"There are two of them!" whispered Oonah. to us! Do you hear him asking for the pistol?" "Screel!" said her aunt. "I can't," said Oonah. Andy was quiet for some time, while the breathed. 66 "God be merciful women scarcely Suppose we get up, and make for the door," said the aunt. "I wouldn't put my foot out of the bed for the world," said Oonah. "I'm afeard one o' them would catch me by the leg." "Howld him! howld him!" grumbled Andy. "I'll die with the fright, aunt! I feel I'm dyin'! Let us say our prayers, aunt, for we're goin' to be murdhered!" The two women began to repeat with fervour their aves and paternosters, while at this immediate juncture Andy's dream having borne him to the dirty ditch where Dick Dawson had pommelled him, he began to vociferate, "Murder! murder!" so fiercely, that the women screamed together in an agony of terror, and "Murder! murder!" was shouted by the whole party, for once the widow and Oonah found their voices, they made good use of them. The noise awoke Andy, who had, be it remembered, a tolerable long sleep by this time; and he having quite forgotten where he had lain down, and finding himself confined by the bed above him, and smothering for want of air, with the fierce shouts of murder ringing in his ears, woke in as great a fright as the women in the bed, and became a party in the terror he himself had produced; every plunge he gave under the bed inflicted a poke or a kick on his mother and cousin, which was answered by the cry of "Murder !" "Let me out! Let me out, Misther Dick!" roared Andy. "Where am I at all? Let me out!" 66 Help, help! murdher!" roared the women. "I'll never shoot any one again, Misther Dick-let me up!" Andy scrambled from under the bed half awake, and whole frightened by the darkness and the noise, which was now increased by the barking of the cur-dog. "High! at him, Coaly!" roared Mrs. Rooney; howld him!" "howld him! Now as this address was often made to the cur respecting the pig when Mrs. Rooney sometimes wanted a quiet moment in the day, and the pig didn't like quitting the premises, the dog ran to the corner of the cabin where the pig habitually lodged, and laid hold of his ear with the strongest testimonials of affection, which polite attention the pig acknowledged by a prolonged squeeling, that drowned the voices of the women and Andy together; and now the cocks and hens that were roosting on the rafters of the cabin, were startled by the din, and crow. ing and cackling; and the flapping of the frightened fowls as they flew about in the dark, added to the general uproar and confusion. "Ah!" screamed Oonah, "take your hands off me!" as Andy, getting from under the bed, laid his hand upon it to assist him, and caught a grip of his cousin. "Who are you at all?" cried Andy, making another claw, and catching hold of his mother's nose. "Oonah, they're murdhering me!" shouted the widow. A The name of Oonah, and the voice of his mother, recalled his senses to Andy, who shouted, 66 Mother, mother, what's the matter!" frightened hen flew in his face, and nearly knocked Andy down. "Bad cess to you," cried Andy; "what do you hit me for?" "Who are you at all?" cried the widow. "Don't you know me?" said Andy. "No, I don't know you; by the vartue o' my oath, I don't; and I'll never swear again' you, jintlemen, if you lave the place, and spare our lives!" Here the hens flew against the dresser, and smash went the plates and dishes. "Oh, jintlemen, dear, don't rack and ruin me that way; don't desthroy a lone woman!" "Mother, mother, what's this at all? Don't you know your own Andy?" "Is it you that's there?" cried the widow, catching hold of him. "To be sure it's me," said Andy. "You won't let us be murdhered, will you?" "Who'd murdher you?" "Them people that's with you." Smash went another plate. "Do you hear that? they're rackin' my place, the villains!" "Divil a one's wid me at all!" said Andy. "I'll take my oath there was three or four under the bed," said Oonah. "Not one but myself," said Andy. "Are you sure?" said his mother. 'Cock sure!" said Andy, and a loud crowing gave evidence in fa vour of his assertion. "The fowls is going mad," said the widow. "And the pig's disthracted," said Oonah. "No wonder; the dog's murdherin' him," said Andy. "Get up and light the rushlight, Oonah," said the widow; "you'll get a spark out o' the turf cendhers." "Some o' them will catch me, may be !" said Oonah. "Get up, I tell you!" said the widow. Oonah now arose, and groped her way to the fire-race, where by dint of blowing upon the embers, and poking the rushlight among the turf ashes, a light was at length obtained. She then returned to the bed, and threw her petticoat over her shoulders. "What's this at all?" said the widow rising, and wrapping a blanket round her. "Bad cess to the know I know!" said Andy. "Look undher the bed, Oonah," said the aunt. Oonah obeyed, and screamed, and ran behind Andy, "There's another here yet!" said she. Andy seized the poker, and standing on the defensive, desired the villain to come out; the demand was not complied with. "There's nobody there," said Andy. "I'll take my oath there is," said Oonah; "a dirty blackguard with. out any clothes on him. "Come out, you robber!" said Andy, making a lunge under the truckle. A grunt ensued, and out rushed the pig, who had escaped from the dog, the dog having discovered a greater attraction in some fat that was knocked from the dresser, which the widow intended for the dipping of rushes in; but the dog being enlightened to his own interest without rushlights, and preferring mutton fat to pig's ear, had suffered the grunter to go at large, while he was captivated by the fat. The clink of a three-legged stood the widow seized to the rescue, was a stronger argument against the dog than he was prepared to answer, and a remnant of fat was preserved from the rapacious Coaly. "Where's the rest of the robbers?" said Oonah: "there's three o' them, I know." "You're dhramin," said Andy. self." "Divil