My New Curate Part 53

CHAPTER x.x.x

ALL'S WELL

The soul of Jem Deady was grievously perturbed. That calm and placid philosopher had lost his equanimity. It showed itself in many ways,--in violent abstraction at meal-times, and the ghoulish way in which he swallowed cups of tea, and bolted potatoes wholesale; in strange muttered soliloquies in which he called himself violent and opprobrious names; in sacrilegious gestures towards Father Letheby's house. And once, when Bess, alarmed about his sanity, and hearing dreadful sounds of conflict from his bedroom, and such expressions as these: "How do you like that?" "Come on, you ruffian!" "You'll want a beefsteak for your eye and not for your stomach, you glutton!" when Bess, in fear and trembling, entered the bedroom, she found her amiable spouse belaboring an innocent bolster which, propped against the wall, did service vicariously for some imaginary monster of flesh and blood. To all Bess's anxious inquiries there was but one answer: "Let me alone, 'uman; I'm half out o' my mind!" There should be a climax, of course, to all this, and it came. It was not the odor of the steaks and onions that, wafted across intervening gardens from Father Letheby's kitchen, precipitated the crisis; nor the tears of Lizzie, who appeared from time to time, a weeping Niobe, and whose distress would have touched the heart of a less susceptible Irishman than Jem Deady; nor yet the taunts of the women of the village, who stung him with such sarcasms as these: "Yes; Faynians begor, with their drilling, an' their antics, an' their corporals, an'

their sergeants,--they couldn't hunt a flock of geese. Dere goes de captain!--look at him an' his airs; and thim Dublin jackeens above in the priest's house, atin' him out o' house and home, and not a man in Kilronan able to lay a wet finger on 'em." But, as in all great crises, it is the simple thing that proves the last straw, so in this. What steaks and onions, tears and taunts, could not do, was done by an innocent Havana, whose odors, sprung from a dainty weed, held between the lips of one of these great representatives of Her Majesty's law, and wafted to the senses of Jem Deady, as he bent over his cabbages in his little garden, made him throw down his spade with something that seemed like, and most unlike, a prayer, and rush into the house and shout: "Tare an' houns! Flesh and blood can't stand this! Don't shpake a word, 'uman! Don't shpake a word! but get me soap, and hot wather, and a towel, while you'd be saying thrapsticks!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Come down to Mrs. Haley's--there isn't a better dhrop betune this and Dublin." (p. 452.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Come on, you ruffian!"]

Bess did as she was directed; and then paused anxiously in the kitchen to conjecture what new form her husband's insanity was taking.

Occasionally a muttered growl came from the recesses of the bedroom; and in about a quarter of an hour out came Jem, so transformed that Bess began to doubt her own sanity, and could only say, through her tears:--

"For the love of G.o.d, Jem, is 't yourself or your ghost?"

It certainly was not a ghost, but a fine, handsome man, over six feet high, his hair curled, and his whiskers s.h.i.+ning with Trotter Oil, and his long pilot coat with the velvet collar, which he had got from Father Laverty, and on which the merciful night, now falling, concealed the abrasions of time. Bess looked at him with all a wife's admiration; and then, half crying, half laughing, said:--

"And what new divilmint are ye up to now?"

Jem answered not a word. He was on the war-path. He only said sarcastically:--

"Ye needn't expect me home to tay, Mrs. Deady. I'm taking tay with shupparior company to-night."

An hour later there were three gentlemen in Father Letheby's parlor, who appeared to have known each other in antenatal times, so affectionate and confidential were they. The gentleman in the middle was sympathizing with his brethren in the legal profession--for he had introduced himself as the local bailiff--on their being sent down from the metropolis and its gayeties, from their wives and children, into this remote and forsaken village called Kilronan.

"It ain't too bad," said one, with a strong Northern accent. "A' have bun in wuss diggins thon thus!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "For the love of G.o.d, Jem, is 't yourself or your ghost?"]

Then the conversation drifted to possible dangers. And it appeared there was not, in Her Majesty's dominions, a more lawless and fiendish set of ruffians than those who lurked in Kilronan. Why, what did they do in the days of the Lague? Didn't they take his predecessor, as honest a man as ever lived, and strip him, and nail him by the ears to his door, where his neighbors found him in the morning? But "the poluss? the poluss?"

"Oh! they're always looking the other way. But let us get the taste of these murderin' ruffians out o' our mout'! Come down to Mrs. Haley's.

