There never was a greater souled or doughtier tailor than little Neal
Malone. Though but four feet; four in height, he paced the earth with
the courage and confidence of a giant; nay, one would have imagined that
he walked as if he feared the world itself was about to give way under
him. Lot none dare to say in future that a tailor is but the ninth
part of a man. That reproach has been gloriously taken away from the
character of the cross-legged corporation by Neal Malone. He has wiped
it off like a stain from the collar of a second-hand coat; he has
pressed this wrinkle out of the lying front of antiquity; he has drawn
together this rent in the respectability of his profession. No. By him
who was breeches-maker to the gods--that is, except, like Highlanders,
they eschewed inexpressibles--by him who cut Jupiter's frieze jocks for
winter, and eke by the bottom of his thimble, we swear, that Neal Malone
was more than the ninth part of a man!
Setting aside the Patagonians, we maintain that two-thirds of mortal
humanity were comprised in Neal; and, perhaps, we might venture to
assert, that two-thirds of Neal's humanity were equal to six-thirds of
another man's. It is right well known that Alexander the Great was a
little man, and we doubt whether, had Alexander the Great been bred to
the tailoring business, he would have exhibited so much of the hero
as Neal Malone. Neal was descended from a fighting family, who had
signalized themselves in as many battles as ever any single hero
of antiquity fought. His father, his grandfather, and his great
grandfather, were all fighting men, and his ancestors in general, up,
probably, to Con of the Hundred Battles himself. No wonder, therefore,
that Neal's blood should cry out against the cowardice of his calling;
no wonder that he should be an epitome of all that was valorous and
heroic in a peaceable man, for we neglected to inform the reader that
Neal, though “bearing no base mind,” never fought any man in his own
person. That, however, deducted nothing from his courage. If he did not
fight, it was simply because he found cowardice universal. No man would
engage him; his spirit blazed in vain; his thirst for battle was doomed
to remain unquenched, except by whiskey, and this only increased it. In
short, he could find no foe. He has often been known to challenge the
first cudgel-players and pugilists of the parish; to provoke men of
fourteen stone weight; and to bid mortal defiance to faction heroes of
all grades--but in vain. There was that in him which told them that an
encounter with Neal would strip them of their laurels. Neal saw all this
with a lofty indignation; he deplored the degeneracy of the times, and
thought it hard that the descendant of such a fighting family should be
doomed to pass through life peaceably, while so many excellent rows and
riots took place around him. It was a calamity to see every man's head
broken but his own; a dismal thing to observe his neighbors go about
with their bones in bandages, yet his untouched; and his friends beat
black and blue, whilst his own cuticle remained undiscolored.
“Blur-an'-agers!” exclaimed Neal one day, when half-tipsy in the fair,
“am I never to get a bit of fightin'? Is there no cowardly spalpeen to
stand afore Neal Malone? Be this an' be that, I'm blue-mowlded for want
of a batin'! I'm disgracin' my relations by the life I'm ladin'! Will
none o' ye fight me aither for love, money, or whiskey--frind or inimy,
an' bad luck to ye? I don't care a traneen which, only out o' pure
frindship, let us have a morsel o' the rale kick-up, 'tany rate. Frind
or inimy, I say agin, if you regard me; sure that makes no differ, only
let us have the fight.”
This excellent heroism was all wasted; Neal could not find a single
adversary. Except he divided himself like Hotspur, and went to buffets,
one hand against the other, there was no chance of a fight; no person
to be found sufficiently magnanimous to encounter the tailor. On the
contrary, every one of his friends--or, in other words, every man in the
parish--was ready to support him. He was clapped on the back, until his
bones were nearly dislocated in his body; and his hand shaken, until his
arm lost its cunning at the needle for half a week afterwards. This, to
be sure, was a bitter business--a state of being past endurance. Every
man was his friend--no man was his enemy. A desperate position for any
person to find himself in, but doubly calamitous to a martial tailor.
Many a dolorous complaint did Neal make upon the misfortune of having
none to wish him ill; and what rendered this hardship doubly oppressive,
was the unlucky fact that no exertions of his, however offensive, could
procure him a single foe. In vain did lie insult, abuse, and malign all
his acquaintances. In vain did he father upon them all the rascality
and villany he could think of; he lied against them with a force and
originality that would have made many a modern novelist blush for
want of invention--but all to no purpose. The world for once became
astonishingly Christian; it paid back all his efforts to excite its
resentment with the purest of charity; when Neal struck it on the
one cheek, it meekly turned unto him the other. It could scarcely
be expected that Neal would bear this. To have the whole world in
friendship with a man is beyond doubt rather an affliction. Not to have
the face of a single enemy to look upon, would decidedly be considered
a deprivation of many agreeable sensations by most people, as well as by
Neal Malone. Let who might sustain a loss, or experience a calamity, it
was a matter of indifference to Neal. They were only his friends, and he
troubled neither his head nor his heart about them.
