Handy Andy Volume Ii Part 27

"If you are not sure of the sheets bein' aired," said Andy, "I'd be afeard of catchin' cowld."

"Sheets, indeed!" said Bridget; "'faith, it's a dainty lady you are, if you can't sleep without sheets."

"What!" returned Andy, "no sheets?"

"Divil a sheet."

"Oh, mother, mother!" exclaimed Andy, "what would you say to your innocent child being tuk away to a place where there was no sheets?"

"Well, I never heerd the like!" says Bridget.

"Oh, the villains! to bring me where I wouldn't have a bit o' clane linen to lie in!"

"Sure, there's blankets, I tell you."

"Oh, don't talk to me!" roared Andy; "sure, you know, sheets is only dacent."

"Bother, girl! Isn't a snug woolly blanket a fine thing?"

"Oh, don't brake my heart that-a-way!" sobbed Andy; "sure, there's wool on any dirty sheep's back, but linen is dacency! Oh, mother, mother, if you thought your poor girl was without a sheet this night!"

And so Andy went on, spinning his bit of "linen manufacture" as long as he could, and raising Bridget's wonder that, instead of the lament which abducted ladies generally raise about their "vartue," this young woman's princ.i.p.al complaint arose on the scarcity of flax. Bridget appealed to common sense if blankets were not good enough in these bad times; insisting, moreover, that, as "love was warmer than friends.h.i.+p, so wool was warmer than flax," the beauty of which parallel case nevertheless failed to reconcile the disconsolate abducted. Now Andy had pushed his plea of the want of linen as far as he thought it would go, and when Bridget returned to the charge, and reiterated the oft-repeated "Come to bed, I tell you!" Andy had recourse to twiddling about his toes, and chattering his teeth, and exclaimed in a tremulous voice, "Oh, I've a thrimblin' all over me!"

"Loosen the sthrings o' you, then," said Bridget, about to suit the action to the word. "Ow! ow!" cried Andy, "don't touch me--I'm ticklish."

"Then open the throat o' your gown yourself, dear," said Bridget.

"I've a cowld on my chest, and darn't," said Andy; "but I think a dhrop of hot punch would do me good if I had it."

"And plenty of it," said Bridget, "if that'll plaze you." She rose as she spoke, and set about getting "the materials" for making punch.

Andy hoped, by means of this last idea, to drink Bridget into a state of unconsciousness, and then make his escape; but he had no notion, until he tried, what a capacity the gentle Bridget had for carrying tumblers of punch steadily; he proceeded as cunningly as possible, and, on the score of "the thrimblin' over him," repeated the doses of punch, which, nevertheless, he protested he couldn't touch, unless Bridget kept him in countenance, gla.s.s for gla.s.s; and Bridget--genial soul--was no way both; for living in a still, and among smugglers, as she did, it was not a trifle of stingo could bring her to a halt. Andy, even with the advantage of the stronger organisation of a man, found this mountain la.s.s nearly a match for him, and before the potations operated as he hoped upon her, his own senses began to feel the influence of the liquor, and his caution became considerably undermined.

Still, however, he resisted the repeated offers of the couch proposed to him, declaring he would sleep in his clothes, and leave to Bridget the full possession of her lair.

The fire began to burn low, and Andy thought he might facilitate his escape by counterfeiting sleep; so feigning slumber as well as he could, he seemed to sink into insensibility, and Bridget unrobed herself and retired behind a rough screen.

It was by a great effort that Andy kept himself awake, for his potations, added to his nocturnal excursion, tended towards somnolency; but the desire of escape, and fear of a discovery and its consequences, prevailed over the ordinary tendency of nature, and he remained awake, watching every sound. The silence at last became painful--so still was it, that he could hear the small crumbling sound of the dying embers as they decomposed and s.h.i.+fted their position on the hearth, and yet he could not be satisfied from the breathing of the woman that she slept. After the lapse of half an hour, however, he ventured to make some movement. He had well observed the quarter in which the outlet from the cave lay, and there was still a faint glimmer from the fire to a.s.sist him in crawling towards the trap. It was a relief when, after some minutes of cautious creeping, he felt the fresh air breathing from above, and a moment or two more brought him in contact with the ladder. With the stealth of a cat he began to climb the rungs--he could hear the men snoring on the outside of the cave: step by step as he arose he felt his heart beat faster at the thought of escape, and became more cautious. At length his head emerged from the cave, and he saw the men lying about its mouth; they lay close around it--he must step over them to escape--the chance is fearful, but he determines to attempt it--he ascends still higher--his foot is on the last rung of the ladder--the next step puts him on the heather--when he feels a hand lay hold of him from below!

His heart died within him at the touch, and he could not resist an exclamation.

"Who's that?" exclaimed one of the men outside. Andy crouched.

"Come down," said the voice softly from below; "if Jack sees you, it will be worse for you."

It was the voice of Bridget, and Andy felt it was better to be with her than exposed to the savagery of Shan More and his myrmidons; so he descended quietly, and gave himself up to the tight hold of Bridget, who, with many a.s.severations that "out of her arms she would not let the prisoner go till morning," led him back to the cave.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

"Great wit to madness nearly is allied, And thin part.i.tions do the bounds divide."

