The cobbler declined to take charge of his soles,
An’ though he was rowlin’ in ill-gotten riches,
The heels of his stockin’s were nothin’ but holes,
For his wife wint away
On the very next day
With his mother-in-law (though he didn’t mind that),
An’ sisters and cousins
Departed in dozens,
Till there wasn’t a sowl in the place but the cat.
Why, sorra a doubt,
Sure, the fire it wint out
An’ left him in cowld and in darkness to moan,
Till he felt that the rint
Had been badly ill-spint
That wint to the landlord of Thady Malone!
The praties grew mowldy and bad in the ridges,
The mangolds an’ turnips got frosted an’ sour,
In summer the cows were desthroyed with the midges,
An’ the ass wint an’ drowned himself out in a shower.
The sparrows, diminted,
Grew quite discontinted,
An’ wouldn’t remain in the cabin’s ould thatch;
The pigs tuk to fittin’,
An’ hins that were sittin’
Wint off upon thramp an’ deserted the hatch.
A polis inspector,
A taxes collector,
Came out to protect him from kippeen or stone,
An’ there now he’s stuck,
Without hope, grace, or luck,
Misfortunate, boycotted Thady Malone!
[B] RORY’S REVERIE.
Death o’ my soul! the lot is cast, and mine will be the hand
To free from curse than plague spot worse this corner of the land,
To quench the light of eyes that never glared except in hate,
To stifle evermore the tongue that mocked the poor man’s fate.
’Tis I am proud that from the crowd ’twas I, and I alone,
Was chosen out to pay the debts that half the parish own;
My faith! the country side will ring before the mornin’ light,
Though little knows rack-rentin’ Phil that Rory walks to-night!
How Thade M’Gurk and Redmond Burke across the spreadin’ say,
Driven from home for years to roam ’mid strangers far away,
Will shout with glee the day they see their black and cruel lot,
Their woes, their tears, paid off in years by my avenging shot!
An’ they must know--the tale will go ’twas I, their boyhood’s friend,
That brought at last the tyrant to his well-earned bitter end.
Why, when I meet them next they’ll shake my arms off with delight--
I’m longin’ for the hour of gloom when Rory walks to-night!
Mary’s asleep. Now heaven keep her slumbers safe and sound,--
(“Heaven,” said I? Well, that’s wrong; ’tis Hell is surging
hotly round),--
And, nestled closely by her side, my little Kathleen’s face
Seems smiling like an angel’s through the darkness of the place.
She kissed me ere she sank to rest--I’d think it sin just now
To press my burnin’ lips again upon her childish brow;
Perhaps she’d dream about my scheme, and after shun my sight--
I mustn’t think of this--No! no! for Rory walks to-night!
Where’s that ould gun? But softly, so; I’d better make no noise,
I wouldn’t like the wife to know I’d dealings in such toys.
The barrel’s rather rusty: it’s been in the thatch too long--
Musha! the pull is heavy. Well, my trigger-finger’s strong.
And just to think! with this ould thing you lie behind a ditch,
When there’s silence all around you, an’ the night is dark as pitch,
An’ your landlord comes up whistlin’, an’ you spot his shirt-front white,
An’ his tune is changed immediately to “Rory walks to-night!”
And that black Phil has never done kind deed to me or mine;
If he were dead a thousand times none of my blood would pine;
My wife might even bless the hand by which his end was wrought;
My child--but, no, Great God forbid her wronged by such a thought!
She prayed for me at bedtime; sure I stood beside her when
She asked God’s blessing on me, and I dar’ not say Amen:
Amen to such a prayer as that! ’Twould be a curse, a blight,
To pray at all to God or saint, when Rory walks to-night!
What ails me? Am I coward turned? I, who had ever sneer
For every one that showed at all of priest or preacher fear;
I, who have sworn, were once I asked to play a man’s stern part,
No quiver of a nerve should swerve the bullet from his heart!
I’m shakin’ like an aspen--Faugh! I can’t afford to spend
My time in trembling, when I’m due down at the boreen’s end--
What? but a dream? Now God be praised for this sweet mornin’s light,
I’m better plased that, after all, no Rory walked last night.
A DOUBLE SURPRISE.
I.
GALLAGHER’S GOOSE.
