If I were astonished before, need I say how I felt now.
“And are you really a countryman of mine?” said I, as I took my seat beside him.
“Faith, I believe so. Con O’Kelly, does not sound very like Italian, and that’s my name, any how; but wait a bit, they’re calling on me for a Dutch song, and when I’ve done, we’ll have a chat together.”
A very uproarious clattering of brass and pewter cans on the tables, announced that the company was becoming impatient for Mynheer O’Kelly’s performance, which he immediately began; but of either the words or air, I can render no possible account, I only know, there was a kind of refrain or chorus, in which, all, round each table, took hands, and danced a “grand round,” making the most diabolical clatter with wooden shoes, I ever listened to.
After which, the song seemed to subside into a low droning sound, implying sleep. The singer nodded his head, the company followed the example, and a long heavy note, like snoring, was heard through the room, when suddenly, with a hiccup, he awoke, the others also, and then the song broke out once more, in all its vigour, to end as before, in another dance, an exercise in which I certainly fared worse than my neighbours, who tramped on my corns without mercy, leaving it a very questionable fact how far his “pious, glorious, and immortal memory” was to be respected, who had despoiled my country of “wooden shoes” when walking off with its brass money.
The melody over, Mr. O’Kelly proceeded to question me somewhat minutely, as to how I had chanced upon this house, which was not known to many, even of the residents of Antwerp.
I briefly explained to him the circumstances which led me to my present asylum, at which he laughed heartily.
“You don’t know, then, where you are?” said he, looking at me, with a droll half-suspicious smile.
“No; it’s a Schenk Haus, I suppose,” replied I.
“Yes, to be sure, it is a Schenk Haus, but it’s the resort only of smugglers, and those connected with their traffic. Every man about you, and there are, as you see, some seventy or eighty, are all, either sea-faring folks, or landsmen associated with them, in contraband trade.”