of rock, had been securely lodged amidst the thorny, complex, and massive leaves of a dense bush of cactus or prickly pear, which grew immediately below. After a long détour, and some considerable delay, I succeeded in approaching the spot where the poor Medico sat impaled, as it were, on his prickly throne; and with the assistance of Chiniah succeeded at last in liberating him from so uncomfortable a position, and then conveved him to his tent. The reader, who may chance to know the nature of the thorns of the cactus, will be able fully to appreciate the sufferings poor Dr. Macgillivan under went, together with the time and labour it took to extract the innumerable prickles from that most prominent and vulnerable part, on which, by the laws of gravity, he had naturally lodged. "The minister o' our kirk," said he, after the painful and tedious operation was with the aid of pen-knives, needles, and tweezers-at last accomplished-" the minister o' our kirk-where the free seats were vary haird-used often to say, that amang ither things, we ought to be thankfu' for the twa saft cushions given us by kind Providence, to maake oup fa the hairdness o' the bourds :' but the Rev. Mr. Douncan Dunouse wad hae thought-and may-be preached otherwase, too, if he had had as mony o' these dommed caac-caac-tous preekles steeking into his twa saft cushions,' as ye hae-and mony thanks to ye-been just peeking oot o' mine." Everybody who has reached a certain age, and seen anything of the world, of course must have visited Donnybrook before its fair was suppressed, and its glory had consequently departed. They will recall to memory the pleasing celerity with which, and at the shortest notice, a respectable rookawn there and then could be got up; as we can, and in our own person, enjoy that agreeable reminiscence: but the opening, progress, and termination of the Battle of Ballyoonan, even unto this blessed hour, totally passeth our understanding. We have been familiar with assault and battery in our day, but that "crowded hour of glorious strife" in our memory bears no parallel, for the finale was as tragic as the commencement was rapid and unexpected. Between this memorable affair and that of Waterloo, a little discrepancy may appear; no two persons who figured on the field of Mont St. Jean coincide as to the exact time at which the action opened, although they generally agreed touching the hour when it closed. Το note the commencement of the Battle of Ballyoonan, a reference to the widow's clock would have been conclusive; but by that means its ter mination could not have been decided, for, unhappily, that useful and ornamental specimen of delicate machinery, like a spiked gun, was silenced very early in the engagement. We have stated in the preceding chapter that the table-cloth was lifted amidst an outburst of uproarious loyalty on the part of the company, while "God save the King was tastefully executed on the union pipes by Corny Callaghan. The chairman, a gentleman of enthusiastic devotion to King and Constitution as by law established, thundered, "One cheer more!" and the same was duly given, accompanied, selon le règle, by a rolling volley of "Kentish fire. The company had scarcely resumed their seats, and the ebullition of attachment to the house of Hanover died slowly into silence, when another bumper being demanded by the president "The jingling of glasses, Which all music surpasses," It actively recommenced; and, at the same moment, two visitors were announced, who, as it would appear, had politely come from their respective abiding places to offer their compliments to the club. was, as both declared, happily a first meeting, which, as they hoped and opined, would be annual and eternal; but between them-and may the curse of Cromwell light upon the pair-they took devilish good care that it should be the last one. The day had been a warm one-coursing is a thirsty amusement -and whenever a hare was killed, it was a signal for the reproduction of the whiskey-flasks to drink fresh luck, while men and dogs recovered second wind. Honest people may be trusted even in the dark to drink fair, and no man on the hill-side ever restricts himself rigidly to admeasurement. Some men are gifted with larger mouths than others, and some can bolt agreeable liquids with surpassing facility. Sharp service, even on a veteran, will show itself; and when the gallant sportsmen returned from the hills, with three hares and thirteen exhausted whiskey-flasks, the worthy hostess remarked to a female confident, that the whole party "had been looking at somebody who was drinking ;"* and that even the chairman-might his shadow be lengthened-had evidently "a