DANIEL O'ROURKE, THE SEED AND FRUIT. BY LEWIS KINGSLEY. "Tis not its blood that bursts the vine 'Tis not with angry stroke but kind, The sculptor hews the marble stone; His blows, their scars, if we will mind, But loose the angel there confinedAn angel from a shapeless stone! "Twas not in wrath, the psalmist old, E'en from its sharpest quiverings. And thus in all the world's great round, When we its meaning full divineFrom fiercest twangs the sweetest sound; By sharpest strokes the soul unbound; From sorest bruise the sweetest wine. So to the faith now tossed with fear All seeming ills shall prove to be Each one the seed for harvests near: "Though Christ was dead, he is not here;" There needs the cross, the funeral bier, Ere we the resurrection see. Harper's Magazine. DANIEL O'ROURKE.1 BY T. CROFTON CROKER. People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke, but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the walls of the Phooka's tower! I knew the man well; he lived at the bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right-hand side of the road as you go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the story, with gray hair and a red nose: and it was on the 25th of June, 1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from 1 The Quarterly Review said that this humorous tale way the sublimer vision of Burns." It is from the Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. was "a fine Dutch picture of nightmare, rivalling in its 183 the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent the morning at Glengariff. "I am often axed to tell it, sir," said he, "so that this is not the first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low, rich and poor. The ould gentlemen were the gentlemen, after all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little, to be sure, and may be give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we were no losers by it in the end; and they were so easy and civil, and kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes; and there was no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on the estate that did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often in the year; but now it's another thing: no matter for that, sir, for I'd better be telling you my story. To "Well, we had everything of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen-a lovely young couple they were, though they are both low enough now. make a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can't remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place: only I did leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself, I'd just step to Molly Cronohan's, the fairywoman, to speak a word about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenough, and was looking up at the stars and blessing myself-for why? it was Lady-day-I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I, 'I'll be drowned now!' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon a dissolute island. without knowing where I wandered, until at "I wandered and wandered about there, last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir (with your pardon for mentioning her), and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;-I could never find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I was that it would be my berrin place. So I sat down upon a stone, which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to scratch my head and sing the Ullagone-when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of Kerry. So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, 'Daniel O'Rourke,' says he, 'how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I; 'I hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?' says he. Nothing at all, sir,' says I; 'only I wish I was safe home again.' 'Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?' says he. "Tis, sir,' says I; so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much; and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a minute's thought, though it is very improper for you to get drunk on Ladyday, yet as you are a decent sober man, who 'tends mass well, and never flings stones at me nor mine, nor cries out after us in the fieldsmy life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?' "Pon the honour of a gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, I am quite in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog; besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.' "It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:-'I thank your honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility, and I'll take your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up, up, up-God knows how far up he flew. Why, then,' said I to him-thinking he did not know the right road home-very civilly, because why? I was in his power entirely; sir,' says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your worship.' "Arrah, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up off of a could stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' said I to myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to him. 'Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he; 'mind your own business, and don't be interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this is my business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he; so I said no more. "At last where should we come to but to the moon itself. Now you can't see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reapinghook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure thus on the ground with the end of his stick). "Dan,' said the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no notion 'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world axed you to fly so far-was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and beseech you to stop half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,' said he; 'I'm tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest myself.' Is it sit down on the moon?' said I; 'is it upon that little round thing, then? why then, sure, I'd fall off in a minute, and be kilt and split, and smashed all to bits: you are a vile deceiver-so you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he; 'you can catch fast hold of the reapinghook that's sticking out of the side of the moon, and 'twill keep you up.' 'I won't then,' said May be not,' said he, quite quiet. If you don't, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a fine way,' said I to myself, 'ever to have come along with the likes of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he'd know what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the reapinghook, and sat down upon the moon; and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that. I. "When he had me there fairly landed, le turned about on me, and said, 'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he, 'I think I've nicked you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year' ('twas true enough for him, but DANIEL O'ROURKE. how he found it out is hard to say), 'and in return you are freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a cockthrow.' "Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute you!' says I. 'You ugly unnatural baste, and is this the way you serve me at last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook'd nose, and to all your breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use; he spread out his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day to this-sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month before. I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there walks-who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by his bush. "Good morrow to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: 'how do you do?' 'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.' 'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a dissolute island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of that he had fled me up to the moon. "Dan,' said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was done, 'you must not stay here.' 'Indeed, sir,' says I, "tis much against my will I'm here at all; but how am I to go back?' 'That's your business,' said he, 'Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must not stay, so be off in less than no time.' 'I'm doing no harm,' says I, 'only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.' 'That's what you must not do, Dan,' says he. 'Pray, sir,' says I, 'may I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor traveller lodging: I'm sure 'tis not so often you're troubled with strangers coming to see you, for 'tis a long way.' 'I'm by myself, Dan,' says he; 'but you'd better let go the reaping-hook.' 'Faith, and with your leave,' says I, 'I'll not let go the grip, and the more you bids me, the more I won't let go so I will.' 'You had better, Dan,' says he again. Why, then, my little fellow,' says I, taking the whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, 'there are two words 185 to that bargain; and I'll not budge, but you may if you like.' 