Part 2

“Not at all, honey; but the truth is, we want a seventh son who isn’t left-handed.”

“A seventh son! Why, what do you want him for?”

“Why, dear, just to give her three shakes in his arms;--it never fails.”

“Bedad, an’ that’s fortunate; for there’s Mickey M’Sorley of the Broad Bog’s a seventh son, an’ he’s not two gunshots from this.”

“Well, aroon, hurry off one or two o’ the boys for him, and tell Phil, if he makes haste, that I’ll have a word to say to him afore I go.” This intimation to Phil put feathers to his heels; for from the moment that he and Barny started, he did not once cease to go at the top of his speed. It followed as a matter of course that honest Mickey M’Sorley dressed himself and was back at Keho’s house before the family believed it possible the parties could have been there. This ceremony of getting a seventh son to shake the sick woman, in cases where difficulty or danger may be apprehended, is one which frequently occurs in remote parts of the country. To be sure, it is only a form, the man merely taking her in his arms, and moving her gently three times. The writer of this, when young, saw it performed with his own eyes, as the saying is; but in his case the man was not a seventh son, for no such person could be procured. When this difficulty arises, any man who has the character of being lucky, provided he is not married to a red-haired wife, may be called in to give the three shakes. In other and more dangerous cases Rose would send out persons to gather half a dozen heads of blasted barley; and having stripped them of the black fine powder with which they were covered, she would administer it in a little new milk, and this was always attended by the best effects. It is somewhat surprising that the whole Faculty should have adopted this singular medicine in cases of similar difficulty, for in truth it is that which is now administered under the more scientific name of _Ergot of rye_.

In the case before us, the seventh son sustained his reputation for good luck. In about three quarters of an hour Dandy was called in “to kiss a strange young gintleman that wanted to see him.” This was an agreeable ceremony to Dandy, as it always is, to catch the first glimpse of one’s own first-born. On entering he found Rose sitting beside the bed in all the pomp of authority and pride of success, bearing the infant in her arms, and dandling it up and down, more from habit than any necessity that then existed for doing so.

“Well,” said she, “here we are all safe and sound, God willin’; an’ if you’re not the father of as purty a young man as ever I laid eyes on, I’m not here. Corny Keho, come an’ kiss your son, I say.”

Corny advanced, somewhat puzzled whether to laugh or cry, and taking the child up with a smile, he kissed it five times--for that is the mystic number--and as he placed it once more in Rose’s arms, there was a solitary tear on its cheek.

“Arra, go an’ kiss your wife, man alive, an’ tell her to have a good heart, an’ to be as kind to all her fellow-creatures as God has been to her this night. It isn’t upon this world the heart ought to be fixed, for we see how small a thing an’ how short a time can take us out of it.”

“Oh, bedad,” said Dandy, who had now recovered the touch of feeling excited by the child, “it would be too bad if I’d grudge her a smack.” He accordingly stooped, and kissed her; but, truth to confess, he did it with a very cool and business-like air. “I know,” he proceeded, “that she’ll have a heart like a jyant, now that the son is come.”

“To be sure she will, an’ she must; or if not, _I’ll_ play the sorra, an’ break things. Well, well, let her get strength a bit first, an’ rest and quiet; an’ in the mean time get the groanin’-malt ready, until every one in the house drinks the health of the stranger. My sowl to happiness, but he’s a born beauty. The nerra Keho of you all ever was the aiquails of what he’ll be yet, plaise God. Troth, Corny, he has daddy’s nose upon him, any how. Ay, you may laugh; but, faix, it’s thrue. You may take with him, you may own to him, any where. Arra, look at that! My soul to happiness, if one egg’s liker another! Eh, my posey! Where was it, alanna? Ay, you’re there, my duck o’ diamonds! Troth, you’ll be the flower o’ the flock, so you will. An’ now, Mrs Keho, honey, we’ll lave you to yourself awhile, till we thrate these poor cratures of sarvints; the likes o’ them oughtn’t to be overlooked; an’ indeed they did feel a great dale itself, poor things, about you; an’ moreover they’ll be longin’ of coorse to see the darlin’ here.”

