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Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1

by Charles Lever · English · Gutenberg #8577 · 983,041 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1

Author: Charles Lever


        
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Language: English

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CHARLES O’MALLEY


The Irish Dragoon


BY CHARLES LEVER.


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ.


IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.


[Illustration: THE SUNK FENCE]


TO THE

MOST NOBLE THE MARQUESS OF DOURO, M.P., D.C.L., ETC., ETC.

    MY DEAR LORD,--

    The imperfect attempt to picture forth some scenes of the most
    brilliant period of my country’s history might naturally suggest their
    dedication to the son of him who gave that era its glory. I feel,
    however, in the weakness of the effort, the presumption of such a
    thought, and would simply ask of you to accept these volumes as a
    souvenir of many delightful hours passed long since in your society,
    and a testimony of the deep pride with which I regard the honor of your
    friendship.

    Believe me, my dear Lord, with every respect and esteem,

    Yours, most sincerely,

    THE AUTHOR.

    BRUSSELS, November, 1841.




A WORD OF EXPLANATION.


KIND PUBLIC,--

Having so lately taken my leave of the stage, in a farewell benefit, it is
but fitting that I should explain the circumstances which once more bring
me before you,--that I may not appear intrusive, where I have met with but
too much indulgence.

A blushing _debutante_--_entre nous_, the most impudent Irishman that ever
swaggered down Sackville Street--has requested me to present him to
your acquaintance. He has every ambition to be a favorite with you; but
says--God forgive him--he is too bashful for the foot-lights.

He has remarked---as, doubtless, many others have done--upon what very
slight grounds, and with what slender pretension, _my_ Confessions have
met with favor at the hands of the press and the public; and the idea has
occurred to him to indite his _own_. Had his determination ended here,
I should have nothing to object to; but unfortunately, he expects me to
become his editor, and in some sort responsible for the faults of his
production. I have wasted much eloquence and more breath in assuring him
that I was no tried favorite of the public, who dared take liberties
with them; that the small rag of reputation I enjoyed, was a very scanty
covering for my own nakedness; that the plank which swam with one, would
most inevitably sink with two; and lastly, that the indulgence so often
bestowed upon a first effort is as frequently converted into censure on the
older offender. My arguments have, however, totally failed, and he remains
obdurate and unmoved. Under these circumstances I have yielded; and as,
happily for me, the short and pithy direction to the river Thames, in the
Critic, “to keep between its banks,” has been imitated by my friend, I find
all that is required of me is to write my name upon the title and go in
peace. Such, he informs me, is modern editorship.

In conclusion, I would beg, that if the debt he now incurs at your hands
remain unpaid, you would kindly bear in mind that your remedy lies against
the drawer of the bill and not against its mere humble indorser,

HARRY LORREQUER

BRUSSELS, March, 1840.




PREFACE

The success of Harry Lorrequer was the reason for writing Charles O’Malley.
That I myself was in no wise prepared for the favor the public bestowed on
my first attempt is easily enough understood. The ease with which I strung
my stories together,--and in reality the Confessions of Harry Lorrequer are
little other than a note-book of absurd and laughable incidents,--led me
to believe that I could draw on this vein of composition without any limit
whatever. I felt, or thought I felt, an inexhaustible store of fun and
buoyancy within me, and I began to have a misty, half-confused impression
that Englishmen generally labored under a sad-colored temperament, took
depressing views of life, and were proportionately grateful to any one who
would rally them even passingly out of their despondency, and give them a
laugh without much trouble for going in search of it.

When I set to work to write Charles O’Malley I was, as I have ever been,
very low with fortune, and the success of a new venture was pretty much as
eventful to me as the turn of the right color at _rouge-et-noir_. At the
same time I had then an amount of spring in my temperament, and a power of
enjoying life which I can honestly say I never found surpassed. The world
had for me all the interest of an admirable comedy, in which the part
allotted myself, if not a high or a foreground one, was eminently suited
to my taste, and brought me, besides, sufficiently often on the stage to
enable me to follow all the fortunes of the piece. Brussels, where I was
then living, was adorned at the period by a most agreeable English society.
Some leaders of the fashionable world of London had come there to refit and
recruit, both in body and estate. There were several pleasant and a great
number of pretty people among them; and so far as I could judge, the
fashionable dramas of Belgrave Square and its vicinity were being performed
in the Rue Royale and the Boulevard de Waterloo with very considerable
success. There were dinners, balls, déjeûners, and picnics in the Bois de
Cambre, excursions to Waterloo, and select little parties to Bois-fort,--a
charming little resort in the forest whose intense cockneyism became
perfectly inoffensive as being in a foreign land, and remote from the
invasion of home-bred vulgarity. I mention all these things to show the
adjuncts by which I was aided, and the rattle of gayety by which I was, as
it were, “accompanied,” when I next tried my voice.

The soldier element tinctured strongly our society, and I will say most
agreeably. Among those whom I remember best were several old Peninsulars.
Lord Combermere was of this number, and another of our set was an officer
who accompanied, if indeed he did not command, the first boat party who
crossed the Douro. It is needless to say how I cultivated a society so
full of all the storied details I was eager to obtain, and how generously
disposed were they to give me all the information I needed. On topography
especially were they valuable to me, and with such good result that I have
been more than once complimented on the accuracy of my descriptions of
places which I have never seen and whose features I have derived entirely
from the narratives of my friends.

When, therefore, my publishers asked me could I write a story in the
Lorrequer vein, in which active service and military adventure could figure
more prominently than mere civilian life, and where the achievements of a
British army might form the staple of the narrative,--when this question
was propounded me, I was ready to reply: Not one, but fifty. Do not mistake
me, and suppose that any overweening confidence in my literary powers would
have emboldened me to make this reply; my whole strength lay in the fact
that I could not recognize anything like literary effort in the matter. If
the world would only condescend to read that which I wrote precisely as I
was in the habit of talking, nothing could be easier than for me to occupy
them. Not alone was it very easy to me, but it was intensely interesting
and amusing to myself, to be so engaged.

The success of Harry Lorrequer had been freely wafted across the German
ocean, but even in its mildest accents it was very intoxicating incense to
me; and I set to work on my second book with a thrill of hope as regards
the world’s favor which--and it is no small thing to say it--I can yet
recall.

I can recall, too, and I am afraid more vividly still, some of the
difficulties of my task when I endeavored to form anything like an accurate
or precise idea of some campaigning incident or some passage of arms from
the narratives of two distinct and separate “eye-witnesses.” What mistrust
I conceived for all eye-witnesses from my own brief experience of their
testimonies! What an impulse did it lend me to study the nature and the
temperament of narrator, as indicative of the peculiar coloring he might
lend his narrative; and how it taught me to know the force of the French
epigram that has declared how it was entirely the alternating popularity of
Marshal Soult that decided whether he won or lost the battle of Toulouse.

While, however, I was sifting these evidences, and separating, as well as
I might, the wheat from the chaff, I was in a measure training myself for
what, without my then knowing it, was to become my career in life. This was
not therefore altogether without a certain degree of labor, but so light
and pleasant withal, so full of picturesque peeps at character and humorous
views of human nature, that it would be the very rankest ingratitude of me
if I did not own that I gained all my earlier experiences of the world in
very pleasant company,--highly enjoyable at the time, and with matter for
charming souvenirs long after.

That certain traits of my acquaintances found themselves embodied in some
of the characters of this story I do not to deny. The principal of natural
selection adapts itself to novels as to Nature, and it would have demanded
an effort above my strength to have disabused myself at the desk of all
the impressions of the dinner-table, and to have forgotten features which
interested or amused me.

One of the personages of my tale I drew, however, with very little aid from
fancy. I would go so far as to say that I took him from the life, if my
memory did not confront me with the lamentable inferiority of my picture to
the great original it was meant to portray.

With the exception of the quality of courage, I never met a man who
contained within himself so many of the traits of Falstaff as the
individual who furnished me with Major Monsoon. But the major--I must
call him so, though that rank was far beneath his own--was a man of
unquestionable bravery. His powers as a story-teller were to my thinking
unrivalled; the peculiar reflections on life which he would passingly
introduce, the wise apothegms, were after a morality essentially of his own
invention. Then he would indulge in the unsparing exhibition of himself in
situations such as other men would never have confessed to, all blended up
with a racy enjoyment of life, dashed occasionally with sorrow that our
tenure of it was short of patriarchal. All these, accompanied by a face
redolent of intense humor, and a voice whose modulations were managed with
the skill of a consummate artist,--all these, I say, were above me to
convey; nor indeed as I re-read any of the adventures in which he figures,
am I other than ashamed at the weakness of my drawing and the poverty of my
coloring.

That I had a better claim to personify him than is always the lot of a
novelist; that I possessed, so to say, a vested interest in his life and
adventures,--I will relate a little incident in proof; and my accuracy, if
necessary, can be attested by another actor in the scene, who yet survives.

I was living a bachelor life at Brussels, my family being at Ostende
for the bathing, during the summer of 1840. The city was comparatively
empty,--all the so-called society being absent at the various spas or baths
of Germany. One member of the British legation, who remained at his post to
represent the mission, and myself, making common cause of our desolation
and ennui, spent much of our time together, and dined _tête-à-tête_ every
day.

It chanced that one evening, as we were hastening through the park on
our way to dinner, we espied the major--for as major I must speak of
him--lounging along with that half-careless, half-observant air we had both
of us remarked as indicating a desire to be somebody’s, anybody’s guest,
rather than surrender himself to the homeliness of domestic fare.

“There’s that confounded old Monsoon,” cried my diplomatic friend. “It’s
all up if he sees us, and I can’t endure him.”

Now, I must remark that my friend, though very far from insensible to the
humoristic side of the major’s character, was not always in the vein to
enjoy it; and when so indisposed he could invest the object of his dislike
with something little short of antipathy. “Promise me,” said he, as Monsoon
came towards us,--“promise me, you’ll not ask him to dinner.” Before I
could make any reply, the major was shaking a hand of either of us, and
rapturously expatiating over his good luck at meeting us. “Mrs. M.,” said
he, “has got a dreary party of old ladies to dine with her, and I have come
out here to find some pleasant fellow to join me, and take our mutton-chop
together.”

“We’re behind our time, Major,” said my friend, “sorry to leave you
so abruptly, but must push on. Eh, Lorrequer,” added he, to evoke
corroboration on my part.

“Harry says nothing of the kind,” replied Monsoon, “he says, or he’s going
to say, ‘Major, I have a nice bit of dinner waiting for me at home, enough
for two, will feed three, or if there be a short-coming, nothing easier
than to eke out the deficiency by another bottle of Moulton; come along
with us then, Monsoon, and we shall be all the merrier for your company.’”

Repeating his last words, “Come along, Monsoon,” etc., I passed my arm
within his, and away we went. For a moment my friend tried to get free and
leave me, but I held him fast and carried him along in spite of himself. He
was, however, so chagrined and provoked that till the moment we reached my
door he never uttered a word, nor paid the slightest attention to
Monsoon, who talked away in a vein that occasionally made gravity all but
impossible.

Our dinner proceeded drearily enough, the diplomatist’s stiffness never
relaxed for a moment, and my own awkwardness damped all my attempts at
conversation. Not so, however, Monsoon, he ate heartily, approved of
everything, and pronounced my wine to be exquisite. He gave us a perfect
discourse on sherry and Spanish wines in general, told us the secret of the
Amontillado flavor, and explained that process of browning by boiling down
wine which some are so fond of in England. At last, seeing perhaps that the
protection had little charm for us, with his accustomed tact, he diverged
into anecdote. “I was once fortunate enough,” said he, “to fall upon some
of that choice sherry from the St. Lucas Luentas which is always reserved
for royalty. It was a pale wine, delicious in the drinking, and leaving no
more flavor in the mouth than a faint dryness that seemed to say, another
glass. Shall I tell you how I came by it?” And scarcely pausing for reply,
he told the story of having robbed his own convoy, and stolen the wine he
was in charge of for safe conveyance.

I wish I could give any, even the weakest idea of how he narrated that
incident,--the struggle that he portrayed between duty and temptation, and
the apologetic tone of his voice in which he explained that the frame of
mind that succeeds to any yielding to seductive influences, is often, in
the main, more profitable to a man than is the vain-glorious sense of
having resisted a temptation. “Meekness is the mother of all the virtues,”
 said he, “and there is no being meek without frailty.” The story, told as
he told it, was too much for the diplomatist’s gravity, he resisted all
signs of attention as long as he was able, and at last fairly roared out
with laughter.

As soon as I myself recovered from the effects of his drollery, I said,
“Major, I have a proposition to make you. Let me tell the story in print,
and I’ll give you five naps.”

“Are you serious, Harry?” asked he. “Is this on honor?”

“On honor, assuredly,” I replied.

“Let me have the money down, on the nail, and I’ll give you leave to have
me and my whole life, every adventure that ever befell me, ay, and if you
like, every moral reflection that my experiences have suggested.”

“Done!” cried I, “I agree.”

“Not so fast,” cried the diplomatist, “we must make a protocol of this; the
high contracting parties must know what they give and what they receive,
I’ll draw out the treaty.”

He did so at full length on a sheet of that solemn blue-tinted paper, so
dedicated to despatch purposes; he duly set fourth the concession and the
consideration. We each signed the document; he witnessed and sealed it; and
Monsoon pocketed my five napoleons, filling a bumper to any success the
bargain might bring me, and of which I have never had reason to express
deep disappointment.

This document, along with my university degree, my commission in a militia
regiment, and a vast amount of letters very interesting to me, was seized
by the Austrian authorities on the way from Como to Florence, in the August
of 1847, being deemed part of a treasonable correspondence,--probably
purposely allegorical in form,--and never restored to me. I fairly own that
I’d give all the rest willingly to repossess myself of the Monsoon treaty,
not a little for the sake of that quaint old autograph, faintly shaken by
the quiet laugh with which he wrote it.

That I did not entirely fail in giving my major some faint resemblance
to the great original from whom I copied him, I may mention that he was
speedily recognized in print by the Marquis of Londonderry, the well-known
Sir Charles Stuart of the Peninsular campaign. “I know that fellow well,”
 said he, “he once sent me a challenge, and I had to make him a very humble
apology. The occasion was this: I had been out with a single aide-de-camp
to make a reconnaissance in front of Victor’s division; and to avoid
attracting any notice, we covered over our uniform with two common gray
overcoats which reached to the feet, and effectually concealed our rank as
officers. Scarcely, however, had we topped a hill which commanded the view
of the French, than a shower of shells flew over and around us. Amazed to
think how we could have been so quickly noticed, I looked around me, and
discovered, quite close in my rear, your friend Monsoon with what he called
his staff,--a popinjay set of rascals dressed out in green and gold, and
with more plumes and feathers than the general staff ever boasted. Carried
away by momentary passion at the failure of my reconnaissance, I burst out
with some insolent allusion to the harlequin assembly which had drawn the
French fire upon us. Monsoon saluted me respectfully, and retired without a
word; but I had scarcely reached my quarters when a ‘friend’ of his waited
on me with a message, a very categorical message it was, too, ‘it must be a
meeting or an ample apology.’ I made the apology, a most full one, for the
major was right, and I had not a fraction of reason to sustain me in my
conduct, and we have been the best of friends ever since.”

I myself had heard the incident before this from Monsoon, but told among
other adventures whose exact veracity I was rather disposed to question,
and did not therefore accord it all the faith that was its due; and I admit
that the accidental corroboration of this one event very often served to
puzzle me afterwards, when I listened to stories in which the major seemed
a second Munchausen, but might, like in this of the duel, have been among
the truest and most matter-of-fact of historians. May the reader be not
less embarrassed than myself, is my sincere, if not very courteous, prayer.

I have no doubt myself, that often in recounting some strange incident,--a
personal experience it always was,--he was himself more amused by the
credulity of the hearers, and the amount of interest he could excite in
them, than were they by the story. He possessed the true narrative gusto,
and there was a marvellous instinct in the way in which he would vary a
tale to suit the tastes of an audience; while his moralizings were almost
certain to take the tone of a humoristic quiz on the company.

Though fully aware that I was availing myself of the contract that
delivered him into my hands, and dining with me two or three days a week,
he never lapsed into any allusion to his appearance in print; and the story
had been already some weeks published before he asked me to lend him “that
last thing--he forgot the name of it--I was writing.”

Of Frank Webber I have said, in a former notice, that he was one of my
earliest friends, my chum in college, and in the very chambers where I have
located Charles O’Malley, in Old Trinity. He was a man of the highest order
of abilities, and with a memory that never forgot, but ruined and run to
seed by the idleness that came of a discursive, uncertain temperament.
Capable of anything, he spent his youth in follies and eccentricities;
every one of which, however, gave indications of a mind inexhaustible in
resources, and abounding in devices and contrivances that none other but
himself would have thought of. Poor fellow, he died young; and perhaps it
is better it should have been so. Had he lived to a later day, he would
most probably have been found a foremost leader of Fenianism; and from
what I knew of him, I can say he would have been a more dangerous enemy to
English rule than any of those dealers in the petty larceny of rebellion we
have lately seen among us.

I have said that of Mickey Free I had not one but one thousand types.
Indeed, I am not quite sure that in my last visit to Dublin, I did not
chance on a living specimen of the “Free” family, much readier in repartée,
quicker with an apropos, and droller in illustration than my own Mickey.
This fellow was “boots” at a great hotel in Sackville Street; and I owe him
more amusement and some heartier laughs than it has been always my fortune
to enjoy in a party of wits. His criticisms on my sketches of Irish
character were about the shrewdest and the best I ever listened to; and
that I am not bribed to this by any flattery, I may remark that they were
more often severe than complimentary, and that he hit every blunder of
image, every mistake in figure, of my peasant characters, with an acuteness
and correctness which made me very grateful to know that his daily
occupations were limited to blacking boots, and not polishing off authors.

I believe I have now done with my confessions, except I should like to own
that this story was the means of according me a more heartfelt glow of
satisfaction, a more gratifying sense of pride, than anything I ever have
or ever shall write, and in this wise. My brother, at that time the rector
of an Irish parish, once forwarded to me a letter from a lady unknown to
him, but who had heard he was the brother of “Harry Lorrequer,” and who
addressed him not knowing where a letter might be directed to myself. The
letter was the grateful expression of a mother, who said, “I am the
widow of a field officer, and with an only son, for whom I obtained a
presentation to Woolwich; but seeing in my boy’s nature certain traits of
nervousness and timidity which induced me to hesitate on embarking him in
the career of a soldier, I became very unhappy and uncertain which course
to decide on.

“While in this state of uncertainty, I chanced to make him a birthday
present of ‘Charles O’Malley,’ the reading of which seemed to act like a
charm on his whole character, inspiring him with a passion for movement and
adventure, and spiriting him to an eager desire for a military life. Seeing
that this was no passing enthusiasm, but a decided and determined bent,
I accepted the cadetship for him; and his career has been not alone
distinguished as a student, but one which has marked him out for an almost
hare-brained courage, and for a dash and heroism that give high promise for
his future.

“Thank your brother for me,” wrote she, “a mother’s thanks for the welfare
of an only son; and say how I wish that my best wishes for him and his
could recompense him for what I owe him.”

I humbly hope that it may not be imputed to me as unpardonable vanity,--the
recording of this incident. It gave me an intense pleasure when I heard it;
and now, as I look back on it, it invests this story for myself with an
interest which nothing else that I have written can afford me.

I have now but to repeat what I have declared in former editions, my
sincere gratitude for the favor the public still continues to bestow
on me,--a favor which probably associates the memory of this book with
whatever I have since done successfully, and compels me to remember that
to the popularity of “Charles O’Malley” I am indebted for a great share of
that kindliness in criticism, and that geniality in judgment, which--for
more than a quarter of a century--my countrymen have graciously bestowed on
their faithful friend and servant,

CHARLES LEVER.

