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THE O'RUDDY
_A ROMANCE_
BY
STEPHEN CRANE
_Author of "The Red Badge of Courage," "Active
Service," "Wounds in the Rain," etc._
AND
ROBERT BARR
_Author of "Tekla," "In the Midst of Alarms,"
"Over the Border," "The Victors," etc._
_With frontispiece by_
C. D. WILLIAMS
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1903,_
BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
* * * * *
THE O'RUDDY
CHAPTER I
My chieftain ancestors had lived at Glandore for many centuries and
were very well known. Hardly a ship could pass the Old Head of Kinsale
without some boats putting off to exchange the time of day with her,
and our family name was on men's tongues in half the seaports of
Europe, I dare say. My ancestors lived in castles which were like
churches stuck on end, and they drank the best of everything amid the
joyous cries of a devoted peasantry. But the good time passed away
soon enough, and when I had reached the age of eighteen we had nobody
on the land but a few fisher-folk and small farmers, people who were
almost law-abiding, and my father came to die more from disappointment
than from any other cause. Before the end he sent for me to come to
his bedside.
"Tom," he said, "I brought you into existence, and God help you safe
out of it; for you are not the kind of man ever to turn your hand to
work, and there is only enough money to last a gentleman five more
years.
"The 'Martha Bixby,' she was, out of Bristol for the West Indies, and
if it hadn't been for her we would never have got along this far with
plenty to eat and drink. However, I leave you, besides the money, the
two swords,--the grand one that King Louis, God bless him, gave me,
and the plain one that will really be of use to you if you get into a
disturbance. Then here is the most important matter of all. Here are
some papers which young Lord Strepp gave me to hold for him when we
were comrades in France. I don't know what they are, having had very
little time for reading during my life, but do you return them to him.
He is now the great Earl of Westport, and he lives in London in a
grand house, I hear. In the last campaign in France I had to lend him
a pair of breeches or he would have gone bare. These papers are
important to him, and he may reward you, but do not you depend on it,
for you may get the back of his hand. I have not seen him for years. I
am glad I had you taught to read. They read considerably in England, I
hear. There is one more cask of the best brandy remaining, and I
recommend you to leave for England as soon as it is finished. And now,
one more thing, my lad, never be civil to a king's officer. Wherever
you see a red coat, depend there is a rogue between the front and the
back of it. I have said everything. Push the bottle near me."
Three weeks after my father's burial I resolved to set out, with no
more words, to deliver the papers to the Earl of Westport. I was
resolved to be prompt in obeying my father's command, for I was
extremely anxious to see the world, and my feet would hardly wait for
me. I put my estate into the hands of old Mickey Clancy, and told him
not to trouble the tenants too much over the rent, or they probably
would split his skull for him. And I bid Father Donovan look out for
old Mickey Clancy, that he stole from me only what was reasonable.
I went to the Cove of Cork and took ship there for Bristol, and
arrived safely after a passage amid great storms which blew us so near
Glandore that I feared the enterprise of my own peasantry. Bristol, I
confess, frightened me greatly. I had not imagined such a huge and
teeming place. All the ships in the world seemed to lie there, and the
quays were thick with sailor-men. The streets rang with noise. I
suddenly found that I was a young gentleman from the country.
I followed my luggage to the best inn, and it was very splendid, fit
to be a bishop's palace. It was filled with handsomely dressed people
who all seemed to be yelling, "Landlord! landlord!" And there was a
little fat man in a white apron who flew about as if he were being
stung by bees, and he was crying, "Coming, sir! Yes, madam! At once,
your ludship!" They heeded me no more than if I had been an empty
glass. I stood on one leg, waiting until the little fat man should
either wear himself out or attend all the people. But it was to no
purpose. He did not wear out, nor did his business finish, so finally
I was obliged to plant myself in his way, but my speech was decent
enough as I asked him for a chamber. Would you believe it, he stopped
abruptly and stared at me with sudden suspicion. My speech had been so
civil that he had thought perhaps I was a rogue. I only give you this
incident to show that if later I came to bellow like a bull with the
best of them, it was only through the necessity of proving to
strangers that I was a gentleman. I soon learned to enter an inn as a
drunken soldier goes through the breach into a surrendering city.
