Chapter IX: Part 9

Mick Maguire is a native of these parts, and he's out and out the oddest fish among my neighbours, as I think, and as you'll think too, may be, by-and-by, when I tell you more about him.--Didn't it ever occur to you, that a man may be ruined by a bit of good luck as well as by bad?--I'm sure it must.--I had an uncle at Tralee, who was left seventy pounds by his wife's gossip; and he welcomed the gift so warmly, and caroused so heartily to the honour of the giver, that he never ceased drinking and losing his time,--though he was a dacent man, and did business as he ought before,--until the seventy pounds, and a little to the tail of it, had slipped through his fingers. But that wasn't the end of it: for he got such bad habits as he never could shake off again; so he lived a few years a sot, and died a beggar: all which wouldn't have happened but for the seventy pounds his wife's gossip gave him.--I knew a young woman, whose name I won't mention, for the sake of her family, who lost herself entirely through a love of fine clothes, which she had never cared more about, than just a little, as all women do,--and no blame to them,--before her brother, who sailed for three years in the same ship with me, brought her home a little bag of silks and things above her station, which, when she'd worn them, made her despise her plain, honest, ould duds: but them that was about her couldn't give her better; so she grew sick of home, and did that she was sore at heart for when she came to a death-bed.--Ah! then's the time, if we never did before, when we know right from wrong;--then's the time, when the brain balances things and gives true weight to all our misdeeds;--then's the time, when a man, who could never before recollect what he did that day se'nnight, remembers all the evil he has done in his days, and all the good he might have done, but wouldn't. A dying man's memory, if he has been a bad one, is one of the most perfect and terrible things in the world;--go see one yourself, and you'll own it. We may be'cute enough to hide what we do from the world all our lives, but we can't do so from ourselves when death puts out his big bony paw to give us a grim welcome to his dark dominions. We may be'cute enough to shut our own eyes to what we've done, when we're strong and able, and the world's going merrily round with us; and we may be fools enough to think that our sins are blotted out when we have forgotten them;--for I've found that men are just like the ostriches I've seen myself, in Africa, which, when they're hunted, poke their pates into a dark place, leaving their bodies entirely exposed, and fancy no one can see them if they can't see themselves:--but when we know that the last sands in our glass are running, and the dead sea is glimmering before us, we can't poke our heads into a corner,--don't you see?--or tie a stone to the neck of each of our iniquities, and drown it;--or look another way, and think of to-morrow's dinner, when they're coming to meet us;--or silence their small but very terrible voices, by whistling the burthen of an old song: for,--do you mark?--they won't be served so: they will be seen; they will speak; and, faith! it's bear them we must, whether we will or no. We may have fancied them dead and gone, years ago; but their ghosts start up and surround our death-beds, and clamour so, that we can't but listen to them: and what's most awful, they make a man his own judge; and no earthly judge is so impartial as a man is of himself, when his people are just wishing him good-b'ye for ever. For when we get on the brink of life and death, and know that it's ten to one we'll be dead by the morning, and it's just midnight already;--when we think that in a few hours our ears will be deaf, and our eyes blind, and we can't wag a finger, and our cold white corpse will be stretched out on a board,--motionless, helpless, good for nothing, and lumber more than anything else;--when we know, that, much as we thought of ourselves, the sun will rise, and the birds sing, and the flowers look beautiful, and the ox be yoked to the plough, and the chimneys smoke, and the pot be boiled, and the world go on without us, as well as if we'd never been in it;--then's the time, I say, we get our vanity cut up by the roots, and feel what atoms we've been in it:--and then's the time too, that the soul,--just before pluming her wings, and having half shaken off the dross of humanity,--becomes strong as the body gets weak, and won't be bamboozled, but calls up all our sins past, and places them stedfastly before our eyes; and if we've done wrong--that is, much of it,--a big black bird stretches out her great wings and flutters, brooding like a weight of cold lead, on our hearts; and conscience, though we've contrived to keep her down all our lives, then starts up, taking advantage of our helplessness, and reigns in fall power.--But what's all this to Mick Maguire? you'll say.--Faith! then, not much: I began with an idea of getting to him in a few words, but was led astray, by noticing the death of the young woman I mentioned as being ruined by the gift of a brother, who meant it for her good. And you'll think it odd, may be, that the likes o' me casts over things so sariously: but I do, and there's nothing plazes me more than so doing, when I'm left alone here by myself, for hours and hours together, while all that's near and dear to me is out upon the waves, the mighty roar of which, as they break upon the rocks about me, I hear night and day; and the sound o' them, and solitude, begets sarious thoughts; and so they should, in one that's gone sixty. There's never a day but I think o' death, so that I'm sure I'll be able to meet him firmly when he knocks at the gates of life for me, and bids me come. If I could go about, I'd not have such oceans of odd, out o' the way thoughts, consarning various things; but here I am, fettered by my infirmities to an ould chair, and I've nothing to do half my time, but think. Don't imagine, though, that I'm laid up in a harbour of peace, or that the other half of my time is calm and pleasant: it's no such thing; the woes and the wickedness of the world--good luck to it though, for all that--reaches me here in this corner, though it's harm me they can't much. I'm like an ould buoy, fast moored to an anchor on a bad coast, over which the waves dashes and splashes all day long, but they can neither move it nor damage it. But what's all this to Mick Maguire? you'll say, again. Faith! then, little or nothing: but now I've done, and we'll get on.

