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diff --git a/old/62180-0.txt b/old/62180-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b4b1ad4..0000000 --- a/old/62180-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8772 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Irish Crazy-Quilt, by Arthur M. Forrester - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: An Irish Crazy-Quilt - -Author: Arthur M. Forrester - -Release Date: May 20, 2020 [EBook #62180] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN IRISH CRAZY-QUILT *** - - - - -Produced by Sonya Schermann, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - AN IRISH CRAZY-QUILT. - - SMILES AND TEARS, WOVEN INTO - SONG AND STORY. - - BY - ARTHUR M. FORRESTER. - - BOSTON: - ALFRED MUDGE & SON PRINTERS, 24 FRANKLIN STREET. - 1891. - - - COPYRIGHT, - 1890, - BY ARTHUR M. FORRESTER. - - - TO THE - - “FELONS” OF IRELAND, - - THE BRAVE AND FAITHFUL FEW, - - WHO HAVE BEEN EXILED OR IMPRISONED OR EXECUTED - - BECAUSE THEY LOVED THEIR NATIVE LAND MORE THAN - HOME OR LIBERTY OR LIFE, - - This Volume - - IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. - - - -CONTENTS. - - -SONGS AND BALLADS. - - PAGE. - -The Church of Ballymore 7 - -The Old Boreen 9 - -The Irish Schoolhouse 11 - -Pat Murphy’s Cows 13 - -Father Tom Malone 16 - -You Can Guess 18 - -Only! 19 - -Songs of Innisfail 20 - -The Lord of Kenmare 32 - -An Old Irish Tune 39 - -Harvey Duff 45 - -Ivan Petrokoffsky 52 - -The Emperor’s Ring 54 - -Black Loris 56 - -The Red Heart Daisy 67 - -The Tide is Turning 68 - -Our Own Again 70 - -The Tale of a Tail 71 - -The Seasick Sub-Commissioners 75 - -Clare Constabulary Caione 77 - -Clause Twenty-six 78 - -Jenkins, M. P. 80 - -Thady Malone 81 - -Rory’s Reverie 83 - -Our Land Shall be Free 102 - -The Felons of Our Land 111 - -An Official Valuation 112 - -A Bewildered Boycotter 113 - -A Complaint of Coercion 115 - -O’Neil’s Address (Benburb) 118 - -The Fenian’s Dream 119 - -The Speaker’s Complaint 126 - -Erin Machree 128 - -Balfour’s Wish 135 - -Our Cause 136 - -Served Him Right 138 - -Rapparee Song 140 - -To the Landlords of Ireland 141 - -Balfour Rejoices 142 - -The Irish Brigade 149 - -Faithful to the Last 156 - -Fenian Battle Song 158 - -The Grave of the Martyrs 159 - -Death’s Victory 160 - -The Green Flag at Fredericksburg 161 - -The Flag of Our Land 162 - -Hurrah for Liberty 163 - -The Messenger 165 - -John Bull’s Appeal 175 - -The Story of a Bomb 177 - -Avenging, Though Dim 180 - -Christmas Dirge of London -Police 180 - -Ireland’s Prayer 182 - -John Bull’s New Year 183 - -Ready and Steady 185 - -The Charge of the Guards 193 - -An Address to Slaves 195 - -The Lion’s Lamentation 200 - -Memorial Ode to Irish Dead 202 - -Song of King Alcohol 209 - -Contrary Cognomens 210 - -An Æsthetic Wooing 211 - -The Drunkard’s Dream 212 - -Constable X 222 - -Lucifer’s Laboratory 223 - -The Monopolist’s Moan 224 - -With the Grand Army Veterans 225 - -The Irish Soldier at Grant’s -Grave 228 - -Maine and Mayo 229 - -The Priest with the Brogue 238 - -Arab War Song 240 - -The Linguist of the Liffey 247 - -Peggy O’Shea 250 - -The Boston Carrier’s Plaint 253 - -New England’s Marksmen 260 - -Calcraft and Price 270 - -Entitled to a Raise 272 - -The Postman’s Wooing 273 - -Sonnets to a Shoemaker 275 - -At the College Sports 278 - -Mulrooney: A Trooper’s Tale 286 - - -STORIES AND SKETCHES. - -Taming a Tiger 22 - -Ryan’s Revenge 34 - -Harvey Duff 40 - -A Seditious Slide 47 - -Who Shot Phlynn’s Hat? 58 - -A Double Surprise 86 - -Philipson’s Party 103 - -That Traitor Timmins 129 - -A Picturesque Penny-a-Liner 144 - -Snooks 151 - -Caledonian Candlesticks 152 - -A Typical Trial 168 - -Why Smithers Resigned 186 - -Exploits of an Irish Reporter 197 - -A Political Lesson Spoiled 199 - -An Orange Oration 205 - -Frederick’s Folly 215 - -A Sandy Row Skirmish 232 - -Hobbies in Our Block 241 - -Not a John L. Sullivan 244 - -A Windy Day at Cabra 248 - -Apropos of the Census 256 - -A Mixed Antiquarian 261 - -Jones’s Umbrella 263 - -Lessons in the French Drama 265 - -A Commercial Crisis 276 - -A Musical Revenge 280 - -A Liar Laid Out 282 - - - - -AN IRISH CRAZY-QUILT. - - - - -THE CHURCH OF BALLYMORE. - - - I have knelt in great cathedrals with their wondrous naves and aisles, - Whose fairy arches blend and interlace, - Where the sunlight on the paintings like a ray of glory smiles, - And the shadows seem to sanctify the place; - Where the organ’s tones, like echoes of an angel’s trumpet roll, - Wafted down by seraph wings from heaven’s shore-- - They are mighty and majestic, but they cannot touch my soul - Like the little whitewashed church of Ballymore. - - Ah! modest little chapel, half-embowered in the trees, - Though the roof above its worshippers was low, - And the earth bore traces sometimes of the congregation’s knees, - While they themselves were bent with toil and woe! - Milan, Cologne, St. Peter’s--by the feet of monarchs trod-- - With their monumental genius and their lore, - Never knew in their magnificence more trustful prayers to God - Than ascended to His throne from Ballymore! - - Its priest was plain and simple, and he scorned to hide his brogue - In accents that we might not understand, - But there was not in the parish such a renegade or rogue - As to think his words not heaven’s own command! - He seemed our cares and troubles and our sorrows to divide, - And he never passed the poorest peasant’s door-- - In sickness he was with us, and in death still by our side-- - God be with you, Father Tom, of Ballymore. - - There’s a green graveyard behind it, and in dreams at night I see - Each little modest slab and grassy mound; - For my gentle mother’s sleeping ’neath the withered rowan tree, - And a host of kindly neighbors lie around! - The famine and the fever through our stricken country spread, - Desolation was about me, sad and sore, - So I had to cross the waters, in strange lands to seek my bread, - But I left my heart behind in Ballymore! - - I am proud of our cathedrals--they are emblems of our love - To an ever-mighty Benefactor shown; - And when wealth and art and beauty have been given from above, - The devil should not have them as his own! - Their splendor has inspired me--but amidst it all I prayed - God to grant me, when life’s weary work is o’er, - Sweet rest beside my mother in the dear embracing shade - Of the little whitewashed church of Ballymore! - - - - -THE OLD BOREEN. - - - Embroidered with shamrocks and spangled with daisies, - Tall foxgloves like sentinels guarding the way, - The squirrel and hare played bo-peep in its mazes, - The green hedgerows wooed it with odorous spray; - The thrush and the linnet piped overtures in it, - The sun’s golden rays bathed its bosom of green. - Bright scenes, fairest skies, pall to-day on my eyes, - For I opened them first on an Irish boreen! - - It flung o’er my boyhood its beauty and gladness, - Rich homage of perfume and color it paid; - It laughed with my joy--in my moments of sadness - What solace I found in its pitying shade. - When Love, to my rapture, rejoiced in my capture, - My fetters the curls of a brown-haired colleen, - What draught from his chalice, in mansion or palace, - So sweet as I quaffed in the dear old boreen? - - But green fields were blighted and fair skies beclouded, - Stern frost and harsh rain mocked the poor peasant’s toil, - Ere they burst into blossom the buds were enshrouded, - The seed ere its birth crushed in merciless soil; - Wild tempests struck blindly, the landlord, less kindly, - Aimed straight at our hearts with a “death sentence” keen; - The blast spared our sheeling, which he, more unfeeling, - Left roofless and bare to affright the boreen. - - A dirge of farewell through the hawthorn was pealing, - The wind seemed to stir branch and leaf with a sigh, - As, down on a tear-bedewed shamrock sod kneeling, - I kissed the old boreen a weeping good-by; - And vowed that should ever my patient endeavor - The grains of success from life’s harvest-field glean, - Where’er fortune found me, whatever ties bound me, - My eyes should be closed in the dear old boreen. - - Ah! Fate has been cruel, in toil’s endless duel - With sickness and want I have earned only scars; - Life’s twilight is nearing--its day disappearing-- - My weary soul sighs to escape through its bars; - But ere fields elysian shall dazzle its vision, - Grant, Heaven, that its flight may be winged through the scene - Of streamlet and wild-wood, the home of my childhood, - The grave of my kin, and the dear old boreen! - - - - -AN IRISH SCHOOLHOUSE. - - - Upon the rugged ladder rungs--whose pinnacle is Fame-- - How often have ambitious pens deep graven Harvard’s name; - The gates of glory Cambridge men o’er all the world assail, - And rulers in the realm of thought look back with pride to Yale. - To no such Alma Mater can my Muse in triumph raise - Its Irish voice in canticles of gratitude and praise; - Yet still I hold in shrine of gold, and until death I will, - The little schoolhouse, thatched with straw, that lay behind the hill. - - When in the balmy morning, racing down the green boreen - Toward its portal, ivy-framed, our curly heads were seen, - We felt no shame for ragged coats, nor blushed for shoeless feet, - But bubbled o’er with laughter dear old master’s smile to meet; - Yet saw beneath his homespun garb an awe-inspiring store - Of learning’s fearful mysteries and academic lore. - No monarch wielded sceptre half so potent as his quill - In that old schoolhouse, thatched with straw, that lay behind the hill. - - Perhaps--and yet ’tis hard to think--our boastful modern school - Might feel contempt for master, for his methods and his rule; - Would scorn his simple ways--and in the rapid march of mind - His patient face and thin gray locks would lag far, far behind. - No matter; he was all to us, our guide and mentor then; - He taught us how to face life’s fight with all the grit of men; - To honor truth, and love the right, and in the future fill - Our places in the world as he had done behind the hill. - - He taught us, too, of Ireland’s past; her glories and her wrongs-- - Our lessons being varied with the most seditious songs: - We were quite a nest of rebels, and with boyish fervor flung - Our hearts into the chorus of rebellion when we sung. - In truth, this was the lesson, above all, we conned so well - That some pursued the study in the English prison cell, - And others had to cross the seas in curious haste, but still - All living love to-day, as then, the school behind the hill. - - The wind blows through the thatchless roof in stormy gusts to-day; - Around its walls young foxes now, in place of children, play; - The hush of desolation broods o’er all the country-side; - The pupils and their kith and kin are scattered far and wide. - But wheresoe’er one scholar on the face of earth may roam, - When in a gush of tears comes back the memory of home, - He finds the brightest picture limned by Fancy’s magic skill, - The little schoolhouse, thatched with straw, that lay behind the hill. - - - - -PAT MURPHY’S COWS. - - [In one of the debates on the Irish land question, Chief Secretary - Forster endeavored to attribute much of the poverty in Ireland to - the early and imprudent marriages of the peasantry, and elicited - roars of laughter by a comic but cruel description of one Pat - Murphy, who had only two cows, but was the happy father of no less - than eleven children.] - - - In a vale in Tipperary, where the silvery Anner flows, - There’s a farm of but two acres where Pat Murphy ploughs and sows; - From rosy morn till ruddy eve he toils with sinews strong, - With hope alone for dinner, and for lunch an Irish song. - He’s a rood laid out for cabbage, and another rood for corn, - And another sweet half-acre pratie blossoms will adorn; - While down there in the meadow, fat and sleek and healthy, browse - Pat’s mine of wealth, his fortune sole--a pair of Kerry cows. - - Ah, black were the disaster if poor Pat should ever lose - The cows whose milk and butter buy eleven young Murphys shoes, - Which keep their shirts upon their backs, the quilt upon the bed, - And help to thatch the dear old roof that shelters overhead. - And even then the blessings that they bring are scarcely spent, - For they help brave Murphy often in his troubles with the rent; - In bitterest hours their friendly low his spirits can arouse; - He don’t mind eleven young Murphys while he’s got that pair of cows. - - And when the day is over, and the cows are in the byre, - Pat Murphy sits contented with his dhudeen by the fire; - His children swarm around him, and they hang about his chair-- - The twins perched on his shoulders with their fingers in his hair, - Till Bridget, cosey woman, takes the youngest one to rest, - Lays four to sleep beneath the stairs, a couple in the chest; - And happy Phaudrig Murphy in his big heart utters vows - Ere that eleven should be ten he’d sell the pair of cows. - - Then in the morning early, ere Pat, whistling, ventures out, - How they cluster all around him there with joyous laugh and shout! - A kiss for one, a kiss for all, ’tis quite a morning’s task, - And the twins demand an extra share, and must have what they ask. - What if a gloomy thought his spirit’s brightness should obscure, - As he feels age creeping on him with soft footsteps, slow but sure, - He’s hardly o’er the threshold when the shadow leaves his brow, - For his eldest girl and Bridget each is milking a fine cow. - - Let us greet the name of cruel Buckshot Forster with a groan-- - He hadn’t got the decency to leave those cows alone; - He thought maternal virtue only fitting for a sneer, - And made Pat Murphy’s little ones the subject of a jeer. - Well, the people have more feeling than the knaves who make their laws, - And when the people laugh ’tis for a somewhat better cause: - They hate the whining coward who beneath life’s burden bows, - But they honor men like Murphy, with his pair of Kerry cows. - - - - -FATHER TOM MALONE. - -A LAND LEAGUE REMINISCENCE. - - - Hair white as innocence, that crowned - A gentle face which never frowned; - Brow smooth, spite years of care and stress; - Lips framed to counsel and to bless; - Deep, thoughtful, tender, pitying eyes, - A reflex of our native skies, - Through which now tears, now sunshine shone-- - There you have Father Tom Malone. - - He bade the infant at its birth - _Cead mille failthe_ to the earth; - With friendly hand he guided youth - Along the thorny track of truth; - The dying felt, yet knew not why, - Nearer to Heaven when he was by-- - For, sure, the angels at God’s throne - Were friends of Father Tom Malone. - - For us, poor simple sons of toil - Who wrestled with a stubborn soil, - Our one ambition, sole content, - Not to be backward with the rent; - Our one absorbing, constant fear, - The agent’s visits twice a year; - We had, our hardships to atone, - The love of Father Tom Malone. - - One season failed. The dull earth slept. - Despite of ceaseless vigil kept - For sign of crop, day after day, - To coax it from the sullen clay, - Nor oats, nor rye, nor barley came; - The tubers rotted--then, oh, shame! - We--’twas the last time ever known-- - Lost faith in Father Tom Malone. - - We had, from fruitful years before, - Garnered with care a frugal store; - ’Twould pay one gale, but when ’twas gone - What were our babes to live upon? - We had no seed for coming spring, - Nor faintest hope to which to cling; - We would have starved without a moan, - When out spoke Father Tom Malone. - - His voice, so flute-like in the past, - Now thrilled us like a bugle blast, - His eyes, so dove-like in their gaze, - Took a new hue, and seemed to blaze! - “God’s wondrous love doth not intend - Hundreds to starve that one may spend; - Pay ye no rent, but hold your own.” - _That_ from mild Father Tom Malone. - - And when the landlord with a force - Of English soldiers, foot and horse, - Came down and direst vengeance swore, - Who met him at the cabin door? - Who reasoned first and then defied - The thief in all his power and pride? - Who won the poor man’s fight alone? - Why, fearless Father Tom Malone. - - So, when you point to heroes’ scars, - And boast their prowess in the wars, - Give one small meed of praise, at least, - To this poor modest Irish priest. - No laurel wreath was twined for him, - But pulses throb and eyelids dim - When toil-worn peasants pray, “Mavrone, - God bless you, Father Tom Malone!” - - - - -YOU CAN GUESS. - - - There are grottos in Wicklow, and groves in Kildare, - And the loveliest glens robed with shamrock in Clare, - And in fairy Killarney ’tis easy to find - Sweet retreats where a swain can unburden his mind; - But of all the dear spots in our emerald isle, - Where verdure and sunshine crown life with a smile, - There’s one boreen I love, for ’twas there I confess - I first met my fate,--what it was you can guess. - - It was under the shade of its bordering trees, - One day I grew suddenly weak at the knees - At the thought of what seemed quite a terrible task, - And yet it was but a short question to ask. - ’Twas over, and since, night and morning, I bless - The boreen that heard the soft whisper of “yes.” - And the breezes that toyed with each clustering tress; - And the question was this--but I’m sure you can guess. - - - - -ONLY! - - - Only a cabin, thatched and gray, - Only a rose-twined door, - Only a barefooted child at play - On only an earthern floor. - Only a little brain--not wise - For even a head so small, - And that is the reason he bitterly cries - For leaving his home--that’s all. - - Only the thought of her girlhood there, - And her happier days as wife, - In the shelter poor of its walls so bare, - Have endeared them to her for life; - What is the weeping woman’s cause? - Why are her accents gall? - What does she know of our intricate laws? - It was only a hut--that’s all. - - He’s only a peasant in blood and birth, - That man with the eyelids dim, - And there’s room enough on the wide, wide earth - For sinewy serfs like him. - Why had this pitiful, narrow farm, - For his heart such a wondrous thrall? - Why each tree and flower such a mystic charm? - He was born in the place--that’s all. - - * * * * * - - The years have gone, and the worn-out pair - Sleep under the stranger’s clay, - And the weeping child with the curly hair - Is a brave, strong man to-day; - Yet still he thinks of the olden land, - And prays for her tyrant’s fall, - And longs to be one of some chosen band, - With only a chance--that’s all. - - - - -SONGS OF INNISFAIL. - - - Where the Austral river rushes - Through feathery heath and bushes, - Through its gurgles and its gushes - You may hear, - To your wonder and surprise, - Sweet melodies arise - You have heard ’neath other skies - Low and clear. - Yes! within the gold land, - Strange to you and cold land, - Voices from the old land - Swell upon the gale-- - Lyrics of the story, - Lit with flames of glory, - Dimmed with pages gory, - Songs of Innisfail! - - Where Mississippi leaping - O’er cliffs and crags, or creeping - Through valleys fair, is sweeping - To the sea, - From the fields of nodding grain - On some mountain path or plain - Rings a stirring old refrain - Fresh and free. - Yes! where’er we wander - Irish hearts will ponder - O’er our land, and fonder - Throb with ev’ry tale - Of the home that bore us, - Till the new skies o’er us - Echo with our chorus - Songs of Innisfail. - - Exiles o’er the spray-foam, - Whereso’er we may roam, - Thoughts of far-away home - Linger still, - And in dreams we see again - Babbling stream and silent glen, - Forest green and lonely fen, - Vale and hill. - Yes! our hearts’ devotion - Flies across the ocean, - While with deep emotion - Sternest features pale, - As around us stealing, - Softened by sad feeling, - Through the air are pealing - Songs of Innisfail! - - - - -TAMING A TIGER. - - -We were standing together on the platform of the King’s Bridge terminus, -Dublin,--five of us--a gallant quintette in the noble army of drummers. - -There was Austin Burke, slim, prim, and demure, as befitted the -representative of a vast dry-goods establishment whose business lay -amongst modistes and milliners; Paul Ryan, tall, dark, and dignified, -who travelled for the great ironmongery firm of Locke & Brassey; Tim -Malone, smart, chatty, and well-informed, the agent of a flourishing -stationery house; dashing Jack Hickey, who was solicitor for a -distillery, and rattling, rakish, as packed with funny ideas and comical -jokes as a Western newspaper, and as full of mischief as a frolicsome -kitten; and lastly, myself. We were waiting for the 11.30 A.M. train -south, and indulging in somewhat personal witticisms upon the appearance -of various personages in the surrounding crowd, when our attention was -attracted by the bustling advent upon the platform of a fussy, florid -individual, with a face like an inflamed tomato, and the generally -irascible and angry air of an infuriated rooster. - -“Know that fellow?” queried Burke. “That’s Major Boomerang, the -newly-appointed Resident Magistrate for some part of Cork; all the way -from Bengal, to teach the wild Irish Hindoo civilization. He thinks -we’re all Thugs and Dacoits, and by the ‘jumping Harry,’ as he would -ejaculate, he’s going to sit on us. What do you say, boys, if we have a -little lark with him? Let us all get into the same carriage and draw him -out. I’ll introduce you, F. (to me), as my friend Captain Neville, of -the Galway militia. I won’t know you other fellows, but you can take -whatever characters you like, just as the conversation turns. Let me -see. You, Ryan, get out at Portarlington, and you, Malone, at Limerick -Junction. Jack Hickey goes on with us to Mallow. Now, I know this -Boomerang will be launching out into fiery denunciation of Parnell and -Biggar and all the rest before we’re aboard ten minutes, and I want each -of you fellows to take the role of whoever he pitches into the worst, -and challenge him in that character. D’ye see? F., as Capt. Neville, -will offer to do the amiable for the major, and persuade him that he -must fight. He’s an awful fire-eater in conversation, but I’ll stake my -sample case we’ll put him into the bluest of funks before we part. What -do you say, boys?” - -Of course, we agreed. Whoever heard of a drummer refusing to take a hand -in any deviltry afoot that promised a laugh at the end? We watched the -major into a first-class carriage, and quietly followed him. He seemed -rather inclined to resent our intrusion, for we just crowded the -compartment, but he graciously recognized Burke, who had stayed in -Dublin at the same hotel, and he was “delighted, sir, by the jumping -Harry,--delighted to meet a brother officer” (that was your humble -servant). - -At first he was somewhat reticent about Irish matters. He told us all -manner of thrilling stories of his Indian adventures. He had polished -off a few hundred tigers with all sorts of weapons, transfixed them to -the trunks of trees with the native spear, riddled them with buckshot, -swan-shot and bullets, and on one occasion, when his stock of lead had -pegged out, and a Royal Bengal tiger, twelve feet, sir, from his snout -to the tip of his tail, was crouched ready to spring on poor Joe -Boomerang, why, Joe whipped out a loose double tooth, rammed it home, -and sent it crashing through the brute’s frontal ossicles. - -He wanted to keep that tooth as a memento, but, by the jumping Harry! -the Maharajah of Jubbulpore would take no denial, and that tooth is now -the brightest jewel in the dusky prince’s coronet. - -He had killed a panther with his naked hands--with one naked hand, in -fact. It had leaped upon him with its mouth wide open, and in -desperation he had thrust his arm down its throat, intending to tear its -tongue out by the roots. But such was the momentum of the panther’s -spring and his own thrust, that his arm went in up to the shoulder, and -he found his strong right hand groping around the beast’s interior -recesses. He tore its heart out, sir,--its heart,--and an assortment of -lungs and ribs and other things. - -He used to think no more of waking up with a deadly cobra-di-capello -crawling up his leg, or a boa constrictor playfully entwining around his -waist, than he did of taking his rice pillau or his customary curry. He -never lost his presence of mind, by the jumping Harry, not he. - -At last, as we were passing through the pleasant pasturage of Kildare, -and rapidly nearing Portarlington, where we should part with Ryan, we -managed to turn the conversation upon the unsettled state of affairs in -Ireland. - -“Ah!” said the blusterous Boomerang, “I’m going to change all that--down -in Cork, anyhow. I’ll have the murderous scoundrels like mice in a -fortnight. By the jumping Harry, I’ll settle ’em! I’ve quelled -twenty-seven mutinies and blown four hundred tawny rascals to pulverized -atoms in Bengal, and if I don’t make these marauding peasants here sing -dumb, my name’s not Boomerang--Joe Boomerang, the terror of Janpore.” - -“I don’t,” observed Burke, with a wink at Ryan, “I don’t blame the -peasantry so much as those who are leading them astray. There’s Davitt, -for instance.” - -“I wish,” growled the major, “that I had that rapscallion within reach -of my horsewhip, sir, for five minutes. I’d flay him,--flay him alive, -sir. If he ever is fool enough to come in my direction, he’ll remember -Joe Boomerang--fighting Joe--as long as he lives. Green snakes and wild -elephants! I would annihilate the released convict, the pardoned thief, -the--the--by the jumping Harry, sir, I would exterminate the wretch!” - -Ryan slowly rose, stretched his long form to its uttermost dimensions, -and leaning over to the astounded major, in a deep base thundered, “I am -the man, Major Boomerang, at your service. I have listened to your -abominable bombast in silent contempt as long as I was not personally -concerned. Now that you have attacked me, I demand satisfaction. I -suppose your friend, Capt. Neville, will act for you. Captain, you will -oblige me with your card. My second shall wait upon you to-morrow. As an -officer, even though no gentleman, you cannot disgrace the uniform you -have worn, Major Boomerang, by refusing to meet me. Good day.” - -We had reached Portarlington, and Ryan leaped lightly on to the platform -and disappeared, leaving the major puffing and blowing and gasping like -an exhausted porpoise. “By the jumping Harry!” he at last exclaimed, but -his voice had changed from its bouncing barytone to a timorous tenor, “I -cannot fight a convicted thief. I won’t! D---- me, if I will!” - -“I beg your pardon, major,” I observed. “You are mistaken; Davitt is not -a thief. He was merely a political prisoner. You can meet him with -perfect propriety. I shall be happy to arrange the preliminaries for -you. I expect he’ll choose pistols. Let me see, Burke, wasn’t it with -pistols he met poor Col. Smith? Ah, yes, to be sure it was. He shot him -in the left groin. Don’t you remember what a job they had extracting the -bullet? People said, you know, that it was the doctors and not Davitt -that killed him.” Burke assented with a nod. - -The major gazed at us with a sort of dazed, bewildered look, like a man -in a dream. “Good God!” he murmured at last; “has he killed a man -already? Why didn’t they arrest him? Why didn’t they hang him? I’m not -going to be killed--I mean to kill a man that should be hanged. I’m not -going to be popped at by a fellow that goes about shooting colonels as -if they were snipe.” - -“But, my dear major,” I remonstrated, “you must uphold the traditions of -the cloth. In fact, the government will expect you to act just as Smith -did.” (The major groaned.) “Smith didn’t like the idea of meeting -Davitt, he’s such a dead shot.” (The major’s visage became positively -blue.) “But the Duke of Cambridge wrote to him that he must go out for -the honor of the service.” - -“The service be d----d!” exploded the major, over whose countenance a -kaleidoscope of colors--red, purple, blue, yellow, and white--were -flashing and fluctuating; “I shall not fight a common low fellow like -this. Now, if I had been challenged by a gentleman, it would be a -different matter. By the jumping Harry, sir!” he cried, as he felt his -courage returning at the prospect of evading the encounter, “if, instead -of that low-bred cur, one of those Irish popinjays in Parliament had -ventured to beard the lion heart of Boomerang, I should have sprung, -sir, sprung hilariously at the chance. But there isn’t a man among them -that wouldn’t quail at a glance from me, sir; yes, a lightning glance -from fighting Joe, who has looked the Bengal tiger in the eyes and -winked at the treacherous crocodile. Parnell is a coward, sir! Biggar -and O’Donnell would hide if they heard that blazing Boomerang was round; -and as for that whipper-snapper Healy, why, sir, I could tear him limb -from limb, without exerting my mighty muscles.” - -Little Tim Malone sprang to his feet like an electrified bantam-cock, -and shaking his fist right under the major’s nose, he hissed: “You are a -cur; an unmitigated, red-eyed, yellow-skinned, mongrel cur. I am Healy. -I’ll have your life’s gore for this, if you escape my friend Davitt. I -shall request him as a favor only to chip off one of your ears, so that -I may have the pleasure of scarifying your hide. Captain Neville, as you -must act for your brother officer, I shall send a friend to you -to-morrow.” He sat down, and a solemn silence fell upon the company. The -prismatic changes of hue which had illuminated the major’s features had -disappeared altogether, and his face was now a sickening whitey-yellow. -Not a word was spoken until we reached Limerick Junction, where Malone -got off. The gallant Boomerang recovered a little at this, and managed -to whisper to me, “Can Healy fight?” - -“He is a master of fence,” I replied. “I suppose, as the insulted party, -he will demand choice of weapons. His weapon is the sword; at least, he -has always chosen that so far.” - -“Has he been out before?” asked the terrible tiger-slayer, in such -horror-stricken accents that I could barely refrain from laughing -outright. - -“Oh, yes,” I replied carelessly, “five or six times.” - -“Has he--has he--I’m not afraid, you know--ha! ha! Joe Boomerang -afraid--capital joke--but--but--has he killed anybody?” - -“Only poor Lieutenant Jones,” I answered. “You see Jones insulted him -personally; his other duels originated in political, not personal, -matters. I think,” I added maliciously, “he’ll try to kill you.” The -major gurgled as if he had a spasm of some sort in his windpipe. I -continued: “I would advise you to furbish up your knowledge of both -pistol and sword practice. You’ll have to fight both Davitt and Healy. -You’ll be dismissed and disgraced if you decline either challenge. It -will be somewhat inconvenient for me to see you through both affairs, -but, my dear fellow, I never allow personal inconvenience to interfere -with my duty.” - -“You’re very good,” he murmured; “but don’t you think that--that--” - -“That I may only be wanted for one. Very likely, but let us hope for the -best. I know an undertaker in Cork--a decent sort of a chap. We can -arrange for the funeral with him, so that, if it don’t come off the -first time, he won’t charge anything extra for waiting till Healy kills -you.” - -“Stop, stop,” screamed the agonized panther pulverizer. “You make me -sick.” By this time he had become green, and, as I did not know what -alarming combination of colors he might next assume if I continued, I -remained silent for some time. As we were nearing Mallow the major -managed to get hold of enough of his voice to inquire how it came to -pass that the government permitted such a barbarous practice as -duelling. - -“Well,” I responded, “it’s a re-importation from America. Western -institutions are getting quite a hold here. Duelling is winked at in -deference to Yankee ideas.” - -“Curse America and the Yankees too,” roared Boomerang. “Only for them we -would have peace and quiet. They are a pestiferous, rowdy, hellish gang -of--” - -“Yahoop!” There was a yell from Jack Hickey that shook the roof of the -car, as that individual bounded to his feet with a large clasp-knife -clutched in his sinewy hand, and a desperate look of fiendish -determination on his features that made the mighty Indian hunter -collapse and curl up in his corner like a lame hen in a heavy shower. -“Where’s the double-distilled essence of the son of a cross-eyed galoot -that opens his measly mouth to drop filth and slime about our great and -glorious take-it-all-round scrumptious and everlasting republic of -America? I’m Yankee, clean grit, from the toe-nails and finger-tips to -the backbone, and he’s riz my dander. And when my dander’s riz, I’m -bound to have scalps. I’m a roaring, ring-tailed roysterer from the -Rocky Mountains, I am; half earthquake and half wildcat, and when I -squeal, somebody’s got to creep into a hole! Yahoop! Let me at the -blue-moulded skunk till I rip him open. I don’t wait for any ceremonies, -sending seconds and all that bosh. I go red-hot, boiling over, like a -Kansas cyclone or a Texas steer, straight for the snub-nosed, -curly-toothed, red-headed, all-fired Britisher that wakes my lurid fury. -Look out, Boomerang. Draw yer knife, for here’s a double-clawed hyena -from Colorado going to skiver you.” And Jack made a terrific plunge -forward, while he flashed his knife in a hundred wild gyrations that -seemed to light up the compartment with gleaming steel. Burke and I made -a pretence of throwing ourselves between the mad Yankee and his victim, -but it was unnecessary. The hero of Bengal had fainted. - -When we got out at Mallow I tipped one of the porters a shilling, told -him that a passenger was ill in a compartment which I pointed out, and, -having given him the name of the hotel at which the major purposed -staying, I requested the porter to inform Boomerang when he recovered -that Captain Neville would wait upon him in the morning to arrange for -his interview with three, not two, gentlemen. Later on, when I called at -the depot to see after my luggage, I questioned the porter as to -Boomerang, and asked had he gone on to his hotel. - -“Lor bless you, no, sir,” said the railway official. “As soon as that -gintleman kem to, he jist axed what time the first thrain wint on to -Cork in the mornin’, an’ thin, whin I towld about you wantin’ to see him -this evenin’, he wuddent wait, sorra a bit, for the mornin’, but he -booked straight back to Dublin on the thrain that was goin’ there an’ -thin. I will say I niver saw such a frightened lookin’ gintleman since -the day Squire Mulroony saw Biddy Mullen’s ghost, that hanged herself at -the ould cross roads.” A few days after I read this announcement in the -Dublin _Gazette_: “In consequence of ill-health, super-induced by the -humid atmosphere of Ireland, Major Boomerang has resigned the resident -magistracy in Cork to which he was recently appointed, and will shortly -return to Bengal.” - - - - -THE LORD OF KENMARE. - - - There are skeleton homes like gaunt ghosts in the valley; - The hillside swarms thick with anonymous graves, - When the Last Trumpet sounds spectral legions ’twill rally, - Whose corpses are shrouded in ocean’s sad waves. - What hosts of accusers will cluster around him, - What cohorts of famine, of wrong, and despair, - On the white Day of Judgment to blanch and confound him, - That stone-hearted, merciless Lord of Kenmare! - - Fond, simple, and trusting, we toiled night and morning - The bountiful prizes of Nature to win, - While he, wild and lustful, God’s providence scorning, - Used virtue’s reward as the guerdon of sin, - Till Heaven, in just anger, rained down on the meadow - Distemper and rot; plagued the soil and the air; - Filled the earth with distress, dimmed the sunlight in shadow, - But touched not that cancerous heart in Kenmare! - - When God had been good he reaped all of his bounty; - When Heaven was wrathful the burden was ours, - For the terms of this Lord of Kenmare with the county - Were--the thorns for his serfs, for his harlots the flowers. - And when the poor toiler, beneath his load reeling, - Sank, breathless and faint, on his cabin floor bare, - The noose for his cattle, the torch for his sheeling, - Were the pity he found from the Lord of Kenmare. - - Our fortune enriched him: he coined our disaster-- - This lord of our sinews, our houses, our grounds, - Who felt himself monarch, and knew himself master-- - A monarch of slaves, and a master of hounds! - He held not his hand, and he spared not his scourges; - He laughed at the shriek, and he scoffed at the prayer - That Kerry’s green swards and Atlantic’s white surges - Sobbed and wailed, sighed and moaned, ’gainst the Lord of Kenmare! - - He has gone from the orgies where once he held revel, - Age and youth hunts no more as legitimate game, - But Ireland to-day finds the work of the devil - Still essayed by an imp of his lineage and name. - Tried only, thank God, for the serf has gained reason, - The fool learned to think, and the coward to dare, - And no longer the wolf-cry of “danger” and “treason” - Wraps in mist the misdeeds of the lords of Kenmare. - - Hope’s phosphorent rays light that desolate valley; - Truth’s sunbeams illumine those derelict graves; - The stern blast of Justice’s bugle will rally - Avengers for every corpse ’neath the waves. - Two hemispheres judge as a pitiless jury, - Nor culprit nor crime will their firm verdict spare, - Oh, vain your derision and wasted your fury, - The world writes your sentence, false Lord of Kenmare! - - - - -RYAN’S REVENGE. - - -During the height of the land agitation in Ireland, some of the most -exciting debates in the House of Commons, and some of the most vehement -articles in the National press, had reference to the action of the -post-office authorities in opening letters addressed to gentlemen (and, -for that matter, to ladies, too) whom the sagacious police intellect -“reasonably suspected” of connection with the obnoxious league. This -peculiarly English method of circumventing the plans of a constitutional -association by a resort to an unconstitutional and illegal act was -popularly known as “Grahamizing,” from the fact that it had first been -introduced by Postmaster-General Graham to discover what designs certain -refugees in London entertained against the Emperor of the French, -Napoleon III. Inquisitive Graham had to resign his office, and the -government which sanctioned his conduct was also kicked out by the -indignant English electors, who are the soul of honor in all questions -that do not relate to Ireland. But, despite the fate of Graham, -subsequent cabinets did not hesitate to adopt his invention when they -had reason to believe that anything calculated to interfere with the -_status quo_ was afoot amongst the terrible Irish. Sir William Harcourt, -English Home Secretary in 1882, especially distinguished himself by his -reckless indulgence in this espionage of the letter-box. His post-office -pilferings at last involved him in an avalanche of correspondence that -nearly swamped the staff employed in letter steaming. - -The sapient Home Secretary had taken it into his bucolic brain that -Ireland and Great Britain were undergoing one of those periodical -visitations of secret conspiracy which enliven the monotony of existence -in those superlatively happy and contented realms. From the amount of -his postal communications, and from the brilliant reports of a gifted -county inspector, Sir William strongly suspected that one Ryan, a -Tipperary farmer, was engaged in less commendable pursuits than -turnip-sowing or cabbage-planting. Still, there was no positive proof -that Ryan’s whole soul was not centred in his Early Yorks and Mangolds. -So resort was had to the Grahamizing process. - -For some time Ryan suspected nothing, until his correspondence began to -get muddled,--his tailor’s bill coming in an envelope addressed in the -spidery calligraphy of his beloved Mary, a scented _billet-doux_ from -that devoted one arriving in a formidable-looking official revenue -envelope which should have contained an income-tax schedule, a subpœna -to appear as a witness in a law-suit at Clonmel reaching him in an -envelope with the New York post-mark, and a half a dozen other envelopes -being found to contain nothing at all. - -Then Ryan smelt a multitude of rats, and he determined to cry quits with -the disturbers of his gum and sealing-wax. He adopted the name of Murphy -for the purposes of correspondence, and he arranged that the intelligent -sub-inspector should know that he was going to receive letters in that -euphonious cognomen. - -Now, Murphys were as plentiful round there as counts in a state -indictment or nominations at a Democratic convention. You couldn’t throw -a stone in the location without knocking the eye out of a Murphy. You -couldn’t flourish a kippeen there without peeling the skin off a Murphy. -If you heard any one appealing to the masses, collectively or -individually, to tread on the tail of his coat, you might depend it was -a champion Murphy. The tallest man in the parish was a Murphy, the -shortest was a Murphy; the stout man who took a square rood of corduroy -for a waistcoat was a Murphy, and the mite who could have built a dress -suit for himself out of a gooseberry skin was a Murphy. When a good -harvest smiled on that part of the country people said the Murphys were -thriving, and when small-pox decimated the population it was spoken of -as a blight among the Murphys. - -So, when the order came down from the Castle that all letters directed -to Murphy should be stopped and forwarded to headquarters for perusal, -it might naturally be expected that, even under ordinary circumstances, -the local postmasters would have decent packages to return to Dublin. - -But Ryan didn’t mean to be niggardly in his donations to the central -bureau of the postal pimpdom. He took the clan Murphy into his -confidence, and every Murphy in that parish wrote to every other Murphy -in every other parish, and those Murphys wrote to other Murphys, and the -fiery cross went round among the Murphys generally, and the fiat went -forth that every Murphy worthy the name of Murphy should write as many -letters to the particular Murphy the postmen were after as they could -put pen to. It didn’t matter what they were about,--the crops, the -weather, the price of provisions,--anything, in fact, or nothing at all. -The language was of minor importance,--Irish, however, preferred,--and -the Murphy who paid his postage would be considered a traitor to the -cause. - -Nobly did the Murphys sustain their reputation. - -The first day of the interception of _the_ Murphy’s letters, three bags -full were deposited in the Under Secretary’s office for perusal. - -The morning after sixteen sacks were piled in the room. - -The third morning that room was filled up, and they stuffed Mr. Burke’s -private sanctum with spare bags. - -The fourth morning they occupied a couple of bedrooms. - -The fifth morning half a dozen flunkeys were arranging bales of Murphy -letters on the stairs. - -Then there was a lull in the Castle, for that day was Sunday. - -But it was a deceptive lull, because it enabled every right-thinking -Murphy to let himself loose, and