Part 11

Now it might seem on the face of things that the arrival of those two active and stalwart civil servants would have been welcomed as happening just in the nick of time; yet it argues an alien ignorance to suppose such a view of the matter by any means possible. The men in invisible green tunics belonged completely to the category of pitaty-blights, rint-warnin's, fevers, and the like devastators of life, that dog a man more or less all through it, but close in on him, a pitiful quarry, when the bad seasons come and the childer and the old crathurs are starvin' wid the hunger, and his own heart is broke; therefore, to accept assistance from them in their official capacity would have been a proceeding most reprehensibly unnatural. To put a private quarrel or injury into the hands of the peelers were a disloyal making of terms with the public foe; a condoning of great permanent wrongs for the sake of a trivial temporary convenience. Lisconnel has never been skilled in the profitable and ignoble art of utilizing its enemies. Not that anybody was more than vaguely conscious of these sentiments, much less attempted to express them in set terms. When a policeman appeared there in an inquiring mood, what people said among themselves was, "Musha cock him up. I hope he'll get his health till I would be tellin' him," or words to that effect; while in reply to his questions, they made statements superficially so clear and simple, and essentially so bewilderingly involved, that the longest experience could do little more for a constable than teach him the futility of wasting his time in attempts to disentangle them.

Thus it was that when Mrs. Kilfoyle saw who Ody's companions were, she bade a regretful adieu to her hopes of recovering her stolen property. For how could she set him on the Tinker's felonious track without apprising them likewise? You might as well try to huroosh one chicken off a rafter and not scare the couple that were huddled beside it. The impossibility became more obvious presently as the constables, striding quickly down to where the group of women stood in the rain and wind with fluttering shawls and flapping cap-borders, said briskly, "Good-day to you all. Did any of yous happen to see e'er a one of them tinkerin' people goin' by here this mornin'?"

It was a moment of strong temptation to everybody, but especially to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture of her precious cloak receding from her along the wet road, recklessly wisped up in the grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-hearted slieveen as ever stepped, and not yet, perhaps, utterly out of reach, though every fleeting instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her neighbors stood the test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes deliberatively, and said to Mrs. M'Gurk, "The saints bless us, was it yisterday or the day before, me dear, you said you seen a couple of them below, near ould O'Beirne's?"

And Mrs. M'Gurk replied, "Ah, sure, not at all, ma'am, glory be to goodness. I couldn't ha' tould you such a thing, for I wasn't next or nigh the place. Would it ha' been Ody Rafferty's aunt? She was below there fetchin' up a bag of male, and bedad she came home that dhreeped, the crathur, you might ha' thought she'd been after fishin' it up out of the botthom of one of thim bog-houles."

And Mrs. Kilfoyle heroically hustled her Thady into the house, as she saw him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his encounter with a strange man, and desired him to whisht and stay where he was in a manner so sternly repressive that he actually remained there as if he had been a pebble dropped into a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to bob up again immediately.

Then Mrs. M'Gurk made a bold stroke, designed to shake off the hampering presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's amateur services to be utilized while there was yet time.

"I declare," she said, "now that I think of it, I seen a feller crossin' the ridge along there a while ago, like as if he was comin' from Sallinbeg ways; and according to the apparence of him, I wouldn't won'er if he _was_ a one of thim tinker crathures--carryin' a big clump of cans he was, at any rate--I noticed the shine of thim. And he couldn't ha' got any great way yet to spake of, supposin' there was anybody lookin' to folly after him."

But Constable Black crushed her hopes as he replied, "Ah, it's nobody comin' _from_ Sallinbeg that we've anything to say to. There's after bein' a robbery last night, down below at Jerry Dunne's--a shawl as good as new took, that his wife's ragin' over frantic, along wid a sight of fowl and other things. And the Tinkers that was settled this long while in the boreen at the back of his haggard is quit out of it afore daylight this mornin', every rogue of them. So we'd have more than a notion where the property's went to if we could tell the road they've took. We thought like enough some of them might ha' come this way."

Now, Mr. Jerry Dunne was not a popular person in Lisconnel, where he has even become, as we have seen, proverbial for what we call "ould naygurliness." So there was a general tendency to say, "The divil's cure to him," and listen complacently to any details their visitors could impart. For in his private capacity a policeman, provided that he be otherwise "a dacint lad," which to do him justice is commonly the case, may join, with a few unobtrusive restrictions, in our neighborly gossips; the rule in fact being--Free admission except on business.

