"To be sure ye can," muttered she, half to herself; "is it an informer's child,--not know the first rules of his trade!"
"Tear and ages, mother!" cried out the decrepit imp called Mickey, "we 're starvin' for the meat!"
"Sarve it up!" shouted the hag, with a voice of command; and she gave three knocks with her crutch on the corner of the table.
Never was command more promptly obeyed. A savory mess of that smoking compound called "Irish stew" was ladled out on the trenchers, and speedily disposed around the table, which at once was surrounded by the guests,--a place being made for myself by an admonitory stroke of Betty's crutch on the red head of a very hungry juvenile who had jostled me in his anxiety to get near the table.
Our meal had scarcely drawn to its close when the plates were removed, and preparations made for a new party; nor had I time to ask the reason, when a noisy buzz of voices without announced the coming of a numerous throng. In an instant they entered; a number of girls, of every age, from mere child to womanhood,--a ragged, tattered, reckless-looking set of creatures, whose wild, high spirits not even direst poverty could subdue. While some exchanged greetings with their friends of the other sex, others advanced to talk to Betty, or stood to warm themselves around the fire, until their supper, a similar one to our own, was got ready. My curiosity as to whence they came in such a body was satisfied by learning that they were employed at the "Mendicity Institution" during the day, and set free at nightfall to follow the bent of their own, not over well-regulated, tastes. These creatures were the ballad-singers of the city; and, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with one of the boys, they were wont to take their stand in some public thoroughfare, not only the character of the singer, but the poetry itself, taking the tone of the street; so that while some daring bit of town scandal caught the ears of College Green, a "bloody murder" or a "dying speech" formed the attraction of Thomas Street and the "Poddle."
Many years afterwards, in the checkered page of my existence, when I have sat at lordly tables and listened to the sharpened wit and polished raillery of the high-born and the gifted, my mind has often reverted to that beggar horde, and thought how readily the cutting jest was answered, how soon repartee followed attack--what quaint fancies, what droll conceits, passed through those brains, where one would have deemed there was no room for aught save brooding guilt and sad repining.