Part 1

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

NUMBER 47. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1841. VOLUME I.

“A merry morning to Father Connellan! Well, I dare north, south, east, and west, of our sweet county of Wexford, to produce such another comfortable domicile as this of your reverence; and the proof that it is so in every respect, is, that master, man, dog, cat, cow, and horse, have the same sleek sides and sleek looks. I wish I could say as much for some of the poor parsons.” “Alack! alack!” sighed Father Connellan in a lachrymose tone, “you speak of what we _were_ rather than what we _are_. Poor things! neither biped nor quadruped _here_ carries the same port as formerly. Now, how can you speak of sleek sides and sleek cheeks to me?--to me? Take another glance at me: fancy me with a pink jacket and black cap, and am I not just the cut, weight, and girth for a jockey? ‘Ah! what a falling off is _here_,’” pointing to a paunch that he asserted, with serio-comic phiz, was lamentably diminished.

“Oh, most lamentably!” cried I, entering into his humour. “Bless me! what is the matter? Oh, thou _poor, poor_ disciple of holy mother church! black was the fast indeed that hath reduced thee to this pickle!”

“_Black_ it has been more than once, sure enough,” returned the priest, laughing; “and as I am a christianable man, this strict Lent has been for the sins and follies of _others_, and not for my own. But you shall know all.” Then raising his voice, he called, “Jimmy! Jimmy Delany!”

Thrice he shouted, and was still unanswered. “Ay,” continued his reverence, shaking his head and turning up his eyes, “this is the cut! Job’s boils and blisters were nothing to this! I may call and call, and have nothing but the echo of my own voice for my pains. Once more I’ll try, and if he doesn’t come then”---- and, placing his mouth close to the wall, he sang out, “Jimmy Delany!” so tremendously loud, that the delinquent must have heard it at half a mile’s distance. At this fourth summons, shuffling, lagging steps faltered up the hall, the parlour door opened, and the anatomy of a man presented itself--

So faint, so spiritless. So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone.

While gazing on him, I thought that if such a man were to “draw my curtains in the dead of night,” he need not cry out “fire!” to appal me.

“Well, Misther Delany,” began Father Connellan, “since you have condescended to appear--(why don’t you make your obeisance, sirrah?--draw back your shovel foot, bob forward your great mop-head, and bow to the lady--soh, that will do)--be plaised to explain how and why I, your spiritual pastor and lawful master, am reduced to half my natural dimensions, ‘clipt of my fair proportions.’ As some one says”----

But ere the priest could proceed with his quotation, I broke in with an exclamation of amazement.

“_That_ spectre--plump, grinning, mutton-headed Jimmy Delany! who used to wish for a gold chain but long enough to encircle the _disc_ of his face twice, and it would be as long as the chain of my lord mayor of Dublin? Impossible! No, no! Reverend father, you may make me believe much; you are a man of mystery and mirth, potent and pleasant; but you will hardly bring me to believe that _that_ shadow represents my plump and good-humoured old acquaintance Jimmy Delany.” “I have my doubts too,” said his reverence.

All this time the ghost-like subject of our observations stood mute and motionless, gazing at me with lack-lustre eyes, in which there was no beam of recognition. Indeed, he seemed dubious of his own identity; for when I refused to acknowledge him, he passed his hand deliberately and cautiously over his face and person, much in the way a blind man would do; and it was a considerable time before he ventured to assert “that he _was_ Jimmy Delany still--if not in flesh and blood, at laist in skin and bone.”

“Alas! and has it come to this with thee, Jimmy? I recognise thy voice, though somewhat tremulous and less stentorian than of old, and I would fain inquire for what unheard of crime has this severe penance been imposed upon thee?--the direst that the dire church can inflict, it must have been! Hast thou made a pilgrimage with _unboiled_ peas in your shoes, my poor, poor Jimmy?”

“Speak, sirrah!” cried the priest.

“Must I tell the _thruth_, sur?” asked the spectre, reddening, and scratching his head in a dilemma.

