a man’s characther like this! Oh, wurra! may I never die in sin, but
this was the way of it. I was standing by ould Foley’s gate, when I
heard the cry of the hounds comin’ across the tail end of the bog, and
there they wor, my dear, spread out like the tail of a paycock, an’ the
finest dog fox you’d ever seen sailing ahead of them up the boreen, and
right across the churchyard. It was enough to raise the inhabitants.
Well, as I looked, who should come up and put his head over the gate
beside me but the Squire’s brown mare, small blame to her. Divil a
thing I said to her, nor she to me, for the hounds had lost their
scent, we knew by their yelp and whine as they hunted among the
grave-stones, when, whish! the fox went by us. I leapt on the gate,
an’ gave a shriek of a view holloo to the whip; in a minute the pack
caught the scent again, an’ the whole field came roarin’ past. The mare
lost her head, an’ tore at the gate. “Stop,” ses I, “ye divil!” and I
slipped the taste of a rope over her head an’ into her mouth. Now mind
the cunnin’ of the baste, she was quiet in a minute. “Come home now,”
ses I, “asy!” and I threw my leg across her. Be jabers! no sooner was
I on her bare back than whoo! holy rocket! she was over the gate, an’
tearin’ like mad afther the hounds. “Yoicks!” ses I; “come back, you
thief of the world, where are you takin’ me to?” as she went through
the huntin’ field an’ laid me beside the masther of the hounds, Squire
Foley himself. He turned the colour of his leather breeches. “Mother of
Moses!” ses he, “is that Conn the Shaughraun on my brown mare?” “Bad
luck to me!” ses I, “it’s no one else!” “You sthole my horse,” ses the
Squire. “That’s a lie!” ses I, “for it was your horse sthole me!”
_Moya._ An’ what did he say to that?
_Conn._ I couldn’t sthop to hear, for just then we took a stone
wall and a double ditch together, and he stopped behind to keep an
engagement he had in the ditch.
_Mrs. O’K._ You’ll get a month in gaol for this.
_Conn._ Well, it was worth it.
_Dion Boucicault_ (1822–1890).
_RACKRENTERS ON THE STUMP._
A REMARKABLE DEMONSTRATION.
The first public meeting held under the auspices of the newly-formed
Irish landlord organisation was held on Thursday last, in a field
close by the charming residence of W. L. Cromwellian Freebooter, Esq.,
J.P., and is considered by all who took part in it to have been a
great success. The Government gave the heartiest co-operation to the
project; they undertook to supply the audience; they sent an engineer
from the Royal Barracks, Dublin, to select a strategic site for the
meeting, and to superintend the erection of the platform; and they
offered any amount of artillery that might be considered requisite to
give an imposing appearance to the assembly, and to inspire a feeling
of confidence in the breasts of those who were to take part in it.
All the police stations within a radius of thirty miles were ordered
to send in contingents to form the body of the meeting, and a number
of military pensioners were also directed to proceed to the spot and
exert themselves in cheering the speakers. When the meeting was fully
constituted it was calculated that there could hardly have been less
than two hundred and fifty persons on the grounds.
At about one o’clock P.M. the carriages containing the noble
lords and gentlemen who were to occupy the platform began to arrive at
Freebooter Hall, where they set down the ladies of the party, who were
to figure in the grand ball which was to be held there that evening. At
1.30 the noblemen and gentlemen proceeded to the scene of the meeting,
and took their places on the platform, amidst the plaudits of the
constabulary, which were again renewed in obedience to signals given
by the sub-inspectors. The view from the platform, which was situated
on a rising ground, was particularly fine. Some years ago a number of
peasant homes and three considerable villages existed on the property;
but Mr. Freebooter, being of opinion that they spoiled the prospect
and tended to favour overpopulation in the country, had the people all
evicted and their houses levelled to the ground. The wisdom and the
good taste he had shown in this matter were highly praised by their
lordships as they made their way up the carpeted steps leading to the
platform, and took their seats on the chairs and sofas which had been
placed there for their accommodation. The meeting having presented
arms, it was moved by the Hon. Frederick Augustus Mightyswell, and
seconded by George Famous Grabber, Esq., that the most noble the
Marquis of Squanderall do take the chair.
The noble marquis said--My lords and gentlemen, I may say I thank
you for having called me--that is, for the honour you have done me
in having called me to have the honour of presiding over this, I may
say, important meeting. (Cheers.) I have come over from London--I may
say across the Channel--to have the honour of attending this meeting,
because we all know these tenant fellows have been allowed to have
this sort of thing too long to themselves. (Hear, hear, and cheers.)
There have been, I may say, hundreds of these meetings, at which the
fellows say they want to get their rents reduced, that their crops
were short, that they must keep their families from starving, and
all that sort of rot. How can we help it if their crops were short?
(Hear, hear.) How can we help it if they have families to support?
(Cheers.) The idiots talk about our rents being three or four times
more than Griffith’s valuation; if that be so, I may say, more shame
for the fellow Griffith, whoever he was. (Groans for Griffith.) Are
we to be robbed because Griffith was an ass? (Cheers.) My lords and
gentlemen, I shall not detain you longer--(cries of “Go on” from
several sub-inspectors)--but will call upon, I may say, my eloquent
friend, Lord Deliverus, who will propose the first resolution. (Loud
and long-continued cheering from the constabulary.)
[Illustration: “MY ELOQUENT FRIEND, LORD DELIVERUS.”]
Lord Deliverus--My dear Squanderall, my good friends, and other
persons, you know I am not accustomed to this sort of thing, but I have
been asked to propose the following resolution:--
“That we regret to notice that the unbounded prosperity which is being
enjoyed by the small farmers and the labouring classes of Ireland
is having a very bad effect on them, leading them into all sorts of
extravagance, and producing among them an insolent and rebellious
spirit, and that in the interest of morality and public safety we
consider it absolutely necessary that the rents of the country shall be
increased by about 100 per cent.”
Now, my friends, this is a resolution which must waken a sympathetic
echo in the bosom of every rightly-constituted gentleman of property.
Do we not all know, have we not all seen, the lamentable changes
that have taken place in this country? Twenty years ago not half the
population indulged in the luxury of shoes and stockings, and the
labouring classes never thought of wearing waistcoats; now, most of
them take care to provide themselves with these things. Where do they
get the money to buy them but out of our rents? (True, true.) Twenty
years ago they were satisfied if they could get a few potatoes to live
upon each day, and a very good, wholesome, simple food they were for
such people. (Hear, hear.) But latterly some bad instructors have got
amongst them, and now the blackguards will not be contented unless they
have rashers two or three times a week. (Oh, oh.) Where do they get the
money for these rashers? (Voices--“Out of our rents.”) Yes, my friends,
out of our rents. They rob us to supply themselves with delicacies of
this kind. Eight or ten years ago we could bring up the fellows to
vote for us; now they do as they like. (Groans.) And now the fellows
say we must give them a reduction of their rents! (A voice--“Give them
an ounce of lead.”) The rascals say they won’t starve. (Oh, oh, and
groans.) They say they will feed themselves first, and then consider
if they have anything to spare for us. (Shrieks and groans on the
platform--Colonel Hardup faints.) They say the life of any one among
them is just as precious as the life of any one of us. (Expressions of
horror on all sides--Lord Tomnoddy looks unutterably disgusted, changes
colour, puts his hand on his stomach, and retires hastily to the back
of the platform.) My friends, I need not tell you that the Government
is bound to put them down at any cost. (Tremendous cheering.) Just
think what would result from any considerable reduction of our incomes;
why, most of us might have to remain in this wretched country, for
we would be ashamed to return in reduced circumstances to London and
Paris; we should have fewer horses, fewer yachts, fewer servants, less
champagne, less Italian opera, no _rouge et noir_--think, my
friends, of the number of charming establishments from London to Vienna
that would feel the shock. (Sobs and moans on the platform.) Would life
be worth living under such circumstances? (No, no.) No, my lords and
gentlemen, it would not; and therefore we are entitled to call upon the
Government to interfere promptly and with a strong hand to stop the
spread of those subversive theories that are now being taught to the
lower classes in this country. (Great applause.)
A. D. Shoneen, Esq., J.P., came forward to second the resolution.
He said--My lords and gentlemen, I feel that I need not add a word,
even if I were able to do so, to the beautiful, the eloquent, the
argumentative, the thrilling oration you have just heard from the
estimable Lord Deliverus. I will not attempt to describe that
magnificent performance in the language it deserves, for the task
would far transcend my humble capacity. But I do think that this
country should feel grateful--every country should feel grateful--the
human race should feel grateful--to his lordship for the invaluable
contribution he has made to the sum of our political philosophy in
that address. I own I am moved almost to tears when I consider that
the people whose conduct has excited such righteous indignation in
the breast of his lordship, and so affected the epigastric region of
that most amiable young nobleman, Viscount Tomnoddy--are my countrymen.
I blush to make the confession, I am so overcome by my feelings that
I am unable to do more than briefly second the resolution, which has
been proposed to you in words that deserve to live for ever, and
that mankind will not willingly let die. (The resolution was passed
unanimously.)
Major Bearhead came forward to propose the next resolution, which was
in the following terms:--“That, from the unlawful, rebellious, and
revolutionary spirit which is now abroad, we deem it essential that a
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act shall at once be effected, that
martial law shall be proclaimed in all disturbed districts, that all
land agitators shall be at once arrested, and all tenant-right books,
pamphlets, and newspapers shall be confiscated and suppressed.”
The gallant Major said--My lords and gentlemen, ahem! you may talk
of resolutions, but this is the resolution that is wanted. Ahem! by
the soul of Julius Cæsar, it is only such spirited measures that will
ever settle this confounded Irish trouble. Ahem! the fellows want
reductions--by the boots of the immortal Wellington, I would reduce
them with grape and canister; that’s the reduction I would give them!
Thunder and lightning--ahem! thunder and lightning! to think that
these agitating fellows have been going about the country these twelve
months, and not one of them shot, sabred, or hanged yet! Two or three
fellows were put under a sort of sham arrest, and I am told they are
to be tried; trial be damned, I say. Ahem! a drum-head court-martial
is the sort of trial for them. No fear they would ever trouble the
country afterwards. Let the Horse-Guards only send me word, “Bearhead,
you settle with these people,” and see how soon I’d do it. (Cheers.)
By all the bombshells in Britain, I’d have the country as quiet as a
churchyard in two months. That is enough for me to say--ahem! (Great
cheering.)
The Hon. Charles Edward Algernon Featherhead, in seconding the
resolution, said--My lords, ladies, and gentlemen--oh, I really forgot
that the ladies are not present, which I take to be a dooced pity,
for, as the poet says, “Their smiles would make a summer”--oh, yes,
I have it--“where darkness else would be.” (Applause.) I can’t say I
know much about these blooming agricultural matters, for on my word
of honour I always looked on them as a low, vulgar sort of thing, and
all my set of fellows do just the same; but my old governor wished me
to come here and take part in the proceedings, and I have a little
reason for wishing to humour him just now. But, as I was saying, I
don’t see how any sort of fun can go on if we are not to get money from
these farming fellows. It may be very true that oats were not worth
digging this season, and that potatoes were very short in the straw
and very light in the ear; but then, on the other hand, was there not
a plentiful supply of cucumbers? (Cheers.) We hear a great deal about
American importations, but it seems to me that’s the jolliest part
of the whole thing, because surely the farming fellows can’t want to
eat the American food and the Irish food both together. Let them eat
the Yankee stuff, and then sell the Irish and give us the money, and
there’s the whole thing settled handsomely. It’s their confounded
stupidity that prevents them seeing this plain and simple way of
satisfying themselves and us. For, as the poet says, “Is there a heart
that never loved?”--no, that’s not it--“When the wine-cup is circling
before us”--no, I forget what the poet said, but no matter: I beg to
say that I highly approve of the toast which has just been proposed.
(The resolution was carried unanimously.)
