wedding. Mr. O'Connor was asked by Neal to be present at it, but he shook his head, and told him that he had not courage to attend it, or inclination to witness any man's sorrows but his own. He met the wedding party by accident, and was heard to exclaim with a sigh as they flaunted past him in gay exuberance of spirits, "Ah, poor Neal! he is going like one of her father's cattle to the shambles! Woe is me for having suggested matrimony to the tailor! He will not long be under the necessity of saying that he is 'blue-moulded for want of a beating.' The butcheress will fell him like a Kerry ox, and I may have his blood to answer for, and his discomfiture to feel for, in addition to my own miseries."

might be a mere mistake of the eye, or, perhaps, the result of a mind predisposed to be credulous on the subject of shaking heads.

We wish it were in our power to draw a veil, or curtain, or blind of some description over the remnant of the tailor's narrative that is to follow; but as it is the duty of every faithful historian to give the secret causes of appearances which the world in general do not understand, so we think it but honest to go on, impartially and faithfully, without shrinking from the responsibility that is frequently annexed to truth.

For the first three days after matrimony, Neal felt like a man who had been translated to a new and more lively state of existence. He had expected and flattered himself, that the moment that this event should take place, he would once more resume his heroism, and experience the pleasure of a drubbing. This determination he kept a profound secret; nor was it known until a future period when he disclosed it to Mr. O'Connor.

On the first week after his marriage there chanced to be a fair in the next Neal, after breakfast, brought forward a bunch of shillelahs, in order to select the best; the wife inquired the purpose of the selection, and Neal declared that he was resolved to have a fight that day, if it were to be had, he said, for "love or money." "The truth is," he exclaimed, strutting with fortitude about the house-"the truth is, that I've done the whole of yez,-I'm as bluemowlded as ever for want of a batin'."

On the evening of the wedding day, about the hour of ten o'clock, Neal, whose spirits were uncommonly exalted, for his heart luxuriated within him, danced with his bridesmaid; after the dance he sat beside her, and got eloquent in praise of her beauty; and it is said, too, that he whispered to her, and chucked her chin with considerable gallantry. The tête-àtête continued for some time without exciting particular attention with one ex-market-town. ception; but that exception was worth a whole chapter of general rules. Mrs. Malone rose up, then sat down again, and took off a glass of the native; she got up a second time, all the wife rushed upon her heart,—she approached them, and, in a fit of the most exquisite sensibility, knocked the bridesmaid down, and gave the tailor a kick of affecting pathos upon the inexpressibles. The whole scene was a touching one on both sides. The tailor was sent on all fours to the floor! but Mrs. Malone took him quietly up, put him under her arm, as one would a lap-dog, and with stately step marched away to In about another half-hour Neal sat the connubial apartment, in which every-down quietly to his business, instead of thing remained very quiet for the rest of going to the fair! the night.

"Don't go," said the wife.

"I will go," said Neal, with vehemence; "I'll go, if the whole parish was to go to prevint me."

Much ingenious speculation might be The next morning Mr. O'Connor pre- indulged in upon this abrupt termination sented himself to congratulate the tailor to the tailor's most formidable resolution; on his happiness. Neal, as his friend but, for our own part, we will prefer shook hands with him, gave the school- going on with the narrative, leaving the master's fingers a slight squeeze, such as reader at liberty to solve the mystery as a man gives who would gently entreat he pleases. In the meantime, we say your sympathy. The schoolmaster looked this much,-let those who cannot make at him, and thought he shook his head. it out, carry it to their tailor; it is a Of this, however, he could not be certain; tailor's mystery, and no one has so good for, as he shook his own during the mo- a right to understand it,-except, perment of observation, he concluded that it haps, a tailor's wife.

"Don't go,'

"said the wife.

"I'll go," said Neal, "if the whole counthry was to prevint me. Thunder an' lightnin', woman, who am I?" he exclaimed, in a loud, but rather infirm voice; am n't I Neal Malone, that never met a man who 'd fight him! Neal Malone, that was never beat by man! Why, tare-an-ounze, woman! Whoo! I'll get enraged some time, an' play the divil! Who's afeard, I say?"

"Don't go," added the wife, a third time, giving Neal a significant look in the face.

In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business, instead of going to the dance!.

At the period of his matrimony, Neal had become as plump and as stout as he ever was known to be in his plumpest and stoutest days. He and the schoolmaster had been very intimate about this time; but we know not how it happened that soon afterwards he felt a modest, bridelike reluctance in meeting with that afflicted gentleman. As the eve of his union approached, he was in the habit, during the schoolmaster's visits to his workshop, of alluding, in rather a sarcastic tone, considering the unthriving appearance of his friend, to the increasing lustiness of his person. Nay, he has often leaped up from his lap-board, and, in the strong spirit of exultation, thrust out his leg in attestation of his assertion, slapping it, moreover, with a loud laugh of triumph, that sounded like a knell to the happiness of his emaciated acquaintance. The schoolmaster's philosophy, however, unlike his flesh, never departed from him; his usual observation was, Neal, we are both receding from the same point; you increase in flesh, whilst I, Heaven help me, am fast diminishing." The tailor received these remarks with very boisterous mirth, whilst Mr. O'Connor simply shook his head, and looked sadly upon his limbs, now shrouded in a Soon after this, Neal one evening met superfluity of garments, somewhat re- Mr. O'Connor by chance upon a plank sembling a slender thread of water in a which crossed a river. This plank was shallow summer stream, nearly wasted only a foot in breadth, so that no two away, and surrounded by an unpropor-individuals could pass each other upon tionate extent of channel.

