my cabin, brooding over the bad news, when whose voice should I hear,
outside my door, but that of Corney Carolan, the wooden-legged piper
and rhymester of Drogheda?--You'll know more of Corney, if you'll just
listen to the story I'll tell you, by-and-by, about Luke Sweeney;
that is--Fogarty, I should say; for the piper's cousin--that's Luke
himself--don't like to be called by his own name, which, to spake the
truth, is Sweeney, and nothing else: however, I'll tell you a trifle
about the piper now, and especially what happened him the night I sat
mumchance here, making myself sick, at what, if I was wiser, may be, I'd
know shouldn't concern me. Corney was bound 'prentice to a brogue-maker,
in his native place--which is Drogheda; but, as he tells us, he was too
much the lad o' wax to stick to his last, and left a good home, to seek
his fortune on the wide ocean. But there's many of us have done as bad:
so we shouldn't cry out upon Corney, you know;--should we, now?--The sea
is the sole and only thing in the world that an English, Irish, Scotch,
or Welch boy, ever feels truly and deeply in love with. The lad
that's one day or other to have his name mentioned with Nelson and
Collingwood,--or to be the hero of the forecastle, if he comes of poor
parents,--may be fond of a toy, or a sugar-plum, or his little cousin
Kitty, or thousands of things besides, before he tumbles into his teens;
but--mark what I say, if you plaze--the sea alone is the darling he
doats on; and no man alive ever fell into a more consuming passion for a
beautiful young woman, than many a boy has for the fine ould ocean.
It's the hereditary love such numbers of us have, when young, for
the beautiful billows, that makes us masters of the main. In other
countries, as I've heard, neither whips nor words will persuade lads to
take to the sea; in these, stone walls themselves will but barely keep
them from it: and bad luck to him, I say, that ever, by word or deed,
does a ha'p'orth to blight our national fondness for the waters, which
keeps our country afloat.--Hurrah!
The rhymester of Drogheda has made a song of what happened him at
sea;--and a mighty queer song it is, as you'll hear, for I think I can
give you a sample. After Corney has noticed all he saw and suffered, for
four or five years, aboard a man-o'-war, he says,--or rather sings,--
“We met the French one day,
Near what the Nile they call,
And axed them would they play
A friendly game of ball?--
Isn't it grape they shoot?
Away my leg they blew;
And the two-pound note to boot,
I'd hid inside my shoe.”
After that, Corney retired upon a wooden leg and a pension; and, turning
his sword into an awl, he transmogrified the corner of an ould stable
into a new cobbler's stall. “And you'd think I'd do well,” says he, in
his song; “for,” he continues,
“Of customers soon I got--
Ould friends they were--a score;
But wouldn't I go to pot
Without as many more?
Musha! bad luck for me!--
Attend to this, I beg,--
They all had been to sea,
And each o' them lost a leg!”
Going on at that rate wouldn't suit Corney at all: he found the wolf was
getting every day nearer his door; so, at last, he thought he'd try what
sort of a trade begging was. It wasn't long before he'd the model of a
ship, built and rigged by himself, fastened to his skull-cap; and for
many's the year he carried it about to and fro, here and there and
everywhere, until he and his pipes--and, by all accounts, he's one
o' the finest hands at them you ever heard--were as well known as the
bridge of Waterford. For the first time in my life,--the night he looked
in upon me, when I was bothering myself about The Beg's being sould,--I
saw Corney without his ship.
“Arrah! Corney,” says I, “who've you struck your flag to?”
“To the captain of the Dutch merchantman,” says he.
“Well, but how happened it, Corney?” says I.