Having made myself as presentable as possible, I came down from my
chamber to seek some supper. The supper-room was ablaze with light and
well filled with persons of quality, to judge from the noise that they
were making. My seat was next to a garrulous man in plum-colour, who
seemed to know the affairs of the entire world. As I dropped into my
chair he was saying--
"--the heir to the title, of course. Young Lord Strepp. That is
he--the slim youth with light hair. Oh, of course, all in shipping.
The Earl must own twenty sail that trade from Bristol. He is posting
down from London, by the way, to-night."
You can well imagine how these words excited me. I half arose from my
chair with the idea of going at once to the young man who had been
indicated as Lord Strepp, and informing him of my errand, but I had a
sudden feeling of timidity, a feeling that it was necessary to be
proper with these people of high degree. I kept my seat, resolving to
accost him directly after supper. I studied him with interest. He was
a young man of about twenty years, with fair unpowdered hair and a
face ruddy from a life in the open air. He looked generous and kindly,
but just at the moment he was damning a waiter in language that would
have set fire to a stone bridge. Opposite him was a clear-eyed
soldierly man of about forty, whom I had heard called "Colonel," and
at the Colonel's right was a proud, dark-skinned man who kept looking
in all directions to make sure that people regarded him, seated thus
with a lord.
They had drunk eight bottles of port, and in those days eight bottles
could just put three gentlemen in pleasant humour. As the ninth bottle
came on the table the Colonel cried--
"Come, Strepp, tell us that story of how your father lost his papers.
Gad, that's a good story."
"No, no," said the young lord. "It isn't a good story, and besides my
father never tells it at all. I misdoubt it's truth."
The Colonel pounded the table. "'Tis true. 'Tis too good a story to be
false. You know the story, Forister?" said he, turning to the
dark-skinned man. The latter shook his head.
"Well, when the Earl was a young man serving with the French he rather
recklessly carried with him some valuable papers relating to some
estates in the North, and once the noble Earl--or Lord Strepp as he
was then--found it necessary, after fording a stream, to hang his
breeches on a bush to dry, and then a certain blackguard of a wild
Irishman in the corps came along and stole--"
But I had arisen and called loudly but with dignity up the long table,
"That, sir, is a lie." The room came still with a bang, if I may be
allowed that expression. Every one gaped at me, and the Colonel's face
slowly went the colour of a tiled roof.
"My father never stole his lordship's breeches, for the good reason
that at the time his lordship had no breeches. 'Twas the other way. My
father--"
Here the two long rows of faces lining the room crackled for a moment,
and then every man burst into a thunderous laugh. But I had flung to
the winds my timidity of a new country, and I was not to be put down
by these clowns.
"'Tis a lie against an honourable man and my father," I shouted. "And
if my father hadn't provided his lordship with breeches, he would have
gone bare, and there's the truth. And," said I, staring at the
Colonel, "I give the lie again. We are never obliged to give it twice
in my country."
The Colonel had been grinning a little, no doubt thinking, along with
everybody else in the room, that I was drunk or crazy; but this last
twist took the smile off his face clean enough, and he came to his
feet with a bound. I awaited him. But young Lord Strepp and Forister
grabbed him and began to argue. At the same time there came down upon
me such a deluge of waiters and pot-boys, and, may be, hostlers, that
I couldn't have done anything if I had been an elephant. They were
frightened out of their wits and painfully respectful, but all the
same and all the time they were bundling me toward the door. "Sir!
Sir! Sir! I beg you, sir! Think of the 'ouse, sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!" And
I found myself out in the hall.
Here I addressed them calmly. "Loose me and takes yourselves off
quickly, lest I grow angry and break some dozen of these wooden
heads." They took me at my word and vanished like ghosts. Then the
landlord came bleating, but I merely told him that I wanted to go to
my chamber, and if anybody inquired for me I wished him conducted up
at once.
In my chamber I had not long to wait. Presently there were steps in
the corridor and a knock at my door. At my bidding the door opened and
Lord Strepp entered. I arose and we bowed. He was embarrassed and
rather dubious.
"Aw," he began, "I come, sir, from Colonel Royale, who begs to be
informed who he has had the honour of offending, sir?"
"'Tis not a question for your father's son, my lord," I answered
bluntly at last.
"You are, then, the son of The O'Ruddy?"
"No," said I. "I am The O'Ruddy. My father died a month gone and
more."
"Oh!" said he. And I now saw why he was embarrassed. He had feared
from the beginning that I was altogether too much in the right. "Oh!"
said he again. I made up my mind that he was a good lad. "That is
dif--" he began awkwardly. "I mean, Mr. O'Ruddy--oh, damn it all, you
know what I mean, Mr. O'Ruddy!"
