by James McLevy
I had given up hope, and my angry cooks were left to look better after the joints that were to be used in future, when one night I happened to go into the shop of Mr M’Dougal at the foot of the High Street. There were several people in the shop, and I stood back, not to avoid the gaze of Mrs Biddy Riddel of the Fountain Close, (her maiden name was O’Neil), who didn’t look for me, and didn’t see me, for, in truth, I was after no game that evening, but merely to avoid interfering with the customers. Now was Biddy’s turn to be served.
“Half an ounce ov good tay—an ounce ov sugar—and an ounce ov raal Durham musthard,” said she.
The purchase struck me as being singular, and I’m sure the grocer was of the same opinion. I was perfectly aware that she was of the class of the half-ounce-of-tea-and-glass-of-whisky buyers, and if she had asked the whisky I would have considered the purchase as quite in the ordinary way, but the “raal Durham” was quite another thing, and I could account for it nohow.
I saw that the grocer had looked at Biddy when she asked the mustard, just as if he felt inclined to ask what she was to do with so large a quantity, nay, any quantity, however small, but he proceeded without saying a word to tie up the tea and the sugar, then, coming to the third article,
“Did you say an ounce of mustard, Mrs Riddel?”
“Ay, raal Durham.”
“Why, that will go a far way with you,” said Mr M’Dougal, as he looked over to me, and laughed—a kind of interference with the rights of trade that Biddy did not seem to relish.
“Wid me?” she said; “and why wid me? Shure, couldn’t I buy a pound ov it if I chose?”
“And most happy would I be to sell it to you,” was the reply.
“Ay, and I may need a pound ov it too,” she continued, “if it doesn’t plase the Lord to be kinder to me; for hasn’t Willie caught a terrible cowld, and amn’t I to put a blisther on his throat this blissid night?”
“Ah, that’s another thing, Mrs Riddel. I’m sorry for William. His trade of chimney-sweeping takes him early out in the cold mornings.”
“And shure it does,” she replied; “but the never a bit less shame to ye to think I was to ate musthard like honey and the devil a bit ov salt mate to take wid it.”
“I am sorry for the mistake,” said the grocer, as he rolled up the small packet, and Biddy laid down the pence.
“And so you may,” added she, not altogether reconciled; “and, what’s more, have I not as good a right to a piece of salt bacon as the gintry?”
And not contented yet without the parting salute—
“And ye don’t know yet that we kept pigs at home, at Ballynagh; ay, an’ they more than paid the rint; and, what’s more, bedad, we didn’t need to tie the bit ov bacon to the ind ov the string and swallow it, and thin pull it out agin.”
“I believe it, Mrs Riddel,” said the grocer. And then the last words came—
“And what’s more, it wasn’t straiked wid a hunger and a burst, like your gintry’s. Just purty white and red where it should be; and we had musthard, too, galore, when we wanted it. Shure, and I’ve settled your penn’orth, anyhow.”
And so she had; for as she went grandly away, carrying in her hand her half-ounce of tea, and in her head the honour of Ballynagh, Mr M’Dougal looked as if he had committed an error in joking as he had done on the wants of the poor.
“You’ve raised the lady’s dander,” said I.
“Which I shouldn’t have done,” said he, “for her penny is as good to me as another’s; and then she needs the mustard for the outside of her son’s throat, not the in.”
To which sentiment I agreed, even with a little sympathy for the feelings of a mother, whose penny for a blister for her son’s throat was just the tribute which she could ill spare paid from a mother’s affection to old Æsculapius. I confess to having been somewhat amused by Biddy’s Irish vindication of the rights of her family, but having been merely amused, the interlude passed out of my mind—so completely so, that by the next morning I was thinking of something very different from Mrs Riddel and her invalid son, Willie, with the sore throat.
