Stories by English Authors: Ireland
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Various >> Stories by English Authors: Ireland
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This was a melancholy situation, and his friends pitied him
accordingly.
"Don't be cast down, Neal," said they; "your friends feel for you,
poor fellow."
"Divil carry my frinds," replied Neal; "sure, there's not one o'
yez frindly enough to be my inimy. Tare an' ouns! what'll I do?
I'm blue-mowlded for want of a batin'!"
Seeing that their consolation was thrown away upon him, they resolved
to leave him to his fate; which they had no sooner done then Neal
had thoughts of taking to the Skiomachia as a last remedy. In this
mood he looked with considerable antipathy at his own shadow for
several nights; and it is not to be questioned but that some hard
battles would have taken place between them had it not been for
the cunning of the shadow, which declined to fight him in any other
position than with its back to the wall. This occasioned him to
pause, for the wall was a fearful antagonist, inasmuch as it knew
not when it was beaten; but there was still an alternative left.
He went to the garden one clear day about noon, and hoped to have
a bout with the shade free from interruption. Both approached,
apparently eager for the combat and resolved to conquer or die,
when a villainous cloud, happening to intercept the light, gave
the shadow an opportunity of disappearing, and Neal found himself
once more without an opponent.
"It's aisy known," said Neal, "you haven't the BLOOD in you, or
you'd come to the scratch like a man."
He now saw that fate was against him, and that any further hostility
toward the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his
health, spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance
became pale and peaceful-looking; the bluster departed from him;
his body shrank up like a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled
to take in his clothes, and thrice did he ascertain that much of his
time would be necessarily spent in pursuing his retreating person
through the solitude of his almost deserted garments.
God knows it is difficult to form a correct opinion upon a situation
so parodoxical as Neal's was. To be reduced to skin and bone by
the downright friendship of the world was, as the sagacious reader
will admit, next to a miracle. We appeal to the conscience of any
man who finds himself without an enemy whether he be not a greater
skeleton than the tailor; we will give him fifty guineas provided he
can show a calf to his leg. We know he could not; for the tailor
had none, and that was because he had not an enemy. No man in
friendship with the world ever has calves to his legs. To sum up
all in a parodox of our own invention, for which we claim the full
credit of originality, we now assert that more men have risen in the
world by the injury of their enemies than have risen by the kindness
of their friends. You may take this, reader, in any sense; apply it
to hanging if you like; it is still immutably and immovably true.
One day Neal sat cross-legged, as tailors usually sit, in the act
of pressing a pair of breeches; his hands were placed, backs up,
upon the handle of his goose, and his chin rested upon the backs
of his hands. To judge from his sorrowful complexion, one would
suppose that he sat rather to be sketched as a picture of misery or
of heroism in distress than for the industrious purpose of pressing
the seams of a garment. There was a great deal of New Burlington
Street pathos in his countenance; his face, like the times, was
rather out of joint; "the sun was just setting, and his golden
beams fell, with a saddened splendor, athwart the tailor's--" The
reader may fill up the picture.
In this position sat Neal when Mr. O'Connor, the schoolmaster,
whose inexpressibles he was turning for the third time, entered
the workshop. Mr. O'Connor himself was as finished a picture of
misery as the tailor. There was a patient, subdued kind of expression
in his face which indicated a very fair portion of calamity; his
eye seemed charged with affliction of the first water; on each side
of his nose might be traced two dry channels, which, no doubt, were
full enough while the tropical rains of his countenance lasted.
Altogether, to conclude from appearances, it was a dead match in
affliction between him and the tailor; both seemed sad, fleshless,
and unthriving.
"Misther O'Connor," said the tailor, when the schoolmaster entered,
"won't you be pleased to sit down?"
Mr. O'Connor sat; and, after wiping his forehead, laid his hat
upon the lap-board, put his half-handkerchief in his pocket, and
looked upon the tailor. The tailor, in return, looked upon Mr.
O'Connor; but neither of them spoke for some minutes. Neal, in fact,
appeared to be wrapped up in his own misery, and Mr. O'Connor in
his; or, as we often have much gratuitous sympathy for the distresses
of our friends, we question but the tailor was wrapped up in Mr.
O'Connor's misery, and Mr. O'Connor in the tailor's.
Mr. O'Connor at length said: "Neal, are my inexpressibles finished?"
"I am now pressin' your inexpressibles," replied Neal; "but, be my
sowl, Mr. O'Connor, it's not your inexpressibles I'm thinkin' of.
