Book: Handy Andy, Vol. 2

S >> Samuel Lover >> Handy Andy, Vol. 2




Even the rollicking Murphy's eyes were moist as he recited this anecdote;
and as for Father Phil, he was quite melted, ejaculating in an under tone,
"Oh, my poor fellow! my poor fellow!"

"So there," said Murphy, "is an example of a man, with revenge in his
heart, and his right arm tired with slaughter, suddenly melted into
gentleness by a resemblance to his child."

"'T is very touching, but very sad," said the Squire.

"My dear sir," said the doctor, with his peculiar dryness, "sadness is the
principal fruit which warfare must ever produce. You may talk of glory as
long as you like, but you cannot have your laurel without your cypress,
and though you may select certain bits of sentiment out of a mass of
horrors, if you allow me, I will give you one little story which shan't
keep you long, and will serve as a commentary upon war and glory in
general.

"At the peace of 1803, I happened to be travelling through a town in
France where a certain count I knew resided. I waited upon him, and
he received me most cordially, and invited me to dinner. I made the
excuse that I was only _en route_, and supplied with but traveling
costume, and therefore not fit to present myself amongst the guests
of such a house as his. He assured me I should only meet his own
family, and pledged himself for Madame la Comtesse being willing
to waive the ceremony of a _grande toilette_. I went to the
house at the appointed hour, and as I passed through the hall I cast
a glance at the dining-room and saw a very long table laid. On arriving
at the reception-room, I taxed the count with having broken faith
with me, and was about making my excuses to the countess when she assured
me the count had dealt honestly by me, for that I was the only guest to
join the family party. Well, we sat down to dinner, three-and-twenty
persons; myself, the count and countess, and their _twenty children!_
and a more lovely family I never saw; he a man in the vigour of life, she
a still attractive woman, and these their offspring lining the table,
where the happy eyes of father and mother glanced with pride and affection
from one side to the other on these future staffs of their old age. Well,
the peace of Amiens was of short duration, and I saw no more of the count
till Napoleon's abdication. Then I visited France again, and saw my old
friend. But it was a sad sight, sir, in that same house, where, little
more than ten years before, I had seen the bloom and beauty of twenty
children, to sit down with _three_--all he had left him. His sons had
fallen in battle--his daughters had died widowed, leaving but orphans. And
thus it was all over France. While the public voice shouted 'Glory!'
wailing was in her homes. Her temple of victory was filled with trophies,
but her hearths were made desolate."

"Still, sir, a true soldier fears nothing," repeated Moriarty.

"_Baithershin,_" said Father Phil. "'Faith I have been in places of
danger you'd be glad to get out of, I can tell you, as bould as you are,
captain."

"You'll pardon me for doubting you, Father Blake," said Moriarty, rather
huffed.

"'Faith then you wouldn't like to be where I was before I came here; that
is, in a mud cabin, where I was giving the last rites to six people dying
in the typhus fever."

"Typhus!" exclaimed Moriarty, growing pale, and instinctively withdrawing
his chair as far as he could from the _padre_ beside whom he sat.

"Ay, typhus, sir; most inveterate typhus."

"Gracious Heaven!" said Moriarty, rising, "how can you do such a dreadful
thing as run the risk of bearing infection into society?"

"I thought soldiers were not afraid of anything," said Father Phil,
laughing at him; and the rest of the party joined in the merriment.

"Fairly hit, Moriarty," said Dick.

"Nonsense," said Moriarty; "when I spoke of danger, I meant such open
danger as--in short, not such insidious lurking abomination as infection;
for I contend that--"

"Say no more, Randal," said Growling, "you're done!--Father Phil has
floored you."

"I deny it," said Moriarty, warmly; but the more he denied it, the more
every one laughed at him.

"You're more frightened than hurt, Moriarty," said the Squire; "for the
best of the joke is, Father Phil wasn't in contact with typhus at all, but
was riding with me--and 'tis but a joke."

Here they all roared at Moriarty, who was excessively angry, but felt
himself in such a ridiculous position that he could not quarrel with
anybody.

"Pardon me, my dear captain," said the Father; "I only wanted to show you
that a poor priest has to run the risk of his life just as much as the
boldest soldier of them all. But don't you think, Squire, 't is time to
join the ladies? I'm sure the tay will be tired waiting for us."




CHAPTER XXXIII


Mrs. Egan was engaged in some needlework, and Fanny turning over the
leaves of a music-book, and occasionally humming some bars of her
favourite songs, as the gentlemen came into the drawing-room. Fanny rose
from the pianoforte as they entered.