Sir Nathaniel H. Castlehack wished to offer a few remarks before the
close of the meeting. It appeared to him that the tone of some of the
speakers had not shown quite as much confidence in the Government as
in his opinion they deserved. I do not think (said the speaker) that
the arrests which have been referred to were at all intended to be a
flash in the pan, for I have reason to know that at this moment the
jury panels are being carefully looked after by the authorities--(good,
good)--and I think I may say to the gallant major who has just preceded
me, and whose zeal for the public cause we all must recognise and
admire, that if he will only exercise to some extent the virtue of
patience, and allow things to take their regular course, he will
probably ere long have the opportunity which he desires for again
distinguishing himself and rendering the State some service.... Don’t
be afraid, my friends; rely with confidence on the Government; they
will give to this unreasonable and turbulent people everything but what
they want.
A scene of immense enthusiasm followed these remarks. The gentlemen
on the platform embraced each other; the band of the 33rd Dragoons
struck up “God save the Queen,” and the constabulary fired a _feu
de joie_. The meeting was then put through some evolutions, which
they performed in brilliant style, after which they broke into sections
and marched off to their different stations. Their lordships and the
gentry then proceeded to their carriages, and drove off to Freebooter
Hall. They expressed themselves highly pleased with the results of the
demonstration, and stated that similar meetings would soon be held in
various parts of the country.
_T. D. Sullivan_ (1827).
_LANIGAN’S BALL._
In the town of Athy one Jeremy Lanigan
Battered away till he hadn’t a pound,
His father he died and made him a man again,
Left him a house and ten acres of ground!
He gave a grand party to friends and relations
Who wouldn’t forget him if he went to the wall;
And if you’ll just listen, I’ll make your eyes glisten
With the rows and the ructions of Lanigan’s ball.
Myself, to be sure, got free invitations
For all the nice boys and girls I’d ask,
And in less than a minute the friends and relations
Were dancing as merry as bees round a cask.
Miss Kitty O’Hara, the nice little milliner,
Tipped me the wink for to give her a call,
And soon I arrived with Timothy Glenniher
Just in time for Lanigan’s ball.
There was lashins of punch and wine for the ladies,
Potatoes and cakes and bacon and tay,
The Nolans, the Dolans, and all the O’Gradys
Were courting the girls and dancing away.
Songs they sung as plenty as water,
From “The Harp that once through Tara’s ould Hall,”
To “Sweet Nelly Gray” and “The Ratcatcher’s Daughter,”
All singing together at Lanigan’s ball.
They were starting all sorts of nonsensical dances,
Turning around in a nate whirligig;
But Julia and I soon scatthered their fancies,
And tipped them the twist of a rale Irish jig.
Och mavrone! ’twas then she got glad o’ me:
We danced till we thought the old ceilin’ would fall,
(For I spent a whole fortnight in Doolan’s Academy
Learning a step for Lanigan’s ball).
The boys were all merry, the girls were all hearty,
Dancin’ around in couples and groups,
When an accident happened--young Terence McCarthy
He dhruv his right foot through Miss Halloran’s hoops.
The creature she fainted, and cried “_Millia murther!_”
She called for her friends and gathered them all;
Ned Carmody swore he’d not stir a step further,
But have satisfaction at Lanigan’s ball.
In the midst of the row Miss Kerrigan fainted--
Her cheeks all the while were as red as the rose--
And some of the ladies declared she was painted,
She took a small drop too much, I suppose.
Her lover, Ned Morgan, so pow’rful and able,
When he saw his dear colleen stretched out by the wall,
He tore the left leg from under the table,
And smashed all the china at Lanigan’s ball.
Oh, boys, but then was the ructions--
Myself got a lick from big Phelim McHugh,
But I soon replied to his kind introductions,
And kicked up a terrible hullabaloo.
Old Casey the piper was near being strangled,
They squeezed up his pipes, his bellows, and all;
The girls in their ribbons they all got entangled,
And that put an end to Lanigan’s ball.
_Anonymous._
_THE WIDOW’S LAMENT._
Ochone, _acushla mavourneen_! ah, why thus did ye die?
(I won’t keep ye waitin’ a minit: just wait till I wipe my eye);
And is it gone ye are, darlint,--the kindest, the fondest, the
best?
(Don’t forget the half-crown for the clerk--ye’ll find it below
in the chest).
And to leave me alone in the world--O _whirra, ochone, ochone_!
(Is that Misther Moore in the car?--I thought I was goin’ alone);
Why am I alive this minit? why don’t I die on the floore?
(I’ll take your hand up the step, an’ thank ye, Misther Moore!)
An’ are ye gone at last from your weepin’, desolate wife?
(Not a dhrop, Misther Moore, I thank ye--well, the laste little
dhrop in life!)
’Twas ye had the generous heart, an’ ’twas ye had the noble mind,
(Good mornin’, Mrs. O’Flanagan! Is Tim in the car behind?)
Oh, that I lived till this minit, such bitther sorrow to taste,
(I’m not goin’ to fall, Misther Moore! take your arm from around
my waist).
’Twas the like of you there wasn’t in Ballaghaslatthery town,
(There’s Mary Mullaly, the hussy, an’ she wearin’ her laylock
gown!)
I’ll throw meself into the river; I’ll never come back no more;
(’Twon’t be takin’ ye out of the way to lave me at home, Misther
Moore?)
It’s me should have gone that could bear it, now that I’m young and
sthrong,
(He was sixty-nine come Christmas: I wondhered he lasted so
long!)
Oh, what’s the world at all when him that I love isn’t in it?
(If ’twas any one else but yourself, I’d lave the car this
minit!)
There’s nothin’ but sorrow foreninst me, wheresoever I roam,
(Musha, why d’ye talk like that--can’t ye wait till we’re goin’
home?)
_Anonymous._
[Illustration: “I’M NOT GOIN’ TO FALL, MISTHER MOORE! TAKE YOUR
ARM FROM AROUND MY WAIST.”]
_WHISKY AND WATHER._
It’s all mighty fine what Taytotallers say,
“That ye’re not to go dhrinking of sperits,
But to keep to pump wather, and gruel, and tay”--
Faith, ye’d soon have a face like a ferret’s.
I don’t care one sthraw what such swaddlers may think,
(Ye’ll find them in every quarther),
The wholesomest liquor in life you can dhrink,
I’ll be bail, now, is _Whisky and Wather_.
Don’t go dhrinking of Brandy, or Hollands, or Shrub,
Or Gin--thim’s all docthored, dipind an it--
Or ye’ll soon have a nose that ye niver can rub,
For the blossoms ye’ll grow at the ind iv it;
But the “raal potheen” it’s a babby may take
Before its long clothes are cut shorther;
In as much as would swim ye there’s divil an ache,
Av it’s not mixed with _too much_ could wather.
Do ye like thim small dhrinks? Dhrink away by all manes--
I wonst thried Ginger Beer to my sorrow--
Ye’ll be tuck jist as I was, wid all sorts of pains,
And ye’ll see what ye’re like on the morrow.
Ye’ll find ye can’t ate--no, nor walk--for the wind;
Ye’ll have cheeks jist the colour of morthar;
Av ye call in the docthor he’ll jist recommind
A hot tumbler of _Whisky and Wather_.
Av the colic you get, or the cramp in your legs,
Don’t go scalding yerself wid hot bottles:
(Tho’ thim’s betther, they tell me, than hot flannel bags),
And take no docthor’s stuff down your throttles;
But just tell the misthress to hate the tin pot--
(Maybe one for tay ye’ll have bought her)--
And keep dosing yerself off and an, hot and hot,
Till ye’re aisy--wid _Whisky and Wather_.
Av ye go to a fair, as it maybe ye might,
And ye meet with some thrilling disasther,
Such as having the head iv ye broken outright,
Av coorse ye’ll be wanting a plasther.
Don’t sind for a surgeon, thim’s niver no use--
Sure their thrade is to cut and to quarther--
They’d be dealing wid you, as you’d dale wid a goose:
Thry a poultice iv _Whisky and Wather_.
Av ye can’t sleep at night, an ye rowl in yer bed
(And that’s mighty disthressin’--no doubt iv it),
Till ye don’t know the front from the back iv yer head,
The best thing ye can do is--rowl out iv it.
Av ye’ve let out the fire, and can’t get a light,
Feel yer way to the crock, till ye’ve caught her
(In the dark it’s ye are, so remimber, hould tight),
Take a pull--an’ thin dhrink some could wather.
Av ye meet wid misfortune, beyant your controwl,
Av disease gets a hould iv the praties,
Or the slip iv a pig gets the masles, poor sowl;
No matther how sarious yer case is--
Don’t go walking about wid yer hands crossed behind,
And a face like a cow’s--only shorther,--
Sure the best way to keep up yer sperits, ye’ll find
Is to keep to hot _Whisky and Wather_.
It’s in more ways than thim ye’ll find whisky yer frind,
Sure it’s not only jist while ye dhrink it--
It has vartues on which ye can always depind--
And perhaps, too, when laste ye would think it.
One fine summer’s day, it was coorting I wint,
To make love to Dame Flanagan’s daughter--
And I won her--and got the old woman’s consint:
Sure I did it wid _Whisky and Wather_.
In the Liffey I tumbled, one could winther’s day,
And, bedad, it was coulder than plisint,
Out they fished me, and stretched me full length on the quay,
But the divil a docthor was prisint,
When a blessed ould woman of eighty came by
(There’s no doubt expariance had taught her),
And--in jist a pig’s whisper--I tell ye no lie--
Fetched me to, wid hot _Whisky and Wather_.
It’s the loveliest liquor ye iver can take,
And no matther how often ye take it;
The great thing is never to mix it too wake:
And see now--it’s this way ye make it:
Take three lumps of sugar--it’s jist how ye feel--
About whisky, not less than one quarther;
No limon--the laste taste in life of the peel,
And be sure you put screeching hot wather.
It’ll make ye, all over, as warm as a toast,
And yer heart jist as light as a feather;
Sure it’s mate, dhrink, and washing, and lodging almost,
And the great-coat itself, in could weather.
Oh! long life to the man that invinted potheen--
Sure the Pope ought to make him a marthyr--
If myself was this moment Victoria, our queen,
I’d dhrink nothing but _Whisky and Wather_!
_Anonymous._
[Illustration: “IT’LL MAKE YE, ALL OVER, AS WARM AS TOAST, AND
YER HEART JIST AS LIGHT AS A FEATHER.”]
_THE THRUSH AND THE BLACKBIRD._
A stranger meeting Sally Cavanagh as she tripped along the mountain
road would consider her a contented and happy young matron, and might
be inclined to set her down as a proud one; for Sally Cavanagh held
her head rather high, and occasionally elevated it still higher with
a toss which had something decidedly haughty about it. She turned up
a short boreen for the purpose of calling upon the gruff blacksmith’s
wife, who had been very useful to her for some time before. The smith’s
habits were so irregular that his wife was often obliged to visit the
pawn office in the next town, and poor Sally Cavanagh availed herself
of Nancy Ryan’s experience in pledging almost everything pledgeable she
possessed. The new cloak, of which even a rich farmer’s wife might feel
proud, was the last thing left. It was a present from Connor, and was
only worn on rare occasions, and to part with it was a sore trial.
[Illustration: “NANCY FLEW AT HER LIKE A WILD CAT.”]
Loud screams and cries for help made Sally Cavanagh start. She stopped
for a moment, and then ran forward and rushed breathless into the
smith’s house. The first sight that met her eyes was our friend Shawn
Gow choking his wife. A heavy three-legged stool came down with such
force upon the part of Shawn Gow’s person which happened to be most
elevated as he bent over the prostrate woman, that, uttering an
exclamation between a grunt and a growl, he bounded into the air, and
striking his shins against a chair, tumbled head over heels into the
corner. When Shawn found that he was more frightened than hurt, and
saw Sally with the three-legged stool in her hand, a sense of the
ludicrous overcame him, and turning his face to the wall, he relieved
his feelings by giving way to a fit of laughter. It was of the silent,
inward sort, however, and neither his wife nor Sally Cavanagh had any
notion of the pleasant mood he was in. The bright idea of pretending to
be “kilt” occurred to the overthrown son of Vulcan, and with a fearful
groan he stretched out his huge limbs and remained motionless on the
broad of his back. Sally’s sympathy for the ill-used woman prevented
her from giving a thought to her husband. Great was her astonishment
then when Nancy flew at her like a wild cat. “You kilt my husband,”
she screamed. Sally retreated backwards, defending herself as best she
could with the stool. “For God’s sake, Nancy, be quiet. Wouldn’t he
have destroyed you on’y for me?” But Nancy followed up the attack like
a fury. “There’s nothing the matter with him,” Sally cried out, on
finding herself literally driven to the wall. “What harm could a little
touch of a stool on the back do the big brute?”