Constable Tom Gallagher, in December, 1880, was in charge of the
Ballyblank Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks. A topographist might fail
to discover Ballyblank on any Ordnance map of Ireland, but Constable
Gallagher’s prototypes abound in every county of the island. He was
tall, straight, stiff, red-complexioned, sandy-bearded, self-important,
and imbued with that solemn sense of duty to Queen and Constitution
which has deprived the Irish constabulary of all the ordinary feelings
of weak humanity. He would bayonet with equally grim satisfaction a
riotous peasant, a green-ribbon-bedecked maid or matron, or a
recalcitrant pig which proved contrary at a rent seizure. Where he was
born, who were his parents, what had been his history before he was
evolved from the depot in Phœnix Park, Dublin, a full-blown sub in
dark-green tunic, with prominent chest and prying eyes, that rested
suspiciously and lingered long on every unaccustomed object not familiar
to his code of instructions and mode of training--these were mysteries
known only to himself, and possibly to the Director-General. The
physiognomists of the quiet village of Ballyblank, a few of his own
limited command, and a graceless scamp of a medical student, one Harry
McCarthy, home for the holidays from the dissecting rooms of the
metropolis, professed to trace a striking resemblance between the
somewhat rugged contour of his countenance and that of the one man in
the parish who disputed unpopularity with him--George Macgrabb, J. P.,
the agent of Lord Clonboy, the scourge of the district, the terror of
its toilers, and the bugaboo of all the little children for miles
around.
Certain it was, that, whether any physical affinities marked the two
despots of the country side or not, their mental and moral--or
immoral--characteristics had drawn them closely together. It was on the
recommendation of Macgrabb, J. P., that Gallagher had been appointed to
the command of that station. It was on the report of Macgrabb, J. P.,
that the chief secretary replied in the English Commons to a question
about an excessive outburst of loyalty on the part of the constable,
which had led that ardent enthusiast in the cause of law and order to
direct a fusillade upon a crowd of little boy musicians, who were
supposed to be opposing both by singing the chorus of “God Save
Ireland.” The sapient secretary declared that the lives of the police
were threatened, and the English members cheered the heroism of the
constabulary whose lacerating buckshot had scattered the toddling crowd.
Above and beyond all, this December, Macgrabb had shown, not only his
magisterial approval of the constable as an official, but his interest
in him as a man, by a kindly present. In the beginning of the month he
had sent to Gallagher a goose.
“You are among strangers, Constable,” he said; “and the unfortunate
feeling of disloyalty which pervades this county might reduce you to
rougher fare than would be agreeable at the festive Christmas time.
Accept this goose as a token of my good-will. Fatten it, and invite your
comrades to partake of the hospitable cheer it may afford.”
Now, whether the early associations of that goose with the stingy and
miserly household of the agent had accustomed it to a peculiar dietary,
or that its depraved appetite was inherent, I cannot say, but the
gastronomical horrors recorded of it during Gallagher’s custodianship
are preserved among the most glowing traditions of the force. He tried
to fatten it, as per invoice, so to speak. He expended all the fervor of
a constable’s first love on it. He wrote to the editors of half-a-dozen
agricultural papers for information as to the best kind of food to make
his goose a sufficiently adipose victim for the sacrificial altar. But
the perversity of that web-footed cackler was almost miraculous. The
compiler of farm-yard items in the Dublin _Farmer’s Gazette_ recommended
boiled Indian meal. The intelligent constable boiled the grain with his
own loyal hands, and laid down a saucerful before his white-winged
Christmas donation. It spurned the Indian meal, and devoured the saucer.
The constable had to retire and read the Riot Act to himself before he
could recover from this outrage to his judgment.
The assistant editor who lets himself loose on poultry in the _Barndoor
Chronicle_ gave an elaborate recipe, which he warranted to convert
Gallagher’s shadowy anatomy of legs and feathers into a pudgy monster of
edible delicacy inside a week or so. The belted constabulary knight
spent half a day mixing the recipe and stirring it in a canteen kettle.
He laid it tenderly before the agent’s goose. The bird sailed into the
kettle, and actually gorged the spout before peace was restored in
Warsaw. But why continue? Every man in the barracks tried medicinal and
culinary experiments upon Gallagher’s goose, but it refused to be
fattened. It spent its leisure time in masticating broken bottles,
half-bricks, nails, old shoes, copies of the official _Gazette_, tunic
buttons, bayonet sheaths--anything, everything, except flesh-forming
food. It exhibited a remarkable appetite for official documents. Private
circulars from Col. Hillier, secret instructions from George Bolton,
search-warrants, copies of information, it swallowed with an avidity
that rendered its general abstinence all the more conspicuous.
I have devoted so much introduction to Gallagher’s goose because a
knowledge of the physical and psychological eccentricities of that
wonderful fowl, and a due appreciation of its literary tastes, will be
necessary to the proper understanding of the memorable events that
transpired during the Christmas week of 1880 at Ballyblank.
