The Heroine

LETTER XXXVII

Just at the close of evening, Jerry came running towards the castle with a milk-pail on his head.

'See,' cried he, putting it down, 'how nicely I have choused a little milk-maid! There was she, tripping along as tight as her garter. 'Fly for your life,' cries I, striding up to her: 'there is the big bull at my heels that has just killed two children, two sucking pigs, two – Here! here! let me hold your pail for you!' and I whips it off her head. So, what does she do, but she runs off without it one way; and what does I do, but I runs off with it another way. And besides this, I have got my hat filled with young potatoes, and my pockets stuffed with ears of wheat; and if we can't eat a hearty dinner off these dainties, why that our next may be fried fleas and toasted leather!'

Though I was angry at the means used by Jerry to get the provisions, yet, as dinner just then had more charms for me than moral sentiment, instead of instructing him in the lofty doctrines of the social compact, I bade him pound the grains of wheat between two flat stones. In the mean time, I sent the minstrel to the cottage for a light and some fuel; and on his return, made him stop up the window with grass and fern. He then kindled a fire of wood in the centre of the Black Chamber; for, as the floor was of stone, it ran no risk of being burned. This done, I mixed some milk with the bruised wheat, kneaded a cake, and laid it on the red embers, while Jerry took charge of roasting the potatoes.

As soon as our romantic repast was ready, I drew my stool to the fire: my household sat on large stones, and we made a tolerable meal, they on the potatoes, and I on the cake, which hunger had really rendered palatable.

The warden lifted the pail to my lips, and I took a draught of the rural nectar; while the minstrel remarked, that Nestor himself had not a larger goblet.

I now paid the poor cottagers a visit, and carried the fragments of our dinner to them.

On my return, we resumed our seats, and hung over the decayed embers, that cast a gloomy glare upon the bed and the drapery; while now and then, a flash from the ashes, as they sank, shot a reddened light on the paleness of the minstrel, and brightened the broad features of the warden. The wind had risen: there was a good deal of excellent howling round the turret: we sat silent, and looking for likenesses in the fire.

'Come, warden,' cried I, 'repair these embers with a fresh splinter, and let me hear the memoirs of your life.'

The warden consented, the fire was replenished, and he thus began:

'Once upon a time when pigs were swine – '

'I will trouble you for a more respectable beginning,' said I; 'some striking, genteel little picture, to bespeak attention, – such as, "All was dark;" or, "It was on a gloomy night in the month of November."'

'That would be the devil's own lie,' cried Jerry, 'because I was born in January; and by the same token, I was one of the youngest children that ever was born, for I saw light five months after my mother's marriage. Well, being born, up I grew, and the first word I said was mammy; and my hair was quite yellow at first, though 'tis so brown now; and I promised to be handsome, but the symptom soon left me; and I remember I was as proud as Lucifer when I got trowsers; and – '

'Why now, Jerry, what sort of trash is this?' said I. 'Fie; a warden like you! I hoped to have heard something of interest and adventure from you; that your family was respectable, though poor – '

'Respectable!' cried Jerry. 'Why, I am of the O'Sullivans, who were kings of Ireland, and that is the very reason I have not Mister to my name, seeing as how I am of the blood royal. Oh, if 'tis the wonderful your ladyship wants, by the powers, I am at home thereabouts. Well, I was iddicated in great tenderness and ingenuity, and when I came of age, I went and seized on O'Sullivan Castle, and fortified it, and got a crown and sceptre, and reigned in great peace many years. But as the devil would have it – '

'Jerry,' said I, 'I must insist on hearing no more of these monstrous untruths.'

'Untruths!' cried he. 'Why you might as well give me the lie at once. O murder! to think I would tell a falsehood about the matter!'

'Sir,' said I, ''tis a falsehood on the very face of it.'

''Pon my conscience then,' cried he, ''tis as like your own story as one pea is like another. And sure I did not contradict you (whatever I might think, and I have my thoughts too, I can tell you,) when you talked so glib of your great estates; though, to be sure, your ladyship is as poor as a rat. Howsomever, since you will have it so, 'tis all a falsehood, sure enough; but now you shall hear the real story; though, for that matter, any body can tell truth, and no thanks to them.

'Well, then, my father was nothing more than a common labourer, and just poor enough to be honest, but not poor enough to be a rogue. Poverty is no great disgrace, provided one comes honestly by it; for one may get poor as well as rich by knavery. So, being poor, father used to make me earn odd pennies, when I was a boy; and at last I got so smart, that he resolved on sending me to sell chickens at the next town. But as I could only speak Irish at that time, by reason we lived up the mountains, he sat down and taught me a little English, in case any gentlefolks should ask me about my chickens. Now, Jerry, says he, in Irish, if any gentleman speaks to you, of course it will be to know the price of your chickens; so you are to say, three shillings, Sir. Then to be sure he will be for lowering the price, so you are to say stoutly, No less, Sir; and if he shakes his head, or looks angry, 'tis a sign he won't buy unless you bate a little, so you are to say, I believe I must take two, Sir.

