The Bunsby papers Part 33

"What?" exclaimed Bobolink, while a thrill of joy went through his frame; "is this true?"

"Hus.h.!.+ husband, dear, hus.h.!.+" she continued; "I did as you told me, you know. I have brought and given back the lost money to its owner. You know you left it at home for me to take."

"Ah, Polly, I wish I could tell this fellow that," said Tom, laying his hand upon his heart; "but I did intend to give it back. I did, by all my hopes of happiness."

"I know you did, my dear Tom," replied Polly, earnestly. "Your true heart could not harbor a bad thought long."

"My good friend," said Travers, approaching the truckman. "Your wife has refused any reward for this honest act."

"She's right, sir, she's right," interrupted the other.

"At least you'll let me shake you by the hand, and proffer you my friends.h.i.+p?"

"I can't, Poll, I can't," said Tom, aside, to his wife. "I'm afraid--I'm half a scoundrel yet--I know I am; but I've learned a wholesome lesson, and while I have life I'll strive to profit by it."

Urged to it by Polly, he did, however, shake hands with Travers and his wife, just as old Sterling, his face shrouded in gloom, and Mrs.

Grimgriskin, stiff and tigerish, entered the room.

"Ah, Sterling, my good old friend, rejoice with us--this honest fellow has found, and restored the money lost," said Travers, gaily; "but, how is this? you don't join in our gladness. Has that old rascal"----

"Hold!" interrupted the old clerk, in an earnest voice, and impressive manner; "Heaven has avenged your wrongs in a sudden and fearful manner.

Mr. Granite is dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed Henry, in a subdued tone; "with him let his misdeeds be buried. His son will perhaps be more merciful; he will inherit"----

"He has inherited--his father's fate," solemnly replied the old clerk.

"Justice may slumber for a while, but retribution must come at last.

You are now, by the merchant's will, his sole heir."

"Ho, ho!" thought Mrs. Grimgriskin, who had been an attentive listener, "I'm a woman of few words, but if I had been a woman of less, perhaps it would be more to my interest; but sudden millionaires are usually generous;" and so, smoothing her feline demeanor into quietude, she approached Travers.

"Allow me most sincerely to congratulate you upon your good fortune,"

she simpered. "Apropos, the first floor is somewhat in arrear; lovely apartments, new carpet, bath, hot water."

"Plenty of that, I'll be bail," remarked O'Bryan; "arrah, howld yer prate, Mrs. Woman-of-few-words--don't you see there's one too many here?"

"Then why don't you go, you ignorant animal," sharply suggested the other.

"Because I'm not the _one_."

Suffice it to say, Henry, with his young wife, and dear old Sterling, were soon installed in a house of their own, and, to their credit, never lost sight of the interest of Tom Bobolink and Polly, who from that day increased in content and prosperity.

As for O'Bryan, the last intimation we had of his well-doing, was the appearance of sundry gigantic street-bills, which contained the following announcement:

+------------------------+ | VOTE FOR | | THE PEOPLES' FRIEND. | | O'BRYAN, | | FOR ALDERMAN. | +------------------------+

THE TIPPERARY VENUS.

Amongst a people so simple-hearted and enthusiastic as the Irish, it is not at all surprising that a firm and implicit belief in supernal agency should be almost universal. To vivid imaginations, ever on the stretch for the romantic, yearning ever for something beyond the dull realities of commonplace existence, there is something extremely fascinating in the brain revellings of Fairy Land.

Now the Irish fairies are very numerous, and all as well cla.s.sified, and their varied occupations defined and described by supernaturalists, as though they really were amongst the things that be. The "learned pundits" in such matters declare that the economy of human nature is entirely carried on through their agency. Philosophers have demonstrated the atomic vitality of the universe, and the believer in fairies simply allots them their respective places and duties in the general distribution. They tell you that every breath of air, every drop of water, every leaf and flower, teems with actual life. Myriads of tiny atomies, they say, are employed carrying on the business of existence, animal, vegetable, and atmospheric. Here are crowds of industrious little chemists, extracting dew from moonbeams, which they deliver over to relays of fairy laborers, by them to be applied to the languis.h.i.+ng gra.s.s. The noxious exhalations of the earth are, by a similar process, gathered from decaying vegetation, and dispersed or condensed into refres.h.i.+ng rain. The warm sunbeams are by them brought down and scattered through the fields; it is the beautiful ministry of one cla.s.s to breathe upon, and gently force open, the budding blossoms, while, another seduously warms and nurtures the ripening corn, and tends the luscious fruits. Mischievous fellows there also are, whose delight it is to try and frustrate the exertions of the workers. They travel from place to place, loaded with malign influences; blight and mildew, and all the destructive agents that blast the hopes of the agriculturist are under their control; and, with an industry nearly equal to their opponents, they employ their time in training caterpillars and other devouring insects to a.s.sist them in the work of desolation.

Many are the battles, we are informed, that occur between the two opposing cla.s.ses, and it depends upon which side has the best of the contest what the result may be to the defeated object; whether they contend for the life of some delicate flower, or whether the poor farmer's toils were to be rewarded or rendered hopeless by the safety or the destruction of his entire crops.

But to leave this fanciful, and, it must be admitted, poetical theory, our business now is with an individual of a highly responsible cla.s.s in the world of Fairydom--_The Leprechaun_. A most important personage he is; being the custodian of all hidden treasure, it is he who fabricates the gold within the rock-encircled laboratory. The precious gems, the diamond, sapphire, ruby, amethyst, emerald, and all the world-coveted jewels, are in the safe guardians.h.i.+p of the Leprechaun; and fatal it is to him when aught is discovered and torn from his grasp--for his fairy existence, his immortal essence, is lost with it; he can no longer sport through the air, invisible to mortal ken, but is compelled to take a tangible form, and to work at a degrading occupation--that of making and mending the shoes of his former fairy companions.