Mrs Keho’s mother and Rose superintended the birth-treat between them. It is unnecessary to say that the young men and girls had their own sly fun upon the occasion; and now that Dandy’s apprehension of danger was over, he joined in their mirth with as much glee as any of them. This being over, they all retired to rest; and honest Mickey M’Sorley went home very _hearty_,[3] in consequence of Dandy’s grateful sense of the aid he had rendered his wife. The next morning Rose, after dressing the infant and performing all the usual duties that one expected from her, took her leave in these words:--

“Now, Mrs Keho, God bless you an’ yours, and take care of yourself. I’ll see you agin on Sunday next, when it’s to be christened. Until then, throw out no dirty wather before sunrise or afther sunset; an’ when Father Molloy is goin’ to christen it, let Corny tell him not to forget to christen it _against the fairies_, an’ thin it’ll be safe. Good bye, ma’am; an’ look you to her, Mrs Finnegan,” said she, addressing her patient’s mother, “an’ _banaght lath_ till I see all again.”

[1] This term in Ireland means “handsome”--“good-looking.”

[2] If it did not happen to be new moon, the words were “good moon,” &c.

[3] Tipsy.

THE MINSTREL’S WALK.

BY J. U. U.

(To the old Irish air of “Bidh mid a gol sa poga na mban.”)

Green hills of the west, where I carolled along In the Mayday of life with my harp and my song, Though the winter of time o’er my spirit hath rolled, And the breast of the minstrel is weary and cold; Though no more by those famous old haunts shall I stray, Once the themes of my song, and the guides of my way, That each had its story, and true-hearted friend, Before I forget ye, life’s journey shall end!

Oh, ’twas joy in the prime of life’s morning to go On the tracks of Clan Connell, led on by Hugh Roe, O’er the hill of Keiscorran, renowned Ballimote, By the Boyle, or by Newport, all passes of note, Where the foe their vain armaments haughtily kept; But the foot of th’ avenger went by while they slept: The hills told no tale, but the night-cloud was red, And the friends of the Sassenagh quaked at their tread.

By the plains of Rath Croghan, fields famous of yore, Though stronghold and seat of the kingly no more, By Tulsk and Tomona, hill, valley, and plain, To grey Ballintubber, O’Connors’ domain; While ages rolled backwards in lengthened array, In song and old story, the long summer day; And cloud-like the glories of Connaught rolled by, Till they sank in the horrors of grim Athenry!

Through the heaths of Kiltullagh, kind, simple, though rude, To Aeluin’s bright waters, where Willesborough stood, Ballinlough then spoke welcome from many a door, Where smiles lit kind faces that now smile no more; Then away to the Moyne, o’er the moors of Mayo, Still onward, still welcomed by high and by low, Blake, Burke, and O’Malley, Lynch, Kirwan, and Browne, By forest, lake, mountain, through village and town.

Then kind were the voices that greeted my way, ’Twas _Cead mille failte_ at closing of day, When young hearts beat lightly, and labour was done, For joy tracked my steps, as light follows the sun; I had tales for the hamlet, and news for the hall, And the tune of old times, ever welcome to all, The praise of thy glory, dear land of the west; But thy praises are still, and thy kind bosoms rest!

My blessing rest with you, dear friends, though no more Shall the poor and the weary rejoice at your door; Though like stars to your homes I have seen you depart, Still ye live, O ye live in each vein of my heart. Still the light of your looks on my darkness is thrown, Still your voices breathe round me when weary and lone; Like shades ye come back with each feeling old strain, But the world shall ne’er look on your equals again.

* * * * *

The difference between a rich man and a poor man is this--the former eats when he pleases, the latter when he can get it.--_Sir W. Raleigh._

APOLOGUES AND FABLES FROM FOREIGN LANGUAGES.

