CHAPTER XXII

The night was pitch dark, and on rounding the adjacent corner no vehicle could be seen; but a peculiar whistle from Dick was answered by the sound of approaching wheels and the rapid footfalls of a horse, mingled with the light rattle of a smart gig. On the vehicle coming up, Dick took his little mare, that was blacker than the night, by the head, the apron of the gig was thrown down, and out jumped a smart servant-boy.

“You have the horse ready, too, Billy?”

“Yis, sir,” said Billy, touching his hat.

“Then follow, and keep up with me, remember.”

“Yis, sir.”

“Come to her head, here,” and he patted the little mare's neck as he spoke with a caressing “whoa,” which was answered by a low neigh of satisfaction, while the impatient pawing of her fore foot showed the animal's desire to start. “What an impatient little devil she is,” said Dick, as he mounted the gig; “I'll get in first, Murphy, as I'm going to drive. Now up with you—hook on the apron—that's it—are you all right?”

“Quite,” said Murphy.

“Then you be into your saddle and after us, Billy,” said Dick; “and now let her go.”

Billy gave the little black mare her head, and away she went, at a slapping pace, the fire from the road answering the rapid strokes of her nimble feet. The servant then mounted a horse which was tied to a neighbouring palisade, and had to gallop for it to come up with his master, who was driving with a swiftness almost fearful, considering the darkness of the night and the narrowness of the road he had to traverse, for he was making the best of his course by cross-ways to an adjacent roadside inn, where some non-resident electors were expected to arrive that night by a coach from Dublin; for the county town had every nook and cranny occupied, and this inn was the nearest point where they could get any accommodation.

Now don't suppose that they were electors whom Murphy and Dick in their zeal for their party were going over to greet with hearty welcomes and bring up to the poll the next day. By no means. They were the friends of the opposite party, and it was with the design of retarding their movements that this night's excursion was undertaken. These electors were a batch of plain citizens from Dublin, whom the Scatterbrain interest had induced to leave the peace and quiet of the city to tempt the wilds of the country at that wildest of times—during a contested election; and a night coach was freighted inside and out with the worthy cits, whose aggregate voices would be of immense importance the next day; for the contest was close, the county nearly polled out, and but two days more for the struggle. Now, to intercept these plain unsuspecting men was the object of Murphy, whose well-supplied information had discovered to him this plan of the enemy, which he set about countermining. As they rattled over the rough by-roads, many a laugh did the merry attorney and the

untameable Dick the Devil exchange, as the probable success of their scheme was canvassed, and fresh expedients devised to meet the possible impediments which might interrupt them. As they topped a hill Murphy pointed out to his companion a moving light in the plain beneath.

“That's the coach, Dick—there are the lamps, we're just in time—spin down the hill, my boy—let me get in as they're at supper, and 'faith they'll want it, after coming off a coach such a night as this, to say nothing of some of them being aldermen in expectancy perhaps, and of course obliged to play trencher-men as often as they can, as a requisite rehearsal for the parts they must hereafter fill.”

In fifteen minutes more Dick pulled up before a small cabin within a quarter of a mile of the inn, and the mounted servant tapped at the door, which was immediately opened, and a peasant, advancing to the gig, returned the civil salutation with which Dick greeted his approach.

“I wanted to be sure you were ready, Barny.”

“Oh, do you think I'd fail you, Misther Dick, your honour?”

“I thought you might be asleep, Barny.”

“Not when you bid me wake, sir; and there's a nice fire ready for you, and as fine a dhrop o' potteen as ever tickled your tongue, sir.”

“You're the lad, Barny!—good fellow—I'll be back with you by-and-by;” and off whipped Dick again.

After going about a quarter of a mile further, he pulled up, alighted with Murphy from the gig, unharnessed the little black mare, and then overturned the gig into the ditch.

“That's as natural as life,” said Dick.

“What an escape of my neck I've had!” said Murphy.

“Are you much hurt?” said Dick.

“A trifle lame only,” said Murphy, laughing and limping.

“There was a great boccagh [Footnote: Lame beggar.] lost in you, Murphy. Wait; let me rub a handful of mud on your face—there—you have a very upset look, 'pon my soul,” said Dick, as he flashed the light of his lantern on him for a moment, and laughed at Murphy scooping the mud out of his eye, where Dick had purposely planted it.

“Devil take you,” said Murtough; “that's too natural.”

