The Madisonian

MISCELLANEOUS.

"IT'S ONLY A BIT OF A STRETCH!"

"And were there many at the race, Pierce?"

"Many, is it many, aunt? Faith, I believe ye; thousands upon thousands!"

"And did many horses run, Pierce?"

"Ay, hundreds!"

"Oh, Pierce, how could that be?—there would not be room; and, I'm astonished at the people's coming out in the teams of rain."

"Och, aunt, ye're such a bother! Warn't there hundreds of tents to shelter them."

"Is it to shelter thousands, Pierce?" said his aunt Kitty, laying down her knitting, and looking with her pale blue eyes steadfastly in his face.

"Lord! aunt, how can you go on believing every word a fellow says."

"That's true, my dear, when you are 'the fellow,' answered aunt Kitty in her usual placid way

"Sure, he continued, there were plenty of people on the race-course, and that's all as one as thousands; and there were plenty of horses, and a good sprinkling of tents; but, aunt, you drive all the spirit out of a man with your regulation questions. I tell you, you drive all the spirit out of me."

"Then I do very wrong,' replied aunt Kitty, smiling. 'I only want to exchange spirits—the spirit of truth 'for the spirit of falsehood.'"

"Falsehood, aunt?"

"Lying whether black or white—if it please you better.'"

"By the powers!'-and they're a large family. I wouldn't let a man say that of me.'"

"You could not prevent his thinking it."

"No man should tell me I was a liar."

"I dare say not,—Mr. Pierce Scanlan. You quarrelled last week with Miles Pendergast, for repeating, as if it had been truth, what you afterwards said was a jest, and then you quarrelled with him for saying something else was falsehood which you wished to be understood was truth. You said on both occasions you would blow his brains out; but you have stated your intention of doing so towards so many. that I suppose my friend Miles still has his brains. I hope he will keep them cool.'"

"I wish,' exclaimed the young farmer, 'I wish my mother had been any thing but an English woman.'"

"Why, Pierce?"

"Why. because then I should not have had an English aunt to fuss about nothing. Now, don't look angry; no, not angry; you never look angry, that's the d—l of it nor don't blow me up—but no, that's as bad, you never blow me up; if you did, there would be some comfort in it, but you wont do either. You wont do any thing but 'reason with me'—it is really enough to make a fellow mad"

"To be reasoned with?"

"Ay, to be reasoned with. My father used to say it was one of the privileges of an Irish husband, that he was never expected to listen to reason.'"

"Irish husbands,' said aunt Kitty very solemnly, while preparing to take up a stitch she had just dropped, "are, generally speaking, great tyrants; they have the most tender affectionate wives in the world, and they bluster their lives out. Storm!—storm!—fly!—fly!—and then (as was the case with my poor sister) when the trembling spirit has found refuge in the grave, they cry, over her! Irish fathers are bad fathers!'"

"Oh, Kitty, Kitty, if you warn't my aunt!'"

"But I am your aunt. I left my home and my country, when the Almighty took your parents, to share what I had with my sister's children. All I want is for you to hear me.'"

"Aunt, you want us to heed you too'"

"Not unless your reason is convinced, Pierce.'"

"Bother the reason, aunt! I want to have no call to it; and I hope you wont be coming over what you said just now to Eliza Byrne about Irish husbands."

"Irish husbands are generally bad, and Irish fathers are even worse."

"Oh, aunt, why, their love for their children goes beyond every thing.'"

"And their care for their comfort and prosperity amounts to nothing. Peer and peasant live up to what they have, and leave their children the Irish heritage of beggary. How did your own father leave you and your three little sisters? It breaks my heart when I think of it! You're a good boy, Pierce; a kind-hearted boy, if you'd give up stretching; only stick to the truth, the bright ornament, Pierce. I do think if you would, you'd be almost as good a husband as an Englishman, as wise a one as a Scotch.'"

"Will you say that to Eliza Byrne? Do, aunt, like a darling, and I wont give a stretch for a week!'"

"Talking of Eliza Byrne, said his kind, but peculiar aunt Kitty, 'now I think of it, Eliza heard something you had said of Lucy Flinn that has cut her up very much."