“Why, then,” says he, “I'll tell you:--About an hour ago upon my arrival
at my cousin Fogarty's, after being away since Sunday se'nnight, I heard
the whole story about the Dutch vessel being blown ashore, and took a
half-a-pint, or so, of the fine hollands my cousin had got from her
captain. After that, I was tould how he'd given every soul in the place
from one to three quarts of it, for the kindness that had been shewn
him, in getting his ship off without damage. And, says Luke Fogarty,--
roaring like a bull in my ear,--'He's just bid us good b'ye; for his
vessel's under weigh again, and himself going on board as soon as he
gets to the beach.' Very well, thinks I; wooden-legged as I am, I'll see
if I can't overtake the Dutchman, and coax him out of a keg, or a bottle
at least: for, to tell the truth, hollands is delicious; and I never
tasted a sup of any thing drinkable so fine as the hollands the Dutch
captain left at Luke Fogarty's. Away I wint; and, in less time than
you'd dance down a lame woman at a jig-house, as the night was bright as
day itself, I hove up within sight of the Dutchman.
“Making all the sail I could, I soon ran down his hull; but the moment I
hailed him, and he took a view of me, he walked away like a race-horse.
I followed, as fast as I well could, and a jolly chace we had of it.
I'll tell you beforehand that I came up with him at last: and, from one
of his boat's crew, who spoke English, I found out what he thought of
me, while I was crowding all I could upon his track. He'd often laughed
at the stories that was tould him of the phantom ship off the Cape; but
no sooner had he set eyes on the little model I wore on my head, than he
thought he saw the thing itself: and he looked upon it as a special
punishment upon him for being an unbeliever, to have the ship not only
sent after him there from her own seas, but for her to follow him
ashore, and make the air her ocean! The slender cordage rattled with the
sea-breeze,--blowing as it was, and the little sails flapped about the
spars, as he tacked to get away from me, and I tacked to overtake him;
and, no doubt he thought they made more noise than a seventy-four in a
gale o' wind. And the fears that were upon him, likely enough, magnified
my little boat into a large craft. But what do you think he thought,
when I struck up a time upon my pipes?--music to which he,--poor
ignorant soul! until then was a stranger! He cast a hasty glance over
his left shoulder at the sound; and, the moon then gleaming full upon
me, he caught a glimpse of my face; which, as he said, he took at once
to be that of the big ugly fiend o' the storm. I hailed him, but he
wouldn't answer me; I swore in Irish, and he began to pray in Dutch:
and, at last, when he found he couldn't get away from me, he fell down
upon his knees, and began to attack a bottle he had in his pocket, as
though no one loved hollands but himself. In a few seconds he was under
my fore-foot; and, of course, I clutched the bottle out of his hand: but
if you'd seen the look he gave at me and my ghost-ship, while I was
drinking, you'd never forget it while you lived. I've no call to find
fault with him, though; for, as soon as he found out I was flesh and
blood, he used me well, and gave me the two trifles of hollands I have,
slung at each side of me here, and more than a trifle of money, to boot,
for my ship; which, to tell no lies, I was going to hang up for ever
tomorrow; for she was getting too much for me, or I was getting too ould
for her, I don't know which. Besides, I'm now able to do well enough
without her,--thanks to my pipes,--and the trifles of songs I've made
myself and stole from better men. It wasn't without a groan or two
though, that I saw the Dutchman, when he'd bought her, tie a stone to my
poor ship's waist, and drown her as spitefully as though she'd been a
cur that had bit him.”
[Illustration: 246]
THE NEST EGG.
Well, who should buy The Beg, do you think, but a fine lady from Dublin,
who had never seen it, and, it's said, sould off all she had, to make
up the money for it?--And who should the lady be, but that same young
Pierce Veogh was once in love with, but who wouldn't have him, because
of his wild doings, and wint and married another?--And this other was
dead, and the lady was a widow, and bought The Beg, as we thought when
we knew the story, because of Pierce; who was then, nobody knew where.
Down she came, in a few weeks, to take possession; and it's soon she
was loved by every soul within three miles of the place. Them that was
Pierce Veogh's favourites, she did good to for his sake; and them that
he never noticed, she helped for her own: so that there was few but
blessed her. She gave Mick Maguire a new gun, when he'd burst the one he
had from Pierce, by overloading it, and broke his own arm to boot; and
she did something for me, too, as you'll hear, by-and-by, though Pierce
and myself never was over and above friendly, because I didn't like his
goings-on; and what's more,--for I'll confess my frailty,--in all his
spending he never spent a penny upon me.