I bowed. "Perfectly, my lord!" I did not understand him, of course.
"I shall have the honour to inform Colonel Royale that Mr. O'Ruddy is
entitled to every consideration," he said more collectedly. "If Mr.
O'Ruddy will have the goodness to await me here?"
"Yes, my lord." He was going in order to tell the Colonel that I was a
gentleman. And of course he returned quickly with the news. But he did
not look as if the message was one which he could deliver with a glib
tongue. "Sir," he began, and then halted. I could but courteously
wait. "Sir, Colonel Royale bids me say that he is shocked to find that
he has carelessly and publicly inflicted an insult upon an unknown
gentleman through the memory of the gentleman's dead father. Colonel
Royale bids me to say, sir, that he is overwhelmed with regret, and
that far from taking an initial step himself it is his duty to express
to you his feeling that his movements should coincide with any
arrangements you may choose to make."
I was obliged to be silent for a considerable period in order to
gather head and tail of this marvellous sentence. At last I caught it.
"At daybreak I shall walk abroad," I replied, "and I have no doubt
that Colonel Royale will be good enough to accompany me. I know
nothing of Bristol. Any cleared space will serve."
My Lord Strepp bowed until he almost knocked his forehead on the
floor. "You are most amiable, Mr. O'Ruddy. You of course will give me
the name of some friend to whom I can refer minor matters?"
I found that I could lie in England as readily as ever I did in
Ireland. "My friend will be on the ground with me, my lord; and as he
also is a very amiable man it will not take two minutes to make
everything clear and fair." Me, with not a friend in the world but
Father O'Donovan and Mickey Clancy at Glandore!
Lord Strepp bowed again, the same as before. "Until the morning then,
Mr. O'Ruddy," he said, and left me.
I sat me down on my bed to think. In truth I was much puzzled and
amazed. These gentlemen were actually reasonable and were behaving
like men of heart. Neither my books nor my father's stories--great
lies, many of them, God rest him!--had taught me that the duelling
gentry could think at all, and I was quite certain that they never
tried. "You were looking at me, sir?" "Was I, 'faith? Well, if I care
to look at you I shall look at you." And then away they would go at
it, prodding at each other's bellies until somebody's flesh swallowed
a foot of steel. "Sir, I do not like the colour of your coat!" Clash!
"Sir, red hair always offends me." Cling! "Sir, your fondness for
rabbit-pie is not polite." Clang!
However, the minds of young Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale seemed to
be capable of a process which may be termed human reflection. It was
plain that the Colonel did not like the situation at all, and perhaps
considered himself the victim of a peculiarly exasperating combination
of circumstances. That an Irishman should turn up in Bristol and give
him the lie over a French pair of breeches must have seemed
astonishing to him, notably when he learned that the Irishman was
quite correct, having in fact a clear title to speak authoritatively
upon the matter of the breeches. And when Lord Strepp learned that I
was The O'Ruddy he saw clearly that the Colonel was in the wrong, and
that I had a perfect right to resent the insult to my father's memory.
And so the Colonel probably said: "Look you, Strepp. I have no desire
to kill this young gentleman, because I insulted his father's name. It
is out of all decency. And do you go to him this second time and see
what may be done in the matter of avoidance. But, mark you, if he
expresses any wishes, you of course offer immediate accommodation. I
will not wrong him twice." And so up came my Lord Strepp and hemmed
and hawed in that way which puzzled me. A pair of thoughtful,
honourable fellows, these, and I admired them greatly.
There was now no reason why I should keep my chamber, since if I now
met even the Colonel himself there would be no brawling; only bows. I
was not, indeed, fond of these latter,--replying to Lord Strepp had
almost broken my back; but, any how, more bows were better than more
loud words and another downpour of waiters and pot-boys.
But I had reckoned without the dark-skinned man, Forister. When I
arrived in the lower corridor and was passing through it on my way to
take the air, I found a large group of excited people talking of the
quarrel and the duel that was to be fought at daybreak. I thought it
was a great hubbub over a very small thing, but it seems that the
mainspring of the excitement was the tongue of this black Forister.
"Why, the Irish run naked through their native forests," he was
crying. "Their sole weapon is the great knotted club, with which,
however, they do not hesitate, when in great numbers, to attack lions
and tigers. But how can this barbarian face the sword of an officer of
His Majesty's army?"
