“Now,” said Honora's mother to the servants of both sexes, “now, childre, that you've aite a trifle, you must taste something in the way of dhrink. It would be too bad on this night above all nights we've seen yet, not to have a glass to the stranger's health at all events. Here, Nogher, thry this, avick—you never got a glass wid a warmer heart.”
Nogher took the liquor, his grave face charged with suppressed humor, and first looking upon his fellow-servants with a countenance so droll yet dry, that none but themselves understood, it, he then directed a very sober glance at the good woman.
“Thank you, ma'am,” he exclaimed; “be goxty, sure enough if our hearts wouldn't get warm now, they'd never warm. A happy night it is for Fardorougha and the misthress, at any rate. I'll engage the stranger was worth waitin' for, too. I'll hould a thrifle, he's the beauty o' the world this minnit—an' I'll engage it's breeches we'll have to be I gettin for him some o' these days, the darlin'. Well, here's his health, any way; an' may he——”
“Husth, arogorah!” exclaimed the mid-wife; “stop, I say—the tree afore the fruit, all the world over; don't you know, an' bad win to you, that if the sthranger was to go to-morrow, as good might come afther him, while the paarent stocks are to the fore. The mother an' father first, acushla, an' thin the sthranger.”
“Many thanks to you, Mrs. Moan,” replied Nogher, “for settin' me right—sure we'll know something ourselves whin it comes our turn, plase goodness. If the misthress isn't asleep, by goxty, I'd call in to her, that I'm dhrinkin' her health.”
“She's not asleep,” said her mother; “an' proud she'll be, poor thing, to hear you, Nogher.”
“Misthress!” he said in a loud voice, “are you asleep, ma'am?”
“No, indeed, Nogher,” she replied, in a good-humored tone of voice.
“Well, ma'am,” said Nogher, still in a loud voice, and scratching his head, “here's your health; an' now that the ice is bruk—be goxty, an' so it is sure,” said he in an undertone to the rest—“Peggy, behave yourself,” he continued, to one of the servant-maids, “mockin's catchin': faix, you dunna what's afore yourself yet—beg pardon—I'm forgettin' myself—an' now that the ice is bruk, ma'am,” he resumed, “you must be dacent for the futher. Many a bottle, plase goodness, we'll have this way yet. Your health, ma'am, an' a speedy recovery to you—an' a sudden uprise—not forgettin' the masther—long life to him!”
“What!” said the midwife, “are you forgettin' the sthranger?”
Nogher looked her full in the face, and opened his mouth, without saying a word, literally pitched the glass of spirits to the very bottom of his throat.
“Beggin' your pardon, ma'am,” he replied, “is it three healths you'd have me dhrink wid the one glassful?—not myself, indeed; faix, I'd be long sorry to make so little of him—if he was a bit of a girsha I'd not scruple to give him a corner o' the glass, but, bein' a young man althers the case intirely—he must have a bumper for himself.”
“A girsha!” said Peggy, his fellow-servant, feeling the indignity just offered to her sex—“Why thin, bad manners to your assurance for that same: a girsha's as well intitled to a full glass as a gorsoon, any day.”
“Husth a colleen,” said Nogher, good—humoredly, “sure, it's takin' pattern by sich a fine example you ought to be. This, Mrs. Moan, is the purty crature I was mintionin' as we came along, that intends to get spanshelled wid myself some o' these days—that is, if she can bring me into good-humor, the thief.”
“And if it does happen,” said Peggy, “you'll have to look sharper afther him, Mrs. Moan. He's pleasant enough now, but I'll be bound no man 'ill know betther how to hang his fiddle behind the door when he comes home to us.”
“Well, acushla, sure he may, if he likes, but if he does, he knows what's afore him—not sayin' that he ever will, I hope, for it's a woful case whin it comes to that, ahagur.”
“Faix, it's a happy story for half the poor wives of the parish that you're in it,” said Peggy, “sure, only fore——”
“Be dhe huath Vread, agus glak sho—hould your tongue, Peggy, and taste this,” said the mother of her mistress, handing her a glass: “If you intend to go together, in the name o' goodness fear God more than the midwife, if you want to have luck an' grace.”
“Oh, is it all this?” exclaimed the sly girl; “faix, it 'ill make me hearty if I dhrink so much—bedeed it will. Well, misthress, your health, an' a speedy uprise to you—an' the same to the masther, not forgettin' the sthranger—long life an' good health to him.”
She then put the glass to her lips, and after several small sips, appearing to be so many unsuccessful attempts at overcoming her reluctance to drink it, she at length took courage, and bolting it down, immediately applied her apron to her mouth, making at the same time two or three wry faces, gasping, as if to recover the breath which it did not take from her.
The midwife, in the mean time, felt that the advice just given to Nogher and Peggy contained a clause somewhat more detrimental to her importance than was altogether agreeable to her; and to sit calmly under any imputation that involved a diminution of her authority, was not within the code of her practice.
“If they go together,” she observed, “it's right to fear God, no doubt; but that's no raison why they shouldn't pay respect to thim that can sarve thim or otherwise.”
“Nobody says aginst that, Mrs. Moan,” replied the other; “it's all fair, an' nothin' else.”
“A midwife's nuttin' in your eyes, we suppose,” rejoined Mrs. Moan; “but maybe's there's thim belongin' to you could tell to the contrary.”
“Oblaged to you, we suppose, for your sarvices—an' we're not denyin' that, aither.”
“For me sarvices—maybe thim same sarvices wasn't very sweet or treaclesome to some o' thim,” she rejoined, with a mysterious and somewhat indignant toss of the head.
“Well, well,” said the other in a friendly tone, “that makes no maxims one way or the other, only dhrink this—sure we're not goin' to quarrel about it, any how.”
“God forbid, Honora More! but sure it ud ill become me to hear my own corree—no, no, avourneen,” she exclaimed, putting hack the glass; “I can't take it this—a—way; it doesn't agree wid me; you must put a grain o' shugar an' a dhrop o' bilin' wather to it. It may do very well hard for the sarvints, but I'm not used to it.”
“I hird that myself afore,” observed Nogher, “that she never dhrinks hard whiskey. Well, myself never tasted punch but wanst, an' be goxty its great dhrink. Death alive, Honora More,” he continued, in his most insinuating manner, “make us all a sup. Sure, blood alive, this is not a common night, afther what God has sint us: Fardorougha himself would allow you, if he was here; deed, be dad, he as good as promised me he would; an' you know we have the young customer's health to drink yet.”
“Throth, an' you ought,” said the mid-wife; “the boy says nuttin' but the thruth—it's not a common night; an' if God has given Fardorougha substance, he shouldn't begridge