Jimmy Fitzgerald. The former had received a tolerable education before
he went to sea; he had taken every opportunity to improve himself while
in the service; from the period of his retiring, he had read much on
general subjects; and he was, at the time of his taking possession of
his nephew's cottage, a very well informed man. Jimmy Fitzgerald, on the
contrary, scarcely knew how to read when he left his native village;
he had picked up but a slight smattering of such knowledge as is to be
obtained from books, in his progress through life; but he possessed a
finer mind and greater powers of observation than his friend; and the
Old Irish Boy was, perhaps, superior to the better educated Lieutenant,
in mental riches, discrimination, and eloquence, when they again met,
after an interval of many years' separation, under the roof of
the former. Jimmy Fitzgerald's style rose with his subject; and he
occasionally found himself at such an elevation, that it was a mystery
how he had been able to attain it. The Lieutenant was always level in
his discourse: he neither descended so low, nor rose so high as his
friend; nor did he, like Fitzgerald, ever presume to discuss any
but commonplace subjects. Jimmy occasionally indulged in such daring
flights, that he toppled down headlong from an altitude which he was
unable to support; a disgrace to which the more sober and matter-of-fact
Lieutenant never subjected himself. The one sedulously avoided the
utterance of anything new; the other, if it had been in his power, would
rarely have said anything that was old. The Lieutenant was circumspect,
and the Old Boy ambitious: the former was stiff, constrained, and rather
stately in his language; the latter free, careless, and Hibernically
vernacular. Jimmy Fitzgerald was poor, almost dependant on the exertions
of a niece and her two sons for support, and so afflicted in his nether
extremities, that he could not move from his chair without assistance;
but he was always merry, and rarely complained. The Lieutenant possessed
a competency, he enjoyed a most robust state of health, his legs, and
the arm which the enemies of his country had left him, were still in
full vigour; but he frequently repined at his poverty, occasional slight
attacks of head-ache, and at being compelled to do the work of two hands
with one.
Notwithstanding the difference in their temperaments, the two friends
had rarely disagreed; and Orestes and Pylades, or Damon and Pythias,
could not have exhibited more affection towards each other, after a
long separation, than Jimmy Fitzgerald and the Lieutenant did, when the
latter entered the Old Irish Boy's cabin. My relation had, to use his
own expression, been roaming about, here and there and everywhere, for
a number of years; and so little positive inclination did he feel for
passing the remainder of his life in one place, that he would, probably,
have declined his nephew's well-meant offer, had not Jimmy Fitzgerald's
cabin been within ten minutes' walk of the cottage, and the sea been
visible from two of its four front windows. The village was principally
occupied by fishermen; but there were two or three respectable families
resident in the neighbourhood: to these the old Lieutenant had letters
of introduction; so that he felt satisfied, on entering upon his
tolerably neat, but humble abode, that he should not be at a loss for
society, even if it were possible for him ever to grow tired of that of
his friend Fitzgerald.
After a great number of mutual inquiries had been answered, and many
expressions of reciprocal friendship had been uttered, Jimmy Fitzgerald
drew forth a little tub of pothien from beneath the bed, with his
crutch,--which was of no other use to him but to perform this and
similar offices,--and protested by several saints, whose names have
escaped my memory, that we should have a jovial night of it. “Many's the
pitcher of good drink,” he exclaimed, “the Lieutenant and I have
helped one another to empty: though, I'll say this for him, he'd always
thirty-one points and a half more love for sobriety than ever Jimmy
Fitzgerald could boast; and at that same time, when he'd make mouths at
a third can, and draw back from a fourth, as he would from a dog that
was going to snap at him, I drank, and drank,--more shame to me
for it,--as though I'd declared war against spirits, and wished to
exterminate them,--rum, in particular,--from the face of the earth. I
think I'm a better man than I was long ago: no thanks to me, for that,
though, perhaps; for I'm out of the way of temptation; and if I'd the
pay of an admiral, I couldn't enjoy myself as I did long ago. It's
wrong of us to brag of our virtue, when we've no appetite left in us
for sin:--that's a saying I stole from the priest, because it plazed me.
