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The next moment I found my body, safe and unhurt, on the hearth of Dame Caddlefurrow's kitchen. There was the dame, seated in her bee-hive chair, staring with surprise, impatience, and anger, at my worship in the barrow. As soon as the clown recovered his lost breath, he proceeded to an explanation of the cause of his introducing such an unsightly and unknown personage as me to her goodly presence. “I ha; zeed the chap,” quoth he, elevating the handles of his wheelbarrow to the top of his shoulders, so as to afford the dame a full view of my person; “I ha' zeed the chap scaures and scaures o' times, skulking about the hill, always and vor ever just about night-vall, when 1 do goa a-voddering the beasts; zo, thinks I, thic jockey bean't loitering about here zo often wi' any good plan in his noddle: moorauver, I ha' zeed un, coming athirt the vields ov a night, just avore harvest, treading down whole zheaves o' wheat at a voot-vall:—that nettled I more nor all; zo I looked out vor un to-night, zlipped un into the dung-barry, walked un down the hill-zide, and drove un through the ould porch ztraight as a vurrow:—zo here a' is, and let un gi'e a'count ov hi'zelf.”
“Ay, let un give an account of himself,” said the sturdy dame; “Who bee'st, 'oesbert?”—To say that I was at the point of dissolution, were needless. I began to mutter a few incoherent sentences, when one of the fellows at the door cried out, “He's Habby Bullwrinkle, the devil's-bird, down in the village.”
“A lawyer!” shouted Mistress Caddlefurrow, in a tone that doomed me, in perspective, to all the horrors of the horse-pond;—“Why, thou bloated raven! thou—”
“Zober—zober, mother,” whispered a voice behind me; and a hand, at the same time, quietly put the enraged widow back towards her bee-hive; “bide a bit; only bide a bit; hearken to reason.” I extricated myself from the barrow, and looked up to see who my protecting angel could possibly be; it was no other than Skelpie. “This gentleman's my vreind,” continued he, looking drolly towards me; “he and I be main vond o' one another; I zeldom goes to chat wi' a lass, but what he is near at hand; zo—d'ye mind?—he often come wi' I to the top of the hill, and bided there, while I just stepped down to court little Ally vor an hour or zo; that's all:—I left un there to-night. I axed the mopus to come in, but he's modest, main modest, vor a chap of his years.” So saying, he resumed his seat, and tendered me the cider-mug and a spare pipe in such a friendly and unsuspicious manner, that told me all was right in a moment. The clowns retired, and the old dame looked on me as kindly as her features would permit, under the impression that I was the chosen friend of her niece's intended husband; for such, I soon discovered, Skelpie was by her considered!—As soon as the storm in my veins had somewhat abated, I looked around for the mild goddess of my idolatry, the lady-like, modest, soft, silver-eyed Ally Budd.
She was drooping in a dark corner, with a check apron thrown over her folded arms, and snoring audibly!
I could not bear to think of the heartless creature for a year after; of course I never hovered over the abode of Dame Caddlefurrow again. Skelpie soon deserted the cold lass for another love; and, after being obliged to dance in her stocking-vamps, according to the custom of the country, at the marriages of her two younger sisters, Ally was wedded to an unlucky miser,—the most miserable character under the sun. But to resume:—after lighting my pipe, I sat for some minutes absorbed in reflections on my late adventure. I did not like Skelpie a whit the better for having shielded me from the wrath of the boisterous widow; a blow from his hand would have been much more acceptable than a favour: I imagined that he was rioting on the idea of having vexed me, by his act of apparent good-nature and kindness; and I construed his silence very much in favour of this vagary of my heated imagination. Presently I heard a noise behind old mother Caddlefurrow's chair, which resembled the faint and irregular chuckling of a woman's half-stifled laugh; and, anon, a tuft of hair, dark as the raven's wing, topped by a pheasant's plume, gleamed over the head of the chair; a white brow, and a pair of laughing black eyes, brim full of tears, followed; and in a few minutes, Kate Skelpie, the wicked, mischievous sister of my deliverer, tumbled out of the recess, which the dame's chair had effectually shaded. She was a round, dumpy lass, full of tricks as a frolicsome colt, with an impertinent cocked nose, and a pair of lips, that were continually in waggish and most alluring motion. I had seen her before at a farmer's merry-making, when she picked me out for a partner, and, notwithstanding my obesity, obliged me to dance down six-and-thirty couple of giggling girls, and roaring men;—keeping up, all the time, as grave a face as ever sat on the shoulders of an undertaker. I pitched and leaped about like a gambolling rhinoceros, to the infinite diversion of the company, and my own solitary grief and dismay. Kate and I were the only persons in the room who looked at all solid. I felt an inkling of affection for the lass, even then,—why, I know not; and the continual crossings I received from Skelpie, determined me to make love under his own roof, where I should, most probably, be sure of peace and quietness in my trysting; as Skelpie usually past the love time of the nights, about at the abodes of the different village toasts. Here was a glorious opportunity of improving my acquaintance with the twinkling-eyed Kate! She was not such a poetical-looking creature as the snoring Ally Budd, nor so tall and comely as the false daughter of Grobstock; nevertheless, Kate Skelpie was a jocund, pretty, and captivating young lass. I courted her, and prospered.
She had no meddling parents to interfere with us; and Skelpie was, of course, absent from home five nights in the week. Many were the pranks which the dear jade played me; but I did not care;—they kept my flame alive, and her occasional kind looks and unsolicited salutes convinced me that I held a place in her heart. In the meantime, however, I carried on the war in another quarter. I had two nights in the week to spare, and these I spent at a farm-house about a mile from the village, with a slender young maiden, named Amaranth Saffem.
One Saturday evening, Skelpie overtook me as I was journeying towards Amaranth's dwelling. He accosted me civilly; and having some serious notions about his sister, I did not scruple to enter into conversation with him. He had not crossed me for above a month; and Kate had informed me, the night before, “that she should have a good bit of gold, if the old chap at the Lands' End would but take it into his head just to die a bit:” these were good reasons for my civility, and we discoursed on the most fashionable village topics with great urbanity and mildness. At length, however, we arrived at Amaranth's door; and then, for the first time, the truth flashed upon each of our minds. We were both evidently bent on a love-visit to the fair Saffern. Skelpie looked rather hurt, methought, and could not help heaving a short sigh. However, we both went in, and found Amaranth alone. It was market-day; and her crippled grandfather, with whom she dwelt, as we both well knew, was gone to, and in all probability would remain at, the next market-town until a late hour, according to his usual custom; otherwise, we should almost as soon have ventured into a tiger's den, to despoil the animal of a whelp, as pay a love-visit to the old man's granddaughter. The miller was a lamb, compared with dame Caddlefurrow; and that lady a dove in deportment, to old Jagger Saffern. But more of him anon.
