These were happy moments and happy times, which might well be looked upon as picturing the simple manners of country life with very little of moral shadow to obscure the cheerfulness which lit up the Irish heart and hearth into humble happiness. Mickey, with his usual good nature, never forgot the younger portion of his audience. After entertaining the old and full-grown, he would call for a key, one end of which he placed in his mouth, in order to make the fiddle sing for the children their favourite song, beginning with
“Oh! grand-mamma, will you squeeze my wig?”
This he did in such a manner, through the medium of the key, that the words seemed to be spoken by the instrument, and not by himself. After this was over, he would sing us, to his own accompaniment, another favourite, “There was a wee devil looked over the wall,” which generally closed that portion of the entertainment so kindly designed for us.
Upon those moments I have often witnessed marks of deep and pious feeling, occasioned by some memory of the absent or the dead, that were as beautiful as they were affecting. If, for instance, a favourite son or daughter happened to be removed by death, the father or mother, remembering the air which was loved best by the departed, would pause a moment, and with a voice full of sorrow, say, “Mickey, there is one tune that I would like to hear; I love to think of it, and to hear it; I do, for the sake of them that’s gone—my darlin’ son that’s lyin’ low: it was he that loved it. His ear is closed against it now; but for his sake—ay, for your sake, avourneen machree—we will hear it wanst more.”
Mickey always played such tunes in his best style, and amidst a silence that was only broken by sobs, suppressed moanings, and the other tokens of profound sorrow. These gushes, however, of natural feeling soon passed away. In a few minutes the smiles returned, the mirth broke out again, and the lively dance went on as if their hearts had been incapable of such affection for the dead—affection at once so deep and tender. But many a time the light of cheerfulness plays along the stream of Irish feeling, when cherished sorrow lies removed from the human eye far down from the surface.
These preliminary amusements being now over, Mickey is conducted to the dance-house, where he is carefully installed in the best chair, and immediately the dancing commences. It is not my purpose to describe an Irish dance here, having done it more than once elsewhere. It is enough to say that Mickey is now in his glory; and proud may the young man be who fills the honourable post of his companion, and sits next him. He is a living storehouse of intelligence, a travelling directory for the parish—the lover’s text-book—the young woman’s best companion; for where is the courtship going on of which he is not cognizant? where is there a marriage on the tapis, with the particulars of which he is not acquainted? He is an authority whom nobody would think of questioning. It is now, too, that he scatters his jokes about; and so correct and well trained is his ear, that he can frequently name the young man who dances, by the peculiarity of his step.
“Ah ha! Paddy Brien, you’re there? Sure I’d know the sound of your smoothin’-irons any where. Is it thrue, Paddy, that you wor sint for down to Errigle Keerogue, to kill the clocks for Dan M’Mahon? But, nabuklish! Paddy, what’ll you have?”
“Is that Grace Reilly on the flure? Faix, avourneen, you can do it; devil o’ your likes I see any where. I’ll lay Shibby to a penny trump that you could dance your own namesake—the Calleen dhas dhun, the bonny brown girl—upon a spider’s cobweb, widout breakin’ it. Don’t be in a hurry, Grace dear, to tie the knot; I’ll wait for you.”
Several times in the course of the night a plate is brought round, and a collection made for the fiddler: this was the moment when Mickey used to let the jokes fly in every direction. The timid he shamed into liberality, the vain he praised, and the niggardly he assailed by open hardy satire; all managed, however, with such an under-current of good humour, that no one could take offence. No joke ever told better than that of the broken string. Whenever this happened at night, Mickey would call out to some soft fellow, “Blood alive, Ned Martin, will you bring me a candle?—I’ve broken a string.” The unthinking young man, forgetting that he was blind, would take the candle in a hurry, and fetch it to him.
“Faix, Ned. I knew you wor jist fit for’t; houldin’ a candle to a dark man! Isn’t he a beauty, boys?—look at him, girls—as cute as a pancake.”