Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas. Lever Charles James

however, did little more than bear the name of its once famed composer.

      So much for the past. Now to the present history of Betty Cobbe.

      In a large unceilinged room, with a great fire blazing on the hearth, over which a huge pot of potatoes was boiling, sat Betty, in a straw chair. She was evidently very old, as her snow-white hair and lustreless eye bespoke; but the fire of a truculent, unyielding spirit still warmed her blood, and the sharp, ringing voice told that she was decided to wrestle for existence to the last, and would never “give in” until fairly conquered.

      Betty’s chair was the only one in the chamber: the rest of the company disposed themselves classically in the recumbent posture, or sat, like primitive Christians, cross-legged. A long deal table, sparingly provided with wooden plates and a few spoons, occupied the middle of the room, and round the walls were several small bundles of straw, which I soon learned were the property of private individuals.

      “Come along till I show ye to ould Betty,” said one of the varlets to me, as he pushed his way through the crowded room; for already several other gangs had arrived, and were exchanging recognitions.

      “She’s in a sweet temper, this evening,” whispered another, as we passed. “The Polis was here a while ago, and took up ‘Danny White,’ and threatened to break up the whole establishment.”

      “The devil a thing at all they’ll lave us of our institushuns,” said a bow-legged little blackguard, with the ‘Evening Freeman’ written round his hat; for he was an attaché of that journal.

      “Ould Betty was crying all the evening,” said the former speaker; by this time we had gained the side of the fireplace, where the old lady sat.

      “Mother! mother, I say!” cried my guide, touching her elbow gently; then, stooping to her ear, he added, “Mother Betty!”

      “Eh! Who’s callin’ me?” said the hag, with her hand aloft. “I’m here, my Lord, neither ashamed nor afeard to say my name.”

      “She’s wanderin’,” cried another; “she thinks she’s in Coort.”

      “Betty Cobbe! I say. It’s me!” said my introducer, once more.

      The old woman turned fiercely round, and her dimmed and glassy eyes, bloodshot from excess and passion, seemed to flare up into an angry gleam as she said, “You dirty thief! Is it you that’s turnin’ informer agin me, – you that I took up – out of yer mother’s arms, in Green Street, when she fainted at the cutting down of yer father? Your father,” added she, “that murdered old Meredith!”

      The boy, a hardened and bold-featured fellow, became lividly pale, but never spoke.

      “Yes, my Lord,” continued she, still following the theme of her own wild fancies, “it’s James Butterley’s boy! Butterley that was hanged!” and she shook and rocked with a fiendish exultation at the exposure.

      “Many of us does n’t know what bekem of our fathers!” said a sly-looking, old-fashioned creature, whose height scarcely exceeded two feet, although evidently near manhood in point of age.

      “Who was yours, Mickey?” cried another.

      “Father Glynn, of Luke Street,” growled out the imp, with a leer.

      “And yours?” said another, dragging me forward, directly in front of Betty.

      “Con Cregan, of Kilbeggan,” said I, boldly.

      “Success to ye, ma bouchal!” said the old hag; “and so you ‘re a son of Con the informer.” She looked sternly at me for a few seconds, and then, in a slower and more deliberate tone, added, “I ‘m forty years, last Lady Day, living this way, and keepin’ company with all sorts of thieves, and rogues, and blaguards, and worse, – ay, far worse besides; but may I never see Glory if an informer, or his brat, was under the roof afore!”

      The steadfast decision of look and voice as she spoke seemed to impress the bystanders, who fell back and gazed at me with that kind of shrinking terror which honest people sometimes exhibit at the contact of a criminal.

      During the pause of some seconds, while this endured, my sense of abject debasement was at the very lowest. To be the Pariah of such a society was indeed a most distinctive infamy.

      “Are ye ashamed of yer father? Tell me that!” cried the hag, shaking me roughly by one shoulder.

      “It is not here, and before the like of these,” said I, looking round at the ragged, unwashed assemblage, “that I should feel shame! or if I did, it is to find myself among them!”

      “That’s my boy! that’s my own spirited boy!” cried the old woman, dragging me towards her. “Faix, I seen the time we ‘d have made somethin’ out of you. Howld yer tongues, ye vagabonds! the child’s right, – yer a dirty mean crew! Them!” said she, pointing to me, “them was the kind of chaps I used to have, long ago; that was n’t afeard of all the Beresfords, and Major Sirr, and the rest of them. Singing every night on Carlisle Bridge, ‘The Wearin’ of the Green,’ or ‘Tra-lal-la, the French is coming;’ and when they wor big and grown men, ready and willing to turn out for ould Ireland. Can you read, avick?”

      “Yes, and write,” answered I, proudly.

      “To be sure ye can,” muttered she, half to herself; “is it an informer’s child, – not know the first rules of his trade!”

      “Tear and ages, mother!” cried out the decrepit imp called Mickey, “we ‘re starvin’ for the meat!”

      “Sarve it up!” shouted the hag, with a voice of command; and she gave three knocks with her crutch on the corner of the table.

      Never was command more promptly obeyed. A savory mess of that smoking compound called “Irish stew” was ladled out on the trenchers, and speedily disposed around the table, which at once was surrounded by the guests, – a place being made for myself by an admonitory stroke of Betty’s crutch on the red head of a very hungry juvenile who had jostled me in his anxiety to get near the table.

      Our meal had scarcely drawn to its close when the plates were removed, and preparations made for a new party; nor had I time to ask the reason, when a noisy buzz of voices without announced the coming of a numerous throng. In an instant they entered; a number of girls, of every age, from mere child to womanhood, – a ragged, tattered, reckless-looking set of creatures, whose wild, high spirits not even direst poverty could subdue. While some exchanged greetings with their friends of the other sex, others advanced to talk to Betty, or stood to warm themselves around the fire, until their supper, a similar one to our own, was got ready. My curiosity as to whence they came in such a body was satisfied by learning that they were employed at the “Mendicity Institution” during the day, and set free at nightfall to follow the bent of their own, not over well-regulated, tastes. These creatures were the ballad-singers of the city; and, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with one of the boys, they were wont to take their stand in some public thoroughfare, not only the character of the singer, but the poetry itself, taking the tone of the street; so that while some daring bit of town scandal caught the ears of College Green, a “bloody murder” or a “dying speech” formed the attraction of Thomas Street and the “Poddle.”

      Many years afterwards, in the checkered page of my existence, when I have sat at lordly tables and listened to the sharpened wit and polished raillery of the high-born and the gifted, my mind has often reverted to that beggar horde, and thought how readily the cutting jest was answered, how soon repartee followed attack – what quaint fancies, what droll conceits, passed through those brains, where one would have deemed there was no room for aught save brooding guilt and sad repining.

      As night closed in, the assembly broke up; some issued forth to their stations as ballad-singers; some, in pure vagabond spirit, to stroll about the streets; while others, of whom I was one, lay down upon the straw to sleep, without a dream, till daylight.

      CHAPTER VI. VIEWS OF LIFE

      When I woke the next morning, it was a few minutes before I could thoroughly remember where I was and how I came there; my next thought was the grateful one, that