Part 6

The hates, the fears, and the respects of Agent Macgrabb and Constable Gallagher extended to precisely the same two individuals in Ballyblank. They both hated the medical student, Harry McCarthy, before alluded to, and they both feared and consequently respected Pat McCarthy, tenant farmer, and father of that unutterable scapegrace. Both, too, hated Harry for the same reason. He was irreclaimably, obtusely, blindly, madly irreverent of the mighty forces that prevail in Ireland. He never doffed his hat to the agent, majestic representative of property and propriety; he smiled at the constable, personification of British justice and empire, and had actually laughed at the constabulary joint-stock enterprise in goose fattening. Then, he was popular, and your little village tyrant hates no one more bitterly than the man who is loved by the oppressed. Finally, his popularity was due in a great measure to his powers of mimicry, and the fact that Macgrabb and Gallagher were ever the twin objects of his talent in that direction. At weddings and patterns, wakes and fairs, he had made people roar again and again with his reproductions of the peeler’s parade stride and the magistrate’s judicial frown. It would be hard to say which had the greatest abhorrence to free-and-easy Harry. The agent would have gloried in burying him under a pyramid of ejectment writs; the constable would have sacrificed a stripe for the privilege of emptying a company’s charge of buckshot into his obnoxious figure. The disappointment at finding no opportunity to either annoy or hurt him turned Macgrabb blue and Gallagher yellow whenever they encountered Harry’s joyous countenance.

As mentioned, the worthy couple both respected and feared Harry’s father. The policeman respected him because he was the one man in the parish (outside his reckless son) who did not give a traneen for either the agent Macgrabb or the agent’s master, Lord Clonboy. He feared the sturdy farmer, too, from some indefinable sensation that he could not account for. The reasons of the agent’s fear and respect were of a two-fold character. In the first place, Pat McCarthy held a lease; and in the second, he had a daughter. When at the close of a gale Macgrabb could put a ten per cent. screw on the tenants for Lord Clonboy’s Parisian dissipation, and a five per cent. twist for his own less expensive frolics in Dublin, McCarthy could not only pay him a rent, guarded by his lease, one-half what all the surrounding tenants had to contribute, but he could and did express his opinion of the rack-renting proclivities of the rural Nero in language whose emphasis was more marked than its elegance. It had been the life-long dream of the agent to break that lease, and twice had he approached within measurable distance of doing so. Once, when the expenses of Harry’s collegiate education had left the old man short of money, and he had begged for a few weeks’ grace. Again, just a year before, when the universal failure of the crops should in all human probability have left McCarthy nearly bankrupt. But, somehow, the farmer weathered his difficulties, and escaped the penal clause of the lease, which rendered the whole document void if one gale fell in arrears.

I have mentioned a second reason why Macgrabb respected McCarthy. This reason, Miss Ellen McCarthy, was a fair and remarkably excusable one. Why a shrivelled atomy like the agent should feel drawn to a buxom, frolicsome, blue-eyed Irish girl, whose generous sympathies were the opposite of his sordid nature, whose merry laugh was the antithesis of his diabolical grin, who cordially loathed and despised every bone in his body and every constituent element of his soul, I know not; but the fact remained that Macgrabb doated upon McCarthy’s daughter with a devotion so utterly antagonistic to his ordinary selfishness that he couldn’t quite understand it himself.

It led him to a proposal of marriage, whose consequences were singularly disagreeable both to his magisterial dignity and his physical susceptibilities. Miss McCarthy laughed at and ran away from him, and Harry McCarthy, to whom she related the joke, came into the parlor, and with a vehemence that reflected credit upon his sincerity, and a knowledge of sore spots that spoke well for his diligence at surgical studies, kicked the J. P. out of the door, down the steps, across a grass plot, and out into the high road.

It was the day after this occurrence that Macgrabb presented the goose of destiny to Gallagher. A week subsequently the magistrate and the peeler were closeted in the former’s private office.