Mick, like my uncle at Tralee, has been ruined by a gift. He was once a hard-working man, and did well; until young Pierce Veogh, just after he came into possession of the house that's called “The Beg,” on the hill yonder,--which he did at his father's death,--gave Mick an ould gun once, for something I forget; and that gun has been the ruin of him. He works one day in the week to buy powder and shot; and half starves himself, and goes in rags the other six, prowling about the rocks, and firing at sea-gulls and so forth, but seldom shooting one.

Mick's an oddity, as I tould you before; and why _so?_ you'll say. Why, then, not for his face, for he's good-looking; nor for his figure, for he's straight and well built; nor for his jokes, for he never makes one; nor for any one thing in the world but his always telling the plain naked truth; good or bad, no matter if it harms him, he don't mind, but always spakes the thing that is, and won't tell even a white lie for himself, much more for any one else:--and if that's not an oddity, I don't know what is. There's so much lying going on in the world, that if a man just lives in a corner, and sees only three people in the year, he must lie now and then; or, somehow, things won't be as they should be; he won't do like them that's about him, and can't get on: why, I don't know; but so it is. Mick was never known to tell a story in his whole life; but he has sworn to so many out o' the way things, that he's often been suspected to be a big liar: for I need scarce say to you, that nothing can look more like a lie sometimes than the plain truth. But whatever Mick says, always at last and in the long run turns out to be fact: so that we don't know what to think of the story he has of the fairy he saw on the rocks long ago. It seems as much like a lie as anything ever I heard; but if it is one, it's the first Mick tould; and if so, troth then, it's a thumper. And why shouldn't it?--A good man, when he does wrong, commits a big sin; while you and I only does dozens of little ones: and them that sticks by the truth in general, if they happens to tell a lie, faith! then, it's a wonderful big one;--and, may be, so is Mick's story;--but you'll judge for yourself, when you hear it. But don't forget the honesty of Mick's tongue; and bear in mind too, that we shouldn't disbelieve anything simply because it's out of the way to us, and we never saw the likes of it ourselves; for there's so many strange things in the world, that one don't know what to disbelieve; and of all the wonderful things I ever heard of, there's none seems to me so very wonderful as this, namely:--I exist, and I know it. Now for Mick's story:--

“One day,” says he, “as I was out shooting on the black rocks, I clambered up to a place where I never was before; and I don't think man had set foot upon it till then: it was higher than you'd think, looking up from the sea, which washed the foot of it; for the great crag itself, which none of us can climb,--I mane that one where the eagle's nist is,--seemed to be below it. Well, thinks I, when I got to the top, I'll have a good pelt at the birds from this, I'm sure: but no, I couldn't; for though they were flying round and round it, divil a one would come within gun-shot, but kipt going about, and going about, until the head o' me wint round wid looking at them, and I began to feel sick, for I'd come out before breakfast, not intinding to stay long; but somehow, I wint further and further, and, at last, the sun was going down, and me there, where I tould you I was, a-top of the big crag. 'Michael,' says I to meeself, 'it's time for you to be going too, for the birds won't come near you; and you're hungry, boy,--so you are, Mick; you can't deny that.' And it's true thin I couldn't; for I never was hungrier in my life, than I was that time, and sorrow the thing in my pocket softer than a flint. Well, thin I began to go down; but before I'd got twinty steps, what do you think I saw there, upon the bare rock, where nobody seemed to have been before me, near upon half a day's journey higher than the sea,--what, I say, do you think I saw, lying before me there You wouldn't guess in a year. Why thin it was an oysther!--I started, as though a ghost had come across me:--and why wouldn't I?--for I'd no right to expect to see such a thing as an oysther there, you know, had I?--Thinks I, after awhile, 'Here's a fine mouthful for you, Mick, if it's only fresh; but, may be, it's been here these thousand years.--Eh, thin, Mick! but you're lucky, so you are, if it should be ateable.'

“Sitting down on the rock, I put out my hand to get a hould of it, whin what does it do, but lifts up its shell of its ownself!--and there was something inside it, just like an oysther, you'd think; but whin you looked closer, what was it thin, but a small dwarf of a man, wid a beard, and a little broad belly, and two short, fat, little darlings of legs, and his both hands in his breeches pockets; quite at home, and as aisy as you or I'd be in our arm chair, if we had one.

“'I'm glad to see you, Mick,' says he; 'it's long I've been expecting you.'

“Now, there's many that would have run away, and broke their necks down the rock, at hearing the crature call them by their names, and say this; but I'm one that never feared Banshee Lepreghaun, or any one of the little people, good, bad, or indifferent;--why should I?--So I pulled off my hat, and making a leg to him,--'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd known as much, I'd have come before.'

“'Thank you kindly, Mick Maguire,' says he. 'No thanks to me thin, at all at all,' thinks I, 'if you knew what I know:' for I was determined to devour him, if he was ateable. 'And it's by my own name you call me, sir,' says I, 'is it?'

“'To be sure it is,' says he; you wouldn't have me call you out of your name,--would you?'--And thin he fell laughing, as though his little face would have tumbled to pieces: and, faith! of all the faces I ever set eyes on, I never saw the likes of his for a roguish look.--'You wouldn't have me call you out of your name, would you, Mick?' says he again.

