Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent Part 45

"'Silence, brother Bob, don't interrupt Mr. Yellowboy, he'll make himself plain by and by.'

"'I deny--'

"'Silence--I say.'

"'Nothing, gentlemen--a candle that's of no use unless it's lit--and the press is the match that lights it (hurra, cheers). But, as I said in defending Pruddestantism, we advocate civil and religious liberty all over the world--I say so boldly--for, gentlemen, whatever I say, I do say boldly'--here he glanced at the Equivocal--'I am not the man to present you with two faces--or I'm not the man rather to carry two faces--and only show you one of them--I'm not the man to make prutensions as a defender of civil and religious liberty, with a Protestant face to the front of my head, and a Popish face in my pocket--to be produced for the adversary of Popery and idolatry--whenever I can conciliate a clique by doing so.' Here there was a look of sarcastic defiance turned upon Cantwell--who, conscious of his own integrity--merely returned it with a meek and benignant smile, a la Solomon.

"'No, gentlemen, I am none of those things--but a bold, honest, uncompermising Pruddestant--who will support the church and Const.i.tution for ever--who will uphold Pruddestant Ascendancy to the Day of Judgment--keep down Popery and treason--and support civil and religious liberty over the world to all eternity.'

"'Cheers--hurra--hurra--success brother Yellowboy.'

"'And now, gentlemen, before I sit down there is but one observation more that I wish to make. If it was only idontified with myself I would never notice it--but it's not only idontified with me but with you, gentlemen--for I am sorry to say there is a snake in the gra.s.s--a base, dangerous, Equivocal, crawling reptile among us--who, wherever truth and loyalty is concerned, never has a leg to stand upon, or can put a pen to paper but with a deceitful calumniating attention. He who can divulge the secrets of our Lodge'--(Here there was another furious look sent across which received a polite bow and smile as before)--'who can divulge, gentlemen, the secrets of our Lodge, and allude to those who have been there--I refer, gentlemen, to a paragraph that appeared in the Equivocal some time ago--in which a hint was thrown out that I was found by the editor of that paper lying-drunk in the channel of Castle c.u.mber Main-street, opposite his office--that he brought me in, recovered me, and then helped me home. Now, gentlemen, I'll just mention one circ.u.mstance that will disprove the whole base and calumnious charge--it is this--on rising next morning I found that I had eight and three halfpence safe in my pocket--and yet that reptile says that he carried me into his house!!! Having thus, gentlemen, triumphantly refuted that charge, I have the pleasure of drinking your healths--the healths of all honest men, and confusion to those who betray the secrets of an Orange Lodge!'

"As each paper had its party in the Lodge, it is not to be supposed that this attack upon the Editor of the Equivocal was at all received with unanimous approbation. Far from it. Several hisses were given, which again were met by cheers, and these by counter cheers. In this disorder Mr. Cantwell rose, his face beaming with mildness and benignity--sweetness and smiles--and having bowed, stood all meekness and patience until the cheering was over.

"'Brother Cantwell,' said Solomon, 'remember to discard self-reliance--let thy sup--support be from '--but before he could finish, brother Cantwell turned round, and blandly bowing to him, seemed to say--for-he did not speak--

"'My dear brother M'Slime, I follow your admirable advice; you see I do--I shall'

"'Mr. Chairman,' said he, 'gentlemen and dear brothers'--here he paused a moment, whilst calmly removing the tumbler out of his way that he might have room to place his hand upon the table and gently lean towards the chairman. He then serenely smoothed down the frill of his shirt, during which his friends cheered--and ere commencing he gave them another short, and, as it were, parenthetical bow. 'Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, and dear brothers, I do not rise upon this very unpleasant occasion--unpleasant to me it is, but not on my account--for the purpose of giving vent to the coa.r.s.e effusions of an unlettered mind, that shapes its vulgar outpourings in bad language and worse feeling. No, I am incapable of the bad feeling, in the first place, and, thanks to my education, of illiterate language, in the second. It has pleased my friend Mr. Yellowboy--if he will still allow me to call him so--for I appeal to you all whether it becomes those who sit under this hallowed roof to disagree--it has pleased him, I say, to bring charges against me, to some of which I certainly must plead guilty--if guilt there be in it. It has pleased him to charge me with the unbrotherly crime, the unchristian crime, the un-orange crime'--here he smiled more blandly at every term, and then brought his smiling eye to bear on his antagonist--'of lifting him out of the channel about twelve o'clock at night, where he lay--I may say so among ourselves--in state of most comfortable, but un-orange-like intoxication.'