TRIESTE, 1872.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

I.       DALY’S CLUB-HOUSE
II.      THE ESCAPE
III.     MR. BLAKE
IV.      THE HUNT
V.       THE DRAWING-ROOM
VI.      THE DINNER
VII.     THE FLIGHT FROM GURT-NA-MORRA
VIII.    THE DUEL
IX.      THE RETURN
X.       THE ELECTION
XI.      AN ADVENTURE
XII.     MICKEY FREE
XIII.    THE JOURNEY
XIV.     DUBLIN
XV.      CAPTAIN POWER
XVI.     THE VICE-PROVOST
XVII.    TRINITY COLLEGE.--A LECTURE
XVIII.   THE INVITATION.--THE WAGER
XIX.     THE BALL
XX.      THE LAST NIGHT IN TRINITY
XXI.     THE PHOENIX PARK
XXII.    THE ROAD
XXIII.   CORK
XXIV.    THE ADJUTANT’S DINNER
XXV.     THE ENTANGLEMENT
XXVI.    THE PREPARATION
XXVII.   THE SUPPER
XXVIII.  THE VOYAGE
XXIX.    THE ADJUTANT’S STORY.--LIFE IN DERBY
XXX.     FRED POWER’S ADVENTURE IN PHILIPSTOWN
XXXI.    THE VOYAGE CONTINUED
XXXII.   MR. SPARKS’S STORY
XXXIII.  THE SKIPPER
XXXIV.   THE LAND
XXXV.    MAJOR MONSOON
XXXVI.   THE LANDING
XXXVII.  LISBON
XXXVIII. THE RUA NUOVA
XXXIX.   THE VILLA
XL.      THE DINNER
XLI.     THE ROUTE
XLII.    THE FAREWELL
XLIII.   THE MARCH
XLIV.    THE BIVOUAC
XLV.     THE DOURO
XLVI.    THE MORNING
XLVII.   THE REVIEW
XLVIII.  THE QUARREL
XLIX.    THE ROUTE CONTINUED
L.       THE WATCH-FIRE
LI.      THE MARCH
LII.     THE PAGE
LIII.    ALVAS
LIV.     THE SUPPER
LV.      THE LEGION
LVI.     THE DEPARTURE
LVII.    CUESTA
LVIII.   THE LETTER
LXIX.    MAJOR O’SHAUGHNESSY
LX.      PRELIMINARIES
LXI.     ALL RIGHT
LXII.    THE DUEL
LXIII.   NEWS FROM GALWAY
LXIV.    AN ADVENTURE WITH SIR ARTHUR
LXV.     TALAVERA
LXVI.    NIGHT AFTER TALAVERA
LXVII.   THE OUTPOST




ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ IN VOL. I

Etchings
THE SUNK FENCE
THE RESCUE
CHARLES POPS THE QUESTION
THE SKIRMISH

Illustrations in the Text
MR. BLAKE’S DRESSING-ROOM
THE ELECTION
MR. CROW WELL PLUCKED
FRANK WEBBER AT HIS STUDIES
MISS JUDY MACAN
THE ADJUTANT’S AFTER-DINNER RIDE
THE RIVAL FLUNKIES
MAJOR MONSOON AND DONNA MARIA
THE SALUTATION
A TOUCH AT LEAP-FROG WITH NAPOLEON
MAJOR MONSOON TRYING TO CHARGE
MR. FREE’S SONG
THE COAT OF MAIL




CHARLES O’MALLEY.


THE IRISH DRAGOON.




CHAPTER I.


DALY’S CLUB-HOUSE.

The rain was dashing in torrents against the window-panes, and the wind
sweeping in heavy and fitful gusts along the dreary and deserted streets,
as a party of three persons sat over their wine, in that stately old pile
which once formed the resort of the Irish Members, in College Green,
Dublin, and went by the name of Daly’s Club-House. The clatter of falling
tiles and chimney-pots, the jarring of the window-frames, and howling of
the storm without seemed little to affect the spirits of those within as
they drew closer to a blazing fire before which stood a small table covered
with the remains of a dessert, and an abundant supply of bottles, whose
characteristic length of neck indicated the rarest wines of France and
Germany; while the portly magnum of claret--the wine _par excellence_ of
every Irish gentleman of the day--passed rapidly from hand to hand, the
conversation did not languish, and many a deep and hearty laugh followed
the stories which every now and then were told, as some reminiscence of
early days was recalled, or some trait of a former companion remembered.

One of the party, however, was apparently engrossed by other thoughts than
those of the mirth and merriment around; for in the midst of all he would
turn suddenly from the others, and devote himself to a number of scattered
sheets of paper, upon which he had written some lines, but whose crossed
and blotted sentences attested how little success had waited upon
his literary labors. This individual was a short, plethoric-looking,
white-haired man of about fifty, with a deep, round voice, and a chuckling,
smothering laugh, which, whenever he indulged not only shook his own ample
person, but generally created a petty earthquake on every side of him. For
the present, I shall not stop to particularize him more closely; but when I
add that the person in question was a well-known member of the Irish House
of Commons, whose acute understanding and practical good sense were veiled
under an affected and well-dissembled habit of blundering that did far
more for his party than the most violent and pointed attacks of his more
accurate associates, some of my readers may anticipate me in pronouncing
him to be Sir Harry Boyle. Upon his left sat a figure the most unlike him
possible. He was a tall, thin, bony man, with a bolt-upright air and a most
saturnine expression; his eyes were covered by a deep green shade, which
fell far over his face, but failed to conceal a blue scar that crossing his
cheek ended in the angle of his mouth, and imparted to that feature, when
he spoke, an apparently abortive attempt to extend towards his eyebrow; his
upper lip was covered with a grizzly and ill-trimmed mustache, which added
much to the ferocity of his look, while a thin and pointed beard on his
chin gave an apparent length to the whole face that completed its rueful
character. His dress was a single-breasted, tightly buttoned frock, in one
button-hole of which a yellow ribbon was fastened, the decoration of a
foreign service, which conferred upon its wearer the title of count; and
though Billy Considine, as he was familiarly called by his friends, was
a thorough Irishman in all his feelings and affections, yet he had no
objection to the designation he had gained in the Austrian army. The Count
was certainly no beauty, but somehow, very few men of his day had a fancy
for telling him so. A deadlier hand and a steadier eye never covered his
man in the Phoenix; and though he never had a seat in the House, he was
always regarded as one of the government party, who more than once had
damped the ardor of an opposition member by the very significant threat
of “setting Billy at him.” The third figure of the group was a large,
powerfully built, and handsome man, older than either of the others, but
not betraying in his voice or carriage any touch of time. He was attired in
the green coat and buff vest which formed the livery of the club; and in
his tall, ample forehead, clear, well-set eye, and still handsome mouth,
bore evidence that no great flattery was necessary at the time which called
Godfrey O’Malley the handsomest man in Ireland.

“Upon my conscience,” said Sir Harry, throwing down his pen with an air of
ill-temper, “I can make nothing of it! I have got into such an infernal
habit of making bulls, that I can’t write sense when I want it!”

“Come, come,” said O’Malley, “try again, my dear fellow. If you can’t
succeed, I’m sure Billy and I have no chance.”

“What have you written? Let us see,” said Considine, drawing the paper
towards him, and holding it to the light. “Why, what the devil is all this?
You have made him ‘drop down dead after dinner of a lingering illness
brought on by the debate of yesterday.’”

“Oh, impossible!”

“Well, read it yourself; there it is. And, as if to make the thing less
credible, you talk of his ‘Bill for the Better Recovery of Small Debts.’
I’m sure, O’Malley, your last moments were not employed in that manner.”

“Come, now,” said Sir Harry, “I’ll set all to rights with a postscript.
‘Any one who questions the above statement is politely requested to call on
Mr. Considine, 16 Kildare Street, who will feel happy to afford him every
satisfaction upon Mr. O’Malley’s decease, or upon miscellaneous matters.”

“Worse and worse,” said O’Malley. “Killing another man will never persuade
the world that I’m dead.”

“But we’ll wake you, and have a glorious funeral.”

“And if any man doubt the statement, I’ll call him out,” said the Count.

“Or, better still,” said Sir Harry, “O’Malley has his action at law for
defamation.”

“I see I’ll never get down to Galway at this rate,” said O’Malley; “and as
the new election takes place on Tuesday week, time presses. There are more
writs flying after me this instant than for all the government boroughs.”

“And there will be fewer returns, I fear,” said Sir Harry.

“Who is the chief creditor?” asked the Count.

“Old Stapleton, the attorney in Fleet Street, has most of the mortgages.”

“Nothing to be done with him in this way?” said Considine, balancing the
corkscrew like a hair trigger.

“No chance of it.”

“May be,” said Sir Harry, “he might come to terms if I were to call and
say, ‘You are anxious to close accounts, as your death has just taken
place.’ You know what I mean.”

“I fear so should he, were you to say so. No, no, Boyle, just try a plain,
straightforward paragraph about my death; we’ll have it in Falkner’s paper
to-morrow. On Friday the funeral can take place, and, with the blessing
o’ God, I’ll come to life on Saturday at Athlone, in time to canvass the
market.”

“I think it wouldn’t be bad if your ghost were to appear to old Timins the
tanner, in Naas, on your way down. You know he arrested you once before.”

“I prefer a night’s sleep,” said O’Malley. “But come, finish the squib for
the paper.”

“Stay a little,” said Sir Harry, musing; “it just strikes me that if ever
the matter gets out I may be in some confounded scrape. Who knows if it is
not a breach of privilege to report the death of a member? And to tell you
truth, I dread the Sergeant and the Speaker’s warrant with a very lively
fear.”

“Why, when did you make his acquaintance?” said the Count.

“Is it possible you never heard of Boyle’s committal?” said O’Malley. “You
surely must have been abroad at the time. But it’s not too late to tell it
yet.”

“Well, it’s about two years since old Townsend brought in his Enlistment
Bill, and the whole country was scoured for all our voters, who were
scattered here and there, never anticipating another call of the House, and
supposing that the session was just over. Among others, up came our friend
Harry, here, and the night he arrived they made him a ‘Monk of the Screw,’
and very soon made him forget his senatorial dignities. On the evening
after his reaching town, the bill was brought in, and at two in the morning
the division took place,--a vote was of too much consequence not to look
after it closely,--and a Castle messenger was in waiting in Exchequer
Street, who, when the debate was closing, put Harry, with three others,
into a coach, and brought them down to the House. Unfortunately, however,
they mistook their friends, voted against the bill, and amidst the loudest
cheering of the opposition, the government party were defeated. The rage of
the ministers knew no bounds, and looks of defiance and even threats were
exchanged between the ministers and the deserters. Amidst all this poor
Harry fell fast asleep and dreamed that he was once more in Exchequer
Street, presiding among the monks, and mixing another tumbler. At length he
awoke and looked about him. The clerk was just at the instant reading out,
in his usual routine manner, a clause of the new bill, and the remainder
of the House was in dead silence. Harry looked again around on every side,
wondering where was the hot water, and what had become of the whiskey
bottle, and above all, why the company were so extremely dull and ungenial.
At length, with a half-shake, he roused up a little, and giving a look
of unequivocal contempt on every side, called out, ‘Upon my soul, you’re
pleasant companions; but I’ll give you a chant to enliven you!’ So saying,
he cleared his throat with a couple of short coughs, and struck up, with
the voice of a Stentor, the following verse of a popular ballad:--

    ‘And they nibbled away, both night and day,
      Like mice in a round of Glo’ster;
    Great rogues they were all, both great and small,
      From Flood to Leslie Foster.
           Great rogues all.

Chorus, boys!’ If he was not joined by the voices of his friends in the
song, it was probably because such a roar of laughing never was heard since
the walls were roofed over. The whole House rose in a mass, and my friend
Harry was hurried over the benches by the sergeant-at-arms, and left for
three weeks in Newgate to practise his melody.”

“All true,” said Sir Harry; “and worse luck to them for not liking music.
But come, now, will this do? ‘It is our melancholy duty to announce the
death of Godfrey O’Malley, Esq., late member for the county of Galway,
which took place on Friday evening, at Daly’s Club-House. This esteemed
gentleman’s family--one of the oldest in Ireland, and among whom it was
hereditary not to have any children--’”

Here a burst of laughter from Considine and O’Malley interrupted the
reader, who with the greatest difficulty could be persuaded that he was
again bulling it.

“The devil fly away with it,” said he; “I’ll never succeed.”

“Never mind,” said O’Malley, “the first part will do admirably; and let us
now turn our attention to other matters.”

A fresh magnum was called for, and over its inspiring contents all the
details of the funeral were planned; and as the clock struck four the party
separated for the _night_, well satisfied with the result of their labors.




CHAPTER II.


THE ESCAPE.

When the dissolution of Parliament was announced the following morning in
Dublin, its interest in certain circles was manifestly increased by the
fact that Godfrey O’Malley was at last open to arrest; for as in olden
times certain gifted individuals possessed some happy immunity against
death by fire or sword, so the worthy O’Malley seemed to enjoy a no less
valuable privilege, and for many a year had passed among the myrmidons of
the law as writ-proof. Now, however, the charm seemed to have yielded; and
pretty much with the same feeling as a storming party may be supposed to
experience on the day that a breach is reported as practicable, did the
honest attorneys retained in the various suits against him rally round each
other that morning in the Four Courts.

Bonds, mortgages, post-obits, promissory notes--in fact, every imaginable
species of invention for raising the O’Malley exchequer for the preceding
thirty years--were handed about on all sides, suggesting to the mind of an
uninterested observer the notion that had the aforesaid O’Malley been an
independent and absolute monarch, instead of merely being the member for
Galway, the kingdom over whose destinies he had been called to preside
would have suffered not a little from a depreciated currency and an
extravagant issue of paper. Be that as it might, one thing was clear,--the
whole estates of the family could not possibly pay one fourth of the debt;
and the only question was one which occasionally arises at a scanty dinner
on a mail-coach road,--who was to be the lucky individual to carve the
joint, where so many were sure to go off hungry?

It was now a trial of address between these various and highly gifted
gentlemen who should first pounce upon the victim; and when the skill of
their caste is taken into consideration, who will doubt that every feasible
expedient for securing him was resorted to? While writs were struck against
him in Dublin, emissaries were despatched to the various surrounding
counties to procure others in the event of his escape. _Ne exeats_ were
sworn, and water-bailiffs engaged to follow him on the high seas; and as
the great Nassau balloon did not exist in those days, no imaginable mode of
escape appeared possible, and bets were offered at long odds that within
twenty-four hours the late member would be enjoying his _otium cum
dignitate_ in his Majesty’s jail of Newgate.

Expectation was at the highest, confidence hourly increasing, success all
but certain, when in the midst of all this high-bounding hope the dreadful
rumor spread that O’Malley was no more. One had seen it just five minutes
before in the evening edition of Falkner’s paper; another heard it in the
courts; a third overheard the Chief-Justice stating it to the Master of the
Rolls; and lastly, a breathless witness arrived from College Green with
the news that Daly’s Club-House was shut up, and the shutters closed.
To describe the consternation the intelligence caused on every side is
impossible; nothing in history equals it,--except, perhaps, the entrance
of the French army into Moscow, deserted and forsaken by its former
inhabitants. While terror and dismay, therefore, spread amidst that wide
and respectable body who formed O’Malley’s creditors, the preparations
for his funeral were going on with every rapidity. Relays of horses were
ordered at every stage of the journey, and it was announced that, in
testimony of his worth, a large party of his friends were to accompany his
remains to Portumna Abbey,--a test much more indicative of resistance
in the event of any attempt to arrest the body, than of anything like
reverence for their departed friend.

Such was the state of matters in Dublin when a letter reached me one
morning at O’Malley Castle, whose contents will at once explain the
writer’s intention, and also serve to introduce my unworthy self to my
reader. It ran thus:--

                                  DALY’S, about eight in the evening.
    Dear Charley,--Your uncle Godfrey, whose debts (God pardon
    him!) are more numerous than the hairs of his wig, was obliged to
    die here last night. We did the thing for him completely; and all
    doubts as to the reality of the event are silenced by the
    circumstantial detail of the newspaper, “that he was confined six
    weeks to his bed from a cold he caught, ten days ago, while on guard.”
     Repeat this; for it is better we had all the same story till he
    comes to life again, which, may be, will not take place before
    Tuesday or Wednesday. At the same time, canvass the county for him,
    and say he’ll be with his friends next week, and up in Woodford and
    the Scariff barony. Say he died a true Catholic; it will serve him on
    the hustings. Meet us in Athlone on Saturday, and bring your uncle’s
    mare with you. He says he’d rather ride home. And tell Father Mac
    Shane, to have a bit of dinner ready about four o’clock, for the corpse
    can get nothing after he leaves Mountmellick. No more now, from
    Yours ever,
    HARRY BOYLE

    To CHARLES O’MALLEY, Esq.,
    O’Malley Castle, Galway.


When this not over-clear document reached me I was the sole inhabitant of
O’Malley Castle,--a very ruinous pile of incongruous masonry, that stood in
a wild and dreary part of the county of Galway, bordering on the Shannon.
On every side stretched the property of my uncle, or at least what had once
been so; and indeed, so numerous were its present claimants that he would
have been a subtle lawyer who could have pronounced upon the rightful
owner. The demesne around the castle contained some well-grown and handsome
timber, and as the soil was undulating and fertile, presented many features
of beauty; beyond it, all was sterile, bleak, and barren. Long tracts of
brown heath-clad mountain or not less unprofitable valleys of tall and
waving fern were all that the eye could discern, except where the broad
Shannon, expanding into a tranquil and glassy lake, lay still and
motionless beneath the dark mountains, a few islands, with some ruined
churches and a round tower, alone breaking the dreary waste of water.

Here it was that I passed my infancy and my youth; and here I now stood,
at the age of seventeen, quite unconscious that the world contained aught
fairer and brighter than that gloomy valley with its rugged frame of
mountains.

When a mere child, I was left an orphan to the care of my worthy uncle. My
father, whose extravagance had well sustained the family reputation, had
squandered a large and handsome property in contesting elections for his
native county, and in keeping up that system of unlimited hospitality for
which Ireland in general, and Galway more especially, was renowned. The
result was, as might be expected, ruin and beggary. He died, leaving every
one of his estates encumbered with heavy debts, and the only legacy he left
to his brother was a boy four years of age, entreating him with his last
breath, “Be anything you like to him, Godfrey, but a father, or at least
such a one as I have proved.”

Godfrey O’Malley some short time previous had lost his wife, and when this
new trust was committed to him he resolved never to remarry, but to rear
me up as his own child and the inheritor of his estates. How weighty and
onerous an obligation this latter might prove, the reader can form some
idea. The intention was, however, a kind one; and to do my uncle justice,
he loved me with all the affection of a warm and open heart.

From my earliest years his whole anxiety was to fit me for the part of a
country gentleman, as he regarded that character,--namely, I rode boldly
with fox-hounds; I was about the best shot within twenty miles of us; I
could swim the Shannon at Holy Island; I drove four-in-hand better than the
coachman himself; and from finding a hare to hooking a salmon, my equal
could not be found from Killaloe to Banagher. These were the staple of my
endowments. Besides which, the parish priest had taught me a little Latin,
a little French, a little geometry, and a great deal of the life and
opinions of Saint Jago, who presided over a holy well in the neighborhood,
and was held in very considerable repute.

When I add to this portraiture of my accomplishments that I was nearly six
feet high, with more than a common share of activity and strength for my
years, and no inconsiderable portion of good looks, I have finished my
sketch, and stand before my reader.

It is now time I should return to Sir Harry’s letter, which so completely
bewildered me that, but for the assistance of Father Roach, I should have
been totally unable to make out the writer’s intentions. By his advice, I
immediately set out for Athlone, where, when I arrived, I found my
uncle addressing the mob from the top of the hearse, and recounting his
miraculous escapes as a new claim upon their gratitude.

“There was nothing else for it, boys; the Dublin people insisted on
my being their member, and besieged the club-house. I refused; they
threatened. I grew obstinate; they furious. ‘I’ll die first,’ said I.
‘Galway or nothing!’”

“Hurrah!” from the mob. “O’Malley forever!”

“And ye see, I kept my word, boys,--I did die; I died that evening at a
quarter past eight. There, read it for yourselves; there’s the paper. Was
waked and carried out, and here I am after all, ready to die in earnest for
you, but never to desert you.”

The cheers here were deafening, and my uncle was carried through the market
down to the mayor’s house, who, being a friend of the opposite party, was
complimented with three groans; then up the Mall to the chapel, beside
which father Mac Shane resided. He was then suffered to touch the earth
once more; when, having shaken hands with all of his constituency within
reach, he entered the house, to partake of the kindest welcome and best
reception the good priest could afford him.

My uncle’s progress homeward was a triumph. The real secret of his escape
had somehow come out, and his popularity rose to a white heat. “An’ it’s
little O’Malley cares for the law,--bad luck to it; it’s himself can laugh
at judge and jury. Arrest him? Nabocklish! Catch a weasel asleep!” etc.
Such were the encomiums that greeted him as he passed on towards home;
while shouts of joy and blazing bonfires attested that his success was
regarded as a national triumph.

The west has certainly its strong features of identity. Had my uncle
possessed the claims of the immortal Howard; had he united in his person
all the attributes which confer a lasting and an ennobling fame upon
humanity,--he might have passed on unnoticed and unobserved; but for
the man that had duped a judge and escaped the sheriff, nothing was
sufficiently flattering to mark their approbation. The success of the
exploit was twofold; the news spread far and near, and the very story
canvassed the county better than Billy Davern himself, the Athlone
attorney.

This was the prospect now before us; and however little my readers may
sympathize with my taste, I must honestly avow that I looked forward to
it with a most delighted feeling. O’Malley Castle was to be the centre
of operations, and filled with my uncle’s supporters; while I, a mere
stripling, and usually treated as a boy, was to be intrusted with an
important mission, and sent off to canvass a distant relation, with whom
my uncle was not upon terms, and who might possibly be approachable by a
younger branch of the family, with whom he had never any collision.




CHAPTER III.


MR. BLAKE.

Nothing but the exigency of the case could ever have persuaded my uncle to
stoop to the humiliation of canvassing the individual to whom I was now
about to proceed as envoy-extraordinary, with full powers to make any or
every _amende_, provided only his interest and that of his followers should
be thereby secured to the O’Malley cause. The evening before I set out was
devoted to giving me all the necessary instructions how I was to proceed,
and what difficulties I was to avoid.

“Say your uncle’s in high feather with the government party,” said Sir
Harry, “and that he only votes against them as a _ruse de guerre_, as the
French call it.”

“Insist upon it that I am sure of the election without him; but that for
family reasons he should not stand aloof from me; that people are talking
of it in the country.”

“And drop a hint,” said Considine, “that O’Malley is greatly improved in
his shooting.”

“And don’t get drunk too early in the evening, for Phil Blake has beautiful
claret,” said another.

“And be sure you don’t make love to the red-headed girls,” added a third;
“he has four of them, each more sinfully ugly than the other.”

