Master Constable knew nothing of the alleged riot, save and except what Mr. Snuggs had told him; and so he was ordered to stand aside; but Mr. Snuggs himself told a long and lamentable story of the sufferings he had endured from the fair prisoner. He had originally engaged her as a servant to attend to the domestic department at his chambers; but she took advantage of his partiality for her services, and made the chambers too hot to hold him, as it were;—she disturbed his studies by her loquacity; she lived intemperately; she set him at defiance; she got her relations to help her to persecute him; and, if he only attempted to remonstrate with her, she raised the whole neighbourhood about his ears! He concluded by expressing a hope that his worship would put a stop to her doings.
The magistrate thought there must be something very strange in all this; for what man of any spirit would suffer the serenity of his chambers and his mind to be so disturbed by a little gipsy of an Abigail, "when he himself might his quietus make with a bare warning." He therefore put a question, or two, to Mr. Snuggs, touching the "partiality" he had spoken of.
Mr. Snuggs replied afar off—somewhat approaching to the obscure; but not so the fair troubler of his peace and his chambers. She gave his worship to understand, in good round terms, that she was the veritable mamma of sundry little Snuggses; and that Mr. Snuggs was neither more nor less than a gay deceiver. She denied that she had ever "kicked up a row" in his chambers—she had merely told him of his faults and his failings; and she hoped his worship would not think of separating her from her children.
The magistrate immediately dismissed the charge; the damsel smiled triumphantly; and Mr. Snuggs, like a tall elderly gentleman as he was, stalked out of the office, sighing—as who should say, "The Gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us!"
FLORENCE O'SHAUGHNESSY.
This was a proceeding wherein one Mrs. Florence O'Shaughnessy sought "purtection behint the law agen the thumpings of her oun lawful husband," Mr. Phelim O'Shaughnessy, of the parish of St. Giles, labourer.
Phelim O'Shaughnessy was a clean-made, curly-pated, good-tempered little fellow, in a new flannel jacket, white apron, and duck trousers. His wife, Florence, was about his own size, no whit behind him in cleanliness, very pretty, and she had a voice—plaintive as a turtledove's.
"—An' plase your honour," said she, "this is Phelim O'Shaughnessy, the husband to myself, that was when he married me; and is—barring the bating he gave me yesterday, just for nothing at all, your honour, that I knows of—ounly that he listens to bad folks, the neighbours of us; and bad folks they are sure enough, your honour, for that same; and your honour'll be plased just to do me the kindness to make them hould their pace and not be after taking away the senses of my oun husband from me, to make him look upon me like a stranger, your honour—for what would I be then?"