"Of Lucy Flinn?"

"Yes; either of Lucy or to Lucy, I am not sure which, so do not run away with my story into a stretch. And, Pierce, what did you mean by saying that Brady owed Garrett more gold than his mare could carry, and that he'd be broke horse and foot if he could not pay.'"

"Oh, by the powers,' replied Pierce, coloring deeply, 'I never said such a word, not that I remember; or, if I did, 'twas only a bit of a stretch, just to tease old Mother Brady, that thought to haul me over the coals about a bit of fun concerning her son and Ellen Graves. I meant no harm at the time. Any how, he does owe Garrett a matter of ten pounds.'"

"Is that more than his mare could carry?"

"Oh, aunt Kitty, be easy, you're too bad entirely; faith, the town land's turning English upon us, observing every stretch a boy makes for diversion."

"There is plenty of diversion on the subject, I assure you,' said his aunt, 'Every lie in the parish is called a Pierce Scanlan!'"

"By the powers! he exclaimed, 'any man says that I'll break every bone in his body.'"

"Would'nt it be easier to break yourself of the habit of stretching as you call it?" inquired his aunt.

"Bad cess to the people that can't see a joke, and ye're enough, aunt, so you are, to sat a body mad.'"

The interview had proceeded to this particular point, when Pierce's sisters, Jane and Anne and little Mary entered together; they had taken a half holiday, and crossed the hill to spend it at Eliza Byrne's, and now returned, not laughing and talking as usual, but with sober steady countenances. and quiet, foot. steps. Each entered without speaking, and there were traces of tears on little Mary's cheeks.

"Holloa, girls!' exclaimed their really good-tempered brother, 'have you been to a funeral?"

"Be easy with your nonsense,' said Jane.

"Too much of one thing is good for nothing, muttered Anne.

"I wonder at you, so I do, brother Pierce. to say what you did of Eliza Byrne,' added little Mary.

"And your life isn't safe in the country, I can tell you,' recommenced Jane, 'for every one of the Brady's people are up as high as the Hill of Howth."

"And will have you as low down as the towers in Lough Neagh,' added Anne.

"And Ellen Graves' father has been all the way to Newtownmountkennedy, to 'torney Driscoll, to take the law of you for taking away his daughter's character.'"

"Easy, girls, for the love of the holy saint —easy, I say,' said Pierce, looking, as well he might, bewildered, 'you open upon me for all the world like a pack of hounds. Easy— one at a time!' exclaimed the brother, 'easy with the hay, avourneens, and incense me into it—quietly."

"Quietly!' repeated little Mary, who was the pet and the beauty of the family, 'it is mighty easy to say quiet to the waves of the sea. and the storm whirling them about."

"A joke is a joke,' said Jane, but what right had ye to touch the girl's character?"

"And crying up Lucy Flinn before Eliza Byrne's brother's face. She'll have nothing more to say to you, I can tell you that,' continued Anne.

"And meddling with the Bradys—the quarrelsomest people in the five parishes; we'll have the house burned over our heads through you,' sobbed little Mary.

"And be brought before judge and jury, if that 'torney Driscoll smells out the yellow guineas Ellen Graves' father keeps hid in the old stocking in the thatch of his house; an oh! on the race ground—I forgot that —how could you say the councillor's colt Conn was all head and tail like the owner!

The councillor will be down on ye, ye misfortunate boy, as well as the 'torney!' said Jane.

"And that's not the worst of it; but, oh! Pierce, the stretch you made—"

"Whisht, Anne,' interrupted Mary, 'what was it all to compare to little Matty O'Hara's turning up his nose when I said my aunt could fine-plait better than the lady's maid at the castle; he turns up and round his ugly nose, that looks for all the world like a stray root of man-gold-wortzel, and says, he "supposes that must be put down as another Pierce Scanlan."'

"Did he say that?" exclaimed Pierce, jumping upwards to where three or four exceedingly well-looking, well-organized shillalahs were "seasoning," up the chimney; and bringing down his favorite at a spring, he weighed it carefully in his hand.

