"I "ll not sit down, I "ll stand up."
"Well, will you stand up till you get the rent, Mrs. Malone?"
"I "ll sit down," replied the landlady, suiting the action to the words so vigorously that the attic rattled.
"Do you know, Mrs. Malone, I "ve written you a song?"
"I wants no song. I have no notes in me voice."
"Faith," said Moore, with a chuckle, "we are alike then, for I "ve none in my pocket."
"I wants me rint."
"Be easy, Mrs. Malone," said Moore, in a conciliatory tone and forthwith broke into song:
"Oh, the days are gone when beauty bright My heart"s chain wove--"
"Where is the rint?" interrupted the irate landlady, but Moore continued his singing, at the same time helping himself to a seat on the table beside her.
"When all my dreams by day or night Were love, still love--"
"The rint is no dream," exclaimed Mrs. Malone, "and by gorry, I "ll have it, me canary-bird."
"New hopes may bloom, And days may come Of milder, calmer beam--"
"Not till I have ivery penny due me," a.s.serted Mrs. Malone, turning a deaf ear to the pathos and sentiment with which the poet"s beautiful voice was investing the simple words of the song.
"But there"s nothing half so sweet in life As Love"s young dream--"
"I "ll prefer the rint a t"ousand times," observed Mrs. Malone, quite unaffected.
"No, there"s nothing half so sweet in life As Love"s young dream."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "There"s nothing half so sweet in life as Love"s young dream."]
As the words of the song died away in a sigh of sentimental melody, Moore leaned forward and touched the old woman on the shoulder, hoping that he had struck some responsive chord of memory in her recollections of long-departed youth, but he was doomed to disappointment, for she smote the table with one calloused fist and called upon the saints to witness and sustain her resolve to accept nothing but the whole amount of the money due her.
Nothing daunted, Moore slipped off the table and standing behind his determined creditor began another verse, throwing even more feeling into his voice as he proceeded:
"No,--that hallowed form is ne"er forgot Which first love traced--"
"I "ll have that rint, Tom Moore, song or no song," interrupted Mrs.
Malone, but her tone was not quite so quarrelsome as before, and Moore from this drew encouragement that lent double sympathy to his music as he continued:
"Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot On memory"s waste--"
"I wants me rint," remarked Mrs. Malone, but her voice had lost its a.s.sertive defiance.
""T was odor fled As soon as shed--"
"I "ll have me rint, Tom Moore," said the landlady plaintively.
""Twas morning"s winged dream; "Twas a light that ne"er can shine again, On life"s dull stream--"
An audible sniff came from beneath the frill of Mrs. Malone"s cap and she cleared her throat noisily. Moore leaned over her and tenderly and slowly breathed forth the last words of his song, the mournful cadences stealing from his lips sweet and low and laden with tears, supremely touching in their plaintive harmony, for he sang as though it was to the hopeless love that filled his heart"s innermost recess that he now gave utterance.
"No, there "s _nothing_ half so sweet in life As Love"s young dream."
The last words died away, and for a moment the old attic was silent.
Then Mrs. Malone rose from her seat with a stifled sob, and, wiping her eyes, started toward the door.
"And the rent, Mrs. Malone?" asked Moore, timidly.
"You--you rapscallion," she said, brokenly, "to make an old woman like me cry. Ah, bless you, Tom Moore, for it"s the old days you "ve brought back to me."
"But the rent?"
"May your voice never grow less, Tom Moore. You--You--!"
"Well, Mrs. Malone?"
"You have me rint Satherday or there "ll be throuble."
And, blowing her nose vigorously, the relenting landlady left the attic to its inhabitants.
""O-o-ray! "O-o-ray!" shouted Buster in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, seizing Lord Castlereagh by the front paws and dancing around in a circle in his delight. "Till Sat.u.r.day, till Sat.u.r.day! "O-oray! "O-oray!"
"Buster, from now on, we can never complain of these apartments as expensive," said Moore, fanning himself by the window.
"No, sir? Why not?" asked Buster.
"Because I got them for a song," replied the poet. "A cursed bad joke, Buster, even if I did make it myself."
_Chapter Thirteen_