cockle in his wig." Of the two gentlemen whose advent we announced at the expiring peal of hip, hip, hurrah!" one was a farmer of hospitable repute, who kept a brace of greyhounds, lived a blameless life, cherished his wife, whipped his children, but, and more was the pity, ate fish upon Friday, and believed most piously in transubstantiation. His name was Brady. The other might be designated a horse of a different colour. He heretically repudiated all deference to the supremacy of the Pope; more than doubted his infallibility; and was frequently heard when a little the worse for liquor-the same being a diurnal occurrence-to institute irreverent comparisons between the sovereign Pontiff and the lady in scarlet who sitteth upon the seven hills. He was orange to the backbone, or, correctly speaking, deep purple; drank the "glorious, pious, and immortal memory" with all its honours, even unto the unbuttoning * A phrase synonymous with the Scotch one that "If a man be na fu' he is na fasting." of the right knee of his corduroy unmentionables. His business was to maintain his master's crown and dignity by crusading against malefactors who would defraud him of his rights by introducing certain articles within the realm without asking the consent of the customs. In brief, he was a sort of tolerated functionary, who might pick up anything contraband that he could discover: and, in the parlance of the excise, termed a riding officer. His name was Jones. Such was the twain who favoured our symposium with their company. Though resident within a stone's cast of each other, between these our visitors no neighbourly feelings were existent. Mr. Brady frequently declared he never would borrow money to spend in Mr. Jones's company; while the latter had affirmed upon oath that were he and Mr. B. to undergo depletion in the same basin, their bloods would not unite. No wonder, afterwards, that it was remarked, had his satanic majesty in his anxiety to disturb the harmony of a festive meeting taken a cast of his net, the draught could not have produced a couple of gentlemen better qualified to effect the same. In Ireland, when men imbibe a certain portion of alcoholic fluids, they are greatly given to love; while, with a little more, or probably a little less, their propensities are determinately pugnacious. We once had a respected friend who was a curious instance of this anomalous effect of port upon the temper, so much so that his placens uxor could tell, even to half-a-pint, the quantum of his evening's consumption when he returned from the mess. Coax Bob to be off with a single bottle, if you can," frequently and earnestly has she said to me; or keep him for a second, for if he comes home with that curse-o'-God, three pints, a saint with a bundle of psalm-books on his back could not stand him, he's so fractious." 66 The Patlanders are a queer lot. With three tumblers under his belt, an Irish gentleman will exchange eternal friendship with a man he never saw before, or oblige him with his acceptance for five hundred. Let him but swallow a couple more, and if he, the stranger shall assert, and you express a doubt, that the Keeper of the Great Seal and the Commander of the Forces are not one and the same, in return for your scepticism we'll back you for a full-length upon the carpet, and no mistake. Now in this unhappy temperament, the visited and the visitors chanced to be, when Messrs. Jones and Brady dropped in with a “God save all here!" One of the curses olim attendant upon an Irish drinking-bout was the general propensity for giving toasts; and frequently a conjuror himself would have been puzzled to frame one that would be palatable to meet the discordant tastes of the personages to whom the sentiment was to be submitted, and who, under the penalty of offering personal offence, were obliged to bolt it as they best could, whether it jumped or disagreed with their humour. On this occasion, one of those infernal toasts "let loose the dogs of war;" and next morning, when Mrs. Sootar was occupied in mourning over maimed mahogany, and with the village school-master engaged in taking an inventory of fractured delf and articles of vertu, in which, and but one brief day before, her heart had prided, she, seated among the debris of her goods and chattels on a disabled stool, like Marius in the ruins of Carthage, sorrowfully contemplated the wreck, "Och! murder! Murty Cavanagh. There's a purty sight for a disconsolate widow to look at, this blessed Friday. Dick's effigy in smithereens! and the divil a chair out of two-and-twenty that a cat, let alone a christian, could trust their weight upon. May the widow's curse light upon the man