Handy Andy Volume I Part 12

As they spoke, M'Garry entered, his head freshly bound up, to look as genteel as possible amongst the gentlemen with whom he was to have the honour of dining. His wife had suggested a pink ribbon, but M'Garry, while he acknowledged his wife's superior taste, said black would look more professional. The odd fellows to whom he had now committed himself, crowded round him, and, in the most exaggerated phrases, implied the high sense they entertained of _his_ wrongs and O'Grady's aggression.

"Unprovoked attack!" cried one.

"Savage ruffian!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed another.

"What atrocity!" said a third.

"What dignified composure!" added a fourth, in an audible whisper, meant for M'Garry's ear.

"Gentlemen!" said the apothecary, flurried at the extreme attention of which he became the object; "I beg to a.s.sure you I am deeply--that is--this proof of--of--of--of symptoms--gentlemen--I mean sympathy, gentlemen--in short, I really----"

"The fact is," said Growling, "I see Mr. M'Garry is rather shaken in nerve--whether from loss of blood or----"

"I have lost a quant.i.ty of blood, doctor," said M'Garry; "much vascular, to say nothing of extra-vasated."

"Which, I'll state in my case," said Murphy.

"Murphy, don't interrupt," said Growling, who, with a very grave face, recommenced: "Gentlemen, from the cause already stated, I see Mr.

M'Garry is not prepared to answer the out-pouring of feeling with which you have greeted him, and if I might be permitted----"

Every one shouted, "Certainly--certainly!"

"Then as I am permitted, I _will_ venture to respond _for_ Mr. M'Garry, and address you, as he _would_ address you. In the words of Mr.

M'Garry, I would say--Gentlemen--unaccustomed as I am"--Some smothered laughter followed this beginning; upon which the doctor, with a mock gravity, proceeded--

"Gentlemen, this interruption I consider to be an infringement on the liberty of the subject. I recommence, therefore, in the words of my honourable and wounded friend, and our honourable and wounded feelings, and say, as my friend would say, or, to speak cla.s.sically, M'Garry _loquitur_"--

The apothecary bowed his head to the bit of Latin, and the doctor continued--

"Gentlemen--unaccustomed to public thrashing, you can conceive what my feelings are at the present moment, in mind and body. [_Bravo_!] You behold an outrage [_much confusion_]! Shall an exaggerated savagery like this escape punishment, and 'the calm, sequestered vale' (as the poet calls it) of private life be ravaged with impunity? [_Bravo, bravo!_] Are the learned professions to be trampled under foot by barbarian ignorance and brutality? No; I read in the indignant looks of my auditory their high-souled answers. Gentlemen, your sympathy is better than diachylon to my wounds, and this is the proudest day of my life."

Thunders of applause followed the doctor's address, and every one shook M'Garry's hand, till his bruised bones ached again. Questions poured upon him from all sides as to the nature and quant.i.ty of his drubbing, to all of which M'Garry innocently answered in terms of exaggeration, spiced with scientific phrases. Muscles, tendons, bones, and sinews, were particularised with the precision of an anatomical demonstration; he swore he was pulverised, and paralysed, and all the other lies he could think of.

"A large stick you say?" said Murphy.

"Sir! I never saw such a stick--'t was like a weaver's beam!"

"I'll make a note of that," said Murphy. "A weaver's beam--'t will tell well with a jury."

"And beat you all over?" said Durfy.

"From shoulder to flank, sir, I am one ma.s.s of welts and weals; the abrasures are extensive, the bruises terrific, particularly in the lumbar region."

"What's that," asked Jack Horan.

"The lumbar region is what is commonly called the loins, sir."

"Not always," said the doctor. "It varies in different subjects: I have known some people whose _lumber_ region lay in the head."

"You laugh, gentlemen," said M'Garry, with a mournful smile; "but you _know_ the doctor--he _will_ be jocular." He then continued to describe the various other regions of his injuries, amidst the well-acted pity and indignation of the queer fellows who drew him out, until they were saturated, so far, with the fun of the subject. After which, Murphy, whose restless temperament could never let him be quiet for a moment, suggested that they should divert themselves before dinner with a badger-fight.

"Isn't one fight a day enough for you, signor?" said the doctor.

"It is not every day we get a badger, you know," said Murphy; "and I heard just now from Tim the waiter that there is a horse-dealer lately arrived at the stables here, who has a famous one with him, and I know Reilly the butcher has two or three capital dogs, and there's a wicked mastiff below stairs, and I'll send for my 'buffer,' and we'll have some spanking sport."