“'Why, thin, no I wouldn't, and that's truth,' says I; 'but what's your own name? I'd like to know, so I would,' says L “'I dare say you would,' says he.

“'And after that,' says I, 'I'd be glad if you'd tell me a small trifle about yourself, and how you live in your little house there, whin you shut down the roof of it; and thin--'

“'Bad manners to you Mick,' says he; 'don't be prying into a person's domestic arrangements.'--Them were his words. 'Mind your own business,' says he; 'and ax me no questions about mee-self; for, may be, I won't answer them.'

“'But, sir,' says I, thinking to get all I could out of him, before I ate him; 'sir,' says I, 'it isn't every day one sees, betuxt a pair of oysther-shells--'

“'Oh! Mick!' says he, 'there's more out o' the way things than meeself, in the sea.'

“'I shouldn't wonder, sir,' says I.

“'There is, Mick,' says he; 'take my word for it.'

“'I'm sure of it, sir,' says I; 'and yet people says there's no mermaids even: now meeself saw one once, and she'd a fish's tail, and big fins below; and above she was as like a man, as one brogue is like another. Now, sir, I'd like to know your opinion.'

“'Mick,' says he; 'was it in the bay yourself saw the mermaid?'

“'Faith! and it was,' says I.

“'Just four years ago,' says he, 'Mick?'

“'Just,' says I; 'come St. Breedien's day; for it was the very week Jimmy Gorman was drowned, so it was: his wife married Tim Carroll, tin months after his wake,--for we waked Jimmy, though he wasn't at home, and drank long life to our absent friend, in the pitcher o' pothien he left in the cupboard,--so we did:--and she has now three children, by Tim; and Maurien, the little one, is two months ould, barring a week, or thereaway; and three nines is twinty-siven, and tin is tin more,--that's thirty-siven, and three months betuxt and betune each o' the children, makes nine more, that's forty-six: thin there's Maurien, she's two months ould, as I said; so that, taking them together, there's forty-eight months, one up or one down, and that many months is four years:--so that, by the rules of multiplication and population, Jimmy's dead four years--don't you see?'

“'Arrah! don't be preaching,' says he; 'sure, meeself knew Jimmy well.'

“'Ah! and is it yourself?' says I; 'and was he on visiting terms wid ye?'

“'I knew him better than ever you did in your life, Mick,' says he.

“'Not a bit of it,' says I; 'did you ever spend your money wid him, like meeself, at the sheebeen-house?--or at the pattarn there above, with the penny-whiff woman? Did you ever once trate him to a glass o' whiskey, sir?' says I;--'not yourself, in starch.'

“'Mick,' says he, 'Jimmy and I lay in one bed for seven months.'

“'In one bed!'

“'Yes.'

“'In a bed of oysthers, may be!'

“'It was,' says he.

“'Oh! thin, well and good, sir,' says I; 'but what has Jimmy to do with the mermaid?'

“'Mick,' says he, 'the mermaid yourself saw below in the bay was him.'

“'Is it Jim?--And now I recollect--what's as true as that my daddy Jack's a corpse,--the mermaid, sure enough, had a carrotty pole, and two whiskers, and a big jacket, to say nothing of the bradien, though they wouldn't believe me,--so they wouldn't; but betuxt ourselves, sir, by this pipe in my fist, she was dacently clothed as meeself, barring the breeches. Oh! thin, divil a saw saw I of breeches about her; and her legs,--sure, and wasn't her legs a fish? and didn't meeself say so?'

“'Very well, Mick,' says he; 'I'll explain it to you:--a big blackguard of a shark, that was on a travelling tour, happened to be going that way when Jim's boat was upset, and gobbled him up just as he got into the water: but, lo and behould! whin he'd got Jim's legs down his throat, and came to his bradien and big belly, divil a swallow could the shark swallow him:--and there Jim stuck so fast, that if the shark had taken fifty emetics before-hand, he couldn't have cast him up.--With that, Jim, finding his situation unpleasant, began to kick; and the shark, with that, tickled Jim's ribs with his teeth; but he couldn't bite clane through his big coat,--and the more Jim kicked, the more the shark tickled him; and up they wint, and down they wint; and my belief is, that Jim would have bate him, but the fish got suffocated, and sunk, just as Jim was gitting a pull at the whiskey-bottle, which he carried in his side pouch; and down they wint together, so sudden, that Jim, taken up as he was with the taste of the crature, didn't know he was drowned till they were both at the bottom.'

“'Was Jimmy and the shark, the mermaid meeself saw thin?' says I.

“'They was, Mick.'

“'Thin bad luck to the pair o' them,' says I, 'for two impostors!--And how did your honour know this?'

“'Wasn't I in the shark's belly all the time?' says he.--'Didn't he gobble me up with a salmon, that tried to take refuge in the place where meeself and a few friends laid tin days before?--A lobsther lived in Jim's pocket for a month; and he and all his family used to go out three days a week to pull Jim's nose, for fishing up two of their cousins once,--so they did.--I'd thank ye for a pinch of snuff.'

“'And welcome, sir,' says I, houlding over the snisheen; 'meeself likes to hear news of my friends, sir,' says I; 'would your honour plaze to take a shaugh o' the doothien too?' And politeness, you know, made me offer him the pipe.

