Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories Part 35

The period of their apprentices.h.i.+p, however, elapsed, and the day at length arrived for their departure from the Corner House. Their master, and, we may add, their friend, solicited them to stop with him still as journeymen; but, as each had a different object in view, they declined it. Art proposed to set up for himself, for it was indeed but natural that one whose affections had been now so long engaged, should wish, with as little delay as possible, to see himself possessed of a home to which he might bring his betrothed wife. Frank had not trusted to chance, or relied merely upon vague projects, like his brother; for, some time previous to the close of his apprentices.h.i.+p, he had been quietly negotiating the formation of a partners.h.i.+p with a carpenter who wanted a steady man at the helm. The man had capital himself, and was clever enough in his way, but then he was illiterate, and utterly without method in conducting his affairs; Frank was therefore the identical description of person he stood in need of, and, as the integrity of his family was well known--that integrity which they felt so anxious to preserve without speck--there was of course little obstruction in the way of their coming to terms.

On the morning of the day on which they left his establishment, M'Carroll came into the workshop while they were about bidding farewell to their companions, with whom they had lived--abating the three or four pranks that were played off upon Art--on good and friendly terms, and seeing that they were about to take their departure, he addressed them as follows:--

"I need not say," he proceeded, "that I regret you are leaving me; which I do, for, without meaning any disrespect to those present, I am bound to acknowledge that two better workmen, or two honester young men, were never in my employment. Art, indeed is unsurpa.s.sed, considering his time, and that he is only closing his apprentices.h.i.+p: 'tis true, he has had good opportunities--opportunities which, I am happy to say, he has never neglected. I am in the habit, as you both know, of addressing a few words of advice to my young men at the close of their apprentices.h.i.+ps, and when they are entering upon the world as you are now. I will therefore lay down a few simple rules for your guidance, and, perhaps, by following them, you will find yourselves neither the worse nor the poorer men.

"Let the first principle then of your life, both as mechanics, and men, be truth--truth in all you think, in all you say, and in all you do; if this should fail to procure you the approbation of the world, it will not fail to procure you your own, and, what is better, that of G.o.d. Let your next principle be industry--honest, fair, legitimate industry, to which you ought to annex punctuality--for industry without punctuality is but half a virtue. Let your third great principle be sobriety--strict and undeviating sobriety; a mechanic without sobriety, so far from being a benefit or an ornament to society, as he ought to be, is a curse and a disgrace to it; within the limits of sobriety all the rational enjoyments of life are comprised, and without them are to be found all those which desolate society with crime, indigence, sickness, and death. In maintaining sobriety in the world, and especially among persons of your own cla.s.s, you will certainly have much to contend with; remember that firmness of character, when acting upon right feeling and good sense, will enable you to maintain and work out every virtuous and laudable purpose which you propose to effect. Do not, therefore, suffer yourselves to be shamed from sobriety, or, indeed, from any other moral duty, by the force of ridicule; neither, on the other hand, must you be seduced into it by flattery, or the transient gratification of social enjoyment. I have, in fact, little further to add; you are now about to become members of society, and to a.s.sume more distinctly the duties which it imposes on you. Discharge them all faithfully--do not break your words, but keep your promises, and respect yourselves, remember that self-respect is a very different thing from pride, or an empty overweening vanity--self-respect is, in fact, altogether incompatible with them, as they are with it; like opposite qualities, they cannot abide in the same individual. Let me impress it on you, that these are the principles by which you must honorably succeed in life, if you do succeed; while by neglecting them, you must a.s.suredly fail. 'Tis true, knavery and dishonesty are often successful, but it is by the exercise of fraudulent practices, which I am certain you will never think of carrying into the business of life--I consequently dismiss this point altogether, as unsuitable to either of you. I have only to add, now, that I hope most sincerely you will observe the few simple truths I have laid down to you; and I trust, that ere many years pa.s.s, I may live to see you both respectable, useful, and independent members of society. Farewell, and may you be all we wish you!"

