“By the holy frost, then!” says Paddy, “’tis but cowld comfort there’s in that bottle now; and ’tis your word we must take for the strength of the whisky, for you’ve left us no sample to judge by:” and to be sure Maurice had not.
Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady with common understanding, that if he or she was to drink an honest bottle of whiskey at one pull, it is not at all the same thing as drinking a bottle of water; and in the whole course of my life, I never knew more than five men who could do so without being overtaken by the liquor. Of these Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his own—he was fairly tipsy. Don’t think I blame him for it; ’tis often a good man’s case; but true is the word that says, “when liquor’s in, sense is out;” and puff, at a breath, before you could say “Lord save us!” out he blasted his wonderful tune.
’Twas really then beyond all belief or telling the dancing Maurice himself could not keep quiet; staggering now on one leg, now on the other, and rolling about like a ship in a cross sea, trying to humour the tune. There was his mother too, moving her old bones as light as the youngest girl of them all; but her dancing, no, nor the dancing of all the rest, is not worthy the speaking about to the work that was going on down on the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with the nimbleness of a dancing-master, and twirled and tossed their other claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of father Florence Conry, a Franciscan Friar, and a great Irish poet; bolg an dana, as they used to call him—a wallet of poems. If you have not he was as pleasant a man as one would wish to drink with of a hot summer’s day; and he has rhymed out all about the dancing fishes so neatly, that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses; so here’s my hand at an upset of them into English:
The big seals in motion,
Like waves of the ocean,
Or gouty feet prancing,
Came heading the gay fish,
Crabs, lobsters, and cray fish,
Determined on dancing.
The sweet sounds they follow’d,
The gasping cod swallow’d;
’Twas wonderful, really!
And turbot and flounder,
‘Mid fish that were rounder,
Just caper’d as gaily.
John-dories came tripping;
Dull hake, by their skipping
To frisk it seem’d given;
Bright mackerel went springing,
Like small rainbows winging
Their flight up to heaven.
The whiting and haddock
Left salt-water paddock,
This dance to be put in:
Where skate with flat faces
Edged out some odd plaices;
But soles kept their footing.
Sprats and herrings in powers
Of silvery showers
All number out-number’d;
And great ling so lengthy
Were there in such plenty,
The shore was encumber’d.
The scollop and oyster
Their two shells did roister,
Like castanets fitting;
While limpets moved clearly,
And rocks very nearly
With laughter were splitting.
Never was such an ullabulloo in this world, before or since; ’twas as if heaven and earth were coming together; and all out of Maurice Connor’s wonderful tune!