Mick

“ Mick, for the first time since their entry into the room, suddenly looked over at me. The same thoughts must have flashed through both our brains. What was wrong? Was anything wrong? Surely the affair was quite simple; and the canvas screen, violated by Mick's knife, had expressed the needed attempt at decency.
The muttering died down and the room was hushed to strained silence—to be broken soon by a furtive pad on the stairs. Mick and I were again alert, staring through the canvas slits. The Boss now appeared, followed by one of the dock rats. ”

“ Mick hesitated.
“Well then, good by, I can stay no longer: once more, take it, and be rich; refuse it, and beg for your life, and see your children in poverty, and your wife dying for want: that will happen to you, Mick Purcell!” said the little man with a malicious grin, which made him look ten times more ugly than ever.
“May be ’tis true,” said Mick, still hesitating: he did not know what to do—he could hardly help believing the old man, and at length in a fit of desperation he seized the bottle—“Take the cow,” said he, “and if you are telling a lie, the curse of the poor will be on you.” ”

“ He could not help turning to look after his cow; but nono was to bo soon.
“Lord between us and harm!” said Mick: “He can't belong to this earth; but whero is the cow?” Mick went homeward muttering prayers, and holding fast the bottle.
At last Mick reached his heme. “ Oh! Mick, are you come back?” said his wife. “Sure you weren’t at Cork all the way? Where is the cow? Did you sell her? Tell us every thing about it.”
So Mick had nothing left but to tell the whole story of his meeting with the little man, and how he had told Mick that the bottle was the only thing for him. ”

“ So Mick climbed up and got the bottle that had been the source of his former good fortune. By this time the men with the cudgels had pounded the company to their satisfaction. They retired to their bottle, and off went Mick with both bottles in his bosom.
As the years passed he became richer and richer, and when, in his old age, his servants broke the bottles while fighting at a wake he was careful not to squander his riches as he had previously. So he and his wife lived happily to the end of their days. ”

“ He was off to every bit of 'divarsion' in the country, and when there were big races at a distance Mick generally took the road a day beforehand, sleeping out in the soft spring night if it was dry weather, trusting to a convenient haystack or barn if it wasn't. He was known so widely that at every farmhouse along the road he was sure of a bite. And on the race-course every one was his friend; and the various parties picnicking were greeted by Mick with uproarious shouts and a flinging of his caubeen in the air, to signify his delight at meeting his friends so far from home. ”

“ Mick set it on the floor, and uttered the words: in a moment the landlord was tumbled en the floor ; ladies and gentlemen, servants and all, were running, and roaring, and sprawling, and kicking, and shrieking, until tho landlord called out, “Stop those two devils, Mick Purcell, or I’ll havo you hanged!”
“They never shall stop,” said Mick, “till I get my own bottle that I see up there at the top of that shelf.” ”

“ They were going it in fine style, when all at once Mick’s foot slipped; and, missing his guard as his opponent made a vicious cut ‘one’ at him, he received this on his chest, the cutlass cutting through his jumper and flannel and making a slight wound across his breastbone.
Had his head not been thrown backwards as he slipped, poor Mick would have had the most striking feature of his merry countenance sliced off as dexterously as if it had been a carrot! ”

“ In an instant she put every thing right; and Mick, looking at his bottle, exultingly cried out, “Bottle, do your duty!” In a twinkling two great stout men with big cudgels issued from the bottlo, and belaboured poor Mick and his wifo and all his family, till thoy lay on the floor, when in they went again. Mick, as soon as he recovered, got up and looked about him; he thought and thought, and at last he took the bottle under his coat and went to his landlord, who had a great company: ho got a servant to tell him he wanted to speak te him. ”

“ But what surprised Mick the most was, that he could see no sign of a head either upon coachman or horses. It swept rapidly by him, and he could perceive the horses raising their feet as if they were in a fine slinging trot, the coachman touching them up with his long whip, and the wheels spinning round like hoddy-doddies; still he could hear no noise, only the regular step of his gossip Darby’s horse, and the squeaking of the gudgeons of the car, that were as good as lost entirely for want of a little grease. ”