“There's nothing like looking your part,” said Dick.

“Well, I may as well complete my attire,” said Murtough, so he lay down in the road and took a roll in the mud; “that will do,” said he; “and now, Dick, go back to Barny and the mountain dew, while I storm the camp of the Philistines. I think in a couple of hours you may be on the look-out for me; I'll signal you from the window, so now good bye;” and Murphy, leading the mare, proceeded to the inn, while Dick, with a parting “Luck to you, my boy,” turned back to the cottage of Barny.

The coach had set down six inside and ten out passengers (all voters) about ten minutes before Murphy marched up to the inn door, leading the black mare, and calling “ostler” most lustily. His call being answered for “the beast,” “the man” next demanded attention; and the landlord wondered all the wonders he could cram into a short speech, at seeing Misther Murphy, sure, at such a time; and the sonsy landlady, too, was all lamentations for his illigant coat and his poor eye, sure, all ruined with the mud:—and what was it at all? an upset, was it? oh, wirra! and wasn't it lucky he wasn't killed, and they without a spare bed to lay him out dacent if he was—sure, wouldn't it be horrid for his body to be only on sthraw in the barn, instead of the best feather-bed in the house; and, indeed, he'd be welcome to it, only the gintlemen from town had them all engaged.

“Well, dead or alive, I must stay here to-night, Mrs. Kelly, at all events.”

“And what will you do for a bed?”

“A shake down in the parlour, or a stretch on a sofa, will do; my gig is stuck fast in a ditch—my mare tired—ten miles from home—cold night, and my knee hurt.” Murphy limped as he spoke.

“Oh! your poor knee,” said Mrs. Kelly; “I'll put a dhrop o' whisky and brown paper on it, sure—”

“And what gentlemen are these, Mrs. Kelly, who have so filled your house?”

“Gintlemen that came by the coach a while agone, and supping in the parlour now, sure.”

“Would you give my compliments, and ask would they allow me, under the present peculiar circumstances, to join them? and in the meantime, send somebody down the road to take the cushions out of my gig; for there is no use in attempting to get the gig out till morning.”

“Sartinly, Misther Murphy, we'll send for the cushions; but as for the gentlemen, they are all on the other side.”

“What other side?”

“The Honourable's voters, sure.”

“Pooh! is that all?” said Murphy,—“I don't mind that, I've no objection on that account; besides, they need not know who I am,” and he gave the landlord a knowing wink, to which the landlord as knowingly returned another.

The message to the gentlemen was delivered, and Murphy was immediately requested to join their party; this was all he wanted, and he played off his powers of diversion on the innocent citizens so successfully, that before supper was half over they thought themselves in luck to have fallen in with such a chance acquaintance. Murphy fired away jokes, repartees, anecdotes, and country gossip, to their delight; and when the eatables were disposed of, he started them on the punch-drinking tack afterwards so cleverly, that he hoped to see three parts of them tipsy before they retired to rest.

“Do you feel your knee better now, sir?” asked one of the party, of Murphy.

“Considerably, thank you; whisky punch, sir, is about the best cure for bruises or dislocations a man can take.”

“I doubt that, sir,” said a little matter-of-fact man, who had now interposed his reasonable doubts for the twentieth time during Murphy's various extravagant declarations, and the interruption only made Murphy romance the more.

“You speak of your fiery Dublin stuff, sir; but our country whisky is as mild as milk, and far more wholesome; then, sir, our fine air alone would cure half the complaints without a grain of physic.”

“I doubt that, sir!” said the little man.

“I assure you, sir, a friend of my own from town came down here last spring on crutches, and from merely following a light whisky diet and sleeping with his window open, he was able to dance at the race ball in a fortnight; as for this knee of mine, it's a trifle, though it was a bad upset too.”

“How did it happen, sir? Was it your horse—or your harness—or your gig—or—”

“None o' them, sir; it was a Banshee.”

“A Banshee!” said the little man; “what's that?”

“A peculiar sort of supernatural creature that is common here, sir. She was squatted down on one side of the road, and my mare shied at her, and being a spirited little thing, she attempted to jump the ditch and missed it in the dark.”

“Jump a ditch, with a gig after her, sir?” said the little man.

“Oh, common enough to do that here, sir; she'd have done it easy in the daylight, but she could not measure her distance in the dark, and bang she went into the ditch: but it's a trifle, after all. I am generally run over four or five times a year.”

