PATRICK’S DAY IN THE PENINSULA.
The _réveil_ had not yet sounded, when I felt my shoulder shaken gently as
I lay wrapped up in my cloak beneath a prickly pear-tree.
“Lieutenant O’Malley, sir; a letter, sir; a bit of a note, your honor,”
said a voice that bespoke the bearer and myself were countrymen. I opened
it, and with difficulty, by the uncertain light, read as follows:--
Dear Charley,--As Lord Wellington, like a good Irishman as
he is, wouldn’t spoil Patrick’s Day by marching, we’ve got a little
dinner at our quarters to celebrate the holy times, as my uncle would
call it. Maurice, Phil Grady, and some regular trumps will all come,
so don’t disappoint us. I’ve been making punch all night, and
Casey, who has a knack at pastry, has made a goose-pie as big as a
portmanteau. Sharp seven, after parade. The second battalion of
the Fusiliers are quartered at Melanté, and we are next them. Bring
any of yours worth their liquor. Power is, I know, absent with the
staff; perhaps the Scotch doctor would come; try him. Carry over
a little mustard with you, if there be such in your parts.
Yours,
D. O’SHAUGHNESSY.
Patrick’s day, and raining like blazes.
Seeing that the bearer expected an answer, I scrawled the words, “I’m
there,” with my pencil on the back of the note, and again turned myself
round to sleep. My slumbers were, however, soon interrupted once more; for
the bugles of the light infantry and the hoarse trumpet of the cavalry
sounded the call, and I found to my surprise that, though halted, we were
by no means destined to a day of idleness. Dragoons were already mounted,
carrying orders hither and thither, and staff-officers were galloping right
and left. A general order commanded an inspection of the troops, and within
less than an hour from daybreak the whole army was drawn up under arms. A
thin, drizzling rain continued to fall during the early part of the day,
but the sun gradually dispelled the heavy vapor; and as the bright verdure
glittered in its beams, sending up all the perfumes of a southern clime, I
thought I had never seen a more lovely morning. The staff were stationed
upon a little knoll beside the river, round the base of which the troops
defiled, at first in orderly, then in quick time, the bands playing and the
colors flying. In the same brigade with us the Eighty-eighth came, and as
they neared the commander-in-chief, their quick-step was suddenly stopped,
and after a pause of a few seconds, the band struck up “St. Patrick’s Day;”
the notes were caught up by the other Irish regiments, and amidst one
prolonged cheer from the whole line, the gallant fellows moved past.
The grenadier company were drawn up beside the road, and I was not long in
detecting my friend O’Shaughnessy, who wore a tremendous shamrock in his
shako.
“Left face, wheel! Quick march! Don’t forget the mustard!” said the bold
major; and a loud roar of laughing from my brother officers followed him
off the ground. I soon explained the injunction, and having invited some
three or four to accompany me to the dinner, waited with all patience for
the conclusion of the parade.
The sun was setting as I mounted, and joined by Hampden, Baker, the doctor,
and another, set out for O’Shaughnessy’s quarters. As we rode along, we
were continually falling in with others bent upon the same errand as
ourselves, and ere we arrived at Melanté our party was some thirty strong;
and truly a most extraordinary procession did we form. Few of the
invited came without some contribution to the general stock; and while a
staff-officer flourished a ham, a smart hussar might be seen with a plucked
turkey, trussed for roasting; most carried bottles, as the consumption of
fluid was likely to be considerable; and one fat old major jogged along on
a broken-winded pony, with a basket of potatoes on his arm. Good fellowship
was the order of the day, and certainly a more jovial squadron seldom was
met together than ours. As we turned the angle of a rising ground, a hearty
cheer greeted us, and we beheld in front of an old ordnance marquee a party
of some fifty fellows engaged in all the pleasing duties of the _cuisine_.
Maurice, conspicuous above all, with a white apron and a ladle in his hand,
was running hither and thither, advising, admonishing, instructing, and
occasionally imprecating. Ceasing for a second his functions, he gave us a
cheer and a yell like that of an Indian savage, and then resumed his duties
beside a huge boiler, which, from the frequency of his explorations into
its contents, we judged to be punch.
“Charley, my son, I’ve a place for you; don’t forget. Where’s my learned
brother?--haven’t you brought him with you? Ah, Doctor, how goes it?”
[Illustration: GOING OUT TO DINNER.]
“Nae that bad, Master Quell: a’ things considered, we’ve had an awfu’ time
of it lately.”
“You know my friend Hampden, Maurice. Let me introduce Mr. Baker, Mr.
