The fiercest day with evening closes.”
Irish rows end as quickly as they commence, and the rookarn’n in the Cock and Punch-bowl at last began to languish. Sundry who had already figured in the fray, now cried “hold! enough!”—and others who had saluted their mother earth still remained there recumbent, opining that under existing circumstances, this position was the safer. Two combatants however, still remained unsatisfied. They had sought each other in the conflict; and now, by a sort of general consent, the floor was abandoned by all the other belligerents, and like bulls in a china shop, the fosterer and the Israelite were left with the arena to themselves.
Both were influenced by a deep feeling of personal hostility. The Jew hated (as Jews only know how to hate) because he had been rivalled and rejected. The fosterer, more than half in love, abhorred the Israelite for imagining aught that was injurious against the cantatrice who had elected him her knight; and further, from a pre-knowledge of Mr. Montague’s pugilistic accomplishments, Mark Antony was dying for an opportunity to ascertain whether his own talents in that line had not been rather overrated, forgetting that in his own country no man is accounted above his value—be they pugilists or prophets.
But the men were matched unequally; and consequently the conflict was soon ended. In years the Jew was stale, and in heart a very coward—while with length and activity, the fosterer was fresh as a four-year-old and bold as a tiger. The “master of fence” proved not worth “a dish of stewed prunes”—he turned out nothing but a cur, and the desperate onslaught of the fosterer at once demolished his defensive system. The finale was sudden: in a few seconds the unbeliever lay stretched upon the floor of the Cock and Punch-bowl, and, to all appearance, defunct as Julius Cæsar. Heaven help him! The chances against the circumcised sinner were desperate all through.
Mrs. O’Leary was making a radical change in her toilet when she heard the alarm, and before she was ready for battle, the battle was over. Down she sallied like a Bacchante. Alas! it was only to see a defeated Israelite on the floor, and witness a demolition of property, the value of which was, like pearls, above price.
“Oh, heavenly Antony!” she exclaimed, and clapped her hands wildly together, “if ivir I underwint such ruination since I was a girl. A man kilt in the house, and the image of my brother Dick that came from Philadelphy, all in smithereens!” and she picked up fragments of plaster of Paris which once had formed “a busto framed with every grace.”
“There’s the Queen of Sheba on the-broad of her back upon the floor, and the divil a morsel of the Prodigal Son left, good nor bad.” She cast her eyes doubtfully around her, “Holy Bridget!” she continued, “why the door of the clock-case is in two halves! Murder! murder!—was ivir a lone woman brought to sich desalashin, and all done while ye could say Jack Robison! Arrah! what set ye a fightin’, wid plenty of liquor, and ye singin’ like blackbirds when I left ye. May the widda’s curse fall on them, night and day, that caused the skrimmage!” Then turning to the fosterer, she inquired if he had been wounded in the affray, and with a marked anxiety Mrs. O’Leary investigated the outer man of Mark Antony. Perceiving, however, that he was personally undamaged, she continued her inquiries as to the origin of what she called the ruchshin, intending no doubt to ameree the offender heavily for the losses she had sustained. Manifold were the causes alleged; but all, and by common consent, laid the blame on Mr. Montague. He was a Jew, therefore no allegation against him could be too bad. He was dead, and consequently he could deny nothing. Accordingly, the downfal of the Queen of Sheba, the demolition of my brother Dick, and the destruction of the Prodigal Son, all and every were placed to the account of the defunct, and carried in the affirmative, neniine contradicente.
But Mr. Montague was not dead. Like greater men, finding that the current of popular opinion had turned against him, he decided that nothing professional could be effected by a longer sojourn at the Cock and Punch-bowl, and that the sooner he abdicated the better. Accordingly while a noisy reconciliation was being effected, Mr. Montague “cut his lucky,” the belligerents returned to the table,—in a deep “doch a durris” all animosity was extinguished, and the whole separated as a Christian company should part, having in due course, and after the fashion of that pleasant country, drank, fought, committed murder, and sworn an eternal friendship afterwards.
Morning came, and the hostlerie of Mrs. O’Leary at cock-crow was in a bustle. The fosterer and his fair companion preparing for the road, and the sergeant, with his charge of foot, girding up their loins to proceed to Cahirmore. All however seemed in melancholy mood; some laying it upon love, while others left it upon liquor. Mark Antony was regularly bothered; and the actress, poor girl, sadly cast down at the immediate prospect of parting from one, who had proved himself a kind and generous protector. Nor had the jolly hostess escaped a visitation of the heart. What, though for three years she had eschewed all overtures to revisit the temple of Hymen, and rejected more suitors than Penelope, still the widow was flesh and blood like other people; and satisfied that in the person of Mark Antony O’Toole the cardinal virtues were united, she was ready for matrimony on demand, and prepared on the first summons to surrender the Cock and Punch-bowl—of course on honourable terms.
All these visitations were of the sentimental order; but those sustained by the men of war were unhappily corporeal. It is true that the sergeant had a thick skull, but what chances have skulls with cupboards? and in the recent collision the skull of the commander was damaged grievously; the fifer’s mouth was totally destroyed by a flush hit; each of the recruits had been favoured with a black eye; and, even to the diminutive drummer, none passed the ordeal unscathed.