“Neal,” said he, “could you, by stretching your imagination, contrive to rest contented with nursing your passion in solitude, and love the sex at a distance?”
“How could I nurse and mind my business?” replied the tailor. I'll never nurse so long as I'll have the wife; and as for imagination it depends upon the grain of it, whether I can stretch it or not. I don't know that I ever made a coat of it in my life.”
“You don't understand me, Neal,” said the schoolmaster. “In recommending marriage, I was only driving one evil out of you by introducing another. Do you think that, if you abandoned all thoughts of a wife, you would get heroic again?—that is, would you, take once more to the love of fighting?”
“There is no doubt but I would,” said the tailor: “If I miss the wife, I'll kick up such a dust as never was seen in the parish, an' you're the first man that I'll lick. But now that I'm in love,” he continued, “sure, I ought to look out for the wife.”
“Ah! Neal,” said the schoolmaster, “you are tempting destiny: your temerity be, with all its melancholy consequences, upon your own head.”
“Come,” said the tailor, “it wasn't to hear you groaning to the tune of 'Dhrimmind-hoo,' or 'The ould woman rockin' her cradle,' that I came; but to know if you could help me in makin' out the wife. That's the discoorse.”
“Look at me, Neal,” said the schoolmaster, solemnly; “I am at this moment, and have been any time for the last fifteen years, a living caveto against matrimony. I do not think that earth possesses such a luxury as a single solitary life. Neal, the monks of old were happy men: they were all fat and had double chins; and, Neal, I tell you, that all fat men are in general happy. Care cannot come at them so readily as at a thin man; before it gets through the strong outworks, of flesh and blood with which they are surrounded, it becomes treacherous to its original purpose, joins the cheerful spirits it meets in the system, and dances about the heart in all the madness of mirth; just like a sincere ecclesiastic, who comes to lecture a good fellow against drinking, but who forgets his lecture over his cups, and is laid under the table with such success, that he either never comes to finish his lecture, or comes often; to be laid under the table, Look at me Neal, how wasted, fleshless, and miserable, I stand before you. You know how my garments have shrunk in, and what a solid man I was before marriage. Neal, pause, I beseech you: otherwise you stand a strong chance of becoming a nonentity like myself.”
“I don't care what I become,” said the tailor; “I can't think that you'd be so: unsonable as to expect that any of the Malones; should pass out of the world widout either bein' bate or marrid. Have rason, Mr. O'Connor, an' if you can help me to the wife, I promise to take in your coat the next time—for nothin'.”
“Well, then,” said Mr. O'Connor, “what-would you think of the butcher's daughter, Biddy Neil? You have always had a thirst for blood, and here you may have it gratified in an innocent manner, should you ever become sanguinary again. 'Tis true, Neal, she is twice your size, and possesses three times your strength; but for that very reason, Neal, marry her if you can. Large animals are placid; and heaven preserve those bachelors, whom I wish well, from a small wife: 'tis such who always wield the sceptre of domestic life, and rule their husbands with a rod of iron.”
“Say no more, Mr. O'Connor,” replied the tailor, “she's the very girl I'm in love wid, an' never fear, but I'll overcome her heart if I it can be done by man. Now, step over the way to my house, an' we'll have a sup on the head of it. Who's that calling?”
“Ah! Neal, I know the tones—there's a shrillness in them not to be mistaken. Farewell! I must depart; you have heard the proverb, 'those who are bound must obey.' Young Jack, I presume, is squalling, and I must either nurse him, rock the cradle, or sing comic tunes for him, though heaven knows with what a disastrous heart I often sing, 'Begone dull care,' the 'Rakes of Newcastle,' or 'Peas upon a Trencher.' Neal, I say again, pause before you take this leap in the dark. Pause, Neal, I entreat you. Farewell!”
