Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (39 page)

Bill, however, who was a hardened sinner, never fretted himself down an ounce of flesh by what was said to him, or of him. Not he; he cursed, and fought, and swore, and schemed away as usual, taking in every one he could; and surely none could match him at villainy of all sorts, and sizes.

At last the seven years became expired, and Bill was one morning sitting in his forge, sober and hungry, the wife cursing him, and the childhre squalling as before; he was thinking how he might defraud some honest neighbor out of a breakfast to stop their mouths and his own, too, when who walks in to him but old Nick to demand his bargain.

“Morrow, Bill!” says he with a sneer.

“The devil welcome you!” says Bill; “but you have a fresh memory.”

“A bargain’s a bargain between two
honest
men, any day,” says Satan; “when I speak of
honest
men, I mean
yourself
and
me,
Bill;” and he put his tongue in his cheek to make game of the unfortunate rogue he had come for.

“Nick, my worthy fellow,” said Bill, “have bowels; you wouldn’t do a shabby thing; you wouldn’t disgrace your own character by putting more weight upon a falling man. You know what it is to get a
come down
yourself, my worthy; so just keep your toe in your pump, and walk off with yourself somewhere else. A
cool
walk will sarve you better than my company, Nicholas.”

“Bill, it’s no use in shirking,” said his friend; “your swindling tricks may enable you to cheat others, but you won’t cheat
me,
I guess. You want nothing to make you perfect in your way but to travel; and travel you shall under my guidance, Billy. No, no—
I’m
not to be swindled, my good fellow. I have
rather a—a—better opinion of myself, Mr. D., than to think that you could outwit one Nicholas Clutie, Esq.—ahem!”

“You may sneer, you sinner,” replied Bill; “but I tell you that I have outwitted men who could buy and sell you to your face. Despair, you villain, when I tell you that
no attorney
could stand before me.”

Satan’s countenance got blank when he heard this; he wriggled and fidgeted about, and appeared to be not quite comfortable.

“In that case, then,” says he, “the sooner I
deceive
you the better; so turn out for the
Low Countries.
”

“Is it come to that in earnest?” said Bill, “and are you going to act the rascal at the long run?”

“ ’Pon honor, Bill.”

“Have patience, then, you sinner, till I finish this horse shoe—it’s the last of a set I’m finishing for one of your friend the attorney’s horses. And here, Nick, I hate idleness, you know it’s the mother of mischief; take this sledge hammer, and give a dozen strokes or so, till I get it out of hands, and then here’s with you, since it must be so.”

He then gave the bellows a puff that blew half a peck of dust in Club-foot’s face, whipped out the red-hot iron, and set Satan sledging away for bare life.

“Faith,” says Bill to him, when the shoe was finished, “it’s a thousand pities ever the sledge should be out of your hand; the great
Parra Gow
was a child to you at sledging, you’re such an able tyke. Now just exercise yourself till I bid the wife and childhre good-bye, and then I’m off.”

Out went Bill, of course, without the slightest notion of coming back; no more than Nick had that he could not give up the sledging, and indeed neither could he, but was forced to work away as if he was sledging for a wager. This was just what Bill wanted. He was now compelled to sledge on until it was Bill’s
pleasure to release him; and so we leave him very industriously employed, while we look after the worthy who outwitted him.

In the meantime, Bill broke cover, and took to the country at large; wrought a little journey work wherever he could get it, and in this way went from one place to another, till, in the course of a month, he walked back very coolly into his own forge, to see how things went on in his absence. There he found Satan in a rage, the perspiration pouring from him in torrents, hammering with might and main upon the naked anvil. Bill calmly leaned back against the wall, placed his hat upon the side of his head, put his hands into his breeches pockets, and began to whistle
Shaun Gow’s
hornpipe. At length he says, in a very quiet and good-humored way:

“Morrow, Nick!”