You'll like Father Killala mightily, Lieutenant, when you come to know
him; as you soon will, won't you? And noticing him reminds me of telling
you, that while you're here, I'll engage you'll never get reproached for
being a Protestant.”
“Toleration, Jimmy--”
“Is it toleration?” exclaimed Fitzgerald, interrupting the Lieutenant;
“why then, in toleration, Father Killalas flock are all lambkins. I'll
add to that,--because, I know you'll like to hear it--we're as quiet as
mice in these parts: we've no fighting, nor fairs, nor wren-feasts;
and as few ghosts or goblins, Banshees, Lepreghauns, or white women
on horseback, as you'd wish: for we don't give such cattle much
encouragement. Don't that plaze you, Lieutenant?”
“It does,--it does; and I have no doubt but that I shall pass my days
peacefully and pleasantly in your village, my good old friend. Jimmy
Fitzgerald and I,” continued the Lieutenant, addressing me with
unusual animation, “have fought and bled side by side; we were confined
together, for four years, in a French prison, from which we escaped in
company; we had but one tobacco-box between us, for fifteen months;
and we accidentally fell in love with the same woman. Jimmy acted most
magnanimously on that occasion: as soon as he discovered that I was his
rival, he instantly resigned his pretensions in my favour.”
“And you were quite as polite to me, Lieutenant,” said Jimmy, “and I
don't forget it to you to this day. You insisted, you know, as strongly
as I did: so that as each was resolute in not cutting out his friend,
the darling delight of our hearts got neither of us; and she's now
living,--an ould maid, as I'm tould,--near upon a mile and a half this
side of Thurles.”
“Is it possible?” exclaimed the Lieutenant.
“It's as true as you're born, if Corney Carolan is to be believed on his
oath. I wouldn't take his word; but when a man swears to what he says,
it's not dacent to discredit him, is it?”
“Certainly not,” replied the Lieutenant. “And so Peggy is living within
a mile and a half of Thurles, is she?--unmarried, too, you say?”
“She is; and I don't think I'd be doing my duty if I didn't tell you.
I'll just take this present opportunity of saying, too, that as you
think of settling, and as you're still well-looking, and I'm broke
down out-and-out, so that she wouldn't look upon me,--I'd sacrifice
nothing,--that is, I wouldn't intirely brake my heart if you wint and
married her.”
“James Fitzgerald,” said the Lieutenant, “you are still the noble fellow
you were thirty years ago. You have forestalled me on this occasion: I
assure you that I was just working myself up to say to you what you
have said to me. You are still a bachelor, Jimmy, and, as far as I am
concerned, Miss Margaret M'Carthy is quite at your service.”
“Thank you kindly, and good luck to you for this and all that's past,”
said Jimmy; “but, to spake my mind,--I never cared much about Peg.”
“Nor I, upon my honour!” exclaimed the Lieutenant.
“I was glad of an excuse to be rid of her,” quoth Fitzgerald.
“Precisely my own case, I protest,” said the Lieutenant.
“And I never cared one half so little for her, as I do just now.”
“We coincide on this point to a tittle.”
“Then what becomes of our mutual devotion, Lieutenant? It was all
moonshine, you see.”
“Not exactly,” replied the Lieutenant; “man can look back on past
occurrences, and see circumstances in their true light--”
“Better than he can when they're under his nose?” interrupted
Fitzgerald. “Is it that you mane?”
“It is: passion and prejudice, as philosophy teaches us--”
“Hould your tongue, Lieutenant,” said Fitzgerald; “for I think I can
find a shorter way for us out of the bog, than your jack-o-lantern
philosophy will light us to. The truth is, we were young and foolish
that time; we thought we loved the young woman, and we didn't: so
there's an end of Peg. My blessings be on her for all that, though!
She never did me harm; and one of us, may be, was wrong in not marrying
her.”