Maurice Quill. Where’s the major?”
“Here I am, my darling, and delighted to see you. Some of yours, O’Malley,
ain’t they? Proud to have you, gentlemen. Charley, we are obliged to have
several tables; but you are to be beside Maurice, so take your friends with
you. There goes the ‘Roast Beef;’ my heart warms to that old tune.”
Amidst a hurried recognition, and shaking of hands on every side, I elbowed
my way into the tent, and soon reached a corner, where, at a table for
eight, I found Maurice seated at one end; a huge, purple-faced old major,
whom he presented to us as Bob Mahon, occupied the other. O’Shaughnessy
presided at the table next to us, but near enough to join in all the
conviviality of ours.
One must have lived for some months upon hard biscuit and harder beef
to relish as we did the fare before us, and to form an estimate of our
satisfaction. If the reader cannot fancy Van Amburgh’s lions in red coats
and epaulettes, he must be content to lose the effect of the picture. A
turkey rarely fed more than two people, and few were abstemious enough to
be satisfied with one chicken. The order of the viands, too, observed no
common routine, each party being happy to get what he could, and satisfied
to follow up his pudding with fish, or his tart with a sausage. Sherry,
champagne, London porter, Malaga, and even, I believe, Harvey’s sauce were
hobnobbed in; while hot punch, in teacups or tin vessels, was unsparingly
distributed on all sides. Achilles himself, they say, got tired of eating,
and though he consumed something like a prize ox to his own cheek, he at
length had to call for cheese, so that we at last gave in, and having
cleared away the broken tumbrels and baggage-carts of our army, cleared for
a general action.
“Now, lads!” cried the major, “I’m not going to lose your time and mine by
speaking; but there are a couple of toasts I must insist upon your drinking
with all the honors; and as I like despatch, we’ll couple them. It so
happens that our old island boasts of two of the finest fellows that
ever wore Russia ducks. None of your nonsensical geniuses, like poets or
painters or anything like that; but downright, straightforward, no-humbug
sort of devil-may-care and bad-luck-to-you kind of chaps,--real Irishmen!
Now, it’s a strange thing that they both had such an antipathy to vermin,
they spent their life in hunting them down and destroying them; and whether
they met toads at home or Johnny Crapaud abroad, it was all one. [Cheers.]
Just so, boys; they made them leave that; but I see you are impatient, so
I’ll not delay you, but fill to the brim, and with the best cheer in your
body, drink with me the two greatest Irishmen that ever lived, ‘Saint
Patrick and Lord Wellington.’”
The Englishmen laughed long and loud, while we cheered with an energy that
satisfied even the major.
“Who is to give us the chant? Who is to sing Saint Patrick?” cried Maurice.
“Come, Bob, out with it.”
“I’m four tumblers too low for that yet,” growled out the major.
“Well, then, Charley, be you the man; or why not Dennis himself? Come,
Dennis, we cannot better begin our evening than with a song; let us have
our old friend ‘Larry M’Hale.’”
“Larry M’Hale!” resounded from all parts of the room, while O’Shaughnessy
rose once more to his legs.
“Faith, boys, I’m always ready to follow your lead; but what analogy can
exist between ‘Larry M’Hale’ and the toast we have just drank I can’t see
for the life of me; not but Larry would have made a strapping light company
man had he joined the army.”
“The song, the song!” cried several voices.
“Well, if you will have it, here goes:”--
LARRY M’HALE.
AIR,--_“It’s a bit of a thing_,” _etc_.
Oh, Larry M’Hale he had little to fear,
And never could want when the crops didn’t fail;
He’d a house and demesne and eight hundred a year,
And the heart for to spend it, had Larry M’Hale!
The soul of a party, the life of a feast,
And an illigant song he could sing, I’ll be bail;
He would ride with the rector, and drink with the priest,
Oh, the broth of a boy was old Larry M’Hale!
It’s little he cared for the judge or recorder,
His house was as big and as strong as a jail;
With a cruel four-pounder, he kept in great order,
He’d murder the country, would Larry M’Hale.
He’d a blunderbuss too, of horse-pistols a pair;
But his favorite weapon was always a flail.
I wish you could see how he’d empty a fair,
For he handled it neatly, did Larry M’Hale.
His ancestors were kings before Moses was born,
His mother descended from great Grana Uaile;
He laughed all the Blakes and the Frenches to scorn;
They were mushrooms compared to old Larry M’Hale.