Amaranth, it was plain, favoured me rather than Skelpie. Without vanity be it spoken, I was, at that time, barring my obesity, which rendered me somewhat unsightly in the eyes of the lean, rather a personable man, and not quite forty. I was by no means particularly solicitous to gain the young Saffem's affections, yet she clung to me in preference to Skelpie, who did all in his power to please her. He was evidently in love, and for the first time in his life, felt the pangs of jealousy in his heart. I was his successful rival!—I, even I, Habakkuk Bullwrinkle, the devil's bird, whom he had so long despised, had succeeded in warping the affections of his Amaranth!—He bit his lip, loured and smiled by fits, and, in vain endeavoured to conceal the state of his heart. Amaranth seemed to rejoice in his torments; she had always been tolerably liberal in her tokens of affection, but, on this occasion, she almost exceeded the bounds of probability. I did not much like it at last; for I began to think she was making a fool of me. We went on in this way for above an hour, when the old cripple's poney suddenly clattered into the court-yard. Skelpie started on his legs in evident alarm. There was no way of escape, but through a back door into a little yard, which was surrounded by a villanous high wall, so smooth, and well-built too, as to defy even Skelpie's clambering capabilities.
We had not been a moment outside the door, before the cripple entered the house. Skelpie was endeavouring with all his might to get over the wall: he clung like a cat to the bare bricks; but, before he had well reached half-way up, his foot slipped, and down he came. I was standing disconsolately underneath him; he fell so suddenly, that I had not time to get out of the way, and Skelpie's ponderous and hard skull struck me full in the pit of my stomach, and sent me staggering against the back door, which naturally gave way with the shock, and I was precipitated, on the broad of my back, in the very middle of the floor. Luckily, I came in contact with the table on which the candle stood, and extinguished the light in my fall. The embers were dying on the hearth, and Skelpie had hauled me by the legs, back into the yard, before the cripple (who waited to reach his loaded blunderbuss before he looked round) could catch more than a vague glimpse of my form and features. The door swung inward, and Skelpie easily held it fast enough to prevent the cripple from pulling it open;—at the same time carefully screening his body behind the wall of the house, from the cripple's bullets, which we expected to hear rattling through the door every moment. He growled like an incensed bear, and muttered curses by wholesale on poor Amaranth, whom we heard whining most piteously. At length, he seemed to take a sudden resolution, chuckled audibly, and proceeded to barricade the door with all the furniture in the room. Here was an end to all our hopes of enfranchisement and safety. But, oh! dear me! what were my feelings, when I heard the cripple hobbling up stairs, and trying to open a little window which commanded the yard! We were in a sad situation; our only choice of avoiding the lynx eyes of Jagger was by getting into two water-butts, which stood in the yard. The windows of the house looked into every corner, so that we could not possibly hope to conceal ourselves behind them. In we went together, but my ill luck still attended me; Skelpie crouched comfortably in the belly of a dry butt, but the one, into which I floundered, was half full of water. The chilling liquid rose to within a foot and a half of the brim, the moment I got in, so that it was impossible for me to crouch, being actually standing on tip-toe, neck high in water! It was a bleak night, but my fever saved my life.
The cripple's blunderbuss, of unprecedented calibre, was thrust out of the window, before I could well moderate my quick breathing. He looked into every corner of the yard, but, happily, did not perceive my miserable sconce, which was floating in the water-butt, immediately beneath him. He descended in a few minutes, and removed the furniture from the door, searched all round the yard, and, at length, discovering the marks of Skelpie's shoes in the wall, concluded that we had escaped, and went grumbling to bed. It was a long time before I would suffer Skelpie to help me out of my hiding-place: he effected the job with infinite difficulty, and led me, dripping like a watering-pot, through the house.
About a week after this adventure, I discovered that Kate and Amaranth, who were once bosom friends, had quarrelled about me, and were now as spiteful to each other as possible. They met, one evening, at old Hetty Caddlefurrow's, and, on comparing notes, found that I was playing a double game. Ally Budd was present, but she said nothing. After lavishing the usual abusive epithets on me, they began to look coldly upon each other: from cool looks, they proceeded to vituperative insinuations; and, before they parted, naturally came to an open rupture. Occasionally, I suffered a little from their pouting and touting; but, in the main, I was happy enough between them. Each tried all her arts to win me from her rival they sometimes met, grew great friends, vowed they would both turn their backs upon me for ever, kissed, cried, quarrelled again, and grew more rancorous to each other and loving to me, than before. Skelpie became an altered man. Amaranth flouted him, abused his sister to his face, and caressed me in his presence;—although, I believe, the hussy, if she knew her own heart, loved the fellow all the time. Skelpie dressed smartly, discontinued his visits to all other girls, neglected his games, and even his daily occupations, to court Amaranth. He won the heart of the old cripple Saffern; but the lass still turned a deaf ear to his vows:—she was trying to vex Kate Skelpie. I was completely happy; I felt—but wherefore should I dwell on this love contest?—Skelpie is looking over my shoulder, and does not seem to relish the protracted detail. Suffice it to say then, that the banns of marriage were at length published, between Habakkuk Bull wrinkle, gentleman, and Kate Skelpie, spinster;—that we were united in due season;—and that Skelpie, a short time afterwards, obtained the hand of Amaranth. The angry passions of the girls soon subsided, and they loved each other better than ever. Skelpie became my bosom friend; I prospered in business; and the two families have lived together for above twenty years, in concord and happiness. The roses have faded in Amaranth's cheek, and the fire of Kate's eye is somewhat quenched; but the relation of my own mishaps, Skelpie's adventures, and our strange courtships, never fails to draw back the youthful smiles of hilarity in both their matronly faces. Heaven bless them!
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SECOND COURSE: THE NEIGHBOURS OF AN OLD IRISH BOY.
INTRODUCTION.
A one-armed naval Lieutenant, on half-pay, who was distantly related to my mother's family, had the good fortune to be presented, in his declining years, with a little cottage and a small portion of land situate in a village on the coast of Ireland, by one of his wealthy nephews, to whom it was unexpectedly devised by a maiden grand-aunt, who had never seen him above once in his life. I accompanied the Lieutenant, from Waterford, for no other reason than because I had nothing, either better or worse, to do, when he went to take possession of his nephew's gift; and to pay a visit, after a separation of some years, to his old shipmate—the friend of his youth, and the companion of his manhood—Jimmy Fitzgerald,—better known by the appellation of the Old Irish Boy, who dwelt in a mud cabin on the skirts of the village: the history of whose neighbours is given in the ensuing pages, as nearly as possible in the same terms as he narrated it to my worthy relative, the one-armed Lieutenant, and myself, in the course of the two or three first evenings which we passed in his company.
