Nearly the whole day was occupied in completing our job, in which the “dhragoon” assisted us, with the most hearty good-will, enlivening us with his inexhaustible fund of good-humour and drollery. It was nearly dark when we got back to his “shanty,” where the kind-hearted Judy was preparing a huge pot of potatoes and other “combustibles,” as Simpson called the other eatables, for our entertainment.
Previous to starting on our surveying expedition, we had observed Judy very earnestly giving some important instructions to one of her little boys, on whom she seemed to be most seriously impressing the necessity of using the utmost diligence. The happy contentment which now beamed in poor Judy's still comely countenance bespoke the success of the messenger. She could not “call up spirits from the vasty deep” of the cellar, but she had procured some whiskey from her next-door neighbour—some five or six miles off, and there it stood somewhat ostentatiously on the table in a “greybeard,” with a “corn cob,” or ear of Indian corn, stripped of its grain, for a cork, smiling most benevolently on the family circle, and looking a hundred welcomes to the strangers.
An indescribably enlivening influence seemed to exude from every pore of that homely earthen vessel, diffusing mirth and good-humour in all directions. The old man jumped and danced about on the rough floor of the “shanty”; and the children sat giggling and nudging each other in a corner, casting a timid look, from time to time, at their mother, for fear she might check them for being “over bould.”
“Is it crazy ye are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!” said Judy, whose notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified levity of her partner; “the likes of you I never seed; ye are too foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the stools for the gintlemens, while I get the supper for yes.”
Our plentiful though homely meal was soon discussed, for hunger, like a good conscience, can laugh at luxury; and the “greybeard” made its appearance, with the usual accompaniments of hot water and maple sugar, which Judy had scraped from the cake, and placed in a saucer on the table before us.
The “ould dhragoon,” despising his wife's admonitions, gave way freely to his feelings, and knew no bounds to his hilarity. He laughed and joked, and sang snatches of old songs picked up in the course of his service at home and abroad. At length Judy, who looked on him as a “raal janius,” begged him to “sing the gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry.” Of course we ardently seconded the motion, and nothing loth, the old man, throwing himself back on his stool, and stretching out his long neck, poured forth the following ditty, with which I shall conclude my hasty sketch of the “ould dhragoon”:—
Och! it's here I'm intirely continted,
In the wild woods of swate 'Mericay;
God's blessing on him that invinted
Big ships for our crossing the say!
Here praties grow bigger nor turnips;
And though cruel hard is our work,
In ould Ireland we'd nothing but praties,
But here we have praties and pork.
I live on the banks of a meadow,
Now see that my maning you take;
It bates all the bogs of ould Ireland—
Six months in the year it's a lake.
Bad luck to the beavers that dammed it!
I wish them all kilt for their pains;
For shure though the craters are clever,
Tis sartin they've drown'd my domains.
I've built a log hut of the timber
That grows on my charmin' estate;
And an illigant root-house erected,
Just facing the front of my gate.
And I've made me an illigant pig-sty,
Well litter'd wid straw and wid hay;
And it's there, free from noise of the chilther,
I sleep in the heat of the day.
It's there I'm intirely at aise, sir,
And enjoy all the comforts of home;
I stretch out my legs as I plase, sir,
And dhrame of the pleasures to come.
Shure, it's pleasant to hear the frogs croakin',
When the sun's going down in the sky,
And my Judy sits quietly smokin'
While the praties are boil'd till they're dhry.
Och! thin, if you love indepindence,
And have money your passage to pay,
You must quit the ould counthry intirely,
And start in the middle of May.