There is something particularly national and characteristic in the manner of an Irishman's weighing a shillalah; the grasp he gives it is at once firm and tender; he poises it on his open palm, glancing his eye along its fair proportions; then his hand gently undulates; again he regards it with a look of intense and friendly admiration, grasps his fingers round it, so as to assure himself of its solidity, until the knuckles of his muscular hand become white, and the veins purple; then in an ecstasy of enjoyment he cuts a caper; and while his eyes sparkle, and a deep and glowing crimson colors his cheeks, he wheels his national weapon round his head, and the wild "whoop!" of the wild Irish rings through the air. So did Pierce, and the "whoop," intended as a sort of war cry to the faction of the O'Haras, compelled his aunt Kitty to speak.

"My dear,' said the good quiet English soul, fairly letting her knitting drop, and placing her fingers on his ears, 'my dear Pierce put down that dirty stick; don't make such a noise, but sit down and listen to reason!'

Now let any one, understanding what an Irishman is in a state of excitement, imagine how Pierce received this well intended but ill-timed admonition. Never had he been so badgered before; for a moment the stick was poised above his head as if the good woman had been a sorceress, and had fixed it there; and then, uttering a deep oath, he rushed towards the door with something like a demonstration of cracking the pate of the first man he met, merely to get his hand in practice for what was to come. It is not, however, easy for a man to escape from four women, and they clung round him with such a tenacity of grasp, that he was literally dragged to the settle.

"Now, my dear Pierce,' said his aunt, when the cries and 'ah do's," and 'ah don't's of the sisters had subsided, "will you listen to reason?"

"No! roared Pierce, with the voice of a stentor.

"Ah, do, aunty Kitty, let him alone for a minute or two,' whispered little Mary, 'it's no use now, and he's foaming mad alive with the passion; let him come to a bit; or put, she added, judiciously, 'an ould crook or something in his way for him to break; that always softens his temper.'

Now. though aunt Kitty saw little Mary was right in both cases, she loved her 'crooks' too well to attend to the second admonition. She could not help thinking very truly what an immensity of harm is done by the gaggish and mean kind of wit which spring from falsehood, like weeds growing upon a rank and unwholesome soil, their fruit is poison; the innocent and playful mirth sparkling in the sunbeams of a warm imagination, and both giving and receiving pleasure, is healthful and inspiring, but in Ireland all classes are more or less cursed with the spirit of exaggeration, that, to my sobered senses, is nothing more nor less than unredeemed falsehood; there are a number of persons who have many good qualities, but I cannot respect them; they are perpetually lying. If they have walked a mile, they will tell you they have walked six; and if there is a crowd, it is magnified into thousands, like poor Pierce's people on the race-course.— You must be, like Michael Cassio, 'a good arithmetician' to deduct the item of truth from the million of falsehood. If you believe them, they are rude enough to laugh at you; and if you do not believe them, they are inclined to quarrel with you. Although I have in this instance made exaggeration a peasant-ailing, I think the middle classes are the most addicted to the vice of what I must call by its own vulgar name, 'humbugging'— saying what is not true, that they may have the pleasure of laughing at those who do them the injustice to believe they have spoken truth.

In England, we have no understanding for this spurious wit. No country cherishes truth as it deserves to be cherished; it is a blessed and holy thing, but we do not in England profess to put truth to the blush. "He's a fine gentleman,' said a cousin of Pierce Scanlan to me, when speaking of his landlord, 'he's a fine gentleman; the very light of his eyes is truth."

To those unaccustomed to the contradictions of the Irish character, it is extraordinary, that in a neighborhood where eight or nine young men live, all known to belong to the humbugging class, any should be found weak or foolish enough to credit a word they say; and yet these very boys' will go on telling falsehoods of each other, at which they will laugh one moment, and about which (as in Pierce Scanlan's case) they will quarrel the next. It is very painful to associate with those who never reflect, that they sacrifice the moral dignity of manhood when they desecrate the temple of truth.