Neal, however, was gifted with the heart of an Irishman, and scorned caution as the characteristic of a coward; he had, as it appeared, abandoned all design of fighting, but the courage still adhered to him even in making love. He consequently conducted the siege of Biddy Neil's heart with a degree of skill and valor which would not have come amiss to Marshal Gerald at the siege of Antwerp. Locke or Dugald Stewart, indeed, had they been cognizant of the tailor's triumph, might have illustrated the principle on which he succeeded—as to ourselves, we can only conjecture it. Our own opinion is, that they were both animated with a congenial spirit. Biddy was the very pink of pugnacity, and could throw in a body blow, or plant a facer, with singular energy and science. Her prowess hitherto had, we confess, been displayed only within the limited range of domestic life; but should she ever find it necessary to exercise it upon a larger scale, there was no doubt whatsoever, in the opinion of her mother, brothers, and sisters, every one of whom she had successively subdued, that she must undoubtedly distinguish herself. There was certainly one difficulty which the tailor had not to encounter in the progress of his courtship; the field was his own; he had not a rival to dispute his claim. Neither was there any opposition given by her friends; they were, on the contrary, all anxious for the match; and when the arrangements were concluded, Neal felt his hand squeezed by them in succession, with an expression more resembling condolence than joy. Neal, however, had been bred to tailoring, and not to metaphysics; he could cut out a coat very well, but we do not say that he could trace a principle—as what tailor, except Jeremy Taylor, could?
There was nothing particular in the wedding. Mr. O'Connor was asked by Neal to be present at it: but he shook his head, and told him that he had not courage to attend it, or inclination to witness any man's sorrows but his own. He met the wedding party by accident, and was heard to exclaim with a sigh, as they flaunted past him in gay exuberance of spirits—“Ah, poor Neal! he is going like one of her father's cattle to the shambles! Woe is me for having suggested matrimony to the tailor! He will not long-be under the necessity of saying that he 'is blue-moulded for want of a beating.' The butcheress will fell him like a Kerry ox, and I may have his blood to answer for, and his discomfiture to feel for, in addition to my own miseries.”
On the evening of the wedding-day, about the hour of ten o'clock, Neal—whose spirits were uncommonly exalted, for his heart luxuriated within him—danced with his bride's maid; after the dance he sat beside her, and got eloquent in praise of her beauty; and it is said, too, that he whispered to her, and chucked her chin with considerable gallantry. The tete-a-tete continued for some time without exciting particular attention, with one exception; but that exception was worth a whole chapter of general rules. Mrs. Malone rose up, then sat down again, and took off a glass of the native; she got up a second time—all the wife rushed upon her heart—she approached them, and in a fit of the most exquisite sensibility, knocked the bride's maid down, and gave the tailor a kick of affecting pathos upon the inexpressibles. The whole scene was a touching one on both sides. The tailor was sent on all-fours to the floor; but Mrs. Malone took him quietly up, put him under her arm as one would a lap dog, and with stately step marched him away to the connubial, apartment, in which everything remained very quiet for the rest of the night.
The next morning Mr. O'Connor presented himself to congratulate the tailor on his happiness. Neal, as his friend shook hands with him, gave the schoolmaster's fingers a slight squeeze, such as a man gives who would gently entreat your sympathy. The schoolmaster looked at him, and thought he shook his head. Of this, however, he could not be certain; for, as he shook his own during the moment of observation, he concluded that it might be a mere mistake of the eye, or perhaps the result of a mind predisposed to be credulous on the subject of shaking heads.
We wish it were in our power to draw a veil, or curtain, or blind of some description, over the remnant of the tailor's narrative that is to follow; but as it is the duty of every faithful historian to give the secret causes of appearances which the world in general do not understand, so we think it but honest to go on, impartially and faithfully, without shrinking from the responsibility that is frequently annexed to truth.
For the first three days after matrimony, Neal felt like a man who had been translated to a new and more lively state of existence. He had expected, and flattered himself, that, the moment this event should take place, he would once more resume his heroism, and experience the pleasure of a drubbing. This determination he kept a profound secret—nor was it known until a future period, when he disclosed it to Mr. O'Connor. He intended, therefore, that marriage should be nothing more than a mere parenthesis in his life—a kind of asterisk, pointing, in a note at the bottom, to this single exception in his general conduct—a nota bene to the spirit of a martial man, intimating that he had been peaceful only for a while. In truth, he was, during the influence of love over him, and up to the very day of his marriage, secretly as blue-moulded as ever for want of a beating. The heroic penchant lay snugly latent in his heart, unchecked and unmodified. He flattered himself that he was achieving a capital imposition upon the world at large—that he was actually hoaxing mankind in general—and that such an excellent piece of knavish tranquillity had never been perpetrated before his time.
