Читать книгу An Irish Crazy-Quilt - Arthur M. Forrester - Страница 13

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THERE is no country in Christendom whose inhabitants are so susceptible to music as the Irish. An itinerant musician, wandering round the different fairs in Ireland, can exercise an influence with his bagpipes or fiddle almost as superhuman as that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. “God Save Ireland” will hush the listeners into reverential silence; “Savourneen Deelish” will cause tears to glisten on cheeks that a moment before were flushed with merriment; “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” will agitate the toes and rustle the petticoats of two thirds of the living humanity in earshot, and if that instrumentalist fancies himself a John L. Sullivan, and wishes for an opportunity of testing the muscles of the manhood about him, let him try the “Boyne Water” for five minutes. If he don’t get pretty well scattered about, it will be because he has been killed in the lump.

But of all the effects of all the tunes to which all the composers existing for all the centuries have devoted all their genius, there is none so startling, so instantaneous, so blood-curdling as that produced upon a constable by the strains of “Harvey Duff.” A red rag flourished in the eyes of a mad bull, a free-trade pamphlet in a Republican convention, a Chinese policeman ordering Denis Kearney to move on, or a trapped mouse wagging its tail defiantly at a cat helplessly growling outside the wirework, may provoke diabolical ebullitions of wrath; but if you want to see a forty-horse power, Kansas cyclone, Rocky Mountain tornado, Java earthquake, Vesuvius volcano, blue-fire and brimstone, dynamite and gun-cotton, and all the elements combined, crash of rage, hate, venom, spleen, disgust, and agony, just learn “Harvey Duff,” take a trip across to Ireland, insure your life, encase yourself in a suit of mail, and whistle it for the first policeman you meet. The result will amply repay the journey. You needn’t take a return ticket. If he be anything like an average peeler, you won’t want it. It might be as well to ascertain beforehand the number of ribs you possess. It will interest you in hospital to know how many are missing; that is, if you are lucky enough to go to hospital.

Somebody wrote, “The path of glory leads but to the grave.” The performance of “Harvey Duff” leads generally to the nearest cemetery.

How, when, where, and why “Harvey Duff” was composed, or who was its composer, or in what manner the air has become indissolubly associated with the Irish police, is one of those mysteries which, like the authorship of the Letters of Junius, may lead to interminable theories and speculations, but will never be definitely settled.

I suspect that “Harvey Duff,” like Topsy, “growed.”

There is a character of the name, a miserable wretch of a process-server and informer, in Boucicault’s drama, “The Shaughraun,” but the popular “Harvey Duff” is of country origin, and his requiem was first whistled in Connemara, where a theatrical company would be as much out of place as a bottle of rum in a convention of prohibitionists. It is equally difficult to ascertain the cause of the aversion entertained to the melody by the constabulary, but that they hate it with Niagara force has been established a thousand times. Bodies of police have been known to submit to volleys of stones on rare occasions, but, in a long and varied experience, I never met a constable yet who could stand “Harvey Duff” for thirty seconds.

I think it is of Head Constable Gardiner, of Drogheda, the story is told that, when Dr. Collier, a relative who had been away for some years, returned to his native place and he failed to recognize him, the doctor jocosely asked Mr. Gardiner to hum him “Harvey Duff,” as he was anxious to master that national anthem. Before that disciple of Galen had time to finish his request, he found himself battering the pavement with the back of his head, one leg desperately striving to tie itself into a knot, and the other hysterically pointing in the direction of the harvest-moon, whilst the furious Gardiner was looking for a soft spot in the surgeon’s body to bury his drawn sword-bayonet in.

In Kilmallock, County Limerick, on one occasion, a bright, curly-headed little boy of the age of five years was marched into court under an escort of one sub-inspector, two constables, and eight sub-constables, and there and then solemnly charged with having intimidated the aforesaid force of her Majesty’s defenders. It appeared that the small and chubby criminal, on passing the barracks, had tried to whistle something which the garrison imagined to be “Harvey Duff,” and before the barefooted urchin could make his retreat, the sub-inspector’s Napoleonic strategy, aided as it was by the marvellous discipline and bulldog valor of his command, resulted in the capture of the infant, without any serious loss to the loyal battalions. The five-year-old rebel was bound over to keep the peace, so that the Kilmallock policemen might not in future pace their dismal rounds with their hearts in their mouths and their souls in their boots,—that is, if an Irish policeman has either a heart or a soul. The popular belief is that they discard both along with their civilian clothes.[A]

A few days afterwards, in the city of Limerick, an ardent wearer of the dark-green uniform got a lift in the world, and gave an unique gymnastic entertainment for the benefit of the citizens that has immortalized him in the “City of the Violated Treaty,” through the same “Harvey Duff.” He was passing by a lofty grain warehouse. In the topmost story a laborer was industriously winding up by a crane sacks of corn which were attached to the rope below by a fellow-workman. The sub-constable, pausing to survey the operations, was horror-stricken to hear the man aloft enlivening his toil by the unmistakable accompaniment of the atrocious “Harvey Duff.” Fired with heroic zeal, he determined to capture the sacrilegious miscreant and silence his seditious solo. Seizing the corn-porter below, he threatened him with the direst penalties of the law if by signal or shout he warned his musical comrade of his impending fate. Then, when the rope next descended, that strategic sub fastened it round his waist, gave the signal “all right,” and the operatic minstrel began to wind up, not a cargo of grain, but an avenging angel with belt and tunic. How Mephistopheles below told Orpheus above of his approaching danger I know not; but when the passionate peeler was elevated some thirty feet from Mother Earth the ascent suddenly ceased, and there he was left suspended in mid-air, twirling and twisting, and swinging and gyrating, and flinging out upon the passing breeze a cloud of official profanity that made the atmosphere lurid. His promotion lasted for fully half an hour, and, when the arrival of re-enforcements released him from his aerial bondage, the crowd beneath, who had been enjoying his acrobatic feats, and wondering at his ornamental objurgations, thought it better to dissolve before he could recover his breath.

I am not aware whether “Harvey Duff” had ever any words attached to its obnoxious measure, but I think it would be a pity not to convey the ideas of the Royal Irish concerning the tune in imperishable verse, and it is with feelings of profound sympathy I dedicate the following lines to that immaculate body:—