JIMMY FITZGERALD.
Jimmy Fitzgerald and the old Lieutenant had both entered the navy in equally humble situations, at an early age: the friends of the latter, eventually, procured his advancement; but Fitzgerald, whose relations were poor, never had the luck to be rated on any ship's books in a higher station than that of an able seaman. The difference of rank had not the effect of diminishing the respect and affection which the Lieutenant and Fitzgerald bore towards each other: in their manhood they were upon as familiar terms, so far as naval etiquette would permit, as when in their boyhood they had been equals. The Lieutenant had saved his friend's life, at the risk of his own, in the Mediterranean; and, to judge from appearances, he was, if possible, more partial to Jimmy Fitzgerald than the Old Irish Boy was to him. The preserver frequently is found to display more affection towards the preserved, than the preserved either exhibits or feels towards his preserver.
No two men could be much more unlike each other than the Lieutenant and Jimmy Fitzgerald. The former had received a tolerable education before he went to sea; he had taken every opportunity to improve himself while in the service; from the period of his retiring, he had read much on general subjects; and he was, at the time of his taking possession of his nephew's cottage, a very well informed man. Jimmy Fitzgerald, on the contrary, scarcely knew how to read when he left his native village; he had picked up but a slight smattering of such knowledge as is to be obtained from books, in his progress through life; but he possessed a finer mind and greater powers of observation than his friend; and the Old Irish Boy was, perhaps, superior to the better educated Lieutenant, in mental riches, discrimination, and eloquence, when they again met, after an interval of many years' separation, under the roof of the former. Jimmy Fitzgerald's style rose with his subject; and he occasionally found himself at such an elevation, that it was a mystery how he had been able to attain it. The Lieutenant was always level in his discourse: he neither descended so low, nor rose so high as his friend; nor did he, like Fitzgerald, ever presume to discuss any but commonplace subjects. Jimmy occasionally indulged in such daring flights, that he toppled down headlong from an altitude which he was unable to support; a disgrace to which the more sober and matter-of-fact Lieutenant never subjected himself. The one sedulously avoided the utterance of anything new; the other, if it had been in his power, would rarely have said anything that was old. The Lieutenant was circumspect, and the Old Boy ambitious: the former was stiff, constrained, and rather stately in his language; the latter free, careless, and Hibernically vernacular. Jimmy Fitzgerald was poor, almost dependant on the exertions of a niece and her two sons for support, and so afflicted in his nether extremities, that he could not move from his chair without assistance; but he was always merry, and rarely complained. The Lieutenant possessed a competency, he enjoyed a most robust state of health, his legs, and the arm which the enemies of his country had left him, were still in full vigour; but he frequently repined at his poverty, occasional slight attacks of head-ache, and at being compelled to do the work of two hands with one.
Notwithstanding the difference in their temperaments, the two friends had rarely disagreed; and Orestes and Pylades, or Damon and Pythias, could not have exhibited more affection towards each other, after a long separation, than Jimmy Fitzgerald and the Lieutenant did, when the latter entered the Old Irish Boy's cabin. My relation had, to use his own expression, been roaming about, here and there and everywhere, for a number of years; and so little positive inclination did he feel for passing the remainder of his life in one place, that he would, probably, have declined his nephew's well-meant offer, had not Jimmy Fitzgerald's cabin been within ten minutes' walk of the cottage, and the sea been visible from two of its four front windows. The village was principally occupied by fishermen; but there were two or three respectable families resident in the neighbourhood: to these the old Lieutenant had letters of introduction; so that he felt satisfied, on entering upon his tolerably neat, but humble abode, that he should not be at a loss for society, even if it were possible for him ever to grow tired of that of his friend Fitzgerald.
After a great number of mutual inquiries had been answered, and many expressions of reciprocal friendship had been uttered, Jimmy Fitzgerald drew forth a little tub of pothien from beneath the bed, with his crutch,—which was of no other use to him but to perform this and similar offices,—and protested by several saints, whose names have escaped my memory, that we should have a jovial night of it. “Many's the pitcher of good drink,” he exclaimed, “the Lieutenant and I have helped one another to empty: though, I'll say this for him, he'd always thirty-one points and a half more love for sobriety than ever Jimmy Fitzgerald could boast; and at that same time, when he'd make mouths at a third can, and draw back from a fourth, as he would from a dog that was going to snap at him, I drank, and drank,—more shame to me for it,—as though I'd declared war against spirits, and wished to exterminate them,—rum, in particular,—from the face of the earth. I think I'm a better man than I was long ago: no thanks to me, for that, though, perhaps; for I'm out of the way of temptation; and if I'd the pay of an admiral, I couldn't enjoy myself as I did long ago. It's wrong of us to brag of our virtue, when we've no appetite left in us for sin:—that's a saying I stole from the priest, because it plazed me. You'll like Father Killala mightily, Lieutenant, when you come to know him; as you soon will, won't you? And noticing him reminds me of telling you, that while you're here, I'll engage you'll never get reproached for being a Protestant.”
“Toleration, Jimmy—”
“Is it toleration?” exclaimed Fitzgerald, interrupting the Lieutenant; “why then, in toleration, Father Killalas flock are all lambkins. I'll add to that,—because, I know you'll like to hear it—we're as quiet as mice in these parts: we've no fighting, nor fairs, nor wren-feasts; and as few ghosts or goblins, Banshees, Lepreghauns, or white women on horseback, as you'd wish: for we don't give such cattle much encouragement. Don't that plaze you, Lieutenant?”
“It does,—it does; and I have no doubt but that I shall pass my days peacefully and pleasantly in your village, my good old friend. Jimmy Fitzgerald and I,” continued the Lieutenant, addressing me with unusual animation, “have fought and bled side by side; we were confined together, for four years, in a French prison, from which we escaped in company; we had but one tobacco-box between us, for fifteen months; and we accidentally fell in love with the same woman. Jimmy acted most magnanimously on that occasion: as soon as he discovered that I was his rival, he instantly resigned his pretensions in my favour.”
“And you were quite as polite to me, Lieutenant,” said Jimmy, “and I don't forget it to you to this day. You insisted, you know, as strongly as I did: so that as each was resolute in not cutting out his friend, the darling delight of our hearts got neither of us; and she's now living,—an ould maid, as I'm tould,—near upon a mile and a half this side of Thurles.”
“Is it possible?” exclaimed the Lieutenant.
“It's as true as you're born, if Corney Carolan is to be believed on his oath. I wouldn't take his word; but when a man swears to what he says, it's not dacent to discredit him, is it?”
