‘I said it, sur—a black wisted stockin’ into a beef-staik.’
I stuck my fork into the black substance plentifully covered with onion and gravy. I held it up: it was long, and, like Italy, shaped like a boot; and however it might appertain to the leg, it had nothing whatever to do with the rump-steak I had bought in the morning.
‘Ay,’ sighs Mrs Flanagan sentimentally, ‘sitch things comes ov love an’ larnin’! I was mendin’ a pair ov yer reverence’s black stockins at the kitchen-table, where Jimmy was dhressin’ the dinner. One of the workmen called me out in a hurry, an’ I threw the stockin’ out of my hands upon the table: it fell upon the dish. Jimmy turned his head about for a minnit, and the dog snapped up the mait, an’ carried it off. When Jimmy looked round agin, he seen a black thing lyin’ on the dish, an’ the crathur’s eyes, bein’ blinded with this same love an’ larnin’, he pours the gravy on the top ov it, an’ carries it off to table. So there’s the explanation.’
I still held up the black stocking on the point of my fork: I gazed on it in silence: but the blood was boiling in my veins, and I was on the eve of righteously overwhelming all that had animal life near me with a fearful burst of volcanic passion, when my frenzied eye caught a glimpse of a face at the half-opened door. It was a side-face: the mouth and chin had dropped as if in death, the goggle eyes were fixed and upturned in all the rigidity of despair—not drops, but streams of perspiration ran down the pallid jaws: motion seemed annihilated, the senses defunct; and one loud, angry word would have been a cannon-ball through the heart of poor Jimmy, had not Mercy or Momus tickled my risibilities at the critical moment, and a long, loud burst of irrepressible laughter closed the scene, and saved his life! At the first burst the delinquent fell on his knees, clasped his hands together, and looked imploringly at me, and in that humble posture remained till I got breath to say ‘I forgive you.’
Now, my friend, tell me can flesh and blood, especially dedicated to the service of the church, put up with such treatment long? Impossible. In addition to my fastings and mortifications on principle, is it not the deuce to be obliged to fast for folly? I have played many a trick on Jimmy, but he is ever more than even with me. I can get no good of him. But this I am resolved on: come weal come woe, Jimmy Delany and Betsy Kelly shall be man and wife on Monday next, and I bespeak your company at the wedding.”
“Agreed; and I think, reverend Father, this is the very best idea that has been struck out by you, or Jimmy Delany.”
M. G. R.
THE COMMON BADGER.
Of all the animals with which man has become acquainted, and over which he has succeeded in establishing his dominion, none have had greater cause to deprecate his tyranny, and to exclaim, had they the gift of speech, against his wanton barbarity, than the unfortunate creature whose simple and unoffending habits I have selected for the subject of the present paper.
With the appearance and form of this animal most of my readers are doubtless tolerably acquainted, as it is a pretty common inhabitant of this country, and would be still more abundant, were not its numbers checked by that barbarous and brutal amusement, badger-baiting, to which, despite the interference of the laws, hundreds yearly fall victims. In general appearance as well as internal structure the badger approximates closely to the bear, and may, I think not unaptly, be regarded as the existing representative of that once formidable denizen of the wilds of our native land. Like the bear, the badger walks upon his heels and his legs being very short, and his hair remarkably thick and long, his belly appears almost to touch the ground; a little observation is however sufficient to show that it does not actually do so. He is a nocturnal animal, that is to say, he sleeps during the day, and at the approach of evening leaves his habitation in search of food; yet nocturnal though his habits, and however closely he may in that respect resemble the predacious tribes, the food of the badger is of such a description that its appropriation injures no one, but is on the contrary productive of great benefit to the agriculturist, consisting as it does chiefly, if not solely, of roots and reptiles, as frogs, worms, grubs, beetles, &c. The badger is as far as I have been able to discover, monogamous, lives affectionately with his mate and little ones in his secluded burrow, and in his deportment to them displays feelings of ardent devotion and disinterested attachment which many of this poor creature’s biped persecutors would do well to imitate.