Part 16 (1/2)
”Faith, sure enough, Larry. There's no lie in that, any way!”
”Awouh! Lie! I have you about it.”
Such was the view which had been taken of their respective characters through life. Yet, notwithstanding that the hearts of their acquaintances never warmed to her--to use a significant expression current among the peasantry--as they did to Peter, still she was respected almost involuntarily for the indefatigable perseverance with which she pushed forward her own interests through life. Her funeral was accordingly a large one; and the conversation which took place at it, turning, as it necessarily did, upon her extraordinary talents and industry, was highly to the credit of her memory and virtues. Indeed, the attendance of many respectable persons of all creeds and opinions, gave ample proof that the qualities she possessed had secured for her general respect and admiration.
Poor Peter, who was an object of great compa.s.sion, felt himself completely crushed by the death of his faithful partner. The reader knows that he had hitherto been a sober, and, owing to Ellish's prudent control, an industrious man. To thought or reflection he was not, however, accustomed; he had, besides, never received any education; if his morals were correct, it was because a life of active employment had kept him engaged in pursuits which repressed immorality, and separated him from those whose society and influence might have been prejudicial to him. He had scarcely known calamity, and when it occurred he was prepared for it neither by experience nor a correct view of moral duty.
On the morning of his wife's funeral, such was his utter prostration both of mind and body, that even his own sons, in order to resist the singular state of collapse into which he had sunk, urged him to take some spirits. He was completely pa.s.sive in their hands, and complied.
This had the desired effect, and he found himself able to attend the funeral. When the friends of Ellish a.s.sembled, after the interment, as is usual, to drink and talk together, Peter, who could scarcely join in the conversation, swallowed gla.s.s after gla.s.s of punch with great rapidity. In the mean time, the talk became louder and more animated; the punch, of course, began to work, and as they sat long, it was curious to observe the singular blending of mirth and sorrow, singing and weeping, laughter and tears, which characterized this remarkable scene. Peter, after about two hours' hard drinking, was not an exception to the influence of this trait of national manners. His heart having been deeply agitated, was the more easily brought under the effects of contending emotions. He was naturally mirthful, and when intoxication had stimulated the current of his wonted humor, the influence of this and his recent sorrow produced such an anomalous commixture of fun and grief as could seldom, out of Ireland, be found checkering the mind of one individual.
It was in the midst of this extraordinary din that his voice was heard commanding silence in its loudest and best-humored key:
”Hould yer tongues,” said he; ”bad win to yees, don't you hear me wantin' to sing! Whist wid yees. Hem--och--'Eise up'--Why, thin, Phil Callaghan, you might thrate me wid more dacency, if you had gumption in you; I'm sure no one has a betther right to sing first in this company nor myself; an' what's more, I will sing first. Hould your tongues!
Hem!”
He accordingly commenced a popular song, the air of which, though simple, was touchingly mournful.
”Och, rise up, w.i.l.l.y Reilly, an' come wid me, I'm goin' for to go wid you, and lave this counteree; I'm goin' to lave my father, his castles and freelands-- An' away what w.i.l.l.y Reilly, an' his own Colleen Bawn.
”Och, they wint o'er hills an' mountains, and valleys that was fair, An' fled before her father as you may shortly hear; Her father followed afther wid a well-chosen armed band, Och, an' taken was poor Reilly, an' his own Colleen Bawn.”
The simple pathos of the tune, the affection implied by the words, and probably the misfortune of w.i.l.l.y Reilly, all overcame him, He finished the second verse with difficulty, and on attempting to commence a third he burst into tears.
”Colleen bawn! (fair, or fair-haired girl)--Colleen bawn!” he exclaimed; ”she's lyin' low that was my colleen bawn! Oh, will ye hould your tongues, an' let me think of what has happened me? She's gone: Mary, avourneen, isn't she gone from us? I'm alone, an' I'll be always lonely.
Who have I now to comfort me? I know I have good childhre, neighbors; but none o' them, all of them, if they wor ten times as many, isn't aqual to her that's in the grave. Her hands won't be about me--there was tindherness in their very touch. An', of a Sunday mornin', how she'd tie an my handkerchy, for I never could rightly tie it an myself, the knot was ever an' always too many for me; but, och, och, she'd tie it an so snug an' purty wid her own hands, that I didn't look the same man! The same song was her favorite, Here's your healths; an' sure it's the first time ever we wor together that she wasn't wid us: but now, avillish, your voice is gone--you're silent and lonely in the grave; an' why shouldn't I be sarry for the wife o' my heart that never angered me?