At this juncture I perceived that the person appealed to could hardly command gravity to answer the important query addressed to him, and, but that a fit of coughing came to his aid, alas for the decorum of Father Connellan!

“You are a good boy, Jimmy,” said his reverence with becoming sedateness, when the teasing cough had subsided; “a very good boy to apply to me ere you answered a question under circumstances which induce you to conceal the truth if you could. But, my poor, poor fellow, as I have said and thundered forth a hundred times from the pulpit, TRUTH _should_ be spoken at all times, however painful to us; and it is especially necessary on this occasion, as I perceive a something like a fling at the discipline of our church; because, forsooth, you have dwindled from a mould four to a farthing candle! Tell the truth and shame the _devil_.”

Thus admonished, with a desperate effort poor Jimmy proceeded to inform me that the cause of all his woe and waste of flesh was “Betsy Kelly, an’ the urchint”---- Here he stuck fast, and I waited in vain for the finishing of the sentence. I next looked to the merry priest for an explanation, but I found that it was equally fruitless to expect one from him _then_. He had fallen back in his chair, in a fit of (to me inexplicable) laughter; and the confused Delany, still more confounded, took the opportunity to escape from the room, saying, as he retreated, “I’ll lave it all to his rivirince!--let him tell what he will--I won’t deny it.” “A fair stage for a fertile imagination, Father Connellan?” said I.

“Egad, there is no occasion for a fertile imagination in _this_ case,” he replied. “Too true it is that the drama of every-day life surpasses that exhibited on the stage. Now, here is my poor Jimmy--_fiddle-string_ I may call him, because I play upon him daily, and he is almost reduced to one. If an actor ever so clever were to show off _his_ blunders and absurdities on the stage, he’d be pelted to a mummy, or hooted into a coal-hole for the rest of his days, for attempting (mind) to impose on a discerning public with an outrageous caricature of nature.

_Baithershin!_ let them come to Father Connellan’s cabin for a week, and I’ll promise them more amusement for _nothing_ than they could get at the theatre in a year, and pay dearly for it. But the farce is drawing to a conclusion now.”

“_Farce_, call you it? My good sir, to look at poor Jimmy, I should suppose he has been enacting a very deep tragedy indeed, and that the bowl or dagger must end it.”

“Or a marl-hole, or his garters,” said his reverence laughing! “But is it possible,” continued he, “that you have not dived into the mystery yet? Is it possible that I, a poor secluded priest, dead to the world these twenty years, minding nothing but my breviary, the souls of my flock, the Pope’s bulls, and--and an occasional beef-steak and glass of punch, was up to the secret in a trice, while you, a gay member of society, are still in the dark? What direful, by me unmentionable disease, doth these four ugly, sinful capitals spell, L, O, V, E?”

“Love!--Ha! ha! ha! So Jimmy, poor Jimmy, is a lover! ‘Oh, Cupid, thou _urchint_,’ as thy woe-begone disciple calls thee, thou wert not blind, but _blind-folded_; thou stolest a peep, and the barbed dart that rankles in the heart of poor Jimmy was directed with laughter-loving malice! Pray tell me, reverend Father, was the heroine--for heroine she must have been, to have achieved such a victory over dullness--a living woman? or did she smite him through the pages of a book? for I recollect his reading mania at one time.”

“Arm yourself with the seven-fold fence of patience for half an hour, and I shall tell you all I know of the matter. But I must begin with the beginning, according to the method of all story-tellers. Now, a pinch of Lundy, a preliminary hem! and here goes:--

“About five years come Michaelmas, I buried my old house-keeper Nell Gray--I was going to say with military honours, for she was quite a _trooper_ of a woman--but with the honours due to a faithful deserving servant which she was, and a treasure in a family, especially for dressing beef-steaks. But as I saw even in her a good deal of the tricks of the sex (excuse me), I was determined to have no more womenkind about me. I therefore set about searching for a good, quiet lad, who would be tractable enough to learn to do all the ordinary work of the house; and my wishes being made known to my flock, boys of all ages and sizes soon clustered about me like sparrows round a wheat stack. Out of twenty-five ’cute-looking chaps, I chose our friend Jimmy Delany, to the rapturous delight of his mother, a widow, who, as she brought her precious son to me, with a shining Sunday face, and a clean shirt--or at least a collar--assured me that though ‘her Jimmy was the laist taste slow at takin’ up the larnin’, yit wanst he got a hoult ov it, it was he that would take the hoult in airnest!’

