking, I wonder you are not impressed with the points of moral in which the story abounds—”

“Fiddlestick!” said the miniature snarler.

“First, the little touch about the corn monopoly —then maternal vanity chastised by the loss of the child's toe—then Tom's familiarity with his cat, showing the danger arising from a man making too free with his female domestics—the historical point about the penal laws—the fatal results of letting the cat out o' the bag, with the curious final fact in natural history.”

[Footnote: Handy Andy was written when the “vexed question” of the “Corn Laws” was the all-absorbing subject of discussion.]

“It's all nonsense,” said the little man, “and I am ashamed of myself for being such a fool as to sit—alistening to such stuff instead of going to bed, after the fatigue of my journey and the necessity of rising early to-morrow, to be in good time at the polling.”

“Oh! then you're going to the election, sir?” said Murphy.

“Yes, sir—there's some sense in that—and you, gentlemen, remember we must be all up early—and I recommend you to follow my example.”

The little man rang the bell—the bootjack and slippers were called for, and, after some delay, a very sleepy-looking gossoon entered with a bootjack under his arm, but no slippers.

“Didn't I say slippers?” said the little man.

“You did, sir.”

“Where are they, sir?”

“The masther says there isn't any, if you plaze, sir.”

“No slippers! and you call this an inn? Oh!—well, 'what can't be cured must be endured'—hold me the bootjack, sir.”

The gossoon obeyed—the little man inserted his heel in the cleft, but, on attempting to pull his foot from the boot, he nearly went heels over head backward. Murphy caught him and put him on his legs again. “Heads up, soldiers,” exclaimed Murtough; “I thought you were drinking too much.”

“Sir, I'm not intoxicated!” said the mannikin, snappishly. “It is the fault of that vile bootjack—what sort of a thing is that you have brought?” added he in a rage to the gossoon.

“It's the bootjack, sir; only one o' the horns is gone, you see,” and he held up to view a rough piece of board with an angular slit in it, but one of “the horns,” as he called it, had been broken off at the top, leaving the article useless.

“How dare you bring such a thing as that?” said the little man, in a great rage.

“Why, sir, you ax'd for a bootjack, sure, and I brought you the best I had—and it's not my fault it's bruk, so it is, for it wasn't me bruk it, but Biddy batin' the cock.”

“Beating the cock!” repeated the little man in surprise. “Bless me! beat a cock with a bootjack!—what savages!”

“Oh, it's not the hen cock I mane, sir,” said the gossoon, “but the beer cock—she was batin' the cock into the barrel, sir, wid the bootjack, sir.”

“That was decidedly wrong,” said Murphy; “a bootjack is better suited to a heel-tap than a full measure.”

“She was tapping the beer, you mean?” said the little man.

“Faix, she wasn't tapping it at all, sir, but hittin' it very hard, she was, and that's the way she bruk it.”

“Barbarians!” exclaimed the little man; “using a bootjack instead of a hammer!”

“Sure the hammer was gone to the priest, sir; bekase he wanted it for the crucifixion.”

“The crucifixion!” exclaimed the little man, horrified; “is it possible they crucify people?”

“Oh no, sir!” said the gossoon, grinning, “it's the picthure I main, sir—an illigant picthure that is hung up in the chapel, and he wanted a hammer to dhrive the nails—”

“Oh, a picture of the crucifixion,” said the little man.

“Yes, sure, sir—the alther-piece, that was althered for to fit to the place, for it was too big when it came down from Dublin, so they cut off the sides where the sojers was, bekase it stopt out the windows, and wouldn't lave a bit o' light for his riverence to read mass; and sure the sojers were no loss out o' the alther-piece, and was hung up afther in the vesthery, and serve them right, the blackguards. But it was sore agen our will to cut off the ladies at the bottom, that was cryin' and roarin'; but great good luck, the head o' the Blessed Virgin was presarved in the corner, and sure it's beautiful to see the tears runnin' down her face, just over the hole in the wall for the holy wather—which is remarkable.”

The gossoon was much offended by the laughter that followed his account of the altar-piece, which he had no intention of making irreverential, and suddenly became silent, with a muttered “More shame for yiz;” and as his bootjack was impracticable, he was sent off with orders for the chamber-maid to supply bed candles immediately.

The party soon separated for their various dormitories, the little man leaving sundry charges to call them early in the morning, and to be sure to have hot water ready for shaving, and, without fail, to have their boots polished in time and left at their room doors;—to all which injunctions he severally received the answer of—“Certainly, sir;” and as the bed-room doors were slapped-to, one by one, the last sound of the retiring party was the snappish voice of the indefatigable little man, shouting, ere he shut his door,—“Early—early—don't forget, Mistress Kelly—early!”

A shake-down for Murphy in the parlour was hastily prepared; and after Mrs. Kelly was assured by Murtough that he was quite comfortable, and perfectly content with his accommodation, for which she made scores of apologies, with lamentations it was not better, &c., &c., the whole household retired to rest, and in about a quarter of an hour the inn was in perfect silence.

Then Murtough cautiously opened his door, and after listening for some minutes, and being satisfied he was the only watcher under the roof, he gently opened one of the parlour windows and gave the preconcerted signal which he and Dick had agreed upon. Dick was under the window immediately, and after exchanging a few words with Murtough, the latter withdrew, and taking off his boots, and screening with his hand the light of a candle he carried, he cautiously ascended the stairs, and proceeded stealthily along the corridor of the dormitory, where, from the chambers on each side, a concert of snoring began to be executed, and at all the doors stood the boots and shoes of the inmates awaiting the aid of Day and Martin in the morning. But, oh! innocent calf-skins—destined to a far different fate—not Day and Martin, but Dick the Devil and Company are in wait for you. Murphy collected as many as he could carry under his arms and descended with them to the parlour window, where they were transferred to Dick, who carried them directly to the horse-pond which lay behind the inn, and there committed them to the deep. After a few journeys up and down stairs, Murtough had left the electors without a morsel of sole or upper leather, and was satisfied that a considerable delay, if not a prevention of their appearance at the poll on the morrow, would be the consequence.

“There, Dick,” said Murphy, “is the last of them,” as he handed the little man's shoes out of the window,—“and now, to save appearances, you must take mine too—for I must be without boots as well as the rest in the morning. What fun I shall have when the uproar begins—don't you envy me, Dick? There, be off now: but hark 'e, notwithstanding you take away my boots, you need not throw them into the horse-pond.”

“'Faith, an' I will,” said Dick, dragging them out of his hands; “'t would not be honourable, if I didn't—I'd give two pair of boots for the fun you'll have.”

“Nonsense, Dick—Dick, I say—my boots!”

“Honour!” cried Dick, as he vanished round the corner.

“That devil will keep his word,” muttered Murphy, as he closed the window—“I may bid good bye to that pair of boots—bad luck to him!” And yet the merry attorney could not help laughing at Dick making him a sufferer by his own trick.

Dick did keep his word; and after, with particular delight, sinking Murphy's boots with the rest, he, as it was preconcerted, returned to the cottage of Barny, and with his assistance drew the upset gig from the ditch, and with a second set of harness, provided for the occasion, yoked the servant's horse to the vehicle and drove home.

Murphy, meanwhile, was bent on more mischief at the inn; and lest the loss of the boots and shoes might not be productive of sufficient impediment to the movements of the enemy, he determined on venturing a step further. The heavy sleeping of the weary and tipsy travellers enabled him to enter their chambers unobserved, and over the garments they had taken off he poured the contents of the water-jug and water-bottle he found in each room, and then laying the empty bottle and a tumbler on a chair beside each sleeper's bed, he made it appear as if the drunken men had been dry in the night, and, in their endeavours to cool their thirst, had upset the water over their own clothes. The clothes of the little man, in particular, Murphy took especial delight in sousing more profusely than his neighbour's, and not content with taking his shoes, burnt his stockings, and left the ashes in the dish of the candlestick, with just as much unconsumed as would show what they had been. He then retired to the parlour, and with many an internal chuckle at the thought of the morning's hubbub, threw off his clothes and flinging himself on the shake-down Mrs. Kelly had provided for him, was soon wrapt in the profoundest slumber, from which he never awoke until the morning uproar of the inn aroused him. He jumped from his lair and rushed to the scene of action, to soar in the storm of his own raising; and to make it more apparent that he had been as great a sufferer as the rest, he only threw a quilt over his shoulders and did not draw on his stockings. In this plight he scaled the stairs and joined the storming party, where the little man was leading the forlorn hope, with his candlestick in one hand and the remnant of his burnt stocking between the finger and thumb of the other.

“Look at that, sir!” he cried, as he held it up to the landlord.

The landlord could only stare.

“Bless me!” cried Murphy, “how drunk you must have been to mistake your stocking for an extinguisher!”

“Drunk, sir—I wasn't drunk!”

“It looks very like it,” said Murphy, who did not wait for an answer, but bustled off to another party who was wringing out his inexpressibles at the door of his bed-room, and swearing at the gossoon that he must have his boots.

“I never seen them, sir,” said the boy.

“I left them at my door,” said the man.

“So did I leave mine,” said Murphy, “and here I am barefooted—it is most extraordinary.”

“Has the house been robbed?” said the innocent elector.

“Not a one o' me knows, sir!” said the boy; “but how could it be robbed and the doors all fast this mornin'?”

The landlady now appeared, and fired at the word “robbed!”

“Robbed, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Kelly; “no, sir—no one was ever robbed in my house—my house is respectable and responsible, sir—a vartuous house—none o' your rantipole places, sir, I'd have you to know, but decent and well behaved, and the house was as quiet as a lamb all night.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Kelly,” said Murphy—“not a more respectable house in Ireland—I'll vouch for that.”

“You're a gentleman, Misther Murphy,” said Mrs. Kelly, who turned down the passage, uttering indignant ejaculations in a sort of snorting manner, while her words of anger were returned by Murphy with expressions of soothing and condolence as he followed her down-stairs.

The storm still continued above, and while there they shouted and swore and complained, Murphy gave his notion of the catastrophe to the landlady below, inferring that the men were drunk and poured the water over their own clothes. To repeat this idea to themselves he re-ascended, but the men were incredulous. The little man he found buttoning on a pair of black gaiters, the only serviceable decency he had at his command, which only rendered his denuded state more ludicrous. To him Murphy asserted his belief that the whole affair was enchantment, and ventured to hope the small individual would have more faith in fairy machinations for the future; to which the little abortion only returned his usual “Pho! pho! nonsense!”

Through all this scene of uproar, as Murphy passed to and fro, whenever he encountered the landlord, that worthy individual threw him a knowing look; and the exclamation of, “Oh, Misther Murphy—by dad!” given in a low chuckling tone, insinuated that the landlord not only smoked but enjoyed the joke.

“You must lend me a pair of boots, Kelly!” said Murtough.

“To be sure, sir—ha! ha! ha!—but you are the quare man, Misther Murphy—”

“Send down the road and get my gig out of the ditch.”

“To be sure, sir. Poor devils! purty hands they got into,” and off went the landlord, with a chuckle.

The messengers sent for the gig returned, declaring there was no gig to be seen anywhere.

Murphy affected great surprise at the intelligence—again went among the bamboozled electors, who were all obliged to go to bed for want of clothes; and his bitter lamentations over the loss of his gig almost reconciled them to their minor troubles.

To the fears they expressed that they should not be able to reach the town in time for polling that day, Murphy told them to set their minds at rest, for they would be in time on the next.

He then borrowed a saddle as well as the pair of boots from the landlord, and the little black mare bore Murphy triumphantly back to the town, after he had securely impounded Scatterbrain's voters, who were anxiously and hourly expected by their friends. Still they came not. At last, Handy Andy, who happened to be in town with Scatterbrain, was despatched to hurry them, and his orders were not to come back without them.

Handy, on his arrival at the inn, found the electors in bed, and all the fires in the house employed in drying their clothes. The little man, wrapped in a blanket, was superintending the cooking of his own before the kitchen grate; there hung his garments on some cross sticks suspended by a string, after the fashion of a roasting-jack, which the small gentleman turned before a blazing turf fire; and beside this contrivance of his swung a goodly joint of meat, which a bouncing kitchen wench came over to baste now and then.

Andy was answering some questions of the inquisitive little man, when the kitchen maid, handing the basting-ladle to Andy, begged him to do a good turn and just to baste the beef for her, for that her heart was broke with all she had to do, cooking dinner for so many.

Andy, always ready to oblige, consented, and plied the ladle actively between the troublesome queries of the little man; but at last, getting confused with some very crabbed questions put to him, Andy became completely bothered, and lifting a brimming ladle of dripping, poured it over the little man's coat instead of the beef.

A roar from the proprietor of the clothes followed, and he implanted a kick at such advantage upon Andy, that he upset him into the dripping-pan; and Andy, in his fall, endeavouring to support himself, caught at the suspended articles above him, and the clothes, and the beef, and Andy, all swam in gravy.

CHAPTER XXV

While disaster and hubbub were rife below, the electors up-stairs were holding a council whether it would not be better to send back the “Honourable's” messenger to the town and request a supply of shoes, which they had no other means of getting. The debate was of an odd sort; they were all in their several beds at the time, and roared at each other through their doors, which were purposely left open that they might enjoy each other's conversation; number seven replied to number three, and claimed respect to his arguments on the score of seniority; the blue room was completely controverted by the yellow; and the double-bedded room would, of course, have had superior weight in the argument, only that everything it said was lost by the two honourable members speaking together. The French king used to hold a council called a “bed of justice,” in which neither justice nor a bed had anything to do, so that this Irish conference better deserved the title than any council the Bourbon ever assembled. The debate having concluded, and the question being put and carried, the usher of the black counterpane was desired to get out of bed, and, wrapped in the robe of office whence he derived his title, to go down-stairs and call the “Honourable's” messenger to the “bar of the house,” and there order him a pint of porter, for refreshment after his ride; and forthwith to send him back again to the town for a supply of shoes.

The house was unanimous in voting the supplies. The usher reached the kitchen and found Andy in his shirt sleeves, scraping the dripping from his livery with an old knife, whose hackled edge considerably assisted Andy's own ingenuity in the tearing of his coat in many places, while the little man made no effort towards the repair of his garment, but held it up before him, and regarded it with a piteous look.

To the usher of the black counterpane's question, whether Andy was the “Honourable's messenger,” Andy replied in the affirmative; but to the desire expressed, that he would ride back to the town, Andy returned a decided negative.

“My ordhers is not to go back without you,” said Andy.

“But we have no shoes,” said the usher; “and cannot go until we get some.”

“My ordher is not to go back without you.”

“But if we can't go?”

“Well, then, I can't go back, that's all,” said Andy.

The usher, the landlord, and the landlady all hammered away at Andy for a long time, in vain trying to convince him he ought to return, as he was desired; still Andy stuck to the letter of his orders, and said he often got into trouble for not doing exactly what he was bid, and that he was bid “not to go back without them, and he would not—so he wouldn't—divil a fut.”

At last, however, Andy was made to understand the propriety of riding back to the town; and was desired to go as fast as his horse could carry him, to gallop every foot of the way; but Andy did no such thing; he had received a good thrashing once for being caught galloping his master's horse on the road, and he had no intention of running the risk a second time, because “the stranger” told him to do so. “What does he know about it?” said Andy to himself; “'faith, it's fair and aisy I'll go, and not disthress the horse to plaze any one.” So he went back his ten miles at a reasonable pace only; and when he appeared without the electors, a storm burst on poor Andy.

“There! I knew how it would be,” said he, “and not my fault at all.”

“Weren't you told not to return without them?”

“But wait till I tell you how it was, sure;” and then Andy began an account of the condition in which the voters lay at the inn but between the impatience of those who heard, and the confused manner of Andy's recital, it was some time before matters were explained; and then Andy was desired to ride back to the inn again, to tell the electors shoes should be forwarded after him in a post-chaise, and requesting their utmost exertions in hastening over to the town, for that the election was going against them. Andy returned to the inn; and this time, under orders from head quarters, galloped in good earnest, and brought in his horse smoking hot, and indicating lameness. The day was wearing apace, and it was so late when the electors were enabled to start that the polling-booths were closed before they could leave the town; and in many of these booths the requisite number of electors had not been polled that day to keep them open; so that the next day nearly all those outlying electors, about whom there had been so much trouble and expense, would be of no avail. Thus, Murphy's trick was quite successful, and the poor pickled electors were driven back to their inn in dudgeon.

Andy, when he went to the stable to saddle his steed, for a return to Neck-or-Nothing Hall, found him dead lame, so that to ride him better than twelve miles home was impossible. Andy was obliged to leave him where he was, and trudge it to the hall; for all the horses in Kelly's stables were knocked up with their day's work.

As it was shorter by four miles across the country than by the road, Andy pursued the former course; and as he knew the country well, the shades of evening, which were now closing round, did not deter him in the least. Andy was not very fresh for the journey to be sure, for he had ridden upwards of thirty miles that day, so the merry whistle, which is so constantly heard from the lively Irish pedestrian, did not while away the tedium of his walk. It was night when Andy was breasting up a low ridge of hills, which lay between him and the end of his journey; and when in silence and darkness he topped the ascent, he threw himself on some heather to rest and take breath. His attention was suddenly caught by a small blue flame, which flickered now and then on the face of the hill, not very far from him; and Andy's fears of fairies and goblins came crowding upon him thick and fast. He wished to rise, but could not; his eye continued to be strained with the fascination of fear in the direction he saw the fire, and sought to pierce the gloom through which, at intervals, the small point of flame flashed brightly and sunk again, making the darkness seem deeper. Andy lay in perfect stillness, and in the silence, which was unbroken even by his own breathing, he thought he heard voices underground. He trembled from head to foot, for he was certain they were the voices of the fairies, whom he firmly believed to inhabit the hills.

“Oh! murdher, what'll I do?” thought Andy to himself: “sure I heerd often, if once you were within the sound of their voices, you could never get out o' their power. Oh! if I could only say a pather and ave, but I forget my prayers with the fright. Hail, Mary! The king o' the fairies lives in these hills, I know—and his house is undher me this minit, and I on the roof of it—I'll never get down again—I'll never get down again—they'll make me slater to the fairies; and sure enough I remember me, the hill is all covered with flat stones they call fairy slates. Oh! I am ruined—God be praised!” Here he blessed himself, and laid his head close to the earth. “Guardian angels—I hear their voices singin' a dhrinking song—Oh! if I had a dhrop o' water myself, for my mouth is as dhry as a lime-burner's wig—and I on the top o' their house—see—there's the little blaze again—I wondher is their chimbley afire—Oh! murther, I'll die o' thirst—Oh! if I had only one dhrop o' wather—I wish it would rain or hail—Hail, Mary, full o' grace—whisht! what's that?” Andy crouched lower than before, as he saw a figure rise from the earth, and attain a height which Andy computed to be something about twenty feet; his heart shrank to the size of a nut-shell, as he beheld the monster expand to his full dimensions; and at the same moment, a second, equally large, emerged from the ground.

Now, as fairies are notoriously little people, Andy changed his opinion of the parties into whose power he had fallen, and saw clearly they were giants, not fairies, of whom he was about to become the victim. He would have ejaculated a prayer for mercy, had not terror rendered him speechless, as the remembrance of all the giants he had ever heard of, from the days of Jack and the Bean-stalk down, came into his head; but though his sense of speaking was gone, that of hearing was painfully acute, and he heard one of the giants say—

“That pot is not big enough.”

“Oh! it howlds as much as we want,” replied the other.

“O Lord,” thought Andy; “they've got their pot ready for cooking.”

“What keeps him?” said the first giant.

“Oh! he's not far off,” said the second.

A clammy shivering came over Andy.

“I'm hungry,” said the first, and he hiccupped as he spoke.

“It's only a false appetite you have,” said the second, “you're drunk.”

This was a new light to Andy, for he thought giants were too strong to get drunk. “I could ate a young child, without parsley and butther,” said the drunken giant. Andy gave a faint spasmodic kick.