“Oh!” says Nick, still hammering away: “Oh! you double-distilled villain (hech!), may the most refined, ornamental (hech!), double-rectified, super-extra, and original (hech!) collection of curses that ever was gathered (hech!) into a single nosegay of ill-fortune (hech!), shine in the button-hole of your conscience (hech!) while your name is Bill Dawson! I denounce you (hech!) as a double-milled villain, a finished, hot-pressed knave (hech!), in comparison of whom all the other knaves I ever knew (hech!), attorneys included, are honest men. I brand you (hech!) as the pearl of cheats, a tip-top take-in (hech!). I denounce you, I say again, for the villainous treatment (hech!) I have received at your hands in this most untoward (hech!) and unfortunate transaction between us; for (hech!) unfortunate, in every sense, is he that has anything to do with (hech!) such a prime and finished impostor.”

“You’re very warm, Nicky,” says Bill; “what puts you into a passion, you old sinner? Sure if it’s your own will and pleasure to take exercise at my anvil,
I’m
not to be abused for it. Upon my credit, Nicky, you ought to blush for using such
blackguard language, so unbecoming your grave character. You cannot say that it was I set you a-hammering at the empty anvil, you profligate.

“However, as you are so very industrious I simply say it would be a thousand pities to take you from it. Nick, I love industry in my heart, and I always encourage it; so work away, it’s not often you spend your time so creditably. I’m afraid if you weren’t at that you’d be worse employed.”

“Bill, have bowels,” said the operative; “you wouldn’t go to lay more weight on a falling man, you know; you wouldn’t disgrace your character by such a piece of iniquity as keeping an inoffensive gentleman, advanced in years, at such an unbecoming and rascally job as this. Generosity’s your top virtue, Bill; not but that you have many other excellent ones, as well as that, among which, as you say yourself, I reckon industry; but still it is in generosity you
shine.
Come, Bill, honor bright, and release me.”

“Name the terms, you profligate.”

“You’re above terms, William; a generous fellow like you never thinks of terms.”

“Good-by, old gentleman!” said Bill, very coolly; “I’ll drop in to see you once a month.”

“No, no, Bill, you infern—a—a—you excellent, worthy, delightful fellow, not so fast; not so fast. Come, name your terms, you sland—my dear Bill, name your terms.”

“Seven years more.”

“I agree; but—–”

“And the same supply of cash as before, down on the nail here.”

“Very good; very good. You’re rather simple, Bill; rather soft, I must confess. Well, no matter. I shall yet turn the tab—a—hem! You are an exceedingly simple fellow, Bill; still there will come a day, my
dear
Bill—there will come—–”

“Do you grumble, you vagrant? Another word, and I double the terms.”

“Mum, William—mum;
tace
is Latin for a candle.”

“Seven years more of grace, and the same measure of the needful that I got before. Ay or no?”

“Of grace, Bill! Ay! ay! ay! There’s the cash. I accept the terms. Oh blood! the rascal—of grace!! Bill!”

“Well, now drop the hammer, and vanish,” says Billy; “but what would you think to take this sledge, while you stay, and give me a—–eh! why in such a hurry?” he added, seeing that Satan withdrew in double-quick time.

“Hollo! Nicholas!” he shouted, “come back; you forgot something!” and when the old gentleman looked behind him, Billy shook the hammer at him, on which he vanished altogether.

Billy now got into his old courses; and what shows the kind of people the world is made of, he also took up with his old company. When they saw that he had the money once more, and was sowing it about him in all directions, they immediately began to find excuses for his former extravagance.

“Say what you will,” said one, “Bill Dawson’s a spirited fellow, that bleeds like a prince.”

“He’s a hospitable man in his own house, or out of it, as ever lived,” said another.

“His only fault is,” observed a third, “that he is, if anything, too generous, and doesn’t know the value of money; his fault’s on the right side, however.”

“He has the spunk in him,” said a fourth; “keeps a capital table, prime wines, and a standing welcome for his friends.”

“Why,” said a fifth, “if he doesn’t enjoy his money while he lives, he won’t when he’s dead; so more power to him, and a wider throat to his purse.”