on Monday three van loads of letters -for Mr. Murphy were sent out to the viceregal lodge. - -Day after day the stream flowed regularly for about a week, when the -grand climax came. It was St. Valentine’s morning, and, in addition to -the orthodox correspondence, every man, woman, and child who loved or -hated, adored or despised a Murphy, contributed his or her quota to the -general chaos. - -The post-office authorities had to invoke the aid of the Army Service -Corps, and from 8 A.M. till midnight the quays and Phœnix Park were -blocked with a caravan of conveyances bearing boxes and chests and tubs -and barrels and sacks and hampers of notes and letters and illustrated -protestations of affection or highly-colored expressions of contempt for -Murphy from every quarter of the inhabitable globe. - -Then the bewildered denizens of the Castle had to telegraph to the War -Office for permission to take the magazine and the Ordnance Survey -quarters, and the Pigeonhouse Fort and a barracks or two, to store the -intercepted epistles in. - -Forster wouldn’t undertake to go through the work,--the order to -overhaul Murphy’s letters had come from Harcourt, and Harcourt would -have to do it himself. Well, Harcourt went across, but when he saw the -task that had accumulated for him, he threatened to resign unless he was -relieved. - -Finally, the admiralty ordered the channel fleet to convey the Murphy -correspondence out to the middle of the Atlantic, where it was committed -to the treacherous waves. - -To this day, letters addressed to Mr. Murphy are occasionally picked up -a thousand leagues from land, on the stormy ocean, and whenever Sir -William Vernon Harcourt reads of such a discovery he disappears for a -week, and paragraphs appear in the papers that he is laid up with the -gout. - - - - -AN OLD IRISH TUNE. - - - We had fought, we had marched, we had thirsted all day, - And, footsore and heartsore, at nightfall we lay - By the banks of a streamlet whose thin little flood - A thousand of hoof-beats had churned into mud. - Our tongues were as parched as our spirits were damp, - And misery reigned all supreme in the camp, - When, sweet as the sigh of a zephyr in June, - There stole on our senses an old Irish tune. - - It crept low and clear through the whispering pines, - It crossed the dull stream from the enemy’s lines, - And over the dreams of the slumberers cast - The magical spell of a voice from the past; - It lulled and caressed till the accents of pain - Sank to murmurs that seemed to entwine with its strain; - And soothed, as of old by a mother’s soft croon, - Was our worn-out brigade by that old Irish tune. - - Now pensive, now lilting, half sob and half smile, - Like the life of our race or the skies of our isle, - Our eyelids it dimmed while it tempted our feet, - For our hearts seemed to chorus its cadences sweet. - Once again in old homes we were children at play, - Or we knelt in the little white chapel to pray. - Or burned with the passion of manhood’s hot noon, - And loved o’er again in that old Irish tune. - - A Johnny who crouched by the river’s dark marge, - To pick off our stragglers, neglected his charge, - And out in the moonlight stood, tearful and still, - Most tempting of marks for a rifleman’s skill; - A dozen bright barrels could cover his head, - But never a ball on its death-mission sped; - Our fingers were nerveless to harm the gossoon - Who wept like ourselves at an old Irish tune! - - It linked with its strains ere they melted away - True hearts severed only by blue coats and gray, - But faithful on both sides, in triumph and woe, - To the home and the hopes of the long, long ago. - The air seemed to throb with invisible tears - Ere burst from both camps a tornado of cheers, - And a treaty of peace, to be broken too soon, - Was wrought for one night by that old Irish tune. - - - - -“HARVEY DUFF.” - - -There is no country in Christendom whose inhabitants are so susceptible -to music as the Irish. An itinerant musician, wandering round the -different fairs in Ireland, can exercise an influence with his bagpipes -or fiddle almost as superhuman as that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. -“God Save Ireland” will hush the listeners into reverential silence; -“Savourneen Deelish” will cause tears to glisten on cheeks that a moment -before were flushed with merriment; “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” -will agitate the toes and rustle the petticoats of two thirds of the -living humanity in earshot, and if that instrumentalist fancies himself -a John L. Sullivan, and wishes for an opportunity of testing the muscles -of the manhood about him, let him try the “Boyne Water” for five -minutes. If he don’t get pretty well scattered about, it will be because -he has been killed in the lump. - -But of all the effects of all the tunes to which all the composers -existing for all the centuries have devoted all their genius, there is -none so startling, so instantaneous, so blood-curdling as that produced -upon a constable by the strains of “Harvey Duff.” A red rag flourished -in the eyes of a mad bull, a free-trade pamphlet in a Republican -convention, a Chinese policeman ordering Denis Kearney to move on, or a -trapped mouse wagging its tail defiantly at a cat helplessly growling -outside the wirework, may provoke diabolical ebullitions of wrath; but -if you want to see a forty-horse power, Kansas cyclone, Rocky Mountain -tornado, Java earthquake, Vesuvius volcano, blue-fire and brimstone, -dynamite and gun-cotton, and all the elements combined, crash of rage, -hate, venom, spleen, disgust, and agony, just learn “Harvey Duff,” take -a trip across to Ireland, insure your life, encase yourself in a suit of -mail, and whistle it for the first policeman you meet. The result will -amply repay the journey. You needn’t take a return ticket. If he be -anything like an average peeler, you won’t want it. It might be as well -to ascertain beforehand the number of ribs you possess. It will interest -you in hospital to know how many are missing; that is, if you are lucky -enough to go to hospital. - -Somebody wrote, “The path of glory leads but to the grave.” The -performance of “Harvey Duff” leads generally to the nearest cemetery. - -How, when, where, and why “Harvey Duff” was composed, or who was its -composer, or in what manner the air has become indissolubly associated -with the Irish police, is one of those mysteries which, like the -authorship of the Letters of Junius, may lead to interminable theories -and speculations, but will never be definitely settled. - -I suspect that “Harvey Duff,” like Topsy, “growed.” - -There is a character of the name, a miserable wretch of a process-server -and informer, in Boucicault’s drama, “The Shaughraun,” but the popular -“Harvey Duff” is of country origin, and his requiem was first whistled -in Connemara, where a theatrical company would be as much out of place -as a bottle of rum in a convention of prohibitionists. It is equally -difficult to ascertain the cause of the aversion entertained to the -melody by the constabulary, but that they hate it with Niagara force has -been established a thousand times. Bodies of police have been known to -submit to volleys of stones on rare occasions, but, in a long and varied -experience, I never met a constable yet who could stand “Harvey Duff” -for thirty seconds. - -I think it is of Head Constable Gardiner, of Drogheda, the story is told -that, when Dr. Collier, a relative who had been away for some years, -returned to his native place and he failed to recognize him, the doctor -jocosely asked Mr. Gardiner to hum him “Harvey Duff,” as he was anxious -to master that national anthem. Before that disciple of Galen had time -to finish his request, he found himself battering the pavement with the -back of his head, one leg desperately striving to tie itself into a -knot, and the other hysterically pointing in the direction of the -harvest-moon, whilst the furious Gardiner was looking for a soft spot in -the surgeon’s body to bury his drawn sword-bayonet in. - -In Kilmallock, County Limerick, on one occasion, a bright, curly-headed -little boy of the age of five years was marched into court under an -escort of one sub-inspector, two constables, and eight sub-constables, -and there and then solemnly charged with having intimidated the -aforesaid force of her Majesty’s defenders. It appeared that the small -and chubby criminal, on passing the barracks, had tried to whistle -something which the garrison imagined to be “Harvey Duff,” and before -the barefooted urchin could make his retreat, the sub-inspector’s -Napoleonic strategy, aided as it was by the marvellous discipline and -bulldog valor of his command, resulted in the capture of the infant, -without any serious loss to the loyal battalions. The five-year-old -rebel was bound over to keep the peace, so that the Kilmallock policemen -might not in future pace their dismal rounds with their hearts in their -mouths and their souls in their boots,--that is, if an Irish policeman -has either a heart or a soul. The popular belief is that they discard -both along with their civilian clothes.[A] - -A few days afterwards, in the city of Limerick, an ardent wearer of the -dark-green uniform got a lift in the world, and gave an unique gymnastic -entertainment for the benefit of the citizens that has immortalized him -in the “City of the Violated Treaty,” through the same “Harvey Duff.” He -was passing by a lofty grain warehouse. In the topmost story a laborer -was industriously winding up by a crane sacks of corn which were -attached to the rope below by a fellow-workman. The sub-constable, -pausing to survey the operations, was horror-stricken to hear the man -aloft enlivening his toil by the unmistakable accompaniment of the -atrocious “Harvey Duff.” Fired with heroic zeal, he determined to -capture the sacrilegious miscreant and silence his seditious solo. -Seizing the corn-porter below, he threatened him with the direst -penalties of the law if by signal or shout he warned his musical comrade -of his impending fate. Then, when the rope next descended, that -strategic sub fastened it round his waist, gave the signal “all right,” -and the operatic minstrel began to wind up, not a cargo of grain, but an -avenging angel with belt and tunic. How Mephistopheles below told -Orpheus above of his approaching danger I know not; but when the -passionate peeler was elevated some thirty feet from Mother Earth the -ascent suddenly ceased, and there he was left suspended in mid-air, -twirling and twisting, and swinging and gyrating, and flinging out upon -the passing breeze a cloud of official profanity that made the -atmosphere lurid. His promotion lasted for fully half an hour, and, when -the arrival of re-enforcements released him from his aerial bondage, the -crowd beneath, who had been enjoying his acrobatic feats, and wondering -at his ornamental objurgations, thought it better to dissolve before he -could recover his breath. - -I am not aware whether “Harvey Duff” had ever any words attached to its -obnoxious measure, but I think it would be a pity not to convey the -ideas of the Royal Irish concerning the tune in imperishable verse, and -it is with feelings of profound sympathy I dedicate the following lines -to that immaculate body:-- - - -“HARVEY DUFF.” - - My load of woes is hard to bear, - I’m losing flesh with dark despair, - And the top of my head is so awfully bare - It isn’t worth while to dye my hair. - Would you the cause be after knowing - That makes me the baldest peeler going, - That has changed my sweet tones into accents gruff? - ’Tis a horrible tune they call “Harvey Duff.” - - Oh, “Harvey Duff!” oh, “Harvey Duff!” - If I’ve not heard you often enough, - May a Land League convention dance jigs on my buff, - And keep time to the music of “Harvey Duff!” - - I was once with a bailiff serving writs, - My skull was cracked to spoil my wits, - For the bailiff escaped in the darkness dim, - And the mob malafoostered me for him. - But the case that circles my brain is thick, - It cannot be damaged by stone or stick, - And I’d rather submit to such treatment rough - Than be safe to the chorus of “Harvey Duff!” - - Oh, “Harvey Duff!” oh, “Harvey Duff!” - Should I meet your composer some day in Bruff, - My bayonet into him with pleasure I’ll stuff - Till he’ll wish he had never learnt “Harvey Duff.” - - When duty has called me miles away, - Though hungry and cold, I must needs obey, - And there wasn’t a Christian of either sex - Would give me a sandwich or pint of X. - I couldn’t coax dry bread and water - From father or son, from mother or daughter, - But I always could reckon on more than enough - Of that kind of refreshment called “Harvey Duff!” - - Oh, “Harvey Duff!” oh, “Harvey Duff!” - Of you I get more than _quantum suff_, - And would to the Lord I could collar the muff - Who invented that blasphemous “Harvey Duff!” - - I’m so destroyed I wouldn’t care - To go alone to rebel Clare, - And with a reckless spirit dare - To take a farm that’s vacant there. - I know the peasants bold would scatter - My four bones to the wind--no matter; - They’d wake me decent--no heart so tough - As to mock a dead peeler with “Harvey Duff!” - - Oh, “Harvey Duff!” oh, “Harvey Duff!” - I wipe my eyes upon my cuff, - As I think that my soul will depart in a huff - To the requiem anthem of “Harvey Duff!” - - - - -A SEDITIOUS SLIDE. - - -We learn from a special despatch which has been cabled via Shanghai and -Yokohama to Britain’s representatives abroad that the demon of anarchy -has again broke loose in Ireland, that the flood-gates of sedition have -been once more thrown open, and the pestilential torrents of a whole lot -of things are deluging society. We feel that a Webster’s Unabridged -Dictionary and a very fair acquaintanceship with the slang of nearly -thirty States are utterly inadequate to express our tumultuous thoughts -on reading the following touching epistle from Cornet Gadfly, who is at -present attached to the suite of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland:-- - -There is some dark plot afoot here to destroy the peace of mind and -happiness of her Majesty’s defenders. - -I was wending my cheerful way last evening toward my temporary lodgings -in the bosom of that highly interesting family, the Higginses, who never -did anything so low or ignoble as to _work_ for their country, and are, -consequently, enjoying the reward of their virtue, in the shape of a big -pension from a grateful government. I was whistling contentedly the -refrain of England’s “Marseillaise,” “We don’t want to fight, but by -jingo when we do!” - -On turning the corner of Rutland Square, my legs evinced a sudden and -unexpected interest in the atmospheric and astronomic condition of the -heavens, for I found myself progressing homeward at the rate of twenty -miles an hour on the back of my head, with one foot pointing -triumphantly to Saturn, and the other indicating the whereabouts of the -Milky Way. - -Having satisfied myself that my bodily inversion was not the result of -an earthquake, I wound myself up at the Rotunda railings, ejected a few -front teeth and some powerful ejaculations, and surveyed the position. - -I had come to grief on a slide some eighteen inches wide and about forty -feet in length. The mutinous, seditious, rebellious, and barbarous -juvenile population of that ward must have been nearly a week improving -that slide, until it was so slippery that a bucket of pitch couldn’t -have stuck on it, and a coating of Dublin mud as adhesive as a dish of -Boston baked beans, attached to my boot soles, afforded no protection to -either person or property. The whole fiendish arrangement must have been -organized with devilish ingenuity by either a Fenian engineer or a -National League architect. Rage, anguish, revenge, agony, surged through -my bosom as I contemplated the icy snare. - -But it is strange how the misfortunes of others reconcile us to our -own. In this instance, balm was poured upon the troubled waters of my -soul and my head was metaphorically bandaged and plastered as I saw -approaching the fatal spot, Ensign Wilson of the Lancers, and the fair -Araminta Higgins. - -They were mashing. - -He, in all the pristine glory of a new tunic and a re-dyed sash, -preserved the best traditions of the British uniform by the ardor of his -suit. He was passionate, eloquent, effusive; she was bashful, simpering, -and lackadaisical, as became a pensioned Higgins. - -“Araminta,” he murmured softly, “believe no base calumnies. I am as true -to thee as--as--as thy father to his pension or the needle to the pole. -I am thine--thine only. No power on earth can sever us.” - -At this moment he shot off suddenly, leaving his hat at the lady’s feet -and slinging his umbrella out into the roadway. A few minutes afterward -a dejected and dilapidated British officer was indulging in profane -observations of a remarkably ornamental and original description as he -supported himself against a friendly lamp-post, while the dormant Irish -blood in the fickle Araminta asserted itself through the medium of a -coarse laugh. - -They vanished in the darkness, but I do not think the enamored ensign -spooned any more that night. Barely had they disappeared, when two -prominent members of the Constitutional Club crossed the street from the -direction of the house of a certain eminent judge. They were -energetically discussing the National League campaign in Ulster. They -neared the precipice--I mean the slide. - -“This Parnellite invasion will fail--utterly fail--if we remain firm,” -said the taller of the two, Col. K--H--. “Unity and perseverance must be -our watchwords. United we stand--” - -He did not finish the sentence, for they became divided, and his head -rang out a hollow note of defiance to the breeze. However, despite his -desire for unity, the Tory victim did not remain long rooted to the -soil, but made tracks for the nearest saloon to recuperate his exhausted -energies. - -The next visitor to the insurrectionary skating-rink was a well-known -attorney, who is at the present moment engaged in an abortive effort to -discover an Irish constituency that will have him at any price. Mr. N. -looked an attorney in every inch. You could read six-and-eight pence in -every wrinkle of his rugged countenance; his protruding coat-tails were -veritable embodiments of _fieri-facias_; his stiff, angular collar had -the disagreeable similitude of a bill of costs, and the leather bag he -carried in his hand was a positive arsenal of writs and decrees and -processes. I felt horror-stricken as I saw this legal luminary stepping -briskly to destruction. - -Just as he reached one end of the glassy line a little milliner with a -bandbox and a brown-paper parcel stepped upon the other. - -They had never met before, but the instant their feet touched that -atrocious slide they darted together with the enthusiasm of old lovers. - -Then there was a collision, and a confused combination of legal -documents and straw bonnet, proceedings in bankruptcy and colored -ribbons, opinions of counsel and hairpins; and when the law adviser got -home he found in his bag an artificial bang where he had been looking -for the draft of a will, and that poor little milliner’s duck of a -bonnet had vanished out of her ruined bandbox, while its place was -filled with a horrible notice to claimants and incumbrancers. - -When the law and the lady had gone from my gaze the pantomime was -continued by new artists. A poor-law guardian, who had voted against the -North Dublin Union adopting the laborers’ act, was explaining his -reasons therefor, and appealed to his auditor thus: “You would have done -the same yourself in my position. Put yourself in my place.” - -And away he went, express speed, on his hands and knees, till he was -brought to a stop by his head thundering on a policeman’s belt. Then the -policeman sat on top of him, and a postman threw a double somersault -over the pair, and the band of the Coldstream Guards marching smartly -round the corner got mixed up with them, and it wasn’t till the -policeman had half swallowed the trombone, and the poor-law guardian had -got the double bass round his neck for a collar, and the postman had -been engulfed in the big drum that order was restored, and -constitutional peace triumphed once more over revolutionary chaos. - -But I ask the civilized and great British Empire, how much longer are we -going to tolerate a state of society which permits slides and pitfalls -and chasms to be laid for loyal feet, and bruised heads, smashed ribs, -and pulverized hip bones to bring woe and desolation to loyal homes? -It’s awful! - - - - -IVAN PETROKOFFSKY. - - - Ivan Petrokoffsky, of the 21st Division - Of the Army of the Danube, is a private--nothing more; - And nobody expects of him to form a wise decision - On the diplomatic reasons that have mobilized his corps. - He is rather dull and stupid, and not given much to reading, - And even when he has a thought his words are few and rude; - So when summoned to his sotnia, about that same proceeding - Rough Ivan’s stray ideas were most miserably crude. - But he heard his colonel reading out the regimental order, - Which explains in glowing language why the Russians go to war; - And he holds some dim idea that he’s on the Turkish border, - “For the glory of the Empire and the honor of the Czar!” - - Ivan Petrokoffsky is a little tender-hearted-- - His feelings, for a private, are completely out of place-- - And when from wife and infant, with slow, lingering steps he parted, - No heroic agitation was depicted on his face. - It was well for foolish Ivan that his colonel had not found him, - When the marching order reached him at his home that bitter day, - When the younger Ivan’s chubby little arms were folded round him, - And tearful Mistress Ivan gave her tongue unbounded sway. - There were murmurs of rebellion in that quiet Volga village - (So devoid of patriotic aspirations women are), - When Ivan and his comrades left for scenes of blood and pillage, - “For the glory of the Empire and the honor of the Czar!” - - Ivan Petrokoffsky, of the 21st Division - Of the Army of the Danube, is not easy in his mind, - For within the deep recesses of his heart is a suspicion - He has wept farewell forever to the loved ones left behind. - In cruel dreams he sees himself, a shapeless mass and gory, - By the rolling Danube lying, with his purple life-stream spent, - And he has not such a keen appreciation of the glory - Of dying for his country to be happy or content. - He has seen his comrades falling round, all mangled, torn, and bleeding, - And their cries were not of triumph, but of homes and kindred far, - While little recked the vultures, on the gray-robed bodies feeding, - Of “the glory of the Empire or the honor of the Czar!” - - - - -THE EMPEROR’S RING. - - - The stillness of death broods o’er valley and mountain, - The snow lies below like a funeral shroud; - The clutch of the ice chokes the song of the fountain; - Starry eyes from the skies dimly gleam through each cloud; - When, hark! on the hard, frozen earth strikes the thunder - Of fast-falling hoof-beats with sonorous sound, - Scared villagers waken in somnolent wonder, - The sentinel checks his monotonous round. - Ho! Governor, let not thy dreamings encumber - With pause the swift flight of yon messenger’s wing, - For fatal the stay thou wouldst cause by thy slumber, - The horseman who rides with the Emperor’s ring. - - Fresh horse and new pistols--some phrases of warning, - Few and brief, to the chief, and the fort is behind, - And away in the gray of the slow-dawning morning - Flies his steed with the speed of the fierce northern wind. - Out, out through the forests--on, on o’er the meadows, - While castle and cabin and hamlet and town - Rise and fall, come and go, past his vision like shadows. - With white snowy robes over bosoms of brown, - The woodcutter leaps from his path with a shiver; - To their babes, in mute terror, the pale mothers cling; - And the gray-coated hero salutes with a quiver - The ominous flash of the Emperor’s ring. - - Some guess, but none question, the message he carries, - All divine by the sign ’tis of life or of death; - And woe to the wretch through whose folly he tarries; - Better Fate, with grim hate, strangled out his first breath, - For earth has no cavern to shield and defend him, - Nor ocean a sheltering island so far - As to hide from the scourge that will torture and rend him, - Whose blunder or crime has enraged the White Czar. - So serf and proud baron, so moujik and banker - Keep aside, unless aid to his mission you bring. - Speed him on, and rejoice when you earn not the rancor - Of one who bears with him the Emperor’s ring. - - We Russians are brave, but we only are human; - We cower at a power it is death to offend, - Even Ivan, the bear-killer, shrinks like a woman - From frown of a clown with Alexis as friend. - The wolves on our steppes are a thousand times bolder; - Peer and peasant alike for their banquets they claim; - The blood in yon courtier’s veins may be colder - Than the serfs, but ’twill serve for their feast all the same. - Out there in the solitude, silent and lonely, - These prowlers of night know but Hunger as king. - And the Cossacks may find of that messenger only - A few whitened bones and the Emperor’s ring. - - - - -BLACK LORIS. - - - Spurs jingle and lances shine; - A hundred brave horsemen in line; - Gay voices ring as they merrily sing, - For why should true hearts repine? - The pathway is level and balmy the air, - Their bosoms unruffled by shadow of care; - The sun has but reached its meridian height, - “Twenty versts farther on we shall slumber to-night.” - When, crash! from the thickets that border the way, - Bursts a hail-storm of bullets in death-dealing spray; - In front a wall rises of turban-crowned foes, - And half of the sotnia fall ’neath their blows. - But still with teeth set, and a joyous hurrah, - With lances at rest and a cheer for the Czar, - Charge fifty brave horsemen in line! - - Oh, fatal the rifle’s crack! - Ten heroes fight back to back, - And each lance-thrust brings down in the dust - A wolf from the howling pack. - How the yelping curs in myriads swarm! - Ten new foes rise from each prostrate form, - They drop from the trees, they spring from the ground, - Till a blaze of scimetars flashes around. - The ten are scattered; they seem to be - Like derelict spars in an angry sea. - But never a Cossack was known to yield - While his arm a lance or sabre could wield. - Oh, weep their valor by distant Don, - The waves are engulphing them one by one! - But two remain back to back! - - His comrade sinks down with a groan-- - Black Loris is fighting alone, - His eyeballs glazed and his senses dazed, - And his arms as heavy as stone. - “Surrender!” a hundred harsh voices demand, - For answer he sabres the chief of the band. - But his arm is shivered in twain--he feels - The earth swim round him--he gasps, he reels, - And gleam on his vision old scenes afar, - As he gasps in a dream a last cheer for the Czar-- - Was it echo, that sonorous answering peal? - No, no! there’s a rattle of hoof and of steel! - Black Loris is not alone! - - No tears for the ninety-nine, - The nation’s heart is their shrine; - But glory’s bays and the Emperor’s praise - For the one man left of the line! - The Don’s deep waters will long be dried, - And stemmed the flow of the Ural’s tide, - The strength and glory of Russia depart, - And the Cossack know cowardice reign in his heart, - Ere the Muscovite legions shall cease to tell - Of dashing Loris who fought so well, - Whose comrades tore him from out the grave, - Whose medal the Emperor’s own hands gave. - And for years to come, when trotting along - Ural and Don, men will sing this song-- - “The One and the Ninety-Nine!” - - - - -WHO SHOT PHLYNN’S HAT? - - -I. - -Mr. Phineas Phlynn, J. P., was a few years ago the agent upon the Irish -estates of that erratic and eccentric, but excitable and energetic -nobleman, Lord Oglemore. If Mr. Phlynn no longer performs the onerous -functions of that office, it is because he has taken to a far-off and -less humid sphere his various and variegated vices, and has probably by -his importation into a remarkably torrid zone added another to the -abundant torments of Pandemonium. In 1879, however, Mr. Phlynn, much to -his own satisfaction, but a great deal more to the misery of his -neighbors, was still in the flesh. Mr. Phlynn was by no means a happy -man. His commission for collecting the rents of his absentee master was -only a paltry shilling in the pound, and as Lord Oglemore’s landed -property amounted to but a few thousand acres, and Mr. Phlynn’s habits -included an addiction to French wines and Irish whiskey, a decided -inclination to woo Dame Fortune by speculations on the turf and ventures -at the roulette table, and an amorous disposition which plunged him into -frequent financial scrapes, he felt that he must wring a bigger -percentage out of his employer and increase his emoluments. - -But how was it to be done? - -He couldn’t raise the rents. They were so high already that the tenantry -had some difficulty in reaching them, and were beginning to indulge in -mutinous murmurs about abatements and reductions and re-adjustments, and -the other pestilential, communistic, and diabolical ideas of the Land -League. Phineas had been complaining for months to his noble master -about the danger and difficulties of his post, surrounded, as he -described himself, by hosts of murderous assassins who thirsted for his -gore and wanted to perforate his magisterial hide with surreptitious -bullets; and Phineas had strongly hinted that his accumulated risks -deserved a commensurate reward in the shape of an additional income. But -the only consolation Lord Oglemore vouchsafed was an assurance to Mr. -Phlynn that if those “demmed Irish rascals” should make his carcass a -repository for any appreciable quantity of lead, the beggars should have -their rents raised fifty per cent. all around. This didn’t console -Phineas worth a cent, for he felt that if he were laid to rest with his -fathers with a few pounds of scrap iron in his manly bosom, he couldn’t -enjoy the extra commission on the fifty per cent. rise in any exuberant -degree. Besides, the levity of his lordship’s remarks induced the agent -to guess that that rather wide-awake peer doubted his dismal -forebodings. So Phineas resolved that he would bring matters to a -crisis. There should be an outrage--a sanguinary, blood-curdling -outrage, that would prove to the unbelieving Oglemore that his agent -carried his life in his hand, and was certainly entitled to at least -eighteen pence in each pound of the revenue he gathered in perpetual -peril. - - -II. - -There was an outrage. As none of the tenantry had the most remote notion -of shooting Mr. Phlynn, Mr. Phlynn shot himself--at least, he shot his -own hat. There were many obvious advantages in Phineas taking this -horrible task upon himself. Of course, the chief of these was the fact -that if any desperate tenant had sought to make a target of Mr. Phlynn’s -hat, he wouldn’t have paused to ascertain whether Mr. Phlynn’s head was -in it or not--really, he might have preferred that the hat should be so -tenanted. A circumstance of that sort would have been decidedly -inconvenient. With Mr. Phlynn as the assailant of his own hat, no such -objectionable mistake was possible. Mr. Phlynn carefully placed the hat -on the roadside between his own residence and the nearest police -barrack, and fired at it twice. One ball ripped the front rim off and -the other tore a hole in the crown. Then carefully replacing his -dilapidated head-gear upon his undisturbed cranium, he flung his -revolver into the adjacent ditch and rushed breathless into the presence -of the sub-inspector in the police barrack aforementioned, and poured -into the astonished ears of that horrified luminary a ghastly story of -his terrible encounter with a band of four masked miscreants, who had -fired at least a dozen times at him, two balls actually grazing his -head, in proof of which, behold the battered hat! - - -III. - -The excitement in connection with the matter was intense. The country -was scoured for miles around, and thirty or forty arrests made. The -revolver, of course, was found, and strengthened Phlynn’s terrible tale. -The London papers teemed with denunciations of the weakness of the -government which permitted such a state of affairs in a civilized -community. Illustrations of the historic hat graced the pictorial pages -of English journals. A reward of £500 was offered for any information -that would lead to the conviction of anybody. Lord Oglemore made such an -exciting speech on the matter in the House of Peers that he positively -kept those hereditary legislators awake for twenty minutes--a feat -unparalleled in the history of that chamber. There was not so much stir -and fuss in that assembly since the day it was rumored that John Brown -had been offered a peerage under the title of Earl of Glenlivet. For -nearly half of the twenty minutes that the noble senators kept awake it -was soul-stirring. Then they fell asleep again, overpowered by their -emotions. - -All except Lord Oglemore. He was so elated by the temporary prominence -given to him as the employer of an Irish agent who had been fired at, -that he resolved to perpetuate his celebrity. Why, if he could manage to -get some of his tenants hanged or transported for the affair, he would -become quite a lion in London society. With this laudable ambition -permeating his soul, he drove, immediately after he had concluded his -outburst of enthralling eloquence, to the headquarters of the London -detective force in Scotland Yard, and, by munificent promises in the -event of success, secured the services of that eminent thief-catcher, -Inspector Spriggins, to unravel the mystery. The following day, -Spriggins, got up as an English horse dealer seeking for Irish equine -bargains, left London for Leitrim. - -In the mean time the Irish government, who did not feel satisfied with -the conduct of the local constabulary, had deputed Sergeant Crawley of -the G division, Dublin metropolitan force, to proceed to the same -neighborhood, to search for the destroyers of Phineas Phlynn’s hat. - - -IV. - -In the last week in October, Spriggins got on the scent. From all he -could hear, see, and judge, he concluded that the outrage was the work -of strangers. He had already spotted a suspicious stranger. - -About the same time Sergeant Crawley struck the trail. It was evident -that the deed had been committed by some one from a distance, because -every man, woman, and child within a radius of twenty miles had been -arrested, and established their innocence. The foreigner who had failed -would be likely to renew the attempt. Were there any non-residents -loafing around? Yes! Crawley had fixed his man. - -It was certainly peculiar that, while Spriggins was firmly convinced -that Crawley had made ribbons of Phlynn’s hat, Crawley was taking -measures to arrest Spriggins for attempted murder, and Sub-Inspector -Blake of the local police had written to Dublin for a warrant to arrest -both Spriggins and Crawley, who were passing under the respective names -of Jones and Brennan. - - -V. - -Spriggins, on the first day of November, called upon Phlynn. - -“Mr. Phlynn,” said he, “I have got the leader of the gang who fired at -you.” - -“The devil you have,” said Phlynn. You see Phlynn had very strong -reasons for doubting the accuracy of the information. - -“Yes,” replied Spriggins; “I have him, no mistake.” - -“Where is he?” queried Phineas. - -“Here.” - -“What!” shouted the agent, as agonizing visions of penal servitude for -revolver practice on his own hat made his heart jump. “Who, what, where, -when, why, how--” - -“Oh,” responded Scotland Yard, “I forgot. Let me introduce myself. I am -Inspector Spriggins, of the London detective police. I have been -commissioned by Lord Oglemore to fish up this business. I’ve fished. I -may say I have landed my salmon. I just want you to fill me up a warrant -for the arrest of James Brennan, 5 feet 10 inches, brown hair and -whiskers, hazel eyes, a wart on his nose, no particular occupation, and -at present sojourning at the Railway Hotel, Mohill. I’ll get the police -there to give a hand. No excuses, please. I’ve hooked my trout, I’ve -trapped my rabbit, I’ve bagged my fox, I’ve snared my hare--I have him, -I tell you. Fill up the warrant.” - -Mr. Phineas Phlynn filled up the warrant, and the sagacious Spriggins -departed on his mission of legal retribution on the body of the -unconscious Crawley. - - -VI. - -“Send down three men from the G division in plain clothes with a warrant -for the arrest of John Jones, for the attempted murder of Phineas -Phlynn, Lord Oglemore’s agent, on the 3d of October, 1879. Lose no -time.” This was the purport of a telegraphic dispatch from Sergeant -Crawley to Thomas Henry Burke, Under Secretary for Ireland, in -accordance with which three big “G’s” made their first appearance in -Mohill on the memorable 1st of November. - - -VII. - -Sub-Inspector Blake told off ten men for special duty on Nov. 1, and -about noon arrived with them on three outside cars in the little town of -Mohill. “Now, boys,” was his parting advice, “this fellow Jones is a -tough-looking customer, and will probably show fight. Brennan’s a rowdy, -too. When I whistle, rush in and baton both of ’em if they show fight. -If any of the hangers-on in the hotel seem ugly, give them the bayonet.” - -“Two men with myself will be enough,” finally remarked Spriggins to Head -Constable Walsh, of Mohill. “Our bird’s in the commercial room of the -Railway Hotel just now. Perhaps ’twould be better, to avoid suspicion, -if your men didn’t come in uniform, and they might wait outside till I -whistled for them.” - -It was so arranged. - -Sergeant Crawley sat in the commercial room of the little hotel, -describing the personal peculiarities of the fore-doomed Jones to three -official Goliaths who had joined him from Dublin, when the door opened -and the redoubtable Jones entered himself. Seeing his prey in deep -consultation with three sturdy farmers, Jones muttered softly to -himself, “By Jingo, I’ve got the whole crowd!” and instantly sounding -the signal, sprang upon Crawley with a drawn pistol in his right hand -and the warrant fluttering in his left. - -“Holy Moses!” gasped Crawley; “they mean to murder us too,” and he -ducked under the table, where Spriggins let go three or four shots at -him, while two G men rushed at Spriggins and two local constables -grappled with the two G men, and the remaining Dublin detective began a -racket on his own account by firing round promiscuously, taking a chip -off Spriggins’ ear, slicing a cutlet off Crawley’s cheek, and -depositing one of the Mohill men on the half-shell, as it were, by a -shot in the abdomen. At this moment Sub-Inspector Blake, his soul afire -with war’s dread echoes, leaped into the apartment just in time to -receive on his sconce the full weight of a brass spittoon fired by -Sergeant Crawley, who, from his intrenchment under the table, was -carrying on a destructive artillery bombardment of similar bombshells -and grenades. Of course Blake sounded the alarm, and his followers -charged with fixed bayonets into the room. They skivered Spriggins, they -splintered Crawley, they committed multifarious ravages upon the sacred -skins of the Dublin detectives, and in the joyous exhilaration of the -hour they skewered each other up against the wainscoating, and pinned -each other against the table, and prodded each other through the arms -and legs of chairs and couches, and shed each other’s blood for their -Queen and Constitution in the most liberal and disinterested manner. -Finally, when there wasn’t a square three-inch patch of whole skin among -the combined forces, the chambermaids and waiters came in and took the -entire lot prisoners. Then followed mutual explanations, a reciprocal -production of warrants, general expressions of regret, and a mournfully -unanimous feeling that amongst the dark, unsolved problems of agrarian -crimes would ever remain the awful mystery of who shot Phineas Phlynn’s -hat. - - - - -THE RED-HEART DAISY. - -A RUSSIAN ALLEGORY. - - - The clouds of battle-tempest had blown over; - The storm of wrath - Had swept through fields of ripening corn and clover, - And in its path - Had left the human cyclone’s awful traces - In quivering bodies and distorted faces. - - Among the bloody drift of dead and dying - That strewed the ground, - A Prince and Serf, in Death’s communion lying, - The searchers found. - Earth drank both life-streams; as their current ended, - Blue blood and peasant’s in one tide had blended. - - Some essence from the forms interred together - Enriched the clay, - And toned with deeper tints the patch of heather - ’Neath which they lay-- - Rough hide and dainty skin--deep brain and hollow-- - Silver and iron--Vulcan and Apollo. - - And when the Spring returned, and daisies spangled - The mountain’s crest, - Clusters with hearts of crimson were entangled - Among the rest, - Upon the spot where baron’s dream of glory - Had mingled with the toiler’s duller story. - - * * * * * - - Those who would make our land a frame of metal, - With jewelled heart, - Would have us view the daisy’s centre petal - As thing apart - From its white fringe; and, bringing death to both, - Would mar the flow’ret’s, like the nation’s, growth. - - - - -THE TIDE IS TURNING. - - - So, masters who have ruled so long - With cruel rods of iron, - Who sought with gyves and fetters strong - Our freedom to environ, - In plenitude of sullen power - Our tearful pleadings spurning: - Prepare ye for your fated hour, - Beware--the tide is turning! - Yes! yes! at last we fling the past - With all its woes behind us, - And stand to-day in firm array - Against the bonds that bind us. - - With brutal grip of tyrant hand - Ye choked our aspirations, - And made our fertile motherland - The Niobe of nations; - To feed the vices of your lords, - Ye stole the people’s earning, - And held the theft with hireling swords-- - But now the tide is turning! - Yes! yes! to-day your hated sway - Is tottering to ruin, - The Irish race a future face - That will not harbor you in! - - Ye kept us chained to ignorance, - In fear that education - Might teach our brains the wisest chance - To liberate the nation. - But, spite of all your guile and thrall, - Our people still are learning - What most will tend your yoke to rend, - And so the tide is turning. - Yes! yes! the cause, despite your laws, - Each rusty chain is breaking; - The portents smile upon our isle, - For Ireland is awaking. - - From meadows rich of smooth Kildare - To frowning crags of Kerry, - From ocean-girdled shores of Clare - To busy marts of Derry, - In our opprest, north, south, east, west, - A newer spirit’s burning-- - The conquering fire of brave desire, - That tells the tide is turning. - Yes! yes! we mark through centuries dark - The light at last is blazing, - Till on our brow no serf-brand now - Can chill a friendly gazing. - - - - -OUR OWN AGAIN. - - - The voice of freedom’s sounding - From