When I next came to my senses, I found myself lying upon a sofa in a
large room, of which I appeared the only occupant. A confused and misty
recollection of my accident, some scattered fragments of my voyage, and
a rather aching sensation in my head, were the only impressions of which
I was well conscious. The last evening I spent at home was full in my
memory, and I could not help thinking over my poor mother's direful
anticipations in my vain endeavours to penetrate what I felt had been a
misfortune of some kind or other. The mystery was, however, too deep for
my faculties; and so, in despair of unravelling the past, I set myself
to work to decipher the present. The room, I have already said, was
large; and the ceiling, richly stuccoed and ornamented, spoke of a day
whose architecture was of a grand and massive character. The furniture,
now old and time-worn, had once been handsome, even magnificent--rich
curtains of heavy brocaded silk, with deep gold fringes, gorgeously
carved and gilded chairs, in the taste of Louis XV.; marble consoles
stood between the windows, and a mirror of gigantic proportions occupied
the chimney-breast. Years and neglect had not only done their worst, but
it was evident that the hand of devastation had also been at work. The
marbles were cracked; few of the chairs were available for use; the
massive lustre, intended to shine with a resplendent glare of fifty
wax-lights, was now made a resting-place for chakos, bearskins, and
foraging caps; an ominous-looking star in the looking-glass bore witness
to the bullet of a pistol; and the very Cupids carved upon the frame,
who once were wont to smile blandly at each other, were now disfigured
with cork moustaches, and one of them even carried a short pipe in his
mouth. Swords, sashes, and sabretasches, spurs and shot-belts, with
guns, fishing-tackle, and tandem whips, were hung here and there upon
the walls, which themselves presented the strangest spectacle of all,
there not being a portion of them unoccupied by caricature sketches,
executed in every imaginable species of taste, style, and colouring.
Here was a field-day in the Park, in which it was easy to see the
prominent figures were portraits: there an enormous nose, surmounted
by a grenadier cap, was passing in review some trembling and terrified
soldiers. In another, a commander of the forces was seen galloping
down the lines, holding on by the pommel of the saddle. Over the sofa I
occupied, a levee at the Castle was displayed, in which, if the company
were not villanously libelled, the Viceroy had little reason to be proud
of his guests. There were also dinners at the Lodge; guards relieved by
wine puncheons dressed up like field-officers; the whole accompanied by
doggrel verses explanatory of the views.
The owner of this singular chamber had, however, not merely devoted his
walls to the purposes of an album, but he had also made them perform the
part of a memorandum-book. Here were the “meets” of the Kildare and the
Dubber for the month of March; there, the turn of duty for the garrison
of Dublin, interspersed with such fragments as the following:--“Mem. To
dine at Mat Kean's on Tuesday, 4th.--Not to pay Hennesy till he settles
about the handicap.--To ask Courtenay--for Fanny Burke's fan; the same
Fanny has pretty legs of her own.--To tell Holmes to have nothing to do
with Lanty Moore's niece, in regard to a reason!--Five to two on Giles's
two-year-old, if Tom likes. N.B. The mare is a roarer.--A heavenly day;
what fun they must have!--may the devil fire Tom O'Flaherty, or I would
not be here now.” These and a hundred other similar passages figured on
every side, leaving me in a state of considerable mystification, not as
to the character of my host, of which I could guess something, but as to
the nature of his abode, which I could not imagine to be a barrack-room.
[Illustration: 2-00053]
As I lay thus pondering, the door cautiously opened, and a figure
appeared, which, as I had abundant leisure to examine it, and as the
individual is one who occasionally turns up in the course of my history,
I may as well take the present opportunity of presenting to my reader.