‘Very well,’ said I, ‘he is slow, but sure; the very sort I want. Your quick people forget as soon as they learn.’

Well, Jimmy entered on his service, and, egad, ere the first day closed, I found that his mother had told truth to the letter! He was ‘slow,’ sure enough, and it was equally true that the hoult he took was a ‘hoult in airnest;’ but the pertinacious ‘hoult’ was a hold of any eatable that fell in his way, for he was a furious eater--God bless us! By and bye, I found out more of Jimmy’s perfections, and I lauded my sagacity in having discovered and appropriated such a treasure. ‘Happy old parish priest!’ ejaculated I in an ecstacy, ‘thou hast but one servitor in this teeming world, and the head of that chosen attendant admits but of one isolated idea for a time, which ‘idea,’ be it never so extravagant, rules his brains, words, and actions, as certainly and despotically as the moon rules the tides!’

Into that head, by dint of hammering at it day and night, his mother had instilled the ‘idea’ that he was to renounce his old habits, playmates, and plays, as surely as he was to fling away his old clothes, and henceforth to think of nothing but of being a faithful diligent man-of-all-works to his reverence the priest. In fine, in words suited to his capacity, he was told that he was to forget the idle gorsoon, and to put on the sarvint boy. For a week this song was sung to him in a variety of tones, without producing any other effect on Jimmy than causing a grin. At last, ‘Ov _all_ works, mother?’ quoth he. ‘Bedad I thinks I’ll have somethin’ to do. Howsomdever, since I _must_ be a sarvint, why it’s best to begin.’ And thenceforward he laid his whole soul to the task; and so earnest and anxious was he, that in little more than three months he could do a few things decently without having me perpetually pinned to his tail, and in a year he went through the routine of household affairs without a blunder, not one thought or wish interfering with his business. Like the churning-horse of my neighbour Giles, he plodded over the dull ground allotted for him without grumbling, and without being conscious that any other mode of life might produce equal happiness. Happy being! contented, stolid Jimmy Delany!

Things were going on thus smoothly with master and man, while the mother was inwardly and outwardly fretting. She expected by this time that her boy was taking a short cut towards being a learned man, if not a _janius_ all out; and great was her dismay when she heard the truth! So she comes to me with her humble petition ‘that I would be plaised to enlighten her gorsoon’s brains.’ ‘I fear that is what no _mortal_ can do,’ said I, ‘but I will do my best for him.’ Indeed, I was attached to the creature, and I thought it my duty to endeavour to stretch his capacity if I could; and, accordingly, I bought a Primer, and set him to learn his letters. Oh! it was the unfortunate moment that I did so! From that hour the man has never been himself; the four walls of my quiet house have been eternally frightened with strange sounds; and I have never had a comfortable meal since. A new ‘idea’ displaced the old one:--‘he was no longer a _sarvint_, but a _schollard_;’ business was nearly suspended; and when strong custom, or my stronger reproofs, so far prevailed that he could not help going over the most urgent of the household employments, it was not with even-handed justice; for, let the _left_ hand be occupied as it might, the _right_ was sure to clutch _the book_; so that every day and every hour he might be taken for a clumsy leaden personification of Knowledge extending the volume to the uninitiated, till the strange sounds issuing from the blubber lips destroyed the illusion.

