LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 160, 9 December 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. (Continued.) 'He'sadaeent lad enough,'—this to Mrs Bilkins—'but his head is wake. Whin he's had two sups o' whisky he belaves he's dhrank a bar'l full. A gill o' wathor out of a jimmy-john 'dfuddle him, mum.' ' Isn't there anybody to look after him?' ' "No, mum, he's an orphan; his father and mother live in the owld. counthry, an' a fine hale owld couple they arc.' ' Hasn't he any family in the town ?' ' Sure, mum, he has a family; wasn't he married this blessed mornin'?' 'He said so.' ' Indade, thin, he was, —the poor divil!' 'And the—the person?' inquired Mrs Bilkins. ' Is it the wife ye mane?' ' Yes, the wife; where is she?' ' Well thin, mum,' said Mr Donnehugh, ' it's ycrself that can answer that.' 'I ? ' exclaimed Mrs Bilkins. ' Good heavens! this man's as crazy as the other.' ' Begorra, if anybody's crazy it's Larry, for it's Larry has married Margaret.' ' What Margaret?' cried Mrs Bilkins, with a start. 'Margaret Callaghan, sure.' ' Our Margaret? Do you mean to say that our Margaret lias married that —that good-for-nothing, inebriated wretch!' ' It's a civil tongue the owld lady has, anyway,' remarked Mr O'Rouke, critically, from the scraper. Mrs Bilkins's voice during the latter part of the collocjny had been pitched in a high key; it rung through the hall and penetrated to the kitchen, where Margaret was thoughtfully wiping the breakfast things. She paused with a half-dried saucer in her hand, and listened. In a moment more she stood, with bloodless face and limp figure, leaning against the bannister, behind Mrs Bilkins. ' Is it there ye are, me jew'l!' cries Mr O'Rouke, discovering her. Mrs Bilkins wheeled upon Margaret. ' Margaret Callaghan, is that thine; your husband: ' Ye—yes, mum,' faltered Mrs O'Rouke, with a woful lack of spirit. ' Then take it away!' cried Mrs Bilkins. Margaret, with a slight flush on either check, glided past Mrs Bilkins, and the hea/y oak door closed with a bang, as the gates of Paradise must have closed of old upon Adam and Eve. ' Come!' said Margaret, taking Mr O'Rouke by the hand; and the two wandered forth upon their wedding journey down Anchor street, with all the world before them where to choose. They chose to halt at a small shabby tenement-house by the river, through the doorway of Avhich the bridal pair disappeared with a reeling, eccentric gait; for Mr O'Rouke's intoxication seemed to have run down his elbow and communicated itself to Margaret. O Hymen! who burnetii precious gums and scented woods in thy torch at the melting of aristocratic hearts, with what a pitiful penny-dip thou hast lighted up our matter-of-fact romance!