He led his guests then to the inn yard, and the horse-dealer, for a consideration, allowed his badger to wage battle: the noise of the affair spread through the town, while they were making their arrangements, and sending right and left for dogs for the contest; and a pretty considerable crowd soon a.s.sembled at the place of action, where the hour before dinner was spent in the intellectual amus.e.m.e.nt of a badger-fight.

CHAPTER V

The fierce yells of the badger-fight ringing far and wide, soon attracted a crowd, which continued to increase every minute by instalments of men and boys, who might be seen running across a small field by the road-side, close to the scene of action, which lay at the back of the inn; and heavy-caped and skirted frieze coats streamed behind the full-grown, while the rags of the gossoons[1] fluttered in the race. Attracted by this evidence of "something going on," a horseman, who was approaching the town, urged his horse to speed, and turning his head towards a yawning double ditch that divided the road from the field, he gracefully rode the n.o.ble animal over the spanking leap.

[1] Boys.

The rider was Edward O'Connor; and he was worthy of his name--the pure blood of that royal race was in his heart, which never harboured a sentiment that could do it dishonour, and overflowed with feelings which enn.o.ble human nature, and make us proud of our kind. He was young and handsome; and as he sat his mettled horse, no lady could deny that Edward O'Connor was the very type of the gallant cavalier. Though attached to every manly sport and exercise, his mind was of a refined order; and a youth pa.s.sed amidst books and some of the loveliest scenery in Ireland had nurtured the poetic feeling with which his mind was gifted, and which found its vent in many a love-taught lyric, or touching ballad, or spirit-stirring song, whose theme was national glory. To him the bygone days of his country's history were dear, made more familiar by many an antique relic which hung around his own room in his father's house. Celt and sword, and spear-head of Phoenician bronze, and golden gorget, and silver bodkin, and ancient harp, and studded crosier, were there; and these time-worn evidences of arts, and arms, and letters flattered the affection with which he looked back on the ancient history of Ireland, and kept alive the ardent love of his country with which he glowed--a love too deep, too pure, to be likely to expire, even without the aid of such poetic sources of excitement.

To him the names of Fitzgerald, and Desmond, and Tyrone, were dear; and there was no romantic legend of the humbler outlaws with which he was not familiar: and "Charley of the Horses," and "Ned of the Hill," but headed the list of names he loved to recall; and the daring deeds of bold spirits who held the hill-side for liberty, were often given in words of poetic fire from the lips of Edward O'Connor.

And yet Edward O'Connor went to see the badger-fight.

There is something inherent in man's nature, urging him to familiarise himself with cruelty: and, perhaps, without such a power of witnessing savage deeds, he would be unequal to the dominion for which he was designed. Men of the highest order of intellect the world has known have loved the chase. How admirably Scott displays this tendency of n.o.ble minds, in the meeting of Ellen with her father, when Douglas says--

"The chase I followed far; 'T is mimicry of n.o.ble war."

And the effect of this touch of character is heightened by Douglas in a subsequent scene--Douglas, who could enjoy the sport which ends in death, bending over his gentle child, and dropping tears of the tenderest affection--tears which

"Would not stain an angel's cheek."

Superadded to this natural tendency, Edward O'Connor had an additional motive. He lived amongst a society of sporting men, less cultivated than he was, whose self-esteem would have easily ignited the spark of jealousy if he had seemed to scorn the things which made their princ.i.p.al enjoyment, and formed the chief occupation of their lives; and his good sense and good heart (and there is an intimate connection between them) pointed out to him that, wherever your lot is cast, duty to yourself and others suggests the propriety of adapting your conduct to the circ.u.mstances in which you are placed (so long as morality and decency are not violated), and that the manifestation of one's own superiority may render the purchase too dear, by being bought at the terrible price of our neighbour's dislike. He, therefore, did not tell everybody he wrote verses: he kept the gift as secret as he could. If an error, however gross, on any subject, were made in his presence, he never took willing notice of it; or if circ.u.mstances obliged him to touch upon it, it was always done with a politeness and tact that afforded the blunderer the means of retreat. If some gross historical error, for instance, happened to be committed in a conversation _with himself_ (and then only), he would set the mistake right, as a matter of conscience, but he would do so by saying there was a great similarity between the event spoken of and some other event. "I know what you are thinking of," he would say, "but you make a slight mistake in the dates; the two stories are very similar, and likely to mislead one."