“You’ll be playing whist, too,” said Boyle; “and never mind losing a few
pounds. Mrs. B., long life to her, has a playful way of turning the king.”

“Charley will do it all well,” said my uncle; “leave him alone. And now let
us have in the supper.”

It was only on the following morning, as the tandem came round to the door,
that I began to feel the importance of my mission, and certain misgivings
came over me as to my ability to fulfil it. Mr. Blake and his family,
though estranged from my uncle for several years past, had been always most
kind and good-natured to me; and although I could not, with propriety, have
cultivated any close intimacy with them, I had every reason to suppose that
they entertained towards me nothing but sentiments of good-will. The head
of the family was a Galway squire of the oldest and most genuine stock, a
great sportsman, a negligent farmer, and most careless father; he looked
upon a fox as an infinitely more precious part of the creation than a
French governess, and thought that riding well with hounds was a far better
gift than all the learning of a Parson. His daughters were after his
own heart,--the best-tempered, least-educated, most high-spirited, gay,
dashing, ugly girls in the county, ready to ride over a four-foot paling
without a saddle, and to dance the “Wind that shakes the barley” for four
consecutive hours, against all the officers that their hard fate, and the
Horse Guards, ever condemned to Galway.

The mamma was only remarkable for her liking for whist, and her invariable
good fortune thereat,--a circumstance the world were agreed in ascribing
less to the blind goddess than her own natural endowments.

Lastly, the heir of the house was a stripling of about my own age, whose
accomplishments were limited to selling spavined and broken-winded horses
to the infantry officers, playing a safe game at billiards, and acting as
jackal-general to his sisters at balls, providing them with a sufficiency
of partners, and making a strong fight for a place at the supper-table for
his mother. These fraternal and filial traits, more honored at home than
abroad, had made Mr. Matthew Blake a rather well-known individual in the
neighborhood where he lived.

Though Mr. Blake’s property was ample, and strange to say for his county,
unencumbered, the whole air and appearance of his house and grounds
betrayed anything rather than a sufficiency of means. The gate lodge was a
miserable mud-hovel with a thatched and falling roof; the gate itself, a
wooden contrivance, one half of which was boarded and the other railed; the
avenue was covered with weeds, and deep with ruts; and the clumps of young
plantation, which had been planted and fenced with care, were now open to
the cattle, and either totally uprooted or denuded of their bark and dying.
The lawn, a handsome one of some forty acres, had been devoted to an
exercise-ground for training horses, and was cut up by their feet beyond
all semblance of its original destination; and the house itself, a large
and venerable structure of above a century old, displayed every variety of
contrivance, as well as the usual one of glass, to exclude the weather. The
hall-door hung by a single hinge, and required three persons each morning
and evening to open and shut it; the remainder of the day it lay pensively
open; the steps which led to it were broken and falling; and the whole
aspect of things without was ruinous in the extreme. Within, matters were
somewhat better, for though the furniture was old, and none of it clean,
yet an appearance of comfort was evident; and the large grate, blazing with
its pile of red-hot turf, the deep-cushioned chairs, the old black mahogany
dinner-table, and the soft carpet, albeit deep with dust, were not to be
despised on a winter’s evening, after a hard day’s run with the “Blazers.”
 Here it was, however, that Mr. Philip Blake had dispensed his hospitalities
for above fifty years, and his father before him; and here, with a retinue
of servants as _gauches_ and ill-ordered as all about them, was he
accustomed to invite all that the county possessed of rank and wealth,
among which the officers quartered in his neighborhood were never
neglected, the Miss Blakes having as decided a taste for the army as any
young ladies of the west of Ireland; and while the Galway squire, with
his cords and tops, was detailing the latest news from Ballinasloe in one
corner, the dandy from St. James’s Street might be seen displaying more
arts of seductive flattery in another than his most accurate _insouciane_
would permit him to practise in the elegant salons of London or Paris, and
the same man who would have “cut his brother,” for a solecism of dress or
equipage, in Bond Street, was now to be seen quietly domesticated, eating
family dinners, rolling silk for the young ladies, going down the middle
in a country dance, and even descending to the indignity of long whist at
“tenpenny” points, with only the miserable consolation that the company
were not honest.

It was upon a clear frosty morning, when a bright blue sky and a sharp but
bracing air seem to exercise upon the feelings a sense no less pleasurable
than the balmiest breeze and warmest sun of summer, that I whipped my
leader short round, and entered the precincts of “Gurt-na-Morra.” As I
proceeded along the avenue, I was struck by the slight traces of repairs
here and there evident,--a gate or two that formerly had been parallel to
the horizon had been raised to the perpendicular; some ineffectual efforts
at paint were also perceptible upon the palings; and, in short, everything
seemed to have undergone a kind of attempt at improvement.

When I reached the door, instead of being surrounded, as of old, by a tribe
of menials frieze-coated, bare-headed, and bare-legged, my presence was
announced by a tremendous ringing of bells from the hands of an old
functionary in a very formidable livery, who peeped at me through the
hall-window, and whom, with the greatest difficulty, I recognized as my
quondam acquaintance, the butler. His wig alone would have graced a king’s
counsel; and the high collar of his coat, and the stiff pillory of his
cravat denoted an eternal adieu to so humble a vocation as drawing a cork.
Before I had time for any conjecture as to the altered circumstances about,
the activity of my friend at the bell had surrounded me with “four others
worse than himself,” at least they were exactly similarly attired; and
probably from the novelty of their costume, and the restraints of so
unusual a thing as dress, were as perfectly unable to assist themselves
or others as the Court of Aldermen would be were they to rig out in plate
armor of the fourteenth century. How much longer I might have gone on
conjecturing the reasons for the masquerade around, I cannot say; but my
servant, an Irish disciple of my uncle’s, whispered in my ear, “It’s a
red-breeches day, Master Charles,--they’ll have the hoith of company in the
house.” From the phrase, it needed little explanation to inform me that it
was one of those occasions on which Mr. Blake attired all the hangers-on
of his house in livery, and that great preparations were in progress for a
more than usually splendid reception.

In the next moment I was ushered into the breakfast-room, where a party of
above a dozen persons were most gayly enjoying all the good cheer for which
the house had a well-deserved repute. After the usual shaking of hands and
hearty greetings were over, I was introduced in all form to Sir George
Dashwood, a tall and singularly handsome man of about fifty, with an
undress military frock and ribbon. His reception of me was somewhat
strange; for as they mentioned my relationship to Godfrey O’Malley, he
smiled slightly, and whispered something to Mr. Blake, who replied, “Oh,
no, no; not the least. A mere boy; and besides--” What he added I lost, for
at that moment Nora Blake was presenting me to Miss Dashwood.

If the sweetest blue eyes that ever beamed beneath a forehead of snowy
whiteness, over which dark brown and waving hair fell less in curls than
masses of locky richness, could only have known what wild work they were
making of my poor heart, Miss Dashwood, I trust, would have looked at her
teacup or her muffin rather than at me, as she actually did on that fatal
morning. If I were to judge from her costume, she had only just arrived,
and the morning air had left upon her cheek a bloom that contributed
greatly to the effect of her lovely countenance. Although very young, her
form had all the roundness of womanhood; while her gay and sprightly manner
indicated all the _sans gêne_ which only very young girls possess, and
which, when tempered with perfect good taste, and accompanied by beauty and
no small share of talent, forms an irresistible power of attraction.

Beside her sat a tall, handsome man of about five-and-thirty or perhaps
forty years of age, with a most soldierly air, who as I was presented to
him scarcely turned his head, and gave me a half-nod of very unequivocal
coldness. There are moments in life in which the heart is, as it were, laid
bare to any chance or casual impression with a wondrous sensibility of
pleasure or its opposite. This to me was one of those; and as I turned from
the lovely girl, who had received me with a marked courtesy, to the cold
air and repelling _hauteur_ of the dark-browed captain, the blood rushed
throbbing to my forehead; and as I walked to my place at the table, I
eagerly sought his eye, to return him a look of defiance and disdain,
proud and contemptuous as his own. Captain Hammersley, however, never took
further notice of me, but continued to recount, for the amusement of those
about him, several excellent stories of his military career, which, I
confess, were heard with every test of delight by all save me. One thing
galled me particularly,--and how easy is it, when you have begun by
disliking a person, to supply food for your antipathy,--all his allusions
to his military life were coupled with half-hinted and ill-concealed
sneers at civilians of every kind, as though every man not a soldier were
absolutely unfit for common intercourse with the world, still more for any
favorable reception in ladies’ society.

The young ladies of the family were a well-chosen auditory, for their
admiration of the army extended from the Life Guards to the Veteran
Battalion, the Sappers and Miners included; and as Miss Dashwood was the
daughter of a soldier, she of course coincided in many of, if not all, his
opinions. I turned towards my neighbor, a Clare gentleman, and tried to
engage him in conversation, but he was breathlessly attending to the
captain. On my left sat Matthew Blake, whose eyes were firmly riveted
upon the same person, and who heard his marvels with an interest scarcely
inferior to that of his sisters. Annoyed and in ill-temper, I ate my
breakfast in silence, and resolved that the first moment I could obtain a
hearing from Mr. Blake I would open my negotiation, and take my leave at
once of Gurt-na-Morra.

We all assembled in a large room, called by courtesy the library, when
breakfast was over; and then it was that Mr. Blake, taking me aside,
whispered, “Charley, it’s right I should inform you that Sir George
Dashwood there is the Commander of the Forces, and is come down here at
this moment to--” What for, or how it should concern me, I was not to
learn; for at that critical instant my informant’s attention was called off
by Captain Hammersley asking if the hounds were to hunt that day.

“My friend Charley here is the best authority upon that matter,” said Mr.
Blake, turning towards me.

“They are to try the Priest’s meadows,” said I, with an air of some
importance; “but if your guests desire a day’s sport, I’ll send word over
to Brackely to bring the dogs over here, and we are sure to find a fox in
your cover.”

“Oh, then, by all means,” said the captain, turning towards Mr. Blake, and
addressing himself to him,--“by all means; and Miss Dashwood, I’m sure,
would like to see the hounds throw off.”

Whatever chagrin the first part of his speech caused me, the latter set my
heart a-throbbing; and I hastened from the room to despatch a messenger to
the huntsman to come over to Gurt-na-Morra, and also another to O’Malley
Castle to bring my best horse and my riding equipments as quickly as
possible.

“Matthew, who is this captain?” said I, as young Blake met me in the hall.

“Oh, he is the aide-de-camp of General Dashwood. A nice fellow, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you may think,” said I, “but I take him for the most
impertinent, impudent, supercilious--”

The rest of my civil speech was cut short by the appearance of the very
individual in question, who, with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in
his mouth, sauntered forth down the steps, taking no more notice of Matthew
Blake and myself than the two fox-terriers that followed at his heels.

However anxious I might be to open negotiations on the subject of my
mission, for the present the thing was impossible; for I found that Sir
George Dashwood was closeted closely with Mr. Blake, and resolved to wait
till evening, when chance might afford me the opportunity I desired.

As the ladies had retired to dress for the hunt, and as I felt no peculiar
desire to ally myself with the unsocial captain, I accompanied Matthew to
the stable to look after the cattle, and make preparations for the coming
sport.

“There’s Captain Hammersley’s mare,” said Matthew, as he pointed out a
highly bred but powerful English hunter. “She came last night; for as he
expected some sport, he sent his horses from Dublin on purpose. The others
will be here to-day.”

“What is his regiment?” said I, with an appearance of carelessness, but in
reality feeling curious to know if the captain was a cavalry or infantry
officer.

“The --th Light Dragoons,”

“You never saw him ride?” said I.

“Never; but his groom there says he leads the way in his own country.”

“And where may that be?”

“In Leicestershire, no less,” said Matthew.

“Does he know Galway?”

“Never was in it before. It’s only this minute he asked Moses Daly if the
ox-fences were high here.”

“Ox-fences! Then he does not know what a wall is?”

“Devil a bit; but we’ll teach him.”

“That we will,” said I, with as bitter a resolution to impart the
instruction as ever schoolmaster did to whip Latin grammar into one of the
great unbreeched.

“But I had better send the horses down to the Mill,” said Matthew; “we’ll
draw that cover first.”

So saying, he turned towards the stable, while I sauntered alone towards
the road by which I expected the huntsman. I had not walked half a mile
before I heard the yelping of the dogs, and a little farther on I saw old
Brackely coming along at a brisk trot, cutting the hounds on each side, and
calling after the stragglers.

“Did you see my horse on the road, Brackely?” said I.

“I did, Misther Charles; and troth, I’m sorry to see him. Sure yerself
knows better than to take out the Badger, the best steeple-chaser in
Ireland, in such a country as this,--nothing but awkward stone-fences, and
not a foot of sure ground in the whole of it.”

“I know it well, Brackely; but I have my reasons for it.”

“Well, may be you have; what cover will your honor try first?”

“They talk of the Mill,” said I; “but I’d much rather try Morran-a-Gowl.”

“Morran-a-Gowl! Do you want to break your neck entirely?”

“No, Brackely, not mine.”

“Whose, then, alannah?”

“An English captain’s, the devil fly away with him! He’s come down here
to-day, and from all I can see is a most impudent fellow; so, Brackely--”

“I understand. Well, leave it to me; and though I don’t like the only
deer-park wall on the hill, we’ll try it this morning with the blessing.
I’ll take him down by Woodford, over the Devil’s Mouth,--it’s eighteen foot
wide this minute with the late rains,--into the four callows; then over the
stone-walls, down to Dangan; then take a short cast up the hill, blow him
a bit, and give him the park wall at the top. You must come in then fresh,
and give him the whole run home over Sleibhmich. The Badger knows it all,
and takes the road always in a fly,--a mighty distressing thing for the
horse that follows, more particularly if he does not understand a stony
country. Well, if he lives through this, give him the sunk fence and the
stone wall at Mr. Blake’s clover-field, for the hounds will run into the
fox about there; and though we never ride that leap since Mr. Malone broke
his neck at it, last October, yet upon an occasion like this, and for the
honor of Galway--”

“To be sure, Brackely; and here’s a guinea for you, and now trot on towards
the house. They must not see us together, or they might suspect something.
But, Brackely,” said I, calling out after him, “if he rides at all fair,
what’s to be done?”

“Troth, then, myself doesn’t know. There is nothing so bad west of Athlone.
Have ye a great spite again him?”

“I have,” said I, fiercely.

“Could ye coax a fight out of him?”

“That’s true,” said I; “and now ride on as fast as you can.”

Brackely’s last words imparted a lightness to my heart and my step, and I
strode along a very different man from what I had left the house half an
hour previously.




CHAPTER IV.


THE HUNT.

Although we had not the advantages of a southerly wind and cloudy sky, the
day towards noon became strongly over-cast, and promised to afford us good
scenting weather; and as we assembled at the meet, mutual congratulations
were exchanged upon the improved appearance of the day. Young Blake had
provided Miss Dashwood with a quiet and well-trained horse, and his sisters
were all mounted as usual upon their own animals, giving to our turnout
quite a gay and lively aspect. I myself came to cover upon a hackney,
having sent Badger with a groom, and longed ardently for the moment when,
casting the skin of my great-coat and overalls, I should appear before the
world in my well-appointed “cords and tops.” Captain Hammersley had not as
yet made his appearance, and many conjectures were afloat as to whether “he
might have missed the road, or changed his mind,” or “forgot all about it,”
 as Miss Dashwood hinted.

“Who, pray, pitched upon this cover?” said Caroline Blake, as she looked
with a practised eye over the country on either side.

“There is no chance of a fox late in the day at the Mill,” said the
huntsman, inventing a lie for the occasion.

“Then of course you never intend us to see much of the sport; for after you
break cover, you are entirely lost to us.”

“I thought you always followed the hounds,” said Miss Dashwood, timidly.

“Oh, to be sure we do, in any common country, but here it is out of the
question; the fences are too large for any one, and if I am not mistaken,
these gentlemen will not ride far over this. There, look yonder, where
the river is rushing down the hill: that stream, widening as it advances,
crosses the cover nearly midway,--well, they must clear that; and then you
may see these walls of large loose stones nearly five feet in height. That
is the usual course the fox takes, unless he heads towards the hills and
goes towards Dangan, and then there’s an end of it; for the deer-park wall
is usually a pull up to every one except, perhaps, to our friend Charley
yonder, who has tried his fortune against drowning more than once there.”

“Look, here he comes,” said Matthew Blake, “and looking splendidly too,--a
little too much in flesh perhaps, if anything.”

“Captain Hammersley!” said the four Miss Blakes, in a breath. “Where is
he?”

“No; it’s the Badger I’m speaking of,” said Matthew, laughing, and pointing
with his finger towards a corner of the field where my servant was
leisurely throwing down a wall about two feet high to let him pass.

“Oh, how handsome! What a charger for a dragoon!” said Miss Dashwood.

Any other mode of praising my steed would have been much more acceptable.
The word “dragoon” was a thorn in my tenderest part that rankled and
lacerated at every stir. In a moment I was in the saddle, and scarcely
seated when at once all the _mauvais honte_ of boyhood left me, and I
felt every inch a man. I often look back to that moment of my life, and
comparing it with similar ones, cannot help acknowledging how purely is the
self-possession which so often wins success the result of some slight and
trivial association. My confidence in my horsemanship suggested moral
courage of a very different kind; and I felt that Charles O’Malley
curvetting upon a thorough-bred, and the same man ambling upon a shelty,
were two and very dissimilar individuals.

“No chance of the captain,” said Matthew, who had returned from a
_reconnaissance_ upon the road; “and after all it’s a pity, for the day is
getting quite favorable.”

While the young ladies formed pickets to look out for the gallant
_militaire_, I seized the opportunity of prosecuting my acquaintance with
Miss Dashwood, and even in the few and passing observations that fell from
her, learned how very different an order of being she was from all I had
hitherto seen of country belles. A mixture of courtesy with _naïveté;_ a
wish to please, with a certain feminine gentleness, that always flatters a
man, and still more a boy that fain would be one,--gained momentarily
more and more upon me, and put me also on my mettle to prove to my fair
companion that I was not altogether a mere uncultivated and unthinking
creature, like the remainder of those about me.

“Here he is at last,” said Helen Blake, as she cantered across a field
waving her handkerchief as a signal to the captain, who was now seen
approaching at a brisk trot.

As he came along, a small fence intervened; he pressed his horse a little,
and as he kissed hands to the fair Helen, cleared it in a bound, and was in
an instant in the midst of us.

“He sits his horse like a man, Misther Charles,” said the old huntsman;
“troth, we must give him the worst bit of it.”

Captain Hammersley was, despite all the critical acumen with which I
canvassed him, the very beau-ideal of a gentleman rider; indeed, although a
very heavy man, his powerful English thorough-bred, showing not less bone
than blood, took away all semblance of overweight; his saddle was well
fitting and well placed, as also was his large and broad-reined snaffle;
his own costume of black coat, leathers, and tops was in perfect keeping,
and even to his heavy-handled hunting-whip I could find nothing to cavil
at. As he rode up he paid his respects to the ladies in his usual free and
easy manner, expressed some surprise, but no regret, at hearing that he was
late, and never deigning any notice of Matthew or myself, took his place
beside Miss Dashwood, with whom he conversed in a low undertone.

“There they go!” said Matthew, as five or six dogs, with their heads up,
ran yelping along a furrow, then stopped, howled again, and once more set
off together. In an instant all was commotion in the little valley
below us. The huntsman, with his hand to his mouth, was calling off the
stragglers, and the whipper-in followed up the leading dogs with the rest
of the pack. “They’ve found! They’re away!” said Matthew; and as he spoke
a yell burst from the valley, and in an instant the whole pack were off at
full speed. Rather more intent that moment upon showing off my horsemanship
than anything else, I dashed spurs into Badger’s sides, and turned him
towards a rasping ditch before me; over we went, hurling down behind us a
rotten bank of clay and small stones, showing how little safety there had
been in topping instead of clearing it at a bound. Before I was well-seated
again the captain was beside me. “Now for it, then,” said I; and away we
went. What might be the nature of his feelings I cannot pretend to state,
but my own were a strange _mélange_ of wild, boyish enthusiasm, revenge,
and recklessness. For my own neck I cared little,--nothing; and as I led
the way by half a length, I muttered to myself, “Let him follow me fairly
this day, and I ask no more.”

The dogs had got somewhat the start of us; and as they were in full cry,
and going fast, we were a little behind. A thought therefore struck me
that, by appearing to take a short cut upon the hounds, I should come down
upon the river where its breadth was greatest, and thus, at one coup, might
try my friend’s mettle and his horse’s performance at the same time. On
we went, our speed increasing, till the roar of the river we were now
approaching was plainly audible. I looked half around, and now perceived
the captain was standing in his stirrups, as if to obtain a view of what
was before him; otherwise his countenance was calm and unmoved, and not
a muscle betrayed that he was not cantering on a parade. I fixed myself
firmly in my seat, shook my horse a little together, and with a shout whose
import every Galway hunter well knows rushed him at the river. I saw the
water dashing among the large stones; I heard it splash; I felt a bound
like the _ricochet_ of a shot; and we were over, but so narrowly that the
bank had yielded beneath his hind legs, and it needed a bold effort of the
noble animal to regain his footing. Scarcely was he once more firm, when
Hammersley flew by me, taking the lead, and sitting quietly in his saddle,
as if racing. I know of little in my after-life like the agony of that
moment; for although I was far, very far, from wishing real ill to him, yet
I would gladly have broken my leg or my arm if he could not have been
able to follow me. And now, there he was, actually a length and a half in
advance! and worse than all, Miss Dashwood must have witnessed the whole,
and doubtless his leap over the river was better and bolder than mine.
One consolation yet remained, and while I whispered it to myself I felt
comforted again. “His is an English mare. They understand these leaps; but
what can he make of a Galway wall?” The question was soon to be solved.
Before us, about three fields, were the hounds still in full cry; a large
stone-wall lay between, and to it we both directed our course together.
“Ha!” thought I, “he is floored at last,” as I perceived that the captain
held his course rather more in hand, and suffered me to lead. “Now, then,
for it!” So saying, I rode at the largest part I could find, well knowing
that Badger’s powers were here in their element. One spring, one plunge,
and away we were, galloping along at the other side. Not so the captain;
his horse had refused the fence, and he was now taking a circuit of the
field for another trial of it.

