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Mary Lee, or, The Yankee in Ireland. Peppergrass, Paul, (1810–1864).
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MARY LEE, OR THE YANKEE IN IRELAND. BY PAUL PEPPERGRASS ESQ. PUBLISHED BY KELLY, HEDDIN, & PIET 174 BALTIMORE ST. BALTIMORE
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MARY LEE, OR THE YANKEE IN IRELAND.

BY

PAUL PEPPERGRASS ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF "SHANDY M'GUIRE," ETC. With Illustrations by Harley.

BALTIMORE: KELLY, HEDIAN & PIET, PUBLISHERS, 174 BALTIMORE STREET.
BOSTON- P. DONAHOE.

1860.
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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by KELLY, HEDIAN & PIET, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the State of Maryland.

TO THE PUBLIC.

DEAR PUBLIC:

Once more come we, knocking at your door, to beg the crumbs of your charity.

Twice before, indeed, have you taken us in, and twice, going out, have our grateful tears besprinkled the flags of your threshold. But then it was our own cause we pleaded; now we plead the cause of another; we bring to your arms a desolate orphan, not three days old, and without a relative in the world. Its dying parent bequeathed it to you, in the strong hope, that slender as its claim was on your sympathy, you would not have the heart to reject it. After the many favors we ourselves have received at your hands, it would be indelicate in us to do more than submit the case without word or comment to your benevolent consideration. The following letters will best explain the melancholy circumstances which brought the little adventurer to employ so poor an advocate, and one, alas! in every respect, so unworthy the sacred trust.

Your grateful servant,

P. PEPPERGRASS.

DEAR PAUL:

After many weary voyages by land and sea, here I am laid up. Here I am, stretched on a straw pallet in Gooseberry Lane, with my last dollar in my pocket, and my old leather bag under my pillow. O Paul, my faithful college chum, what a desperate effort I made to reach you! Somehow I always fancied, if I could only have another page: 4-5[View Page 4-5] sight of your honest, "sonsie" face, and the promise of a quiet little corner in your family grave lot, I should die the happier. Besides, as I never belonged to any one in particular, I felt you had a sort of claim on my remains. But it's all over with me now, and so God's will be done! I'm a crazy, good-for-nothing, ill-tempered creature, any way, and the sooner I'm put out of the way of decent, useful people, the better. I suppose I needn't tell you what I'm dying of—the rheumatism, of course: what else could it be? The villain knocked me down twice before, you remember, and then compromised it; but this time he has fairly got death's grip of me, and refuses, point blank, to let me off on any terms. The priest and doctor were both here this morning, and shook hands with me at parting. So my time, you see, is but short. Well, at all events I'm prepared—that is, in a kind of fashion, not so well as I ought of course, but still better than I deserve to be, considering the Edie Ochiltree life I led since I abandoned theology and the cassock. As for the world, I forgive it for all the shabby treatment I ever received at its hands, and upon my word, Paul, I received my share. It's of no use, though, to carry our grudges with us to the grave; and, indeed, even if it were, I never felt much disposed that way. Besides, the world has sins enough to answer for, God knows, without adding the injuries it has done me to the account. So I shake hands, and forgive it. And now, Paul, there's one request I have to make, and for the sake of the old times, I hope you'll not refuse it, namely: When you come here and find me dead and gone, don't mind asking any questions, for nobody knows me but as the lame pilgrim, who frightened the children, and lived in a garret in Gooseberry Lane. Say nothing, but just ask the apple woman, who lets me the room, for the black leather bag I kept under my pillow. Put your hand down to the bottom, and draw out "Mary Lee." It's the last of the collection, and, for aught I know to the contrary, the best of them all. Take it home with you, brush it up a little, and give it to some charitable publisher, if you happen to know or hear of any such person in that part of the world. Should the little thing bring a few dollars, buy me a modest head-stone of gray marble and inscribe my name on the corner—Peter Pinkie—no more. For the rest, I bequeath you all my worldly goods, to wit: my silver snuff-box (but by the way, now that I think of it, the half of that same belongs to you already) and my ivory-headed crab-tree staff, both which Father Mahony (by the same token he's first cousin to Father Prout of the Prout Papers) will deliver you on presenting this letter. And now, dear Paul, before I bid good by, let me entreat you to say a few prayers for me, once and again, when you have leisure—for alas! alas! I need them sadly. Say them quietly, just as we used to say them together long ago at the Virgin altar in the college chapel, and say them away by yourself in some lonely corner of the church, where the shadow falls deepest. God be with you, Paul.