The man who entered, scarcely more than four feet and a half high, might
be about sixty years of age. His head, enormously disproportioned to
the rest of his figure, presented a number of flat surfaces, as though
nature had originally destined it for a crystal. Upon one of these
planes the eyes were set; and although as far apart as possible, yet
upon such terms of distance were they, that they never, even by an
accident, looked in the same direction. The nose was short and snubby;
the nostrils wide and expanded, as if the feature had been pitched
against the face in a moment of ill-temper, and flattened by the
force. As for the mouth, it looked like the malicious gash of a blunt
instrument, jagged, ragged, and uneven. It had not even the common-place
advantage of being parallel to the horizon, but ran in an oblique
direction from right to left, enclosed between a parenthesis of the
crankiest wrinkles that ever human cheek were creased by. The head would
have been bald but for a scanty wig, technically called a “jasy,” which,
shrunk by time, now merely occupied the apex of the scalp, where it
moved about with every action of the forehead and eyebrows, and was
thus made to minister to the expression of a hundred emotions that other
men's wigs know nothing about. Truly, it was the strangest peruke that
ever covered a human cranium. I do not believe that another like it
ever existed. It had nothing in common with other wigs. It was like its
owner, perfectly _sui generis_. It had not the easy flow and wavy curl
of the old beau. It had not the methodical precision and rectilinear
propriety of the elderly gentleman. It was not full, like a lawyer's,
nor horse-shoed, like a bishop's. No. It was a cross-grained,
ill-tempered, ill-conditioned old scratch, that looked like nothing
under heaven save the husk of a hedgehog.
The dress of this strange figure was a suit of very gorgeous light
brown livery, with orange facings, a green plush waistcoat and shorts,
frogged, flapped, and embroidered most lavishly with gold lace, silk
stockings, with shoes, whose enormous buckles covered nearly the entire
foot, and rivalled, in their paste brilliancy, the piercing brightness
of the wearer's eye. Having closed the door carefully behind him, he
walked towards the chimney, with a certain air of solemn and imposing
dignity that very nearly overcame all my efforts at seriousness; his
outstretched and expanded hands, his averted toes and waddling gait,
giving him a most distressing resemblance to the spread eagle of
Prussia, had that respectable bird been pleased to take a promenade in a
showy livery. Having snuffed the candles, and helped himself to a pinch
of snuff from a gold box on the mantelpiece, he stuck his arms, nearly
to the elbows, in the ample pockets of his coat, and with his head
a little elevated, and his under-lip slightly protruded, seemed to
meditate upon the mutability of human affairs, and the vanity of all
worldly pursuits.
I coughed a couple of times to attract his attention, and, having
succeeded in catching his eye, I begged, in my blandest imaginable
voice, to know where I was.
“Where are ye, is it?” said he, repeating my question in a tone of the
most sharp and querulous intonation, to which not even his brogue could
lend one touch of softness,--“where are ye? and where would you like
to be? or where would any one be that was disgracing himself, or
blackguarding about the streets till he got his head cut and his clothes
torn, but in Master Phil's room: devil other company it's used to. Well,
well! It is more like a watchhouse nor a gentleman's parlour, this
same room. It's little his father, the Jidge”--here he crossed himself
piously--“it is little he thought the company his son would be keeping;
but it is no matter. I gave him warning last Tuesday, and with the
blessin' o' God----”
The remainder of this speech was lost in a low muttering grumble, which
I afterwards learnt was his usual manner of closing an oration. A few
broken and indistinct phrases being only audible, such as--“Sarve you
right”--“Fifty years in the family”--“Slaving like a negur”--“Oh, the
Turks! the haythins!”
Having waited what I deemed a reasonable time for his honest indignation
to evaporate, I made another effort to ascertain who my host might be.
“Would you favour me,” said I, in a tone still more insinuating, “with
the name of----”
“It's my name, ye want? Oh, sorrow bit I am ashamed of it! Little as you
think of me, Cornelius Delany is as good a warrant for family as many a
one of the dirty spalpeens about the Coort, that haven't a civiler word
in their mouth than Cross Corny! Bad luck to them for that same.”
This honest admission as to the world's opinion of Mister Delany's
character was so far satisfactory as it enabled me to see with whom I
had to deal; and, although for a moment or two it was a severe struggle
to prevent myself bursting into laughter, I fortunately obtained the
mastery, and once more returned to the charge.
“And now, Mister Delany, can you inform me how I came here? I remember
something of an accident on my landing; but when, where, and how, I am
totally ignorant.”
“An accident!” said he, turning up his eyes; “an accident, indeed!
that's what they always call it when they wring off the rappers, or bate
the watch: ye came here in a hackney-coach, with the police, as many a
one came before you.”
“But where am I?” said I, impatiently.