He sat down every day to a beautiful dinner,
With cousins and uncles enough for a tail;
And, though loaded with debt, oh, the devil a thinner,
Could law or the sheriff make Larry M’Hale!
With a larder supplied and a cellar well stored,
None lived half so well, from Fair-Head to Kinsale,
As he piously said, “I’ve a plentiful board,
And the Lord he is good to old Larry M’Hale.”
So fill up your glass, and a high bumper give him,
It’s little we’d care for the tithes or repale;
For ould Erin would be a fine country to live in,
If we only had plenty like LARRY M’HALE.
“Very singular style of person your friend Mr. M’Hale,” lisped a
spooney-looking cornet at the end of the table.
“Not in the country he belongs to, I assure you,” said Maurice; “but I
presume you were never in Ireland.”
“You are mistaken there,” resumed the other; “I was in Ireland, though I
confess not for a long time.”
“If I might be so bold,” cried Maurice, “how long?”
“Half an hour, by a stop-watch,” said the other, pulling up his stock; “and
I had quite enough of it in that time.”
“Pray give us your experiences,” cried out Bob Mahon; “they should be
interesting, considering your opportunities.”
“You are right,” said the cornet; “they were so; and as they illustrate a
feature in your amiable country, you shall have them.”
A general knocking upon the table announced the impatience of the company,
and when silence was restored the cornet began:--
When the ‘Bermuda’ transport sailed from Portsmouth for Lisbon, I happened
to make one of some four hundred interesting individuals who, before they
became food for powder, were destined to try their constitutions on pickled
pork. The second day after our sailing, the winds became adverse; it blew
a hurricane from every corner of the compass but the one it ought, and the
good ship, that should have been standing straight for the Bay of Biscay,
was scudding away under a double-reefed topsail towards the coast of
Labrador. For six days we experienced every sea-manoeuvre that usually
preludes a shipwreck, and at length, when, what from sea-sickness and fear,
we had become utterly indifferent to the result, the storm abated, the sea
went down, and we found ourselves lying comfortably in the harbor of Cork,
with a strange suspicion on our minds that the frightful scenes of the past
week had been nothing but a dream.
“‘Come, Mr. Medlicot,’ said the skipper to me, ‘we shall be here for a
couple of days to refit; had you not better go ashore and see the country?’
“I sprang to my legs with delight; visions of cowslips, larks, daisies, and
mutton-chops floated before my excited imagination, and in ten minutes I
found myself standing at that pleasant little inn at Cove which, opposite
Spike Island, rejoices in the name of the ‘Goat and Garters.’
“‘Breakfast, waiter,’ said I; ‘a beefsteak,--fresh beef, mark ye,--fresh
eggs, bread, milk, and butter, all fresh. No more hard tack,’ thought I;
‘no salt butter, but a genuine land breakfast.’
“Up-stairs, No. 4, sir,’ said the waiter, as he flourished a dirty napkin,
indicating the way.
“Up-stairs I went, and in due time the appetizing little meal made its
appearance. Never did a minor’s eye revel over his broad acres with more
complacent enjoyment than did mine skim over the mutton and the muffin,
the tea-pot, the trout, and the devilled kidney, so invitingly spread out
before me. ‘Yes,’ thought I, as I smacked my lips, ‘this is the reward of
virtue; pickled pork is a probationary state that admirably fits us for
future enjoyments.’ I arranged my napkin upon my knee, seized my knife
and fork, and proceeded with most critical acumen to bisect a beefsteak.
Scarcely, however, had I touched it, when, with a loud crash, the plate
smashed beneath it, and the gravy ran piteously across the cloth. Before I
had time to account for the phenomenon, the door opened hastily, and the
waiter rushed into the room, his face beaming with smiles, while he rubbed
his hands in an ecstasy of delight.
“‘It’s all over, sir,’ said he; ‘glory be to God! it’s all done.’
“‘What’s over? What’s done?’ inquired I, with impatience.
“‘Mr. M’Mahon is satisfied,’ replied he, ‘and so is the other gentleman.’
“‘Who and what the devil do you mean?’
[Illustration: DISADVANTAGE OF BREAKFASTING OVER A DUELLING-PARTY.]
“‘It’s over, sir, I say,’ replied the waiter again; ‘he fired in the air.’
“‘Fired in the air! Was there a duel in the room below stairs?’
“‘Yes, sir,’ said the waiter, with a benign smile.
“‘That will do,’ said I, as seizing my hat, I rushed out of the house, and
hurrying to the beach, took a boat for the ship. Exactly half an hour had
elapsed since my landing, but even those short thirty minutes had fully as
many reasons that although there may be few more amusing, there are some
safer places to live in than the Green Isle.”