“'Mick,' says he; 'is it meeself, or the likes o' me, that smokes?--I never took a goll o' the peepa in all my life:--and over and above that, Mick, I'd feel mightily obliged to you, if you'd blow your smoke higher, or be just ginteel and agreeable enough to sit the other side o' me: if you don't, you're a dirty blackguard, and bad luck to you, sir,' says he; 'for I've no chimney to my house.' With that, I just knocked out the backy from the pipe, and tould him, I didn't mind meeself, and I'd put away smoking at once.

“'Mick,' says he, 'you'd nothing but ashes in your doothien; so the divil's thanks to you!'

“'Sir,' says I, not noticing what he said,' that's a mighty nate little house you have of your own; I'd like to know who built it.' “'Faith! thin I did meeself, Mick,' says he; 'but I'd like your big finger the better, if it was outside my door.'

“'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd such a nate little cabin, I'd marry Molly Malony at once. Doesn't your honour ever think of getting a wife?--or, may be, you're a widower?'

“'Mick,' says he, 'oysthers don't marry.'

“'Ye live mighty like a hermit, in your cell there,' says I.

“'Mighty like,' says he.

“'I suppose, you have your beads too, and you count them,' says I.

“'I suppose I don't,' says he; 'for I've but one.'

“'Troth, and that's a thumper thin,' says I, peeping into his little parlour: and there, sure enough, was a pearl big enough to be the making of me, and all the seed and breed of me, past, present, and to come, hanging by a bit of sea-weed round his neck.

“'Do you know what, Mick?' says he; I'm sick o' the world, Mick; and I'm half inclined to give you lave to ate me.'

“'Sir,' says I, taking off my hat, 'I'm much obliged to you for nothing at all. It's meeself manes to ate your honour, with or without lave,--so I do.'

“'Is it yourself, Mick?'

“'Faith! and it is thin,--though I say it; for I'm hungry:--and, after that, I mane to take the big pearl, I see there about your neck.'

“'Mick, you're a reprobate!--Sure, you would'nt be so un-genteel, as to ate a gentleman against his own inclination, would you?'

“'Meeself would thin, and think it no sin, in case the gentleman was a plump little oysther, like your honour.'

“'Then, Mick, I wish you good evening!'

“'Oh, joy!' says I, seeing how he was going to shut himself in; 'it's of no use, sir, to do so:--I've a knife in my pocket, and it's not burglary in this country to break into the house of an oysther.'

“'Mick,' says he; 'an oysther's house is his castle.'

“'Castle I' says I; 'is it a castle?--two shells, with a little face in the middle o' them, a castle?--Thin what's my cabin below but a palace?'

“'A pig's palace, it is, Mick,' says he.

“'Musha! bad luck thin,' says 1, 'to every bit of you--'

“'Ah! Mick,' says he, interrupting me, 'if I was half your size, I'd bate you blue, so I would.--You're a dirty cur, and so was your father before you.'

“'Say that again,' says I; 'say my father was a cur, sir, again, and I'd be obliged to you:--just say it now, and see how soon I'll break every bone in your skin.'

“'Bone!' says he; 'sorrow the bit of bone is in me at all!' says he.--'Do you know anything of anatomy, Mick?'

“'An atomy!--that's a thing smaller than a mite, isn't it?'

“'Arrah! no, man: don't you know what nerves and muscles manes?'

“'Nerves meeself knows little about; but is it muscles? Och! thin, didn't I get a bag-full below on the beach, this day se'nnight? Tell me, sir, if you plaze,--is a muscle any relation to your honour?'

“'Ah! Mick,' says he; 'would you insult me?--sure we trace our pedigree up to the days of King Fergus; and the muscles wasn't known for whole ages after: they're fishes of yesterday,--mushrooms o' the ocean:--d--n the one o'thim knows whether or no he ever had a great-grandmother!--Mick, this is a bad upstart world we live in.'

“'It is,' says I; 'people thinks o' nobody but just their ownselves; and doesn't mind what inconvaniency they puts their fellow-cratures to, so as they ar'n't harried thimselves.'

“'True,' says he, 'Mick:--did you ever rade o' the Romans?'

“'I'm a Roman meeself, sir.'

“'Phugh!' says he; 'it's of rulligion ye're spaking!--I mane the ould Romans,--Romulus and Rebus,--Brutus and Brian Bora,--that sacrificed themselves for the good of their country:--thim's the examples we ought to follow, Mick! We should help our fellow-cratures too, in necessity, if it lies in our power; and not stand, shilly-shally, thinking and turning it over whether it will be to our advantage or not.'

“'Sir,' says I, 'your honour spakes my own sintimints; and sure never could a finer time come for practising what you preach, than now.--Luck up, your honour,--luck up, and see meeself, a poor fellow-crature, in distress fora mouthful;--I'm a part o' my country, and you're an Irishman born, I'll be sworn.' “'Mick,' says he; 'that's a different sort of a thing, intirely.'

“'Not at all,' says I; 'it's a case in point.'

“'Well, Mick,' says he; 'thin I will,--I will sacrifice meeself.'

“'And no thanks to you, sir,' says I; 'you know you'd be sacrificed by me, whether you sacrificed yourself or no. Ah, ah!' “'Ha, ha!' says he; 'that's true; and it's the way o' the world, Mick.'

“'And may be, sir,' says I, 'thim Romans yourself spoke about--'

“'Blarney and humbug, Mick!--blarney and humbug!--They did just what Shawn O' Shaugnessy did, while ago,--jump overboard to show his bravery, when he knew the ship was sinking.--But don't be in a hurry, Mick,' says he, seeing me licking my lips, and getting nearer him;--'although, Mick, I have no wish to live; for an oysther's life is a sad one, Mick.'