Heaven help us! There is no man without his trials; and Neal, the
reader perceives, was not exempt from his. What did it avail him that he
carried a cudgel ready for all hostile contingencies? or knit his brows
and shook his kipjoeen at the fiercest of his fighting friends? The
moment he appeared, they softened into downright cordiality. His
presence was the signal of peace; for, notwithstanding his unconquerable
propensity to warfare, he went abroad as the genius of unanimity, though
carrying in his bosom the redoubtable disposition the a warrior; just as
the sun, though the source of light himself, is said to be dark enough
at bottom.
It could not be expected that Neal, with whatever fortitude he might
bear his other afflictions, could bear such tranquillity like a hero. To
say that he bore it as one, would be to basely surrender his character;
for what hero ever bore a state, of tranquillity with courage? It
affected his cutting out! It produced what Burton calls “a windie
melancholie,” which was nothing else than an accumulation of courage
that had no means of escaping, if courage can without indignity be ever
said to escape. He sat uneasy on his lap-board. Instead of cutting out
soberly, he nourished his scissors as if he were heading a faction; he
wasted much chalk by scoring his cloth in wrong places, and even caught
his hot goose without a holder. These symptoms alarmed, his friends, who
persuaded him to go to a doctor. Neal went, to satisfy them; but he knew
that no prescription could drive the courage out of him--that he was too
far gone in heroism to be made a coward of by apothecary stuff. Nothing
in the pharmacopoeia could physic him into a pacific state. His disease
was simply the want of an enemy, and an unaccountable superabundance of
friendship on the part of his acquaintances. How could a doctor remedy
this by a prescription? Impossible. The doctor, indeed, recommended
bloodletting; but to lose blood in a peaceable manner was not only
cowardly, but a bad cure for courage. Neal declined it: he would lose
no blood for any man until he could not help it; which was giving the
character of a hero at a single touch. His blood was not to be thrown
away in this manner; the only lancet ever applied to his relations was
the cudgel, and Neal scorned to abandon the principles of his family.
His friends finding that he reserved his blood for more heroic purposes
than dastardly phlebotomy, knew not what to do with him. His perpetual
exclamation was, as we have already stated, “I'm blue-mowlded for want
of a batin'!” They did everything in their power to cheer him with the
hope of a drubbing; told him he lived in an excellent country for a man
afflicted with his malady; and promised, if it were at all possible,
to create him a private enemy or two, who, they hoped in heaven, might
trounce him to some purpose.
This sustained him for a while; but as day after day passed, and no
appearance of action presented itself, he could not choose but increase
in courage. His soul, like a sword-blade too long in the scabbard, was
beginning to get fuliginous by inactivity. He looked upon the point of
his own needle, and the bright edge of his scissors, with a bitter pang,
when he thought of the spirit rusting within him: he meditated fresh
insults, studied new plans, and hunted out cunning devices for provoking
his acquaintances to battle, until by degrees he began to confound his
own bram, and to commit more grievous oversights in his business than
ever. Sometimes he sent home to one person a coat, with the legs of a
pair of trousers attached to it for sleeves, and despatched to another
the arms of the aforesaid coat tacked together as a pair of trousers.
Sometimes the coat was made to button behind instead of before, and he
frequently placed the pockets in the lower part of the skirts, as if he
had been in league with cut-purses.
This was a melancholy situation, and his friends pitied him accordingly.
“Don't bo cast down, Neal,” said they, “your friends feel for you, poor
fellow.”
“Divil carry my frinds,” replied Neal, “sure there's not one o' yez
frindly enough to be my inimy. Tare-an'-ounze! what'll I do? I'm
blue-rhowlded for want of a batin'!”
Seeing that their consolation was thrown away upon him, they resolved
to leave him to his fate; which they had no sooner done than Neal had
thoughts of taking to the _Skiomachia_ as a last remedy. In this mood he
looked with considerable antipathy at his own shadow for several nights;
and it is not to be questioned, but that some hard battles would have
taken place between them, were it not for the cunning of the shadow,
which declined to fight him in any other position than with its back
to the wall. This occasioned him to pause, for the wall was a fearful
antagonist, inasmuch that it knew not when it was beaten; but there was
still an alternative left. He went to the garden one clear day about
noon, and hoped to have a bout with the shade, free from interruption.