“Here is the search-warrant, Tom,” observed Macgrabb, laying his hand familiarly on the constable’s arm. “I trust to you to see that no paper escapes you. If I get that last rent receipt into my hands I’ll squelch McCarthy as if a mountain had fallen on him.”

“It’s a risk,” said the policeman, hesitatingly.

“What risk? Information has been sworn that McCarthy’s son has been engaged in treasonable conspiracy, and that arms and illegal documents are in the father’s house. On that information I issue a warrant, and you execute it. It’s your duty to seize all documents--you’re not supposed to have time to read every letter you come across. If you don’t nab that rent receipt--you’ll know it--it’s on blue, thick paper--what harm’s done? Thank God! there’s law in the country, and police authorities can search these blackguards’ dens for fun, if for nothing else, as often as they like. If you do nip the receipt, there’s £50 down for you, and the chance, Tom--think of that, my boy--the chance of having the pleasure of assisting in turning the whole McCarthy brood out, and paying them off for many an old score. Why, at the school party last night Harry gave what he called a character sketch. What do you think it was? A representation of an Irish constable, and voice, legs, gesture, were all in imitation of you. The parish priest laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and all the boys and girls yelled with delight. Have you any spirit, man alive, to put up with such insults?”

“Give me the warrant,” growled Gallagher. “I suppose the National papers and the priest, too, for that matter, would call it stealing to take a rent receipt when we’re only looking for Fenian proclamations or copies of the _Irish World_, but I’ll chance to get even with that jackeen, even if I lose my stripes.”

On the night of Dec. 6, just as the McCarthys were retiring to rest, a loud knocking outside disarranged their programme of repose. Before the summons could be responded to, the door was rudely burst open, and Constable Gallagher, followed by half a dozen armed men, rushed in.

“Blow the brains out of any one that budges a foot or stirs a hand!” he yelled. “Mr. McCarthy, in the name of the Queen and by varchue of my oath--I mane this sarch-warrant--I demand any arms, ammunition, traysonable papers, or documents of any kind delivered up to me.”

McCarthy was surprised, his wife somewhat frightened, but Harry, true to his character, tossed a bundle of medical works on the table and cried, “Arrah! Sergeant dear, just give us your candid opinion of some of these anatomical sketches. What a beautiful skeleton you would make, yourself! Really, I would feel a pleasure in dissecting you. You have such a lot of bones about you that seem out of place.”

The constable paid no heed to this badinage, but with a sign to his followers proceeded to ransack the house. Every paper, envelope, or scrap of writing was seized, despite the indignant protests of McCarthy, and the merciless jeering of the young student.

On leaving, Gallagher grunted, “We will examine these in the barracks. If there’s nothing traysonable in them, you’ll get them back. If there is, why, law’s law, and you had better look out.”

That night, in the privacy of his own particular room, the constable sat down to a perusal of the McCarthy documents. But the excitement of the search, and sundry non-official stimulants to duty that he had indulged in, had made him heavy and sleepy. Leaving the papers spread on the table, he stretched his angular limbs on a bench, and was soon snoring in cadenzas which sounded like intermittent file-firing. He was awakened by a noise at the window. It was daylight. The window was open, and perched upon the sill with a long slip of blue paper in its beak, was the constable’s attenuated goose. A glance at the table showed that the omnivorous cackler had been tasting the flavor of the various papers strewn thereon. Gallagher rushed forward to seize the predatory monster, but with a peculiar chuckle of derision it flew from the window and disappeared from view.

III.

A BATCH OF CORRESPONDENCE.

About noon the constable received the following note:--

_Sir_,--Among the papers you so unwarrantably seized in your grossly illegal search at my house last night was a receipt for £24, being the amount of a half-year’s rent paid Sept. 15 to George Macgrabb. If it be not immediately returned, I shall at once take legal proceedings for its recovery, and if possible for your punishment. Yours, etc., PATRICK MCCARTHY.

The constable sat down and wrote two notes. The first ran:--

MR. MCCARTHY:

_Sir_,--I know nothing about any rent receipt. If you’ll come to the barracks you will get all your papers back, except a few suspicious documents I have felt it my duty to forward to Dublin Castle.

