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B I Z Z AND HER FOES. 
By Mbs. S. C. Hall. 
IN THREE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. 
HERE is no use in putting 
it off any longer, ma’am,” 
said the cook ; “ the upshot 
of it will be, we shall be 
murdered intirely, if we 
don’t get a yard-dog : — 
those skelping, keeking, 
flying here and there, 
’talian greyhounds — poor 
shivering ’atomies, I call 
’em — all legs and no body — such shadders as them 
are no more use for watch-dogs, no, not so much 
as that little hairey- walker Weazel, with a head so 
like a dandelion, that if I blowed it hard enough, 
I could tell what’s o’clock.” 
There was a pause ; cook noted the unconvinced 
expression of my face, and resumed — 
“ So exposed as the place is, ma’am ! — standing 
in a corner, and not a hap’orth to hinder the stable 
and all belonging to it. — Oh, ma’am dear, what are 
ye saying about the Po-leese 1 I’d take an oath this 
blessed minute on all the books that ever war shut 
or opened, that the last of them blue-bottles that 
ever rounded the corner of the Gloucester- road, 
was this day week. You know, ma’am, we have 
two of them ’talian greyhounds, and you yourself 
calls them Ninon the Wise and Folly the Foolish, — 
well, I opened the gate to see if I could see the 
milk coming down the road, and to keep Folly in, I 
lifts her in my arms, when she takes a flying leap 
after the tollman’s magpie, when up he sidles ” 
“ Who 1 the magpie, cook 1 ” 
“No, ma’am, the Foleese ; ‘ Don’t agitate yourself, 
good woman,’ he says, ‘ the weather’s too warm for 
agitation, stand still, and call the little beast : 
you’ll never catch her.’ ‘ Do your duty,’ I says, 
‘you’re long and lane enough to catch a dragon-fly, 
let alone a ’talian greyhound, — “ baste,” indeed ! — I 
only wish I had the basting of you ! and how dare 
you call me “ good woman ” 1 ’ I says, for I was 
struck dumb by his impidence, and hadn’t a word 
in my head ; and with that, before I could draw my 
breath, he takes off his hat, that isn’t a hat, but a 
‘ shiney,’ and says, ‘ I ask your pardon, I did not 
intend to call you out of your name.’ Oh, didn’t 
VOL. II. VIII. 
I wish for a stone in a stocking, and him and me on 
the fair green of Ballynatrent ! ” 
Now this was a hasty admission on the part of 
our excellent cook, which she would not have made 
in cold blood. It is by no means an uncommon 
thing to find Irishmen in that, or indeed I am sorry 
to say, in any class of life, stammer and fidget, and 
look confused, when you intimate that they are 
natives of the Green Isle ; and I am ashamed to 
confess that I often meet with Irish gentlemen, 
who, if they do not deny their country, are too 
ready to deal it a vigorous kick, as if by spurning 
the land of their birth they elevate themselves ; but 
not so with Irish-women : their eyes sparkle, and 
their cheeks flush, and their sweet voices (none 
the less sweet for the intoning their enemies call 
“ brogue ”) speak out frankly what they feel and 
believe— that with all her faults, there is no country 
in the world to be compared to their own “ darling 
Ireland.” I reverence that love of native land. I 
need not tell my readers, young or old, to what 
country our cook belonged ; you could not hear the 
sound of her voice, you could not look into her soft 
grey eyes fringed by long black lashes, you could not 
expei-ience her desire to oblige, no matter at what 
personal sacrifice, without knowing at once that 'she 
was a daughter of the “ Emerald Isle.” Every one 
said she was too handsome fora cook, but what was 
better, she was a grateful and affectionate servant, 
ready, as she declared, at any time “to go to the 
world’s end through fire and water to serve me or 
mine.” That I did not require, but I should have 
been glad, if she had put things in their right 
places, and did not make a flat-iron do duty as a 
door-weight, and oblige the door-weight to act as a 
coal-hammer: the housemaid once declared she made 
her bed with the fire-shovel — that was a libel. But 
the remarkable thing about our cook was her 
stoutly denying she was Irish : — “ Irish ! she had no 
call to them, her grandfather indeed might have 
been born there, or her grandmother, but that did 
not make her Irish, she hated the very sound of the 
brogue ! ” After such a declaration, she was par- 
ticularly careful to call plates “ pleets,” lisping her 
words as finely as her own mincing-machine minced 
B 