II.
A PLOT, AND ITS EXECUTION.
The hates, the fears, and the respects of Agent Macgrabb and Constable
Gallagher extended to precisely the same two individuals in Ballyblank.
They both hated the medical student, Harry McCarthy, before alluded to,
and they both feared and consequently respected Pat McCarthy, tenant
farmer, and father of that unutterable scapegrace. Both, too, hated
Harry for the same reason. He was irreclaimably, obtusely, blindly,
madly irreverent of the mighty forces that prevail in Ireland. He never
doffed his hat to the agent, majestic representative of property and
propriety; he smiled at the constable, personification of British
justice and empire, and had actually laughed at the constabulary
joint-stock enterprise in goose fattening. Then, he was popular, and
your little village tyrant hates no one more bitterly than the man who
is loved by the oppressed. Finally, his popularity was due in a great
measure to his powers of mimicry, and the fact that Macgrabb and
Gallagher were ever the twin objects of his talent in that direction. At
weddings and patterns, wakes and fairs, he had made people roar again
and again with his reproductions of the peeler’s parade stride and the
magistrate’s judicial frown. It would be hard to say which had the
greatest abhorrence to free-and-easy Harry. The agent would have gloried
in burying him under a pyramid of ejectment writs; the constable would
have sacrificed a stripe for the privilege of emptying a company’s
charge of buckshot into his obnoxious figure. The disappointment at
finding no opportunity to either annoy or hurt him turned Macgrabb blue
and Gallagher yellow whenever they encountered Harry’s joyous
countenance.
As mentioned, the worthy couple both respected and feared Harry’s
father. The policeman respected him because he was the one man in the
parish (outside his reckless son) who did not give a traneen for either
the agent Macgrabb or the agent’s master, Lord Clonboy. He feared the
sturdy farmer, too, from some indefinable sensation that he could not
account for. The reasons of the agent’s fear and respect were of a
two-fold character. In the first place, Pat McCarthy held a lease; and
in the second, he had a daughter. When at the close of a gale Macgrabb
could put a ten per cent. screw on the tenants for Lord Clonboy’s
Parisian dissipation, and a five per cent. twist for his own less
expensive frolics in Dublin, McCarthy could not only pay him a rent,
guarded by his lease, one-half what all the surrounding tenants had to
contribute, but he could and did express his opinion of the
rack-renting proclivities of the rural Nero in language whose emphasis
was more marked than its elegance. It had been the life-long dream of
the agent to break that lease, and twice had he approached within
measurable distance of doing so. Once, when the expenses of Harry’s
collegiate education had left the old man short of money, and he had
begged for a few weeks’ grace. Again, just a year before, when the
universal failure of the crops should in all human probability have left
McCarthy nearly bankrupt. But, somehow, the farmer weathered his
difficulties, and escaped the penal clause of the lease, which rendered
the whole document void if one gale fell in arrears.
I have mentioned a second reason why Macgrabb respected McCarthy. This
reason, Miss Ellen McCarthy, was a fair and remarkably excusable one.
Why a shrivelled atomy like the agent should feel drawn to a buxom,
frolicsome, blue-eyed Irish girl, whose generous sympathies were the
opposite of his sordid nature, whose merry laugh was the antithesis of
his diabolical grin, who cordially loathed and despised every bone in
his body and every constituent element of his soul, I know not; but the
fact remained that Macgrabb doated upon McCarthy’s daughter with a
devotion so utterly antagonistic to his ordinary selfishness that he
couldn’t quite understand it himself.
It led him to a proposal of marriage, whose consequences were singularly
disagreeable both to his magisterial dignity and his physical
susceptibilities. Miss McCarthy laughed at and ran away from him, and
Harry McCarthy, to whom she related the joke, came into the parlor, and
with a vehemence that reflected credit upon his sincerity, and a
knowledge of sore spots that spoke well for his diligence at surgical
studies, kicked the J. P. out of the door, down the steps, across a
grass plot, and out into the high road.
It was the day after this occurrence that Macgrabb presented the goose
of destiny to Gallagher. A week subsequently the magistrate and the
peeler were closeted in the former’s private office.
“Here is the search-warrant, Tom,” observed Macgrabb, laying his hand
familiarly on the constable’s arm. “I trust to you to see that no paper
escapes you. If I get that last rent receipt into my hands I’ll squelch
McCarthy as if a mountain had fallen on him.”