If I was one of a nation that had to choose a queen by her looks, I'd
just pick out the lady who bought The Beg; for I never saw any thing in
the wide world so fine and so gracious, and so every thing that's good,
and above the general run of women,--and I never saw one in the world
that I couldn't kiss,--as herself. She hadn't been at The Beg much
more than a week, when one morning she sailed into my place here; her
movements was more like those of a fine vessel on a smooth tide, than
those of one like us that treads upon the earth; and her eyes was of
the colour of the sky on a clear night, and a fine star seemed to be
twinkling in the middle of each of them; and, says she,--“God bless
all here!” just as a dillosk-girl might, in going into the cabin of a
neighbour. I'll never forget her, or the sight of her beautiful small
fingers, when she pulled off her glove,--set off, as they were, by a
black ring about one of them; and though I'm a poor man, and an ould
man, I was in love with her, and she knew it:--_that_ I'd uphould
against the finest man that ever stood upon two legs, if I could even
stand upon one myself,--but I can't.
She came to do good; and after much talking, says she to Aggie, my
niece,--“You're a widow, I hear: is it long you've been so?”
“Three years and a half, my lady,” says Aggie, who's well spoken enough
to hould a confab with any one; though you wouldn't think it, if you
heard her aboard the boat.
“And have you any children?” says the lady, in a tone o' kindness, that
would make the most bashful as bould as could well be becoming.
“I've two, my lady, as fine boys as ever the sun shone upon; though I
say it, you wouldn't match them in a day's walk. The marrow isn't well
in their bones yet; but there's nothing, at sea or ashore, they're
afraid of, barring one thing,--and that's facing so fine a lady as
yourself; they couldn't do that, so they slunk out the back way when
they caught sight o' your ladyship coming: I hope that won't be an
offence, though.”
“By no means,” said the lady; “and how was it you lost your
husband?--But I ought not to remind you of your misfortune.”
“Blessings on your sweet face, my lady,” says Aggie; “it does me good
to hear poor Larry spoken of, or asked kindly about: it's few that does
it.”
“Ah!” says I; “the thoughts o' the living drives away--that is, partly
drives away--the memory o' the dead. Poor Larry ran into the sea, and
drowned himself one night, in a fit o' madness, brought on by a wound
in his head long before, and more whiskey than usual, which he'd been
drinking that day. He was the finest swimmer on this coast, and nearly
took two or three to the bottom that wasn't bad ones, who wint in to
save him. He sunk himself by main force.”
And after that, when the lady asked which way it was he got wounded, I
tould her how he'd been a sailor in his young days. “And when he was a
boy,” says I, “there never, by all accounts, was one better loved, by
little or big, than himself. He sailed many's the voyage with one Oriel,
who was captain and half owner of the brig Betsy,--one of the best
sea-boats ever was seen: she'd make two voyages and back, while
them that waited for convoy couldn't fetch one. And it's many's the
times--I'll not be bothering you with sea terms, which your ladyship
won't comprehend--it's often then she bate off such enemies as she was
able for, and left those in the lurch she couldn't expect to drub. But,
at last and in long run, she met with her match, and more than it every
way, in a pirate, manned with a crew of all nations, but sailing under
Algerine colours, if I don't mistake. They'd as pretty a little battle
for, may be, half a glass or more, yardarm and yard-arm,--that's
cheek-by-jowl, you know, my lady,--as one could wish to behould: but,
by-and-by, Oriel found he was getting the worst of it; and says he to
Larry,--that's my niece's husband that was,--'Larry,' says he, 'you've
always obeyed my orders like a good boy.' 'I'll do so still, sir,' says
Larry, 'while there's life left in me.' 'Well, then, Larry,' says Oriel,
'they're making ready for boarding us, I think; and as we can't get
away, I'll tell you what you'll do:--go down to the powder-room, and
when we've fought as long as we're able, and killed what we can above
here on deck,--that is, when you think they're all aboard of us a'most,
and we can't do much more harm to them,--do you just blow up the brig,
like a good boy, and I'll be obliged to you.'
