We and the World Volume II Part 17

"He's ready and waiting, sorr," replied O'Brien.

"_Have ye got a pocket-handkerchief, Master Dennis, dear? There's the flower for your coat. Ye'll be apt to give it away, maybe; let me use a small pin. Did the master not find ye any gloves? Now av the squire saw ye, its a proud man he'd be!_ Will I give the young gentleman one of your hats, sorr?"

"Yes, of course. Be quick! So there you are at last, you young puppy.

Bless me! how like the squire you are."

The squire must have been amazingly handsome, I thought, as I gazed admiringly at my comrade. Our staring made him shy, and as he blushed and touched up the stephanotis in his b.u.t.tonhole, the engineer changed the subject by saying, "Talking of the squire, is it true, Dennis, what Jack tells me about the twenty pounds? Did he really forget to put it in?"

"As true as gospel," said Dennis, and taking up the tails of his coat he waltzed round the room to the tune of

"They say some disaster Befell the paymaster, On my conscience, I think that the money's not there!"

I stood out on the verandah to see them off, Dennis singing and chaffing and chattering to the last. He waved his hat to me as his friend gathered the reins, a groom sprang up behind, and they were whirled away. The only part of the business I envied them was the drive.

It was a glorious night, despite the oppressive heat and the almost intolerable biting of mosquitoes and sandflies. In the wake of the departing trap flew a solitary beetle, making a noise exactly like a scissor-grinder at work. Soft and silent moths--some as big as small birds--went past my face, I fear to the hanging lamp behind me. Pa.s.sing footfalls echoed bluntly from the wooden pavement, and in the far-away distance the bull-frogs croaked monotonously. And down below, as I looked upon the trees, I could see fireflies coming and going, like pulsations of light, amongst the leaves.

O'Brien waited on me with the utmost care and civility; served me an excellent supper with plenty of ice and cooling drinks, and taught me the use of the "swizzle stick" for mixing them. I am sure he did not omit a thing he could think of for my comfort. He had been gone for some time, and I had been writing letters, turning over the engineer's books, and finally dozing in his chair, when I was startled by sounds from his bedroom, as if O'Brien were engaged, first in high argument, and then in deadly struggle with some intruder. I rushed to his a.s.sistance, and found him alone, stamping vehemently on the floor.

"What's the matter?" said I.

"Matther is it? Murther's the matther," and he gave another vicious stamp, and then took a stride that nearly cost him his balance, and gave another. "I beg yor pardon, sorr; but it's the c.o.c.kroaches. The place swarms wid 'em. Av they'd keep peaceably below, now, but invading the master's bedroom--that's for ye, ye thief!" and he stamped again.

"The creatures here are a great plague," said I, slapping a mosquito upon my forehead.

"And that as true a word as your honour ever spoke. They're murderous no less! Many's the time I'm wishing myself back in old Ireland, where there's no venomous beasts at all, at all. Arrah! Would ye, ye skulking--"

I left him stamping and streaming with perspiration, but labouring loyally on in a temperature where labour was little short of heroism.

I went back to my chair, and began to think over my prospects. It is a disadvantage of idleness that one wearies oneself with thinking, though one cannot act. I wondered how the prosperous sugar-planter was receiving Dennis, and whether he would do more for him than one's rich relations are apt to do. The stars began to pale in the dawn without my being any the wiser for my speculations, and then my friends came home.

The young officer was full of hopes that I had been comfortable, and Dennis of regrets that I had not gone with them. His hair was tossed, his cheeks were crimson, and he had lost the flower from his b.u.t.tonhole.

"How did you get on with your cousin?" I asked. The reply confounded me.

"Oh, charmingly! Dances like a fairy. I say, Willie, as a mere matter of natural history, d'ye believe any other human being ever had such feet?"

A vague wonder crept into my brain whether the cousin could possibly have become half a n.i.g.g.e.r, from the climate, which really felt capable of anything, and have developed feet like our friend the pilot; but I was diverted from this speculation by seeing that Dennis was clapping his pockets and hunting for something.