These strange sounds were first heard when he had surmounted the Alps of the alphabet, and attacked the A, B, _abs_; and from morning till night I could obtain no reply to any question I asked him, without having a string of _abs_ and _obs_ tacked to it, till my brains and patience could scarce bear the repetition. Soon after, still sailing away on the stream of learning, that notable piece of literature the ‘Read-a-made-aisy’ got into his hands, of which he made such excellent use, that in a few days he could append a sort of poetical illustration to his replies, according as my queries were shaped, and sometimes he let fly a squib at me through their medium. I’ll give you a sample of our colloquies:--

‘Ah, then, Jimmy, did you shoot any birds this morning?’

‘One big fella, sur, choke-full ov the currans,’ quoth Jimmy, bringing in as chorus, ‘A was an archer that shot at a frog.’

‘Well, what shall we have for dinner to-day, Jimmy?’

‘_Mait_ to be sure, sur--B was a butcher that kept a big dog.’

‘Right, Jimmy, well thought of! Down with you as fast as you can to Doyle the butcher’s, and see what meat he has got. I think our friend the _constable_ will dine with me to-day.’

‘I will, sur,’ said Jimmy. ‘C was a captain all covered with lace.’

‘And,’ continued I, ‘as my dinner won’t be very splendid, and I’m sure to have it very vilely cooked, I’ll bring forth a bottle or two of my _supernaculum_--the rale mountain dew.’

‘Ay, ay, sur,’ responds Jimmy. ‘D was a drunkard that had a red face.’

There was a good hit of stupidity! By the staff of St Patrick, the patron of drunkards, it was the keenest _cut_ I ever received in my life, and the innocence with which it was spoken gave it double effect. I fairly blushed, and dropped my face over my breast like a great bursting peony whose stalk is too weak to support it. Ah! my friend, happy would I have been to endure those little embarrassments--however unbecoming for _me_ to blush--did I foresee the losses, crosses, confusions and contusions which followed in the train of this comet, and which I might have expected, for I partly concur in the old opinion that the fiery prodigies of the heavens prognosticate dire disasters to man; and the eccentric course of this ‘hairy star’ in this little world of mine called Ballygrish was equally portentous. But hitherto he had kept within bounds. So long as he believed himself the _schollard_ and I the _schoolmaster_, he conducted himself according to the belief; and the most fault-finding teacher could not complain of Jimmy’s want of diligence. Indeed, he rehearsed his lesson much oftener than necessary, in season and out of season, in bed and out of bed, and that in such a thundering tone, that I told him his constant petition to ‘hear him his task’ was unnecessary, as I always ‘heard’ him sufficiently well, though stone walls were betwixt us. But once he became independent of an instructor, once he was quit of my assistance, I do assure you severe chastisement was frequently necessary to restrain his lunacies, and I much wonder how his skull bore the thumps and cracks which from day to day I was obliged to inflict, in lieu of shaving and blistering, to moderate the brain fever of the imagination--of ‘_the ascendant idea_.’

I put up with various annoyances and inconveniences with admirable patience and temper, and which I shall not now stop to particularize; but one affair I cannot pass over, as it made a haul on my purse, and I’ll relate it.

Just about the time that he set up to study for himself, I was much in want of a pair of new _inexpressibles_. My velveteens were much the worse for wear, and I was determined to have a bran-new pair for the ensuing Sunday. So I sent, very thoughtlessly indeed, the said student Jimmy Delany with an order to Bryan the tailor to get the requisite stuff at a certain shop. Unfortunately I did not specify any particular colour or material, thinking naturally that all the world knew the colours and materials fitting for clergymen; but the shopkeeper and tailor--neither very much wiser than my messenger, I fancy--were quite astray, and in their dilemma they applied to my man-of-all-works for information. Alas! they knew little of poor Jimmy. They knew not that he was then under the dominion of ‘one idea’--that he was a learned _schollard_, and not a _sarvint_.

Now be it known to you that his then study was the Universal Spelling Book (I believe he had it in his pocket at the time), in which is the story of the town in danger of being besieged. The mason, the currier, and the carpenter, give their opinion as to the best method of fortifying it, and each, of course, with an eye to self-interest. The mason recommends stone, the carpenter oak, and the currier leather.