But with all this modest reserve, did the least among his companions think him the less clever? No. It was shrewdly suspected he was a poet; it was well known he was highly educated and accomplished; and yet Edward O'Connor was a universal favourite, bore the character of being a "real fine fellow," and was loved and respected by the most illiterate of the young men of the country; who, in allusion to his extensive lore on the subject of the legendary heroes of the _romantic_ history of Ireland, his own Christian name, and his immediate place of residence, which was near a wild mountain pa.s.s, christened him "Ned of the Hill."

His appearance amidst the crowd a.s.sembled to witness the rude sport was hailed with pleasure--varying from the humble but affectionate respect of the peasant, who cried "Long life to you, Misther O'Connor," to the hearty burst of equality, which welcomed him as "Ned of the Hill."

The fortune of the fight favoured the badger, who proved himself a trump; and Murphy appreciated his worth so highly that, when the battle was over, he would not quit the ground until he became his owner, at a high price to the horse-dealer. His next move was to _insist_ on Edward O'Connor dining with him; and Edward, after many excuses to avoid the party he foresaw would be a drinking bout--of which he had a special horror, notwithstanding all his toleration--yielded to the entreaties of Murphy, and consented to be his guest, just as Tim the waiter ran up, steaming from every pore, to announce that the dinner was "ready to be sarved."

"Then sarve it, sir," said Murphy, "and sarve it right."

Off cantered Tim, steaming and snorting like a locomotive engine, and the party followed to the inn, where a long procession of dish-bearers was ascending the stairs to the big room, as Murphy and his friends entered.

The dinner it is needless to describe. One dinner is the same as another in the most essential points, namely, to satisfy hunger and slake consequent thirst; and whether beef and cabbage, and heavy wet, are to conquer the dragon of appet.i.te, or your stomach is to sustain the more elaborate attack fired from the _batterie de cuisine_ of a finished _artiste_, and moistened with champagne, the difference is only of degree in the fashion of the thing and the tickling of the palate: hunger is as thoroughly satisfied with the one as the other; and headaches as well manufactured out of the beautiful, bright, and taper gla.s.ses which bear the foam of France to the lip, as from the coa.r.s.e, flat-bottomed tumblers of an inn that reek with punch. At the dinner there was the same tender solicitude on the part of the carvers as to "Where would you like it?" and the same carelessness on the part of those whom they questioned, who declared they had no choice, "but if there _was_ a little bit near the shank," &c., or "if there was a liver wing to _spare_." By the way, some carvers there are who push an aspirant's patience too far. I have seen some who, after giving away both wings, and all the breast, two sidebones, and the short legs, meet the eager look of the fifth man on their left with a smile, and ask him, with an effrontery worthy of the Old Bailey, "Has he any choice?"

and, at the same time, toss a drum-stick on the destined plate, or boldly attempt to divert his melancholy with a merry-thought. All this, and more, was there at Murtough Murphy's dinner, long memorable in the country from a frolic that wound up the evening, which soon began to warm, after the cloth was removed, into the sort of a thing commonly known by the name of a jollification. But before the dinner was over, poor M'Garry was nearly pickled: Jack Horan, having determined to make him drunk, arranged a system of attack on M'Garry's sobriety which bade defiance to his prudence to withstand. It was agreed that every one should ask the apothecary to take wine; and he, poor innocent man! when gentlemen whom he had never had the honour to meet at dinner before addressed him with a winning smile, and said, "Mr. M'Garry, will you do me the _honour_?" could not do less than fill his gla.s.s every time; so that, to use Jack Horan's own phrase, the apothecary was "sewed up"

before he had any suspicion of the fact; and, unused to the indications of approaching vinous excitement, he supposed it was the delightful society made him so hilarious, and he began to launch forth after dinner in a manner quite at variance with the reserve he usually maintained in the presence of his superiors, and talked largely. Now, M'Garry's princ.i.p.al failing was to make himself appear very learned in his profession; and every new discovery in chemistry, operation in surgery, or scientific experiment he heard of, he was p.r.o.ne to shove in, head and shoulders, in his soberest moments; but now that he was half-drunk, he launched forth on the subject of galvanism, having read of some recent wonderful effects produced on the body of a recent murderer who was hanged and given over to the College of Surgeons in Dublin. To impress the company still more with a sense of his learning, he addressed Growling on the subject, and the doctor played him off to advantage.

"Don't you think it very wonderful, doctor?" inquired M'Garry, speaking somewhat thickly.

"Very," answered the doctor, drily.