Why shouldn't I? Ay, Mary, asth.o.r.e, machree, good right you have to cry afther her; she was the kind mother to you; her heart was fixed in you; there's her fatures on your face; her very eyes, an' fair hair, too, an'
I'll love you, achora, ten times more nor ever, for her sake. Another favorite song of hers, G.o.d rest her, was 'Brian O'Lynn.' Troth an' I'll sing it, so I will, for if she was livin' she'd like it.
'Och, Brian O'Lynn, he had milk an' male, A two-lugged porringer wanfcin' a tail.'
Oh, my head's through other! The sarra one o' me I bleeve, but's out o'
the words, or, as they say, there's a hole in the ballad. Send round the punch will ye? By the hole o' my coat, Parra Gastha, I'll whale you wid-in an inch of your life, if you don't Shrink. Send round the punch, Dan; an' give us a song, Parra Gastha. Arrah, Paddy, do you remimber--ha, ha, ha--upon my credit, I'll never forget it, the fun we had catchin' Father Soolaghan's horse, the day he gave his s.h.i.+rt to the sick man in the ditch. The Lord rest his sowl in glory--ha, ha, ha--I'll never forget it. Paddy, the song, you thief?”
”No, but tell them about that, Misther Connell.”
”Throth, an' I will; but don't be Mitherin me. Faith, this is The height o' good punch. You see--ha, ha, ha! You see, it was one hard summer afore I was married to Ellish--mavourneen, that you wor, asth.o.r.e! Och, och, are we parted at last? Upon my sowl, my heart's breakin'--breakin', (weeps) an' no wondher! But as I was sayin'--all your healths! faith, it is tip-top punch that--the poor man fell sick of a faver, an' sure enough, when it was known what ailed him, the neighbors built a little shed on the roadside for him, in regard that every one was afeard to let him into their place. Howsomever--ha, ha, ha--Father Soolaghan was one day ridin' past upon his horse, an' seein' the crathur lyin' undher the shed, on a whisp o' straw, he pulls bridle, an' puts the spake on the poor sthranger. So, begad, it came out, that the neighbors were very kind to him, an' used to hand over whatsomever they thought best for him from the back o' the ditch, as well as they could.
”'My poor fellow,' said the priest, 'you're badly off for linen.'
”'Thrue for you, sir,' said the sick man, 'I never longed for anything so much in my life, as I do for a clane s.h.i.+rt an' a gla.s.s o' whiskey.'
”'The devil a gla.s.s o' whiskey I have about me, but you shall have the clane s.h.i.+rt, you poor compa.s.sionate crathur,' said the priest, stretchin' his neck up an' down to make sure there was no one comin' on the road--ha, ha, ha!
”Well an' good--'I have three s.h.i.+rts,' says his Reverence, 'but I have only one o' them an me, an' that you shall have.'
”So the priest peels himself on the spot, an' lays his black coat and waistcoat afore him acra.s.s the saddle, thin takin' off his s.h.i.+rt, he threw it acra.s.s the ditch to the sick man. Whether it was the white s.h.i.+rt, or the black coat danglin' about the horse's neck, the divil a one o' myself can say, but any way, the baste tuck fright, an' made off wid Father Soolaghan, in the state I'm tellin' yez, upon his back--ha, ha, ha!
”Parra Gastha, here, an' I war goin' up at the time to do a little in the distillin' way for Tom Duggan of Aidinasamlagh, an' seen what was goin' an. So off we set, an we splittin' our sides laughin'--ha, ha, ha--at the figure the priest cut. However, we could do no good, an'
he never could pull up the horse, till he came full flight to his own house, opposite the pound there below, and the whole town in convulsions when they seen him. We gother up his clothes, an' brought them home to him, an' a good piece o' fun-we had wid him, for he loved the joke as well as any man. Well, he was the good an' charitable man, the same Father Soolaghan; but so simple that he got himself into fifty sc.r.a.pes, G.o.d rest him! Och, och, she's lyin' low that often laughed at that, an'