On the first week after his marriage, there chanced to be a fair in the next market-town. Neal, after breakfast, brought forward a bunch of shillelahs, in order to select the best; the wife inquired the purpose of the selection, and Neal declared that he was resolved to have a fight that day, if it were to be had, he said, for love or money. “The thruth is,” he exclaimed, strutting with fortitude about the house, “the thruth is, that I've done the whole of yez—I'm as blue-mowlded as ever for want of a batin'.”
“Don't go,” said the wife.
“I will go,” said Neal, with vehemence; “I'll go if the whole parish was to go to prevint me.”
In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business, instead of going to the fair!
Much ingenious speculation might be indulged in, upon this abrupt termination to the tailor's most formidable resolution; but, for our own part, we will prefer going on with the narrative, leaving the reader at liberty to solve the mystery as he pleases. In the mean time, we say this much—let those who cannot make it out, carry it to their tailor; it is a tailor's mystery, and no one has so good a right to understand it—except, perhaps, a tailor's wife.
At the period of his matrimony, Neal had become as plump and as stout as he ever was known to be in his plumpest and stoutest days. He and the schoolmaster had been very intimate about this time; but we know not how it happened that soon afterwards he felt a modest bridelike reluctance in meeting with that afflicted gentleman. As the eve of his union approached, he was in the habit, during the schoolmaster's visits to his workshop, of alluding, in rather a sarcastic tone, considering the unthriving appearance of his friend, to the increasing lustiness of his person. Nay, he has often leaped up from his lap-board, and, in the strong spirit of exultation, thrust out his leg in attestation of his assertion, slapping it, moreover, with a loud laugh of triumph, that sounded like a knell to the happiness of his emaciated acquaintance. The schoolmaster's philosophy, however, unlike his flesh, never departed from him; his usual observation was, “Neal, we are both receding from the same point; you increase in flesh, whilst I, heaven help me, am fast diminishing.”
The tailor received these remarks with very boisterous mirth, whilst Mr. O'Connor simply shook his head, and looked sadly upon his limbs, now shrouded in a superfluity of garments, somewhat resembling a slender thread of water in a shallow summer stream, nearly wasted away, and surrounded by an unproportionate extent of channel.
The fourth month after the marriage arrived. Neal, one day, near its close, began to dress himself in his best apparel. Even then, when buttoning his waistcoat, he shook his head after the manner of Mr. O'Connor, and made observations upon the great extent to which it over-folded him.
Well, thought he, with a sigh—this waistcoat certainly did fit me to a T: but it's wondherful to think how—cloth stretches.
“Neal,” said the wife, on perceiving him dressed, “where are you bound for?”
“Faith, for life,” replied Neal, with a mitigated swagger; “and I'd as soon, if it had been the will of Provid—”
He paused.
“Where are you going?” asked the wife, a second time.
“Why,” he answered, “only to the dance at Jemmy Connolly's; I'll be back early.”
“Don't go,” said the wife. “I'll go,” said Neal, “if the whole counthry was to prevent me. Thunder an' lightnin,' woman, who am I?” he exclaimed, in a loud but rather infirm voice; “arn't I Neal Malone, that never met a man who'd fight him! Neal Malone, that was never beat by man! Why, tare-an-ounze, woman! Whoo! I'll get enraged some time, an' play the divil? Who's afeard, I say?”
“Don't go,” added the wife a third time, giving Neal a significant look in the face.
In about another half-hour, Neal sat down quietly to his business, instead of going to the dance!
Neal now turned himself, like many a sage in similar circumstances, to philosophy; that is to say—he began to shake his head upon principle, after the manner of the schoolmaster. He would, indeed, have preferred the bottle upon principle; but there was no getting at the bottle, except through the wife; and it so happened that by the time it reached him, there was little consolation left in it. Neal bore all in silence; for silence, his friend had often told him, was a proof of wisdom.
Soon after this, Neal, one evening, met Mr. O'Connor by chance upon a plank which crossed a river. This plank was only a foot in breadth, so that no two individuals could pass each other upon it. We cannot find words in which to express the dismay of both, on finding that they absolutely glided past one another without collision.
Both paused, and surveyed each other solemnly; but the astonishment was all on the side of Mr. O'Connor.
“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, “by all the household gods, I conjure you to speak, that I may be assured you live!”
The ghost of a blush crossed the churchyard visage of the tailor.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “why the devil did you tempt me to marry a wife.”
