Peter turned blue, red, yellow, white, and mottled by turns, and was nearly ten minutes searching for his voice before he found it. When he did get hold of it, he hardly recognized the tones as his own. “This is mo—mo—monstrous,” he ejaculated. “Begone! I shall have bailiffs in every cabin in the parish before the month’s out. I’ll evict—I’ll-I’ll—by Jove! I’ll—I’ll—Look here, go to Hong-Kong out of this!”
“Oh, we’re goin’,” responded the spokesman; “but, before we go, I’d like to give you a little bit of advice. We med you a fair offer, an’ ye’ve only returned abuse. Did you ever hear of Captain Boycott? Well, begorra, before this day-week you’ll think Captain Boycott a happy man to what you’ll be. We’re going to do the most complete, out-an’-out, thunderin’ boycottin’ on you that ever shook a man out of his breeches. Good day, an’ good luck to you. I hope your education in the fine arts of washin’ and cookin’, diggin’ yer own praties an’ lightin’ yer own fires, blackin’ yer own boots, an’ starchin’ yer own shirts, wasn’t neglected in yer youth, for ye’ll need it all, I assure you, on the word of a Sullivan. Come along, boys. Three cheers for the Land League!” A thundering hurrah shook the oaken rafters again and again, as the deputation filed slowly out of the room, and Peter sank into the nearest chair with a dim conviction surging through his brain that there was something wrong somewhere in the terrestrial system, and that Bow Lane, Limehouse, was a far more desirable location for his active genius than Ballymurphy, County Cork.
After half an hour’s diversified meditation, Peter decided that things were not so gloomy, after all. He would see his lawyer, and get out the decrees at once. As for the threat of boycotting, what did he care about that? He had no desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the tenantry, so how the deuce could he suffer by their refusal to speak or deal with him? Ha! ha! by Jove, it was absurd, ridiculously absurd. In his revived spirits Peter actually commenced an original fandango, but was interrupted in his terpsichorean evolutions by the entrance of his man Jones, over whose flabby countenance a facial eclipse had fallen, which at once arrested his master’s attention and his quickstep.
“Eh? Well? What’s up now?” queried Philipson.
“Hup! Heverythinks hup. Missus Moore, she’s hup and ’ooked it. The cook, she’s bin and gone and flued, also, likewise. The coachman and the ’ossler they’ve sloped, an’ the ’osses is a ’avin’ a jubilee on the front lawn. The kitchen fire, it’s gone out, and I do verily believe there ain’t a mossel of coal in the ’ouse. The butcher, ’e’s a bloomer, ’e is. Blow me if that ’ere butcher didn’t turn back with the legs o’ mutton, an’ the rounds o’ beef, an’ the shoulders o’ lamb as was a hordered for the lay-out to-morrow; and the fowl man, ’e did ditto with the turkeys an’ chickens, an’ the grocer, ’e’s another ditto, an’ I’ve come to give my notice. When I engaged to love, ’onor, an’ obey—I mean to brush your clothes an’ do all the other cetrys of a wally de sham—I didn’t bargain, not by no manner of means, for starvation. You may be as much Robinson Keruso as you like, but you don’t lug John Thomas in for Man Friday. Adoo. Fare you well. I’m going back to the roast beef of hold Hengland and Mary Ann Timmons, which, if she could see her faithful Jones a wearin’ to a skeleton she would break her ’art. Good-by, sir.”
Before Peter could gather in the full drift of his servitor’s disjointed sentences, that injured retainer was away, speeding to the nearest railway station with a firm conviction that his life depended on the distance he could place before nightfall between himself and Ballymurphy.
A hasty exploration of the premises convinced his master that he had spoken only too truly. There was not a servant in the house. The fires were all out; the larder was very nearly empty; the nearest provision store was four miles off; if he knew how to harness a horse to the gig he couldn’t do it, for, rejoicing in their unexpected freedom, his equine possessions were gaily gambolling in distant pastures; and Peter groaned as he pictured to himself the visit on the morrow of his invited guests, Captain Devereux and Lieutenant Talbot of the Lancers, the Rev. Jabez Wilkins, with his portly wife and buxom daughters, the neighboring squires from half a dozen estates—a goodly company of fifteen or sixteen in all, with not so much as a scullery maid to attend to their wants, and only three bottles of porter, a box of cigars, and a couple of loaves to feast their appetites!
It was awful. Marius amidst the ruins of Carthage, Casabianca on the burning deck, a Chinese mandarin in a Kearney convention, a fat alderman in a narrow lane with a Texan steer charging on his rear, Jonah in the whale’s belly, or a shipwrecked Mormon missionary contemplating burial in the digestive recesses of a tribe of cannibals may afford striking examples of perturbation of spirits, but Peter felt that day as if he would gladly change lots with any or all of them. What should he do? Would he tie black crape to the front knocker, with a card announcing his premature decease? Would he fly to other and fairer climes, where boycotting was unknown, and butchers, poulterers, grocers, cooks, and housekeepers had feeling hearts within their tender bosoms? Would he poison, hang, shoot, drown, or smother himself?
He didn’t do any of these things. He sought out Frieze-coat Sullivan. With tears in his eyes he besought that red-haired Cork-man to remove the edict which had brought desolation to his hearth and affliction to his soul. Sullivan was as merciful as he was mighty. He relented. He restored to Peter his satellite of the saucepan, his janitor of the stable, his legs of mutton, his groceries, and his peace of mind. The party came off, after all. Peter preserved his credit as a host, but it was at the sacrifice of his laurels as a land-agent.
If any reader desires now to ascertain the stormy depths of a soap-boiler’s soul, he has only do drop into the counting-house of Philipson Brothers, in the East end of London, and ask the manager his candid opinion of the Irish land question. He will probably be consigned to the nearest vat of boiling grease; but he will, at any rate, be firmly convinced that Philipson, Jr., entertains very strong ideas on the subject.