“Ow!” says the King, bending his back and houlding his head, “whin I think of the ondacencies I wint true this day!”
“Your Majesty’ll go through no more,” says Tom. With that he went stumping away to call back the wife and childher.
In a few minutes the ruler of the nighttime was sitting on Mulligan’s table ating the last petatie and dhrinking the last sup of new milk that was in the house. The King dhrained the cup an’ smacked his lips. “Now sing us a ballad, Tom Mulligan, my lad,” says he, leaning back against the empty milk-crock and crossing his legs like a tailor. Ann Mulligan nodded approvin’ from where she sat, proud and contented on the bed, the childher smiled up from the mud floor. So Tom, who was a most maylodious man, just as his wife was a most harmonious woman, up and sang the ballad of Hugh Reynolds:
“Me name is Hugh Reynolds, I came of dacint parents;
I was born in County Cavin, as you may plainly see.
Be lovin’ of a maid named Catherine McCabe,
My love has been bethrayed, she’s a sore loss to me.”
There’s most of the time thirty-two varses to that song, and Tom sang them all without skippin’ a word.
“Bate that, King Brian Connors,” he says at last. “I challenge you!”
Then King Brian trew back his head and, shutting his eyes, sung another ballad of forty-seven varses, which was Catherine McCabe’s answer to Hugh Reynolds, and which begins this away:
“Come all ye purty fair maids wherever you may be,
And if you’ll pay attention and listen unto me,
I’ll tell of a desayver that you may beware of the same,
He comes from the town of Drumscullen in the County Cavan,
an’ Hugh Reynolds is his name.”
One song brought out another finer than the first, until the whole family, childher and all, jined in singing “Willie Reilly and His Dear Colleen Bawn.”
’Twould make your heart young agin to hear them. At the ind of aich varse all the Mulligans’d stop quick to let the King wobble his woice alone. Dark-eyed Susan was standing scratching herself inside the closed door, plazed but wondherin’; so, with sweet songs and ould tales, the hours flew like minutes till at last the ballad-maker pushed back the table and tuned his fiddle, while the whole family—at laste all of them ould enough to stand—smiling, faced one another for a dance.
The King chose Mrs. Ann Mulligan for a partner.
The fiddle struck a note, the bare, nimble feet raised. “Rocky Roads to Dublin” was the tune.
“Deedle, deedle, dee; deedle, deedle, diddle um.
Deedle, deedle, dee, rocky roads to Dubalin.”
The twinkling feet fell together. Smiles and laughter and jostling and jollity broke like a summer storm through the room. And singing and pattherin’ and jiggering, rose and swirled to the mad music, till suddenly—“knock, knock, knock!”—the blows of a whip-handle fell upon the door and every leg stopped stiff.
“Murther in Irish,” whispered little Mickey Mulligan, “ ’tis Father Scanlan himself that’s in it!”
Ochone mavrone! what a change from merrymaking and happiness to fright and scandalation was there! The Master of the Fairies, sure that Father Scanlan had the scent of him, tried to climb up on to the settle-bed, but was too wake from fear, so Mrs. Mulligan histed him and piled three childher on top of the King to hide him just as Father Scanlan pushed open the door.
The priest stood outside, houlding his horse with one hand and pintin’ his whip with the other.
“What are you hiding on that bed, you vagabone?” he says.
“Whist!” says Tom Mulligan, hobblin’ over and going outside, with the fiddle undher his arrum, “ ’tis little Patsy, the baby, and he ain’t dressed dacint enough for your riverence to see,” whuspered the villain.
“Tom Mulligan,” says the priest, shaking his whip, “you’re an idle, shiftless, thriftless man, and a cryin’ shame and a disgrace to my flock; if you had two legs I’d bate you within an inch of your life!” he says, lookin’ stern at the fiddler.
“Faith, and it’s sorry I am now for my other leg,” says Tom, “for it’s well I know that whin your riverence scolds and berates a man you only give him half a shilling or so, but if you bate him as well, your riverence sometimes empties your pockets to him.”
’Twas hard for the priest to keep an ill-natured face, so he smiled; but as he did, without knowing it, he let fly a shot that brought terror to the heart of the ballad-maker.
“God help me with you and the likes of you,” says the priest, thrying to look savare; “you keep me from morning till night robbing Pether to pay Paul. Barney Casey, the honest man, gives me a crown for baptising his child, and tin minutes afther I must give that same money to a blaggard!”
Well, whin Mulligan heard that his own little Patsy had been baptised agin at the instigation of that owdacious imposthure, Barney Casey, the ballad-maker’s neck swelled with rage. But worse was to come. Gulping a great lump down his throat he axed:
“What name did your riverence give the baby?”
There was a thremble in the poor man’s woice.
“Bonyface,” says the priest, his toe in the stirrup. “Today is the feast of St. Bonyface, a gr‑r‑reat bishop. He was a German man,” says Father Scanlan.
The groan Tom Mulligan let out of him was heart-rendering. “Bonyface! Oh, my poor little Patsy; bad scran to you, Barney Casey! My own child turned into a German man—oh, Bonyface!”
The priest was too busy mounting his horse to hear what the ballad-maker said, but