“She told me to my face,--truth is a jewel, Jimmy Fitzgerald,” said the
Lieutenant, “she told me, calmly and resolutely, when I informed her
that you were as deeply in love with her as myself, that we had mistaken
innocent flirting for affection; and that, were a formal proposal made
to her, she should indignantly reject it; 'for,' said she, 'I would not
have either of you, if one was a Rear Admiral, and the other a Major of
Marines.' That was her precise expression.”
“Oh! Time, Time!” exclaimed Jimmy; “what a fine auld fellow you are, to
be sure! How you open our eyes, and bring things to light! If it wasn't
for you, Truth might often go hide her head.”
“I think,” said the Lieutenant, rather gaily, “that if I wanted a wife,
I might probably find one who would suit me better than Peggy, among
your neighbours, friend Fitzgerald. And, by-the-by, as I am coming
to live among them, I should be glad if you would afford me a little
insight to their various characters, circumstances, and histories. I am
well aware of your capability to do so:--when I found you on board the
Janus, after we had parted company for more than seven years, you did me
incalculable benefit, by giving me a descriptive portrait of every soul
in the ship; from the cook's boy up to the captain. Will you oblige me?”
“I will, in that or anything else that's in the power o' me,” replied
the Old Boy. “If I devoted one half o' my life to you, since I was
twenty, I'd still be your debtor for the other half: for didn't you
save the whole of it at the risk of your own?--You did, then; and I'll
never--”
“Psha, psha, Fitzgerald! you know what strong objections I have to your
dwelling on that topic.”
“Go along with you, and don't be prating so, sir,” said Jimmy; “I won't
put up with your taking the liberty of doing a fine thing for me, and
then bidding me not spake of it. My bits of gratitude, now and then,
goes for the interest; but I'll never be able to pay off the debt.
Still, though the one is out of my power to do, I'd not be aisy in my
own mind if I neglected the other that _isn't_: so that, after all, may
be, when we think we're doing great things, by acting as we should to
others, we're just egged on to it, by the fear of not being on good
terms with ourselves. You've often tould me, Lieutenant, I should be
your Corporal Trim,--the man you and I read about, long ago, in Jack
Flanagan's bit of a book, aboard the Bellerophon: and I would be so,
but my legs took to their heels and deserted me, you know; and so I
couldn't, could I? Did you ever get hould of a book, since I saw you,
with the middle and both ends of that story in it?--If you did, as we'd
only the middle and a bit o' the beginning in Jack Flanagan's greasy
library, I'd be glad if you'd tell it me.”
“I will, with pleasure, Fitzgerald, when--”
“When I've described my neighbours to you, is it? Well, then, I'll do
that, I think, before we part, if the whiskey houlds out, and it don't
get much the better of us. But it sha'n't, shall it?--for we'll put
ourselves upon short allowance, and drink as we ought, to the renewal of
our acquaintance, when I'm done. I'll tell you, before I begin, that you
couldn't pick out any nine in the whole barony, knows half so much about
the people that's in it, as myself; though I'm fast moored here, like a
Trinity-house buoy on a sand-bank: but though I see little, I hear much;
and as I can't go to any body, why, every body comes to me.”
“I am grieved to the heart, Jimmy Fitzgerald,” said the Lieutenant, “to
behold you so fettered by your infirmities; confined, if I may use the
expression, like a pig in a coop--”
“Liberty, Lieutenant,” interrupted the Old Irish Boy, “is only
comparative at the best; and none of us gets our fill of it. Going about
from one place to another isn't freedom, as I think you'll own: so why
need I cry out? If it was, nobody, as I said, while ago, has as much as
he wishes of it. I'd be delighted to be able to go get mass once a
week, and to crawl a quarter of a mile now and then; but my infirmities
prevent me: so I don't have my wish. But I'm only like the rest o' the
world; and, therefore, I ought to be contented; though, I'll own,
I'm not so, exactly. One man sighs to have a jaunt into the country,
sometimes,--but his wife won't let him leave the town he lives in;
another thinks he'd be happy if he could p'rambulate about in foreign
parts,--but his pocket keeps him at home; even that mighty conqueror,
Alexander the Great, if there's truth in the song that's made about him,
found the globe itself too little for his desires; and you know, well
enough, that little Snookenhausen used to be telling us at Malta, of an
ould philosopher, in ancient times, who fell out with his own bread
and butter, like a big baby as he was, because he couldn't have another
world for a play-ground, so as he might play trap-ball with this.