Only Mrs. Kilfoyle was so much cast down by her misfortune that she could not raise herself to the level of an interest in the affairs of her thrifty suitor, and the babble of voices relating and commenting sounded as meaningless as the patter of the drops which jumped like little fishes in the large puddle at their feet. It had spread considerably before Constable Black said to his comrade:--

"Well, Daly, we'd better be steppin' home wid ourselves as wise as we come, as the man said when he'd axed his road of the ould black horse in the dark lane. There's no good goin' further, for the whole gang of them's scattered over the counthry agin now like a seedin' thistle in a high win'."

"Aye, bedad," said Constable Daly, "and be the same token, this win' ud skin a tanned elephant. It's on'y bogged and drenched we'd git. Look at what's comin' up over there. That rain's snow on the hills, every could drop of it; I seen Ben Bawn this mornin' as white as the top of a musharoon, and it's thickenin' wid sleet here this minute, and so it is."

The landscape did, indeed, frown upon further explorations. In quarters where the rain had abated it seemed as if the mists had curdled on the breath of the bitter air, and they lay floating in long white bars and reefs low on the track of their own shadow, which threw down upon the sombre bogland deeper stains of gloom. Here and there one caught on the crest of some gray-bowldered knoll, and was teazed into fleecy threads that trailed melting instead of tangling. But toward the north the horizon was all blank, with one vast, smooth slant of slate-color, like a pent-house roof, which had a sliding motion onwards.

Ody Rafferty pointed to it and said, "Troth, it's teemin' powerful this instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if you land home afore it's atop of you; for 'twould be the most I could do myself."

And as the constables departed hastily, most people forgot the stolen cloak for a while to wonder whether their friends would escape being entirely drowned on the way back from the fair.

Mrs. Kilfoyle, however, still stood in deep dejection at her door, and said, "Och, but she was the great fool to go let the likes of him set fut widin' her house."

To console her Mrs. O'Driscoll said, "Ah, sure, sorra a fool were you, woman dear; how would you know the villiny of him? And if you'd turned the man away widout givin' him e'er a bit, it's bad you'd be thinkin' of it all the day after."

And to improve the occasion for her juniors, old Mrs. Keogh added, "Aye, and morebetoken you'd ha' been committin' a sin."

But Mrs. Kilfoyle replied with much candor, "'Deed, then, I'd a dale liefer be after committin' a sin, or a dozen sins, than to have me poor mother's good cloak thieved away on me, and walkin' wild about the world."

As it happened, the fate of Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak was very different from her forecast. But I do not think that a knowledge of it would have teen consolatory to her by any means. If she had heard of it, she would probably have said, "The cross of Christ upon us. God be good to the misfort'nit crathur." For she was not at all of an implacable temper, and would, under the circumstances, have condoned even the injury that obliged her to appear at Mass with a flannel petticoat over her head until the end of her days. Yet she did hold the Tinkers in a perhaps somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy thieves,--veritable birds of prey,--whose rapacity is continually questing for plunder. But some of them have merely the magpies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings and stealings have at worst never been so serious a matter as those of another flock, finer of feather, but not less predacious in their habits, who roosted, for the most part, a long way off, and made their collections by deputy.

Copyrighted 1895, by Dodd, Mead and Company.

WALLED OUT

From 'Bogland Studies'

An' wanst we were restin' a bit in the sun on the smooth hillside, Where the grass felt warm to your hand as the fleece of a sheep, for wide, As ye'd look overhead an' around, 'twas all a-blaze and a-glow, An' the blue was blinkin' up from the blackest bog-holes below;

An' the scent o' the bogmint was sthrong on the air, an' never a sound But the plover's pipe that ye'll seldom miss by a lone bit o' ground. An' he laned--Misther Pierce--on his elbow, an' stared at the sky as he smoked, Till just in an idle way he sthretched out his hand an' sthroked The feathers o' wan of the snipe that was kilt an' lay close by on the grass; An' there was the death in the crathur's eyes like a breath upon glass.

An' sez he, "It's quare to think that a hole ye might bore wid a pin 'Ill be wide enough to let such a power o' darkness in On such a power o' light; an' it's quarer to think," sez he, "That wan o' these days the like is bound to happen to you an' me." Thin Misther Barry, he sez: "Musha, how's wan to know but there's light On t'other side o' the dark, as the day comes afther the night?" An' "Och," says Misther Pierce, "what more's our knowin'--save the mark-- Than guessin' which way the chances run, an' thinks I they run to the dark; Or else agin now some glint of a bame'd ha' come slithered an' slid; Sure light's not aisy to hide, an' what for should it be hid?" Up he stood with a sort o' laugh: "If on light," sez he, "ye're set, Let's make the most o' this same, as it's all that we're like to get."

Thim were his words, as I minded well, for often afore an' sin, The 'dintical thought 'ud bother me head that seemed to bother him thin; An' many's the time I'd be wond'rin' whatever it all might mane, The sky, an' the lan', an' the bastes, an' the rest o' thim plain as plain, And all behind an' beyant thim a big black shadow let fall; Ye'll sthrain the sight out of your eyes, but there it stands like a wall.

