Borne, like St. Michael, on a platform raised above the universal head, in proud pre-eminence behold the great St. Patrick, and his wife Sheeley!
St. Patrick is tall and gaunt, from his contest with the serpents of the emerald isle. He wears a flowing robe, which nevertheless permits his slender, manly legs to come out and be visible. He boasts a shovel hat, adorned with a gigantic sprig of shamrock: he sits upon the chest in which, if historical tradition truly speaks, the great boa constrictor of Killarney was shut up and sunk into the waters of the lake. Around his neck is a string of Irish potatoes—in his hand a shillelah.
Beside him sits his wife Sheeley, rotund and ruddy, with a coronet of potatoes, a necklace of potatoes, a breastpin of potatoes—and lastly, an apron full of potatoes. She herself resembled indeed a gigantic potatoe, and philologians might have conjectured that her very name was no more than a corruption of the adjective mealy.
The noble saint and his wife came on thus far above the roaring crowd, and as they draw nearer, lo! the saint and Sheeley are revealed.
The saint is personated by the heroic Mr. Jinks—his wife is represented by Mistress O'Calligan!
This is the grand revenge of Mr. Jinks—this is the sweet morsel which he has rolled beneath his tongue for days—this is the refinement of torture he has mixed for the love-sick O'Brallaghan, who personates the opposing Michael.
As the adversaries see their opponents, they roar—as they catch sight of their patron saints thus raised aloft derisively, they thunder. The glove is thrown, the die is cast—in an instant they are met in deadly battle.
Would that our acquaintance with the historic muse were sufficiently intimate to enable us to invoke her aid on this occasion. But she is far away, thinking of treaties and protocols, and "eventualities" far in the orient, brooding o'er lost Sebastopol.
The reader therefore must be content with hasty words.
The first item of the battle worthy to be described, is the downward movement of the noble saints from their high position.