“Certainly not,” replied the Lieutenant. “And so Peggy is living within a mile and a half of Thurles, is she?—unmarried, too, you say?”
“She is; and I don't think I'd be doing my duty if I didn't tell you. I'll just take this present opportunity of saying, too, that as you think of settling, and as you're still well-looking, and I'm broke down out-and-out, so that she wouldn't look upon me,—I'd sacrifice nothing,—that is, I wouldn't intirely brake my heart if you wint and married her.”
“James Fitzgerald,” said the Lieutenant, “you are still the noble fellow you were thirty years ago. You have forestalled me on this occasion: I assure you that I was just working myself up to say to you what you have said to me. You are still a bachelor, Jimmy, and, as far as I am concerned, Miss Margaret M'Carthy is quite at your service.”
“Thank you kindly, and good luck to you for this and all that's past,” said Jimmy; “but, to spake my mind,—I never cared much about Peg.”
“Nor I, upon my honour!” exclaimed the Lieutenant.
“I was glad of an excuse to be rid of her,” quoth Fitzgerald.
“Precisely my own case, I protest,” said the Lieutenant.
“And I never cared one half so little for her, as I do just now.”
“We coincide on this point to a tittle.”
“Then what becomes of our mutual devotion, Lieutenant? It was all moonshine, you see.”
“Not exactly,” replied the Lieutenant; “man can look back on past occurrences, and see circumstances in their true light—”
“Better than he can when they're under his nose?” interrupted Fitzgerald. “Is it that you mane?”
“It is: passion and prejudice, as philosophy teaches us—”
“Hould your tongue, Lieutenant,” said Fitzgerald; “for I think I can find a shorter way for us out of the bog, than your jack-o-lantern philosophy will light us to. The truth is, we were young and foolish that time; we thought we loved the young woman, and we didn't: so there's an end of Peg. My blessings be on her for all that, though! She never did me harm; and one of us, may be, was wrong in not marrying her.”
“She told me to my face,—truth is a jewel, Jimmy Fitzgerald,” said the Lieutenant, “she told me, calmly and resolutely, when I informed her that you were as deeply in love with her as myself, that we had mistaken innocent flirting for affection; and that, were a formal proposal made to her, she should indignantly reject it; 'for,' said she, 'I would not have either of you, if one was a Rear Admiral, and the other a Major of Marines.' That was her precise expression.”
“Oh! Time, Time!” exclaimed Jimmy; “what a fine auld fellow you are, to be sure! How you open our eyes, and bring things to light! If it wasn't for you, Truth might often go hide her head.”
“I think,” said the Lieutenant, rather gaily, “that if I wanted a wife, I might probably find one who would suit me better than Peggy, among your neighbours, friend Fitzgerald. And, by-the-by, as I am coming to live among them, I should be glad if you would afford me a little insight to their various characters, circumstances, and histories. I am well aware of your capability to do so:—when I found you on board the Janus, after we had parted company for more than seven years, you did me incalculable benefit, by giving me a descriptive portrait of every soul in the ship; from the cook's boy up to the captain. Will you oblige me?”
“I will, in that or anything else that's in the power o' me,” replied the Old Boy. “If I devoted one half o' my life to you, since I was twenty, I'd still be your debtor for the other half: for didn't you save the whole of it at the risk of your own?—You did, then; and I'll never—”
“Psha, psha, Fitzgerald! you know what strong objections I have to your dwelling on that topic.”
“Go along with you, and don't be prating so, sir,” said Jimmy; “I won't put up with your taking the liberty of doing a fine thing for me, and then bidding me not spake of it. My bits of gratitude, now and then, goes for the interest; but I'll never be able to pay off the debt. Still, though the one is out of my power to do, I'd not be aisy in my own mind if I neglected the other that isn't: so that, after all, may be, when we think we're doing great things, by acting as we should to others, we're just egged on to it, by the fear of not being on good terms with ourselves. You've often tould me, Lieutenant, I should be your Corporal Trim,—the man you and I read about, long ago, in Jack Flanagan's bit of a book, aboard the Bellerophon: and I would be so, but my legs took to their heels and deserted me, you know; and so I couldn't, could I? Did you ever get hould of a book, since I saw you, with the middle and both ends of that story in it?—If you did, as we'd only the middle and a bit o' the beginning in Jack Flanagan's greasy library, I'd be glad if you'd tell it me.”
“I will, with pleasure, Fitzgerald, when—”
“When I've described my neighbours to you, is it? Well, then, I'll do that, I think, before we part, if the whiskey houlds out, and it don't get much the better of us. But it sha'n't, shall it?—for we'll put ourselves upon short allowance, and drink as we ought, to the renewal of our acquaintance, when I'm done. I'll tell you, before I begin, that you couldn't pick out any nine in the whole barony, knows half so much about the people that's in it, as myself; though I'm fast moored here, like a Trinity-house buoy on a sand-bank: but though I see little, I hear much; and as I can't go to any body, why, every body comes to me.”
“I am grieved to the heart, Jimmy Fitzgerald,” said the Lieutenant, “to behold you so fettered by your infirmities; confined, if I may use the expression, like a pig in a coop—”
“Liberty, Lieutenant,” interrupted the Old Irish Boy, “is only comparative at the best; and none of us gets our fill of it. Going about from one place to another isn't freedom, as I think you'll own: so why need I cry out? If it was, nobody, as I said, while ago, has as much as he wishes of it. I'd be delighted to be able to go get mass once a week, and to crawl a quarter of a mile now and then; but my infirmities prevent me: so I don't have my wish. But I'm only like the rest o' the world; and, therefore, I ought to be contented; though, I'll own, I'm not so, exactly. One man sighs to have a jaunt into the country, sometimes,—but his wife won't let him leave the town he lives in; another thinks he'd be happy if he could p'rambulate about in foreign parts,—but his pocket keeps him at home; even that mighty conqueror, Alexander the Great, if there's truth in the song that's made about him, found the globe itself too little for his desires; and you know, well enough, that little Snookenhausen used to be telling us at Malta, of an ould philosopher, in ancient times, who fell out with his own bread and butter, like a big baby as he was, because he couldn't have another world for a play-ground, so as he might play trap-ball with this. There's none of us but strains the cable by which we're moored, as tight as we well can; and many's the man tries, all his life, to cut it, and sheer off into the main; but he can't. If you tie up a horse in a field, he'll not care half so much about the rich grass that's under his nose, as he will for a few dry blades, which his rope won't let him reach; and he'll be trying for them, when he might be filling his belly with better. If I am, as you say, shut up here like a pig in a coop,—and it's true enough,—I've the comfort of knowing, that be, who thinks himself free, and brags about his liberty, has a ring in his nose, and, may be, two or three other incumbrances, which prevent him, although he's adrift, from enjoying his freedom, or doing as he likes, much more than I can.—But now for my neighbours—”
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THE NATIVE AND THE ODD FISH.