(_Translated for the Irish Penny Journal._)

No. VI.--THE REMORSE OF A NIGHT.

The last night of the year was about to expire; the winds, after a day of storminess, had subsided into slumber; the white earth lay outspread, like a shrouded map, under the moon; and innumerable stars arose out from the remotest abysses of heaven, twinkling as brightly as though they had but then begun their existence, and were never to suffer impairment. Eleven o’clock had tolled from the tower of an ancient Gothic church; and as the vibrations died away on the transparent air, an Old Man drew nigh to the window of a dark room in the desolate dwelling of which he had long been the solitary tenant, and cast his dull despairful eyes upwards towards the immoveable firmament, and from thence down on the blank waste of the earth, and then breathed a groaning prayer, that those eyes might never survey that firmament or that earth again. Wretched was he, in truth, that Old Man, beyond all parallel and beyond all consolation--for his grave lay open for him, as it seemed, by his side; it was thinly covered over, not by the flowers of Youth, but by the snows of Age; and when, heartsick of the sight, he looked away from it into himself, he saw that the sole fruits that he had gathered from a long and eventful life were sins, regrets, and maladies--a decayed body, a plague-smitten soul, a bosom full of bitterness, and an old age full of remorse. The beautiful days of his youth now came again before him like ghosts, and resummoned to his remembrance the cheerful morning upon which his venerable father had first placed him upon the great Cross-road of Life--a road which, trodden on the right hand, conducts the pilgrim along the noonday path of Virtue into a spacious, joyous land, abounding in sunbeams, harvests, and angelic spirits, but which, followed on the left, betrays him through lampless and miry ways, into the rueful wildernesses of Vice, where serpents for ever swarm, and pestilence chokes the atmosphere, and to quench his burning thirst the sluggish black rivers yield him but slime and poison.

Alas! the serpents were now coiled about him--the poison was rilling through his heart! Alas for him! he knew too well which road he had chosen--where he was--and what he must undergo--for eternity--for eternity!

With an anguish, with an agony, with a despair, that language cannot even faintly pourtray, he uplifted his withered arms towards heaven, clasped his hands, and cried aloud, O! give me back, give me back my youth! O! my father, lead me once more to the Cross-road, that I may once more choose, and this time choose with foreknowledge!

But his cries wasted themselves idly upon the frozen air, for his father was no more, and his youth was no more--both had alike long, long ago evanished, never to reappear. He knew this, and he wept--yes, that miserable old man wept; but his tears relieved him not; they were like drops of hot lava, for they trickled from a burning brain.

He looked forth, and he saw flitting lights--wills-o’-the-wisp--dancing over the morasses and becoming extinguished in the burial-grounds; and he said, Such were my riotous days of folly! He again looked forth, and he beheld a star fall from heaven to earth, and there melt away in blackness that left no trace behind, and he said, I am that star!--and with that woeful thought were torn open anew the leprous wounds in his bosom which the serpents that clung around him would never suffer to be healed.

His morbid imagination, wandering abroad till it touched on the confines of frenzy, showed him figures of sleep-walkers traversing like shadows the roofs of the houses:--the chimneys widened into furnaces vomiting forth flames and monsters--the windmills lifted up their giant arms, and threatened to crush him--and a forgotten spectre, left behind in a deserted charnel-house, glared on him with a horrible expression of malignity, and then mocked his terror by assuming his features.