a robber is here but my "And what brought you here?" said his mother. "I was afeard they'd murdher me," said Andy. 66 Murdher!" exclaimed the widow and Oonah together, still startled by the very sound of the word. "Who do you mane?" "Misther Dick," said Andy. "Aunt, I tell you," said Oonah, "this is some more of Andy's blundhers. Sure Misther Dawson wouldn't be goin' to murdher any one; let us look round the cabin, and find out who's in it, for I won't be aisy ontil I look into every corner to see there's no robbers in the place; for I tell you again there was three o' them undher the bed." The search was made, and the widow and Oonah at length satisfied that there were no midnight assassins there with long knives to cut their throats; and then they began to thank God that their lives were safe. "But, oh! look at my chaynee !" said the widow, clasping her hands, and casting a look of despair at the shattered delf that lay around her; "look at my chaynee!" "And what was it brought you here?" said Oonah, facing round on Andy with a dangerous look, rather, in her bright eye. "Will you tell us that, what was it ?" "I came to save my life, I tell you," said Andy. "To put us in dhread of ours, you mane," said Oonah. "Just look at the omadhawn there," said she to her aunt," standin' with his mouth open, just as if nothin' happened, and he afther frightenin' the lives of us." "Thrue for you, alanna," said her aunt. "And would no place sarve you, indeed, but undher our bed, you vagabone?" said his mother, roused to a sense of his delinquency," to come in like a morodin villian, as you are, and hide under the bed, and frighten the lives out of us, and rack and ruin my place ?" 66 "Twas Misther Dick, I tell you," said Andy. "Bad scran to you, you unlooky hangin' bone thief!" cried the widow, seizing him by the hair, and giving him a hearty cuff on the ear, which would have knocked him down, only that Oonah kept him up by an equally well applied box on the other. “Would you murdher me ?" shouted Andy. "Arn't you afther frightenin' the lives out of us, you dirty, good-fornothing, mischief-making!" On poured the torrent of abuse, rendered more impressive by a whack at every word. Andy roared, and the more he roared, the more did Oonah and his mother thrash him. So great, indeed, was their zeal in the cause, that the widow's blanket and Oonah's petticoat fell off in the melée, which compels us to put our hands to our eyes, and close the chapter. VOL. III. IMPOSSIBILITIES, FLED is the dream so fondly nurst, Then seek not passion to renew,— Believe me that the dream is ended. Who in this wise world ever knew 7 A, K. MERRIE ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME. HER GAMBOLS, SONGS, AND FLASHES OF MERRIMENT, WITH THE HUMOURS OF HER ANCIENT COURT-FOOLS, WILL SUMMERS, DICK TARLTON, AND ARCHIBALD ARM STRONG. BY MR. INGLEBERRY GRISKIN. WELL might England have been called "Merrie" in the olden time, for the court had its masques and pageantry, and the people their sports and pastimes. There existed a jovial sympathy between the two estates, which was continually brought into action, and en joyed with hearty good-will. Witness the Standard in Cornhill, and the Conduit in "Chepe;" when May-poles were in their glory, and fountains ran with wine. Catholicism, though it enjoined penance and mortification, was no enemy, at appointed seasons, to mirth. Hers were merry saints, for they always brought with them a holiday! A right jovial prelate was the Pope who first invented the Carnival! On that joyful saturnalia, racks and thumbscrews, fire and faggots, were put by; whips and hair-shirts exchanged for lutes and dominos; and music, which devils and puritans abhor, inspired equally their diversions and devotions. How different from the tautological gibberish of those hypocritical mumpers who substituted their discordant nasal twang for the solemn harmony of cathedral music; who altered St. Peter's phrase," the Bishop of your souls," into "the Elder (!!!) of your souls" and, for "Thy Kingdom come," in the Lord's Prayer, brayed forth "thy Commonwealth come!" These were the devout publicans who piously smuggled the water into their rum. puncheons, which they called wrestling with the spirit, and making the enemy weaker! who pulled down May-poles,* and erected pantiles; sent the players a packing; abolished wakes, whitsun-ales, and morrisdancing; rescued us from the superstition of a merry Christmas; and diluted the once convivial John Bull into an unsocial solution of stiff. necked profundity, with a lugubrio-comic expression that might convulse a Trappist. "The Prince of Darkness," says Lear," is a gentleman;" which is more than can be said of his puritans. We are as " melancholy as a gib-cat, or a lugged bear," at these dismal reminiscences. Where be yonr gambols, your songs, Merry old England? when Momus presided over his High Court of Mummery, or Beggars' Parliament; and His Mendicant Majesty of Queerum * On May 1, 1517, the unfortunate shaft, or May-pole, gave rise to the insurrection of that turbulent body, the London apprentices, and the plundering of the foreigners in the city, whence it got the name of Evil May-day. From that time the offending pole was hung on a range of hooks over the doors of a long row of neighbouring houses. In the 3rd of Edward VI. an over-zealous fanatic, called Sir Stephen, began to preach against this May-pole, which inflamed his audience so greatly, that the owner of every house over which it hung sawed off as much as depended over his premises, and committed piecemeal to the flames this terrible idol ! The "tall May-pole" that "once o'erlooked the Strand," (about the year 1717), Sir Isaac Newton begged of the parish, and it was carried to Wanstead in Essex where it was erected in the park, and had the honour of raising the greatest telescope then known. The New Church occupies its site. "But now (so Anne and piety ordain), A church collects the saints of Drury-Lane." |