Nancy’s feelings appeared to rush suddenly into another channel, for
she turned round quickly, and kneeling down by her husband, lifted up
his head. “Och! Shawn, _avourneen machree_,”[20] she exclaimed,
“won’t you spake to me?” Shawn condescended to open his eyes. “Sally,”
she continued, “he’s comin’ to--glory be to God! Hurry over and hould
up his head while I’m runnin’ for somethin’ to rewive him. Or stay,
bring me the boulster.”
The bolster was brought, and Nancy placed it under the patient’s head;
then snatching her shawl from the peg where it hung, she disappeared.
She was back again in five minutes, without the shawl, but with a half
pint of whisky in a bottle.
“Take a taste av this, Shawn, an’ ’twill warm your heart.”
Shawn Gow sat up and took the bottle in his hand.
“Nancy,” says he, “I believe afther all you’re fond o’ me.”
“Wisha, Shawn, _achora_,[21] what else ’d I be but fond av you?”
“I thought, Nancy, you couldn’t care for a divil that thrated you so
bad.”
“Och, Shawn, Shawn, don’t talk that way to me. Sure I thought my heart
was broke when I see you sthretched there ’idout a stir in you.”
“An’ you left your shawl in pledge agin to get this for me?”
“To be sure I did; an’ a good right I had; an’ sorry I’d be to see you
in want of a dhrop of nourishment.”
“I was a baste, Nancy. But if I was, this is what made a baste av me.”
And Shawn Gow fixed his eyes upon the bottle with a look in which
hatred and fascination were strangely blended. He turned quickly to his
wife.
“Will you give in it was a blackbird?” he asked.
“A blackbird,” she repeated, irresolutely.
“Yes, a blackbird. Will you give in it was a blackbird?”
Shawn Gow was evidently relapsing into his savage mood.
“Well,” said his wife, after some hesitation, “’twas a blackbird. Will
that plase you?”
“An’ you’ll never say ’twas a thrish agin?”
“Never. An’ sure on’y for the speckles on the breast, I’d never
say ’twas a thrish; but sure you ought to know betther than
me--an’--an’--’twas a blackbird,” she exclaimed, with a desperate
effort.
Shawn Gow swung the bottle round his head and flung it with all his
strength against the hob. The whole fireplace was for a moment one
blaze of light.
“The Divil was in id,” says the smith, smiling grimly; “an’ there he’s
off in a flash of fire. I’m done wid him, any way.”
“Well, I wish you a happy Christmas, Nancy,” said Sally.
“I wish you the same, Sally, an’ a great many av ’em. I suppose you’re
goin’ to first Mass? Shawn and me’ll wait for second.”
Sally took her leave of this remarkable couple, and proceeded on her
way to the village. She met Tim Croak and his wife, Betty, who were
also going to Mass. After the usual interchange of greetings, Betty
surveyed Sally from head to foot with a look of delighted wonder.
“Look at her, Tim,” she exclaimed, “an’ isn’t she as young an’ as
hearty as ever? Bad ’cess to me but you’re the same Sally that danced
wid the master at my weddin’, next Thursday fortnight ’ll be eleven
years.”
“Begob, you’re a great woman,” says Tim.
Sally Cavanagh changed the subject by describing the scene she had
witnessed at the blacksmith’s.
“But, Tim,” said she, after finishing the story, “how did the dispute
about the blackbird come first? I heard something about it, but I
forget it.”
“I’ll tell you that, then,” said Tim. “Begob, ay,” he exclaimed
abruptly, after thinking for a moment; “twas this day seven years, for
all the world--the year o’ the hard frost. Shawn Gow set a crib in his
haggart the evenin’ afore, and when he went out in the mornin’ he had a
hen blackbird. He put the _goulogue_[22] on her nick, and tuck her
in his hand; an’ wud one _smulluck_ av his finger knocked the life
out av her; he walked in an’ threw the blackbird on the table.
“‘Oh, Shawn,’ siz Nancy, ‘you’re afther ketchin’ a fine thrish.’ Nancy
tuck the bird in her hand an’ began rubbin’ the feathers on her breast.
‘A fine thrish,’ siz Nancy.
“‘’Tisn’t a thrish, but a blackbird,’ siz Shawn.
“‘Wisha, in throth, Shawn,’ siz Nancy, ‘’tis a thrish; do you want to
take the sight o’ my eyes from me?’
“‘I tell you ’tis a blackbird,’ siz he.
“‘Indeed, then, it isn’t, but a thrish,’ siz she.
“Anyway one word borrowed another, an’ the end av it was, Shawn flailed
at her an’ gev her the father av a batin’.
“The Christmas Day afther, Nancy opened the door an’ looked out.
“‘God be wud this day twelve months,’ siz she, ‘do you remimber the
fine thrish you caught in the crib?’
“’Twas a blackbird,’ siz Shawn.
“‘Whisht, now, Shawn, ’twas a thrish,’ siz Nancy.
“‘I tell you again ’twas a blackbird,’ siz Shawn.
“‘Och,’ siz Nancy, beginnen to laugh, ‘that was the quare blackbird.’
“Wud that, one word borrowed another, an’ Shawn stood up an’ gev her
the father av a batin’.
“The third Christmas Day kem, an’ they wor in the best o’ good humour
afther the tay, an’ Shawn puttin’ on his ridin’-coat to go to Mass.
“‘Well, Shawn,’ siz Nancy, ‘I’m thinkin’ av what an unhappy Christmas
mornin’ we had this day twelve months, all on account of the thrish you
caught in the crib, bad ’cess to her.’
“‘’Twas a blackbird,’ siz Shawn.
“‘Wisha, good luck to you, an’ don’t be talkin’ foolish,’ siz Nancy;
‘an’ you’re betther not get into a passion agin, account av an ould
thrish. My heavy curse on the same thrish,’ siz Nancy.
“‘I tell you ’twas a blackbird,’ siz Shawn.
“‘An’ I tell you ’twas a thrish,’ siz Nancy.
“Wud that, Shawn took a _bunnaun_[23] he had seasonin’ in the
chimley, and whaled at Nancy, an’ gev her the father av a batin’. An’
every Christmas morning from that day to this ’twas the same story, for
as sure as the sun Nancy ’d draw down the thrish. But do you tell me,
Sally, she’s afther givin’ in it was a blackbird?”
“She is,” replied Sally.
“Begob,” said Tim Croak, after a minute’s serious reflection, “it ought
to be put in the papers. I never h’ard afore av a wrong notion bein’
got out av a woman’s head. But Shawn Gow is no joke to dale wud, and it
took him seven years to do id.”
_Charles Joseph Kickham_ (1828–1882).
_IRISH ASTRONOMY._
A veritable myth, touching the constellation of O’Ryan,
ignorantly and falsely spelled Orion.
O’Ryan was a man of might
Whin Ireland was a nation,
But poachin’ was his chief delight
And constant occupation.
He had an ould militia gun,
And sartin sure his aim was;
He gave the keepers many a run,
And didn’t mind the game laws.
St. Pathrick wanst was passin’ by
O’Ryan’s little houldin’,
And as the saint felt wake and dhry,
He thought he’d enther bould in;
“O’Ryan,” says the saint, “avick!
To praich at Thurles I’m goin’;
So let me have a rasher, quick,
And a dhrop of Innishowen.”
“No rasher will I cook for you
While betther is to spare, sir;
But here’s a jug of mountain dew,
And there’s a rattlin’ hare, sir.”
St. Pathrick he looked mighty sweet,
And says he, “Good luck attind you,
And whin you’re in your windin’ sheet
It’s up to heaven I’ll sind you.”
O’Ryan gave his pipe a whiff--
“Thim tidin’s is transportin’,
But may I ax your saintship if
There’s any kind of sportin’?”
St. Pathrick said, “A Lion’s there,
Two Bears, a Bull, and Cancer”--
“Bedad,” says Mick, “the huntin’s rare,
St. Pathrick, I’m your man, sir!”
So, to conclude my song aright,
For fear I’d tire your patience,
You’ll see O’Ryan any night
Amid the constellations.
And Venus follows in his thrack,
Till Mars grows jealous raally,
But, faith, he fears the Irish knack
Of handling the--shillaly.
_Charles Graham Halpine_ (1829–1868).
_PADDY FRET, THE PRIEST’S BOY._
“Sorra a one of me’ll get married,” remarked Paddy Fret, as he was
furbishing up the priest’s stirrups one beautiful Saturday morning, in
the little kitchen at the rear of the chapel-house. “Sure, if I don’t,
you will; and there’ll be a great palin’ of bells at the weddin’. We’ll
all turn out to see you--the whole of the foolish vargins rowled into
wan.”
Mrs. Galvin, who was at the moment occupied in turning the white side
of a slab of toast to the fire, turned round to her tormentor, no small
degree of acerbity wrinkling up her face.
“Mind your work, and keep a civil tongue in your impty head,”
she exclaimed petulantly. “There was many a fine lump of a boy
would marry me in my time, if I only took the throuble to wink
a _comether_[24] at him. There was min in them times, not
_sprahauns_[25] like you.”
“You’re burnin’ the toast, an’ goin’ to make snuff of Father Maher’s
break’ast,” interrupted Paddy. “At the rate you’re goin’ on, you’ll
bile the eggs that hard that you’ll kill his riverence, and be thried
for murdher. And, upon my _soukins_, the hangman will have a nate
job with you.”
“You’d slip thro’ the rope, you flax-hank,” was the answer. “Wait till
I put my two eyes on Katty Tyrrell, and, troth, I’ll put your nose out
o’ joint, or my name isn’t Mary Galvin. You goin’ coortin’! The Lord
save and guide us! As if any wan would dhrame of taking a switch for a
husband--a crathur like you, only fit to beat an ould coat with!”
“Don’t lose your timper, Mrs. Galvin,” said Paddy, whose
inextinguishable love of fun gleamed out of his black eyes, and
flashed from his dazzlingly white and regular teeth. “God is good; all
the ould fools isn’t dead yet, and there’s a chance of your not dying
without some unforchinate gandher saying the Rosary in thanks for his
redimption.”
Mrs. Galvin made no reply. She placed the toast in the rack in silence;
but that silence was ominous. Next, she removed the teapot, cosy and
all, from the fireside, and placed all on a tray, which she bore off
with a sort of conscious yet sullen dignity, to the pretty parlour,
where Father Maher, after his hard mountain ride, waited breakfast.
“I’ll never spake to Paddy Fret again, your riverence,” she said, when
everything had been arranged, and it was her turn to quit the room.
The priest, like the majority of his Irish brethren--God bless
them!--had a ready appreciation of a joke. He paused in the task of
shelling an egg, and inquired with all possible gravity, “What is the
matter now, Mrs. Galvin?”
“Sure, your riverence, my heart is bruk with the goin’s on of Paddy
Fret. From mornin’ till night he’s never done makin’ faces at me, an’
sayin’ as how no wan in Croagh would think of throwin’ a stick at me.
Ah! then, I can tell you, Father Michael, I squez the heart’s blood out
of many as fine a man, in my time, as iver bid the divil good night,
savin’ your riverence.”
“You are in the autumn of your beauty yet, Mary,” said the priest,
“handsome is that handsome does, you know.”
“Thank you kindly, Father Maher. But that boy’ll be the death o’ me.
And then,” putting her sharp knuckles on the table’s edge, and bending
over to her master, in deep confidence, “I know for sartin that he’s
runnin’ after half the girls in the parish.”
Father Maher looked grave at this disclosure.
“Of course they keep running away from him--don’t they, Mary? Why,
we’ve got an Adonis in the house.”
“The Lord forbid I’d say that of him, sir,” remarked Mrs. Galvin,
whose acquaintance with Hellenic myths was rather hazy. “Bad as he is,
he hasn’t come to that yet.”
“I am glad to hear you say as much,” said the priest, as he poured out
a cup of tea, and proceeded to butter the toast. “Never fear, Mary,
I’ll have an eye on that fellow.”