“Pounded, by Jove!” said I, as I turned round in my saddle to observe him.
Once more she came at it, and once more balked, rearing up, at the same
time, almost so as to fall backward.

My triumph was complete; and I again was about to follow the hounds, when,
throwing a look back, I saw Hammersley clearing the wall in a most splendid
manner, and taking a stretch of at least thirteen feet beyond it. Once
more he was on my flanks, and the contest renewed. Whatever might be the
sentiments of the riders (mine I confess to), between the horses it now
became a tremendous struggle. The English mare, though evidently superior
in stride and strength, was slightly overweighted, and had not, besides,
that cat-like activity an Irish horse possesses; so that the advantages and
disadvantages on either side were about equalized. For about half an hour
now the pace was awful. We rode side by side, taking our leaps at
exactly the same instant, and not four feet apart. The hounds were still
considerably in advance, and were heading towards the Shannon, when
suddenly the fox doubled, took the hillside, and made for Dangan. “Now,
then, comes the trial of strength,” I said, half aloud, as I threw my eye
up a steep and rugged mountain, covered with wild furze and tall heath,
around the crest of which ran, in a zigzag direction, a broken and
dilapidated wall, once the enclosure of a deer park. This wall, which
varied from four to six feet in height, was of solid masonry, and would, in
the most favorable ground, have been a bold leap. Here, at the summit of a
mountain, with not a yard of footing, it was absolutely desperation.

By the time that we reached the foot of the hill, the fox, followed closely
by the hounds, had passed through a breach in the wall; while Matthew
Blake, with the huntsmen and whipper-in, was riding along in search of a
gap to lead the horses through. Before I put spurs to Badger to face the
hill, I turned one look towards Hammersley. There was a slight curl,
half-smile, half-sneer, upon his lip that actually maddened me, and had a
precipice yawned beneath my feet, I should have dashed at it after that.
The ascent was so steep that I was obliged to take the hill in a slanting
direction; and even thus, the loose footing rendered it dangerous in the
extreme.

At length I reached the crest, where the wall, more than five feet in
height, stood frowning above and seeming to defy me. I turned my horse full
round, so that his very chest almost touched the stones, and with a bold
cut of the whip and a loud halloo, the gallant animal rose, as if rearing,
pawed for an instant to regain his balance, and then, with a frightful
struggle, fell backwards, and rolled from top to bottom of the hill,
carrying me along with him; the last object that crossed my sight, as I lay
bruised and motionless, being the captain as he took the wall in a flying
leap, and disappeared at the other side. After a few scrambling efforts to
rise, Badger regained his legs and stood beside me; but such was the shock
and concussion of my fall that all the objects around seemed wavering and
floating before me, while showers of bright sparks fell in myriads before
my eyes. I tried to rise, but fell back helpless. Cold perspiration broke
over my forehead, and I fainted. From that moment I can remember nothing,
till I felt myself galloping along at full speed upon a level table-land,
with the hounds about three fields in advance, Hammersley riding foremost,
and taking all his leaps coolly as ever. As I swayed to either side upon my
saddle, from weakness, I was lost to all thought or recollection, save a
flickering memory of some plan of vengeance, which still urged me forward.
The chase had now lasted above an hour, and both hounds and horses began to
feel the pace at which they were going. As for me, I rode mechanically; I
neither knew nor cared for the dangers before me. My eye rested on but one
object; my whole being was concentrated upon one vague and undefined sense
of revenge. At this instant the huntsman came alongside of me.

“Are you hurted, Misther Charles? Did you fall? Your cheek is all blood,
and your coat is torn in two; and, Mother o’ God! his boot is ground to
powder; he does not hear me! Oh, pull up! pull up, for the love of the
Virgin! There’s the clover-field and the sunk fence before you, and you’ll
be killed on the spot!”

“Where?” cried I, with the cry of a madman. “Where’s the clover-field;
where’s the sunk fence? Ha! I see it; I see it now.”

So saying, I dashed the rowels into my horse’s flanks, and in an instant
was beyond the reach of the poor fellow’s remonstances. Another moment I
was beside the captain. He turned round as I came up; the same smile was
upon his mouth; I could have struck him. About three hundred yards before
us lay the sunk fence; its breadth was about twenty feet, and a wall of
close brickwork formed its face. Over this the hounds were now clambering;
some succeeded in crossing, but by far the greater number fell back,
howling, into the ditch.

I turned towards Hammersley. He was standing high in his stirrups, and as
he looked towards the yawning fence, down which the dogs were tumbling in
masses, I thought (perhaps it was but a thought) that his cheek was paler.
I looked again; he was pulling at his horse. Ha! it was true then; he would
not face it. I turned round in my saddle, looked him full in the face, and
as I pointed with my whip to the leap, called out in a voice hoarse with
passion, “Come on!” I saw no more. All objects were lost to me from that
moment. When next my senses cleared, I was standing amidst the dogs, where
they had just killed. Badger stood blown and trembling beside me, his head
drooping and his flanks gored with spur-marks. I looked about, but all
consciousness of the past had fled; the concussion of my fall had shaken
my intellect, and I was like one but half-awake. One glimpse, short and
fleeting, of what was taking place shot through my brain, as old Brackely
whispered to me, “By my soul, ye did for the captain there.” I turned a
vague look upon him, and my eyes fell upon the figure of a man that lay
stretched and bleeding upon a door before me. His pale face was crossed
with a purple stream of blood that trickled from a wound beside his
eyebrow; his arms lay motionless and heavily at either side. I knew him
not. A loud report of a pistol aroused me from my stupor; I looked back. I
saw a crowd that broke suddenly asunder and fled right and left. I heard
a heavy crash upon the ground; I pointed with my finger, for I could not
utter a word.

“It is the English mare, yer honor; she was a beauty this morning, but
she’s broke her shoulder-bone and both her legs, and it was best to put her
out of pain.”




CHAPTER V.


THE DRAWING-ROOM.

On the fourth day following the adventure detailed in the last chapter, I
made my appearance in the drawing-room, my cheek well blanched by copious
bleeding, and my step tottering and uncertain. On entering the room, I
looked about in vain for some one who might give me an insight into the
occurrences of the four preceding days; but no one was to be met with. The
ladies, I learned, were out riding; Matthew was buying a new setter, Mr.
Blake was canvassing, and Captain Hammersley was in bed. Where was Miss
Dashwood?--in her room; and Sir George?--he was with Mr. Blake.

“What! Canvassing, too?”

“Troth, that same was possible,” was the intelligent reply of the old
butler, at which I could not help smiling. I sat down, therefore, in the
easiest chair I could find, and unfolding the county paper, resolved upon
learning how matters were going on in the political world. But somehow,
whether the editor was not brilliant or the fire was hot or that my own
dreams were pleasanter to indulge in than his fancies, I fell sound asleep.

How differently is the mind attuned to the active, busy world of thought
and action when awakened from sleep by any sudden and rude summons to arise
and be stirring, and when called into existence by the sweet and silvery
notes of softest music stealing over the senses, and while they impart
awakening thoughts of bliss and beauty, scarcely dissipating the dreamy
influence of slumber! Such was my first thought, as, with closed lids, the
thrilling chords of a harp broke upon my sleep and aroused me to a feeling
of unutterable pleasure. I turned gently round in my chair and beheld Miss
Dashwood. She was seated in a recess of an old-fashioned window; the pale
yellow glow of a wintry sun at evening fell upon her beautiful hair, and
tinged it with such a light as I have often since then seen in Rembrandt’s
pictures; her head leaned upon the harp, and as she struck its chords at
random, I saw that her mind was far away from all around her. As I looked,
she suddenly started from her leaning attitude, and parting back her curls
from her brow, she preluded a few chords, and then sighed forth, rather
than sang, that most beautiful of Moore’s melodies,--

    “She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps.”

Never before had such pathos, such deep utterance of feeling, met my
astonished sense; I listened breathlessly as the tears fell one by one down
my cheek; my bosom heaved and fell; and when she ceased, I hid my head
between my hands and sobbed aloud. In an instant, she was beside me, and
placing her hand upon my shoulder, said,--

“Poor dear boy, I never suspected you of being there, or I should not have
sung that mournful air.”

I started and looked up; and from what I know not, but she suddenly
crimsoned to her very forehead, while she added in a less assured tone,--

“I hope, Mr. O’Malley, that you are much better; and I trust there is no
imprudence in your being here.”

“For the latter, I shall not answer,” said I, with a sickly smile; “but
already I feel your music has done me service.”

“Then let me sing more for you.”

“If I am to have a choice, I should say, Sit down, and let me hear you talk
to me. My illness and the doctor together have made wild work of my poor
brain; but if you will talk to me--”

“Well, then, what shall it be about? Shall I tell you a fairy tale?”

“I need it not; I feel I am in one this instant.”

“Well, then, what say you to a legend; for I am rich in my stores of them?”

“The O’Malleys have their chronicles, wild and barbarous enough without the
aid of Thor and Woden.”

“Then, shall we chat of every-day matters? Should you like to hear how the
election and the canvass go on?”

“Yes; of all things.”

“Well, then, most favorably. Two baronies, with most unspeakable names,
have declared for us, and confidence is rapidly increasing among our party.
This I learned, by chance, yesterday; for papa never permits us to know
anything of these matters,--not even the names of the candidates.”

“Well, that was the very point I was coming to; for the government were
about to send down some one just as I left home, and I am most anxious to
learn who it is.”

“Then am I utterly valueless; for I really can’t say what party the
government espouses, and only know of our own.”

“Quite enough for me that you wish it success,” said I, gallantly. “Perhaps
you can tell me if my uncle has heard of my accident?”

“Oh, yes; but somehow he has not been here himself, but sent a friend,--a
Mr. Considine, I think; a very strange person he seemed. He demanded to see
papa, and it seems, asked him if your misfortune had been a thing of his
contrivance, and whether he was ready to explain his conduct about it; and,
in fact, I believe he is mad.”

“Heaven confound him!” I muttered between my teeth.

“And then he wished to have an interview with Captain Hammersley. However,
he is too ill; but as the doctor hoped he might be down-stairs in a week,
Mr. Considine kindly hinted that he should wait.”

“Oh, then, do tell me how is the captain.”

“Very much bruised, very much disfigured, they say,” said she, half
smiling; “but not so much hurt in body as in mind.”

“As how, may I ask?” said I, with an appearance of innocence.

“I don’t exactly understand it; but it would appear that there was
something like rivalry among you gentlemen _chasseurs_ on that luckless
morning, and that while you paid the penalty of a broken head, he was
destined to lose his horse and break his arm.”

“I certainly am sorry,--most sincerely sorry for any share I might have had
in the catastrophe; and my greatest regret, I confess, arises from the fact
that I should cause _you_ unhappiness.”

“_Me_? Pray explain.”

“Why, as Captain Hammersley--”

“Mr. O’Malley, you are too young now to make me suspect you have an
intention to offend; but I caution you, never repeat this.”

I saw that I had transgressed, but how, I most honestly confess, I could
not guess; for though I certainly was the senior of my fair companion in
years, I was most lamentably her junior in tact and discretion.

The gray dusk of evening had long fallen as we continued to chat together
beside the blazing wood embers,--she evidently amusing herself with the
original notions of an untutored, unlettered boy, and I drinking deep
those draughts of love that nerved my heart through many a breach and
battlefield.

Our colloquy was at length interrupted by the entrance of Sir George, who
shook me most cordially by the hand, and made the kindest inquiries about
my health.

“They tell me you are to be a lawyer. Mr. O’Malley,” said he; “and if so, I
must advise you to take better care of your headpiece.”

“A lawyer, Papa; oh dear me! I should never have thought of his being
anything so stupid.”

“Why, silly girl, what would you have a man be?”

“A dragoon, to be sure, Papa,” said the fond girl, as she pressed her arm
around his manly figure, and looked up in his face with an expression of
mingled pride and affection.

That word sealed my destiny.




CHAPTER VI.


THE DINNER.

When I retired to my room to dress for dinner, I found my servant waiting
with a note from my uncle, to which, he informed me, the messenger expected
an answer.

I broke the seal and read:--


    DEAR CHARLEY,--Do not lose a moment in securing old Blake,--if
    you have not already done so,--as information has just reached
    me that the government party has promised a cornetcy to young
    Matthew if he can bring over his father. And these are the people
    I have been voting with--a few private cases excepted--for thirty
    odd years!

    I am very sorry for your accident. Considine informs me that it
    will need explanation at a later period. He has been in Athlone
    since Tuesday, in hopes to catch the new candidate on his way down,
    and get him into a little private quarrel before the day; if he
    succeeds, it will save the county much expense, and conduce greatly to
    the peace and happiness of all parties. But “these things,” as Father
    Roach says, “are in the hands of Providence.” You must also persuade
    old Blake to write a few lines to Simon Mallock, about the
    Coolnamuck mortgage. We can give him no satisfaction at present,
    at least such as he looks for; and don’t be philandering any longer
    where you are, when your health permits a change of quarters.

    Your affectionate uncle,
    GODFREY O’MALLEY.

    P.S. I have just heard from Considine. He was out this morning
    and shot a fellow in the knee; but finds that after all he was
    not the candidate, but a tourist that was writing a book about
    Connemara.

    P.S. No. 2. Bear the mortgage in mind, for old Mallock is a
    spiteful fellow, and has a grudge against me, since I horsewhipped
    his son in Banagher. Oh, the world, the world! G. O’M.


Until I read this very clear epistle to the end, I had no very precise
conception how completely I had forgotten all my uncle’s interests, and
neglected all his injunctions. Already five days had elapsed, and I had not
as much as mooted the question to Mr. Blake, and probably all this time my
uncle was calculating on the thing as concluded; but, with one hole in my
head and some half-dozen in my heart, my memory was none of the best.

Snatching up the letter, therefore, I resolved to lose no more time, and
proceeded at once to Mr. Blake’s room, expecting that I should, as the
event proved, find him engaged in the very laborious duty of making his
toilet.

[Illustration: MR. BLAKE’S DRESSING ROOM.]

“Come in, Charley,” said he, as I tapped gently at the door. “It’s only
Charley, my darling. Mrs. B. won’t mind you.”

“Not the least in life,” responded Mrs. B., disposing at the same time a
pair of her husband’s corduroys tippet fashion across her ample shoulders,
which before were displayed in the plenitude and breadth of coloring we
find in a Rubens. “Sit down, Charley, and tell us what’s the matter.”

As until this moment I was in perfect ignorance of the Adam-and-Eve-like
simplicity in which the private economy of Mr. Blake’s household was
conducted, I would have gladly retired from what I found to be a mutual
territory of dressing-room had not Mr. Blake’s injunctions been issued
somewhat like an order to remain.

“It’s only a letter, sir,” said I, stuttering, “from my uncle about the
election. He says that as his majority is now certain, he should feel
better pleased in going to the poll with all the family, you know, sir,
along with him. He wishes me just to sound your intentions,--to make out
how you feel disposed towards him; and--and, faith, as I am but a poor
diplomatist, I thought the best way was to come straight to the point and
tell you so.”

“I perceive,” said Mr. Blake, giving his chin at the moment an awful gash
with the razor,--“I perceive; go on.”

“Well, sir, I have little more to say. My uncle knows what influence you
have in Scariff, and expects you’ll do what you can there.”

“Anything more?” said Blake, with a very dry and quizzical expression I
didn’t half like,--“anything more?”

“Oh, yes; you are to write a line to old Mallock.”

“I understand; about Coolnamuck, isn’t it?”

“Exactly; I believe that’s all.”

“Well, now, Charley, you may go down-stairs, and we’ll talk it over after
dinner.”

“Yes, Charley dear, go down, for I’m going to draw on my stockings,” said
the fair Mrs. Blake, with a look of very modest consciousness.

When I had left the room I couldn’t help muttering a “Thank God!” for the
success of a mission I more than once feared for, and hastened to despatch
a note to my uncle, assuring him of the Blake interest, and adding that for
propriety’s sake I should defer my departure for a day or two longer.

This done, with a heart lightened of its load and in high spirits at my
cleverness, I descended to the drawing-room. Here a very large party were
already assembled, and at every opening of the door a new relay of Blakes,
Burkes, and Bodkins was introduced. In the absence of the host, Sir George
Dashwood was “making the agreeable” to the guests, and shook hands with
every new arrival with all the warmth and cordiality of old friendship.
While thus he inquired for various absent individuals, and asked most
affectionately for sundry aunts and uncles not forthcoming, a slight
incident occurred which by its ludicrous turn served to shorten the long
half-hour before dinner. An individual of the party, a Mr. Blake, had, from
certain peculiarities of face, obtained in his boyhood the sobriquet of
“Shave-the-wind.” This hatchet-like conformation had grown with his growth,
and perpetuated upon him a nickname by which alone was he ever spoken of
among his friends and acquaintances; the only difference being that as he
came to man’s estate, brevity, that soul of wit, had curtailed the epithet
to mere “Shave.” Now, Sir George had been hearing frequent reference made
to him always by this name, heard him ever so addressed, and perceived him
to reply to it; so that when he was himself asked by some one what sport he
had found that day among the woodcocks, he answered at once, with a bow of
very grateful acknowledgment, “Excellent, indeed; but entirely owing to
where I was placed in the copse. Had it not been for Mr. Shave there--”

I need not say that the remainder of his speech, being heard on all sides,
became one universal shout of laughter, in which, to do him justice, the
excellent Shave himself heartily joined. Scarcely were the sounds of mirth
lulled into an apparent calm, when the door opened and the host and hostess
appeared. Mrs. Blake advanced in all the plenitude of her charms, arrayed
in crimson satin, sorely injured in its freshness by a patch of grease
upon the front about the same size and shape as the continent of Europe in
Arrowsmith’s Atlas. A swan’s-down tippet covered her shoulders; massive
bracelets ornamented her wrists; while from her ears descended two Irish
diamond ear-rings, rivalling in magnitude and value the glass pendants of
a lustre. Her reception of her guests made ample amends, in warmth and
cordiality, for any deficiency of elegance; and as she disposed her ample
proportions upon the sofa, and looked around upon the company, she appeared
the very impersonation of hospitality.

After several openings and shuttings of the drawing-room door, accompanied
by the appearance of old Simon the butler, who counted the party at least
five times before he was certain that the score was correct, dinner was
at length announced. Now came a moment of difficulty, and one which, as
testing Mr. Blake’s tact, he would gladly have seen devolve upon some other
shoulders; for he well knew that the marshalling a room full of mandarins,
blue, green, and yellow, was “cakes and gingerbread” to ushering a Galway
party in to dinner.

First, then, was Mr. Miles Bodkin, whose grandfather would have been a lord
if Cromwell had not hanged him one fine morning. Then Mrs. Mosey Blake’s
first husband was promised the title of Kilmacud if it was ever restored;
whereas Mrs. French of Knocktunmor’s mother was then at law for a title.
And lastly, Mrs. Joe Burke was fourth cousin to Lord Clanricarde, as is or
will be every Burke from this to the day of judgment. Now, luckily for her
prospects, the lord was alive; and Mr. Blake, remembering a very sage adage
about “dead lions,” etc., solved the difficulty at once by gracefully
tucking the lady under his arm and leading the way. The others soon
followed, the priest of Portumna and my unworthy self bringing up the rear.