A general burst of laughter followed the cornet’s story, which was
heightened in its effect by the gravity with which he told it.
“And after all,” said Maurice Quill, “now that people have given up making
fortunes for the insurance companies by living to the age of Methuselah,
there’s nothing like being an Irishman. In what other part of the habitable
globe can you cram so much adventure into one year? Where can you be so
often in love, in liquor, or in debt; and where can you get so merrily out
of the three? Where are promises to marry and promises to pay treated with
the same gentleman-like forbearance; and where, when you have lost your
heart and your fortune, are people found so ready to comfort you in your
reverses? Yes,” said Maurice, as he filled his glass up to the brim, and
eyed it lusciously for a moment,--“yes, darling, here’s your health; the
only girl I ever loved--in that part of the country, I mean. Give her a
bumper, lads, and I’ll give you a chant.”
“Name! name! name!” shouted several voices from different parts of the
table.
“Mary Draper!” said Maurice, filling his glass once more, while the name
was re-echoed by every lip at table.
“The song! the song!”
“Faith, I hope I haven’t forgotten it,” quoth Maurice. “No; here it is.”
So saying, after a couple of efforts to assure the pitch of his voice, the
worthy doctor began the following words to that very popular melody, “Nancy
Dawson:”--
MARY DRAPER.
AIR,--_Nancy Dawson_.
Don’t talk to me of London dames,
Nor rave about your foreign flames,
That never lived, except in drames,
Nor shone, except on paper;
I’ll sing you ‘bout a girl I knew,
Who lived in Ballywhacmacrew,
And let me tell you, mighty few
Could equal Mary Draper.
Her cheeks were red, her eyes were blue,
Her hair was brown of deepest hue,
Her foot was small, and neat to view,
Her waist was slight and taper;
Her voice was music to your ear,
A lovely brogue, so rich and clear,
Oh, the like I ne’er again shall hear,
As from sweet Mary Draper.
She’d ride a wall, she’d drive a team,
Or with a fly she’d whip a stream,
Or may be sing you “Rousseau’s Dream,”
For nothing could escape her;
I’ve seen her, too,--upon my word,--
At sixty yards bring down her bird,
Oh, she charmed all the Forty-third,
Did lovely Mary Draper.
And at the spring assizes’ ball,
The junior bar would one and all
For all her fav’rite dances call,
And Harry Dean would caper;
Lord Clare would then forget his lore;
King’s Counsel, voting law a bore,
Were proud to figure on the floor,
For love of Mary Draper.
The parson, priest, sub-sheriff too,
Were all her slaves, and so would you,
If you had only but one view,
Of such a face and shape, or
Her pretty ankles--But, ohone,
It’s only west of old Athlone
Such girls were found--and now they’re gone--
So here’s to Mary Draper!
“So here’s to Mary Draper!” sang out every voice, in such efforts to catch
the tune as pleased the taste of the motley assembly.
“For Mary Draper and Co., I thank you,” said Maurice. “Quill drinks to
Dennis,” added he, in a grave tone, as he nodded to O’Shaughnessy. “Yes,
Shaugh, few men better than ourselves know these matters; and few have had
more experience of the three perils of Irishmen,--love, liquor, and the law
of arrest.”
“It’s little the latter has ever troubled my father’s son,” replied
O’Shaughnessy. “Our family have been writ proof for centuries, and he’d
have been a bold man who would have ventured with an original or a true
copy within the precincts of Killinahoula.”
“Your father had a touch of Larry M’Hale in him,” said I, “apparently.”
“Exactly so,” replied Dennis; “not but they caught him at last, and a
scurvy trick it was and well worthy of him who did it! Yes,” said he, with
a sigh, “it is only another among the many instances where the better
features of our nationality have been used by our enemies as instruments
for our destruction; and should we seek for the causes of unhappiness in
our wretched country, we should find them rather in our virtues than in
our vices, and in the bright rather than in the darker phases of our
character.”
“Metaphysics, by Jove!” cried Quill; “but all true at the same time. There
was a mess-mate of mine in the ‘Roscommon’ who never paid car-hire in his
life. ‘Head or harp, Paddy!’ he would cry. ‘Two tenpennies or nothing.’
‘Harp, for the honor of ould Ireland!’ was the invariable response, and my
friend was equally sure to make head come uppermost; and, upon my soul,
they seem to know the trick at the Home Office.”
“That must have been the same fellow that took my father,” cried
O’Shaughnessy, with energy.
“Let us hear the story, Dennis,” said I.
“Yes,” said Maurice, “for the benefit of self and fellows, let us hear the
stratagem!”
“The way of it was this,” resumed O’Shaughnessy. “My father, who for
reasons registered in the King’s Bench spent a great many years of his life
in that part of Ireland geographically known as lying west of the law,
was obliged, for certain reasons of family, to come up to Dublin. This he
proceeded to do with due caution. Two trusty servants formed an advance
guard, and patrolled the country for at least five miles in advance; after
them came a skirmishing body of a few tenants, who, for the consideration
of never paying rent, would have charged the whole Court of Chancery, if
needful. My father himself, in an old chaise victualled like a fortress,
brought up the rear; and as I said before, he were a bold man who would
have attempted to have laid siege to him. As the column advanced into the
enemy’s country, they assumed a closer order, the patrol and the picket
falling back upon the main body; and in this way they reached that most
interesting city called Kilbeggan. What a fortunate thing it is for us in
Ireland that we can see so much of the world without foreign travel, and
that any gentleman for six-and-eightpence can leave Dublin in the morning,
and visit Timbuctoo against dinner-time. Don’t stare! it’s truth I’m
telling; for dirt, misery, smoke, unaffected behavior, and black faces,
I’ll back Kilbeggan against all Africa. Free-and-easy, pleasant people ye
are, with a skin, as begrimed and as rugged as your own potatoes! But, to
resume. The sun was just rising in a delicious morning of June, when my
father,--whose loyal antipathies I have mentioned made him also an early
riser,--was preparing for the road. A stout escort of his followers were
as usual under arms to see him safe in the chaise, the passage to and from
which every day being the critical moment of my father’s life.
“‘It’s all right, your honor,’ said his own man, as, armed with a
blunderbuss, he opened the bed-room door.
“‘Time enough, Tim,’ said my father; ‘close the door, for I haven’t
finished my breakfast.’
“Now, the real truth was, that my father’s attention was at that moment
withdrawn from his own concerns by a scene which was taking place in a
field beneath his window.
“But a few minutes before, a hack-chaise had stopped upon the roadside, out
of which sprang three gentlemen, who, proceeding into the field, seemed
bent upon something, which, whether a survey or a duel, my father could not
make out. He was not long, however, to remain in ignorance. One, with an
easy, lounging gait, strode towards a distant corner; another took an
opposite direction; while a third, a short, pursy gentleman, in a red
handkerchief and rabbit-skin waistcoat, proceeded to open a mahogany
box, which, to the critical eyes of my respected father, was agreeably
suggestive of bloodshed and murder.
“‘A duel, by Jupiter!’ said my father, rubbing his hands. ‘What a heavenly
morning the scoundrels have,--not a leaf stirring, and a sod like a
billiard-table!’
“Meanwhile the little man who officiated as second, it would appear to
_both_ parties, bustled about with an activity little congenial to his
shape; and what between snapping the pistols, examining the flints, and
ramming down the charges, had got himself into a sufficient perspiration
before he commenced to measure the ground.
“‘Short distance and no quarter!’ shouted one of the combatants, from the
corner of the field.
“‘Across a handkerchief, if you like!’ roared the other.
“‘Gentlemen, every inch of them!’ responded my father.
“‘Twelve paces!’ cried the little man. ‘No more and no less. Don’t forget
that I am alone in this business!’
“‘A very true remark!’ observed my father; ‘and an awkward predicament
yours will be if they are not both shot!’
“By this time the combatants had taken their places, and the little man,
having delivered the pistols, was leisurely retiring to give the word.
My father, however, whose critical eye was never at fault, detected a
circumstance which promised an immense advantage to one at the expense of
the other; in fact, one of the parties was so placed with his back to the
sun, that his shadow extended in a straight line to the very foot of his
antagonist.
“‘Unfair, unfair!’ cried my father, opening the window as he spoke, and
addressing himself to him of the rabbit-skin. ‘I crave your pardon for the
interruption,’ said he; ‘but I feel bound to observe that that gentleman’s
shadow is likely to make a shade of him.’
“‘And so it is,’ observed the short man; ‘a thousand thanks for your
kindness, but the truth is, I am totally unaccustomed to this kind of
thing, and the affair will not admit of delay.’
“‘Not an hour!’ said one.
“‘No, not five minutes!’ growled the other of the combatants.
“‘Put them up north and south,’ said my father.
“‘Is it thus?’
“‘Exactly so. But now, again, the gentleman in the brown coat is covered
with the ash-tree.’
“‘And so he is!’ said rabbit-skin, wiping his forehead with agitation.
“‘Move them a little to the left,’ said he.
“‘That brings me upon an eminence,’ said the gentleman in blue. ‘I’ll be
d--d if I be made a cock shot of!’
“‘What an awkward little thief it is in the hairy waistcoat!’ said my
father; ‘he’s lucky if he don’t get shot himself!’
“‘May I never, if I’m not sick of you both!’ ejaculated rabbit-skin, in a
passion. ‘I’ve moved you round every point of the compass, and the devil a
nearer we are than ever!’
“‘Give us the word,’ said one.
“‘The word!’
“‘Downright murder,’ said my father.
“‘I don’t care,’ said the little man; ‘we shall be here till doomsday.’
“‘I can’t permit this,’ said my father; ‘allow me.’ So saying, he stepped
upon the window-sill, and leaped down into the field.
“‘Before I can accept of your politeness,’ said he of the rabbit-skin, ‘may
I beg to know your name and position in society?’
“‘Nothing more reasonable,’ said my father. ‘I’m Miles O’Shaughnessy,
Colonel of the Royal Raspers,--here is my card.’
“The piece of pasteboard was complacently handed from one to the other of
the party, who saluted my father with a smile of most courteous benignity.
“‘Colonel O’Shaughnessy,’ said one.
“‘Miles O’Shaughnessy,’ said the other.
“‘Of Killinahoula Castle,’ said the third.
“‘At your service,’ said my father, bowing, as he presented his snuff-box;
‘and now to business, if you please, for my time also is limited.’
“‘Very true,’ observed he of the rabbit-skin; ‘and, as you observe, now to
business; in virtue of which, Colonel Miles O’Shaughnessy, I hereby arrest
you in the King’s name. Here is the writ; it’s at the suit of Barnaby
Kelly, of Loughrea, for the sum of £1,482 19s. 7-1/2d., which--’
“Before he could conclude the sentence, my father discharged one obligation
by implanting his closed knuckles in his face. The blow, well aimed and
well intentioned, sent the little fellow summersetting like a sugar
hogshead. But, alas! it was of no use; the others, strong and able-bodied,
fell both upon him, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in getting him
down. To tie his hands, and convey him to the chaise, was the work of a few
moments; and as my father drove by the inn, the last object which caught
his view was a bloody encounter between his own people and the myrmidons
of the law, who, in great numbers, had laid siege to the house during his
capture. Thus was my father taken; and thus, in reward for yielding to a
virtuous weakness in his character, was he consigned to the ignominious
durance of a prison. Was I not right, then, in saying that such is the
melancholy position of our country, the most beautiful traits in our
character are converted into the elements of our ruin?”
“I dinna think ye ha’e made out your case, Major?” said the Scotch doctor,
who felt sorely puzzled at my friend’s logic. “If your faether had na gi’en
the bond--”
“There is no saying what he wouldn’t have done to the bailiffs,”
interrupted Dennis, who was following up a very different train of
reasoning.
“I fear me, Doctor,” observed Quill, “you are much behind us in Scotland.
Not but that some of your chieftains are respectable men, and wouldn’t get
on badly even in Galway.”
“I thank ye muckle for the compliment,” said the doctor, dryly; “but I ha’e
my doubts they’d think it ane, and they’re crusty carls that’s no’ ower
safe to meddle wi’.”
“I’d as soon propose a hand of ‘spoiled five’ to the Pope of Rome, as a
joke to one of them,” returned Maurice.
“May be ye are na wrang there, Maister Quell.”
“Well,” cried Hampden, “if I may be allowed an opinion, I can safely aver I
know no quarters like Scotland. Edinburgh beyond anything or anywhere I was
ever placed in.”
“Always after Dublin,” interposed Maurice; while a general chorus of voices
re-echoed the sentiment.
“You are certainly a strong majority,” said my friend, “against me; but
still I recant not my original opinion. Edinburgh before the world. For a
hospitality that never tires; for pleasant fellows that improve every day
of your acquaintance; for pretty girls that make you long for a repeal of
the canon about being only singly blessed, and lead you to long for a score
of them, Edinburgh,--I say again, before the world.”
“Their ankles are devilish thick,” whispered Maurice.
“A calumny, a base calumny!”
“And then they drink--”
“Oh--”
“Yes; they drink very strong tea.”
“Shall we ha’e a glass o’ sherry together, Hampden?” said the Scotch
doctor, willing to acknowledge his defence of auld Reekie.