"Oh, Miss Dawson," exclaimed Moriarty, "why tantalise us so much as to let
us see you seated in that place where you can render so much delight, only
to leave it as we enter?"

Fanny turned off the captain's flourishing speech with a few lively words
and a smile, and took her seat at the tea-table to do the honours. "The
captain," said Father Phil to the doctor, "is equally great in love or
war."

"And knows about as little of one as the other," said the doctor. "His
attacks are too open."

"And therefore easily foiled," said Father Phil; "How that pretty
creature, with the turn of a word and a curl of her lip, upset him that
time! Oh! what a powerful thing a woman's smile is, doctor? I often
congratulate myself that my calling puts all such mundane follies and
attractions out of my way, when I see and know what fools wise men are
sometimes made by silly girls. Oh, it is fearful, doctor; though, of
course, part of the mysterious dispensation of an all-wise Providence."

"That fools should have the mastery, is it?" inquired the doctor, drily,
with a mischievous query in his eye as well. "Tut, tut, tut, doctor,"
replied Father Phil, impatiently; "you know well enough what I mean, and I
won't allow you to engage me in one of your ingenious battles of words. I
speak of that wonderful influence of the weaker sex over the stronger, and
how the word of a rosy lip outweighs sometimes the resolves of a furrowed
brow; and how the--pooh! pooh! I'm making a fool of myself talking to
you--but to make a long story short, I would rather _wrastle_ out a
logical dispute any day, or a tough argument of one of the fathers, than
refute some absurdity which fell from a pretty mouth with a smile on it."

"Oh, I quite agree with you," said the doctor, grinning, "that the fathers
are not half such dangerous customers as the daughters."

"Ah, go along with you, doctor!" said Father Phil, with a good-humoured
laugh. "I see you are in one of your mischievous moods, and so I'll have
nothing more to say to you."

The Father turned away to join the Squire, while the doctor took a seat
near Fanny Dawson and enjoyed a quiet little bit of conversation with her,
while Moriarty was turning over the leaves of her album; but the brow of
the captain, who affected a taste in poetry, became knit, and his lip
assumed a contemptuous curl, as he perused some lines, and asked Fanny
whose was the composition.

"I forget," was Fanny's answer.

"I don't wonder," said Moriarty; "the author is not worth remembering, for
they are very rough."

Fanny did not seem pleased with the criticism, and said that, when sung to
the measure of the air written down on the opposite page, they were very
flowing.

"But the principal phrase, the _'refrain'_ I may say, is so vulgar,"
added Moriarty, returning to the charge. "The gentleman says, 'What would
you do?' and the lady answers, 'That's what I'd do.' Do you call that
poetry?"

"I don't call _that_ poetry," said Fanny, with some emphasis on the
word; "but if you connect those two phrases with what is intermediately
written, and read all in the spirit of the entire of the verses, I think
there is poetry in them--but if not poetry, certainly feeling."

"Can you tolerate '_That's what I'd do'?_--the pert answer of a
housemaid."

"A phrase in itself homely," answered Fanny, "may become elevated by the
use to which it is applied."

"Quite true, Miss Dawson," said the doctor, joining in the discussion.
"But what are these lines which excite Randal's ire?"

"Here they are," said Moriarty. "I will read them, if you allow me, and
then judge between Miss Dawson and me.

'What will you do, love, when I am going,
With white sail flowing,
The seas beyond?
What will you do, love, when--'"

"Stop thief!--stop thief!" cried the doctor. "Why, you are robbing the
poet of his reputation as fast as you can. You don't attend to the rhythm
of those lines--you don't give the ringing of the verse."

"That's just what I have said in other words," said Fanny. "When sung to
the melody, they are smooth."

"But a good reader, Miss Dawson," said the doctor, "will read verse with
the proper accent, just as a musician would divide it into bars; but my
friend Randal there, although he can tell a good story and hit off prose
very well, has no more notion of rhythm or poetry than new beer has of a
holiday."

"And why, pray, has not new beer a notion of a holiday?"

"Because, sir, it works of a Sunday."

"Your _beer_ may be new, doctor, but your _joke_ is not--I have
seen it before in some old form."

"Well, sir, if I found it in its old form, like a hare, and started it
fresh, it may do for folks to run after as well as anything else. But you
shan't escape your misdemeanour in mauling those verses as you have done,
by finding fault with my joke _redevivus._ You read those lines, sir,
like a bellman, without any attention to metre."

"To be sure," said Father Phil, who had been listening for some time;
"they have a ring in them--"

"Like a pig's nose," said the doctor.

"Ah, be aisy," said Father Phil. "I say they have a ring in them like an
owld Latin canticle--

'What _will_ you _do,_ love, when I am _go_-ing,
With white sail _flow_-ing,
The says be_yond?_'

That's it!"