Mick Maguire is a native of these parts, and he's out and out the oddest fish among my neighbours, as I think, and as you'll think too, may be, by-and-by, when I tell you more about him.—Didn't it ever occur to you, that a man may be ruined by a bit of good luck as well as by bad?—I'm sure it must.—I had an uncle at Tralee, who was left seventy pounds by his wife's gossip; and he welcomed the gift so warmly, and caroused so heartily to the honour of the giver, that he never ceased drinking and losing his time,—though he was a dacent man, and did business as he ought before,—until the seventy pounds, and a little to the tail of it, had slipped through his fingers. But that wasn't the end of it: for he got such bad habits as he never could shake off again; so he lived a few years a sot, and died a beggar: all which wouldn't have happened but for the seventy pounds his wife's gossip gave him.—I knew a young woman, whose name I won't mention, for the sake of her family, who lost herself entirely through a love of fine clothes, which she had never cared more about, than just a little, as all women do,—and no blame to them,—before her brother, who sailed for three years in the same ship with me, brought her home a little bag of silks and things above her station, which, when she'd worn them, made her despise her plain, honest, ould duds: but them that was about her couldn't give her better; so she grew sick of home, and did that she was sore at heart for when she came to a death-bed.—Ah! then's the time, if we never did before, when we know right from wrong;—then's the time, when the brain balances things and gives true weight to all our misdeeds;—then's the time, when a man, who could never before recollect what he did that day se'nnight, remembers all the evil he has done in his days, and all the good he might have done, but wouldn't. A dying man's memory, if he has been a bad one, is one of the most perfect and terrible things in the world;—go see one yourself, and you'll own it. We may be'cute enough to hide what we do from the world all our lives, but we can't do so from ourselves when death puts out his big bony paw to give us a grim welcome to his dark dominions. We may be'cute enough to shut our own eyes to what we've done, when we're strong and able, and the world's going merrily round with us; and we may be fools enough to think that our sins are blotted out when we have forgotten them;—for I've found that men are just like the ostriches I've seen myself, in Africa, which, when they're hunted, poke their pates into a dark place, leaving their bodies entirely exposed, and fancy no one can see them if they can't see themselves:—but when we know that the last sands in our glass are running, and the dead sea is glimmering before us, we can't poke our heads into a corner,—don't you see?—or tie a stone to the neck of each of our iniquities, and drown it;—or look another way, and think of to-morrow's dinner, when they're coming to meet us;—or silence their small but very terrible voices, by whistling the burthen of an old song: for,—do you mark?—they won't be served so: they will be seen; they will speak; and, faith! it's bear them we must, whether we will or no. We may have fancied them dead and gone, years ago; but their ghosts start up and surround our death-beds, and clamour so, that we can't but listen to them: and what's most awful, they make a man his own judge; and no earthly judge is so impartial as a man is of himself, when his people are just wishing him good-b'ye for ever. For when we get on the brink of life and death, and know that it's ten to one we'll be dead by the morning, and it's just midnight already;—when we think that in a few hours our ears will be deaf, and our eyes blind, and we can't wag a finger, and our cold white corpse will be stretched out on a board,—motionless, helpless, good for nothing, and lumber more than anything else;—when we know, that, much as we thought of ourselves, the sun will rise, and the birds sing, and the flowers look beautiful, and the ox be yoked to the plough, and the chimneys smoke, and the pot be boiled, and the world go on without us, as well as if we'd never been in it;—then's the time, I say, we get our vanity cut up by the roots, and feel what atoms we've been in it:—and then's the time too, that the soul,—just before pluming her wings, and having half shaken off the dross of humanity,—becomes strong as the body gets weak, and won't be bamboozled, but calls up all our sins past, and places them stedfastly before our eyes; and if we've done wrong—that is, much of it,—a big black bird stretches out her great wings and flutters, brooding like a weight of cold lead, on our hearts; and conscience, though we've contrived to keep her down all our lives, then starts up, taking advantage of our helplessness, and reigns in fall power.—But what's all this to Mick Maguire? you'll say.—Faith! then, not much: I began with an idea of getting to him in a few words, but was led astray, by noticing the death of the young woman I mentioned as being ruined by the gift of a brother, who meant it for her good. And you'll think it odd, may be, that the likes o' me casts over things so sariously: but I do, and there's nothing plazes me more than so doing, when I'm left alone here by myself, for hours and hours together, while all that's near and dear to me is out upon the waves, the mighty roar of which, as they break upon the rocks about me, I hear night and day; and the sound o' them, and solitude, begets sarious thoughts; and so they should, in one that's gone sixty. There's never a day but I think o' death, so that I'm sure I'll be able to meet him firmly when he knocks at the gates of life for me, and bids me come. If I could go about, I'd not have such oceans of odd, out o' the way thoughts, consarning various things; but here I am, fettered by my infirmities to an ould chair, and I've nothing to do half my time, but think. Don't imagine, though, that I'm laid up in a harbour of peace, or that the other half of my time is calm and pleasant: it's no such thing; the woes and the wickedness of the world—good luck to it though, for all that—reaches me here in this corner, though it's harm me they can't much. I'm like an ould buoy, fast moored to an anchor on a bad coast, over which the waves dashes and splashes all day long, but they can neither move it nor damage it. But what's all this to Mick Maguire? you'll say, again. Faith! then, little or nothing: but now I've done, and we'll get on.
Mick, like my uncle at Tralee, has been ruined by a gift. He was once a hard-working man, and did well; until young Pierce Veogh, just after he came into possession of the house that's called “The Beg,” on the hill yonder,—which he did at his father's death,—gave Mick an ould gun once, for something I forget; and that gun has been the ruin of him. He works one day in the week to buy powder and shot; and half starves himself, and goes in rags the other six, prowling about the rocks, and firing at sea-gulls and so forth, but seldom shooting one.