Both approached, apparently eager for the combat, and resolved to
conquer or die, when a villanous cloud happening to intercept the light,
gave the shadow an opportunity of disappearing; and Neal found himself
once more without an opponent.
“It's aisy known,” said Neal, “you haven't the blood in you, or you'd
come up to the scratch like a man.”
He now saw that fate was against him, and that any further hostility
towards the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his
health, spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance became
pale and peaceful looking; the bluster departed from him; his body
shrunk up like a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled to take in
his clothes, and thrice did he ascertain that much of his time would be
necessarily spent in pursuing his retreating person through the solitude
of his almost deserted garment.
God knows it is difficult to form a correct opinion upon a situation
so paradoxical as Neal's was. To be reduced to skin and bone by the
downright friendship of the world, was, as the sagacious reader will
admit, next to a miracle. We appeal to the conscience of any man who
finds himself without an enemy, whether he be not a greater skeleton
than the tailor; we will give him fifty guineas provided he can show
a calf to his leg. We know he could not; for the tailor had none, and
that was because he had not an enemy. No man in friendship with the
world ever has calves to his legs. To sum up all in a paradox of our
own invention, for which we claim the full credit of originality, we
now assert, that more men have risen in the world by the injury of their
enemies, than have risen by the kindness of their friends. You may take
this, reader, in any sense; apply it to hanging if you like, it is still
immutably and immovably true.
One day Neal sat cross-legged, as tailors usually sit, in the act of
pressing a pair of breeches; his hands were placed, backs up, upon the
handle of his goose, and his chin rested upon the back of his hands. To
judge from his sorrowful complexion one would suppose that he sat rather
to be sketched as a picture of misery, or of heroism in distress, than
for the industrious purpose of pressing the seams of a garment. There
was a great deal of New Burlington-street pathos in his countenance;
his face, like the times, was rather out of joint; “the sun was just
setting, and his golden beams fell, with a saddened splendor, athwart
the tailor's”----the reader may fill up the picture.
In this position sat Neal, when Mr. O'Connor, the schoolmaster, whose
inexpressibles he was turning for the third time, entered the workshop.
Mr. O'Connor, himself, was as finished a picture of misery as the
tailor. There was a patient, subdued kind of expression in his face,
which indicated a very full-portion of calamity; his eye seemed charged
with affliction of the first water; on each side of his nose might be
traced two dry channels which, no doubt, were full enough while the
tropical rains of his countenance lasted. Altogether, to conclude from
appearances, it was a dead match in affliction between him and the
tailor; both seemed sad, fleshless, and unthriving.
“Misther O'Connor,” said the tailor, when the schoolmaster entered,
“won't you be pleased to sit down?”
Mr. O'Connor sat; and, after wiping his forehead, laid his hat upon the
lap-board, put his half handkerchief in his pocket, and looked upon the
tailor. The tailor, in return, looked upon Mr. O'Connor; but neither of
them spoke for some minutes. Neal, in fact, appeared to be wrapped up
in his own misery, and Mr. O'Connor in his; or, as we often have much
gratuitous sympathy for the distresses of our friends, we question but
the tailor was wrapped up in Mr. O'Connor's misery, and Mr. O'Connor in
the tailor's.
Mr. O'Connor at length said--“Neal, are my inexpressibles finished?”
“I am now pressin' your inexpressibles,” replied Neal; “but, be my sowl,
Mr. O'Connor, it's not your inexpressibles I'm thinkin' of. I'm not the
ninth part of what I was. I'd hardly make paddin' for a collar now.”
“Are you able to carry a staff still, Neal?”
“I've a light hazel one that's handy,” said the tailor; “but where's
the use of carryin' it, whin I can get no one to fight wid. Sure I'm
disgracing my relations by the life I'm leadin'. I'll go to my grave
widout ever batin' a man, or bein' bate myself; that's the vexation.
Divil the row ever I was able to kick up in my life; so that I'm fairly
blue-mowlded for want of a batin'. But if you have patience----”
“Patience!” said Mr. O'Connor, with a shake of the head, that was
perfectly disastrous even to look at; “patience, did you say, Neal?”
“Ay,” said Neal, “an', be my sowl, if you deny that I said patience,
I'll break your head!”
“Ah, Neal,” returned the other, “I don't deny it--for though I am
teaching philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics, every day in my life,
yet I'm learning patience myself both night and day. No, Neal; I have
forgotten to deny anything. I have not been guilty of a contradiction,
out of my own school, for the last fourteen years. I once expressed
the shadow of a doubt about twelve years ago, but ever since I have
abandoned even doubting. That doubt was the last expiring effort at
maintaining my domestic authority--but I suffered for it.”