"The audience now being mostly drunk, were tickled with this compliment to their sobriety, and cheered and shouted for more than a minute. 'Go on Cantwell! By j.a.pers, you're no blockhead!'

"'Under Providence, and with all piety I say it, he will vanquish the yallow sinner over there.'

"'Brother Cantwell,' observed Mr. M'Slime, 'go on--the gift is not withheld.'

"Another smiling bow to M'Slime, as much as to say, 'I know it's not--I feel it's not.'

"'This, gentlemen, and dear brothers, was my crime--I acted the good Samaritan towards him--that was my crime. May I often commit it!'

"'Is that your pretended charity, sir?' said Yellowboy, whose temper was sorely tried by the other's calmness; 'don't you know, sir, that you cannot become the Samaritan unless I become the drunkard? and yet you hope often to commit it!'

"No notice whatsoever taken of this.

"'--But perhaps there was still a greater crime in this affair. I allude to the crime of having, after the account of his frailty had taken wind through the whole country, ventured to defend it, or rather to place it in such a light as might enable the public to place it to the account of mere animal exhaustion, independent of the real cause. And I have reason to know, that to a very enlarged extent I succeeded--for many persons having heard of the circ.u.mstance in its worse and most offensive sense, actually came to my office--'

"'Yes, after you had made it public, as far as you could.'

"'--To my office, to inquire into it. And I a.s.sure you all, gentlemen, that from motives at once of the Christian and the Orangeman, I merely informed them that the gentleman had certainly had, about the time specified, a very severe fit--I did not add of intoxication--oh the contrary, I charitably stopped there, and now it would appear that this forbearance on my part is another crime. But even that is not all. The occasion which called forth the paragraph in the paper which I have honor to conduct, was one which I shall just allude to. Some time ago there was inserted in the True Blue a short article headed 'Susanna and the Elder,' in which certain vague and idle reports, fabricated by some person who bears enmity to a most respectable Christian gentleman, who honors us this moment with his presence--'

"Solomon here approached him, and grasping his hand, exclaimed--

"'Thank you, my dear brother Cantwell--thank you a hundred times; yours is the part of a true Christian; so go on, I entreat you--here is nothing to be ashamed of--I know it is good to be tried.'

"'Now it was really the charity contained in the article from the True Blue that struck me so forcibly--for it not only breathed the scandal so gently, as that it would scarcely stain a mirror--and it did not stain the mirror against which the report was directed--but it placed it as it were, before his eyes, that he might not be maligned without his knowledge, on taking steps to triumph over it, which our friend did--and great was his triumph and meekly was it borne on the occasion. With respect to my political creed, gentlemen, you all know it is my boast that I belong to no party. I advocate broad and general principles; and the more comprehensive they are, so does my love of kind take a wider range. I am a patriot, that is my boast--a moderate man--an educated man; I am, at least, a competent master of the English language, which I trust I can write and speak like a gentleman. I am not given to low and gross habits of life; I am never found in a state of beastly intoxication late at night, or early in the day; nor do I suffer my paper to become the vehicle of gratifying that private slander or personal resentment which I am not capable of writing myself, and have not the courage to acknowledge as a man. I am not a poor, kicked, horse-whipped, and degraded scoundrel, whose malignity is only surpa.s.sed by my cowardice--whose princ.i.p.al delight is to stab in the dark--a lurking a.s.sa.s.sin, but not an open murderer--a sneaking, skulking thief, without the manliness of the highwayman--a pitiful, servile--but, I believe, I have said enough. Well, gentlemen, I trust I am none of these; nor am I saying who is. Perhaps it would be impossible to find them all centred in the same man; but if it were, it would certainly be quite as extraordinary to find that man seated at an Orange Lodge.