64

The fourth month after the marriage arrived, and Neal, one day, near its close, began to dress himself in his best apparel. Even then, when buttoning his waistcoat, he shook his head after the manner of Mr. O'Connor, and made observations upon the great extent to which it overfolded him.

"Well," thought he with a sigh, "this waistcoat certainly did fit me to a T ; but it's wonderful to think how - cloth stretches!"

"Neal," said the wife, on perceiving him dressed, "where are you bound for?" Faith, for life," replied Neal, with a mitigated swagger; and I'd as soon, if it had been the will of Provid-" He paused. "Where are you going?" asked the wife a second time.

Neal now turned himself, like many a sage in similar circumstances, to philosophy; that is to say, he began to shake his head upon principle, after the manner of the schoolmaster. He would, indeed, have preferred the bottle upon principle; but there was no getting at the bottle, except through the wife; and so it hap pened that by the time it reached him, there was little consolation left in it. Neal bore all in silence; for silence, his friend had often told him, was a proof of wisdom.

it. We cannot find words in which to express the dismay of both, on finding that they absolutely glided past one another without collision.

Both paused, and surveyed each other solemnly; but the astonishment was all on the side of Mr. O'Connor.

"Neal," said the schoolmaster, "by all the household gods, I conjure you to speak, that I may be assured you live!"

The ghost of a blush crossed the churchyard visage of the tailor.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "why the divil did you tempt me to marry a wife?"

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"Neal," said his friend, answer me in the most solemn manner possible; throw into your countenance all the gravity you can assume; speak as if you were under the hands of the hangman, with the rope about your neck, for the question is indeed a trying one which I am about to put. Are you still 'bluemoulded' for want of a beating?"

The tailor collected himself to make a reply; he put one leg out,-the very leg which he used to show in triumph to his friend; but, alas, how dwindled! He opened his waistcoat and lapped it round him, until he looked like a weasel on its hind legs. He then raised himself up on his tiptoes, and, in an awful whisper, replied, "No!!! the divil a bit I'm bluemowlded for want of a batin'!"

breeze with a cautious quaver of sorrow truly heart-rending and lugubrious.

"Neal," said Mr. O'Connor, on one of those occasions, "here is a book which I recommend to your perusal; it is called The Afflicted Man's Companion'; try if you cannot glean some consolation out of it."

"Faith," said Neal, "I'm forever oblaged to you, but I don't want it. I've had The Afflicted Man's Companion' too long, and not an atom of consolation I can get out of it. I have one o' them, I tell you; but, be me sowl, I'll not undertake a pair o' them. The very name's enough for me." They then separated.

The tailor's vis vitæ must have been powerful, or he would have died. In two years more his friends could not distinguish him from his own shadow; a circumstance which was of great inconvenience to him. Several grasped at the hand of the shadow instead of his; and one man was near paying it five and sixpence for making a pair of small-clothes. Neal,

The schoolmaster shook his head in his own miserable manner; but, alas! he soon perceived that the tailor was as great an adept at shaking the head as himself. Nay, he saw that there was a calamitous refinement, a delicacy of shake in the tailor's vibrations which gave to his own nod a very commonplace character. The next day the tailor took in his clothes; and from time to time continued to adjust them to the dimensions of his shrinking person. The schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and sympathized together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better than Neal. The latter was subdued it is true, undeceived him with some in heart and in spirit; thoroughly, completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the calamities of a henpecked husband are painted by the Devil. He no longer strutted as he was wont to do; he no longer carried a cudgel as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married man. Sneakingly, and with a cowardly crawl, did he creep along as if every step brought him nearer to the gallows. The schoolmaster's march of misery was far slower than Neal's: the latter distanced him. Before three years passed he had shrunk up so much, that he could not walk abroad of a windy day without carrying weights in his pockets to keep him firm on the earth which he once trod with the step of a giant. He again sought the schoolmaster, with whom, indeed, he associated as much as possible. Here he felt certain of receiving sympathy; nor was he disappointed. That worthy but miserable man and Neal often retired beyond the hearing of their respective wives, and supported each other by every argument in their power. Often have they been heard in the dusk of evening singing behind a remote hedge that melancholy ditty, "Let us both be unhappy together;" which rose upon the twilight

