Unhappily for Case’s scheme of quiet, Wicklow just then was in a pretty riot, A fact recorded in each day’s diurnals, Things, Case was not accustomed to peruse, Careless of news; But Pompey always read these bloody journals, Full of Kilmany and Killmore work, The freaks of some O’Shaunessy’s shillaly, Of morning frays by some O’Brien Burke, Or horrid nightly outrage by some Daly; How scums deserving of the Devil’s ladle, Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it, And if he found an infant in the cradle Stern Rock would hardly hesitate to rock it;-- In fact, he read of burner and of killer, And Irish ravages, day after day, Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say, That “Pompey could not sleep on _Pompey’s Pillar_.” Judge then the horror of the nigger’s face To find--with such impressions of that dire land-- That Case,--his master, was a packing case For Ireland! He saw in fearful reveries arise, Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men Whose fame associate with Irish plots is, Fitzgeralds--Tones--O’Connors--Hare--and then “Those _Emmetts_,” not so “little in his eyes” As Doctor Watts’s! He felt himself piked, roasted--carv’d and hack’d, His big black burly body seemed in fact A pincushion for Terror’s pins and needles,-- Oh, how he wish’d himself beneath the sun Of Afric--or in far Barbadoes--one Of Bishop Coleridge’s new _black beadles_. Full of this fright, With broken peace and broken English choking, As black as any raven and as croaking, Pompey rushed in upon his master’s sight, Plump’d on his knees, and clasp’d his sable digits, Thus stirring Curiosity’s sharp fidgets-- “O Massa!--Massa!--Colonel!--Massa Case,-- Not go to Ireland!--Ireland dam bad place; Dem take our bloods--dem Irish--every drop-- Oh why for Massa go so far a distance To have him life?”----Here Pompey made a stop, Putting an awful period to existence. “Not go to Ireland--not to Ireland, fellow, And murder’d--why should I be murder’d, Sirrah?” Cried Case, with anger’s tinge upon his yellow,-- Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mirror The Colonel’s saffron, and his own japan,-- “Well, what has that to do--quick--speak outright, boy?” “O Massa”--(so the explanation ran) “Massa be killed--’cause Massa _Orange Man_, And Pompey killed--’cause Pompey not a _White Boy_!” [Illustration: POMPEY’S PILLAR.] [Illustration: “O, NOTHING IN LIFE CAN SADDEN US.”] THE SORROWS OF AN UNDERTAKER.