Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

      DARBY THE SWIFT;

      OR,

      THE LONGEST WAY ROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME

      The Sunday after Darby lingeringly started, I began to think it would be just as well to make "assurance doubly sure;" so I despatched a letter by post to my friend at Bally – , conveying similar instructions and advice to those contained in that entrusted to "the running footman" of my establishment. In three days I received a satisfactory answer, so I was at rest upon that point; but, as to Darby, I was quite at a loss. I turned over and over in my mind the various mishaps that might have befallen him by the way; but all to no purpose. I called up Eileen, and asked her what she thought about it. Her replies, mixed up, as they were, with her wild immoderate laughter, afforded me nothing beyond a sympathy with her mirth, which certainly was most infective. Reader, I am not a portrait-painter; but, nevertheless, I will attempt to give you an outline of Eileen. In the first place, she was a poor girl, (else she would not have been my servant,) born of honest parents; but, if fate had placed her in a higher sphere, she had natural accomplishments enough to have graced it, – namely, youth, beauty, and health, – and, beyond these, an intellectual, though uneducated, refinement of thought, when, by chance, she was serious; for gaiety seemed to be an indispensable element of her being. She was eighteen years of age, – well, what do I say? – beautifully formed, had eyes like violets, cheeks like roses, hair, when it was dishevelled (despite Goldsmith's satire), like a weeping willow in a sunset, and – but, hold! I must not go further, lest I be suspected of being enamoured of the original; so I will give up the remaining parts of the picture, and leave them to your imagination!

      The Friday after Darby's setting out I was sitting in my room, very quietly poring over something or other of no importance, – I forget exactly what, but I think it was some speech in the House of Lords, – when a knock at the door agreeably disturbed me from an incipient somnolency, occasioned by a new and unprofitable line of reading.

      "Come in!" said I. "Who is it? and what do you want?"

      "It's only me, sir," said Eileen, laughing, as usual. "There's a crather below that wants to speak to you, sir."

      "Who is it?" said I.

      "I don't well know, sir," replied she; "but I think he's some relation to poor Darby, that ye sent to Bally – last Friday afternoon."

      "Oh! then send him up; he may account in some way for the extraordinary absence of his relative, said I.

      "Sure, an' it's myself, an' no relation at all," shouted Darby from below, indignantly.

      "Oh! widdy-eelish!" cried Eileen, breaking out into her hearty wild laugh, that was sure to set at defiance anything like gravity!

      "Come up, Darby," said I. "I thought we should never have seen you again."

      "Troth, an' the same thing came into my head more than oncet, masther. What the divil are ye laughin' at, honey?" said he (entering the room) to Eileen, who still continued her most boisterous mirth.

      "Go down stairs, Evelina," said I, "and leave Darby and me alone!"

      She did so; but whispered something in his ear as she passed, which made him so furious that I thought he would have knocked her down, had she not adroitly escaped him by shutting the door after her, and holding the handle on the outside so tightly that his efforts to open it and follow her were abandoned in a moment as fruitless.

      "What is the meaning of all this?" said I, severely. "Did you mean to strike the girl?"

      "Strike the caileen, yir honour? Oh, the Lord forbid! but, if I cotch her upon the stairs out o' yir honor's sight, maybe I wudn't give her cherry-lips a pogue (yir honor knows what a pogue is) that wud drive her sweetheart crazy for a month o' Sundays!"

      "Where have you been all this while?" inquired I, not willing to notice his speech.

      "Oh then, sure!" said he, in a most mournful tone, "masther, I've had the divil's own time of it, sir, since you were so unfortunate as to part with me, yir honor, on that same journey to Bally – Bally – Bally – bad luck to it! what do they call it?"

      "What has happened?" inquired I, anxiously, thinking he might have later news than my post-letter of three days before had conveyed.

      "Happened, yir honour! to who?" said Darby, with a wild look of concern. "I hope the family, Christians, bastes, and all, not barrin' the pig that had the measles, are in good health, and well to do as when I left them. Has the bracket hin taken to standin' upon one leg yit, sir, since she lost the other through that baste of a bull-dog belongin' to the parson? I'd lay three of her eggs she'll never forget the affront he put upon her then!"

      "We are all well here," said I; "but give me some account of what has befallen you on your journey, that delayed you so long."

      "Troth, an' I'll tell ye, masther," replied Darby, "in no time. Have ye five minutes to spare, sir?"

      "Yes," said I; "let me hear."

      "Well СКАЧАТЬ