The door closed, shutting out the housekeeper, and Father Maher’s face
relaxed into a broad smile. He rested the local paper against the
toast-rack, and laughed cautiously from time to time, as he ran down
its columns of barren contents. Neither Paddy nor Mrs. Galvin had the
faintest idea of the amusement their daily quarrels afforded him, or of
the gusto with which he used to describe them at the dinner-tables to
which he was occasionally invited.
Having burnished the irons and cleansed the leathers until they
shone again, Paddy Fret mounted to his bedroom, over the stable, and
proceeded to array himself with unusual care. His toilet completed,
he surveyed himself in the cracked triangle of looking-glass imbedded
in the mortar of the wall, and the result of the scrutiny satisfied
him that there was not a gayer or handsomer young fellow in the whole
parish of Croagh. So, in love with himself and part of the world, he
stole cautiously down the rickety step-ladder, and gliding like a snake
between the over-bowering laurels which flanked the chapel-house,
emerged on the high road.
“I’m afeerd, Paddy, that my father will never listen to a good word
for you,” said pretty Katty Tyrrell, as the priest’s boy took a stool
beside her before the blazing peat fire, burning on the stoveless
hearth. “He’s a grave man, wanst he takes a notion into his head.”
“All ould min has got notions,” said Paddy, “but they dhrop off with
their hairs. Lave him to me, and if I don’t convart him, call me a
souper. Sure, if he wants a son-in-law to be a comfort in his ould age
he couldn’t meet with a finer boy than meself.”
“Mrs. Galvin says,” continued Katty, “that it would be a morchial
sin to throw me and my two hundherd pounds away on the likes o’ you.
‘A good-for-nothin’ _bosthoon_,’[26] says she, ‘that I wouldn’t
graize the wheel of a barrow with.’”
“She wouldn’t graize a great many wheels, at any rate,” replied Paddy.
“The truth is, Katty dear, the poor woman is out of her sivin sinses,
and all for the want of a gintleman to make a lady of her, as I’m goin’
to make wan o’ you.”
The splendour of the promise bewildered Miss Tyrrell. She could only
rest her elbows on her knees, hide her face in her hands, and cry, “Oh,
Paddy!”
“Yes, me jewel,” continued the subtle suitor, “I’m poor to-day,
perhaps, but there’s noble blood coursin’ thro’ my veins. Go up to the
top of Knock-meil-Down some fine mornin’, and look down all around
you. There isn’t a square fut o’ grass in all you see that didn’t
wanst belong to my ancisthors. In the time of Cahul Mohr wan o’ my
grandfathers had tin thousand min and a hundherd thousand sheep at his
command, not to spake of ships at say and forthresses and palaces on
land.”
“Arrah, how did you get robbed, Paddy?” said Katty.
“Well, you see, my dear, they were a hard-dhrinkin’ lot at the time I’m
spakin’ of. The landed property wint into the Incumbered Estates Coort,
and was sould for a song; the forthresses were changed into Martello
towers, and the army took shippin’ for France, but they were wracked
somewhere in the South Says, where they all swam ashore and turned New
Zealandhers.”
Katty was profoundly interested by this historical sketch of the Fret
family, which Paddy rolled out without hitch or pause--indispensable
elements of veracity in a spoken narrative. She allowed her lover to
hold her hand, and fancied she was a princess.
As they sat in this delightful abstraction--the ecstasy known to the
moderns as “spooning”--they were startled by the sound of wheels in the
farmyard, and Katty, with one swift glance at the window, exclaimed in
the wildest anguish, “Oh, Paddy, Paddy, what’ll become o’ me? Here’s my
father and mother come back from market already.”
“Take it aisy, darlint,” replied Mr. Fret. “Can’t I hide in the bedroom
beyant?”
“Not for all the world!” said Katty, in terror. “Oh, dear! oh, dear!”
“Thin stick me in the pot and put the lid over me,” was Mr. Fret’s next
happy suggestion.
Katty glanced in agony round the kitchen, and suddenly a great hope
filled her to the lips. Over the fireplace was a rude platform--common
to Irish farmhouses--on which saddles, harness, empty sacks, old ropes,
boots, and sometimes wool, were stored away indiscriminately.
“Up there--up with you,” she cried, placing a chair for him to ascend.
Paddy lost no time in mounting, and having stretched himself at full
length, his terrified sweetheart piled the litter over him until he was
completely hidden from view.
The hiding was scarce effected when Andy Tyrrell, old Mrs. Tyrrell,
and Mrs. Galvin made their appearance. They each drew stools round the
fire, in order to enjoy the blaze, which was most welcome after their
inclement ride.
“Are you yit mopin’ over that blackguard, Paddy Fret, _ma
colleen_?” asked the priest’s housekeeper. “’Tis a bad bargain you’d
make o’ the same _daltheen_,[27] honey.”
Katty, profoundly concerned in the mending of a stocking, pretended not
to hear the inquiry.
“She’s gettin’ sense, Mary,” said Mrs. Tyrrell. “Boys’ll be boys, and
girls’ll be girls, till the geese crows like cocks.”
“I tould the vagabone at the last fair,” remarked the old man, “that
if ever I caught him within an ass’s roar o’ this doore I’d put him
into the thrashin’ machine, and make chaff of his ugly bones. Bad luck
to his impidence, the _aulaun_,[28] to come lookin’ afther my
daughter.”
A bottle of whisky was now produced, and Katty busied herself in
providing glasses for the party. Mrs. Galvin at first declined to
“touch a dhrop, it bein’ too airly,” but once persuaded to hallow the
seductive fluid with her chaste lips, it was wonderful how soon she got
reconciled to potation after potation, till her inquisitive eyes began
to twinkle oddly in the firelight.
“What the divil is the matther with the creel?” (the platform above
alluded to) asked old Tyrrell. “’Tis groanin’ as if it had the lumbago.”
“The wind, my dear man, ’tis the wind,” replied Mrs. Galvin.
“Faith, I think ’tis enchanted it is,” observed the lady of the house.
“Look how it keeps rockin’ and shakin’, as if there was a throubled
sowl in it.”
“The wind, ma’am--’tis I know what it is, _alanna_,[29] to my
cost,” said the housekeeper; “’tis only the wind.”
Katty’s heart went pit-a-pat during this conference. She knew that the
“creel” was not the firmest of structures, and she shivered at the bare
idea of Paddy making a turn which might send it to pieces.
Again the whisky went round, mollifying the hard lines of Mrs. Galvin’s
unromantic countenance. Old Tyrrell, meanwhile, kept a steady eye on
the “creel,” which had relapsed by this time into its normal immobility.
“Have a dhrop, Katty,” he said, handing his daughter his glass.
The girl, who knew the consequence of disobeying his slightest command,
touched the rim of the vessel with her lips, and returned it with a
grateful “Thank you, father.” At the same time on lifting her eyes to
the “creel” she saw Paddy’s face peering out at her, and was honoured
with one of the finest winks that gentleman was capable of.
“Well, here’s long life to all of us, and may we be no worse off this
day twelvemonth,” said the old man, as he replenished the ladies’
glasses, and then set about draining his own. “Give me your hand, Mrs.
Galvin. There isn’t a finer nor a better woman in----”
The sentence was never finished, for whilst he was speaking the “creel”
gave way, and Paddy Fret, followed by the miscellaneous lumber which
had concealed him, tumbled into the middle of the astonished party. The
women shrieked and ran, whilst poor Katty, overcome by the terror of
the situation, fainted into a chair.
Paddy rose to his feet, unabashed and confident. “Wasn’t that a grand
fright I gave ye all?” he asked, with superb indifference.
Tyrrell, pale as death, and trembling in every limb, went to a corner,
took up a gun, and pointed the muzzle at the intruder’s head. “Swear,”
he hoarsely exclaimed, “you’ll make an honest woman of my daughter
before another week, or I’ll blow the roof off your skull.”
“I’ll spare you all the throuble,” said Paddy; “send for Father Maher
and I’ll marry her this minit, if you like. Will you have Paddy Fret
for your husband, Katty?” he asked, taking the hands of the now
conscious girl.
The whisky was finished, and on the following Sunday Father Maher
united Paddy Fret and Katty Tyrrell, in the little chapel of Croagh.
Mrs. Galvin danced bravely at the wedding, and was heard, more than
once, to whisper that “only for her ’twould never be a match.”
_John Francis O’Donnell_ (1837–1874).
[Illustration: “‘THAT’S THE TRUTH,’ SAYS O’SHANAHAN DHU.”]
_O’SHANAHAN DHU._
O’Shanahan Dhu, you’re a rover, and you’ll never be better, I fear,
A rogue, a deludherin’ lover, with a girl for each day in the year;
Don’t you know how the mothers go frowning, when a village you
wander athrough,
For the priest you’d not seek were you drowning--
“That’s the truth,” says O’Shanahan Dhu,
“For I’m aisy in love and divarsion,” says the ranting
O’Shanahan Dhu.
O’Shanahan, don’t think you’re welcome, for I was but this moment,
I’m sure,
Saying--“Speak of the dhioul[30] and he’ll come,” and that moment
you stood on the floor;
Now you’ll blarney, and flatter, and swear it, while you know I’ve
my spinning to do,
It would take a bright angel to bear it--
“That’s the truth,” says O’Shanahan Dhu;
“For, darling, all know you’re an angel,” says the ranting
O’Shanahan Dhu.
O’Shanahan Dhu, there’s Jack Morrow, the smith in the hill-forge
above,
Who says marriage is nothing but sorrow, and a wedding the end of
all love;
I myself don’t care much for believing that it’s gospel, yet what
can one do,
When you men are so given to deceiving--
“That’s the truth,” says O’Shanahan Dhu;
“We’re the thieves of the world, still you like us,” says
the ranting O’Shanahan Dhu.
O’Shanahan Dhu, why come scheming, when there’s nobody in but poor
me,
Can you fancy I’m foolish or draming, to believe that our hearts
could agree?
Don’t you know, sir, all round they’re reporting, with good reason,
perhaps, for it too,
That Jack Shea’s dainty daughter you’re courting?--
“That’s the truth,” says O’Shanahan Dhu,
“But there’s no one believes it, my darling,” with a wink,
says O’Shanahan Dhu.
O’Shanahan Dhu, now you’ll vex me, let me go, sir, this moment, I
say,
I’m in airnest, and why so perplex me, see I’m losing the work of
the day.
There’s my spinning all gone to a tangle, my bleached clothes all
boiled to a blue,
While for kisses you wrestle and wrangle--
“That’s the truth,” says O’Shanahan Dhu,
“I own I’ve a weakness for kisses,” says the ranting
O’Shanahan Dhu.
O’Shanahan Dhu, here’s my mother, if you don’t let me go, faith,
I’ll cry,
Why, she’ll tell both my father and brother, and with shame maybe
cause me to die,
And then at your bedside I’ll haunt you, with a light in my hand
burning blue,
From my shroud moaning, “Shemus, I want you,”--
“That’s the truth,” says O’Shanahan Dhu,
“But, ah, darling, say that while you’re living,” says the
ranting O’Shanahan Dhu.
_James J. Bourke_ (1837–1894).
_SHANE GLAS._
If you saw Shane Glas as he tramped to the fair,
With his fresh white shirt and his neat combed hair,
You’d never believe what a rake went by;
Why the girls--however he’s won them--the rogue--
Love the ground that is touched by the sole of his brogue,
And they follow him, ’spite of the old people’s cry--
“Sludhering Shawn, deludhering Shawn,
Whose blarneying lies might a warship float,
Let the girls alone, you big vagabone,
Or soon they’ll have reason to cry, ‘Ochone,’
Go home I say, there’s a rogue in your coat.”
He met Sally one day at the market town,
With her neat blacked shoes and her dimity gown,
And never dreamt she what a rake was nigh;
He whispered soft nothings, he pleaded with sighs,
Praised her red glowing cheek, her round breasts, her blue eyes,
And, O maid of the mountain, he left her to cry--
“Sludhering Shawn, soothering Shawn,
Traitor, on whom all the girls still doat,
Sal, Peggy, and Sue have reason to rue
The day they beheld your bright eyes of blue,
And your swaggering gait, and the rogue in your coat.”