“'Ah! sir,' says I, 'and so is Mick Maguire's.'

“'I've every wish in the world to travel into all foreign parts.' “'And so have I, sir.'

“'But a snail's better off than I am.--Can't he take a trip, with his house on his back, and look about him whin he likes?' “'That's just my own case,' says I; 'there's John Carroll, the pedlar, takes his pack on his shoulther, and travels from Clonmell to Carrick,--from Carrick to Stradbally, and all over the rest of the world, two or three times a week.'

“'Oh! musha! Mick,' says he, 'don't grumble; you're not half so bad off as I am:--it's tied by the back, I am, to the floor of my house, and I can't stir a foot.'

“'It isn't much money yourself spinds in brogues and stockings, thin,' says I.--'Ah! thim brogues ates a man out of house and home, intirely!--Does your honour know one Darby Walsh, a brogue-maker?'

“'No, I don't.'

“'Then, mark this, sir,' says I; 'if ever you shake the fist of him, you'll have a rogue in your gripe.'

“'I knew one Jack Walsh,' says he, 'at Calcutta?'

“'And was your honour ever at Calcutta?' says I.

“'I was once, Mick,' says he: 'I wint out in a porpus, who very politely gave me an inside place for nothing: but, arrah! Mick, I was obliged to work my way home.'

“'Did you know one Tiddy Maguire, in the East Indies?' says I.

“'No; but I heard talk of him.'

“'He was a brother of mine, sir; and though I've axed every body that ever come from thim parts, if they knew one Tiddy Maguire, in the East Indies, divil a ha'p'orth o' news could ever I get about him before!--Will I tell your honour a story about Tiddy?--Sure, I will thin:--Tiddy was a boy that used to be given to walking in his sleep;--he'd go miles about, and bring home people's little pigs and poultry; and be all the while innocent of theft--quite intirely,--so he said, any how. Well! to make a long story short, one night Tiddy was awoke by a great knock on the head, abroad there in Morty Flynn's backyard, with a sucker from the ould sow's side, in his hand;--how it came there, Tiddy never could give any satisfactory account. Whin he got home,--'Arrah! Tid,' says I, 'what happened you, man?--and who's been braking the face of you?' And sure enough, the blood was streaming through his hair like a brook among underwood. 'Morty Flynn,' says he, 'struck me while ago.' 'Arrah! man, and had you nothing in your hand to defind yourself wid?' says I 'Troth! and I had thin,' says he; 'but what's a sucking-pig in a man's fist to a dung-shovel?'

“'But, sir,' says I to the oysther, 'it's high time we should be better acquainted:--by your lave, sir,' says I, taking out my skean dubh, and a fine knife it was;--'by your lave, sir--'

“'Luck up, luck up, Mick!' says he.

“Meeself lucked up, as he bid me, and the curse of Cromwell on the crow that was flying over my head just thin;--the bird was bastely enough to dirt the face o' me;--down it fell, just thin as I lucked up, exactly betuxt my two eyes. I was in a terrible rage, you may guess; but hark to what a fool I was:--instid of getting my gun, and shooting the blackguard, what did meeself do, in the heat of the moment, but pick up the oysther, and away wid it at him, thinking to knock a hole in his black coat!

“'Caw!' says he, sailing off; 'caw-aw!' grinning at me.

“'Caw-aw!' says the oysther, says he to me too, from a ledge o' the rock below me, where he fell; 'caw-aw, Mick!--more sinse and bad luck to ye, Mick!'

“'Ah! sir,' says I, putting a good face on the matter, and thinking whether or no I could get at him;--'ah! sir,' says I, 'did you think I'd be bad enough to devour you?'

“'Faith! you would, Mick,' says he.

“'Wasn't I polite?'

“'Mighty; and may you break your neck going home, Mick! Your brother Tiddy was transported in the East Indies; your father wouldn't fight for his faction; your aunt had a child, that was sent to the foundling, at Dublin; your cousin Jim is a tithe-proctor:--you're a bad set, egg and bird:--your sister's husband is a swaddler; and your own father's mother-in-law's first cousin hung a priest, Mick: moreover--'

“'Hould your tongue, you villain!' says I, levelling my gun at him. 'Hould your tongue, or Til blow you to atoms!'

“'Who cares for you?' says he. 'Didn't you steal the shot your gun is loaded wid?--Answer me that.'

“'I will,' says I, pulling the trigger, and knocking his house from the ledge, plump into the sea.

“'I've done for you now, ould gentleman, I think,' says I.

“'No, you haven't, Mick,' says he, peeping out of his shell, as he was falling; 'you've done just what I wanted. A grate big bird carried me up where you found me; he couldn't open me though, and left me there where I was; and instid of having done for me, you've sint me home, Mick,' says he, 'to my own bed, you blackguard; for which I'm mighty obliged,--and bad luck to you, Mick!' says he, as he sunk in the sea:--and from that day to this, meeself never set eyes on the little man in the oysther-shells,--though it's often I drame about him, and of what he said to me above on the crag there.”

TIMBERLEG TOE-TRAP.