“Well,” said Neal, “if you have patience, I'll tell you what afflicts me
from beginnin' to endin'.”
“I will have patience,” said Mr. O'Connor, and he accordingly heard a
dismal and indignant tale from the tailor.
“You have told me that fifty times over,” said Mr. O'Connor, after
hearing the story. “Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life. If
you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current
of your existence to some purpose. Marry a wife. For twenty-five years I
have given instructions in three branches, viz.--philosophy, knowledge,
and mathematics--I am also well versed in matrimony, and I declare that,
upon my misery, and by the contents of all my afflictions, it is my
solemn and melancholy opinion, that, if you marry a wife, you will,
before three months pass over your concatenated state, not have a single
complaint to make touching a superabundance of peace and tranquillity,
or a love of fighting.”
“Do you mean to say that any woman would make me afeard?” said the
tailor, deliberately rising up and getting his cudgel. “I'll thank you
merely to go over the words agin till I thrash you widin an inch o' your
life. That's all.”
“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, meekly, “I won't fight; I have been too
often subdued ever to presume on the hope of a single victory. My spirit
is long since evaporated: I am like one, of your own shreds, a mere
selvage. Do you not know how much my habiliments have shrunk in, even
within the last five years? Hear me, Neal; and venerate my words as
if they proceeded from the lips of a prophet. If you wish to taste the
luxury of being subdued--if you are, as you say, blue-moulded for want
of a beating, and sick at heart of a peaceful existence--why, marry a
wife. Neal, send my breeches home with all haste, for they are wanted,
you understand. Farewell!”
Mr. O'Connor, having thus expressed himself, departed, and Neal stood,
with the cudgel in his hand, looking at the door out of which he passed,
with an expression of fierceness, contempt, and reflection, strongly
blended on the ruins of his once heroic visage.
Many a man has happiness within his reach if he but knew it. The tailor
had been, hitherto, miserable because he pursued a wrong object. The
schoolmaster, however, suggested a train of thought upon which Neal
now fastened with all the ardor of a chivalrous temperament. Nay, he
wondered that the family spirit should have so completely seized
upon the fighting side of his heart, as to preclude all thoughts of
matrimony; for he could not but remember that his relations were as
ready for marriage as for fighting. To doubt this, would have been to
throw a blot upon his own escutcheon. He, therefore, very prudently
asked himself, to whom, if he did not marry, should he transmit his
courage. He was a single man, and, dying as such, he would be the sole
depository of his own valor, which, like Junius's secret, must perish
with, him. If he could have left it, as a legacy, to such of his friends
as were most remarkable for cowardice, why, the case would be altered;
but this was impossible--and he had now no other means of preserving it
to posterity than by creating a posterity to inherit it. He saw, too,
that the world was likely to become convulsed. Wars, as everybody
knew, were certainly to break out; and would it not be an excellent
opportunity for being father to a colonel, or, perhaps, a general, that
might astonish the world.
The change visible in Neal, after the schoolmaster's last visit,
absolutely thunder-struck all who knew him. The clothes, which he had
rashly taken in to fit his shrivelled limbs, were once more let out. The
tailor expanded with a new spirit; his joints ceased to be supple, as
in the days of his valor; his eye became less fiery, but more brilliant.
From being martial, he got desperately gallant; but, somehow, he could
not afford to act the hero and lover both at the same time. This,
perhaps, would be too much to expect from a tailor. His policy was
better. He resolved to bring all his available energy to bear upon
the charms of whatever fair nymph he should select for the honor of
matrimony; to waste his spirit in fighting would, therefore, be a
deduction from the single purpose in view.
The transition from war to love is by no means so remarkable as we might
at first imagine. We quote Jack Falstaff in proof of this, or, if the
reader be disposed to reject our authority, then we quote Ancient Pistol
himself--both of whom we consider as the most finished specimens of
heroism that ever carried a safe skin. Acres would have been a hero had
he won gloves to prevent the courage from oozing out at his palms, or
not felt such an unlucky antipathy to the “snug lying in the Abbey;” and
as for Captain Bobadil, he never had an opportunity of putting his plan,
for vanquishing an army, into practice. We fear, indeed, that neither
his character, nor Ben Jonson's knowledge of human nature, is properly
understood; for it certainly could not be expected that a man, whose
spirit glowed to encounter a whole host, could, without tarnishing his
dignity, if closely pressed, condescend to fight an individual. But
as these remarks on courage may be felt by the reader as an invidious
introduction of a subject disagreeable to him, we beg to hush it for the
present and return to the tailor.