_Translated from the Irish by J. J. Bourke._
_AN IRISH STORY-TELLER._
Meehawl Theige Oge (Murphy) was the name of the man of whom I speak.
Though small in stature, he himself deemed that there never lived a
more powerful man. He was not fond of speaking truth, as may be easily
learnt from the following story.
He lived near Miskish, and reclaimed as much land at the base of this
hill as afforded pasture to a cow or two. This, he often swore, he made
so fertile that it would grow potatoes without sowing them at all.
Somebody once asked him how were the new potatoes. “I’ll tell you,
then,” says he. “I was setting down yesterday west there near the end
of wan of the ridges, and I heard the sweetest music that ever a singer
made. Wid the hate (heat) of the sun, ’tis how the _knapawns_[31]
were fighting wid aich other, and they making noise and they saying
like this:--
“‘Move out from me and don’t crush me so,
But you won’t, you won’t, O bitter woe!’
West wid me to the house for a spade and a skive. I hadn’t the spade
in the ground right, when up popped every _knasster_[32] as big
as your head. I went home in high glee,--sure, a wran’s egg wouldn’t
break under me, my heart was so light,--I washed the praties for myself
and hung them over the fire. Then I sat on the _seestheen_,[33]
and reddened (lit) my pipe. I hadn’t a _shoch_ (whiff) and a half
pulled when here are the praties fubbling. I tuk ’em off the fire at
my dead aise and put ’em on the table after a spell. Glory be to God
that gave ’em to me; ’tis they wor the fine ating; I never ate the like
of ’em, and I won’t again too till the _Day of Flags_ (day of his
burial). ’Tisn’t that itself, but they wor laffing with me, widout they
knowing I was going to lie my back-teeth on ’em.”
Meehawl was often obliged to go to England. Once, after returning home,
a contemptible little fellow asked him would himself find any kind of
suitable employment there. Meehawl looked at him from head to foot, as
he stood by the fire warming himself, though the sun was splitting the
trees, the heat was so great. A fly alighted on his nose; but he gave
him a slap which put an end to his pricking. “The divel,” says Meehawl,
“if you had a whip I am sure you would keep the flies from the hams of
bacon which I used see hanging in the houses in England!”
He was very fond of liquor, but alas! he had not the means whereby
to indulge his desires. At times, however, he used to have a few
shillings; then he would go to the fair,--not without bringing his
blackthorn stick,--and finding some neighbour whom he made much of,
they would both go and have a “drop” together, till his money was
spent; after which he would make his exit from the tavern like a mad
thunderbolt. And if anybody came near him he was sure to get a taste of
his blackthorn. To do him justice, there were few men who could beat
him fighting with a stick.
One day he came home drunk; “he had a blow on the cat and a blow
on the dog.” His wife was sitting in the corner as mute as a cat,
but she uttered not a word till he had slept off the effects of the
drunkenness; then she asked him why he had come home as he did the
night before. It did not take him long to find his answer:--“Sure,”
said he, “I had to drink something to clane the cobwebs out of my
throat!” The poor fellow had no stripper that winter, so that he had to
eat his food dry.
I have stated before that Meehawl often had to go to England. Here is
one of the stories which he used to relate after coming back:--“After
going to England I was a spell widout any work, and sure it did not
take me long to spind the little penny of money that I brought wid me,
and I wouldn’t get a lodging anywhere, since my pocket wasn’t stiff.
I put my hand in my pocket, trying for my pipe, and what should I
get there but tuppence (2d.) by the height of luck. I bought a loaf
of bread for myself; I ate a bit of it, and put the rest of it in
the pocket of my _casoge_.[34] When it was going of me to get a
lodging anywhere, what should I see a couple of steps from me but a
big gun. It was a short delay for me to get into its mouth, and while
you’d be closing your eye I wasn’t inside when I fell asleep. In the
morning, when I was waking myself up, I didn’t feel a bit till I got a
bullet that put so much hurry on me that I couldn’t ever or ever stop
till I fell in a fine brickle (brittle) _moantawn_[35] in France.
‘Well, Meehawl,’ says I to myself, ‘maybe you oughtn’t complain since
you didn’t fall into the say where you’d get swallowing without chawing
(chewing).’ Then I thanked God who brought me safe and sound so far. I
put my hand in the pocket of my _casoge_ and what should be there
before me but the small little bit of bread I put into it the night
before that. ‘_Food is the work-horse_, wherever you’ll be,’ says
I to myself, ating up the bread dry as fast as I could. When I had it
ate, I looked around me just as cute as Norry-the-bogs[36] when she’d
be trying for fish in a river, but sure if I stopped looking till the
_Day of Flags_, I wouldn’t get as much as the full of my eye of
wan Frenchman.
“‘Well, that’s best,’ says I, going to a fine cock of hay, as high as
Miskish, but high as it was, I went on top of it. I made a hole through
it, and left myself into it, widout a bit of me out but the top of my
nose, to draw my breath. I wasn’t there long till I fell asleep, and
I didn’t feel anything till morning. When I woke up I looked round
me--where was I? God for ever wid me! where was I only in the middle of
the say, and my heart ruz as I thought of it right. I suppose ’tis how
a cloud fell near the cock, and that ruz the flood in the river so much
that it swept myself and the cock all together away--widout letting
_me_ know of it. I gave myself up to God, but if I did ’tis likely
I didn’t deserve much of the good from Him, for again a spell here’s a
whale to me (there’s a creeping could running through me when I think
of him!), and he opened his dirty mouth and he swallowed myself and the
cock holus bolus.
“I wasn’t gone right till that happened me. People say that Hell is
dark, but if it is as dark as the stomach of that baste, the divil
entirely is in it. But that isn’t here nor there; you’d see the fish
running hither and over about his stomach, some of ’em swimming fine
and aisy for theirself, more of ’em lepping as light as flays (fleas),
and some more of ’em bawling like young childer. ‘Ye haven’t any more
right to do that nor me,’ says I, and I tuk out and opened a big knife;
widout a lie it was sharp--wan blow of it would cut off the leg of the
biggest horse that ever trod or walked on grass. Here am I cutting,
and ’tis short till the pain pinched the whale, and begor I saw that
he would like to turn off. ‘Squeeze out,’ says I, and wid that I saw
the fish running out. ‘That your road may rise wid ye,’ says I; but I
wasn’t going to stop till he would give the same tratement or better
to myself. Here’s he blowing; ‘Blow on wid you,’ says I, and I was
cutting always at such a rate that it wasn’t long till I put my knife
out through his side, and I fell on the top of my head. ‘_Fooisg!
fooisg!_’ says the stomach of the whale, and praise and thanks be to
God, he blew me out through his mouth. He was tired of me and I was no
less tired of him too. He blew me so high in the sky that I couldn’t be
far from the sun, there was so much hate (heat) there. But any way I
fell down safe and sound on a fine soft bog of turf that was cut only
a few days before that. Nothing happened to me, only that the nail was
taken off the _loodeen_[37] of my left leg!”
_Patrick O’Leary._
_THE HAUNTED SHEBEEN._
A very queer story I heard
Long ago,
In Kerry. ’Tis gruesome and weird:
Stage went slow
As we passed a ruined shebeen
On our way to Cahirciveen.
“They drank and they feasted _galore_,
With each breath
Loud calling for one bottle more!
Father Death
Came in in the midst of the cheer,
With ‘Long life to all of yez here!’
“By Crom’ell! his eyes they were bright;
Loud he laughed,
Saying, ‘Boys, we will make it a night.’
Then he quaffed
A dandy of punch in a trice,
Remarking, ‘_Da di!_ it is nice!’
“’Tis whisky that loosens the tongue!
Beard o’ Crom’!
And that same has been often sung;
Not a _gom_[38]
Was _filea_[39] that _clairsech’d_[40] the line:
O whisky’s a nectar divine!
“One welcomed the pale king with cheers;
All his life
Was channelled with woe’s soulful tears;
He had wife
That came, a black fate, in his way,
When his years were just clasping the May.
“Another--he gave furtive glance,
And grew pale--
‘This coming,’ mused he, ‘won’t entrance,
I’ll go bail,
This meeting of ours!’--week ere this,
God Hymen had made for him bliss.
“And another?--Rises the din
Loud and strong;
The whisky a-firing, Neill Finn
Said, ‘A song
We’ll have from our guest ere we’ll go!’
The guest said, ‘Well, Neill, be it so!’
“He sang them a _spirited_ stave,
Written where
The poet for bread is no slave
To black care--
‘Long life to yez!’ shouted Neill Finn;
Death smiled, and said, ‘Neill, boy, amin!’
“They called for the cards and they played,
Sure the same
‘Forty-fives’ it was named--Mike Quade
In the game
So cheated that Death said: ‘’Tis like
The wind from your sails I’ll take, Mike.’
“What time with a blow from his stick,
To the earth
He struck Mick. Then _kippeens_[41] took quick
Striking birth;
The Quade boys were there to the fore,
All longing, my dear, for red gore!
“They went for the old man, but he
Used to fight,
His glass drained, and quick as a bee
Left and right
Blows laid--when they woke from their fix,
They waited for Charon by Styx.
“The old one he stuck to the drink,
(So they tell),
Till being o’ercome (as they think),
That he fell
Down under the table--nor woke
Till day o’er the Atlantic broke.
“Forgetful of all that had passed,
He looked round,
And seeing his subjects all massed
On the ground,
He said, ‘Oh, get up from the floor,
And help me with one bottle more!’
“Since that time, the peasantry say,
Every night
Sure there is the devil to pay!
And the sight
They see--‘Sirs, no lie! ’pon my soul!’
Death drunk, _singing Beimedh a gole_!”[42]
_Charles P. O’Conor_ (1837?).
[Illustration: “HE SAID, ‘OH, GET UP FROM THE FLOOR, AND HELP ME
WITH ONE BOTTLE MORE!’”]
_FAN FITZGERL._
Wirra, wirra! _ologone!_
Can’t ye lave a lad alone,
Till he’s proved there’s no tradition left of any other girl--
Not even Trojan Helen,
In beauty all excellin’--
Who’s been up to half the divilment of Fan Fitzgerl?
Wid her brows of silky black
Arched above for the attack,
Her eyes they dart such azure death on poor admiring man;
Masther Cupid, point your arrows,
From this out, agin the sparrows,
For you’re bested at Love’s archery by young Miss Fan.
See what showers of goolden thread
Lift and fall upon her head,
The likes of such a trammel-net at say was never spread;
For, whin accurately reckoned,
’Twas computed that each second
Of her curls has cot a Kerryman and kilt him dead.
Now mintion, if you will,
Brandon Mount and Hungry Hill,
Or Mag’llicuddy’s Reeks, renowned for cripplin’ all they can;
Still the country-side confisses
None of all its precipices
Cause a quarther of the carnage of the nose of Fan.
But your shatthered hearts suppose,
Safely steered apast her nose,
She’s a current and a reef beyand to wreck them roving ships.
My meaning it is simple,
For that current is her dimple,
And the cruel reef ’twill coax ye to’s her coral lips.
I might inform ye further
Of her bosom’s snowy murther,
And ah ankle ambuscadin’ through her gown’s delightful whirl;
But what need when all the village
Has forsook its peaceful tillage,
And flown to war and pillage all for Fan Fitzgerl!
_Alfred Perceval Graves_ (1846).
_FATHER O’FLYNN._
Of priests we can offer a charmin’ variety,
Far renown’d for larnin’ and piety;
Still, I’d advance ye without impropriety,
Father O’Flynn is the flow’r of them all.
Here’s a health to you, Father O’Flynn,
_Slainthe_, and _slainthe_, and _slainthe_ agin;
Powerfullest preacher, and tenderest teacher,
And kindliest creature in ould Donegal.
Don’t talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity,
Famous for ever at Greek and Latinity,
Faix, and the divil and all at Divinity,
Father O’Flynn ’d make hares of them all!
Come, I venture to give ye my word,
Never the likes of his logic was heard,
Down from Mythology into Thayology,
Troth! and Conchology, if he’d the call.
Och! Father O’Flynn, you’ve a wonderful way wid you,
All the ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you,
All the young childer are wild for to play wid you,
You’ve such a way wid you, Father _avick_!
