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Show r j IRISH CHARACTER SKETCHES. I (Continued.) !: j The Village Publican. , ' I It was the only pubJic house in the i , ' village and. goodness knows, as dear Father Tom used to say, "it was one too , ! many." However. Joe- Casridy, the ; owner, managed it well, and by well I i ; , ; . mean that jio drunken man was ever "l , wen on the premises, as anyone show- l inz the least sigrn of being under the ' i Influence was denied a further supply of that spirit which steals away men's 1 ; brains. If we can judge of a thing by ; 5ts after effects then the quality of Joe's ; whisky must have been decidedly bad, for it took the too free imbibers of it ; . t a week to recover from that state of! prostration to which it reduced them, j; , Joe himself declared that his whisky f . was the "crame ov whisky." I congrat-ulate congrat-ulate meself." he would say. with his thumbs stuck in the armpits of his waistcoat, and his head thrown back, , "on givin' me customers the best tin- i ycar-ould Jamison thai's to be got for 'j love or money. Other publicans, and I - ? know them well (this with a wink of ' Iiis left eye), give yeh nothin' except fusil oil, bud my whisky knocks the robwebs off yer lieart." Jo was low J and round, just like one of his own j ; i- porter barrels. His fat. flabbo'-face was I Jit up by a continual smile. He always ! j pported a white shirt front.-Gladstone j 1 collar and cravat, and a ponderous sil- S ver chain ran from one waistcoat pock- 1 ! et to the other. The ' watch was in I . ! keeping with the chain, just as erratic ; ' s it was massive. "This watch an' I chain is wan ov me heirdoms'." he J I would proudly say, fondly stroking t both with his flabby hands. "They be- ; S longed to wan ov me ancestors who f j fought at Limerick, an' they were given . j him for his gallantry in the field." Joe j was well to do, and being a poor law - j Ruardian and vice president of ' the j i United Irish League, be occupied a TDromincnt position in the town. The j ! man wjio in those days could write P. i L. G. (poor law guardian) after his ; j name, was none of your smail fry, and thinking of those magic letters now I , ' fel inclined to laugh at my simplicity i in figuring out then that the title P. t 1 L. G. was a little, only a little step re- ;- f moved from that of Lord, duke or earl. i 3n fact, I used to raise my cap in obeis- 1 nce to the majesty of the letters, not to the man who bore them. We boys i never could cotton to Joe Oassidy. We ; thought him so far above us, and he thought us so far beneath him. that there arose between us the rigid stream ; of reserve. He smiled at our simplicity I : when we went bird nesting or Indian "; hunting, and, oh, if we rolled our hoops ! . anywhere near his premises, he was out in his shirt sleeves with: "Get off, wud yez, at wanst. Don't yez know that I want calm whin I am ; composln' what I am to say at the next poor law guardian meetin'? Yez have no idea ov the burden that rests on me j houlders.M ; I see Joe one summer's evening. One hand rests on the counter and the other on a chair. He is addressing two or three of the neighbors who are seated '" around him on porter barrels, and the words I hear fall from his lips are: : "Iv the other poor law guardians don't wake up to the situashun, they'll run the whole country into the mire ov j debt, that Rothschild's money won't : . clear away. At our last mectin the r i question ov makin' ditches turned up. j n' they were all for givin the job to Jim Pholan. An' yez know how he makes ditches. A child wud a spoon 4 wud knock the ditches that he makes ' : into a cocked hat. bud I stood on me ifisarve. an' me dignity, an' be me act-in' act-in' I saved yez all from ruinashun. No, J says, we'll not give the ditches to Phelan. bud we'll give them to Coonev, that will make them as firm as etarnity an' as lastin' as time. I enter me non possumus' agin Phelan." Whn any mattor turned up. the terms of which .Toe could not accept, the great word ; with him was "non possumus." He rot the word from a speech of A. M Sullivan's, and finding it forcible and learned. Joe adopted it, and hence far B11(3 w ide he was known as "Non Possumus Pos-sumus Joe." I have known many r-kin-fiints J" my time, men narrow as re-rards re-rards money, but I have never known the equal of Joe In this respect. On I r"e occasion he happened to drop a halfpenny in the chapel yard, and lie pent a full three hours looking for it. ; Jim Scully saw him engaged in the pearch, and finding out afterward what St was all about, he entered Joe's shop and, tendering Joe a half sovereign he demanded: "A pint or stout, iv yeh plaze. Mr Cassldy." Jim got his stout and his ' change, and as he was nutting the change into his pocket, he remarked "I was in great luck today, Mr. Cas-' Cas-' . esdy." Were you, Jim? I'm glad to hear "Tis, Mr. Cassidy. I was, bud don't ; tell amwan. The fact ov the matter ; is, I was a little while ago in the diaper I ?'ara an' I found the half sovereign I'm I after, glvln you." I ; t"TU di(5, you " aTJd poor Joe gasped. I lost a halfpenny there today, an' now that I think ov it, maybe it was a : - half sovereign, I lost instead." : ; : "Maybe it was, Mr. Cassidy; maybe f It was and what I found I stick to. i ; ?y' Cassy." and Jim ! : walked out, leaving poor Joe the most j -miserable of mortals. To make matters Btill worse, some neighbors called in soon afterwards, and by whispers and - insinuations made Joe fully persuaded that he lost that half sovereign which i Scully found in his own pocket. I Joe attended