Chapter 11. It had been no part of Margaret's plan to acknowledge the marriage so soon. Though on pleasure bent she had a frugal mind. She had invested in a husband with a view of Laying him away for a rainy day, that is to say, for such time as her master and mistress should cease to need her services ; for she had promised on more than one occasion to remain with the old people as long as they lived. And, indeed, if Mr O'Rouke had come to her and said in so many words, ' The day you marry me you must leave the Bilkins family,' there is very little doubt but Margaret would have let that young seamonster slip back unmated, so far as she was concerned, into his native element. The contingency never entered into her calculations. She intended that the ship which had brought Ulysses to her island should take him off again after a decent interval of honeymoon ; then she would confess all to Mrs Bilkins, and be forgiven, and Mr Bilkins woiild not cancel that clause supposed to exist in his will bequeathing two first mortgage bonds of the Squedunk R. R. Co. to a certain faithful servant. In the meanwhile she would add each month to her store in the coffers of the Rivermouth Savings Bank; for Calypso had a neat sum to her credit on the books of that provident institution. But this could not be now. The volatile bridegroom had upset the wisely-conceived plan, and ' all the fat was in the fire,' as Margaaet philosophically put it. Mr O'Rouke had been fully instructed in the part he was to play, and, to do him justice, had honestly intended to play it; but destiny was against him. It may be observed that destiny and Mr O'Rouke were not on very friendly terms. After the ceremony had been performed and Margaret had stolen back to the Bilkins mansion as related, Mr O'Rouke/withhis own skilful hands had brewed a noble punch for the wedding guests. Standing at the head of the table and stirring the pungent mixture in a small wash tub purchased for the occasion, Mr O'Rouke came out in full flower. His flow of wit, as he replenished the glasses, was as racy and seemingly as inexhaustible as the punch itself. Wheu Mrs M'Laughlin held out her glass, inadvertently upside down, for her sixth ladleful, Mr O'Rouke gallantly declared it should be filled if he had to stand on his head to do it. The elder Miss O'Leary whispered to Mrs Connally that Mr O'Rouke was a ' perfic gintleman,' and the men in a body pronounced him a bit of a raal shamrock. If O'Rouke was happy in brewing a punch, he was happier in dispensing it, and happiest of all in drinking a great deal of it himself. Ho toasted Mrs Fimugan, the landlady, and the late lamented Finnigan, the father, whom he had never seen, and Miss Biddy Finnigan, the daughter, and a young toddling Finnigan, who was at large in shockingly scant raiment. He drank to the company individually and collectively, drank to the absent, drank to a tin-pedler who chanced to pass the window, and indeed was in that propitiatory mood when he would have drunk to the health of each separate animal that came out of the ark. It was in the midst of the confusion and applause which followed his song, ' The Wearing of the Crane,' that Mr O'Rouke, the punch being all gone, withdrew unobserved and went in quest of Mrs O'Rouke—with what success the reader knows. Accordingto the love-idyl of theperiod, when Laura and Chas. Henry, after unheard-of obstacles, are finally united, all cares and tribulations and responsibilities slip from their sleek backs like Christian's burden. The idea is a

pretty one theoretically, but, like some of those models in the Patent Office at Washington, it doesn't work. Charles Henry does not go on sitting at Laura's feet and reading Timothy Titcomb to her for ever : the rent of the cottage by the sea falls due with prosaic regularity; there are bakers, and butchers, and babies, and tax-gatherers, and doctors, and undertakers, and sometimes gentlemen of the jury to be attended to. Wedded life is not one long amatory poem, with recurrent rhymes of 16ve and dove, and kiss and bliss. Yet when the average sentimental novelist has supplied his hero and heroine with their bridal outfit and attended to that little matter of the marriage certificate, lie usually turns off the gas, puts up his shutters, and saunters off with his hands in his pocket 3, as if the day's business were over. But we, who are honest dealers in real life, and disdain to give ,short weight, know better. The business is by no means over : it is just begun. It was not Christian throwing off his pack for good and all, but Christian taking up a load heavier and more difficult than any he has carried. If Margaret Callaghan, when she meditated matrimony, indulged in any roseate dreams, they were quickly put to flightShe suddenly found herself dispossessed of a quiet, comfortable home, and face to face with the fact that she had a white elephant ou her hands. It is not likely that Mr O'Rouke assumed precisely the shape of a white elephant to her mental vision ; but he was as useless and cumbersome and unmanageable as one. Margaret and Larry's wedding tour did not extend beyond Mrs Finnigan's establishment, where they took two or three rooms and set up housekeeping in a humble way. Margatet, who was a tidy housewife, kept the floor of her apartments as white as your hand, the tin plates on the dresser as bright as your lady love's eyes, and the cookingstove as neat as the machinery on a Sound steamer. When she was not rubbing the stove with lamp-black, she was cooking upon it some savory dish to tempt the palate of her marine monster. Naturally of a hopeful temperament, she went about her work singing softly to herself at times, and would have been very happy that first week if Mr O'ltouke had known a sober moment. But Mr O'Rouke showed an exasperating disposition to keep up festivities. At the end of ten days, however, he toned down, and at Margaret's sugg' stion that he had better be looking about for some employment, he rigged himself up a fishing pole, and set out with an injured air for the wharf at the foot of the street, where he fished for the rest of the day. To sit for hours blinking in the sun, waiting for a cunner to come along and take his hook, was as exhaustive kincl of labour as he cared to engage in. Though Mr O'Rouke had recently returned from a long cruise, he had not a cent to show. During his first three days ashore he had dissipated his three years' pay. The housekeeping expenses began eating a hole in Margaret's little fund, the existence of which was no sooner known to Mr O'Ronke than he stood up his fishing rod in one corner of the room, and thenceforth it caught nothing but cobwebs.