'Well, I got my lesson pat, and off I set, with my hair cut and my face washed, and thinking it the greatest day of my life; and I had not walked a hundred yards from the house, when I met a gentleman.

'Pray how far is it to the next village?' says he.

'Three shillings, Sir,' says I.

'You are a saucy fellow,' says he.

'No less, Sir,' says I.

'I will give you a box in the face,' says he.

'I believe I must take two, Sir,' says I.

'But, instead of two, egad, I got six, and as many kicks as would match 'em; and home I ran howling. – Well, that was very well, so when I told father that I was beaten for nothing:

'I warrant you were not,' says he; 'and if I had done so by my poor father, he would have broken every bone in my skin,' says he. 'But he was a better father than I am,' says he.

'How dare you say that your father was better than my father,' says I; and upon this, father takes me by the ear, and lugs me out of the house. Just as we got outside, the same gentleman was passing by; and he stopped, and began to complain of me to my father; and then the whole matter came out, and both of them laughed very heartily.

'Well, what do you think? 'Pon my veracity, the gentleman took me home with him to clean the knives and boots. And then he sent me to school, where I learned English; and then I began to tend at table, and at last became a regular servant in the family.

'Well, here I lived several years, and might have lived till now, but that one night, when mistress had company, while bringing in the tray of cake and wine, down I came, and broke all the glasses.

'By this and that,' says mistress; (only to be sure, mistress did'nt swear) 'you are quite drunk,' says she.

'Never tasted a drop all day,' says I; and it was true for me, 'cause I did not begin till evening.

'Who taught you to tell falsehoods?' says she.

'Troth, you did,' says I; 'for you taught me to tell visitors you were not at home, when all the time you are peeping down the bannisters. Fine fashions, indeed! Nobody is ever at home now-a-days, but a snail,' says I. And I would have said more too, but that master kicked me out of the house.

'Well, that was very well; and now my misfortunes were all before me, like a wheelbarrow.

'This happened in the year of the Rebellion; so, being out of service, I lived at alehouses; and there it was that I met gentlemen with rusty superfine on their backs, and with the longest words in the world. They soon persuaded me that old Ireland was going to ruin; I forget how now, but I know I had the whole story pat at that time; and the end of it was, that I became an United Irishman.

'Howsomever, though I would have died for my country, it would be carrying the joke too far to starve for her, and I had now spent all my wages. So, at last, back I went to my old master, and fell on my knees, and begged his pardon for my bad conduct when I lived with him, and prayed of him to take me once more. Well, he did; and it was only two nights after that we heard a great noise outside, and master comes running into the kitchen.

'Jerry,' says he, 'here are the rebels breaking into the house; and as I know you are a faithful fellow, take this sword and pistol, and stand by me.'

'No, but I will stand before you,' says I. So we mustered our men, five in all, and posted ourselves on the head of the stairs; when in burst the rebels into the hall, and we began a parley. 'Why then, is that Barney Delany?' says I to their captain.

'Why then, is that Jerry Sullivan?' says he to me. 'You are one of us,' says he, 'so now turn round and shoot your master,' says he.

'I will cut off both my hands first,' says I.

'Take that then,' says he; and he fires a shot, and I another, and to it we kept, till we beat them all off.

'Well, in a few months afterwards, this same Barney being made prisoner, I was bound over as witness against him. So some of the gentlemen with the long words came to me, and told me how wrong I had acted in fighting for my master, instead of for my country, and that I must make amends by giving evidence in Barney's favour.

'Well, they puzzled me so, that from then till now I never could make out whether I was right or wrong in standing by master. But somehow, I think I was right; for though patriotism (as the gentlemen call it) is a fine thing, yet, after all, there is nothing like gratitude. Why, if the devil himself did me a kind office, I believe I would make shift to do him another, and not act like the clergy, who spend their whole lives in snubbing at him, and calling him all manner of names, though they know, that, but for him, there would not be a clergyman or a fat living in the kingdom.

'Howsomever, I was persuaded to do the genteel thing by Barney Delany; so, when the day for the trial came, I drank myself pretty unintelligible; and I swore point blank, before judge and jury, that I did not know Barney good or bad, and that all I knew of him was good; and I bothered the lawyers, and they turned me from the table, and threatened to indite me for perjury. But it was the people that did praise me, and call it iligant swearing, mighty pretty evidence; and I was the great man of the day; and they took me to the fair that was hard by, where we tippled a little more, and then we sallied forth ripe for fun.