“Neal,” said his friend, “answer me in the most solemn manner possible—throw into your countenance all the gravity you can assume; speak as if you were under the hands of the hangman, with the rope about your neck, for the question is, indeed, a trying-one which I am about to put. Are you still 'blue-moulded for want of beating?'”
The tailor collected himself to make a reply; he put one leg out—the very leg which he used to show in triumph to his friend; but, alas, how dwindled! He opened his waistcoat, and lapped it round him, until he looked like a weasel on its hind legs. He then raised himself up on his tip toes, and, in an awful whisper, replied, “No!!! the devil a bit I'm blue-mowlded for want of a batin.”
The schoolmaster shook his head in his own miserable manner; but, alas! he soon perceived that the tailor was as great an adept at shaking the head as himself. Nay, he saw that there was a calamitous refinement—a delicacy of shake in the tailor's vibrations, which gave to his own nod a very commonplace character.
The next day the tailor took in his clothes; and from time to time continued to adjust them to the dimensions of his shrinking person. The schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and sympathized together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit; thoroughly, completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the calamities of a hen-pecked husband are painted by the devil. He no longer strutted as he was wont to do; he no longer carried a cudgel as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married man.—Sneakingiy, and with a cowardly crawl did he creep along as if every step brought him nearer to the gallows. The schoolmaster's march of misery was far slower than Neal's: the latter distanced him. Before three years passed, he had shrunk up so much, that he could not walk abroad of a windy day without carrying weights in his pockets to keep him firm on the earth, which he once trod with the step of a giant. He again sought the schoolmaster, with whom indeed he associated as much as possible. Here he felt certain of receiving sympathy; nor was he disappointed. That worthy, but miserable, man and Neal, often retired beyond the hearing of their respective wives, and supported each other by every argument in their power. Often have they been heard, in the dusk of evening, singing behind a remote hedge that melancholy ditty, “Let us both be unhappy together;” which rose upon the twilight breeze with a cautious quaver of sorrow truly heart-rending and lugubrious.
“Neal,” said Mr. O'Connor, on one of those occasions, “here is a book which I recommend to your perusal; it is called 'The Afflicted Man's Companion;' try if you cannot glean some consolation out of it.”
“Faith,” said Neal, “I'm forever oblaged to you, but I don't want it. I've had 'The Afflicted Man's Companion' too long, and divil an atom of consolation I can get out of it. I have one o' them I tell you; but, be me sowl, I'll not undhertake a pair o' them. The very name's enough for me.” They then separated.
The tailor's vis vitae must have been powerful, or he would have died. In two years more his friends could not distinguish him from his own shadow; a circumstance which was of great inconvenience to him. Several grasped at the hand of the shadow instead of his; and one man was near, paying it five and sixpence for making a pair of smallclothes. Neal, it is true, undeceived him with some trouble; but candidly admitted that he was not able to carry home the money. It was difficult, indeed, for the poor tailor to bear what he felt; it is true he bore it as long as he could; but at length he became suicidal, and often had thoughts of “making his own quietus with his bare bodkin.” After many deliberations and afflictions, he ultimately made the attempt; but, alas! he found that the blood of the Malones refused to flow upon so ignominious an occasion. So he solved the phenomenon; although the truth was, that his blood was not “i' the vein” for't; none was to be had. What then was to be done? He resolved to get rid of life by some process; and the next that occurred to him was hanging. In a solemn spirit he prepared a selvage, and suspended himself from the rafter of his workshop; but here another disappintment awaited him—he would not hang. Such was his want of gravity, that his own weight proved insufficient to occasion his death by mere suspension. His third attempt was at drowning, but he was too light to sink; all the elements,—all his own energies joined themselves, he thought, in a wicked conspiracy to save his life. Having thus tried every avenue to destruction, and failed in all, he felt like a man doomed to live for ever. Henceforward he shrunk and shrivelled by slow degrees, until in the course of time he became so attenuated, that the grossness of human vision could no longer reach him.
This, however, could not last always. Though still alive, he was, to all intents and purposes, imperceptible. He could now only be heard; he was reduced to a mere essence—the very echo of human existence, vox el praiterea nihil. It is true the schoolmaster asserted that he occasionally caught passing glimpses of him; but that was because he had been himself nearly spiritualized by affliction, and his visual ray purged in the furnace of domestic tribulation. By and by Neal's voice lessened, got fainter and more indistinct, until at length nothing but a doubtful murmur could be heard, which ultimately could scarcely be distinguished from a ringing in the ears.