Brother Yellowboy, I have the pleasure of drinking your health.'

"Brother Yellowboy felt that he was no match at all for Cantwell; so in order to escape the further venom of his tongue, he drank his in return, and joined in the cheers with which his speech was received; for by this time the audience cared not a fig what was said by either party."

CHAPTER XX.--Sobriety and Loyalty

--A Checkered Dialogue--The Beauty and Necessity of Human Frailty --A Burning and Shining Light Going Home in the Dark--The Value of a Lanthorn.

"The character or forms of decency which had hitherto prevailed, now began to disappear. M'Clutchy's blood-hounds, or wreckers--for they were indiscriminately termed both--having drank a great deal of liquor, became quite violent, and nothing now was heard but party songs, loud talk, and offensive toasts, mingled with a good deal of personal abuse, and private jealousies of each other's influence with M'Clutchy.

"'D--n your blood, Grimes, I'm as loyal as ever you were. Wasn't my grandfather a Tory hunter, who houghed and hanged more b.l.o.o.d.y Papishes--'

"'Who's that,' said Bob, 'talking about hanging Papishes? Where--where are they to be hanged? Under G.o.d, I have seen more of the villains hanged than any other frail sinner in the province. Oh, it is a consoling--a sustaining sight!'

"'What's the reason, then, that the Protestant gentry of the country don't stand by their own? Why do they deal with Papishes? By j.a.pers they don't daserve us to stand by them.'

"'I say, Fulton, it's a d--d lie. I was at the wrecking of the Ballygra.s.s Threshers, when you shabbed sickness and wouldn't go.'

"'And I am glad I didn't. A purty business you made of it--to pull down the houses, and wreck the furniture about the ears of a set of women and children; I say such conduct is disgraceful to Orangemen.'

"'An' what the devil right have you to expect the sargeantship, then, when you won't perform its duties?'

"'I don't care a d--n about you or it. The Pope in the pillory, the pillory in h--l--'

"'--Sent the bullet through his palm, and kept his finger and thumb together ever since--

"'Lerolero lillibullero, lillibullerobuuenela.'--

'--Sleet or slaughter, holy water, Sprinkle the Catholics every one; Cut them asunder, and make them lie undher, The Protestant boys will carry their own.--.

"'They can never stand the guns--the lead makes them fly--and, by j.a.pers, they'll get it.--'

"'What health, man? out with it; are we to sit here all night for it?--'

"'He gets half his bread from a d----d Papish, merely because, he's his tenant--instead of getting the whole of it from me, that's better than a tenant, a brother Orangeman--

"'King James he pitched his tents between The lines for to retire; But King William threw his bomb b.a.l.l.s in, And set them all on fire.'--

"In fact the confusion of Babel was nothing to it now, every voice was loud, and what between singing, swearing, shouting, arguing, drinking toasts, and howling, of various descriptions, it would not be easy to to find anything in any other country that could be compared to it.

"Phil himself was by this time nearly as drunk as any of them, but in consequence of several hints from those who preserved their sobriety, and several of them did, he now got to his legs, and called silence.

"'Silence, sil-sil-silence, I say, d--n my honor if I'll bear this. Do you think (hiccup) we can separate without drinking the Castle Cu-c.u.mber toast. Fill, gentle-(hic-cup)-men, here's Lord c.u.mber and the Castle-Castle Cu-c.u.mber property, with the health of Sol-Sol-Solo-Solomon M'Slime, Esq.--

"'For G.o.d will be our king this day, And I'll be the general over--eh--over--no, no, under.'--

"'Under, I believe (hiccup)--'

"'Silence, there, I say.'