Next day I was passing the mouth of the Fountain Close, and whom did I see standing there, with a pipe in his mouth, but Bill himself, arrayed in his suit of black, with face of the same, indicating that he had been at work in the morning? He was quite well known to me, and from a circumstance which will appear ludicrous. I had occasion at one time to separate him from a baker with whom he had quarrelled, and with whom, also, he had fought so long that the two had so mixed colours that you couldn’t have told which was the man of the oven or the man of the chimney; but the truth is, that he had more to answer for than thrashing a baker, for he was an old offender in another way, where he took without giving something more than dust. Of course it was a mystery to me how he had so soon recovered from his sore throat, and the effects of the “raal Durham.”
“Well, Bill, how’s your throat, lad?” said I, going up to him.
“My throat?” replied he; “nothing’s wrong with it—never had a sore throat in my life.”
“Except once,” said I.
“When?”
“When I took you by it rather roughly,” said I.
“Unpleasant recollection,” said the rogue. “Don’t wish it mentioned. Steady now,—nothing but lum-sweeping and small pay.”
“And no mustard-poultice last night?”
“Mustard-poultice? Strange question! never had a mustard-poultice in my life.”
“Quite sure? let me see your throat.”
“More sure than I am that you’re not gibing a poor fellow,” replied he, pulling down his neckcloth. “I don’t belong to you now, so be off unless you want me to sweep your vent for sixpence—cheap, as things go, and I’ll leave you the soot to hide your shame for what you did to me yon time.”
Well, I took the joke, and really I had no reason in the world for doubting his word as to either the throat or the blister, but I confess I was startled, and couldn’t account for the discrepancy between the story of the lady of Ballynagh and that of her son. Things were out of their natural fitness; and there was some explanation required to bring them into conformity with it and themselves. What that explanatory thing was I couldn’t tell, and so I walked into the grocer’s.
“Why,” said I, “Biddy Riddel’s black darling has no sore throat, after all, he is standing at the close-head quite well, with his throat, which I have seen, as black as soot.
“Strange enough,” said he.
“Have you sold her any ham of late?’ said I, after musing a little.
“Too poor for that,” he replied; “all goes for whisky, and Biddy’s half-ounces of tea, with, no doubt, a bit of coarse meat occasionally, to which an ounce of Durham would, of course, be out of the question.”
“Did she ever buy from you any mustard before?” I inquired again.
“Why, now when I recollect, yes,” replied he. “About a week ago she had an ounce. I had really forgotten that, when last night I touched her on a tender part.”
With my additional information I left the shop, meditating as I went up the High Street on the strangeness of the affair, small though it was—for a little animal is just as curious in its organization as a big one, and I’ve heard of some great man who lost his eyesight by peering too closely into these small articles of nature’s workmanship. I didn’t intend to lose mine, and yet I couldn’t give over thinking, though it is just as sure as death that I saw no connexion between what I had heard noticed and the larder affair, neither then nor afterwards, during the day. Besides, another business took the subject out of my head, so that I thought no more of it.
Next morning, as I was proceeding to the Office, my attention was again called to the mystery of the mustard-blister, by encountering the lady of Ballynagh carrying a stoup of water from the Fountain Well, and I couldn’t resist a few words as I passed.
“Well, Mrs Riddel,” said I, with true official gravity, “how is your darling�
�s throat after the blister?”
“And it’s you that has the impidence to ask it?” replied she; “are you a docthor?”
“Yes, I sometimes try to mend people when they’re bad.”
“To kill them, you mane, and the heart ov many a dacent widdow besides,” was the reply.
“But I didn’t make Bill’s throat sore this time.”
“No more ye did; but small thanks to ye, for wouldn’t ye hang him, if yez could? and, shure, to hang a man wid the proud flesh in his throat would be a mighty plaisant thinng to the likes ov ye; and didn’t I look down it wid me own eyes?”
“But Bill says he never had a sore throat in his life.”