“And it's as hot as —— down there,” said the giant.

Andy trembled at the horrid word he heard.

“No wonder,” said the second giant; “for I can see the flame popping out at the top of the chimbley; that's bad: I hope no one will see it, or it might give them warning. Bad luck to that young divil for making the fire so sthrong.”

What a dreadful hearing this was for Andy: young devils to make their fires; there was no doubt what place they were dwelling in. “Thunder and turf!” said the drunken giant; “I wish I had a slice of—”

Andy did not hear what he wished a slice of, for the night wind swept across the heath at the moment, and carried away the monster's disgusting words on its pure breath.

“Well, I'd rather have—” said the other giant; and again Andy lost what his atrocious desires were—“than all the other slices in the world. What a lovely round shoulder she has, and the nice round ankle of her—”

The word “ankle” showed at once it was a woman of whom he spoke, and Andy shuddered. “The monsters! to eat a woman.”

“What a fool you are to be in love,” said the drunken giant with several hiccups, showing the increase of his inebriation.

“Is that what the brutes call love,” thought Andy, “to ate a woman?”

“I wish she was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” said the second giant. Of this speech Andy heard only “bone” and “flesh,” and had great difficulty in maintaining the serenity of his diaphragm.

The conversation of the giants was now more frequently interrupted by the wind which was rising, and only broken sentences reached Andy, whose senses became clearer the longer he remained in a state of safety; at last he heard the name of Squire Egan distinctly pass between the giants.

“So they know Squire Egan,” thought Andy.

The first giant gave a drunken laugh at the mention of Squire Egan's name, and exclaimed—

“Don't be afraid of him (hiccup); I have him undher my thumb (hiccup). I can crush him when I plase.”

“O! my poor owld masther!” mentally ejaculated Andy.

Another break in their conversation occurred, and the next name Andy overheard was “O'Grady.”

“The big bully!” said the second giant.

“They know the whole country,” thought Andy.

“But tell me, what was that you said to him at the election?” said the drunken one.

The word “election” recalled Andy to the business of this earth back again; and it struck upon his hitherto bewildered sensorium that giants could have nothing to do with elections, and he knew he never saw them there; and, as the thought struck him, it seemed as if the giants diminished in size, and did not appear quite so big.

“Sure you know,” said the second.

“Well, I'd like to hear it again,” said the drunken one (hiccup).

“The big bully says to me, 'Have you a lease?' says he; 'No,' says I; 'but I have an article!' 'What article?' says he; 'It's a fine brass blunderbuss,' says I, 'and I'd like to see the man would dispute the title!'”

The drunken listener chuckled, and the words broke the spell of supernatural terror which had hung over Andy; he knew, by the words of the speaker, it was the bully joker of the election was present, who browbeat O'Grady and out-quibbled the agent about the oath of allegiance; and the voice of the other he soon recognised for that of Larry Hogan. So now his giants were diminished into mortal men—the pot, which had been mentioned to the terror of his soul, was for the making of whisky instead of human broth—and the “hell” he thought his giants inhabited was but a private still. Andy felt as if a mountain had been lifted from his heart when he found it was but mortals he had to deal with; for Andy was not deficient in courage when it was but thews and sinews like his own he had to encounter. He still lay concealed, however, for smugglers might not wish their private haunt to be discovered, and it was possible Andy would be voted one too many in the company should he announce himself; and with such odds as two to one against him he thought he had better be quiet. Besides, his curiosity became excited when he found them speaking of his old master, Egan, and his present one, O'Grady; and as a woman had been alluded to, and odd words caught up here and there, he became anxious to hear more of their conversation.

“So you're in love,” said Larry, with a hiccup, to our friend of the blunderbuss; “ha! ha! ha! you big fool.”

“Well, you old thief, don't you like a purty girl yourself?”

“I did, when I was young and foolish.”

“'Faith, then, you're young and foolish at that rate yet, for you're a rogue with the girls, Larry,” said the other, giving him a slap on the back.

“Not I! not I!” said Larry, in a manner expressive of his not being displeased with the charge of gallantry; “he! he! he!—how do you know, eh?” (Hiccup.) “Sure, I know myself; but as I wos telling you, if I could only lay howld of—” here his voice became inaudible to Andy, and the rest of the sentence was lost.

Andy's curiosity was great. “Who could the girl be?”

“And you'd carry her off?” said Larry.

“I would,” said the other; “I'm only afraid o' Squire Egan.”

At this announcement of the intention of “carrying her off,” coupled with the fear of “Squire Egan,” Andy's anxiety to hear the name of the person became so intense that he crawled cautiously a little nearer to the speakers.

“I tell you again,” said Larry, “I can settle him aisy (hiccup)—he's undher my thumb (hiccup).”

“Be aisy,” said the other, contemptuously, who thought this was a mere drunken delusion of Larry's.

“I tell you I'm his masther!” said Larry, with a drunken flourish of his arm; and he continued bragging of his power over the Squire in various ejaculations, the exact meaning of which our friend of the blunderbuss could not fathom, but Andy heard enough to show him that the discovery of the post-office affair was what Larry alluded to.

That Larry, a close, cunning, circumventing rascal, should so far betray the source of his power over Egan may seem strange; but be it remembered Larry was drunk, a state of weakness which his caution generally guarded him from falling into, but which being in, his foible was bragging of his influence, and so running the risk of losing it.

The men continued to talk together for some time, and the tenour of the conversation was, that Larry assured his companion he might carry off the girl without fear of Egan, but her name Andy could not discover. His own name he heard more than once, and voluptuous raptures poured forth about lovely lips and hips and ankles from the herculean knight of the blunderbuss, amidst the maudlin admiration and hiccups of Larry, who continued to brag of his power, and profess his readiness to stand by his friend in carrying off the girl.

“Then,” said the Hercules, with an oath, “I'll soon have you in my arms, my lovely—”

The name was lost again.

Their colloquy was now interrupted by the approach of a man and woman, the former being the person for whose appearance Larry made so many inquiries when he first appeared to Andy as the hungry giant; the other was the sister of the knight of the blunderbuss. Larry having hiccupped his anger against the man for making them wait so long for the bacon, the woman said he should not wait longer without his supper now, for that she would go down and fry the rashers immediately. She then disappeared through the ground, and the men all followed.

Andy drew his breath freely once more, and with caution raised himself gradually from the ground with a careful circumspection, lest any of the subterranean community might be watchers on the hill; and when he was satisfied he was free from observation, he stole away from the spot with stealthy steps for about twenty paces, and there, as well as the darkness would permit, after taking such landmarks as would help him to retrace his way to the still, if requisite, he dashed down the hill at the top of his speed. This pace he did not moderate until he had placed nearly a mile between him and the scene of his adventure; he then paced slowly to regain his breath. His head was in a strange whirl; mischief was threatened against some one of whose name he was ignorant; Squire Egan was declared to be in the power of an old rascal; this grieved Andy most of all, for he felt he was the cause of his old master's dilemma.

“Oh! to think I should bring him into trouble,” said Andy, “the kind and good masther he was to me ever, and I live to tell it like a blackguard—throth I'd rather be hanged any day than the masther would come to throuble—maybe if I gave myself up and was hanged like a man at once, that would settle it; 'faith, if I thought it would, I'd do it sooner than Squire Egan should come to throuble!” and poor Andy spoke just what he felt. “Or would it do to kill that blackguard Hogan? sure they could do no more than hang me afther, and that would save the masther, and be all one to me, for they often towld me I'd be hanged. But then there's my sowl,” said Andy, and he paused at the thought—, “if they hanged me for the letthers, it would be only for a mistake, and sure then I'd have a chance o' glory; for sure I might go to glory through a mistake; but if I killed a man on purpose, sure it would be slappin' the gates of Heaven in my own face. Faix, I'll spake to Father Blake about it.”

[Footnote: How often has the sanguinary penal code of past years suggested this reflection and provoked the guilt it was meant to awe! Happily, now our laws are milder, and more protective from their mildness.]

[Footnote: In the foregoing passage, Andy stumbles on uttering a quaint pleasantry, for it is partly true as well as droll—the notion of a man gaining Paradise through a mistake. Our intentions too seldom lead us there, but rather tend the other way, for a certain place is said to be paved with “good” ones, and surely “bad” ones would not lead us upwards. Then the phrase of a man “slapping the gates of Heaven in his own face,” is one of those wild poetic figures of speech in which the Irish peasantry often indulge. The phrase “slapping the door” is every-day and common; but when applied to “the gates of Heaven,” and “in a man's own face,” the common phrase becomes fine. But how often the commonest things become poetry by the fitness of their application, though poetasters and people of small minds think greatness of thought lies in big words.]

CHAPTER XXVI

The following day was that eventful one which should witness the return of either Edward Egan, Esq., or the Honourable Sackville Scatterbrain as member for the county. There was no doubt in any reasonable man's mind as to the real majority of Egan, but the numbers were sufficiently close to give the sheriff an opportunity of doing a bit of business to oblige his friends, and therefore he declared the Honourable Sackville Scatterbrain duly elected. Great was the uproar; the people hissed, and hooted, and groaned, for which the Honourable Sackville very good-naturedly returned them his thanks. Murphy snapped his fingers in the sheriff's face, and told them his honourable friend should not long remain member, for that he must be unseated on petition, and that he would prove the return most corrupt, with which words he again snapped his fingers in the sheriff's face.

The sheriff threatened to read the riot act if such conduct was repeated.

Egan took off his hat, and thanked him for his honourable, upright, and impartial conduct, whereupon all Egan's friends took off their hats also, and made profound bows to the functionary, and then laughed most uproariously. Counter laughs were returned from the opposite party, who begged to remind the Eganites of the old saying, “that they might laugh who win.” A cross-fire of sarcasms was kept up amidst the two parties as they were crushing forward out of the courthouse; and at the door, before entering his carriage, Scatterbrain very politely addressed Egan, and trusted that, though they had met as rivals on the hustings, they nevertheless parted friends, and expressing the highest respect for the squire, offered his hand in amity.

Egan, equally good-hearted as his opponent, shook his hand cordially; declaring he attributed to him none of the blame which attached to other persons. “Besides, my dear sir,” said Egan, laughing, “I should be a very ill-natured person to grudge you so small an indulgence as being member of parliament for a month or so.”

Scatterbrain returned the laugh, good-humouredly, and replied that, “at all events, he had the seat.”

“Yes, my dear sir,” said Egan, “and make the most of it while you have it. In short, I shall owe you an obligation when I go over to St. Stephen's, for you will have just aired my seat for me—good bye.”

They parted with smiles, and drove to their respective homes; but as even doubtful possession is preferable to expectation for the time being, it is certain that Neck-or-Nothing Hall rang with more merriment that night on the reality of the present, than Merryvale did on the hope of the future.

Even O'Grady, as he lay with his wounded arm on the sofa, found more healing in the triumph of the hour than from all the medicaments of the foregoing week, and insisted on going down-stairs and joining the party at supper.

“Gusty, dear,” said his wife, “you know the doctor said—”

“Hang the doctor!”

“Your arm, my love.”

“I wish you'd leave off pitying my arm, and have some compassion on my stomach.”

“The doctor said—”

“There are oysters in the house; I'll do myself more good by the use of an oyster-knife than all the lancets in the College of Surgeons.”

“But your wound, dear?”

“Are they Carlingfords or Poldoodies?”

“So fresh, love.”

“So much the better.”

“Your wound I mean, dear?”

“Nicely opened.”

“Only dressed an hour ago?”

“With some mustard, pepper, and vinegar.”

“Indeed, Gusty, if you take my advice—”

“I'd rather have oysters any day.”

O'Grady sat up on the sofa as he spoke and requested his wife to say no more about the matter, but put on his cravat. While she was getting it from his wardrobe, his mind wandered from supper to the pension, which he looked upon as secure now that Scatterbrain was returned; and oyster-banks gave place to the Bank of Ireland, which rose in a pleasing image before O'Grady's imagination. The wife now returned with the cravat, still dreading the result of eating to her husband, and her mind occupied wholly with the thought of supper, while O'Grady was wrapt in visions of a pension.

“You won't take it, Gusty, dear,” said his wife with all the insinuation of manner she could command.

“Won't I, 'faith?” said O'Grady. “Maybe you think I don't want it?”

“Indeed, I don't, dear.”

“Are you mad, woman? Is it taking leave of the few senses you ever had you are?”

“'T won't agree with you.”

“Won't it? just wait till I'm tried.”

“Well, love, how much do you expect to be allowed?”

“Why I can't expect much just yet—we must begin gently—feel the pulse first; but I should hope, by way of start, that six or seven hundred—”

“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed his wife, dropping the cravat from her hands. “What the devil is the woman shouting at?” said O'Grady.

“Six or seven hundred!!!” exclaimed Mrs. O'Grady; “my dear, there's not as much in the house.”

“No, nor has not been for many a long day; I know that as well as you,” said O'Grady; “but I hope we shall get as much for all that.”

“My dear, where could you get them?” asked the wife, timidly, who began to think his head was a little light.

“From the treasury, to be sure.”

“The treasury, my dear?” said the wife, still at fault; “how could you get oysters from the treasury?”

“Oysters!” exclaimed O'Grady, whose turn it was now to wonder, “who talks of oysters?”

“My dear, I thought you said you'd eat six or seven hundred of oysters!”

“Pooh! pooh! woman; it is of the pension I'm talking—six or seven hundred pounds—pounds—cash—per annum; now I suppose you'll put on my cravat. I think a man may be allowed to eat his supper who expects six hundred a year.”

A great many people besides O'Grady order suppers, and dinners too, on the expectation of less than six hundred a year. Perhaps there is no more active agent for sending people into the Insolvent Court than the aforesaid “expectation.”

O'Grady went down-stairs, and was heartily welcomed by Scatterbrain on his re-appearance from his sick-room; but Mrs. O'Grady suggested that, for fear any excess would send him back there for a longer time, a very moderate indulgence at the table should suffice. She begged the honourable member to back her argument, which he did; and O'Grady promised temperance, but begged the immediate appearance of the oysters, for he experienced that eager desire which delicate health so often prompts for some particular food.

Andy was laying the table at the time, and was ordered to expedite matters as much as possible.

“Yis, ma'am.”

“You're sure the oysters are all good, Andy?”

“Sartin, ma'am.”

“Because the last oysters you know—”

“Oh, yis, ma'am—were bad, ma'am—bekase they had their mouths all open. I remember, ma'am; but when I'm towld a thing once, I never forget it again; and you towld me when they opened their mouths once they were no good. So you see, ma'am, I'll never bring up bad oysthers again, ma'am.”

“Very good, Andy; and you have kept them in a cool place, I hope.”

“Faix, they're cowld enough where I put them, ma'am.”

“Very well; bring them up at once.”

Off went Andy, and returned with all the haste he could with a large dish heaped up with oysters.

O'Grady rubbed his hands with the impatience of a true lover of the crustaceous delicacy, and Scatterbrain, eager to help him, flourished his oyster-knife; but before he had time to commence operations the olfactory nerves of the company gave evidence that the oysters were rather suspicious; every one began sniffing, and a universal “Oh dear!” ran round the table.

“Don't you smell it, Furlong?” said Scatterbrain, who was so lost in looking at Augusta's mustachios that he did not mind anything else.

“Isn't it horrid?” said O'Grady, with a look of disgust.

Furlong thought he alluded to the mustachio, and replied with an assurance that he “liked it of all things.”

“Like it?” said O'Grady; “you've a queer taste. What do you think of it, miss?” added he to Augusta, “it's just under your nose.” Furlong thought this rather personal, even from a father.

“I'll try my knife on one,” said Scatterbrain, with a flourish of the oyster-knife, which Furlong thought resembled the preliminary trial of a barber's razor.

Furlong thought this worse than O'Grady; but he hesitated to reply to his chief, and an honourable into the bargain.

In the meantime, Scatterbrain opened an oyster, which Furlong, in his embarrassment and annoyance, did not perceive.

“Cut off the beard,” said O'Grady, “I don't like it.”

This nearly made Furlong speak, but, considering O'Grady's temper and ill-health, he hesitated, till he saw Augusta rubbing her eye, in consequence of a small splinter of the oyster-shell having struck it from Scatterbrain's mismanagement of his knife; but Furlong thought she was crying, and then he could be silent no longer; he went over to where she sat, and with a very affectionate demonstration in his action, said, “Never mind them, dear Gussy—never mind—don't cwy—I love her dear little moustachios, I do.” He gave a gentle pat on the back of the neck as he spoke, and it was returned by an uncommonly smart box on the ear from the young lady, and the whole party looked thunderstruck. “Dear Gussy” cried for spite, and stamped her way out of the room, followed by Furlong.

“Let them go,” said O'Grady; “they'll make it up outside.”

“These oysters are all bad,” said Scatterbrain.

O'Grady began to swear at his disappointment—he had set his heart on oysters. Mrs. O'Grady rang the bell—Andy appeared.

“How dare you bring up such oysters as these?” roared O'Grady.

“The misthris ordhered them, sir.”

“I told you never to bring up bad oysters,” said she.

“Them's not bad, ma'am,” said Andy,

“Have you a nose?” says O'Grady.

“Yes, sir.”

“And can't you smell them, then?”

“Faix, I smelt them for the last three days, sir.”

“And how could you say they were good, then?” asked his mistress.

“Sure you tould me, ma'am, that if they didn't open their mouths they were good, and I'll be on my book oath them oysters never opened their mouths since I had them, for I laid them on a coolflag in the kitchen and put the jack-weight over them.”

Notwithstanding O'Grady's rage, Scatterbrain could not help roaring with laughter at Andy's novel contrivance for keeping oysters fresh. Andy was desired to take the “ancient and fish-like smell” out of the room, amidst jeers and abuse; and, as he fumbled his way to the kitchen in the dark, lamenting the hard fate of servants, who can never give satisfaction, though they do everything they are bid, he went head over heels down-stairs, which event was reported to the whole house as soon as it happened, by the enormous clatter of the broken dish, the oysters, and Andy, as they all rolled one over the other to the bottom.

O'Grady, having missed the cool supper he intended, and had longed for, was put into a rage by the disappointment; and as hunger with O'Grady was only to be appeased by broiled bones, accordingly, against all the endeavours of everybody, the bells rang violently through the house, and the ogre-like cry of “broiled bones!” resounded high and low.

The reader is sufficiently well acquainted with O'Grady by this time to know, that of course, when once he had determined to have his broiled bone, nothing on the face of the earth could prevent it but the want of anything to broil, or the immediate want of his teeth; and as his masticators were in order, and something in the house which could carry mustard and pepper, the invalid primed and loaded himself with as much combustible matter as exploded in a fever the next day.

The supper-party, however, in the hope of getting him to bed, separated soon; and as Scatterbrain and Furlong were to start early in the morning for Dublin, the necessity of their retiring to rest was pleaded. The honourable member had not been long in his room when he heard a tap at his door, and his order to “come in” was followed by the appearance of Handy Andy.

“I found somethin' on the road nigh the town to-day, sir, and I thought it might be yours, maybe,” said Andy, producing a small pocket-book.

The honourable member disavowed the ownership.

“Well, there's something else I want to speak to your honour about.”

“What is it, Handy?”

“I want your honour to see the account of the money your honour gave me that I spint at the shebeen [Footnote: Low publick house.] upon the 'lecthors that couldn't be accommodated at Mrs. Fay's.”

“Oh! never mind it, Andy; if there's anything over, keep it yourself.”

“Thank your honour, but I must make the account all the same, if you plaze, for I'm going to Father Blake, to my duty, [Footnote: Confession.] soon, and I must have my conscience as clear as I can, and I wouldn't like to be keeping money back.”

“But if I give you the money, what matter?”