As I mentioned Pierce Veogh, 'while ago, when I was telling you of Mick Maguire--'twas he gave Mick the gun--himself it was then--and as I may mention him again two or three times, or may be oftener, before I've done telling you of my Neighbours, I'll just let you know a little who and what Pierce was. At three-and-twenty, he came into a fine fortune; his father died then; he'd neither chick nor child but Pierce, and a fine boy he was, but too wild from his cradle to come to much good, 'twas thought. The father was a miserly curmudgeon in many things, and wouldn't live among us much; but kept Pierce here, with a private tutor and a few people, as long as Pierce would let him: but when the boy grew big, he'd no mind to be staying at home all his days,--and no blame to him,--so he wint off; and the father came back then, and lived at The Beg,--so we call his place,--till he died.

Many's the tale they tell of ould James Veogh;--how he'd give a feast fit for a prince, once now and then, just to make the great folks in Dublin have an idea of his wealth, and what not, and then whip the cat for a year after, to make up for it. No man was prouder; and it's thought he was wrong in cooping up Pierce at home all his young days;--but that's no matter for my meddling. And it's said, his heart grudged the expense of maintaining Pierce abroad in the world, like the rest of the young sirs; and his pride wouldn't let his only son and heir be looked down upon: so to save both money and pride at once, Pierce was a caged bird until he grew up;--then he flew off, and a wild flight he had too.

It's said by his servants, that the father--and this is one of the million stories we have about him--once entertained the great lords and ladies at his house, in Dublin, with a fine masquerade, which cost him a mint of money,--no doubt it did;--and there was himself, in the disguise of the goddess they call Ceres, whose name you have heard before--though I hadn't when they first tould me the joke;--and while his guests were drinking down wine worth its weight in gold,--and it was all galore and glory with them,--Jimmy was seen skulking about, gathering up the scraps, out o' the way o' the strange servants, in a thing he carried, they call something that manes in English, a horn of plenty. That wasn't a bad joke of him, it's said, by them that knows. But there's no doubt, though he'd stoop to pick up a farthing, while Pierce would sooner be skimming guineas over a pond, ould Jim Veogh did more real good than Pierce did at first; for he payed all he owed,--though not a penny more, while Pierce often wouldn't--no, not when he could; and he didn't harry the poor tenants for rent,--which couldn't be said of Pierce,--but gave them time, though he made them pay up at last. And the ould man never did harm to any one in the way of pranks,--not when he was a boy even; and there's more than me recollects his sending Luke Sweeny a cow, when the one he had died.---To be sure, the cow he sent wasn't worth much; but he gave Luke a long day to pay for her, and took lawful interest only on the price,--which was three pounds ten shillings,--until it was paid. And paid it was, to the day: for Luke was as honest a man as ever broke bread, and wouldn't harm a mouse, unless he caught the crature nibbling his loaf,--and then, what harm?--My blessing on Luke!--it's many's the piggin of milk we got from him, in the bad times, when he'd a right to hould his head higher than he can now,--worse luck!--I could tell you a story of Luke, too; but as you're longing, I dare say, to know about Timberleg, I won't baulk you, by giving you dry bread when you're longing for sweetmeats. Luke's isn't a bad story though, for all that; and I'll tell it you, by-and-by, when I've none better left.

Pierce, as I said, wint off, nobody knows where but himself; and being a wild bird, came into bad hands, and got plucked; so that, when the father died--and there's some people don't scruple to say, Pierce, by his conduct, lent him a spur on the road to the grave--when he died, I repate, all the ready money was ate up by paying off post-obits, which Pierce had been giving at the maddest rate ever was known. The day before he heard that his ould dad was just dying, Pierce was in much distress, and so foolish to boot, that he gave some blackguard a bond for five hundred pounds, payable a month after his father's death, for nothing in the world but a good dinner and oceans of wine, for himself and a friend, every day for a week. That's what they call giving a post-obit; and a bad thing it is, as Pierce found.--He just reached home in time to get the father's forgiveness; and when it came to the last, a fine sorrowful parting they made, it's said, as one could wish to see;--for both o' them seemed sorry for the course they'd taken in life, and came to a resolution, if they'd their time to go over again, they'd not act as they had acted: but that could do no good. The father died the same evening; and, by that day month, Pierce was pestered to pay up his post-obits.

There wasn't so much money in hand left by Mr. James Veogh, as Pierce expected; and many of the poor tenants suffered; for he pinched them close, and did what he could to get clear o' the world. But all wouldn't do; and at last the bailiffs were after him night and day. It's said, that then it was Pierce Veogh learned to sleep with his eyes open;--a thing he does to this day, though there's no call for it.