Mick's an oddity, as I tould you before; and why so? you'll say. Why, then, not for his face, for he's good-looking; nor for his figure, for he's straight and well built; nor for his jokes, for he never makes one; nor for any one thing in the world but his always telling the plain naked truth; good or bad, no matter if it harms him, he don't mind, but always spakes the thing that is, and won't tell even a white lie for himself, much more for any one else:—and if that's not an oddity, I don't know what is. There's so much lying going on in the world, that if a man just lives in a corner, and sees only three people in the year, he must lie now and then; or, somehow, things won't be as they should be; he won't do like them that's about him, and can't get on: why, I don't know; but so it is. Mick was never known to tell a story in his whole life; but he has sworn to so many out o' the way things, that he's often been suspected to be a big liar: for I need scarce say to you, that nothing can look more like a lie sometimes than the plain truth. But whatever Mick says, always at last and in the long run turns out to be fact: so that we don't know what to think of the story he has of the fairy he saw on the rocks long ago. It seems as much like a lie as anything ever I heard; but if it is one, it's the first Mick tould; and if so, troth then, it's a thumper. And why shouldn't it?—A good man, when he does wrong, commits a big sin; while you and I only does dozens of little ones: and them that sticks by the truth in general, if they happens to tell a lie, faith! then, it's a wonderful big one;—and, may be, so is Mick's story;—but you'll judge for yourself, when you hear it. But don't forget the honesty of Mick's tongue; and bear in mind too, that we shouldn't disbelieve anything simply because it's out of the way to us, and we never saw the likes of it ourselves; for there's so many strange things in the world, that one don't know what to disbelieve; and of all the wonderful things I ever heard of, there's none seems to me so very wonderful as this, namely:—I exist, and I know it. Now for Mick's story:—
“One day,” says he, “as I was out shooting on the black rocks, I clambered up to a place where I never was before; and I don't think man had set foot upon it till then: it was higher than you'd think, looking up from the sea, which washed the foot of it; for the great crag itself, which none of us can climb,—I mane that one where the eagle's nist is,—seemed to be below it. Well, thinks I, when I got to the top, I'll have a good pelt at the birds from this, I'm sure: but no, I couldn't; for though they were flying round and round it, divil a one would come within gun-shot, but kipt going about, and going about, until the head o' me wint round wid looking at them, and I began to feel sick, for I'd come out before breakfast, not intinding to stay long; but somehow, I wint further and further, and, at last, the sun was going down, and me there, where I tould you I was, a-top of the big crag. 'Michael,' says I to meeself, 'it's time for you to be going too, for the birds won't come near you; and you're hungry, boy,—so you are, Mick; you can't deny that.' And it's true thin I couldn't; for I never was hungrier in my life, than I was that time, and sorrow the thing in my pocket softer than a flint. Well, thin I began to go down; but before I'd got twinty steps, what do you think I saw there, upon the bare rock, where nobody seemed to have been before me, near upon half a day's journey higher than the sea,—what, I say, do you think I saw, lying before me there You wouldn't guess in a year. Why thin it was an oysther!—I started, as though a ghost had come across me:—and why wouldn't I?—for I'd no right to expect to see such a thing as an oysther there, you know, had I?—Thinks I, after awhile, 'Here's a fine mouthful for you, Mick, if it's only fresh; but, may be, it's been here these thousand years.—Eh, thin, Mick! but you're lucky, so you are, if it should be ateable.'
“Sitting down on the rock, I put out my hand to get a hould of it, whin what does it do, but lifts up its shell of its ownself!—and there was something inside it, just like an oysther, you'd think; but whin you looked closer, what was it thin, but a small dwarf of a man, wid a beard, and a little broad belly, and two short, fat, little darlings of legs, and his both hands in his breeches pockets; quite at home, and as aisy as you or I'd be in our arm chair, if we had one.
“'I'm glad to see you, Mick,' says he; 'it's long I've been expecting you.'
“Now, there's many that would have run away, and broke their necks down the rock, at hearing the crature call them by their names, and say this; but I'm one that never feared Banshee Lepreghaun, or any one of the little people, good, bad, or indifferent;—why should I?—So I pulled off my hat, and making a leg to him,—'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd known as much, I'd have come before.'
“'Thank you kindly, Mick Maguire,' says he. 'No thanks to me thin, at all at all,' thinks I, 'if you knew what I know:' for I was determined to devour him, if he was ateable. 'And it's by my own name you call me, sir,' says I, 'is it?'
“'To be sure it is,' says he; you wouldn't have me call you out of your name,—would you?'—And thin he fell laughing, as though his little face would have tumbled to pieces: and, faith! of all the faces I ever set eyes on, I never saw the likes of his for a roguish look.—'You wouldn't have me call you out of your name, would you, Mick?' says he again.
“'Why, thin, no I wouldn't, and that's truth,' says I; 'but what's your own name? I'd like to know, so I would,' says L “'I dare say you would,' says he.
“'And after that,' says I, 'I'd be glad if you'd tell me a small trifle about yourself, and how you live in your little house there, whin you shut down the roof of it; and thin—'
“'Bad manners to you Mick,' says he; 'don't be prying into a person's domestic arrangements.'—Them were his words. 'Mind your own business,' says he; 'and ax me no questions about mee-self; for, may be, I won't answer them.'
“'But, sir,' says I, thinking to get all I could out of him, before I ate him; 'sir,' says I, 'it isn't every day one sees, betuxt a pair of oysther-shells—'
“'Oh! Mick!' says he, 'there's more out o' the way things than meeself, in the sea.'
“'I shouldn't wonder, sir,' says I.
“'There is, Mick,' says he; 'take my word for it.'
“'I'm sure of it, sir,' says I; 'and yet people says there's no mermaids even: now meeself saw one once, and she'd a fish's tail, and big fins below; and above she was as like a man, as one brogue is like another. Now, sir, I'd like to know your opinion.'
“'Mick,' says he; 'was it in the bay yourself saw the mermaid?'
“'Faith! and it was,' says I.
“'Just four years ago,' says he, 'Mick?'
“'Just,' says I; 'come St. Breedien's day; for it was the very week Jimmy Gorman was drowned, so it was: his wife married Tim Carroll, tin months after his wake,—for we waked Jimmy, though he wasn't at home, and drank long life to our absent friend, in the pitcher o' pothien he left in the cupboard,—so we did:—and she has now three children, by Tim; and Maurien, the little one, is two months ould, barring a week, or thereaway; and three nines is twinty-siven, and tin is tin more,—that's thirty-siven, and three months betuxt and betune each o' the children, makes nine more, that's forty-six: thin there's Maurien, she's two months ould, as I said; so that, taking them together, there's forty-eight months, one up or one down, and that many months is four years:—so that, by the rules of multiplication and population, Jimmy's dead four years—don't you see?'
“'Arrah! don't be preaching,' says he; 'sure, meeself knew Jimmy well.'
“'Ah! and is it yourself?' says I; 'and was he on visiting terms wid ye?'
“'I knew him better than ever you did in your life, Mick,' says he.
“'Not a bit of it,' says I; 'did you ever spend your money wid him, like meeself, at the sheebeen-house?—or at the pattarn there above, with the penny-whiff woman? Did you ever once trate him to a glass o' whiskey, sir?' says I;—'not yourself, in starch.'