“I'd rather you'd just look over this little bit of a count, if you plaze,” said Andy, producing a dirty piece of paper, with some nearly inscrutable hieroglyphics upon it. Scatterbrain commenced an examination of this literary phenomenon from sheer curiosity, asking Andy at the same time if he wrote it.

“Yis, sir,” said Andy; “but you see the man couldn't keep the count of the piper's dhrink at all, it was so confusin', and so I was obliged to pay him for that every time the piper dhrunk, and keep it separate, and the 'lecthors that got their dinner afther the bill was made out I put down myself too, and that's it you see, sir, both ating and dhrinkin'.”

To Dhrinkin A blind piper everry day
wan and in Pens six dais 0 16 6
To atein four Tin Illikthurs And Thare 1 8 8
horses on Chewsdai 0 14 0
————-
Toe til 2 19 4
Lan lord Bil For All Be four 7 17 8-1/2
————-
10 18 12-1/2

“Then I owe you money, instead of your having a balance in hand, Andy,” said the member.

“Oh, no matter, your honour; it's not for that I showed you the account.”

“It's very like it, though,” said Scatterbrain, laughing; “here, Andy, here are a couple of pounds for you, take them, Andy—take it and be off; your bill is worth the money,” and Scatterbrain closed the door on the great accountant.

Andy next went to Furlong's room, to know if the pocket-book belonged to him; it did not, but Furlong, though he disclaimed the ownership, had that small curiosity which prompts little minds to pry into what does not belong to them, and taking the pocket-book into his hands, he opened it, and fumbled over its leaves; in the doing of which a small piece of folded paper fell from one of the pockets unnoticed by the impertinent inquisitor or Andy, to whom he returned the book when he had gratified his senseless curiosity. Andy withdrew, Furlong retired to rest; and as it was in the grey of an autumnal morning he dressed himself, the paper still remained unobserved: so that the housemaid, on setting the room to rights, found it, and fancying Miss Augusta was the proper person to confide Mr. Furlong's stray papers to, she handed that young lady the manuscript which bore the following copy of verses:—

I CAN NE'ER FORGET THEE

I

It is the chime, the hour draws near
When you and I must sever;
Alas, it must be many a year,
And it may be for ever!
How long till we shall meet again!
How short since first I met thee!
How brief the bliss—how long the pain—
For I can ne'er forget thee.

II

You said my heart was cold and stern;
You doubted love when strongest:
In future days you'll live to learn
Proud hearts can love the longest.
Oh! sometimes think, when press'd to hear,
When flippant tongues beset thee,
That all must love thee, when thou'rt near,
But one will ne'er forget thee!

III

The changeful sand doth only know
The shallow tide and latest;
The rocks have mark'd its highest flow,
The deepest and the greatest;
And deeper still the flood-marks grow:—
So, since the hour I met thee,
The more the tide of time doth flow,
The less can I forget thee!

When Augusta saw the lines, she was charmed. She discovered her Furlong to be a poet! That the lines were his there was no doubt—they were found in his room, and of course they must be his, just as partial critics say certain Irish airs must be English, because they are to be found in Queen Elizabeth's music-book.

Augusta was so charmed with the lines that she amused herself for a long time in hiding them under the sofa-cushion and making her pet dog find and fetch them. Her pleasure, however, was interrupted by her sister Charlotte remarking, when the lines were shown to her in triumph, that the writing was not Furlong's, but in a lady's hand.

Even as beer is suddenly soured by thunder, so the electric influence of Charlotte's words converted all Augusta had been brewing to acidity; jealousy stung her like a wasp, and she boxed her dog's ears as he was barking for another run with the verses.

“A lady's hand?” said Augusta, snatching the paper from her sister; “I declare if it ain't! the wretch—so he receives lines from ladies.”

“I think I know the hand, too,” said Charlotte.

“You do?” exclaimed Augusta, with flashing eyes.

“Yes, I'm certain it is Fanny Dawson's writing.”

“So it is,” said Augusta, looking at the paper as if her eyes could have burnt it; “to be sure—he was there before he came here.”

“Only for two days,” said Charlotte, trying to slake the flame she had raised.

“But I've heard that girl always makes conquests at first sight,” returned Augusta, half crying; “and what do I see here? some words in pencil.”

The words were so faint as to be scarcely perceptible, but Augusta deciphered them; they were written on the margin, beside a circumflex which embraced the last four lines of the second verse, so that it stood thus:—

Dearest, I will.

Oh! sometimes think, when press'd to hear,
When flippant tongues beset thee,
That all must love thee when thou'rt near,
But one will ne'er forget thee!

“Will you, indeed?” said Augusta, crushing the paper in her hand, and biting it; “but I must not destroy it—I must keep it to prove his treachery to his face.” She threw herself on the sofa as she spoke, and gave vent to an outpour of spiteful tears.

CHAPTER XXVII

How many chapters have been written about love verses—and how many more might be written!—might, would, could, should, or ought to be written!—I will venture to say, will be written! I have a mind to fulfil my own prophecy and write one myself; but no—my story must go on. However, I will say, that it is quite curious in how many ways the same little bit of paper may influence different people: the poem whose literary merit may be small becomes precious when some valued hand has transcribed the lines; and the verses whose measure and meaning viewed in type might win favour and yield pleasure, shoot poison from their very sweetness, when read in some particular hand and under particular circumstances. It was so with the copy of verses Augusta had just read—they were Fanny Dawson's manuscript—that was certain—and found in the room of Augusta's lover; therefore Augusta was wretched. But these same lines had given exquisite pleasure to another person, who was now nearly as miserable as Augusta in having lost them. It is possible the reader guesses that person to be Edward O'Connor, for it was he who had lost the pocket-book in which those (to him) precious lines were contained; and if the little case had held all the bank-notes he ever owned in his life, their loss would have been regarded less than that bit of manuscript, which had often yielded him the most exquisite pleasure, and was now inflicting on Augusta the bitterest anguish. To make this intelligible to the reader, it is necessary to explain under what circumstances the lines were written. At one time, Edward, doubting the likelihood of making his way at home, was about to go to India and push his fortunes there; and at that period, those lines, breathing of farewell—implying the dread of rivals during absence—and imploring remembrance of his eternal love, were written and given to Fanny; and she, with that delicacy of contrivance so peculiarly a woman's, hit upon the expedient of copying his own verses and sending them to him in her writing, as an indication that the spirit of the lines was her own.

But Edward saw that his father, who was advanced in years, looked upon a separation from his son as an eternal one, and the thought gave so much pain, that Edward gave up the idea of expatriation. Shortly after, however, the misunderstanding with Major Dawson took place, and Fanny and Edward were as much severed as if dwelling in different zones. Under such circumstances, those lines were peculiarly precious, and many a kiss had Edward impressed upon them, though Augusta thought them fitter for the exercise of her teeth than her lips. In fact, Edward did little else than think of Fanny; and it is possible his passion might have degenerated into mere love-sickness, and enfeebled him, had not his desire of proving himself worthy of his mistress spurred him to exertion, in the hope of future distinction. But still the tone of tender lament pervaded all his poems, and the same pocket-book whence the verses which caused so much commotion fell contained the following also, showing how entirely Fanny possessed his heart and occupied his thoughts:—

WHEN THE SUN SINKS TO REST

I

When the sun sinks to rest,
And the star of the west
Sheds its soft silver light o'er the sea;
What sweet thoughts arise,
As the dim twilight dies—
For then I am thinking of thee!
Oh! then crowding fast
Come the joys of the past,
Through the dimness of days long gone by,
Like the stars peeping out,
Through the darkness about,
From the soft silent depth of the sky.

II

And thus, as the night
Grows more lovely and bright
With the clust'ring of planet and star,
So this darkness of mine
Wins a radiance divine
From the light that still lingers afar.
Then welcome the night,
With its soft holy light!
In its silence my heart is more free
The rude world to forget,
Where no pleasure I've met
Since the hour that I parted from thee.

But we must leave love verses, and ask pardon for the few remarks which the subject tempted, and pursue our story.

The first prompting of Augusta's anger, when she had recovered her burst of passion, was to write “such a letter” to Furlong—and she spent half a day at the work; but she could not please herself—she tore twenty at least, and determined, at last, not to write at all, but just wait till he returned and overwhelm him with reproaches. But, though she could not compose a letter, she composed herself by the endeavour, which acted as a sort of safety-valve to let off the superabundant steam; and it is wonderful how general is this result of sitting down to write angry letters: people vent themselves of their spleen on the uncomplaining paper, which silently receives words a listener would not. With a pen for our second, desperate satisfaction is obtained with only an effusion of ink, and when once the pent-up bitterness has oozed out in all the blackness of that fluid—most appropriately made of the best galls—the time so spent, and the “letting of words,” if I may use the phrase, has cooled our judgment and our passions together; and the first letter is torn: 't is too severe; we write a second; we blot and interline till it is nearly illegible; we begin a third; till at last we are tired out with our own angry feelings, and throw our scribbling by with a “Pshaw! what's the use of it?” or, “It's not worth my notice;” or, still better, arrive at the conclusion, that we preserve our own dignity best by writing without temper, though we may be called upon to be severe.

Furlong at this time was on his road to Dublin in happy unconsciousness of Augusta's rage against him, and planning what pretty little present he should send her specially, for his head was naturally running on such matters, as he had quantities of commissions to execute in the millinery line for Mrs. O'Grady, who thought it high time to be getting up Augusta's wedding-dresses, and Andy was to be despatched the following day to Dublin to take charge of a cargo of bandboxes back from that city to Neck-or-Nothing Hall. Furlong had received a thousand charges from the ladies, “to be sure to lose no time” in doing his devoir in their behalf, and he obeyed so strictly, and was so active in laying milliners and mercers under contributions, that Andy was enabled to start the day after his arrival, sorely against Andy's will, for he would gladly have remained amidst the beauty and grandeur and wonders of Dublin, which struck him dumb for the day he was amongst them, but gave him food for conversation for many a day after. Furlong, after racking his invention about the souvenir to his “dear Gussy,” at length fixed on a fan, as the most suitable gift; for Gussy had been quizzed at home about “blushing,” and all that sort of thing, and the puerile perceptions of the attache saw something very smart in sending her wherewith “to hide her blushes.” Then the fan was the very pink of fans; it had quivers and arrows upon it, and bunches of hearts looped up in azure festoons, and doves perched upon them; though Augusta's little sister, who was too young to know what hearts and doves were, when she saw them for the first time, said they were pretty little birds picking at apples. The fan was packed up in a nice case, and then on scented note paper did the dear dandy indite a bit of namby-pamby badinage to his fair one, which he thought excessively clever:—

“DEAR DUCKY DARLING,—You know how naughty they are in quizzing you about a little something, I won't say what, you will guess, I dare say—but I send you a little toy, I won't say what, on which Cupid might write this label after the doctor's fashion, 'To be used occasionally, when the patient is much troubled with the symptoms.'

“Ever, ever, ever yours,

“P.S. Take care how you open it.”

“J.F.”

Such was the note that Handy Andy was given, with particular injunctions to deliver it the first thing on his arrival at the Hall to Miss Augusta, and to be sure to take most particular care of the little case; all which Andy faithfully promised to do. But Andy's usual destiny prevailed, and an unfortunate exchange of parcels quite upset all Furlong's sweet little plan of his pretty present and his ingenious note: for as Andy was just taking his departure, Furlong said he might as well leave something for him at Reade's, the cutler, as he passed through College Green, and he handed him a case of razors which wanted setting, which Andy popped into his pocket, and as the fan case and that of the razors were much of a size, and both folded up, Andy left the fan at the cutler's and took the case of razors by way of present to Augusta. Fancy the rage of a young lady with a very fine pair of moustachios getting such a souvenir from her lover, with a note, too, every word of which applied to a beard and a razor, as patly as to a blush and a fan—and this, too, when her jealousy was aroused and his fidelity more than doubtful in her estimation.

Great was the row in Neck-or-Nothing Hall; and when, after three days, Furlong came down, the nature of his reception may be better imagined than described. It was a difficult matter, through the storm which raged around him, to explain all the circumstances satisfactorily, but, by dint of hard work, the verses were at length disclaimed, the razors disavowed, and Andy at last sent for to “clear matters up.”

Andy was a hopeful subject for such a purpose, and by his blundering answers nearly set them all by the ears again; the upshot of the affair was, that Andy, used as he was to good scoldings, never had such a torrent of abuse poured on him in his life, and the affair ended in Andy being dismissed from Neck-or-Nothing Hall on the instant; so he relinquished his greasy livery for his own rags again, and trudged homewards to his mother's cabin.

“She'll be as mad as a hatter with me,” said Andy; “bad luck to them for razhirs, they cut me out o' my place: but I often heard cowld steel is unlucky, and sure I know it now. Oh! but I'm always unfort'nate in having cruked messages. Well, it can't be helped; and one good thing at all events is, I'll have time enough now to go and spake to Father Blake;” and with this sorry piece of satisfaction poor Andy contented himself.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Father Blake, of whom Andy spoke, was more familiarly known by the name of Father Phil, by which title Andy himself would have named him, had he been telling how Father Phil cleared a fair, or equally “leathered” both the belligerent parties in a faction-fight, or turned out the contents (or malcontents) of a public-house at an improper hour; but when he spoke of his Reverence respecting ghostly matters, the importance of the subject begot higher consideration for the man, and the familiar “Father Phil” was dropped for the more respectful title of Father Blake. By either title, or in whatever capacity, the worthy Father had great influence over his parish, and there was a free-and-easy way with him, even in doing the most solemn duties, which agreed wonderfully with the devil-may-care spirit of Paddy. Stiff and starched formality in any way is repugnant to the very nature of Irishmen; and I believe one of the surest ways of converting all Ireland from the Romish faith would be found, if we could only manage to have her mass celebrated with the dry coldness of the Reformation. This may seem ridiculous at first sight, and I grant it is a grotesque way of viewing the subject, but yet there may be truth in it; and to consider it for a moment seriously, look at the fact, that the north of Ireland is the stronghold of Protestantism, and that the north is the least Irish portion of the island. There is a strong admixture of Scotch there, and all who know the country will admit that there is nearly as much difference between men from the north and south of Ireland as from different countries. The Northerns retain much of the cold formality and unbending hardness of the stranger-settlers from whom they are descended, while the Southerns exhibit that warm-hearted, lively, and poetical temperament for which the country is celebrated. The prevailing national characteristics of Ireland are not to be found in the north, where Protestantism flourishes; they are to be found in the south and west, where it has never taken root. And though it has never seemed to strike theologians, that in their very natures some people are more adapted to receive one faith than another, yet I believe it to be true, and perhaps not quite unworthy of consideration. There are forms, it is true, and many in the Romish church, but they are not cold forms, but attractive rather, to a sensitive people; besides, I believe those very forms, when observed the least formally, are the most influential on the Irish; and perhaps the splendours of a High Mass in the gorgeous temple of the Holy City would appeal less to the affections of an Irish peasant than the service he witnesses in some half-thatched ruin by a lone hillside, familiarly hurried through by a priest who has sharpened his appetite by a mountain ride of some fifteen miles, and is saying mass (for the third time most likely) before breakfast, which consummation of his morning's exercise he is anxious to arrive at.

It was just in such a chapel, and under such circumstances, that Father Blake was celebrating the mass at which Andy was present, and after which he hoped to obtain a word of advice from the worthy Father, who was much more sought after on such occasions than his more sedate superior who presided over the spiritual welfare of the parish—and whose solemn celebration of the mass was by no means so agreeable as the lighter service of Father Phil. The Rev. Dominick Dowling was austere and long-winded; his mass had an oppressive effect on his congregation, and from the kneeling multitude might be seen eyes fearfully looking up from under bent brows, and low breathings and subdued groans often rose above the silence of his congregation, who felt like sinners, and whose imaginations were filled with the thoughts of Heaven's anger; while the good-humoured face of the light-hearted Father Phil produced a corresponding brightness on the looks of his hearers, who turned up their whole faces in trustfulness to the mercy of that Heaven whose propitiatory offering their pastor was making for them in cheerful tones, which associated well with thoughts of pardon and salvation.

Father Dominick poured forth his spiritual influence like a strong dark stream that swept down the hearer—hopelessly struggling to keep his head above the torrent, and dreading to be overwhelmed at the next word. Father Phil's religion bubbled out like a mountain rill—bright, musical, and refreshing. Father Dominick's people had decidedly need of cork jackets; Father Phil's might drink and be refreshed.

But with all this intrinsic worth, he was, at the same time, a strange man in exterior manners; for, with an abundance of real piety, he had an abruptness of delivery and a strange way of mixing up an occasional remark to his congregation in the midst of the celebration of the mass, which might well startle a stranger; but this very want of formality made him beloved by the people, and they would do ten times as much for Father Phil as for Father Dominick.

On the Sunday in question, when Andy attended the chapel, Father Phil intended delivering an address to his flock from the altar, urging them to the necessity of bestirring themselves in the repairs of the chapel, which was in a very dilapidated condition, and at one end let in the rain through its worn-out thatch. A subscription was necessary; and to raise this among a very impoverished people was no easy matter. The weather happened to be unfavourable, which was most favourable to Father Phil's purpose, for the rain dropped its arguments through the roof upon the kneeling people below in the most convincing manner; and as they endeavoured to get out of the wet, they pressed round the altar as much as they could, for which they were reproved very smartly by his Reverence in the very midst of the mass, and these interruptions occurred sometimes in the most serious places, producing a ludicrous effect, of which the worthy Father was quite unconscious in his great anxiety to make the people repair the chapel.

A big woman was elbowing her way towards the rails of the altar, and Father Phil, casting a sidelong glance at her, sent her to the right-about, while he interrupted his appeal to Heaven to address her thus:—“Agnus Dei—you'd better jump over the rails of the althar, I think. Go along out o' that, there's plenty o' room in the chapel below there.”

Then he would turn to the altar, and proceed with the service, till turning again to the congregation he perceived some fresh offender.

“Orate, fratres!—will you mind what I say to you and go along out of that? there's room below there. Thrue for you, Mrs. Finn—it's a shame for him to be thramplin' on you. Go along, Darby Casy, down there, and kneel in the rain; it's a pity you haven't a dacent woman's cloak undher you indeed!—Orate, fratres!”

Then would the service proceed again, and while he prayed in silence at the altar, the shuffling of feet edging out of the rain would disturb him, and casting a backward glance, he would say—

“I hear you there—can't you be quiet and not be disturbin' the mass, you haythens?”

Again he proceeded in silence, till the crying of a child interrupted him. He looked round quickly.

“You'd better kill the child, I think, thramplin' on him, Lavery. Go out o' that—your conduct is scandalous—Dominus vobiscum!” Again he turned to pray, and after some time he made an interval in the service to address his congregation on the subject of the repairs, and produced a paper containing the names of subscribers to that pious work who had already contributed, by way of example to those who had not.

“Here it is,” said Father Phil, “here it is, and no denying it—down in black and white; but if they who give are down in black, how much blacker are those who have not given at all!—but I hope they will be ashamed of themselves when I howld up those to honour who have contributed to the uphowlding of the house of God. And isn't it ashamed o' yourselves you ought to be, to leave His house in such a condition—and doesn't it rain a'most every Sunday, as if He wished to remind you of your duty? aren't you wet to the skin a'most every Sunday? Oh, God is good to you! to put you in mind of your duty, giving you such bitther cowlds that you are coughing and sneezin' every Sunday to that degree that you can't hear the blessed mass for a comfort and a benefit to you; and so you'll go on sneezin' until you put a good thatch on the place, and prevent the appearance of the evidence from Heaven against you every Sunday, which is condemning you before your faces, and behind your backs too, for don't I see this minit a strame o' wather that might turn a mill running down Micky Mackavoy's back, between the collar of his coat and his shirt?”

Here a laugh ensued at the expense of Micky Mackavoy, who certainly was under a very heavy drip from the imperfect roof.

