MICK HOULAHAN'S LOVE AFFAIR. MICK AS A PHILOSOPHER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1818, 1 March 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

MICK HOULAHAN'S LOVE AFFAIR. MICK AS A PHILOSOPHER.

By DONALD CAMERON.

* " It's a curious thing you nova- were manied, Mick," said fail -haired Ted Smith, who, it was well known, had come to the diggings to make enough money to many a girl in the place where he was born. " It's quare," replied Mick, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, " but ifc'd be quarer shtill if I did get shwitehed, considerin' the rovin' life I've led. An' yet I was wansht very near it.— l only escaped by the shkin iv my teeth." We all felt jubilant, for the signs clearly showed Mieb meant to tell a yarn, and he had not told one for' a month " Not," continued Mick, " but that I'd lots in love affairs, bpginnin' when I was five years old — I've always been fond of the petticoats, bless 'em— and endin', for the preshinfc, \sid that foxy Widdy Shanahan down at the Two Mile, out of which ye made so much fun, you Shkamers. But this time I was leally in for it, if a thing hadn't come in the way. Ye see things always come in the way in this cross world of ours. I waa very soft at the time, iuet U that's whin the famalea make your heart bate, ehkamers and desavers, and make you think they're angels wid the wiugs shproutin, — an' they do shprout more be token, only mostly they turn into broomhandles or two year old eaplins. She was a purty gurl, at lashte I thought so, but you must niver be too sure of your impi essions whin you're dead shtruk — and you generally are at twiuty. Why I've been head and showlders in love and thought the colleen the greatest beauty the woild saw, and whin I got over it — mind you do get over such things, and that's the blessin' in it — why I could see she had a shnub nose, a mouth cut out for &h\vallowin' the biggest pertateriver grown, and freckles enough to tan a bull's hide, not to mention hair that would set the shnow on fire? "Ah, Mick," said Ted the sentimentalist, thinking of that parting under the wattle trees, while waiting for the coach, when a thousand " forever and evers " were uttered, " you're wrong in your ideas ; real love is eternal ; it ends only with death, if then." 11 Maybe, mayba," said Mick with a queer wink, " but if tnat's tiue oirale love, then I've only to say it's a mighty scarce article in this counthiy, and for that matther in any counthry I've been in. The article we dale in here, is wondherful like any other goods, it can be turned from one to the other for a considheration. But to me sthory. You see whin I wint to the diggins I had a mate named Tim Brady, me own age, an'asshtrappin' a fellow as iver you casht eyes on. We wor like brothers, or, raytlier more, for brothers are mostly not very swate on one another, an' we wor. Why, I believe I'd die for him. We ate together and shlept together, and had all things in common. But things niver continue long in this world. At that time there wasn't a woman widin fifty miles. Now man's a quare an' unnatural crathurewklout women. He isn't a man at all ; he's the original bashte he was before woman was cieated. But somehow wherever there's a man a woman '11 get there before muny days are over. That's why I think there's lots o' women in the moon, for don't we know there's a man in it." "Well, it wasn't long before a woman kirn to Mick's Gully— called afther me. The publican sent for his wife, an' she brought two dacint ghls wid her to look afther the place. You ought to see the day they arrived — come over the spur. Why every soul turned out, an' such cheerin' there, an' aftherwards such dhrunkin' — don't niintion it. If old Mulligan hadn't turned out I believe we'd h n ,ve cleared his sthock." " However, it wasn't altogether for good these women came. There's two things in this world that cause all the fightin' and divarsion in it, women and gold— l suppose because they're the only things worth havin'. Man, however, whin by himself, is a very dacint animal, but the moment a woman appears there's bound to be a hullaballoo. Before these gurls came I don't remember a fight in the Gully, except in course a friendly shkrimmage whin the whishkey was inside, but that made things all the more pleasant when we "kissed an' made friends" next day. But now there was nothing but sour looks an' fights over them gurls. I've since seen it just the same on a station over on the Murrumbidgee. There were some thirteen of us in all, yong devil-may-care fellows as happy as the day was long, and as lovin' as grass parrots on a tree. But whin the yong boss got switched an' brought up his wife an' two spankin' girls from Deniliquin, Moses 1 wasn't there ructions and black eyes, broken heads and bloody noses." "My dear Mick," said Harry Thorncroft, our learned man and geological student, " the explanation of such phenomena has been given long ago by the illustrious Charles Darwin ; it's the old battle of the survival of the fittest. It is by means of this fighting among the males for the females that animals ha\e progressed to their present form, especially man, the noblest of animals. The weak have been crushed out, and the strong alone remained to mate." " Well, that may be," said Mick with another dull twinkle in his eye, " but it's a mighty unpleasant skhiance that is, an' I think it's seen it's day." " Not at all," pompously returned the scientist ; " on the contrary, it is gaining strength every day, and will soon be the faith of the world." "Perhaps, perhaps," replied Mick, "only I've vac doubts, as the old woman said she smelt her husband's breath when he came late. But it's a poor rule that won't work both ways, an' if Darwinism, as you call it, is worked in the times beyant to improve the breed by the survival of the fittest, from what I see it must work the other way now, and bring us back until we're ourang outang or shampansies " (chimpansee) " again. For it's this way, you see. Now-a-days the big man, and the s throng man, and the man that's got a head on him, stand no show at all. Apollo Belvidare might be coortin' Katie Quinn, but for all his limbs and his looks, I'd wager a nugget if a skinny divil wid a hump on him and a squint eye and red hair an' not the height of me hip, kirn along, wid plenty iv money, she'd have him, off hand. An' that sem Apollo, the shkamer, would turn up his nose at Vanus. I know what.you mane (Anodymene) if there was an ould hag handy who had a bit iv money. So if we kirn from monkeys, be sure we'll go back to worst." Harry shook his head in Lord Burleigh style, but did not reply. "Well," resumed Miok, re-lighting his pipe, " there was a dead set made on them gurls, an' iv ooorse, they were too cute to show who they liked. Their cue waa to let us all think we had a ohance, an' you may imagine Mulligan did well. But by-an'-bye, it was seen that only two had a chance wid the purtiest of them, shy Julia, and thim two was meself and Tim. The other fellows soon found this out, an' gave her up, an' fought over Biddy. By ; the-bye, she, married an, ould fellow iv," sixty, who'd, struck ,^riofi"ree£ r an' left all the Apollqs to. drown themselves if they J pla&ed. Well, Tim an* I weK||||rerfuT bad.— we would hardly ate a bite. |f§§|pi tho