Still for all you’ve so gentle a soul,
Gad, you’ve your flock in the grandest control;
Checking the crazy ones, coaxing onaisy ones,
Lifting the lazy ones on with a stick.
And though quite avoidin’ all foolish frivolity,
Still, at all seasons of innocent jollity,
Where was the play-boy could claim an equality
At comicality, Father, wid you?
Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest,
Till this remark set him off wid the rest:
“Is it lave gaiety all to the laity?
Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too!”
_Alfred Perceval Graves._
_PHILANDERING._
Maureen, _acushla_, ah! why such a frown on you!
Sure, ’tis your own purty smiles should be there,
Under those ringlets that make such a crown on you,
As the sweet angels themselves seem to wear,
When from the picthers in church they look down on you,
Kneeling in prayer.
Troth, no, you needn’t, there isn’t a drop on me,
Barrin’ one half-one to keep out the cowld;
And, Maureen, if you’ll throw a smile on the top o’ me,
Half-one was never so sweet, I’ll make bowld.
But, if you like, dear, at once put a stop on me
Life with a scowld.
Red-haired Kate Ryan?--Don’t mention her name to me!
I’ve a taste, Maureen darlin’, whatever I do.
But I kissed her?--Ah, now, would you even that same to me?--
Ye saw me! Well, well, if ye did, sure it’s true,
But I don’t want herself or her cows, and small blame to me
When I know you.
There now, _aroon_, put an ind to this strife o’ me
Poor frightened heart, my own Maureen, my duck;
Troth, till the day comes when you’ll be made wife o’ me,
Night, noon, and mornin’, my heart’ll be brack.
Kiss me, _acushla_! My darlin’! The life o’ me!
One more for luck!
_William Boyle_ (1853).
_HONIED PERSUASION._
“Terry O’Rourke, ’tis your presence that tazes me;
Haven’t I towld you so often before?
If you’ve the smallest regard for what plazes me,
Never come prowlin’ round here any more.
Why you persist in this game’s what amazes me;
Didn’t I tell you I’d beaus be the score?
There’s Rody Kearney would give twenty cows to me
Any fine day that I’d let him be spouse to me.”
“Biddy, _asthore_, an’ ’tis you that is hard on me,
Whin ’tis me two wicked legs are to blame;
Troth, I believe if you placed a strong guard on me,
They’d wandher back to this spot all the same.
Saving the gates of the prison are barr’d on me,
You might as well try to keep moths from the flame,
Ducks from the water, or bees from the flowers,
As thim same legs from your door, be the powers!
“Come now, me darlin’, ’tis no use to frown on me;
Tho’ I’ve no cows, but two mules an’ a car,
You wouldn’t know but I’d yet have the gown on me,
Ringing the tunes of me tongue at the Bar.
Whin I’ve won you, who despised and looked down on me,
Shure ’tis meself that might come to be Czar.
What are you smilin’ at? Give me the hand of you,
I’ll make the purtiest bride in the land of you.”
_J. De Quincey_ (185-).
[Illustration: “I’LL MAKE THE PURTIEST BRIDE IN THE LAND OF YOU.”]
_THE FIRST LORD LIFTINANT._
(AS RELATED BY ANDREW GERAGHTY, PHILOMATH.)
“Essex,” said Queen Elizabeth, as the two of them sat at breakwhist in
the back parlour of Buckingham Palace, “Essex, me haro, I’ve got a job
that I think would suit you. Do you know where Ireland is?”
“I’m no great fist at jografy,” says his lordship, “but I know the
place you mane. Population, three million; exports, emigrants.”
“Well,” says the Queen, “I’ve been reading the _Dublin Evening
Mail_ and the _Telegraft_ for some time back, and sorra one
o’ me can get at the trooth o’ how things is goin’, for the leadin’
articles is as conthradictory as if they wor husband and wife.”
“That’s the way wid papers all the world over,” says Essex; “Columbus
told me it was the same in Amerikay, when he was there, abusin’ and
conthradictin’ each other at every turn--it’s the way they make their
livin’. Thrubble you for an egg-spoon.”
“It’s addled they have me betune them,” says the Queen. “Not a know I
know what’s goin’ on. So now, what I want you to do is to run over to
Ireland, like a good fella, and bring me word how matters stand.”
“Is it me?” says Essex, leppin’ up off his chair. “It’s not in airnest
ye are, ould lady. Sure it’s the hoight of the London saison. Every
one’s in town, and Shake’s new fairy piece, ‘The Midsummer’s Night
Mare,’ billed for next week.”
“You’ll go when ye’re tould,” says the Queen, fixin’ him with her eye,
“if you know which side yer bread’s buttered on. See here, now,” says
she, seein’ him chokin’ wid vexation and a slice o’ corned beef, “you
ought to be as pleased as Punch about it, for you’ll be at the top o’
the walk over there as vice-regent representin’ me.”
“I ought to have a title or two,” says Essex, pluckin’ up a bit. “His
Gloriosity the Great Panjandhrum, or the like o’ that.”
“How would His Excellency the Lord Liftinant of Ireland sthrike you?”
says Elizabeth.
“First class,” cries Essex. “Couldn’t be betther; it doesn’t mean much,
but it’s allitherative, and will look well below the number on me hall
door.”
Well, boys, it didn’t take him long to pack his clothes and start
away for the Island o’ Saints. It took him a good while to get there,
though, through not knowin’ the road; but by means of a pocket compass
and a tip to the steward, he was landed at last contagious to Dalkey
Island. Going up to an ould man who was sittin’ on a rock, he took off
his hat, and says he--
“That’s great weather we’re havin’?”
“Good enough for the times that’s in it,” says the ould man, cockin’
one eye at him.
“Any divarshun goin’ on?” says Essex.
“You’re a sthranger in these parts, I’m thinkin’,” says the ould man,
“or you’d know this was a ‘band night’ in Dalkey.”
“I wasn’t aware of it,” says Essex; “the fact is,” says he, “I only
landed from England just this minute.”
“Ay,” says the ould man bitterly, “it’s little they know about us over
there. I’ll hould you,” says he, with a slight thrimble in his voice,
“that the Queen herself doesn’t know there is to be fireworks in the
Sorrento Gardens this night.”
Well, when Essex heard that, he disremembered entirely he was sent
over to Ireland to put down rows and ructions, and away wid him to see
the fun and flirt wid all the pretty girls he could find. And he found
plenty of them--thick as bees they wor, and each one as beautiful as
the day and the morra. He wrote two letters home next day--one to Queen
Elizabeth and the other to Lord Montaigle, a play-boy like himself.
I’ll read you the one to the Queen first:--
“DAME STHREET, _April 16th, 1599_.
“FAIR ENCHANTRESS,--I wish I was back in London,
baskin’ in your sweet smiles and listenin’ to your melodious
voice once more. I got the consignment of men and the
post-office order all right. I was out all the mornin’ lookin’
for the inimy, but sorra a taste of Hugh O’Neil or his men can
I find. A policemin at the corner o’ Nassau Street told me they
wor hidin’ in Wicklow. So I am makin’ up a party to explore the
Dargle on Easter Monda’. The girls here are as ugly as sin, and
every minute o’ the day I do be wishin’ it was your good-lookin’
self I was gazin’ at instead o’ these ignorant scarecrows.
Hopin’ soon to be back in ould England, I remain, your lovin’
subjec’,
“ESSEX.
“P.S.--I hear Hugh O’Neil was seen on the top o’ the Donnybrook
tram yesterday mornin’. If I have any luck the head ’ll be off
him before you get this.
“E.”
The other letter read this way--
“DEAR MONTY--This is a great place all out. Come over
here if you want fun. Divil such play-boys ever I seen, and
the girls--oh! don’t be talkin’--’pon me secret honour you’ll
see more loveliness at a tay and supper ball in Rathmines than
there is in the whole of England. Tell Ned Spenser to send me
a love-song to sing to a young girl who seems taken wid my
appearance. Her name’s Mary, and she lives in Dunlary, so he
oughtent to find it hard. I hear Hugh O’Neil’s a terror, and
hits a powerful welt, especially when you’re not lookin’. If he
tries any of his games on wid me, I’ll give him in charge. No
brawlin’ for yours truly,
“ESSEX.”
Well, me bould Essex stopped for odds of six months in Dublin,
purtendin’ to be very busy subjugatin’ the country, but all the time
only losin’ his time and money widout doin’ a hand’s turn, and doin’
his best to avoid a ruction with “Fighting Hugh.” If a messenger came
to tell him that O’Neil was campin’ out on the North Bull, Essex would
up stick and away for Sandycove, where, after draggin’ the forty-foot
hole, he’d write off to Elizabeth, saying that “owing to their suparior
knowledge of the country, the dastard foe had once more eluded him.”
The Queen got mighty tired of these letters, especially as they always
ended with a request to send stamps by return, and told Essex to finish
up his business and not be makin’ a fool of himself.
“Oh, that’s the talk, is it,” says Essex; “very well, me ould
sauce-box” (that was the name he had for her ever since she gev him
the clip on the ear for turnin’ his back on her), “very well, me ould
sauce-box,” says he, “I’ll write off to O’Neil this very minute, and
tell him to send in his lowest terms for peace at ruling prices.”
Well, the threaty was a bit of a one-sided one--the terms being--
1. Hugh O’Neil to be King of Great Britain.
2. Lord Essex to return to London and remain there as Viceroy of
England.
3. The O’Neil family to be supported by Government, with free passes to
all theatres and places of entertainment.
4. The London markets to buy only from Irish dealers.
5. All taxes to be sent in stamped envelope, directed to H. O’Neil, and
marked “private.” Cheques crossed and made payable to H. O’Neil. Terms
cash.
Well, if Essex had had the sense to read through this treaty he’d
have seen it was of too graspin’ a nature to pass with any sort of a
respectable sovereign, but he was that mad he just stuck the document
in the pocket of his pot-metal overcoat, and away wid him hot foot for
England.
“Is the Queen widin?” says he to the butler, when he opened the
door o’ the palace. His clothes were that dirty and disorthered wid
travellin’ all night, and his boots that muddy, that the butler was
for not littin’ him in at the first go off, so says he very grand:
“Her Meejesty is abow stairs and can’t be seen till she’s had her
breakwhist.”
“Tell her the Lord Liftinant of Ireland desires an enterview,” says
Essex.
“Oh, beg pardon, me lord,” says the butler, steppin’ to one side, “I
didn’t know ’twas yourself was in it; come inside, sir; the Queen’s in
the dhrawin’-room.”
[Illustration: “‘YER MAJESTY, YOU HAVE A FACE ON YOU THAT WOULD
CHARM A BIRD OFF A BUSH.’”]
Well, Essex leps up the stairs and into the dhrawin’-room wid him,
muddy boots and all; but not a sight of Elizabeth was to be seen.
“Where’s your missis?” says he to one of the maids-of-honour that was
dustin’ the chimbley-piece.
“She’s not out of her bed yet,” says the maid with a toss of her head;
“but if you write your message on the slate beyant, I’ll see”--but
before she had finished, Essex was up the second flight and knockin’ at
the Queen’s bedroom door.
“Is that the hot wather?” says the Queen.
“No, it’s me,--Essex. Can you see me?”
“Faith, I can’t,” says the Queen. “Hould on till I draw the
bed-curtains. Come in now,” says she, “and say your say, for I can’t
have you stoppin’ long--you young Lutharian.”
“Bedad, yer Majesty,” says Essex, droppin’ on his knees before her (the
delutherer he was), “small blame to me if I am a Lutharian, for you
have a face on you that would charm a bird off a bush.”
“Hould your tongue, you young reprobate,” says the Queen, blushin’ up
to her curl-papers wid delight, “and tell me what improvements you med
in Ireland.”
“Faith, I taught manners to O’Neil,” cries Essex.
“He had a bad masther then,” says Elizabeth, lookin’ at his dirty
boots; “couldn’t you wipe yer feet before ye desthroyed me carpets,
young man?”
“Oh, now,” says Essex, “is it wastin’ me time shufflin’ about on a mat
you’d have me, when I might be gazin’ on the loveliest faymale the
world ever saw.”
