“Stewart Moore, ma’am. Moore is the name, but people always call him Stewart Moore; just say that in a loud clear voice, and you’ll soon have him.”
With the most profuse protestations of gratitude and promises of pork “at discretion,” if I ever sojourned at Ballinasloe, my fair friend proceeded to follow my advice, and descended to the cabin.
Some hours after, I also betook myself to my rest, from which, however, towards midnight I was awoke by the heavy working and pitching of the little vessel, as she laboured in a rough sea. As I looked forth from my narrow crib, a more woe-begone picture can scarcely be imagined than that before me. Here and there through the gloomy cabin lay the victims of the fell malady, in every stage of suffering, and in every attitude of misery. Their cries and lamentings mingled with the creaking of the bulk-heads and the jarring twang of the dirty lamp, whose irregular swing told plainly how oscillatory was our present motion. I turned from the unpleasant sight, and was about again to address myself to slumber with what success I might, when I started at the sound of a voice in the very berth next to me—whose tones, once heard, there was no forgetting. The words ran as nearly as I can recollect thus:—
“Oh, then, bad luck to ye for pigs, that ever brought me into the like of this. Oh, Lord, there it is again.” And here a slight interruption to eloquence took place, during which I was enabled to reflect upon the author of the complaint, who, I need not say, was Mrs. Mulrooney.
“I think a little tay would settle my stomach, if I only could get it; but what’s the use of talking in this horrid place? They never mind me no more than if I was a pig. Steward, steward—oh, then, it’s wishing you well I am for a steward. Steward, I say;” and this she really did say, with an energy of voice and manner that startled more than one sleeper. “Oh, you’re coming at last, steward.”
“Ma’am,” said a little dapper and dirty personage, in a blue jacket, with a greasy napkin negligently thrown over one arm “ex officio,” “Ma’am, did you call?”
“Call, is it call? No; but I’m roaring for you this half hour. Come here. Have you any of the cordial dhrops agin the sickness?—you know what I mean.”
“Is it brandy, ma’am?”
“No, it isn’t brandy;”
“We have got gin, ma’am, and bottled porter—cider, ma’am, if you like.”