I'm not the ninth part o' what I was. I'd hardly make paddin' for
a collar now."
"Are you able to carry a staff still, Neal?"
"I've a light hazel one that's handy," said the tailor, "but where's
the use o' carryin' it whin I can get no one to fight wid? Sure,
I'm disgracin' my relations by the life I'm ladin'. I 'll go to
my grave widout ever batin' a man or bein' bate myself; that's the
vexation. Divil the row ever I was able to kick up in my life; so
that I'm fairly blue-mowlded for want of a batin'. But if you have
patience--"
"Patience!" said Mr. O'Connor, with a shake of the head that was
perfectly disastrous even to look at,--"patience, did you say,
Neal?"
"Ay," said Neal, "an' be my sowl, if you deny that I said patience
I 'll break your head!"
"Ah, Neal," returned the other, "I don't deny it; for, though I'm
teaching philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics every day in my
life, yet I'm learning patience myself both night and day. No,
Neal; I have forgotten to deny anything. I have not been guilty of
a contradiction, out of my own school, for the last fourteen years.
I once expressed the shadow of a doubt about twelve years ago, but
ever since I have abandoned even doubting. That doubt was the last
expiring effort at maintaining my domestic authority--but I suffered
for it."
"Well," said Neal, "if you have patience, I 'll tell you what
afflicts me from beginnin' to endin'."
"I WILL have patience," said Mr. O'Connor; and he accordingly heard
a dismal and indignant tale from the tailor.
"You have told me that fifty times over," said Mr. O'Connor, after
hearing the story. "Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life.
If you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current
of your existence to some purpose. MARRY A WIFE. For twenty-five
years I have given instruction in three branches, namely, philosophy,
knowledge, and mathematics. I am also well versed in matrimony,
and I declare that, upon my misery and by the contents of all my
afflictions, it is my solemn and melancholy opinion that, if you marry
a wife, you will, before three months pass over your concatenated
state, not have a single complaint to make touching a superabundance
of peace or tranquillity or a love of fighting."
"Do you mane to say that any woman would make me afeard?" said
the tailor, deliberately rising up and getting his cudgel. "I 'll
thank you merely to go over the words agin, till I thrasy you widin
an inch of your life. That's all"
"Neal," said the schoolmaster, meekly, "I won't fight; I have been
too often subdued ever to presume on the hope of a single victory.
My spirit is long since evaporated; I am like one of your own
shreds, a mere selvage. Do you not know how much my habiliments
have shrunk in even within the last five years? Hear me, Neal, and
venerate my words as if they proceeded from the lips of a prophet.
If you wish to taste the luxury of being subdued--if you are, as
you say, blue-moulded for want of a beating, and sick at heart of
a peaceful existence--why, marry a wife. Neal, send my breeches
home with all haste, for they are wanted, you understand. Farewell."
Mr. O'Connor, having thus expressed himself, departed; and Neal
stood, with the cudgel in his hand, looking at the door out of
which he passed, with an expression of fierceness, contempt, and
reflection strongly blended on the ruins of his once heroic visage.
Many a man has happiness within his reach if he but knew it.
The tailor had been hitherto miserable because he pursued a wrong
object. The schoolmaster, however, suggested a train of thought
upon which Neal now fastened with all the ardour of a chivalrous
temperament. Nay, be wondered that the family spirit should have
so completely seized upon the fighting side of his heart as to
preclude all thoughts of matrimony; for he could not but remember
that his relations were as ready for marriage as for fighting. To
doubt this would have been to throw a blot upon his own escutcheon.
He therefore very prudently asked himself to whom, if he did not
marry, should he transmit his courage. He was a single man, and,
dying as such, he would be the sole depository of his own valor,
which, like Junius's secret, must perish with him. If he could have
left it as a legacy to such of his friends as were most remarkable
for cowardice, why, the case would be altered: but this was impossible,
and he had now no other means of preserving it to posterity than
by creating a posterity to inherit it. He saw, too, that the world
was likely to become convulsed. Wars, as everybody knew, were
certain to break out; and would it not be an excellent opportunity
for being father to a colonel, or perhaps a general, that might
astonish the world?