“'Mick,' says he, 'Jimmy and I lay in one bed for seven months.'
“'In one bed!'
“'Yes.'
“'In a bed of oysthers, may be!'
“'It was,' says he.
“'Oh! thin, well and good, sir,' says I; 'but what has Jimmy to do with the mermaid?'
“'Mick,' says he, 'the mermaid yourself saw below in the bay was him.'
“'Is it Jim?—And now I recollect—what's as true as that my daddy Jack's a corpse,—the mermaid, sure enough, had a carrotty pole, and two whiskers, and a big jacket, to say nothing of the bradien, though they wouldn't believe me,—so they wouldn't; but betuxt ourselves, sir, by this pipe in my fist, she was dacently clothed as meeself, barring the breeches. Oh! thin, divil a saw saw I of breeches about her; and her legs,—sure, and wasn't her legs a fish? and didn't meeself say so?'
“'Very well, Mick,' says he; 'I'll explain it to you:—a big blackguard of a shark, that was on a travelling tour, happened to be going that way when Jim's boat was upset, and gobbled him up just as he got into the water: but, lo and behould! whin he'd got Jim's legs down his throat, and came to his bradien and big belly, divil a swallow could the shark swallow him:—and there Jim stuck so fast, that if the shark had taken fifty emetics before-hand, he couldn't have cast him up.—With that, Jim, finding his situation unpleasant, began to kick; and the shark, with that, tickled Jim's ribs with his teeth; but he couldn't bite clane through his big coat,—and the more Jim kicked, the more the shark tickled him; and up they wint, and down they wint; and my belief is, that Jim would have bate him, but the fish got suffocated, and sunk, just as Jim was gitting a pull at the whiskey-bottle, which he carried in his side pouch; and down they wint together, so sudden, that Jim, taken up as he was with the taste of the crature, didn't know he was drowned till they were both at the bottom.'
“'Was Jimmy and the shark, the mermaid meeself saw thin?' says I.
“'They was, Mick.'
“'Thin bad luck to the pair o' them,' says I, 'for two impostors!—And how did your honour know this?'
“'Wasn't I in the shark's belly all the time?' says he.—'Didn't he gobble me up with a salmon, that tried to take refuge in the place where meeself and a few friends laid tin days before?—A lobsther lived in Jim's pocket for a month; and he and all his family used to go out three days a week to pull Jim's nose, for fishing up two of their cousins once,—so they did.—I'd thank ye for a pinch of snuff.'
“'And welcome, sir,' says I, houlding over the snisheen; 'meeself likes to hear news of my friends, sir,' says I; 'would your honour plaze to take a shaugh o' the doothien too?' And politeness, you know, made me offer him the pipe.
“'Mick,' says he; 'is it meeself, or the likes o' me, that smokes?—I never took a goll o' the peepa in all my life:—and over and above that, Mick, I'd feel mightily obliged to you, if you'd blow your smoke higher, or be just ginteel and agreeable enough to sit the other side o' me: if you don't, you're a dirty blackguard, and bad luck to you, sir,' says he; 'for I've no chimney to my house.' With that, I just knocked out the backy from the pipe, and tould him, I didn't mind meeself, and I'd put away smoking at once.
“'Mick,' says he, 'you'd nothing but ashes in your doothien; so the divil's thanks to you!'
“'Sir,' says I, not noticing what he said,' that's a mighty nate little house you have of your own; I'd like to know who built it.' “'Faith! thin I did meeself, Mick,' says he; 'but I'd like your big finger the better, if it was outside my door.'
“'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd such a nate little cabin, I'd marry Molly Malony at once. Doesn't your honour ever think of getting a wife?—or, may be, you're a widower?'
“'Mick,' says he, 'oysthers don't marry.'
“'Ye live mighty like a hermit, in your cell there,' says I.
“'Mighty like,' says he.
“'I suppose, you have your beads too, and you count them,' says I.
“'I suppose I don't,' says he; 'for I've but one.'
“'Troth, and that's a thumper thin,' says I, peeping into his little parlour: and there, sure enough, was a pearl big enough to be the making of me, and all the seed and breed of me, past, present, and to come, hanging by a bit of sea-weed round his neck.
“'Do you know what, Mick?' says he; I'm sick o' the world, Mick; and I'm half inclined to give you lave to ate me.'
“'Sir,' says I, taking off my hat, 'I'm much obliged to you for nothing at all. It's meeself manes to ate your honour, with or without lave,—so I do.'
“'Is it yourself, Mick?'
“'Faith! and it is thin,—though I say it; for I'm hungry:—and, after that, I mane to take the big pearl, I see there about your neck.'
“'Mick, you're a reprobate!—Sure, you would'nt be so un-genteel, as to ate a gentleman against his own inclination, would you?'
“'Meeself would thin, and think it no sin, in case the gentleman was a plump little oysther, like your honour.'
“'Then, Mick, I wish you good evening!'
“'Oh, joy!' says I, seeing how he was going to shut himself in; 'it's of no use, sir, to do so:—I've a knife in my pocket, and it's not burglary in this country to break into the house of an oysther.'
“'Mick,' says he; 'an oysther's house is his castle.'
“'Castle I' says I; 'is it a castle?—two shells, with a little face in the middle o' them, a castle?—Thin what's my cabin below but a palace?'
“'A pig's palace, it is, Mick,' says he.
“'Musha! bad luck thin,' says 1, 'to every bit of you—'
“'Ah! Mick,' says he, interrupting me, 'if I was half your size, I'd bate you blue, so I would.—You're a dirty cur, and so was your father before you.'
“'Say that again,' says I; 'say my father was a cur, sir, again, and I'd be obliged to you:—just say it now, and see how soon I'll break every bone in your skin.'
“'Bone!' says he; 'sorrow the bit of bone is in me at all!' says he.—'Do you know anything of anatomy, Mick?'
“'An atomy!—that's a thing smaller than a mite, isn't it?'
“'Arrah! no, man: don't you know what nerves and muscles manes?'
“'Nerves meeself knows little about; but is it muscles? Och! thin, didn't I get a bag-full below on the beach, this day se'nnight? Tell me, sir, if you plaze,—is a muscle any relation to your honour?'
“'Ah! Mick,' says he; 'would you insult me?—sure we trace our pedigree up to the days of King Fergus; and the muscles wasn't known for whole ages after: they're fishes of yesterday,—mushrooms o' the ocean:—d—n the one o'thim knows whether or no he ever had a great-grandmother!—Mick, this is a bad upstart world we live in.'
“'It is,' says I; 'people thinks o' nobody but just their ownselves; and doesn't mind what inconvaniency they puts their fellow-cratures to, so as they ar'n't harried thimselves.'