all the Land leogue meetings for miles and miles around. i On the morning of the meeting the old , rray pony would be yoked to the bone- rhaking jaunting car and then Joe I Joe would deck himself, pony and car ,n a liberal supply of green bunting, and s thu6 emblazoned with such external I Flgns of patriotism, he would set out to strike an effective blow "agin the government" gov-ernment" as he himself put It. Joe was ellly and ambitious enough to think he stood a good chance for par-! par-! liaxnentary honors. But the people were ! mostly accountable for those notions, I 'son every occasion they bantered him j on the good he would do when he was j elected to the house of commons. Hear ing such comments as these, poor Joe r't the big head. "Mr. Cassidy. we'll put yeh In at the next election, an' yell sweep all afore yeh by year ganlus. "I heard Bigger say that yeh have a natural flow ov spafch equal to the grate Eenjamln" (Disraeli). "Healy himself, indade. I was present when he said it. thinks vhat for a knowledge ov local government boards i an land acts, ye're the gratest authori ty in the land today." Joe would listen to these remarks, snd swallowing them all down with yreat gusto wrould invariably reply with: "When I spake I spake to the. point, an' there is weight in me words, an' iv the day ever comes that I become a mimber . well, all I tell yez, boys, is this, that I'll etrike terror into the .t ' 1 . . hearts ov the English government by my new policy of non-possumus." Having delivered himself thus. Joe would insert the thumbs under the arm pits of his waistcoat, advance the rig-ht foot, and half closing the left eye, he would meditate for half an hour on his non-possumus policy. While engaged thus, no customer could get their wants from him. They would have to wait patiently until the fit passed away. I shall never forget the sensation that occurred in the village one August evening;. I am sure that the news of the Russians landing at Queenstown or the invasion of England by the Germans would not have created one-half the furore as the fact that Joe Cassildy's daughter Julia got a bycicle. Poor Peg the Barge, seated on her doorstep at variance with the world, saw Julia and the bycicle, and, lo. the long slyrod falls out of Peg's hands, her body assumes as-sumes an upright, stiff posture, as if she had just got a glimpse of the judgment day. and then, slowly, and as it were painfully, raising herself off the doorstep, door-step, she enters into her house and was not seen for four days. On the evening of the fourth day. Just as the people weie beginning to think she was dead, she emerges again, pushing before her an object which was once meant to be a perambulator. Scorning the looks of the people, the makes her way up the village as stern as fate to Joe Cassidy's public house, and entering she accosts the astonished Cassidy thus: "I kern to give yeh a ride, Cassidy." '"In what, Mrs. Cole?" "In me double-wheeled punjmatick bycicle, Cassidy." "Oh. it would brake down under me, Mis. Cole." "It won't, Cassidy. bud in wud yeh at wanst, for I'm in a hurry," and Peg pointed to the strange vehicle. "You are not in earnest, Mrs. Cole. Pon me veracity I " Peg siezes Cassidy before he can go any further, and with a wonderful strength, she lifts him off his legs and places him in the perambulator with, "Iv yeh don't keep quiet, as sure as yer name is Cassidy I'll brake every bone in yer body." and then pushing the perambulator, per-ambulator, with Joe in it, she makes a triumphal march down the village, and every perch she bawled forth the words: "Joe Cassidy's daughter Julia has got a punymatick for grandeur, an he has got wan, too; ha. ha: and amidst the consternation and laughter ot the village vil-lage the triumphal march ended in the river, and Peg wends her way home again with a smile on her bony features, fea-tures, and these words on her lips: "The grander ov the Cassidys has got a coolin'." Joe, after that eventful scene, lay under un-der such a cloud of ridicule that not all his speeches nor his non-possumus policy pol-icy could ever lift, and Julia, well, her bycicle was laid aside forever, and whenever she wants to take the fresh air the old gray pony and the bone-shaking bone-shaking jaunting car is called fnto requisition. re-quisition. Some day, when the angels take poor Peg the Barge to her rest. Julia may go In. for grandeur again, but as long as the stern guardian of humility hu-mility watches over the village I am afraid we shall never have either motor cars or bicycles. Poor Joe, the climax of his ambition he never reached, and as I see him leaning on his counter this August afternoon he seems to be a disappointed dis-appointed man. The nature and extent of his non possumus policy we shall never know. "When I am dead and gone," he would say, w ith a melancholy shake Qf his head, "the country will know me worth, but then it will be too late. I never read these line ov Gray bud I see meself in them: " 'Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, un-seen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air. '" 'Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast. The village Tyrant of his fields withstood. with-stood. Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest. Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's coun-try's blood.' " Ambition is laudable, confined within proper limits, and poor Joe's ambition, if it soared to great heights, well, ike can excuse It with the words: "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." BY CABIN. Next week, "The Blind Man." |