farthest shore to shore; - And Erin’s pulse is bounding - With manhood’s blood once more; - Our sluggard trance is broken, - We stand erect as men, - Our stern demand is spoken, - We’ll have our own again! - - No futile bribes can stay us, - No traitor chiefs control, - No wheedling tones delay us, - No terrors blanch our soul. - The gloomy hour has vanished - And gone forever when - We could be crushed or banished-- - We’ll have our own again! - - The bluster of the Tories, - And Whigdom’s tempting lies, - Are vain and foolish stories - We spurn and we despise. - We’ve torn the landlord foeman - From out his reeking den, - And now we’ll halt for no man-- - We’ll have our own again! - - Our eyes are lifted sunward, - No power can bar our course, - Our march must still be onward, - Spite either guile or force; - And be it by the sabre, - The voice, the vote, or pen, - Or steadfast, patient labor-- - We’ll have our own again! - - - - -THE TALE OF A TAIL. - - - There’s a place in fiery Ulster we may christen Macaroon, - Where they won’t believe in Parnell or the Land League very soon; - Where to call a priest “his rev’rence” treads upon their pious corns, - For they think a priest hoof-shodden, and believe the Pope wears horns; - ’Tis there that yells and shouting on the twelfth day of July - Make the populace so thirsty they could drink the Shannon dry; - And ’tis there, where papal bulls could never make a sinner quail, - That a Papist cow has trampled on their feelings with her tail. - - Pat Duggan, finding Clifford Lloyd too much for him in Clare, - Thought he’d try his fate in Ulster, so he took a holding there, - And of all the spots of Orange North, that most unlucky coon - Had the evil chance to squat in “no surrender” Macaroon. - And in his blissful ignorance, unmitigated ass, - He trudged a half-a-dozen miles each Sunday morn to mass, - Till his very Christian neighbors, his convictions to assail, - Began to whisper fell designs upon his heifer’s tail. - - ’Twas in the summer season, and the flies that skirmished round - Discovered that that cow’s soft ears were A 1 feeding ground, - And they gathered in their masses and formed animated plugs, - In perpetual convention, in her sorely troubled lugs; - And when, in her congested ears, agrarian troubles rose, - The poorer flies migrated and they colonized her nose, - But that cow knew neither tenant right, fair rent, nor yet free sale, - For she exercised coercion very strongly with her tail. - - When round her nose the leading flies had taken plots on tick, - She would liquidate arrears and clear the district with a flick; - And the enterprising settlers that her ears would fain divide, - With the same obstructive weapon she would scatter far and wide. - Her practice made her perfect, and she grew so strong behind - That when her tail would whisk, ’twas like a gust of stormy wind. - Why, even when Pat Duggan split the handle of his flail, - That cow came in and threshed the oats completely with her tail. - - Well, still to mass Pat Duggan every Sunday morning went, - And the Orange farmers round him grew insanely discontent, - Till they held a parish meeting, and decided there and then - That the time for speech was past--the knife was mightier than the pen. - They deputed Bill Mulvany, who was handy with the shears, - And Ned Malone, who’d often sang of clipping Croppy ears, - To see that Duggan’s butter would not pay another gale, - But they little knew his cow had such an energetic tail. - - When darkness kicked the daylight out, Mulvany and Malone - Had somehow found their way about Pat Duggan’s byre alone. - The wind that whistled through the trees no warning signal gave, - As Ned Mulvany seized a hoof intended for the grave. - Malone was smart and ready with his fingers on the hasp, - But before the pride of victory their eager hands could grasp, - That dirty cow deposited Mulvany in a pail, - And created much confusion with a flourish of her tail. - - And she wasn’t quite content with that: she rushed from out the byre, - Her horns curled up in anger, and her mighty tail on fire; - She seized (with cool indifference to very touching groans) - Malone around the waist and smashed his most important bones; - And when the jury gathered round his mangled fragments there, - And his friends had somehow recognized the mush of skin and hair, - That jury placed Pat Duggan’s cow on very heavy bail, - Because in their opinion she had rather too much tail. - - And this is how, in Macaroon, it strangely came to pass, - That Pat Duggan, unmolested still, pursued his way to mass; - And that cow was so respected that no bigot would offend her - Bovine susceptibilities with shouts of “no surrender.” - Why, even on the glorious, immortal twelfth July, - The enthusiastic drummers in dread silence pass her by; - They would rather that the glory they commemorate should pale, - Than again tempt Duggan’s awful cow to exercise her tail. - - - - -THE SEA-SICK SUB-COMMISSIONERS. - - [In the Common Pleas Division of the High Court of Justice, during - the League agitation, the court heard an application on behalf of - the Earl of Bantry to substitute service on twenty-one tenants on - the Island of Dersey, about a quarter of a mile from the main land, - in the barony of Bore, county of Cork. Counsel said that the island - was so inaccessible that rents had not been collected there for - over two years. Mr. Justice Harrison asked how were the Land - Commissioners to get over when they went down to fix fair rents? - Counsel said that they would find it difficult enough to get off. - The place was so wild that it was only on fine days it was possible - to cross Dersey Sound. They went over, however, and these verses - record the exploit:] - - - There were three Sub-Commissioners went sailing sou-sou-west, - With due responsibility on each official breast, - To the lonely isle of Dersey they travelled with intent - To investigate and regulate each pining tenant’s rent. - Oh, Moses! how the tempest blew adown the channel wild, - It made the oldest lawyer feel as helpless as a child, - Whilst the chairman had to exercise the greatest legal tact, - For fear his conscience might disgorge a portion of the Act. - - They felt, did those commissioners, such physical defaults - As the toper who indulges by mistake in Epsom salts, - And not upon the future were their aspirations cast, - They wanted first to scatter round some relics of the past. - The fish that followed in their wake, cod, mackerel, and fluke, - Had never witnessed so much bait before without a hook, - They were ignorant entirely of the all-important fact - That their unexpected _dejeuner_ was owing to the Act. - - They were very sick commissioners upon those troubled seas, - There was something quite seditious in the waves and in the breeze, - And when their tottering footsteps pressed on solid earth once more, - They used up all their handkerchiefs on Dersey’s barren shore, - And they couldn’t relish joyfully the wild delirious sport - That awaited but their presence in the Land Commission Court; - They wanted all to go to bed, and miserably lacked - The enthusiastic courage to administer the Act. - - They seemed, those Sub-Commissioners, more circumspect than gay - While hearing Irish evidence interpreted all day, - Although alternate intervals were taken to allow - Opportunities to each of them to wipe his clammy brow. - That evening, at supper, they sought vainly to conceal - A variety of feelings unbecoming to that meal; - And when they sought their couches, with their constitutions racked, - They had tortures worse than striving to elucidate the Act. - - - - -CAOINE OF THE CLARE CONSTABULARY. - - - So, you’re goin’ out to Aigypt, wirrasthrue! - An’ we’ll niver see your faytures any more, - Millia murther! what in thunder shall we do - Whin you turn your crookid back upon our shore? - All innocint divarsion with yourself will be departin’ - An’ existence will become a dreary void; - Ochone an’ ullagone! we must vainly sigh an’ groan; - Philalu! a long adieu to Clifford Lloyd! - - No more at midnight’s melancholy stroke - Shall we revel in our customary fun - Of scaring all the humble women folk - In sarchin’ for the shadow of a gun. - There’s an ind to legal riot, they may sleep in peace an’ quiet, - An’ their slumbers niver more will be annoyed; - We’re dejected an’ neglected, an’ we cannot be expected - To be happy after banished Clifford Lloyd! - - No more cartridges of buckshot we desire, - ’Tis a burden whin we’re not allowed to use it, - An’ our batons may be thrown into the fire-- - We may see a peasant’s head an’ dar not bruise it, - The girls may take to coortin’ an’ the boys resume their spoortin’, - An’ life by common people be enjoyed, - In contint, without lamint, since to Africa they’ve sint - That inimy of laughter, Clifford Lloyd! - - Misther Healy, you have always been unkind. - But we didn’t think you positively cruel - Till we noticed how you changed ould Gladstone’s mind, - And made him sind away our darlin’ jewel. - Our feelins are diminted an’ our souls are discontinted, - Troth! we’re altogether ruined an’ destroyed, - We’re wailin’ an’ we’re quailin’ and we’re failin’ since the sailin’ - Of that father of coercion, Clifford Lloyd! - - - - -CLAUSE TWENTY-SIX. - -(A COTTER’S REVERY ON THE EMIGRATION CLAUSE OF THE LAND ACT.) - - - I’ve been towld there’s a chance in the distance, - For struggling poor sowls like myself, - To brighten our dreary existence, - An’ even to gather some pelf, - In a land where the soil is but waitin’ - The wooin’ of shovels an’ picks - That we’ll take whin we’re all emigratin’ - To fortune by Clause Twenty-six. - - It’s hard and it’s sad to be hurried - Away from the strings of my life-- - From the spot where my mother lies buried, - The place where I coorted my wife. - Sweet home of my birth, to forsake you, - My conscience remorsefully pricks-- - I can’t tell if to lave or to take you, - Bewilderin’ Clause Twenty-six. - - For it’s rather too bitther my fate is, - When my luck like a stranger goes by, - When blight settles down on the praties, - An’ the cow that I trusted turns dry; - Whin the turf is too damp to be fuel, - An’, crouched o’er a handful of sticks, - I curse you, misfortune so cruel, - An’ pray for you, Clause Twenty-six. - - Whin the rain through the thatch finds a way in, - Till we sleep in a cheerless cowld bath; - Whin the hens are teetotal at layin’, - An’ the pig is as thin as a lath, - Whin the childer are pinin’ an’ ailin’, - An’ losin’ their mirth an’ their tricks-- - Oh, I long for the ship to be sailin’ - That’s chartered by Clause Twenty-six. - - And often at night I’ve a notion, - Whilst hungry they’re lyin’ in bed, - In that plintiful land o’er the ocean - They wouldn’t be cryin’ for bread; - They might even an odd pat of butther - Along with their stirabout mix; - Oh, my heart is too full for to utter - Its thoughts of you, Clause Twenty-six. - - To see the health-roses assimble - On the cheeks of my boys, an’ the curls - Once again in the bright mornin’ trimble - With the innocent laugh of my girls; - An’ to feel that herself would be aisy, - Nor frettin’ at trouble or fix. - Mavrone! but I’m mighty nigh crazy - Considerin’ Clause Twenty-six. - - - - -JENKINS, M. P. - - - Mr. Jenkins, M. P., from St. Stephen’s came o’er - To address the electors he’d soothered before, - But he found in their feelings toward him a change, - Manifested in ways both alarming and strange; - He had scarcely extolled their warm hearts in the south - When a wet sod of turf hit him square in the mouth, - And the force of its logic ’twas plain he could see, - For “your argument’s striking,” said Jenkins, M. P. - - Then a cat long deceased was propelled at his pate; - Says Jenkins, “Your animal spirits are great.” - A two-year-old egg on his cheek went to batter; - “I’d rather,” he murmured, “not speak of that matter.” - They set fire to the platform, he gasped in affright, - “The subject’s appearing in quite a new light.” - He appealed to his friends to protect him, nor flee, - “For unity’s strength,” argued Jenkins, M. P. - - But in vain was their aid from that circle so fond; - He was torn and well soused in a neighboring pond, - And as it was freezing it needn’t be told - That his ardor was damped by a greeting so cold. - And the peelers came up in a charge like the wind-- - Not knowing the member, they stormed him behind, - And when he felt bayonets where they shouldn’t be, - “I won’t dwell on these points,” muttered Jenkins, M. P. - - He fled to his inn, but avoided the bar, - Where some patriots waited with feathers and tar. - “Sweet creatures,” quoth he, with a satisfied grin, - “Their charity sha’n’t cover much of my sin.” - All bruises and scratches he sought the first train; - “I leave you, electors,” he whispered, “with pain. - ’Tis plain that our sentiments do not agree; - I’ll express them elsewhere,” shouted Jenkins, M. P. - - - - -THADY MALONE. - - - Hurrah for our tight little, bright little nation, - The earth’s brightest jewel, the gem of the say; - The garden of Europe, the flower of creation, - Where no sarpints with legs or without them can stay. - Were once we united - Our wrongs should be righted - And ours be the brightest of emerald isles, - But still some intraygur, - Or bastely renayger, - Sells the pass on the cause just as victory smiles. - Yet, no matter, we’ve planned - A divarsion so grand - That we’ll soon have the land altogether our own; - And the rogue who’ll consent - To contribute rack rint - Will meet with the fate of old Thady Malone! - - The tailor refused to patch up his torn breeches, - The cobbler declined to take charge of his soles, - An’ though he was rowlin’ in ill-gotten riches, - The heels of his stockin’s were nothin’ but holes, - For his wife wint away - On the very next day - With his mother-in-law (though he didn’t mind that), - An’ sisters and cousins - Departed in dozens, - Till there wasn’t a sowl in the place but the cat. - Why, sorra a doubt, - Sure, the fire it wint out - An’ left him in cowld and in darkness to moan, - Till he felt that the rint - Had been badly ill-spint - That wint to the landlord of Thady Malone! - - The praties grew mowldy and bad in the ridges, - The mangolds an’ turnips got frosted an’ sour, - In summer the cows were desthroyed with the midges, - An’ the ass wint an’ drowned himself out in a shower. - The sparrows, diminted, - Grew quite discontinted, - An’ wouldn’t remain in the cabin’s ould thatch; - The pigs tuk to fittin’, - An’ hins that were sittin’ - Wint off upon thramp an’ deserted the hatch. - A polis inspector, - A taxes collector, - Came out to protect him from kippeen or stone, - An’ there now he’s stuck, - Without hope, grace, or luck, - Misfortunate, boycotted Thady Malone! - - - -[B] RORY’S REVERIE. - - - Death o’ my soul! the lot is cast, and mine will be the hand - To free from curse than plague spot worse this corner of the land, - To quench the light of eyes that never glared except in hate, - To stifle evermore the tongue that mocked the poor man’s fate. - ’Tis I am proud that from the crowd ’twas I, and I alone, - Was chosen out to pay the debts that half the parish own; - My faith! the country side will ring before the mornin’ light, - Though little knows rack-rentin’ Phil that Rory walks to-night! - - How Thade M’Gurk and Redmond Burke across the spreadin’ say, - Driven from home for years to roam ’mid strangers far away, - Will shout with glee the day they see their black and cruel lot, - Their woes, their tears, paid off in years by my avenging shot! - An’ they must know--the tale will go ’twas I, their boyhood’s friend, - That brought at last the tyrant to his well-earned bitter end. - Why, when I meet them next they’ll shake my arms off with delight-- - I’m longin’ for the hour of gloom when Rory walks to-night! - - Mary’s asleep. Now heaven keep her slumbers safe and sound,-- - (“Heaven,” said I? Well, that’s wrong; ’tis Hell is surging - hotly round),-- - And, nestled closely by her side, my little Kathleen’s face - Seems smiling like an angel’s through the darkness of the place. - She kissed me ere she sank to rest--I’d think it sin just now - To press my burnin’ lips again upon her childish brow; - Perhaps she’d dream about my scheme, and after shun my sight-- - I mustn’t think of this--No! no! for Rory walks to-night! - - Where’s that ould gun? But softly, so; I’d better make no noise, - I wouldn’t like the wife to know I’d dealings in such toys. - The barrel’s rather rusty: it’s been in the thatch too long-- - Musha! the pull is heavy. Well, my trigger-finger’s strong. - And just to think! with this ould thing you lie behind a ditch, - When there’s silence all around you, an’ the night is dark as pitch, - An’ your landlord comes up whistlin’, an’ you spot his shirt-front white, - An’ his tune is changed immediately to “Rory walks to-night!” - - And that black Phil has never done kind deed to me or mine; - If he were dead a thousand times none of my blood would pine; - My wife might even bless the hand by which his end was wrought; - My child--but, no, Great God forbid her wronged by such a thought! - She prayed for me at bedtime; sure I stood beside her when - She asked God’s blessing on me, and I dar’ not say Amen: - Amen to such a prayer as that! ’Twould be a curse, a blight, - To pray at all to God or saint, when Rory walks to-night! - - What ails me? Am I coward turned? I, who had ever sneer - For every one that showed at all of priest or preacher fear; - I, who have sworn, were once I asked to play a man’s stern part, - No quiver of a nerve should swerve the bullet from his heart! - I’m shakin’ like an aspen--Faugh! I can’t afford to spend - My time in trembling, when I’m due down at the boreen’s end-- - What? but a dream? Now God be praised for this sweet mornin’s light, - I’m better plased that, after all, no Rory walked last night. - - - - -A DOUBLE SURPRISE. - - -I. - -GALLAGHER’S GOOSE. - -Constable Tom Gallagher, in December, 1880, was in charge of the -Ballyblank Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks. A topographist might fail -to discover Ballyblank on any Ordnance map of Ireland, but Constable -Gallagher’s prototypes abound in every county of the island. He was -tall, straight, stiff, red-complexioned, sandy-bearded, self-important, -and imbued with that solemn sense of duty to Queen and Constitution -which has deprived the Irish constabulary of all the ordinary feelings -of weak humanity. He would bayonet with equally grim satisfaction a -riotous peasant, a green-ribbon-bedecked maid or matron, or a -recalcitrant pig which proved contrary at a rent seizure. Where he was -born, who were his parents, what had been his history before he was -evolved from the depot in Phœnix Park, Dublin, a full-blown sub in -dark-green tunic, with prominent chest and prying eyes, that rested -suspiciously and lingered long on every unaccustomed object not familiar -to his code of instructions and mode of training--these were mysteries -known only to himself, and possibly to the Director-General. The -physiognomists of the quiet village of Ballyblank, a few of his own -limited command, and a graceless scamp of a medical student, one Harry -McCarthy, home for the holidays from the dissecting rooms of the -metropolis, professed to trace a striking resemblance between the -somewhat rugged contour of his countenance and that of the one man in -the parish who disputed unpopularity with him--George Macgrabb, J. P., -the agent of Lord Clonboy, the scourge of the district, the terror of -its toilers, and the bugaboo of all the little children for miles -around. - -Certain it was, that, whether any physical affinities marked the two -despots of the country side or not, their mental and moral--or -immoral--characteristics had drawn them closely together. It was on the -recommendation of Macgrabb, J. P., that Gallagher had been appointed to -the command of that station. It was on the report of Macgrabb, J. P., -that the chief secretary replied in the English Commons to a question -about an excessive outburst of loyalty on the part of the constable, -which had led that ardent enthusiast in the cause of law and order to -direct a fusillade upon a crowd of little boy musicians, who were -supposed to be opposing both by singing the chorus of “God Save -Ireland.” The sapient secretary declared that the lives of the police -were threatened, and the English members cheered the heroism of the -constabulary whose lacerating buckshot had scattered the toddling crowd. -Above and beyond all, this December, Macgrabb had shown, not only his -magisterial approval of the constable as an official, but his interest -in him as a man, by a kindly present. In the beginning of the month he -had sent to Gallagher a goose. - -“You are among strangers, Constable,” he said; “and the unfortunate -feeling of disloyalty which pervades this county might reduce you to -rougher fare than would be agreeable at the festive Christmas time. -Accept this goose as a token of my good-will. Fatten it, and invite your -comrades to partake of the hospitable cheer it may afford.” - -Now, whether the early associations of that goose with the stingy and -miserly household of the agent had accustomed it to a peculiar dietary, -or that its depraved appetite was inherent, I cannot say, but the -gastronomical horrors recorded of it during Gallagher’s custodianship -are preserved among the most glowing traditions of the force. He tried -to fatten it, as per invoice, so to speak. He expended all the fervor of -a constable’s first love on it. He wrote to the editors of half-a-dozen -agricultural papers for information as to the best kind of food to make -his goose a sufficiently adipose victim for the sacrificial altar. But -the perversity of that web-footed cackler was almost miraculous. The -compiler of farm-yard items in the Dublin _Farmer’s Gazette_ recommended -boiled Indian meal. The intelligent constable boiled the grain with his -own loyal hands, and laid down a saucerful before his white-winged -Christmas donation. It spurned the Indian meal, and devoured the saucer. -The constable had to retire and read the Riot Act to himself before he -could recover from this outrage to his judgment. - -The assistant editor who lets himself loose on poultry in the _Barndoor -Chronicle_ gave an elaborate recipe, which he warranted to convert -Gallagher’s shadowy anatomy of legs and feathers into a pudgy monster of -edible delicacy inside a week or so. The belted constabulary knight -spent half a day mixing the recipe and stirring it in a canteen kettle. -He laid it tenderly before the agent’s goose. The bird sailed into the -kettle, and actually gorged the spout before peace was restored in -Warsaw. But why continue? Every man in the barracks tried medicinal and -culinary experiments upon Gallagher’s goose, but it refused to be -fattened. It spent its leisure time in masticating broken bottles, -half-bricks, nails, old shoes, copies of the official _Gazette_, tunic -buttons, bayonet sheaths--anything, everything, except flesh-forming -food. It exhibited a remarkable appetite for official documents. Private -circulars from Col. Hillier, secret instructions from George Bolton, -search-warrants, copies of information, it swallowed with an avidity -that rendered its general abstinence all the more conspicuous. - -I have devoted so much introduction to Gallagher’s goose because a -knowledge of the physical and psychological eccentricities of that -wonderful fowl, and a due appreciation of its literary tastes, will be -necessary to the proper understanding of the memorable events that -transpired during the Christmas week of 1880 at Ballyblank. - - -II. - -A PLOT, AND ITS EXECUTION. - -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. - -On the morning of the 19th, Peter was astonished by a visit from his -tenantry in a body. His first impression was that they had come to pay -up arrears, and he chuckled at a success which he had scarcely expected -so soon. On entering the room into which his housekeeper had invited the -farmers, he changed his opinion. They hadn’t altogether the look of men -who had come in either a penitent or a suppliant mood. Most of them -retained their head-gear, and one or two were actually smoking. To say -that Peter was amazed at this lack of respect for his presence would be -a weak description of his feelings. He was shocked, startled, indignant, -and, indeed, a little frightened, into the bargain. Recovering himself, -he asked in a voice that sounded as if some of his own soap had got -round his tongue, “Well, you’ve come to settle, I suppose?” - -“Yes,” replied a sturdy, frieze-coated peasant, advancing from the rest -without removing his caubeen. “You’re right; we want a settlement.” - -“Ah, I thought I would bring you to your senses,” said Peter with an -ill-disguised sneer. - -Frieze-coat flushed and retorted, “It seems to me that you’ve got the -wrong bull by the tail this time,” at which a broad smile lit up the -twenty-odd faces, and there were one or two audible guffaws. - -“Wrong bull? Who’s talking about bulls? What do you mean?” - -“Well, we’re here to bring _you_ to _your_ senses; not to show that -we’ve parted with our own.” - -“I--I--” stammered Peter. “Upon my soul, my deah fellah, I don’t -understand you.” - -“Well, thin, I’ll try to insinse you. You’ve sint us notes askin’ for -arrears that we don’t mane to pay. Yer ould father’s been thryin’ to -raise rints on us that’s too high as it is. We ped the ould rint as long -as we cud, but bad saysons an’ poor crops have med even the ould rint -too heavy; so we’ve detarmined, every man, to offer you a fair rint for -this gale, Griffith’s valuation, divil a ha’penny more, an’ if you don’t -like to take that, troth you may whistle for your rints, for bad luck to -the shilling you’ll get, at all, at all.” - -Peter turned blue, red, yellow, white, and mottled by turns, and was -nearly ten minutes searching for his voice before he found it. When he -did get hold of it, he hardly recognized the tones as his own. “This is -mo--mo--monstrous,” he ejaculated. “Begone! I shall have bailiffs in -every cabin in the parish before the month’s out. I’ll -evict--I’ll-I’ll--by Jove! I’ll--I’ll--Look here, go to Hong-Kong out of -this!” - -“Oh, we’re goin’,” responded the spokesman; “but, before we go, I’d like -to give you a little bit of advice. We med you a fair offer, an’ ye’ve -only returned abuse. Did you ever hear of Captain Boycott? Well, -begorra, before this day-week you’ll think Captain Boycott a happy man -to what you’ll be. We’re going to do the most complete, out-an’-out, -thunderin’ boycottin’ on you that ever shook a man out of his breeches. -Good day, an’ good luck to you. I hope your education in the fine arts -of washin’ and cookin’, diggin’ yer own praties an’ lightin’ yer own -fires, blackin’ yer own boots, an’ starchin’ yer own shirts, wasn’t -neglected in yer youth, for ye’ll need it all, I assure you, on the word -of a Sullivan. Come along, boys. Three cheers for the Land League!” A -thundering hurrah shook the oaken rafters again and again, as the -deputation filed slowly out of the room, and Peter sank into the nearest -chair with a dim conviction surging through his brain that there was -something wrong somewhere in the terrestrial system, and that Bow Lane, -Limehouse, was a far more desirable location for his active genius than -Ballymurphy, County Cork. - -After half an hour’s diversified meditation, Peter decided that things -were not so gloomy, after all. He would see his lawyer, and get out the -decrees at once. As for the threat of boycotting, what did he care about -that? He had no desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the tenantry, so -how the deuce could he suffer by their refusal to speak or deal with -him? Ha! ha! by Jove, it was absurd, ridiculously absurd. In his revived -spirits Peter actually commenced an original fandango, but was -interrupted in his terpsichorean evolutions by the entrance of his man -Jones, over whose flabby countenance a facial eclipse had fallen, which -at once arrested his master’s attention and his quickstep. - -“Eh? Well? What’s up now?” queried Philipson. - -“Hup! Heverythinks hup. Missus Moore, she’s hup and ’ooked it. The cook, -she’s bin and gone and flued, also, likewise. The coachman and the -’ossler they’ve sloped, an’ the ’osses is a ’avin’ a jubilee on the -front lawn. The kitchen fire, it’s gone out, and I do verily believe -there ain’t a mossel of coal in the ’ouse. The butcher, ’e’s a bloomer, -’e is. Blow me if that ’ere butcher didn’t turn back with the legs o’ -mutton, an’ the rounds o’ beef, an’ the shoulders o’ lamb as was a -hordered for the lay-out to-morrow; and the fowl man, ’e did ditto with -the turkeys an’ chickens, an’ the grocer, ’e’s another ditto, an’ I’ve -come to give my notice. When I engaged to love, ’onor, an’ obey--I mean -to brush your clothes an’ do all the other cetrys of a wally de sham--I -didn’t bargain, not by no manner of means, for starvation. You may be as -much Robinson Keruso as you like, but you don’t lug John Thomas in for -Man Friday. Adoo. Fare you well. I’m going back to the roast beef of -hold Hengland and Mary Ann Timmons, which, if she could see her faithful -Jones a wearin’ to a skeleton she would break her ’art. Good-by, sir.” - -Before Peter could gather in the full drift of his servitor’s disjointed -sentences, that injured retainer was away, speeding to the nearest -railway station with a firm conviction that his life depended on the -distance he could place before nightfall between himself and -Ballymurphy. - -A hasty exploration of the premises convinced his master that he had -spoken only too truly. There was not a servant in the house. The fires -were all out; the larder was very nearly empty; the nearest provision -store was four miles off; if he knew how to harness a horse to the gig -he couldn’t do it, for, rejoicing in their unexpected freedom, his -equine possessions were gaily gambolling in distant pastures; and Peter -groaned as he pictured to himself the visit on the morrow of his invited -guests, Captain Devereux and Lieutenant Talbot of the Lancers, the Rev. -Jabez Wilkins, with his portly wife and buxom daughters, the neighboring -squires from half a dozen estates--a goodly company of fifteen or -sixteen in all, with not so much as a scullery maid to attend to their -wants, and only three bottles of porter, a box of cigars, and a couple -of loaves to feast their appetites! - -It was awful. Marius amidst the ruins of Carthage, Casabianca on the -burning deck, a Chinese mandarin in a Kearney convention, a fat alderman -in a narrow lane with a Texan steer charging on his rear, Jonah in the -whale’s belly, or a shipwrecked Mormon missionary contemplating burial -in the digestive recesses of a tribe of cannibals may afford striking -examples of perturbation of spirits, but Peter felt that day as if he -would gladly change lots with any or all of them. What should he do? -Would he tie black crape to the front knocker, with a card announcing -his premature decease? Would he fly to other and fairer climes, where -boycotting was unknown, and butchers, poulterers, grocers, cooks, and -housekeepers had feeling hearts within their tender bosoms? Would he -poison, hang, shoot, drown, or smother himself? - -He didn’t do any of these things. He sought out Frieze-coat Sullivan. -With tears in his eyes he besought that red-haired Cork-man to remove -the edict which had brought desolation to his hearth and affliction to -his soul. Sullivan was as merciful as he was mighty. He relented. He -restored to Peter his satellite of the saucepan, his janitor of the -stable, his legs of mutton, his groceries, and his peace of mind. The -party came off, after all. Peter preserved his credit as a host, but it -was at the sacrifice of his laurels as a land-agent. - -If any reader desires now to ascertain the stormy depths of a -soap-boiler’s soul, he has only do drop into the counting-house of -Philipson Brothers, in the East end of London, and ask the manager his -candid opinion of the Irish land question. He will probably be consigned -to the nearest vat of boiling grease; but he will, at any rate, be -firmly convinced that Philipson, Jr., entertains very strong ideas on -the subject. - - - - -THE FELONS OF OUR LAND. - - - Fill up once more, we’ll drink a toast - To comrades far away; - No nation on the earth can boast - Of braver hearts than they. - And though they sleep in dungeons deep, - Or flee, outlawed and banned, - We love them yet, we ne’er forget - The felons of our land! - - In boyhood’s bloom and manhood’s pride, - Foredoomed by alien laws, - Some on the scaffold proudly died - For holy Ireland’s cause. - And brothers, say, shall we to-day - Unmoved like cowards stand, - While traitors shame and foes defame - The felons of our land? - - Some in the convict’s dreary cell - Have found a living tomb, - And some unseen, unfriended, fell - Within its silent gloom. - Yet what care we, although it be - Trod by a ruffian band, - God bless the clay where rest to-day - The felons of our land! - - Let cowards sneer and tyrants frown, - Oh, little do we care, - A felon’s cap’s the noblest crown - An Irish head can wear! - And every Gael in Innisfail - Who scorns the serf’s vile brand, - From Lee to Boyne would gladly join - The felons of our land! - - - - -AN OFFICIAL VALUATION. - - - The wearied Sub-Commissioner was waiting for his car, - In the hospitable shelter of a Connemara bar; - And as he contemplated the interminable rain, - On the farm he had to visit he reflected with much pain, - For the roads were very dirty, and the distance very far. - - The atmosphere was chilly, and the footway was a swamp, - And the spirits of the barrister (just like the morning) damp, - As he thought of bronchial attacks, - Pneumatic pains, rheumatic racks, - And the other consequences of his valuating tramp. - - The lawyers had departed from the village with their spoil, - The landlord, and the agent, and the tenant shirked the toil - Of plodding ’mid the mist and fog, - O’er slimy clay and treacherous bog, - And had left him single-handed to investigate the soil. - - His tumbler he replenished and he took another sip, - And as the grateful Jameson was moistening his lip, - His gloomy face relaxed,--indeed, he actually laughed; - He had drawn an inspiration in addition to the draught - That pointed an escape from his anticipated trip. - - He whispered to the jarvey--“You remember Murphy’s land; - Do you think that you could manage in my shoes for once to stand? - That is, could you perambulate - Around that gentleman’s estate - In a pair of boots I’ll lend you to accomplish my demand? - - “You needn’t spend a week or so, you needn’t spend a day, - But just long enough to gather up some samples of the clay, - Return the muddy boots to me - Unbrushed, because I wish to be - Acquainted with the profits that that soil is fit to pay.” - - That carman took instructions, but they say he took no more, - He didn’t take a dozen steps outside the tavern door, - He simply mopped the boots around - The dirtiest adjacent ground, - And returned them to the owner when an hour or so was o’er. - - And that smart agriculturist a brief five minutes spent - Examining the Bluchers, and, officially content, - Proceeded the next morning to adjudicate the rent, - Remarking he was satisfied, convinced, and more than sure - That the soil of Mr. Murphy was so miserably poor, - That he must give reductions of some thirty-three per cent. - - - - -A BEWILDERED BOYCOTTER. - - - I’m diminted,--this is awful; so it is - My spirit’s in low water, an’ no wonder; - ’Tis worse than whin the price of butter riz - The time I lost my churning through the thunder. - Mickey Flanagan has been an’ paid his rint, - An’ the Laygue that rules this part of Tipperary-- - Curse of Cromwell on their bitther hearts of flint!-- - Have resolved to boycott him an’ little Mary. - - I wouldn’t mind the ould man,--not a jot; - I always looked upon him as a blaggard, - Since his language was so disperately hot, - Once he caught me kissin’ Mary in the haggard. - They might pass their resolutions by the score - About him, and I would niver prove contrary, - But my feelin’s are distracted, sad, an’ sore - Whin I’m called upon to boycott little Mary. - - Sure, it’s mostly for her sake I go to mass, - Half a dozen miles across the fields, on Sunday; - An’ if I have to schorn her whin I pass, - Troth I’ll be a ravin’ lunatic on Monday. - Her beseechin’ eyes will follow me all day; - They’ll haunt me in the byre and in the dairy, - An’ I’ll waken in the mornin’, bald or gray,-- - Black misfortune! if I boycott little Mary. - - If they wanted me to bate a peeler blue, - Ram writs down half a dozen bailiffs’ throttles, - Or immigrate to far-off Timbuctoo, - An’ live on impty oyster shells an’ bottles, - I would do my best endayvors to obey; - But to tear from out my heart that winnin’ fairy - Is beyant me; so I’ll meet my friends an’ say,-- - Divil sweep me if I’ll boycott little Mary! - - - - -A COMPLAINT OF COERCION. - - - O Peggy, darlin’, listen to my sorrowful lamint, - And help me to recover from my state of discontint; - There’s an end to fun an’ sportin’ in these black and bitther days, - And we’ll have to drop our coortin’ by the moon’s enchanting rays. - For there isn’t a dacent gossoon, - By the light of that same silver moon, - Found out of his bed, - But will straightway be led - To a cushion of plank, - That of feathers is blank, - An’ he won’t fall in love with too soon. - - Now it’s inconvanient, Peggy, to be spoonin’ in the day, - With all your male relations or your neighbors in the way; - Your boy’s poor heart, in lonesomeness, must palpitate and pant - Beneath the cowld inspection of your mother or your aunt; - An’ he’ll have to repress his ould taste - For resting his arm round your waist, - An’ except for a sigh, - Or a glance of your eye, - Or an odd little squeeze - That there’s nobody sees, - His comfort will be of the laste. - - Do you mind last winter, Peggy, when the snow was on the ground, - Every night all stiff an’ frozen in the boreen I’d be found? - I didn’t care for painful demonstrations in my toes, - I didn’t feel the icicles that beautified my nose; - I despised my five miles of a thramp - In the dark, widout moon, star, or lamp, - For I knew at its ind - I could always dipind - That some one I’d find - Who had sootherings kind, - To rescue my sperits from damp. - - But now, bad fortune, Peggy, if I venture out at all, - The peelers will be afther me with buckshot an’ with ball; - And if I keep purshuing my perambulatin’ course, - I shall find myself a target for the County Kerry force. - An’ some night I’ll be brought in my gore, - Stritched out on an ould cabin door, - With six ounces of lead - Settled inside my head, - An’ my bosom, that’s true - As the saints unto you, - Disarranged by an ounce or two more. - - Or I might be taken, Peggy, an’ before a magisthrate, - Be called upon the rayson of my wanderin’s to state; - And it wouldn’t suit your character for me to tell the truth, - That my heart was thirsty, and I sought my girl to quinch its drooth; - So I’d have to tell thunderin’ lies, - And the law has such far-seeing eyes, - ’Twould find thim all out, - And there isn’t a doubt - Introduced I would be, - By some dirty J. P., - To a suit of the Government frieze. - - - - -O’NEILL’S ADDRESS. - -BENBURB: JUNE 6, 1646. - - - Gallant sons of Innisfail, - Ye whose stout hearts never quail, - Though no glittering coats of mail - Their proud throbbings hide: - Hark! yon distant sullen hum! - ’Tis the rolling of the drum. - See! our Saxon foemen come - In their wrath and pride. - - Meet them, comrades, face to face, - Meet them as becomes our race, - Let no shadow of disgrace - Dim our spotless name. - Front to front, unshrinking, stand, - Fire each heart and nerve each hand, - Strike for God and fatherland, - Liberty and fame! - - Kinsmen, they are still the same - As when, centuries past, they came - To our shores, and blood and flame - Followed in their track; - By the still uncancelled debt - We were cowards to forget, - By the wrongs we suffer yet, - Drive them headlong back! - - As when angry billows leap, - Like proud chargers from the deep, - Heaven’s more mighty tempests sweep - All their wrath to spray, - So their glinting waves of steel - Erin’s whirlwind charge shall feel - Till their serried columns reel, - Scattered in dismay. - - Strike, that Ireland’s sons may be - Still unconquered, proud, and free; - Strike, and fear not,--victory - Waits on every blow; - Strike, that we may never roam - Exiles o’er the ocean’s foam; - Strike together, and strike home, - Vengeance on the foe! - - - - -THE FENIAN’S DREAM. - -CHRISTMAS, 1867. - - - Through London’s dull and murky air - The merry Christmas bells - Flung out, in cadence rich and rare, - Their sonorous throbs and swells. - To the half-slumbering town they spoke - Of peace and God’s good-will, - And seemed to chase with pealing stroke - The fiends of hate and ill; - But, ah, how cruelly they broke - Around dark Pentonville! - - There, ’twixt the bars, the pale moonbeams, - Half timid, forced their way, - And fell in slender, silvery streams, - Down where the convict lay. - They glanced a moment round the place, - Cold, comfortless, and bare, - Then, in a pitying embrace, - Like angel spirits there, - Caressed the careworn, pallid face, - So wan, and yet so fair. - - They seemed to whisper softly while - Around his head they strayed, - For o’er the pale, thin lips a smile, - Half joy, half anguish, played; - As if the tender moonbeams sought - Bright tales of hope to tell, - And the day memories, bitter, wrought - Such fancies to dispel; - And so his two dream guardians fought - Within his lonely cell. - - His dream was of the loved old land - He never could forget-- - The dungeon’s gloom, the convict’s brand, - Had not subdued it yet; - The land of legend and of lay, - Of mountain, stream, and lake, - Of blossomed heath and sheltering bay, - Of forest, glen, and brake, - Where highland sprite and lowland fay - A home forever make. - - The land whose children toil and bleed, - And drudge and starve in vain, - For where the peasant sows the seed, - A stranger reaps the grain. - The Isle of Saints--where knaves and spies - Flourish and thrive apace; - Where fortune must be wooed by lies, - Dishonor, and disgrace; - The true man from such saintdom flies, - And cattle take his place. - - Land of the green, and of the gray! - For workhouse, tomb, and jail - Are landmarks on thy soil to-day, - And answer, Innisfail, - Tell us which tint thou seest most, - The old one or the new? - The green of which our poets boast, - Or the more sombre hue? - Few wear the green: a countless host - Have donned the gray for you. - - Island of verdure, glorious land! - So rich in fertile plains, - Where Nature gives with bounteous hand, - Yet famine ever reigns; - Where through the mellow ripening corn - The balmiest zephyrs sigh, - Where brighter seems each glowing morn, - More radiant each sky; - Where ’tis misfortune to be born, - And happiness to die. - - Poor dreaming boy! he softly smiled - To think he played once more, - A happy, bright, and thoughtless child, - Beside the cabin door-- - The dear old straw-thatched cabin, where, - Upon his mother’s knee, - He first had learned to lisp a prayer - For Ireland’s liberty, - And ever pregnant seemed the air - With joyous melody. - - His fancy changed: the youthful face - In sternness now was set, - His woes had left no coward trace - Upon his spirit yet; - His cold, thin lips were tightly press’d, - His cheeks were all aglow; - Expanded seemed the hollow chest, - His brows contract, as though - Disturbed and broken was his rest - By some nocturnal foe. - - He dreamt that in his native land, - Away from this bleak jail, - He stood within a meadow grand, - A shamrock-spangled vale. - Above the scene the sun-rays bright - In glittering grandeur beamed, - Around him in their golden light - Ten thousand bayonets beamed, - And o’er his head, oh, glorious sight! - Green Erin’s banner streamed. - - From town and village, hill and glen, - With clamorous fife and drum, - From mountain brake and lowland fen - The mustering legions come; - The war-worn soldier, bronzed and brown, - Has brought his dinted blade; - While quickly from the neighboring town - Flock in the sons of trade; - The farmer flings his good spade down, - And joins the dense brigade. - - The fiery Northmen, in whose veins - Still flows the blood of those - Who on a hundred battle-plains - Have conquered Erin’s foes-- - The brave descendants of O’Neill, - A stern and fearless band, - A living wall of sparkling steel - Beneath the old flag stand, - And many a Saxon foe shall feel - Tyrconnell’s vengeful hand. - - With Ulster’s columns, side by side, - Are Munster’s squadrons massed, - Like tigers into line they glide, - So noiselessly and fast; - Ah! crimsoned soon will be the green - They bear into the fray, - Through England’s host their sabres keen - Shall carve a corse-strewn way, - And Limerick and Skibbereen - Be well avenged to-day. - - Proud Leinster, all your chivalry - To arms electric spring; - High ’mid the battle’s revelry - Your stirring shout shall ring; - And many a foe this day shall rue - Your fierce, impetuous might; - The scenes that gallant Wexford knew - Shall be reversed ere night; - The epitaph to Emmet due - Your gleaming swords shall write. - - O’Connor’s soul, grim Connaught, lives - Within your ranks this hour; - Before the strength your hatred gives - Well may the despot cower. - Think of your long, black night of tears, - And say, can you forget - The tyrant’s scorn, his jibes and jeers-- - That huge, uncancelled debt, - The wrongs of thrice two hundred years - That scourge your province yet? - - Hark to that distant rumbling sound! - See, yonder come the foe; - Now be our arms with victory crowned, - The foreign scum laid low. - The stillness and the calm are o’er, - And many a sulphurous cloud, - Betinged with flame and dripping gore, - Shall form a battle-shroud - For those whose tongues may swell no more - The nation’s slogan loud. - - Like hostile torrents armies clash, - And steel now crosses steel, - The lurid flames incessant flash, - And volleyed thunders peal; - But backward reel the alien ranks, - With one exultant cry, - Sweep, Irish heroes, on their flanks, - Not vainly will ye die; - Oh, mighty God of battles, thanks, - The craven red-coats fly! - - ’Tis o’er; the victory is ours; - And though yon darling flag - May float above our castle towers - A torn and tattered rag, - ’Tis still our own; and every fold - Preserved us from the strife, - Each shred around that flag-staff rolled - Unpierced by ball or knife, - Is worth a mine of virgin gold-- - Aye, worth a hero’s life. - - From slimy cell and dungeon damp - Bring forth our prisoned men; - Gather, ye braves, from every camp, - To cheer them home again. - What though to-day they did not bleed - To share our victory, - We reap the harvest of their seed, - So victors still they be; - From faction they our people freed, - And now our land is free. - - * * * * * - - Oh, Christmas bells of London, wake - The city with your strain; - Your loudest music cannot break - The felon’s rest again. - His dream is o’er; the moonbeams gone, - Nor left a single ray, - For all that but this moment shone - Retreat before the day; - But that last, loving, pitying one - Has borne his soul away. - - “Died in his cell”--and nothing more; - ’Twas all his comrades heard; - But of the dream he had before - He died,--oh, not a word! - They found him on the coarse straw bed, - A smile upon his face, - And, “Number 28 found dead,” - Was whispered round the place; - And the jail doctor shook his head - And wondered at the case! - - - - -THE SPEAKER’S COMPLAINT.