The experiences of the writer of this sketch in fairy lore and anecdote, were mostly gathered from a wild, Tipperary sort of cousin, some dozens of times removed, one Roderick O'Callaghan--familiarly Rory--or as, by an easy corruption, he was known "the country round,"

Roarin' O'Callaghan, who, in his time, had gathered them from the wilder henchmen and followers by whom he was surrounded, when, a devil-may-care gossoon, he wandered among the _Galtie mountains_, the especial pet and persecutor of the entire neighborhood.

Many and many were the mischievous pranks recorded of young Rory. I almost wish that I had begun with the determination of recounting a few of them; but, as I have set myself another task, I must defer that intention until a future opportunity. I am not at all certain still, but that my erratic nib--for I write "_currente calamo_," and without much especial method--may diverge from the grand current of narrative, and, in spite of myself, imperceptibly stray into the now interdicted by-way.

It was from Rory that I heard the strange tale I am now about to relate. Desperate boy-rivals were we, at that time, I must tell you, for the affectionate regards of a young beauty who played old Harry with the juvenile susceptibilities of the whole vicinage. Ah! now that my memory has reverted to that epoch, digression is inevitable. Lovely Polly O'Connor!--bless my soul; a sigh, even at this distant period; how very tenacious these boy-attachments are. I see her as plainly now, mentally pictured, as though in very deed she stood before me.

Both Rory and I endeavored, in the ardent enthusiasm of our fledgling pa.s.sion, to give vent to the burning thoughts that flamed within us, through the lover's peculiar channel--poetry. My own extraordinary effusion I remember--his I have preserved, and although, at the time, I knew well which was best ent.i.tled to the world's consideration, I submit both productions now without a remark. They will at least serve for a description, however insufficient, of our inspiratress.

I had an immense advantage over my compet.i.tor in one instance; for, having an acquaintance in the editorial department of the local newspaper, my lucubration lent a l.u.s.tre to the poets' corner, while, I am ashamed to confess, I exerted, successfully, the same influence to keep Rory's out; it was ungenerous, I own, unpardonable; but what won't a boy-rival do to clear the onward path before the impetuosity of a first love.

But here is the affair, just as it appeared in the Tipperary Gazette, headed, as I thought, with becoming modesty:

LINES TO A YOUNG LADY.

I will not venture to compare Those flas.h.i.+ng eyes To sunny skies; To threads of gold thy wealth of hair; Thy cheek unto the rose's glow; Thy polished brow, To lilies glancing in the light, Or Parian white; Thy bosom to the virgin snow-- For these Are weak and well-worn similes.

Thine eyes are like--like--let me see; The violet's hue, Reflected through A drop of dew; No, that won't do.

No semblance true In ample nature can there be To equal their intensity-- Their heavenly blue.

T'were just as vain to seek, Through every flower to match thy glowing cheek.

No gold could shed Such radiant glory as ensaints thy head.

Besides, I now remember, Your golden tresses are but flattered red, And thine are living amber, As, when 'tis ripest through the waving corn, The sunbeams glance upon a harvest morn.

To the pale l.u.s.tre of thy brow, The lily's self perforce must bow-- The marbles cold, And very old; Thy bosom as the new-fallen snow Is quite As white, And melts as soon with Love's warm glow.

But then, While that receives an early stain, Thy purer bosom doth still pure remain.

Since, to my mind, I cannot find A simile of any kind, I argue hence Thou art the sense And spirit of all excellence; The charm-bestowing fount, from whence Fate doth dispense Its varied bounties to the fair, The loveliest of whom but share A portion of the gifts thou well canst spare.

It will scarcely be credited, that after that brilliant compliment to Polly's charms, the little jilt, her well-fortified heart not being a.s.sailable by Parna.s.sian pellets, looked still colder upon the suffering perpetrator. However, the persevering nature of my pa.s.sion--and, indeed, it was then a real one--was not to be set aside by rebuffs. Again and again I returned to the attack, and, pen in hand, racked my unfortunate brains through all the strategy of acrostics, birth-day odes, and sonnets. It was not until some time afterwards that I discovered the real reason of my ill-success. The writing of the "Lines" was, perhaps, a pardonable liberty, but printing them was atrocious; so that, in fact, my unworthy suppression of Rory's concoctions brought its own punishment--not that he was a bit more successful than I, for, as we soon became sensibly aware, the charming, but conscienceless little coquette had even more strings to her bow than she could conveniently fiddle with; indeed, that there wasn't a decent-looking boy in the academy that she didn't encourage, or seem to encourage, so generalizing was her flirtation system.

And, after all, to _decline_ upon foxy Tom Gallagher, the more than middle-aged Dispensary doctor, a long, straggling, splay-footed disciple of aesculapius, with a head of hair like a door-mat--that she has time and again watched and laughed her little ribs sore at, as he shuffled along the street. Ah! Polly O'Connor!

But, allow me to present to your notice Rory's poetical offering at her inexorable feet. It is, as you may perceive, ambitious, and, however I might have underrated its merits at one time, I _now_ think it smacks somewhat of the old Elizabethan relish.

Judge for yourself:

Upon some sly affair Connubially dishonest-- Vide Lempriere-- Jupiter was _non est_.