The Bunsby papers Part 11

yerself into a thrue lover's knot, won't do any good now, you know,"

said Bulworthy, with a quiet smile.

"I know it won't, and that's what makes me desperate," replied Dan, starting up, with clenched teeth, and a dangerous glance in his eye.

"One word for all," he continued, "are you going to give me back meself?"

"I'd be a purty fool to do that, accordin' to your own story," said the other, calmly, now tolerably sure of his ground.

"Then Heaven forgive me, but here goes," cried Dan, resolutely. "Peg, jewel, it's for your sake an' the child; I can't live widout yez, anyhow, an' so I may's well thravel the dark road at oncet."

"What do you mane, you wild-lookin' savage?" shouted Bulworthy, as he saw the other advance threateningly towards him.

"I mane to thry and squeeze the breath out ov you, or get meself throttled in the attempt," said Dan, sternly; "I know that I'm no match for you now, bad 'cess to your podgey carca.s.s that I'm obleeged to carry, whether I will or no; come on, you thief o' the world, come on; it doesn't matther a sthraw which of us is sint into kingdom come, only it's mighty hard for me to have the since knocked out o' me by me own muscles."

So saying, he put forth all the strength he could muster, and clenched Bulworthy manfully; short, but decisive was the struggle, for the superior vigor of the latter, enabled him to shake off Dan like a feather, and when he rushed again to the attack, Bulworthy seized the ponderous lapstone, and raising it at arm's length, let its whole force descend upon Dan's unprotected head, crushing him down p.r.o.ne and senseless as though he had been stricken by a thunderbolt.

It was some time before Dan returned to full consciousness; but when he did, what was his intense delight to find Peggy bending over him, tenderly bathing a trifling wound in his head.

"Hurrah, Peg! it is back I am to myself in airnest," he cried. "Give us a bit of the lookin'-gla.s.s, darlin'; oh! the butcherin' ruffian, what a crack he gev me on me skull."

"Whisht, don't talk, Dan, acush," said Peggy, in a low, musical voice; "shure, its ravin' you've been, terrible; oh! that whisky, that whisky!"

A sudden thought flashed across Dan's mind, which he judiciously kept to himself; and, inasmuch, as the reader may, without much exercise of ingenuity imagine what that thought was, the narrator will be silent, also.

It will be no abuse of confidence, however, to say that the lesson Dan received, did him good, for he never was known to repine at his lot, but, redoubling his exertions, was enabled, after a few years had elapsed, to sport his top-boots on Sundays, and Peggy to exhibit her silk "gound," as well as the purse-proud Squire and his gay madame, over the way.

THE BLARNEY STONE.

Oh, did you ne'er hear of the Blarney, 'Tis found near the banks of Killarney, Believe it from me, no girl's heart is free, Once she hears the sweet sound of the Blarney.

LOVER.

"I tell you, Mike, agra! it's no manner o' use, for do it I can't, an'

that's the long an' the short of it."

"Listen at him, why it isn't bashful that you are, eh, Ned, avic?"

"Faix, an' I'm afeard it is."

"_Gog's bleakey!_ why, they'll put you in the musayum along wid the marmaids an' the rattlin' sneaks; a bashful Irishman! why, a four-leaved shamrogue 'ud be a mutton-chop to that, man alive."

"So they say; but I've cotch the complaint anyway."

"Well, _tear an aigers_, I never heerd the likes; it makes me mighty unhappy, for if modesty gets a footin' among us it'll be the ruin of us altogether. I shouldn't wonder but some of them retirin' c.o.c.kneys has inoculated us with the affection, as they thravelled through the country. Well, an' tell us, how d'you feel whin you're blushin' Ned?"

"Arrah! now don't be laughin' at me, Mike; sure we can't help our wakeness--it's only before her that the heart of me melts away intirely."

"Never mind, avic; shure it's a good man's case anyway; an' so purty Nelly has put the _comether_ over your sinsibilities?"

"You may say that, Mike, _aroon_. The niver a bit of sinse have I left, if it's a thing that I iver happened to have any; an' now, Mike, without jokin', isn't it mighty quare that I can't get the cowardly tongue to wag a word out o' my head when her eye is upon me--did you iver see Nelly's eye, Mike?"

"Scores o' times."

"May-be that isn't an eye?"

"May-be there isn't a pair of thim, since you come to that?"

"The divil such wicked-lookin' innocince iver peeped out of the head of a Christian afore, to my thinkin'."

"It's nothin' but right that you should think so, Ned."

"Oh, Mike! to me, the laugh that bames out of thim, whin she's happy, is as good to a boy's feelin's as the softest sun-ray that iver made the world smile; but whin she's sad--oh, murdher, murdher! Mike--whin them wathery dimonds flutthers about her silky eye-lashes, or hangs upon her downy cheek, like jew upon a rose-lafe, who the divil could endure it? Bedad, it's as much as I can do to stand up agin them merry glances; but when her eye takes to the wather, be the powers of war, it bothers the navigation of my heart out an' out."

"Thrue for you, Ned."

"An' thin her mouth! Did you iver obsarve Nelly's mouth, Mike?"

"At a distance, Ned."

"Now, that's what I call a rale mouth, Mike; it doesn't look like some, only a place to ate with, but a soft-talkin', sweet-lovin' mouth, wid the kisses growin in cl.u.s.thers about it that n.o.body dare have the impudence to pluck off, eh! Mike?"

"Howld your tongue, Ned."

"If Nelly's heart isn't the very bed of love, why thin Cupid's a jacka.s.s, that's all. An' thin her teeth; did you notice thim teeth? why pearls is pavin'-stones to them; how they do flash about, as her beautiful round red lips open to let out a voice that's just for all the world like talkin' honey, every word she says slippin' into a fellow's soul, whether he likes it or not. Oh! Mike, Mike, there's no use in talkin', if she isn't an angel, why she ought to be, that's all."

"You're mighty far gone, Ned, an' that's a fact. It's wonderful what a janius a boy has for talkin' nonsense when the soft emotions is stirrin' up his brains. Did you ever spake to her?"

"How the divil could I? I was too busy listenin'; an' more betoken, between you an' me, the rale truth of the matter is, I couldn't do it.

Whether it was bewitched I was, or that my sinses got dhrounded wid drinkin' in her charms, makin' a sort of a mouth of my eye, I don't know, but ev'ry time I attempted to say somethin', my tongue, bad luck to it, staggered about as if it was corned, an' the divil a word would it say for itself, bad or good."

"Well, now, only to think. Let me give you a word of advice, Ned; the next time you see her, take it aisy, put a big stone upon your feelin's an' ax about the weather; you see you want to bowlt out all you have to say at once, an' your throat is too little to let it through."

"_Be the mortial_, an' that's a good advice, Mike, if I can but folly it. This love is a mighty quare affection, ain't it?"

"Thremendious. I had it oncet myself."

"How did you ketch it?"

"I didn't ketch it at all. I took it natural."

"And did you ever get cured, Mike? Tell us."

"Complately."

"How?"