“Faix, easy enough. Tim Daly and myself was hunting a cat the other evening, and she was under the dhresser, and we wor poking her with a burnt stick and a raypinghook, and she somehow always escaped us, and except about an inch of her tail, that we cut off, there was no getting at her; and at last I hated a toastin'-fork and put it in, when out she flew, teeth and claws, at me. Look, there 's where she stuck her thieving nails into my thumb, and took the piece clean out. The onnatural baste!”
“Arrah!” said the old cook, with a most reflective gravity, “there 's nothing so treacherous as a cat! “—a moral to the story which I found met general assent among the whole company.
“Nevertheless,” observed Darby, with an air of ill-dissembled condescension, “if it isn't umbrageous to your honor, I 'll intonate something in the way of an ode or a canticle.”
“One of your own. Darby,” said the butler, interrupting.
“Well, I've no objection,” replied Darby, with an affected modesty; “for you see, master, like Homer, I accompany myself on the pipes, though—glory be to God!—I'm not blind. The little thing I 'll give you is imitated from the ancients—like Tibullus or Euthropeus—in the natural key.”
Mister M'Keown, after this announcement, pushed his empty tumbler towards the butler with a significant glance gave a few preparatory grunts with the pipes, followed by a long dolorous quaver, and then a still more melancholy cadence, like the expiring bray of an asthmatic jackass; all of which sounds, seeming to be the essential preliminaries to any performance on the bagpipes, were listened to with great attention by the company. At length, having assumed an imposing attitude, he lifted up both elbows, tilted his little finger affectedly up, dilated his cheeks, and began the following to the well-known air of “Una:”—
MUSIC.
Of all the arts and sciences,
'T is music surely takes the sway;
It has its own appliances
To melt the heart or make it gay.
To raise us,
Or plaze us,
There 's nothing with it can compare;
To make us bowld,
Or hot or cowld,
Just as suits the kind of air.
There 's not a woman, man, or child.
That has n't felt its powers too;
Don't deny it!—when you smiled
Your eyes confess'd, that so did you.
The very winds that sigh or roar;
The leaves that rustle, dry and sear;
The waves that beat upon the shore,—
They all are music to your ear.
It was of use
To Orpheus,—
He charmed the fishes in the say;
So everything
Alive can sing,—
The kettle even sings for tay!
There's not a woman, man, or child.
That hau n't felt its power too;
Don't deny it!—when you smiled
Your eyes confess'd, that so did you.
I have certainly since this period listened to more brilliant musical performances, but for the extent of the audience, I do not think it was possible to reap a more overwhelming harvest of applause. Indeed, the old cook kept repeating stray fragments of the words to every air that crossed her memory for the rest of the evening; and as for Kitty, I intercepted more than one soft glance intended for Mister M'Keown as a reward for his minstrelsy.
Darby, to do him justice, seemed fully sensible of his triumph, and sat back in his chair and imbibed his liquor like a man who had won his laurels, and needed no further efforts to maintain his eminent position in life.
As the wintry wind moaned dismally without, and the leafless trees shook and trembled with the cold blast, the party drew in closer to the cheerful turf fire, with that sense of selfish delight that seems to revel in the contrast of indoor comfort with the bleakness and dreariness without.