“And is it laughing you are, you haythens?” said Father Phil, reproving the merriment which he himself had purposely created, that he might reprove it. “Laughing is it you are—at your backslidings and insensibility to the honour of God—laughing, because when you come here to be saved you are lost intirely with the wet; and how, I ask you, are my words of comfort to enter your hearts, when the rain is pouring down your backs at the same time? Sure I have no chance of turning your hearts while you are undher rain that might turn a mill—but once put a good roof on the house, and I will inundate you with piety! Maybe it's Father Dominick you would like to have coming among you, who would grind your hearts to powdher with his heavy words.” (Here a low murmur of dissent ran through the throng.) “Ha! ha! so you wouldn't like it, I see. Very well, very well—take care then, for if I find you insensible to my moderate reproofs, you hard-hearted haythens—you malefacthors and cruel persecuthors, that won't put your hands in your pockets, because your mild and quiet poor fool of a pasthor has no tongue in his head!—I say your mild, quiet, poor fool of a pasthor (for I know my own faults, partly, God forgive me!), and I can't spake to you as you deserve, you hard-living vagabones, that are as insensible to your duties as you are to the weather. I wish it was sugar or salt you were made of, and then the rain might melt you if I couldn't: but no—them naked rafthers grin in your face to no purpose—you chate the house of God; but take care, maybe you won't chate the divil so aisy”—(here there was a sensation). “Ha! ha! that makes you open your ears, does it? More shame for you; you ought to despise that dirty enemy of man, and depend on something betther—but I see I must call you to a sense of your situation with the bottomless pit undher you, and no roof over you. Oh dear! dear! dear!—I'm ashamed of you—troth, if I had time and sthraw enough, I'd rather thatch the place myself than lose my time talking to you; sure the place is more like a stable than a chapel. Oh, think of that!—the house of God to be like a stable!—for though our Redeemer, in his humility, was born in a stable, that is no reason why you are to keep his house always like one.

“And now I will read you the list of subscribers, and it will make you ashamed when you hear the names of several good and worthy Protestants in the parish, and out of it, too, who have given more than the Catholics.”

He then proceeded to read the following list, which he interlarded copiously with observations of his own; making vivÃ¢ voce marginal notes as it were upon the subscribers, which were not unfrequently answered by the persons so noticed, from the body of the chapel, and laughter was often the consequence of these rejoinders, which Father Phil never permitted to pass without a retort. Nor must all this be considered in the least irreverent. A certain period is allowed between two particular portions of the mass, when the priest may address his congregation on any public matter: an approaching pattern, or fair, or the like; in which, exhortations to propriety of conduct, or warnings against faction fights, &c., are his themes. Then they only listen in reverence. But when a subscription for such an object as that already mentioned is under discussion, the flock consider themselves entitled to “put in a word” in case of necessity.

This preliminary hint is given to the reader, that he may better enter into the spirit of Father Phil's

SUBSCRIPTION LIST FOR THE REPAIRS AND ENLARGEMENT OF BALLY-SLOUGHGUTPHERY CHAPEL

Â£ s. d. PHILIP BLAKE, P.P.
Micky Hicky 0 7 6 “He might as well have made ten
shillings: but half a loaf is betther
than no bread.”
“Plase your reverence,” says
Mick, from the body of the chapel,
“sure seven and six-pence is more
than the half of ten shillings.”
(A laugh.)
“Oh! how witty you are. 'Faith,
if you knew your duty as well as
your arithmetic, it would be betther
for you, Micky.”
Here the Father turned the laugh
against Mick.
Â£ s. d.
Bill Riley 0 3 4 “Of course he means to subscribe
again.
Â£ s. d.
John Dwyer 0 15 0 “That's something like! I'll
be bound he's only keeping back
the odd five shillings for a brush
full o' paint for the althar; it's as
black as a crow, instead o' being as
white as a dove.”
He then hurried over rapidly some
small subscribers as follows:—
Peter Heffernan 0 1 8
James Murphy 0 2 6
Mat Donovan 0 1 3
Luke Dannely 0 3 0
Jack Quigly 0 2 1
Pat Finnegan 0 2 2
Edward O'Connor, Esq. 2 0 0 “There's for you! Edward
O'Connor, Esq., a Protestant in the
parish—Two pounds!”
“Long life to him,” cried a voice
in the chapel.
“Amen,” said Father Phil; “I'm
not ashamed to be clerk to so good
a prayer.
Nicholas Fagan 0 2 6
Young Nicholas Fagan 0 5 0 “Young Nick is better than owld
Nick, you see.”
The congregation honoured the
Father's demand on their risibility.
Â£ s. d.
Tim Doyle 0 7 6
Owny Doyl 1 0 0 “Well done, Owny na Coppal—you
deserve to prosper for you
make good use of your thrivings.
Â£ s. d.
Simon Leary 0 2 6
Bridget Murphy 0 10 0 “You ought to be ashamed o'
yourself, Simon: a lone widow
woman gives more than you.”
Simon answered, “I have a large
family, sir, and she has no childhre.”
“That's not her fault,” said the
priest—“and maybe she'll mend o'
that yet.” This excited much
merriment, for the widow was buxom,
and had recently buried an old
husband, and, by all accounts, was
cocking her cap at a handsome young
fellow in the parish.
Â£ s. d.
Judy Moylan 0 5 0 Very good, Judy; the women are
behaving like gentlemen; they'll
have their reward in the next world.
Pat Finnerty 0 3 4 “I'm not sure if it is 8s. 4d. or
3s. 4d., for the figure is blotted—
but I believe it is 8s. 4d.”
“It was three and four pince
I gave your reverence,” said Pat
from the crowd.
“Well, Pat, as I said eight and
four pence you must not let me go
back o' my word, so bring me five
shillings next week.”
“Sure you wouldn't have me pay
for a blot, sir?”
“Yes, I would—that's the rule
of back-mannon, you know, Pat.
When I hit the blot, you pay
for it.”
Here his reverence turned round,
as if looking for some one, and
called out, “Rafferty! Rafferty!
Rafferty! Where are you, Rafferty?”
An old grey-headed man appeared,
bearing a large plate, and Father
Phil continued—
“There now, be active—I'm
sending him among you, good people,
and such as cannot give as
much as you would like to be read
before your neighbours, give what
little you can towards the repairs,
and I will continue to read out the
names by way of encouragement to
you, and the next name I see is
that of Squire Egan. Long life to
him!
Â£ s. d.
Squire Egan 5 0 0 “Squire Egan—five pounds—
listen to that—five pounds—a
Protestant in the parish—five
pounds! 'Faith, the Protestants will
make you ashamed of yourselves, if
we don't take care.
Â£ s. d.
Mrs. Flanagan 2 0 0 “Not her own parish, either—a
kind lady.
Â£ s. d.
James Milligan
of Roundtown 1 0 0 “And here I must remark that
the people of Roundtown have not
been backward in coming forward
on this occasion. I have a long list
from Roundtown—I will read it
separate.” He then proceeded at a
great pace, jumbling the town and
the pounds and the people in a most
extraordinary manner: “James
Milligan of Roundtown, one pound;
Darby Daly of Roundtown, one
pound; Sam Finnigan of Roundtown,
one pound; James Casey of
Roundpound, one town; Kit Dwyer
of Townpound, one round—pound
I mane; Pat Roundpound—Pounden,
I mane—Pat Pounden a pound
of Poundtown also—there's an
example for you!—but what are you
about, Rafferty? I don't like the
sound of that plate of yours;—
you are not a good gleaner—go up
first into the gallery there, where I
see so many good-looking bonnets—I
suppose they will give something to
keep their bonnets out of the rain,
for the wet will be into the gallery
next Sunday if they don't. I think
that is Kitty Crow I see, getting her
bit of silver ready; them ribbons of
yours cost a trifle, Kitty. Well,
good Christians, here is more of the
subscription for you.
Â£ s. d.
Matthew Lavery 0 2 6 “He doesn't belong to
Roundtown—Roundtown will be renowned
in future ages for the support
of the Church. Mark my
words—Roundtown will prosper
from this day out—Roundtown
will be a rising place.
Mark Hennessy 0 2 6
Luke Clancy 0 2 6
John Doolin 0 2 6 “One would think they all agreed
only to give two and sixpence apiece.
And they comfortable men, too!
And look at their names—Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, the
names of the Blessed Evangelists,
and only ten shillings among them!
Oh, they are apostles not worthy of
the name—we'll call them the Poor
Apostles from this out” (here a
low laugh ran through the chapel)—
“Do you hear that, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John? 'Faith! I can tell
you that name will stick to you.'”
(Here the laugh was louder.)
A voice, when the laugh subsided,
exclaimed, “I'll make it ten
shillin's, your reverence.”
“Who's that?” said Father Phil.
“Hennessy, your reverence.”
“Very well, Mark. I suppose
Matthew, Luke, and John will follow
your example?”
“We will, your reverence.”
“Ah! I thought you made a mistake;
we'll call you now the Faithful
Apostles—and I think the change
in the name is better than seven
and sixpence apiece to you.
“I see you in the gallery there,
Rafferty. What do you pass that
well-dressed woman for?—thry back
—ha!—see that—she had her money
ready if you only asked for it—don't
go by that other woman
there—oh, oh!—So you won't give
anything, ma'am. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself. There is a
woman with an elegant sthraw bonnet,
and she won't give a farthing.
Well now—afther that—remember—I
give it from the althar, that
from this day out sthraw bonnets
pay fi'penny pieces.
Â£ s. d.
Thomas Durfy, Esq. 1 0 0 “It's not his parish and he's a
brave gentleman.
Â£ s. d.
Miss Fanny Dawson 1 0 0 “A Protestant out of the parish,
and a sweet young lady, God bless
her! Oh, 'faith, the Protestants is
shaming you!!!
Â£ s. d.
Dennis Fannin 0 7 6 “Very good, indeed, for a working
mason.”
Jemmy Riley 0 5 0 “Not bad for a hedge-carpenther.”

“I gave you ten, plaze, your reverence,” shouted Jemmy, “and by the same token, you may remember it was on the Nativity of the Blessed Vargin, sir, I gave you the second five shillin's.”

“So you did, Jemmy,” cried Father Phil—“I put a little cross before it, to remind me of it; but I was in a hurry to make a sick call when you gave it to me, and forgot it after: and indeed myself doesn't know what I did with that same five shillings.”

Here a pallid woman, who was kneeling near the rails of the altar, uttered an impassioned blessing, and exclaimed, “Oh, that was the very five shillings, I'm sure, you gave to me that very day, to buy some little comforts for my poor husband, who was dying in the fever!”—and the poor woman burst into loud sobs as she spoke.

A deep thrill of emotion ran through the flock as this accidental proof of their poor pastor's beneficence burst upon them; and as an affectionate murmur began to rise above the silence which that emotion produced, the burly Father Philip blushed like a girl at this publication of his charity, and even at the foot of that altar where he stood, felt something like shame in being discovered in the commission of that virtue so highly commended by the Holy One to whose worship the altar was raised. He uttered a hasty “Whisht—whisht!” and waved with his outstretched hands his flock into silence.

In an instant one of those sudden changes common to an Irish assembly, and scarcely credible to a stranger, took place. The multitude was hushed—the grotesque of the subscription list had passed away and was forgotten, and that same man and that same multitude stood in altered relations—they were again a reverent flock, and he once more a solemn pastor; the natural play of his nation's mirthful sarcasm was absorbed in a moment in the sacredness of his office; and with a solemnity befitting the highest occasion, he placed his hands together before his breast, and raising his eyes to Heaven he poured forth his sweet voice, with a tone of the deepest devotion, in that reverential call to prayer, “Orate, fratres.”

The sound of a multitude gently kneeling down followed, like the soft breaking of a quiet sea on a sandy beach; and when Father Philip turned to the altar to pray, his pent-up feelings found vent in tears; and while he prayed, he wept.

I believe such scenes as this are not of unfrequent occurrence in Ireland; that country so long-suffering, so much maligned, and so little understood.

Suppose the foregoing scene to have been only described antecedent to the woman in the outbreak of her gratitude revealing the priest's charity, from which he recoiled,—suppose the mirthfulness of the incidents arising from reading the subscription-list—a mirthfulness bordering on the ludicrous—to have been recorded, and nothing more, a stranger would be inclined to believe, and pardonable in the belief, that the Irish and their priesthood were rather prone to be irreverent; but observe, under this exterior, the deep sources of feeling that lie hidden and wait but the wand of divination to be revealed. In a thousand similar ways are the actions and the motives of the Irish understood by those who are careless of them; or worse, misrepresented by those whose interest, and too often business, it is to malign them.

Father Phil could proceed no further with the reading of the subscription-list, but finished the office of the mass with unusual solemnity. But if the incident just recorded abridged his address, and the publication of donors' names by way of stimulus to the less active, it produced a great effect on those who had but smaller donations to drop into the plate; and the grey-headed collector, who could have numbered the scanty coin before the bereaved widow had revealed the pastor's charity, had to struggle his way afterwards through the eagerly outstretched hands that showered their hard-earned pence upon the plate, which was borne back to the altar heaped with contributions, heaped as it had not been seen for many a day. The studied excitement of their pride and their shame—and both are active agents in the Irish nature—was less successful than the accidental appeal to their affections.

Oh! rulers of Ireland, why have you not sooner learned to lead that people by love, whom all your severity has been unable to drive? [Footnote: When this passage was written Ireland was disturbed (as she has too often been) by special parliamentary provocation:—the vexatious vigilance of legislative lynxes—the peevishness of paltry persecutors.]

When the mass was over, Andy waited at the door of the chapel to catch “his riverence” coming out, and obtain his advice about what he overheard from Larry Hogan; and Father Phil was accordingly accosted by Andy just as he was going to get into his saddle to ride over to breakfast with one of the neighbouring farmers, who was holding the priest's stirrup at the moment. The extreme urgency of Andy's manner, as he pressed up to the pastor's side, made the latter pause and inquire what he wanted. “I want to get some advice from your riverence,” said Andy.

“'Faith, then, the advice I give you is never to stop a hungry man when he is going to refresh himself,” said Father Phil, who had quite recovered his usual cheerfulness, and threw his leg over his little grey hack as he spoke. “How could you be so unreasonable as to expect me to stop here listening to your case, and giving you advice indeed, when I have said three masses [Footnote: The office of the mass must be performed fasting.] this morning, and rode three miles; how could you be so unreasonable, I say?”

“I ax your riverence's pardon,” said Andy; “I wouldn't have taken the liberty, only the thing is mighty particular intirely.”

“Well, I tell you again, never ask a hungry man advice; for he is likely to cut his advice on the patthern of his stomach, and it's empty advice you'll get. Did you never hear that a 'hungry stomach has no ears'?”

The farmer who was to have the honour of the priest's company to breakfast exhibited rather more impatience than the good-humoured Father Phil, and reproved Andy for his conduct.

“But it's so particular,” said Andy.

“I wondher you would dar' to stop his riverence, and he black fastin'. Go 'long wid you!”

“Come over to my house in the course of the week, and speak to me,” said Father Phil, riding away.

Andy still persevered, and taking advantage of the absence of the farmer, who was mounting his own nag at the moment, said the matter of which he wished to speak involved the interests of Squire Egan, or he would not “make so bowld.”

This altered the matter; and Father Phil desired Andy to follow him to the farm-house of John Dwyer, where he would speak to him after he had breakfasted.

CHAPTER XXIX

John Dwyer's house was a scene of activity that day, for not only was the priest to breakfast there—always an affair of honour—but a grand dinner was also preparing on a large scale; for a wedding-feast was to be held in the house, in honour of Matty Dwyer's nuptials, which were to be celebrated that day with a neighbouring young farmer, rather well to do in the world. The match had been on and off for some time, for John Dwyer was what is commonly called a “close-fisted fellow,” and his would-be son-in-law could not bring him to what he considered proper terms, and though Matty liked young Casey, and he was fond of her, they both agreed not to let old Jack Dwyer have the best of the bargain in portioning off his daughter, who, having a spice of her father in her, was just as fond of number one as old Jack himself. And here it is worthy of remark, that, though the Irish are so prone in general to early and improvident marriages, no people are closer in their nuptial barter, when they are in a condition to make marriage a profitable contract. Repeated meetings between the elders of families take place, and acute arguments ensue, properly to equalise the worldly goods to be given on both sides. Pots and pans are balanced against pails and churns, cows against horses, a slip of bog against a gravel-pit, or a patch of meadow against a bit of a quarry; a little lime-kiln sometimes burns stronger than the flame of Cupid—the doves of Venus herself are but crows in comparison with a good flock of geese—and a love-sick sigh less touching than the healthy grunt of a good pig; indeed, the last-named gentleman is a most useful agent in this traffic, for when matters are nearly poised, the balance is often adjusted by a grunter or two thrown into either scale. While matters are thus in a state of debate, quarrels sometimes occur between the lovers the gentleman's caution sometimes takes alarm, and more frequently the lady's pride is aroused at the too obvious preference given to worldly gain over heavenly beauty; Cupid shies at Mammon, and Hymen is upset and left in the mire.

I remember hearing of an instance of this nature, when the lady gave her ci-devant lover an ingenious reproof, after they had been separated some time, when a marriage-bargain was broken off, because the lover could not obtain from the girl's father a certain brown filly as part of her dowry. The damsel, after the lapse of some weeks, met her swain at a neighbouring fair, and the flame of love still smouldering in his heart was re-illumined by the sight of his charmer, who, on the contrary, had become quite disgusted with him for his too obvious preference of profit to true affection. He addressed her softly in a tent, and asked her to dance, but was most astonished at her returning him a look of vacant wonder, which tacitly implied, “Who are you?” as plain as looks could speak.

“Arrah, Mary,” exclaimed the youth.

“Sir!!!”—answered Mary, with what heroines call “ineffable disdain.”

“Why one would think you didn't know me!”

“If I ever had the honour of your acquaintance, sir,” answered Mary, “I forget you entirely.”

“Forget me, Mary?—arrah be aisy—is it forget the man that was courtin' and in love with you?”

“You're under a mistake, young man,” said Mary, with a curl of her rosy lip, which displayed the pearly teeth to whose beauty her woman's nature rejoiced that the recreant lover was not yet insensible—“You're under a mistake, young man,” and her heightened colour made her eye flash more brightly as she spoke—“you're quite under a mistake—no one was ever in love with me;” and she laid signal emphasis on the word. “There was a dirty mane blackguard, indeed, once in love with my father's brown filly, but I forget him intirely.”

Mary tossed her head proudly as she spoke, and her filly-fancying admirer, reeling under the reproof she inflicted, sneaked from the tent, while Mary stood up and danced with a more open-hearted lover, whose earnest eye could see more charms in one lovely woman than all the horses of Arabia.

But no such result as this was likely to take place in Matty Dwyer's case; she and her lover agreed with one another on the settlement to be made, and old Jack was not to be allowed an inch over what was considered an even bargain. At length all matters were agreed upon, the wedding-day fixed, and the guests invited; yet still both parties were not satisfied, but young Casey thought he should be put into absolute possession of a certain little farm and cottage, and have the lease looked over to see all was right (for Jack Dwyer was considered rather slippery), while old Jack thought it time enough to give him possession and the lease and his daughter altogether.

However, matters had gone so far that, as the reader has seen, the wedding-feast was prepared, the guests invited, and Father Phil on the spot to help James and Matty (in the facetious parlance of Paddy) to “tie with their tongues what they could not undo with their teeth.”

