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

in the mud wall that he would consent to come out. When he did so, he treated the proposal most indignantly. “Is it he hire out his baste? as if she was a dirty garraun of Betty Nowlan’s of the head inn; he wondered who ‘d ask the like!” and so on.

      The youth, deterred by this reception, would have abandoned the scheme at once; but I, better acquainted with such characters as Andy, and knowing that his difficulties were only items in the intended charge, higgled, and bargained, and bullied, and blarneyed by turns; and, after some five and forty minutes of alternate joking and abusing each other, it was at last agreed on that the “baste” was to be ceded for the sum of fifteen shillings, – “two and sixpence more if his honor was pleased with the way she carried him;” the turnpike and a feed of oats being also at the charge of the rider, as well as all repairs of shoes incurred by loss or otherwise. Then there came a supplemental clause as to the peculiar care of the animal. How “she was n’t to be let drink too much at once, for she ‘d get the colic;” and if she needed shoeing, she was to have a “twitch” on her nose, or she’d kick the forge to “smithereens.” The same precaution to be taken if the saddle required fresh girthing; a hint was given, besides, not to touch her with the left heel, or she ‘d certainly kick the rider with the hind leg of the same side; and, as a last caution given, to be on our guard at the cross-roads at Toomes-bridge, or she’d run away towards Croghan, where she once was turned out in foal. “Barring” these peculiarities, and certain smaller difficulties about mounting, “she was a lamb, and the sweetest-tempered crayture ever was haltered.”

      In the very midst of this panegyric upon the animal’s good and noble qualities he flung open the door of a little shed, and exhibited her to our view. I verily believe, whatever the urgency of the youth’s reason for proceeding, that his heart failed him at the sight of the steed; a second’s reconsideration seemed to rally his courage, and he said, “No matter, it can’t be helped; saddle her at once, and let us be off.”

      “That’s easier said nor done,” muttered Andy to himself, as he stood at the door, without venturing a step farther. “Con,” said he, at last, in a species of coaxing tone I well knew boded peril, “Con, a cushla! get a hould of her by the head, that’s a fine chap; make a spring at the forelock.”

      “Maybe she ‘d kick – ”

      “Sorra kick! get up there, now, and I’ll be talking to you all the while.”

      This proposition, though doubtless meant as most encouraging, by no means reassured me.

      “Come, come! I’ll bridle the infernal beast,” said the youth, losing all patience with both of us, and he sprung forward into the stable; but barely had he time to jump back, as the animal let fly with both hind legs together. Andy, well aware of what was coming, pulled us both back and shut to the door, against which the hoofs kept up one rattling din of kicks that shook the crazy edifice from roof to ground.

      “Ye see what comes of startlin’ her; the crayture’s timid as a kid,” said Andy, whose blanched cheek badly corroborated his assumed composure. “Ye may do what ye plaze, barrin’ putting a bridle on her; she never took kindly to that!”

      “But do ye intend me to ride her without one?” said the youth.

      “By no manner of means, sir,” said Andy, with a plausible slowness on each word that gave him time to think of an expedient. “I would n’t be guilty of the like; none that knows me would ever say it to me: I ‘m a poor man – ”

      “You’re a devilish tiresome one,” broke in the youth, suddenly; “here we have been above half an hour standing at the door, and none the nearer our departure than when we arrived.”

      “Christy Moore could bridle her, if he was here,” said Andy; “but he’s gone to Moate, and won’t be back till evening; may be that would do?”

      A very impatient, and not very pious exclamation consigned Christy to an untimely fate. “Well, don’t be angry, anyhow, sir,” said Andy; “there’s many a thing a body might think of, if they were n’t startled. See, now, I have a way this minute; an elegant fine way, too.”

      “Well, what is it? Confound your long-winded speeches!”

      “There, now, you’re angry again! sure it’s enough to give one quite a through-otherness, and not leave them time to reflect.”

      “Your plan, your plan!” said the young man, his lips trembling with anger and impatience.

      “Here it is, then; let the ‘gossoon,’” meaning me, “get up on the roof and take off two or three of the scraws, the sods of grass, till he can get through, and then steal down on the mare’s back; when he ‘s once on her, she ‘ll never stir head nor foot, and he can slip the bridle over her quite asy.”

      “The boy might be killed; no, no, I ‘ll not suffer that – ”

      “Wait, sir,” cried I, interrupting, “it’s not so hard, after all; once on her back, I defy her to throw me.”

      “Sure I know that well; sorra better rider in the Meath hunt than little Con,” broke in Andy; backing me with a ready flattery he thought would deceive me.

      It was not without reluctance that the youth consented to this forlorn hope, but he yielded at last; and so, with a bridle fastened round me like a scarf, I was hoisted on the roof by Andy, and, under a volley of encouraging expressions, exhorted to “go in and win.”

      “There! there, a cushla!” cried Andy, as he saw me performing the first act of the piece with a vigor he had never calculated on; “‘tis n’t a coach and six ye want to drive through. Tear and ages! ye’ll take the whole roof off.” The truth was, I worked away with a malicious pleasure in the destruction of the old miser’s roof; nor is it quite certain how far my zeal might have carried me, when suddenly one of the rafters – mere light poles of ash – gave way, and down I went, at first slowly, and then quicker, into a kind of funnel formed by the smashed timbers and the earthen sods. The crash, the din, and the dust appeared to have terrified the wicked beast below, for she stood trembling in one corner of the stable, and never moved a limb as I walked boldly up and passed the bridle over her head. This done, I had barely time to spring on her back, when the door was forced open by the young gentleman, whose fears for my fate had absorbed every other thought.

      “Are you safe, my boy, quite safe?” he cried, making his way over the fallen rubbish.

      “Oh! the devil fear him,” cried Andy, in a perfect rage of passion; “I wish it was his bones was smashed, instead of the roof-sticks – see! – Och, murther, only look at this.” And Andy stood amid the ruins, a most comical picture of affliction, in part real and in part assumed. Meanwhile the youth had advanced to my side, and, with many a kind and encouraging word, more than repaid me for all my danger.

      “‘T is n’t five pound will pay the damage,” cried Andy, running up on his fingers a sum of imaginary arithmetic.

      “Where’s the saddle, you old – ” What the young man was about to add, I know not; but at a look from me he stopped short.

      “Is it abusin’ me you’re for now, afther wrecking my house and destroying my premises?” cried Andy, whose temper was far from sweetened by the late catastrophe. “Sure what marcy my poor beast would get from the likes of ye! sorry step she ‘ll go in yer company; pay the damages ye done, and be off.”

      Here was a new turn of affairs, and, judging from the irascibility of both parties, a most disastrous one; it demanded, indeed, all my skill, – all the practised dexterity of a mind trained, as mine had been been by many a subtlety, to effect a compromise, which I did thus: my patron being cast in the costs of all the damages to the amount of twenty shillings, and the original contract to be maintained in all its integrity.

      The young man paid the money without speaking; but I had time to mark that the purse from which he drew it was far from weighty. “Are we free to go at last?” cried he, in a voice of suppressed wrath.

      “Yes, yer honor; all’s right,” answered Andy, whose heart was mollified at the sight of money. “A pleasant journey, and safe to ye; take good care of the beast, don’t