"An' there," sez I to meself, "we're goin' wherever we go, But where we'll be whin we git there it's never a know I know." Thin whiles I thought I was maybe a sthookawn to throuble me mind

Wid sthrivin' to comprehind onnathural things o' the kind; An' Quality, now, that have larnin', might know the rights o' the case, But ignorant wans like me had betther lave it in pace.

Priest, tubbe sure, an' Parson, accordin' to what they say, The whole matther's plain as a pikestaff an' clear as the day, An' to hear thim talk of a world beyant, ye'd think at the laste They'd been dead an' buried half their lives, an' had thramped it from west to aist; An' who's for above an' who's for below they've as pat as if they could tell The name of every saint in heaven an' every divil in hell. But cock up the lives of thimselves to be settlin' it all to their taste-- I sez, and the wife she sez I'm no more nor a haythin baste--

For mighty few o' thim's rael Quality, musha, they're mostly a pack O' playbians, each wid a tag to his name an' a long black coat to his back; An' it's on'y romancin' they are belike; a man must stick be his trade, An' _they_ git their livin' by lettin' on they know how wan's sowl is made.

And in chapel or church they're bound to know somethin' for sure, good or bad, Or where'd be the sinse o' their preachin' an' prayers an' hymns an' howlin' like mad? So who'd go mindin' o' thim? barrin' women, in coorse, an' wanes, That believe 'most aught ye tell thim, if they don't understand what it manes-- Bedad, if it worn't the nathur o' women to want the wit, Parson and Priest I'm a-thinkin' might shut up their shop an' quit.

But, och, it's lost an' disthracted the crathurs 'ud be without Their bit of divarsion on Sundays whin all o' thim gits about, Cluth'rin' an' pluth'rin' together like hins, an' a-roostin' in rows, An' meetin' their frins an' their neighbors, and wearin' their dacint clothes. An' sure it's quare that the clergy can't ever agree to keep Be tellin' the same thrue story, sin' they know such a won'erful heap;

For many a thing Priest tells ye that Parson sez is a lie, An' which has a right to be wrong, the divil a much know I, For all the differ I see 'twixt the pair o' thim 'd fit in a nut: Wan for the Union, an' wan for the League, an' both o' thim bitther as sut. But Misther Pierce, that's a gintleman born, an' has college larnin' and all, There he was starin' no wiser than me where the shadow stands like a wall.

Authorized American Edition, Dodd, Mead and Company.

JOEL BARLOW

(1754-1812)

One morning late in the July of 1778, a select company gathered in the little chapel of Yale College to listen to orations and other exercises by a picked number of students of the Senior class, one of whom, named Barlow, had been given the coveted honor of delivering what was termed the 'Commencement Poem.' Those of the audience who came from a distance carried back to their homes in elm-shaded Norwich, or Stratford, or Litchfield, high on its hills, lively recollections of a handsome young man and of his 'Prospect of Peace,' whose cheerful prophecies in heroic verse so greatly "improved the occasion." They had heard that he was a farmer's son from Redding, Connecticut, who had been to school at Hanover, New Hampshire, and had entered Dartmouth College, but soon removed to Yale on account of its superior advantages; that he had twice seen active service in the Continental army, and that he was engaged to marry a beautiful New Haven girl.

The brilliant career predicted for Barlow did not begin immediately. Distaste for war, hope of securing a tutorship in college, and--we may well believe--Miss Ruth's entreaties, kept him in New Haven two years longer, engaged in teaching and in various courses of study. 'The Prospect of Peace' had been issued in pamphlet form, and the compliments paid the author incited him to plan a poem of a philosophic character on the subject of America at large, bearing the title 'The Vision of Columbus.' The appointment as tutor never came, and instead of cultivating the Muse in peaceful New Haven, he was forced to evoke her aid in a tent on the banks of the Hudson, whither after a hurried course in theology, he proceeded as an army chaplain in 1780. During his connection with the army, which lasted until its disbandment in 1783, he won repute by lyrics written to encourage the soldiers, and by "a flaming political sermon," as he termed it, on the treason of Arnold.