So sings the poet; but whether the wit be great or little, the "thin part.i.tion" separating madness from sanity is equally mysterious. It is true that the excitability attendant upon genius approximates so closely to madness, that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them; but, without the attendant "genius" to hold up the train of madness, and call for our special permission and respect in any of its fantastic excursions, the most ordinary crack-brain sometimes chooses to sport in the regions of sanity, and, without the license which genius is supposed to dispense to her children, poach over the preserves of common sense.

This is a well-known fact, and would not be reiterated here, but that the circ.u.mstances about to be recorded hereafter might seem unworthy of belief; and as the veracity of our history we would not have for one moment questioned, we have ventured to jog the memory of our readers as to the close neighbourhood of madness and common sense, before we record a curious instance of intermitting madness in the old dowager O'Grady.

Her son's death had, by the violence of the shock, dragged her from the region of fiction in which she habitually existed; but after the funeral she relapsed into all her strange aberration, and her bird-clock and her chimney-pot head-dress were once more in requisition.

The old lady had her usual attendance from her granddaughter, and the customary offering of flowers was rendered, but they were not so cared for as before, and Charlotte was dismissed sooner than usual from her morning's attendance, and a new favourite received in her place. And "of all the birds in the air," who should this favourite be but Master Ratty. Yes!--Ratty--the caricaturist of his grandmamma, was, "for the nonce," her closeted companion. Many a guess was given as to "what in the world" grandmamma _could_ want with Ratty; but the secret was kept between them, for this reason, that the old lady kept _the reward she promised_ Ratty for preserving it in her own hands, until the duty she required on his part should be accomplished, and the s.h.i.+lling a day to which Ratty looked forward kept him faithful.

Now the duty Master Ratty had to perform was instructing his grandmamma how to handle a pistol; the bringing up quick to the mark, and levelling by "the sight," was explained; but a difficulty arose in the old lady's shutting her left eye, which Ratty declared to be indispensable, and for some time Ratty was obliged to stand on a chair and cover his grandmamma's eye with his hand while she took aim; this was found inconvenient, however, and the old lady subst.i.tuted a black silk shade to obfuscate her sinister luminary in her exercises, which now advanced to snapping the lock, and knocking sparks from the flint, which made the old lady wink with her right eye. When this second habit was overcome, the "dry"

practice, that is, without powder, was given up; and a "flash in the pan"

was ventured upon, but this made her shut both eyes together, and it was some time before she could prevail on herself to hold her eye fixed on her mark, and pull the trigger. This, however, at last was accomplished, and when she had conquered the fear of seeing the flash, she adopted the plan of standing before a handsome old-fas.h.i.+oned looking-gla.s.s which reached from the ceiling to the floor, and levelling the pistol at her own reflection within it, as if she were engaged in mortal combat; and every time she snapped and burned priming she would exclaim, "I hit him that time!--I know I can kill him--_tremble, villain_!"

As long as this pistol practice had the charm of novelty for Ratty, it was all very well; but when, day by day, the strange mistakes and nervousness of his grandmamma became less piquant from repet.i.tion, it was not such good fun; and when the rantipole boy, after as much time as he wished to devote to the old woman's caprice, endeavoured to emanc.i.p.ate himself and was countermanded, an outburst of _"Oh, bother!"_ would take place, till the grandmother called up the prospective s.h.i.+llings to his view, and Ratty bowed before the altar of Mammon. But even Mammon failed to keep Ratty loyal; for that heathen G.o.d, Momus, claimed a superior allegiance; Ratty wors.h.i.+pped the "cap and bells" as the true crown, and "the bauble"

as the sovereign sceptre. Besides, the secret became troublesome to him, and he determined to let the whole house know what "gran" and he were about, in a way of his own.

The young imp, in the next day's practice, worked up the grandmamma to a state of great excitement, urging her to take a cool and determined aim at the looking-gla.s.s. "Cover him well, gran," said Ratty.

"I will," said the dowager, resolutely.

"You ought to be able to hit him at six paces."

"I stand at twelve paces."

"No--you are only six from the looking-gla.s.s."

"But the reflection, child, in the mirror, doubles the distance."

"Bother!" said Ratty. "Here, take the pistol--mind your eye and don't wink."

"Ratty, you are singularly obtuse to the charms of science."

"What's science?" said Ratty.

"Science, child, is knowledge of a lofty and abstruse nature, developing itself in wonderful inventions--gunpowder, for instance, is made by science."

"Indeed it is not," said Ratty; "I never saw his name on a canister.

Pigou, Andrew, and Wilks, or Mister Dartford Mills, are the men for gunpowder. You know nothing about it, gran."

"Ratty, you are disrespectful, and will not listen to instruction. I knew Kirwan--the great Kirwan, the chemist, who always wore his hat--"

"Then he knew chemistry better than manners."

"Ratty, you are very troublesome. I desire you listen, sir. Kirwan, sir, told me all about science, and the Dublin Society have his picture, with a bottle in his hand--"