On a sudden there flowed out upon the air a deep, rich, and solemn stream of music. It came from the steeple of the old Gothic church, as the bells announced the birth of the new year, for it was now the twelfth hour. Its cadences fell with a thrilling distinctness upon the ear and the heart of the Old Man; and every tone in the melody, through the agency of that mysterious power which sound possesses of re-assembling within the forsaken halls of the soul images long departed, brought before his mind some past scene of his life, vivid as a panoramic picture. Again he looked round upon the lucid horizon and over the frosted earth; and he thought on the opportunities he had forfeited--the warnings he had slighted--the examples he had scoffed at. He thought upon the friends of his youth, and how they, better and more fortunate than he, were now good men, at peace with themselves--teachers of wisdom to others, fathers of blessed families, torchlights for the world--and he exclaimed, Oh! and I also, had I but willed it, I also might, like them, have seen with tearless eyes, with tranquil heart, this night depart into eternity! Oh, my dear father--my dear, dear mother! I, even I, might have been now happy, had I but hearkened to your affectionate admonitions--had I but chosen to profit by the blessings which on every returning New Year’s Morn like this your tenderness led you to invoke on my head!

Amid these feverish reminiscences of his youth, it appeared to him as though the spectre which had assumed his features in the charnel-house gradually approached nearer and nearer to him--losing, however, as it advanced, one trait after another of its spectral character--till at length, as if under the dominion of that supernatural influence which on the last night of the old year is popularly said to compel even the Dead to undergo a change of form, it took the appearance of a living young man--the same young man that he had himself been fifty years before.

He was unable to gaze any longer: he covered his face with his hands; and, as the blistering tears gushed from his eyes, he sank down, powerless and trembling, on his knees--and again he cried out, as if his heart would break, O! come back to me, lost days of my youth!--come back, come back to me once more!

And the supplication of the Penitent was not made in vain, for they came back to him, those days of his youth, but not yet lost! He started from his bed--the blue moonbeams were shining in through the windows--the midnight chimes were announcing the beginning of a new year. Yes!--all had been but an appalling dream--all, except his sins and transgressions: these, alas! were but too real, for conscience, even in sleep, is a faithful monitor. But he was still young--he had not grown old in iniquity--and with tears of repentance he thanked God for having, even by means of so terrific a vision, awakened in his heart a feeling of horror for the criminal career he had been pursuing, and for having revealed to him in that glimpse of a land full of sunbeams, harvests, and angelic spirits, the blissful goal in which, if he pleased, the path of his existence might yet terminate.

Youthful reader! on which of these two paths art thou? On the right-hand path? Go forward, then, with the blessing of thy Maker, and fear nothing! On the left-hand path? If so, pause: be forewarned--turn while yet thou mayest--retrace thy steps--make a happier choice! I will pray that the terrors of this ghastly Dream may not hereafter be arrayed in judgment against thee! Alas for thee, if the time ever come when thou shalt call aloud in thy despair, Come back, ye precious days of my youth!--unlike the dreamer, _thou_ wilt but be mocked by the barren echo of thine own lamentation--the precious days of thy youth will never, never come back to thee!

M.

TEETOTALLERS AND TOPERS.

It is not a little curious, and perhaps not a little amusing in its way, to mark the feelings with which these two very different classes contemplate each other. The introduction of teetotallism was a thing for which the toper was wholly unprepared. It was a thing of which, _a priori_, he could have formed no conception--a thing of which he never dreamt. It therefore took him quite by surprise; and when it came, his opinion of it was, and to this good hour is, that it is one of the most absurd and monstrous ideas that ever entered into the human head.

That a class of men should arise who would forswear the use of those exhilarating stimulants in which he himself so much delighted--that there should ever appear on the face of the earth such an ass as the man who would refuse a glass of generous liquor when offered him, is to him a thing surpassing belief; and in fact he does not, or rather will not, believe in it. He insists upon it that it is all humbug, and that its professors, the professors of teetotallism, may say what they please, but that they can and do take their drink as freely as he does; the only real difference being, that they take theirs secretly. No evidence whatever will convince him that it is otherwise, or at least will induce him to admit that it is so. He is, in short, determined not to believe in so monstrous a doctrine. But should conviction at any time be too strong for him, he then falls back on the consolatory belief that it cannot long prevail--that it will not, can not stand. An association whose rules should enjoin every member always to walk backwards instead of forwards, or which should enjoin any other equally ridiculous absurdity, might live and prosper; but teetotallism, the abstaining from the dear potations--no, no, _that_ cannot stand any time--ridiculous, impossible--not in the nature of things.