When the priest had done breakfast, the arrival of Andy was announced to him, and Andy was admitted to a private audience with Father Phil, the particulars of which must not be disclosed; for in short, Andy made a regular confession before the Father, and, we know, confessions must be held sacred; but we may say that Andy confided the whole post-office affair to the pastor—told him how Larry Hogan had contrived to worm that affair out of him, and by his devilish artifice had, as Andy feared, contrived to implicate Squire Egan in the transaction, and, by threatening a disclosure, got the worthy Squire into his villanous power. Andy, under the solemn queries of the priest, positively denied having said one word to Hogan to criminate the Squire, and that Hogan could only infer the Squire's guilt; upon which Father Phil, having perfectly satisfied himself, told Andy to make his mind easy, for that he would secure the Squire from any harm, and he moreover praised Andy for the fidelity he displayed to the interests of his old master, and declared he was so pleased with him, that he would desire Jack Dwyer to ask him to dinner. “And that will be no blind nut, let me tell you,” said Father Phil—“a wedding dinner, you lucky dog—'lashings [Footnote: Overflowing abundance, and plenty left after.] and lavings,' and no end of dancing afther!”

Andy was accordingly bidden to the bridal feast, to which the guests began already to gather thick and fast. They strolled about the field before the house, basked in groups in the sunshine, or lay in the shade under the hedges, where hints of future marriages were given to many a pretty girl, and to nudges and pinches were returned small screams suggestive of additional assault—and inviting denials of “Indeed I won't,” and that crowning provocative to riotous conduct, “Behave yourself.”

In the meantime, the barn was laid out with long planks, supported on barrels or big stones, which planks, when covered with clean cloths, made a goodly board, that soon began to be covered with ample wooden dishes of corned beef, roasted geese, boiled chickens and bacon, and intermediate stacks of cabbage and huge bowls of potatoes, all sending up their wreaths of smoke to the rafters of the barn, soon to become hotter from the crowd of guests, who, when the word was given, rushed to the onslaught with right good will.

The dinner was later than the hour named, and the delay arose from the absence of one who, of all others, ought to have been present, namely, the bridegroom. But James Casey was missing, and Jack Dwyer had been closeted from time to time with several long-headed greybeards, canvassing the occurrence, and wondering at the default on the bridegroom's part. The person who might have been supposed to bear this default the worst supported it better than any one. Matty was all life and spirits, and helped in making the feast ready, as if nothing wrong had happened; and she backed Father Phil's argument to sit down to dinner at once;—“that if James Casey was not there, that was no reason dinner should be spoiled, he'd be there soon enough; besides, if he didn't arrive in time, it was better he should have good meat cold, than everybody have hot meat spoiled: the ducks would be done to cindhers, the beef boiled to rags, and the chickens be all in jommethry.”

So down they sat to dinner: its heat, its mirth, its clatter, and its good cheer we will not attempt to describe; suffice it to say, the viands were good, the guests hungry, and the drink unexceptionable; and Father Phil, no bad judge of such matters, declared he never pronounced grace over a better spread. But still, in the midst of the good cheer, neighbours (the women particularly) would suggest to each other the “wondher” where the bridegroom could be; and even within ear-shot of the bride elect, the low-voiced whisper ran, of “Where in the world is James Casey?”

Still the bride kept up her smiles, and cheerfully returned the healths that were drunk to her; but old Jack was not unmoved; a cloud hung on his brow, which grew darker and darker as the hour advanced, and the bridegroom yet tarried. The board was cleared of the eatables, and the copious jugs of punch going their round; but the usual toast of the united healths of the happy pair could not be given, for one of them was absent. Father Phil hardly knew what to do; for even his overflowing cheerfulness began to forsake him, and a certain air of embarrassment began to pervade the whole assembly, till Jack Dwyer could bear it no longer, and, standing up, he thus addressed the company:—

“Friends and neighbours, you see the disgrace that's put on me and my child.”

A murmur of “No, no!” ran round the board.

“I say, yis.”

“He'll come yet, sir,” said a voice.

“No, he won't,” said Jack, “I see he won't—I know he won't. He wanted to have everything all his own way, and he thinks to disgrace me in doing what he likes, but he shan't”; and he struck the table fiercely as he spoke; for Jack, when once his blood was up, was a man of desperate determination. “He's a greedy chap, the same James Casey, and he loves his bargain betther than he loves you, Matty, so don't look glum about what I'm saying: I say he's greedy: he's just the fellow that, if you gave him the roof off your house, would ax you for the rails before your door; and he goes back of his bargain now, bekase I would not let him have it all his own way, and puts the disgrace on me, thinkin' I'll give in to him, through that same; but I won't. And I tell you what it is, friends and neighbours; here's the lease of the three-cornered field below there,” and he held up a parchment as he spoke, “and a snug cottage on it, and it's all ready for the girl to walk into with the man that will have her; and if there's a man among you here that's willing, let him say the word now, and I'll give her to him!”

The girl could not resist an exclamation of surprise, which her father hushed by a word and look so peremptory, that she saw remonstrance was in vain, and a silence of some moments ensued; for it was rather startling, this immediate offer of a girl who had been so strangely slighted, and the men were not quite prepared to make advances, until they knew something more of the why and wherefore of her sweetheart's desertion.

“Are yiz all dumb?” exclaimed Jack, in surprise. “Faix, it's not every day a snug little field and cottage and a good-looking girl falls in a man's way. I say again, I'll give her and the lase to the man that will say the word.”

Still no one spoke, and Andy began to think they were using Jack Dwyer and his daughter very ill, but what business had he to think of offering himself, “a poor devil like him”? But, the silence still continuing, Andy took heart of grace; and as the profit and pleasure of a snug match and a handsome wife flushed upon him, he got up and said, “Would I do, sir?”

Every one was taken by surprise, even old Jack himself; and Matty could not suppress a faint exclamation, which every one but Andy understood to mean “she didn't like it at all,” but which Andy interpreted quite the other way, and he grinned his loutish admiration of Matty, who turned away her head from him in sheer distaste, which action Andy took for mere coyness.

Jack was in a dilemma, for Andy was just the last man he would have chosen as a husband for his daughter; but what could he do? he was taken at his word, and even at the worst he was determined that some one should marry the girl out of hand, and show Casey the “disgrace should not be put on him”; but, anxious to have another chance, he stammered something about the fairness of “letting the girl choose,” and that “some one else might wish to spake”; but the end of all was, that no one rose to rival Andy, and Father Phil bore witness to the satisfaction he had that day in finding so much uprightness and fidelity in “the boy”; that he had raised his character much in his estimation by his conduct that day; and if he was a little giddy betimes, there was nothing like a wife to steady him; and if he was rather poor, sure Jack Dwyer could mend that.

“Then come up here,” says Jack; and Andy left his place at the very end of the board and marched up to the head, amidst clapping of hands and thumping of the table, and laughing and shouting.

“Silence!” cried Father Phil, “this is no laughing matther, but a serious engagement—and, John Dwyer, I tell you—and you Andy Rooney, that girl must not be married against her own free-will; but if she has no objection, well and good.”

“My will is her pleasure, I know,” said Jack, resolutely.

To the surprise of every one, Matty said, “Oh, I'll take the boy with all my heart!”

Handy Andy threw his arms round her neck and gave her a most vigorous salute which came smacking off, and thereupon arose a hilarious shout which made the old rafters of the barn ring again.

“There's the lase for you,” said Jack, handing the parchment to Andy, who was now installed in the place of honour beside the bride elect at the head of the table, and the punch circulated rapidly in filling to the double toast of health, happiness, and prosperity to the “happy pair”; and after some few more circuits of the enlivening liquor had been performed, the women retired to the dwelling-house, whose sanded parlour was put in immediate readiness for the celebration of the nuptial knot between Matty and the adventurous Andy.

In half an hour the ceremony was performed, and the rites and blessings of the Church dispensed between two people, who, an hour before, had never looked on each other with thoughts of matrimony.

Under such circumstances it was wonderful with what lightness of spirit Matty went through the honours consequent on a peasant bridal in Ireland: these, it is needless to detail; our limits would not permit; but suffice it to say, that a rattling country-dance was led off by Andy and Matty in the barn, intermediate jigs were indulged in by the “picked dancers” of the parish, while the country dancers were resting and making love (if making love can be called rest) in the corners, and that the pipers and punch-makers had quite enough to do until the night was far spent, and it was considered time for the bride and bridegroom to be escorted by a chosen party of friends to the little cottage which was to be their future home. The pipers stood at the threshold of Jack Dwyer, and his daughter departed from under the “roof-tree” to the tune of “Joy be with you”; and then the lilters, heading the body-guard of the bride, plied drone and chanter right merrily until she had entered her new home, thanked her old friends (who did all the established civilities, and cracked all the usual jokes attendant on the occasion); and Andy bolted the door of the snug cottage of which he had so suddenly become master, and placed a seat for the bride beside the fire, requesting “Miss Dwyer” to sit down—for Andy could not bring himself to call her “Matty” yet—and found himself in an awkward position in being “lord and master” of a girl he considered so far above him a few hours before; Matty sat quiet, and looked at the fire.

“It's very quare, isn't it?” says Andy with a grin, looking at her tenderly, and twiddling his thumbs.

“What's quare?” inquired Matty, very drily.

“The estate,” responded Andy.

“What estate?” asked Matty.

“Your estate and my estate,” said Andy.

“Sure you don't call the three-cornered field my father gave us an estate, you fool?” answered Matty.

“Oh no,” said Andy. “I mane the blessed and holy estate of matrimony the priest put us in possession of;” and Andy drew a stool near the heiress, on the strength of the hit he thought he had made.

“Sit at the other side of the fire,” said Matty, very coldly.

“Yes, miss,” responded Andy, very respectfully; and in shoving his seat backwards the legs of the stool caught in the earthen floor, and Andy tumbled heels over head.

Matty laughed while Andy was picking himself up with increased confusion at this mishap; for even amidst rustics there is nothing more humiliating than a lover placing himself in a ridiculous position at the moment he is doing his best to make himself agreeable.

“It is well your coat's not new,” said Matty, with a contemptuous look at Handy's weather-beaten vestment.

“I hope I'll soon have a betther,” said Andy, a little piqued, with all his reverence for the heiress, at this allusion to his poverty. “But sure it wasn't the coat you married, but the man that's in it; and sure I'll take off my clothes as soon as you please, Matty, my dear—Miss Dwyer, I mane—I beg your pardon.”

“You had better wait till you get better,” answered Matty, very drily. “You know the old saying, 'Don't throw out your dirty wather until you get in fresh.'”

“Ah, darlin', don't be cruel to me!” said Andy, in a supplicating tone. “I know I'm not desarvin' of you, but sure I did not make so bowld as to make up to you until I seen that nobody else would have you.”

“Nobody else have me!” exclaimed Matty, as her eyes flashed with anger.

“I beg your pardon, miss,” said poor Andy, who in the extremity of his own humility had committed such an offence against Matty's pride. “I only meant that—”

“Say no more about it,” said Matty, who recovered her equanimity. “Didn't my father give you the lase of the field and house?”

“Yis, miss.”

“You had better let me keep it then; 'twill be safer with me than you.”

“Sartainly,” said Andy, who drew the lease from his pocket and handed it to her, and—as he was near to her—he attempted a little familiarity, which Matty repelled very unequivocally.

“Arrah! is it jokes you are crackin'?” said Andy, with a grin, advancing to renew his fondling.

“I tell you what it is,” said Matty, jumping up, “I'll crack your head if you don't behave yourself!” and she seized the stool on which she had been sitting, and brandished it in a very amazonian fashion.

“Oh, wirra! wirra!” said Andy, in amaze—“aren't you my wife?”

“Your wife!” retorted Matty, with a very devil in her eye—“Your wife, indeed, you great omadhaun; why, then, had you the brass to think I'd put up with you?”

“Arrah, then, why did you marry me?” said Andy, in a pitiful argumentative whine.

“Why did I marry you?” retorted Matty—“Didn't I know betther than refuse you, when my father said the word when the divil was busy with him? Why did I marry you?—it's a pity I didn't refuse, and be murthered that night, maybe, as soon as the people's backs was turned. Oh, it's little you know of owld Jack Dwyer, or you wouldn't ask me that; but, though I'm afraid of him, I'm not afraid of you—so stand off I tell you.”

“Oh, Blessed Virgin!” cried Andy; “and what will be the end of it?”

There was a tapping at the door as he spoke.

“You'll soon see what will be the end of it,” said Matty, as she walked across the cabin and opened to the knock.

James Casey entered and clasped Matty in his arms; and half a dozen athletic fellows and one old and debauched-looking man followed, and the door was immediately closed after their entry.

Andy stood in amazement while Casey and Matty caressed each other; and the old man said in a voice tremulous with intoxication, “A very pretty filly, by jingo!”

“I lost no time the minute I got your message, Matty,” said Casey, “and here's the Father ready to join us.”

“Ay, ay,” cackled the old reprobate—“hammer and tongs!—strike while the iron's hot!—I'm the boy for a short job”; and he pulled a greasy book from his pocket as he spoke.

This was a degraded clergyman, known in Ireland under the title of “Couple-Beggar,” who is ready to perform irregular marriages on such urgent occasions as the present; and Matty had contrived to inform James Casey of the desperate turn affairs had taken at home, and recommended him to adopt the present plan, and so defeat the violent measure of her father by one still more so.

A scene of uproar now ensued, for Andy did not take matters quietly, but made a pretty considerable row, which was speedily quelled, however, by Casey's bodyguard, who tied Andy neck and heels, and in that helpless state he witnessed the marriage ceremony performed by the “couple-beggar,” between Casey and the girl he had looked upon as his own five minutes before.

In vain did he raise his voice against the proceeding; the “couple-beggar” smothered his objections in ribald jests.

“You can't take her from me, I tell you,” cried Andy.

“No; but we can take you from her,” said the “couple-beggar”; and, at the words, Casey's friends dragged Andy from the cottage, bidding a rollicking adieu to their triumphant companion, who bolted the door after them and became possessor of the wife and property poor Andy thought he had secured.

To guard against an immediate alarm being given, Andy was warned on pain of death to be silent as his captors bore him along, and he took them to be too much men of their word to doubt they would keep their promise. They bore him through a lonely by-lane for some time, and on arriving at the stump of an old tree, bound him securely to it, and left him to pass his wedding-night in the tight embraces of hemp.

CHAPTER XXX

The news of Andy's wedding, so strange in itself, and being celebrated before so many, spread over the country like wildfire, and made the talk of half the barony for the next day, and the question, “Arrah, did you hear of the wondherful wedding?” was asked in high-road and by-road,—and scarcely a boreen whose hedges had not borne witness to this startling matrimonial intelligence. The story, like all other stories, of course got twisted into various strange shapes, and fanciful exaggerations became grafted on the original stem, sufficiently grotesque in itself; and one of the versions set forth how old Jack Dwyer, the more to vex Casey, had given his daughter the greatest fortune that ever had been heard of in the country.

Now one of the open-eared people who had caught hold of the story by this end happened to meet Andy's mother, and, with a congratulatory grin, began with “The top o' the mornin' to you, Mrs. Rooney, and sure I wish you joy.”

“Och hone, and for why, dear?” answered Mrs. Rooney, “sure, it's nothin' but trouble and care I have, poor and in want, like me.”

“But sure you'll never be in want any more.”

“Arrah, who towld you so, agra?”

“Sure the boy will take care of you now, won't he?”

“What boy?”

“Andy, sure!”

“Andy!” replied his mother, in amazement. “Andy, indeed!—out o' place, and without a bawbee to bless himself with!—stayin' out all night, the blackguard!”

“By this and that, I don't think you know a word about it,” cried the friend, whose turn it was for wonder now.

“Don't I, indeed?” said Mrs. Rooney, huffed at having her word doubted, as she thought. “I tell you he never was at home last night, and maybe it's yourself was helping him, Micky Lavery, to keep his bad coorses—the slingein' dirty blackguard that he is.”

Micky Lavery set up a shout of laughter, which increased the ire of Mrs. Rooney, who would have passed on in dignified silence but that Micky held her fast, and when he recovered breath enough to speak, he proceeded to tell her about Andy's marriage, but in such a disjointed way, that it was some time before Mrs. Rooney could comprehend him—for his interjectional laughter at the capital joke it was, that she should be the last to know it, and that he should have the luck to tell it, sometimes broke the thread of his story—and then his collateral observations so disfigured the tale, that its incomprehensibility became very much increased, until at last Mrs. Rooney was driven to push him by direct questions.

“For the tendher mercy, Micky Lavery, make me sinsible, and don't disthract me—is the boy married?”

“Yis, I tell you.”

“To Jack Dwyer's daughter?”

“Yis.”

“And gev him a fort'n'?”

“Gev him half his property, I tell you, and he'll have all when the owld man's dead.”

“Oh, more power to you, Andy!” cried his mother in delight: “it's you that is the boy, and the best child that ever was! Half his property, you tell me, Misther Lavery?” added she, getting distant and polite the moment she found herself mother to a rich man, and curtailing her familiarity with a poor one like Lavery.

“Yes, ma'am,” said Lavery, touching his hat, “and the whole of it when the owld man dies.”

“Then indeed I wish him a happy relase!” [Footnote: A “happy release” is the Irish phrase for departing this life] said Mrs. Rooney, piously—“not that I owe the man any spite—but sure he'd be no loss—and it's a good wish to any one, sure, to wish them in heaven. Good mornin', Misther Lavery,” said Mrs. Rooney, with a patronising smile, and “going the road with a dignified air.”

Mick Lavery looked after her with mingled wonder and indignation. “Bad luck to you, you owld sthrap!” he muttered between his teeth. “How consaited you are, all of a sudden—by Jakers, I'm sorry I towld you—cock you up, indeed—put a beggar on horseback to be sure—humph!—the devil cut the tongue out o' me if ever I give any one good news again. I've a mind to turn back and tell Tim Dooling his horse is in the pound.”

Mrs. Rooney continued her dignified pace as long as she was in sight of Lavery, but the moment an angle of the road screened her from his observation, off she set, running as hard as she could, to embrace her darling Andy, and realise with her own eyes and ears all the good news she had heard. She puffed out by the way many set phrases about the goodness of Providence, and arranged at the same time sundry fine speeches to make to the bride; so that the old lady's piety and flattery ran a strange couple together along with herself; while mixed up with her prayers and her blarney, were certain speculations about Jack Dwyer—as to how long he could live—and how much he might leave.

It was in this frame of mind she reached the hill which commanded a view of the three-cornered field and the snug cottage, and down she rushed to embrace her darling Andy and his gentle bride. Puffing and blowing like a porpoise, bang she went into the cottage, and Matty being the first person she met, she flung herself upon her, and covered her with embraces and blessings.

Matty, being taken by surprise, was some time before she could shake off the old beldame's hateful caresses; but at last getting free and tucking up her hair, which her imaginary mother-in-law had clawed about her ears, she exclaimed in no very gentle tones—

“Arrah, good woman, who axed for your company—who are you at all?”

“Your mother-in-law, jewel!” cried the Widow Rooney, making another open-armed rush at her beloved daughter-in-law; but Matty received the widow's protruding mouth on her clenched fist instead of her lips, and the old woman's nose coming in for a share of Matty's knuckles, a ruby stream spurted forth, while all the colours of the rainbow danced before Mrs. Rooney's eyes as she reeled backward on the floor.

“Take that, you owld faggot!” cried Matty, as she shook Mrs. Rooney's tributary claret from the knuckles which had so scientifically tapped it, and wiped her hand in her apron.

The old woman roared “millia' murthur” on the floor, and snuffled out a deprecatory question “if that was the proper way to be received in her son's house.”

“Your son's house, indeed!” cried Matty. “Get out o' the place, you stack o' rags.”

“Oh, Andy! Andy!” cried the mother, gathering herself up.

“Oh—that's it, is it!” cried Matty; “so it's Andy you want?”

“To be sure: why wouldn't I want him, you hussy? My boy! my darlin'! my beauty!”