The man that Pierce most feared in the world was one Nick Forester,--a bailiff, who lived in the nearest town to The Beg, on any side. Nick was a fine tall fellow,--six feet, if not more; and few could match him. He'd a nickname, like most of us, and was called “Timberleg;” why, I need not tell you:--but supposing you don't guess--it was, because his left leg was a wooden one. The other, as most wooden-legged men's are, was as stout a bit of material as you'll see anywhere, and Nick was proud of it,--as well he might. Though he'd scarce a word to throw to a dog, he was as 'cute as a fox, as well as being strong as a lion; and it was few escaped him. Spaking of animals, Nick had a dog, that always wint with him, and Nick called him Benjie. Benjie was black as coal; but you wouldn't notice him, for he was neither ugly enough to make any one fall into fits at the sight of him, nor good-looking enough for you to admire him:--he wasn't big or little, good-tempered or cross but middling every way. Benjie, though, was of great use to his master: and we accounted a man to be clever if he could outwit Nick and his dog. But outwitted they certainly were, now and then, though: and before I go further, I'll tell you how Nick was served by a surgeon by the name of Anderson, that set up in the next street to Nick's;--and it's many's the time Nick nabbed him, though you wouldn't think it, to see how great a man Surgeon Anderson is at this time. You must know that Nick had a wife, and a fine family, too; and one night a son of his--I think it was Jack, that's now married to Thady Purcell's widow--got taken ill with something sudden and dangerous: so Nick buckled on his leg and threw something over him, and wint and knocked at Surgeon Anderson's door. This was in the middle of the night: so when the surgeon put his head out of window and heard who it was, he wouldn't come down, thinking it was a make-believe of Nick's to nab him again. Nick couldn't blame him; for it's true Nick had often played tricks to get a sight o' the surgeon, when he wanted to take him; for he was almost a match for Nick himself, and not aisily had. So Nick stumped off to another surgeon, but he was out to a man five miles away; and to a third, but he was sick himself; and no one in the wide world could Nick get in the 'town, to come and see his son, that was a'most dying at home. Back he wint to Surgeon Anderson's again,--so he did;--and after he'd bate the door with his leg a little, the surgeon popped out his head, and says he, “Who's that below there?”

“It's me,” says Nick, mighty civil; “it's me, sir, again.”

“Oho!--And what story have you now, Nick?”

“The same I had 'while ago, sir my son's sick--”

“Divil's cure to him, Nick!--for he's not bad at all, and it's only a trick of yours to delude me.”

“Upon my honour and conscience, sir, it isn't,” says Nick; “I couldn't get a doctor any where, for I've tried, or I wouldn't trouble you. It's my belief, Jack will die if you don't come at once.”

“Go away,” says Surgeon Anderson; “go away, Nick; get out of that entirely!--Wasn't I sent for last winter, to a gentleman at the Roebuck, who had broken his leg?--and wasn't it yourself there, and the dirty bit of stick you stand upon tied up with a piece of rope?--and didn't you capture me that time, you blackguard?”

“I did, I did: I'm sorry for that; but pray--”

“And didn't you get a boy to bring me out o' my bed once, to a woman he said was at death's door?--and didn't I go, Nick?”

“You did, you did.”

“Ah! you facetious rogue! I know you're laughing at me now if I could see you:--and who should I meet, at the corner of the street, but your own sweet self, waiting for me?--And didn't you show me a woman lying asleep and drunk at the door of little Paddy Death, that keeps the whiskey shop, in Patrick street?--and, says you, with a grin, 'There's the woman at Death's door I'--didn't you, Nick?”

“I know I did; but as I'm a living soul, sir--”

“Go away, Nick go home and read the story of the boy and the wolf; and if harm happens your son, as it did him, it's your own doings, Nick! so good night! for I'm not to be had,--don't you see?”

With that he shut the window, and wouldn't come; but, as luck would have it, when Timberleg got home, Jack was better, and didn't want physic till morning. It's often Nick threatened Surgeon Anderson, but he never had the luck to get him again; for when the surgeon heard that Nick's story was true, and was told of his threats, some say he strove hand and foot to keep out of Nick's clutches for fear, and so got on in the world dating his rise from the night Jack Forester wanted physic, and he wouldn't get up to give it him.

But we mustn't forget Pierce Veogh,--though 'tisn't he is my hero exactly, but Timberleg still I can't go on without him, no more than the man in the book could play on the organ but for the boy that blowed the bellows. Well, Pierce, as I tould you, had the bailiffs about for him and as Timberleg seemed to have taken up his abode by The Beg,--which was Pierce's place, you'll recollect,--why, Pierce thought he couldn't do better than sneak off, if he could, to the town Nick came from, and stay there for a day or two: for Pierce was trying his utmost to raise money, and hoped to receive letters, post after post, to tell him things were settled; and a day's delay was worth everything to him;--to say nothing of the horror he felt, in common with most of us, to being shut up between four walls.--Not that a prison, when you're used to it, is the worst place in the world perhaps; for I know a man that hated the name of it, and after he got into one at last, he liked it so well, that when he could, he wouldn't come out of it, but turned turnkey, and kept his post behind the gate, with the key in his hand, doing nothing but opening and shutting the door, and never stirring out of the place, which had grown a world to him, till death came one day, and removed him to closer confinement within six boards, nailed together,--and that manes a coffin.--Now, a coffin's a thing, allow me to remark, that we all hate the sight of; and yet there's not one in ten thousand of us but hopes to come to it at last;--for who'd like to be buried any way but in a box?--And that's a feeling that's laughable to one who looks two inches below the surface of things; for what is it, but a fear of letting the cold clay come to us for a few years?--And come it will, you know, at last, whether a man's buried in a large 'sheet of paper, a big hollow stone, or a lead coffin. And what matters time to the dead?--Or where's the difference, let me ask, between two minutes and twenty thousand years, to them that's under the turf?--Do what we will, the blackguard worms ates us all up at last; and they that takes pains to preserve their bodies, don't do well, as I think: for, while all that remains of me, after being buried in a dacent and ordinary way, some time hence, becomes a part of the big earth, and can't be distinguished from what it's mixed up with,--the visible and touchable nose of a pickled emperor, a thousand years after he's dead, gets pulled by some puppy that opens his grave, and don't happen to approve of what he did when alive: or, what's worse, the bones of the arm that awed multitudes, gets cut into drunken men's dominos; or the boys and girls of a tenth generation plays with them for sugar-plums, in the shape of two a-penny tetotums, and so forth. Therefore, let me, when I die, have no armour about me; let the worms come, and good luck to them, say I;--the sooner they walk away with every inch of me, the better.

