“Ay, not expected: so put on ye with the speed of light—Where’s his waistcoat,” continued he, turning to Dr. Percy’s astonished servant, “and coat?—the top coat, and the wig—has he one?—Well! boots or shoes give him any way.”
“But I don’t clearly understand—Pray did this gentleman send for me?” said Dr. Percy.
“Send for your honour! Troth he never thought of it—no, nor couldn’t—how could he? and he in the way he was and is. But God bless ye! and never mind shaving, or another might get it afore we’d be back. Though there was none in it but myself when I left it—but still keep on buttoning for the life.”
Erasmus dressed as quickly as he could, not understanding, however, above one word in ten that had been said to him. His servant, who did not comprehend even one word, endeavoured in vain to obtain an explanation; but O’Brien, paying no regard to his solemn face of curiosity, put him aside with his hand, and continuing to address Dr. Percy, followed him about the room.
“Master! you mind my mintioning to you last time I seen your honour, that my leg was weak by times, no fault though to the doctor that cured it—so I could not be after carrying the weighty loads I used up and down the ladders at every call, so I quit sarving the masons, and sought for lighter work, and found an employ that shuted me with a ‘jantleman painter’, grinding of his colours, and that was what I was at this morning, so I was, and standing as close to him as I am this minute to your honour, thinking of nothing at all just now, please your honour, forenent him—asy grinding, whin he took some sort or kind of a fit.”
“A fit! Why did you not tell me that sooner?”
“Sure I tould you he was not expicted,—that is, if you don’t know in England, not expicted to live; and sure I tould your honour so from the first,” said O’Brien. “But then the jantleman was as well as I am this minute, that minute afore—and the nixt fell his length on the floor entirely. Well! I set and up again, and, for want of better, filled out a thimble-full, say, of the spirits of wine as they call it, which he got by good luck for the varnish, and made him take it down, and he come to, and I axed him how was he after it?—Better, says he. That’s well, says I; and who will I send for to ye, sir? says I. But afore he could make answer, I bethought me of your own honour; and for fear he would say another, I never troubled him, putting the question to him again, but just set the spirits nigh hand him, and away with me here; I come off without letting on a word to nobody, good or bad, in dread your honour would miss the job.”
“Job!” said Dr. Percy’s servant: “do you think my master wants a job?”
“Oh! Lord love ye, and just give his hat. Would you have us be standing on ceremony now in a case of life and death?”
Dr. Percy was, as far as he understood it, of the Irishman’s way of thinking. He followed as fast as he could to the painter’s—found that he had had a slight paralytic stroke, from which he had recovered. We need not detail the particulars. Nature and Dr. Percy brought him through. He was satisfied with his physician; for Erasmus would not take any fee, because he went unsent for by the patient. The painter, after his recovery, was one day complimenting Dr. Percy on the inestimable service he had done the arts in restoring him to his pencil, in proof of which the artist showed many master-pieces that wanted only the finishing touch, in particular a huge, long-limbed, fantastic, allegorical piece of his own design, which he assured Dr. Percy was the finest example of the beau idéal, ancient or modern, that human genius had ever produced upon canvas. “And what do you think, doctor,” said the painter, “tell me what you can think of a connoisseur, a patron, sir, who could stop my hand, and force me from that immortal work to a portrait? A portrait! Barbarian! He fit to encourage genius! He set up to be a Mecænas! Mere vanity! Gives pensions to four sign-post daubers, not fit to grind my colours! Knows no more of the art than that fellow,” pointing to the Irishman, who was at that instant grinding the colours—asy as he described himself.