“I will, sir,' says Larry; 'but my mistress--' 'Oh! you blockhead!'
cried Oriel; 'don't you see, it's for her sake entirely, that I'm making
this sacrifice? Do you think I could die happy with the thought of her
falling, in the pride of her youth and beauty, into the hands of these
villains? 'Oh! master!' says poor Larry, poking a tear out of his eye
with the top of his clumsy finger, 'why did you bring her with you?'
'Hould your tongue,' says Oriel, 'and don't mind what don't concern you:
I took her twice before, and less harm happened me than ever; for she
seemed to be like a charm against peril to my poor brig. Now go away
down, Larry, and don't blubber that way, or, may be, you'll wet the
priming in your pistol; and should you miss fire, and not blow us up as
I bid you, if the enemy don't throw you overboard, my ghost shall haunt
you all the days of your life: but be a good boy, and do your duty like
a man, and we'll all go to heaven, I hope, in company.' Well, down wint
Larry, after giving one last pelt with his pistol at the pirates, and
loading it again for the confidential service he was trusted with; and
away strode big Oriel, determined to kill as many as he could, before
dying himself. Soon after, the deck of the Betsy was trod on by the best
part of the enemy's crew, and Oriel's people was obliged to retreat,
before the superior force that was opposed to them, bit by bit, until
they got huddled together about the forecastle; and from that they
clambered, and jumped, and tumbled higgledy-piggledy, they hardly
knew how,--and Oriel, almost in spite of himself, with them,--over the
lee-bow, clane into the enemy's ship that lay close alongside. Before
above two or three could follow them, the Betsy gave a lurch, and the
vessels parted. Them that was left aboard the pirate couldn't make much
head against Oriel's men; but he didn't help them a ha'p'orth;--and
when somebody came up to him, where he stood thumping his head with the
handle of his cutlass, and congratulated him upon the good turn things
were taking, and said they might now use the pirates' own heavy metal
against its owners,--he cried out with an oath, that his wife was still
aboard the Betsy, and he'd bid Larry to fire into the powder room! At
that moment, he caught a glimpse of Larry's carrotty head, poking out
of a port-hole, or somewhere, and looking like one amazed, at seeing his
shipmates seemingly making themselves masters of the pirate, while he
knew, from what he heard going on above, that the enemy was masters of
the Betsy. What to do, he didn't know; and felt woful and confounded as
ever boy did in the world before. At last, he saw Oriel, who shouted to
him as loud as he could; but the noise was too great for Larry to hear
a syllable of what he said; and then, Oriel, half frantic, made such
violent motions with the pistol he'd snatched out of the man's band
who'd spoken to him, pointing it at Larry, and threatening to shoot him,
and I can't tell what, that the poor boy, knowing his mistress was still
aboard, thought the captain was in a rage with him for not blowing up
the brig before, and made signs, which couldn't well be misunderstood,
that he'd go do it directly. At this, Oriel shrieked with passion;
and, before Larry could get away, fired the pistol he had at the boy's
head;--there being no other way to prevent him from doing what Oriel
then thought wouldn't be wise. The ball only grazed Larry's skull, but
it took the senses out of him; and there he lay like one dead. It was
the wound he got that way which made him lose his right wits, when he
drank much, as he did the day he drowned himself, much to my grief! For,
oh! Larry, my boy, it's well I loved you!--and so did your wife, and all
that knew you!--Your ladyship looks as if you'd like to be tould what
happened the captain's wife, and how it ended.--Why, then, the pirates,
though in the worst ship, got the better of Larry's shipmates: Oriel was
mortally wounded, in a desperate attempt to retake the Betsy; but he had
the satisfaction of falling on his own deck, and knowing that his
wife had died from a chance shot, a few moments before. The pirates
themselves were attacked by a frigate, before they could repair the
damage done to their vessel, and Larry was found in the prize, at
death's door: but I needn't tell you he got over it, or how would he
marry Aggie, and be the father of Paudrigg and Jimmy?--Fine fellows
they'll make one day or other, I'll engage for them! Though they're but
boys even now, they lent Aggie a good hand at working the boat, from the
time poor Larry, their father, was lost to us.”
