Handy Andy Volume Ii Part 18

"That fools should have the mastery, is it?" inquired the doctor, drily, with a mischievous query in his eye as well. "Tut, tut, tut, doctor,"

replied Father Phil, impatiently; "you know well enough what I mean, and I won't allow you to engage me in one of your ingenious battles of words. I speak of that wonderful influence of the weaker s.e.x over the stronger, and how the word of a rosy lip outweighs sometimes the resolves of a furrowed brow; and how the--pooh! pooh! I'm making a fool of myself talking to you--but to make a long story short, I would rather _wrastle_ out a logical dispute any day, or a tough argument of one of the fathers, than refute some absurdity which fell from a pretty mouth with a smile on it."

"Oh, I quite agree with you," said the doctor, grinning, "that the fathers are not half such dangerous customers as the daughters."

"Ah, go along with you, doctor!" said Father Phil, with a good-humoured laugh. "I see you are in one of your mischievous moods, and so I'll have nothing more to say to you."

The Father turned away to join the Squire, while the doctor took a seat near f.a.n.n.y Dawson and enjoyed a quiet little bit of conversation with her, while Moriarty was turning over the leaves of her alb.u.m; but the brow of the captain, who affected a taste in poetry, became knit, and his lip a.s.sumed a contemptuous curl, as he perused some lines, and asked f.a.n.n.y whose was the composition.

"I forget," was f.a.n.n.y's answer.

"I don't wonder," said Moriarty; "the author is not worth remembering, for they are very rough."

f.a.n.n.y did not seem pleased with the criticism, and said that, when sung to the measure of the air written down on the opposite page, they were very flowing.

"But the princ.i.p.al phrase, the _'refrain'_ I may say, is so vulgar,"

added Moriarty, returning to the charge. "The gentleman says, 'What would you do?' and the lady answers, 'That's what I'd do.' Do you call that poetry?"

"I don't call _that_ poetry," said f.a.n.n.y, with some emphasis on the word; "but if you connect those two phrases with what is intermediately written, and read all in the spirit of the entire of the verses, I think there is poetry in them--but if not poetry, certainly feeling."

"Can you tolerate '_That's what I'd do'?_--the pert answer of a housemaid."

"A phrase in itself homely," answered f.a.n.n.y, "may become elevated by the use to which it is applied."

"Quite true, Miss Dawson," said the doctor, joining in the discussion.

"But what are these lines which excite Randal's ire?"

"Here they are," said Moriarty. "I will read them, if you allow me, and then judge between Miss Dawson and me.

'What will you do, love, when I am going, With white sail flowing, The seas beyond?

What will you do, love, when--'"

"Stop thief!--stop thief!" cried the doctor. "Why, you are robbing the poet of his reputation as fast as you can. You don't attend to the rhythm of those lines--you don't give the ringing of the verse."

"That's just what I have said in other words," said f.a.n.n.y. "When sung to the melody, they are smooth."

"But a good reader, Miss Dawson," said the doctor, "will read verse with the proper accent, just as a musician would divide it into bars; but my friend Randal there, although he can tell a good story and hit off prose very well, has no more notion of rhythm or poetry than new beer has of a holiday."

"And why, pray, has not new beer a notion of a holiday?"

"Because, sir, it works of a Sunday."

"Your _beer_ may be new, doctor, but your _joke_ is not--I have seen it before in some old form."

"Well, sir, if I found it in its old form, like a hare, and started it fresh, it may do for folks to run after as well as anything else. But you shan't escape your misdemeanour in mauling those verses as you have done, by finding fault with my joke _redevivus._ You read those lines, sir, like a bellman, without any attention to metre."

"To be sure," said Father Phil, who had been listening for some time; "they have a ring in them--"

"Like a pig's nose," said the doctor.

"Ah, be aisy," said Father Phil. "I say they have a ring in them like an owld Latin canticle--

'What _will_ you _do,_ love, when I am _go_-ing, With white sail _flow_-ing, The says be_yond?_'

That's it!"

"To be sure," said the doctor. "I vote for the Father's reading them out on the spot."

"Pray, do, Mister Blake," said f.a.n.n.y.

"Ah, Miss Dawson, what have I to do with reading love verses?"

"Take the book, sir," said Growling, "and show me you have some faith in your own sayings, by obeying a lady directly."

"Pooh! pooh!" said the priest.

"You _won't_ refuse me?" said f.a.n.n.y, in a coaxing tone.

"My dear Miss Dawson," said the _padre._

"_Father Phil!_" said f.a.n.n.y, with one of her rosy smiles.

"Oh, wow! wow! wow!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the priest, in an amusing embarra.s.sment, "I see you will make me do whatever you like." So Father Phil gave the rare example of a man acting up to his own theory, and could not resist the demand that came from a pretty mouth. He took the book and read the lines with much feeling, but, with an observance of rhythm so grotesque, that it must be given in his own manner.

WHAT WILL YOU DO, LOVE?

I

"What _will_ you _do_, love, when I am _go_-ing, With white sail _flow_-ing, The seas be-_yond?_ What _will_ you _do_, love, when waves di-_vide_ us, And friends may chide us, For being _fond_?"

"Though waves di-_vide_ us, and friends be _chi_-ding, In faith a-_bi_-ding, I'll still be true; And I'll pray for _thee_ on the stormy _o_-cean, In deep de-_vo_-tion,-- That's _what_ I'll do!"

II

"What _would_ you _do_, love, if distant _ti_-dings Thy fond con-_fi_-dings Should under-_mine_ And I a-_bi_-ding 'neath sultry _skies_, Should think other _eyes_ Were as bright as _thine_?"

"Oh, name it _not_; though guilt and _shame_ Were on thy _name_, I'd still be _true_; But that heart of _thine_, should another _share_ it, I could not _bear it_;-- What _would_ I do?"

III

"What _would_ you do, when, home re-_turn_-ing, With hopes high _burn_-ing, With wealth for _you_,-- If my _bark_, that _bound_-ed o'er foreign _foam_, Should be lost near _home_,-- Ah, what _would_ you do?"

"So them wert _spar_-d, I'd bless the _mor_-row, In want and _sor_-row, That left me _you_; And I'd welcome _thee_ from the wasting _bil_-low, My heart thy _pil_-low!-- THAT'S _what_ I'd do!"

[Footnote: NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--The foregoing dialogue and Moriarty's captious remarks were meant, when, they appeared in the first edition, as a hit at a certain small critic--a would-be song-writer--who does ill-natured articles for the Reviews, and expressed himself very contemptuously of my songs because of their simplicity; or, as he was pleased to phrase it, "I had a knack of putting common things together."

The song was written to ill.u.s.trate my belief that the most common-place expression, _appropriately applied_, may successfully serve the purposes of the lyric; and here experience has proved me right, for this very song of "What will you do?" (containing within it the other common- place, "That's what I'd do") has been received with special favour by the public, whose long-continued goodwill towards my compositions generally I gratefully acknowledge.]

"Well done, _padre!_" said the doctor; "with good emphasis and discretion."

"And now, my dear Miss Dawson," said Father Phil, "since I've read the lines at your high bidding, will you sing them for me at my humble asking?"