Yours, THOMAS GALLAGHER, _Constable, R. I. C._

The second note was less short, but more mysterious:--

MR. MACGRABB:

_Respected Sir_,--That infernal goose has got it. I saw it flying out of my window with one end of it in its mouth this morning. Anything that goose takes a fancy to swallow is done for. It has one of my old boots and a copy of the Constabulary Manual in its stomach already, so you needn’t be afraid that it won’t digest a piece of blue paper. I enclose you Pat McCarthy’s note. I’ll kill the goose, if you like to make sure. Your obedient and respectful

THOMAS GALLAGHER.

The letter-box at Ballyblank that night contained these two missives from Macgrabb:--

THE LODGE, Dec. 7, 1880.

_My dear Mr. McCarthy_,--I find on looking over the office books that you are behind with your last half-year’s rent, due Sept. 15. His lordship, as you are aware, is not at all pleased with his father’s action in granting you the lease under which you now hold, and will certainly submit to no infringement of its clauses. I would request, therefore, immediate payment of the amount due. Of course you know the consequences of delay.

Faithfully yours,

GEORGE MACGRABB.

_Dear Constable_,--Let the goose live. By Jingo, I’ve a mind to drop over on Christmas day and test its stuffing.

GEORGE.

IV.

THE CONSTABLE’S CHRISTMAS COLLATION.

To the surprise of the agent, Pat McCarthy returned no answer to his note, and to the surprise of the policeman the last addition to its literary feasts appeared to have temporarily disgusted the aquatic bird, for it vanished from the precincts of the barracks, and was seen no more for a fortnight. For a time this mysterious disappearance somewhat annoyed, even if it did not alarm, the dual conspirators, for there was a bare possibility that some hungry laborer on the estate might have killed the bird and tried to eat it, possibly discovering the lost receipt among the other curiosities absorbed into its digestive interior. But when a week passed, and nothing was heard of either the missing dinner which the Ballyblank constabulary had anticipated blunting their teeth on at Christmas, or of the cerulean document obtained by stratagem and lost by accident, the worthy pair began to breathe more freely. Some tramp or wayfarer, no doubt, had deprived the barracks of its treasure.

On Dec. 16, notice was served on Patrick McCarthy that at the fortnightly sessions to be held at Ballyblank on the first Tuesday after Christmas, it was the intention of George Macgrabb, Esq., J. P., agent to Lord Clonboy, D. L., J. P., etc., to apply for a decree of ejectment against the said Patrick McCarthy for arrears of rent and costs, and the said Patrick McCarthy was required to attend and show cause, if any, why such decree should not be granted. Still no response from the obnoxious tenant.

On Christmas morning the agent drove over to the barracks.

“Constable,” said he, “I expect I shall require your assistance in a day or two. I’ll get the ejectment to-morrow. I haven’t heard a word from McCarthy. I suppose he means to claim the rent, and say the receipt was stolen during your search. It will be useless. Those copies of the _Irish World_ found in his desk have turned every magistrate on the bench against him. They won’t believe him on a million oaths. We landlords stick to each other. I’ll get the decree, and by G--d, I’ll put it in execution in twenty-four hours unless Miss Nelly says she’ll be Mrs. MacG. and Master Harry clears out to America or Hong-Kong. Have every available man ready. McCarthy’s a popular man with the other rapscallions of tenants, and they might show fight. We’ll shoot them down, if they do, the dogs. I’ll telegraph to the county town for more men.”

“It won’t be necessary,” growled Gallagher, showing his teeth like a vicious cat. “They haven’t forgotten Malone’s eviction. By Jupiter, didn’t we scatter the women that day! Killed one. She had twenty grains of buckshot in her. Never fired a cleaner shot in my life. They made a fuss about it, of course. What good did it do the fools? Did it save young Dermody when he kicked so about us turning his old mother out? He’ll remember the taste of my bayonet, if he lives long enough. Then look how the crowds gathered when we executed the writ against O’Brien. Lord! how we peppered them. Do you mind--”

The brutal reminiscences over which both the crowbar heroes sat gloating and smacking their lips were interrupted by the entrance of a sub with a hamper and a note. The constable gazed at both with surprise. To the hamper was attached a card:--

“A Christmas Box--From Harry McCarthy.”