“Well,” says the Queen, “I’ll forgive you this time, as you’ve been so
long away, but remimber in future that Kidderminster isn’t oilcloth.
Tell me,” says she, “is Westland Row Station finished yet?”
“There’s a side wall or two wanted yet, I believe,” says Essex.
“What about the Loop Line?” says she.
“Oh, they’re gettin’ on with that,” says he, “only some people think
the girders a disfigurement to the city.”
“Is there any talk about that esplanade from Sandycove to Dunlary?”
“There’s talk about it, but that’s all,” says Essex; “’twould be an
odious fine improvement to house property, and I hope they’ll see to it
soon.”
“Sorra much you seem to have done, beyant spendin me men and me money.
Let’s have a look at that threaty I see stickin’ out o’ your pocket.”
[Illustration: “‘ARREST THAT THRATER.’”]
Well, when the Queen read the terms of Hugh O’Neil she just gev him one
look, an’ jumpin’ from off the bed, put her head out of the window, and
called out to the policeman on duty--
“Is the Head below?”
“I’ll tell him you want him, ma’am,” says the policeman.
“Do,” says the Queen. “Hello,” says she, as a slip o’ paper dhropped
out o’ the dispatches. “What’s this? ‘Lines to Mary.’ Ho! ho! me gay
fella, that’s what you’ve been up to, is it?”
“Mrs. Brady’s
A widow lady,
And she has a charmin’ daughter I adore;
I went to court her
Across the water,
And her mother keeps a little candy-store.
She’s such a darlin’,
She’s like a starlin’,
And in love with her I’m gettin’ more and more,
Her name is Mary,
She’s from Dunlary;
And her mother keeps a little candy-store.”
“That settles it,” says the Queen. “It’s the gaoler you’ll serenade
next.”
When Essex heard that, he thrimbled so much that the button of his
cuirass shook off and rowled under the dhressin’-table.
“Arrest that man,” says the Queen, when the Head-Constable came to the
door; “arrest that thrater,” says she, “and never let me set eyes on
him again.”
And indeed she never did, and soon after that he met with his death
from the skelp of an axe he got when he was standin’ on Tower Hill.
_William Percy French_ (1854).
_THE AMERICAN WAKE._[43]
’Twas down at the Doherty’s “wake,”
(They were off to New York in the morning),
So we thought we’d a night of it make,
And gave all the countryside warning.
The girls came drest in their best,
The boys gathered too, every soul of them,
And Mary along with the rest----
’Tis she took the sway of the whole of them.
We’d a fiddler, the pipes, and a flute----
The three were enough sure to bother you,
But you danced to whichever might suit,
And tried not to think of the other two.
The frolic was soon at its height,
The small drop went round never chary,
The girls would dazzle your sight,
But all I could think of was Mary.
The first jig, faith, out she’d to go,
The piper played “Haste to the Wedding,”
And while I set to heel and toe,
You’d think ’twas on eggs she was treading.
So bright was her smile and her glance,
So dainty the modest head bowed of her,
’Tis she was the Queen of the Dance,
And wasn’t it I that was proud of her!
At last I looked out for a chair,
And off I led Mary in state to it;
But think of us when we got there,
The sorra the sign of a _sate_ to it!
Still, as there was no other free,
We thought we’d put up for a start with it--
Och, when she sat down on my knee
For an emperor’s throne I’d not part with it.
When Mary sat down on my lap
A tremor ran through every bit of me,
My heart ’gin my ribs gave a rap
As if it was going to be quit of me.
I tried just a few words to say
To show the delight and the pride of me,
But my tongue was as dry in a way
As if I’d a bonfire inside of me.
And there sat the _cailin_ as mild
As if nothing at all was gone wrong with me,
And I just as wake as a child,
To have her so cosy along with me.
My arm around her I passed
When I saw there was no one persaiving us--
“Don’t you wish, dear,” says I, at long last,
“The Dohertys always were laving us?”
The words weren’t out of my mouth
When the thieves of musicians stopped playing,
And the boys ruz a laugh and a shout,
When they listened to what I was saying.
Poor Mary as swift as a hare
Ran off ’mong the girls and hid herself,
And, except that I fell through the chair,
I fairly forget what I did myself.
The Dohertys scarce in New York
Were landed, I’m thinking, a week or more,
When a wedding took place in West Cork,
The like of it vainly you’d seek before.
Some day if my way you should pass,
Step in--I’ve a drop of the best of it;
And while Mary is mixing a glass,
I’ll try and I’ll tell you the rest of it.
_Francis A. Fahy_ (1854).
[Illustration: “MY ARM AROUND HER I PASSED.”]
_HOW TO BECOME A POET._
Of all the sayings which have misled mankind from the days of Adam to
Churchill, not one has been more harmful than the old Latin one, “A
poet is born, not made.”
The human intellect, it is said, may, by patient toil and study,
gather laurels in all fields of knowledge save one--that of poesy. You
may, by dint of hard work, become a captain in the Salvation Army, a
corporation crossing-sweeper--ay, even an unsuccessful Chief Secretary
for Ireland; but no amount of labour or perseverance will win you the
favour of the Muses unless those fickle-minded ladies have presided
at your birth, wrapped you, so to speak, in the swaddling clothes of
metre, and fashioned your first yells according to the laws of rhythm
and rhyme.
Foolish, fatal fallacy! How many geniuses has it not nipped in the
bud--how many vaulting ambitions has it not brought to grief, what
treasures of melody has it not shut up for ever to mankind!
Hence the paucity of poetical contributions to the press, the eagerness
of publishers to secure the slightest scrap of verse, the bashfulness
and timidity of authors, who yet in their hearts are quite confident
of their ability to transcend the best efforts of the “stars” of
ancient or modern song.
Now the first thing that will strike you in reading poetical pieces is
the fact that nearly all the lines end in rhymed words, or words ending
in similar sounds, such as “kick, lick, stick,” “drink, ink, wink,” etc.
This constitutes the _real_ difference between prose and poetry.
For instance, the phrase, “The dread monarch stood on his head,” is
prose, but
“The monarch dread
Stood on his head”
is undeniable poetry.
Rhyme is, in fact, the chief or only feature in modern poetry. Get your
endings to rhyme and you need trouble your head about little else.
A certain amount of common sense is demanded by severe critics; the
general public, however, never look for it, would be astonished to find
it, and, as a matter of fact, seldom or never do find it.
By careful study of the best authors you will soon discover what words
rhyme with each other, and these you should diligently record in a
small note-book, procurable at any respectable stationers for the
ridiculously small sum of one penny.
Few researches afford keener intellectual pleasure than the discovery
of rhymes, in such words, say, as “cat, rat, Pat, scat”; “shed, head,
said, dead,” and it is excellent elementary training for the young poet
to combine such words into versed sentences, and even sing them to a
popular operatic air.
For example----
“With that the cat
Sprang at the rat,
Whereat poor Pat
Yelled out ‘Iss-cat.’
The roof of the shed
Fell plop on his head,
No more he said,
But fell down dead.”
These first efforts of your muse are of high interest, and, although
it would not be advisable to rush to press with them, they should be
sedulously preserved for the use of future biographers, when fame,
honours, and emoluments shall have showered in upon you.
A little caution is needed in the use of such rhymes as “fire, higher,
Maria,” “Hannah, manner, dinner,” “fight, riot, quiet.” There is
excellent authority for these, but it is well to recognise that an
absurd prejudice does exist against them.
You will soon make the profitable discovery that there is a host of
words, the members of which run, like beagles, in couples, the one
invariably suggesting the other, such as “peeler, squealer”; “lick,
stick”; “Ireland, sireland”; “ocean, commotion,” and so on.
“’Twas then my bold peeler
Made after the squealer;”
“He fetched him a lick
Of a murdering stick;”
“His shriek spread from Ireland,
My own beloved sireland;”
“And raised a commotion
Beyond the wide ocean.”
Were it not for such handy couplets as these, most of our modern bards
would be forced to earn their bread honestly.
Of equal importance is “alliteration’s artful aid.” It consists in
stringing together a number of words beginning with the same letter.
A large school of our bards owe their fame to this figure. You should
make a free use of it. How effective are such phrases as, “For Freedom,
Faith, and Fatherland we fight or fall”; “Dear Dirty Dublin’s damp and
dreary dungeons”; “Softly shone the setting sun in Summer splendour”;
“Blow the blooming heather”; “Winter winds are wailing wildly.”
Of great effect at this stage of your progress will be the adroit and
unstinted employment of such phrases as “I wis,” “I wot,” “I trow,”
“In sooth,” “Methinks,” “Of yore,” “Erstwhile,” “Alack,” a plentiful
sprinkling of which, like currants in a cake, will impart a quaint
poetical flavour to your verses, making up for a total want of sense
and sentiment. Observe their effect in the following admirable lines
from Skott:--
“It were, I ween, a bootless task to tell
How here, of yore, in sooth, the foeman fell,
Erstwhile the Paynim sank with eerie yell,
Alack, in goodly guise, forsooth, to----.”
Of like value are words melodious in sound or poetical in suggestion,
like “nightingale,” “moonlight,” “roundelay,” “trill,” “dreamy,” and so
on, which, freely used, throw a glamour over the imagination and lull
thought, the chiefest value of verse nowadays.
“There trills the nightingale his roundelay
In dreamy moonlight till the dawn of day.”
Note that in poetic diction you must by no means “call a spade a
spade.” The statement of a plain fact is highly objectionable, and a
roundabout expression has to be resorted to. For example, if a girl
have red hair, describe it as
“Glowing with the glory of the golden God of Day,”
or, if Nature has blest her with a “pug-nose,” you should, like
Tennyson, describe it as
“Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower”
For similar reasons words of mean significance have to be avoided. For
instance, for “dead drunk,” use “spirituously disguised”; for “thirty
days in quad,” “one moon in durance vile.” You may now be said to have
mastered the rudiments of modern poetry, and your future course is easy.
You may now choose, although it is not at all essential, to write on a
subject conveying some meaning to your reader’s mind. You would do well
to try one of a familiar kind, or of personal or everyday interest,
of which the following are specimens:--“Lines on beholding a dead rat
in the street”; “Impromptu on being asked to have a drink”; “Reverie
on being asked to stand one”; “Epitaph on my mother-in-law”; “Ode to
my creditors”; “Morning soliloquy in a police cell”; “Acrostic on a
shillelah.” Through pieces of this character the soul of the writer
permeates. Hence their abiding value and permanency on second-hand
bookstalls; Then you may seek “fresh woods and pastures new,” and
weave garlands in fields untrod by the ordinary bard. One of these
is “Spring.” Conceive the idea of that season in your mind. Winter
gone, Summer coming, coughs being cured, overcoats put up the spout,
streets dryer, coals cheaper, or--if you love nature--the strange facts
of the leaves budding, winds surging, etc. Then probably the spirit
(waterproof) of poesy will take possession of you, and you will blossom
into song as follows:--
“’Tis the Spring! ’Tis the Spring!
Little birds begin to sing.
See! the lark is on the wing,
The sun shines out like anything;
And the sweet and tender lamb
Skips beside his great big dam,
While the rough and horny ram
Thinketh single life a sham.
Now the East is in the breeze,
Now old maids begin to sneeze,
Now the leaves are on the trees,
Now I cannot choose but sing:
Oh, ’tis Spring! ’tis Spring! ’tis Spring!”
Verses like the above have an intrinsic charm, but if you should think
them too trivial, you may soar into the higher regions of thought, and
expand your soul in epics on, say, “The Creation,” “The Deluge,” “The
Fall of Rome,” “The Future of Man.” You possibly know nothing whatever
of those subjects, but that is an advantage, as you will bring a fresh
unhackneyed mind to bear upon them.
I need hardly tell you that there is one subject above all others
whose most fitting garb is poetry, and that is--Love. Fall in love if
you can. It is easy--nothing easier to a poet. He is mostly always
in love, and with ten at a time. But if you cannot, or (hapless
wretch!) if you find it an entirely one-sided affair--very little
free trade, and no reciprocity--ay, even if you be a married man who
walketh the floor of nights, and vainly seeketh to soothe the seventh
olive-branch--despair not. To write of Love, needeth not to feel it.