Yours as ever,

P. PINKIE.

On reaching New Orleans we hastened with all possible speed to Gooseberry Lane, hoping to find our venerable friend still alive; but alas! we came too late. Early that morning the remains of a stranger whom nobody knew, but who went by the name of Peter Pinkie, were carried out to their final resting place, and deposited in a shady little corner of the Catholic cemetery. Intending to visit the grave next day, and leave directions for the head-stone of gray marble, we took occasion in the interval to call on the Rev. Mr. Mahony, and after tendering our most grateful thanks for his kindness to our dear old friend and fellow-student, received from his venerable hands the silver snuff-box, the crab-tree staff, and the following letter of explanation, written apparently but a few hours before his death.

P. P.

DEAR PAUL:

I have some remarks to make about "Mary Lee," and can't compose myself to die happy without making them. So I just swallowed an anodyne, and had the apple woman fix up the foot-board for a writing desk.

I know well when you read the opening paragraph you'll shrug up your shoulders in the old way, and pitch the manuscript across the table to your friend Dr. Grippinlip, with a "Psaugh! nonsense! what does the silly fellow mean by such an introduction as that?" But think what you please, Paul; I can't help it. It was always my way, you know, to go straight to the point; or, as our first Latin master, Terence Hardiman, used to say, to dive in medias res plump as a pearl fisher! I wouldn't think of Terry now either, I suspect, only the silver snuffbox he left us is here before me on the foot-board, and the curly-headed cobbler on the lid is looking straight in my face. But independently of that, my early memories crowd on me now faster and clearer than ever. Sometimes I catch myself thinking of old Sangrado at the college, and old Etty at the infirmary coming in coughing every morning, with her pharmacopœia under her arm. And what do you think? I was dreaming all last night about the rush crosses we used page: 6-7[View Page 6-7] to weave at Michaelmas, and the segging boats we sailed in partnership on the round pond before my father's door. They looked to me just as green and natural as the leaves I saw yesterday. I don't know how it happens, but my thoughts are ever stumbling over old times and old places; do what I will, I can't control them. I half suspect it's the usual sign of death—the parting look which the spirit casts back on the opening scenes of its young and joyous life, ere it sinks and is swallowed up forever in the source of its being—just like the setting sun taking his farewell look of earth—the last one, the brightest and fondest of all. But I fear I'm digressing.

