“Jerry, don’t give me any more of this,” he said. “You can chore it around, and make yourself useful to me, as you’ve always done; but you git your meals with me, d’ ye hear? Right alongside of me, every time.”
Thus the table was laid for three, and the O’Mahony made his companions acquainted with each other.
“This is Jerry Higgins,” he explained to the wondering, swart-visaged little man. “He’s sort o’ chief cook and bottle-washer to the establishment, but he’s so bashful afore strangers, I have to talk sharp to him now an’ then. And let’s see—I don’t think the lawyer told me your name.”
“I am Cormac O’Daly,” said the other, bowing with proud humility. “An O’Mahony has had an O’Daly to chronicle his deeds of valor and daring, to sing his praises of person and prowess, since ages before Kian fought at Clontarf and married the daughter of the great Brian Boru. Oppression and poverty, sir, have diminished the position of the bard in most parts of Ireland, I’m informed. All the O’Dalys that informer times were bards to The O’Neill in Ulster, The O’Reilly of Brefny, The MacCarthy in Desmond and The O’Farrell of Annaly—faith, they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. But in Muirisc—glory be to the Lord!—. there’s still an O’Daly to welcome the O’Mahony back and sing the celebration of his achievements.”
“Sort o’ song-and-dance man, then, eh?” said The O’Mahony. “Well, after dinner we’ll push the table back an’ give you a show. But let’s eat first.”
The little man for the moment turned upon the speaker a glance of surprise, which seemed to have in it the elements of pain. Then he spoke, as if reassured:
“Ah, sir, in America, where I’m told the Irish are once more a rich and powerful people, our ancient nobility would have their bards, with rale harps and voices for singing. But in this poor country it’s only a mettyphorical existence a bard can have. Whin I spoke the word ‘song,’ my intintion was allegorical. Sure, ’tis drivin’ you from the house I’d be after doing, were I to sing in the ginuine maning of the word. But I have here some small verses which I composed this day, while I was waitin’ in the pig-market, that you might not be indisposed to listen to, and to accept.”
O’Daly drew from his waistcoat pocket a sheet of soiled and crumpled paper forthwith, on which some lines had been scrawled in pencil. Smoothing this out upon the table, he donned a pair of big, hornrimmed spectacles, and proceeded to decipher and slowly read out the following, the while the others ate and, marveling much, listened:
I.
“What do the gulls scream as they wheel