Читать книгу The Bunsby Papers (second series): Irish Echoes - John Brougham, John Brougham - Страница 7

And now let us return to the cobbler's cabin, and see how matters are progressing there. Peggy has just brought over the tureen of soup so fervently longed for by the changed Squire; with a cry of joy, for he is very hard set, indeed, he seized the welcome gift, and placing it between his knees as he sat on the low workstall, prepared to dive into its savory contents, but a groan of horror and disappointment broke from his lips when, on taking off the cover, he found the tureen was empty.

"The pippin-squeezing ruffian," cried he, "he's sent it over without as much as a smell, and I so mortial hungry that I could bite a tenpenny nail in two; if he was here, bad 'cess to me if I wouldn't smash this upon his head."

"That's mighty strange, entirely," said Peggy, "for I'll be on me oath there was plenty in it when I took it off the Squire's sideboard."

"If there was, you must have gobbled it up yourself, or spilt it on the street, you unconsiderate faymale," said Bulworthy.

"Is it me, indeed, Dan, jewel? it's well you know that if it was goold, an' you could ate it, I wouldn't put a tooth into it, when I knew you wanted it so dhreadful," replied Peggy, reproachfully.

"Well, may-be you wouldn't," doggedly observed Bulworthy; "but do, for Heaven's sake, get me somethin' to put an end to the wobblin' that's goin' on in the inside of me; may I never leave this place alive if I think I've had a male's vitells for a month."

"How outrageous you are, Dan," sorrowfully replied the other. "Where am I to get it?"

"Go out an' buy it, ov coorse."

"Arrah what with? I'd like to know; sure, an' won't we have to wait until that purse-proud ould rap over the way pays us the shillin' that he owes us."

A reproachful pang shot through the heart of Bulworthy at that observation. "The ould skinflint," said he, "if I ever get near him again, may-be I won't touch him up for not doin' that same."

"Indeed, an' it would sarve him right," Peggy went on. "Swimmin' in plenty as he is, it's little that he thinks of the pinchin' hunger we feel."

"Don't don't," cried Bulworthy, pressing his hands against his gastronomic regions. "I feel it now, fairly sthranglin' me; it's just as if some wild savage beast was runnin' up and down here, sarchin' for somethin' to devour, and not bein' able to find it, is takin' mouthfuls out of my intayrior by the way of a relish; oh! murdher, I never knew what hunger was before."

"Didn't you, raylly?" Peggy replied, with a queer expression. "Faith, then, it wasn't for the want of chances enough."

"I mean – don't bother – it's famished I am, and crazy a'most; is there a dhrop of dhrink in the house?"

"Not as much as would make a tear for a fly's eye," said Peg.

"No! then what the Puck are we to do?"

"Bear it, I suppose, as well as we can; we've often done it afore, an' what's worse, will have to do it agin, unless the hearts of the rich changes towards us."

"Oh! if ever I get back to myself again," muttered the hungry Squire. "Peg, darlin', go over to the old schamer, an' tell him that av he doesn't send me the shillin' I'll expose him, I know more about him than he thinks for; if he's black conthrary, you might just whisper in his lug that I'm up to his thricks when he was in the grocery line; ax him for me, who shoved the pennies into the butther, wathered the whisky, and sanded the shugar, who" —

"Why, for gracious sake, Dan, where did you pick up all that knowledgeableness?" interrupted Peggy.

"Hem! no matther – never you mind – may-be I only dhreamt it," replied Bulworthy, with some hesitation. "I don't know exactly what I was talkin' about; it's the imptyness that's speakin', so I wouldn't mention it; only go and get somethin' somewhere, av it was only a brick."

"I'll be at him again, Dan, sence you wish it; but it's little blood I'm thinking, we'll be able to squeeze out of his turnip of a heart," said Peggy, putting on her shawl and bonnet, to make the thankless attempt. As she was going out of the door, however, she saw the Squire hobbling across the street.

"Talk of the – what's his name – May I never, but here the ould reprobate comes, hoppin' gingerly over the stones, like a hen walkin' on a hot griddle. May the saints soften him all over, an' make his heart as tendher as his toes this blessed day. I'll lave you wid him, Dan, darlin', for I'm not over partial to his company. So I'll take the babby out for a blast o' fresh air while yez are convarsin'."

Peggy's preparations for her promenade were quickly made, which resulted in her leaving the place before the gouty visitor had accomplished his short but painful transit from house to house.

"A pretty thing I've done for myself," groaned Bulworthy, suffering alike from thirst, hunger, and cold, as he vainly strove, by slapping his hands against his chest, to make the blood circulate warmly through his finger-ends. "Ov coorse that cobblin' scoundrel will never consent to come back to his starvation and poverty – he'd be a greater fool even than I was if he did. Ah! if I ever do get back to a good dinner again, there shan't be a poor devil within a mile of me that'll ever want one while I live. Here comes the cripple; the only chance I have is to pretend that I'm in a sort of second-hand paradise here." So saying, he commenced to sing, in a voice of exaggerated jollity, a verse of

accompanying the tune by vigorous whacks of his hammer upon the piece of sole-leather he was beating into the requisite toughness.

The united sounds of merriment and industry smote upon Dan's heart like a knell.

"Listen at the happy ragamuffin, working away like a whole hive o' bees, and chirpin' like a pet canary-bird," said he to himself. "Oh, it's aisy seen he won't want to renew his acquaintance wid this murdherin' gout an' the useless money – but, hit or miss, it won't do to let him see me down in the mouth."

So, putting on a careless swagger, and forcing a tone of joyousness into his voice:

"Hallo, cobbler," he cried, "there you are, bellusin' away like a bagpiper. What an iligant thing it is to see such poor wretches whistlin' themselves into an imitation of comfort."

"How do you know but I'm crammed full of real comfort, bad luck to yer mockin' tongue?" said Bulworthy, disgusted at the other's satisfied demeanor.

"It's pleased I am to see your foggy moon of a face, anyway," he went on. "Where's me shillin'?"

"Why, you poor, miserable attenuation of humanity, how dare you address yourself to me in that orthodox manner?" observed Dan, with an ambitious attempt at Bulworthy's magniloquence.

"Miserable, eh?" replied the other, with a chirp. "Is it me miserable, wid such a home as this?"

"It's all over," thought Dan, "the ould brute's as happy as a bird. Bad luck to the minute that my own pelt made a cage for him."