MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. MAY, 1873. BETSY LEE, A FO'C'S'LE YARN PART II.': Now the grandest ould pazon, I'll be bail, Aw, of all the kind and the good and the true! Good luck to the boats, and-"How's the take?" And many a time he'd come out and try A line, and the keen he was, and the spry ! And sometimes, if we were smookin, he'd ax This way and that way, and him a smookin Twis' as strong and as black as tar, And terrible sollum and regular. Bless me! the sperrit that was in him too, And only a little man, but staunch, With a main big heart aback of his paunch! Just a little round man-but you should ha' seen him agate His arms as stiff, and his eye afire, And every muscle of him like wire. y? But avast this talk! What! what did you say Well, well! he was a pazon-yis! But there's odds of pazons, that's the way it is. No. 163.-VOL. XXVIII. B And there's pazons partikler about their clothes, But Pazon Gale-now I'll give you his size, To hisself, and lookin down, and walkin. Now there's some of them pazons they're allis shoutin, And tearin at you, and ravin and routin, And they gets you pinned with a lot of others In a coop, and they calls you sisthers and brothers; And you can't get out, so the beggars raises Their vice, and gives it you like blazes. What's the good of all that surt! Sweatin and actin and bustin their shirt; I never liked them roarin ranthers. . Yes! our pazon was quite, but, mind ye! don't doubt But the same man knew well what was he about. Aye, many a time I've seen his face All slushed with tears, and him tellin of grace And he wasn livin above the bay Of the tide set in on the rocks, and there He'd stand in the mornin, and listen to hear And the way we'd pull to try which would be fuss! And the Derbyhaven chaps would call— And the way he'd smile and say nothing at all! Aye, the very man, the very man. Aw, if I once get agate of him— But some night again, if I'll be in the trim, Well, the Pazon was walkin on the gravel- And a pickin a flower, or a kickin a stone, And I felt like a reg'lar blund'rin blockit, So I tould the Pazon all that I had, And he says, "God bless ye! God bless ye! my lad!" Aw, it's himself that knew my very soul, And me so young, and him so oul'. And all the good talk! and never fear And leave it to him, and he'd bring me clear And Anthony wanted talkin to And on with the hat-and away he'd go And young Misther Taylor (a son of ould Dan!) Was a very intelligent young man. Aisy! Pazon," says I, and he went; And all the road home-in-tel-li-gent" I said, "what's that?" some pretty name For a deng it! these pazons just like crame. They're talkin that smooth-aw, it's well to be civil"A son of ould Dan's!" and Dan was a divil. That was a Monday; a Thursday night And he wouldn't take rest till I had it lit; I never knew the like was at him afore: And so we walked along the shore. And if he didn behove to spin a yarn And Orion-and just to consedher The grand way God had put them together, And wasn it a good world after all, And-what was man-and the Bible-and Paul Till I got quite mad, and I says "That'll do ! Were you at the Brew, Pazon? were you at the Brew?" Ould Anthony had, and the coorts, and the law; 66 He had gone there twice, but she stuck to her oath- And it's into the house, and "Mawther," I says, And she was sharplin a knife upon the sink, Snapped quick in her eye-" All right! all right!" Like a flint, or some dead thing" Let be, And she stamped them, and down on her knees, and she toor Aw, hands and teeth,-I'll be bound to say She could lift a hundred-weight and more, And there wasn a man in the parish could throw her. And as for shearin and pickin potatoes Aw, well she bet all, and always as nate as A pin, and takin a pride in it For there's some ould women, they're hardly fit,` They're that dirty and stupid, and messin and muddin, I wudn live with the like-No! I wudn! But yandhar woman-asleep or awake Was a clane ould craythur and no mistake. But hard-aw hard! for the ould man died, And she looked, and she looked, but she never criedAnd him laid out as sweet as bran, And everything white,-like a gentleman. And brass nails-bless ye! and none of your 'sterrits, And Misthress Baynes, now! was he prepared?" Of that strong sowl, you would have seen the catches And you'd ha' knew she was as dead as him. But mind me! from that very day The woman's-juice, as you may say, Was clean dried out of her, and she got As tough and as dry, and as hard as a knot, Not troublin much for good or ill; Like the moon and the stars God only touched And now He never minds them a bit, But they keep goin on, for they're used of it. Goin on! Well, she did go on that night, And the candle capsized, and she looked to grow Of a Betsy Lee? and she knew well enough What I'd come to at last with my milkin and stuff, And the lines hangin rottin upon the wall, And the boat never moored, and grindin her bones To sawdust upon the cobblin stones And the people talkin-And who were the Lees? |