“In Dublin Castle; bad luck to it for a riotous, disorderly place.”
“Well, well,” said I, half angrily, “I want to know whose room is this?”
“Captain O'Grady's. What have you to say agin the room? Maybe you're
used to worse. There now, that's what you got for that. I'm laving the
place next week, but that's no rayson----”
Here he went off, _diminuendo_, again, with a few flying imprecations
upon several things and persons unknown.
Mr. Delany now dived for a few seconds into a small pantry at the end of
the room, from which he emerged with a tray between his hands, and two
decanters under his arms.
“Draw the little table this way,” he cried, “more towards the fire, for,
av coorse, you're fresh and fastin'; there now, take the sherry from
under my arm--the other's port: that was a ham, till Captain Mills cut
it away, as ye see--there's a veal pie, and here's a cold grouse--and,
maybe, you've eat worse before now--and will again, plaze God.”
I assured him of the truth of his observation in a most conciliating
tone.
“Oh, the devil fear ye,” was the reply, while he murmured somewhat
lower, “the half of yees isn't used to meat twice in the week.”
“Capital fare this, Mr. Delany,” said I, as, half famished with long
fasting, I helped myself a second time.
“You're eating as if you liked it,” said he, with a shrug of his
shoulders.
“Upon my word,” said I, after throwing down a bumper of sherry, “that's
a very pleasant glass of wine; and, on the whole, I should say, there
are worse places than this in the world.”
A look of unutterable contempt--whether at me for my discovery, or at
the opinion itself, I can't say--was the sole reply of my friend; who,
at the same moment, presuming I had sufficient opportunities for
the judgment I pronounced, replaced the decanters upon the tray, and
disappeared with the whole in the most grave and solemn manner.
Repressing a very great inclination to laughter, I sat still; and a
silence of a few moments ensued, when Mr. Delany walked towards the
window, and, drawing aside the curtains, looked out. All was in darkness
save on the opposite side of the court-yard, where a blaze of light fell
upon the pavement from over the half shutters of an apparently spacious
apartment. “Ay, ay, there you go; hip, hip, hurrah! you waste more
liquor every night than would float a lighter; that's all you're good
for. Bad luck to your Grace--making fun of the people, laughing and
singing as if the potatoes wasn't two shillings a stone.”
“What's going on there?” said I.
“The ould work, nather more nor less. The Lord-Liftinnant, and the
bishops, and the jidges, and all the privy councillors roaring drunk.
Listen to them. May I never, if it isn't the Dean's voice I hear--the
ould beast; he is singing 'The Night before Larry was stretched.'”
“That's a good fellow, Corny--Mr. Delany I mean--do open the window for
a little, and let's hear them.”
“It's a blessed night you'd have the window open to listen to a set of
drunken devils: but here's Master Phil; I know his step well It's long
before his father that's gone would come tearing up the stairs that way
as if the bailiffs was after him; rack and ruin, sorrow else, av I never
got a place--the haythins! the Turks!”
Mr. Delany, who, probably from motives of delicacy, wished to spare his
master the pain of an interview, made his exit by one door as he came in
at the other. I had barely time to see that the person before me was in
every respect the very opposite of his follower, when he called out in a
rich, mellow voice,
“All right again, I hope, Mr. Hinton; it's the first moment I could get
away; we had a dinner of the Privy Council, and some of them are rather
late sitters; you're not hurt, I trust?”
“A little bruised or so, nothing more; but pray, how did I fall into
such kind hands?”
“Oh! the watchmen, it seems, could read, and, as your trunks were
addressed to the Castle, they concluded you ought to go there also. You
have despatches, haven't you?”
“Yes,” said I, producing the packet; “when must they be delivered?”
“Oh, at once. Do you think you could make a little change in your dress,
and manage to come over? his Grace always likes it better; there's no
stiffness, no formality whatever; most of the dinner-party have gone
home; there are only a few of the government people, the Duke's friends,
remaining, and, besides, he's always kind and good-natured.”
“I'll see what I can do,” replied I, as I rose from the sofa; “I put
myself into your hands altogether.”
“Well, come along,” said he; “you'll find everything ready in this
room. I hope that old villain has left hot water. Corny! Corny, I say!
Confound him, he's gone to bed, I suppose.”