“And isn’t that becase he’s so bowld a boy?” replied she. “He never complains, becase he knows it would hurt me; but is that any raison I shouldn’t blisther him when he’s ill? And didn’t I know he was ill when he could only spake like a choking dog, and couldn’t for the life ov him take a cup of tay or ate a bit ov bread?”
And taking up her pitcher, she hurried away, leaving me as much in the dark as ever on this great subject, destined to become so much greater before even that day was done, but not by any exertions of mine, for as yet I could see nothing in it beyond the fact that there was some incident required to be known to bring out the fitness of things. Nor was it long before I got satisfaction. The day was a strolling one with me, more a look-out for “old legs” than a pursuit after new ones, and for some reason which I don’t now recollect, I was in Hanover Street, along which I had got (it was now dark) a short way when I observed a sweep coming along with a jolly leg of mutton in his hand. We are sometimes blamed for being somewhat curious in our inquiries into the nature of carried parcels, but here there was so much of the real unfitness of things that I might, I though, be justified in my curiosity—all the more, too, when I discovered that the proprietor or carrier was my friend of the sore throat.
“Where got you the leg of mutton, Bill?” inquired I, as I stood before him, and stopped his quick pace, intended to be much quicker the moment he saw me.
“The leg of mutton?” replied he, taken aback.
“Yes,” said I, “just the leg of mutton. It is so seldom you have a thing of that kind about you that I feel curious to know.”
“You might as well ask that gentleman where he got his umbrella or his coat,” was the cool reply.
“Not just the same,” said I; “but I do not choose to point out the difference. Where got you it?”
“Bought it to be sure, and that’s enough for you.”
“Quite enough,” said I, “if you did buy it, and I confess you have a good taste. A better leg I haven’t seen for a long time. An ‘old leg’ too, and just kept long enough to be tender. Who’s your butcher?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Perhaps I might fancy one the same,” said I; for I felt inclined to play a little as the idea of the mustard began to tickle my brain and make me merry. “I might even fancy that one and offer a premium upon it.”
“What premium?” he said, perhaps not knowing very well what to say.
“Perhaps sixty days and ‘skeely’ without a drop of mustard.”
The word operated like a charm on my sooty epicure, but he didn’t seem to understand it any way, looking into my face inquisitively, and no doubt remembering the conversation about the blister without being able to connect the two things, for doubtless his mother had told him nothing of his sore throat and of the remedy.
“Come,” said I, “there are just two ways. You take me to the butcher’s shop or I take you to mine.”
Bill was too sensible a fellow not to see, even without the quickening of the blister, that it was all up with him, and so accordingly, carrying his leg of mutton, he accompanied me very quietly to the Office, where I deposited him and his burden. I now examined the leg with the view of endeavouring to ascertain whether it might be identified, for I was here in the position I was in that morning I had so much difficulty about my booty in the Cock and Trumpet. But I soon discovered what I thought might serve my purpose, and, telling the lieutenant to take care not to allow the leg to be handled, I took my way to the Fountain Close, where I found my proud lady of Ballynagh sitting at her ease, no doubt expecting her son in by and by, or at least before supper, which supper he would doubtless bring in himself, she providing the mustard.
“I’m just here again,” said I, as I opened the door and went in.
“Ay, always shoving in your nose where you’ve no more right to be than in heaven, where you’II never have any right at all,” replied she. “‘What wid me now?”
“I just want to know, Mrs Riddel, what you did with the ounce of mustard you bought two nights ago at Mr M’Dougal’s?”
“The musthard?” she exclaimed, at the top of her voice.
“Just the ‘raal Durham.”’
“The raal Durham! and what should I do wid it but make a blisther for Bill’s throat, as I towld ye before, and tell ye agin?”
“And yet here is the most of it in this cup, ready made for supper,” said I, as I took from the old cupboard the article and held it before her.
“And was I to use it all at wunst for a blisther, d’ye think, ye mighty docthor M’Lavy?” said she, with something of her usual greatness; “and isn’t his throat sore and won’t he naid the rest ov it this very night?”