“Don’t touch it! Take it away! It’s dynamite!” screamed the magistrate, with blue lips and pallid features. But at that moment there came from the box a “Quack! Quack!” so loud, so unmistakable, that both Gallagher and Macgrabb exclaimed in one whisper, “The goose! Great Heavens, the goose!”

They opened the basket with trembling fingers, and there, sure enough, as scraggy, as bony, as void of everything but skin and feathers as ever, was Macgrabb’s Christmas peace-offering to the other limb of the law.

The constable turned to the note with dilating eyes. It was some time before he could read its contents:--

_My poor Gallagher_,--I do not wish to deprive you of your Christmas repast. The thought of your misery, if doomed to a cold collation of bread and cheese, has overcome my resentment at your last visit. But I would appeal to you not to sacrifice the bird. It has been a most interesting visitor to me. It is not so much its exploring turn of mind that I admire--though certainly it is the most inquisitive goose I ever saw. During its stay with me I confined its tours of investigation indoors. It would have been well for you to have done the same. If you had kept its intellect employed in the kitchen or the guard-room, and limited its digestive experiments to crockery ware, old hats, paper collars, and ink-bottles, as I have done, you would possibly be happier to-day. Its thirst for knowledge is positively alarming. I discovered that when I found it making a meal off one of my most valued surgical books. After that I kept it in my bedroom, and it has at this moment stowed away in its ravenous recesses a pair of blankets, three sheets, a choice assortment of carpet and hearth-rug, and a wash-hand basin. I think it would have been better for you to have sacrificed a linen-draper’s shop, and kept your goose at home. When it came round our farm on a voyage of discovery with a blue rent receipt in its bill, I recognized the mistake you committed in not treating it as a suspect or a treason-felony prisoner. I succeeded in rescuing the document, which it proposed studying, I have no doubt, when it could spare time from its topographical surveys. I shall have the pleasure of exhibiting the autograph in which the animal took such an absorbing interest at the Petty Sessions Court to-morrow to its original author. My respects to Macgrabb. If you feel no further curiosity in the goose, perhaps he might be inclined to preserve it in his ancestral halls. If he wrote a history of its connection with a strategic stroke of policy he recently indulged in, the perusal would be both edifying and instructive to his descendants and dependants, as representative of one of which classes, perhaps both, I tender you my profound sympathy, and remain,

Yours, as ever, HARRY MCCARTHY.

P. S.--I am writing a little farce called “The Peeler’s Goose,” which will be produced at our society rooms shortly. Shall I send you tickets?

They were two very sickly men who bade each other good day soon after they had mastered the contents of this epistle. Macgrabb did not apply for the decree of ejectment, but Harry McCarthy was there, and told the whole story in his rollicking fashion. He always calls the incident the greatest double surprise in his experience, but admits that he cannot say which was the greater surprise--that which he felt when he encountered Gallagher’s goose, or that which thrilled the peeler when he got it back again.

OUR LAND SHALL BE FREE.

Brightly our swords in the sunlight are gleaming, Mountain and valley re-echo our tread; Proudly above us the sunburst is streaming; Firm is each footstep, erect every head. Ages of trampled right lend our arms threefold might, Slaves to the stranger no longer we’ll be; Soon shall the foeman fly when our fierce battle-cry Wakens the nation--Our land shall be free!

We think of our kinsmen and brothers still pining In cold, gloomy dungeons of England afar, And swiftly strike home with our steel brightly shining, For know that each blow, comrades, loosens a bar! What though our force be few, each man is tried and true; Tried on the mountain or trained to the sea; On to the contest, then, up with the green again! Death to the tyrant--Our land shall be free!