The change visible in Neal after the schoolmaster's last visit
absolutely thunderstruck all who knew him. The clothes which he
had rashly taken in to fit his shrivelled limbs were once more let
out. The tailor expanded with a new spirit; his joints ceased to
be supple, as in the days of his valor; his eye became less fiery
but more brilliant. From being martial, he got desperately gallant;
but, somehow, he could not afford to act the hero and lover both
at the same time. This, perhaps, would be too much to expect from
a tailor. His policy was better. He resolved to bring all his
available energy to bear upon the charms of whatever fair nymph he
should select for the honour of matrimony; to waste his spirit in
fighting would, therefore, be a deduction from the single purpose
in view.
The transition from war to love is by no means so remarkable as we
might at first imagine. We quote Jack Falstaff in proof of this;
or, if the reader be disposed to reject our authority, then we
quote Ancient Pistol himself--both of whom we consider as the most
finished specimens of heroism that ever carried a safe skin. Acres
would have been a hero had he worn gloves to prevent the courage
from oozing out at his palms, or not felt such an unlucky antipathy
to the "snug lying in the Abbey"; and as for Captain Bobadil, he
never had an opportunity of putting his plan for vanquishing an
army into practice. We fear, indeed, that neither his character
nor Ben Jonson's knowledge of human nature is properly understood;
for it certainly could not be expected that a man whose spirit
glowed to encounter a whole host could, without tarnishing his
dignity, if closely pressed, condescend to fight an individual.
But as these remarks on courage may be felt by the reader as an
invidious introduction of a subject disagreeable to him, we beg
to hush it for the present and return to the tailor.
No sooner had Neal begun to feel an inclination to matrimony than
his friends knew that his principles had veered by the change now
visible in his person and deportment. They saw he had ratted from
courage and joined love. Heretofore his life had been all winter,
darkened by storm and hurricane. The fiercer virtues had played
the devil with him; every word was thunder, every look lightning;
but now all that had passed away. Before he was the FORTITER IN RE;
at present he was the SUAVITER IN MODO. His existence was perfect
spring, beautifully vernal. All the amiable and softer qualities
began to bud about his heart; a genial warmth was diffused over
him; his soul got green within him; every day was serene, and if
a cloud happened to become visible, there was a roguish rainbow
astride of it, on which sat a beautiful Iris that laughed down at
him and seemed to say, "Why the dickens, Neal, don't you marry a
wife?"
Neal could not resist the afflatus which decended on him; an
ethereal light dwelled, he thought, upon the face of nature; the
colour of the cloth which he cut out from day to day was, to his
enraptured eye, like the colour of Cupid's wings--all purple; his
visions were worth their weight in gold; his dreams a credit to
the bed he slept on; and his feelings, like blind puppies, young
and alive to the milk of love and kindness which they drew from his
heart. Most of this delight escaped the observation of the world,
for Neal, like your true lover, became shy and mysterious. It is
difficult to say what he resembled; no dark lantern ever had more
light shut up within itself than Neal had in his soul, although
his friends were not aware of it. They knew, indeed, that he had
turned his back upon valor; but beyond this their knowledge did
not extend.
Neal was shrewd enough to know that what he felt must be love;
nothing else could distend him with happiness until his soul felt
light and bladderlike but love. As an oyster opens when expecting
the tide, so did his soul expand at the contemplation of matrimony.
Labour ceased to be a trouble to him; he sang and sewed from morning
till night; his hot goose no longer burned him, for his heart was
as hot as his goose; the vibrations of his head, at each successive
stitch, were no longer sad and melancholy. There was a buoyant
shake of exultation in them which showed that his soul was placid
and happy within him.
Endless honour be to Neal Malone for the originality with which
he managed the tender sentiment! He did not, like your commonplace
lovers, first discover a pretty girl and afterward become enamoured
of her. No such thing; he had the passion prepared beforehand--cut
out and made up, as it were, ready for any girl whom it might fit.
This was falling in love in the abstract, and let no man condemn
it without a trial, for many a long-winded argument could be urged
in its defence. It is always wrong to commence business without
capital, and Neal had a good stock to begin with. All we beg is
that the reader will not confound it with Platonism, which never
marries; but he is at full liberty to call it Socratism, which
takes unto itself a wife and suffers accordingly.
Let no one suppose that Neal forgot the schoolmaster's kindness,
or failed to be duly grateful for it. Mr. O'Connor was the first
person whom he consulted touching his passion. With a cheerful
soul he waited on that melancholy and gentleman-like man, and in
the very luxury of his heart told him that he was in love.
"In love, Neal!" said the schoolmaster. "May I inquire with whom?"
"Wid nobody in particular yet," replied Neal; "but o' late I'm got
divilish fond o' the girls in general."