“And do _you_ go fishing?--_you_ only and your young sons?” said the
lady, with tears in her eyes, to my niece.
“I do, my lady,” says Aggie; “sign's on me!--what would become of us all
else?”
“Faith! then, my lady,” says I, “she buckled on Larry's bradien the week
after he died, and has missed as few tides as any one, from that day to
this,--she and the boys, that is.”
“Poor woman!” says my lady, putting something that was right welcome
into Aggie's hand; “this trifle may assist you, if you'll accept of it.”
“Long life to ye, my lady!” says Aggie, making the best curtsy she
could; “I was thinking to ask your ladyship's favour in the way of
taking a fish at a fair price from us, time about with Rob Hacket; but,
upon second thought, Rob has a fry of gorlochs by his new wife, and he's
getting weakly, and past going out in a tough rise; while I'm strong
and able; Paudrigg and Jimmy are both growing lusty too,--grace and good
luck be with'em!--so, my lady, I'll say nothing about the fish, but make
bould to take the money, and lay it by for a rainy day.”
“I fear you think of but little more than the present,” says my lady;
“you should be provident, and save a little in the good season;
then you'd be able to look forward to the time of sickness with more
comfort.”
“Ah! my lady, we have no time to be sick,” says Aggie; “ailing or hearty
the net must be spread, and nine out of ten of the fishermen die the
night after weathering a stiff breeze:--it's rare for any of us to lose
above one tide between life and death!--And as to being provident,
my lady, half the year we have enough to do, with all our tugging and
striving, to make both ends meet;--it's hand-to-mouth work with us.”
“But then, at other times, Agnes,--in your harvest, as I may say,--you
might save something.”
“It's aisy talking, my lady,” says Aggie; “and many's the vow we make
in the hard season, to scrape a penny or so together the next good time:
but when it comes,--my grief I--doesn't half of it slip away before one
can look about?--And then it's too late to begin: so it's put off--the
hoarding and squeezing time is--till another year. Besides, when
it's all plenty galore with us, who thinks of starvation?--It's hard,
too,--so it is,--to brake up the day's joy by robbing it of a few
keenogues for the morrow. We'd rather be merry--many of us would--one
while, and sad another, than divide equally, and so go on, in the same
dull way, from year's end to year's end, neither hungry nor full, joyful
nor sad,--but just dacent, and half one thing half another. Moreover,
when we have the money, away it goes at once;--we make merry, and put
to sea again. The citizen may well think of to-morrow, and save,--for he
goes to his bed, and, without a chance, tomorrow will be to him another
to-day: but the fisherman goes into the waves, and God knows, when his
kin wish him 'Goodnight!' whether he'll ever hear their 'Good-morrow!'
It's so trying to begin, too:--the hen won't lay in an empty nest, nor
is it aisy to put a penny by where there was no penny before. And if
we do, where's the good of our throwing aside a groat to-day, a mag
to-morrow, and a shilling the next?--At the week's end it's just so
little, we despise it; and just so much, that it tempts us to have
a spree:--drunkenness follows; and so, after pinching from Monday
to Friday, we spind the money, and lose the Saturday's trip into the
bargain--so we do. One piece o' good gould in our by-corner would make
us add more to it: one shilling to forty, makes forty-one,--a great
sum;--but one shilling to forty-pence, makes four-and-four-pence;--just
enough for doing harm. 'Tis but a shilling either way, you may say;
but there's a difference in the two that one feels and knows, but can't
spake about or explain.--I wouldn't wonder but myself saves upon your
ladyship's gracious gift: any how, we'll never have to put the platter
outside the door at a death, nor want a dacent wedding when the boys
marry, while we keep it whole itself.”