Such was the awful and mysterious fate of the tailor, who, as a hero, could not of course die; he merely dissolved like an icicle, wasted into immateriality, and finally melted away beyond the perception of mortal sense. Mr. O'Connor is still living, and once more in the fulness of perfect health and strength. His wife, however, we may as well hint, has been dead more than two years.
ART MAGUIRE;
OR, THE BROKEN PLEDGE.
PREFACE.
In proposing to write a series of “Tales for the Irish People,” the author feels perfectly conscious of the many difficulties by which he is surrounded, and by which he may be still met in his endeavors to accomplish that important task. In order, however, to make everything as clear and intelligible as possible, he deems it necessary, in the first place, to state what his object is in undertaking it: that object is simply to improve their physical and social condition—generally; and through the medium of vivid and striking, but unobjectionable narratives, to inculcate such principles as may enable Irishmen to think more clearly, reason more correctly, and act more earnestly upon the general duties, which, from their position in life, they are called upon to perform. With regard to those who feel apprehensive that anything calculated to injure the doctrinal convictions of the Catholic people may be suffered to creep into these Tales, the author has only to assure them—that such an object comes within the scope neither of his plan or inclinations. It is not his intention to make these productions the vehicles of Theology or Polemics; but studiously to avoid anything and everything that even approaches the sphere of clerical duty. His object, so far from that, is the inculcation of general, not peculiar, principles—principles which neither affect nor offend any creed, but which are claimed and valued by all. In this way, by making amusement the handmaiden of instruction, the author believes it possible to let into the cabin, the farm-house, and even the landlord's drawing-room, a light by which each and all of them may read many beneficial lessons—lessons that will, it is hoped, abide with them, settle down in their hearts, and by giving them a, clearer sense of their respective duties, aid in improving and regenerating their condition.
To send to the poor man's fireside, through the medium of Tales that will teach his heart and purify his affections, those simple lessons which may enable him to understand his own value—that will generate self-respect, independence, industry, love of truth, hatred of deceit and falsehood, habits of cleanliness, order, and punctuality—together with all those lesser virtues which help to create a proper sense of personal and domestic comfort—to assist in working out these healthful purposes is the Author's anxious wish—a task in which any man may feel proud to engage.
Self-reliance, manly confidence in the effect of their own virtues, respect for the virtues that ought to adorn rank, rather than for rank itself, and a spurning of that vile servility which is only the hereditary remnant of bygone oppression, will be taught the people in such a way as to make them feel how far up in society a high moral condition can and ought to place them. Nor is this all;—the darker page of Irish life shall be laid open before them—in which they will be taught, by examples that they can easily understand, the fearful details of misery, destitution, banishment, and death, which the commission of a single crime may draw down, not only upon the criminal himself, but upon those innocent and beloved connections whom he actually punishes by his guilt.
It is, indeed, with fear and trembling that the Author undertakes such a great and important task as this. If he fail, however, he may well say—
“Quem si non tenuifc, tamon magnis excidit ausis.”
Still he is willing to hope that, through the aid of truthful fiction, operating upon the feelings of his countrymen, and on their knowledge of peasant life, he may furnish them with such a pleasing Encyclopedia of social duty—now lit up with their mirth, and again made tender with their sorrow—as will force them to look upon him as a benefactor—to forget his former errors—and to cherish his name with affection, when he himself shall be freed forever from those cares and trials of life which have hitherto been his portion.
In the following simple narrative of “The Broken Pledge,” it was his aim, without leading his readers out of the plain paths of every-day life or into the improbable creations of Romance, to detail the character of such an individual as almost every man must have often seen and noticed within the society by which he is surrounded. He trusts that the moral, as regards both husband and wife, is wholesome and good, and calculated to warn those who would follow in the footsteps of “Art Maguire.”
Dubin, July 4, 1845.
It has been often observed, and as frequently inculcated, through the medium of both press and pulpit, that there is scarcely any human being who, how striking soever his virtues, or how numerous his good qualities may be, does not carry in his moral constitution some particular weakness or failing, or perhaps vice, to which he is especially subject, and which may, if not properly watched and restrained, exercise an injurious and evil influence over his whole life. Neither have the admonitions of press or pulpit ended in merely laying down this obvious and undeniable truth, but, on the contrary, very properly proceeded to add, that one of the most pressing duties of man is to examine his own heart, in order to ascertain what this particular vice or failing in his case may be, in order that, when discovered, suitable means be taken to remove or overcome it.