"And do you call that being in love, Neal?" said Mr. O'Connor.
"Why, what else would I call it?" returned the tailor. "Am n't I
fond o' them?"
"Then it must be what is termed the 'universal passion,' Neal,"
observed Mr. O'Connor, "although it is the first time I have seen
such an illustration of it as you present in your own person."
"I wish you would advise me how to act," said Neal; "I'm as happy as
a prince since I began to get fond o' them an' to think o' marriage."
The schoolmaster shook his head again, and looked rather miserable.
Neal rubbed his hands with glee, and looked perfectly happy. The
schoolmaster shook his head again, and looked more miserable than
before. Neal's happiness also increased on the second rubbing.
Now, to tell the secret at once, Mr. O'Connor would not have appeared
so miserable were it not for Neal's happiness; nor Neal so happy
were it not for Mr. O'Connor's misery. It was all the result of
contrast; but this you will not understand unless you be deeply
read in modern novels.
Mr. O'Connor, however, was a man of sense, who knew, upon this
principle, that the longer he continued to shake his head the more
miserable he must become, and the more also would he increase Neal's
happiness; but he had no intention of increasing Neal's happiness
at his own expense--for, upon the same hypothesis, it would have
been for Neal's interest had he remained shaking his head there
and getting miserable until the day of judgment. He consequently
declined giving the third shake, for he thought that plain
conversation was, after all, more significant and forcible than
the most eloquent nod, however ably translated.
"Neal," said he, "could you, by stretching your imagination, contrive
to rest contented with nursing your passion in solitude, and love
the sex at a distance?"
"How could I nurse and mind my business?" replied the tailor. "I'll
never nurse so long as I'll have the wife; and as for 'magination,
it depends upon the grain o'it whether I can stretch it or not. I
don't know that I ever made a coat o'it in my life."
"You don't understand me, Neal," said the schoolmaster. "In recommending
marriage, I was only driving one evil out of you by introducing
another. Do you think that, if you abandoned all thoughts of a wife,
you would get heroic again--that is, would you take once more to
the love of fighting?"
"There is no doubt but I would," said the tailor; "if I miss the
wife, I'll kick up such a dust as never was seen in the parish, an'
you're the first man that I'll lick. But now that I'm in love," he
continued, "sure, I ought to look out for the wife."
"Ah, Neal," said the schoolmaster, "you are tempting destiny; your
temerity be, with all its melancholy consequences, upon your own
head."
"Come," said the tailor; "it wasn't to hear you groaning to the
tune o' 'Dhrimmindhoo,' or 'The old woman rockin' her cradle,' that
I came; but to know if you could help me in makin' out the wife.
That's the discoorse."
"Look at me, Neal," said the schoolmaster, solemnly. "I am at this
moment, and have been any time for the last fifteen years, a living
CAVETO against matrimony. I do not think that earth possesses such
a luxury as a single solitary life. Neal, the monks of old were
happy men; they were all fat and had double chins; and, Neal, I
tell you that all fat men are in general happy. Care cannot come
at them so readily as at a thin man; before it gets through the
strong outworks of flesh and blood with which they are surrounded,
it becomes treacherous to its original purpose, joins the cheerful
spirits it meets in the system, and dances about the heart in all
the madness of mirth; just like a sincere ecclesiastic who comes to
lecture a good fellow against drinking, but who forgets his lecture
over his cups, and is laid under the table with such success that
he either never comes to finish his lecture, or comes often to be
laid under the table. Look at me, Neal, how wasted, fleshless, and
miserable I am. You know how my garments have shrunk in, and what
a solid man I was before marriage. Neal, pause, I beseech you;
otherwise you stand a strong chance of becoming a nonentity like
myself."
"I don't care what I become," said the tailor; "I can't think
that you'd be so unreasonable as to expect that any o' the Malones
should pass out o' the world widout either bein' bate or marrid.
Have reason, Mr. O'Connor, an' if you can help me to the wife I
promise to take in your coat the next time for nothin'."
"Well, then," said Mr. O'Connor, "what would you think of the
butcher's daughter, Biddy Neil? You have always had a thirst for
blood, and here you may have it gratified in an innocent manner,
should you ever become sanguinary again. 'T is true, Neal, she is
twice your size and possesses three times your strength; but for
that very reason, Neal, marry her if you can. Large animals are
placid; and Heaven preserve those bachelors whom I wish well from
a small wife; 't is such who always wield the sceptre of domestic
life and rule their husbands with a rod of iron."