“It’s a risk,” said the policeman, hesitatingly.
“What risk? Information has been sworn that McCarthy’s son has been
engaged in treasonable conspiracy, and that arms and illegal documents
are in the father’s house. On that information I issue a warrant, and
you execute it. It’s your duty to seize all documents--you’re not
supposed to have time to read every letter you come across. If you don’t
nab that rent receipt--you’ll know it--it’s on blue, thick paper--what
harm’s done? Thank God! there’s law in the country, and police
authorities can search these blackguards’ dens for fun, if for nothing
else, as often as they like. If you do nip the receipt, there’s £50 down
for you, and the chance, Tom--think of that, my boy--the chance of
having the pleasure of assisting in turning the whole McCarthy brood
out, and paying them off for many an old score. Why, at the school party
last night Harry gave what he called a character sketch. What do you
think it was? A representation of an Irish constable, and voice, legs,
gesture, were all in imitation of you. The parish priest laughed till
the tears rolled down his cheeks, and all the boys and girls yelled with
delight. Have you any spirit, man alive, to put up with such insults?”
“Give me the warrant,” growled Gallagher. “I suppose the National papers
and the priest, too, for that matter, would call it stealing to take a
rent receipt when we’re only looking for Fenian proclamations or copies
of the _Irish World_, but I’ll chance to get even with that jackeen,
even if I lose my stripes.”
On the night of Dec. 6, just as the McCarthys were retiring to rest, a
loud knocking outside disarranged their programme of repose. Before the
summons could be responded to, the door was rudely burst open, and
Constable Gallagher, followed by half a dozen armed men, rushed in.
“Blow the brains out of any one that budges a foot or stirs a hand!” he
yelled. “Mr. McCarthy, in the name of the Queen and by varchue of my
oath--I mane this sarch-warrant--I demand any arms, ammunition,
traysonable papers, or documents of any kind delivered up to me.”
McCarthy was surprised, his wife somewhat frightened, but Harry, true to
his character, tossed a bundle of medical works on the table and cried,
“Arrah! Sergeant dear, just give us your candid opinion of some of
these anatomical sketches. What a beautiful skeleton you would make,
yourself! Really, I would feel a pleasure in dissecting you. You have
such a lot of bones about you that seem out of place.”
The constable paid no heed to this badinage, but with a sign to his
followers proceeded to ransack the house. Every paper, envelope, or
scrap of writing was seized, despite the indignant protests of McCarthy,
and the merciless jeering of the young student.
On leaving, Gallagher grunted, “We will examine these in the barracks.
If there’s nothing traysonable in them, you’ll get them back. If there
is, why, law’s law, and you had better look out.”
That night, in the privacy of his own particular room, the constable sat
down to a perusal of the McCarthy documents. But the excitement of the
search, and sundry non-official stimulants to duty that he had indulged
in, had made him heavy and sleepy. Leaving the papers spread on the
table, he stretched his angular limbs on a bench, and was soon snoring
in cadenzas which sounded like intermittent file-firing. He was awakened
by a noise at the window. It was daylight. The window was open, and
perched upon the sill with a long slip of blue paper in its beak, was
the constable’s attenuated goose. A glance at the table showed that the
omnivorous cackler had been tasting the flavor of the various papers
strewn thereon. Gallagher rushed forward to seize the predatory monster,
but with a peculiar chuckle of derision it flew from the window and
disappeared from view.
III.
A BATCH OF CORRESPONDENCE.
About noon the constable received the following note:--
_Sir_,--Among the papers you so unwarrantably seized in your
grossly illegal search at my house last night was a receipt for
£24, being the amount of a half-year’s rent paid Sept. 15 to George
Macgrabb. If it be not immediately returned, I shall at once take
legal proceedings for its recovery, and if possible for your
punishment. Yours, etc., PATRICK MCCARTHY.
The constable sat down and wrote two notes. The first ran:--
MR. MCCARTHY:
_Sir_,--I know nothing about any rent receipt. If you’ll come to
the barracks you will get all your papers back, except a few
suspicious documents I have felt it my duty to forward to Dublin
Castle.
Yours, THOMAS GALLAGHER,
_Constable, R. I. C._
The second note was less short, but more mysterious:--
MR. MACGRABB:
_Respected Sir_,--That infernal goose has got it. I saw it flying
out of my window with one end of it in its mouth this morning.
Anything that goose takes a fancy to swallow is done for. It has
one of my old boots and a copy of the Constabulary Manual in its
stomach already, so you needn’t be afraid that it won’t digest a
piece of blue paper. I enclose you Pat McCarthy’s note. I’ll kill
the goose, if you like to make sure. Your obedient and respectful
THOMAS GALLAGHER.