[C] - - - An earthquake is scarcely a joyous event, - ’Tis not pleasant to fall from a steeple, - There is not much fun in recovering rent - Where the Land League has hold of the people; - But upheaval of earth - Is good reason for mirth, - ’Tis jolly o’er Connaught’s bleak border, - Compared to a seat - Where the Commoners meet - When Mulligan rises to order. - - A touch of the measles, neuralgia’s pain, - Catarrhic attacks are not charming, - There are even some Benedicts stoutly maintain - That a bad-tempered woman’s alarming. - Should close diagnosis - Reveal your probocis - To be of your weakness recorder, - You might foolishly curse; - But it’s very much worse - When Mulligan rises to order. - - The whoop of a Zulu, the shriek of a shell, - A cats’ chorus in conference meeting, - Are music compared to the agonized yell - Of rage and derision, his greeting; - You go home to your bed - With a pain in your head, - By your pillow stands nightmare a warder; - Your sleep is a blight, - Your comfort takes flight, - Your breathing is tight, - You scratch and you bite, - Or you wake with affright - As you dream through the night - That Mulligan rises to order! - - - - -ERIN MACHREE (1798). - - - The sun had gone down in a halo of glory, - And cast, as it vanished, one lingering ray - On the dark field of battle where, silent and gory, - The brave who had fallen for fatherland lay. - Then close round the fires where the weary were sleeping, - And the angel of death his stern vigil was keeping, - We gathered together in sorrow and weeping - For the brave who had fallen for Erin Machree! - - From the first early dawn of the morn we had battled, - Till the mantle of night hid the sun from our gaze; - We shrank not, though balls in one leaden shower rattled, - And the fire of the foe was an endless red blaze. - Like waves ’gainst a rock on the hirelings before us - We charged side by side, with the green banner o’er us, - While the boom of our guns pealed a thundering chorus - That spoke of the wrongs of our Erin Machree! - - But vainly our hot blood poured freely as water, - Ah! vainly it crimsoned the emerald plains; - When the bright sun sank down on that black scene of slaughter, - ’Twas to rise the next morn on a nation in chains! - Oh! better be laid with the dead or the dying, - The wild winds a requiem over us sighing, - Than linger to see in the bloody dust lying - The shot-shattered banner of Erin Machree! - - Yet weep not, though dark be the clouds of our sorrow - With slavery’s midnight surrounding us fast; - Each cloud hath a bright side, each night hath a morrow-- - That morning must dawn on our island at last. - Our hopes are undimmed, e’en in dying we breathe them; - Our swords are untarnished, and so we bequeath them - To our sons, who some bright morn will proudly unsheathe them - To strike down the tyrants of Erin Machree! - - - - -THAT TRAITOR TIMMINS. - - -When Earl Spencer accepted the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, eight years -ago, he did so with the avowed resolution to unearth every secret -conspiracy, existing or contemplated. To accomplish this object, he -decided on employing the services of trusty Bow Street runners and -Scotland Yard spotters in addition to the staff of spies regularly -attached to the castle. To Col. Brackenbury at first, and subsequently -to Mr. Jenkinson, was entrusted the organization and control of the -combined detective forces. - -Among the experienced officers from Scotland Yard attached to the staff -of the head inquisitor was that famous plain-clothes inspector, Joshua -Timmins. Timmins by himself might have been an acquisition to -Jenkinson’s battalion, but, alas! Timmins brought with him to Dublin his -impressionable soul, and he was likewise accompanied by his wife, who is -fully acquainted with his possession of the impressionable soul -aforesaid. She is, in short, of a jealous disposition,--intensely -jealous--the concentrated essence of sublimated jealousy--a Mount -Vesuvius, patent torpedo, wild-cat, eighty-one-ton gun, -cyclone-earthquake combination of suspicion and doubt. - -She would lie awake all night to catch the ejaculations an occasional -nightmare might wring from the dreaming Timmins; she would loosen all -the buttons on his cuffs and collar, to ascertain if they would get a -renewed tenure from any rival fingers; she would strengthen his -constitution every morning by making him eat two or three strong onions, -in the hope that their powerful odor would keep predatory bees in -petticoats from sipping the honey off his lips; and she would affix -surreptitious pins in the back of his waistcoat and round his -coat-collar as a sort of _chevaux-de-frise_ to repel illegal embraces. -Of course she Grahamized his letters, and when, now and then, the -postman’s rat-tat aroused the happy pair from late slumbers, it was -quite an exciting and picturesque, though rather chilling, spectacle, to -witness the pair--he with one trousers’ leg on the wrong limb and the -other thrown over his shoulder; she with her hair in curl-papers, and a -miscellaneous collection of petticoats, blankets, and bed-quilts hanging -promiscuously about her--careering down the stairs in a mad steeplechase -to that winning post, the door. - -Sometimes they would run a dead heat, and a confused mixture of -night-dresses, and slippers, and bare arms, and loud voices would burst -out upon the bewildered postman, and his whole delivery would be -snatched from his hand, and, before he could recover his breath, the -amazing kaleidoscope would disappear with a bang, and nothing would -remain to remind him of it save perhaps the tail of a masculine robe of -slumber which had been caught in the door, or some strange article of -feminine toilet which had been shed upon the front steps. - -Then the government messenger would awake the echoes with extra -professional solos on the knocker and improvised overtures on the bell, -but he had invariably to wait for his confiscated missives till one or -other of the staircase competitors had donned the habiliments of -civilization. The mail Mercury, half an hour behind time, would proceed -on his route with official expressions of opinion not to be found in any -postal manual. - -Of course, the lady had some excuse for these symptoms of a weakness not -phenomenal in her sex. In his bachelor days Timmins had been a sad -fellow. Long before the term “masher” had been incorporated into our -rich language, Constable Timmins had been a masher of the mashiest type. -London constables are proverbially easy victims to Cupid’s darts and -cold victuals, but Timmins was by far the most susceptible martyr to -Love’s young dream in the entire A division. - -He didn’t confine his amorous proclivities to cooks or housemaids -either. A landlady was not beyond the range of his passionate ardor, and -there is a romantic tradition in the force that he once proposed to a -maiden lady of property, and was kicked down-stairs by her stony-hearted -brother. He was madly smitten by a new object of adoration about every -five minutes. He was a rejected and blighted being on an average twice a -week. An introduction to any member of the fairer sex, from a -school-girl to an octogenarian, was followed in a quarter of an hour or -so by an offer of his hand and heart. He wasn’t in the least particular -as to face, figure, fortune, rank, age, or color. If rejected, he loafed -around for a couple of days, heaving out fog signals in the way of -sighs, and looking as melancholy as an owl in a shower-bath. If -accepted, he left the fair one with vows of eternal constancy, and -forgot all about her before he had turned the first corner. - -In this manner he had vowed undying love to two hundred and seventeen -cooks, forty-three chambermaids, nineteen housekeepers, and four -washerwomen, before he met his fate in Julia, the present Mrs. Timmins. - -His rash matrimonial pledges forced him to change his beat at frequent -intervals. Eleven spinsters were on the lookout for him in Berkeley -Square, so that was forbidden territory to him. Sixteen breach of -promise actions were threatened from Tottenham Court road, and he dare -not pass that classic ground even on top of an omnibus, except on a wet -day, when he could hide himself under an umbrella. A squadron of big -brothers and a linked battalion of stern fathers around Sydenham wanted -to know his intentions, and he could only venture through that popular -London suburb in an effort to beat the record on a bicycle. - -No wonder that he hailed with delight the chance of escape from all -these horrors which a trip to Ireland afforded him. But, alas! he -brought across the channel with him that inflammable bosom that had been -kindled so often with the warmth of love’s flickering torch. He had not -been in Dublin a week before he had pledged his no longer youthful -affections to one of the lay figures on which the monster house of Todd, -Burns & Co. display their unparalleled sacrifices--“Original price, 2 -guineas; selling off for 17s. 6d.!!” - -The evening was wet. It was also dusky. Timmins was arrayed to conquer -in a swallow-tailed coat and a lavender cravat. This was one of the -elaborate costumes by which the London detective fondly hoped to win the -confidence of the Irish conspirators and worm himself into their -secrets. To preserve this gorgeous get-up, he sheltered it from the -pelting rain in the hospitable doorway of Todd, Burns & Co. - -By and by he became aware of the presence of a female form divine. (It -was the wirework arrangement on which the two-guinea sacrifice was hung, -but it was too dark for Timmins to notice the label.) He could not see -her face, but her figure was perfection. He felt an exquisite thrill -under his left-hand waistcoat pocket. - -He slid a little nearer to the charming stranger. He ventured a modest -observation about the rain. No reply. “Sweet, shy, blushing creature!” -he murmured, and approached a foot or so closer. Then he began to hold -forth about weather in general, Italian sunsets, Swiss snow-storms, -mists on the Scottish mountains, fogs in the London slums, moonlight -effects on the helmets of the police, tempests, cyclones, tornadoes, -water-spouts, frozen gas-meters, and other beauties of nature. Still no -response. - -“Ah, poor soul! She trembles at a voice which, no doubt, wakens -reciprocal echoes in her bosom. Let me reassure her.” And he edged up -alongside the silent object of his thoughts, and launched out into a -disquisition about love at first sight, and sudden sympathies, and -electric affinities, and he quoted Byron and Moore, and finally, in a -stage whisper, asked, “Couldst thou, fair unknown, share with a kindred -spirit the joys, the hopes, the aspirations, and all that sort of thing, -of this brief life? Wouldst thou venture with a responsive soul to dare -the scorn and sneers, the proud man’s hate, the rich man’s contumely, -and the other goings on of the ’igh and ’aughty? Willest thou fly with -me to sunnier climes?--we’ll take the tramcar to Harold’s Cross or -Inchicore. Why art thou silent, beauteous being? Behold me, dearest -Belinda, or Evangeline, or Kate, or Mary, or Jemima, or Sarah Jane, or -whatever thy sweet name may be--behold me at thy feet!” - -And he flopped down upon his knees, but in doing so knocked over the -bemantled framework, and his head got entangled in the wire and tapes of -which it was constructed, and he put one foot through a sheet of -plate-glass and tied the other up in a “choice assortment of all-wool -shirts at half a crown, reduced from four shillings.” When a policeman -was called in, and he was given into custody for an audacious attempt at -robbery, his cup of bitterness was so full that he spilled some of it in -the shape of tears. - -The incident became known. Jenkinson sent for the tender-hearted -Timmins, and gave him to understand that dry goods stores were not the -most likely places to find Invincibles, and that the dude who couldn’t -tell the difference between a milliner’s dummy and a sprightly Irish -colleen would be as likely as not to arrest a tobacconist’s negro on a -charge of dynamite conspiracy. Under all the circumstances, he thought -it better for the amorous Timmins to return to London, where drapers’ -figures are less attractive than in the Irish metropolis. - -This is the true and circumstantial history of the catastrophe which -shortened the stay of the lynx-eyed Timmins in the Emerald Isle, albeit -those wonderfully informed London journals, the _Standard_ and _Daily -Telegraph_, published paragraphs to the effect that Timmins’ unsleeping -vigilance had made him such a marked man that it was deemed advisable to -remove him from the sphere of danger. Mrs. T. knows better, and Timmins -himself has registered an awful vow never to let loose the torrents of -his policeman’s soul again except in the glare of broad noonday, or at -least beneath the effulgence of a three-thousand-candle-power electric -light. - - - - -BALFOUR’S WISH. - - - When members have taken their usual places, - And, insult to Bradlaugh, the prayers have been read, - The exiles of Erin, with pitiless faces, - Fling queries by scores at the Sassenach’s head; - And as, one by one, question follows on question, - Lost Balfour, still farther and farther at sea, - In agony mental that spoils his digestion, - But murmurs, “I wish I were out in Fiji!” - - “Can you tell me,” asks one, in a deep tone of thunder, - “How much buckshot is fatal, administered where?” - “Don’t you know,” cries another, in accents of wonder, - “The average size of potatoes in Clare?” - A third seeks a legal opinion, without - Even gratitude proffered by way of a fee, - And a youth wants to know has the premier the gout, - While Balfour would fain be exiled to Fiji. - - Affairs of the person, affairs of the State, - Affairs of the church, and affairs of the bar, - What should be a sub-constable’s average weight? - Does he ever indulge in the national car? - Is he properly versed in diseases of cattle? - Is it whiskey he swigs when he’s out on a spree? - And he moans as the queries about his ears rattle, - “Great God, how I wish I were out in Fiji!” - - - - -OUR CAUSE. - - - Seven hundred years of blood and tears, of famine and of chains, - Of outlaws on the mountain path and victims on the plains, - Of blazing homes and bleeding hearts to glut a tyrant’s rage, - Of every crime that ever time recorded in his page, - Have failed to quench the burning sparks of freedom that illume, - With radiance bright, the centuried night of fettered Ireland’s gloom: - Nor guile nor force could stay its course beyond a moment’s pause, - For ever still, through good or ill, marched on the glorious cause! - - Its heroes flung their naked breasts on Strongbow’s hireling spears, - And Essex saw them shatter his proud line of cavaliers, - And what though Cromwell’s fraud and craft had blunted Irish swords, - They still could deal rude blows of steel on William’s German hordes. - The after years beheld, ’tis true, the old green flag laid by, - No gleaming of its sunburst flashed across the ambient sky, - But yet in many a faithful breast, spite cruel penal laws, - The love remained, undimmed, unstained, that glorified the cause. - - It sprang to life, in brief, stern strife, in storied Ninety-eight; - It only slept when Erin wept o’er gallant Emmet’s fate; - O’Connell’s accent broke the trance, and found the cause once more - Still burning in the nation’s soul as brightly as of yore. - Hunger and fever stifled for an hour its thrilling tones, - And paved the deep encircling seas with bleaching Irish bones; - But, ah, the brave old race too well its inspiration draws, - And how it flamed when Three brave lives were given for the cause. - - What is that cause that time nor change has ever known retreat, - That smiles at persecution and that triumphs in defeat, - That mingles with the ozone in the Irish infant’s breath, - Whose memories soothe the pillow in the lonely exile’s death? - ’Tis mother Ireland’s liberty, expansive and complete, - No aliens in her senate, in her armies or her fleet; - Faithful to this the tribune gains the multitude’s applause, - And the scaffold is a kingly throne ascended for the cause! - - - - -SERVED HIM RIGHT. - - [An Irish girl, hearing that her brother Pat had been killed in the - Royal Irish, fighting against the Mahdi, said: “It served Pat - right. He had no business going out there to fight those poor - creatures (the Arabs). May God strengthen the Mahdi.”--_London - Graphic._] - - - I have no tears for brother Pat, - Though stark he lies, and stiff and gory, - On the Egyptian desert, that - He might assist in England’s glory. - The foes he fought were not his own, - Nor his the tyrant’s cause he aided; - Then why should I his fate bemoan? - O brother, faithless and degraded! - - He saw how Saxon laws at home - Had crushed his sires and banned his brothers, - Why should he cross the ocean’s foam - To place that hated yoke on others? - The Arabs slew him in a fight - For all by brave and free men cherished-- - Ay, for the cause of truth and right, - For which his kith and kin had perished. - - No Arab chief in Ninety-eight - Placed foot on Erin’s shore as foeman; - They lent no spears to swell the hate - Of Hessian hound and Orange yeoman. - But those who wrapt our homes in flame - And trod us down like dumb-brute cattle-- - It was for them--oh, burning shame! - My brother gave his life in battle. - - Sure, every memory of late - Must from his wretched heart have vanished; - Our hills and valleys desolate, - Our ruined homes, our people banished. - And yet, God knows, he learned in youth - The gloomy story of his sireland-- - Drank in at mother’s knees the truth - That England is the scourge of Ireland. - - I cannot weep for brother Pat-- - I hate the hellish cause he died for; - False traitor to the freedom that - His brothers strove, his sisters sighed for; - E’en when in tearful dreams I see - The parching sands drift blood-stained o’er him, - My grief is changed to anger. He - Was treacherous to the land that bore him! - - - - -RAPPAREE SONG. - - - Come up, comrades, up, see the night draweth on, - And black shadows loom over fair Slieve-namon; - The darkness is creeping o’er mountain and vale, - And our footsteps are drowned in the roar of the gale. - Our proud foemen rest in yon valley below, - And their slumbering guards never dream of a foe: - Then up, comrades, up, ere the bright sun appears - We’ll have vengeance galore for the sufferings of years. - - They have plundered our homes and foredoomed us to die - Of famine and want ’neath the cold winter sky; - Our roof-trees are blazing, our altars o’erthrown, - And ’tis treason to ask or to hope for our own; - Our kinsmen lie food for the ravens and crows-- - They craved but for bread, and were answered with blows; - And because we won’t perish while feasting they be, - Oh, robbers, and traitors, and cut-throats are we! - - We’re robbers to snatch back our own from their hand, - We’re traitors because we are true to our land, - And cut-throats, ha! ha! so the cowards can feel - That we, like themselves, carry points to our steel! - They have hunted us down now for many a day; - To-night they shall find us the hunters, not they; - For we’ll bend to their foul yoke no longer, we’ll swear, - Whilst we’ve arms that can strike, boys, or hearts that can dare. - - - - -TO THE LANDLORDS OF IRELAND. - - - You tendered us when famine came - The pity of a thought, - Bestowed to slaves whose sense of shame - And hearts and souls you’d bought. - Time’s wheel turns round--you’ve lost your place, - And right into your tyrant face, - Your jibes and sneers - Of many years - At victims’ tears - Are thrown, - And in God’s name, - Our hearts aflame, - To-day we claim - Our own! - - Once for ye, skulking, lazy elves, - Muscle and brain we wrought. - Toiled, starved, and died--scarce for ourselves - The crumbs of Lazarus sought; - And when ye flung us out a crust, - Our faces grovelling in the dust, - We gave ye thanks-- - No prize, all blanks - In our poor ranks - Was known; - But now, thank God, - We’ve spurned your rod, - And claim this sod - Our own! - - We lift our faces to the sky - Where once our heads were bowed, - We breathe no more a timid sigh, - But speak our thoughts aloud. - From dizzy hill and peaceful plain - Our voices join in this refrain: - The seeds we sow, - The crops we grow, - The fields we mow, - Alone, - Without your aid - In cash or spade - At last are made - Our own! - - - - -BALFOUR REJOICES. - - - So the toil of the session is over, - My woes for a period cease, - And hey for a journey by Dover - To latitudes promising peace; - Away to recuperate vigor-- - Away from obstruction’s mad spell-- - Away from the questions of Biggar-- - Away from the taunts of Parnell. - - No more my poor head shall be aching - With night after night of debate-- - No more shall my soul feel a quaking - At bald, irrepressible prate. - And, though ocean attack me with rigor, - While sea-sick, with joy I will dwell - On the fact that I’m leaving Joe Biggar, - And getting away from Parnell. - - No more to be quizzed on each capture - Of priest or of peasant by night-- - I could dance the can-can in my rapture, - Or stand on my head with delight. - Play the banjo and sing like a nigger, - Or like a wild Irishman yell - Hurroo! I am free from Joe Biggar, - And don’t give--ahem--for Parnell! - - Yet I feel an occasional spasm - At thoughts of returning at all, - ’Twere better to leap down a chasm - Or under an avalanche fall; - Or, fingers embracing the trigger, - Let the pistol’s report loudly tell - How I hated the queries of Biggar - And the dolorous talk of Parnell. - - - - -A PICTURESQUE PENNY-A-LINER. - - -There may be some miserable beings to whom the existence of that -powerful organ of public opinion, the Stretchville _Sparrow_, is a -sealed volume, or, more correctly, an unopened newspaper. Should such be -the melancholy fact, I hasten to inform them that the Stretchville -_Sparrow_ (_vide_ its own circular) is a power, a forty-horse power, in -the universe. Circulating, as it does, among the three hundred adults of -Stretchville and vicinity, it wields an influence that inspires awe and -creates astonishment. As befits a journal with responsibilities so -tremendous, and a status so imposing, it aims to keep abreast of the -times. So when the Land League agitation had brought Ireland and the -Irish prominently forward, and such lesser luminaries as the New York -_Herald_ and _Tribune_ and _Times_ and the Boston _Herald_ and a score -of other dailies had their specials over in the sorrowful country, the -_Sparrow_ felt imperatively called upon to bestow its approval by -following the example. Stubbs, the head reporter, bookkeeper, -advertisement canvasser, and proof-reader, was therefore ordered to hold -himself in readiness to embark on a perilous journey (via the editorial -back room) through the wilds of Connemara and the mountains of Kerry. He -was equipped for the expedition with a school map of Ireland and an old -copy of Thom’s Dublin Directory, which contained a list of all the -landed gentry of the country. - -His instructions were brief, but they covered a lot of ground. “You -know as much about the country now,” observed his chief, “as if you were -there. We’ve got to lick the New York _Herald_ and the rest of ’em. -Whenever you see an Irish murder in another paper, let us have two. -There’s nearly two thousand names in that directory. With judicious -management they ought to last till this Irish boom pegs out. You’d -better tick each landlord off when you telegraph his demise. It won’t do -to shoot one fellow three or four times. People want variety. You might -skin a bailiff or scalp a policeman now and then. Go ahead at once, and -give us some lively telegrams.” - -Well, it _was_ lively for a few weeks after that in the _Sparrow_. One -day we had: “Fearful Murders in Ireland--Seven Landlords Shot!” The next -there was a six-inch heading, “Cannibalism in Connemara--Six Agents -Stewed and a Sub-Inspector Fricasseed!” Then when the _Tribune_ came out -with a summary of three months’ Irish outrages, and showed that there -had been fourteen murders of agents and landlords, and one hundred and -seven assaults upon bailiffs and process servers, that conscientious -reporter, who had been told to double every crime reported elsewhere, -and who didn’t grasp the fact that the _Tribune’s_ was a three-months’ -record, paralyzed the readers of the _Sparrow_ with a blood-curdling -telegram to the effect that there had been a horrible night’s battue in -the Emerald Isle, twenty-eight landlords and agents having handed in -their checks, and two hundred and fourteen officers of the law having -suffered every conceivable indignity, from swallowing writs and -processes on the half-shell, to being stripped naked and turned loose -for light recreation in nettle beds or around wasps’ nests. By this time -the special had got half through his directory, and the list of names -eligible for assassination was rapidly dwindling down, so he had to -improvise a few. His boss, too, complained that there was a lack of -variety in his telegrams. He had wiped out four or five hundred -land-owners in pretty nearly the same sentences every time. He should -diversify the details. He diversified. Here’s his style:-- - - “GALWAY, Tuesday.--A man named M’Swilkin took a farm last week from - which the previous tenant had been evicted. He was waited upon - yesterday evening by a few neighbors. It is estimated that he - weighed forty pounds heavier after the interview. The surgeons have - been three days excavating for lead, and haven’t done striking new - veins yet.” - - “At a land-meeting near Castlebar last week, Michael Moolannigan - boasted that he had paid his rent. His widow complains that she - can’t hold a decent wake on a pair of braces and two buttons. She - wants more of him, to give the funeral a respectable appearance.” - -This special correspondence continued to be telegraphed from the -editorial sanctum, and dated Sligo or Cahirciveen or Letterkenny, -according to the scene of the last big thing in murders, until readers -began to get kind of hardened to it, and didn’t mind half-a-dozen -murders in Ireland quarter as much as they would the same number of -errors in a base-ball match. Under the circumstances, it was thought as -well to drop the Irish agency. “You had better return,” observed the -chief, as they sat smoking together at the hospitable bar next door. -“We’ll wind up your Irish tour with an interview. I’ll interview you. -Just throw us in a few spicy maimings or strangulations for this issue, -and you can be home next Saturday, and your interviewing will be handy -for Sunday’s edition.” I give the interview as it appeared in the -_Sparrow_, to show how scrupulously truthful was that Irish -correspondent:-- - -“Yesterday, the gentleman who has represented us in Ireland, and whose -energy enabled us to publish information which no other journal was in a -position to obtain at that period or at any other, visited Stretchville. -As we had not seen Mr. Blank before his departure for Hibernian shores, -and were anxious to notice for ourselves what manner of man this was who -for the past four months has been carrying his life in one hand, his -repeater in the other, and his note-book and pencil in ----. But to -abbreviate. - -“We found him a pale, calm, intellectual-looking gentleman, upon whose -brow the impress of truth and candor were stamped in Nature’s indelible -marking-ink. He was accompanied by a miserable anatomy of a greyhound, -whose spectral leanness was a miracle. It had no tail. The thin -elongation of its body was so superlative that it seemed as if Nature -had given up in despair the task of adding a caudal appendage in shadowy -proportion to the other outlines. Our curiosity was excited, and we -asked him how he came into possession of the canine ghost. - -“‘I do not like telling the story,’ he answered; ‘I have a horror of -being suspected of giving utterance to an untruth. But this mute witness -will corroborate my tale by the want of his own. You remember I was -down in the West of Ireland during the recent famine. My mission brought -me into Ballykill--something or somebody. I never witnessed anything -like the destitution among the landlords there in my life before. They -were worn to threads. - -“‘I was informed that on a moonlight night it took three of them to make -a shadow. I would not have believed myself that less than a dozen could -produce anything like a respectable shade. - -“‘Well, one landlord, who had been master of the hounds, had only two of -the pack left. He and his family had lived during the winter upon the -others. - -“‘The first of these two dogs, poor creature, fell to pieces trying to -bark at me--just collapsed like a house of cards. - -“‘The second animal you see with me. His sagacity was remarkable. He -felt it his duty to bark at the stranger, but the fate of his companion -warned him of the danger. So he leaned carefully against a wall, and -succeeded in emitting a howl. I was struck by his extraordinary -instinct. I bought him from his skeleton owner, a poor lath of a fellow -you could blow out with a puff like a rush-light. - -“‘I gave the man a shilling for him--in two sixpences, so that he could -balance himself. If he had got the shilling to carry in either side -pocket, it would have brought him down. - -“‘I shall always take credit to myself for preserving that poor man’s -centre of gravity. - -“‘I brought the dog to my hotel. I left him in the dining-room, but, -fearing he might slip under the door, I tied a double knot on his tail. -In my brief temporary absence he smelt some scraps of meat in the bottom -of a cupboard. He got through the keyhole as far as his tail. He -couldn’t get the double knot through but he was able to reach the meat. -He fed. You see the result. He could get no farther in, and after his -feed he couldn’t get back past his stomach. I found him in that position -when I returned. To save him from a lingering death, I had to vivisect -his tail.’ - -“We ventured to hint that there might be a mistake about the double -knot. The dog was of a breed whose tails are naturally short; so much -so, that it would require hydraulic pressure to squeeze a double knot -out of one. Our special was too virtuously indignant to reply for a -moment, but, coming to, he explained that, going to rest supperless, the -Irish landlords’ dogs had acquired a habit of sleeping with their tails -in their mouths, which filled their minds with dreams of food. This had -a tendency to lengthen out the canine latter end. ‘And, at any rate,’ -concluded our contributor, ‘I would scorn to tell a lie for the sake of -a knot on a dog’s tail!’” - - - - -THE IRISH BRIGADE. - - - When in sorrow and darkness they left their lov’d home, - They won, far away, o’er the ocean’s salt foam, - A bright wreath of laurels that never shall fade. - A welcome they found from fair France and proud Spain, - Whose honor and glory they fought to maintain; - And wherever the Sassenach showed his false face, - ’Twas to meet the avengers of Erin’s disgrace, - And front the bright steel of the Irish Brigade! - - Oh wild was their rush and exultant their shout, - When the signal to charge from the bugle rang out,-- - The fire of their hearts seemed to temper each blade. - They thought of the land they had left o’er the sea, - And the brave who had perished, dear Erin, for thee, - Then one cheer for Old Ireland, a curse on her foes, - Like the peal of the thunder to heaven arose - From the lips and the souls of the Irish Brigade! - - When France, torn and bleeding, her chivalry slain, - Lay gasping and faint upon Fontenoy’s plain, - Not vain the appeal that her proud monarch made; - The war-cry of Erin, a wild slogan, rang - O’er the clamor of battle, as swiftly they sprang - From their feet to the charge, and with avalanche might - Swept down on the victors, who scattered in flight, - Borne back by the steel of the Irish Brigade! - - Then, hurrah! for the fame of our faithful and brave, - Unforgotten they rest, though across the deep wave, - In far distant lands, are their weary bones laid. - Long, long be remembered the lesson they taught, - They loved the green island, and died where they fought; - With face to the foeman unconquered they fell. - May we fight the battle of freedom as well - For the flag and the cause of the Irish Brigade! - - - - -SNOOKS. - - -Justice in Ireland, as administered by those awful instruments of the -law, the omniscient J. P.’s, is a profoundly solemn thing. The high -priest of the Jewish sanctuary, the sacred Brahmin of the Buddhist -temple, the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the Mohammedan faith, has only about -one-tenth the idea of his own stupendous importance that a West British -honorary magistrate possesses. They believe themselves to be not only -pillars and ornaments of the glorious English Constitution, but its very -corner-stones. Therefore, when one of these Olympic deities condescends -to unbend to our more humble level, and actually makes a joke, we should -be grateful to his Mightiness for letting us know that, great as he is, -he is but human after all. Such an incident is worthy of imperishable -record, and we eagerly copy the following from an Irish exchange:-- - - “In giving his decision at the Abbeyfeale quarter sessions relative - to an alleged insult to a sub-constable, which insult consisted of - the defendant’s whistling ‘Harvey Duff,’ the chairman said: ‘There - is a difference between a policeman and an ordinary individual. - When a policeman is hooted or whistled at, it is the office he - holds is held up to contempt. It is not Sub-Constable Snooks - [_laughter_] that is insulted, but it is the office that is held by - Snooks.’ [_Laughter._]” - -Who but an Irish J. P. could have emitted from his brilliant intellect -that bright sparkle about Snooks? The delicacy and yet the pungency of -the wit, added to the simplicity and yet profundity of the reasoning, -deserve immortalizing in glowing verse, and with feelings of deepest -admiration I dedicate this rhythmic paraphrase of his wonderful ideas to -that gorgeous Abbeyfeale chairman:-- - - If you notice a policeman at the corner of a street - In an energetic struggle with a pair of erring feet, - A decided inclination to lie down upon his beat, - And confusion quite apparent in his looks, - An odor floating round him you’d no reason to expect, - You have not got the slightest cause to cavil or object; - The law is oft mysterious, and, stranger, recollect, - ’Tis the law’s inebriated, and not Snooks. - - A policeman is no ordinary mortal; so suppose - It unfortunately happens, as it might do, that there grows - A pimple at the end of 27’s Roman nose, - Which his dignity but very little brooks. - You must not, at your peril, venture carelessly to laugh, - And avoid like trichinosis any tendency to chaff, - Unless you wish to seek the rude acquaintance of his staff-- - ’Tis the law that has that pimple, and not Snooks! - - - - -CALEDONIAN CANDLESTICKS. - - -Towards the close of the year 1867, that mighty empire, the drum-beat of -whose soldiers welcomes the sun all round the world, was plunged into -one of those periodical visitations of panic which have afflicted her -like an intermittent nightmare since the naughty pranks of Fenianism -first disturbed the digestions of her statesmen. Three brave men had -just been hanged in the city of Manchester for the rescue of two rebel -leaders, and Ireland mourned them as martyrs, while the guilty -conscience of England quaked in hourly fear of a retribution which was -felt to be deserved, and of which more than one indication had been -foreshadowed. For, to say nothing of the terrible explosion at -Clerkenwell, London, by which some twenty people were killed and -hundreds more or less seriously wounded, every metropolitan and -provincial paper shrieked forth dire warnings of mysterious plots, awful -conspiracies, and blood-curdling revelations. A red-headed Irishman had -been discovered prowling round the Warrington Gas Works. That smoky -Lancashire town was instantly declared in a state of siege. The -volunteers were called out, every male between the ages of twelve and -eighty was sworn in as a special constable, and in the terrible -confusion of the time many of the sturdy Anglo-Saxons so far lost their -presence of mind as to beat other fellows’ wives instead of their own, -while some of them became such hopeless imbeciles as to behave like -Christians for a whole week. Soon after the bodies of two dead cats were -seen in the canal at Crewe, within a hundred yards of the mayor’s -residence. So convinced was that functionary that they were stuffed with -nitro-glycerine or fulminate of mercury that he took the first express -for London, and thence telegraphed to the chief constable to seize the -suspicious feline carcasses. With the assistance of a detachment of -engineers and the entire police force of Crewe, the remains of the -defunct tabbies were brought to land, but there wasn’t a chemist in -England’s borders would undertake a post-mortem examination, so they -were carefully conveyed far out into St. George’s channel, and committed -to the depths of the silent waters. - -It was in Manchester, however, that the most abject state of alarm -existed. The military guards were trebled, the police force was -augmented by all the men that could be spared from the county -constabulary, the Irish population was placed under the closest -surveillance; watchmen patrolled the neighborhood of all public -buildings and important warehouses, which were amply supplied with bags -of sand and buckets of water in view of any possible conflagration, the -sand being for the especial contingency of Greek-fire, which is like -Irish eloquence in one respect, that it can’t be quenched by cold water, -and must therefore be smothered. So overwhelmed was the superintendent -of the Manchester police, Capt. Palin, by his responsibilities, that he -ran away from them along with the wife of the resident magistrate, Mr. -Fowler. In his absence, the duty of guarding the city from the Fenian -bombs, dynamite, powder, bullets, daggers, and shillelaghs devolved upon -the commandant of the Ninety-second Highlanders, who were then in -garrison at Manchester. It is easy to imagine the horror of this officer -when, a few days after his appointment, he received a letter containing -the details of a diabolical plot to destroy the city and annihilate the -troops. On a given night the gas mains were to be severed, and in the -ensuing darkness the town was to be fired in a hundred places, the -barracks attacked by a few thousand wild Irishmen, armed with pikes, -bowie-knives, hand grenades, bottles of vitriol, Remington rifles, -sledge-hammers, and revolvers, and the devoted Cameron men chopped into -as many fragments as the squares of their tartans. - -Their chief at first was overwhelmed. He swallowed three mutchkins of -Glenlivat and consumed a quarter-pound of snuff in two minutes without -knowing it. Recovering somewhat, he summoned a hasty council of the -Macintoshes and the Mackenzies and the Macgregors of those various ilks, -and after many applications of the barley bree and sundry inhalations of -Lundyfoot, a plan of defence was agreed upon. The sentries were doubled, -and the remainder of the garrison ordered to sleep upon their arms. -Sand-bags were piled in every convenient corner, barrels and buckets and -tubs of water ranged on every staircase, and, greatest effort of the -entire strategy, each kilted warrior was provided with two tallow -candles and a box of matches. Unfortunately, they received no orders as -to how the illuminating agents were to be utilized in the event of an -Egyptian darkness suddenly enshrouding them in gloom. Consequently they -were much divided in opinion as to whether one Highlander was to hold -the candles while the other did the shooting; or should each Highlander -carry his own candle in his bonnet or his kilt; or were they to pile the -candles in a pyramid on the ground, and form a square around them; or -was it possible the candles were intended for rations, should the siege -last any time. Luckily no occasion arose for testing the brilliancy of -the candle idea or of the candles themselves, but for days afterwards a -doughty mountaineer from Inverness or Aberfeldy would be surprised, when -at the friendly fireside of some hospitable countryman in Manchester, to -find Niagaras of grease rolling impetuously down his nether limbs, and -would learn too late that he had forgotten to take his strange munitions -of war out of his pocket, and was consequently indulging in a warm -tallow bath. In time the story oozed out, and until this day that -battalion of the Ninety-second is known to the gamins of Manchester as -the Caledonian Candlesticks. - - - - -FAITHFUL TO THE LAST. - - - So they’ve found another victim and another rebel dies, - A sacrifice to prejudice, to perjury and lies; - Another name is added to our country’s martyr-roll, - And our English rulers send to heaven another Irish soul; - All the tricks and all the meanness that their lawyers and their spies, - With months of preparation, could imagine and devise, - Like a network planned by Satan, round his gallant life was passed, - But God be with you, bouchal, you were faithful to the last! - - When the abject, wretched Judas shrank and cowered like a hound, - Though thrice a score protecting British sabres gird him round, - Though you saw no friendly feature in that strange and dismal place, - Not a quiver stirred your muscles, not a pallor blanched your face; - With a smile upon your lips that spoke the gallant heart within, - With a courage that has never yet been known to fraud or sin, - You saw the hangman’s rope for you spun furiously and fast, - But God be with you, bouchal, you were faithful to the last! - - No guilt was on your soul, but what had that to do with slaves? - You were far too grand and noble to recruit their band of knaves; - You were Irish, and a Fenian, blood and nerve and brain and bone, - And those were crimes which nothing but your young life could atone; - But not all the jailer’s terrors, and not all death’s awful gloom, - The horror of the dungeon, nor the silence of the tomb, - A shadow o’er your spirit for a single hour could cast, - So, God be with you, bouchal, you were faithful to the last! - - - - -FENIAN BATTLE-SONG. - - - Hurrah! we stand on Irish land, - Our hated foe before us, - And once for all, to rise or fall, - The green flag flying o’er us, - We’ve raised it proudly overhead. - God prosper our endeavor, - Unite our bands, and nerve our hands, - To keep it there forever! - - We marched away at break of day, - And sweethearts left behind us, - To strike one blow at yon false foe, - Whose rusty fetters bind us. - For while we bear the name of men, - We’ll crouch no more as slaves, boys, - Oh, Ireland shall be free again, - Or we’ll be in our graves, boys! - - We’ve listened long to traitors mean, - False England’s scarlet praising; - We’ve heard them mock our Irish green - Until our blood seemed blazing! - And chieftains, too, who should be true, - Have kept our ranks asunder, - But Faction’s sound to-day is drowned - In Freedom’s battle-thunder! - - Then here’s hurrah for all the brave, - No matter who may lead ’em, - And here’s a curse on every slave - Who mars the cause of freedom! - Let leaders vain aside remain - Until their feuds are ended, - ’Tis by the man who knows no clan - Our flag must be defended. - - We’ve men from Galway to Kildare, - From Limerick’s walls to Derry, - Bold ramblers from the County Clare - And mountaineers from Kerry. - We’ll chase our alien foes away, - We’ll tear our bonds asunder; - We care not who’s to lead to-day, - _We’ll_ fight and conquer under! - - - - -THE GRAVE OF THE MARTYRS.[D] - - - Far away from the home and the friends they love best, - ’Mid murd’rers and felons all silent they rest; - Not a cross, not a stone, marks the desolate spot - Where the bones of our martyred ones crumble and rot! - - In the cold prison ground, sad and lone, side by side, - With their faces to Ireland, they sleep as they died; - And the Angel of Liberty, hovering near, - On the consecrate grave drops a pitying tear! - - Surrounded by foemen, ’mid jeering and hate, - True as steel to the last, they went forth to their fate, - With a prayer for thy cause on the high gallows-tree-- - Dear home of our fathers! they perished for thee! - - When they took them away from that desolate place, - They found death had left a bright smile on each face, - So they buried them quickly, lest true men should see - How the hosts of the tyrant were baffled by Three! - - For still are they free, as no tyrant can bind - The proud, chainless soul or the fetterless mind; - And though the cold limbs may be laid in the grave, - Soul and mind are enshrined in the hearts of the brave! - - Long, long may our land guard and treasure each name, - Till a nation made free hymns their glorious fame; - And our grandsons shall tell that from yonder cold grave - Sprang the spirit yet destined our nation to save! - - - - -DEATH’S VICTORY. - -IN MEMORIAM JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY. - - - The Poet may grieve for his Art’s vacant throne; - The Patriot mourn for a brave spirit flown; - For the loss of a hero the Soldier may sigh, - And the Church miss a star from her glorious sky. - - But with these ’tis not death--for through every age, - In the lore of the Student, in History’s page, - In the stories they tell, the examples they give, - Of Genius and Truth--he will live! he will live! - - With the cypress the laurel of glory shall twine - To deck the white shaft that will rise o’er his shrine; - In sunshine a banner, in darkness a flame, - To his land and his kindred shall long be his name. - - But to those who have loved him, oh! what can replace - The grasp of his hand or the light of his face, - The true, tender friendship an angel might prize, - That played round his lips and that shone in his eyes? - - Ah! for us, faithful heart, he is lost in the grave - Till he welcomes us, too, over death’s dismal wave; - No solace can sweeten one tear that we shed-- - He lives to the world, but to us he is dead. - - - - -THE GREEN FLAG AT FREDERICKSBURG. - - - Bear it up, bear it up, through the clouds of the battle, - On, on, through the smoke and the glare; - Though in hail-storms the balls from yon black ramparts rattle, - We will plant it triumphantly there. - Though now, by the eddying war-dust beclouded, - ’Twas lost at the base of the hill, - See again, on its summit, in flame-wreaths enshrouded, - Our flag waves triumphantly still! - - We have marched ’neath its folds over meadow and mountain, - In sunshine and shower, side by side; - To guard it we opened our hearts’ living fountain, - Till it flowed in a hot crimson tide; - And guard it we will for the dear ones who love us, - Till death bids our warm hearts be chill, - And our foes even then shall behold that above us - Our flag waves triumphantly still! - - ’Tis the flag that our sires and our grandsires died under; - The flag that our children shall bear - When at home in the old land the cannon’s dread thunder - Knells Tyranny’s doom on the air. - ’Twill be born o’er the foam-crested waves of the ocean, - And true hearts in Ireland shall thrill - To see in the land of their love and devotion - Our flag wave triumphantly still. - - - - -THE FLAG OF OUR LAND. - - - Come kinsmen, come clansmen, from South and - from North, - Hark! hark! the wild slogan of war pealing forth! - It rings through each vale, and from peak unto peak - The heather-clad mountains in thunder-tones speak; - It calls on our loyal, our true, and our brave, - From the whispering heath and the hollow-toned wave, - With sabre and musket, and red battle-brand, - To gather once more ’neath the Flag of our Land. - - Shall the stranger still rule in the halls of our sires? - Shall our waters still mirror the plunderers’ fires? - Shall our manhood be lost, and our darling old sod - By tyrants and traitors forever be trod? - ’Mid the nations around us, oh, say, shall our name, - Our cause, and our people be bywords for shame? - No! We swear by the graves of our fathers to stand - For freedom or death ’neath the Flag of our Land! - - By the fame of our martyrs, the memory of those - Who fell, side by side, ever fronting their foes; - By the plunderers’ fires and the murderers’ steel; - By the wrongs we have felt and the hatred we feel; - By the scaffold’s red path and the dungeon’s dread gloom, - And their myriad victims who call from the tomb, - Meet the foe and strike home with a vengeance-nerved hand, - Till his false blood shall crimson the Flag of our Land! - - - - -HURRAH FOR LIBERTY. - - - Arouse ye from your slumbering, - Awake to life once more, - The time for idle pleadings - And for vain regrets is o’er; - We’ll bend and crouch no more like hounds, - But in a fight like men, - With men’s brave hearts and men’s stout arms - We’ll win our own again. - - Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for liberty! - Till death we stand, - To make our land - A nation proud and free. - - We bent unto the tyrant, - And we prayed in vain for years, - But now we’re going to try, boys, - Rifle-balls instead of tears. - Our sighs shall be the trumpet’s call, - The rolling of the drum, - And in future our petitions - From the cannon’s mouth shall come.--Hurrah! - - From Galway right to Wicklow, - And from Cork to Donegal, - We’ll march once more for liberty - To win it or to fall. - We’ll flaunt our flag from cliff and crag, - And guard it with our steel; - We’ll show our foes what deadly blows - Each Irish arm can deal.--Hurrah! - - In ages past the redcoats quailed - Before our fathers’ might; - Have we not still the courage left - To battle for the right? - Though cowards dread the troops in red, - We’ll cross their steel with joy, - And show that Irish valor was - Not spent at Fontenoy. - - The wily knave, the coward slave, - To home and life may cling, - But there’s no place for falsehood’s face - Where gleaming sabres ring! - We’ve thrown our gage, our lives we wage - For Freedom and for Right; - Appeals we’ve tried; now, God decide, - Our last appeal is fight! - - - - -THE MESSENGER. - -NOVEMBER 23, 1867.[E] - - - With bated breath and trembling lips, we gathered round him there-- - Tall, sinewy men with faces bronzed, and maidens young and fair; - We questioned him with eager eyes--we had not power to speak, - For a nameless dread was in each heart, and whitened every cheek! - - Twice, thrice his lips moved silently, his tongue refused its task, - We spoke not, but he knew right well the question we would ask; - And thrice he strove to answer it, but thrice he strove in vain, - While down his cheeks the tear-drops fell in blinding showers like rain! - - And by his grief at last we knew the news he could not tell, - And over every hope a black and blighting shadow fell; - A sickening weight seemed pressing, oh! so heavy on each heart, - That it stayed our bitter wailings, and forbade our tears to start! - - And stalwart men, whose fiery wrath and fierce, resistless might - Had turned the ebbing tide of war in many a bloody fight; - Whose whirlwind charge and wild hurrah made Southern foemen reel, - Whose breasts had pressed unshrinkingly ’gainst triple lines of steel-- - - Aye, men like these, true scions of our fearless Celtic race, - Who fear not death, but meet it with a smile upon the face-- - Now stood so still, so motionless, so silent in their woe, - It seemed as if they’d fallen, too, beneath the crushing blow! - - Oh! who shall say what mournful tears that bitter night were shed, - And who shall count the curses heaped upon the murderer’s head; - What heartfelt prayers ascended to the throne of the Divine, - For the heroes who had fallen on their suff’ring country’s shrine! - - He,[F] boy in years but man in heart, who, pale and fearless, trod - The scaffold’s path as proudly as if ’twere his native sod; - Who stood upon the grave’s dark brink with heart that never failed, - With lips that never quivered, and with eyes that never quailed! - - And he,[G] the dark-eyed soldier, who, unhurt, untouched, had pass’d - Through many a hard-fought battle-field, now fronted death at last; - And such a death--the felon’s death--the death that villains die-- - He met it with a smiling face, and with a flashing eye! - - And, last of all, the father,[H] who that day would leave behind - Poor helpless children to a world, harsh, pitiless, unkind: - No wonder if he faltered--’twas, oh God! a fearful test; - Yet he met his fate as bravely and as proudly as the rest. - - And these are murderers, they say--are cowards, base and vile: - These gallant ones who perished for their distant native isle-- - Cowards and murderers, they say; oh, grant us patience, God! - Oh, grant us patience yet to bear the tyrant’s heavy rod. - - - - -A TYPICAL TRIAL. - - -Joseph O’Graball, ex-Indian police inspector, and previously major in -the Boomerang Blazers, has for the past two years looked after the peace -and well-being of a southern district in Ireland, which, to avoid -offending the sensitive susceptibilities of its loyal squireocracy, I -shall designate as Kilslippery, which is about as unlike its real -cognomen as any word I am capable of coining. Joseph is unquestionably -one of the most energetic of the many remarkably energetic divisional -magistrates whose lively imaginations and diseased livers have found -temporary fields for exercise in Ireland since the coercion act passed -into law. - -Major O’Graball is a terror not merely to all evil-doers in the locality -decorated by his rubicund nose and enlivened by his oriental profanity, -but he has managed to establish himself as an unmitigated nuisance to -nine-tenths of the entire population. He possesses the disturbing -faculty of becoming “reasonably suspicious” of anybody on the slightest -provocation and at the shortest notice. He firmly believes that he can -tell an Invincible or a Moonlighter half a mile away by the manner of -his stride or the cut of his pants. He perambulates the country-side -with a mounted escort daily, and scrutinizes the features of every -individual he meets, irrespective of age, sex, garb, or occupation. He -is prepared to detect treason in the shape of a nose, read murder and -arson in the twinkle of an eye, and discover dynamite in the curl of a -mustache. - -Christy Connell was a small farmer whose evil fate made his path of life -lie in the scope of the major’s inquisitorial vision. Christy was a -simple, hard-working man, with such a numerous progeny that there is -little fear of the name of Connell ever dying out in those parts unless -there’s an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. His task of supporting -this battalion of Connells was such a difficult one that he had no -leisure to attend to politics or concern himself with the agitation. But -the very fact of his constant attention to his farm only served to -arouse O’Graball’s suspicion. Why, he argued, should a man keep sober, -unless he was afraid to get drunk? and why should he stick so closely to -his business, unless he wanted to conceal his treasonable sympathies? -Then he wore an American goatee. Suspicious, decidedly suspicious. A -goatee is military. Except the goatee, there was nothing military about -Christy, for he was bow-legged and squinted. But then his bow-legs might -have been induced by cavalry exercise, and his squint would be useful in -enabling him to spot an objectionable landlord round the corner. - -With O’Graball, to suspect was to act. So one dark April night a -sergeant and half-a-dozen of the R. I. C. broke suddenly into Connell’s, -and, after one of those clever searches for which that corps is famed, -they succeeded in discovering a hatchet, a sledge-hammer, several rusty -nails, a rude drawing which appeared utterly incomprehensible to the -indefatigable sergeant, and a letter bearing the New York post-mark, -which, to the official mind, seemed an invaluable piece of documentary -evidence. - -“Make haste, Connell,” said the sergeant. “You must come along with us.” - -“Musha, phwat for?” queried the bewildered Connell. - -“To answer a charge of having unlawfully and illegally planned, devised, -and conspired, with seditious, felonious, and treasonable intent, to -destroy, deprive, rob, upset, and otherwise confuse Her Most Gracious -Majesty Queen Victoria of her title and right as sovereign lady of -England, Scotland, Ireland, and also Kilslippery, so help me God!” and -the sergeant wound up as if he were on oath in the witness-box. - -“Arrah, thin,” said the overwhelmed Christy, “how could I rob or upset -or confuse the Queen at all, at all. Sure, I niver cast my eyes on the -ould heifer, good, bad, or indifferent.” - -“Silence! Every word you say will be taken in evidence. That’s the law.” - -“Wirra, thin, bad luck to that same law.” - -“Silence, I say again. I cannot tolerate treasonable expressions before -my men. Come along.” - -Amid the sobbing of his wife and little ones, and utterly amazed and -confounded, Christy was handcuffed and dragged to the police barracks, -where he passed a miserable night. In the morning he was brought into -the awful presence of O’Graball, who at once commenced in grave tones -what he intended for a solemn interrogatory, but which proved in reality -a rich burlesque:-- - -“Prisoner, what is your name?” - -“Christy Connell, plaze your worship.” - -“It does not please me. It is a notoriously disloyal name. There have -been several Connells hanged at various times. Your very possession of -such a name is in itself a suspicious circumstance. Sergeant, make a -note of it. He confesses his name is Connell. So far our information is -correct. Now, prisoner, tell me, had you a mother?” - -“Arrah, to be sure I had. What do you think I am, at all, at all?” - -“No prevarication, sir. You had also, I suppose, a father of the male -gender?” - -“He wore breeches, anyhow.” - -“Prisoner, I must caution you against this unseeming levity. Sergeant, -make another note. We have established the fact of his birth. He had the -customary pair of parents, and he admits his name is Connell. The case -is proved already. But we have further and overpowering testimony. Now, -prisoner, does this axe belong to you?” - -“Yes, your honor.” - -“And this hammer?” - -“Yes, your lordship.” - -“And these nails?” - -“Yes, your worship’s reverence.” - -“Now, Christopher Connell, farmer, aged forty-two, were not that axe and -this hammer and those nails designed to be used for nefarious and -revolutionary purposes? You see we are thoroughly posted on your -diabolical plots. Make an open breast of the matter, and I’ll try how -far my influence will go with the Crown in procuring a mitigation of -your penalty. Conceal anything, and you will find me adamant. What do -you say?” - -“Well, thin, your grace, I had the axe for nothin’ but cuttin’ firewood -with; the hammer was my father’s; sure, he was a blacksmith, the heavens -be his bed; and the nails--the nails--the troth, I don’t know what I -wanted the nails for at all. You can make a present of them to the -sarjent.” - -“Miserable man! Your ill-timed wit will injure instead of serving you. -The axe and hammer were to be used in breaking open the doors of police -barracks, and the nails, no doubt, were to be employed in hand -grenades.” - -“Well, by the blessid St. Patrick!” ejaculated the amazed Connell, but -he was speedily checked with a peremptory “Silence!” while the sapient -magistrate proceeded:-- - -“We have even stronger proofs. Sergeant, did you find these documents?” - -“Yes, your washup.” - -“The first is a drawing, sketch, or plan. Where did you find that?” - -“Under one of the children’s heads, your washup.” - -“Evidently placed there for concealment. The second is a letter--a very -important letter--from New York. Where did you discover that?” - -“On the chimney-piece, your washup.” - -“Ha! It was left there, no doubt, in the hope that you would not dream -of looking for dangerous documents in such an exposed position. Now, -prisoner, what is this drawing?” - -“Well, plaze your majesty, its a pictur’ that Terry, the child, was -thryin’ to mek av the goat, the craytur, and the poor gossoon was so -proud av it he tuk it to bed with him.” - -“A goat! Gracious heavens! Christopher Connell, you are trifling with -the court. That sketch, sir, I take to be a military map of Ireland, -with the rivers and boundaries left out to mislead us. But learn that -the eye of the law can discern everything, and it can penetrate through -that goat’s mask and see the grim secret behind!” - -“Troth, your iminence, if that’s a map of Ireland, it’s proud the goat -should be av his resemblance to the ould country. But sure it’s joking -you are.” - -“You’ll find it a serious joke, my man. But let us proceed. This letter -is dated New York--the most treasonable locality on the face of the -earth. It begins: ‘Dear brother--(of course you’re all brothers. -Sergeant, make a note of that)--I write these few lines hoping they will -find you in good health, as they lave me at present, thanks be to God. -(There’s some deep, hidden, occult meaning in that sentence, but I -cannot discern it just now.) I met the ould man--(Rossa, I suppose. -Make a note, sergeant)--on landing. He would advise you not to kill the -ould pig just yet. (Old pig? old--oh! horrible! I see it all. They have -actually contemplated the assassination of her Majesty. Terrible!) You -might, however, get rid of the litter of young sucklings (the miscreant, -to apply such language to the royal family.) I hope the praties and the -rye are going on well. (Pikes and rifles he means--they begin with the -same letter.) How’s ould coffin-head these times?’ Sergeant, who can he -mean by that?” - -“Um--um--yourself, I think, your washup.” - -“Sergeant, you forget yourself. I am not coffin-headed. Not even a rebel -would dare apply such a term to me. Prisoner, in the face of the -overwhelming evidence adduced, I do not think it necessary to proceed -further; besides, there are other allusions which a thoughtless world -might associate with me. Society must be preserved against such -desperadoes. If I could trust the honesty of a jury of your countrymen, -I would commit you for trial; but, alas! they would not see the evidence -with the clear gaze which I bend upon it. Therefore I give you the -highest sentence in my power--three months’ imprisonment--and, sergeant, -just look over the act and see under what clause we shall record it.” - -Christy Connell served the three months, but to this day neither -himself, the magistrate, the jailer, nor the county member who brought -his case before Parliament have been able to find out for what he was -convicted. And that’s one specimen out of a hundred of the working of -the coercion act. - - - - -JOHN BULL’S APPEAL TO JONATHAN. - - - Oh pray, good Cousin Jonathan, assist me in my plight; - And ease my aching brain of this perpetual affright - That keeps me quaking all the day and shivering all night-- - An incubus I can’t shake off, a shade I cannot fight. - I am very, very sorry for the _Alabama’s_ pranks, - I regret that I contributed to arm Secession’s ranks, - But if you’ll only aid me now to crush these Irish cranks, - Upon my knees I’ll pledge eternal gratitude and thanks. - - As empress of the ocean, and as mistress of the waves, - Britannia has a perfect right to string up Afghan braves; - To blow to bits, with dynamite, the Zulus in their caves, - And to burn the huts of savages who will not be her slaves. - But when the men she drove from home with steel and buckshot dare - Return with nasty bombs to beard the lion in his lair, - And send his best establishments cavorting through the air-- - Good Heavens! you must admit it’s quite a different affair. - - Poor Gladstone dare not crack an egg for fear it might explode, - A hundred picked detectives guard her Majesty’s abode. - Sir William Harcourt feels unsafe by river, rail, or road, - And letter-carriers tremble ’neath the lightest postal load. - There is terror in the country and anxiety in town, - Insurance rates are rising, while stocks are going down, - And since his kilts and plaids were doffed, forever, by John Brown, - Uneasy lies the royal head that wears the British crown. - - Then, pray, good Cousin Jonathan, vouchsafe to us some ease, - I beg, implore, and crave of you, upon my bended knees. - And in return I’ll take of you whatever you may please, - Pay homage to your bacon, and monopolize your cheese. - But, oh, my brave blood relative, in Heaven’s name don’t delay, - Do not hesitate a moment, do not hold your hand a day, - Our statesmen in another month will all be bald or gray, - Unless vile nitro-glycerine has blown the lot away. - - - - -THE STORY OF A BOMB. - - - Where Shannon’s waves with smiling face - Woo smiling banks with soft embrace, - A modest cabin stood beside - Its gentle perfume-laden tide. - The sunshine of an honest life, - A prattling child, a loving wife, - The joys of home, their blessings shed - Around the peasant tenant’s head. - The twinkling stars of summer skies - Reflected back his colleen’s eyes, - His baby’s locks the noonday rays - Encircled with a golden haze. - - But drear December, dark and chill, - Whirled blighting blasts adown the hill, - Sickness and famine scourged the land; - And in their train the landlord band, - And aiding in their mission dire - The liveried hounds in England’s hire. - In one brief hour their work was o’er, - A happy home was home no more. - The wintry skies looked sadly down, - Half veiled in tears, half wrapt in frown, - Upon the babe that sobbed to rest - Upon its dying mother’s breast. - - A week--a month--he had no power - To mark or count each anguished hour, - He knew not if ’twere night or day - When wife and infant passed away. - Without a hope to dull the pain - That numbed his heart and seared his brain, - Despair behind and gloom before, - He left his native Shannon’s shore, - Whose rippling wavelets seemed to press - The ship’s dark side with fond caress, - While chimes from many a distant bell - Breathed Mother Erin’s last farewell. - - Uncouth in dress, but huge of limb, - With earnest faces fierce and grim, - Are gathered near a silent swamp, - Rough toilers from a mining camp; - The rasping tones of Ulster greet - The voice of Munster soft and sweet, - And Connaught’s mellow accent blends, - But one and all are Ireland’s friends. - Yet whispering pines that bend above - Hear words of hatred, not of love; - Tears that from eyes of strong men fall - Are not of mercy, but of gall. - - Each has a sickening tale to tell - Of England’s robber rule of hell, - Each has a deeply cherished cause - To hate her power and curse her laws. - “Then who will venture life, and go - To wreak our vengeance on this foe, - Though ’mid the ruins he may lie?” - And he from Shannon answers “I!” - The western breezes catch the vow - That surges from his bosom now, - The exile’s vengeful brand to bear - And smite the tiger in his lair. - - In Babylonian halls to-night - Are strains of mirth and flashing light, - The sheen of satin, gleaming gems - In scores of priceless diadems; - These are the butterflies, the drones, - Vampires who feed on blood and bones. - Ah, cruel parasites, beware, - One victim of your wrong is there. - The London skies are black with cloud - The earth enwrapt in night’s dark shroud, - As by the despot’s citadel - A hand from Shannon fires the shell. - - England, to thee and thine belongs - The memory of uncounted wrongs - That, multiplied through all the years, - Have dried the fount of Ireland’s tears. - Thy fate is sealed, thy knell has tolled, - Not thrice the sum of thrice thy gold - Can turn the wrath thou hast defied - Of hearts like those from Shannon’s side. - Thy future sky is overcast, - Thy halcyon days forever past, - Earthquake and storm shall overwhelm - Thy towers and fanes, thy laws and realm. - - - - -AVENGING, THOUGH DIM (1798). - - - Avenging, though dim, with the dust of inaction, - And dinted and blunted through fraud and delay, - With the hilt spoilt and scarred by the rude hands of faction, - And the blade rusting slowly to useless decay, - The swift sword of Erin, its temper unbroken, - Leaped forth after years from its vain, idle shield, - To smite to the earth the vile slander oft spoken, - That true men e’er falter or brave spirits yield. - - The hearts that had dared to disturb its long slumber, - With resolute nerve, may be laid in the clay, - But they woke from the harp-strings of Erin a number - That throbs through the soul of the nation to-day. - And be it in future for joy or for sorrow, - To clothe her in glory or shroud her in pall, - The tyrants of Ireland shall find from to-morrow - The sweets of their empire embittered with gall. - - - - -CHRISTMAS DIRGE OF THE LONDON POLICE (1885). - - - Christmas is here with its fun and frivolity, - Mistletoe, holly-bush, kindness, and cheer, - Warmth and good-feeling, gay laughter and jollity, - We should be happy--for Christmas is here. - Yet to it all we are sadly insensible, - We have no heart for festivities gay-- - Ah! the dark future is incomprehensible, - Irish conspiracies hatch night and day. - Oh, dear! what will become of us? - Will they blow up every man or but some of us? - Pity, oh pity, the visages glum of us! - Give us a rest--we are pining away. - - Beef and plum-pudding are sadly inferior - To the dread terrors that nightly control - All the dark depths of a peeler’s interior, - Spoiling his liver and crushing his soul! - Though brimming glasses are in the ascendency, - Moistening cannot bring hope to our clay, - For we may not place a moment’s dependency - How long intact shall our rendezvous stay! - O Lord! but the immensity - Of Irish vengeance in all its intensity - Splits through the dullest official head’s density, - Turning our locks into premature gray. - - Holiday thoughts are no longer convivial, - Peelers have long since forgotten to smile, - Fears permeate them, not groundless or trivial, - Of the omniscient Skirmisher’s guile. - How could a uniformed breast be hilarious, - When it may shortly be scattered around, - With scarce a prospect--oh future precarious! - That a brass button would ever be found? - Oh, dear! is there a river in - England that hasn’t a dynamite shiver in - Ready to agitate, spasm, and quiver in - Each beating heart that is left above ground? - - - - -IRELAND’S PRAYER (MAY, 1885). - - - Oh, children of that scattered race whose agony and tears - Have called to Heaven for vengeance through seven hundred circling years, - Hark! hear ye not the rising storm that beats on England’s coasts? - The clank of swinging sabres and the tramp of marching hosts? - In every sign and portent read the swift-impending doom - Of that Empire built by fraud and guile on murdered Freedom’s tomb; - See tottering on Britannia’s brow her loose imperial crown-- - God nerve the hands, no matter whose, upraised to drag it down! - - Beside the storied Pyramids the desert’s swarthy sons - Have strewn the sands with English bleaching bones and rusting guns, - And on another continent the gray coats of the Bear - Advance with grim resolve to choke the Lion in his lair; - Arab or Tartar, what care we whose hand may deal the blow - That lays a Saxon hireling or an Irish traitor low? - Where’er on English ramparts rolls the bloody tide of war, - God bless El Mahdi’s spearmen and the legions of the Czar! - - Heaven guide the Zulu assegai until it sinks to rest - From point to butt ensheathëd in a quivering English breast; - May every stinging bullet from a half-breed rifle sped - Complete and end its mission in an English lung or head; - For whosoever smashes blows on Britain’s brazen form, - Whatever hand upon her head brings battle-wrack and storm, - Gives aid to prostrate Ireland that a patriot heart must feel; - So Heaven be with brave Osman, and God prosper Louis Riel! - - - - -JOHN BULL’S NEW YEAR. - - - John Bull looked haggard and drear - With fear, - As the bells rang out the old year, - “Oh, dear!” - He moaned, “but my lot has been sorry and sore, - I ne’er had twelve months of such trouble before, - My neighbors all round seem to thirst for my gore,-- - It’s queer. - - “With Hans I would like to agree, - For he - Is an inch or two taller than me, - You see; - But he’s gone to the Cape with a rush and a shout, - And I had to vanish or he’d kick me out, - And he says ever since he will ‘pull mine snout - Mit glee.’ - - “Then Mossoo, who lives o’er the way - Is gay - At my numerous signs of decay - Each day; - He snaps his fingers right under my nose, - Laughs at my protests and treads on my toes, - And has not a pitying word for my woes - To say. - - “I once could warn Ivan the bear-- - Take care - How the lion you stir in his lair, - Beware! - But now he has laid his big claws on Herat, - And all I can do is to squeal like a cat, - And I fear that some day I’ll be squelched like a rat - Out there. - - “But my worst and my ugliest fright, - A sight - That keeps me in shivering plight - All night, - Is the vengeance I earned from poor Pat long ago, - He’s my nearest neighbor but bitterest foe, - And ’tis only just now I’m beginning to know - His might! - - “So for me there’s no Happy New Year, - Oh, dear! - But doubt, and misgiving, and fear - Are here. - My neighbors discover I’m toothless and blind, - They cuff me before and they kick me behind, - And in all the world not a friend can I find - To cheer!” - - - - -READY AND STEADY. - -A FENIAN NEW-YEAR SONG (1867). - - - Ready, boys, ready, the morning is breaking, - Brace up your sinews and stand to your guns; - Ireland, the shackles of centuries shaking, - Calls o’er the ocean for aid to her sons. - Now, boys, forever Erin’s endeavor - Reaches its triumph or falls on its bier; - Strengthen each soul, be it death-bed or goal, - You must decide in the dawning new year. - - Steady, boys, steady, no pausing or flinching, - Comrade or foeman?--your choice must be made; - Saxon and Celt in a death-grapple clinching, - Neither has room for a neutral brigade. - Voices that palter, hearts that may falter, - There is no welcome or place for you here; - Arms but of you men--fearless and true men-- - Strike the last blow in the coming new year. - - Ready, boys, ready, with quick self-reliance, - Victory marches, but never despair; - Steady, boys, steady, a loud-mouthed defiance - Never scared tiger or wolf from its lair. - Silent, but ready, anxious but steady, - Lean on your arms till the signal you hear, - Then, be your story sadness or glory, - Still, ’twill illumine your country’s new year. - - - - -WHY SMITHERS RESIGNED. - - -So you wish to know why Smithers resigned his position as head constable -of Kilmacswiggin? Well, as the night’s young, and I’m not particularly -busy, I don’t mind spending half an hour or so in telling you the story. - -You see, during the time of the Land League troubles, some of the -landlords round here, knowing that they had little reason to expect any -overwhelming affection from their tenants, and finding their sources of -income, if not castles in the air, at least rents in the clouds, for bad -luck to the penny they could collect, began to get uneasy and scared, -and thought it would be a wise thing to have a dozen or so more police -in the parish, though it’s too many of the same streelers were quartered -on us to begin with. The district, barring that the farmers kept their -money in their own pockets and used strong language when the rent -collector called on them, was quiet, and peaceable, and could have been -easily managed without a peeler at all, but the landlords wanted bad to -force their rents out of the poor peasantry or take their land from -them, as they used to do in the cruel times before the League stepped in -and put an extinguisher on their proceedings. - -So, as the people couldn’t be tempted to make fools of themselves by -playing into the land-grabbers’ hands by such frolics as popping at -their agents with old blunderbusses from the back of a hedge, or setting -fire to process servers’ hayricks, the landlords began to manufacture -outrages on their own account. They wrote threatening letters to each -other by the bushel, with skulls, and crossbones, and coffins for date -lines, and blood, and blasphemy, and murder reeking in every sentence, -and pikes, and guns, and pistols below the signature of “Captain -Moonlight” or “Rory of the Hills,” to show how terribly in earnest they -were. Oh, they constructed those epistles in the orthodox manner -recognized by Mr. Trench in his “Recollections of an Irish Landlord,” -and made familiar to the world by the regiments of English special -correspondents that were then roaming and perambulating Ireland like -journalistic ghouls or body-snatchers looking for corpses to be -dissected in the columns of their respective organs. They wrote, too, -blood-curdling, gruesome, harrowing narratives of the horrors of life in -Kilmacswiggin for the London papers, till one of the Orange members from -the North drew attention in the House to what he called the terrible -state of affairs in that parish, and, though Healy and Biggar -contradicted his assertions, and laughed at his lugubrious forebodings -of massacre, rapine, blood, and flame if a whole _corps d’armee_ and a -part of the channel squadron wasn’t immediately sent to occupy the bogs -and ditches there, the then chief secretary, Buckshot Forster, promised -to see into the matter, and he wrote to the head inspector in Dublin, -Col. Hillier, and Hillier sent a letter down to Smithers that made that -head constable’s ears tingle. He as much as told Smithers that if he -didn’t arrest somebody for something or other he might take out his -walking papers. Of course Smithers was in a quandary. He’d willingly -have arrested the whole parish, man, woman, and child, if he could have -found the shadow of an excuse, but he couldn’t, poor fellow. - -Just at this time it happened that Pat Moran, at the far end of the -parish, was engaged in a little business speculation on his own account, -in the shape of a brisk trade in the finest poteen that was ever -distilled in these parts--and that’s a big word. The still was away -somewhere in the mountains,--it may be there yet, so I shan’t go into -geographical details,--and Pat was employed as a kind of messenger -between the boys there and some of the hotel keepers and grocers in the -towns and villages round who don’t believe in contributing any more to -the British revenue than they can help. Maybe he visited me sometimes, -and maybe he didn’t. That’s neither here nor there. I may just observe -that I never pay taxes willingly. You can take what you like out of -that. - -Some of Pat’s neighbors grew envious of the good luck he was having, and -one day some sleeveen--it was never found out who the stag was--came -into the barracks and told Head Constable Smithers that Pat Moran had -guns and powder and shot hid away in his old cabin. The sly rogue knew -that if he complained to Smithers that it was merely illicit whiskey Pat -had, the head constable wouldn’t give a thraneen about the matter, and -as like as not would let Pat alone. But the mention of contraband -material of war worked up Smithers like a touch of electricity. Why, if -he could manage to seize a few rifles and a cartridge or two of -dynamite, his fortune was made, his position assured. There was no -position he might not attain. He would succeed Clifford Lloyd. He might -be made a K. C. B. Dim visions of a peerage even floated through his -brain. - -In five minutes he was _en route_ for Pat’s, with a dozen constabulary -men at his back. How Pat found out he was coming I can’t say; but he did -find out while Smithers was still half a mile away. Pat had a hurried -consultation with his mother. He had no time to shift a keg of poteen -which was in the house, but they hit upon a ruse which might succeed, -and at any rate couldn’t make things worse. They wheeled the keg of -whiskey under the bed in the back room, and in another minute Pat was -lying on the bed with his head enveloped in a Tara hill of bandages, -awaiting the crisis. - -The crisis came. So did the police. In fact, they came together. The -search began. The peelers explored the teapot and kettle for rifles, and -seemed disappointed when they found no artillery in the skillet. They -sounded the hearthstone, analyzed the cradle, held a sort of post-mortem -examination on the furniture, and poked the roof so effectually with -their bayonets that it resembled the lid of a pepper-box. The commander -went so far as to make the youngest of the force ascend the chimney. He -found nothing there but soot. However, he brought enough of that back -with him to satisfy his most ardent desires. - -Then Smithers prepared to enter the back room, but the old woman clung -to his arm and tearfully beseeched him not to do so. - -“Ha! ha!” cried the enterprising officer, bursting the door in with his -foot, “I smell a rat,” and he rushed into the room, where the first -object to meet his gaze was a head raised languidly from the pillow, and -poulticed and bandaged to the size of a champion squash or watermelon. - -“Oh, wirra! wirra!” sobbed the old woman; “you’ve kilt my boy. He’s very -bad with small-pox, ochone! ochone! and the doctor said only this -blissid mornin’ that he wasn’t to be wuck at all, at all. It only bruck -on him last night, an’ it’s a beautiful pock you have, avick machree; -and now--” - -But that head constable had leaped ten feet backward clean out of the -house, and was licking all previous racing records up the boreen, with -his handkerchief to his nose, and his followers tearing after him like a -pack of hungry fox-hounds. Talk of Myers, the great Yankee runner! He -would have been left in the cold that day. - -You may be sure it wasn’t long before the whole story of how Moran -fooled the head constable went the rounds of the country. It came to -Smithers’ own ears at last, and from that hour he was an altered man. -He would retire into the woods to vent his feelings, and people who -heard him sometimes say that his oaths would lift the hair on the scalp -of an Egyptian mummy. The more he brooded, the more he cursed. There -never was a curse, English, Irish, or American, that he didn’t get hold -of, and he invented such a lot of brand-new, original, comic, pathetic, -eccentric, square, round, oblong, elliptical, severely plain, and highly -ornamented or convoluted profane pyrotechnics that a perfume of sulphur -and brimstone seemed to hang around his conversation. The habit so crept -upon him that when he wished at last to shake it off, he couldn’t. His -tongue had grown so accustomed to decorative blasphemy that it could -utter nothing else. It became a matter of anxious consideration to him -how he was to eliminate from his conversation the picturesque adjectives -it would under ordinary circumstances have taken him thirty years to -accumulate. He consulted a friendly sub. “Smith,” said he, “I have a -[powerful expletive not to be found in any polite guide to conversation] -bad habit.” - -“Only one,” said his brother official; “that’s nothing. A man who has -been on the force ten years and has only acquired one bad habit, has -wasted his opportunities.” - -“Well, but this is one that is likely to get me into a blank blank -[double-barrelled adjective] muss in society some fine day. You see I -can’t speak ten words without cursing. If I can, ---- my eyes!” -[ophthalmic operation not recognized in modern surgery]. - -“Ah,” said Harvey Duff 2; “you must repress that custom. It’s low.” - -“How the ---- [distant region occasionally alluded to in sermons and -theological disquisitions] can I?” - -His colleague cogitated. When a policeman cogitates, there are enough -scintillations of intellect flashing round to illuminate the interior of -an Egyptian pyramid. The result of his meditation was his advice to -Smithers to take a pocket-book, and every time he transgressed to take a -note of the offence. In twelve hours he had filled up two -three-hundred-page memorandum books, and used up a dozen and a half of -pencils. It became irksome pottering round with a note-book in one hand -and a stick of lead in the other entering everlasting ejaculations; he -wore the skin off his fingers, and, besides, he couldn’t keep up with -himself, and he missed cataloguing a few score emphatic expressions -every five minutes. He adopted another plan. He arranged with his wife -that every time he articulated forbidden sounds he should hand her over -a penny. He provided himself with £5 in coppers the first day of the -arrangement, but he hadn’t a red cent by noon, and in three days he had -parted with all his ready cash, made over his next year’s income, and -didn’t even own the boots he stood in. Then he agreed with his better -half that she should pluck a hair out of his head every time he -offended, and now if there’s a more bald-headed man to be found on this -side the day of judgment, I’m willing to turn cannibal, and eat him. - -His habit attracted the attention of his superiors at last, when his -report began to resemble his verbal utterances, and they reprimanded him -sharply. He replied in a letter that is preserved in the official -archives as a sample of what the English language is capable of. The -reading of it drove two Castle authorities mad, and sent the third into -a galloping consumption. Well, that’s how Smithers left the force. -Strange story, ain’t it? - - - - -THE CHARGE OF THE GUARDS AT LONDON TOWER.