When, many a year afterwards, the hard ground of a mountain bivouac,
with its pitiful portion of pickled cork-tree yclept mess-beef, and that
pyroligneous aquafortis they call corn-brandy have been my hard fare,
I often looked back to that day’s dinner with a most heart-yearning
sensation,--a turbot as big as the Waterloo shield, a sirloin that seemed
cut from the sides of a rhinoceros, a sauce-boat that contained an
oyster-bed. There was a turkey, which singly would have formed the main
army of a French dinner, doing mere outpost duty, flanked by a picket of
ham and a detached squadron of chickens carefully ambushed in a forest
of greens; potatoes, not disguised _à la maître d’hôtel_ and tortured to
resemble bad macaroni, but piled like shot in an ordnance-yard, were posted
at different quarters; while massive decanters of port and sherry stood
proudly up like standard bearers amidst the goodly array. This was none
of your austere “great dinners,” where a cold and chilling _plateau_ of
artificial nonsense cuts off one-half of the table from intercourse with
the other; when whispered sentences constitute the conversation, and all
the friendly recognition of wine-drinking, which renews acquaintance and
cements an intimacy, is replaced by the ceremonious filling of your glass
by a lackey; where smiles go current in lieu of kind speeches, and epigram
and smartness form the substitute for the broad jest and merry story. Far
from it. Here the company ate, drank, talked, laughed,--did all but sing,
and certainly enjoyed themselves heartily. As for me, I was little more
than a listener; and such was the crash of plates, the jingle of glasses,
and the clatter of voices, that fragments only of what was passing
around reached me, giving to the conversation of the party a character
occasionally somewhat incongruous. Thus such sentences as the following ran
foul of each other every instant:--

“No better land in Galway”--“where could you find such facilities”--“for
shooting Mr. Jones on his way home”--“the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth”--“kiss”--“Miss Blake, she’s the girl with a foot and
ankle”--“Daly has never had wool on his sheep”--“how could he”--“what
does he pay for the mountain”--“four and tenpence a yard”--“not a penny
less”--“all the cabbage-stalks and potato-skins”--“with some bog stuff
through it”--“that’s the thing to”--“make soup, with a red herring in it
instead of salt”--“and when he proposed for my niece, ma’am, says he”--“mix
a strong tumbler, and I’ll make a shake-down for you on the floor”--“and
may the Lord have mercy on your soul”--“and now, down the middle and
up again”--“Captain Magan, my dear, he is the man”--“to shave a pig
properly”--“it’s not money I’m looking for, says he, the girl of my
heart”--“if she had not a wind-gall and two spavins”--“I’d have given her
the rights of the church, of coorse,” said Father Roach, bringing up the
rear of this ill-assorted jargon.

Such were the scattered links of conversation I was condemned to listen to,
till a general rise on the part of the ladies left us alone to discuss our
wine and enter in good earnest upon the more serious duties of the evening.

Scarcely was the door closed when one of the company, seizing the
bell-rope, said, “With your leave, Blake, we’ll have the ‘dew’ now.”

“Good claret,--no better,” said another; “but it sits mighty cold on the
stomach.”

“There’s nothing like the groceries, after all,--eh, Sir George?” said an
old Galway squire to the English general, who acceded to the fact, which he
understood in a very different sense.

“Oh, punch, you are my darlin’,” hummed another, as a large, square,
half-gallon decanter of whiskey was placed on the table, the various
decanters of wine being now ignominiously sent down to the end of the board
without any evidence of regret on any face save Sir George Dashwood’s, who
mixed his tumbler with a very rebellious conscience.

Whatever were the noise and clamor of the company before, they were nothing
to what now ensued. As one party were discussing the approaching contest,
another was planning a steeple-chase, while two individuals, unhappily
removed from each other the entire length of the table, were what is called
“challenging each other’s effects” in a very remarkable manner,--the
process so styled being an exchange of property, when each party, setting
an imaginary value upon some article, barters it for another, the amount
of boot paid and received being determined by a third person, who is the
umpire. Thus a gold breast-pin was swopped, as the phrase is, against a
horse; then a pair of boots, then a Kerry bull, etc.,--every imaginable
species of property coming into the market. Sometimes, as matters of very
dubious value turned up, great laughter was the result. In this very
national pastime, a Mr. Miles Bodkin, a noted fire-eater of the west, was
a great proficient; and it is said he once so completely succeeded in
despoiling an uninitiated hand, that after winning in succession his horse,
gig, harness, etc., he proceeded _seriatim_ to his watch, ring, clothes,
and portmanteau, and actually concluded by winning all he possessed, and
kindly lent him a card-cloth to cover him on his way to the hotel.
His success on the present occasion was considerable, and his spirits
proportionate. The decanter had thrice been replenished, and the flushed
faces and thickened utterance of the guests evinced that from the cold
properties of the claret there was but little to dread. As for Mr. Bodkin,
his manner was incapable of any higher flight, when under the influence of
whiskey, than what it evinced on common occasions; and as he sat at the end
of the table fronting Mr. Blake, he assumed all the dignity of the ruler of
the feast, with an energy no one seemed disposed to question. In answer to
some observations of Sir George, he was led into something like an oration
upon the peculiar excellences of his native country, which ended in a
declaration that there was nothing like Galway.

“Why don’t you give us a song, Miles? And may be the general would learn
more from it than all your speech-making.”

“To be sure,” cried the several voices together,--“to be sure; let us hear
the ‘Man for Galway’!”

Sir George having joined most warmly in the request, Mr. Bodkin filled up
his glass to the brim, bespoke a chorus to his chant, and clearing his
voice with a deep hem, began the following ditty, to the air which Moore
has since rendered immortal by the beautiful song, “Wreath the Bowl,” etc.
And, although the words are well known in the west, for the information of
less-favored regions, I here transcribe--

                 THE MAN FOR GALWAY.

              To drink a toast,
              A proctor roast,
                Or bailiff as the case is;
              To kiss your wife,
              Or take your life
                At ten or fifteen paces;
              To keep game-cocks, to hunt the fox,
                To drink in punch the Solway,
              With debts galore, but fun far more,--
                Oh, that’s “the man for Galway.”
                           CHORUS: With debts, etc.

              The King of Oude
              Is mighty proud,
                And so were onst the _Caysars_;
              But ould Giles Eyre
              Would make them stare,
                Av he had them with the Blazers.
              To the devil I fling--ould Runjeet Sing,
                He’s only a prince in a small way,
              And knows nothing at all of a six-foot wall;
                Oh, he’d never “do for Galway.”
                           CHORUS: With debts, etc.

              Ye think the Blakes
              Are no “great shakes;”
                 They’re all his blood relations.
              And the Bodkins sneeze
              At the grim Chinese,
                For they come from the _Phenaycians_.
              So fill the brim, and here’s to him
                Who’d drink in punch the Solway,
              With debts galore, but fun far more,--
                Oh, that’s “the man for Galway.”
                           CHORUS: With debts, etc.

I much fear that the reception of this very classic ode would not be as
favorable in general companies as it was on the occasion I first heard it;
for certainly the applause was almost deafening, and even Sir George, the
defects of whose English education left some of the allusions out of his
reach, was highly amused, and laughed heartily.

The conversation once more reverted to the election; and although I was too
far from those who seemed best informed on the matter to hear much, I could
catch enough to discover that the feeling was a confident one. This was
gratifying to me, as I had some scruples about my so long neglecting my
uncle’s cause.

“We have Scariff to a man,” said Bodkin.

“And Mosey’s tenantry,” said another. “I swear, though there’s not a
freehold registered on the estate, that they’ll vote, every mother’s son
of them, or devil a stone of the court-house they’ll leave standing on
another.”

“And may the Lord look to the returning officer!” said a third, throwing up
his eyes.

“Mosey’s tenantry are droll boys; and like their landlord, more by token,
they never pay any rent.”

“And what for shouldn’t they vote?” said a dry-looking little old fellow in
a red waistcoat; “when I was the dead agent--”

“The dead agent!” interrupted Sir George, with a start.

“Just so,” said the old fellow, pulling down his spectacles from his
forehead, and casting a half-angry look at Sir George, for what he had
suspected to be a doubt of his veracity.

“The general does not know, may be, what that is,” said some one.

“You have just anticipated me,” said Sir George; “I really am in most
profound ignorance.”

“It is the dead agent,” says Mr. Blake, “who always provides substitutes
for any voters that may have died since the last election. A very important
fact in statistics may thus be gathered from the poll-books of this county,
which proves it to be the healthiest part of Europe,--a freeholder has not
died in it for the last fifty years.”

“The ‘Kiltopher boys’ won’t come this time; they say there’s no use trying
to vote when so many were transported last assizes for perjury.”

“They’re poor-spirited creatures,” said another.

“Not they,--they are as decent boys as any we have; they’re willing to
wreck the town for fifty shillings’ worth of spirits. Besides, if they
don’t vote for the county, they will for the borough.”

This declaration seemed to restore these interesting individuals to favor;
and now all attention was turned towards Bodkin, who was detailing the plan
of a grand attack upon the polling-booths, to be headed by himself. By this
time, all the prudence and guardedness of the party had given way; whiskey
was in the ascendant, and every bold stroke of election policy, every
cunning artifice, every ingenious device, was detailed and applauded in
a manner which proved that self-respect was not the inevitable gift of
“mountain dew.”

The mirth and fun grew momentarily more boisterous, and Miles Bodkin, who
had twice before been prevented proposing some toast by a telegraphic
signal from the other end of the table, now swore that nothing should
prevent him any longer, and rising with a smoking tumbler in his hand,
delivered himself as follows:--

“No, no, Phil Blake, ye needn’t be winkin’ at me that way; it’s little I
care for the spawn of the ould serpent. [Here great cheers greeted the
speaker, in which, without well knowing why, I heartily joined.] I’m going
to give a toast, boys,--a real good toast, none of your sentimental things
about wall-flowers or the vernal equinox, or that kind of thing, but a
sensible, patriotic, manly, intrepid toast,--toast you must drink in the
most universal, laborious, and awful manner: do ye see now? [Loud cheers.]
If any man of you here present doesn’t drain this toast to the bottom [here
the speaker looked fixedly at me, as did the rest of the company]--then, by
the great-gun of Athlone, I’ll make him eat the decanter, glass-stopper and
all, for the good of his digestion: d’ye see now?”

The cheering at this mild determination prevented my hearing what followed;
but the peroration consisted in a very glowing eulogy upon some person
unknown, and a speedy return to him as member for Galway. Amidst all the
noise and tumult at this critical moment, nearly every eye at the table was
turned upon me; and as I concluded that they had been drinking my uncle’s
health, I thundered away at the mahogany with all my energy. At length the
hip-hipping over, and comparative quiet restored, I rose from my seat to
return thanks; but, strange enough, Sir George Dashwood did so likewise.
And there we both stood, amidst an uproar that might well have shaken the
courage of more practised orators; while from every side came cries of
“Hear, hear!”--“Go on, Sir George!”--“Speak out, General!”--“Sit down,
Charley!”--“Confound the boy!”--“Knock the legs from under him!” etc. Not
understanding why Sir George should interfere with what I regarded as my
peculiar duty, I resolved not to give way, and avowed this determination in
no very equivocal terms. “In that case,” said the general, “I am to suppose
that the young gentleman moves an amendment to your proposition; and as the
etiquette is in his favor, I yield.” Here he resumed his place amidst a
most terrific scene of noise and tumult, while several humane proposals as
to my treatment were made around me, and a kind suggestion thrown out to
break my neck by a near neighbor. Mr. Blake at length prevailed upon the
party to hear what I had to say,--for he was certain I should not detain
them above a minute. The commotion having in some measure subsided, I
began: “Gentlemen, as the adopted son of the worthy man whose health you
have just drunk--” Heaven knows how I should have continued; but here my
eloquence was met by such a roar of laughing as I never before listened to.
From one end of the board to the other it was one continued shout, and went
on, too, as if all the spare lungs of the party had been kept in reserve
for the occasion. I turned from one to the other; I tried to smile, and
seemed to participate in the joke, but failed; I frowned; I looked savagely
about where I could see enough to turn my wrath thitherward,--and, as it
chanced, not in vain; for Mr. Miles Bodkin, with an intuitive perception of
my wishes, most suddenly ceased his mirth, and assuming a look of frowning
defiance that had done him good service upon many former occasions, rose
and said:--

“Well, sir, I hope you’re proud of yourself. You’ve made a nice beginning
of it, and a pretty story you’ll have for your uncle. But if you’d like to
break the news by a letter the general will have great pleasure in franking
it for you; for, by the rock of Cashel, we’ll carry him in against all the
O’Malley’s that ever cheated the sheriff.”

Scarcely were the words uttered, when I seized my wineglass, and hurled it
with all my force at his head; so sudden was the act, and so true the aim,
that Mr. Bodkin measured his length upon the floor ere his friends could
appreciate his late eloquent effusion. The scene now became terrific;
for though the redoubted Miles was _hors-de-combat_, his friends made a
tremendous rush at, and would infallibly have succeeded in capturing me,
had not Blake and four or five others interposed. Amidst a desperate
struggle, which lasted for some minutes, I was torn from the spot, carried
bodily up-stairs, and pitched headlong into my own room; where, having
doubly locked the door on the outside, they left me to my own cool and not
over-agreeable reflections.




CHAPTER VII.


THE FLIGHT FROM GURT-NA-MORRA.

It was by one of those sudden and inexplicable revulsions which
occasionally restore to sense and intellect the maniac of years standing,
that I was no sooner left alone in my chamber than I became perfectly
sober. The fumes of the wine--and I had drunk deeply--were dissipated at
once; my head, which but a moment before was half wild with excitement, was
now cool, calm, and collected; and stranger than all, I, who had only an
hour since entered the dining-room with all the unsuspecting freshness of
boyhood, became, by a mighty bound, a man,--a man in all my feelings of
responsibility, a man who, repelling an insult by an outrage, had resolved
to stake his life upon the chance. In an instant a new era in life had
opened before me; the light-headed gayety which fearlessness and youth
impart was replaced by one absorbing thought,--one all-engrossing,
all-pervading impression, that if I did not follow up my quarrel with
Bodkin, I was dishonored and disgraced, my little knowledge of such matters
not being sufficient to assure me that I was now the aggressor, and that
any further steps in the affair should come from his side.

So thoroughly did my own griefs occupy me, that I had no thought for the
disappointment my poor uncle was destined to meet with in hearing that the
Blake interest was lost to him, and the former breach between the families
irreparably widened by the events of the evening. Escape was my first
thought; but how to accomplish it? The door, a solid one of Irish oak,
doubly locked and bolted, defied all my efforts to break it open; the
window was at least five-and-twenty feet from the ground, and not a tree
near to swing into. I shouted, I called aloud, I opened the sash, and tried
if any one outside were within hearing; but in vain. Weary and exhausted,
I sat down upon my bed and ruminated over my fortunes. Vengeance--quick,
entire, decisive vengeance--I thirsted and panted for; and every moment
I lived under the insult inflicted on me seemed an age of torturing and
maddening agony. I rose with a leap; a thought had just occurred to me.
I drew the bed towards the window, and fastening the sheet to one of the
posts with a firm knot, I twisted it into a rope, and let myself down to
within about twelve feet of the ground, when I let go my hold, and dropped
upon the grass beneath safe and uninjured. A thin, misty rain was falling,
and I now perceived, for the first time, that in my haste I had forgotten
my hat; this thought, however, gave me little uneasiness, and I took my way
towards the stable, resolving, if I could, to saddle my horse and get off
before any intimation of my escape reached the family.

When I gained the yard, all was quiet and deserted; the servants were
doubtless enjoying themselves below stairs, and I met no one on the way. I
entered the stable, threw the saddle upon “Badger,” and before five minutes
from my descent from the window, was galloping towards O’Malley Castle at a
pace that defied pursuit, had any one thought of it.

It was about five o’clock on a dark, wintry morning as I led my horse
through the well-known defiles of out-houses and stables which formed the
long line of offices to my uncle’s house. As yet no one was stirring; and
as I wished to have my arrival a secret from the family, after
providing for the wants of my gallant gray, I lifted the latch of the
kitchen-door--no other fastening being ever thought necessary, even at
night--and gently groped my way towards the stairs; all was perfectly
still, and the silence now recalled me to reflection as to what course I
should pursue. It was all-important that my uncle should know nothing of my
quarrel, otherwise he would inevitably make it his own, and by treating
me like a boy in the matter, give the whole affair the very turn I most
dreaded. Then, as to Sir Harry Boyle, he would most certainly turn the
whole thing into ridicule, make a good story, perhaps a song out of it, and
laugh at my notions of demanding satisfaction. Considine, I knew, was my
man; but then he was at Athlone,--at least so my uncle’s letter mentioned.
Perhaps he might have returned; if not, to Athlone I should set off at
once. So resolving, I stole noiselessly up-stairs, and reached the door of
the count’s chamber; I opened it gently and entered; and though my step
was almost imperceptible to myself, it was quite sufficient to alarm the
watchful occupant of the room, who, springing up in his bed, demanded
gruffly, “Who’s there?”

“Charles, sir,” said I, shutting the door carefully, and approaching his
bedside. “Charles O’Malley, sir. I’m come to have a bit of your advice; and
as the affair won’t keep, I have been obliged to disturb you.”

“Never mind, Charley,” said the count; “sit down, there’s a chair somewhere
near the bed,--have you found it? There! Well now, what is it? What news of
Blake?”

“Very bad; no worse. But it is not exactly _that_ I came about; I’ve got
into a scrape, sir.”

“Run off with one of the daughters,” said Considine. “By jingo, I knew what
those artful devils would be after.”

“Not so bad as that,” said I, laughing. “It’s just a row, a kind of
squabble; something that must come--”

“Ay, ay,” said the count, brightening up; “say you so, Charley? Begad, the
young ones will beat us all out of the field. Who is it with,--not old
Blake himself; how was it? Tell me all.”

I immediately detailed the whole events of the preceding chapter, as well
as his frequent interruptions would permit, and concluded by asking what
farther step was now to be taken, as I was resolved the matter should be
concluded before it came to my uncle’s ears.

“There you are all right; quite correct, my boy. But there are many points
I should have wished otherwise in the conduct of the affair hitherto.”

Conceiving that he was displeased at my petulance and boldness, I was about
to commence a kind of defence, when he added,--

“Because, you see,” said he, assuming an oracular tone of voice, “throwing
a wine-glass, with or without wine, in a man’s face is merely, as you may
observe, a mark of denial and displeasure at some observation he may have
made,--not in any wise intended to injure him, further than in the wound to
his honor at being so insulted, for which, of course, he must subsequently
call you out. Whereas, Charley, in the present case, the view I take
is different; the expression of Mr. Bodkin, as regards your uncle, was
insulting to a degree,--gratuitously offensive,--and warranting a blow.
Therefore, my boy, you should, under such circumstances, have preferred
aiming at him with a decanter: a cut-glass decanter, well aimed and low, I
have seen do effective service. However, as you remark it was your first
thing of the kind, I am pleased with you--very much pleased with you. Now,
then, for the next step.” So saying, he arose from his bed, and striking a
light with a tinder-box, proceeded to dress himself as leisurely as if for
a dinner party, talking all the while.

“I will just take Godfrey’s tax-cart and the roan mare on to Meelish, put
them up at the little inn,--it is not above a mile from Bodkin’s; and I’ll
go over and settle the thing for you. You must stay quiet till I come
back, and not leave the house on any account. I’ve got a case of old broad
barrels there that will answer you beautifully; if you were anything of
a shot, I’d give you my own cross handles, but they’d only spoil your
shooting.”

“I can hit a wine-glass in the stem at fifteen paces,” said I, rather
nettled at the disparaging tone in which he spoke of my performance.

“I don’t care sixpence for that; the wine-glass had no pistol in his hand.
Take the old German, then; see now, hold your pistol thus,--no finger on
the guard there, these two on the trigger. They are not hair-triggers; drop
the muzzle a bit; bend your elbow a trifle more; sight your man outside
your arm,--outside, mind,--and take him in the hip, and if anywhere higher,
no matter.”

By this time the count had completed his toilet, and taking the small
mahogany box which contained his peace-makers under his arm, led the way
towards the stables. When we reached the yard, the only person stirring
there was a kind of half-witted boy, who, being about the house, was
employed to run of messages from the servants, walk a stranger’s horse, or
to do any of the many petty services that regular domestics contrive always
to devolve upon some adopted subordinate. He was seated upon a stone step
formerly used for mounting, and though the day was scarcely breaking, and
the weather severe and piercing, the poor fellow was singing an Irish song,
in a low monotonous tone, as he chafed a curb chain between his hands with
some sand. As we came near he started up, and as he pulled off his cap to
salute us, gave a sharp and piercing glance at the count, then at me,
then once more upon my companion, from whom his eyes were turned to the
brass-bound box beneath his arm,--when, as if seized with a sudden impulse,
he started on his feet, and set off towards the house with the speed of a
greyhound, not, however, before Considine’s practised eye had anticipated
his plan; for throwing down the pistol-case, he dashed after him, and in an
instant had seized him by the collar.

“It won’t do, Patsey,” said the count; “you can’t double on me.”

“Oh, Count, darlin’, Mister Considine avick, don’t do it, don’t now,” said
the poor fellow, falling on his knees, and blubbering like an infant.

“Hold your tongue, you villain, or I’ll cut it out of your head,” said
Considine.

“And so I will; but don’t do it, don’t for the love of--”

“Don’t do what, you whimpering scoundrel? What does he think I’ll do?”

“Don’t I know very well what you’re after, what you’re always after too?
Oh, wirra, wirra!” Here he wrung his hands, and swayed himself backwards
and forwards, a true picture of Irish grief.

“I’ll stop his blubbering,” said Considine, opening the box and taking out
a pistol, which he cocked leisurely, and pointed at the poor fellow’s head;
“another syllable now, and I’ll scatter your brains upon that pavement.”

“And do, and divil thank you; sure, it’s your trade.”

The coolness of the reply threw us both off our guard so completely that we
burst out into a hearty fit of laughing.

“Come, come,” said the count, at last, “this will never do; if he goes on
this way, we’ll have the whole house about us. Come, then, harness the roan
mare; and here’s half a crown for you.”

“I wouldn’t touch the best piece in your purse,” said the poor boy; “sure
it’s blood-money, no less.”

The words were scarcely spoken, when Considine seized him by the collar
with one hand, and by the wrist with the other, and carried him over the
yard to the stable, where, kicking open the door, he threw him on a heap of
stones, adding, “If you stir now, I’ll break every bone in your body;” a
threat that seemed certainly considerably increased in its terrors, from
the rough gripe he had already experienced, for the lad rolled himself up
like a ball, and sobbed as if his heart were breaking.

