Old Jack | Page 2

not bear to have me out of his sight. Every morning we might have been seen leaving our cottage, I holding his hand as he went to his work; yet nearly as certainly as the evening came round I had to creep supperless to bed. All day he would keep me playing about in his sight, except when any of his fellow-workmen, or people living near where we happened to be, wanted a lad to run on an errand. Then I was always glad of the job. Whenever, by happy chance, he came home sober in an evening, he would take me between his knees, and, parting my hair, look into my face and weep till his heart seemed ready to burst. But these occasions grew less and less frequent. What I have said will show that I have reason to love the memory of both my parents, in spite of the faults my unhappy father undoubtedly possessed.
Several months had thus passed away after my mother's death, when one afternoon my father entered our cottage where he had left me since the morning.
"Jack, my boy," said he, taking my hand, "come along, and I will show you what life is." Oh, had he said, "what death is," he would have spoken the truth.
I accompanied him willingly, though I saw at a glance that he had already been drinking. Crowds of people were going in the direction we took. For some days past I had heard the neighbours talking of the fair. I now knew that we were bound there. My mother had never allowed me to go to the place, so I had no notion what it was like. I expected to see something very grand and very beautiful--I could not tell what. I pushed on into the crowd with my father as eagerly as any one, thinking that we should arrive at the fair at last. I did not know that we were already in the middle of it. I remember, however, having a confused sight of booths, and canvas theatres, and actors in fine clothes strutting about and spouting and trumpeting and drumming; of rope-dancers and tumblers with painted faces; and doctors in gilded chariots selling all sorts of wonderful remedies for every possible complaint; and the horsemanship, with men leaping through hoops and striding over six steeds or more at full gallop; and the gingerbread stalls, and toy shops, and similar wonders; but what was bought and sold at the fair of use to any one I never heard.
My father had taken me round to several of the shows I have spoken of: when he entered a drinking-booth, and set himself down with me on his knee, among a number of men who seemed to be drinking hard. Their example stimulated him to drink harder than ever, and in a short time his senses completely left him. As, however, even though the worse liquor, he was peaceable in his disposition, instead of sallying forth as many did in search of adventures, he laid himself down on the ground with his head against the canvas of the tent, and told me to call him when it was morning. Some one at the same time handed me a piece of gingerbread, so I set myself down by his side to do as he bid me.
Those were the days of faction fights; and if people happened to have no cause for a quarrel, they very soon found one. The tent we were in was patronised by Orangemen, and of course was a mark for the attacks of the opposite party. My poor father had slept an hour or so, with three or four men near him in a similar condition, when a half-drunken body of men came by, shillelah in hand, looking out for a row. Unhappily the shapes of the heads of most of the sleepers were clearly developed through the canvas. The temptation was not to be resisted--whack-- whack--whack! Down came the heavy stick of a sturdy Irishman upon that of my father. "Get up out of that, and defend yourselves!" sung out their assailants. Most of his companions rushed out to avenge the insult offered them, but my father made no answer. Numbers joined from all directions--shillelahs were flourished rapidly, and the scrimmage became general. I ran to the front of the tent and clapped my hands, and shouted with sympathy. Now the mass of fighting, shrieking men swayed to one side, now to the other; now they advanced, now they retreated, till by degrees the fight had reached a considerable distance from the tent.
I then went back to my place by my father's side, wondering that he did not get up to join the fray. I listened, he breathed, but he did not speak. Still I