"To be sure," said the doctor. "I vote for the Father's reading them out
on the spot."

"Pray, do, Mister Blake," said Fanny.

"Ah, Miss Dawson, what have I to do with reading love verses?"

"Take the book, sir," said Growling, "and show me you have some faith in
your own sayings, by obeying a lady directly."

"Pooh! pooh!" said the priest.

"You _won't_ refuse me?" said Fanny, in a coaxing tone.

"My dear Miss Dawson," said the _padre._

"_Father Phil!_" said Fanny, with one of her rosy smiles.

"Oh, wow! wow! wow!" ejaculated the priest, in an amusing embarrassment,
"I see you will make me do whatever you like." So Father Phil gave the
rare example of a man acting up to his own theory, and could not resist
the demand that came from a pretty mouth. He took the book and read the
lines with much feeling, but, with an observance of rhythm so grotesque,
that it must be given in his own manner.

WHAT WILL YOU DO, LOVE?

I

"What _will_ you _do_, love, when I am _go_-ing,
With white sail _flow_-ing,
The seas be-_yond?_
What _will_ you _do_, love, when waves di-_vide_ us,
And friends may chide us,
For being _fond_?"

"Though waves di-_vide_ us, and friends be _chi_-ding,
In faith a-_bi_-ding,
I'll still be true;
And I'll pray for _thee_ on the stormy _o_-cean,
In deep de-_vo_-tion,--
That's _what_ I'll do!"

II

"What _would_ you _do_, love, if distant _ti_-dings
Thy fond con-_fi_-dings
Should under-_mine_
And I a-_bi_-ding 'neath sultry _skies_,
Should think other _eyes_
Were as bright as _thine_?"

"Oh, name it _not_; though guilt and _shame_
Were on thy _name_,
I'd still be _true_;
But that heart of _thine_, should another _share_ it,
I could not _bear it_;--
What _would_ I do?"

III

"What _would_ you do, when, home re-_turn_-ing,
With hopes high _burn_-ing,
With wealth for _you_,--
If my _bark_, that _bound_-ed o'er foreign _foam_,
Should be lost near _home_,--
Ah, what _would_ you do?"

"So them wert _spar_-d, I'd bless the _mor_-row,
In want and _sor_-row,
That left me _you_;
And I'd welcome _thee_ from the wasting _bil_-low,
My heart thy _pil_-low!--
THAT'S _what_ I'd do!"

[Footnote: NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--The foregoing dialogue and
Moriarty's captious remarks were meant, when, they appeared in the first
edition, as a hit at a certain small critic--a would-be song-writer--who
does ill-natured articles for the Reviews, and expressed himself very
contemptuously of my songs because of their simplicity; or, as he was
pleased to phrase it, "I had a knack of putting common things together."
The song was written to illustrate my belief that the most common-place
expression, _appropriately applied_, may successfully serve the
purposes of the lyric; and here experience has proved me right, for this
very song of "What will you do?" (containing within it the other common-
place, "That's what I'd do") has been received with special favour by the
public, whose long-continued goodwill towards my compositions generally I
gratefully acknowledge.]

"Well done, _padre!_" said the doctor; "with good emphasis and
discretion."

"And now, my dear Miss Dawson," said Father Phil, "since I've read the
lines at your high bidding, will you sing them for me at my humble
asking?"

"Very antithetically put, indeed," said Fanny; "but you must excuse me."

"You said there was a tune to it?"

"Yes; but I promised Captain Moriarty to sing him _this_," said Fanny,
going over to the pianoforte, and laying her hand on an open music-book.

"Thanks, Miss Dawson," said Moriarty, following fast.

Now, it was not that Fanny Dawson liked the captain that she was going to
sing the song; but she thought he had been rather "_mobbed_" by the
doctor and the _padre_ about the reading of the verses, and it was
her good breeding which made her pay this little attention to the worsted
party. She poured forth her sweet voice in a simple melody to the
following words:--

SAY NOT MY HEART IS COLD

I

"Say not my heart is cold,
Because of a silent tongue!
The lute of faultless mould
In silence oft hath hung.
The fountain soonest spent
Doth babble down the steep;
But the stream that _ever_ went
Is silent, strong, and deep.

II

"The charm of a secret life
Is given to choicest things:--
Of flowers, the fragrance rife
Is wafted on viewless wings;
We see not the charmed air
Bearing some witching sound;
And ocean deep is where
The pearl of price is found.

III

"Where are the stars by day?
They burn, though all unseen!
And love of purest ray
Is like the stars, I ween:
Unmark'd is the gentle light
When the sunshine of joy appears,
But ever, in sorrow's night,
'T will glitter upon thy tears!"