Pierce Scanlan's imagination was very vivid, and he loved a laugh; he had given himself the habit of speaking without consideration; and as the jollity of the many, stifled the annoyances and pains of the few, he had gone on until even those who confessed he meant no harm' became annoyed at his practical jokes. Eliza Byrne had loved him, but not as well as he loved her, and the match was effectually broken off, at least for a time, by her brother. who declared, after what Pierce had said of Lucy. his sister should have nothing to say to him.

Now, Pierce had said this for a stretch, a sort of desire to "cut a dash," by showing that he had two strings to his bow: but Eliza's feelings were wounded, and though she had known that Pierce was a 'stretcher.' she did not seem to care for the fault until it reached herself. This is the way in general—we laugh at the jest until it cuts home.

But to return to the cottage..

Pierce, although not wrought up to the pitch of being able to reason, was brought about by his sisters to think, though but little time was given either for that or any other consideration, for the Brady faction had mustered strong, and, stimulated by strong drink, entered the farm-house, to the terror of his sisters, and almost the death of his aunt; and taking the law, as they are too fond of doing, in their own hands, beat the unfortunate Pierce in a way that rendered him dumb for a long time on the subject of whatever debts the Bradys might contract. He had only done it "for a stretch." but what of that? it had come home to the Bradys: and although one and all they were rather sorry the next day for "being so hard on Pierce, pleasant boy!" still that was but a poor salvo for his aching bones and insulted pride.

Aunt Kitty undertook to talk over old Jem Graves, and Mary accompanied her aunt to prevent her "giving him too much English."

I really think that Mary's bright eyes had more to do with the withdrawal of 'torney Driscoll's instructions touching the bit of a stretch'' which the honest old man imagined affected his daughter's fame, than all aunt Kitty's reasons. Pierce made him an earnest- and ample apology, and thus prevented further trouble on that score. The councillor had taken umbrage at the license Pierce had given to his imagination when speaking of "the colt." Words wound more deeply than swords; and long after the desire for fun had prompted the folly, the councillor remembered the foolish "jest" which Pierce had indulged in at the expense of him and his "colt" and refused Pierce a new lease of a couple of acres which he had much desired to retain, and which his father and grandfather had tilled. Aunt Kitty could never understand why the Brady faction had taken the law into their own hands and thrashed her nephew, nor how it was that, they having done so her nephew did not take the law of them; but this want of comprehension was set down by her Irish neighbors to the score of English stupidity. The various rumours that these disturbances gave rise to, spread all over the country, and far and near, Pierce was always reminded of his fault by, "Well Pierce, what's the last?—have you got a new stretcher?"

Pierce must have carried his art of "exaggeration to great perfection, to have attained such note in a country where the practice is so largely indulged in, but circumstances had given him peculiar celebrity, and his aunt had
son as to convince his reason the practice so far succeeded in making him "listen to reason" was wrong. The painful part of the matter was, that when he really and truly spoke the truth, no one would believe him. Eliza Byrne more than once was on the point of relenting; but though Pierce swore over and over again, that he was an altered man, every exaggeration in the parish was fathered upon him, and poor Eliza did not know what to do for the best. Her brother is certainly Pierce's enemy in the matter, and but for him I think they really would have been married. I wish it was a match, or Pierce Scanlan deserves a reward for fighting, as he has lately done--against a habit the triumph of which is "never to be believed!" It may be a match! I saw them walking together the last time I was at Artfinne; Eliza listening, and Pierce, with very little exaggeration either in his look or manner, making love earnestly yet soberly; the worst symptoms I perceived was, that Eliza Byrne shook her head frequently.

"Well Pierce," I said, as we passed them, (they had paused for this purpose,) "I hope you are weighing your words."

"Bedad ma'am, I've been truer than standard weights and measures this many a day, but I get no thanks for it."

"But you will Pierce in time. The priest, the minister, and aunt Kitty, say you improve."

"I am improved," he said, somewhat proudly, "though Eliza won't believe it. Yet, I know I'm improved."

"Pierce, Pierce!" exclaimed Eliza with a very sly quiet smile, "isn't that a bit of a stretch?"

I think Eliza might venture.

From the Brother Jonathan.