I was going to observe that if you expected me to write a preface to "Mary Lee" according to the ordinary standards made and provided, you will be entirely disappointed; for I may as well tell you, first as last, that I cherish a most inveterate horror for the whole prologomena family—prefaces, prologues, introductions, and explanations; and this, I feel in duty bound to tell you before I proceed a step farther, has ever been my unfortunate weakness since I went to study theology, five and twenty years ago, at Louvain, under the celebrated Father Brenengo. He was the most tedious man in coming to a point that ever shaped a syllogism. He often spent two mortal hours laying down the state of the question, and found himself then just as far from the difficulty as ever. Every thing having the slightest fibre of connection with the subject was drawn in to complicate it. No chancery lawyer could hold a candle to him in that respect. Old as I am now, Paul, and near as I creep to the grave, the sound of that man's voice rings as distinctly in my ear as when I last sat listening to it in Louvain. I never catch the noise of a spinning wheel, or a moth ticking in the bed-post, but I hear Father Brenengo as plainly as ever. He never tired; there was nothing of him to tire but bone and sinew, and very little of that to spare either; but what did remain was brought by a practice of forty years to work like machinery. Talking was no trouble to him—the words rolled out from his thin lips like sounds from an automaton mandarin. On the occasion, however, to which I would particularly refer, the question before the class was the Sacrifice of Abraham, and the difficulty as usual in the Thomistic distinction of the divine wills. Never did man speak as he spoke that day, laying down his preliminaries, and yet never venturing within sight of the question at issue. The class fell asleep, but, parum refert; on he drove through it, shrugging his shoulders till you could almost hear the friction of the bones, and rapping the desk all the while with his terrible knuckles. For the first hour I bore it with patience; an hour and a half passed, and still, though my nerves were considerably excited, I managed to control them sufficiently to sit quiet. At last, however, I was overpowered by a sort of delirium; my head grew dizzy, my breath came thick and short, like one after a long race, and yelling like a maniac, I sprang at one bound across the desk, and hurled a quarto volume of Bellarmine at the lecturer's venerable head. "Hold him!" I cried; "hold him! stop him or he'll kill me, he'll murder me!" His squeaking voice acting like a rasp on my nerves, hour after hour, drove me, in fact, to desperation. Heaven forgive me, Paul, I could have cloven him that instant to the brisket. One of my classmates laid hold of my collar to drag me back, but I flung him from me as I would an infant, and rushing from the hall, fled down the corridor, my long hair floating back on my collar, and my eyes leaping from their sockets in my eagerness to escape. That act of mine, dear Paul, sealed my fate forever. In the evening the physician called at my room, and politely ordered me three tumblers of valerian to settle my nerves; next day the dean handed me forty dollars to pay my travelling expenses to Buncrana, and a letter of explanation to my worthy bishop; and in two hours after, just as the bells of the city rang out the Angelus, I bid adieu to Louvain, Father Brenengo, and theology forever. Since that unfortunate day, it's needless to tell you, I regard every thing in the shape of introductions with indescribable horror. And where's the wonder? Have they not, at one blow, annihilated all my cherished hopes, stripped me of stole and cassock, driven me out a wanderer on the face of the earth, and consigned me at last to isolation, snuff-taking, poverty, and a garret?

Here the manuscript grows so shaky, owing, no doubt, to the increasing violence of the rheumatism, as to be entirely illegible. It is generally supposed, however, by his friends in Ireland most familiar with his handwriting, that the closing sentences were meant for a humble apology to the public for having ever presumed to occupy a moment of its valuable time, and especially for the many faults and anachronisms in Mary Lee.

The following note was found, some days after the editor's departure, in a corner of the old black bag, and carefully forwarded to his address by the apple woman above mentioned. In her very remarkable epistle enclosing the relic, she candidly admits never having imagined for one moment that the "bit o' ritin" could be of page: 8-9 (Table of Contents) [View Page 8-9 (Table of Contents) ] any earthly use to any body, and as for his "spirit" coming back in search of it, she hadn't the least fear of that in the world; for the truth was, she didn't believe in ghosts herself, nor one belonging to her; but still every body had a right to their own, and besides, Mr. Pinkie being the strange kind of man he was, she didn't fancy much retaining any part of his property in her possession, and would just sleep as sound, perhaps, after clearing her skirts of him, bag and baggage. The note ran as follows:—

POSTSCRIPT.

As my time draws near, I begin to feel more and more uneasy about the spot where the strangers will lay my remains. Of course you'll laugh at me for this, Paul, and no wonder either, for upon my word I never once thought I should feel so particular about it. But it's only another proof, I suppose, that the poor body must always be our greatest trouble even to the very last. And so I made some inquiries about the burial ground this morning of Father Mahony's clerk. His description, I assure you, is by no means satisfactory. He tells me there's not an ivy wall, nor a mouldering ruin, nor an old hawthorn, nor in fact any other shred of Christianity, to be seen in the place—what's more, there's not a fern to shelter a grave, and even the grass of the field is as wiry and sparse as the hair on my head. By all accounts, dear Paul, it's a very uncomfortable and "unchristianable" place to be buried, and so I would take it as a great personal favor, and one I'll not forget in the land I'm going to, if you could just manage in some way to take my bones home with you to your own quiet lot, or, what would please me a thousand times better, send them back to Ireland again by the first trusty Innishowen man you hear of returning to Buncrana. But do as you will, bring them or send them; I bequeath them to you.

P. P.

CONTENTS.

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