"Well, Randal, does that poem satisfy your critical taste?--of the singing
there can be but one opinion."

"Yes, I think it pretty," said Moriarty; "but there is one word in the
last verse I object to."

"Which is that?" inquired Growling.

"_Ween_" said the other, "'the stars, I ween,' I object to."

"Don't you see the meaning of that?" inquired the doctor. "I think it is a
very happy allusion."

"I don't see any allusion whatever," said the critic.

"Don't you see the poet alluded to the stars in the _milky_ way, and
says, therefore, 'The stars I _wean_'?"

"Bah! bah! doctor," exclaimed the critical captain; "you are in one of
your quizzing moods to-night, and it is in vain to expect a serious answer
from you." He turned on his heel as he spoke, and went away.

"Moriarty, you know, Miss Dawson, is a man who affects a horror of puns,
and therefore I always punish him with as many as I can," said the doctor,
who was left by Moriarty's sudden pique to the enjoyment of a pleasant
chat with Fanny, and he was sorry when the hour arrived which disturbed it
by the breaking up of the party and the departure of the guests.




CHAPTER XXXIV


When the Widow Rooney was forcibly ejected from the house of Mrs. James
Casey, and found that Andy was not the possessor of that lady's charms,
she posted off to Neck-or-Nothing Hall, to hear the full and true account
of the transaction from Andy himself. On arriving at the old iron gate,
and pulling the loud bell, she was spoken to through the bars by the
savage old janitor and told to "go out o' that." Mrs. Rooney thought fate
was using her hard in decreeing she was to receive denial at every door,
and endeavoured to obtain a parley with the gate-keeper, to which he
seemed no way inclined.

"My name's Rooney, sir?"

"There's plenty bad o' the name," was the civil rejoinder.

"And my son's in Squire O'Grady's sarvice, sir."

"Oh--you're the mother of the beauty we call Handy, eh?"

"Yis, sir."

"Well, he left the sarvice yistherday."

"Is it lost the place?"

"Yis."

"Oh dear! Ah, sir, let me up to the house and spake to his honour, and
maybe he'll take back the boy."

"He doesn't want any more servants at all--for he's dead."

"Is it Squire O'Grady dead?"

"Aye--did you never hear of a dead squire before?"

"What did he die of, sir?"

"Find out," said the sulky brute, walking back into his den.

It was true--the renowned O'Grady was no more. The fever which had set in
from his "broiled bones," which he _would_ have in spite of anybody,
was found difficult of abatement; and the impossibility of keeping him
quiet, and his fits of passion, and consequent fresh supplies of "broiled
bones," rendered the malady unmanageable; and the very day after Andy had
left the house the fever took a bad turn, and in four-and-twenty hours the
stormy O'Grady was at peace.

What a sudden change fell upon the house! All the wedding paraphernalia
which had been brought down lay neglected in the rooms where it had been
the object of the preceding day's admiration. The deep, absorbing, silent
grief of the wife,--the more audible sorrow of the girls,--the subdued
wildness of the reckless boys, as they trod silently past the chamber
where they no longer might dread reproof for their noise,--all this was
less touching than the effect the event had upon the old dowager mother.
While the senses of others were stunned by the blow, hers became awakened
by the shock; all her absurd aberration passed away, and she sat in
intellectual self-possession by the side of her son's death-bed, which she
never left until he was laid in his coffin. He was the first and last of
her sons. She had now none but grandchildren to look upon--the
intermediate generation had passed away, and the gap yawned fearfully
before her. It restored her, for the time, perfectly to her senses; and
she gave the necessary directions on the melancholy occasion, and
superintended all the sad ceremonials befitting the time, with a calm and
dignified resignation which impressed all around her with wonder and
respect.

Superadded to the dismay which the death of the head of a family
produces was the terrible fear which existed that O'Grady's body
would be seized for debt--a barbarous practice, which, shame to say,
is still permitted. This fear made great precaution necessary to prevent
persons approaching the house, and accounts for the extra gruffness of the
gate porter. The wild body-guard of the wild chief was on doubly active
duty; and after four-and-twenty hours had passed over the reckless boys,
the interest they took in sharing and directing this watch and ward seemed
to outweigh all sorrowful consideration for the death of their father. As
for Gustavus, the consciousness of being now the master of Neck-or-Nothing
Hall was apparent in a boy not yet fifteen; and not only in himself, but
in the grey-headed retainers about him, this might be seen: there was a
shade more of deference--the boy was merged in "_the young master_."
But we must leave the house of mourning for the present, and follow the
Widow Rooney, who, as she tramped her way homeward, was increasing in
hideousness of visage every hour. Her nose was twice its usual dimensions,
and one eye was perfectly useless in showing her the road. At last,
however, as evening was closing, she reached her cabin, and there was
Andy, arrived before her, and telling Oonah, his cousin, all his
misadventures of the preceding day.

