VIII.
The important consequences connected with kissing—Arrah-na-Pogue—Refusing the sacrament on account of a kiss—How a child’s kiss affected the course of a desperate man—What a little mare’s kiss did—Brought to life by a kiss—The kiss of death—Kissing in tunnels—A mountain experience—Kissing the cook.
Many curious stories might be related of important consequences coming from a kiss. Sometimes a kiss proves useful. There is a romantic story of the great Irish rebellion, in which an imprisoned patriot under sentence of death was enabled to make his escape, the plan of operations being conveyed to him in a billet carried to him by his sweetheart in her mouth, and passed to him by the medium of a kiss through the iron grating of his dungeon. This was done under the very noses of the governor and sentinels placed there to intercept any improper communication. This story has been used in Arrah-na-Pogue, which means literally “Arrah of the kiss.”
In the “Memoirs of Adam Black,” published by his sons in Edinburgh, is related an incident which occurred in Adam’s youth, and illustrates the severe sort of orthodoxy that then prevailed among the Evangelicals of Scotland. On one sacrament Sunday morning the wife of the Rev. John Colquhoun, of Leith, being desirous of having him nicely rigged out for the occasion, had his coat well brushed, his shirt as white as snow, and his bands hanging handsomely on his breast; and when she surveyed her gudeman, she was so delighted with his comely appearance that she suddenly took him around the neck and kissed him. The Rev. John, however, was so offended by this carnal proceeding, that he debarred his wife from the sacrament that day.
In a prison at New Bedford, Mass., there was a man whom we will call Jim, who was a prisoner on a life sentence. He was regarded as a desperate, dangerous man, ready for rebellion at any hour. He planned a general outbreak, but was “given away” by one of the conspirators. He plotted a general mutiny or rebellion, and was again betrayed. He then kept his own counsel, and while never refusing to obey orders, he obeyed like a man who only needed backing to make him refuse to. One day, a party of strangers came into the institution. One was an old gentleman, the others ladies, and two of the ladies had small children. The guide took one of the children on his arm, and the other walked until the party came to climbing the stairs. Jim was working near by, sulky and morose as ever, when the guide said to him: “Jim, won’t you help this little girl up the stairs?”
The convict hesitated, a scowl on his face; and the little girl held out her arms to him and said: “If you will, I guess I’ll kiss you.” The scowl vanished in an instant, and he lifted the child as tenderly as a father. Half-way up the stairs she kissed him. At the head of the stairs she said, “Now, you’ve got to kiss me, too.”
He blushed like a woman, looked into her innocent face, and then kissed her cheek, and before he reached the foot of the stairs again the man had tears in his eyes. From that day he was a changed man, and no one in the place gave less trouble. Maybe in his far Western home he had a Katie of his own. No one knows, for he never revealed his inner life; but the change so quickly wrought by a child gave hope that he would forsake his evil ways.
When Mr. Cole, a well-known circus proprietor in the South, sold his stock in New Orleans, three dun ring horses that he had owned for years went with the others by mistake. Mr. Cole at once bought them back, saying that he would never consent to have the horses become the property of any one who would make them work, and that he had decided to put them to a painless death. He proposed bleeding them to death, but W. B. Leonard, a liveryman, suggested that the use of chloroform would be a better and less painful mode. This was finally decided upon, and a reliable man procured, who was to have performed the operation.
They were all collected in the circus tent. There were Cole, Leonard, the riders and the clowns, the ringmaster, the tumblers and leapers, and the three pet duns. Calling the little mare by name, he told her to kiss them all good-bye. The intelligent animal, stretching forward her head, kissed each one. This was more than they could stand, and the sacrifice was put off. Cole had no place to take them to, so Mr. Leonard promised to find some one who would assume charge of them, under a guarantee never to work them, but to keep them in good order until death should claim them for the grave.
A remarkable case of a child being brought back to life by a kiss occurred in Louisville, Ky. A man named Joseph Meyer had two children, a boy about ten years and a girl about two months old. This baby, which appeared healthy, was suddenly taken ill with something like convulsions, and came very near dying before medical aid could be summoned. The doctor was called in and gave the child some medicine, not thinking, however, that it could possibly live. He then left, but returned the next morning. When he reached the house the child was barely breathing, and in a few minutes afterwards respiration stopped altogether. Every appearance of death was visible; the face assumed the hue of death, the jaw dropped, limbs relaxed, and the eyes became glazed. The doctor examined the pulse, and listened for the beating of the heart, but failing to find any signs of life, pronounced the child dead. It lay thus for fully ten minutes, with the members of the family grouped around the bed lamenting, as is usual in such cases. The little girl’s brother, who was just old enough to understand the situation, and who seemed to be greatly grieved, suddenly stepped from the circle and approached the supposed corpse, leaned over and imprinted a kiss upon the pallid lips. The baby’s mouth was slightly open, and in kissing her the boy blew his breath down her throat. The little lips suddenly moved, the child gave one or two sudden gasps and then commenced to breathe, slowly and feebly at first, and then gradually stronger, until respiration became almost natural. Every one around was terribly astonished at this unlooked-for coming back from the dead, and did not seem to realize the fact until the child had been breathing for half an hour. The little one rapidly improved, and eventually regained its health.