The letter-box at Ballyblank that night contained these two missives
from Macgrabb:--
THE LODGE, Dec. 7, 1880.
_My dear Mr. McCarthy_,--I find on looking over the office books
that you are behind with your last half-year’s rent, due Sept. 15.
His lordship, as you are aware, is not at all pleased with his
father’s action in granting you the lease under which you now hold,
and will certainly submit to no infringement of its clauses. I
would request, therefore, immediate payment of the amount due. Of
course you know the consequences of delay.
Faithfully yours,
GEORGE MACGRABB.
_Dear Constable_,--Let the goose live. By Jingo, I’ve a mind to
drop over on Christmas day and test its stuffing.
GEORGE.
IV.
THE CONSTABLE’S CHRISTMAS COLLATION.
To the surprise of the agent, Pat McCarthy returned no answer to his
note, and to the surprise of the policeman the last addition to its
literary feasts appeared to have temporarily disgusted the aquatic bird,
for it vanished from the precincts of the barracks, and was seen no more
for a fortnight. For a time this mysterious disappearance somewhat
annoyed, even if it did not alarm, the dual conspirators, for there was
a bare possibility that some hungry laborer on the estate might have
killed the bird and tried to eat it, possibly discovering the lost
receipt among the other curiosities absorbed into its digestive
interior. But when a week passed, and nothing was heard of either the
missing dinner which the Ballyblank constabulary had anticipated
blunting their teeth on at Christmas, or of the cerulean document
obtained by stratagem and lost by accident, the worthy pair began to
breathe more freely. Some tramp or wayfarer, no doubt, had deprived the
barracks of its treasure.
On Dec. 16, notice was served on Patrick McCarthy that at the
fortnightly sessions to be held at Ballyblank on the first Tuesday after
Christmas, it was the intention of George Macgrabb, Esq., J. P., agent
to Lord Clonboy, D. L., J. P., etc., to apply for a decree of ejectment
against the said Patrick McCarthy for arrears of rent and costs, and the
said Patrick McCarthy was required to attend and show cause, if any, why
such decree should not be granted. Still no response from the obnoxious
tenant.
On Christmas morning the agent drove over to the barracks.
“Constable,” said he, “I expect I shall require your assistance in a day
or two. I’ll get the ejectment to-morrow. I haven’t heard a word from
McCarthy. I suppose he means to claim the rent, and say the receipt was
stolen during your search. It will be useless. Those copies of the
_Irish World_ found in his desk have turned every magistrate on the
bench against him. They won’t believe him on a million oaths. We
landlords stick to each other. I’ll get the decree, and by G--d, I’ll
put it in execution in twenty-four hours unless Miss Nelly says she’ll
be Mrs. MacG. and Master Harry clears out to America or Hong-Kong. Have
every available man ready. McCarthy’s a popular man with the other
rapscallions of tenants, and they might show fight. We’ll shoot them
down, if they do, the dogs. I’ll telegraph to the county town for more
men.”
“It won’t be necessary,” growled Gallagher, showing his teeth like a
vicious cat. “They haven’t forgotten Malone’s eviction. By Jupiter,
didn’t we scatter the women that day! Killed one. She had twenty grains
of buckshot in her. Never fired a cleaner shot in my life. They made a
fuss about it, of course. What good did it do the fools? Did it save
young Dermody when he kicked so about us turning his old mother out?
He’ll remember the taste of my bayonet, if he lives long enough. Then
look how the crowds gathered when we executed the writ against O’Brien.
Lord! how we peppered them. Do you mind--”
The brutal reminiscences over which both the crowbar heroes sat gloating
and smacking their lips were interrupted by the entrance of a sub with a
hamper and a note. The constable gazed at both with surprise. To the
hamper was attached a card:--
“A Christmas Box--From Harry McCarthy.”
“Don’t touch it! Take it away! It’s dynamite!” screamed the magistrate,
with blue lips and pallid features. But at that moment there came from
the box a “Quack! Quack!” so loud, so unmistakable, that both Gallagher
and Macgrabb exclaimed in one whisper, “The goose! Great Heavens, the
goose!”
They opened the basket with trembling fingers, and there, sure enough,
as scraggy, as bony, as void of everything but skin and feathers as
ever, was Macgrabb’s Christmas peace-offering to the other limb of the
law.
The constable turned to the note with dilating eyes. It was some time
before he could read its contents:--