Very few minutes sufficed us now to harness the mare in the tax-cart, and
when all was ready, Considine seized the whip, and locking the stable-door
upon Patsey, was about to get up, when a sudden thought struck him.
“Charley,” said he, “that fellow will find some means to give the alarm; we
must take him with us.” So saying, he opened the door, and taking the poor
fellow by the collar, flung him at my feet in the tax-cart.

We had already lost some time, and the roan mare was put to her fastest
speed to make up for it. Our pace became, accordingly, a sharp one; and as
the road was bad, and the tax-cart no “patent inaudible,” neither of us
spoke. To me this was a great relief. The events of the last few days had
given them the semblance of years, and all the reflection I could muster
was little enough to make anything out of the chaotic mass,--love,
mischief, and misfortune,--in which I had been involved since my leaving
O’Malley Castle.

“Here we are, Charley,” said Considine, drawing up short at the door of a
little country ale-house, or, in Irish parlance, _shebeen_, which stood at
the meeting of four bleak roads, in a wild and barren mountain tract beside
the Shannon. “Here we are, my boy! Jump out and let us be stirring.”

“Here, Patsey, my man,” said the count, unravelling the prostrate and
doubly knotted figure at our feet; “lend a hand, Patsey.” Much to my
astonishment, he obeyed the summons with alacrity, and proceeded to
unharness the mare with the greatest despatch. My attention was, however,
soon turned from him to my own more immediate concerns, and I followed my
companion into the house.

“Joe,” said the count to the host, “is Mr. Bodkin up at the house this
morning?”

“He’s just passed this way, sir, with Mr. Malowney of Tillnamuck, in the
gig, on their way from Mr. Blake’s. They stopped here to order horses to go
over to O’Malley Castle, and the gossoon is gone to look for a pair.”

“All right,” said Considine, and added, in a whisper, “we’ve done it well,
Charley, to be beforehand, or the governor would have found it all out and
taken the affair into his own hands. Now all you have to do is to stay
quietly here till I come back, which will not be above an hour at farthest.
Joe, send me the pony; keep an eye on Patsey, that he doesn’t play us a
trick. The short way to Mr. Bodkin’s is through Scariff. Ay, I know it
well; good-by, Charley. By the Lord, we’ll pepper him!”

These were the last words of the worthy count as he closed the door behind
him, and left me to my own not very agreeable reflections. Independently of
my youth and perfect ignorance of the world, which left me unable to form
any correct judgment on my conduct, I knew that I had taken a great deal
of wine, and was highly excited when my unhappy collision with Mr. Bodkin
occurred. Whether, then, I had been betrayed into anything which could
fairly have provoked his insulting retort or not, I could not remember; and
now my most afflicting thought was, what opinion might be entertained of me
by those at Blake’s table; and above all, what Miss Dashwood herself would
think, and what narrative of the occurrence would reach her. The great
effort of my last few days had been to stand well in her estimation, to
appear something better in feeling, something higher in principle, than the
rude and unpolished squirearchy about me; and now here was the end of
it! What would she, what could she, think, but that I was the same
punch-drinking, rowing, quarrelling bumpkin as those whom I had so lately
been carefully endeavoring to separate myself from? How I hated myself for
the excess to which passion had betrayed me, and how I detested my opponent
as the cause of all my present misery. “How very differently,” thought
I, “her friend the captain would have conducted himself. His quiet and
gentlemanly manner would have done fully as much to wipe out any insult on
his honor as I could do, and after all, would neither have disturbed the
harmony of a dinner-table, nor made himself, as I shuddered to think I
had, a subject of rebuke, if not of ridicule.” These harassing, torturing
reflections continued to press on me, and I paced the room with my hands
clasped and the perspiration upon my brow. “One thing is certain,--I can
never see her again,” thought I; “this disgraceful business must, in some
shape or other, become known to her, and all I have been saying these
last three days rise up in judgment against this one act, and stamp me an
impostor! I that decried--nay, derided--our false notion of honor. Would
that Considine were come! What can keep him now?” I walked to the door; a
boy belonging to the house was walking the roan before the door. “What had,
then, become of Pat?” I inquired; but no one could tell. He had disappeared
shortly after our arrival, and had not been seen afterwards. My own
thoughts were, however, too engrossing to permit me to think more of this
circumstance, and I turned again to enter the house, when I saw Considine
advancing up the road at the full speed of his pony.

“Out with the mare, Charley! Be alive, my boy!--all’s settled.” So saying,
he sprang from the pony and proceeded to harness the roan with the greatest
haste, informing me in broken sentences, as he went on with all the
arrangements.

“We are to cross the bridge of Portumna. They won the ground, and it seems
Bodkin likes the spot; he shot Peyton there three years ago. Worse luck
now, Charley, you know; by all the rule of chance, he can’t expect the same
thing twice,--never four by honors in two deals. Didn’t say that, though. A
sweet meadow, I know it well; small hillocks, like molehills; all over it.
Caught him at breakfast; I don’t think he expected the message to come from
us, but said it was a very polite attention,--and so it was, you know.”

So he continued to ramble on as we once more took our seats in the tax-cart
and set out for the ground.

“What are you thinking of, Charley?” said the count, as I kept silent for
some minutes.

“I’m thinking, sir, if I were to kill him, what I must do after.”

“Right, my boy; nothing like that, but I’ll settle all for you. Upon my
conscience, if it wasn’t for the chance of his getting into another quarrel
and spoiling the election, I’d go back for Godfrey; he’d like to see you
break ground so prettily. And you say you’re no shot?”

“Never could do anything with the pistol to speak of, sir,” said I,
remembering his rebuke of the morning.

“I don’t mind that. You’ve a good eye; never take it off him after you’re
on the ground,--follow him everywhere. Poor Callaghan, that’s gone, shot
his man always that way. He had a way of looking without winking that was
very fatal at a short distance; a very good thing to learn, Charley, when
you have a little spare time.”

Half-an-hour’s sharp driving brought us to the river side, where a boat
had been provided by Considine to ferry us over. It was now about eight
o’clock, and a heavy, gloomy morning. Much rain had fallen overnight, and
the dark and lowering atmosphere seemed charged with more. The mountains
looked twice their real size, and all the shadows were increased to
an enormous extent. A very killing kind of light it was, as the count
remarked.




CHAPTER VIII.


THE DUEL.

As the boatmen pulled in towards the shore we perceived, a few hundred
yards off, a group of persons standing, whom we soon recognized as our
opponents. “Charley,” said the count, grasping my arm tightly, as I stood
up to spring on the land,--“Charley, although you are only a boy, as I may
say, I have no fear for your courage; but still more than that is needful
here. This Bodkin is a noted duellist, and will try to shake your nerve.
Now, mind that you take everything that happens quite with an air of
indifference; don’t let him think that he has any advantage over you, and
you’ll see how the tables will be turned in your favor.”

“Trust to me, Count” said I; “I’ll not disgrace you.”

He pressed my hand tightly, and I thought that I discerned something like
a slight twitch about the corners of his grim mouth, as if some sudden and
painful thought had shot across his mind; but in a moment he was calm, and
stern-looking as ever.

“Twenty minutes late, Mr. Considine,” said a short, red-faced little
man, with a military frock and foraging cap, as he held out his watch in
evidence.

“I can only say, Captain Malowney, that we lost no time since we parted. We
had some difficulty in finding a boat; but in any case, we are here _now_,
and that, I opine, is the important part of the matter.”

“Quite right,--very just indeed. Will you present me to your young friend.
Very proud to make your acquaintance, sir; your uncle and I met more than
once in this kind of way. I was out with him in ‘92,--was it? no, I think
it was ‘93,--when he shot Harry Burgoyne, who, by-the-bye, was called the
crack shot of our mess; but, begad, your uncle knocked his pistol hand to
shivers, saying, in his dry way, ‘He must try the left hand this morning.’
Count, a little this side, if you please.”

While Considine and the captain walked a few paces apart from where I
stood, I had leisure to observe my antagonist, who stood among a group of
his friends, talking and laughing away in great spirits. As the tone they
spoke in was not of the lowest, I could catch much of their conversation at
the distance I was from them. They were discussing the last occasion that
Bodkin had visited this spot, and talking of the fatal event which happened
then.

“Poor devil,” said Bodkin, “it wasn’t his fault; but you see some of the
--th had been showing white feathers before that, and he was obliged to go
out. In fact, the colonel himself said, ‘Fight, or leave the corps.’ Well,
out he came; it was a cold morning in February, with a frost the night
before going off in a thin rain. Well, it seems he had the consumption or
something of that sort, with a great cough and spitting of blood, and this
weather made him worse; and he was very weak when he came to the ground.
Now, the moment I got a glimpse of him, I said to myself, ‘He’s pluck
enough, but as nervous as a lady;’ for his eye wandered all about, and his
mouth was constantly twitching. ‘Take off your great-coat, Ned,’ said one
of his people, when they were going to put him up; ‘take it off, man.’ He
seemed to hesitate for an instant, when Michael Blake remarked, ‘Arrah, let
him alone; it’s his mother makes him wear it, for the cold he has.’ They
all began to laugh at this; but I kept my eye upon him, and I saw that his
cheek grew quite livid and a kind of gray color, and his eyes filled up. ‘I
have you now,’ said I to myself, and I shot him through the lung.”

“And this poor fellow,” thought I, “was the only son of a widowed mother.”
 I walked from the spot to avoid hearing further, and felt, as I did so,
something like a spirit of vengeance rising within me, for the fate of one
so untimely cut off.

“Here we are, all ready,” said Malowney, springing over a small fence into
the adjoining field. “Take your ground, gentlemen.”

Considine took my arm and walked forward. “Charley,” said he, “I am to give
the signal; I’ll drop my glove when you are to fire, but don’t look at me
at all. I’ll manage to catch Bodkin’s eye; and do you watch him steadily,
and fire when he does.”

“I think that the ground we are leaving behind us is rather better,” said
some one.

“So it is,” said Bodkin; “but it might be troublesome to carry the young
gentleman down that way,--here all is fair and easy.”

The next instant we were placed; and I well remember the first thought that
struck me was, that there could be no chance of either of us escaping.

“Now then,” said the count, “I’ll walk twelve paces, turn and drop this
glove; at which signal you fire, and _together_ mind. The man who reserves
his shot falls by my hand.” This very summary denunciation seemed to meet
general approbation, and the count strutted forth. Notwithstanding the
advice of my friend, I could not help turning my eyes from Bodkin to watch
the retiring figure of the count. At length he stopped; a second or two
elapsed; he wheeled rapidly round, and let fall the glove. My eye glanced
towards my opponent; I raised my pistol and fired. My hat turned half round
upon my head, and Bodkin fell motionless to the earth. I saw the people
around me rush forward; I caught two or three glances thrown at me with an
expression of revengeful passion; I felt some one grasp me round the waist,
and hurry me from the spot; and it was at least ten minutes after, as we
were skimming the surface of the broad Shannon, before I could well collect
my scattered faculties to remember all that was passing, as Considine,
pointing to the two bullet-holes in my hat, remarked, “Sharp practice,
Charley; it was the overcharge saved you.”

“Is he killed, sir?” I asked.

“Not quite, I believe, but as good. You took him just above the hip.”

“Can he recover?” said I, with a voice tremulous from agitation, which I
vainly endeavored to conceal from my companion.

“Not if the doctor can help it,” said Considine; “for the fool keeps poking
about for the ball. But now let’s think of the next step,--you’ll have to
leave this, and at once, too.”

Little more passed between us. As we rowed towards the shore, Considine
was following up his reflections, and I had mine,--alas! too many and too
bitter to escape from.

As we neared the land a strange spectacle caught our eye. For a
considerable distance along the coast crowds of country people were
assembled, who, forming in groups and breaking into parties of two and
three, were evidently watching with great anxiety what was taking place at
the opposite side. Now, the distance was at least a mile, and therefore any
part of the transaction which had been enacting there must have been quite
beyond their view. While I was wondering at this, Considine cried out
suddenly, “Too infamous, by Jove! We’re murdered men!”

“What do you mean?” said I.

“Don’t you see that?” said he, pointing to something black which floated
from a pole at the opposite side of the river.

“Yes; what is it?”

“It’s his coat they’ve put upon an oar to show the people he’s
killed,--that’s all. Every man here’s his tenant; and look--there! They’re
not giving us much doubt as to their intention.”

Here a tremendous yell burst forth from the mass of people along the shore,
which rising to a terrific cry sunk gradually down to a low wailing, then
rose and fell again several times as the Irish death-cry filled the air and
rose to Heaven, as if imploring vengeance on a murderer.

The appalling influence of the _keen_, as it is called, had been familiar
to me from my infancy; but it needed the awful situation I was placed in to
consummate its horrors. It was at once my accusation and my doom. I knew
well--none better--the vengeful character of the Irish peasant of the west,
and that my death was certain I had no doubt. The very crime that sat upon
my heart quailed its courage and unnerved my arm. As the boatmen
looked from us towards the shore and again at our faces, they, as if
instinctively, lay upon their oars, and waited for our decision as to what
course to pursue.

“Rig the spritsail, my boys,” said Considine, “and let her head lie up the
river; and be alive, for I see they’re bailing a boat below the little reef
there, and will be after us in no time.”

The poor fellows, who, although strangers to us, sympathizing in what they
perceived to be our imminent danger, stepped the light spar which acted
as mast, and shook out their scanty rag of canvas in a minute. Considine
meanwhile went aft, and steadying her head with an oar, held the small
craft up to the wind till she lay completely over, and as she rushed
through the water, ran dipping her gun-wale through the white foam.

“Where can we make without tacking, boys?” inquired the count.

“If it blows on as fresh, sir, we’ll run you ashore within half a mile of
the Castle.”

“Put an oar to leeward,” said Considine, “and keep her up more to the wind,
and I promise you, my lads, you will not go home fresh and fasting if you
land us where you say.”

“Here they come,” said the other boatman, as he pointed back with his
finger towards a large yawl which shot suddenly from the shore, with six
sturdy fellows pulling at their oars, while three or four others were
endeavoring to get up their rigging, which appeared tangled and confused at
the bottom of the boat; the white splash of water which fell each moment
beside her showing that the process of bailing was still continued.

“Ah, then, may I never--av it isn’t the ould ‘Dolphin’ they have launched
for the cruise,” said one of our fellows.

“What’s the ‘Dolphin,’ then?”

“An ould boat of the Lord’s [Lord Clanricarde’s] that didn’t see water,
except when it rained, these four years, and is sun-cracked from stem to
stern.”

“She can sail, however,” said Considine, who watched with a painful anxiety
the rapidity of her course through the water.

“Nabocklish, she was a smuggler’s jolly-boat, and well used to it. Look
how they’re pulling. God pardon them, but they’re in no blessed humor this
morning.”

“Lay out upon your oars, boys; the wind’s failing us,” cried the count, as
the sail flapped lazily against the mast.

“It’s no use, yer honor,” said the elder. “We’ll be only breaking our
hearts to no purpose. They’re sure to catch us.”

“Do as I bade you, at all events. What’s that ahead of us there?”

“The Oat Rock, sir. A vessel with grain struck there and went down with
all aboard, four years last winter. There’s no channel between it and the
shore,--all sunk rocks, every inch of it. There’s the breeze.”

The canvas fell over as he spoke, and the little craft lay down to it till
the foaming water bubbled over her lee bow.

“Keep her head up, sir; higher--higher still.”

But Considine little heeded the direction, steering straight for the narrow
channel the man alluded to.

“Tear and ages, but you’re going right for the cloch na quirka!”

“Arrah, an’ the devil a taste I’ll be drowned for your devarsion!” said the
other, springing up.

“Sit down there, and be still,” roared Considine, as he drew a pistol from
the case at his feet, “if you don’t want some leaden ballast to keep you
so! Here, Charley, take this, and if that fellow stirs hand or foot--you
understand me.”

The two men sat sulkily in the bottom of the boat, which now was actually
flying through the water. Considine’s object was a clear one. He saw that
in sailing we were greatly overmatched, and that our only chance lay in
reaching the narrow and dangerous channel between Oat Rock and the shore,
by which we should distance the pursuit, the long reef of rocks that ran
out beyond requiring a wide berth to escape from. Nothing but the danger
behind us could warrant so rash a daring. The whole channel was dotted with
patches of white and breaking foam,--the sure evidence of the mischief
beneath,--while here and there a dash of spurting spray flew up from the
dark water, where some cleft rock lay hid below the flood. Escape seemed
impossible; but who would not have preferred even so slender a chance with
so frightful an alternative behind him? As if to add terror to the scene,
Considine had scarcely turned the boat ahead of the channel when a
tremendous blackness spread over all around, the thunder pealed forth, and
amidst the crashing of the hail and the bright glare of lightning a squall
struck us and laid us nearly keel uppermost for several minutes. I well
remember we rushed through the dark and blackened water, our little craft
more than half filled, the oars floating off to leeward, and we ourselves
kneeling on the bottom planks for safety. Roll after roll of loud thunder
broke, as it were, just above our heads; while in the swift dashing rain
that seemed to hiss around us every object was hidden, and even the other
boat was lost to our view. The two poor fellows--I shall never forget their
expression. One, a devout Catholic, had placed a little leaden image of a
saint before him in the bow, and implored its intercession with a torturing
agony of suspense that wrung my very heart. The other, apparently less
alive to such consolations as his Church afforded, remained with his hands
clasped, his mouth compressed, his brows knitted, and his dark eyes bent
upon me with the fierce hatred of a deadly enemy; his eyes were sunken and
bloodshot, and all told of some dreadful conflict within. The wild ferocity
of his look fascinated my gaze, and amidst all the terrors of the scene I
could not look from him. As I gazed, a second and more awful squall struck
the boat; the mast went over, and with a loud report like a pistol-shot
smashed at the thwart and fell over, trailing the sail along the milky sea
behind us. Meanwhile the water rushed clean over us, and the boat seemed
settling. At this dreadful moment the sailor’s eye was bent upon me, his
lips parted, and he muttered, as if to himself, “This it is to go to sea
with a murderer.” Oh, God! the agony of that moment! the heartfelt and
accusing conscience that I was judged and doomed! that the brand of Cain
was upon my brow! that my fellow-men had ceased forever to regard me as a
brother! that I was an outcast and a wanderer forever! I bent forward till
my forehead fell upon my knees, and I wept. Meanwhile the boat flew through
the water, and Considine, who alone among us seemed not to lose his
presence of mind, cut away the mast and sent it overboard. The storm began
now to abate; and as the black mass of cloud broke from around us we beheld
the other boat, also dismasted, far behind us, while all on board of
her were employed in bailing out the water with which she seemed almost
sinking. The curtain of mist that had hidden us from each other no sooner
broke than they ceased their labors for a moment, and looking towards us,
burst forth into a yell so wild, so savage, so dreadful, my very heart
quailed as its cadence fell upon my ear.

“Safe, my boy,” said Considine, clapping me on the shoulder, as he steered
the boat forth from its narrow path of danger, and once more reached the
broad Shannon,--“safe, Charley; though we’ve had a brush for it.” In a
minute more we reached the land, and drawing our gallant little craft on
shore, set out for O’Malley Castle.




CHAPTER IX.


THE RETURN.

O’Malley Castle lay about four miles from the spot we landed at, and
thither accordingly we bent our steps without loss of time. We had not,
however, proceeded far, when, before us on the road, we perceived a mixed
assemblage of horse and foot, hurrying along at a tremendous rate. The mob,
which consisted of some hundred country people, were armed with sticks,
scythes, and pitchforks, and although not preserving any very military
aspect in their order of march, were still a force quite formidable enough
to make us call a halt, and deliberate upon what we were to do.

“They’ve outflanked us, Charley,” said Considine; “however, all is not yet
lost. But see, they’ve got sight of us; here they come.”

At these words, the vast mass before us came pouring along, splashing the
mud on every side, and huzzaing like so many Indians. In the front ran a
bare-legged boy, waving his cap to encourage the rest, who followed him at
about fifty yards behind.

“Leave that fellow for me,” said the count, coolly examining the lock of
his pistol; “I’ll pick him out, and load again in time for his friends’
arrival. Charley, is that a gentleman I see far back in the crowd? Yes,
to be sure it is? He’s on a large horse--now he’s pressing forward; so
let--no--oh--ay, it’s Godfrey O’Malley himself, and these are our own
people.” Scarcely were the words out when a tremendous cheer arose from
the multitude, who, recognizing us at the same instant, sprang from their
horses and ran forward to welcome us. Among the foremost was the scarecrow
leader, whom I at once perceived as poor Patsey, who, escaping in the
morning, had returned at full speed to O’Malley Castle, and raised the
whole country to my rescue. Before I could address one word to my faithful
followers I was in my uncle’s arms.

“Safe, my boy, quite safe?”

“Quite safe, sir.”

“No scratch anywhere?”

“Nothing but a hat the worse, sir,” said I, showing the two bullet-holes in
my headpiece.

His lip quivered as he turned and whispered something into Considine’s ear,
which I heard not; but the count’s reply was, “Devil a bit, as cool as you
see him this minute.”

“And Bodkin, what of him?”

“This day’s work’s his last,” said Considine; “the ball entered here. But
come along, Godfrey; Charley’s new at this kind of thing, and we had better
discuss matters in the house.”

