“Oh, boys, boys, agra, does any of yees hear e’er a word about my poor Paddy?”
The last speaker is a woman, poor Biddy Casey: for the last three years not a letter came from America that she could hear of, whether far or near, but she attended to hear it read, in the hope of getting some information about her husband, who, driven away by bad times and an injudicious agent, had made a last exertion to emigrate, and earn something for his family. Regularly every market-day from that event she called at the post-office, at first with the confident tone of assured expectation, to inquire for an America letter for one Biddy Casey; then when her heart began to sicken with apprehensions arising from the oft-repeated negative, her question was, “You haven’t e’er a letter for me to-day, ma’am?” and then when she could no longer trust herself to ask, she merely presented her well-known face at the window, and received the usual answer in heartbroken silence, now and then broken by the joyless ejaculation, “God in heaven help me!” But from that time to this not a syllable has she been able to learn of his fate, or even of his existence. Now, however, her labours and anxieties are to have an end—but what an end! This letter at last affords her the information that, tempted by the delusive promise of higher wages, her husband was induced to set out for the unwholesome south, and long since has found a grave among the deadly swamps of New Orleans.
But like every thing else in life, Dinny M’Daniel’s letter is a chequered matter. See, here comes a lusty, red-cheeked damsel, elbowing her way out of the cabin, her eyes bursting out of her head with joy.
“Well, Peggy—well—well!” is echoed on all sides as they crowd around her; “any news from Bid?—though, troth, we needn’t ax you.”
“Oh, grand news!” is the delighted answer. “Bid has a wonderful fine place for herself an’ another for me, an’ my passage is ped, an’ I’m to be ready in five weeks, an’, widdy! widdy! I dunna what to do with myself.”
“And, Peggy agra, was there any thing about our Mick?”—“or our Sally, Peggy?”—“or Johnny Golloher, asthore?” are the questions with which she is inundated.
“Oh, I dunna, I dunna—I couldn’t listen with the joy, I tell ye.”
“But, Peggy alanna, what will Tom Feeny think of all this? and what is to become, pray, of all the vows and promises which, to our own certain knowledge, you made each other coming home from the dance the other night?”
Pooh! that difficulty is removed long ago—the very first money she earns in America is to be dispatched to the care of Father Cahill, to pay Tom’s passage over to her. “And will she do such a shameless thing?” some fair reader will probably ask. Ay will she; and think herself right well off, moreover, to have the shame to bear; for though Peggy can dig her ridge of potatoes beside the best man in the parish, her heart is soft and leal like nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the thousand of her countrywomen.
Another happy face—see, here comes old Malachi Tighe, clasping his hands, and looking up to heaven in silent thankfulness, for his “bouchal bawn, the glory of his heart,” is to be home with him before harvest, with as much money as would buy the bit o’ land out and out, and his daughter-in-law is fainting with gladness, and his grandchildren screaming with delight, and the neighbours wish him joy with all the earnestness of sympathy, for Johnny Tighe has been a favourite.