“ One day I had to go by the tavern and I see Mick Murphy tilted back in his chair, hat over eyes, thumbs in suspenders; big neck busting his shirt open, big legs busting through the pants' legs, big feet busting through the ends of his curved-up shoes, and a week's growth of pig-bristles busting out of his red face. Mick was the bold bully of the rough crowd—fellers from twenty to twenty-five. He worked till he got money enough to buy whisky, then he got drunk and licked somebody.
The course of such lads is pretty regular. Mick was about a year from robbing hen-roosts. ”

“ Gaspard returned to the house, and Mick went to the barn in which he had shut the people from Tinder Brook and unlocked the door. The man and the woman were in a tremor of fear. The fierce song of the birdman’s flight, striking down at them through the roof, had chilled them with a nameless dread. Mick gave them provisions, blankets, a kettle and frying-pan, and told them to get out and travel quick. ”

“ The recognition between the two was apparently mutual; for as Mick vaulted the table the other rushed forward, grabbed the poker from the grate, and got home on Mick's head with it. Before I could get near enough to grip, the door again banged and our visitor had disappeared.
"There was a girl in it," said Mick to me when we took the road together a fortnight later, and that was as far as he got in explanation. It was enough. I could read men a little. To Mick women—all women—were sacred creatures. In the scheme of nature woman was good and man was evil. ”

“ It is therefore impossible to give any anecdote about Mick. When the narrator’s opinion of Mick is added to Mick’s opinion of the narrator, the story could only be told in Russian. “Always have an answer ready,” was his advice, “even if it isn’t the truth—like Mr Sharp’s answer just now.” ”

“ Mick often expressed his admiration at their continued industry, not understanding the spirit which will induce such young men as them to work, even when the work is agonising. And they were equally charmed with Mick's sobriety and loyalty. ”

“ Mick’s master, an honest early-rising man, roamed up the mountain, at break of day, to view his sheep and goats, which he saw quietly browsing in various parts, but, on nearing this spot, you may imagine his astonishment, when he beheld his shepherd dancing in that most extraordinary manner; leaping, twisting and turning in every direction ”

“ Mac and Mick wandered abroad together occasionally to investigate the land—Mac more for the pleasure of getting away from the hot dusty camp, and Mick for the prospects of raising more tolerable refreshment than luke-warm rusty water from ships' tanks. They wandered to far villages where the stolid Greek peasant life was not in the least disturbed by the activity in the harbour nor the distant rumble of Gallipoli guns—except that eggs and vegetables brought wonderful money. ”

“ Whenever he's in a rage, he ates briled bones."
"'Faith, they are a brave cure for anger," said Larry; "I wouldn't be angry myself, if I had one."
Down rushed Mick, to hurry the cook—bang, twang! went the bell as he spoke. "Oh, listen to him!" said Mick: "for the tendher mercy o' Heaven, make haste!"
The cook transferred the bones from the gridiron to a hot dish.
"Oh, murther, but they're smoked!" said Mick.
"No matther," said the cook, shaking her red elbow furiously; "I'll smother the smoke with the pepper—there!—give them a good dab o' musthard now, and sarve them hot!" ”

“ There were many young men in the parish whom a walk alongside of old Mick Murdock for a couple of miles would put out of breath, while you would not see a heave, however slight, out of old Mick's chest.
Look on him now: "he has not a word to throw to a dog," as the saying has it; he is beginning to stoop in his gait, and more than once already he has struck his heel against the ground in walking. ”

“ An everlasting hate to all thy name.
Mist. Mer. Will you so, sir, how say you by that? Come, Mick, let him keep his wind to cool his pottage; we'll go to thy nurse's, Mick, she knits silk stockings, boy; and we'll knit too, boy, and be beholding to none of them all. ”

“ They waited, but no one came; so Molly put up the dishes and plates very carefully, saying, “Why, then, Mick, that was no lie sure enough; but you’ll be a rich man yet, Mick Purcell.”
Mick and his wife and children went to their bed, not to sleep, but to settle about selling the fine things they did not want, and to take more land. Mick went to Cork and sold his plate, and bought a horse and cart, and began to show that he was making money; and they did all they could to keep the bottle a secret ”