Half-an-hour’s brisk trot--for we were soon supplied with horses--brought
us back to the Castle, much to the disappointment of our cortege, who had
been promised a _scrimmage_, and went back in very ill-humor at the breach
of contract.

The breakfast-room, as we entered, was filled with my uncle’s supporters,
all busily engaged over poll-books and booth tallies, in preparation for
the eventful day of battle. These, however, were immediately thrown aside
to hasten round me and inquire all the details of my duel. Considine,
happily for me, however, assumed all the dignity of an historian, and
recounted the events of the morning so much to my honor and glory, that I,
who only a little before felt crushed and bowed down by the misery of my
late duel, began, amidst the warm congratulations and eulogiums about me,
to think I was no small hero, and in fact, something very much resembling
“the man for Galway.” To this feeling a circumstance that followed assisted
in contributing. While we were eagerly discussing the various results
likely to arise from the meeting, a horse galloped rapidly to the door and
a loud voice called out, “I can’t get off, but tell him to come here.” We
rushed out and beheld Captain Malowney, Mr. Bodkin’s second, covered with
mud from head to foot, and his horse reeking with foam and sweat. “I am
hurrying on to Athlone for another doctor; but I’ve called to tell you
that the wound is not supposed to be mortal,--he may recover yet.” Without
waiting for another word, he dashed spurs into his nag and rattled down the
avenue at full gallop. Mr. Bodkin’s dearest friend on earth could not have
received the intelligence with more delight; and I now began to listen to
the congratulations of my friends with a more tranquil spirit. My uncle,
too, seemed much relieved by the information, and heard with great good
temper my narrative of the few days at Gurt-na-Morra. “So then,” said he,
as I concluded, “my opponent is at least a gentleman; that is a comfort.”

“Sir George Dashwood,” said I, “from all I have seen, is a remarkably nice
person, and I am certain you will meet with only the fair and legitimate
opposition of an opposing candidate in him,--no mean or unmanly
subterfuge.”

“All right, Charley. Well, now, your affair of this morning must keep you
quiet for a few days, come what will; by Monday next, when the election
takes place, Bodkin’s fate will be pretty clear, one way or the other, and
if matters go well, you can come into town; otherwise, I have arranged with
Considine to take you over to the Continent for a year or so; but we’ll
discuss all this in the evening. Now I must start on a canvass. Boyle
expects to meet you at dinner to-day; he is coming from Athlone on purpose.
Now, good-by!”

When my uncle had gone, I sank into a chair and fell into a musing fit over
all the changes a few hours had wrought in me. From a mere boy whose most
serious employment was stocking the house with game or inspecting the
kennel, I had sprung at once into man’s estate, was complimented for my
coolness, praised for my prowess, lauded for my discretion, by those
who were my seniors by nearly half a century; talked to in a tone of
confidential intimacy by my uncle, and, in a word, treated in all respects
as an equal,--and such was all the work of a few hours. But so it is; the
eras in life are separated by a narrow boundary,--some trifling accident,
some casual _rencontre_ impels us across the Rubicon, and we pass from
infancy to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to age, less by
the slow and imperceptible step of time than by some one decisive act
or passion which, occurring at a critical moment, elicits a long latent
feeling, and impresses our existence with a color that tinges us for many
a long year. As for me, I had cut the tie which bound me to the careless
gayety of boyhood with a rude gash. In three short days I had fallen
deeply, desperately in love, and had wounded, if not killed, an antagonist
in a duel. As I meditated on these things, I was aroused by the noise of
horses’ feet in the yard beneath. I opened the window and beheld no less a
person than Captain Hammersley. He was handing a card to a servant, which
he was accompanying by a verbal message; the impression of something like
hostility on the part of the captain had never left my mind, and I hastened
down-stairs just in time to catch him as he turned from the door.

“Ah, Mr. O’Malley!” said he, in a most courteous tone. “They told me you
were not at home.”

I apologized for the blunder, and begged of him to alight and come in.

“I thank you very much, but, in fact, my hours are now numbered here. I
have just received an order to join my regiment; we have been ordered for
service, and Sir George has most kindly permitted my giving up my staff
appointment. I could not, however, leave the country without shaking hands
with you. I owe you a lesson in horsemanship, and I’m only sorry that we
are not to have another day together.”

“Then you are going out to the Peninsula?” said I.

“Why, we hope so; the commander-in-chief, they say, is in great want of
cavalry, and we scarcely less in want of something to do. I’m sorry you are
not coming with us.”

“Would to Heaven I were!” said I, with an earnestness that almost made my
brain start.

“Then, why not?”

“Unfortunately, I am peculiarly situated. My worthy uncle, who is all to me
in this world, would be quite alone if I were to leave him; and although he
has never said so, I know he dreads the possibility of my suggesting such
a thing to him: so that, between his fears and mine, the matter is never
broached by either party, nor do I think ever can be.”

“Devilish hard--but I believe you are right; something, however, may turn
up yet to alter his mind, and if so, and if you do take to dragooning,
don’t forget George Hammersley will be always most delighted to meet you;
and so good-by, O’Malley, good-by.”

He turned his horse’s head and was already some paces off, when he returned
to my side, and in a lower tone of voice said,--

“I ought to mention to you that there has been much discussion on your
affair at Blake’s table, and only one opinion on the matter among all
parties,--that you acted perfectly right. Sir George Dashwood,--no mean
judge of such things,--quite approves of your conduct, and, I believe,
wishes you to know as much; and now, once more, good-by.”




CHAPTER X.


THE ELECTION.

The important morning at length arrived, and as I looked from my bed-room
window at daybreak, the crowd of carriages of all sorts and shapes
decorated with banners and placards; the incessant bustle; the hurrying
hither and thither; the cheering as each new detachment of voters came up,
mounted on jaunting-cars, or on horses whose whole caparison consisted in
a straw rope for a bridle, and a saddle of the same frail material,--all
informed me that the election day was come. I lost no further time, but
proceeded to dress with all possible despatch. When I appeared in the
breakfast-room, it was already filled with some seventy or eighty persons
of all ranks and ages, mingled confusedly together, and enjoying the
hospitable fare of my uncle’s house, while they discussed all the details
and prospects of the election. In the hall, the library, the large
drawing-room, too, similar parties were also assembled, and as newcomers
arrived, the servants were busy in preparing tables before the door and up
the large terrace that ran the entire length of the building. Nothing could
be more amusing than the incongruous mixture of the guests, who, with every
variety of eatable that chance or inclination provided, were thus thrown
into close contact, having only this in common,--the success of the cause
they were engaged in. Here was the old Galway squire, with an ancestry that
reached to Noah, sitting side by side with the poor cotter, whose whole
earthly possession was what, in Irish phrase, is called a “potato
garden,”--meaning the exactly smallest possible patch of ground out of
which a very Indian-rubber conscience could presume to vote. Here sat the
old simple-minded, farmer-like man, in close conversation with a little
white-foreheaded, keen-eyed personage, in a black coat and eye-glass,--a
flash attorney from Dublin, learned in flaws of the registry, and deep in
the subtleties of election law. There was an Athlone horse-dealer, whose
habitual daily practices in imposing the halt, the lame, and the blind upon
the unsuspecting, for beasts of blood and mettle, well qualified him for
the trickery of a county contest. Then there were scores of squireen
gentry, easily recognized on common occasions by a green coat, brass
buttons, dirty cords, and dirtier top-boots, a lash-whip, and a half-bred
fox-hound; but now, fresh-washed for the day, they presented something the
appearance of a swell mob, adjusted to the meridian of Galway. A mass of
frieze-coated, brow-faced, bullet-headed peasantry filled up the large
spaces, dotted here and there with a sleek, roguish-eyed priest, or some
low electioneering agent detailing, for the amusement of the company, some
of those cunning practices of former times which if known to the proper
authorities would in all likelihood cause the talented narrator to be
improving the soil of Sidney, or fishing on the banks of the Swan river;
while at the head and foot of each table sat some personal friend of my
uncle, whose ready tongue, and still readier pistol, made him a personage
of some consequence, not more to his own people than to the enemy. While of
such material were the company, the fare before them was no less varied:
here some rubicund squire was deep in amalgamating the contents of a
venison pasty with some of Sneyd’s oldest claret; his neighbor, less
ambitious, and less erudite in such matters, was devouring rashers of
bacon, with liberal potations of potteen; some pale-cheeked scion of the
law, with all the dust of the Four Courts in his throat, was sipping
his humble beverage of black tea beside four sturdy cattle-dealers from
Ballinasloe, who were discussing hot whiskey punch and _spoleaion_ (boiled
beef) at the very primitive hour of eight in the morning. Amidst the clank
of decanters, the crash of knives and plates, and the jingling of glasses,
the laughter and voices of the guests were audibly increasing; and the
various modes of “running a buck” (_Anglicé_, substituting a vote), or
hunting a badger, were talked over on all sides, while the price of a
_veal_ (a calf), or a voter, was disputed with all the energy of debate.

Refusing many an offered place, I went through the different rooms in
search of Considine, to whom circumstances of late had somehow greatly
attached me.

“Here, Charley,” cried a voice I was very familiar with,--“here’s a place
I’ve been keeping for you.”

“Ah, Sir Harry, how do you do? Any of that grouse-pie to spare?”

“Abundance, my boy; but I’m afraid I can’t say as much for the liquor.
I have been shouting for claret this half-hour in vain,--do get us some
nutriment down here, and the Lord will reward you. What a pity it is,” he
added, in a lower tone, to his neighbor--“what a pity a quart-bottle won’t
hold a quart; but I’ll bring it before the House one of these days.” That
he kept his word in this respect, a motion on the books of the Honorable
House will bear me witness.

“Is this it?” said he, turning towards a farmer-like old man, who had put
some question to him across the table; “is it the apple-pie you’ll have?”

“Many thanks to your honor,--I’d like it, av it was wholesome.”

“And why shouldn’t it be wholesome?” said Sir Harry.

“Troth, then, myself does not know; but my father, I heerd tell, died of an
apple-plexy, and I’m afeerd of it.”

I at length found Considine, and learned that, as a very good account of
Bodkin had arrived, there was no reason why I should not proceed to the
hustings; but I was secretly charged not to take any prominent part in the
day’s proceedings. My uncle I only saw for an instant,--he begged me to
be careful, avoid all scrapes, and not to quit Considine. It was past ten
o’clock when our formidable procession got under way, and headed towards
the town of Galway. The road was, for miles, crowded with our followers;
banners flying and music playing, we presented something of the spectacle
of a very ragged army on its march. At every cross-road a mountain-path
reinforcement awaited us, and as we wended along, our numbers were
momentarily increasing; here and there along the line, some energetic
and not over-sober adherent was regaling his auditory with a speech in
laudation of the O’Malleys since the days of Moses, and more than one
priest was heard threatening the terrors of his Church in aid of a cause
to whose success he was pledged and bound. I rode beside the count, who,
surrounded by a group of choice spirits, recounted the various happy
inventions by which he had, on divers occasions, substituted a personal
quarrel for a contest. Boyle also contributed his share of election
anecdote, and one incident he related, which, I remember, amused me much at
the time.

[Illustration: THE ELECTION.]

“Do you remember Billy Calvert, that came down to contest Kilkenny?”
 inquired Sir Harry.

“What, ever forget him!” said Considine, “with his well-powdered wig and
his hessians. There never was his equal for lace ruffles and rings.”

“You never heard, may be, how he lost the election?”

“He resigned, I believe, or something of that sort.”

“No, no,” said another; “he never came forward at all. There’s some secret
in it; for Tom Butler was elected without a contest.”

“Jack, I’ll tell you how it happened. I was on my way up from Cork, having
finished my own business, and just carried the day, not without a push for
it. When we reached,--Lady Mary was with me,--when we reached Kilkenny, the
night before the election, I was not ten minutes in town till Butler
heard of it, and sent off express to see me; I was at my dinner when the
messenger came, and promised to go over when I’d done. But faith, Tom
didn’t wait, but came rushing up-stairs himself, and dashed into the room
in the greatest hurry.

“‘Harry,’ says he, ‘I’m done for; the corporation of free smiths, that were
always above bribery, having voted for myself and my father before, for
four pounds ten a man, won’t come forward under six guineas and whiskey.
Calvert has the money; they know it. The devil a farthing we have; and
we’ve been paying all our fellows that can’t read in Hennesy’s notes, and
you know the bank’s broke this three weeks.’

“On he went, giving me a most disastrous picture of his cause, and
concluded by asking if I could suggest anything under the circumstances.

“‘You couldn’t get a decent mob and clear the poll?’

“‘I am afraid not,’ said he, despondingly.

“‘Then I don’t see what’s to be done, if you can’t pick a fight with
himself. Will he go out?’

“‘Lord knows! They say he’s so afraid of that, that it has prevented him
coming down till the very day. But he is arrived now; he came in the
evening, and is stopping at Walsh’s in Patrick Street.’

“‘Then I’ll see what can be done,’ said I.

“‘Is that Calvert, the little man that blushes when the Lady-Lieutenant
speaks to him?’ said Lady Mary.

“‘The very man.’

“‘Would it be of any use to you if he could not come on the hustings
to-morrow?’ said she, again.

“‘‘Twould gain us the day. Half the voters don’t believe he’s here at all,
and his chief agent cheated all the people on the last election; and if
Calvert didn’t appear, he wouldn’t have ten votes to register. But why do
you ask?’

“‘Why, that, if you like, I’ll bet you a pair of diamond ear-rings he
sha’n’t show.’

“‘Done!’ said Butler. ‘And I promise a necklace into the bargain, if you
win; but I’m afraid you’re only quizzing me.’

“‘Here’s my hand on it,’ said she. ‘And now let’s talk of something else.’”

As Lady Mary never asked my assistance, and as I knew she was very well
able to perform whatever she undertook, you may be sure I gave myself very
little trouble about the whole affair; and when they came, I went off to
breakfast with Tom’s committee, not knowing anything that was to be done.

Calvert had given orders that he was to be called at eight o’clock, and so
a few minutes before that time a gentle knock came to the door.

‘Come in,’ said he, thinking it was the waiter, and covering himself up in
the clothes; for he was the most bashful creature ever was seen,--‘come
in.’

The door opened, and what was his horror to find that a lady entered in her
dressing-gown, her hair on her shoulders, very much tossed and dishevelled.
The moment she came in, she closed the door and locked it, and then sat
leisurely down upon a chair.

Billy’s teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled; for this was an adventure
of a very novel kind for him. At last he took courage to speak.

‘I am afraid, madam,’ said he, ‘that you are under some unhappy mistake,
and that you suppose this chamber is--’

‘Mr. Calvert’s,’ said the lady, with a solemn voice, ‘is it not?’

‘Yes, madam, I am that person.’

‘Thank God!’ said the lady, with a very impressive tone. ‘Here I am safe.’

Billy grew very much puzzled at these words; but hoping that by his silence
the lady would proceed to some explanation, he said no more. She, however,
seemed to think that nothing further was necessary, and sat still and
motionless, with her hands before her and her eyes fixed on Billy.

“‘You seem to forget me, sir?’ said she, with a faint smile.

“‘I do, indeed, madam; the half-light, the novelty of your costume, and the
strangeness of the circumstance altogether must plead for me, if I appear
rude enough.’

“‘I am Lady Mary Boyle,’ said she.

“‘I do remember you, madam; but may I ask--’

“‘Yes, yes; I know what you would ask. You would say, Why are you here? How
comes it that you have so far outstepped the propriety of which your whole
life is an example, that alone, at such a time, you appear in the chamber
of a man whose character for gallantry--’

“‘Oh, indeed--indeed, my lady, nothing of the kind!’

“‘Ah, alas! poor defenceless women learn, too late, how constantly
associated is the retiring modesty which decries, with the pleasing powers
which ensure success--’

“Here she sobbed, Billy blushed, and the clock struck nine.

“‘May I then beg, madam--’

“‘Yes, yes, you shall hear it all; but my poor scattered faculties will
not be the clearer by your hurrying me. You know, perhaps,’ continued
she, ‘that my maiden name was Rogers?’ He of the blankets bowed, and she
resumed, ‘It is now eighteen years since, that a young, unsuspecting, fond
creature, reared in all the care and fondness of doting parents, tempted
her first step in life, and trusted her fate to another’s keeping. I am
that unhappy person; the other, that monster in human guise that smiled but
to betray, that won but to ruin and destroy, is he whom you know as Sir
Harry Boyle.’

“Here she sobbed for some minutes, wiped her eyes, and resumed her
narrative. Beginning at the period of her marriage, she detailed a number
of circumstances in which poor Calvert, in all his anxiety to come _au
fond_ at matters, could never perceive bore upon the question in any way;
but as she recounted them all with great force and precision, entreating
him to bear in mind certain circumstances to which she should recur by and
by, his attention was kept on the stretch, and it was only when the clock
struck ten that he was fully aware how his morning was passing, and what
surmises his absence might originate.

“‘May I interrupt you for a moment, dear madam? Was it nine or ten o’clock
which struck last?’

“‘How should I know?’ said she, frantically. ‘What are hours and minutes to
her who has passed long years of misery?’

“‘Very true, very true,’ replied he, timidly, and rather fearing for the
intellect of his fair companion.

She continued. The narrative, however, so far from becoming clearer, grew
gradually more confused and intricate; and as frequent references were made
by the lady to some previous statement, Calvert was more than once rebuked
for forgetfulness and inattention, where in reality nothing less than
short-hand could have borne him through.

“‘Was it in ‘93 I said that Sir Harry left me at Tuam?’

“‘Upon my life, madam, I am afraid to aver; but it strikes me--’

“‘Gracious powers! and this is he whom I fondly trusted to make the
depository of my woes! Cruel, cruel man!’

“Here she sobbed considerably for several minutes, and spoke not. A loud
cheer of ‘Butler forever!’ from the mob without now burst upon their
hearing, and recalled poor Calvert at once to the thought that the hours
were speeding fast and no prospect of the everlasting tale coming to an
end.

“‘I am deeply, most deeply grieved, my dear madam,’ said the little man,
sitting up in a pyramid of blankets; ‘but hours, minutes, are most precious
to me this morning. I am about to be proposed as member for Kilkenny.’

“At these words the lady straightened her figure out, threw her arms at
either side, and burst into a fit of laughter which poor Calvert knew
at once to be hysterics. Here was a pretty situation! The bell-rope lay
against the opposite wall; and even if it did not, would he be exactly
warranted in pulling it?

“‘May the devil and all his angels take Sir Harry Boyle and his whole
connection to the fifth generation!’ was his sincere prayer as he sat like
a Chinese juggler under his canopy.

“At length the violence of the paroxysm seemed to subside; the sobs became
less frequent, the kicking less forcible, and the lady’s eyes closed, and
she appeared to have fallen asleep.

“‘Now is the moment,’ said Billy. ‘If I could only get as far as my
dressing-gown.’ So saying, he worked himself down noiselessly to the foot
of his bed, looked fixedly at the fallen lids of the sleeping lady, and
essayed one leg from the blanket. ‘Now or never,’ said he, pushing aside
the curtain and preparing for a spring. One more look he cast at his
companion, and then leaped forth; but just as he lit upon the floor she
again roused herself, screaming with horror. Billy fell upon the bed, and
rolling himself in the bedclothes, vowed never to rise again till she was
out of the visible horizon.

“‘What is all this? What do you mean, sir?’ said the lady, reddening with
indignation.

“‘Nothing, upon my soul, madam; it was only my dressing-gown.’

“‘Your dressing-gown!’ said she, with an emphasis worthy of Siddons; ‘a
likely story for Sir Harry to believe, sir! Fie, fie, sir!’

“This last allusion seemed a settler; for the luckless Calvert heaved a
profound sigh, and sunk down as if all hope had left him. ‘Butler forever!’
roared the mob. ‘Calvert forever!’ cried a boy’s voice from without. ‘Three
groans for the runaway!’ answered this announcement; and a very tender
inquiry of, ‘Where is he?’ was raised by some hundred mouths.

“‘Madam,’ said the almost frantic listener,--‘madam, I must get up! I must
dress! I beg of you to permit me!’

“‘I have nothing to refuse, sir. Alas, disdain has long been my only
portion! Get up, if you will.’

“‘But,’ said the astonished man, who was well-nigh deranged at the coolness
of this reply,--‘but how am I to do so if you sit there?’

“‘Sorry for any inconvenience I may cause you; but in the crowded state of
the hotel I hope you see the impropriety of my walking about the passages
in this costume?’

“‘And, great God! madam, why did you come out in it?’

“A cheer from the mob prevented her reply being audible. One o’clock tolled
out from the great bell of the cathedral.

“‘There’s one o’clock, as I live!’

“‘I heard it,’ said the lady.

“‘The shouts are increasing. What is that I hear? “Butler is in!” Gracious
mercy! is the election over?’

“The lady stepped to the window, drew aside the curtain, and said, ‘Indeed,
it would appear so. The mob are cheering Mr. Butler.’ A deafening shout
burst from the street. ‘Perhaps you’d like to see the fun, so I’ll not
detain you any longer. So, good-by, Mr. Calvert; and as your breakfast will
be cold, in all likelihood, come down to No. 4, for Sir Harry’s a late man,
and will be glad to see you.’”




CHAPTER XI.


AN ADVENTURE.

As thus we lightened the road with chatting, the increasing concourse of
people, and the greater throng of carriages that filled the road, announced
that we had nearly reached our destination.