“Well, go look for him!” cried Matty, giving her a shove towards the door. “Well, now, do you think I'll be turned out of my son's house so quietly as that, you unnatural baggage?” cried Mrs. Rooney, facing round, fiercely. Upon which a bitter altercation ensued between the women; in the course of which the widow soon learnt that Andy was not the possessor of Matty's charms: whereupon the old woman, no longer having the fear of damaging her daughter-in-law's beauty before her eyes, tackled to for a fight in right earnest, in the course of which some reprisals were made by the widow in revenge for her broken nose; but Matty's youth and activity, joined to her Amazonian spirit, turned the tide in her favour, though, had not the old lady been blown by her long run, the victory would not have been so easy, for she was a tough customer, and left Matty certain marks of her favour that did not rub out in a hurry—while she took away (as a keepsake) a handful of Matty's hair, by which she had long held on till a successful kick from the gentle bride finally ejected Mrs. Rooney from the house.

Off she reeled, bleeding and roaring, and while on her approach she had been blessing Heaven and inventing sweet speeches for Matty, on her retreat she was cursing fate and heaping all sorts of hard names on the Amazon she came to flatter. Alas, for the brevity of human exultation!

How fared it in the meantime with Andy? He, poor devil! had passed a cold night, tied up to the old tree, and as the morning dawned, every object appeared to him through the dim light in a distorted form; the gaping hollow of the old trunk to which he was bound seemed like a huge mouth, opening to swallow him, while the old knots looked like eyes, and the gnarled branches like claws, staring at and ready to tear him in pieces.

A raven, perched above him on a lonely branch, croaked dismally, till Andy fancied he could hear words of reproach in the sounds, while a little tomtit chattered and twittered on a neighbouring bough, as if he enjoyed and approved of all the severe things the raven uttered. The little tomtit was the worst of the two, just as the solemn reproof of the wise can be better borne than the impertinent remark of some chattering fool. To these imaginary evils was added the reality of some enormous water-rats that issued from an adjacent pool and began to eat Andy's hat and shoes, which had fallen off in his struggle with his captors; and all Andy's warning ejaculations could not make the vermin abstain from his shoes and his hat, which, to judge from their eager eating, could not stay their stomachs long, so that Andy, as he looked on at the rapid demolition, began to dread that they might transfer their favours from his attire to himself, until the tramp of approaching horses relieved his anxiety, and in a few minutes two horsemen stood before him—they were Father Phil and Squire Egan.

Great was the surprise of the Father to see the fellow he had married the night before, and whom he supposed to be in the enjoyment of his honeymoon, tied up to a tree and looking more dead than alive; and his indignation knew no bounds when he heard that a “couple-beggar” had dared to celebrate the marriage ceremony, which fact came out in the course of the explanation Andy made of the desperate misadventure which had befallen him; but all other grievances gave way in the eyes of Father Phil to the “couple-beggar.”

“A 'couple-beggar'!—the audacious vagabones!” he cried, while he and the Squire were engaged in loosing Andy's bonds. “A 'couple-beggar' in my parish! How fast they have tied him up, Squire!” he added, as he endeavoured to undo a knot. “A 'couple-beggar,' indeed! I'll undo the marriage!—have you a knife about you, Squire?—the blessed and holy tie of matrimony!—it's a black knot, bad luck to it, and must be cut—take your leg out o' that now—and wait till I lay my hands on them—a 'couple-beggar' indeed!”

“A desperate outrage this whole affair has been!” said the Squire.

“But a 'couple-beggar,' Squire.”

“His house broken into—”

“But a 'couple-beggar'—”

“His wife taken from him—”

“But a 'couple-beggar'—”

“The laws violated—”

“But my dues, Squire—think o' that!—what would become o' them, if 'couple-beggars' is allowed to show their audacious faces in the parish. Oh, wait till next Sunday, that's all—I'll have them up before the althar, and I'll make them beg God's pardon, and my pardon, and the congregation's pardon, the audacious pair!” [Footnote: A man and woman who had been united by a “couple-beggar” were called up one Sunday by the priest in the face of the congregation, and summoned, as Father Phil threatens above, to beg God's pardon, and the priest's pardon, and the congregation's pardon; but the woman stoutly refused the last condition. “I'll beg God's pardon and your Reverence's pardon,” she said, “but I won't beg the congregation's pardon.” “You won't?” says the priest. “I won't,” says she. “Oh you conthrairy baggage,” cried his Reverence: “take her home out o' that,” said he to her husband who HAD humbled himself—“take her home, and leather her well—for she wants it; and if you don't leather her, you'll be sorry—for if you don't make her afraid of you, she'll master YOU, too—take her home and leather her.”—FACT.]

“It's an assault on Andy,” said the Squire.

“It's a robbery on me,” said Father Phil.

“Could you identify the men?” said the Squire.

“Do you know the 'couple-beggar'?” said the priest.

“Did James Casey lay his hands on you?” said the Squire; “for he's a good man to have a warrant against.”

“Oh, Squire, Squire!” ejaculated Father Phil; “talking of laying hands on him is it you are?—didn't that blackguard 'couple-beggar' lay his dirty hands on a woman that my bran new benediction was upon! Sure, they'd do anything after that!” By this time Andy was free, and having received the Squire's directions to follow him to Merryvale, Father Phil and the worthy Squire were once more in their saddles and proceeded quietly to the same place, the Squire silently considering the audacity of the coup-de-main which robbed Andy of his wife, and his reverence puffing out his rosy cheeks and muttering sundry angry sentences, the only intelligible words of which were “couple-beggar.”

CHAPTER XXXI

Doubtless the reader has anticipated that the presence of Father Phil in the company of the Squire at this immediate time was on account of the communication made by Andy about the post-office affair. Father Phil had determined to give the Squire freedom from the strategetic coil in which Larry Hogan had ensnared him, and lost no time in setting about it; and it was on his intended visit to Merryvale that he met its hospitable owner, and telling him there was a matter of some private importance he wished to communicate, suggested a quiet ride together; and this it was which led to their traversing the lonely little lane where they discovered Andy, whose name was so principal in the revelations of that day.

To the Squire those revelations were of the dearest importance; for they relieved his mind from a weight which had been oppressing it for some time, and set his heart at rest. Egan, it must be remarked, was an odd mixture of courage and cowardice: undaunted by personal danger, but strangely timorous where moral courage was required. A remarkable shyness, too, made him hesitate constantly in the utterance of a word which might explain away any difficulty in which he chanced to find himself; and this helped to keep his tongue tied in the matter where Larry Hogan had continued to make himself a bugbear. He had a horror, too, of being thought capable of doing a dishonourable thing, and the shame he felt at having peeped into a letter was so stinging, that the idea of asking any one's advice in the dilemma in which he was placed made him recoil from the thought of such aid. Now, Father Phil had relieved him from the difficulties his own weakness imposed; the subject had been forced upon him; and once forced to speak he made a full acknowledgment of all that had taken place; and when he found Andy had not borne witness against him, and that Larry Hogan only inferred his participation in the transaction, he saw on Father Phil's showing that he was not really in Larry Hogan's power; for though he admitted he had given Larry a trifle of money from time to time when Larry asked for it, under the influence of certain innuendoes, yet that was no proof against him; and Father Phil's advice was to get Andy out of the way as soon as possible, and then to set Larry quietly at defiance—that is to say, in Father Phil's own words, “to keep never minding him.”

Now Andy not being encumbered with a wife (as fate had so ordained it) made the matter easier, and the Squire and the Father, as they rode towards Merryvale together to dinner, agreed to pack off Andy without delay, and thus place him beyond Hogan's power; and as Dick Dawson was going to London with Murphy, to push the petition against Scatterbrain's return, it was looked upon as a lucky chance, and Andy was at once named to bear them company.

“But you must not let Hogan know that Andy is sent away under your patronage, Squire,” said the Father, “for that would be presumptive evidence you had an interest in his absence; and Hogan is the very blackguard would see it fast enough, for he is a knowing rascal.”

“He's the deepest scoundrel I ever met,” said the Squire.

“As knowing as a jailer,” said Father Phil. “A jailer, did I say—by dad, he bates any jailer I ever heard of—for that fellow is so 'cute, he could keep Newgate with a book and eye.”

“By-the-bye, there's one thing I forgot to tell you, respecting those letters I threw into the fire; for remember, Father, I only peeped into one and destroyed the others; but one of the letters, I must tell you, was directed to yourself.”

“'Faith, then, I forgive you that, Squire,” said Father Phil, “for I hate letters; but if you have any scruple of conscience on the subject, write me one yourself, and that will do as well.”

The Squire could not help thinking the Father's mode of settling the difficulty worthy of Handy Andy himself; but he did not tell the Father so.

They had now reached Merryvale, where the good-humoured priest was heartily welcomed, and where Doctor Growling, Dick Dawson, and Murphy were also guests at dinner. Great was the delight of the party at the history they heard, when the cloth was drawn, of Andy's wedding, so much in keeping with his former life and adventures, and Father Phil had another opportunity of venting his rage against the “couple-beggar.”

“That was but a slip-knot you tied, Father,” said the doctor.

“Aye, aye! joke away, doctor.”

“Do you think, Father Phil,” said Murphy, “that that marriage was made in heaven, where we are told marriages are made?”

“I don't suppose it was, Mr. Murphy; for if it had it would have held upon earth.”

“Very well answered, Father,” said the Squire.

“I don't know what other people think about matches being made in heaven,” said Growling, “but I have my suspicions they are sometimes made in another place.”

“Oh, fie, doctor!” said Mrs. Egan.

“The doctor, ma'am, is an old bachelor,” said Father Phil, “or he wouldn't say so.”

“Thank you, Father Phil, for so polite a speech.”

The doctor took his pencil from his pocket and began to write on a small bit of paper, which the priest observing, asked him what he was about, “or is it writing a prescription you are,” said he, “for compounding better marriages than I can?”

“Something very naughty, I dare say, the doctor is doing,” said Fanny Dawson.

“Judge for yourself, lady fair,” said the doctor, handing Fanny the slip of paper.

Fanny looked at it for a moment and smiled, but declared it was very wicked indeed.

“Then read it for the company, and condemn me out of your own pretty mouth, Miss Dawson,” said the doctor.

“It is too wicked.”

“If it is ever so wicked,” said Father Phil, “the wickedness will be neutralised by being read by an angel.”

“Well done, St. Omer's,” cried Murphy.

“Really, Father,” said Fanny, blushing, “you are desperately gallant to-day, and just to shame you, and show how little of an angel I am, I will read the doctor's epigram:—

'Though matches are all made in heaven, they say,
Yet Hymen, who mischief oft hatches,
Sometimes deals with the house t'other side of the way,
And there they make Lucifer matches.'”

“Oh, doctor! I'm afraid you are a woman-hater,” said Mrs. Egan. “Come away, Fanny, I am sure they want to get rid of us.”

“Yes,” said Fanny, rising and joining her sister, who was leaving the room, “and now, after abusing poor Hymen, gentlemen, we leave you to your favourite worship of Bacchus.”

The departure of the ladies changed the conversation, and after the gentlemen had resumed their seats, the doctor asked Dick Dawson how soon he intended going to London.

“I start immediately,” said Dick. “Don't forget to give me that letter of introduction to your friend in Dublin, whom I long to know.”

“Who is he?” asked the Squire.

“One Tom Loftus—or, as his friends call him, 'Piping Tom,' from his vocal powers; or, as some nickname him, 'Organ Loftus,' from his imitation of that instrument, which is an excessively comical piece of caricature.”

“Oh! I know him well,” said Father Phil.

“How did you manage to become acquainted with him?” inquired the doctor, “for I did not think he lay much in your way.”

“It was he became acquainted with me,” said Father Phil, “and this was the way of it—he was down on a visit betimes in the parish I was in before this, and his behaviour was so wild that I was obliged to make an allusion in the chapel to his indiscretions, and threaten to make his conduct a subject of severe public censure if he did not mind his manners a little better. Well, my dear, who should call on me on the Monday morning after but Misther Tom, all smiles and graces, and protesting he was sorry he fell under my displeasure, and hoping I would never have cause to find fault with him again. Sure, I thought he was repenting of his misdeeds, and I said I was glad to hear such good words from him. 'A' then, Father,' says he, 'I hear you have got a great curiosity from Dublin—a shower-bath, I hear?' So I said I had: and indeed, to be candid, I was as proud as a peacock of the same bath, which tickled my fancy when I was once in town, and so I bought it. 'Would you show it to me?' says he. 'To be sure,' says I, and off I went, like a fool, and put the wather on the top, and showed him how, when a string was pulled, down it came—and he pretended not clearly to understand the thing, and at last he said, 'Sure it's not into that sentry-box you get?' says he. 'Oh yes,' said I, getting into it quite innocent; when, my dear, he slaps the door and fastens it on me, and pulls the string and souses me with the water, and I with my best suit of black on me. I roared and shouted inside while Misther Tom Loftus was screechin' laughing outside, and dancing round the room with delight. At last, when he could speak, he said, 'Now, Father, we're even,' says he, 'for the abuse you gave me yesterday,' and off he ran.”

“That's just like him,” said old Growling, chuckling; “he's a queer devil. I remember on one occasion a poor dandy puppy, who was in the same office with him—for Tom is in the Ordnance department, you must know—this puppy, sir, wanted to go to the Ashbourne races and cut a figure in the eyes of a rich grocer's daughter he was sweet upon.”

“Being sweet upon a grocer's daughter,” said Murphy, “is like bringing coals to Newcastle.”

“'Faith! it was coals to Newcastle with a vengeance, in the present case, for the girl would have nothing to say to him, and Tom had great delight whenever he could annoy this poor fool in his love-making plots. So, when he came to Tom to ask for the loan of his horse, Tom said he should have him if he could make the smallest use of him—'but I don't think you can,' said Tom. 'Leave that to me,' said the youth. 'I don't think you could make him go,' said Tom. 'I'll buy a new pair of spurs,' said the puppy. 'Let them be handsome ones,' said Tom. 'I was looking at a very handsome pair at Lamprey's, yesterday,' said the young gentleman. 'Then you can buy them on your way to my stables,' said Tom; and sure enough, sir, the youth laid out his money on a very costly pair of persuaders, and then proceeded homewards with Tom. 'Now, with all your spurs,' said Tom, 'I don't think you'll be able to make him go.' 'Is he so very vicious, then?' inquired the youth, who began to think of his neck. 'On the contrary,' said Tom, 'he's perfectly quiet, but won't go for you, I'll bet a pound.' 'Done!' said the youth. 'Well, try him,' said Tom, as he threw open the stable door. 'He's lazy, I see,' said the youth; 'for he's lying down.' 'Faith, he is,' said Tom, 'and hasn't got up these two days!' 'Get up, you brute!' said the innocent youth, giving a smart cut of his whip on the horse's flank; but the horse did not budge. 'Why, he's dead!' says he. 'Yes,' says Tom, 'since Monday last. So I don't think you can make him go, and you've lost your bet!'”

“That was hardly a fair joke,” said the Squire.

“Tom never stops to think of that,” returned the doctor; “he's the oddest fellow I ever knew. The last time I was in Dublin, I called on Tom and found him one bitter cold and stormy morning standing at an open window, nearly quite undressed. On asking him what he was about, he said he was getting up a bass voice; that Mrs. Somebody, who gave good dinners and bad concerts, was disappointed of her bass singer, 'and I think,' said Tom, 'I'll be hoarse enough in the evening to take double B flat. Systems are the fashion now,' said he; 'there is the Logierian system and other systems, and mine is the Cold-air-ian system, and the best in the world for getting up a bass voice.'”

“That was very original certainly,” said the Squire.

“But did you ever hear of his adventure with the Duke of Wellington?” said the doctor.

“The Duke!” they all exclaimed.

“Yes—that is, when he was only Sir Arthur Wellesley. Well, I'll tell you.”

“Stop,” said the Squire, “a fresh story requires a fresh bottle. Let me ring for some claret.”

CHAPTER XXXII

The servant who brought in the claret announced at the same time the arrival of a fresh guest in the person of “Captain Moriarty,” who was welcomed by most of the party by the name of Randal. The Squire regretted he was too late for dinner, inquiring at the same time if he would like to have something to eat at the side-table; but Randal declined the offer, assuring the Squire he had got some refreshment during the day while he had been out shooting; but as the sport led, him near Merryvale, and “he had a great thirst upon him,” he did not know a better house in the country wherein to have “that same” satisfied.

“Then you're just in time for some cool claret,” said the Squire; “so sit down beside the doctor, for he must have the first glass and broach the bottle, before he broaches the story he's going to tell us—that's only fair.”

The doctor filled his glass, and tasted. “What a nice 'chateau,' 'Margaux'' must be,” said he, as he laid down his glass. “I should like to be a tenant-at-will there, at a small rent.”

“And no taxes,” said Dick.

“Except my duty to the claret,” replied the doctor.

'My favourite chateau,
Is that of Margaux.'

“By-the-bye, talking of chateau, there's the big brewer over at the town, who is anxious to affect gentility, and he heard some one use the word chapeau, and having found out it was the French for hat, he determined to show off on the earliest possible occasion, and selected a public meeting of some sort to display his accomplishment. Taking some cause of objection to the proceedings, as an excuse for leaving the meeting, he said, 'Gentlemen, the fact is I can't agree with you, so I may as well take my chateau under my arm at once, and walk.'”

“Is not that an invention of your own, doctor?” said the Squire.

“I heard it for fact,” said Growling.

“And 't is true,” added Murphy, “for I was present when he said it. And at an earlier part of the proceedings he suggested that the parish clerk should read the resolutions, because he had a good 'laudable voice.'”

“A parish clerk ought to have,” said the doctor—“eh, Father Phil?—'Laudamus!'”

“Leave your Latin,” said Dick, “and tell us that story you promised about the Duke and Tom Loftus.”

“Right, Misther Dick,” said Father Phil.

“The story, doctor,” said the Squire.

“Oh, don't make such bones about it,” said Growling; “'tis but a trifle after all; only it shows you what a queer and reckless rascal Tom is. I told you he was called 'Organ' Loftus by his friends, in consequence of the imitation he makes of that instrument; and it certainly is worth hearing and seeing, for your eyes have as much to do with the affair as your ears. Tom plants himself on a high office-stool, before one of those lofty desks with long rows of drawers down each side and a hole between to put your legs under. Well, sir, Tom pulls out the top drawers, like the stops of an organ, and the lower ones by way of pedals: and then he begins thrashing the desk like the finger-board of an organ with his hands, while his feet kick away at the lower drawers as if he were the greatest pedal performer out of Germany, and he emits a rapid succession of grunts and squeaks, producing a ludicrous reminiscence of the instrument, which I defy any one to hear without laughing. Several sows and an indefinite number of sucking pigs could not make a greater noise, and Tom himself declares he studied the instrument in a pigsty, which he maintains gave the first notion of an organ. Well, sir, the youths in the office assist in 'doing the service,' as they call it, that is, making an imitation of the chanting and so forth in St. Patrick's Cathedral.”

“Oh, the haythens!” said Father Phil.

“One does Spray, and another Weyman, and another Sir John Stevenson, and so on; and they go on responsing and singing 'Amen' till the Ordnance Office rings again.”

“Have they nothing better to do?” asked the Squire.

“Very little but reading the papers,” said the doctor.