No sooner had Neal begun to feel an inclination to matrimony, than his
friends knew that his principles had veered, by the change now visible
in his person and deportment. They saw he had ratted from courage, and
joined love. Heretofore his life had been all winter, darkened by storm
and hurricane. The fiercer virtues had played the devil with him; every
word was thunder, every look lightning; but now all that had passed
away;--before, he was the Jortiter in re, at present he was the suaviter
in modo. His existence was perfect spring--beautifully vernal. All the
amiable and softer qualities began to bud about his heart; a genial
warmth was diffused over him; his soul got green within him; every day
was serene; and if a cloud happened to be come visible, there was
a roguish rainbow astride of it, on which sat a beautiful Iris that
laughed down at him, and seemed to say, “why the dickens, Neal, don't
you marry a wife?”
Neal could not resist the afflatus which descended on him; an ethereal
light dwelled, he thought, upon the face of nature; the color of the
cloth, which he cut out from day to day, was to his enraptured eye like
the color of Cupid's wings--all purple; his visions were worth their
weight in gold; his dreams, a credit to the bed he slept on; and his
feelings, like blind puppies, young and alive to the milk of love and
kindness which they drew from his heart. Most of this delight escaped
the observation of the world, for Neal, like your true lover, became
shy and mysterious. It is difficult to say what he resembled; no dark
lantern ever had more light shut up within itself, than Neal had in his
soul, although his friends were not aware of it. They knew, indeed, that
he had turned his back upon valor; but beyond this their knowledge did
not extend.
Neal was shrewd enough to know that what he felt must be love;--nothing
else could distend him with happiness, until his soul felt light and
bladder-like, but love. As an oyster opens, when expecting the tide, so
did his soul expand at the contemplation of matrimony. Labor ceased to
be a trouble to him; he sang and sewed from morning to night; his hot
goose no longer burned him, for his heart was as hot as his goose; the
vibrations of his head, at each successive stitch, were no longer sad
and melancholy. There was a buoyant shake of exultation in them which
showed that his soul was placid and happy within him.
Endless honor be to Neal Malone for the originality with which he
managed the tender sentiment! He did not, like your commonplace lovers,
first discover a pretty girl, and afterwards become enamored of her. No
such thing, he had the passion prepared beforehand--cut out and made up
as it were, ready for any girl whom it might fit. This was falling in
love in the abstract, and let no man condemn it without a trial; for
many a long-winded argument could be urged in its defence. It is always
wrong to commence business without capital, and Neal had a good stock
to begin with. All we beg is, that the reader will not confound it with
Platonism, which never marries; but he is at full liberty to call it
Socratism, which takes unto itself a wife, and suffers accordingly.
Let no one suppose that Neal forgot the schoolmaster's kindness, or
failed to be duly grateful for it. Mr. O'Connor was the first person
whom he consulted touching his passion. With a cheerful soul--he waited
on that melancholy and gentleman-like man, and in the very luxury of his
heart told him that he was in love.
“In love, Neal!” said the schoolmaster. “May I inquire with whom?”
“Wid nobody in particular, yet,” replied Neal; “but of late I'm got
divilish fond o' the girls in general.”
“And do you call that being in love, Neal?” said Mr. O'Connor.
“Why, what else would I call it?” returned the tailor. “Amn't I fond of
them?”
“Then it must be what is termed the Universal Passion, Neal,” observed
Mr. O'Connor, “although it is the first time I have seen such an
illustration of it as you present in your own person.”
“I wish you would advise me how to act,” said Neal; “I'm as happy as a
prince since I began to get fond o' them, an' to think of marriage.”
The schoolmaster shook his head again, and looked rather miserable. Neal
rubbed his hands with glee, and looked perfectly happy. The schoolmaster
shook his head again, and looked more miserable than before. Neal's
happiness also increased on the second rubbing.
Now, to tell the secret at once, Mr. O'Connor would not have appeared so
miserable, were it not for Neal's happiness; nor Neal so happy, were it
not for Mr. O'Connor's misery. It was all the result of contrast; but
this you will not understand unless you be deeply read in modern novels.
Mr. O'Connor, however, was a man of sense, who knew, upon this
principle, that the longer he continued to shake his head, the more
miserable he must become, and the more also would he increase Neal's
happiness; but he had no intention of increasing Neal's happiness at
his own expense--for, upon the same hypothesis, it would have been for
Neal's interest had he remained shaking his head there, and getting
miserable until the day of judgment. He consequently declined giving the
third shake, for he thought that plain conversation was, after all,
more significant and forcible than the most eloquent nod, however ably
translated.
“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.