"Say no more, Mr. O'Connor," replied the tailor; "she's the very
girl I'm in love wid, an' never fear but I'll overcome her heart
if it can be done by man. Now, step over the way to my house, an'
we'll have a sup on the head o' it. Who's that calling?"
"Ah, Neal, I know the tones--there's a shrillness in them not to
be mistaken. Farewell! I must depart; you have heard the proverb,
'Those who are bound must obey.' Young Jack, I presume, is squalling,
and I must either nurse him, rock the cradle, or sing comic tunes
for him, though Heaven knows with what a disastrous heart I often
sing, 'Begone, dull care,' the 'Rakes of Newcastle,' or, 'Peas upon
a Trencher.' Neal, I say again, pause before you take this leap in
the dark. Pause, Neal, I entreat you. Farewell!"
Neal, however, was gifted with the heart of an Irishman, and scorned
caution as the characteristic of a coward; he had, as it appeared,
abandoned all design of fighting, but the courage still adhered to
him even in making love. He consequently conducted the siege of
Biddy Neil's heart with a degree of skill and valor which would not
have come amiss to Marshal Gerald at the siege of Antwerp. Locke
or Dugald Stewart, indeed, had they been cognisant of the tailor's
triumph, might have illustrated the principle on which he succeeded;
as to ourselves, we can only conjecture it. Our own opinion is
that they were both animated with a congenial spirit. Biddy was the
very pink of pugnacity, and could throw in a body-blow or plant a
facer with singular energy and science. Her prowess hitherto had,
we confess, been displayed only within the limited range of domestic
life; but should she ever find it necessary to exercise it upon a
larger scale, there was no doubt whatsoever, in the opinion of her
mother, brothers, and sisters, every one of whom she had successively
subdued, that she must undoubtedly distinguish herself. There was
certainly one difficulty which the tailor had NOT to encounter in
the progress of fats courtship: the field was his own, he had not
a rival to dispute his claim. Neither was there any opposition
given by her friends; they were, on the contrary, all anxious for
the match; and when the arrangements were concluded, Neal felt
his hand squeezed by them in succession, with an expression more
resembling condolence than joy. Neal, however, had been bred to
tailoring, and not to metaphysics; he could cut out a coat very
well, but we do not say that he could trace a principle --as what
tailor, except Jeremy Taylor, could?
There was nothing particular in the wedding. Mr. O'Connor was
asked by Neal to be present at it; but he shook his head, and told
him that he had not courage to attend it or inclination to witness
any man's sorrows but his own. He met the wedding-party by accident,
and was heard to exclaim with a sigh as they flaunted past him in
gay exuberance of spirits: "Ah, poor Neal! he is going like one of
her father's cattle to the shambles! Woe is me for having suggested
matrimony to the taylor! He will not long be under the necessity
of saying that he is 'blue-moulded for want of a beating.' The
butcheress will fell him like a Kerry ox, and I may have his blood
to answer for and his discomfiture to feel for in addition to my
own miseries."
On the evening of the wedding-day, about the hour of ten o'clock,
Neal, whose spirits were uncommonly exalted, for his heart
luxuriated within him, danced with his bridesmaid; after the dance
he sat beside her, and got eloquent in praise of her beauty; and
it is said, too, that he whispered to her and chucked her chin with
considerable gallantry. The tête-à-tête continued for some time
without exciting particular attention, with one exception; but THAT
exception was worth a whole chapter of general rules. Mrs. Malone
rose up, then sat down again and took off a glass of the native;
she got up a second time; all the wife rushed upon her heart. She
approached them, and, in a fit of the most exquisite sensibility,
knocked the bridesmaid down, and gave the tailor a kick of affecting
pathos upon the inexpressibles. The whole scene was a touching
one on both sides. The tailor was sent on all-fours to the floor,
but Mrs. Malone took him quietly up, put him under her arm as one
would a lap-dog, and with stately step marched away to the connubial
apartment, in which everything remained very quiet for the rest of
the night.
The next morning Mr. O'Connor presented himself to congratulate
the tailor on his happiness. Neal, as his friend, shook hands with
him, gave the schoolmaster's fingers a slight squeeze, such as a
man gives who would gently entreat your sympathy. The schoolmaster
looked at him, and thought he shook his head. Of this, however, he
could not be certain; for, as he shook his own during the moment
of observation, he concluded that it might be a mere mistake of the
eye, or, perhaps, the result of a mind predisposed to be credulous
on the subject of shaking heads.
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