Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I. Lever Charles James
the sorrows of the others: the Irish peasant, however humble, seems to possess an intuitive tact on this subject, and to minister all the consolations in his power with a gentle delicacy that cannot be surpassed.
The silence caused by my appearing among them was unbroken for some time after I took my seat by the fire; and the only sounds were the clinking of a spoon against the glass, or, the deep-drawn sigh of some compassionate soul, as she wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye with her apron.
Darby alone manifested a little impatience at the sudden change in a party where his powers of agreeability had so lately been successful, and fidgeted on his chair, unscrewed his pipes, blew into them, screwed them on again, and then slyly nodded over to the housemaid, as he raised his glass to his lips.
“Never mind me,” said I to the old cook, who, between grief and the glare of a turf fire, had her face swelled out to twice its natural size, – “never mind me, Molly, or I ‘ll go away.”
“And why would you, darlin’? Troth, no! sure there ‘s nobody feels for you like them that was always about you. Take a cup of tay, alannah; it ‘ll do you good.”
“Yes, Master Tom,” said the butler; “you never tasted anything since Tuesday night.”
“Do, sir, av ye plaze!” said the pretty housemaid, as she stood before me, cup in hand.
“Arrah! what’s tay?” said Darby, in a contemptuous tone of voice. “A few dirty laves, with a drop of water on top of them, that has neither beatification nor invigoration. Here ‘s the fons animi!” said he, patting the whisky bottle affectionately. “Did ye ever hear of the ancients indulging in tay? D’ye think Polyphamus and Jupither took tay?”
The cook looked down abashed and ashamed.
“Tay’s good enough for women, – no offence, Mrs. Cook! – but you might boil down Paykin, and it’d never be potteen. Ex quo vis ligno non fit Mercurius, – ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’ That’s the meaning of it; ligno ‘s a sow.”
Heaven knows I was in no mirthful mood at that moment; but I burst into a fit of laughing at this, in which, from a sense of politeness, the party all joined.
“That’s it, acushla!” said the old cook, as her eyes sparkled with delight; “sure it makes my heart light to see you smilin’ again. Maybe Darby would raise a tune now, and there ‘s nothing equal to it for the spirits.”
“Yes, Mr. M’Keown,” said the housemaid; “play ‘Kiss me twice!’ Master Tom likes it.”
“Devil a doubt he does!” replied Darby, so maliciously as to make poor Kitty blush a deep scarlet; “and no shame to him! But you see my fingers is cut. Master Tom, and I can’t perform the reduplicating intonations with proper effect.”
“How did that happen. Darby?” said the butler.
“Faix, easy enough. Tim Daly and myself was hunting a cat the other evening, and she was under the dhresser, and we wor poking her with a burnt stick and a raypinghook, and she somehow always escaped us, and except about an inch of her tail, that we cut off, there was no getting at her; and at last I hated a toastin’-fork and put it in, when out she flew, teeth and claws, at me. Look, there ‘s where she stuck her thieving nails into my thumb, and took the piece clean out. The onnatural baste!”
“Arrah!” said the old cook, with a most reflective gravity, “there ‘s nothing so treacherous as a cat! “ – a moral to the story which I found met general assent among the whole company.
“Nevertheless,” observed Darby, with an air of ill-dissembled condescension, “if it isn’t umbrageous to your honor, I ‘ll intonate something in the way of an ode or a canticle.”
“One of your own. Darby,” said the butler, interrupting.
“Well, I’ve no objection,” replied Darby, with an affected modesty; “for you see, master, like Homer, I accompany myself on the pipes, though – glory be to God! – I’m not blind. The little thing I ‘ll give you is imitated from the ancients – like Tibullus or Euthropeus – in the natural key.”
Mister M’Keown, after this announcement, pushed his empty tumbler towards the butler with a significant glance gave a few preparatory grunts with the pipes, followed by a long dolorous quaver, and then a still more melancholy cadence, like the expiring bray of an asthmatic jackass; all of which sounds, seeming to be the essential preliminaries to any performance on the bagpipes, were listened to with great attention by the company. At length, having assumed an imposing attitude, he lifted up both elbows, tilted his little finger affectedly up, dilated his cheeks, and began the following to the well-known air of “Una:” —
Of all the arts and sciences,
‘T is music surely takes the sway;
It has its own appliances
To melt the heart or make it gay.
To raise us,
Or plaze us,
There ‘s nothing with it can compare;
To make us bowld,
Or hot or cowld,
Just as suits the kind of air.
There ‘s not a woman, man, or child.
That has n’t felt its powers too;
Don’t deny it! – when you smiled
Your eyes confess’d, that so did you.
The very winds that sigh or roar;
The leaves that rustle, dry and sear;
The waves that beat upon the shore, —
They all are music to your ear.
It was of use
To Orpheus, —
He charmed the fishes in the say;
So everything
Alive can sing, —
The kettle even sings for tay!
There’s not a woman, man, or child.
That hau n’t felt its power too;
Don’t deny it! – when you smiled
Your eyes confess’d, that so did you.
I have certainly since this period listened to more brilliant musical performances, but for the extent of the audience, I do not think it was possible to reap a more overwhelming harvest of applause. Indeed, the old cook kept repeating stray fragments of the words to every air that crossed her memory for the rest of the evening; and as for Kitty, I intercepted more than one soft glance intended for Mister M’Keown as a reward for his minstrelsy.
Darby, to do him justice, seemed fully sensible of his triumph, and sat back in his chair and imbibed his liquor like a man who had won his laurels, and needed no further efforts to maintain his eminent position in life.
As the wintry wind moaned dismally without, and the leafless trees shook and trembled with the cold blast, the party drew in closer to the cheerful turf fire, with that sense of selfish delight that seems to revel in the contrast of indoor comfort with the bleakness and dreariness without.
“Well, Darby,” said the butler, “you weren’t far wrong when you took my advice to stay here for the night; listen to how it ‘s blowing.”
“That ‘s hail!” said the old cook, as the big drops came pattering down the chimney, and hissed on the red embers as they fell. “It ‘s a cruel night, glory be to God!” Here the old lady blessed herself, – a ceremony which the others followed.
“For all that,” said Darby, “I ought to be up at Crocknavorrigha this blessed evening. Joe Neale was to be married to-day.”
“Joe! is it Joe?” said the butler.
“I wish her luck of him, whoever she is!” added the cook.
“Faix,