Shakspere
Fate seemed determined that on the world’s stage mine should be a hurried entree; and, when I had only caught a glimpse of passing life, that my bark should be launched at once upon the current of existence, to float or flounder as it could. Short as my career had been, it had not passed unmarked by incident. To fortune I was already indebted for more than one deliverance; and believing them to be an earnest of future civilities on the lady’s part, I resolved to take the world as it came, put my trust in the blind goddess of the wheel, and prove the proverbial good luck which mostly follows in the footsteps ol an Irishman. Willingly, therefore, I obeyed my father’s orders, and on the following evening quitted the Emerald Isle, on the pleasant and profitable pursuit of “the bubble reputation.”
It had surprised me that, hitherto, no communication had reached me from Mark Antony O’Toole, touching the adventures which had befallen him since his disappearance from Kilcullen. There, his evasion, as my father mentioned in Iris letter, had occasioned a marvellous sensation. Miss Kitty O’Dwyer, as a mere matter of course, having been expected to commit suicide, or die broken-hearted within a fortnight. Neither event, however, as the fancy say, “came off.” Kitty continued in rude health, and the fosterer’s movements remained still wrapped in mystery. But, as it turned out, Mark Antony’s career was singularly connected with my own—the same star appeared to rule our destinies—both were simultaneously leaving the land of the west, apparently at the beck of fortune’s finger; and of the twain, which pursuit was the more crotchetty would have been a question; the fosterer, levanting for love, and I, for glory.
We left Mark Antony and his fair companion on the road, with the world before them, and some wayfarers, like themselves, in the rear. Whoever the travellers might prove to be who approached the dell where the fosterer and his friend had refreshed themselves, it was quite evident that the school where their philosophy had been acquired was of any order but the crying one. One manly voice trolled a jovial drinking song, to which two others occasionally bore a bui’den. As a sharp turning in the road, skirted with thick copsewood, masked the stranger’s advance, their merry laugh and reckless gaiety told that Father Care was not of “the companie and their calling and character might have been shrewdly guessed from passing conversation and snatches of song.
“I wonder, Pat,” said one of the wayfarers, “to see you in such spirits after parting with Nelly Blake as if your heart was breaking. Neither of ye cared a button at leaving me watching for a long hour at the other side of the hedge like a poacher, for fear the old priest would come out and catch you philandering with his housekeeper. Lord, how you swore, and she—poor girl!—believed it; but when you strove to cry and keep her company, oh!—that was all but the death of me.”
“Well, Tom,” returned the second, “if I broke down at the weeping, you will admit that I did not disgrace my calling, but swore like a trooper. You’ll hardly believe how much that girl has bothered me. Hand me the cruiskeen. Remember, Tom, for love there’s but one remedy,—and the beauty of it is, that for every symptom it proves a certain cure,—hear what the song says—
“If you ere love a maid who your passion derides,
Drink enough, you’ll find charms in a dozen besides,
Drink more, and your victory then is complete,
For you’ll fancy you love every girl that you meet.”