But we'll never get through at this rate; and such grave discourse as I've led myself into, turns the edge of one's appetite for fun,--doesn't it?--But, _na bocklish_,--forget what I've said, and listen to what Pierce Veogh did. Like the goose that took refuge near the fox's den, when the fox himself was watching for her near her nest, Pierce got away one night, and wint off to the town: there he remained in great safety for some days, as Timberleg didn't know he'd escaped, and so wouldn't raise the legal siege of The Beg House,--why should he?

No letters came; and, at last, Pierce determined to get away altogether, and cut the country for a time, if he could: so one morning, at day-break, he left the little lodgings he had hired for the sake of being private, and was walking off, the nearest way out of town, when just as he came within five feet of a corner, what should he see but Nick Forester's dog,--the dog I described to you, that was always a few feet before, or oftener a yard or so behind, Nick himself.--“Oho!” says Pierce, turning back and taking to his heels; for well enough he knew the dog it's himself that did then;--for often he saw him, bating round The Beg, and Nick not far behind him. “Oho!” says he; and “Bowwow!” says the dog; and “My grief!” says Timberleg, who just then came round the corner, and saw the young legs of Pierce carrying him off five miles an hour faster than Nick could run. Nick wasn't fool enough to go after Pierce;--no, no,--not he, then! He turned on his heel, and walked back the way he came,--giving the game up for lost, out-and-out; and he struck his dog Benjie two or three times, with his leg, for not keeping to his heel.

Now what did Pierce do, think you?--Why, he ran as if he'd everything fearful behind him, and fancied he heard the stump of Nick's wooden leg keeping time with the gallop of his own pulse. Running seemed to be safety to him, no matter which way he ran; for “if Timberleg and Benjie's behind me, it matters not what's before me, so that the way's clear,” thinks he;--or rather, he didn't think at all, but wint on, and you'll hear how it ended.

By-and-by, Pierce came to a corner again, with one leg before and the other behind him, as if he'd little Powsett's seven-leagued boots on; or, to spake within compass, the foot that was forward the whole length of his leg more advanced than his body. Now here's the point of my story:--Nick Forester was much nearer Pierce than Pierce expected; to spake out at once, he was close to the corner, only the other side of it; and, as one may say, in a right direction to cross his course. Well, just as Pierce had put his foot that was forward to the ground, about four inches beyond the corner, Nick Forester, quite unconscious of his good luck, was, at that instant, going to put his timber-toe on the flags in a transverse direction. Down it came, pat upon Pierce's foot; the whole weight of Nick's body followed directly after; and the next moment, Pierce found himself within an inch and a half of Nick's nose, staring his enemy full in the face, who looked quite as wonder-struck, but not half so grievous, as himself; for the end of Nick's leg covered a couple of Pierce's worst corns.

This wasn't the first time in the world a man ran into the lion's mouth. Nick put out his paw upon Pierce, and from that day, people called him “Timberleg Toe-Trap.”

Pierce lay in Nick's custody for above a month; he then got out by scraping together all he could, and flew off to England for safety: but it was just out of the frying-pan into the fire with him; for,--though a man's good deeds have wings of lead, or just none at all, and travel like the tortoise,--such things as make against him, go at the rate of twelve knots an hour, to every point of the compass at once; or, at least, to all the points he wouldn't have them go, if he could help it; and, by this rule, the news of Pierce's being taken for debt by Timberleg, got to England, before he reached it himself; and he wasn't well landed and recovered from his sea-sickness, when one of his creditors had a bailiff to give him a grip by the shoulder. As soon as a man gets clawed, long bills generally come pouring in upon him from all quarters:--it was just this way with Pierce; and his prospects in perspective were almost as unpleasant as his enemies could wish. We'll leave him now though, if you please; and I'll tell you what more happened him by-and-by, and how it all ended; if you don't fall asleep, and by your snoring, give me a hint that it isn't quite so entertaining you find me, as may be I think you ought. But, we'll see.

BAT BOROO.

IF you're passing at early morning, above there, beyond The Claugh, you may see Bat, with his back leaning against Mick Maguire's door,--'tis there where he lodges,--smoking his pipe, and looking out under his eye-brows at you, as fierce as a grenadier at a Frenchman. There's nothing warlike about Bat but braggadocio, and a cut across his chin,--barring that he's wasted and worn, you'd think; for his broad shoulders seem to have been better covered with flesh one day than they now are. When he condescends to spake to any of us, Bat talks of the wars, as though he'd been in them; and says he has wounds besides that one on his chin, but they're under his clothes; and then he gives a bit of a cough, and says he's asthmatic, and might catch harm if he stripped himself to shew them. So that nobody has seen Bat's wounds but himself; but no doubt he has many of them: though, to be sure, that on his chin looks as though it was done by the blunt razor of a barber, rather than a grenadier's baggonet, or a dragoon's sabre. However, all's one for that.