The spirit of Brian is hovering o’er us, The shades of our fathers arise from their graves; Swiftly we’ll drive the false foemen before us; While we’ve blood in our veins we will never be slaves! Erin has bent too long under a load of wrong, But now she rises erect from her knee, And, by the God who gave strength to the true and brave, Death will be ours, or our land shall be free!

England no longer can mock or deride us; Fain would she bribe, but her temptings are vain; Factions or chieftains no more can divide us; True to the cause we shall ever remain. Yes! to our native land faithful till death we stand; Freedom for Erin our watchword will be; Ye who would fain divide, traitors all stand aside, Soldiers, press onward--Our land shall be free!

PHILIPSON’S PARTY.

Peter Philipson, Jr., chief clerk in the wholesale firm of Philipson Brothers, tallow chandlers and soap-boilers, Limehouse, London, arrived in Ballymurphy, County Cork, on the first day of March, 1880, for the express purpose of collecting the rents on his father’s estate there, which would fall due on the 31st of said month, and also of screwing out of the tenants various arrears which Mr. Gleeson, a former agent, had allowed to accumulate since the purchase of the property some three years previously by the senior Philipson. That enterprising candle manufacturer had invested in land just as he would in grease--with a view to a dividend; and his first action had been to raise the rents all round, a business arrangement which the obstinate farmers refused to view in anything like the cool, matter-of-fact manner in which it was regarded by Old Soapsuds,--which was the very irreverend title those benighted beings bestowed upon one of the most solvent merchants of the city of London. The agent, Mr. Gleeson, had been agent during the regime of the “old stock,” who had got along very comfortably with the tenantry until reverses on the turf and bad luck at the roulette table had forced the last of them to dispose of the estate to the highest bidder, the aforementioned manipulator of tallow and alkali. Mr. Gleeson had protested against the increased rents; he averred positively that it would be impossible to gather them, and, to do him justice, he made no effort in that direction, cheerfully accepting whatever he got, and calmly ignoring the reiterated mandates of the irate Philipson to evict Donovan and sell up Sullivan, and play the deuce generally with the rest of the tenants.

At last the man of soap bars and long dips had dismissed his easy-going agent and sent his son across, armed with plenary powers of eviction, ejectment, and all the multifarious legal weapons in the armory of landlordism. Young Peter felt fully equal to the task of reducing the entire Irish population to meek submission, and wasn’t going to be put down by a score or two beggarly Cork men, don’t you know. Peter was smart; Peter was more than smart, he was the most determined fellah of any fellah he knew. Why, he had been accustomed to deal with rascally workmen who were always wanting more wages, and he had once sacked fifty--fifty in a batch. The beggars were glad to send their wives to beg ’em back. He’d make these Irishmen sit up. He’d show ’em what was what. They had no old slow-coach of a Gleeson to deal with now. They had Peter Philipson--“no-nonsense Peter,” as they called him in the city.

The Manor House was fitted up for his temporary residence. He retained the old housekeeper and the cook and the coachman and a stable boy, only bringing from London with him his body-servant, one John Thomas Jones, a stolid cockney, who bade his relatives a sad adieu under the evident impression that he was about to face perils and catastrophes of the most alarming description among the cannibal Irish. Peter’s first proceeding was to present various letters of introduction to the neighboring landlords and the officers of the adjoining garrison; his next to extend to them an invitation to a soiree or party to be given as a kind of house-warming by him on the 20th of March, by which time he expected to be in a position to tell them that he had brought the recalcitrant occupiers of “his father’s ground” to their proper senses. These social duties performed, Mr. Philipson, Jr., despatched separate missives to each tenant, setting forth the amount of his arrears, including the incoming gale, and demanded a prompt settlement under penalty of immediate law proceedings. That task over, Peter rested upon his oars, purred contentedly to himself for a few days, wrote to his father that he had shaken the beggars up, and indicted a lengthy epistle to the _Limehouse Chronicle_ on the proper method of settling the Irish difficulty.