There's none of us but strains the cable by which we're moored, as tight
as we well can; and many's the man tries, all his life, to cut it, and
sheer off into the main; but he can't. If you tie up a horse in a field,
he'll not care half so much about the rich grass that's under his nose,
as he will for a few dry blades, which his rope won't let him reach;
and he'll be trying for them, when he might be filling his belly with
better. If I am, as you say, shut up here like a pig in a coop,--and
it's true enough,--I've the comfort of knowing, that be, who thinks
himself free, and brags about his liberty, has a ring in his nose, and,
may be, two or three other incumbrances, which prevent him, although
he's adrift, from enjoying his freedom, or doing as he likes, much more
than I can.--But now for my neighbours--”
[Illustration: 193]
THE NATIVE AND THE ODD FISH.
Mick Maguire is a native of these parts, and he's out and out the oddest
fish among my neighbours, as I think, and as you'll think too, may be,
by-and-by, when I tell you more about him.--Didn't it ever occur to you,
that a man may be ruined by a bit of good luck as well as by bad?--I'm
sure it must.--I had an uncle at Tralee, who was left seventy pounds by
his wife's gossip; and he welcomed the gift so warmly, and caroused so
heartily to the honour of the giver, that he never ceased drinking and
losing his time,--though he was a dacent man, and did business as he
ought before,--until the seventy pounds, and a little to the tail of it,
had slipped through his fingers. But that wasn't the end of it: for he
got such bad habits as he never could shake off again; so he lived a few
years a sot, and died a beggar: all which wouldn't have happened but for
the seventy pounds his wife's gossip gave him.--I knew a young woman,
whose name I won't mention, for the sake of her family, who lost herself
entirely through a love of fine clothes, which she had never cared
more about, than just a little, as all women do,--and no blame to
them,--before her brother, who sailed for three years in the same ship
with me, brought her home a little bag of silks and things above her
station, which, when she'd worn them, made her despise her plain,
honest, ould duds: but them that was about her couldn't give her better;
so she grew sick of home, and did that she was sore at heart for when
she came to a death-bed.--Ah! then's the time, if we never did before,
when we know right from wrong;--then's the time, when the brain balances
things and gives true weight to all our misdeeds;--then's the time, when
a man, who could never before recollect what he did that day se'nnight,
remembers all the evil he has done in his days, and all the good he
might have done, but wouldn't. A dying man's memory, if he has been
a bad one, is one of the most perfect and terrible things in the
world;--go see one yourself, and you'll own it. We may be'cute enough
to hide what we do from the world all our lives, but we can't do so from
ourselves when death puts out his big bony paw to give us a grim welcome
to his dark dominions. We may be'cute enough to shut our own eyes to
what we've done, when we're strong and able, and the world's going
merrily round with us; and we may be fools enough to think that our sins
are blotted out when we have forgotten them;--for I've found that men
are just like the ostriches I've seen myself, in Africa, which, when
they're hunted, poke their pates into a dark place, leaving their
bodies entirely exposed, and fancy no one can see them if they can't
see themselves:--but when we know that the last sands in our glass are
running, and the dead sea is glimmering before us, we can't poke our
heads into a corner,--don't you see?--or tie a stone to the neck of each
of our iniquities, and drown it;--or look another way, and think of
to-morrow's dinner, when they're coming to meet us;--or silence their
small but very terrible voices, by whistling the burthen of an old song:
for,--do you mark?--they won't be served so: they will be seen; they
will speak; and, faith! it's bear them we must, whether we will or no.