As might be expected, the toper entertains a most cordial hatred of the teetotaller; he abhors him, and detests his principles--he in fact cannot hear him spoken of with any degree of patience. Oh, what a triumph to him when he catches a teetotaller tripping! With what delight he treasures up anecdotes of backsliding on the part of the professors of abstinence! And of such anecdotes he has a large store; for he is constantly on the look-out for them, and is not very particular on the score of authenticity. With what glee he relates these anecdotes to his club! and with what glee his club listens to the edifying and refreshing relation! They will chuckle over a story of this kind for a month. Nor, in the matter of anecdote, is the teetotaller a whit behind his unregenerated brother. The two parties, in fact, carry on a war of anecdote against each other--the teetotaller’s being stories of ruin and misery resulting from dissipation--the toper’s, facetious little tales of hypocrisy and backsliding. Both collect their anecdotes with great industry, and propagate them with great zeal and diligence.

The toper’s attitude, as regards the teetotaller, is of course a hostile one. But it is not a bold one. There is nothing of defiance in it, although he sometimes affects it. For although he hates the teetotaller, he also stands in awe of him; being oppressed with an awkward consciousness that the latter has the right side of the argument, and the weight of general opinion is on his side--that, in short, the teetotaller is right and he is wrong.

This consciousness gives to his hostility a sneaking and timid character, and induces him to confine himself in the matter of retaliation to the facetious joke and sly insinuation. On more open warfare he dare not venture. The teetotaller is thus the assailing party: he takes and keeps the field manfully, and with bold front and loud voice dares the toper to the combat. The latter, in conscious weakness, shrinks at the sound, as do the small animals of the forest when they hear the roar of the lion; and getting out of his way as fast as he can, retires to his fastnesses, the drinking-shops, and hedges himself round with bottles and quart-pots.

The toper always carefully eschews any thing like direct and open personal contact with the enemy, in the shape of discussions on the merits of the question of abstinence. There is, in fact, nothing he so much abominates as any attempt at reasoning on the subject, where such reasoning has for its object to show the advantages of temperance or intemperance. The toper thus at all times prefers keeping out of the teetotaller’s way, and, although professing the most entire disregard of him, will at any time go a mile about to avoid him. He has an instinctive dislike of him, and this because he is a living personified reflection on himself.

Turning now to the teetotaller, we find two or three things in his conduct, too, with reference to the toper, that are rather curious in their way. In the first place, it is curious to mark the deep interest he takes in what may be called the tippling statistics of his neighbourhood; and the amount of knowledge which he contrives to acquire on this subject is really amazing. He knows all the topers in his vicinity, and keeps a sharp eye on their proceedings. He knows every one of their haunts too--knows the different degrees of dissipation to which each has attained, and could almost tell on any given day what quantity each drank on the preceding night. In short, so vigilantly does he watch all the outgoings and incomings of these marked men, and yet without seeming to notice them, that they can hardly swallow a single _cropper_ without his knowing it. The whole thing, in fact, is a sort of private study of his own, and one to which he devotes a great deal of quiet observation and secret reflection: he takes a deep interest in it, and hence the proficiency he makes out in the knowledge of its details.

But our teetotaller not only knows all the professed, undisguised topers of his locality; he knows--much more striking proof of his vigilance--every man also whose habits, although not yet sufficiently intemperate to attract the attention of any one but a teetotaller, exhibit signs and symptoms of becoming gradually worse. The tippling progress of these persons he watches with the deepest interest, and keeps himself accurately informed regarding the extent and frequency of their debauches. The teetotaller, in short, keeps a vigilant eye over the entire drinking system of his neighbourhood, and professes an astonishing knowledge of what every one is doing in this way. If the teetotaller’s residence be in a small town, his surveillance then embraces its whole extent, and hardly can a single bumper be swallowed within its limits, of which he does not, somehow or other, obtain notice.