'Well, as we were running through the fair, what should I see but a man's bald head sticking out of a hole in one of the tents – to cool, I suppose, – so I just lifted up my cudgel, and just laid it down again; when, in a moment, out came a whole set of fellows from the tent, and the man asks which of us had broken his head.

'It was myself,' says I, 'but curse me if I could help it, that skull of your's looked so inviting.

'Accordingly both parties began a battle, and then others, who had nothing better to do, came and joined; they did not know why, but no matter for that. Any one may fight when there is an occasion; but the beauty of it is, to fight when there is no occasion at all.

'Howsomever, in the midst of it up came the military to spoil sport as usual; and they dispersed us, and made some of us prisoners, I among the rest, and we were put into Bridewell. Well, that was very well. So at night we contrived to break it open, beat the keepers, and make our escape. Then what to do with myself was the question. It would go hard with me if I were caught again; so I skulked about the country several days, till happening to meet some lads going beyond seas to reap the English harvest, they persuaded me to buy a reaping-hook, and go with them.

'But to be sure, to be sure, such a hurricane as we had at sea, and such tumbling and tossing; and then we were driven to the world's end, or the Land's End, or some end; but I know I thought I was come to my own end. In short, such wonderful adventures never were known.'

'What adventures, my friend?' cried I. 'I love to hear wonderful adventures.'

'Why,' said he, 'we had an adventure every moment, for every moment we were near going to the bottom.'

'And was that all?' cried I.

'Then,' said he, 'there was such pulling of ropes, and reefing and rigging; and we went over so many seas and channels; the Irish Channel, and the British Channel, and the Bristol Channel, and the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic Sea, and – Oh dear, as good as forty more.'

'Forty more!' cried I. 'And pray what were their names?'

'Bad luck to me if I can remember,' said he.

'Probably you were in the Red Sea,' said I.

'To be sure I was.'

'And in the Black Sea?'

'No doubt of it.'

'And in the White Sea, and the Pacific Ocean?'

'In every mother's soul of them.'

'And pray what kind of seas are they?' asked I.

'Why,' said he, 'the Red Sea is as red as blood, and the Black Sea is as black as ink, and the White Sea is the colour of new milk, or nearer butter-milk; and the Pacifi-ifi – What's that word?'

'Pacific,' said I.

'And what is the meaning of Pacific?' said he.

'It means peaceful or calm,' answered I.

'Gad, I thought so,' said he, 'for the devil a wave that same ocean had on it high or low. 'Pon my conscience, it was as smooth as the palm of my hand.'

'Take care, Jerry,' said I, laughing; 'I am afraid – '

'Why then,' cried he, 'that I may never – '

'Hush!' said I. 'No swearing.'

'By dad,' cried he, 'you had better tell my story yourself; for you seem resolved to have it all your own way. May be you won't believe me neither, when I tell you that I landed?'

'As you are not at sea now,' said I, 'I will believe you.'

'Well then,' said he, 'I suppose you will believe that I made a little money by reaping, and then trudged to London to try my fortune.'

'I make no doubt of the fact,' said I. 'But pray how did you contrive to subsist in London at first?'

'By spitting through my teeth,' said Jerry.

'Take care,' cried I. 'This I suspect is another – '

'If you mean lie,' said he, 'I have caught you at last; for 'tis as true as true can be, and I will tell you all about it. You must know that 'tis now the fashion for gentlemen to be their own coachmen; and not only to drive like coachmen, but to talk, walk, dress, drink, swear, and even spit like coachmen. Well, two days after my arrival in London, as I was standing in the street, and looking about, I happened to spit through my teeth, to the envy and admiration of a gentleman that was just driving his own carriage by me. For he stopped, and called me to him, and swore I should get half-a-crown if I would teach him to pickle a wig, – that was the word. So when he gave me plain English for it, I closed with him, and went to his house, and taught him to spit so well, that my fame spread through the town, and all the fashionable bloods came to me for instruction; till at last I had a good mind to set up a Spitting Academy.

'Well, I had now spit myself into such affluence, that I refused a coachman's seat with forty pounds a year (for, as I said, even a curate had more than that); and may be, instead of a seat on the box, I might at last have risen to a seat in the Parliament (for many a man has got there by dirtier tricks than mine), but that my profession, which was of a nature to dry up my mouth, forced me to frequent porterhouses; where, as the devil would have it, I met other gentlemen, such as I had met before, and with just the same set of long words.