Whether this little code of useful doctrine was equally observed by both, will appear in the course of our narrative.

About a month or so before the departure of Frank and Art from the Corner House, Jemmy Murray and another man were one day in the beginning of May strolling through one of his pasture-fields. His companion was a thin, hard-visaged little fellow, with a triangular face, and dry bristly hair, very much the color of, and nearly as p.r.i.c.kly as, a withered furze bush; both, indeed, were congenial spirits, for it is only necessary to say, that he of the furze bush was another of those charital and generous individuals whose great delight consisted, like his friend Murray, in watching the seasons, and speculating upon the failure of the crops. He had the reputation of being wealthy, and in fact was so; indeed, of the two, those who had reason to know, considered that he held the weightier purse; his name was c.o.o.ney Finigan, and the object of his visit to Murray--their conversation, however, will sufficiently develop that. Both, we should observe, appeared to be exceedingly blank and solemn; c.o.o.ney's hard face, as he cast his eye about him, would have made one imagine that he had just buried the last of his family, and Murray looked as if he had a son about to be hanged. The whole cause of this was simply that a finer season, nor one giving ampler promise of abundance, had not come within the memory of man.

"Ah!" said Murray, with a sigh, "look, c.o.o.ney, at the distressin' growth of gra.s.s that's there--a foot high if it's an inch! If G.o.d hasn't sed it, there will be the largest and heaviest crops that ever was seen in the country; heigho!"

"Well, but one can't have good luck always," replied c.o.o.ney; "only it's the wondherful forwardness of the whate that's distressin' me."

"An' do you think that I'm sufferin' nothin' on that account?" asked his companion; "only you haven't three big stacks of hay waitin' for a failure, as I have."

"That's bekase I have no meadow on my farm," replied c.o.o.ney; "otherwise I would be in the hay trade as well as yourself."

"Well, G.o.d help us, c.o.o.ney! every one has their misfortunes as well as you and I; sure enough, it's a bitther business to see how every thing's thrivin'--hay, oats, and whate! why they'll be for a song: may I never get a bad s.h.i.+llin', but the poor 'ill be paid for takin' them! that's the bitther pa.s.s things will come to; maurone ok! but it's a black lookout!"

"An' this rain, too," said c.o.o.ney, "so soft, and even, and small, and warm, that it's playin' the very devil. Nothin' could stand it. Why it ud make a rotten twig grow if it was put into the ground."

"Divil a one o' me would like to make the third," said Murray, "for 'fraid I might have the misfortune to succeed. Death alive! Only think of my four arks, of meal, an' my three stacks of hay, an' divil a pile to come out of them for another twelve months!"

"It's bad, too bad, I allow," said the other; "still let us not despair, man alive; who knows but the saison may change for the worse yet.

Whis.h.!.+" he exclaimed, slapping the side of his thigh, "hould up your head, Jemmy, I have thought of it; I have thought of it."

"You have thought of what, c.o.o.ney?"

"Why, death alive, man, sure there's plenty of time, G.o.d be praised for it, for the--murdher, why didn't we think of it before? ha, ha, ha!"

"For the what, man? don't keep us longin' for it."

"Why for the pratie crops to fail still; sure it's only the beginning o' May now, and who knows but we might have the happiness to see a right good general failure of the praties still? Eh? ha, ha, ha!"

"Upon my sounds, c.o.o.ney, you have taken a good deal of weight off of me.

Faith we have the lookout of a bad potato crop yet, sure enough. How is the wind? Don't you think you feel a little dry bitin' in it, as if it came from the aist?"

"Why, then, in regard of the dead calm that's in it, I can't exactly say--but, let me see--you're right, divil a doubt of it; faith it is, sure enough; bravo, Jemmy, who knows but all may go wrong wid the crops yet."