' Divil a sthroke o' work I'll do said Mr O'Bouke, ' whin we can live at aise on our earnin's. Who'd be after frettin hisself, wid money in the bank ? How much is it, Peggy, darlint?' And divil a stroke more of work did he do. He lounged down on the wharves, and with his short clay pipe stuck between his lips, and his hands in his pockets, stared at the sail-boa,ts on the river. He sat on the doorstep of the Finnigan domicile, and plentifully chaffed the passers-by. Now and then, when he could wheedle some fractional currency out of Margaret, he spent it like a crown prince at the Wee Drop around the corner. With that fine magnetism which draws together birds of a feather, he shortly drew about him all the ne'er-do-weels of Rivermouth. It was really wonderful what an unsuspected lot of them there was. From all the frowsy purlieus of the town they crept forth in the sunlight to array themselves under the banner of the prince of scallawags. It was edifying of a summer afternoon to see a dozen of them sitting in a row, like turtles, on the string piece of Jedediah Rand's wharf, with their twentyfour feet dangling over the water, assisting Mr O'Rouke in contemplating the islands in the harbor, and upholding the scenery, as it were. The rascal had one accomplishment, he had a heavenly voice, quite in the rough, to be sure, and he played on the violin like an angel. He did not know one note from another, but he played in a sweet natural way, just as Orpheus must have played, by ear. The drunker he was the more pathos and humor he wrung from the old violin, his sole piece of personal property. He had a singular fancy for getting up at two or three o'clock in the morning, and playing by an open casement. All the dogs in the immediate neighborhood and innumerable dogs in the distance would join to swell the chorus on a scale that would have satisfied Mr Gilmore himself. Unfortunately Mr O'Rouke's betises were not always of so innocent a complexion. On one or two occasions, through an excess of animal and other spirits, he took to breaking windows in the town. Among his nocturnal feats he accomplished the demolition of the glass in the door of The Wee Drop. Now, breaking windows in Rivermouth is an amusement not wholly disconnected with an interior view of the police-station (Bridewell is the local term); so it happened that Mr O'Rouke woke up one fine morning and found himself snug and tight in one of the cells in rear of the Brick Market. His plea that the bull's eye in the glass door of The Wee Drop winked at him in an insultin' maimer as he was passing by, did not prevent Justice Hackett from fining the delinquent ten dollars and costs, which made sad havoc with the poor wife's bank account. So Margaret's married life wore on, and all went merry as a funeral knell. After Mrs Bilkins with a brow as severe as one of the Parca), had closed the door upon the O'Roukes that summer morning, she sat down on the stairs, and, sinking the indignant goddess in the woman, burst into tears. She was still very wroth with Margaret Callaghan, as she persisted in calling her; very merciless and unforgiving, as the gentler sex are apt to be—to the gentler sex. Mr Bilkins, however, after the first vexation, missed Margaret from the household ; missed her singing, which was in itself as helpful as a second girl; missed her hand in the preparation of those hundred and one nameless comforts which are necessities to the old, and wished in his soul that he had her back again. Tj be continued.