'In a short time, all of us agreed that our country was ruined, and that something must be done. So we made ourselves into a club, for the purpose of writing ballads about the war, and the taxes, and a thousand lashes that a soldier got. And we used to set ten or twelve ballad-singers round a table in our club-room, each with her pint of beer; and one of our club would teach them the tune with a little kit, while I was in a cock-loft overhead composing the words. And they reckoned me the best poet of them all; and they told me that my writings would descend to posterity; and sometimes the thoughts came so quick on me, that I was obliged to chalk them down on the back of the bellows. But whenever I wanted an idea, I read the Weekly Register; and then between the Register and the liquor, I got worked up to such a pitch of poetry, that my blood used to run cold in the morning, at the thoughts of what I would have done at night.

'Well, one evening, the ballad-singers were round the table, sipping and singing to the little kit, and I had just popt down my head through the trap-door of the cock-loft, to ask the chairman the rhime for Reform:

'Confound you,' says he, 'didn't I tell you twenty times 'tis a storm;' when in bursts the door, and a parcel of peace-officers seize him, and the whole set, for holding seditious meetings, and publishing inflammatory songs. Think of that! when I protest to you our only object was, by causing disunion, and convincing our enemies that we could not carry on the war, to procure a speedy and honorable peace.

'Howsomever, I got out of the scrape by being concealed in the cock-loft; and I remember well it was on that very night I first saw my wife.'

'Ah,' said I, 'give me the particulars of that event, the first meeting of lovers is always so interesting!'

'Why,' said he, 'going home sorrowful enough after the ruin of our club, I resolved to drown care in a noggin; and accordingly turned into a gin-shop, where I found three fruit-women from Covent Garden, bound on the same errand.'

'What dram shall we drink?' says they.

'Brandy,' says one.

'Gin,' says another.

'Anniseed-water,' says another. And so they fell to and drank.

'I am happy that I ever came to this City of Lunnun; for my fortune is made,' says Brandy.

'If my father had lived, I would be brought up to good iddication,' says Gin.

'If my mother had lived, I would be brought up at a boarding-school,' says Anniseed-water.

'Why, curse you,' says Gin, 'what was your mother but an old apple-woman?'

'And curse you,' says Anniseed-water, 'what was your father but a gallows-bird of a bum-bailiff?'

'And then they fell a fighting and scratching; and Anniseed-water (the present Mrs. Jerry Sullivan) was getting well cuffed, when I came to her assistance. So that was our first meeting.'

'You may boast of it,' said I. 'Now then for your courtship.'

'You shall hear,' said he. 'She was so much obliged to me, that she asked me home to tea, and I went. I found her a buxom widow, and at that time she was as fine a doorful, as tight a wench over a washing-tub, as you would wish to see. And there was her daughter, and a great deal of good company; – the tailor's wife, and the barber's wife, and the pawnbroker's wife; and none so grand as they. And they told as many lies over the first dish of tea as a parcel of porters would over twenty barrels of strong beer. And a young valet, who I could see was courting the widow, swore that it was as good to be out of the world as out of the fashion, and then he whispered to her that she looked killing genteel. But I only pinched her elbow, and I thought she liked that better.'

'It was very vulgar, however,' observed I. 'The first process is to kiss the hand.'

'Ogh!' cried Jerry, 'that is a slobbering trick, to be mumbling knuckles just as a pup niggles at a bone. I am the man to take at once, and fluster a woman, and reckon her ribs for her. No creeping up, and up, and up; and then down, and down, and down, for me – Why, as I hope to be saved, I gave that same widow a thundering kiss on three days acquaintance.'

'Poor thing!' exclaimed I. 'Well, and what did she say?'

'Say? why she said, "Be quiet now, though I know you can't." So, of course, I kissed her still more; while she changed colour in a minute as often as a blackberry in a month. "Ha done, do;" says she, "or I will call out, only there is nobody at home;" – when, at the moment, in pops the valet, and catches us lip to lip.

'Now he was a conceited sort of a chap, who used to set himself off with great airs, shew his white hands – that, I verily believe, he washed every day of his life; – curse and swear just like a gentleman, keep a tooth-brush, and make both his heels meet when he bowed.

'Well, I had nothing upon earth to oppose to all this but a bit of a quarrel; – that was my strong point; – and sure enough, I gave him such a beating for catching us, that the widow thought me main stout, and married me in a week.

'With her money I set up shop; and I did not much mind her being ten years older than myself, since she was ten times richer. I only copied my own father there; for he once happened to be divided between two girls, one of them with a single cow for her portion, and the other with two cows; so he consulted his landlord which of them he should marry, and his landlord bade him by all means marry the girl with the two cows; "for," says he, "there is not a cow difference between any two women."