[I] - -BY ALFRED TENNYSON’S GHOST. - - - Ghastly white with affright, - Down stairs they thundered, - Peelers and grenadiers-- - Nearly a hundred. - - Out of doors shrieking loud - Rushed the scared hundred, - They had no wish to be - Blown up or sundered. - Crash! went a bomb o’erhead, - “Oh, Lord!” each bearskin said, - Wildly in flight they sped-- - Disgruntled hundred. - - Bang! went that bombshell near, - Were they o’ercome with fear? - You bet your boots they were-- - All of the hundred; - Theirs not to question why - Roof soared aloft to sky-- - Theirs but to cut and fly - Sensible hundred. - - Women to right of them, - Women to left of them, - Children in front of them - Fainted or wondered; - But they were trained too well-- - They knew what meant that shell, - So with a gruesome yell, - Head over heels, pell-mell, - Scattered the hundred. - - Did they flash sabres bare - Out on the trembling air? - No, they just left them there, - There to be plundered; - And through the struggling mass, - Matron and babe and lass, - Plunged and strove hard to pass, - Choking and gasping-- - Ah, horrified hundred. - - Glass smashed to right of them, - Beams flew to left of them, - Walls gaped in front of them, - Shattered and sundered; - All round the citadel, - Stormed by that awful shell, - Plaster and brickbats fell - Down on their heads in storms. - Oh, it was worse than hell; - Out over prostrate forms - Charged all the hundred. - - When shall the record fade - Of the quick time they made? - All the world wondered. - Greyhound or Arab steed - Could not excel the speed - Of that swift hundred. - - - - -AN ADDRESS TO SLAVES.[J] - - - Helots of Ireland! Bow down to the stranger; - Bondsmen and serfs! bend the sycophant knee; - Forget the brave hearts who have faced every danger, - Death, dungeon, and exile that ye might be free! - Be Emmet forgotten, Tone’s story unspoken; - Let the green shamrocks wither above their lone graves, - Or should the last sleep of such heroes be broken - Let it be by the shouts that proclaim ye are slaves. - - Aye, shout! Though oppression stalks over the old land; - Though thousands are leaving your desolate isle. - Aye, shout! Till your cheers tell the world ye have sold land, - Faith, honor, and truth, for a Prince’s false smile. - The iron has entered your souls, and forever - May it brand you as craven and false to your race; - May the years that roll by bring oblivion never - To cloak your dishonor or shroud your disgrace. - - Shout, shout, puny slaves, though each banner that dances - Round the path of the Prince is the alien red, - Crack your throats, though the gleam of yon glittering lances - Is dimmed by the blood of your innocent dead. - Kiss the ground at his feet, though the soldiers that guard him, - Your fathers and kinsmen have ruthlessly slain, - Be dogs to the last, and like mongrels reward him, - By coating in slime every link of your chain. - - But cowardly serfs, in your crouching remember - The people and ye are no longer the same, - And every heart where one flickering ember - Of manhood’s ablaze has contempt for your shame. - Then go, join the ranks of the knaves who have bartered - God’s birthright of freedom for titles and gold. - The heart of the nation beats still for the martyred, - Though their glory and cause be unsung and untold. - - When ye, abject hounds, and your cheers shall have perished, - When the Prince and his courtiers shall sleep in the grave, - Their name and their fame and their work shall be cherished - While one Irish bosom is faithful and brave. - In honorless tombs all their foes will be rotten, - When the cause that they died for, triumphant and grand, - Shines out, o’er the tombstones of princes forgotten, - In the sunrise of Liberty bathing our land. - - - - -EXPLOITS OF AN IRISH REPORTER. - - -For enterprise, facility of invention and expedient, and the ability to -“get there” in spite of every difficulty and obstacle, the American -newspaper man is a century ahead of his European brother; but I know of -one Irish knight of the stylograph who could give even a Yankee points, -if we are to believe his friends. - -Brian has been known to take notes in a rain-storm with a sharp-pointed -scissors on the ribs of his umbrella. - -When his leg was broken in a boiler explosion, he chronicled the event -on the bandages. - -When he had to disguise himself as a bandsman at an Orange -demonstration, he took down the chairman’s speech in the mouth of his -trombone. - -He sent a graphic account of an Arctic expedition engraven on blocks of -ice from Smith’s Sound, and he once pencilled the story of a railway -collision on the wooden leg of a survivor. He forgot to mention how the -mangled victim was accommodated with an artificial limb so soon after -the disaster, but he never bothers his head about such minor details. - -But his greatest phonographic achievement was in Central Africa a few -years ago. King Mtesa, the dusky potentate discovered by Stanley, picked -up from his European guests, among other accomplishments, the art of -making speeches. It was a new, a delicious recreation to the savage -soul. Twice a month he assembled his warriors, and held forth, and the -ebon Secretary of State who failed to ejaculate the Central African -substitute for “hear, hear,” at the proper moment, was served up for -luncheon on the conclusion of the speech. - -Brian heard of this. It became the one burning ambition of his soul to -take a shorthand note of the Boston-baked-beans-color orator. He set out -for Tanganyika to carry out his project. Accompanied by a dozen sons of -night he penetrated the African jungle, swam its turgid rivers, evaded -its hungry tribes, escaped its fierce animals, and after weeks of -adventure and suffering, with his faithful followers, reached the king’s -kraal the evening before one of that monarch’s speeches. - -He had been scalped, had all his teeth drawn, lost a few toes, been once -half boiled, and on another occasion baked nearly to a sweet and -toothsome brown; still he had survived. - -But, alas! he had lost his pencil and note-book, and these indispensable -adjuncts of caligraphic civilization were unknown in Mtesa’s territory -since Stanley had left. - -Our reporter, however, had an inventive intellect not to be thwarted by -such trifling obstacles. He hunted up a chalk ridge, and when the Cicero -in jet addressed his subjects, Brian planted his Zanzibari attendants on -their hands and knees, and took the speech in chalk upon their naked -backs. - -Mtesa, in return for the promise of a copy of the paper containing the -speech, furnished the stenographer and his animated note-books with an -escort to the coast, and triumph would have crowned Brian’s effort but -for the most striking passages of the oration being lost through one of -the blacks sitting down on a wet bank before he had been transcribed! - - - - -A POLITICAL LESSON SPOILED. - - -He was a Boston teacher, and of course had an intellect superior to the -cut-and-dry theories of instruction that were followed by the common -herd of schoolmasters. He believed in object-lessons; in illustrations -that should catch the young idea on the fly, as it were. Thus, when he -wanted to fix in the memories of the youthful scholars the titles of the -principal reigning monarchs and rulers of Europe, he didn’t keep them -for half an hour each day iterating monotonously, “the Queen of -England,” “the President of France,” “the King of Italy,” “the Emperor -of Germany,” “the Sultan of Turkey,” and “the Czar of Russia.” Not he. -He elevated his pupils to a higher sense, a more individual -appreciation, of the majesties of the Continent. He told Mike, the -saloon keeper’s son, to know himself in future as the French President; -Franz Schweibiere became Emperor of Germany; he bestowed royal honors on -all his most promising pupils, and he felt proudly conscious that he had -planted firmly in their minds, as part of their own identity, the -knowledge of the sovereigns who are the arbiters of the Old World’s -destiny. We draw a veil over his emotions when on a recent unhappy -morning the King of Italy held up a greasy hand and piped out, “Please, -sir, de Sultan of Turkey won’t be here to-day. De Emperor of Russia hit -him a smash in de eye last night, and blinded him!” - - - - -THE LION’S LAMENTATION. - - - They are marching on Herat, half a million men, or more, - Over the frontier they’re swarming; - And they do not seem to mind at all my remonstrative roar, - But grin as if its melody were charming; - Turk and Italian, Teuton and Gaul, - Friends of the past, where, where are ye all? - Great Patience! are ye laughing at the poor old lion’s fall? - Really, the prospect is alarming. - - ’Tis useless boasting now we can whip them one to ten, - Woe is me! the fact is quite contrary; - We might when “English” soldiers came from Irish hill and glen, - But there’s no recruiting now in Tipperary. - No, nor from Antrim downward to Clare, - From seaboard of Galway across to Kildare, - Can I find a single Irishman to help me anywhere, - Except he be a Corydon or Carey. - - Oh dear, oh kind, oh glorious, oh darling Uncle Sam, - Am I not your father and your mother? - Pray listen to the bleatings of the martyred British lamb, - Help, brave soul, oh help, before I smother. - Irving and Arnold your culture will bless, - All the dudes of London your image will caress, - Oscar go across again to teach you how to dress, - And we’ll be the world to one another. - - Bennett, Smalley, don’t you hear the marching going on? - The tramp my Indian provinces is shaking, - Greycoats from the Ural and Cossacks from the Don, - Is it any wonder that I’m quaking? - O Lord! the tortures, the terrors I feel! - Even my roar has been changed to a squeal, - And--my heart to palsy, my very blood congeal-- - That d--d old Irish wolf-dog is awaking! - - - - -MEMORIAL ODE - -TO THE IRISH DEAD WHO WERE SLAUGHTERED DURING THE FIFTY YEARS’ REIGN OF -VICTORIA, QUEEN OF ENGLAND. - - - We meet to-night to greet a name - Symbolical for fifty years - Of England’s guilt and England’s shame, - Of Ireland’s blood and Ireland’s tears. - To mingle with the empty glee - Of laugh and cheer from English throat, - A new tone in this Jubilee,-- - A strong, discordant, Irish note. - - What has she done for us or ours; - What wrong redressed; relieved what pain; - That in her garlanding of flowers - We should conceal our Irish chain? - When on the dreary roadside lying - Were babe and mother faint and dying, - When heaped were nameless Irish graves, - When Irish dead paved ocean’s waves, - When every blast - That swept the mast - Of fever ship was moaning, sighing - The story of an awful crime - That ringing down the aisles of Time - Has filled the universe with song-- - A deathless dirge of Ireland’s wrong-- - What act of mercy, gentle, human, - What deed of grace to prove her woman, - What sign gave she that Irish true man - Could treasure in his heart to be - A token of her Jubilee? - - She came when but one spring had spread - Its buds above our dark decay, - Around, among, between the dead, - Her idle, pompous journey lay, - She saw a million graves, but shed - No tear to wash the sin away. - Before or since what ear hath heard - In all our years of dark eclipse - One feeble protest, or a word - Of pity from her queenly lips. - Nay, when our fearsome famine wail - Pierced e’en an Orient monarch’s soul, - And he stretched hand to save the Gael, - Her jealous pride returned his dole. - For she could watch the infant die upon its mother’s shriveled breast, - But could not bear a stranger’s gem to dim the jewels on her crest. - - A faithful mother--so the bear - That rends the bleating lamb apart, - And brings it with her cubs to share, - Betrays a fond, maternal heart. - And oh, how many Irish lambs torn from their weeping mother’s side - By hunger’s pangs in roofless homes can mock Victoria’s mother-pride. - A faithful wife--from prison tomb appeals the strangled Irish voice - Of father fond and husband true, as even Albert--poor Myles Joyce.[K] - And many an Irish orphan sobs, and many a widow shrieks in pain, - At memory of the loved ones lost--butchered in this half-century’s reign. - - Could a million of unknown Irish graves yield up the victims - of landlord wrath; - Could the Angel of Life breathe into the bones that bleach the - Atlantic’s lonely path; - Could the dead be recalled from the prison clay and ordered back - from the scaffold’s gloom; - Could we clothe with living flesh and blood the inmates of - madhouse and union tomb; - A parade that would stretch from Pole to Pole, from East to - West over every sea, - Would shadow to littleness scarcely seen the fools who march - in her Jubilee. - - Then by the memory of all who fell in holy Ireland’s fight, - Through Famine’s pangs, by steel or rope, we lift our hands - and swear to-night - To keep our banner still aloft, through calm and storm, - through good and ill, - Until the blaze of freedom’s sun illumines every Irish hill. - Let those who will pay tribute still to alien laws and foreign throne, - Ireland shall see a Jubilee and sing Te Deums of her own. - - - - -AN ORANGE ORATION. - - -In no country in either the civilized or the barbaric world can we find -the counter-type of the Irish Orangeman. In France, Frenchmen are -Frenchmen, whatever may be their religious faith. The Catholic from -Bavaria fought side by side with the Prussian Lutheran, when German -independence was assailed. When the White Czar summons his legions to -the defence of the Russian Empire, the peasant who follows the tenets of -the Greek Church takes his place under the eagle standard alongside the -persecuted believer in the faith of Rome. The English Catholics are as -steadfast in their support of the “meteor flag of Old England” as any of -the believers in the motley creeds of that much-religious -nation--Methodists, Calvinists, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Unitarians, -Baptists, Episcopalians, or Jumpers. In Ireland alone in this tolerant -nineteenth century do we find religious bigotry so ineradical, so -irrepressible, so stupid as to be beyond the reach of persuasion and the -voice of reason. A condemnation of Orangeism is unnecessary, but a -description of one of its votaries may be interesting. Nobody falls in -love with a two-headed chimpanzee or a double-tailed baboon, but they -are valuable accessories to a dime museum. By and by the Orangeman will -find his natural place in a side-show, but in the mean time, for the -benefit of future Barnums and Forepaughs, we will sketch the prominent -features, personal and historical, of one of the tribe. - -Billy Macshiver was born in one of those out-of-the-way villages in -Antrim, into which neither intelligence nor common sense has so far -penetrated. His father was the hero of many a fierce sectarian strife, -as the countless bruises he bore upon his venerable scalp could well -testify. From his earliest infancy Billy was taught hatred of everything -connected with Catholicity. He was told that the cross was a symbol of -superstition, a Catholic church the temple of Lucifer, a Catholic priest -a stray fiend who had escaped from Limbo, and the “Papists” generally a -lot of poor, benighted idiots, especially created by a benign Providence -to afford skulls for himself and his confreres to crack. He learned that -England was the most Protestant nation in the world, and consequently -the greatest; that the “Boyne Water” was the grandest musical -composition of this or any other age; and that the Rev. R. R. Kane, a -notorious Orange firebrand, was a second St. Paul. He had been taught to -shun everything green as he would the small-pox--there was only one -color for a devout Christian to patronize--orange. God had not decorated -the trees and fields with orange, because he had reserved that beautiful -tint for a chosen few, and didn’t wish it to be too common. Of course, -when Billy reached the years of maturity he joined the clan in whose -ranks his father’s head had so often been bandaged. He became an -Orangeman of the deepest purple dye. He mounted Orange lilies, natural -and artificial, resplendent and faded, in the button-hole nearest his -heart, on every available opportunity. He learned to play “Croppers, lie -down” on the concertina, and to master the mysteries of the jew’s-harp -to the stirring anthem of “Protestant Boys.” He led insane processions -on every 12th of July, and won endless glory by “knocking out” an old -woman who declined to shout “To h--with the Pope” at his modest request. - -He is now grand master of an Orange lodge. He is a skilful rhetorician, -of course. I quote his last 12th of July speech, to show the stuff that -awakens the enthusiasm of his class:-- - -“Brethren--We have met once more to commemorate to-night the memory of -the great, the glorious, the pious, and the--the--the Orange-headed -William, and in rising to propose the toast of his immortal memory, -I--I--as a matter of fact I--I--get upon my feet. (Cheers.) At no time -in the history of Orangeism did there exist a greater necessity -to--to--to, in short--drink his memory--that is to say, to drink--to -drink--to--oh, you know what I mean. (Tumultuous applause.) The papishes -are abroad like roaring lions seeking whom they may devour. Shall they -swallow us? (Loud cries of ‘No.’) Our Church has been disestablished, -and Mr. Gladstone has kissed the Pope’s toe. (Shame.) Yes, shame; but -are there not thousands of Orangemen prepared to wipe out with their -toes--their big toes--upon the most fleshy part of Gladstone’s carcass -this--this--this insult to Christianity? (Loud applause.) They have put -down, to a certain extent, our gay and festive and hilarious -gatherings, which used to strike terror to the souls--of--of--well, they -struck terror all round to somebody or other. (Hear, hear.) The tyrants -won’t allow us to remove the idols from Israel by wrecking any more -nunneries. The despots forbid us to let the light of the gospel into -Papists’ heads with bludgeons any longer. (Groans.) The love of God has -departed from the English Cabinet, and their brutal mercenaries forbid -believers in the Word to damn the Pope for less than forty shillings. -(Hisses.) But still, my brethren, we can drink the pious memory of the -sainted William for threepence-halfpenny a glass (loud cheers), and -whilst we bear the name of men shall a threepenny bit stand between us -and our noble duty? (Shouts of Never and No surrender.) Gentlemen, fill -your glasses with whiskey and Boyne water. Here’s to the glorious memory -of the glorious William; here’s to the glorious constitution he gave us; -here’s to the glorious Boyne water, and, I may add, the glorious whiskey -with which to-night it is allied; here’s to the glorious Queen of -England, the glorious mother of a glorious baker’s dozen; here’s to -glorious John Brown, the pillar of the state and the true prototype of -Martin Luther; to thunder with the Pope, and hell’s bells, artillery, -bombshells, prison cells, death knells, and a variegated assortment of -diversified yells ring, swing, cling, and ding forever and ever amen in -the ears of Davitt and Parnell.” (Frantic applause and several free -fights.) - - - - -SONG OF KING ALCOHOL. - - - What Kaiser, Czar, or King since the birthday of the world - Had a rule so universal as I claim? - What conquering banner yet was so far and wide unfurled - As my ensign of destruction and of shame? - My burning fetters bind every race of human kind; - My dominion rules their bodies not alone, - But heart and soul and brain are encircled by my chain, - And their future, as their present, is my own. - Then clink-a-clink the bottle and chink-a-chink the glass! - Send the tankard round, imps, and let the goblet pass! - Ply the fools with whiskey and fill them up with rum, - Till fiends are hoarse with laughter, and angels stricken dumb. - - Talk not to me of Nero, that ancient Roman ass; - His tortured slaves in death at last were free. - But the serf who bears the sway of bottle or of glass - Belongs for all eternity to me. - The bravest man who broke a human tyrant’s yoke, - If he once began to worship at my shrine - Would submit strength, courage, all of his manhood to my thrall, - Lose truth and pluck and honor, and be mine. - Then pass the poison freely, circle round the drink, - Do not give the drunkard time to even think. - In a stupid slumber let his conscience dwell, - Till, too late, ha! ha! it awakens up in hell! - - Despots oft are hated: it is not so with me-- - Homage pay my bondsmen for their pains; - Common helots struggle madly to be free, - Mine lie down and hug their bitter chains. - My triumph through the years is told in blood and tears, - On the scaffold, in the dungeon’s dreary gloom. - I whet the murderer’s knife--rob mother, children, wife-- - And built my horrid throne upon the tomb. - Then let the red wine gurgle, let the whiskey flow, - Satan turns the hose on, for the demons know - God and heaven are lost to the fools who sink - Underneath the sway of that cruel monarch, Drink! - - - - -CONTRARY COGNOMENS. - - - If you wanted Fry to cook a chop, you’d find yourself mistaken, - And pills, not rashers, form the stock of enterprising Bacon; - Taylor goes in for selling boots, whilst Butler’s a musician, - And Cooper couldn’t hoop a tub with any expedition; - Long’s only four foot six, but Short’s miraculously long; - Strong’s dying of consumption, but the Weekes continue strong. - It’s strange to find that Butcher is a vegetarian, - That Brewer is teetotal, and Goodchild a bad old man. - - Parsons is a publican, and Church an unbeliever, - Lawless a solicitor, Truelove a gay deceiver; - Steel deals in soft goods, Draper’s ware is advertised as hard, - And Gamble would be shocked at sight of domino or card; - Wright’s wrong as oft as any one, Dullman is smart and witty, - Miss Fortune is the luckiest young lady in the city; - Gray’s black, Black’s red, Green’s brown, and Gay is always on the mope, - Leggett is doomed to crutches, and old Curley bald as soap. - - - - -AN ÆSTHETIC WOOING. - - - Angelina Seraphina - Wilhelmina Murphy, - See on knees here Ebenezer - Julius Cæsar Durphy. - I’ve forsaken vows I’ve taken - To a dozen ladies, - Rose and Ella, Annabella, - And Mirella Bradys. - What to me now e’er can be now - Hippolita Flanagan? - Or sweet Dora Leonora - Otherwise O’Branagan? - Or that Hebe Flora Phœbe - Anastatia Hoolahan? - Or Miranda Alexandra - May Amanda Woolahan? - - Roderigo Paul Diego - Burke may try his part again; - Or Bernardo Leonardo - Furey seek your heart again. - But be mine, love, as I’m thine, love; - Just espouse my cause, my dear, - And I swear I’ll give our heir - A name to break your jaws, my dear! - - - - -THE DRUNKARD’S DREAM. - - - He slumbered in a quiet sleep beneath Heaven’s sparkling dome, - A man without a single friend, a wretch without a home; - And there he lay, a spectacle to every passer-by-- - The only roof that sheltered him, the star-bespangled sky! - - Hungry and ill, he’d left the town to roam he knew not where; - Hungry and tired, he slept at last, forgetful of his care; - Forgetful of the agony he’d suffered all the day, - He slumbered now, and care and woe at last had flown away. - - He dreamt that he was standing where so long ago he stood; - Again he heard the cheering of a mighty multitude; - He was receiving once again the prize his skill had won-- - He heard his father blessing God for having such a son! - - His fancy changed: he dreamt he stood beneath the rustling trees, - Which seemed to shake with laughter at the antics of the breeze. - A thousand flowers were ’neath his feet, rich, beautiful and rare, - As he was whispering love-tales to a maiden twice as fair. - - He saw her startled attitude, he marked the rising blush, - He saw the tears of pleasure from her lovely eyelids gush, - He saw the joy and happiness she sought not to repress; - And with a thrill he heard again the softly whispered “Yes.” - - His dream was changed: again he stood--and she was by his side, - Within the little village church to claim her as his bride; - Joy thrills his heart with happiness, his eyes with pleasure gleam, - When, hark! that noise! he wakes again to find it but a dream! - - The wild wind moans in sorrow, and the rain begins to fall; - Where are the pictures of his dream? They’ve vanished one and all. - The lightnings flash, the thunders roll and rattle overhead, - And the very sky seems weeping o’er the joy forever fled! - - He tries to rise, but, weak and faint, he cannot stir a limb; - Before his dazzled, weakened eyes the trees begin to swim. - He hears another rattle, and another rattle still, - And now through every nerve there runs a strange and fearful thrill! - - A sudden pang has twitched his heart, has robbed him of his breath; - He gasps a moment, then he falls asleep,--but now in death! - The lightning struck him lying there, and severed life’s last link, - And the stars alone are weeping for the victim of the drink. - - - - -FREDERICK’S FOLLY. - - -In a popular Dublin suburb, not quite a day’s forced march from -Rathmines,--which, as every tourist in Ireland knows, is the Back Bay of -the Hibernian metropolis,--there boarded, lodged, and sent out his -washing last Christmas an æsthetic and highly “cul-chawed” young -gentleman who had come all the way from London to take up a position in -that branch of the civil service which hangs its banners from the outer -walls of the Custom House, and receives for idling four hours a day -whatever filthy Irish lucre may be presented in the shape of income. To -spare the harrowed feelings of his afflicted relatives, I shall expose -to a heartless world only his baptismal appellation, Frederick. In the -clammy tomb of the miserable past I shall bury the remainder of his -official signature. - -Fred came, he saw, but he didn’t conquer, for alas! while he saw he was -also seen, and his personal charms were not of a nature to strike his -landlady’s daughter, a neat little, sweet little, captivating, sparkling -Irish maiden, with the amorous feelings that his ardent soul desired. -But on this Christmas eve of 1882, fortune had smiled upon Fred with a -quarter’s salary, and he determined to add such embellishments to his -face and form as should entrance and fill with rapture even a less -susceptible heart than beat within the tender bosom of Norah Flaherty. -He would pave the way by a Christmas present. He had a work-box. He -would fill it with all the little knick-knacks dear to feminine -weakness. But it was rather shabby. He would varnish it. Hamilton & -Long, of Grafton Street, sold a celebrated composition warranted to -change the plainest deal kitchen table into a highly ornamental walnut -article-de-luxe, fit to adorn the library of a duke or the boudoir of a -countess. - -He left home to secure that miraculous compound. He secured it. Having -time on hand, he resolved to devote it to the adornment of his person. -He dropped into a barber’s temple in Wicklow Street. Now, in the British -Isles, you cannot visit a barber for a five-cent shave without being -subjected by him to eloquent seductions to purchase three or four -dollars’ worth of hair-dyes, washes, cosmetics, and face powders. -Frederick’s barber was like the rest of his insular tribe. He had barely -got his devastating scissors ready for action on our hero’s cranium -before he ventured to suggest that Fred’s hair was not--well, not quite -a fashionable color. As the locks in question were of the decidedly -martial color usually associated with the uniform of the English line or -the--hem--nether garments of the French infantry, Frederick assented. - -“You should try our hair-dye, Balsam of Peru,” said the tonsorial -artist. “It will make your hair as black as the hob of--I mean as the -raven’s wing.” - -Fred was about, like an editor, to decline with thanks, when he thought -of Norah, pretty little Norah, and in a fatal moment he invested in the -dye. - -“Your mustache ain’t quite a miracle,” suggested the knight of the -scissors. - -It wasn’t quite a miracle. It was a somewhat dilapidated, disjointed -sort of a mustache--what there was of it. It grew in stray patches and -odd hairs, with five minutes’ desert intervals for reflection between -the stray oases of tufts and vegetation. Fred mournfully indorsed the -coiffeur’s opinion. - -“Ah, try our Formula. It would grow whiskers on a billiard ball or a -beard on a foundation stone with a single application. Only a shilling.” - -A bottle of Formula found its way into Frederick’s pocket. - -“Those hairs on your nose don’t remarkably add to the striking beauty of -your classic features,” once more insinuated the demon of the -lather-pot. - -They didn’t. It was strange, but Norah had made a precisely similar -remark. In fact, that capillary addition to his proboscis was one of the -principal barriers between Frederick and his fondest hopes. He agreed -with his evil genius. - -“You should use our Depilatory. Bound to make a clothes brush as bare as -a smoothing iron. Costs a mere trifle. Only two shillings.” - -Alas! He took the Depilatory. - -“You’re not a painter?” queried the inquisitive fiend of the -curling-tongs. - -No, he wasn’t. - -“Ah, my mistake. Seemed to me you’d been eating yellow ochre to-day. -Natural color of your teeth, I suppose?” - -Fred looked disgusted. These personal reflections were becoming -monotonous. However, he admitted that the speculator who bought his -teeth to retail as imitation pearl studs would scarcely realize a -fortune by the investment. - -“You really ought to take a bottle of our Fluid Dentifrice. Brush your -teeth every night with a few drops, and in a short time ivory would look -gloomy beside them. Never knew it to fail. Dirt cheap. -Sevenpence-halfpenny, bottle included.” - -Frederick purchased, and then, happy in the possession of the magic -talismans which were to transform him into an Adonis, he left the hair -dresser’s and made his way to a convenient liquor saloon, where he had -arranged to meet some of his civil-service associates, ejaculating every -now and then _en route_, “Won’t little Norah be surprised?” much to the -bewilderment of the passers-by who overheard him. He met his friends. He -was so elated with visions of conquest that he “set ’em up” twice. Then -another fellow set ’em up. In fact, they set ’em up more or less for -about two hours. It must have been more, for, on the occasion of the -last reviver, in response to a query about the population of Shanghai, -he replied, inanely, “Won’t little Norah be surprised?” When shaking -hands for the seventh time with his friends on leaving them, he -volunteered the mystifying information that little Norah wouldn’t know -him in the morning. He even propounded the problem about Norah’s -astonishment to the cabman who drove him home, and that unromantic -personage, thinking that it referred to the feelings of the lady of the -house when his Bacchanalian passenger should be deposited on the -domestic doorstep, replied emphatically, “I should rather think so!” -upon which Fred shook hands with the Jehu most effusively. - -When he reached the abode of his virtuous but far-seeing landlady, that -Roman matron, knowing Fred’s weakness for reading in bed, but doubting -his capacity for remaining awake much longer, took the precaution of -supplying him with a brevity of a candle some ninety per cent. below -Griffith’s valuation. When, in the solitude of his two-pair back, Fred -gazed upon the diminutive specimen of the chandler’s art, he felt that -there was not a second to lose. He ranged his beautifying treasures on -the table, read the directions, secured the tooth-brush, divested -himself of his outer clothing, and prepared for action. - -At that momentous instant, with a splutter and a gasp, like the warning -sob of fate, the candle went out! - -For a moment Fred deliberated. Should he kick up a row for more -composite? No. The Gorgon of the house might suspect something. Besides, -he knew where each wonderful phial lay. To work! to work! Won’t little -Norah be surprised? Won’t he whelm those conceited Irish rivals of his -with envy and chagrin? - -He grabbed the Depilatory, and gave his nose five minutes’ determined -friction. He seized the tooth-brush, and, saturating that toilet -requisite with Fluid Dentifrice, he applied it to his teeth till his -jaws ached. He groped around till his fingers closed upon the Balsam of -Peru, and he drenched his fiery locks with it until his head felt like a -sponge. And then with loving hand he sought the Formula. He found it. He -tenderly moistened his upper lip. Should he have an imperial? Why not? -He traced the imperial artistically out. And now, his task of decoration -complete, he stumbled into bed, and murmuring softly, “Won’t little -Norah be surprised?” sank peacefully to slumber--to dream he had -Hyperion curls and pearly teeth, the mustachios of D’Artagnan the -Musketeer, and the nose of an Adonis. - - * * * * * - -Bold chanticleer had been proclaiming the dawn for an hour or two when -Frederick awoke. The top of his head felt queer--that last toddy, no -doubt. He was rather stiff about the mouth. Oh, joy! joy! the mustache. -Not even waiting to encase his lower limbs in the nameless appendages of -civilization he rushed to the looking-glass. And then there rang out -upon the morning air a dismal, prolonged, forty-horse-power howl that -made the matutinal milkman drop his cans in the gutter and settled the -last lingering doubts of a stray cur in the street, which was meditating -madness, for the electrified canine wanderer went for that indefatigable -officer Q3½, and helped himself to a Christmas breakfast, composed of a -square foot of blue cloth and a few ounces of metropolitan police -manhood. The astounded constable started for the nearest druggist’s, -and, charging impetuously into the store, knocked over an old lady with -a parcel of chamomile and poppy-heads, and so alarmed the salesman that -he could only express his feelings by vociferating “Fire!” at the top of -his lungs, which appalling cry had such an effect upon the other -assistant, who was swilling the snow-slushy footway in front, that he -promptly turned the nozzle of the hose in through the door, and belched -forth such a flood that he swept lady, policeman, poppy-heads, -chamomile, half a dozen bottles, three or four gross of pills, and a -varied assortment of drugs into the back premises, where he bombarded -them for ten minutes with aqueous artillery, and left them deluged in -wild and dripping confusion. - -That unearthly cry also brought scrambling up into Frederick’s room an -excited crowd of boarders and servants, headed by the landlady, and -there, in the middle of the floor, arrayed only in a picturesque -night-shirt, was a strange figure with bald head, black teeth, walnut -lips and chin, with a beard a foot long drooping from his -nose--cavorting round in a Sioux war-dance, to the strains of a weird -melody, the refrain of which was “Won’t little Norah be surprised?” - -It was Frederick. He had mixed things in the dark. He had brushed his -teeth with the hair-dye, Balsam of Peru, and they had gone into mourning -over the outrage. He had tried to tone down the fiery aspect of his -curls with the Depilatory, and he had toned them off his head -altogether. He had sought to remove the superfluous hirsute attraction -of his nose with the Formula, and he had added twelve inches to its -growth. To improve the undecided tendencies of his mustache he had -invoked the aid of the renowned Furniture Renovator, and he had so -renovated the surroundings of his mouth that it resembled the drawer of -a walnut escritoire. - -Sad, sad fate. Little Norah was surprised even more than Fred had -anticipated, but so little did she appreciate his sacrifice that she is -now another’s. - - - - -CONSTABLE X. - - - Whose walk is so stately and grand round the beat? - What tread sounds so martial upon the flagged street? - What countenance, calm as the face of the Sphinx, - Repels so the notion of frivolous winks? - Adored by the housemaid, beloved by the cook, - Whose souls he can harrow or thrill with a look; - The terror of urchins, whose ardor he checks, - Oh, who should it be but bold Constable X? - - How the heart of the guilty against his ribs knocks, - As, rubbing his collar, he enters the box, - And kisses the book with a resonant smack, - Like the click of a latch or a rifle’s sharp crack. - Swear a hole through a pot? why he’d think it no feat - To swear holes through the whole of an ironclad fleet, - And no counsel the Four Courts can boast could perplex - Or puzzle that paragon, Constable X. - - Yet he is not immortal; the greatest have hours - When the mind can descend from the stars to the flowers, - And he, even he, that great creature, has known - Some moments when grandeur deserted its throne. - And the pride of the Force at such times would have felt - Belittled, indeed, were it not for his belt. - For Cupid, the rogue, who ne’er comes but to vex, - Has got inside the tunic of Constable X. - - Let the thoughtless world smile or condemn, if it please, - But, alas! ’tis the truth, he’s been seen on his knees, - He has even unbended to laughter and sport, - And his kiss has resounded outside of the court, - Oh, weep for his downfall, oh, mourn for his fate! - Redemption is hopeless and rescue too late; - Love’s handcuffs are on him, and one of the sex - Who ne’er release prisoners, has Constable X. - - - - -LUCIFER’S LABORATORY. - - - Surrounded by bottles and flagons and bowls, - To the music of shrieks from perishing souls, - Holding a lurid and snake-wreathed flask, - The Devil pursued his terrible task. - Hatred and lust, and all the horde - Of hell’s worst vices into it he poured, - And when it was brimming with fever and sin, - He took the bottle and labelled it GIN. - - Another flask in his hand he raised - And the flame of his breath round the crystal blazed, - As he filled it with murder, suicide, theft, - Orphans fatherless, wives bereft, - Doses of poverty, doses of crime, - For every region, for every clime, - And the noisiest imps round his throne were dumb - As he took the bottle and labelled it RUM. - - And then a barrel he seized to fill - With grief and affliction, pain and ill; - Stupor, the brain of mankind to dim; - Coma, to palsy the heart and limb; - Draughts, the senses to cloud and clog - Till God’s image became but a senseless log, - And the devil’s lips were twined in a leer - As he took that barrel and labelled it BEER. - - The fiends laughed loud in rapturous mirth - As he scattered his mixtures around the earth. - And whiteskin, and blackskin, and redskin quaffed, - North, South, East, West, the poisonous draught. - And the demon yell as each toper fell, - Voiced the chorus, “Another recruit for hell! - Hurrah for the triumph of Satan and sin, - Brought about by the conquest of whiskey and gin!” - - - - -THE MONOPOLIST’S MOAN. - - - Am I waking or sleeping, in Congress or bed? - Do I stand on my feet? am I poised on my head? - Has the world gone to smash? is it chaos that reigns? - Or have I somehow lost a grip of my brains? - There’s something gone wrong which I cannot make out, - The people don’t know what on earth they’re about; - There is woe in our camp and dismay in our tents, - For no longer we rule with our