Army life ended, Barlow removed to Hartford, where he studied law, edited the American Mercury,--a weekly paper he had helped to found,--- and with John Trumbull, Lemuel Hopkins, and David Humphreys formed a literary club which became widely known as the "Hartford Wits." Its chief publication, a series of political lampoons styled 'The Anarchiad,' satirized those factions whose disputes imperiled the young republic, and did much to influence public opinion in Connecticut and elsewhere in favor of the Federal Constitution. A revision and enlargement of Dr. Watts's 'Book of Psalmody,' and the publication (1787) of his own 'Vision of Columbus,' occupied part of Barlow's time while in Hartford. The latter poem was extravagantly praised, ran through several editions, and was republished in London and Paris; but the poet, who now had a wife to support, could not live by his pen nor by the law, and when in 1788 he was urged by the Scioto Land Company to become its agent in Paris, he gladly accepted. The company was a private association, formed to buy large tracts of government land situated in Ohio and sell them in Europe to capitalists or actual settlers. This failed disastrously, and Barlow was left stranded in Paris, where he remained, supporting himself partly by writing, partly by business ventures. Becoming intimate with the leaders of the Girondist party, the man who had dedicated his 'Vision of Columbus' to Louis XVI., and had also dined with the nobility, now began to figure as a zealous Republican and as a Liberal in religion. From 1790 to 1793 he passed most of his time in London, where he wrote a number of political pamphlets for the Society for Constitutional Information, an organization openly favoring French Republicanism and a revision of the British Constitution. Here also, in 1791, he finished a work entitled 'Advice to the Privileged Orders,' which probably would have run through many editions had it not been suppressed by the British government. The book was an arraignment of tyranny in church and state, and was quickly followed by 'The Conspiracy of Kings,' an attack in verse on those European countries which had combined to kill Republicanism in France. In 1792 Barlow was made a citizen of France as a mark of appreciation of a 'Letter' addressed to the National Convention, giving that body advice, and when the convention sent commissioners to organize the province of Savoy into a department, Barlow was one of the number. As a candidate for deputy from Savoy, he was defeated; but his visit was not fruitless, for at Chambéry the sight of a dish of maize-meal porridge reminded him of his early home in Connecticut, and inspired him to write in that ancient French town a typical Yankee poem, 'Hasty Pudding.' Its preface, in prose, addressed to Mrs. Washington, assured her that simplicity of diet was one of the virtues; and if cherished by her, as it doubtless was, it would be more highly regarded by her countrywomen.

Between the years of 1795-97, Barlow held the important but unenviable position of United States Consul at Algiers, and succeeded both in liberating many of his countrymen who were held as prisoners, and in perfecting treaties with the rulers of the Barbary States, which gave United States vessels entrance to their ports and secured them from piratical attacks. On his return to Paris he translated Volney's 'Ruins' into English, made preparations for writing histories of the American and French revolutions, and expanded his 'Vision of Columbus' into a volume which as 'The Columbiad'--a beautiful specimen of typography--was published in Philadelphia in 1807 and republished in London. The poem was held to have increased Barlow's fame; but it is stilted and monotonous, and 'Hasty Pudding' has done more to perpetuate his name.

In 1805 Barlow returned to the United States and bought an estate near Washington, D.C., where he entertained distinguished visitors. In 1811 he returned to France authorized to negotiate a treaty of commerce. After waiting nine months, he was invited by Napoleon, who was then in Poland, to a conference at Wilna. On his arrival Barlow found the French army on the retreat from Moscow, and endured such privations on the march that on December 24th he died of exhaustion at the village of Zarnowiec, near Cracow, and there was buried.

Barlow's part in developing American literature was important, and therefore he has a rightful place in a work which traces that development. He certainly was a man of varied ability and power, who advanced more than one good cause and stimulated the movement toward higher thought. The only complete 'Life and Letters of Joel Barlow,' by Charles Burr Todd, published in 1888, gives him unstinted praise as excelling in statesmanship, letters, and philosophy. With more assured justice, which all can echo, it praises his nobility of spirit as a man. No one can read the letter to his wife, written from Algiers when he thought himself in danger of death, without a warm feeling for so unselfish and affectionate a nature.

A FEAST

From 'Hasty Pudding'

There are various ways of preparing and eating Hasty Pudding, with molasses, butter, sugar, cream, and fried. Why so excellent a thing cannot be eaten alone? Nothing is perfect alone; even man, who boasts of so much perfection, is nothing without his fellow-substance. In eating, beware of the lurking heat that lies deep in the mass; dip your spoon gently, take shallow dips and cool it by degrees. It is sometimes necessary to blow. This is indicated by certain signs which every experienced feeder knows. They should be taught to young beginners. I have known a child's tongue blistered for want of this attention, and then the school-dame would insist that the poor thing had told a lie. A mistake: the falsehood was in the faithless pudding. A prudent mother will cool it for her child with her own sweet breath. The husband, seeing this, pretends his own wants blowing, too, from the same lips. A sly deceit of love. She knows the cheat, but, feigning ignorance, lends her pouting lips and gives a gentle blast, which warms the husband's heart more than it cools his pudding.