"At all events, let us have a gla.s.s on the head of it, and we'll drink to the failure of the potato c.r.a.ps, and G.o.d prosper the aist wind, for it's the best for you an' me, c.o.o.ney, that's goin'. Come up to the house above, and we'll have a gla.s.s on the head of it."

The fastidious reader may doubt whether any two men, no matter how griping or rapacious, could prevail upon themselves to express to each other sentiments so openly inimical to all human sympathy. In holding this dialogue, however, the men were only thinking aloud, and giving utterance to the wishes which every inhuman knave of their kind feels.

In compliance, however, with the objections which maybe brought against the probability of the above dialogue, we will now give the one which did actually occur, and then appeal to our readers whether the first is not much more in keeping with the character of the speakers--which ought always to be a writer's great object--than the second. Now, the reader already knows that each of these men had three or four large arks of meal laid past until the arrival of a failure in the crops and a season of famine, and that Murray had three large stacks of hay in the hope of a similar failure in the meadow crop.

"Good-morrow, Jemmy."

"Good-morrow kindly, c.o.o.ney; isn't this a fine saison, the Lord be praised!"

"A glorious saison, blessed be His name! I don't think ever I remimber a finer promise of the c.r.a.ps."

"Throth, nor I, the meadows is a miracle to look at."

"Divil a thing else--but the white, an' oats, an' early potatoes, beat anything ever was seen."

"Throth, the poor will have them for a song, Jemmy."

"Ay, or for less, c.o.o.ney; they'll be paid for takin' them."

"It's enough to raise one's heart, Jemmy, just to think of it."

"Why then it is that, an', for the same raison, come up to the house above, and we'll have a sup on the head of it; sure, it's no harm to drink success to the c.r.a.ps, and may G.o.d prevent a failure, any how."

"Divil a bit."

Now, we simply ask the reader which dialogue is in the more appropriate keeping with the characters of honest, candid Jemmy and c.o.o.ney?

"And now," proceeded c.o.o.ney, "regard-in' this match between your youngest daughter Margaret, and my son Toal."

"Why, as for myself," replied Murray, "sorra much of objection I have aginst it, barrin' his figure; if he was about a foot and a half higher, and a little betther made--G.o.d pardon me, an' blessed be the maker--there would, at all events, be less difficulty in the business, especially with Peggy herself."

"But couldn't you bring her about?"

"I did my endayvors, c.o.o.ney; you may take my word I did."

"Well, an' is she not softenin' at all?"

"Upon my sounds, c.o.o.ney, I cannot say she is. If I could only get her to spake one sairious word on the subject, I might have some chance; but I cannot, c.o.o.ney; I think both you an' little Toal had betther give it up.

I doubt there's no chance."

"Faith an' the more will be her loss. I tell you, Jemmy, that he'd outdo either you or me as a meal man. What more would you want?"

"He's cute enough, I know that."

"I tell you you don't know the half of it. It's the man that can make the money for her that you want."

"But aginst that, you know, it's Peggy an' not me that's to marry him.

Now, you know that women often--though not always, I grant--wish to have something in the appearance of their husband that they needn't be ashamed to look at."

"That's the only objection that can bo brought against him. He's the boy can make the money; I'm a fool to him. I'll tell you what, Jemmy Murray, may I never go home, but he'd skin a flint. Did you hear anything? Now!"

Murray, who appeared to be getting somewhat tired of this topic, replied rather hastily--

"Why, c.o.o.ney Finnigan, if he could skin the devil himself and ait him afterwards, she wouldn't have him. She has refused some of the best looking young men in the parish, widout either rhyme or raison, an' I'm sure she's not goin' to take your leprechaun of a son, that you might run a five-gallon keg between his knees. Sure, bad luck to the thing his legs resemble but a pair of raipin' hooks, wid their backs outwards. Let us pa.s.s this subject, and come in till we drink a gla.s.s together."

"And so you call my son a leprechaun, and he has legs like raipin'

hooks!"