"What have you lost now?" asked his friend.

"My pocket-handkerchief. Ah, there it is!" and he drew it from within his waistcoat, and with it came his gloves, and a third one, and they fell on the floor. As he picked the odd one up the lieutenant laughed.

"What size does she wear, Dennis--sixes?"

"Five and three-quarters--long fingers; so she tells me." He sighed, and then wandered to the window, whistling "Robin Adair."

"Now, Dennis, you promised me to go straight to bed. Turn in we must, for I have to be on an early parade."

"All right, Willie. Good-night, and a thousand thanks to you. It's been a great evening--I never was so happy in my life. Come along, Jack."

And off he went, tossing his head and singing to the air he had been whistling,

"Who in the song so sweet?

Eileen aroon!

Who in the dance so fleet?

Eileen aroon!

Dear were her charms to me, Dearer her laughter free, Dearest her constancy, Eileen aroon!"

"She'll be married to a sugar-planter before you've cut your wisdom teeth!" bawled the engineer from his bedroom.

"_Will she_?" retorted Dennis, and half-laughing, half-sentimentally, he sang on louder than before,

"Were she no longer true, Eileen aroon!

What should her lover do?

Eileen aroon!

Fly with his broken chain, Far o'er the bounding main, Never to love again, Eileen aroon!"

Willie made no reply. He evidently meant to secure what sleep there was to be had, and as Dennis did not seem in the mood for discussing our prospects as seamen, I turned into my hammock and pulled it well round my ears to keep out bats, night-moths, and the like.

It was thus that I failed at first to hear when Dennis began to talk to somebody out of the window. But when I lifted my head I could hear what he said, and from the context I gathered that the other speaker was no less than Alister, who, having taken his sleep early in the night, was now refreshing himself by a stroll at dawn. That they were squabbling with unusual vehemence was too patent, and I was at once inclined to lay the blame on Dennis, who ought, I felt, to have been br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with generous sympathy, considering how comfortable we had been, and poor Alister had not. But I soon discovered that the matter was no personal one, being neither more nor less than an indignant discussion as to whether the air which Dennis was singing was "Scotch" or "Irish." As I only caught the Irish side of the argument, I am not qualified to p.r.o.nounce any opinion.

"Of course facts are facts, no one denies that. And it's likely enough your grandmother sang 'Robin Adair' to it, and your great-grandmother too, rest her soul! But it would take an uncommonly _great-grandmother_ of mine to have sung it when it was new, for it's one of the oldest of old Irish airs."

"Stole it of course! as they did plenty more in those times--cattle and what not. I'd forgive them the theft, if they hadn't spoilt the tune with a nasty jerk or two that murders the tender grace of it intirely."

"Alister, me boy! You're not going? Ye're not cross, are ye? Faith, I'd give my life for ye, but I can't give ye Eileen aroon. Come in and have some swizzle! We're in the height of luxury here, and hospitality as well, and you'll be as welcome as daylight."

"Up so late? Up so early you mean! Ah, don't put on that air of incorruptible morality. Wait now till I get in on the one side of my hammock and out at the other, and I'll look as early-rising-proud as yourself. Alister! Alister dear!--"

Through all this the engineer made no sign, and it struck me how wise he was, so I pulled the hammock round me again and fell asleep; not for long, I fancy, for those intolerable sandflies woke me once more before Dennis had turned in.

I looked out and saw him still at the window, his eyes on a waning planet, his cheek resting on the little glove laid in his right hand, and singing more sweetly than any nightingale:

"Youth must with time decay, Eileen aroon!

Beauty must fade away, Eileen aroon!

Castles are sacked in war, Chieftains are scattered far, Truth is a fixed star, Eileen aroon!"

CHAPTER XV.

"Which is why I remark, And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark, And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar."

BRET HARTE.