Spirit Of The Times

HUMOROUS.

Paddy and the Bear.

Once upon a time, my darlings, and it's not long ago, an Irishman, and a friend of my own, took it into his head that he would leave his master dear, and try a better country. I do not mean to say that a better country there is under the whole face of heaven; but times are bad and many a decent man thinks he might get a better bit and sup by emigration than he can get in his own dear country. His master sent for him, and says mighty sharp, "Well, Thady, what's this I hear about you?"

"Och, my jewel, you can hear nothing about me but myself, and I'm not speaking."

"But you are going away, Thady--you are going away, they say."

"You may say that, sir, for I am two stones lighter than when I came to you."

"But what's taking you away, Thady?"

"Just my own feet and legs, dear."

"You are very short with me this morning, Thady."

"Why, then, I think I'm as long as I was yesterday. But, master dear, I'm going to Amerikay, to get a bit o' land for myself and Judy, and where we'll get praties for the children just for the digging, and have a sweet little cabin of our own, far away in the woods, and the never a morsel o' rent to pay!"

"But, Thady, are you not afraid of the blackamoor wild Indians that live in the woods? They will come down some dark night and tomahawk you!"

"Afraid! Is it an Irishman afraid?--They tomahawk me! There's not a man among them all could play long bullets with my brother Phelemy, and show me o' them could touch me at the first fifteen! But sure, master dear, I would not know one o' them from Adam when I seen them."

"O, Thady, they are wild-looking black rascals and you had better stay at home than venture among them."

"Stay at home, is it? Arrah, my dear, poor Thady has no home to go to; for the landlord put poor Judy out for three and sixpence, and now I'll stay no longer here. Och! sweet Mulligan, sweet Mulligan, and the days o' my youth, when I was fed like a fighting-cock, and Judy was my darling, and the world was light and easy on us! It was then that we had the groat big niggins o' broth for dinner, instead o' the crabbed, pock-marked praties that the pigs in Mulligan wouldn't eat, and buttermilk as thin as cream o' tartar! Farewell, master, and may God Almighty be wid ye'es all!"

So over the salt seas poor Thady went, and Judy, that never had been on the rowling ocean before, now saw nothing at all for weeks but the green sea and blue sky. Och, but it's myself could discourse about the sea and the sky!--how the whales, and the dolphins, and the sharks, rowle in the waters; and the pretty stars and the moon, and the sun, look down upon the coral beds at the bottom o' the sea; and when the wind begins to blaw like mad, and the waves go up and then go down, and the sails are torn into shreds with a noise like thunder, and the masts go by the board, and there's ten feet water in the hold, and the ship is sucked down into the bubbling sea; and, just before it goes down, men, women, and children send up one dreadful scream that rises above the blast, and pierces the very gate of Heaven! There's description for you!

But Thady arrived safe in Quebec, with Judy, and the children, and then off they trudged into the woods, to try and get a bit of land to settle on. Some Irish neighbors helped him to get up a cabin to shelter the family, and he says to one, "Where do them blackamoor negur Indians live, that I heerd about in our own country?"

"Och, beyant there in the woods."

"And Corny, tell me, have you ever seen any o' them?"

"Seen them! To be sure I have, there scores o' them in the woods, black, ugly devils they are!"

"And what makes them black, Corny? Sure, couldn't the dirty creatures keep themselves Christian white!"

"It's the climate, they say; but what the climate is, myself doos'nt know,--Something they rub on them when they are young."

"The dirty heathen brutes! But sure they must have the stuff plinty among them--I wish we had some of it, and I would rub little Barney with it for an experiment."

From that day forward, Thady was ever eager to see a blackamoor Indian.

One day, roaming the woods with his hatchet in his hand, he saw a quare-looking trout reclining at his ease, on the green sod: Thady was now sure he had clapped his eyes on one of them, and coming up 'Musha,' says he, 'but I never seen one o' your sort afore--why, man, you'll get your cowld lying there!'

The wild man of the woods looked up. "Queen o' glory, what a nose!--They may talk o' Loughey Fudaghcn's nose, but by the powers, your nose beats the noses of all the Fudaghens put together! Get up, like a good fellow; I've an odd tester left, and if there wus a shebeen near, I'd give you a snifter."

The quare chap did get up, but, my jewel, he appeared disposed to try a fall with Thady. "And is it for wrestling you are? Cushendall for that--but stop, agrah, you grip too tight--take your fist out o' my shoulder, or I'll have an unfair hoult o' you! 'Oh! bad luck to you, and the tailor that made your clothes, he let no waistband on your breeches--oi, murder, you're the jewel of a squeezer!" But Thady contrived to get his tobacco knife out, and gave him a prod in the right place, and down he fell to rise no more. "Oh, murder, murder! I've kilt one o' them blackamoor blackguards! I'll be hanged as I'm a living man--och, why did I leave ould Ireland? Poor Judy and the childer will see me die an unnatural death by this blackamoor thief! Och hone! och hone! what will I do?" A neighbor in the woods came up. "And what ails you, Thady? you roar like a bull in the bog."

"Och! och! but I'm a sorrowful man this blessed day! I just gave one o' them thieves a prod, and there he is:"

"Mercy on us, Thady! that's a bear that ten men couldn't kill!" Musha, is that a bear? By the powers, I'll drop them to you for a tester the dozen.