“Considine,” said my uncle, riding up to where we were, “I have just got a
few lines from Davern. It seems Bodkin’s people are afraid to come in; they
know what they must expect, and if so, more than half of that barony is
lost to our opponent.”

“Then he has no chance whatever.”

“He never had, in my opinion,” said Sir Harry.

“We’ll see soon,” said my uncle, cheerfully, and rode to the post.

The remainder of the way was occupied in discussing the various
possibilities of the election, into which I was rejoiced to find that
defeat never entered.

In the goodly days I speak of, a county contest was a very different thing
indeed from the tame and insipid farce that now passes under that name:
where a briefless barrister, bullied by both sides, sits as assessor; a few
drunken voters, a radical O’Connellite grocer, a demagogue priest, a deputy
grand-purple-something from the Trinity College lodge, with some half-dozen
followers, shouting, “To the Devil with Peel!” or “Down with Dens!” form
the whole _corp-de-ballet_. No, no; in the times I refer to the voters were
some thousands in number, and the adverse parties took the field, far less
dependent for success upon previous pledge or promise made them than upon
the actual stratagem of the day. Each went forth, like a general to battle,
surrounded by a numerous and well-chosen staff,--one party of friends,
acting as commissariat, attended to the victualling of the voters, that
they obtained a due, or rather undue allowance of liquor, and came properly
drunk to the poll; others, again, broke into skirmishing parties, and
scattered over the country, cut off the enemy’s supplies, breaking
down their post-chaises, upsetting their jaunting-cars, stealing their
poll-books, and kidnapping their agents. Then there were secret-service
people, bribing the enemy and enticing them to desert; and lastly, there
was a species of sapper-and-miner force, who invented false documents,
denied the identity of the opposite party’s people, and when hard pushed,
provided persons who took bribes from the enemy, and gave evidence
afterwards on a petition. Amidst all these encounters of wit and ingenuity,
the personal friends of the candidate formed a species of rifle brigade,
picking out the enemy’s officers, and doing sore damage to their tactics
by shooting a proposer or wounding a seconder,--a considerable portion of
every leading agent’s fee being intended as compensation for the duels he
might, could, would, should, or ought to fight during the election. Such,
in brief, was a contest in the olden time. And when it is taken into
consideration that it usually lasted a fortnight or three weeks; that a
considerable military force was always engaged (for our Irish law permits
this), and which, when nothing pressing was doing, was regularly assailed
by both parties; that far more dependence was placed in a bludgeon than a
pistol; and that the man who registered a vote without a cracked pate was
regarded as a kind of natural phenomenon,--some faint idea may be formed
how much such a scene must have contributed to the peace of the county, and
the happiness and welfare of all concerned in it.

As we rode along, a loud cheer from a road that ran parallel to the one we
were pursuing attracted our attention, and we perceived that the cortége of
the opposite party was hastening on to the hustings. I could distinguish
the Blake girls on horseback among a crowd of officers in undress, and
saw something like a bonnet in the carriage-and-four which headed the
procession, and which I judged to be that of Sir George Dashwood. My heart
beat strongly as I strained my eyes to see if Miss Dashwood was there; but
I could not discern her, and it was with a sense of relief that I reflected
on the possibility of our not meeting under circumstances wherein our
feelings and interests were so completely opposed. While I was engaged in
making this survey, I had accidentally dropped behind my companions; my
eyes were firmly fixed upon that carriage, and in the faint hope that it
contained the object of all my wishes, I forgot everything else. At length
the cortége entered the town, and passing beneath a heavy stone gateway,
was lost to my view. I was still lost in revery, when an under-agent of my
uncle’s rode up.

“Oh, Master Charles!” said he, “what’s to be done? They’ve forgotten Mr.
Holmes at Woodford, and we haven’t a carriage, chaise, or even a car left
to send for him.”

“Have you told Mr. Considine?” inquired I.

“And sure you know yourself how little Mr. Considine thinks of a lawyer.
It’s small comfort he’d give me if I went to tell him. If it was a case of
pistols or a bullet mould he’d ride back the whole way himself for them.”

“Try Sir Harry Boyle, then.”

“He’s making a speech this minute before the court-house.”

This had sufficed to show me how far behind my companions I had been
loitering, when a cheer from the distant road again turned my eyes in that
direction; it was the Dashwood carriage returning after leaving Sir George
at the hustings. The head of the britska, before thrown open, was now
closed, and I could not make out if any one were inside.

“Devil a doubt of it,” said the agent, in answer to some question of a
farmer who rode beside him; “will you stand to me?”

“Troth, to be sure I will.”

“Here goes, then,” said he, gathering up his reins and turning his horse
towards the fence at the roadside; “follow me now, boys.”

The order was well obeyed; for when he had cleared the ditch, a dozen
stout country fellows, well mounted, were beside him. Away they went, at a
hunting pace, taking every leap before them, and heading towards the road
before us.

Without thinking further of the matter, I was laughing at the droll effect
the line of frieze coats presented as they rode side by side over the
stone-walls, when an observation near me aroused my attention.

“Ah, then, av they know anything of Tim Finucane, they’ll give it up
peaceably; it’s little he’d think of taking the coach from under the judge
himself.”

“What are they about, boys?” said I.

“Goin’ to take the chaise-and-four forninst ye, yer honor,” said the man.

I waited not to hear more, but darting spurs into my horse’s sides, cleared
the fence in one bound. My horse, a strong-knit half-breed, was as fast as
a racer for a short distance; so that when the agent and his party had come
up with the carriage, I was only a few hundred yards behind. I shouted out
with all my might, but they either heard not or heeded not, for scarcely
was the first man over the fence into the road when the postilion on the
leader was felled to the ground, and his place supplied by his slayer; the
boy on the wheeler shared the same fate, and in an instant, so well managed
was the attack, the carriage was in possession of the assailants. Four
stout fellows had climbed into the box and the rumble, and six others were
climbing to the interior, regardless of the aid of steps. By this time the
Dashwood party had got the alarm, and returned in full force, not, however,
before the other had laid whip to the horses and set out in full gallop;
and now commenced the most terrific race I ever witnessed.

The four carriage-horses, which were the property of Sir George, were
English thorough-breds of great value, and, totally unaccustomed to the
treatment they experienced, dashed forward at a pace that threatened
annihilation to the carriage at every bound. The pursuers, though well
mounted, were speedily distanced, but followed at a pace that in the end
was certain to overtake the carriage. As for myself, I rode on beside
the road at the full speed of my horse, shouting, cursing, imploring,
execrating, and beseeching at turns, but all in vain; the yells and shouts
of the pursuers and pursued drowned all other sounds, except when the
thundering crash of the horses’ feet rose above all. The road, like most
western Irish roads until the present century, lay straight as an arrow
for miles, regardless of every opposing barrier, and in the instance in
question, crossed a mountain at its very highest point. Towards this
pinnacle the pace had been tremendous; but owing to the higher breeding of
the cattle, the carriage party had still the advance, and when they reached
the top they proclaimed the victory by a cheer of triumph and derision. The
carriage disappeared beneath the crest of the mountain, and the pursuers
halted as if disposed to relinquish the chase.

“Come on, boys; never give up,” cried I, springing over into the road, and
heading the party to which by every right I was opposed.

It was no time for deliberation, and they followed me with a hearty cheer
that convinced me I was unknown. The next instant we were on the mountain
top, and beheld the carriage half way down beneath us, still galloping at
full stretch.

“We have them now,” said a voice behind me; “they’ll never turn Lurra
Bridge, if we only press on.”

The speaker was right; the road at the mountain foot turned at a perfect
right angle, and then crossed a lofty one-arched bridge over a mountain
torrent that ran deep and boisterously beneath. On we went, gaining at
every stride; for the fellows who rode postilion well knew what was before
them, and slackened their pace to secure a safe turning. A yell of victory
arose from the pursuers, but was answered by the others with a cheer of
defiance. The space was now scarcely two hundred yards between us, when the
head of the britska was flung down, and a figure that I at once recognized
as the redoubted Tim Finucane, one of the boldest and most reckless fellows
in the county, was seen standing on the seat, holding,--gracious Heavens!
it was true,--holding in his arms the apparently lifeless figure of Miss
Dashwood.

“Hold in!” shouted the ruffian, with a voice that rose high above all the
other sounds. “Hold in! or by the Eternal, I’ll throw her, body and bones,
into the Lurra Gash!” for such was the torrent called that boiled and
foamed a few yards before us.

[Illustration: THE RESCUE.]

He had by this time got firmly planted on the hind seat, and held the
drooping form on one arm with all the ease of a giant’s grasp.

“For the love of God!” said I, “pull up. I know him well; he’ll do it to a
certainty if you press on.”

“And we know you, too,” said a ruffianly fellow, with a dark whisker
meeting beneath his chin, “and have some scores to settle ere we part--”

But I heard no more. With one tremendous effort I dashed my horse forward.
The carriage turned an angle of the road, for an instant was out of sight,
another moment I was behind it.

“Stop!” I shouted, with a last effort, but in vain. The horses, maddened
and infuriated, sprang forward, and heedless of all efforts to turn them
the leaders sprang over the low parapet of the bridge, and hanging for a
second by the traces, fell with a crash into the swollen torrent beneath.
By this time I was beside the carriage. Finucane had now clambered to the
box, and regardless of the death and ruin around, bent upon his murderous
object, he lifted the light and girlish form above his head, bent backwards
as if to give greater impulse to his effort, when, twining my lash around
my wrist, I levelled my heavy and loaded hunting-whip at his head. The
weighted ball of lead struck him exactly beneath his hat; he staggered, his
hands relaxed, and he fell lifeless to the ground; the same instant I was
felled to the earth by a blow from behind, and saw no more.




CHAPTER XII.


MICKEY FREE.

Nearly three weeks followed the event I have just narrated ere I again was
restored to consciousness. The blow by which I was felled--from what hand
coming it was never after discovered--had brought on concussion of the
brain, and for several days my life was despaired of. As by slow steps I
advanced towards recovery, I learned from Considine that Miss Dashwood,
whose life was saved by my interference, had testified, in the warmest
manner, her gratitude, and that Sir George had, up to the period of his
leaving the country, never omitted a single day to ride over and inquire
for me.

“You know, of course,” said the count, supposing such news was the most
likely to interest me,--“you know we beat them?”

“No. Pray tell me all. They’ve not let me hear anything hitherto.”

“One day finished the whole affair. We polled man for man till past two
o’clock, when our fellows lost all patience and beat their tallies out
of the town. The police came up, but they beat the police; then they got
soldiers, but, begad, they were too strong for them, too. Sir George
witnessed it all, and knowing besides how little chance he had of success,
deemed it best to give in; so that a little before five o’clock he
resigned. I must say no man could behave better. He came across the
hustings and shook hands with Godfrey; and as the news of the _scrimmage_
with his daughter had just arrived, said that he was sorry his prospect of
success had not been greater, that in resigning he might testify how deeply
he felt the debt the O’Malleys had laid him under.”

“And my uncle, how did he receive his advances?”

“Like his own honest self,--grasped his hand firmly; and upon my soul, I
think he was half sorry that he gained the day. Do you know, he took a
mighty fancy to that blue-eyed daughter of the old general’s. Faith,
Charley, if he was some twenty years younger, I would not say but--Come,
come, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings; but I have been staying here too
long. I’ll send up Mickey to sit with you. Mind and don’t be talking too
much to him.”

So saying, the worthy count left the room fully impressed that in hinting
at the possibility of my uncle’s marrying again, he had said something to
ruffle my temper.

For the next two or three weeks my life was one of the most tiresome
monotony. Strict injunctions had been given by the doctors to avoid
exciting me; and consequently, every one that came in walked on tiptoe,
spoke in whispers, and left me in five minutes. Reading was absolutely
forbidden; and with a sombre half-light to sit in, and chicken broth to
support nature, I dragged out as dreary an existence as any gentleman west
of Athlone.

Whenever my uncle or Considine were not in the room, my companion was my
own servant, Michael, or as he was better known, “Mickey Free.” Now, had
Mickey been left to his own free and unrestricted devices, the time would
not have hung so heavily; for among Mike’s manifold gifts he was possessed
of a very great flow of gossiping conversation. He knew all that was
doing in the county, and never was barren in his information wherever his
imagination could come into play. Mickey was the best hurler in the barony,
no mean performer on the violin, could dance the national bolero of “Tatter
Jack Walsh” in a way that charmed more than one soft heart beneath a red
woolsey bodice, and had, withal, the peculiar free-and-easy devil-may-care
kind of off-hand Irish way that never deserted him in the midst of his
wiliest and most subtle moments, giving to a very deep and cunning fellow
all the apparent frankness and openness of a country lad.

He had attached himself to me as a kind of sporting companion; and growing
daily more and more useful, had been gradually admitted to the honors of
the kitchen and the prerogatives of cast clothes, without ever having been
actually engaged as a servant; and while thus no warrant officer, as, in
fact, he discharged all his duties well and punctually, was rated among the
ship’s company, though no one could say at what precise period he changed
his caterpillar existence and became the gay butterfly with cords and
tops, a striped vest, and a most knowing jerry hat who stalked about
the stable-yard and bullied the helpers. Such was Mike. He had made his
fortune, such as it was, and had a most becoming pride in the fact that he
made himself indispensable to an establishment which, before he entered
it, never knew the want of him. As for me, he was everything to me. Mike
informed me what horse was wrong, why the chestnut mare couldn’t go out,
and why the black horse could. He knew the arrival of a new covey of
partridge quicker than the “Morning Post” does of a noble family from the
Continent, and could tell their whereabouts twice as accurately. But
his talents took a wider range than field sports afford, and he was the
faithful chronicler of every wake, station, wedding, or christening for
miles round; and as I took no small pleasure in those very national
pastimes, the information was of great value to me. To conclude this
brief sketch, Mike was a devout Catholic in the same sense that he was
enthusiastic about anything,--that is, he believed and obeyed exactly as
far as suited his own peculiar notions of comfort and happiness. Beyond
_that_, his scepticism stepped in and saved him from inconvenience; and
though he might have been somewhat puzzled to reduce his faith to a rubric,
still it answered his purpose, and that was all he wanted. Such, in short,
was my valet, Mickey Free, and who, had not heavy injunctions been laid on
him as to silence and discretion, would well have lightened my weary hours.

“Ah, then, Misther Charles!” said he, with a half-suppressed yawn at the
long period of probation his tongue had been undergoing in silence,--“ah,
then, but ye were mighty near it!”

“Near what?” said I.

“Faith, then, myself doesn’t well know. Some say it’s purgathory; but it’s
hard to tell.”

“I thought you were too good a Catholic, Mickey, to show any doubts on the
matter?”

“May be I am; may be I ain’t,” was the cautious reply.

“Wouldn’t Father Roach explain any of your difficulties for you, if you
went over to him?”

“Faix, it’s little I’d mind his explainings.”

“And why not?”

“Easy enough. If you ax ould Miles there, without, what does he be doing
with all the powther and shot, wouldn’t he tell you he’s shooting the
rooks, and the magpies, and some other varmint? But myself knows he sells
it to Widow Casey, at two-and-fourpence a pound; so belikes, Father Roach
may be shooting away at the poor souls in purgathory, that all this time
are enjoying the hoith of fine living in heaven, ye understand.”

“And you think that’s the way of it, Mickey?”

“Troth, it’s likely. Anyhow, I know its not the place they make it out.”

“Why, how do you mean?”

“Well, then, I’ll tell you, Misther Charles; but you must not be saying
anything about it afther, for I don’t like to talk about these kind of
things.”

Having pledged myself to the requisite silence and secrecy, Mickey began:--

“May be you heard tell of the way my father, rest his soul wherever he is,
came to his end. Well, I needn’t mind particulars, but, in short, he was
murdered in Ballinasloe one night, when he was baitin’ the whole town with
a blackthorn stick he had; more by token, a piece of a scythe was stuck at
the end of it,--a nate weapon, and one he was mighty partial to; but those
murdering thieves, the cattle-dealers, that never cared for diversion of
any kind, fell on him and broke his skull.

“Well, we had a very agreeable wake, and plenty of the best of everything,
and to spare, and I thought it was all over; but somehow, though I paid
Father Roach fifteen shillings, and made him mighty drunk, he always gave
me a black look wherever I met him, and when I took off my hat, he’d turn
away his head displeased like.

“‘Murder and ages,’ says I, ‘what’s this for?’ But as I’ve a light heart,
I bore up, and didn’t think more about it. One day, however, I was coming
home from Athlone market, by myself on the road, when Father Roach overtook
me. ‘Devil a one a me ‘ill take any notice of you now,’ says I, ‘and we’ll
see what’ll come out of it.’ So the priest rid up and looked me straight in
the face.

“‘Mickey,’ says he,--‘Mickey.’

“‘Father,’ says I.

“‘Is it that way you salute your clargy,’ says he, ‘with your caubeen on
your head?’

“‘Faix,’ says I, ‘it’s little ye mind whether it’s an or aff; for you never
take the trouble to say, “By your leave,” or “Damn your soul!” or any other
politeness when we meet.’

“‘You’re an ungrateful creature,’ says he; ‘and if you only knew, you’d be
trembling in your skin before me, this minute.’

“‘Devil a tremble,’ says I, ‘after walking six miles this way.’

“‘You’re an obstinate, hard-hearted sinner,’ says he; ‘and it’s no use in
telling you.’

“‘Telling me what?’ says I; for I was getting curious to make out what he
meant.

“‘Mickey,’ says he, changing his voice, and putting his head down close to
me,--‘Mickey, I saw your father last night.’

“‘The saints be merciful to us!’ said I, ‘did ye?’

“‘I did,’ says he.

“‘Tear an ages,’ says I, ‘did he tell you what he did with the new
corduroys he bought in the fair?’

“‘Oh, then, you are a could-hearted creature!’ says he, ‘and I’ll not lose
time with you.’ With that he was going to ride away, when I took hold of
the bridle.

“‘Father, darling,’ says I, ‘God pardon me, but them breeches is goin’
between me an’ my night’s rest; but tell me about my father?’

“‘Oh, then, he’s in a melancholy state!’

“‘Whereabouts is he?’ says I.

“‘In purgathory,’ says he; ‘but he won’t be there long.’

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘that’s a comfort, anyhow.’

“‘I am glad you think so,’ says he; ‘but there’s more of the other
opinion.’

“‘What’s _that?_’ says I.

“‘That hell’s worse.’

“‘Oh, melia-murther!’ says I, ‘is that it?’

“‘Ay, that’s it.’

“Well, I was so terrified and frightened, I said nothing for some time, but
trotted along beside the priest’s horse.

“‘Father,’ says I, ‘how long will it be before they send him where you
know?’

“‘It will not be long now,’ says he, ‘for they’re tired entirely with him;
they’ve no peace night or day,’ says he. ‘Mickey, your father is a mighty
hard man.’

“‘True for you, Father Roach,’ says I to myself; ‘av he had only the ould
stick with the scythe in it, I wish them joy of his company.’

“‘Mickey,’ says he, ‘I see you’re grieved, and I don’t wonder; sure, it’s a
great disgrace to a decent family.’

“‘Troth, it is,’ says I; ‘but my father always liked low company. Could
nothing be done for him now, Father Roach?’ says I, looking up in the
priest’s face.

“‘I’m greatly afraid, Mickey, he was a bad man, a very bad man.’

“‘And ye think he’ll go there?’ says I.

“‘Indeed, Mickey, I have my fears.’

“‘Upon my conscience,’ says I, ‘I believe you’re right; he was always a
restless crayture.’

“‘But it doesn’t depind on him,’ says the priest, crossly.

“‘And, then, who then?’ says I.

“‘Upon yourself, Mickey Free,’ says he, ‘God pardon you for it, too!’

“‘Upon me?’ says I.

“‘Troth, no less,’ says he; ‘how many Masses was said for your father’s
soul; how many Aves; how many Paters? Answer me.’

“‘Devil a one of me knows!--may be twenty.’

“‘Twenty, twenty!--no, nor one.’

“‘And why not?’ says I; ‘what for wouldn’t you be helping a poor crayture
out of trouble, when it wouldn’t cost you more nor a handful of prayers?’

“‘Mickey, I see,’ says he, in a solemn tone, ‘you’re worse nor a haythen;
but ye couldn’t be other, ye never come to yer duties.’

“‘Well, Father,’ says I, Looking very penitent, ‘how many Masses would get
him out?’

“‘Now you talk like a sensible man,’ says he. ‘Now, Mickey, I’ve hopes for
you. Let me see,’ here he went countin’ upon his fingers, and numberin’ to
himself for five minutes. ‘Mickey,’ says he, ‘I’ve a batch coming out on
Tuesday week, and if you were to make great exertions, perhaps your father
could come with them; that is, av they have made no objections.’

“‘And what for would they?’ says I; ‘he was always the hoith of company,
and av singing’s allowed in them parts--’

“‘God forgive you, Mickey, but yer in a benighted state,’ says he, sighing.

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘how’ll we get him out on Tuesday week? For that’s
bringing things to a focus.’

“‘Two Masses in the morning, fastin’,’ says Father Roach, half aloud, ‘is
two, and two in the afternoon is four, and two at vespers is six,’ says he;
‘six Masses a day for nine days is close by sixty Masses,--say sixty,’ says
he; ‘and they’ll cost you--mind, Mickey, and don’t be telling it again, for
it’s only to yourself I’d make them so cheap--a matter of three pounds.’

“‘Three pounds!’ says I; ‘be-gorra ye might as well ax me to give you the

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