The man whose history we are about to detail for the reader's instruction, was, especially during the latter years of his life, a touching, but melancholy illustration of this indisputable truth; in other words, he possessed the weakness or the vice, as the reader may consider it, and found, when too late, that a yielding resolution, or, to use a phrase perhaps better understood, a good intention, was but a feeble and inefficient instrument with which to attempt its subjection. Having made these few preliminary observations, as being suitable, in our opinion, to the character of the incidents which follow, we proceed at once to commence our narrative.
Arthur, or, as he was more familiarly called by the people, Art Maguire, was the son of parents who felt and knew that they were descended from higher and purer blood than could be boasted of by many of the families in their neighborhood. Art's father was a small farmer, who held about ten acres of land, and having a family of six children—three sons, and as many daughters—he determined upon putting one or two of the former to a trade, so soon as they should be sufficiently grown up for that purpose. This, under his circumstances was a proper and provident resolution to make. His farm was too small to be parceled out, as is too frequently the case, into small miserable patches, upon each of which a young and inconsiderate couple are contented to sit down, with the prospect of rearing up and supporting a numerous family with wofully inadequate means; for although it is generally a matter of certainty that the families of these young persons will increase, yet it is a perfectly well-known fact that the little holding will not, and the consequence is, that families keep subdividing on the one hand, and increasing on the other, until there is no more room left for them. Poverty then ensues, and as poverty in such cases begets competition, and competition crime, so we repeat that Condy Maguire's intention, as being one calculated to avoid such a painful state of things, was a proof of his own good sense and forethought.
Arthur's brother, Frank, was a boy not particularly remarkable for any peculiar brilliancy of intellect, or any great vivacity of disposition. When at school he was never in a quarrel, nor engaged in any of those wild freaks which are sore annoyances to a village schoolmaster, and daring outrages against his authority. He was consequently a favorite not only with the master, but with all the sober, well-behaved boys of the school, and many a time has Teague Rooney, with whom he was educated, exclaimed, as he addressed him:
“Go to your sate, Frank abouchal; faith, although there are boys endowed wid more brilliancy of intellect than has fallen to your lot, yet you are the very youth who understands what is due to legitimate authority, at any rate, an' that's no small gift in itself; go to your sate, sorrow taw will go to your substratum this bout, for not having your lesson; for well I know it wasn't idleness that prevented you, but the natural sobriety and slowness of intellect you are gifted wid. If you are slow, however, you are sure, and I'll pledge my reputaytion aginst that of the great O'Flaherty himself, that you and your brinoge of a brother will both live to give a beautiful illustration of the celebrated race between the hare and the tortoise yet. Go to your sate wid impunity, and tell your dacent mother I was inquiring for her.”
Such, indeed, was a tolerably correct view of Frank's character. He was quiet, inoffensive, laborious, and punctual; though not very social or communicative, yet he was both well-tempered and warm-hearted, points which could not, without considerable opportunities of knowing him, be readily perceived. Having undertaken the accomplishment of an object, he permitted no circumstance to dishearten or deter him in working out his purpose; if he said it, he did it; for his word was a sufficient guarantee that he would; his integrity was consequently respected, and his resolution, when he expressed it, was seldom disputed by his companions, who knew that in general it was inflexible. After what we have said, it is scarcely necessary to add that he was both courageous and humane.
These combinations of character frequently occur. Many a man not remarkable for those qualities of the head that impress themselves most strikingly upon the world, is nevertheless gifted with those excellent principles of the heart which, although without much show, and scarcely any noise, go to work out the most useful purposes of life. Arthur, on the contrary, was a contrast to his brother, and a strong one, too, on many points; his intellect was far superior to that of Frank's, but, on the other hand, he by no means possessed his brother's steadiness or resolution. We do not say, however, that he was remarkable for the want of either, far from it; he could form a resolution, and work it out as well as his brother, provided his course was left unobstructed: nay, more, he could overcome difficulties many and varied, provided only that he was left unassailed by, one solitary temptation—that of an easy and good-humored vanity. He was conscious of his talents, and of his excellent qualities, and being exceedingly vain, nothing gave him greater gratification than to hear himself praised for possessing them—for it is a fact, that every man who is vain of any particular gift, forgets that he did not bestow that gift upon himself, and that instead of priding himself upon the possession of it, he should only be humbly thankful to the Being who endowed him with it.