Well, at the instant of the shopkeeper’s and tailor’s deliberations on my wearables, Jimmy stood at the shop-door, staring up and down the street, as far as it was in his ken; and when the tailor appealed to him to know ‘what sort of inexpressibles did his masther ordher,’ honest Jimmy, thinking but of the ‘town in danger of being besieged,’ answered in the words of the currier, ‘take my word for it, there is _nothing like leather_.’

‘Leather!’ echoed the shopkeeper.

‘Leather!’ screamed the tailor.

‘Ay,’ repeated Jimmy decidedly, ‘there is nothing like leather!’

Well! patience is a virtue. Were it not that the gentle spirit had made my half-starved frame her tabernacle, I should have been a tenant for Bedlam on the succeeding Saturday night, when the rascal Bryan brought himself and his green bag, with a sort of grin, into my parlour, and untying it, shook out before my amazed eyes a dashing pair of---- you shall hear _what_, presently.

‘They’re a very neat piece of work, Bryan,’ said I, examining them without much interest, thinking they could not possibly be for me; ‘they seem to be well seamed and stitched for aught I know, and I only hope for _your_ sake that they will fit him for whom you have made them.’

‘I hope so too, sur,’ quoth the tailor, smirking complacently. ‘Be plaised to thry _them_ on sur, an’ I’ll engage they’ll fit to the peelin’ ov an ingin.’

‘Pooh, pooh,’ returned I, good humouredly, still in the dark, ‘what use in _my_ trying them on? Indeed, if they had come in my way thirty years ago, and the _red rogue_ in full chase, I wouldn’t say but I’d pop them on, priest or no priest; but _now_ there’s no use in talking about them. Hand me out the _velvets_, and let me try _them_ on.’

‘The _velvets_, yer rivirince?’

‘Ay, the _velvets_, Sir Tailor; and I hope those you bring me now are roomier than the last pair.’

‘Oh, faix, sur,’ cried the fellow, still shaking the _unmentioned unmentionables_ at me, ‘_those_ are roomy enough in all conscience, for I thought as how you wouldn’t like them _quite_ to the skin.’ And there _he_ stood, holding forth his wearables, and expatiating in their praise; and there _I_ stood expecting my _velvets_--but in vain! I caught up the bag, and turning it inside out, I found I had nothing more to expect--those forbidden ones were for ME!

‘What _colour_ are these in day-light?’ asked I, in that still calm that precedes the tempest.

‘An iligant yellow, sur!’ responded the stitcher with alacrity, his countenance brightening with hope.

‘And thou vile fraction of a man!’ thundered I in full storm, and darting a withering scowl that almost put the little animal into the earth, ‘hast thou no more reverence for thy church than that, to suit thy petty interests, thou wouldst see thy venerable parish priest, of seventy-six, figure in a _pair of yellow buckskin breeches_, like a huntsman or postilion? Away with them, sirrah, or by the soul of your grandmother in purgatory--where she shall stay those hundred years for your assurance--these same breeches shall case your own diminutive limbs to-morrow, and you placed upon the altar as an exhibition, with _Tally-ho!_ in capitals upon your back. What a beautiful spectacle for the congregation!’

Soon I had the dismayed stitcher upon his knees, deprecating my wrath, and recounting the particulars I have already related in explanation; ending with ‘my backward blessing on Jimmy Delany!’ intending of course that all my ire should fall upon the real delinquent. And so it would, but that there is something in the very name ‘Jimmy Delany’ that invariably mollifies me. I knew he did nothing out of malice or mischief, but from the greatest simplicity; and when I demanded to see the book he was then busy with, and his thumb marks pointing to the ‘town in danger of being besieged,’ I was at home in the matter at once. But I had to pay for the leather, and the tailor for making the breeches, which I lost afterwards at a game of backgammon with Squire Hooligan.