love that was betwane us seemed to die out iv a Buddmt. We hardly spnkc, and we frowned at ache other as if we meant murdlier. Tim was the worst, or, vayther, the most onraisonable. What do you thinlc — he look it so bad that he wouldn't come into 1)3<1. but slept in a corner in his 'possum rug ! \.3 for mo, I was clane off me chump. I thought of nothing but July, and I looked at several likely shafts, into which I would jump if she said no. But what's the u°e of describin' me falings — haven't they been felt eince Adam had a firsht look at Aye, and won' l they be felt ages afther this — whin wo go back to the original monkey, not but that some of us is near that already." " Well, to make a long story short, I bagan ho think and to think, and I thought all this business was nonsense. I didn't belave in the survival of the fittest business. I thought wo were sensible men and should act as sensible men. An' I knew I had the most sense, at lashte „ that I was the coolesht, so I made up me mind to sphake to Tim. As for the colleen, the shly logue, do you think she'd let us knosv — when we were both there — whom she liked bast. So one evenin' when we'd returned from work an' sat as far apart as the little tent would let I opens up an 1 1 sez : " Tim." " Well," said ho, as if he'd jump down me throat if it had been big enough. " Tim, I think it's time this thing had an en'," sea I. « 11 1 think it is," scz he. " Well," sez I, " let's end it." "Oh, that's asy," sez he " lookin' as if the rire 'd burn up his eyes ; if you stop outside we'll see who's the best man." " That's not the way I mean," sez I ; " that's i\ fool's way." " H/jjfru shpake much more to me," sez he, " I'll shthiike you." " Well, Tim," said I, "be raisonable. Just think. Suppose we fought an' you won, an' thin you wint an' asked July to have you, an' she turned roun' an' said she'd have neither of vs — what fools we'd look. Now, I've a bother thing to propose. You go to Mulligans this night an' ask her if she'll have you. If she sez yis, then I give in an 1 we'ie big Jriends as ever. If she set no, then I'll have a try." "No!" cried Tim, "no man shall have her except me ; I'll kill him fir&ht." I saw the crathur was very bad, so I didn't press him. " At all eveuts, Tim," sez I, " will you go." " I will, sez he, an' out he wint." " Well, late that night he kern back, pretty full of whisky, an' I saw the moment I east eyes on his face that she'd taken him, an 1 1 swallowed my grief and took his hand and hoped, an' from me heart too, that they'd be happy. He tould me, the happy fellosv, that she said Bhe loved and would have him, though, sez she, he wasn't as good a man as I. Well, that rayther reconciled me to it." " I was besht man an' had forgot all about it when the weddin' kirn off ; indade I was head over ears in love wid one of the bridesmaids, a new arrival." "I've saw Tim an' his family befoie I kirn to these diggins. A big heaity fanner he is now, a trifle too fond of liquor, and July's as fat as well never mind, an' there's nine childher. I wouldn't marry her now if she was lolling in diamonds. Tim's been a happier man than I ; but he has had more Ibcouble — that's the difference between mairied and single."