Some in the group espied my approach, and there was a nudging of
elbows. There was a general display of agitation, and I marvelled at
the way in which many made it to appear that they had not formed part
of the group at all. Only Forister was cool and insolent. He stared
full at me and grinned, showing very white teeth. "Swords are very
different from clubs, great knotted clubs," he said with admirable
deliberation.
"Even so," rejoined I gravely. "Swords are for gentlemen, while clubs
are to clout the heads of rogues--thus." I boxed his ear with my open
hand, so that he fell against the wall. "I will now picture also the
use of boots by kicking you into the inn yard which is adjacent." So
saying I hurled him to the great front door which stood open, and
then, taking a sort of hop and skip, I kicked for glory and the
Saints.
I do not know that I ever kicked a man with more success. He shot out
as if he had been heaved by a catapult. There was a dreadful uproar
behind me, and I expected every moment to be stormed by the
waiter-and-pot-boy regiment. However I could hear some of the
gentlemen bystanding cry:
"Well done! Well kicked! A record! A miracle!"
But my first hours on English soil contained still other festivities.
Bright light streamed out from the great door, and I could plainly
note what I shall call the arc or arcs described by Forister. He
struck the railing once, but spun off it, and to my great astonishment
went headlong and slap-crash into some sort of an upper servant who
had been approaching the door with both arms loaded with cloaks,
cushions, and rugs.
I suppose the poor man thought that black doom had fallen upon him
from the sky. He gave a great howl as he, Forister, the cloaks,
cushions, and rugs spread out grandly in one sublime confusion.
Some ladies screamed, and a bold commanding voice said: "In the
devil's name what have we here?" Behind the unhappy servant had been
coming two ladies and a very tall gentleman in a black cloak that
reached to his heels. "What have we here?" again cried this tall man,
who looked like an old eagle. He stepped up to me haughtily. I knew
that I was face to face with the Earl of Westport.
But was I a man for ever in the wrong that I should always be giving
down and walking away with my tail between my legs? Not I; I stood
bravely to the Earl:
"If your lordship pleases, 'tis The O'Ruddy kicking a blackguard into
the yard," I made answer coolly.
I could see that he had been about to shout for the landlord and more
waiters and pot-boys, but at my naming myself he gave a quick stare.
"The O'Ruddy?" he repeated. "Rubbish!"
He was startled, bewildered; but I could not tell if he were glad or
grieved.
"'Tis all the name I own," I said placidly. "My father left it me
clear, it being something that he could not mortgage. 'Twas on his
death-bed he told me of lending you the breeches, and that is why I
kicked the man into the yard; and if your lordship had arrived sooner
I could have avoided this duel at daybreak, and, any how, I wonder at
his breeches fitting you. He was a small man."
Suddenly the Earl raised his hand. "Enough," he said sternly. "You are
your father's son. Come to my chamber in the morning, O'Ruddy."
There had been little chance to see what was inside the cloaks of the
ladies, but at the words of the Earl there peeped from one hood a pair
of bright liquid eyes--God save us all! In a flash I was no longer a
free man; I was a dazed slave; the Saints be good to us!
The contents of the other hood could not have been so interesting, for
from it came the raucous voice of a bargeman with a cold:
"Why did he kick him? Whom did he kick? Had he cheated at play? Where
has he gone?"
The upper servant appeared, much battered and holding his encrimsoned
nose.
"My lord--" he began.
But the Earl roared at him,--
"Hold your tongue, rascal, and in future look where you are going and
don't get in a gentleman's way."
The landlord, in a perfect anguish, was hovering with his squadrons on
the flanks. They could not think of pouncing upon me if I was noticed
at all by the great Earl; but, somewhat as a precaution perhaps, they
remained in form for attack. I had no wish that the pair of bright
eyes should see me buried under a heap of these wretches, so I bowed
low to the ladies and to the Earl and passed out of doors. As I left,
the Earl moved his hand to signify that he was now willing to endure
the attendance of the landlord and his people, and in a moment the inn
rang with hurried cries and rushing feet.
As I passed near the taproom window the light fell full upon a
railing; just beneath and over this railing hung two men. At first I
thought they were ill, but upon passing near I learned that they were
simply limp and helpless with laughter, the sound of which they
contrived to keep muffled. To my surprise I recognized the persons of
young Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale.