IN WHICH IRISH MELODY PREVAILS.
Now, Father Roach's domicile was the first house in the Chapel-lane,
which consisted altogether of two, not being very long. It showed a
hall-door, painted green--the national hue--which enclosed, I'm happy to
say, not a few of the national virtues, chief among which reigned
hospitality. As Moggy turned the corner, and got out of the cold wind
under its friendly shelter, she heard a stentorian voice, accompanied by
the mellifluous drone of a bagpipe, concluding in a highly decorative
style the last verse of the 'Colleen Rue.'
Respect for this celestial melody, and a desire to hear a little more of
what might follow, held Moggy on the steps, with the knocker between her
finger and thumb, unwilling to disturb by an unseasonable summons the
harmonies from which she was, in fact, separated only by the thickness
of the window and its shutter. And when the vocal and instrumental music
came to an end together with a prolonged and indescribable groan and a
grunt from the songster and the instrument, there broke forth a shrilly
chorus of female cackle, some in admiration and some in laughter; and
the voice of Father Roach was heard lustily and melodiously ejaculating
'More power to you, Pat Mahony!'
As this pleasant party all talked together, and Moggy could not clearly
unravel a single sentence, she made up her mind to wait no longer, and
knocked with good emphasis, under cover of the uproar.
The maid, who had evidently been in the hall, almost instantaneously
opened the door; and with a hasty welcome full of giggle and excitement,
pulled in Moggy by the arm, shutting the door after her; and each damsel
asked the other, 'An' how are you, and are you elegant?' and shaking her
neighbour by both hands. The clerical handmaid, in a galloping whisper
in Moggy's ear, told her,' 'Twas a weddin' party, and such tarin' fun
she never see--sich dancin' and singin', and laughin' and funnin'; and
she must wait a bit, and see the quality,' a portion of whom, indeed,
were visible as well as over-poweringly audible, through the half-open
door of the front parlour; 'and there was to be a thunderin' fine
supper--a round of beef and two geese, and a tubful of oysters,' &c, &c.
Now I must mention that this feast was, in fact, in its own way, more
romantically wonderful than that of the celebrated wedding of Camacho
the Rich, and one of the many hundred proofs I've met with in the course
of my long pilgrimage that the honest prose of everyday life is often
ten times more surprising than the unsubstantial fictions of even the
best epic poets.
The valiant Sir Jaufry, it is true, was ordered to a dungeon by the fair
Brunissende, who so soon as she beheld him, nevertheless became
enamoured of the knight, and gave him finally her hand in wedlock. But
if the fair Brunissende had been five and forty, or by'r lady, fifty,
the widow of a tailor, herself wondrous keen after money, and stung very
nigh to madness by the preposterous balance due (as per ledger), and the
inexhaustible and ingenious dodges executed by the insolvent Sir Jaufry,
the composer of that chivalric romance might have shrunk from the happy
winding-up as bordering too nearly upon the incredible.
Yet good Father Roach understood human nature better. Man and woman have
a tendency to fuse. And given a good-looking fellow and a woman, no
matter of what age, who but deserves the name, and bring them together,
and let the hero but have proper opportunities, and deuce is in it if
nothing comes of the matter. Animosity is no impediment. On the contrary
'tis a more advantageous opening than indifference. The Cid began his
courtship by shooting his lady-love's pigeons, and putting her into a
pet and a frenzy. The Cid knew what he was about. Stir no matter _what_
passions, provided they _be_ passions, and get your image well into your
lady's head, and you may repeat, with like success, the wooing (which
superficial people pronounce so unnatural) of crook-backed Richard and
the Lady Anne. Of course, there are limits. I would not advise, for
instance, a fat elderly gentleman, bald, carbuncled, dull of wit, and
slow of speech, to hazard that particular method, lest he should find
himself the worse of his experiment. My counsel is for the young, the
tolerably good-looking, for murmuring orators of the silver-tongue
family, and romantic athletes with coaxing ways.
Worthy Father Roach constituted himself internuncio between Mahony, whom
we remember first in his pride of place doing the honours of that feast
of Mars in which his 'friend' Nutter was to have carved up the great
O'Flaherty on the Fifteen Acres, and next, _quantum, mutatus ab illo_! a
helpless but manly captive in the hands of the Dublin bailiffs, and that
very Mrs. Elizabeth Woolly, relict and sole executrix of the late
Timotheus Woolly, of High-street, tailor, &c., &c., who was the cruel
cause of his incarceration.
Good Father Roach, though a paragon of celibacy, was of a gallant
temperament, and a wheedling tongue, and unfolded before the offended
eye of the insulted and vindictive executrix so interesting a picture of
'his noble young friend, the victim of circumstance, breaking his manly
heart over his follies and misfortunes;' and looking upon her, Mrs.
Woolly, afar off, with an eye full of melancholy and awe, tempered with,
mayhap, somewhat of romantic gallantry, like Sir Walter Raleigh from the
Tower window on Queen Elizabeth, that he at length persuaded the
tremendous 'relict' to visit her captive in his dungeon. This she did,
in a severe mood, with her attorney, and good Father Roach; and though
Mahony's statement was declamatory rather than precise, and dealt more
with his feelings than his resources, and was carried on more in the way
of an appeal to the 'leedy' than as an exposition to the man of law,
leaving matters at the end in certainly no clearer state than before he
began, yet the executrix consented to see the imprisoned youth once
more, this time dispensing with her attorney's attendance, and content
with the protection of the priest, and even upon that, on some
subsequent visits, she did not insist.
And so the affair, like one of those medleys of our Irish melodies
arranged by poor M. Jullien, starting with a martial air, breathing turf
and thunder, fire and sword, went off imperceptibly into a pathetic and
amorous strain. Father Roach, still officiating as internuncio, found
the dowager less and less impracticable, and at length a treaty was
happily concluded. The captive came forth to wear thenceforward those
lighter chains only, which are forged by Hymen and wreathed with roses;
and the lady applied to his old promissory notes the torch of love,
which in a moment reduced them to ashes. And here, at the hermitage of
our jolly Chapelizod priest--for bride and bridegroom were alike of the
'ancient faith'--the treaty was ratified, and the bagpipe and the
bridegroom, in tremendous unison, splitting the rafters with 'Hymen,
Hymen, O Hymenoee!'
In the midst of this festive celebration, his reverence was summoned to
the hall, already perfumed with the incense of the geese, the onions,
the bacon browned at the kitchen-fire, and various other delicacies,
toned and enriched by the vapours that exhaled from the little bottle of
punch which, in consideration of his fatigues, stood by the elbow of the
piper.
When the holy man had heard Moggy's tale, he scratched his tonsure and
looked, I must say, confoundedly bored.
'Now, Moggy, my child, don't you see, acushla, 'tisn't to me you should
ha' come; I'm here, my dear, engaged,' and he dried his moist and
rubicund countenance, 'in one of the sacred offices iv the Church, the
sacrament, my dear, iv'--here Mahony and the piper struck up again in so
loud a key in the parlour, that as Moggy afterwards observed, 'they
could not hear their own ears,' and the conclusion of the sentence was
overwhelmed in, 'Many's the bottle I cracked in my time.' So his
reverence impatiently beckoned to the hall-door, which he opened, and on
the steps, where he was able to make himself audible, he explained the
nature of his present engagement, and referred her to Doctor Toole.
Assured, however, that he was in Dublin, he scratched his tonsure once
more.
'The divil burn the lot o' them, my dear, an' purty evenin' they chose
for their vagaries--an' law papers too, you say, an' an attorney into
the bargain--there's no influence you can bring to bear on them
fellows. If 'twas another man, an' a couple more at his back, myself an'
Pat Moran 'id wallop them out of the house, an' into the river, be
gannies; as aisy as say an _ave_.'
The illustration, it occurred to him, might possibly strike Moggy as
irreverent, and the worthy father paused, and, with upturned eyes,
murmured a Latin ejaculation, crossing himself; and having thus
reasserted his clerical character, he proceeded to demonstrate the
uselessness of his going.
But Father Roach, though sometimes a little bit testy, and, on the
whole, not without faults, was as good-natured an anchorite as ever said
mass or brewed a contemplative bowl of punch. If he refused to go down
to the Mills, he would not have been comfortable again that night, nor
indeed for a week to come. So, with a sigh, he made up his mind, got
quietly into his surtout and mufflers which hung on the peg behind the
hall-door, clapped on his hat, grasped his stout oak stick, and telling
his housekeeper to let them know, in case his guests should miss him,
that he was obliged to go out for ten minutes or so on parish business,
forth sallied the stout priest, with no great appetite for
knight-errantry, but still anxious to rescue, if so it might be, the
distressed princess, begirt with giants and enchanters, at the Mills.
At the Salmon House he enlisted the stalworth Paddy Moran, with the
information conveyed to that surprised reveller, that he was to sleep at
'Mrs. Nutter's house' that night; and so, at a brisk pace, the clerical
knight, his squire, and demoiselle-errant, proceeded to the Mills.