“And you alive to tell it!” said the little man, incredulously.

“It's hard to kill us here, sir, we are used to accidents.”

“Well, the worst accident I ever heard of,” said one of the citizens, “happened to a friend of mine, who went to visit a friend of his on a Sunday, and all the family happened to be at church; so on driving into the yard there was no one to take his horse, therefore he undertook the office of ostler himself, but being unused to the duty, he most incautiously took off the horse's bridle before unyoking him from his gig, and the animal, making a furious plunge forward—my friend being before him at the time—the shaft of the gig was driven through his body, and into the coach-house gate behind him, and stuck so fast that the horse could not drag it out after; and in this dreadful situation they remained until the family returned from church, and saw the awful occurrence. A servant was despatched for a doctor, and the shaft was disengaged, and drawn out of the man's body—just at the pit of the stomach; he was laid on a bed, and every one thought of course he must die at once, but he didn't; and the doctor came next day, and he wasn't dead—did

what he could for him—and, to make a long story short, sir, the man recovered.”

“Pooh! pooh!” said the diminutive doubter.

“It's true,” said the narrator.

“I make no doubt of it, sir,” said Murphy; “I know a more extraordinary case of recovery myself.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the cit; “I have not finished my story yet, for the most extraordinary part of the story remains to be told; my friend, sir, was a very sickly man before the accident happened—a very sickly man, and after that accident he became a hale healthy man. What do you think of that, sir?”

“It does not surprise me in the least, sir,” said Murphy; “I can account for it readily.”

“Well, sir, I never heard It accounted for, though I know it to be true; I should like to hear how you account for it?”

“Very simply, sir,” said Murphy; “don't you perceive the man discovered a mine of health by a shaft being sunk in the pit of his stomach?”

Murphy's punning solution of the cause of cure was merrily received by the company, whose critical taste was not of that affected nature which despises jeu de mots, and will not be satisfied under a jeu d'esprit; the little doubting man alone refused to be pleased.

“I doubt the value of a pun always, sir. Dr. Johnson said, sir—”

“I know,” said Murphy; “that the man who would make a pun would pick a pocket; that's old, sir,—but is dearly remembered by all those who cannot make puns themselves.”

“Exactly,” said one of the party they called Wiggins. “It is the old story of the fox and the grapes. Did you ever hear, sir, the story of the fox and the grapes? The fox one day was—”

“Yes, yes,” said Murphy, who, fond of absurdity as he was, could not stand the fox and the grapes by way of something new.

“They're sour, said the fox.”

“Yes,” said Murphy, “a capital story.”

“Oh, them fables is so good!” said Wiggins.

“All nonsense!” said the diminutive contradictor.

“Nonsense, nothing but nonsense; the ridiculous stuff of birds and beasts speaking! As if any one could believe such stuff.”

“I do—firmly—for one,” said Murphy.

“You do?” said the little man.

“I do—and do you know why?”

“I cannot indeed conceive,” said the little man, with a bitter grin.

“It is, sir, because I myself know a case that occurred in this very country of a similar nature.”

“Do you want to make me believe you knew a fox that spoke, sir?” said the mannikin, almost rising into anger.

“Many, sir,” said Murphy, “many.”

“Well! after that!” said the little man.

“But the case I immediately allude to is not of a fox, but a cat,” said Murphy.

“A cat? Oh, yes—to be sure—a cat speak, indeed!” said the little gentleman.

“It is a fact, sir,” said Murphy; “and if the company would not object to my relating the story, I will state the particulars.”

The proposal was received with acclamation; and Murphy, in great enjoyment of the little man's annoyance, cleared his throat, and made all the preparatory demonstrations of a regular raconteur; but, before he began, he recommended the gentlemen to mix fresh tumblers all round that they might have nothing to do but listen and drink silently. “For of all things in the world,” said Murtough, “I hate a song or a story to be interrupted by the rattle of spoons.”

They obeyed; and while they are mixing their punch, we will just turn over a fresh page, and devote a new Chapter to the following

MARVELLOUS LEGEND

CHAPTER XXIII

MURTOUGH MURPHY'S STORY; BEING YE MARVELLOUS LEGEND OF TOM CONNOR'S CAT

“There was a man in these parts, sir, you must know, called Tom Connor, and he had a cat that was equal to any dozen of rat-traps, and he was proud of the baste, and with rayson; for she was worth her weight in goold to him in saving his sacks of meal from the thievery of the rats and mice; for Tom was an extensive dealer in corn, and influenced the rise and fall of that article in the market, to the extent of a full dozen of sacks at a time, which he either kept or sold, as the spirit of free trade or monopoly came over him. Indeed, at one time, Tom had serious thoughts of applying to the government for a military force to protect his granary when there was a threatened famine in the county.”