Art was social, communicative, and, although possessing what might be considered internal resources more numerous, and of a far higher order than did his brother, yet, somehow, it was clear that he had not the same self-dependence that marked the other. He always wanted, as it. were, something to lean upon, although in truth he did not at all require it, had he properly understood himself. The truth is, like thousands, he did not begin to perceive, or check in time, those early tendencies that lead a heart naturally indolent, but warm and generous, to the habit of relying first, in small things, upon external sources and objects, instead of seeking and finding within itself those materials for manly independence, with which every heart is supplied, were its possessor only aware of the fact, and properly instructed how to use them.
Art's enjoyments, for instance, were always of a social nature, and never either solitary or useful in their tendencies; of this character was every thing he engaged in. He would not make a ship of water flaggons by himself, nor sail it by himself—he would not spin a top, nor trundle a hoop without a companion—if sent upon a message, or to dig a basket of potatoes in the field, he would rather purchase the society of a companion with all the toys or playthings he possessed than do either alone. His very lessons he would not get unless his brother Frank got his along with him. The reader may thus perceive that he acquired no early habit of self-restraint, no principle of either labor or enjoyment within, himself, and of course could acquire none at all of self-reliance. A social disposition in our amusements is not only proper, but natural, for we believe it is pretty generally known, that he who altogether prefers such amusements is found to be deficient in the best and most generous principles of our nature. Every thing, however, has its limits and its exceptions. Art, if sent to do a day's work alone, would either abandon it entirely, and bear the brunt of his father's anger, or he would, as we have said, purchase the companionship of some neighbor's son or child, for, provided he had any one to whom he could talk, he cared not, and having thus succeeded, he would finish it triumphantly.
In due time, however, his great prevailing weakness, vanity, became well known to his family, who, already aware of his peculiar aversion to any kind of employment that was not social, immediately seized upon it, and instead of taking rational steps to remove it, they nursed it into stronger life by pandering to it as a convenient means of regulating, checking, or stimulating the whole habits of his life. His family were not aware of the moral consequences which they were likely to produce by conduct such as this, nor of the pains they were ignorantly taking to lay the foundation of his future misfortune and misery.
“Art, my good boy, will you take your spade and clane out the remaindher o' that drain, between the Hannigans and us,” said his father.
“Well, will Frank come?”
“Sure you know he can't; isn't he weedin' that bit of blanther in Crackton's park, an' afther that sure he has to cut scraws on the Pirl-hill for the new barn.”
“Well, I'll help him if he helps me; isn't that fair? Let us join.”
“Hut, get out o' that, avourneen; go yourself; do what you're bid, Art.”
“Is it by myself? murdher alive, father, don't ax me; I'll give him my new Cammon if he comes.”
“Throth you won't; the sorra hand I'd ever wish to see the same Cammon in but your own; faix, it's you that can handle it in style. Well now, Art, well becomes myself but I thought I could play a Cammon wid the face o' clay wanst in my time, but may I never sin if ever I could match you at it; oh, sorra taste o' your Cammon you must part wid; sure I'd rather scower the drain myself.”
“Bedad I won't part wid it then.”
“I'd rather, I tell you, scower it myself—an' I will, too. Sure if I renew the ould cough an me I'll thry the Casharawan, (* Dandelion) that did me so much good the last time.”
“Well, that's purty! Ha, ha, ha! you to go! Oh, ay, indeed—as if I'd stand by an' let you. Not so bad as that comes to, either—no. Is the spade an' shovel in the shed?”
“To be sure they are. Throth, Art, you're worth the whole o' them—the sorra lie in it. Well, go, avillish.”
This was this fine boy's weakness played upon by those who, it is true, were not at all conscious of the injury they were inflicting upon him at the time. He was certainly the pride of the family, and even while they humored and increased this his predominant and most dangerous foible, we are bound to say that they gratified their own affection as much as they did his vanity.
