Poor Moll had no acquaintance with any beetle but a sort of wooden instrument with which peasant maidens pound their coarse clothes when washing them at a stream or river; and “a dhronin’ beetle!” she ejaculated, opening wide her small grey eyes, and looking from one to the other for an explanation; while grandpapa, his face bathed with tears from excessive laughter, prepared to make matters clear, but in reality to make “confusion worse confounded.” But the hero of the humming-top thought no one knew its peculiarities so well as himself, and he ended the dilemma by describing a humming-top to be “a great deal larger than a common top, had a square hole in one side, and it was always painted red.”
“That’ll do,” said Moll Miskellagh, trying to be satisfied. “I’ll inquire about sitch a thing, any how. An’ now, little masthers, what’s your pleasures?”
One chose “a whip,” and the other “cakes,” and then we thought poor Moll had her quantum, and that she might proceed on her journey. But so thought not Moll. Confident of her retentive powers and strength of frame, she seemed determined to test herself to the utmost: and before she left the house, she descended to the lower regions to offer her services to the dignitaries of the kitchen. She was expected, it seemed, for cook had a lot of “kitchen stuff” to be disposed of in town, the butler to send for a new razor, the housemaid to have a letter put into the post-office, directed to “John Fitz-Garald, at Mr Crosbie’s, esquire, Dublin, Great Britain-street, Ireland,” and the kitchen-maid to send for a wire comb to support her redundant tresses.
“Any thing else, now?” demanded the messenger, her foot on the threshold of the outer door.
“No! no! no!” exclaimed all the voices at once; “away with ye, an’ God speed ye!”
“Amin!” muttered the market-woman, striding up the steep stone steps, through the yard, and down the avenue, without “casting a longing, lingering look behind.”
I will not say how often we children teased our dear, good, angel-tempered grandmother with “when will Moll Miskellagh return?” Suffice it to say, we thought of nothing but Moll, looked for no one but Moll; and until we actually beheld Moll panting up the steep avenue with a prodigious load on her back, a huge basket on one arm, and the post-bag on the other, her two pockets or rather wallets filled to the brim, we never gave ourselves or others rest or peace!
But the market-woman was triumphant! Not one single commission did she forget, and every one was satisfied with her dealings and bargains except the butler, whose razor was base metal, instead of steel, or even iron! But who could blame Moll Miskellagh? Abler persons, and of the sex that used such scrapers, had been imposed on ere then. Witness—
Being well lathered from a dish or tub,
Hodge now began with grinning face to scrub,