There isn't a better dhrop betune this and Dublin."

"But the proputty? the proputty?" said the bailiffs, looking around anxiously.

"As safe as if ye had it in yere waistcoat pockets," they were a.s.sured.

The three well-dressed gentlemen moved with easy dignity down the one dark street of the village, piloted carefully by the central figure, who linked his arms affectionately in his comrades', and smoked his weed with as much dignity as if he had been born in Cuba.

"Powerful dark hole!" said one; "one mut git a blow o' a stun and nuvver be the wiser."

"Or the prod of a pike," suggested the middle gentleman.

"Huv tha' no gaws here?" cried his neighbor.

"No. But we're thinkin' of getting up the electric light; at laste the parish priest do be talkin' about it, and sure that's the same as havin'

it. But here we are. Now, one word! There's one ruffian here whose name mustn't pa.s.s yere mout', or we don't know the consekinces. He's a most consaited and outrageous ruffian, doesn't care for law or judge, or priest or pope; he's the only one ye have to be afeard of. Listen, that ye may remimber. His name is Jem Deady. Keep yere mouths locked on that while ye 're here."

It was a pleasant little party in Mrs. Haley's "cosey" or "snuggery."

There was warmth, and light, and music, and the odor of rum-punch and lemon, and the pungency of cigars, and the pleasant stimulus of agreeable conversation. Occasionally one of the "byes" looked in, but was promptly relegated to the taproom, at a civil distance from the "gintlemin." By and by, however, as more charity and less exclusiveness prevailed under the generous influences of good liquor, the "gintlemin"

requested to be allowed to show the light of their glowing faces in the plebeian taproom; and the denizens of the latter, prompt at recognizing this infinite condescension, cheered the gentlemen to the echo.

"'T is the likes of ye we wants down here," they cried; "not a set of naygurs who can't buy their tay without credit."

But the local bailiff didn't seem to like it, and kept aloof from the dissipation. Also, he drank only "liminade." It was admitted in after years that this was the greatest act of self-denial that was recorded in history. His comrades chaffed him unmercifully.

"Come, mon, and git out o' the blues. Whoy, these are the jolliest fullows we uver mot."

"And there isn't better liquor in the Cawstle cellars. Here's to yer health, missus."

So the night wore on.

But two poor women had an anxious time. These were Lizzie, who, in some mysterious manner, persuaded herself that she was responsible for the custody and safe keeping of the bailiffs in the eyes of the law; and if anything happened to them she might be summoned up to Dublin, and put on her trial on the capital charge. The other was Mrs. Deady. When eleven o'clock struck, she expected to hear every moment the well-known footsteps of her spouse; but no! Half-past eleven--twelve struck--and Jem had not returned. At half-past twelve there was a peculiar scratching sound at the back-door, and Bess opened it and dragged Jem into her arms, whilst she poured into his face a fire of cross-questions.

"Ax me no questions an' I'll tell ye no lies," said Jem. "Have ye anythin' to ate?"

Bess had, in the shape of cold fat bacon. Jem set to hungrily.

"Would ye mind covering up the light in the front windy, Bess?" said Jem.

Bess did so promptly, all the while looking at her spouse in a distressed and puzzled manner.

"Jem," said she at length, "may the Lord forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think ye're quite sober."

Jem nodded. A knock came to the door. It was Lizzie.

"Have ye no news of the bailiffs, Jem?"

"I have, acushla. I left them at your dure half an hour ago, and they're now fast asleep in their warm and comfortable beds."

"They're not in our house," said Lizzie, alarmed. "Oh, Jem, Jem, what have ye done, at all, at all?"

"I'll tell ye, girl," said Jem, emphatically. "I left the gintlemin at your dure, shook hands wid them, bid them good-night, and came down here. Is that thrue, Bess?"

"Every word of it," said Bess.

"Go back to your bed, alanna," said Jem, "and have pleasant dhreams of your future. Thim gintlemin can mind theirselves."

"'T is thrue, Lizzie," said Bess. "Go home, like a good girl, and make your mind aisy."

Lizzie departed, crying softly to herself.

"What mischief have ye done, Jem?" said Bess, when she had carefully locked and bolted the door. "Some day ye'll be dancin' upon nothin', I'm thinkin'."

"Nabocklis.h.!.+" said Jem, as he knelt down and piously said his prayers for the night.