His father's family consisted, as we have said, of three sons and three daughters. The latter were the elder, and in point of age Art, as we have said, was the youngest of them all. The education that he and his brothers received was such as the time and the neglected state of the country afforded them. They could all read and write tolerably well, and knew something of arithmetic. This was a proof that their education had not been neglected. And why should it? Were they not the descendants of the great Maguires of Fermanagh? Why, the very consciousness of their blood was felt as a proud and unanswerable argument against ignorance. The best education, therefore, that could be procured by persons in their humble sphere of life, they received. The eldest brother, whose name was Brian, did not, as is too frequently the case with the eldest sons of small farmers, receive so liberal a portion of instruction as Frank or Art. This resulted from the condition and necessities of his father, who could not spare him from his farm—and, indeed, it cost the worthy man many a sore heart. At all events, time advanced, and the two younger brothers were taken from school with a view of being apprenticed to some useful trade. The character of each was pretty well in accordance with their respective dispositions. Frank had no enemies, yet was he by no means so popular as Art, who had many. The one possessed nothing to excite envy, and never gave offence; the other, by the very superiority of his natural powers, exultingly paraded, as they were, at the expense of dulness or unsuccessful rivalry, created many vindictive maligners, who let no opportunity pass of giving him behind his back the harsh word which they durst not give him to his face. In spite of all this, his acknowledged superiority, his generosity, his candor, and utter ignorance or hatred of the low chicaneries of youthful cunning, joined to his open, intrepid, and manly character, conspired to render him popular in an extraordinary degree. Nay, his very failings added to this, and when the battle of his character was fought, all the traditionary errors of moral life were quoted in his favor.
“Ay, ay, the boy has his faults, and who has not; I'd be glad to know? If he's lively, it's betther to be that, than a mosey, any day. His brother Frank is a good boy, but sure divil a squig of spunk or spirits is in him, an', my dear, you know the ould proverb, that a standin' pool always stinks, while the runnin' strame is sweet and clear to the bottom. If he's proud, he has a right to be proud, and why shouldn't he, seein' that it's well known he could take up more larnin' than half the school.”
“Well, but poor Frank's a harmless boy, and never gave offence to mortual, which, by the same token, is more than can be said of Art the lad.”
“Very well, we know all that; and maybe it 'ud be betther for himself if he had a sharper spice of the dioual in him—but sure the poor boy hasn't the brain for it. Offence! oh, the dickens may seize the offence poor Frank will give to man or woman, barrin' he mends his manners, and gats a little life into him—sure he was a year and a day in the Five Common Rules, an' three blessed weeks gettin' the Multiplication Table.”
Such, in general, was the estimate formed of their respective characters, by those who, of course, had an opportunity of knowing them best. Whether the latter were right or wrong will appear in the sequel, but in the meantime we must protest, even in this early stage of our narrative, against those popular exhibitions of mistaken sympathy, which in early life—the most dangerous period too—are felt and expressed for those who, in association with weak points of character, give strong indications of talent. This mistaken generosity is pernicious to the individual, inasmuch as it confirms him in the very errors which he should correct, and in the process of youthful reasoning, which is most selfish, induces him not only to doubt the whisperings of his own conscience, but to substitute in their stead the promptings of the silliest vanity.
Having thus given a rapid sketch of these two brothers in their schoolboy life, we now come to that period at which their father thought proper to apprentice them. The choice of the trade he left to their own natural judgment, and as Frank was the eldest, he was allowed to choose first. He immediately selected that of a carpenter, as being clean, respectable, and within-doors; and, as he added—
“Where the wages is good—and then I'm tould that one can work afther hours, if they wish.”
“Very well,” said the father, “now let us hear, Art; come, alanna, what are you on for?”
“I'll not take any trade,” replied Art.
“Not take any trade, Art! why, my goodness, sure you knew all along that you war for a trade. Don't you know when you and Frank grow up, and, of course, must take the world on your heads, that it isn't this strip of a farm that you can depend on.”
“That's what I think of,” said Frank; “one's not to begin the world wid empty pockets, or, any way, widout some ground to put one's foot on.”
“The world!” rejoined Art; “why, what the sorra puts thoughts o' the world into your head, Frank? Isn't it time enough for you or me to think o' the world these ten years to come?”
“Ay,” replied Frank, “but when we come to join it isn't the time to begin to think of it; don't you know what the ould saying says—ha nha la na guiha la na scuillaba—it isn't on the windy day that you are to look for your scollops.” *