“And we’ll take O’Malley in,” said Hampden; “he looks imploringly.”
“And now to return to the charge,” quoth Maurice. “In what particular dare
ye contend the palm with Dublin? We’ll not speak of beauty. I can’t suffer
any such profane turn in the conversation as to dispute the superiority of
Irishwomen’s lips, eyes, noses, and eyebrows, to anything under heaven.
We’ll not talk of gay fellows; egad, we needn’t. I’ll give you the
garrison,--a decent present,--and I’ll back the Irish bar for more genuine
drollery, more wit, more epigram, more ready sparkling fun, than the whole
rest of the empire--ay, and all her colonies--can boast of.”
“They are nae remarkable for passing the bottle, if they resemble their
very gifted advocate,” observed the Scotchman.
“But they are for filling and emptying both, making its current, as it
glides by, like a rich stream glittering in the sunbeams with the sparkling
lustre of their wit. Lord, how I’m blown! Fill my pannikin, Charley.
There’s no subduing a Scot. Talk with him, drink with him, fight with him,
and he’ll always have the last of it; there’s only one way of concluding
the treaty--”
“And that is--”
“Blarney him. Lord bless you, he can’t stand it! Tell him Holyrood’s like
Versailles, and the Trossach’s finer than Mont Blanc; that Geordie Buchanan
was Homer, and the Canongate, Herculaneum,--then ye have him on the hip.
Now, ye never can humbug an Irishman that way; he’ll know you’re quizzing
him when you praise his country.”
“Ye are right, Hampden,” said the Scotch doctor, in reply to some
observation. “We are vara primitive in the Hielands, and we keep to our ain
national customs in dress and everything; and we are vara slow to learn,
and even when we try we are nae ower successfu’ in our imitations, which
sometimes cost us dearly enough. Ye may have heard, may be, of the M’Nab o’
that ilk, and what happened him with the king’s equerry?”
“I’m not quite certain,” said Hampden, “if I ever heard the story.”
“It’s nae muckle of a story; but the way of it was this. When Montrose came
back from London, he brought with him a few Englishers to show them the
Highlands, and let them see something of deer-stalking,--among the rest, a
certain Sir George Sowerby, an aide-de-camp or an equerry of the prince.
He was a vara fine gentleman, that never loaded his ain gun, and a’most
thought it too much trouble to pull the trigger. He went out every
morning to shoot with his hair curled like a woman, and dressed like a
dancing-master. Now, there happened to be at the same time at the castle
the Laird o’ M’Nab; he was a kind of cousin of the Montrose, and a rough
old tyke of the true Hieland breed, wha’ thought that the head of a clan
was fully equal to any king or prince. He sat opposite to Sir George at
dinner the day of his arrival, and could not conceal his surprise at the
many new-fangled ways of feeding himself the Englisher adopted. He ate his
saumon wi’ his fork in ae hand, and a bittock of bread in the other. He
would na touch the whiskey; helped himself to a cutlet wi’ his fingers. But
what was maist extraordinary of all, he wore a pair o’ braw white gloves
during the whole time o’ dinner and when they came to tak’ away the cloth,
he drew them off with a great air, and threw them into the middle of it,
and then, leisurely taking anither pair off a silver salver which his ain
man presented, he pat them on for dessert. The M’Nab, who, although an
auld-fashioned carl, was aye fond of bringing something new hame to his
friends, remarked the Englisher’s proceeding with great care, and the next
day he appeared at dinner wi’ a huge pair of Hieland mittens, which he
wore, to the astonishment of all and the amusement of most, through the
whole three courses; and exactly as the Englishman changed his gloves, the
M’Nab produced a fresh pair of goats’ wool, four times as large as the
first, which, drawing on with prodigious gravity, he threw the others into
the middle of the cloth, remarking, as he did so,--
“‘Ye see, Captain, we are never ower auld to learn.’
“All propriety was now at an end, and a hearty burst of laughter from one
end of the table to the other convulsed the whole company,--the M’Nab and
the Englishman being the only persons who did not join in it, but sat
glowering at each other like twa tigers; and, indeed, it needed, a’
the Montrose’s interference that they had na quarrelled upon it in the
morning.”
“The M’Nab was a man after my own heart,” said Maurice; “there was
something very Irish in the lesson he gave the Englishman.”
“I’d rather ye’d told him that than me,” said the doctor, dryly; “he would
na hae thanked ye for mistaking him for ane of your countrymen.”
“Come, Doctor,” said Dennis, “could not ye give us a stave? Have ye nothing
that smacks of the brown fern and the blue lakes in your memory?”