“Well—Tom—you must know, sir—was transferred some time ago, by the interest of many influential friends, to the London department; and the fame of his musical powers had gone before him from some of the English clerks in Ireland who had been advanced to the higher posts in Dublin, and kept up correspondence with their old friends in London; and it was not long until Tom was requested to go through an anthem on the great office-desk. Tom was only too glad to be asked, and he kept the whole office in a roar for an hour with all the varieties of the instrument—from the diapason to the flute-stop—and the devil a more business was done in the office that day, and Tom before long made the sober English fellows as great idlers as the chaps in Dublin. Well—it was not long until a sudden flush of business came upon the department, in consequence of the urgent preparations making for supplies to Spain, at the time the Duke was going there to take the command of the army, and organ-playing was set aside for some days; but the fellows, after a week's abstinence, began to yearn for it and Tom was requested to 'do the service.' Tom, nothing loath, threw aside his official papers, set up a big ledger before him, and commenced his legerdemain, as he called it, pulled out his stops, and began to work away like a weaver, while every now and then he swore at the bellows-blower for not giving him wind enough, whereupon the choristers would kick the bellows-blower to accelerate his flatulency. Well, sir, they were in the middle of the service, and all the blackguards making the responses in due season, when, just as Tom was quivering under a portentous grunt, which might have shamed the principal diapason of Harlaem, and the subs were drawing out a resplendent 'A-a-a-men,' the door opened, and in walked a smart-looking gentleman, with rather a large nose and quick eye, which latter glanced round the office, where a sudden endeavour was made by everybody to get back to his place. The smart gentleman seemed rather surprised to see a little fat man blowing at a desk instead of the fire, and long Tom kicking, grunting, and squealing like mad. The bellows-blower was so taken by surprise he couldn't stir, and Tom, having his back to them, did not see what had taken place, and went on as if nothing had happened, till the smart gentleman went up to him, and tapping on Tom's desk with a little riding-whip, he said, 'I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but I wish to know what you're about.' 'We're doing the service, sir,' said Tom, no ways abashed at the sight of the stranger, for he did not know it was Sir Arthur Wellesley was talking to him. 'Not the public service, sir,' said Sir Arthur. 'Yes, sir,' said Tom, 'the service as by law established in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth,' and he favoured the future hero of Waterloo with a touch of the organ. 'Who is the head of this office?' inquired Sir Arthur. Tom, with a very gracious bow, replied, 'I am principal organist, sir, and allow me to introduce you to the principal bellows-blower'—and he pointed to the poor little man who let the bellows fall from his hand as Sir Arthur fixed his eyes on him. Tom did not perceive till now that all the clerks were taken with a sudden fit of industry, and were writing away for the bare life; and he cast a look of surprise round the office while Sir Arthur was looking at the bellows-blower. One of the clerks made a wry face at Tom, which showed him all was not right. 'Is this the way His Majesty's service generally goes on here?' said Sir Arthur, sharply. No one answered; but Tom saw, by the long faces of the clerks and the short question of the visitor, that he was somebody.

“'Some transports are waiting for ordnance stores, and I am referred to this office,' said Sir Arthur; 'can any one give me a satisfactory answer?'

“The senior clerk present (for the head of the office was absent) came forward and said, 'I believe, sir——'

“'You believe, but you don't know,' said Sir Arthur; 'so I must wait for stores while you are playing tomfoolery here. I'll report this.' Then producing a little tablet and a pencil, he turned to Tom and said, 'Favour me with your name, sir?'

“'I give you my honour, sir,' said Tom.

“'I'd rather you'd give me the stores, sir,—I'll trouble you for your name?'

“'Upon my honour, sir,' said Tom, again.

“'You seem to have a great deal of that article on your hands, sir,' said Sir Arthur: 'you're an Irishman, I suppose?'

“'Yes, sir,' said Tom.

“'I thought so. Your name?'

“'Loftus, sir.'

“'Ely family?'

“'No, sir.'

“'Glad of it.'

“He put up his tablet after writing the name.

“'May I beg the favour to know, sir,' said Tom, 'to whom I have the honour of addressing myself?' “'Sir Arthur Wellesley, sir.'

“'Oh! J—-s!' cried Tom, 'I'm done!'

“Sir Arthur could not help laughing at the extraordinary change in Tom's countenance; and Tom, taking advantage of this relaxation in his iron manner, said in a most penitent tone, 'Oh, Sir Arthur Wellesley, only forgive me this time, and 'pon my sowl says he—with the richest brogue—'I'll play a Te Deum for the first licking you give the French.' Sir Arthur smiled and left the office.”

“Did he report as he threatened?” asked the Squire.

“'Faith, he did.”

“And Tom?” inquired Dick.

“Was sent back to Ireland, sir.”

“That was hard, after the Duke smiled at him,” said Murphy.

“Well, he did not let him suffer in pocket; he was transferred at as a good a salary to a less important department, but you know the Duke has been celebrated all his life for never overlooking a breach of duty.”

“And who can blame him?” said Moriarty.

“One great advantage of the practice has been,” said the Squire, “that no man has been better served. I remember hearing a striking instance of what, perhaps, might be called severe justice, which he exercised on a young and distinguished officer of artillery in Spain; and though one cannot help pitying the case of the gallant young fellow who was the sacrifice, yet the question of strict duty, to the very word, was set at rest for ever under the Duke's command, and it saved much after-trouble by making every officer satisfied, however fiery his courage or tender his sense of being suspected of the white feather, that implicit obedience was the course he must pursue. The case was this:—the army was going into action——” “What action was it?” inquired Father Phil, with that remarkable alacrity which men of peace evince in hearing the fullest particulars about war, perhaps because it is forbidden to their cloth; one of the many instances of things acquiring a fictitious value by being interdicted—just as Father Phil himself might have been a Protestant only for the penal laws.

“I don't know what action it was,” said the Squire, “nor the officer's name—for I don't set up for a military chronicler; but it was, as I have been telling you, going into action that the Duke posted an officer, with his six guns, at a certain point, telling him to remain there until he had orders from him. Away went the rest of the army, and the officer was left doing nothing at all, which he didn't like; for he was one of those high-blooded gentlemen who are never so happy as when they are making other people miserable, and he was longing for the head of a French column to be hammering away at. In half an hour or so he heard the distant sound of action, and it approached nearer and nearer, until he heard it close behind him; and he wondered rather that he was not invited to take a share in it, when, pat to his thought, up came an aide-de-camp at full speed, telling him that General Somebody ordered him to bring up his guns. The officer asked did not the order come from Lord Wellington? The aide-de-camp said no, but from the General, whoever he was. The officer explained that he was placed there by Lord Wellington, under command not to move, unless by an order from himself. The aide-de-camp stated that the General's entire brigade was being driven in and must be annihilated without the aid of the guns, and asked, 'would he let a whole brigade be slaughtered?' in a tone which wounded the young soldier's pride, savouring, as he thought it did, of an imputation on his courage. He immediately ordered his guns to move and joined battle with the General; but while he was away, an aide-de-camp from Lord Wellington rode up to where the guns had been posted, and, of course, no gun was to be had for the service which Lord Wellington required. Well, the French were repulsed, as it happened; but the want of those six guns seriously marred a preconcerted movement of the Duke's, and the officer in command of them was immediately brought to a court-martial, and would have lost his commission but for the universal interest made in his favour by the general officers in consideration of his former meritorious conduct and distinguished gallantry, and under the peculiar circumstances of the case. They did not break him, but he was suspended, and Lord Wellington sent him home to England. Almost every general officer in the army endeavoured to get his sentence revoked, lamenting the fate of a gallant fellow being sent away for a slight error in judgment while the army was in hot action but Lord Wellington was inexorable saying he must make an example to secure himself in the perfect obedience of officers to their orders; and it had the effect.”

“Well, that's what I call hard!” said Dick.

“My dear Dick,” said the Squire, “war is altogether a hard thing, and a man has no business to be a General who isn't as hard as his own round shot.”

“And what became of the dear young man?” said Father Phil, who seemed much touched by the readiness with which the dear young man set off to mow down the French.

“I can tell you,” said Moriarty, “for I served with him afterwards in the Peninsula. He was let back after a year or so, and became so thorough a disciplinarian, that he swore, when once he was at his post 'They might kill his father before his face and he wouldn't budge until he had orders.'”

“A most Christian resolution,” said the doctor.

“Well, I can tell you,” said Moriarty, “of a Frenchman, who made a greater breach of discipline, and it was treated more leniently. I heard the story from the man's own lips, and if I could only give you his voice and gesture and manner it would amuse you. What fellows those Frenchmen are, to be sure, for telling a story! they make a shrug or a wink have twenty different meanings, and their claws are most eloquent—one might say they talk on their fingers—and their broken English, I think, helps them.”

“Then give the story, Randal, in his manner,” said Dick. “I have heard you imitate a Frenchman capitally.”

“Well, here goes,” said Moriarty “but let me wet my whistle with a glass of claret before I begin—a French story should have French wine.” Randal tossed off one glass, and filled a second by way of reserve, and then began the French officer's story.

“You see, sare, it vos ven in Espagne de bivouac vos vairy ard indeet 'pon us, vor we coot naut get into de town at all, nevair, becos you dam Ingelish keep all de town to yoursefs—vor we fall back at dat time becos we get not support—no corps de reserve, you perceive—so ve mek retrograde movement—not retreat—no, no—but retrograde movement. Vell—von night I was wit my picket guart, and it was raining like de devil, and de vind vos vinding up de valley, so cold as noting at all, and de dark vos vot you could not see—no—not your nose bevore your face. Vell, I hear de tramp of horse, and I look into de dark—for ve vere vairy moche on the qui vive, because ve expec de Ingelish to attaque de next day—but I see noting; but de tramp of horse come closer and closer, and at last I ask, 'Who is dere?' and de tramp of de horse stop. I run forward, and den I see Ingelish offisair of cavallerie. I address him, and tell him he is in our lines, but I do not vant to mek him prisonair—for you must know dat he vos prisonair, if I like, ven he vos vithin our line. He is very polite—he says, 'Bien obligÃ©—bon enfant;' and we tek off our hat to each ozer. 'I aff lost my roat,' he say; and I say, 'Yais'—bote I vill put him into his roat, and so I ask for a moment pardon, and go back to my caporal, and tell him to be on de qui vive till I come back. De Ingelish offisair and me talk very plaisant vile we go togezer down de leetel roat, and ven we come to de turn, I say, 'Bon soir, Monsieur le Capitaine—dat is your vay.' He den tank me, vera moche like gentilman, and vish he coot mek me some return for my gÃ©nÃ©rositÃ©, as he please to say—and I say, 'Bah! Ingelish gentilman vood do de same to French offisair who lose his vay.' 'Den come here,' he say, 'bon enfant, can you leave your post for 'aff an hour?' 'Leave my post?' I say. 'Yais,' said he, 'I know your army has not moche provision lately, and maybe you are ongrie?' 'Ma foi, yais,' said I; 'I aff naut slips to my eyes, nor meat to my stomach, for more dan fife days.' 'Veil, bon enfant,' he say, 'come vis me, and I vill gif you good supper, goot vine, and goot velcome.' 'Coot I leave my post?' I say. He say, 'Bah! Caporal take care till you come back.' By gar, I coot naut resist—he vos so vairy moche gentilman and I vos so ongrie—I go vis him—not fife hunder yarts—ah! bon Dieu—how nice! In de corner of a leetel ruin chapel dere is nice bit of fire, and hang on a string before it de half of a kid—oh ciel! de smell of de ros-bif was so nice—I rub my hands to de fire—I sniff de cuisine—I see in anozer corner a couple bottles of wine—sacrÃ©! it vos all watair in my mouts! Ve sit down to suppair—I nevair did ate so moche in my life. Ve did finish de bones, and vosh down all mid ver good wine—excellent! Ve drink de toast—Ã la gloire—and we talk of de campaign. Ve drink Ã la Patrie, and den I tink of la belle France and ma douce amie—and he fissel, 'Got safe de king.' Ve den drink Ã l'amitiÃ©, and shek hands over dat fire in good frainship—dem two hands that might cross de swords in de morning. Yais, sair, dat was fine—'t was galliard—'t was la vrai chivalrie—two sojair ennemi to share de same kid, drink de same wine, and talk like two friends. Vell, I got den so sleepy, dat my eyes go blink, blink, and my goot friend says to me, 'Sleep, old fellow; I know you aff got hard fare of late, and you are tired; sleep, all is quiet for to-night, and I will call you before dawn.' Sair, I vos so tired, I forgot my duty, and fall down fast asleep. Veil, sair, in de night de pickets of de two armie get so close, and mix up, dat some shot gets fired, and in one moment all in confusion. I am shake by de shoulder—I wake like from dream—I heard sharp fusillade—my friend cry, 'Fly to your post, it is attack!' We exchange one shek of de hand, and I run off to my post. Oh, ciel!—it is driven in—I see dem fly. Oh, mon dÃ©sespoir Ã ce moment-lÃ ! I am ruin—dÃ©shonorÃ©—I rush to de front—I rally mes braves—ve stand!—ve advance!!—ve regain de post!!!—I am safe!!!! De fusillade cease—it is only an affair of outposts. I tink I am safe—I tink I am very fine fellow—but Monsieur l'Aide-Major send for me and speak, 'Vere vos you last night, sair?' 'I mount guard by de mill.' 'Are you sure?' 'Oui, monsieur.' 'Vere vos you when your post vos attack?' I saw it vos no use to deny any longair, so I confess to him everyting. 'Sair,' said he, 'you rally your men very good, or you should be shot! Young man, remember,' said he—I will never forget his vorts—'young man, vine is goot—slip is goot—goat is goot—but honners is betters!'”

“A capital story, Randal,” cried Dick; “but how much of it did you invent?”

“'Pon my life, it is as near the original as possible.”

“Besides, that is not a fair way of using a story,” said the doctor. “You should take a story as you get it, and not play the dissector upon it, mangling its poor body to discover the bit of embellishment; and as long as a raconteur maintains vraisemblance, I contend you are bound to receive the whole as true.”

“A most author-like creed, doctor,” said Dick; “you are a story-teller yourself, and enter upon the defence of your craft with great spirit.”

“And justice, too,” said the Squire; “the doctor is quite right.”

“Don't suppose I can't see the little touches of the artist,” said the doctor; “but so long as they are in keeping with the picture, I enjoy them; for instance, my friend Randal's touch of the Englishman 'fissling Got safe de King'' is very happy—quite in character.”

“Well, good or bad, the story in substance is true,” said Randal, “and puts the Englishman in a fine point of view—a generous fellow, sharing his supper with his enemy whose sword may be through his body in the next morning's 'affair.'”

“But the Frenchman was generous to him first,” remarked the Squire.

“Certainly—I admit it,” said Randal. “In short, they were both fine fellows.”

“Oh, sir,” said Father Phil, “the French are not deficient in a chivalrous spirit. I heard once a very pretty little bit of anecdote about the way they behaved to one of our regiments on a retreat in Spain.”

“Your regiments!” said Moriarty, who was rather fond of hitting hard at a priest when he could; “a regiment of friars is it?”

“No, captain, but of soldiers; and it's going through a river they were, and the French, taking advantage of their helpless condition, were peppering away at them hard and fast.”

“Very generous indeed!” said Moriarty, laughing.

“Let me finish my story, captain, before you quiz it. I say they were peppering them sorely while they were crossing the river, until some women—the followers of the camp—ran down (poor creatures) to the shore, and the stream was so deep in the middle they could scarcely ford it; so some dragoons who were galloping as hard as they could out of the fire pulled up on seeing the condition of the women-kind, and each horseman took up a woman behind him, though it diminished his own power of speeding from the danger. The moment the French saw this act of manly courtesy, they ceased firing, gave the dragoons a cheer, and as long as the women were within gunshot, not a trigger was pulled in the French line, but volleys of cheers instead of ball-cartridge was sent after the brigade till all the women were over. Now wasn't that generous?”

“'T was a handsome thing!” was the universal remark.

“And 'faith I can tell you, Captain Moriarty, the army took advantage of it; for there was a great struggle to have the pleasure of the ladies' company over the river.”

“I dare say, Father Phil,” said the Squire, laughing.

“Throth, Squire,” said the padre, “fond of the girls as the soldiers have the reputation of being, they never liked them better than that same day.”

“Yes, yes,” said Moriarty, a little piqued, for he rather affected the “dare-devil.”

“I see you mean to insinuate that we soldiers fear fire.”

“I did not say 'fear,' captain—but they'd like to get out of it, for all that, and small blame to them—aren't they flesh and blood like ourselves?”

“Not a bit like you,” said Moriarty. “You sleek and smooth gentlemen who live in luxurious peace know little of a soldier's danger or feelings.”

“Captain, we all have our dangers to go through; and may be a priest has as many as a soldier; and we only show a difference of taste, after all, in the selection.”

“Well, Father Blake, all I know is, that a true soldier fears nothing!” said Moriarty with energy.

“Maybe so,” answered Father Phil, quietly. “It is quite clear, however,” said Murphy, “that war, with all its horrors, can call out occasionally the finer feelings of our natures; but it is only such redeeming traits as those we have heard which can reconcile us to it. I remember having heard an incident of war, myself, which affected me much,” said Murphy, who caught the infection of military anecdote which circled the table; and indeed there is no more catching theme can be started among men, for it may be remarked that whenever it is broached it flows on until it is rather more than time to go to the ladies.

“It was in the earlier portion of the memorable day of Waterloo,” said Murphy, “that a young officer of the Guards received a wound which brought him to the ground. His companions rushed on to seize some point which their desperate valour was called on to carry, and he was left, utterly unable to rise, for the wound was in his foot. He lay for some hours with the thunder of that terrible day ringing around him, and many a rush of horse and foot had passed close beside him. Towards the close of the day he saw one of the Black Brunswick dragoons approaching, who drew rein as his eye caught the young Guardsman, pale and almost fainting, on the ground. He alighted, and finding he was not mortally wounded, assisted him to rise, lifted him into his saddle, and helped to support him there while he walked beside him to the English rear. The Brunswicker was an old man; his brow and moustache were grey; despair was in his sunken eye, and from time to time he looked up with an expression of the deepest yearning into the face of the young soldier, who saw big tears rolling down the veteran's cheek while he gazed upon him. 'You seem in bitter sorrow, my kind friend,' said the stripling. 'No wonder,' answered the old man, with a hollow groan. 'I and my three boys were in the same regiment—they were alive the morning of Ligny—I am childless to-day. But I have revenged them!' he said fiercely, and as he spoke he held out his sword, which was literally red with blood. 'But, oh! that will not bring me back my boys!' he exclaimed, relapsing into his sorrow. 'My three gallant boys!'—and again he wept bitterly, till clearing his eyes from the tears, and looking up in the young soldier's handsome face, he said tenderly, 'You are like my youngest one, and I could not let you lie on the field.'”

Even the rollicking Murphy's eyes were moist as he recited this anecdote; and as for Father Phil, he was quite melted, ejaculating in an under tone, “Oh, my poor fellow! my poor fellow!”

“So there,” said Murphy, “is an example of a man, with revenge in his heart, and his right arm tired with slaughter, suddenly melted into gentleness by a resemblance to his child.”

“'T is very touching, but very sad,” said the Squire.

“My dear sir,” said the doctor, with his peculiar dryness, “sadness is the principal fruit which warfare must ever produce. You may talk of glory as long as you like, but you cannot have your laurel without your cypress, and though you may select certain bits of sentiment out of a mass of horrors, if you allow me, I will give you one little story which shan't keep you long, and will serve as a commentary upon war and glory in general.

“At the peace of 1803, I happened to be travelling through a town in France where a certain count I knew resided. I waited upon him, and he received me most cordially, and invited me to dinner. I made the excuse that I was only en route, and supplied with but traveling costume, and therefore not fit to present myself amongst the guests of such a house as his. He assured me I should only meet his own family, and pledged himself for Madame la Comtesse being willing to waive the ceremony of a grande toilette. I went to the house at the appointed hour, and as I passed through the hall I cast a glance at the dining-room and saw a very long table laid. On arriving at the reception-room, I taxed the count with having broken faith with me, and was about making my excuses to the countess when she assured me the count had dealt honestly by me, for that I was the only guest to join the family party. Well, we sat down to dinner, three-and-twenty persons; myself, the count and countess, and their twenty children! and a more lovely family I never saw; he a man in the vigour of life, she a still attractive woman, and these their offspring lining the table, where the happy eyes of father and mother glanced with pride and affection from one side to the other on these future staffs of their old age. Well, the peace of Amiens was of short duration, and I saw no more of the count till Napoleon's abdication. Then I visited France again, and saw my old friend. But it was a sad sight, sir, in that same house, where, little more than ten years before, I had seen the bloom and beauty of twenty children, to sit down with three—all he had left him. His sons had fallen in battle—his daughters had died widowed, leaving but orphans. And thus it was all over France. While the public voice shouted 'Glory!' wailing was in her homes. Her temple of victory was filled with trophies, but her hearths were made desolate.”

