Handy Andy Volume Ii Part 25

II

"The damsel she cast him a merry blink, And the traveller nothing was loth, I think; Her merry black eye beamed her bonnet beneath, And the quaker, he grinned, for he'd very good teeth, And he asked, 'Art thee [1] going to ride on the heath?'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

[1][Footnote: The inferior cla.s.s of quakers make THEE serve not only its own grammatical use, but also do the duty of THY and THINE.]

III

"'I hope you'll protect me, kind sir,' said the maid, 'As to ride this heath over I'm sadly afraid; For robbers, they say, here in numbers abound, And I wouldn't "for anything" I should be found, For, between you and me, I have five hundred pound.'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

IV

"'If that is thee own, dear,' the quaker he said, 'I ne'er saw a maiden I sooner would wed; And I have another five hundred just now, In the padding that's under my saddle-bow, And I'll settle it all upon thee, I vow!'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

V

"The maiden she smiled, and her rein she drew, 'Your offer I'll take, though I'll not take you;'

A pistol she held at the quaker's head-- 'Now give me your gold, or I'll give you my lead, 'Tis under the saddle I think you said.'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

VI

"The damsel she ripp'd up the saddle-bow, And the quaker was never a quaker till now; And he saw by the fair one he wish'd for a bride His purse borne away with a swaggering stride, And the eye that looked tender now only defied.

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

VII

"'The spirit doth move me, friend Broadbrim,' quoth she, 'To take all this filthy temptation from thee; For Mammon deceiveth, and beauty is fleeting: Accept from thy _maai-d'n_ a right loving greeting, For much doth she profit by this quaker's meeting.

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

VIII

"'And hark! jolly quaker, so rosy and sly, Have righteousness more than a wench in thine eye, Don't go again peeping girls' bonnets beneath, Remember the one that you met on the heath, _Her_ name's _Jimmy_ Barlow--I tell to your teeth!'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

IX

"'_Friend_ James,' quoth the quaker, 'pray listen to me, For thou canst confer a great favour, d' ye see; The gold thou hast taken is not mine, my friend, But my master's--and on thee I depend To make it appear I my trust did defend.

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

X

"'So fire a few shots through my clothes, here and there, To make it appear 't was a desp'rate affair.'

So Jim he popped first through the skirt of his coat, And then through his collar quite close to his throat.

'Now once through my broad-brim,' quoth Ephraim, 'I vote.

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

XI

"'I have but a brace,' said bold Jim, 'and they 're spent, And I won't load again for a make-believe rent.'

'Then,' said Ephraim--producing his pistols--'just give My five hundred pounds back--or, as sure as you live, I'll make of your body a riddle or sieve.'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee.

XII

"Jim Barlow was diddled, and though he was game, He saw Ephraim's pistol so deadly in aim, That he gave up the gold, and he took to his sc.r.a.pers; And when the whole story got into the papers, They said that '_the thieves were no match for the quakers_.'

Heigho! _yea_ thee and _nay_ thee."

"Well, it's a quare thing you should be singin' a song here," said Larry Hogan, "about Jim Barlow, and it's not over half a mile out of this very place he was hanged."

"Indeed!" exclaimed all the men at once, looking with great interest at Larry.

"It's truth I'm telling you. He made a very bowld robbery up by the long hill there, on _two_ gintlemen, for he was mighty stout."

"Pluck to the back-bone," said Goggins.

"Well, he tuk the purses aff both o' them; and just as he was goin' on afther doin' the same, what should appear on the road before him, but two other travellers coming up forninst him. With that the men that was robbed cried out, 'Stop thief!' and so Jim, seein' himself hemmed in betune the four o' them, faced his horse to the ditch and took across the counthry; but the thravellers was well mounted as well as himself, and powdhered afther him like mad. Well, it was equal to a steeple chase a'most; and Jim, seein' he could not shake them off, thought the best thing he could do was to cut out some troublesome work for them; so he led off where he knew there was the divil's own leap to take, and he intended to 'pound [Footnote: Impound] them there, and be off in the mane time; but as ill luck would have it, his own horse, that was as bowld as himself, and would jump at the moon if he was faced to it, missed his foot in takin' off, and fell short o' the leap and slipped his shouldher, and Jim himself had a bad fall of it too, and, av coorse, it was all over wid him--and up came the four gintlemen. Well, Jim had his pistols yet, and he pulled them out, and swore he'd shoot the first man that attempted to take him; but the gintlemen had pistols as well as he, and were so hot on the chase they determined to have him, and closed on him. Jim fired and killed one o' them; but he got a ball in the shouldher himself, from another, and he was taken. Jim sthruv to shoot himself with his second pistol, but it missed fire. 'The curse o' the road is on me,'

said Jim; 'my pistol missed fire, and my horse slipped his shouldher, and now I'll be scragged,' says he, 'but it's not for nothing--I've killed one o' ye,' says he."

"He was all pluck," said Goggins.

"Desperate bowld," said Larry. "Well, he was thried and condimned _av coorse_, and was hanged, as I tell you, half a mile out o' this very place, where we are sittin', and his appearance walks, they say, ever since."

"You don't say so!" said Goggins.

"'Faith, it's thrue!" answered Larry.

"You never saw it," said Goggins.

"The Lord forbid!" returned Larry; "but it's thrue, for all that. For you see the big house near this barn, that is all in ruin, was desarted because Jim's ghost used to walk."

"That was foolish," said Goggins; "stir up the fire, Jim, and hand me the whisky."

"Oh, if it was only walkin', they might have got over that; but at last one night, as the story goes, when there was a thremendious storm o' wind and rain--"

"Whisht!" said one of the peasants, "what's that?"

As they listened, they heard the beating of heavy rain against the door, and the wind howled through its c.h.i.n.ks.

"Well," said Goggins, "what are you stopping for?"

"Oh, I'm not stoppin'," said Larry; "I was sayin' that it was a bad wild night, and Jimmy Barlow's appearance came into the house and asked them for a gla.s.s o' sper'ts, and that he'd be obleeged to them if they'd help him with his horse that slipped his shouldher; and, 'faith, afther _that_, they'd stay in the place no longer; and signs on it, the house is gone to rack and ruin, and it's only this barn that is kept up at all, because it's convaynient for owld Skinflint on the farm."

"That's all nonsense," said Goggins, who wished, nevertheless, that he had not heard the "nonsense."

"Come, sing another song, Jim."