trouble, but candidly admitted that he was not able to carry home the money. It was difficult, indeed, for the poor tailor to bear what he felt; it is true he bore it as long as he could; but at length he became suicidal, and often had thoughts of "making his own quietus with his bare bodkin." After many deliberations and afflictions, he ultimately made the attempt; but, alas! he found that the blood of the Malones refused to flow upon so ignominious an occasion. So he solved the phenomenon; although the truth was, that his blood was not "i' the vein" for it; none was to be had. What then was to be done? He resolved to get rid of life by some process; and the next that occurred to him was hanging. In a solemn spirit he prepared a selvage, and suspended himself from the rafter of his workshop; but here another disappointment awaited him; he would not hang. Such was his want of gravity that his own weight proved insufficient to occasion his death by mere suspension. His third attempt was at drowning; but he was too light to sink; all the elements, all his own energies, joined themselves, he thought, in a wicked conspiracy to save his life. Having thus tried every avenue to destruction, and failed in all, he felt like a man doomed to live forever. Henceforward he shrunk and shriv

THE subjoined story relative to a griffin, or newly arrived cadet in India, may have "Necessary!' continued the captain, charms for those who like a practical joke.why, my goodness! I fear you have got It is an extract from an article on Indian literature in Alexander's East Indian Magazine, in which the writer quotes the following humorous account, by Dr. Grant, of Calcutta, of the trick played upon a griffin and novice on his first arrival in the east:

do, and wrote immediately for an audi- [ the presence of such an apparition caused ence, his friends instructing him how to a general sensation: some tittered, and comport himself towards the great man. others wondered who it could possibly "In half an hour a note came back be.' At a distance he looked like a field from the aid-de-camp, to say, that his officer; on a near approach his was, inlordship would be glad to see Mr. Peters deed, a most questionable shape.' The the next day, at one o'clock, P.M. 'But,' aid-de-camp, who was very short-sighted, observed Captain Radcliffe, there is one after ushering in several persons, at length thing we had like to have forgotten; you came to our hero. Will you be good cannot present yourself before the enough, sir, to say what your name is?'governor-general in plain clothes: have 'Peters, sir, Abel Peters.' 'Major Abel you your uniform ready?" "No,' re- Peters, have the goodness to walk this sponded the griff, but I have in my way.' And to his consternation, our chest fifteen yards of scarlet cloth, pro-griff, in ten seconds more, found himself, vided for the purpose, by Stalkin, Walsh, for the first time, in the presence of a and Milburn, of Leadenhall street.' lord, and that lord the governor-general 'Whew! but there is no time to make a of India. coat of the cloth: what can be done? Oh! now I have it!' exclaimed the major, 'true, I am stouter than our young friend, but my regimentals will answer very well for all that. A most happy thought, indeed,' observed the captain.

"Next day, accordingly, be-booted and be-spurred rather grotesquely, in a suit of the major's regimentals, a world too large for him, the cadet prepared, with palpitating heart, to visit the governor-general. When the major saw him, he screwed up his face as if he had an attack of the toothache, and could only prevent an explosion of laughter by cramming his pocket handkerchief into his mouth. Captain Radcliffe gravely said, that everything was comme il faut, and that the old peer could not fail to be much struck with his appearance, which unquestionably turned out to be the fact.

"But it's drawing nearly the time,' observed Major Scarp, taking out his watch, we must get your sewarrie ready.' ""My what?'

6

"You griff, do you think you could proceed to government house, without a proper retinue.' On this, two Kitmutghars, the cook, the musaulchy, and the bhisty, were called, and told to march before our hero's palanquin. This ridiculous cortege proceeded towards the great northern entrance of the government house, and when the palanquin reached the portico, our hero, perspiring at every pore, issued out of his wooden vehicle, and marched up the steps, with as much dignity as he could assume, to the no small admiration of some of the inmates, who saw him from the windows. At length he found himself in the ante-chamber, where

"As previously instructed, he made a most profound bow at the door; he repeated his elaborate congé in the middle of the room, and at length coming close up to his lordship, he dropped on one knee, and suiting the action to the word, said, in an agitated and flattering tone, 'I kiss your lordship's hands!' Oh, for the pencil of Cruikshank to portray his lordship's look of amazement, and the smile that played over his singularly_benign and expressive countenance! He was, however, too polite a man to keep even a griff in any degree of painful suspense, by a display of emotion at such a ludicious exhibition, more especially as he observed the poor major looked exceedingly embarrassed and heated. Outré and absurd too, as the exhibition he had just made was, his lordship, at a single glance at the man, (or rather hobbledehoy) felt quite satisfied that no disrespect, but quite the reverse, was intended. He pointed to a chair, and asked the major how long he had been in India.

"About ten days, my lord.'-'You belong to the infantry, I believe, major ?'— I do, my lord.'

"And a fine service it is, sir, that ever teems with openings and contingencies for conduct and gallantry to win their way to renown.' Here his lordship paused, and our griff began to feel an indefinable uneasiness creep over him, on observing his lordship's eye scanning his habiliments with a glance of keen but smiling inquiry. At length, the pause became so oppressive to him, that he gasped out the words, 'I hope, my lord, that there is nothing in my dress or appearance that your lordship deems improper!'