Having no particular desire for Mr. Delany's attentions, I prevailed on
his master not to disturb him, and proceeded to make my toilette as well
as I was able.
“Didn't that stupid scoundrel come near you at all?” cried O'Grady.
“Oh yes, we have had a long interview; but, somehow, I fear I did not
succeed in gaining his good graces.”
“The worst-tempered old villain in Europe.”
“Somewhat of a character, I take it.”
“A crab-tree planted in a lime-kiln, cranky and cross-grained; but he
is a legacy, almost the only one my father left me. I've done my best to
part with him every day for the last twelve years, but he sticks to me
like a poor relation, giving me warning every night of his life, and
every morning kicking up such a row in the house that every one is
persuaded I am beating him to a jelly before turning him out to starve
in the streets.”
“Oh, the haythins! the Turks!” said I, slyly.
“Confound it!” cried he, “the old devil has been opening upon you
already; and Jet, with all that, I don't know how I should get on
without Corny; his gibes, his jeers, his everlasting ill-temper, his
crankiness that never sleeps, seem to agree with me: the fact is, one
enjoys the world from all its contrasts. The olive is a poor thing in
itself, but it certainly improves the smack of your Burgundy. In this
way Corny Delany does me good service. Come, by Jove, you have not been
long dressing. This way: now follow' me.” So saying, Captain O'Grady
led the way down the stairs to the colonnade, following which to the
opposite side of the quadrangle we arrived at a brilliantly lighted
hall, where several servants in full-dress liveries were in waiting.
Passing hastily through this, we mounted a handsome staircase, and,
traversing several ante-chambers, at length arrived at one whose
contiguity to the dinner-room I could guess at from the loud sound of
many voices. “Wait one moment here,” said my companion, “until I speak
to his Grace.” He disappeared as he spoke, but before a minute had
elapsed he was again beside me. “Come this way; it's all right,” said
he. The next moment I found myself in the dinner-room.
The scene before me was altogether so different from what I had
expected, that for a moment or two I could scarce do aught else than
stand still to survey it. At a table which had been laid for about forty
persons, scarcely more than a dozen were now present. Collected together
at one end of the board, the whole party were roaring with laughter at
some story of a strange, melancholy-looking man, whose whining
voice added indescribable ridicule to the drollery of his narrative.
Grey-headed general officers, grave-looking divines, lynx-eyed lawyers,
had all given way under the irresistible impulse, and the very table
shook with laughter.
“Mr. Hinton, your Excellency,” said O'Grady for the third time, while
the Duke wiped his eye with his napkin, and, pushing his chair a little
back from the table, motioned me to approach.
“Ah, Hinton, glad to see you; how is your father?--a very old friend of
mine, indeed; and Lady Charlotte--well, I hope? O'Grady tells me
you've had an accident--something slight, I trust. So these are the
despatches.” Here he broke the seal of the envelope, and ran his eye
over the contents. “There, that's your concern.” So saying, he pitched
a letter across the table to a shrewd-looking personage in a horse-shoe
wig. “They won't do it, Dean, and we must wait. Ah!--so they don't like
my new commissioners; but, Hinton, my boy, sit down. O'Grady, have you
room there? A glass of wine with you.”
“Nothing the worse of your mishap, sir?” said the melancholy-looking man
who sat opposite to me.
I replied by briefly relating my accident.
“Strange enough,” said he, in a compassionate tone, “your head should
have suffered; your countrymen generally fall upon their legs in
Ireland.” This was said with a sly look at the Viceroy, who, deep in his
despatches, paid no attention to the allusion.
“A very singular thing, I must confess,” said the Duke, laying down the
paper. “This is the fourth time the bearer of despatches has met with an
accident. If they don't run foul of a rock in the Channel, they are sure
to have a delay on the pier.”
“It is so natural, my Lord,” said the gloomy man, “that the carriers
should stop at the Pigeon-house.”
“Do be quiet, Curran,” cried the Duke, “and pass round the decanter.
They'll not take the duty off claret, it seems.”
“And Day, my Lord, won't put the claret on duty; he has kept the wine
at his elbow for the last half-hour. Upon my soul, your Grace ought to
knight him.”