'We'll see how that is to be,' says he; and back he went, giving the door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed), that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it. "Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back again he comes with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook that was keeping me up, and whap! it came in two. 'Good morning to you, Dan,' says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand: 'I thank you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.' I had not time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. 'God help me,' says I, 'but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this time of night; I am now sold fairly.' The word was not out of my mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of wild geese, all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenough, else how should they know me? The ould gander, who was their general, turning about his head, cried out to me, 'Is that you, Dan?' 'The same,' said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by this time used to all kinds of bedevilment, and, besides, I knew him of ould. 'Good morrow to you,' says he, 'Daniel O'Rourke; how are you in health this morning?' 'Very well, sir,' says I, 'I thank you kindly,' drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. 'I hope your honour's the same.' 'I think 'tis falling you are, Daniel,' says he. 'You may say that, sir,' says I. 'And where are you going all the way so fast?' said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the moon turned me out. 'Dan,' said he, 'I'll save you; put out your hand and catch me by the leg, and I'll fly you home.' 'Sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,' says I, though all the time I thought in myself that I don't much trust you; but there was no help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese flew after him as fast as hops. "We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand sticking up out of the water. 'Ah! my lord,' said I to the goose, for I thought it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, 'fly to land, if you please.' 'It is impossible, you see, Dan,' said he, 'for a while, because you see we are going to Arabia.' 'To Arabia?' said I; 'that's surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose; why then, to be sure, I'm a man to be pitied among you.' 'Whist, whist, you fool,' said he, 'hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only there is a little more sand there.' "Just as we were talking a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful before the wind: "Ah! then, sir,' said I, will you drop me on the ship, if you please?' 'We are not fair over it,' said he. 'We are,' said I. 'We are not,' said he: "If I dropped you now, you would go splash into the sea.' 'I would not,' says I: 'I know better than that, for it's just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.' "If you must, you must,' said he. "There, take your own way;' and he opened his claw, and faith he was right-sure enough I came down plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to me, scratching himself after his night's sleep, and looked me full in the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail he splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn't a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying-'twas a voice I knew too-'Get up, you drunken brute, off of that;' and with that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she was splashing all over me, -for, rest her soul! though she was a good wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand of her own! "Get up,' said she again; 'and of all places in the parish would no place sarve your turn to lie down upon but under the ould walls of Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.' And sure enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles, and men of the moon, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I'd lie down in the same spot again, I know that." THERE'S NOT A JOY THE WORLD CAN GIVB. There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down; Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath. Oh, could I feel as I have felt or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene; 1 The above stanzas were written in March, 1815, for | ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering Mr. Power, and were set to music by Sir John Stevenson. Byron wrote of them: "I feel merry enough to send you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset, and the recollection of what I once felt, and and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." Again he said, on these lines, "I pique myself as being the truest though the most melancholy I ever wrote." THE MASQUERADE. THE MASQUERADE. [Mrs. Hofland, born (Barbara Wreaks) in Sheffield, She was the author of about seventy 1770; died, 1844. different works, chiefly novels and moral tales, which obtained for her extensive favour, although they are little known in the present day. She was twice married, first to Mr. T. Bradshaw Hoole, who died two years after the marriage. During her widowhood she conducted a school in Harrogate, until her second marriage, to Mr. Thomas Christopher Hofland, the landscape-painter. Her principal works are: The Daughter-in-law: Bmily: Captives in India: The Clergyman's Widow: Decision; Integrity: Self-denial: Fortitude: Tales of the Manor; &c.] "You surely will not persist, Emma, to refuse accompanying Lady Forester and her party to the masquerade?" said Alicia Clinton to her young friend, with a look of supplication. "I certainly shall, my dear." "But she has sent you a ticket, my dear girl; and she has persuaded my grandmamma there is no harm in it, and so decidedly renewed my wishes on the subject, that really "Do not finish your sentence by saying 'really you intend to go.' Remember, dear Alicia, the peculiarity of your own situation. An affianced bride, long parted from the chosen of her heart, and newly arrived in this great mart of pleasure, is placed in a more delicate and perilous situation than a wife; for although her bonds are equally sacred, they are less obvious. Do not go. "You speak, Emma, with as much seriousness as if I were going to do a positively wrong thing, to be guilty of some unfeminine impropriety of the most reprehensible nature. Surely I have a right to a little innocent amusement, when I go in good company?" 'Very true, Alicia; but you also know that different definitions are given by different persons to words and things, and that no young woman who has given herself to another can act always upon her own conviction. No person for a moment will doubt that our fancy balls in the country, where each assumed a character, were as innocent as they were gay; but I apprehend a London crowd of people in masks, who are thereby privileged to address you, be they who they may, is a very different affair, and might subject a gentlewoman of correct manners to very embarrassing feelings." "Impossible! when she is with a party. promise you not to leave Lady Forester for a moment: no, I'll hang upon her like a drowning creature, rather than subject myself to I any attentions that could by possibility give "But will you be able to do that? You "No, Emma, she would not, I grant you; but we know that when the story commences she was five or six years older than I am; and these 'tamers of the human breast,' disappointment and comparative poverty, had impaired her spirits, diminished her beauty, and rendered her a pensive, gentle, stay-at-home sort of a person. Now, try as I may, I cannot become like her, for I have had indulgent friends, a plentiful fortune, and an attached lover; I cannot become compliant, and meek, and dejected, do what I will." "But you can be, and have been, constant, tender, and affectionate. You are capable of the heroism of self-denial, of sacrificing the love of admiration, and the stimulus of curiosity, to a deeper and more endeared motive of action!" As Emma uttered the last words she withdrew, perceiving she had made an impression on her gay friend, who soon began thus to soliloquize: "If I thought dear Charles would come today, or to-morrow, it is true I should not think of going: but seamen are so uncertain, and I may never have another opportunity; for he is very particular, and thinks so much of me, that I question if he would deem me safe, even in his own protection; he is so ardent, so sincere, so unlike everybody one sees The tide of tender recollections now beginning to flow in the young beauty's bosom, would have soon restored her to her wonted feelings, if the cunning tempter had not arrived at this moment, and influenced her decision by reiterating her former entreaties, and adding the blandishments of well-acted interest in her lovely young friend,-who was little aware that her company was sought not only to add brilliance to the dowager's evening parties, but for the purpose of ensnaring her person and fortune, as the prize of some one of her ladyship's favourites. |