“ Mick always carried a bottle of strychnine about with him, and at every camp he poisoned little bits of meat and left them behind to kill the dingoes which abound in cattle country. He looked at the two horses—fine, stanch animals, both of them—and his heart became hot with anger. ”

“ I told you, you would be a rich man.”
“And good-bye to you, sir,” said Mick, as he turned back; “and good luck to you, and good luck to the big hill—it wants a name—Bottle Hill.—Good-bye, sir, good-bye;” so Mick walked back as fast as he could, never looking after the white-faced little gentleman and the cow, so anxious was he to bring home the bottle. Well, he arrived with it safely enough, and called out, as soon as he saw Molly,—“Oh! sure, I’ve another bottle!”
“Arrah! then have you? why, then, you’re a lucky man, Mick Purcell, that’s what you are.” ”

“ Mick, like my uncle at Tralee, has been ruined by a gift. He was once a hard-working man, and did well; until young Pierce Veogh, just after he came into possession of the house that's called “The Beg,” on the hill yonder,—which he did at his father's death,—gave Mick an ould gun once, for something I forget; and that gun has been the ruin of him. He works one day in the week to buy powder and shot; and half starves himself, and goes in rags the other six, prowling about the rocks, and firing at sea-gulls and so forth, but seldom shooting one. ”

“ Mick was as brilliant as his complexion; gay, irritable, evanescent, and unstable. Mick enjoyed life; his friend only endured it; yet Mick was always complaining of the lowness of his wages and the greatness of his toil; while Devilsdust never murmured, but read and pondered on the rights of labour, and sighed to vindicate his order.
“I have some thoughts of joining the Total Abstinence,” said Devilsdust; “ever since I read Stephen Morley’s address it has been in my mind. We shall never get our rights till we leave off consuming exciseable articles ”

“ That satisfied Mick's honour fer a bit,
⁠But still 'e picks at Keith fer exercise,
An' all the other blokes near 'as a fit
⁠To see Mick squirm at Keith's perlite replies,
Till one day Keith 'owls back "You flamin' cow!"
Then Mick permotes 'im, an' they 'as a row.
I sez "permotes 'im," fer, yeh'll understand,
⁠Ole Ginger 'as 'is pride o' class orl right;
'E's not the bloke to go an' soil 'is 'and
⁠Be stoushin' any coot that wants to fight. ”

“ They asked us to tennis parties and 'At homes.' They looked upon Mick as a gentleman farmer, not a working one, and when he told them simply and plainly that he could not afford the time for sport, when we explained that we were really going to bake and brew and milk and garden, they quietly dropped us. We know the vicar and his wife, but no one else. And the hard part for Mick is that he never mixes with his own kind. The other farmers round here are quite ignorant rustics. ”

“ Mick, moreover, was heartily fed up, he said, of hanging about this mouldy island, and he knew that he could bluff the M.O. at the new camp that he had had dysentery and was now all right; and that, if there happened to be any official papers in the camp, no one would trouble to find them, nor probably could, if they wanted to. Mac was not so keen to hurry back, but the fortnight's rest from the line and better food had set him to rights, and he fell in eventually with Mick's suggestion. ”

“ I believe if old Mick could send himself out by himself against the whole German Army he'd manage to put in some first rate fancy work in the second or two before they got him. He'd be quite capable of going off and doing grisly things that would make me faint with funk, if he was by himself, with nothing but the eye of God to look at him. And then he'd rather God wasn't there. He always was afraid of having a crowd with him. ”

“ He is a perfect Goth."
"Ah Chief, that's really because you don't know him," said Wainwright. "He's really an excellent fellow; isn't he, Billy?"
"If Mick had only a little money he would be charming," said Dunlop; "but he hasn't any. He's of some use to me, however; I've had no occasion to consult the calendar since Mick's been here. He borrows half-a-crown of me every day, and five shillings on saints'-days, and----"
"Hold on a minute, Billy," said Paul Derinzy; "if you lent Mick your clothes, you must have taken him home--to where you live, I mean ”