We may have fancied them dead and gone, years ago; but their ghosts
start up and surround our death-beds, and clamour so, that we can't but
listen to them: and what's most awful, they make a man his own judge;
and no earthly judge is so impartial as a man is of himself, when his
people are just wishing him good-b'ye for ever. For when we get on the
brink of life and death, and know that it's ten to one we'll be dead by
the morning, and it's just midnight already;--when we think that in a
few hours our ears will be deaf, and our eyes blind, and we can't wag
a finger, and our cold white corpse will be stretched out on a
board,--motionless, helpless, good for nothing, and lumber more than
anything else;--when we know, that, much as we thought of ourselves, the
sun will rise, and the birds sing, and the flowers look beautiful, and
the ox be yoked to the plough, and the chimneys smoke, and the pot be
boiled, and the world go on without us, as well as if we'd never been in
it;--then's the time, I say, we get our vanity cut up by the roots, and
feel what atoms we've been in it:--and then's the time too, that the
soul,--just before pluming her wings, and having half shaken off the
dross of humanity,--becomes strong as the body gets weak, and won't be
bamboozled, but calls up all our sins past, and places them stedfastly
before our eyes; and if we've done wrong--that is, much of it,--a big
black bird stretches out her great wings and flutters, brooding like
a weight of cold lead, on our hearts; and conscience, though we've
contrived to keep her down all our lives, then starts up, taking
advantage of our helplessness, and reigns in fall power.--But what's all
this to Mick Maguire? you'll say.--Faith! then, not much: I began
with an idea of getting to him in a few words, but was led astray, by
noticing the death of the young woman I mentioned as being ruined by the
gift of a brother, who meant it for her good. And you'll think it odd,
may be, that the likes o' me casts over things so sariously: but I do,
and there's nothing plazes me more than so doing, when I'm left alone
here by myself, for hours and hours together, while all that's near
and dear to me is out upon the waves, the mighty roar of which, as they
break upon the rocks about me, I hear night and day; and the sound o'
them, and solitude, begets sarious thoughts; and so they should, in one
that's gone sixty. There's never a day but I think o' death, so that I'm
sure I'll be able to meet him firmly when he knocks at the gates of life
for me, and bids me come. If I could go about, I'd not have such oceans
of odd, out o' the way thoughts, consarning various things; but here I
am, fettered by my infirmities to an ould chair, and I've nothing to do
half my time, but think. Don't imagine, though, that I'm laid up in
a harbour of peace, or that the other half of my time is calm and
pleasant: it's no such thing; the woes and the wickedness of the
world--good luck to it though, for all that--reaches me here in this
corner, though it's harm me they can't much. I'm like an ould buoy,
fast moored to an anchor on a bad coast, over which the waves dashes and
splashes all day long, but they can neither move it nor damage it. But
what's all this to Mick Maguire? you'll say, again. Faith! then, little
or nothing: but now I've done, and we'll get on.
Mick, like my uncle at Tralee, has been ruined by a gift. He was once a
hard-working man, and did well; until young Pierce Veogh, just after he
came into possession of the house that's called “The Beg,” on the hill
yonder,--which he did at his father's death,--gave Mick an ould gun
once, for something I forget; and that gun has been the ruin of him.
He works one day in the week to buy powder and shot; and half starves
himself, and goes in rags the other six, prowling about the rocks, and
firing at sea-gulls and so forth, but seldom shooting one.
