THE DISTRESSED IRISHMAN. 75 hausen, I wandered, ruminated, and, in adoring, prayed! What was I thinking of? Do not ask me. There are moments when a thousand confused ideas flow unconsciously through the mind.” I returned to the little inn-the beehive of industry. A fresh train had arrived, and fresh victims had been secured; for the gros gendarme who was the lover of Stella found excuses for bringing customers to the inn, which pleased the host, and increased the dowry he expected with the hand of the fair daughter. "My dear wife!" said a poor German. me at Cologne. What will she think? What shall I do?" 66 "She is waiting for Go back to Brussels! 'My master's at Bonn to get married,” said a good-looking young fellow of the Sister Isle. "I have no money, and I want something to ate." Others grumbled, while I sat silent and satisfied, sensible of my great advantages over my fellowprisoners. All had wants. I had none. They were without friends. My friend, companion, and occupation lay before me. “I am starving, and I have no money," said the Hibernian. "Comprends pas, Monsieur," said Stella. "Give me some Pat opened his mouth, pointed his finger. thing to ate. I am starving. My master's at Bonn. I have no money! Stella stared at the good-looking Irishman. I tried to suppress laughter when looking at the two faces; in one, hunger personified,—in the other, a half-concealed consciousness of the meaning of Paddy's significant gesture. I could refrain no longer. I burst out laughing, and addressing Stella in French, told her that the poor fellow was hungry; that his master was at Bonn, whither he was proceeding; and that if she would give him something to eat, I would pay the reckoning. "Il a faim," said Stella, and away she tripped. "Well, Paddy," I said, "how is it that you travel without money? Irish RECIPROCITY,—a bargain in which one side takes without giving, won't do on the Continent." 76 THE DISTRESSED IRISHMAN. "Father Murphy!" he exclaimed," and do you spake English?" "Such English, Paddy, as my mother and the world gave me, which sometimes passes for Irish, sometimes English with a twang, and sometimes for French itself." "Oh, you are a Scotchman, to be sure." "Any countryman you like. We are born for Heaven, Paddy, and there is no Babel there! Only one language, and that is the language of the Heart." Stella placed a smoking plate of bouilli and a bottle of Rhenish wine before the hungry Hibernian, who greedily seized the bottle, and, having filled his glass, said, "Here's good luck to you, and may you never know what it is to be thirsty or hungry!" "Stop, stop! Paddy. I won't have that. Hunger has pleasures greater than satiety. It is meet that we should be both hungry and thirsty,--that a blessing might come from the heart to the Giver of all good things." "Och! you're a poet, sir. My mother's instinct tells me that." "Farceur, you mean, whom your mother's blarney would extol as one of the bright poets of the sons of Erin. But listen. I'll befriend you; but I want you to do something for me in return!" “I'm your man, sir. A good turn never roosts with Paddy O'Riley." "Well, Paddy; you are a good-looking fellow." “Thank you, sir. My mother thought so, or she wouldn't have made an ass of me." "A spoil'd child, Paddy ?” "An only child, sir, and therefore the progeny of blindness." "She has not blunted your wit, Paddy." "I borrowed that from my father, to be sure!" "You see that big Prussian, with the helmet on?” "See him, is it? I wish I saw him within a mile of an Irish bog, to be sure! That's all!" THE DISTRESSED IRISHMAN. "And you see that pretty girl that served you?" 66 Ah, don't I? the colleen!" "You can make yourself agreeable with the girls, Paddy, eh?" "Can't I?" said Paddy, with a turn of his eye. alone for that. "Let me 'Oh, the boys of Kilkenny are stout roving blades!" "No doubt of it, Paddy; but wait a little; we'll have your song by and by. If I am not mistaken, that fellow is smitten with Stella. It may not be love, Paddy; for his glances are more sinister than loving. Now I want to punish him by your paying attention to the young girl. Wit and humour, but nothing offensive." "Is that all, your honour? "With my gallamachree, and a heart so free, "Here's to your honour; may you never want a drop, nor the power to give one; but for that spalpeen, may the first potato he eats blister his tongue, and the first drop he drinks turn sour in his stomach." Stella, une autre bouteille, s'il vous plait !" "Oui, oui, Monsieur." Paddy required no monitor to help him in the task set before him. A good dinner made him as proud as a lord, and the wine as merry as an Irishman at a wake. He had a good voice, and he used it well-emphasising the words, and leering with his eyes--at one time a look bold as a trooper's-then the expression of a Romeo or a Modus. The poor German, in the midst of the laughter that prevailed, forgot his wife and children, and the other prisoners of peace drowned their disquiet, and the walls of the little inn echoed again and again with the peals of laughter excited by Paddy's humour, and the "Jeune fille aux yeux noirs" of the German, and "J'ai de l'argent" of a Frenchman who probably had scarcely a sou in his pocket. The host returned from his labours in the field, and his two 78 THE DISTRESSED IRISHMAN. sons from the potato-sowing in the garden, and joined in the humour; and when Paddy sang-while leering at Stella—“The Widow Malone," observing the uneasy looks of the gros Prussian, they enjoyed the fun, which increased the ire of the gros gendarme, who sat mute, playing with the hilt of his sword, with a face singularly contrasting with the bright beaming faces of the other guests. Stella sang, too—a sweet voice, good compass, and full of expression, and in the refrain, “Il n'y a guerre de beaux jours sans l'amour,” Paddy's voice was heard above all the others. All laughed and applauded, except the disconsolate lover, who bit his lips, and whose looks brought the words of Addison to my mind :— "She pities me: To one that asks the warm return of love, Each sought his bedroom for repose, and, after such an evening, Morpheus required little supplication, except by the gendarme; for Paddy said to me, on bidding me bon soir, "I wouldn't give a ha'porth for that paltroon's sleep to-night. How he upbraided the delicate creature; but she has pluck; she paid him back in his own coin-the spalpeen." "A bed of thorns is his dessert, Paddy. Good night! We will have a letter to-morrow. Good night!" "Good night, yer honour. May the guardian angel of the O'Rileys hover round your pillow!" CHAPTER VII. THE PASSPORT. BY PATIENCE, MISHAPS ARE OFTEN CHANGED TO BENEFIT S. HE sun had ascended high in the heavens, and his beams, which we cannot well shut out, were sporting in my little room, with its ivy-clad window, garlanded with honeysuckle, when Paddy's voice awoke me. Under my window was an entire little world-happy and charming-like that described by Hugo himself : "Three little boys and two little girls were playing among the grass, which reached their chins, the girls every now and then fighting voluntarily with the boys. The ages of all five could not amount to more than fifty years. Beyond the long grass were trees loaded with fruit. In the midst of the leaves were two scarecrows, dressed like Lubins of the Comic Opera; and although, perhaps, they had the effect of frightening the birds, they failed to do that to the bergeronnettes. In all corners of the garden were flowers glittering in the rays of the sun, and round these flowers were swarms of bees and butterflies. The bees hummed, the children chattered, the birds sang, and at a little distance were two doves billing." "Here's a letter for yer honour," said Paddy. It was from my landlord at Brussels. I give the fac simile : |