“Not even his Excellency's habits,” said a sharp, clever-looking man,
“would excuse his converting Day into Knight.”
Amid a shower of smart, caustic, and witty sayings, droll stories,
retort and repartee, the wine circulated freely from hand to hand; the
presence of the Duke adding fresh impulse to the sallies of fun and
merriment around him. Anecdotes of the army, the bench, and the bar,
poured in unceasingly, accompanied by running commentaries of the
hearers, who never let slip an opportunity for a jest or a rejoinder.
To me, the most singular feature of all this was, that no one seemed too
old or too dignified, too high in station, or too venerable from office,
to join in this headlong current of conviviality. Austere churchmen,
erudite chief-justices, profound politicians, privy councillors,
military officers of high rank and standing, were here all mixed up
together into one strange medley, apparently bent on throwing an air
of ridicule over the graver business of life, and laughing alike at
themselves and the world. Nothing was too grave for a jest, nothing too
solemn for a sarcasm. All the soldier's experience of men and manners,
all the lawyer's acuteness of perception and readiness of wit, all the
politician's practised tact and habitual subtlety, were brought to bear
upon the common topics of the day with such promptitude, and such power,
that one knew not whether to be more struck by the mass of information
they possessed, or by that strange fatality which could make men, so
great and so gifted, satisfied to jest where they might be called on to
judge.
Play and politics, wine and women, debts and duels, were discussed, not
only with an absence of all restraint, but with a deep knowledge of the
world and a profound insight into the heart, which often imparted to the
careless and random speech the sharpness of the most cutting sarcasm.
Personalities, too, were rife; no one spared his neighbour, for he did
not expect mercy for himself; and the luckless wight who tripped in his
narrative, or stumbled in his story, was assailed on every side, until
some happy expedient of his own, or some new victim being discovered,
the attack would take another direction, and leave him once more at
liberty. I feel how sadly inadequate I am to render even the faintest
testimony to the talents of those, any one of whom, in after life, would
have been considered to have made the fortune of a dinner-party, and
who now were met together, not in the careless ease and lounging
indifference of relaxation, but in the open arena where wit met wit, and
where even the most brilliant talker, the happiest relater, the quickest
in sarcasm, and the readiest in reply, felt he had need of all his
weapons to defend and protect him. This was a _mêlée_ tournament, where
each man rode down his neighbour, with no other reason for attack than
detecting a rent in his armour. Even the Viceroy himself, who, as judge
of the lists, might be supposed to enjoy an immunity, was not safe here,
and many an arrow, apparently shot at an adversary, was sent quivering
into his corslet.
As I watched, with all the intense excitement of one to whom such a
display was perfectly new, I could not help feeling how fortunate it
was that the grave avocations and the venerable pursuits of the greater
number of the party should prevent this firework of wit from bursting
into the blaze of open animosity. I hinted as much to my neighbour,
O'Grady, who at once broke into a fit of laughter at my ignorance; and
I now learnt to my amazement that the Common Pleas had winged the
Exchequer, that the Attorney-General had pinked the Bolls, and, stranger
than all, that the Provost of the University himself had planted his man
in the Phoenix.
“It is just as well for us,” continued he, in a whisper, “that the
churchmen can't go out; for the Dean, yonder, can snuff a candle at
twenty paces, and is rather a hot-tempered fellow to boot. But come,
now, his Grace is about to rise. We have a field-day to-morrow in the
Park, and break up somewhat earlier in consequence.”
As it was now near two o'clock, I could see nothing to cavil at as
to the earliness of the hour, although, I freely confess, tired and
exhausted as I felt, I could not contemplate the moment of separation
without a sad foreboding that I ne'er should look upon the like again.
The party rose at this moment, and the Duke, shaking hands cordially
with each person as he passed down, wished us all a good night. I
followed with O'Grady and some others of the household, but when I
reached the ante-chamber, mv new friend volunteered his services to see
me to my quarters.
On traversing the lower castle-yard, we mounted an old-fashioned and
rickety stair, which conducted to a gloomy, ill-lighted corridor. I was
too much fatigued, however, to be critical at the moment, and so, having
thanked O'Grady for all his kindness, I threw off my clothes hastily,
and, before my head was well upon the pillow, was sound asleep.