that invented toasts! as if people couldn't take their drink till they were black in the face again without listening to some person's rigmarole, blackguardin the Pope, and cleaving one's ears about the great and good King William.” For the opening of the affray, the reader must be indebted to us, and for a passing sketch only; while for its close and casualities we will refer him hereafter to the widow's bill, as prepared by a man of honesty and letters, who was named Murty Cavanagh. The glasses were charged high, when Mr. Brady rose, and he, being a liberal catholic, begged to propose a toast that even a pagan could not object to; when suddenly up sprang Mr. Jones to substitute, by way of amendment, his hearty prayer that the Pope were in the pillory and the devil pelting priests at him. Now, touching the toasts proposed, the company halted in opinion. The liberal portion protested against subjecting a harmless old gentleman, to wit, his holiness, to a disagreeable elevation; while there were others who as sacrilegiously declared that the said pillory was too good for him. In Ireland, a difference of opinion is generally followed by a discharge of tumblers. The sticklers for the thirty-nine articles took the initiative, and commenced the action, which, to do them justice, the liberals as gallantly returned. The chairman, with more zeal than discretion, finding himself unheard from the seat of honour, jumped upon the table. There, as in the state of Denmark, there was unluckily something rotten. Twenty stones of "too, too solid flesh " was beyond its ability to bear. Down came the crazy mahogany--and there are men who will stand a contradiction, but will not tolerate scalding water-the consequences were awful, and the afflicted hit out right and left. Tyrian and Trojan felt that to circumstances civility must give way. Ballyoonan opened at 4 p.m. in peace and charity with all men at 7 the same evening, Waterloo to Mrs. Soutar's state apartment at the same hour would have offered but a type. For a black eye, two leeches or a raw cutlet (mutton), are deservedly recommended; and even for a lost tooth is there not balm in Gilead? and a sea-horse substitute is procurable from the next dentist. For a common cut-we mean a fleshy one-there is nothing like stickingplaister. A hat may be replaced; a coat-skirt be cunningly re-united to its parent body by that delicate process which the tailors designate by the name of fine drawing. If a waiter be ejected in Ireland, ut mos est, from a window, will not an action lie against the ejector, and for his lost services, his master, as should be the case, obtain a quid pro quo? For the most delicate offence, whether it be the abstraction of a pointer or a wife, British law generally extends atonement: but injury to property will rise occasionally above the reach of recompence, as the following bill of damages will abundantly substantiate : 46 Account current between Nancy Sootar, a widow woman, licensed for spirits, grocery, candles, and tobacco, and the members of the Coursing (in the original, Cursing) Club, for rakage done to her con cerns last Thursday night, in the awful rookawn that took place. Prepared by me, Murtagh Cavanagh, Philomath, M.A., Cattle Doctor, and Surveyor of Land.* "N.B. To some parts of the bill I'll depose upon book-oath, and there's others that I'm not up to myself on which Mrs, Sootar will take the vestment. "W M-, Esquire, Justice of the Peace, and a Captain of the Yeomanry, chairman of the company, is the general debtor on the one part, and the widow the Lord look down upon her in her trouble! is the creditor and complainant on the other. Where the perpetrators were not known, the widow and myself lumped the damage. "Bill Delivered £ s. d. Francis 0, Esq., to making smithereens of the Captain F, to demolishing Joseph and his two Nine panes in the far window 0 5 0 sending Mr. 0 3 6 0 5 0 -0 19 6 099 1 Somebody threw the bellows through the thrushes' cage; perpetrator not known; and we'll say 0 1 Sundries-to two decanters smashed out-and-out, another that won't hold liquor, two salts, and 0 10 0 There's not the ghost of a glass left, good or bad." 1 0 0 A pound-note won't rectify the Widow Sootar... Total-the club debtor lawfully for destruction to the widow .... 0 6 0 £5 14 10 "N.B.-Ruination out of doors, Mrs. Sootar will throw in. "Signed by me E. E. "MURTAGH CAVANAGH. (Here came a tremendous flourish of the pen). "WIDOW SOOTAR, Her x Mark." Note by the Editor.-Notwithstanding Mr. Cavanagh's professional respectability, a bold departure on his part from the ordinary rules observed by grammarians in spelling and punctuation, called for our intervention. |