The history was stopped for a while by their mutual explanations and
condolences with Mrs. Rooney, on the "cruel way her poor face was used."

"And who done it all?" said Oonah.

"Who but that born divil, Matty Dwyer--and sure they towld me _you_
were married to her," said she to Andy.

"So I was," said Andy, beginning the account of his misfortunes afresh to
his mother, who from time to time would break in with indiscriminate
maledictions on Andy, as well as his forsworn damsel; and when the
account was ended, she poured out a torrent of abuse upon her unfortunate
forsaken son, which riveted him to the floor in utter amazement.

"I thought I'd get pity here, at all events," said poor Andy; "but instead
o' that it's the worst word and the hardest name in your jaw you have for
me."

"And sarve you right, you dirty cur," said his mother. "I ran off like a
fool when I heerd of your good fortune, and see the condition that baggage
left me in--my teeth knocked in and my eye knocked out, and all for your
foolery, because you couldn't keep what you got."

"Sure, mother, I tell you--"

"Howld your tongue, you _omadhaun!_ And then I go to Squire O'Grady's
to look for you, and there I hear you lost _that_ place, too."

"Faix, it's little loss," said Andy.

"That's all you know about it, you goose; you lose the place just when the
man's dead and you'd have had a shuit o' mournin'. Oh, you are the most
misfortunate divil, Andy Rooney, this day in Ireland--why did I rear you
at all?"

"Squire O'Grady dead!" said Andy, in surprise and also with regret for his
late master.

"Yis--and you've lost the mournin'--augh!"

"Oh, the poor Squire!" said Andy.

"The iligant new clothes!" grumbled Mrs. Rooney. "And then luck tumbles
into your way such as man never had; without a place, or a rap to bless
yourself with, you get a rich man's daughter for your wife, and you let
her slip through your fingers."

"How could I help it?" said Andy.

"Augh!--you bothered the job just the way you do everything," said his
mother.

"Sure I was civil-spoken to her."

"Augh!" said his mother.

"And took no liberty."

"You goose!"

"And called her Miss."

"Oh, indeed you missed it altogether."

"And said I wasn't desarvin' of her."

"That was thrue--_but you should not have towld her so_. Make a woman
think you're betther than her, and she'll like you."

"And sure, when I endayvoured to make myself agreeable to her----"

"_Endayvoured_!" repeated the old woman contemptuously. "_Endayvoured_,
indeed! Why didn't you _make_ yourself agreeable at once, you poor dirty
goose?--no, but you went sneaking about it--I know as well as if I was
looking at you--you went sneakin' and snivelin' until the girl took a
disgust to you; for there's nothing a woman despises so much as
shilly-shallying."

"Sure, you won't hear my defince," said Andy.

"Oh, indeed you're betther at defince than attack," said his mother.

"Sure, the first little civil'ty I wanted to pay to her, she took up the
three-legged stool to me."

"The divil mend you! And what civil'ty did you offer her?"

"I made a grab at her cap, and I thought she'd have brained me."

Oonah set up such a shout of laughter at Andy's notion of civility to a
girl, that the conversation was stopped for some time, and her aunt
remonstrated with her at her want of common sense; or, as she said, hadn't
she "more decency than to laugh at the poor fool's nonsense?"

"What could I do agen the three-legged stool?" said Andy.

"Where was your _own_ legs, and your own arms, and your own eyes, and
your own tongue?--eh?"

"And sure I tell you it was all ready conthrived, and James Casey was sent
for, and came."

"Yis," said the mother, "but not for a long time, you towld me yourself;
and what were you doing all that time? Sure, supposing you _wor_ only
a new acquaintance, any man worth a day's mate would have discoorsed her
over in the time and made her sinsible he was the best of husbands."

"I tell you she wouldn't let me have her ear at all," said Andy. "Nor her
cap either," said Oonah, laughing.

"And then Jim Casey kem."

"And why did you let him in?"

"It was _she_ let him in, I tell you."

"And why did you let her? He was on the wrong side of the door--that's the
_outside_; and you on the right--that's the _inside_; and it was
_your_ house, and she was _your_ wife, and you were her masther,
and you had the rights of the church, and the rights of the law, and all
the rights on your side; barrin' right rayson--that you never had; and
sure without _that_, what's the use of all the other rights in the
world?"

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