The glasses being duly filled and emptied, Mr. Malone feelingly continued.
“Och, boys, af ye but knew my loss. There ye lie, Nelly! could as a crimpt cod; an when ye were sober—to be sure it was but seldom—the divil blister the better wife in St. Giles’s—an that’s a big word. Come, gintlemen, take a pinch out of respect for the dead—Lord rest her—amen!—and then draw a sate, an make yerselves agreeable. Patsey Doyle, there’s a lemon-box in the corner—fix it, avournene, for the gintilmen—an now, Mistress Braddigen, may be yee’d obleege us wid a song.”
The lady, an agreeable exception to professional melodists who never sing when people want them, immediately complied with the request of Mr. Malone; and having, as a necessary preliminary, removed all bronchial obstructions with a johny of “cream of the valley,” she executed with feeling and effect that beautiful ballad, intituled “The night before Larry was stretched”—and the well-merited plaudits of a delighted audience had just rewarded the exertions of the fair singer, when two fresh arrivals were added to the company.
The visitors were of the softer sex. One, was a stout gentlewoman of a certain age, whom he of the solitary leg announced as Mrs. Bunce—and the second, a very pretty young one, was also introduced as Mrs. Spicer. The fosterer and his friend, being the only gentlemen who could afford accommodation to the new comers, the master of ceremonies deposited the stout lady upon the knees of Shemus Kkua, while to Mark Antony, the honour “of bearing the weight” of Mrs. Spicer was entrusted.
The discernment evinced in the collection of the company would have been in itself a sufficient guarantee for its general respectability; and hence, the intercourse, on all sides, was easy and unreserved.
“‘Pon my sowl! a ginteeler party I hav’nt been to these six months,” observed Mrs. Spicer to the fosterer, after she had turned down a flash of max to ‘a better acquaintance,’—“and Malone—Lord comfort him in sorra!—shows the best of respect to his desaste lady.—I hope there won’t be any ruction the night, and that the wake will go off agreeable. The Connaught stockin’-man, who was bate at Phil Casey’s ball a Friday night, died this evenin’ in Guy’s Hospital. He left his death, they say, on Playbe Davis, for hitten him, wid the smoothin’-iron, when down.”
“I was rather afeard, Sally, dear,” observed Mrs. Bunce to Mrs. Spicer, “that cross ould file, yer husband, wouldn’t let ye out the night.”
“And not a toe would I have got over the trashold ather,” returned Mrs. Spicer, “only something he heard druv him into the Minories, to ask after the carakter of a chap who came to lodge with us last Monday. By gogstay, if the ould ruffin comes home early, and finds me out—may be there won’t be a purty too-roo kicked up? Well, the divil may care—as Punch said when he missed mass!” Then, in a lower tone, she addressed herself to the fosterer.
“He’s so gallows jealous,” said the lady, “that one hasn’t the life of a dog. He, and his other wives”—(for it would appear that in the connubial line Mr. Spicer had dealt largely)—“were always murderin’ one another—ay, and before the beak every week, and sometimes twice too. How, I have been married to him two months come Saturday, and sorra mark he could show agen me but one black eye—for I can bare a dale of provokashin—and that he brought upon himself too.” She then continued to remark, that Mr. Spicer’s temper was but indifferent, and when he had “the cross glass in” a saint wouldn’t stand him. He had also “a most aggravatin’ tongue,”—and that evening, in alluding to a former acquaintanceship which had existed between herself and a drummer in the Guards, he used terms of so little delicacy, that a mutual interchange of compliments resulted—Mrs. Spicer, receiving the contents of a pewter pint, which token of connubial endearment was as promptly acknowledged with the boot-jack, by which it appeared an upper tooth had been effectually removed without the assistance of a dentist—a loss, on Mr. Spicer’s part, ill to bear, as it was the only specimen of natural ivory he possessed.
In such light and pleasing conversation an hour passed unheeded—for minutes winged with pleasure fly unnoticed. Harmony prevailed; and, by a philosophic effort, Mr. Malone forgot his loss, and at the request of the company, and assisted by a violin accompaniment of the gentleman with the wooden-leg, he chaunted “The Groves of Blarney.” It is right to observe that, in the selection of the song, an affectionate deference to the taste of the deceased was observed, the said “Groves” being an especial favourite of his departed companion. If ever wake proved pleasant, Mrs. Malone’s bade fair to be so. All were happy—Mrs. Bunee declared the ratcatcher an agreeable man—and the sooner that Mr. Spicer looked after his truant spouse the better—for, were the truth known, Mark Antony was making a wild inroad on a heart that hitherto, had not “loved wisely, but too well.”