“Pooh! pooh! sir,” said the matter-of-fact little man: “as if a dozen sacks could be of the smallest consequence in a whole county—pooh! pooh!”

“Well, sir,” said Murphy, “I can't help if you don't believe; but it's truth what I am telling you, and pray don't interrupt me, though you may not believe; by the time the story's done you'll have heard more wonderful things than that,—and besides, remember you're a stranger in these parts, and have no notion of the extraordinary things, physical, metaphysical, and magical, which constitute the idiosyncrasy of rural destiny.”

The little man did not know the meaning of Murphy's last sentence—nor Murphy either; but, having stopped the little man's throat with big words, he proceeded—

“This cat, sir, you must know, was a great pet, and was so up to everything, that Tom swore she was a'most like a Christian, only she couldn't speak, and had so sensible a look in her eyes, that he was sartin sure the cat knew every word that was said to her. Well, she used to sit by him at breakfast every morning, and the eloquent cock of her tail, as she used to rub against his leg, said, 'Give me some milk, Tom Connor,' as plain as print, and the plenitude of her purr afterwards spoke a gratitude beyond language. Well, one morning, Tom was going to the neighbouring town to market, and he had promised the wife to bring home shoes to the childre' out o' the price of the corn; and sure enough, before he sat down to breakfast, there was Tom taking the measure of the children's feet, by cutting notches on a bit of stick; and the wife gave him so many cautions about getting a 'nate fit' for 'Billy's purty feet,' that Tom, in his anxiety to nick the closest possible measure, cut off the child's toe. That disturbed the harmony of the party, and Tom was obliged to breakfast

alone, while the mother was endeavouring to cure Billy; in short, trying to make a heal of his toe. Well, sir, all the time Tom was taking measure for the shoes, the cat was observing him with that luminous peculiarity of eye for which her tribe is remarkable; and when Tom sat down to breakfast the cat rubbed up against him more vigorously than usual; but Tom, being bewildered between his expected gain in corn and the positive loss of his child's toe, kept never minding her, until the cat, with a sort of caterwauling growl, gave Tom a dab of her claws, that went clean through his leathers, and a little further. 'Wow!' says Tom, with a jump, clapping his hand on the part, and rubbing it, 'by this and that, you drew the blood out o' me,' says Tom; 'you wicked divil—tish!—go along!' says he, making a kick at her. With that the cat gave a reproachful look at him, and her eyes glared just like a pair of mail-coach lamps in a fog. With that, sir, the cat, with a mysterious 'mi-ow'' fixed a most penetrating glance on Tom, and distinctly uttered his name.

“Tom felt every hair on his head as stiff as a pump-handle; and scarcely crediting his ears, he returned a searching look at the cat, who very quietly proceeded in a sort of nasal twang—

“'Tom Connor,' says she.

“'The Lord be good to me!' says Tom, 'if it isn't spakin' she is!'

“'Tom Connor,' says she again.

“'Yes, ma'am,' says Tom.

“'Come here,' says she; 'whisper—I want to talk to you, Tom,' says she, 'the laste taste in private,' says she—rising on her hams, and beckoning him with her paw out o' the door, with a wink and a toss o' the head aiqual to a milliner.

“Well, as you may suppose, Tom didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels, but he followed the cat, and off she went and squatted herself under the edge of a little paddock at the back of Tom's house; and as he came round the corner, she held up her paw again, and laid it on her mouth, as much as to say, 'Be cautious, Tom.' Well, divil a word Tom could say at all, with the fright, so up he goes to the cat, and says she—

“'Tom,' says she, 'I have a great respect for you, and there's something I must tell you, becase you're losing character with your neighbours,' says she, 'by your goin's on,' says she, 'and it's out o' the respect that I have for you, that I must tell you,' says she.

“'Thank you, ma'am,' says Tom.

“'You're goin' off to the town,' says she, 'to buy shoes for the childre',' says she, 'and never thought o' gettin' me a pair.'

“'You!' says Tom.”