“Still, sir, a true soldier fears nothing,” repeated Moriarty.

“Baithershin,” said Father Phil. “'Faith I have been in places of danger you'd be glad to get out of, I can tell you, as bould as you are, captain.”

“You'll pardon me for doubting you, Father Blake,” said Moriarty, rather huffed.

“'Faith then you wouldn't like to be where I was before I came here; that is, in a mud cabin, where I was giving the last rites to six people dying in the typhus fever.”

“Typhus!” exclaimed Moriarty, growing pale, and instinctively withdrawing his chair as far as he could from the padre beside whom he sat.

“Ay, typhus, sir; most inveterate typhus.”

“Gracious Heaven!” said Moriarty, rising, “how can you do such a dreadful thing as run the risk of bearing infection into society?”

“I thought soldiers were not afraid of anything,” said Father Phil, laughing at him; and the rest of the party joined in the merriment.

“Fairly hit, Moriarty,” said Dick.

“Nonsense,” said Moriarty; “when I spoke of danger, I meant such open danger as—in short, not such insidious lurking abomination as infection; for I contend that—”

“Say no more, Randal,” said Growling, “you're done!—Father Phil has floored you.”

“I deny it,” said Moriarty, warmly; but the more he denied it, the more every one laughed at him.

“You're more frightened than hurt, Moriarty,” said the Squire; “for the best of the joke is, Father Phil wasn't in contact with typhus at all, but was riding with me—and 'tis but a joke.”

Here they all roared at Moriarty, who was excessively angry, but felt himself in such a ridiculous position that he could not quarrel with anybody.

“Pardon me, my dear captain,” said the Father; “I only wanted to show you that a poor priest has to run the risk of his life just as much as the boldest soldier of them all. But don't you think, Squire, 't is time to join the ladies? I'm sure the tay will be tired waiting for us.”

CHAPTER XXXIII

Mrs. Egan was engaged in some needlework, and Fanny turning over the leaves of a music-book, and occasionally humming some bars of her favourite songs, as the gentlemen came into the drawing-room. Fanny rose from the pianoforte as they entered.

“Oh, Miss Dawson,” exclaimed Moriarty, “why tantalise us so much as to let us see you seated in that place where you can render so much delight, only to leave it as we enter?”

Fanny turned off the captain's flourishing speech with a few lively words and a smile, and took her seat at the tea-table to do the honours. “The captain,” said Father Phil to the doctor, “is equally great in love or war.”

“And knows about as little of one as the other,” said the doctor. “His attacks are too open.”

“And therefore easily foiled,” said Father Phil; “How that pretty creature, with the turn of a word and a curl of her lip, upset him that time! Oh! what a powerful thing a woman's smile is, doctor? I often congratulate myself that my calling puts all such mundane follies and attractions out of my way, when I see and know what fools wise men are sometimes made by silly girls. Oh, it is fearful, doctor; though, of course, part of the mysterious dispensation of an all-wise Providence.”

“That fools should have the mastery, is it?” inquired the doctor, drily, with a mischievous query in his eye as well. “Tut, tut, tut, doctor,” replied Father Phil, impatiently; “you know well enough what I mean, and I won't allow you to engage me in one of your ingenious battles of words. I speak of that wonderful influence of the weaker sex over the stronger, and how the word of a rosy lip outweighs sometimes the resolves of a furrowed brow; and how the—pooh! pooh! I'm making a fool of myself talking to you—but to make a long story short, I would rather wrastle out a logical dispute any day, or a tough argument of one of the fathers, than refute some absurdity which fell from a pretty mouth with a smile on it.”

“Oh, I quite agree with you,” said the doctor, grinning, “that the fathers are not half such dangerous customers as the daughters.”

“Ah, go along with you, doctor!” said Father Phil, with a good-humoured laugh. “I see you are in one of your mischievous moods, and so I'll have nothing more to say to you.”

The Father turned away to join the Squire, while the doctor took a seat near Fanny Dawson and enjoyed a quiet little bit of conversation with her, while Moriarty was turning over the leaves of her album; but the brow of the captain, who affected a taste in poetry, became knit, and his lip assumed a contemptuous curl, as he perused some lines, and asked Fanny whose was the composition.

“I forget,” was Fanny's answer.

“I don't wonder,” said Moriarty; “the author is not worth remembering, for they are very rough.”

Fanny did not seem pleased with the criticism, and said that, when sung to the measure of the air written down on the opposite page, they were very flowing.

“But the principal phrase, the 'refrain'' I may say, is so vulgar,” added Moriarty, returning to the charge. “The gentleman says, 'What would you do?' and the lady answers, 'That's what I'd do.' Do you call that poetry?”

“I don't call that poetry,” said Fanny, with some emphasis on the word; “but if you connect those two phrases with what is intermediately written, and read all in the spirit of the entire of the verses, I think there is poetry in them—but if not poetry, certainly feeling.”

“Can you tolerate 'That's what I'd do'?—the pert answer of a housemaid.”

“A phrase in itself homely,” answered Fanny, “may become elevated by the use to which it is applied.”

“Quite true, Miss Dawson,” said the doctor, joining in the discussion. “But what are these lines which excite Randal's ire?”

“Here they are,” said Moriarty. “I will read them, if you allow me, and then judge between Miss Dawson and me.

'What will you do, love, when I am going,
With white sail flowing,
The seas beyond?
What will you do, love, when—'”

“Stop thief!—stop thief!” cried the doctor. “Why, you are robbing the poet of his reputation as fast as you can. You don't attend to the rhythm of those lines—you don't give the ringing of the verse.”

“That's just what I have said in other words,” said Fanny. “When sung to the melody, they are smooth.”

“But a good reader, Miss Dawson,” said the doctor, “will read verse with the proper accent, just as a musician would divide it into bars; but my friend Randal there, although he can tell a good story and hit off prose very well, has no more notion of rhythm or poetry than new beer has of a holiday.”

“And why, pray, has not new beer a notion of a holiday?”

“Because, sir, it works of a Sunday.”

“Your beer may be new, doctor, but your joke is not—I have seen it before in some old form.”

“Well, sir, if I found it in its old form, like a hare, and started it fresh, it may do for folks to run after as well as anything else. But you shan't escape your misdemeanour in mauling those verses as you have done, by finding fault with my joke redevivus. You read those lines, sir, like a bellman, without any attention to metre.”

“To be sure,” said Father Phil, who had been listening for some time; “they have a ring in them—”

“Like a pig's nose,” said the doctor.

“Ah, be aisy,” said Father Phil. “I say they have a ring in them like an owld Latin canticle—

'What will you do, love, when I am go-ing,
With white sail flow-ing,
The says beyond?'

That's it!”

“To be sure,” said the doctor. “I vote for the Father's reading them out on the spot.”

“Pray, do, Mister Blake,” said Fanny.

“Ah, Miss Dawson, what have I to do with reading love verses?”

“Take the book, sir,” said Growling, “and show me you have some faith in your own sayings, by obeying a lady directly.”

“Pooh! pooh!” said the priest.

“You won't refuse me?” said Fanny, in a coaxing tone.

“My dear Miss Dawson,” said the padre.

“Father Phil!” said Fanny, with one of her rosy smiles.

“Oh, wow! wow! wow!” ejaculated the priest, in an amusing embarrassment, “I see you will make me do whatever you like.” So Father Phil gave the rare example of a man acting up to his own theory, and could not resist the demand that came from a pretty mouth. He took the book and read the lines with much feeling, but, with an observance of rhythm so grotesque, that it must be given in his own manner.

WHAT WILL YOU DO, LOVE?

I

“What will you do, love, when I am go-ing,
With white sail flow-ing,
The seas be-yond? What will you do, love, when waves di-vide us,
And friends may chide us,
For being fond?”
“Though waves di-vide us, and friends be chi-ding,
In faith a-bi-ding,
I'll still be true;
And I'll pray for thee on the stormy o-cean,
In deep de-vo-tion,—
That's what I'll do!”

II

“What would you do, love, if distant ti-dings
Thy fond con-fi-dings
Should under-mine And I a-bi-ding 'neath sultry skies,
Should think other eyes Were as bright as thine?”
“Oh, name it not; though guilt and shame Were on thy name,
I'd still be true;
But that heart of thine, should another share it,
I could not bear it;—
What would I do?”

III

“What would you do, when, home re-turn-ing,
With hopes high burn-ing,
With wealth for you,—
If my bark, that bound-ed o'er foreign foam,
Should be lost near home,—
Ah, what would you do?”
“So them wert spar-d, I'd bless the mor-row,
In want and sor-row,
That left me you;
And I'd welcome thee from the wasting bil-low,
My heart thy pil-low!—
THAT'S what I'd do!”

[Footnote: NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.—The foregoing dialogue and Moriarty's captious remarks were meant, when, they appeared in the first edition, as a hit at a certain small critic—a would-be song-writer—who does ill-natured articles for the Reviews, and expressed himself very contemptuously of my songs because of their simplicity; or, as he was pleased to phrase it, “I had a knack of putting common things together.” The song was written to illustrate my belief that the most common-place expression, appropriately applied, may successfully serve the purposes of the lyric; and here experience has proved me right, for this very song of “What will you do?” (containing within it the other common-place, “That's what I'd do”) has been received with special favour by the public, whose long-continued goodwill towards my compositions generally I gratefully acknowledge.]

“Well done, padre!” said the doctor; “with good emphasis and discretion.”

“And now, my dear Miss Dawson,” said Father Phil, “since I've read the lines at your high bidding, will you sing them for me at my humble asking?”

“Very antithetically put, indeed,” said Fanny; “but you must excuse me.”

“You said there was a tune to it?”

“Yes; but I promised Captain Moriarty to sing him this,” said Fanny, going over to the pianoforte, and laying her hand on an open music-book.

“Thanks, Miss Dawson,” said Moriarty, following fast.

Now, it was not that Fanny Dawson liked the captain that she was going to sing the song; but she thought he had been rather “mobbed” by the doctor and the padre about the reading of the verses, and it was her good breeding which made her pay this little attention to the worsted party. She poured forth her sweet voice in a simple melody to the following words:—

SAY NOT MY HEART IS COLD

I

“Say not my heart is cold,
Because of a silent tongue!
The lute of faultless mould
In silence oft hath hung.
The fountain soonest spent
Doth babble down the steep;
But the stream that ever went
Is silent, strong, and deep.

II

“The charm of a secret life
Is given to choicest things:—
Of flowers, the fragrance rife
Is wafted on viewless wings;
We see not the charmed air
Bearing some witching sound;
And ocean deep is where
The pearl of price is found.

III

“Where are the stars by day?
They burn, though all unseen!
And love of purest ray
Is like the stars, I ween:
Unmark'd is the gentle light
When the sunshine of joy appears,
But ever, in sorrow's night,
'T will glitter upon thy tears!”

“Well, Randal, does that poem satisfy your critical taste?—of the singing there can be but one opinion.”

“Yes, I think it pretty,” said Moriarty; “but there is one word in the last verse I object to.”

“Which is that?” inquired Growling.

“Ween” said the other, “'the stars, I ween,' I object to.”

“Don't you see the meaning of that?” inquired the doctor. “I think it is a very happy allusion.”

“I don't see any allusion whatever,” said the critic.

“Don't you see the poet alluded to the stars in the milky way, and says, therefore, 'The stars I wean'?”

“Bah! bah! doctor,” exclaimed the critical captain; “you are in one of your quizzing moods to-night, and it is in vain to expect a serious answer from you.” He turned on his heel as he spoke, and went away.

“Moriarty, you know, Miss Dawson, is a man who affects a horror of puns, and therefore I always punish him with as many as I can,” said the doctor, who was left by Moriarty's sudden pique to the enjoyment of a pleasant chat with Fanny, and he was sorry when the hour arrived which disturbed it by the breaking up of the party and the departure of the guests.

CHAPTER XXXIV

When the Widow Rooney was forcibly ejected from the house of Mrs. James Casey, and found that Andy was not the possessor of that lady's charms, she posted off to Neck-or-Nothing Hall, to hear the full and true account of the transaction from Andy himself. On arriving at the old iron gate, and pulling the loud bell, she was spoken to through the bars by the savage old janitor and told to “go out o' that.” Mrs. Rooney thought fate was using her hard in decreeing she was to receive denial at every door, and endeavoured to obtain a parley with the gate-keeper, to which he seemed no way inclined.

“My name's Rooney, sir?”

“There's plenty bad o' the name,” was the civil rejoinder.

“And my son's in Squire O'Grady's sarvice, sir.”

“Oh—you're the mother of the beauty we call Handy, eh?”

“Yis, sir.”

“Well, he left the sarvice yistherday.”

“Is it lost the place?”

“Yis.”

“Oh dear! Ah, sir, let me up to the house and spake to his honour, and maybe he'll take back the boy.”

“He doesn't want any more servants at all—for he's dead.”

“Is it Squire O'Grady dead?”

“Aye—did you never hear of a dead squire before?”

“What did he die of, sir?”

“Find out,” said the sulky brute, walking back into his den.

It was true—the renowned O'Grady was no more. The fever which had set in from his “broiled bones,” which he would have in spite of anybody, was found difficult of abatement; and the impossibility of keeping him quiet, and his fits of passion, and consequent fresh supplies of “broiled bones,” rendered the malady unmanageable; and the very day after Andy had left the house the fever took a bad turn, and in four-and-twenty hours the stormy O'Grady was at peace.

What a sudden change fell upon the house! All the wedding paraphernalia which had been brought down lay neglected in the rooms where it had been the object of the preceding day's admiration. The deep, absorbing, silent grief of the wife,—the more audible sorrow of the girls,—the subdued wildness of the reckless boys, as they trod silently past the chamber where they no longer might dread reproof for their noise,—all this was less touching than the effect the event had upon the old dowager mother. While the senses of others were stunned by the blow, hers became awakened by the shock; all her absurd aberration passed away, and she sat in intellectual self-possession by the side of her son's death-bed, which she never left until he was laid in his coffin. He was the first and last of her sons. She had now none but grandchildren to look upon—the intermediate generation had passed away, and the gap yawned fearfully before her. It restored her, for the time, perfectly to her senses; and she gave the necessary directions on the melancholy occasion, and superintended all the sad ceremonials befitting the time, with a calm and dignified resignation which impressed all around her with wonder and respect.

Superadded to the dismay which the death of the head of a family produces was the terrible fear which existed that O'Grady's body would be seized for debt—a barbarous practice, which, shame to say, is still permitted. This fear made great precaution necessary to prevent persons approaching the house, and accounts for the extra gruffness of the gate porter. The wild body-guard of the wild chief was on doubly active duty; and after four-and-twenty hours had passed over the reckless boys, the interest they took in sharing and directing this watch and ward seemed to outweigh all sorrowful consideration for the death of their father. As for Gustavus, the consciousness of being now the master of Neck-or-Nothing Hall was apparent in a boy not yet fifteen; and not only in himself, but in the grey-headed retainers about him, this might be seen: there was a shade more of deference—the boy was merged in “the young master.” But we must leave the house of mourning for the present, and follow the Widow Rooney, who, as she tramped her way homeward, was increasing in hideousness of visage every hour. Her nose was twice its usual dimensions, and one eye was perfectly useless in showing her the road. At last, however, as evening was closing, she reached her cabin, and there was Andy, arrived before her, and telling Oonah, his cousin, all his misadventures of the preceding day.

The history was stopped for a while by their mutual explanations and condolences with Mrs. Rooney, on the “cruel way her poor face was used.”

“And who done it all?” said Oonah.

“Who but that born divil, Matty Dwyer—and sure they towld me you were married to her,” said she to Andy.

“So I was,” said Andy, beginning the account of his misfortunes afresh to his mother, who from time to time would break in with indiscriminate maledictions on Andy, as well as his forsworn damsel; and when the account was ended, she poured out a torrent of abuse upon her unfortunate forsaken son, which riveted him to the floor in utter amazement.

“I thought I'd get pity here, at all events,” said poor Andy; “but instead o' that it's the worst word and the hardest name in your jaw you have for me.”

“And sarve you right, you dirty cur,” said his mother. “I ran off like a fool when I heerd of your good fortune, and see the condition that baggage left me in—my teeth knocked in and my eye knocked out, and all for your foolery, because you couldn't keep what you got.”

“Sure, mother, I tell you—”

“Howld your tongue, you omadhaun! And then I go to Squire O'Grady's to look for you, and there I hear you lost that place, too.”

“Faix, it's little loss,” said Andy.

“That's all you know about it, you goose; you lose the place just when the man's dead and you'd have had a shuit o' mournin'. Oh, you are the most misfortunate divil, Andy Rooney, this day in Ireland—why did I rear you at all?”

“Squire O'Grady dead!” said Andy, in surprise and also with regret for his late master.

“Yis—and you've lost the mournin'—augh!”

“Oh, the poor Squire!” said Andy.

“The iligant new clothes!” grumbled Mrs. Rooney. “And then luck tumbles into your way such as man never had; without a place, or a rap to bless yourself with, you get a rich man's daughter for your wife, and you let her slip through your fingers.”

“How could I help it?” said Andy.

“Augh!—you bothered the job just the way you do everything,” said his mother.

“Sure I was civil-spoken to her.”

“Augh!” said his mother.

“And took no liberty.”

“You goose!”

“And called her Miss.”

“Oh, indeed you missed it altogether.”

“And said I wasn't desarvin' of her.”

“That was thrue—but you should not have towld her so. Make a woman think you're betther than her, and she'll like you.”

“And sure, when I endayvoured to make myself agreeable to her——”

“Endayvoured!” repeated the old woman contemptuously. “Endayvoured, indeed! Why didn't you make yourself agreeable at once, you poor dirty goose?—no, but you went sneaking about it—I know as well as if I was looking at you—you went sneakin' and snivelin' until the girl took a disgust to you; for there's nothing a woman despises so much as shilly-shallying.”

“Sure, you won't hear my defince,” said Andy.

“Oh, indeed you're betther at defince than attack,” said his mother.

“Sure, the first little civil'ty I wanted to pay to her, she took up the three-legged stool to me.”

“The divil mend you! And what civil'ty did you offer her?”

“I made a grab at her cap, and I thought she'd have brained me.”

Oonah set up such a shout of laughter at Andy's notion of civility to a girl, that the conversation was stopped for some time, and her aunt remonstrated with her at her want of common sense; or, as she said, hadn't she “more decency than to laugh at the poor fool's nonsense?”

“What could I do agen the three-legged stool?” said Andy.

“Where was your own legs, and your own arms, and your own eyes, and your own tongue?—eh?”

“And sure I tell you it was all ready conthrived, and James Casey was sent for, and came.”

“Yis,” said the mother, “but not for a long time, you towld me yourself; and what were you doing all that time? Sure, supposing you wor only a new acquaintance, any man worth a day's mate would have discoorsed her over in the time and made her sinsible he was the best of husbands.”

“I tell you she wouldn't let me have her ear at all,” said Andy. “Nor her cap either,” said Oonah, laughing.

“And then Jim Casey kem.”

“And why did you let him in?”

“It was she let him in, I tell you.”

“And why did you let her? He was on the wrong side of the door—that's the outside; and you on the right—that's the inside; and it was your house, and she was your wife, and you were her masther, and you had the rights of the church, and the rights of the law, and all the rights on your side; barrin' right rayson—that you never had; and sure without that, what's the use of all the other rights in the world?”

“Sure, hadn't he his friends, sthrong, outside?”

“No matther, if the door wasn't opened to them, for then YOU would have had a stronger friend than any o' them present among them.”

Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life. Volume 2