If not in love, imagine you are. Extol in unmeasured terms the beauty
of your adored one--matchless, as the pipe-bearing stranger in the
street--peerless, as the American House of Representatives. Safely call
on mankind to produce her equal, and inform the world that you would
give up all its honours and riches (of which you own none) for the sake
of your Dulcinea; but tell them not the fact that you would not forego
your nightly pipe and glass of rum punch for the best woman that ever
breathed. Cultivate a melancholy mood. Call the fair one all sorts of
names, heartless, cold, exacting--yourself, a miserable wight, hurrying
hot haste to an early grave, and bid her come and shed unavailing
tears there. At the same time keep your strength up, and don’t forget
your four meals a day and a collation.
I need not touch on the number of feet required in the various kinds of
verse, as if a verse lacks a foot anywhere you are almost sure to put
yours in it.
And now to “cast your lines in pleasant places.”
Having fairly mastered the gamut of poetical composition, you will
be open to a few hints as to the publication of your effusions. It
is often suggested that the opinion of a friend should be consulted
at the outset as to their value. Of course you may do so, but, as
friends go nowadays, you must be prepared to ignore his verdict. It
is now you will discover that even the judgment of your dearest and
most intellectual friend is not alone untrustworthy, but really below
contempt, and that what he styles his candour is nothing less than
brutality. I have known the greatest coolnesses ascribable to this
cause, and the noblest offspring of the muse consigned to oblivion in
weak deference to a friendly opinion. On the other hand, it is often of
great value to read aloud your longest epics to some one who is in any
way indebted to you and cannot well resent it.
Where the poet’s corners of so many papers await you, the choice of
a medium to convey your burning thoughts to the world will be easily
made. You will scarcely be liable, I hope, to the confusion of mind of
a friend of mine who, in mistake, sent his “Ode to Death” to the editor
of a comic paper, and found it accepted as eminently suitable.
You should write your poem carefully on superfine paper with as little
blotting, scratching, and bad spelling as you can manage.
To smooth the way to insertion, you might also write a conciliatory
note to the editor, somewhat in this vein:--
“RESPECTED SIR,--It is with much diffidence that a
young poet of seventeen (_no mention of the wife and five
children_) begs to send you his first attempt to woo the
Muses (_it may be your eighty-first, but no matter_).
Hoping the same may be deemed worthy of insertion in the
widely-read columns of your admirable journal, with whose
opinions I have the great pleasure of being in thorough accord
(_you may have never read a line of it before_), I have the
honour to be, respected sir, your obedient, humble servant,
“HOMER.
“P.S.--If inserted, kindly affix my full name as A. B.; if not,
my _nom-de-plume_, ‘Homer.’
“N.B.--If inserted send me twenty copies of your valuable
paper.--HOMER.”
It will be vain to attempt to describe your feelings from the time you
post that letter until you know the result of your venture. Your reason
is unhinged; you cannot rest or sleep. You hang about that newspaper
office for hours before the expected edition is out of the press. At
last it appears. Trembling with eagerness you seize the coveted issue,
and disregarding the “Double Murder and Suicide in----,” the “Collapse
of the Bank of----,” the “Outbreak of War between France and Germany,”
you dash to the poet’s corner and search with dazed eyes for your fate.
You may have vaguely heard, at some period of your life, of the mean,
petty jealousies that befoul the clear current of journalism, and frown
down new and aspiring talent, however promising, and you may have
indignantly refused to believe such statements. Alas! now shall you
feel the full force of their truth in your own person.
You look for your poem blindly, confusedly--amazed, bewildered,
disgusted! You turn that paper inside out, upside down; you search in
the Parliamentary debates, in the Money Market, in the Births, Deaths,
and Marriages, in the advertisements--everywhere. No sign of it!
With your heart in your boots you turn to the “Answers to
Correspondents,” there to find your _nom-de-plume_ heading some
scurrilous inanity from the editorial chair, of one or other of the
following patterns:--
“Homer--_Don’t_ try again!”
“Homer--Sweet seventeen. So young, so innocent. Hence we spare
you.”
“Homer--Have you no friends to look after you?”
“Homer--Do you really expect us to ruin this paper?”
“Homer--Send it to the _Telegraph_ man. We have a grudge
against him?”
“Homer--The 71st _Ode to Spring_ this year! And yet we
live.”
While it would be quite natural to indulge in any number of “cuss”
words, your best plan will be to veil your wrath, and, refraining from
smashing the editorial windows, write the editor a studiously polite
letter, asking him to be good enough to point out for your benefit any
errors or defects in the poem submitted to him. This will fairly corner
him, and he will probably be driven to disclose his meanness in the
next issue:--
“Homer--If you will engage to pay for the working of this
journal during the twelve months it would take us to explain the
defects in your poem, we are quite willing to undertake the job.”
Insults and disappointments like these are the ordinary lot of rising
genius, and should only nerve you to greater efforts. Perseverance will
ultimately win, though it may not deserve, success.
And who shall paint the joy that will irradiate life when you find
yourself in print for the first time? who shall describe the delirium
of reading your own verses? a delight leading you almost to forgive the
printer’s error which turns your “blessed rule” into “blasted fool,”
and your “Spring quickens” into “Spring Chickens”; who will count the
copies of that paper you will send to all your friends?
By-and-by your fame spreads and you rank of the _élite_; you
assume the air and manners of a poet. You wear your hair long (it
saves barber’s charges). You are fond of solitary walks, communing
with yourself (or somebody else). You assume a rapt and abstracted air
in society (when asked to stand a drink). You despise mere mundane
matters (debts, engagements, and the like). Your eyes have a far-away
look (when you meet a poor relation). When people talk of Tennyson,
Browning, Swinburne, etc., you smile pityingly, and say: “Ah, yes! Poor
Alfred (or Robert or Algernon, as the case may be); he means well--he
means well;” and you ask your friends if they have read your “Spirit
Reveries,” and if not, you immediately produce it from your pocket,
and read it (never be without copies of your latest pieces for this
purpose).
And now farewell and God-speed. You are on the high road to renown.
“Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour,
They crown you with laurels and throne you in power,
Oh, think of the friend who first guided your way,
And set you such rules you could not go astray,
And who, as reward, doth but one favour claim,
That you _won’t_ dedicate your first vol. to his name.”
_Francis A. Fahy._
_THE DONOVANS._
If you would like to see the height of hospitality,
The cream of kindly welcome and the core of cordiality;
Joys of old times are you wishing to recall again?--
Oh! come down to Donovan’s, and there you’ll meet them all again!
_Chorus._
_Cead mille failte_[44] they’ll give you down at Donovan’s,
As cheery as the spring-time, and Irish as the _ceanabhan_;[45]
The wish of my heart is, if ever I had any one--
That every luck in life may linger with the Donovans.
Soon as you lift the latch, little ones are meeting you;
Soon as you’re ’neath the thatch, kindly looks are greeting you;
Scarce have you time to be holding out the fist to them--
Down by the fireside you’re sitting in the midst of them!
There sits the grey old man, so _flaitheamhail_[46] and so handsome,
There sit his sturdy sons, well worth a monarch’s ransom;
Songs the night long, you may hear your heart’s desire of them,
Tales of old times they will tell you till you tire of them.
There bustles round the room the _lawhee_-est[47] of
_vanithees_,[48]
Fresh as in her young bloom, and trying all she can to please;
In vain to maintain you won’t have a _deorin_[49] more again--
She’ll never let you rest till your glass is brimming o’er again.
There smiles the _cailin deas_[50]--oh! where on earth’s the peer
of her?
The modest grace, the sweet face, the humour and the cheer of her?
Eyes like the skies, when but twin stars beam above in them--
Oh! proud may be the boy that’s to light the lamp of love in them.
Then when you rise to go, ’tis “Ah, then, now, sit down again!”
“Isn’t it the haste you’re in,” and “Won’t you come round soon
again?”
Your _cothamor_[51] and hat you had better put astray from them--
The hardest job in life is to tear yourself away from them!
_Francis A. Fahy._
[Illustration: “SHE’LL NEVER LET YOU REST TILL YOUR GLASS IS
BRIMMING O’ER AGAIN.”]
_PETTICOATS DOWN TO MY KNEES._
When my first troubles in life I began to know,
Spry as a chick newly out of the shell,
Nothing I longed for so much as a man to grow,
Sharing his joys and his sorrows as well.
Now that the high tide of life’s on the slack again,
Pleasure’s deep draught drained down to the lees,
Dearly I wish I had the days back again,
When I wore petticoats down to my knees!
Well do I mind the day I donned trousereens,
My proud mother cried “We’ll soon be a man!”
Little we know what fate has in store for us--
Troth, it was then that my troubles began.
Cramped up in clothes, little comfort or ease I find,
Crippled and crushed, almost frightened to sneeze!
Oh to have back my old freedom and peace of mind,
When I wore petticoats down to my knees!
Now must I walk many miles for an appetite,
And after all find my journey in vain--
Oh for the days when howe’er you might wrap it tight
My school lunch was ate at the end of the lane!
Now scarce a wink of sleep on the best of nights,
Worried in mind and ill at my ease,
Headache or heartache ne’er troubled my rest of nights
When I wore petticoats down to my knees!
Once of my days I thought girls were nuisances,
Petting and coaxing and ruffling your brow,
Now Love the rogue runs away with my few senses,
Vainly I wish they would fondle me now!
Idols I worship with ardour unshakeable,
But none of all half so fitted to please
As the poor toys full of sawdust and breakable,
When I wore petticoats down to my knees!
Little I cared then for doings political,
The ebb or the flow of the popular tides,
Europe might quake in convulsions most critical--
I had my bread buttered well on both sides.
Now must I wander for themes for my puny verse
Over earth’s continents, islands and seas;
Small stock I took of affairs of the universe,
When I wore petticoats down to my knees!
Life is a puzzle and man is a mystery,
He that would solve them a wizard need be;
Precepts lie thick in the pathways of history,
This is the lesson that life has taught me.
Man ever longs for the dawn of a golden day,
Visions of joy in futurity sees,
Ah! he enjoyed Life’s cream in the olden day,
When he wore petticoats down to his knees!
_Francis A. Fahy_
_MUSICAL EXPERIENCES AND IMPRESSIONS._
AT A GIRL’S SCHOOL--THE TONIC SOL-FA METHOD--PAYING AT THE
DOOR--FLORAL OFFERINGS--DOROTHISIS.
Last Tuesday, when turning over my invitations, I found a card
addressed to me, not in my ancestral title of Di Bassetto, but in
the assumed name under which I conceal my identity in the vulgar
business of life. It invited me to repair to a High School for Girls
in a healthy south-western suburb, there to celebrate the annual
prize-giving with girlish song and recitation. Here was exactly the
thing for a critic. “Now is the time,” I exclaimed to my astonished
colleagues, “to escape from our stale iterations of how Mr. Santley
sang ‘The Erl King,’ and Mr. Sims Reeves ‘Tom Bowling’; of how the same
old orchestra played Beethoven in C minor or accompanied Mr. Henschel
in Pogner’s ‘Johannistag’ song, or Wotan’s ‘Farewell’ and ‘Fire Charm.’
Our business is to look with prophetic eye past these exhausted
contemporary subjects into the next generation--to find out how much
beauty and artistic feeling is growing up for the time when we shall be
obsolete fogies, mumbling anecdotes of the funerals of our favourites.”
Will it be credited that the sanity of my project and the good taste of
my remarks were called in question, and that I was absolutely the only
eminent critic who went to the school!
I found the school on the margin of a common, with which I have one
ineffaceable association. It is not my custom to confine my critical
opinions to the columns of the Press. In my public place I am ever
ready to address my fellow-citizens orally until the police interfere.
Now, it happens that once, on a fine Sunday afternoon, I addressed
a crowd on this very common for an hour, at the expiry of which a
friend took round a hat, and actually collected sixteen shillings and
ninepence. The opulence and liberality of the inhabitants were thus
very forcibly impressed on me; and when, last Tuesday, I made my way
through a long corridor into the crowded schoolroom, my first thought,
as I surveyed the row of parents, was whether any of them had been
among the contributors to that memorable hatful of coin. My second was
whether the principal of the school would have been pleased to see me
had she known of the sixteen and ninepence.