Handy Andy Volume Ii Part 37

Then, as a matter of course, d.i.c.k called on the gentlemen to charge their gla.s.ses and fill high to a toast he had to propose--they would antic.i.p.ate to whom he referred--a gentleman who was going to change his state of freedom for one of a happier bondage, &c., &c. d.i.c.k dashed off his speech with several mirth-moving allusions to the change that was coming over his friend Tom, and, having festooned his composition with the proper quant.i.ty of "rosy wreaths," &c., &c., &c., naturally belonging to such speeches, he wound up with some hearty words-- free from _badinage_, and meaning all they conveyed, and finished with the rhyming benediction of a "long life and a good wife" to him.

Tom having returned thanks in the same laughing style that d.i.c.k proposed his health, and bade farewell to the lighter follies of bachelorship for the more serious ones of wedlock, the road was now open for any one who was vocally inclined. d.i.c.k asked one or two, who said they were not within a bottle of their singing-point yet, but Tom Durfy was sure his friend the colonel would favour them.

"With pleasure," said the colonel; "and I'll sing something appropriate to the blissful situation of philandering in which you have been indulging of late, my friend. I wish I could give you any idea of the song as I heard it warbled by the voice of an Indian princess, who was attached to me once, and for whom I ran enormous risks--but no matter--that's past and gone, but the soft tones of Zulima's voice will ever haunt my heart! The song is a favourite where I heard it--on the borders of Cashmere, and is supposed to be sung by a fond woman in the valley of the nightingales-- 'tis so in the original, but as we have no nightingales in Ireland, I have subst.i.tuted the dove in the little translation I have made, which, if you will allow me, I'll attempt."

Loud cries of "Hear, hear!" and tapping of applauding hands on the table followed, while the colonel gave a few preliminary hems; and after some little pilot tones from his throat, to show the way, his voice ascended in all the glory of song.

THE DOVE-SONG

I

"_Coo! Coo! Coo! Coo!_ Thus did I hear the turtle-dove, _Coo! Coo! Coo!_ Murmuring forth her love; And as she flew from tree to tree, How melting seemed the notes to me-- _Coo! Coo! Coo!_ So like the voice of lovers, 'T was pa.s.sing sweet to hear The birds within the covers, In the spring-time of the year.

II

"_Coo! Coo! Coo! Coo!_ Thus the song's returned again-- _Coo! Coo! Coo!_ Through the shady glen; But there I wandered lone and sad, While every bird around was glad.

_Coo! Coo! Coo!_ Thus so fondly murmured they, _Coo! Coo! Coo!_ While _my_ love was away.

And yet the song to lovers, Though sad, is sweet to hear, From birds within the covers, In the spring-time of the year."

The colonel's song, given with Tom Loftus' good voice, was received with great applause, and the fellows all voted it catching, and began "cooing"

round the table like a parcel of pigeons.

"A translation from an eastern poet, you say?"

"Yes," said Tom.

"'T is not very eastern in its character," said Moriarty. "I mean a _free_ translation, of course," added the mock colonel.

"Would you favour us with the song again, in the original?" added Moriarty.

Tom Loftus did not know one syllable of any other language than his own, and it would not have been convenient to talk gibberish to Moriarty, who had a smattering of some of the eastern tongues; so he declined giving his Cashmerian song in its native purity, because, as he said, he never could manage to speak their dialect, though he understood it reasonably well.

"But _there's_ a gentleman, I am sure, will sing some other song--and a better one, I have no doubt," said Tom, with a very humble prostration of his head on the table, and anxious by a fresh song to get out of the dilemma in which Moriarty's question was near placing him.

"Not a better, colonel," said the gentleman who was addressed, "but I cannot refuse your call, and I will do my best; hand me the port wine, pray; I always take a gla.s.s of port before I sing--I think 't is good for the throat--what do you say, colonel?"

"When I want to sing particularly well," said Tom, "I drink _canary_."

The gentleman smiled at the whimsical answer, tossed off his gla.s.s of port, and began.

LADY MINE

"Lady mine! lady mine!

Take the rosy wreath I twine, All its sweets are less than thine, Lady, lady mine!

The blush that on thy cheek is found Bloometh fresh the _whole_ year round; _Thy_ sweet _breath_ as sweet gives _sound_, Lady, lady mine!

II

"Lady mine! lady mine!

How I love the graceful vine, Whose tendrils mock thy ringlets' twine, Lady, lady mine!