Indeed, the very persons who were cramming themselves at his expense despised him at heart. They knew very well, however, how to take him on the weak side. Praise his generosity, and he would do anything; call him a man of spirit, and you might fleece him to his face. Sometimes he would toss a purse of guineas to this knave, another to that flatterer, a third to a bully, and a fourth to some broken down rake—and all to convince them that
he
was a sterling friend—a man of mettle and liberality. But never was he known to help a virtuous and struggling family—to assist the widow or the fatherless, or to do any other act that was
truly
useful. It is to be supposed the reason of this was, that as he spent it, as most of the world do, in the service of the devil, by whose aid he got it, he was prevented from turning it to a good account. Between you and me, dear reader, there are more persons acting after Bill’s fashion in the same world than you dream about.

When his money was out again, his friends played him the same rascally game once more. No sooner did his poverty become plain, than the knaves began to be troubled with small fits of modesty, such as an unwillingness to come to his place when there was no longer anything to be got there. A kind of virgin bashfulness prevented them from speaking to him when they saw him getting out on the wrong side of his clothes. Many of them would turn away from him in the prettiest and most delicate manner when they thought he wanted to borrow money from them—all for fear of putting him to the blush by asking it. Others again, when they saw him coming toward their houses about dinner hour, would become so confused, from mere gratitude, as to think themselves in another place; and their servants, seized, as it were, with the same feeling, would tell Bill that their masters were “not at home.”

At length, after travelling the same villainous round as before, Bill was compelled to betake himself, as the last remedy, to the forge; in other words, he found that there is, after all, nothing in this world that a man can rely on so firmly and surely as his own industry. Bill, however, wanted the organ of common sense; for his experience—and it was sharp enough to leave an impression—ran off him like water off a duck.

He took to his employment sorely against his grain; but he had now no choice. He must either work or starve, and starvation is like a great doctor—nobody tries it till every other remedy fails them. Bill had been twice rich; twice a gentleman among blackguards, but always a blackguard among gentlemen; for no wealth or acquaintance with decent society could rub the rust of his native vulgarity off him. He was now a common blinking sot in his forge; a drunken bully in the tap-room, cursing and brow-beating every one as well as his wife; boasting of how much money he had spent in his day; swaggering about the high doings he carried on; telling stories about himself and Lord This at the Curragh; the dinners he gave—how much they cost him, and attempting to extort credit upon the strength of his former wealth. He was too ignorant, however, to know that he was publishing his own disgrace, and that it was a mean-spirited thing to be proud of what ought to make him blush through a deal board nine inches thick.

He was one morning industriously engaged in a quarrel with his wife, who, with a three-legged stool in her hand, appeared to mistake his head for his own anvil; he, in the meantime, paid his addresses to her with his leather apron, when who steps in to jog his memory about the little agreement that was between them, but Old Nick. The wife, it seems, in spite of all her exertions to the contrary, was getting the worst of it; and Sir Nicholas, willing to appear a gentleman
of great gallantry, thought he could not do less than take up the lady’s quarrel, particularly as Bill had laid her in a sleeping posture. Now Satan thought this too bad; and as he felt himself under many obligations to the sex, he determined to defend one of them on the present occasion; so as Judy rose, he turned upon her husband, and floored him by a clever facer.

“You unmanly villain,” said he, “is this the way you treat your wife? ’Pon honor, Bill, I’ll chastise you on the spot. I could not stand by, a spectator of such ungentlemanly conduct without giving up all claim to gallant—–” Whack! the word was divided in his mouth by the blow of a churn-staff from Judy, who no sooner saw Bill struck, than she nailed Satan, who “fell” once more.

“What, you villain! that’s for striking my husband like a murderer behind his back,” said Judy, and she suited the action to the word, “that’s for interfering between man and wife. Would you murder the poor man before my face? eh? If
he
bates me, you shabby dog you, who has a better right? I’m sure it’s nothing out of your pocket. Must you have your finger in every pie?”

This was anything but
idle
talk; for at every word she gave him a remembrance, hot and heavy. Nicholas backed, danced, and hopped; she advanced, still drubbing him with great perseverance, till at length he fell into the redoubtable armchair, which stood exactly behind him. Bill, who had been putting in two blows for Judy’s one, seeing that his enemy was safe, now got between the devil and his wife,
a situation that few will be disposed to envy him.

“Tenderness, Judy,” said the husband, “I hate cruelty. Go put the tongs in the fire, and make them red hot. Nicholas, you have a nose,” said he.