Neal Malone

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-à-tête continued for some time without exciting particular attention, with one exception; 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 the connubial apartment, in which everything remained very quiet for the rest of the night.

The next morning Mr. O'Connor presented himself to congratulate the tailor on his happiness. Neal, as his friend, shook hands with him, gave the schoolmaster's fingers a slight squeeze, such as a man gives who would gently entreat your sympathy. The schoolmaster looked at him, and thought he shook his head. Of this, however, he could not be certain; for, as he shook his own during the moment of observation, he concluded that it 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 does 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 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. He intended, therefore, that marriage should be nothing more than a mere parenthesis in his life--a kind of asterisk, pointing, in a note at the bottom, to this single exception in his general conduct--a nota bene to the spirit of a martial man, intimating that he had been peaceful only for a while. In truth, he was, during the influence of love over him and up to the very day of his marriage, secretly as blue-moulded as ever for want of a beating. The heroic penchant lay snugly latent in his heart, unchecked and unmodified. He flattered himself that he was achieving a capital imposition upon the world at large, that he was actually hoaxing mankind in general, and that such an excellent piece of knavish tranquillity had never been perpetrated before his time.

On the first week after his marriage there chanced to be a fair in the next market-town. Neal, after breakfast, brought forward a bunch of shillalahs, 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 blue-mowlded as ever for want of a batin'."

"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."

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

Much ingenious speculation might be indulged in upon this abrupt termination to the tailor's most formidable resolution; but, for our own part, we will prefer going on with the narrative, leaving the reader at liberty to solve the mystery as he pleases. In the meantime we say this much; let those who cannot make it out carry it to their tailor; it is a tailor's mystery, and no one has so good a right to understand it--except, perhaps, a tailor's wife.

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 afterward he felt a modest, bride-like 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 superfluity of garments, somewhat resembling a slender thread of water in a shallow summer stream nearly wasted away and surrounded by an unproportionate extent of channel.

The fourth month after the marriage arrived, 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 over-folded 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.

"Why," he answered, "only to dance at Jemmy Connolly's; I 'll be back early."

"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' ouns, woman! Whoo! I'll get enraged some time, an' play the divil! Who's afeard, I say?"

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