dollars and cents. - - Has the crispy bank-note lost its wonderful powers? - Are the lives and the souls of the people not ours? - Fame’s ladder saw us on the top, and you know - That muscle and brain were contented below; - Leastways, if they murmured, a handful of gold - Could buy up the weak or could crush out the bold, - For a very small gift from our riches contents - The outcast who hasn’t got dollars and cents. - - But now there’s a muttering startling and strange - From the lowermost depths, a demand for a change, - A really absurd and ridiculous plan - To ostracize gold and to dignify man; - The base common herd won’t submit any more - To a rule that their fathers found proper before, - And the veriest scum of the gutters invents - Ideas obnoxious to dollars and cents. - - - - -WITH THE GRAND ARMY VETERANS. - -AT GRANT’S FUNERAL, AUGUST 8, 1885. - - - Once again, in silence solemn, forms the remnant of the column - That had borne with Grant the fever and the load of darksome days; - Some are worn and old and stooping, like the colors furled or drooping - ’Neath the crape that hides the tatters and the rents of battle’s blaze. - - Through the voiceless, mourning city, draped in sombre garb of pity, - Keeping step in rhythmic cadence marches past the old brigade; - And the watching crowds that border mark the old-time soldier order-- - The symmetrical alignment of the veteran parade. - - At the measured tread resounding warrior fancies pierce surrounding - Mists and clouds of two long decades--picture visions far away, - Where Potomac rolls its billow over many a hero’s pillow, - Or the Rappahannock murmurs dirges still to Blue and Gray. - - Hark! the muffled drums are beating calls for charging or retreating, - And their old Commander leads again the legions of the free; - In the funeral anthems tolling they can hear war’s thunder rolling; - They are marching on to Richmond, or Atlanta to the sea. - - See, their dimming eyes grow brighter and their painful footsteps lighter; - The dead-marches seem to echo like familiar camping strains, - And the “boys” again together tramp through swamp or over heather, - Joyous only in their triumphs and forgetful of their pains. - - Their Commander is not sleeping. Why, his eagle glance is sweeping - With mingled pride and pleasure o’er the tried and faithful line; - Cheers again the skies are rending, and their serried ranks ascending - The slippery slopes of Vicksburg, o’er abandoned scarp and mine. - - Still more vivid grows the seeming: still more real is the dreaming, - While a milder radiance mingles with the conflict’s passioned glow, - For in Victory’s fevered hour, Mercy holds the hands of power, - Like their leader, they know only former brothers in the foe. - - * * * * * - - Halt! The soldier’s dream is over, and gray scattered locks uncover; - Not the laurel but the cypress with their banners must entwine; - For the last salute is pealing, as his faithful comrades, kneeling, - Weep farewell, farewell forever, to the Leader of the line. - - Yet, no; Fate cannot sever ties so firmly linked forever, - And, when Time shall close the record of all nations’ peace and war, - The Angel’s trump shall waken ranks unbroken and unshaken, - And their old Commander lead them through the Golden Gates Ajar. - - - - -THE IRISH SOLDIER AT GRANT’S GRAVE. - - - Great chieftain, o’er thy silent clay - Unite in tears the Blue and Gray, - Grief knows no frontier line to-day. - - Among the gifts the nation showers - Upon thy tomb blooms verdant ours-- - A shamrock wreath among the flowers. - - A type its emerald leaflets three - Of thy best attributes will be-- - Faith, Courage, and Humanity. - - Faith in the right, whate’er oppose, - Courage that with disaster rose, - Mercy to brave but beaten foes. - - When danger threatened Freedom’s shrine - In her defence with thee and thine - Our exiled race were found in line. - - With thee we bore the storm and stress, - Hard-fought retreat and onward press - Of Vicksburg and the Wilderness. - - Thy eagle glances oft might scan - Our Celtic features in the van - When battle surged round Sheridan. - - And never poured the crimson flood, - To mark where desperate valor stood, - But with the tide ebbed Irish blood. - - So as your life-stream then we fed, - Where’er your own brave nation bled, - Our tears to-day with hers are shed. - - Our steel shone ’mid your bayonets, - Our grief now sobs with your regrets, - Our shamrocks fringe your violets. - - - - -MAINE AND MAYO. - - - Six months in front of Richmond’s walls we fretted and we fumed, - As vainly as our peevish growls our surly cannon boomed; - We traced no path of glory through the slimy, oozy swamp, - But misery and discontent were monarchs of our camp. - There was snarling and complaining all along the Union line, - And our brigade was loudest in the universal whine, - While the surliest, the churliest, the sourest in our train - Was a cross and crusty, rude and rusty, lanky crank from Maine. - - Death lurked in half a dozen shapes among the vapors foul, - The grumbling choir each morning lacked some long-familiar howl; - And to fill the vacant places new arrivals were impressed, - Whose tempers in a week or so grew viler than the rest. - One day with such a batch there came a boy with sunny hair, - And a laugh that took the breath away of every veteran there, - Who said to us, in accents like a streamlet’s rippling flow, - “I’m very glad to meet ye--I’m a stranger from Mayo.” - - Lord! how that youngster danced and sang and laughed his cheerful way - To hearts sealed up by selfishness for many a gloomy day; - He gave Time golden pinions with a thousand merry wiles, - And routed regiments of blues with fusilades of smiles. - Our crank of cranks fought sullenly, with dismal brow, at first, - Frowned like a Northern thunder-cloud, the while he inly cursed; - But his wintry soul grew warmer in the genial Irish glow, - Till the frost from Maine was melted by the sunshine from Mayo. - - And when on quiet evenings from out our camp arose - Strange sounds of mirth and merriment that puzzled lurking foes, - When “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” shook the leafless Southern pines, - Or “The Rocky Road to Dublin” seemed a-winding through our lines, - A pair of feet went treading through the dance’s tangled maze - With a firm, determined step acquired in lumber-hauling days-- - “Who Fears to Speak of Ninety-eight?” was sometimes the refrain, - And one sonorous voice objected to such cowardice in Maine. - - * * * * * - - Our corps is but a corporal’s guard; beneath Virginian clay, - Its heroes wait the bugle-blast of God’s reviewing day, - But the “twins,” as once we called them, Celt and Yankee, still remain, - Though one’s at home in Connaught, and the other back in Maine. - Outside the Mayo cabin green and starry flags proclaim - That Ireland’s in the Union now in everything but name; - While in Aroostook County a grim veteran wants to know - How soon will freedom need recruits to battle for Mayo. - - - - -A SANDY ROW SKIRMISH. - - -Sandy Row, as everybody knows, is the Mecca and Medina of Orangeism in -Belfast, the sacred shrine of its votaries, the land of promise of its -true-blue tramps, the camp of its generals, the temple of its apostles, -the sanctuary and haven of its political refugees, when fleeing from -prospective fines of forty shillings and costs for holy war-cries of “To -h--with the Pope.” If a Papist foot should dare pollute its -consecrated--whiskey consecrated--shore, that Papist foot would be -carrying a head that was in danger of having what little brains it -contained undergo a process of amalgamation with the oleaginous slush of -the desecrated pavement. - -In that home of Hobah has resided for many years and seasons one -Green--Billy Green, so called after the hero of glorious, pious, and -immortal memory, in whose saintly footsteps he has endeavored to tread -as far as his post of grand master of L. O. L. 1111, “Spartan -Schomberg,” would permit. But, alas! brave Billy has been wounded in -more numerous and more tender portions of his constantly constitutional -anatomy than was ever his regal namesake in the course of all his -campaigns; and, worst of all, his fate excites no charitable -commiseration or solacing sympathy in his lodge or among his neighbors, -but only provokes tantalizing titters and lacerating laughter. He has -suffered, he still suffers, he is likely to continue suffering for half -a century or so, but not, oh, not for the cause. - -In his ardent devotion to his principles and his lodge, and also in -consideration of a certain weekly honorarium, Billy fitted up in his -back yard an outhouse in which he allowed to be stored their sashes, -banners, and regalia for processions, and their bludgeons, -blunderbusses, and pokers intended for political arguments with National -League invaders. - -For three months in this shanty L. O. L. 1111 guarded its sacred banners -and kept its powder dry. However, during the past few weeks, an -assemblage of peace disturbers, who paid no rent, subscribed to no loyal -principles, marched in no patriotic processions, and joined in no -salubrious Tory scrimmages, have had illegal possession of that cabin. - -During that time its roof has borne the erring feet of all the cats of -Sandy Row. There has been a convocation, a conference, a mass meeting, a -howling congregation of cats there from midnight to dawn, who have given -musical entertainments of excruciating variety and such persistent -continuity that they have never indulged in even ten minutes’ interval -for refreshments. About ten minutes to twelve a tortoise-shell tenor -gives the signal for devotions by a prolonged squeal in G sharp. Then a -short-tailed Persian soprano joins in, and there is a five minutes’ -duet, to which a Highland bagpipes, a Savoyard hurdy-gurdy, or Red -Shirt’s war-whoop is the music of the spheres. When they have reached -the most horrifying part of this performance a black demon with the -influenza throws in a basso-profundo remonstrance, and a gray tabby with -the catarrh serenades the moon in an agonizing solo, with scales and -variations. Then the midnight feline wanderers lift up their voices in -scores (numerically and vocally), and a competitive chorus begins, into -which each cat seems to throw its very vitals, and the air trembles with -heart-rending screeches, and yells, and spits, and growls, and hisses, -and whistles, and cries for help, and moans, and groans, and raspings; -and the twins in Jones’s, next door, waken up and join in the medley, -and Mr. and Mrs. Jones try to soothe them to slumber with soul-sickening -lullabies; and the lodgers put their heads out of the window, and swear -at the cats in baritone and a North of Ireland accent; and all the dogs -in the street join in with diversified barks and carefully assorted -yelps, from the shrill treble of the parson’s Skye terrier to the -thundering tones of the grocer’s mastiff, while the milkman’s jackass -kicks the panel out of his stable door, and, putting his head through, -ejaculates a hoarse demand for thistles in such a diabolical bray that -you think chaos has come again, and Pandemonium reigns supreme. - -From beginning to end, from the initial bar to the final cadenza, there -isn’t a pianissimo movement in the whole operatic celebration, or -symphony, or overture, or musical festival, or whatever you like to call -it. It’s all fortissimo, awfully fortissimo, say about -four-hundred-and-forty-four tissimo. - -The good men and true of Sandy Row determined that they would submit to -this invasion of their rights, this outrage upon their dignity, this -systematic suppression of their slumbers, no longer. The amount of old -boots, stray bottles, broken candlesticks, and used-up culinary -utensils with which those cats had been bombarded would have established -a flourishing marine store business, but these munitions of war had been -exhausted without disabling a single cat. It was evident that desperate -measures were necessary to restore law and order in Green’s back yard. -They were adopted. - -Unfortunately for Green, his neighbors acted in skirmishing order--each -man on his own account; no general plan of organization; no commander--a -kind of guerilla warfare, in fact, was to be waged on the melodiously -maddening marauders! - -Jones got a blunderbuss and loaded it to the muzzle with broken glass, -rusty nails, buckshot, and darning needles. - -Tomlinson, the tailor, carted in a load of half-bricks and paving -stones, and piled them up in his bedroom for action. - -The grocer laid a three-inch hose on to the pipe in his scullery, and -completed scientific arrangements for a powerful pressure. - -Poor Green himself, whose repeated failures from the back window as a -marksman had disgusted him with that method of attack, got a long -cavalry sword, and determined to tackle the enemy with cold steel. - -Alas! there was no preliminary consultation. Why, oh, why, was not Lord -Rossmore there to direct the strategy of these noble defenders of homes -and altars, civil and religious liberty, and uninterrupted snores? - -About 11.30 on New-Year’s night, the quadrupedal Pattis and Nicolinis -commenced their usual grand concert. Green waited patiently until they -had got through the preliminary solos, but when they commenced some -Wagnerian horror in chorus, he slipped out silently, in wrath and his -night-shirt, and crept, sword in hand, towards the fatal shed. - -Almost at the same moment three neighboring windows were noiselessly -raised, and preparations for three terrific onslaughts were rapidly -perfected. - -It was dark,--so dark that the gleaming orbits of the phosphorescent -choristers could scarcely be discerned, and the artillerists and rifle -rangers had little but the mortifying music to direct their deadly aim. - -Suddenly that ceased. The videttes of the caterwauling corps had caught -a glimpse of Green’s nightgown as it was floating and fluttering -gracefully in the winter breeze. In an instant, however, mounting a -step-ladder, he was amongst them; and as the sabre of his sire whirled -round him in vengeful sweeps, stabs, slashes, and scintillations, a -hundred expressions of feline astonishment, fear, pain, expostulation, -and rage burst like a tornado from the lungs of a hundred different -cats, and the concentrated essence of their three months’ lyrical -training surged through their teeth in one stupendous, ear-splitting, -paralyzing, five-hundred-dollar prize screech. - -Victory irradiated the manly brow of Green with a mystic halo; but alas, -like Wolfe at Quebec, or Nelson at Trafalgar, he was fated to fall in -the hour of his triumph, for just then a jagged brick, hurled by -Tomlinson with the velocity of a bombshell, caught him in the small of -the back, a washing-mug, donated to the general good by the Roman matron -spirit of Mrs. T., was splintered into fragments on his head, a shower -of sharp-pointed paving-stones rattled about his ribs, and when he -turned round to scream “Cease Firing,” a three-inch Niagara from the -grocery caught him square in the mouth, and tumbled him head over heels -off the shed. As he was wheeling in an insane somersault through the -air, bang! went Jones’s blunderbuss, and it seemed to Green as if all -the cats had suddenly combined in a ferocious and fiendish charge upon -his person, and were clawing him in about ten million directions. - -The doctors have been exploring his carcass ever since, and striking new -veins of scrap-iron and lead at every excavation. The nurses at the -Northern Hospital say that no such thrilling sight has ever been -witnessed in that institution in their experience as is afforded by the -spectacle of one surgeon taking nails out of his legs with a pair of -pincers, while another operates on his shoulder with a screw-driver, and -the third man threads the eyes of protruding needles and draws them out -by the gross. It is the general opinion among these professional men -that to clear him out thoroughly they want a laborer or two with -pickaxes and shovels. - -Green himself vows that, if he ever recovers, he will quit L. O. L. 1111 -forever. When the rank and file can’t tell the difference between a -tom-cat and a grand master, it’s time to vacate the latter post. He -thinks the government is very remiss in allowing the Orangemen to retain -their weapons. If Jones don’t get three years under the Crimes Act for -carrying arms in a proclaimed district and perforating a loyal hide with -the contents of a tinker’s budget--why, he’ll join the Fenians, that’s -all. They have one motto he appreciates:-- - - Whether on the scaffold high, - Or in the battle’s van, - The fittest place for man to die - Is where he dies for man. - -That’s decent. It sounds a great deal better than dying on the top of an -old shed in a dirty back yard for a lot of confounded cats. But he’s not -going to die if he knows it. He don’t want the poet laureate of L. O. L. -1111 to let himself loose on his tombstone in this fashion:-- - - Here lies the body of Billy Green, - As true a grand master as ever was seen, - But although he was green and decidedly fat, - He was shot with tenpenny nails, pellets, broken glass, - false teeth, pipe-shanks, darning needles, and a - lot of undiscovered ironmongery, in mistake for a - measly, mangy, stumpy-tailed skeleton of a tortoise-shell - cat. - - - - -THE PRIEST WITH THE BROGUE. - -A MINER’S REMINISCENCE. - - - Down by the gulch, where the pickaxe’s ringing - Never struck chords with the stream’s smothered singing-- - For we had dammed its bright ardor to sloth: - Dammed it with claybanks and damned it with oath-- - Curses in Mexican, curses in Dutch, - Curses in purest American; such - Polyglot blasphemy didn’t leave much - Room for the rest of the languages--there, - Down by that gulch, where all speech seemed one swear, - Naught but profanity ever in vogue, - Wandered one morning a priest with a brogue. - - Also a smile. Now no mortal knows whether - God has ordained they should travel together, - But if in tongue Erin’s music you trace, - Bet Erin’s sunshine peeps out in the face. - Anyhow, Father McCabe had ’em both, - Sunshine and harmony--natural growth. - While the air trembled with half-suppressed oath, - Right down among us he stepped: all the while - Feeling his way, as it were, with his smile, - And when that staggered the obstinate rogue, - Knocking him head over heels with his brogue. - - Inside a fortnight the brown-throated robins - Perched undismayed just in front of our cabins; - Sang at our windows for all they were worth-- - Lucifer didn’t own all of the earth! - Pistols grew rusty, and whiskey seemed sour; - Nobody hunted the right or left bower; - Deserts put verdure on--one little flower - Bloomed in a niche of the rock. At its root, - Erstwhile undreamt of, lay rich golden fruit! - Yes; we struck gold. Arrah, Luck’s _thurrum pogue_[L] - Couldn’t go back on a priest with the brogue! - - - - -ARAB WAR SONG. - - - Allah, il Allah! the infidel’s doom - Knells through the desert from rescued Khartoum. - The blood of the Giaour is encrusting our swords, - And the vultures encircle his perishing hordes. - The gleam of our banners, the blaze of our spears, - Have blanched the black heart of the pale-face with fears. - How he reels, how he staggers in agony back! - Spur, sons of the desert, swift, swift on his track! - - The dwellers in cities may quake at his frown, - When his fireships fling ruin and death on their town, - But the hearts of the tribesmen are fearless and free - As the winds of the desert or waves of the sea; - And their valor will scatter his merciless bands - As the fiery sirocco whirls broadcast our sands, - Their fury will break on his terrified host - With the strength of the tempest that lashes our coast. - - Poor, pitiful fool! in his arrogant pride - He would chain the tornadó and fetter the tide; - He has tempted our wrath, and he trembles aghast - As bursts on his legions the death-dealing blast; - And, shattered in fragments, his gaudy array - Is melting before our wild charges in spray; - Around him destruction in lurid cloud rolls, - And Eblis is yawning for infidel souls! - - Allah, il Allah! for God and the right, - Press on, lance and spear, to the glorious fight; - Though our life-blood in torrents should crimson our plains, - Better freedom in death than existence in chains. - On, lions of Islam, the wolves are afraid, - See, see, how they shrink from your conquering blade! - Strike swiftly, and spare not--yon turbanless crowd - Sought our desert for conquest to find it their shroud. - - - - -HOBBIES IN OUR BLOCK. - - -If every madman, and monomaniac, every idiot and imbecile in our block -were to be transplanted to-morrow, what a lot of room would be left, and -what a howling wilderness the place would become! I don’t know a -completely, take him all round sort of a sensible man in the community. -Every one of my acquaintances has some ridiculous hobby. There’s Smith. -His failing is dogs. He has a miniature Kennel Club show up at his -place. He has such a multitude of canine live-stock that he has to have -them entered in a ledger, and he calls over the muster-roll every night -to see that none of his barks have steered their course to other ports. -He has lost all his friends through his hobby. When a fellow sheds his -gore at the knocker, owing to the attentions of a bulldog with powerful -jaws; and when he loses a square foot of his trousers in the lobby -through the inquiring nature of a mastiff; and when he is brought to bay -at the parlor door by a ferocious bloodhound that seems inclined to -take an evening meal off him; and when he is transformed into a statue -of adamant in his seat by the consciousness that there are half a dozen -variegated specimens of fighting-dogs merely waiting a movement from him -as a signal to chaw him up--under such circumstances one don’t feel -inclined to take advantage of Smith’s hospitality too often. - -Brown’s weakness is flowers. Brown is always handicapped in the race of -life by a desire to linger on the wayside and breathe the fragrance of -the lily and the rose, the daffadowndilly, and the potato blossom. You -never meet Brown but he wants you to inhale the perfume of some -horticultural wonder or other. The last time I met him he wanted me to -envelop my senses with the heavenly odor of some infernal tulip he had -with him. There was one of the most energetic bees I ever encountered -hidden away in its petals. To gratify Brown I took a ten-horse-power -sniff. I never smelt anything like it before. I carried my nose about in -a sling for a fortnight afterwards. - -Johnson’s hobby is old porcelain. His delirious desire to indulge in all -kinds of ancient crockery, broken earthen-ware, blue-moulded -slop-basins, and cracked washing-mugs has so affected his brain that he -believes himself a Dresden china jug, and is frightened out of his life -that he may be smashed. He’s afraid to shake hands with anybody, lest -his handle might be broken; he speaks in a whisper, for fear of injuring -his spout; and he is in such dread of being cracked that it takes him -half an hour to sit down. - -But Robinson, next door, is the worst case I know. His mental contortion -is due to an insane desire to collect foreign postage stamps. He has -carried his mania to a miraculous extent. I have known him to go down in -a coal-mine to secure a rare specimen from a collier; he has been up in -a balloon to coax a scarce sort of stamp out of the aeronaut, and he -would have pitched him overboard if he hadn’t promised to turn it up; he -has changed his religion half a dozen times to get round persons that he -thought could contribute to his album; and on one occasion, when another -crazy collector called on him in the middle of the night with a hundred -or so of rare, unused stamps, as he couldn’t find the matches, and -didn’t know where he had hung his pants, he just gummed the stamps round -about his noble figure, and went to bed rejoicing. Unluckily, the -mucilage of that distant shore, whose fatal postage stamps added a -picturesque variety to his unadorned appearance which it had lacked -before--that mucilage was of a diabolical stickiness, and after a week’s -sponging and fingering, and disposing himself in a series of striking -attitudes over the spout of a kettle, he found that he couldn’t improve -his new costume without destroying its component parts, so he has -travelled the dull journey of every-day life since with a kaleidoscopic -arrangement of postage stamps attached to his hide, and a knowledge that -he will be well worth skinning when he pegs out. It is inconvenient not -to be in a position to exhibit his entire assortment to his friends. -With some intimate acquaintances he can be confidential, and after going -over his half-dozen ordinary albums it is really magnificent to be able -to peel off the garb of civilization and invite inspection of his -remaining treasures. But to most enthusiasts in the philatelic line he -can only drop mysterious hints of what he could show them if the customs -of the country permitted its costumes to be more scanty. - - - - -NOT A JOHN L. SULLIVAN. - - -I have never taken any interest in pugilism since my schoolboy days. - -I studied it once then, with highly unsatisfactory results. - -There was a boy called Bill at the school where I imbibed my knowledge, -who was the bane of my existence. He used to take liberties with my -marbles, and make free with my pegtops, and fly his kites with my -string, and knock me down and sit on me when I remonstrated. - -I thirsted for his blood. - -I brought my father’s bulldog to take my part in a quarrel. It took my -part--in fact, it took several parts of me. - -I summoned re-enforcements in the shape of my little brother. Bill piled -my little brother on top of me, and wanted more of the family to -complete the structure. - -Then I vowed that I would be avenged, and bought a sixpenny hand-book of -boxing, and went in for a study of that literary masterpiece. It was -illustrated with striking diagrams. Figure 1,--the position. Figure -2,--one for his nob. Figure 3,--the body blow. Figure 4,--the return. -Figure 5,--the upper cut. Figure 6,--the cross-counter. - -I devoured the instructions, and I practised the attitudes for weeks, -till I mastered both so completely that I was a walking encyclopedia of -P. R. theory, and I had only to be asked for Figure 1, or 3, or 4, or -whatever I was desired, and I posed so statuesquely correct that I could -have been photographed to illustrate “Fistiana.” - -But I held my secret, and bided my time, and submitted to Bill’s insults -with the glowing consciousness of approaching triumph, while I developed -my newly acquired science in my bedroom on the pillows, and administered -“one-two’s” in the ribs to the hair mattress, and “propped” the -bolsters, and sparred at my shadow on the wall, and showered rib-benders -and hot ’uns in the bread-basket on imaginary Bills till I felt like a -conquering hero. - -At last I decided that the hour of Fate had struck; the supreme moment -had arrived for squelching Bill; and one day, when he had helped himself -to my lunch, and grumbled at its scantity, I invited him to accompany me -when school was over to a sequestered vale, where I might punch his -head. - -He came. - -I gave my hand-book to my brother Joe, and told him to sing out the -proper figures for the various stages of the battle. - -I made all my preparations in the orthodox way. I threw my cap into the -improvised ring, tied a handkerchief for a belt round my waist, and -wanted to shake hands _a la_ Sullivan and Kilrain, but Bill declined. - -Then I struck Figure 1, the position, and Bill struck another -figure--which happened to be me. - -“Figure 2,” shouted Joe, “one for his nob.” I made some mistake in this, -because it resulted in two or three for _my_ nob, and while I was trying -to get my head under my arms, out of the road, “Figure 3,” yelled Joe, -“the body blow!” but that infernal Bill didn’t fight according to the -regulations at all; for before I got Figure 3 into operation, something -came bang against my teeth, and I tried to dig my grave in the ground -with the back of my head. - -I wanted to consider the situation a little longer when they called -“Time,” but Joe whispered that Figure 4 was sure to fetch him. All I had -to do was to wait till he let out, and then, parrying the blow with my -left, send the right into his potato trap, and settle him. Well, Bill -soon let out, and Joe screeched “Figure 4!” and I don’t know where I -sent my right, but my nose encountered both his fists one after the -other in a way that wasn’t in the book at all, and when Joe roared -“Figure 5, try 5!” I could only gasp--“He won’t let me,” before there -was an earthquake somewhere, and I was thrown three or four yards away, -and found myself trying to swallow all my front teeth. - -I was so disgusted that when they called “Time” again, I wouldn’t listen -to the voice of the tempters, and wanted to go to sleep on the green -sward, and when Joe came and wished me to illustrate a few more -diagrams, I could have poisoned him. I don’t believe in the manly art. - - - - -THE LINGUIST OF THE LIFFEY. - - [Among the many “learned” opponents of Home Rule in Ireland a few - years ago, was one somewhat famous professor of Trinity College, - who boasted among his other attainments an unlimited knowledge of - all Oriental languages, living and dead. An irreverent wag of a - student carefully copied the inscription on a tea-chest, and - bringing it to the loyal professor assured him it was a letter from - a Chinese mandarin on the Irish question, and that a translation of - it for the Tory papers would be of absorbing interest in that - crucial hour. The task proved too much for Polyglot. The tea-chest - knocked him out in one short round.] - - - There once was a doctor of famed T. C. D.-- - Dr. Blank we shall call him--a Crichton was he; - Not a science or language earth ever has known - But he’d mastered so well he could call them his own-- - Astronomy, Chemistry, Botany--these - Were trifles he’d learned in his moments of ease; - Mathematics, Mechanics, Geology, Law, - Theology, Medicine, Strategy--pshaw! - They all were mere flea-bites to that massive mind - Which left intellects minor some eras behind. - ’Twas in linguistic lore that he dazzled the most - The Dons of the College--our doctor could boast - An intimate knowledge of every tongue - Ever written, or printed, or spoken or sung. - In the purest of Attic he silenced a Greek; - For hours to Ojibbeway chiefs he would speak; - A Zulu, whom accident brought to our shore, - Heard him preach in Zulost, and was dumb evermore; - He converted a Choctaw, in purest Choctese; - Made a Mandarin weep at his flowing Chinese; - In Turkish persuaded a Bashi-Bazouk; - In Hindoostanee showed a Sikh how to cook; - Taught quadratic equations in Welsh to a goat, - And none of the consonants stuck in his throat. - If he failed to translate, or translated all wrong, - The Chinese inscribed on a chest of Souchong, - Not his be the blame--no, the odium must rest, - On the printer or reader who muddled that chest; - Had the text been entire he had read it with ease, - But he wasn’t prepared for an “out” in Chinese. - - - - -A WINDY DAY AT CABRA. - - -I would sooner be consigned to Mountjoy Prison for eighteen months under -the Coercion Act than spend another windy day in that Dublin suburb so -dear to Castle pensioners and hangers-on, Cabra. A friend of mine hangs -up his hat permanently in that neighborhood. He uses a hat-stand for -that purpose, but there are occasional perfumes floating round there -that would accommodate a fireman’s helmet. My friend’s hearth and home -are in the vicinity of a plot of waste ground, the property of the -executors of a deceased alderman; and if the bones of the departed civic -dignitary were laid in that promiscuous waste, and there was a -conspiracy to bury them fathoms deep from future discovery, it could not -be carried out more vigorously and more enthusiastically. I once passed -a few hours with my unfortunate acquaintance. I had a full view from his -drawing-room window of the interesting ceremonies of the day. I had -barely taken my seat when a picturesque procession of farm carts, donkey -wagons, wheelbarrows, and unattached scavengers hove in sight. Then a -red rubbish rover deposited alongside of this offensive breastwork a -miscellaneous collection of decayed cabbage leaves, cooked and uncooked, -a mixture of mashed turnips and raw turnip peeling, potatoes in various -stages of disease and digestion, and a heterogeneous compound of varied -articles of food, which even a provincial editor would decline with -thanks. After this a wheelbarrow wanderer shot in the ravine between the -two mortifying mounds a specially assorted stock of disreputable rags -and broken bottles, with two dead cats and a vivisected fox terrier to -guard the pass. And then all round the rambling refuse-rangers commenced -to add fresh varieties to the dirty diversity, and new scents to the -odoriferous ozone. This went on for three or four hours, the -kaleidoscope of contamination changing with the arrival of every -contingent of contagion. I felt for my friend, but when I started -homewards in the dusk I felt worse for myself. A gale had arisen of such -stupendous force that I had to open my mouth sideways to speak, for fear -of being blown inside out, and even then the wind whistled through the -irregularities in my teeth like an atmospheric orchestra. My hat was -blown off, and when I recovered it there were ten pounds of clay, a few -dozen broken corks, the skeleton of a pig’s head, and a jagged chimney -pot (which nearly cut my thumb off) in it, and it was enwreathed in a -garland of turnip-tops and cauliflower that smelt of anything but their -native fields. As I opened my lips to utter sage reflections on the -situation, a sudden gust banged a dilapidated Champion into my mouth, -and I had to dig it out with my penknife. I came home with a multitude -of unknown tastes in my palate, that cayenne pepper, salt, mustard, -vinegar, and John Jameson’s finest distillation, taken in large doses at -irregular but frequent intervals for weeks, failed to eradicate; and -such a numerous and variegated selection of smells that I failed to -count them all and was unable to distinguish one-third of the number. It -would take Faraday’s laboratory to disinfect my collar. Imagine what my -top-coat was like! - - - - -PEGGY O’SHEA. - -AN IRISH SERENADE. - - - The pale moon is beaming, - The bright stars are gleaming. - Awake from thy dreaming, - Acushla, arise! - For sure the moon’s light, dear, - Though vivid an’ bright, dear, - Is but darkest night, dear, - Compared with your eyes. - Glimmerin’, - Shimmerin’, - Down in the river there, - Dancin’ and glancin’ and prancin’ away, - See how the pale moonbeams sparkle an’ quiver there, - Rise and eclipse them, sweet Peggy O’Shea! - - See, your own thrue love - Is waitin’ for you, love, - So waken anew, love, - An’ gladden my sight! - Don’t keep me quakin’ here, - Freezin’ an’ achin’ here, - Trimblin’ an’ shakin’ here, - All the long night; - Quiverin’, - Shiverin’, - Faith it’s Decimber, dear, - Freezes me, teases me--darlin’ don’t stay; - Troth! this cowld night for a year I’ll remimber, dear, - For I’m all frost-bitten, Peggy O’Shea! - - This morn had you been, love, - With me, you’d have seen, love, - A new dress of green, love, - I bought--for, you mind, - But last week you said, dear, - You hated the red, dear, - So get out of bed, dear, - An’ let down the blind! - Shyly, - Slyly, - Creep to the window now, - Sure, love, your love cannot say nay, - Whin you behold me, devout as a Hindoo now, - Bent at your shrine, darlin’ Peggy O’Shea! - - Why have you waited - So long, whin you stated - To me that you hated - The red of our foes? - While you are keepin’ - Me here with your sleepin’ - The color is creepin’ - All over my nose! - Face it, - Chase it, - Meet it with bravery, - Fearless, peerless, rush to the fray. - The hue on my nose ripresints Saxon slavery, - Up for the green, then, sweet Peggy O’Shea! - - Och, you are there now, - So purty and fair now, - I raley declare, now - I’m murthered outright; - My mouth seems like butter, - I hardly can mutter - A sintince, or utter - A word, love, to-night. - Thumpin’ - An’ bumpin’ - An’ jumpin’ an’ flutterin’, - Knockin’ an’ rockin’, my heart seems astray, - And, as I can’t spake, why, I’ll have to be st-st-stutterin’ - How much I love you, sweet Peggy O’Shea! - - - - -THE BOSTON CARRIER’S PLAINT. - - - The summer sun, disgusted at some too-familiar cloud, - Had muffled up his brightness in a sort of misty shroud; - The sky o’ercast and leaden-hued, as if in angry pain, - Poured down upon our busy town huge tears of hissing rain. - Amid the crowds that hurried from the sloppy streets amain - Was one poor limping creature--the embodiment of pain. - His pale face, drawn and twisted in a multitude of ways, - Was really calculated quite to shock the public gaze; - His body was contorted; bent his back, and clenched each hand, - And his lips ejaculated words I could not understand; - Yet his phrases, I confess it, were not very transcendental, - For his adjectives, if forcible, were far from ornamental. - - I questioned him--this blighted one--I asked him what the reason - Of his sorrow, and his anger, and his language out of season; - And in such a tone he answered, that a Tartar savage prowling - Around the near environs would have thought a wolf was howling:-- - - “Don’t my uniform tell you that I - Am of the unfortunate band, - Whom you see day by day passing by, - Never pausing a moment to stand; - Who, in one perpetual round, - Forever are marching, until - It seems that while one of us stays overground - Fate ordains he shall never be still. - - “‘Tis hard when the bright golden sun - Smiles out from a clear azure sky, - To set out on a pilgrimage ne’er to be done - Till his glory has gone and passed by. - And e’en along green country lanes, - ’Mid the scent of the newly mown hay, - And a thousand gay birds chanting joyous refrains, - Who would care to be tramping all day? - - “Then why do you wonder to hear - An unlucky sad mortal complain, - Who has walked through the Hub, all the day pretty near, - In this ne’er-ending, pitiless rain? - Or say, are you looking for smiles - From a fellow who feels on the rack, - After walking some twenty odd miles - On a path like a porcupine’s back? - - “They say that the Muscovite knout, - On the back of a troublesome peasant, - When wielded by hands that are stout, - Is decidedly very unpleasant. - The rack and the thumb-screw, I’m told, - Caused aught but delightful sensations, - But what were their tortures of old, - Compared to our new innovations? - - “No martyr that ever yet died - In those times that have long passed away, - Whether gibbeted, hanged, drowned, or fried, - Suffered more than I’ve suffered to-day. - My feet are denuded of skin, - My toes every one are disjointed, - For the soles of my boots are peculiarly thin, - And the most of our pavement is pointed! - - “Aye, jagged, like the teeth of a saw, - Or the glass of a smashed window-pane, - Save where an occasional flaw - Leaves a hole in to gather the rain--” - - Here my comrade gave vent to a shriek - That emptied a neighboring tavern, - He had planted one foot on a peak, - While the other was lost in a cavern! - - Then his language assumed such a tone-- - And one not by any means sweeter-- - And he mixed up such adverbs with every groan - That they couldn’t be put into metre. - So thus my sad narrative ends, - As I left the poor tortured one raving, - And hoping the rest of his Post-office friends - Would survive Boston’s wonderful paving. - - - - -APROPOS OF THE CENSUS. - - -If they do not call for the census papers in our street soon, we shall -have a revolution. The crisis has arrived in Ryan’s already. Mrs. Ryan’s -mother came a day or two before the numbering of the people to assist -Mrs. Ryan through a difficulty not altogether unconnected with the -census. The enumerator hadn’t called for the paper on Tuesday last, and -on that morning there was another visitor at Ryan’s. Mrs. Ryan and her -mother insist that the latest comer must be added to the list. Ryan, who -is conscientious to a decimal point, argues that the important personage -in question has no moral right to figure in the population for another -ten years. After an animated and personal discussion on this point, Ryan -retired to his study, took out the census paper, and filled up the last -column by appending to his sainted mother-in-law’s name the classical -expression “idiot!” That lady got hold of the document later, and she -filled up Ryan’s own blank with the declaration that he was a brute, -blind, deaf, dumb, and a dangerous lunatic. Ryan secured the blue pages -afterwards, and what pen-and-ink profanity he was guilty of will not be -known until the collector comes round. We expect something rather lively -on that occasion. - -Brown has got his form filled up all right. There was a preliminary -difficulty between himself and his better four-fifths as to which of -them had the greater claim to be entitled “Head of the Family.” As she -threatened to sit on him, if he resisted her mandate, and her sitting -weight is two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois, he consented to a -compromise by which she appears as “Head of the Family,” and his dignity -is maintained by the insertion of “Ditto, ditto,--occasionally.” - -If Timmins’s paper be not called for soon he will occupy the abnormal -position of being the husband of a lady as yet unborn. Their eldest is -fifteen, and duly entered as of that age, yet Mrs. T. insisted on -figuring as thirty, and to avoid hysterics Timmins consented to let her -appear as of that matronly but not too far advanced period of -adolescence. She has had charge of the sheet since, and when it was not -called for on Monday she studied her charms in the mirror for an hour or -so, and thought appearances justified her in knocking two years off her -record. On Tuesday, a lady friend congratulated her on her youthful -figure, and she abbreviated her years by half a decade. She has been at -that column every day since, and by latest accounts was only two years -ahead of her eldest born. In another week she should be fit for spoon -and bottle-feeding. - -The worst case of all, however, is that of poor Robinson. Robinson is -the family man of our street. He has been adding to the population of it -for a quarter of a century with a regularity that is inspiring. He is a -commercial traveller, and he seldom returns from a lengthy journey -without the expectation of an introduction to another of his name and -lineage. He don’t know half his offspring. From the moment he turns the -corner into our street on his return from a month’s absence he is the -central figure of an imposing procession. A territorial army of young -Robinsons surround him, climb on his shoulders, take up quarters in his -arms, cling to his coat-tails, impede his footsteps, follow four deep in -his wake, and make the welkin ring with filial expressions of welcome. -He has shirked the