Mick's an oddity, as I tould you before; and why _so?_ you'll say. Why,
then, not for his face, for he's good-looking; nor for his figure, for
he's straight and well built; nor for his jokes, for he never makes
one; nor for any one thing in the world but his always telling the plain
naked truth; good or bad, no matter if it harms him, he don't mind, but
always spakes the thing that is, and won't tell even a white lie for
himself, much more for any one else:--and if that's not an oddity, I
don't know what is. There's so much lying going on in the world, that if
a man just lives in a corner, and sees only three people in the year, he
must lie now and then; or, somehow, things won't be as they should be;
he won't do like them that's about him, and can't get on: why, I don't
know; but so it is. Mick was never known to tell a story in his whole
life; but he has sworn to so many out o' the way things, that he's often
been suspected to be a big liar: for I need scarce say to you, that
nothing can look more like a lie sometimes than the plain truth. But
whatever Mick says, always at last and in the long run turns out to be
fact: so that we don't know what to think of the story he has of the
fairy he saw on the rocks long ago. It seems as much like a lie as
anything ever I heard; but if it is one, it's the first Mick tould; and
if so, troth then, it's a thumper. And why shouldn't it?--A good man,
when he does wrong, commits a big sin; while you and I only does dozens
of little ones: and them that sticks by the truth in general, if they
happens to tell a lie, faith! then, it's a wonderful big one;--and, may
be, so is Mick's story;--but you'll judge for yourself, when you hear
it. But don't forget the honesty of Mick's tongue; and bear in mind too,
that we shouldn't disbelieve anything simply because it's out of the way
to us, and we never saw the likes of it ourselves; for there's so many
strange things in the world, that one don't know what to disbelieve; and
of all the wonderful things I ever heard of, there's none seems to me so
very wonderful as this, namely:--I exist, and I know it. Now for Mick's
story:--
“One day,” says he, “as I was out shooting on the black rocks, I
clambered up to a place where I never was before; and I don't think man
had set foot upon it till then: it was higher than you'd think, looking
up from the sea, which washed the foot of it; for the great crag itself,
which none of us can climb,--I mane that one where the eagle's nist
is,--seemed to be below it. Well, thinks I, when I got to the top, I'll
have a good pelt at the birds from this, I'm sure: but no, I couldn't;
for though they were flying round and round it, divil a one would come
within gun-shot, but kipt going about, and going about, until the head
o' me wint round wid looking at them, and I began to feel sick, for I'd
come out before breakfast, not intinding to stay long; but somehow, I
wint further and further, and, at last, the sun was going down, and me
there, where I tould you I was, a-top of the big crag. 'Michael,' says I
to meeself, 'it's time for you to be going too, for the birds won't
come near you; and you're hungry, boy,--so you are, Mick; you can't deny
that.' And it's true thin I couldn't; for I never was hungrier in my
life, than I was that time, and sorrow the thing in my pocket softer
than a flint. Well, thin I began to go down; but before I'd got twinty
steps, what do you think I saw there, upon the bare rock, where nobody
seemed to have been before me, near upon half a day's journey higher
than the sea,--what, I say, do you think I saw, lying before me there
You wouldn't guess in a year. Why thin it was an oysther!--I started,
as though a ghost had come across me:--and why wouldn't I?--for I'd no
right to expect to see such a thing as an oysther there, you know, had
I?--Thinks I, after awhile, 'Here's a fine mouthful for you, Mick, if
it's only fresh; but, may be, it's been here these thousand years.--Eh,
thin, Mick! but you're lucky, so you are, if it should be ateable.'
“Sitting down on the rock, I put out my hand to get a hould of it, whin
what does it do, but lifts up its shell of its ownself!--and there was
something inside it, just like an oysther, you'd think; but whin you
looked closer, what was it thin, but a small dwarf of a man, wid a
beard, and a little broad belly, and two short, fat, little darlings of
legs, and his both hands in his breeches pockets; quite at home, and as
aisy as you or I'd be in our arm chair, if we had one.
“'I'm glad to see you, Mick,' says he; 'it's long I've been expecting
you.'
“Now, there's many that would have run away, and broke their necks down
the rock, at hearing the crature call them by their names, and say this;
but I'm one that never feared Banshee Lepreghaun, or any one of the
little people, good, bad, or indifferent;--why should I?--So I pulled
off my hat, and making a leg to him,--'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd known as
much, I'd have come before.'
“'Thank you kindly, Mick Maguire,' says he. 'No thanks to me thin, at
all at all,' thinks I, 'if you knew what I know:' for I was determined
to devour him, if he was ateable. 'And it's by my own name you call me,
sir,' says I, 'is it?'