And it's whole we've kept it then, and added more to it, and bought
many's the thing to comfort us, which we never should have had, may be,
if it wasn't for the nest-egg we got that way from my lady--blessings
be on her!--So here's a fine proof, that proverbs ar'n't always to be
depended upon. They say three things, which may be true sometimes, but
not always:--the first is, that “Fortune is blind”--now we'd good luck
come to us; and it's true we deserved it,--that is, Aggie did, if I
didn't;--and what's more, we wanted it. “Aisy got, aisy gone;”--that's
another proverb we've given the lie to; for what we've laid out we spent
discreetly, and on no occasion without many's the pro and con whether
we'd do so or no.--Lastly, it's said, “An eel won't slip through our
fingers faster than the guinea that's given us;”--but I'd knock that on
the head any day, by shewing what we got from my lady the first day she
set foot in my cabin,--and that's long ago. So that I, and, may be, a
good many more, can say, “Fortune isn't always blind;--aisy got, may be
held fast;--and all eels are not slippery.”
[Illustration: 253]
UNDER THE THUMB.
Duck Davie's wife's brother, Paddy Doolan, lives among his pigs,
poultry, and potatos, over-right Mick's place,--the man that saw the
little Fairy in the oysther-shells. Paddy gets his bread by rearing
turkies and geese, and similar commodities, and buying bits o' pigs
about here and there, where he can, and selling them at the market in
the next town,--may be, once a month or so;--and many's the penny Pat
has turned one way or another, any how. Well,--Pat has a wife,--and not
a bad one, he ought to think, if he looks about him and sees what other
men's are, and draws comparisons. She's not very big; but she has a
black eye, and bustles about; and though she wears a whiskey-bottle, she
keeps Pat from doing himself harm from much drinking: and if she does
have a drop between whiles, more than does her good exactly, why, she
keeps up appearances, by always making wry faces whenever she takes a
sup of comfort afore her neighbours. She has a limp in her gait, but
cooks a cobbler's nob dilicately; and her temper's not bad, though not
much better than just middling like the peathees, as we say: still,
there's few in the barony with less holes, and holes sooner mended too,
in her sherkeen, than Mistress Doolan; and, as wives go, as I said,
there's worse than Pat's. She's forty-nine years of age, come Candlemas;
but does not keep the house so clane as she might:--but then, to be
sure, there's the pigs--
Now for Pat:--he's bow-legged,--which comes, as his wife, who admires
him, says, from his riding so much to and fro across the panniers on his
garron to market and back: but some think he was so from a boy,--still
that doesn't matter;--his legs are quite good enough for every-day work,
and nature wouldn't be wise to give holiday limbs to a higgler--would
she now? Pat's forefathers must have been from beyond-sea parts, I
think; or how would he have such a pale face, and large dull black eyes,
without one feature, barring the cocked nose, of us raal ould Irish? If
he was a fisherman, may be, he'd get a colour; but, as it is, though he
never knows a day's sickness, he's as pale as a white night-cap; and his
big eye looks like a piece of sea-coal in milk, or a town chimney-sweep
in a snow-storm.
Pat seems so innocent, that many suspect him to be a rogue,--a little
sly, or that way inclined;--but Pat says no, and so does Mistress
Doolan, and that's something. People tell how much some men and their
wives are alike,--faith! so much, as often to be taken for brother and
sister; and its true of Dick Reardon who buys Pat's poultry wholesale
and sells them out retail, that he and his good woman are as like one
another, as a couple of ducks. But that's not the case with Pat and his
deary, for they don't match, and you'd wonder what made them mate.