“I have na a sang in my mind just noo except ‘Johnny Cope,’ which may be
might na be ower pleasant for the Englishers to listen to.”
“I never heard a Scotch song worth sixpence,” quoth Maurice, who seemed
bent on provoking the doctor’s ire. “They contain nothing save some
puling sentimentality about lasses with lint-white locks, or some absurd
laudations of the Barley Bree.”
“Hear till him, hear till him!” said the doctor, reddening with impatience.
“Show me anything,” said Maurice, “like the ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ or the ‘Jug
of Punch;’ but who can blame them, after all? You can’t expect much from a
people with an imagination as naked as their own knees.”
“Maurice! Maurice!” cried O’Shaughnessy, reprovingly, who saw that he was
pushing the other’s endurance beyond all bounds.
“I mind weel,” said the Scotchman, “what happened to ane o’ your countrymen
wha took upon him to jest as you are doing now. It was to Laurie Cameron he
did it.”
“And what said the redoubted Laurie in reply?”
“He did na say muckle, but he did something.”
“And what might it be?” inquired Maurice.
“He threw him ower the brig of Ayr into the water, and he was drowned.”
“And did Laurie come to no harm about the matter?”
“Ay, they tried him for it, and found him guilty; but when they asked
him what he had to say in his defence, he merely replied, ‘When the carl
sneered about Scotland, I did na suspect that he did na ken how to swim;’
and so the end of it was, they did naething to Laurie.”
“Cool that, certainly,” said I.
“I prefer your friend with the mittens, I confess,” said Maurice, “though
I’m sure both were most agreeable companion. But come, Doctor, couldn’t you
give us,--
Sit ye down, my heartie, and gie us a crack,
Let the wind tak’ the care o’ the world on his back.’”
“You maunna attempt English poethry, my freend Quell; for it must be
confessed ye’e a damnable accent of your ain.”
“Milesian-Phoenician-Corkacian; nothing more, my boy, and a coaxing kind
of recitative it is, after all. Don’t tell me of your soft Etruscan, your
plethoric. _Hoch_-Deutsch, your flattering French. To woo and win the
girl of your heart, give me a rich brogue and the least taste in life of
blarney! There’s nothing like it, believe me,--every inflection of your
voice suggesting some tender pressure of her soft hand or taper waist,
every cadence falling on her gentle heart like a sea-breeze on a burning
coast, or a soft sirocco over a rose-tree. And then, think, my boys,--and
it is a fine thought after all,--what a glorious gift that is, out of the
reach of kings to give or to take, what neither depends upon the act of
Union nor the _Habeas Corpus_. No! they may starve us, laugh at us, tax us,
transport us. They may take our mountains, our valleys, and our bogs; but,
bad luck to them, they can’t steal our ‘blarney;’ that’s the privilege one
and indivisible with our identity. And while an Englishman raves of his
liberty, a Scotchman of his oaten meal, blarney’s _our_ birthright, and a
prettier portion I’d never ask to leave behind me to my sons. If I’d as
large a family as the ould gentleman called Priam we used to hear of at
school, it’s the only inheritance I’d give them, and one comfort there
would be besides, the legacy duty would be only a trifle. Charley, my
son, I see you’re listening to me, and nothing satisfies me more than to
instruct inspiring youth; so never forget the old song,--
‘If at your ease, the girls you’d please,
And win them, like Kate Kearney,
There’s but one way, I’ve heard them say,
Go kiss the Stone of Blarney.’”
“What do you say, Shaugh, if we drink it with all the honors?”
“But gently: do I hear a trumpet there?”
“Ah, there go the bugles. Can it be daybreak already?”
“How short the nights are at this season!” said Quill.
“What an infernal rumpus they’re making! It’s not possible the troops are
to march so early.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” quoth Maurice; “there is no knowing
what the commander-in-chief’s not capable of,--the reason’s clear enough.”
“And why, Maurice?”
“There’s not a bit of blarney about him.”
The _réveil_ sang out from every brigade, and the drums beat to fall in,
while Mike came galloping up at full speed to say that the bridge of boats
was completed, and that the Twelfth were already ordered to cross. Not a
moment was therefore to be lost; one parting cup we drained to our next
meeting, and amidst a hundred “good-bys” we mounted our horses. Poor
Hampden’s brains, sadly confused by the wine and the laughing, he knew
little of what was going on around him, and passed the entire time of our
homeward ride in a vain endeavor to adapt “Mary Draper” to the air of “Rule
Britannia.”