“Then what will become of this fine piece of salt beef?” said I, as I pulled out of the same recess the article which appeared so strange in a small hovel, with two chairs and a table, and scarcely a bit of furniture besides. “You must reserve a little for it?”
“And who gave ye the power to spake about my mate, and ask whether I ate musthard to it or not? Isn’t it me own?”
“That’s just what I want to know,” said I, as I took out my handkerchief to roll it up in.
“And who knows that better than the woman who bought it, and salted it, ay, and put saltpatre upon it, and hung it, and boiled it?”
“And told me that the mustard was for her son’s throat,” said I.
“Ay, and the thruth, too, every word ov it.”
“Well, I’m going to take the beef to the Police Office, where Bill is,” said I; “I will leave you the mustard.”
“If you are going to be a thaif, take it altogether,” cried, “and may the devil blister your throat before you try to ate what belongs to a poor widdow! And you’ve ta’en up the boy agin, have yez?”
“Yes”.
“For stailing his own mate?”
“And if you are not quiet,” said I, “I will return and take up you for helping him to eat it.”
“And that would just make the right ind ov it, you murtherin’ spoiler ov widdows and orphans.”
And now that she had begun to abuse me I might get more of her “good words” than I wanted, so I left her, hearing, as I went down stairs, as many of the malisons as would have served, if they had been blessings, for the contents of all the rifled larders.
I had nearly got to the Office when a cook from Inverleith Terrace came and reported the theft of a leg of mutton. I was now pretty certain I had not overstepped my duty in apprehending Bill, but the difficulty remained as to the identification.
“Would you know your leg if you saw it?” inquired I.
“As easily as I would know my own, if it were cut off,” she replied, with a grim smile.
“Is that it, then?” said I, as I showed her the article.
“The very leg,” said she. “There’s. the wether mark and the snip off the tail, to show me which I was to use first, and tomorrow is the great dinner day.”
“I was trusting to the string,” said I, as I held within my hand the piece by which the leg had been hung on the hook.
“And so you might,” replied she, “for it is a piece of an old window cord which was lying on the dresser, and the rest of it is still in the kitchen.”
“Is that it?”
“The very bit; I tied it
with my own hands. But how in the name of all that’s wonderful, has the leg found its way here before me?”
“Never you mind that,” said I. “You will be able to swear to the article?”
“Ay; but what am I to do for the dinner?”
“Why,” said I,” you could scarcely serve up to your master and his guests a leg of mutton that had been stolen by a sweep, and been in the Police Office. Our ‘old legs’ don’t get into high company when they leave our society.”
For the leg Bill was supplied with the “raal Durham” in the shape of twelve months’ imprisonment.
The Pleasure-Party
❖
No kind of literature can be more detrimental to morals than that of which we have had some melancholy examples from the London press, where the colours that belong to romance are thrown over pictures of crime otherwise revolting. Nor is much required for this kind of writing,—a touch of fate calling for sympathy, or a dash of cleverness extorting admiration, will suffice. Shave the fellow’s head, and put a canvas jacket on him, and you have your hero as he ought to be. See M’Pherson with the fiddle out of his hands, and think of his beating the rump of a poor widow’s cow which he had stolen, and was to feed on half raw, like a savage, as he was, and what comes of Burns’ immortal song? Catch nature painting up those things with any other colours than those of blood and mud. And yet I have been a little weak sometimes in this way myself, when I have found boldness joined to dexterity. One needs an effort to get quit of rather natural feelings in contemplating some four youths, male and female, well endowed in person and intellect, and with so much of that extraneous elegance derived from the tailor and a well-practised imitation of the great, set down to plan an invasion of a foreign country, strange to them in language and manners, and with no other weapons for spoil than their boldness and their wits. A little attention enables us to disabuse ourselves, by pointing out that the boldness is impudence, and the invention deceit, and we come pleasantly back to the huckaback—the rig and furrow, and the shaved head.