fearful ordeal of reckoning his responsibilities -until the fatal exigencies of the census have brought it home to him. -The only occasions on which he has obtained a faint idea of his success -as a father have been those momentous periods when the baptismal -signboard of the latest Robinson has had to be hung out. “What shall we -call sonny?” has whispered the joint shareholder in his live-stock. “Oh, -John.” “But we’ve got John already.” “Oh, then, name him Peter or -Theodore--Theodore sounds well with Robinson.” “But we have had Peter -fifteen years, my dear, and it was only yesterday, you know, that we -feared Theodore had the measles.” Then Robinson would became irritated. -“Hang it,” he would exclaim, “do you think I am a Thom’s Directory, or -an army list, or a dictionary of scriptural names? What name are you -short of? Give him that.” Then Mrs. R. would begin the catalogue. “We -have John, and Peter, and Theodore, and Joe’s with his aunt, and Tom’s -at his grandmother’s, and there’s Philip, and James, and little Edmund, -and--” Then Robinson would fly out with his fingers in his ears, and -knock over two or three of the middle-sized ones in the lobby, and be -followed by the screams of the smaller ones to the door, and meet some -of the eldest “sparking” in the lane; and when he entered some refuge -to drown reflection in a flowing bowl, he would hear one tall stripling -whisper to another, “Here’s father,” and his end of the counter would be -left deserted. It was too much to think of, and he didn’t, as a rule. - -But he couldn’t escape the census. He was at home. His feelings as a -father and his duty as head of the household demanded that that paper -should be filled up. Anna Maria couldn’t assist--there was another -Robinson _en route_. So he entered the parlor on Sunday night, and sent -the housemaid round to summon the clan. They came--in twos, in threes, -in fours, and the last batch was half a dozen. He gazed upon the throng, -and as he traced his nose in this one, his mouth in that, and the cast -in his eye leered at him all round the room from other eyes, he felt -like Noah--only Noah would have been nowhere with an ark of the -dimensions used at the time of the Flood. He commenced his enumeration, -and before any appreciable diminution had been made in the numbers -present by the retirement of those whose descriptive particulars had -been entered, his form, with its fifteen spaces, pegged out. The room -was still full. Two or three of the boys were playing leap-frog in one -corner, a few girls were dressing and comparing dolls in another, the -twins were fighting under the table, the youngest but two was struggling -with the coal scuttle, and some of them hadn’t come home from church -yet. Then Robinson felt the full extent of his marital liabilities, and -he laughed. “Ha! ha!” he yelled. “What’s the use of this bit o’ paper? -Send me a volume, four hundred pages, bound in morocco, forty names on -a page! I’ll fill ’em up. Order up your whole staff of enumerators, two -or three barrels of ink, and a goods train to carry out the returns. I’m -ready. There’s Robinsons enough round to make a census of their own. Oh, -let us be joyful!” Then he began to dance, sang “A father’s early love,” -and went up-stairs to swallow the latest arrival. It’s a pity Robinson -was at home this census time. - - - - -NEW ENGLAND’S MARKSMEN. - - - Rank on rank they march together, - Through the lanes and o’er the heather, - And the rhythmic ringing beat - Of their measured swinging feet - Music bears in martial tone - To the land they call their own. - Happy land that proudly boasts, - Not coerced, unwilling hosts, - But around her throne can feel - Hearts of oak and nerves of steel, - Hearts whose love no bribes retain, - Hands that never strike in vain. - - Through the fields of yellow grain, - Through the woods of leafy green, - Here and there on many a plain, - Are their snowy targets seen; - And the mountains echo back - From their peaks the rifles’ crack. - - Freedom knows how keen of eye, - Firm of nerve and quick of finger, - Are the marksmen brave who vie - In the skill they freely bring her. - Bunker Hill and Concord tell - They have won their laurels well. - - And should war assail our shore, - Still to guard it ever ready - As their fathers were of yore. - Calm, yet eager, true and steady, - Are the loyal ranks that play - But at mimic strife to-day. - - - - -A MIXED ANTIQUARIAN. - - -They have high old times of it occasionally at the Royal Dublin Society -rooms. For example, at a recent festive gathering Mr. William Smith, C. -E., read an exciting essay on “The Manufacture of paper from molina -cœrulea.” Then there was some light literature from Mr. W. E. Burton, F. -R. A. S., who gave a paper on “A new form of micrometer for astronomical -instruments.” After these two courses came dessert in the shape of a -sweet thing from Dr. Leith Adams, F. R. S., about “Explorations in the -bone cave of Ballynamintra.” I wanted to read a dozen pages of -“Falconer’s Railway Guide,” but in the feverish state of excitement in -which the audience were boiling over it was felt that the experiment -might be dangerous. It might have led to revolution, and it wouldn’t be -logical--or geological--to use the Ballynamintra bones for ammunition. - -I always had a sneaking regard for these delicious scientific -symposiums. I love to hear of the domestic arrangements of the gay -ichthyosaurus, and to see dragged forth from the dark recesses of -antiquity the private character (very shaky it was) of the lordly -mastodon. - -I once lectured myself on “Relics of the Pre-Glacial Period discovered -during Excavations at Ballymacslughaun.” I got on very well for an hour -or so. The bald-headed antiquarian who had excavated the relics had been -kind enough to label them--“Tooth of an Irish Elk,” “Skull of a Land -Agent of the Pliocene Era (dinged by rocks),” “Feeding-bottle of the -Bone Age,” etc. - -I was all right till I came to a confounded triangular iron arrangement -in a wooden handle covered with mud. I couldn’t for the life of me tell -what it was. There was no label on it. I was going to dub it the -“toe-nail of an Irish giant,” but the wooden handle forbade. Finally, -with a desperate plunge I went on: “The heroism of our sires has been -told in song and story for centuries. The predatory Norse pirates turned -not their prows to the inhospitable shores of Erin, guarded by fiery -gallowglass and furious kerne. The Danish invaders felt at Clontarf the -whirlwind passion of the Irish charge. What feelings of awe must be -inspired by the sight of this--this--this ancient weapon--it is -evidently a spear-head--which in the nervous hands of some brave Celtic -warrior of old has probably pierced many a proud invader’s breast. This -spear-head, ladies and gentlemen--” - -I was here interrupted by the appearance on the platform of a dirty -bricklayer who had been engaged in the early part of the day in some -repairs about the building. “Howld on,” he exclaimed, seizing the -pre-glacial relic; “I beg your honor’s pardon, but I want my throwel to -finish a job outside!” - - - - -JONES’S UMBRELLA. - - -There has been a lot of atmosphere round our neighborhood this past -week. Jones’s umbrella has been round the neighborhood, too. On the -whole it has pervaded the locality to a greater extent than the -atmosphere, and has left impressions of a more or less durable -character, according to their positions. Jones’s umbrella is the eighth -wonder of the world. Its size is majestic, its staying powers in the -heaviest hurricane are miraculous; its age is lost in the dim recesses -of primeval tradition; its performances are historic. It is believed to -have belonged to the original Jones, and to have been manufactured in -view of a second deluge, and were it not that the Joneses are such a -scattered family (being distributed over half a dozen sub-lunar -continents, to say nothing of their colonization of other spheres, -principally tropical in their temperature), that umbrella could afford -shelter to the clan yet. It is massive in its strength. It’s a kind of -an iron-clad umbrella. I won’t undertake to say that it’s bullet-proof, -but a Ceylon cyclone or a Texan tornado wouldn’t disturb a seam in it. -It has only one defect. Given sufficient space--say Yellowstone Park, -and a child could open that umbrella; but there are occasions when -Samson would need all his locks to shut it up. Tuesday was one of those -occasions. Jones and Mrs. Jones and three of the grown-up Joneses left -their ancestral home to pay a visit to the Cyclorama. They had the -umbrella with them. In an evil hour, Jones, persuaded by a slight shower -that threatened destruction to Mrs. Jones’s new bonnet, opened that -umbrella. Just at that moment, a miniature tempest careened up the -street. It struck the umbrella broadside on, and that antiquated -arrangement of ribs and canvas began an express excursion in the -direction of the eastern coast, at the rate of a mile a minute. Jones -held on to the umbrella, making heroic efforts to close it; Mrs. Jones -held on to him; the little Joneses clung to her; and the family -quintette sailed along in a series of gyrations and bounds and flops -that flung the whole population of the city into a labyrinth of -confusion and dismay. Two hand-carts, a street car, an apple stall, and -a policeman were whelmed in the impetuous charge. Then the wind changed -and the umbrella suddenly turned round, jabbed Jones in the mouth, -dabbed Mrs. Jones in the gutter, threw the Jones minors promiscuously -about the side streets, and started back erratically for the west. It -was a thrilling time, but after Jones had been smashed through a few -shop windows, and softened his brain against a lamp-post or two, and -tried to dig up the pavement with that part of his manly figure caressed -by his coat-tails, and sat down once or twice quite unexpectedly in -Mrs. Jones’s lap, and lost his spectacles, and wrecked his hat, he let -the umbrella go. It hasn’t been seen since; but he don’t pine for it. He -hesitates to offer a reward for its recovery. In fact, if any fellow -restores it to him, I think he’ll have that man’s blood. - - - - -LESSONS IN THE FRENCH DRAMA. - - -The adorable Sara has been, she has seen, she has conquered. She has -nearly done for Guffin. - -Guffin is a pork butcher, and there is about as much romance in his -nature as in that of Jay Gould. He prefers pigs to poetry, and knows -much more about sausages than he does about Shakespeare. - -Now, Mrs. Guffin is exactly the opposite. She is æsthetic, she is -poetic, she is romantic--in fact, she has a Soul. So has her daughter, -and the pair of them go languishing and sighing round the Guffin mansion -with their Souls in a way that distracts Guffin, who has more liver than -soul. That mansion is situate in a fashionable suburb, far from the -prosaic pork-curing establishment where Guffin makes his money--so far, -in fact, from business houses of any description that, as Guffin puts -it, one has to take a street-car to get a ha’porth of salt. Of course, -in this sacred locality all mention of Guffin’s trade is forbidden--Mrs. -Guffin’s soul couldn’t stand it. The works of Hogg and Bacon find no -place on the shelves of his library, the family never visit the theatre -when Ham-let is on, and the fair young Guffin blighted the future of an -ardent suitor, because he accidentally referred to the price of -pig-iron, in which his father was interested. So there is a polite -fiction kept up by the Guffins that Guffin, senior, is in a bank--a sort -of director, and for the sake of peace that matter-of-fact pig-sticker -has acquiesced in the social fraud. But he has declared he will do so no -longer. His blood is up, and he has threatened to slaughter his future -porcine victims in the front lawn, cure his bacon in the drawing-room, -and decorate the mediæval porch of his country home with strings of -sausages. - -The ethereal Mlle. Bernhardt was the cause of it all. From the day her -appearance at the leading theatre was announced, Guffin has been a -martyr to the French dramatic enthusiasm of his feminine accessories. -They engaged a tutor who had advertised his proficiency, grammatically -and conversationally, in the language of the Gaul. For six weeks the -Saxon tongue was unheard in the house, save when some of its most -vigorous expletives would escape Guffin, or when Miss G. or Mrs. G. -would get stuck in their French. The maid-of-all-work, cook, laundress, -housemaid, and generally useful Molly became Marie. It was “Marie, -donnez moi la curling-tongs,” or “Marie, avez vous such a thing as a -hairpin about you?” the whole day long. Harry Snaffles, groom, -stable-boy, gardener, and general help, was Henri, and he was beginning -to get gray with such orders as--“Henri, mon garçon, harness le cheval -noir, nous avons made up our mind to take a drive apres quatre heures et -demi aujourd’hui.” And Harry would go into the stables and bury his head -in the straw, and wonder why he was born. - -But it wasn’t till after they had seen the shadowy artiste in “La Dame -aux Camellias” that the explosion came. They returned home enraptured. -Guffin hadn’t been with them. He said he’d been getting enough of French -at home for nothing, and he wasn’t going to pay for it. But they told -him she was too utterly utter, and the gushing Miss G. showed him how -Marguerite interviewed her intended father-in-law, while the Matron -Guffin gave an imitation of Sara B. dying of consumption. The latter -performance was a failure, however. Mrs. Guffin is fat, she is -ponderous, she is florid. Guffin, when he is facetious, says it would be -a good investment to let her out in lots. She has a face you could dwell -on actually as well as figuratively, and the most lively flea must find -it a weary journey from her yard of placid forehead to the foot and a -half of solid humanity she calls her chin. She has a neck that Guffin -can only fling his arms round once a week, taking a note each day of the -point where he leaves off. She has a chest and shoulders you could pitch -a tent on. - -Once a month the stairs leading to her boudoir have to be repaired, and -when a woman like that goes in for acting the consumptive, the result is -disappointing. - -But she did; so did Miss G., and the next day one or other of them might -be encountered about the house gasping and sighing and murmuring very -much broken French, and practising faints and back-falls and -death-scenes. When Guffin came home the dinner was spoiled; Miss G. was -leaning against the banisters of the stairs, one hand pressed against -her beating heart, the other scratching her left ear, and her eyes -turned upward towards the ceiling in an expression meant to convey -unutterable anguish, but which really suggested she was learning to -squint; while Mrs. G. awaited her smaller half in the dining-room on the -only seat that could accommodate her--the sofa, and looked as -consumptive and woe-begone as a woman of her weight possibly could. -Guffin had just heard of a failure in the curing trade which touched -him, and he was in a morose humor. So when his daughter dragged herself -wearily to the table and helped herself with a groan to the potatoes, -and when his wife, heaving a monstrous sigh, cut herself a pound and a -half or so off the joint, and supplied Guffin with half an ounce or -less, he broke into rebellion. - -“Look here,” he said, “what are you grunting and groaning about, like a -pig in a nightmare?” - -“Pig!” shrieked his wife. - -“Oh, mon Dieu!” sobbed his daughter. - -“Yes, pig,” retaliated Guffin; “it’s a noble animal. You’d neither of -you have a shift to your backs if it wasn’t for pigs.” - -“You are a brute!” cried Mrs. G. “I shall leave the house this instant. -Julia, order the carriage.” - -Julia rang the bell with an expression of approaching insanity. The girl -responded with an alacrity suggestive of a key-hole performance. - -“Marie,” said Julia, “Henri.” - -“Well, if you’re hungry,” snarled Guffin, “sit down and eat. What’s -Molly got to do with it? Perhaps you don’t like the mutton. Will you -have a rasher?” - -“Monster, unfeeling monster!” screamed mater-familias. “Let us haste, -Julia, to quit this abode of--of--this abode of--this maison du diable, -there!” she ejaculated, flinging a parting shot in French at the brutal -Guffin. - -“You needn’t mind,” said Guffin. “I’m going out myself. Hope you’ll be -in your senses when I come back. Get me my hat.” - -“Marie,” called Julia from the head of the stairs, “voulez vous bring up -la chapeau de mon pere.” - -“You needn’t mind a chop or a pair,” retorted Guffin. “I want my hat. -And now, Mrs. G., let me tell you one thing. I’ve had enough of your -French capers. You’re turning my house into a gibberishing Bedlam. -You’ve upset me so much with your d----d rubbishy parley-vooing and -moping round that I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to stick a pig with -a cheerful heart again. I won’t have it. It’ll drive me mad. Hang it, if -you don’t drop this cursed nonsense, I’ll let all the neighbors know -what I am. I’ll hang my signboard out of the drawing-room window, I’ll -put on a blue apron and my skewer and knife, and I’ll stand on the front -door-step all day. D----n me, if I won’t buy all the pigs at the next -Smithfield market and anchor them out in the front garden, and I’ll -begin killing them the same night, and if their squealing don’t let -folks know what I am, I’ll send circulars and samples of bacon to every -house for two miles around.” - -There was a pause for a few brief moments, and then forgetting their -French and their consumption and their æsthetic delicacy, mother and -child flung themselves upon the luckless pork purveyor, and they helped -themselves to his hair and tore his clothes, and tried to gouge his eyes -out, and bit his ears, and finally flung him on the carpet, where the -elephantine maternal Guffin sat on him for five minutes. How he survived -this crushing operation is a miracle; but he lives still, though he is -so flat that he can slide under a door, and only he took the precaution -of changing his brown suit, his shop-boy would frequently put him up for -a shutter. - - - - -CALCRAFT AND PRICE.[M] - -A LYRIC FOR LOYALISTS. - - - Oh! England’s the gem of the waters, - The pride of the foam-crested sea! - And her brave sons and fair smiling daughters - Are always contented and free! - Unknown are all want and starvation; - Her subjects are strangers to vice; - And the bulwarks of this model nation - Are Calcraft and Governor Price! - - Wherever this proud nation’s standard - Unfurls its red folds to the light, - Its bearers you’ll find are the vanguard - Of freedom, and progress, and right. - Barbarian tribes, by their teaching, - Her soldiers reclaim in a trice; - Oh, there’s nothing can equal the preaching - Of Calcraft and Governor Price! - - From the Ind to the banks of the Shannon, - Wherever their footsteps have trod, - With the aid of the bayonet and cannon - They’ve planted the altar of God! - And the teachers of heretic notions - Have been silent and quiet as mice, - For fear they should pay their devotions - At the shrine of grim Calcraft and Price! - - Oh, lives there a slave who dare utter - A word ’gainst the laws of the realm? - Or breathes there a serf who would mutter - A thought ’gainst the “men at the helm”? - If he’s English, his faults they’ll pass over - With a sound word or two of advice; - But if Irish, he soon will discover - The logic of Calcraft and Price! - - Then kneel, comrades, kneel, and thank heaven - You’re subjects of Britain’s great throne, - When, horror! you might have been given - A Republican birthright to own! - Thank God, that your blood is untainted, - You’re subjects of England--how nice!-- - You’ve a chance of yet being acquainted - With Calcraft or Governor Price! - - - - -ENTITLED TO A RAISE. - -SUGGESTED BY A ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY PETITION. - - - This is a brave Sub-Constable, a credit to the force, - To the landlord sleek and servile, to the peasant rude and coarse; - When Lord Knows Who was there, he could present his arms to him, - And then club Paddy Murphy with the true official vim. - And once when his contingent, in war’s circumstance and pride, - Turned out to spill his mother on the dreary mountain side, - His blood was cool--(discipline’s rule)--he made no moan, so he - Says no one should begrudge to him his rise of salaree. - - This is a wise Head Constable, with little frills or lace, - But with a soul that’s panting for a much superior place, - He feels his head throb proudly with a bursting intellect, - And looks for that promotion which a genius should expect. - He has faced the jibes of Healy and such giants of the bar, - He has peeped through many a key-hole, when the door was not ajar; - He has shadowed many a priest and checked seditious childhood’s glee, - So is he not entitled to a rise of salaree? - - And this, a Sub-Inspector, is a lady’s man, you know; - With braid, and rings, and eye-glass, he can make a gallant show; - Of justice he knows nothing, and of law he never dreamt, - But he can stop a meeting or he’ll fall in the attempt. - He can really waltz divinely; he can powder, he can puff, - And he’d quite an ear for music till ’twas spoiled by “Harvey Duff”; - He is silly, he is loyal,--he is all a Sub should be, - With a due appreciation of a rise of salaree. - - - - -THE POSTMAN’S WOOING. - -THE POSTMAN’S PLIGHT. - - - John Thompson was a postman who - Was bound in Cupid’s fetters, - And though not deeply read, ’tis true, - Was still a Man of Letters. - - He paid attention to one Kate - Maria Julia Jervis, - But she did not appreciate - John Thompson’s Civil Service. - - Quoth he, “Oh scorn me not, sweet Kate, - Nor let my love-suit fail, - Oh tell me not my pleading’s late, - And don’t Despatch this Mail.” - - But she replied, in accents grave, - “I love you not--decamp!” - And when he spoke again--she gave - Her foot an Extra Stamp. - - And cried, “My anger you awake, - Your speech on insult borders, - I’m poor, but I would scorn to take - Your vile Post-office Orders.” - - Then Thompson felt in mournful mood, - And moaned in accents shivery, - “Miss Jervis, if my speech be rude, - Pray pardon its Delivery.” - - He left the room with footsteps slow, - A bitter lesson taught, - And then to counteract the blow, - A pillar-box he sought. - - He felt how foolish was the tact - In courtship he had boasted, - And recognized the solemn fact - That he was badly Posted. - - - - -SONNETS TO A SHOEMAKER. - - - The cobbler’s always cheerful, though - His path of life be crost, - He does not tear his hair in woe, - Whene’er his all is lost. - - He welts a lot, but not the wife - With whom his lot is cast; - She’ll find him, whatsoe’er their strife, - Still faithful to the last. - - Onward his motto, aye, he strives - To grasp some other feat, - And in the dullest times contrives - Somehow to make ends meet. - - The world may smite him without cause, - He never shuns its whacks, - And seldom grumbles at the laws - That regulate his tax. - - We know but little of the good - His many acts reveal-- - Were he ’midst madmen, why, he would - Their understandings heal. - - And a much higher motive yet - His generous heart controls, - You would not see that saint forget - Their perishable souls. - - - - -A COMMERCIAL CRISIS. - - -The financial flare-up is going round. It has penetrated the modest -shanty of Jones, in our street. - -“It was late when you came home last night, my dear,” said Mrs. J. at -breakfast yesterday morning. When that lady addresses her husband with -the affix of “my dear,” Jones recognizes a disturbed condition of the -domestic atmosphere. He has had solemn experiences of the way Mrs. Jones -works up a tea-table tornado. Therefore, Jones said nothing. He couldn’t -say less; he was afraid to say more. - -“I repeat, my dear, it was late when you returned home last night.” - -Jones admitted there was nothing particularly premature about the hour -in question. - -“Perhaps, my dear, you wouldn’t find your feelings much hurt if I wished -to know where you spent your evening.” - -“Well, you see, love,” began the marital martyr, “there’s a sort of a -kind of a description of--you don’t understand these things, Maria, but -we’re plunged into the throes of a commercial crisis, and I -thought--that is, we thought--a few of us thought, you know--a whole lot -of us thought that we’d have a consultation, you understand--to--to -avert anything in the shape of a pecuniary panic about these diggings.” - -“Oh, you consulted, then?” - -“Yes; we deliberated. We put our heads together, as it were, and we -decided on a whole lot of things.” - -“What time did you decide on breaking up?” - -“Well, we had very important matters to discuss. You know the Jewish -financiers--Baron Rothschild, and--and the rest of the Rothschilds, and -the chief rabbis--and--and--and--all of them synagogue fellows, they’ve -been working the oracle--and they’ve had a slap at the Barings.” Here -Jones gasped for breath. He felt that somehow he wasn’t explaining -matters as lucidly as was necessary. - -“I think,” interposed Mrs. Jones, “that you’ll have a slap at the -almshouse before you die, at the rate--the poor rate--you’re going on. -What else?” - -“Well,” desperately; “Maria, I must say that women can’t grasp the -monetary situation. Don’t you understand that there’s been a withdrawal -of gold from the Bank of England, and they’ve raised their rate to six -per cent., and there’s been a heap of failures, and, in fact, things -have gone so far that, that--” - -“That you were so far gone when you came back last night that you took -your boots off at the door-step, and tried to go to sleep on the -scraper. And when you landed up-stairs in your bedroom you told me that -you were at a meeting to pull the Czar of Russia over the coals about -the atrocities on the Jews. You showed me the minutes of the -proceedings. They were in your inside pocket, in a pint bottle labelled -‘Duffy’s Malt.’ Then you said there was a European war just hatching in -the Herzegovina. You wanted to demonstrate the position of the Austrians -and the Russians out there. You tried to do it with the wash-hand basin, -the coal scuttle, and the fire-irons. You sat down in the coal scuttle, -and you stood on your head in the wash basin, and I’m sure you swallowed -some of the irons, for I can’t find the tongs anywhere. Then you tried -to make a speech to the milkman out of the bedroom window this morning; -and now it’s all a commercial crisis. Do you know what I got in your -coat this morning, Mr. Jones? A hairpin, you wretch! A woman’s hairpin, -you antiquated sinner! And there were two or three hairs round it, red -hairs, you crooked-eyed deceiver! I have stood treachery, Mr. Jones, I -have put up with your tantrums and your goings out and comings in for -five years, Mr. Jones, but I can’t, I won’t, I shan’t be bamboozled any -longer with your pint bottles of Russian atrocities and your red-headed -commercial crisis, the hussy.” At this stage Mr. Jones effected a -remarkably rapid retreat, but he has been heard to observe since that it -is really astonishing what an effect a bank-break in London can have in -a quiet kitchen in South Boston. - - - - -AT THE COLLEGE SPORTS. - - - Heigho for the morning, murky and dark, - When, heedless of threatening cloud, - I ventured to visit the green College park, - And mingled along with the crowd. - I am almost now on insanity’s brink, - And this I attribute to - Either a fairy attired in pink - Or an angel whose robe was blue. - - The world considered my heart was flint, - And futile were womanly wiles-- - Sigh and ogle, whisper and hint, - Glances and glittering smiles. - I meant, uncontrolled by the marital link, - My journey of life to go through, - But in those days I hadn’t met beauty in pink, - To say nothing of beauty in blue. - - I’ve had thirty odd years of a bachelor’s life, - Bachelor’s buttons and fare; - And escaped all the bankruptcy, troubles, and strife - That Benedicts weepingly share. - But to-night I believe that I scarcely would shrink - To join the Hymeneal crew, - If the ship were controlled by a captain in pink - Or a lovely commander in blue. - - I didn’t go, like the mob, to the place - For frivolous chatter and talk; - I was interested in every race, - Jump and hurdle and walk; - Yet when all was over I’m hanged but I think-- - Of course it can hardly be true-- - That the quarter was won by a sprinter in pink, - And the mile by a stayer in blue. - - It’s over now, and I feel quite wise, - For I mean in futurity’s days - When I go to races to cover my eyes - With glasses to temper my gaze, - Lest my heart intoxicant draughts should drink - Of Cupid’s ambrosial dew, - Supplied by a nymph in bewildering pink - Or equally dangerous blue. - - - - -A MUSICAL REVENGE. - - -I’m sick of music. I’m surfeited with music. I’m engulphed in an ocean -of music. I’m buried beneath a mountain of music. The air I breathe is -oxygenized with music. The food I eat is flavored with music. I go to -sleep to the tootle of the flute next door; my slumbers are oppressed -with the nightmare of a solo on the trombone by a demon across the way, -and I wake to the crash of a grand piano that some fallen angel with -forty-horse-power wrists tortures in the semi-detached gentlemanly -residence at the back. In short, I live in a locality that is so utterly -utter in the matter of harmonic proclivities that I feel wild enough to -undermine and blow it to splinters. The sound of the explosion would be -a welcome change. - -But I have had revenge. Ha! ha! It was temporary, but bliss is brief. -For six weeks the pianist behind my bedroom has been ringing the withers -of my soul matutinally with selections from Wagner. For two months the -trombonist over the way has been tearing my vitals asunder by his -frantic efforts to extort unhallowed tones from his instrument. For a -fortnight the flutist next door has congealed my blood with variations -on the “Carnival of Venice.” They have had _one_ night from me. They -won’t want another this side the Day of Judgment. - -I gave a musical party. I summoned to my aid my brother who plays the -melodeon. I called to my assistance my friend who lets the tempest of -his heart loose into the cornet. I obtained the powerful alliance of my -cousin who exercises his muscles on the double-bass. I invoked the -tremendous services of an Aberdeen acquaintance, who has been practising -for ten years on the Scotch bagpipes, and still survives. I appealed -successfully to patriotic passions and pecuniary prejudices, and secured -the presence of a fife and drum--principally drum--band from a Grand -Army post. - -The first part of the concert lasted two hours. By the end of that time -all the boarders in the street had given their landladies notice to -quit, and I had received three deputations from the outraged inhabitants -of the disturbed district. - -But my scheme of vengeance was only budding. I had generously plied the -perspiring performers with copious draughts of Pilsener and Canada malt, -till they felt fit for anything in the way of a musical monstrosity or -instrumental indignity I could ask them to perpetrate on the suffering -locality. Then I marshalled them out in the backyard, and implored them, -as a last personal favor, to make themselves at home, and let each -artist give vent to his feelings in his favorite tune. They vented. The -bagpipes squealed out the “Reel of Tullochgorum,” till it seemed as if -all the pigs in the States had joined in shrill lament over Armour’s -interference with their happiness. The cornet pealed forth “Killarney” -with energy enough to drown the roar of Niagara. The double-bass growled -like a thunder-storm in its last agonies an operatic overture that I had -never heard before, and I hope never, never to listen to again. The -melodeon struggled manfully with “Nancy Lee,” and the fife and drum band -wrestled desperately with “Patrick’s Day,” except half a dozen or so of -its members, who got up a fight in one corner, and added a choice -assortment of yells, shouts, and profane expressions to the glories of -the occasion. - -It was gorgeous. In ten minutes we had three fireengines and a division -of police in the street; in half an hour there were several attempts at -suicide of leading residents of the locality; and before our “grand -finale” was finally done with there wasn’t a juvenile or adult within -half a mile that didn’t feel he or she had had music enough to last a -lifetime. - -If I am disturbed any more by the operators round me, I shall give them -another dose of my orchestra. I will. I have sworn it. - - - - -A LIAR LAID OUT. - - -We have an amiable tallow-chandler and soap-boiler in our street, who -certainly should have been a novelist. I firmly believe he could give -weight to Baron Munchausen, Jules Verne, M. de Chaillu, or the London -_Times_ in the matter of exaggeration, and romp in an easy winner. The -whoppers that spreader of lies and light can tell would raise the hair -on the head of an Egyptian mummy. - -But he met his match last week. - -I happened to be in our club-room with Dipps, when there entered an -acquaintance of mine, a gentleman who aspires to legislative honors. Of -course Congressional candidates must acquire the art of so embellishing -and embroidering the naked truth as to make it attractive. Well, my -friend has been studying this science, and he has advanced so far that -he can dispense with facts altogether now. His enemies aver that the -truth isn’t in him. I wouldn’t say that myself. I think it is in -him--very much in him--it’s impossible to get it out of him. - -I didn’t think of this, or I wouldn’t have introduced him to Dipps. I -regretted it on the spot. Dipps was smoking a peculiar pipe. The future -member noticed it. He made some slight remark about it. Dipps was all -there. He replied on the instant that that was the identical pipe that -Napoleon III. was smoking when he surrendered at Sedan. He had procured -it from a wandering Teutonic troubadour, who had picked it up when the -Emperor dropped it to hand his sword to his German conqueror. - -The statesman expressed no surprise. He merely observed that by a -strange coincidence he possessed the stump of the cigar which had fallen -from Marshal MacMahon’s lips when his eleventh horse was shot under him -at Worth. He had purchased the souvenir from a Zouave with two wooden -legs and a glass eye, who had secured the half-finished weed and was -smoking it out when a fragment of a shell drove it and a couple of -teeth into the back of his head, from which they were extracted by the -regimental surgeon. He had one of the teeth, too, fitted into his own -gums. He showed it to Dipps. - -I could see Dipps was rather staggered. He changed the subject. He -exhibited his walking-stick. Remarkable stick, that. It was manufactured -out of one of the railway carriages blown into the river on the night of -the terrible Tay bridge disaster, in Scotland. At the risk of his life, -a diver had brought up a panel out of that carriage for the express -purpose of making that stick. - -The embryo representative had another coincidence on hand. He had -another walking-stick at home--made out of the thigh bone of the -engine-driver of that ill-fated train. It was too ghastly a memento to -carry about with him; but he could show it to Dipps at any time, and -would point out the half-cooked appearance of a portion of it, arising -from the fact that the driver was in the habit of sitting on the boiler -in cold weather to warm himself. - -Dipps was silent after this for a few minutes. But he wasn’t going to be -put down without a desperate effort. He drew out his large scarf-pin. He -called our attention to what appeared to be a drop of water in the -centre of the colorless stone. No, the stone was not real. It was not a -diamond. It was far more precious. That small dewy globule inside was -worth a hundred diamonds of its size. It had been borne from the mystic -shores of Lake Nyanza by a mighty traveller. It had passed into Dipps’s -hands by a miracle. It was the tear Livingstone had shed when he first -met Stanley. And Dipps smiled a lofty smile at the coming Daniel -Webster, which said, as plainly as a candle-contriver’s grin could say -anything, “Trot out your curiosities, now, old man, and match that if -you’re able.” - -Hang me if that expectant recruit to the ranks of the legislators didn’t -squelch Dipps with a third coincidence. It was extraordinary--it was -almost fabulous, he said, but he had another breastpin which contained a -companion tear to Dipps’s. The knight of the soap-pan flatly denied the -assertion. Livingstone had only shed one tear; that tear hadn’t been -divided into suitable lots; it remained intact, complete, unmutilated, -and he (Dipps) was its proud possessor. - -“I didn’t say,” gently interposed the coming victim of some future Tom -Reed, “I didn’t say that I had the tear Livingstone shed when the advent -of the New York _Herald_ Central African tourist pumped that saline -particle up. No, sir; but I have a lachrymose relic equally enthralling -in the interest which it must inspire.” - -“Pooh!” snorted Dipps contemptuously, “what have you, what can you have, -that approaches within a hemisphere of my historic, geographic -treasure?” - -“My friend,” replied the next man to be counted in his absence by the -Speaker, “I do not grudge you the tear that Livingston shed when he -embraced Stanley, for know that I have the identical tear that Stanley -_didn’t_ shed on that occasion, nor since, that I’m aware of.” - - - - -MULROONEY.--A TROOPER’S TALE. - - - We were stanch and brave a company as ever saddled steeds; - When proclamations filled the land, our signatures were deeds; - When Mosby’s horse we fell across, the heads that met our blades - Lost count of stolen cattle, and could plan no future raids. - We blazed with glory, but a cloud around its radiance hung; - Unto the bays that decked our brows a slimy creeper clung-- - For word passed round from camp to camp: The man for whom we’d die, - The darling of our devil-dares, Mulrooney, was a spy! - - Mulrooney was our squadron’s pride; its star, its guiding lance; - The last to leave a losing fight, the foremost to advance; - His laughter chased the poison from the fever-breeding swamp; - His merry heart and blithesome ways made sunshine in the camp. - So when the provost-marshal came and marched Mulrooney out, - Each trooper’s face with wrath aflame bespoke rebellious doubt; - Till our captain came and “soothered” us, and said, “We’ll have to try - To clear our troop’s bad record that it ever held a spy.” - - Oh, our captain was a jewel, with his oily locks of jet, - His shiny spurs of silver, and his gold-fringed epaulette; - The daintiest of kidskin gloves controlled his charger’s reins, - The bluest flood of Norman blood coursed proudly through his veins; - His voice had quite a lordly lisp, in warning or command-- - A pearl in iron setting was this leader of our band; - But gem and metal never fused, and that’s the reason why - Our boys despised the perfumed dude and loved the roughspun “spy.” - - The morn Mulrooney went away, our “pretty” captain led - Our troop to where a squadron of the Johnnies slept, he said; - But as we trod a darksome gorge, a flash of flame ahead, - A roar of musketry behind, an ambush told, instead! - Entrapped like rats, like rats we fought, in desperate despair-- - One sabre ’gainst ten rifles, and no outlet front or rear, - Our captain faded from our sight, while rose a frenzied cry: - “By God! the cur has sold us out! Mulrooney was no spy!” - - But while our hearts were quaking and our ranks were melting fast, - There rang athrough the rustling pines a clear, familiar blast; - The bugle-call of Northern foot thrilled on our ears anew, - As swiftly on our hidden foes swept down a line of blue! - One skulking figure sought escape behind the sheltering trees, - A keen-eyed marksman’s bullet brought the coward to his knees, - And as the captor fiercely dragged the wounded captive by, - A shout went up from every throat, “Mulrooney’s got the spy!” - - Mulrooney had been hard and fast upon the captain’s trail, - The traitor thought to euchre Pat by placing him in jail, - And, ere the blundering Kerry tongue could tell how matters stood, - Give up his comrades to the wolves that thirsted for their blood. - The captain played his cards with skill--his triumph almost came; - But Irish hearts are always trumps in war’s uncertain game; - And pinioned in his tent that night he heard gay voices nigh - Tell o’er and o’er the story of Mulrooney and the spy. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[A] This incident was recorded at the time in the Irish newspapers, was -debated in Parliament, and formed the subject of rich comic cartoons in -_Pat_, the _Weekly News_, the _Weekly Freeman_, and _United Ireland_. - -[B] Rory, or Capt. Moonlight, is the latest cognomen for the Ribbon or -Whiteboy avenger of landlord oppression. - -[C] During the period of Irish obstruction in Parliament, the Speaker -or Chairman of the House of Commons had frequently to preside for -twenty or twenty-four hours at a stretch, during a debate, in the -course of which the Irish members would raise points of order every -five minutes or so. - -[D] Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien, executed at Manchester, England, for -their share in the rescue of Col. Kelly and Capt. Deasy, two Fenian -leaders, were buried in the prison grounds, their bodies being refused -to their relatives lest their funeral should be made the occasion of a -demonstration. - -[E] On this day William Philip Allen, Michael O’Brien, and Michael -Larkin were hanged in Manchester, England, for the rescue of two Fenian -leaders. Until the sentence of death was actually carried into effect -it was not believed that the first political execution since that of -Robert Emmet would take place. A mass meeting was held at the Old Swan -Cross in Manchester, to welcome the reprieve, but their messenger -brought news of the execution instead. - -[F] Allen--nineteen years old. - -[G] O’Brien--A brave Union soldier, who had fought in Meagher’s Irish -Brigade. - -[H] Larkin--An elderly man, who left a widow and four orphans. - -[I] At the explosion which took place in the Tower of London on Jan. -23, 1885, the Grenadier Guards and the Police distinguished themselves -by their frantic efforts to escape from the building. - -[J] In April, 1885, the Prince of Wales paid a visit to Ireland. On the -morning of his arrival a placard containing the verses above was found -posted on every dead-wall in the cities and villages of Ireland. The -poem had previously appeared in an American paper. - -[K] A victim of English law, whose innocence was proven after he had -been executed. - -[L] Give me a kiss. - -[M] Calcraft was a notorious English hangman, and Price a British -jailer, whose brutalities to Irish political prisoners will be -remembered for years. - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's An Irish Crazy-Quilt, by Arthur M. 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