“'True,' says he, 'Mick:—did you ever rade o' the Romans?'
“'I'm a Roman meeself, sir.'
“'Phugh!' says he; 'it's of rulligion ye're spaking!—I mane the ould Romans,—Romulus and Rebus,—Brutus and Brian Bora,—that sacrificed themselves for the good of their country:—thim's the examples we ought to follow, Mick! We should help our fellow-cratures too, in necessity, if it lies in our power; and not stand, shilly-shally, thinking and turning it over whether it will be to our advantage or not.'
“'Sir,' says I, 'your honour spakes my own sintimints; and sure never could a finer time come for practising what you preach, than now.—Luck up, your honour,—luck up, and see meeself, a poor fellow-crature, in distress fora mouthful;—I'm a part o' my country, and you're an Irishman born, I'll be sworn.' “'Mick,' says he; 'that's a different sort of a thing, intirely.'
“'Not at all,' says I; 'it's a case in point.'
“'Well, Mick,' says he; 'thin I will,—I will sacrifice meeself.'
“'And no thanks to you, sir,' says I; 'you know you'd be sacrificed by me, whether you sacrificed yourself or no. Ah, ah!' “'Ha, ha!' says he; 'that's true; and it's the way o' the world, Mick.'
“'And may be, sir,' says I, 'thim Romans yourself spoke about—'
“'Blarney and humbug, Mick!—blarney and humbug!—They did just what Shawn O' Shaugnessy did, while ago,—jump overboard to show his bravery, when he knew the ship was sinking.—But don't be in a hurry, Mick,' says he, seeing me licking my lips, and getting nearer him;—'although, Mick, I have no wish to live; for an oysther's life is a sad one, Mick.'
“'Ah! sir,' says I, 'and so is Mick Maguire's.'
“'I've every wish in the world to travel into all foreign parts.' “'And so have I, sir.'
“'But a snail's better off than I am.—Can't he take a trip, with his house on his back, and look about him whin he likes?' “'That's just my own case,' says I; 'there's John Carroll, the pedlar, takes his pack on his shoulther, and travels from Clonmell to Carrick,—from Carrick to Stradbally, and all over the rest of the world, two or three times a week.'
“'Oh! musha! Mick,' says he, 'don't grumble; you're not half so bad off as I am:—it's tied by the back, I am, to the floor of my house, and I can't stir a foot.'
“'It isn't much money yourself spinds in brogues and stockings, thin,' says I.—'Ah! thim brogues ates a man out of house and home, intirely!—Does your honour know one Darby Walsh, a brogue-maker?'
“'No, I don't.'
“'Then, mark this, sir,' says I; 'if ever you shake the fist of him, you'll have a rogue in your gripe.'
“'I knew one Jack Walsh,' says he, 'at Calcutta?'
“'And was your honour ever at Calcutta?' says I.
“'I was once, Mick,' says he: 'I wint out in a porpus, who very politely gave me an inside place for nothing: but, arrah! Mick, I was obliged to work my way home.'
“'Did you know one Tiddy Maguire, in the East Indies?' says I.
“'No; but I heard talk of him.'
“'He was a brother of mine, sir; and though I've axed every body that ever come from thim parts, if they knew one Tiddy Maguire, in the East Indies, divil a ha'p'orth o' news could ever I get about him before!—Will I tell your honour a story about Tiddy?—Sure, I will thin:—Tiddy was a boy that used to be given to walking in his sleep;—he'd go miles about, and bring home people's little pigs and poultry; and be all the while innocent of theft—quite intirely,—so he said, any how. Well! to make a long story short, one night Tiddy was awoke by a great knock on the head, abroad there in Morty Flynn's backyard, with a sucker from the ould sow's side, in his hand;—how it came there, Tiddy never could give any satisfactory account. Whin he got home,—'Arrah! Tid,' says I, 'what happened you, man?—and who's been braking the face of you?' And sure enough, the blood was streaming through his hair like a brook among underwood. 'Morty Flynn,' says he, 'struck me while ago.' 'Arrah! man, and had you nothing in your hand to defind yourself wid?' says I 'Troth! and I had thin,' says he; 'but what's a sucking-pig in a man's fist to a dung-shovel?'
“'But, sir,' says I to the oysther, 'it's high time we should be better acquainted:—by your lave, sir,' says I, taking out my skean dubh, and a fine knife it was;—'by your lave, sir—'
“'Luck up, luck up, Mick!' says he.
“Meeself lucked up, as he bid me, and the curse of Cromwell on the crow that was flying over my head just thin;—the bird was bastely enough to dirt the face o' me;—down it fell, just thin as I lucked up, exactly betuxt my two eyes. I was in a terrible rage, you may guess; but hark to what a fool I was:—instid of getting my gun, and shooting the blackguard, what did meeself do, in the heat of the moment, but pick up the oysther, and away wid it at him, thinking to knock a hole in his black coat!
“'Caw!' says he, sailing off; 'caw-aw!' grinning at me.
“'Caw-aw!' says the oysther, says he to me too, from a ledge o' the rock below me, where he fell; 'caw-aw, Mick!—more sinse and bad luck to ye, Mick!'
“'Ah! sir,' says I, putting a good face on the matter, and thinking whether or no I could get at him;—'ah! sir,' says I, 'did you think I'd be bad enough to devour you?'
“'Faith! you would, Mick,' says he.
“'Wasn't I polite?'
“'Mighty; and may you break your neck going home, Mick! Your brother Tiddy was transported in the East Indies; your father wouldn't fight for his faction; your aunt had a child, that was sent to the foundling, at Dublin; your cousin Jim is a tithe-proctor:—you're a bad set, egg and bird:—your sister's husband is a swaddler; and your own father's mother-in-law's first cousin hung a priest, Mick: moreover—'
“'Hould your tongue, you villain!' says I, levelling my gun at him. 'Hould your tongue, or Til blow you to atoms!'
“'Who cares for you?' says he. 'Didn't you steal the shot your gun is loaded wid?—Answer me that.'
“'I will,' says I, pulling the trigger, and knocking his house from the ledge, plump into the sea.
“'I've done for you now, ould gentleman, I think,' says I.
“'No, you haven't, Mick,' says he, peeping out of his shell, as he was falling; 'you've done just what I wanted. A grate big bird carried me up where you found me; he couldn't open me though, and left me there where I was; and instid of having done for me, you've sint me home, Mick,' says he, 'to my own bed, you blackguard; for which I'm mighty obliged,—and bad luck to you, Mick!' says he, as he sunk in the sea:—and from that day to this, meeself never set eyes on the little man in the oysther-shells,—though it's often I drame about him, and of what he said to me above on the crag there.”