How I love that generous tree, Whose ripe cl.u.s.ters promise me b.u.mpers bright,--to pledge to _thee_, Lady, lady mine!

III

"Lady mine! lady mine!

Like the stars that nightly shine, Thy sweet eyes shed light divine, Lady, lady mine!

And as sages wise, of old, From the stars could fate unfold, Thy bright eyes _my_ fortune told, Lady, lady mine!"

The song was just in the style to catch gentlemen after dinner--the second verse particularly, and many a gla.s.s was emptied of a "b.u.mper bright," and pledged to the particular "_thee_," which each individual had selected for his devotion. Edward, at that moment, certainly thought of f.a.n.n.y Dawson.

Let teetotallers say what they please, there is a genial influence inspired by wine and song--not in excess, but in that wholesome degree which stirs the blood and warms the fancy; and as one raises the gla.s.s to the lip, over which some sweet name is just breathed from the depth of the heart, what libation so fit to pour to absent friends as wine? What _is_ wine? It is the grape present in another form; its essence is there, though the fruit which produced it grew thousands of miles away, and perished years ago. So the object of many a tender thought may be spiritually present, in defiance of s.p.a.ce--and fond recollections cherished in defiance of time.

As the party became more convivial, the mirth began to a.s.sume a broader form. Tom Durfy drew out Moriarty on the subject of his services, that the mock colonel might throw every new achievement into the shade; and this he did in the most barefaced manner, but mixing so much of probability with his audacious fiction, that those who were not up to the joke only supposed him to be _a very great romancer_; while those friends who were in Loftus' confidence exhibited a most capacious stomach for the marvellous, and backed up his lies with a ready credence. If Moriarty told some fearful incident of a tiger hunt, the colonel capped it with something more wonderful, of slaughtering lions in a wholesale way, like rabbits. When Moriarty expatiated on the intensity of tropical heat, the colonel would upset him with something more appalling.

"Now, sir," said Loftus, "let me ask you what is the greatest amount of heat you have ever experienced--I say _experienced_, not _heard_ of--for that goes for nothing. I always speak from experience."

"Well, sir," said Moriarty, "I have known it to be so hot in India, that I have had a hole dug in the ground under my tent, and sat in it, and put a table standing over the hole, to try and guard me from the intolerable fervour of the eastern sun, and even _then_ I was hot. What do you say to that, colonel?" asked Moriarty, triumphantly.

"Have you ever been in the West Indies?" inquired Loftus.

"Never," said Moriarty, who, once entrapped into this admission, was directly at the colonel's mercy,--and the colonel launched out fearlessly.

"Then, my good sir, you know nothing of heat. I have seen in the West Indies an umbrella burned over a man's head."

"Wonderful!" cried Loftus' backers.

"'T is strange, sir," said Moriarty, "that we have never seen that mentioned by any writer."

"Easily accounted for, sir," said Loftus. "'T is so common a circ.u.mstance, that it ceases to be worthy of observation. An author writing of this country might as well remark that the apple-women are to be seen sitting at the corners of the streets. That's nothing, sir; but there are two things of which I have personal knowledge, _rather_ remarkable.

One day of intense heat (even for that climate) I was on a visit at the plantation of a friend of mine, and it was so out-o'-the-way scorching, that our lips were like cinders, and we were obliged to have black slaves pouring sangaree down our throats by gallons--I don't hesitate to say gallons--and we thought we could not have survived through the day; but what could _we_ think of _our_ sufferings, when we heard that several negroes, who had gone to sleep under the shade of some cocoa-nut trees, had been scalded to death?"

"Scalded?" said his friends; "burnt, you mean."

"No, scalded; and _how_ do you think? The intensity of the heat had cracked the cocoa-nuts, and the boiling milk inside dropped down and produced the fatal result. The same day a remarkable accident occurred at the battery; the French were hovering round the island at the time, and the governor, being a timid man, ordered the guns to be always kept loaded."

"I never heard of such a thing in a battery in my life, sir," said Moriarty.

"Nor I either," said Loftus, "till then."

"What was the governor's name, sir?" inquired Moriarty, pursuing his train of doubt.

"You must excuse me, captain, from naming him," said Loftus, with readiness, "after _incautiously_ saying he was _timid_."

"Hear, hear!" said all the friends.

"But to pursue my story, sir:--the guns were loaded, and with the intensity of the heat went off, one after another, and quite riddled one of his Majesty's frigates that was lying in the harbour."

"That's one of the most difficult riddles to comprehend I ever heard,"

said Moriarty.