The fat and fair Widow Flanagan had, at length, given up
shilly-shallying, and yielding to the fervent entreaties of Tom Durfy,
had consented to name the happy day. She _would_ have some little
ways of her own about it, however, and instead of being married in the
country, insisted on the nuptial knot being tied in Dublin. Thither
the widow repaired with her swain to complete the stipulated time of
residence within some metropolitan parish before the wedding could
take place. In the meanwhile they enjoyed all the gaiety the capital
presented, the time glided swiftly by, and Tom was within a day of being
made a happy man, when, as he was hastening to the lodgings of the fair
widow, who was waiting with her bonnet and shawl on to be escorted to
the botanical gardens at Glasnevin, he was accosted by an odd-looking
person of somewhat sinister aspect.
“I believe I have the honour of addressing Mister Durfy, sir?” Tom
answered in the affirmative. “_Thomas_ Durfy, Esquire, I think, sir?”
“Yes.”
“This is for you, sir,” he said, handing Tom a piece of dirty printed
paper, and at the same time laying his hand on Tom's shoulder and
executing a smirking sort of grin, which he meant to be the pattern
of politeness, added, “You'll excuse me, sir, but I arrest you under a
warrant from the High Sheriff of the city of Dublin; always sorry, sir,
for a gintleman in defficulties, but it's my duty.”
“You're a bailiff, then?” said Tom.
“Sir,” said the bum,
“'Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part--there all the honour lies.'”
“I meant no offence,” said Tom. “I only meant--”
“I understand, sir--I understand. These little defficulties startles
gintlemen at first--you've not been used to arrest, I see, sir?”
“Never in my life did such a thing happen before,” said Tom. “I live
generally, thank God, where a bailiff daren't show his face.”
“Ah, sir,” said the bailiff with a grin, “them rustic habits betrays
the children o' nature often when they come to town; but we are _so
fisticated_ here in the metropolis, that we lay our hands on strangers
aisy. But you'd better not stand in the street, sir, or people will
understand it's an arrest, sir; and I suppose you wouldn't like the
exposure. I can simperise in a gintle-man's feelings, sir. If you
walk aisy on, sir, and don't attempt to escape or rescue, I'll keep a
gentlemanlike distance.”
Tom walked on in great perplexity for a few steps, not knowing what
to do. The hour of his rendezvous had struck; he knew how impatient of
neglect the widow always was; he at one moment thought of asking the
bailiff to allow him to proceed to her lodgings at once, there boldly
to avow what had taken place and ask her to discharge the debt; but
this his pride would not allow him to do. As he came to the corner of a
street, he got a tap on the elbow from the bailiff, who, with a jerking
motion of his thumb and a wink, said in a confidential tone to Tom,
“Down this street, sir--that's the way to the _pres'n_ (prison).”
“Prison!” exclaimed Tom, halting involuntarily at the word.
“Shove on, sir--shove on!” hastily repeated the sheriff's officer,
urging his orders by a nudge or two on Tom's elbow.
“Don't shove me, sir!” said Tom, rather angrily, “or by G--”
“Aisy, sir--aisy!” said the bailiff; “though I feel for the defficulties
of a gintleman, the caption must be made, sir. If you don't like the
pris'n, I have a nice little room o' my own, sir, where you can wait,
for a small consideration, until you get bail.”
“I'll go there, then,” said Tom. “Go through as private streets as you
can.”
“Give me half-a-guinea for my trouble, sir, and I'll ambulate you
through lanes every _fut_ o' the way.”
“Very well,” said Tom.
They now struck into a shabby street, and thence wended through stable
lanes, filthy alleys, up greasy broken steps, through one close, and
down steps in another--threaded dark passages whose debouchures were
blocked up with posts to prevent vehicular conveyance, the accumulated
dirt of years sensible to the tread from its lumpy unevenness, and the
stagnant air rife with pestilence. Tom felt increasing disgust at every
step he proceeded, but anything to him appeared better than being seen
in the public streets in such company; for, until they got into these
labyrinths of nastiness, Tom thought he saw in the looks of every
passer-by, as plainly told as if the words were spoken, “There goes a
fellow under the care of the bailiff.” In these by-ways, he had not any
objection to speak to his companion, and for the first time asked him
what he was arrested for.
“At the suit of Mr. M'Kail, sir.”
“Oh! the tailor?” said Tom.
“Yes, sir,” said the bailiff. “And if you would not consider it trifling
with the feelings of a gintleman in defficulties, I would make the
playful observation, sir, that it's quite in character to be arrested at
the _suit_ of a tailor. He! he! he!”
“You're a wag, I see,” said Tom.
“Oh no, sir, only a poetic turn: a small affection I have certainly for
Judy Mot, but my rale passion is the muses. We are not far now, sir,
from my little bower of repose--which is the name I give my humble
abode--small, but snug, sir. You'll see another gintleman there, sir,
before you. He is waitin' for bail these three or four days, sir--can't
pay as he ought for the 'commodation, but he's a friend o' mine, I may
almost say, sir--a litherary gintleman--them litherary gintlemen is
always in defficulties mostly. I suppose you're a litherary gintleman,
sir--though you're rather ginteely dhressed for one?”
“No,” said Tom, “I am not.”
“I thought you wor, sir, by being acquainted with this other gintleman.”
“An acquaintance of mine!” said Tom, with surprise.
“Yes, sir. In short it was through him I found out where you wor, sir.
I have had the wret agen you for some time, but couldn't make you off,
till my friend says I must carry a note from him to you.”
“Where is the note?” inquired Tom.
“Not ready yet, sir. It's po'thry he's writin'--something 'pithy'
he said, and 'lame' too. I dunna how a thing could be pithy and lame
together, but them potes has hard words at command.”
“Then you came away without the note?”
“Yis, sir. As soon as I found out where you wor stopping I ran off
directly on Mr. M'Kail's little business. You'll excuse the liberty,
sir; but we must all mind our professions; though, indeed, sir, if you
b'lieve me, I'd rather nab a rhyme than a gintleman any day; and if I
could get on the press I'd quit the shoulder-tapping profession.”
Tom cast an eye of wonder on the bailiff, which the latter comprehended
at once; for with habitual nimbleness he could nab a man's thoughts as
fast as his person. “I know what you're thinkin', sir--could one of my
profession pursue the muses? Don't think, sir, I mane I could write the
'laders' or the pollitik'l articles, but the criminal cases, sir--the
robberies and offinces--with the watchhouse cases--together with a
little po'thry now and then. I think I could be useful, sir, and do
better than some of the chaps that pick up their ha'pence that way. But
here's my place, sir--my little bower of repose.”
He knocked at the door of a small tumble-down house in a filthy lane,
the one window it presented in front being barred with iron. Some bolts
were drawn inside, and though the man who opened the door was forbidding
in his aspect, he did not refuse to let Tom in. The portal was hastily
closed and bolted after they had entered. The smell of the house was
pestilential--the entry dead dark.
“Give me your hand, sir,” said the bailiff, leading Tom forward. They
ascended some creaking stairs, and the bailiff, fumbling for some time
with a key at a door, unlocked it and shoved it open, and then led in
his captive. Tom saw a shabby-genteel sort of person, whose back was
towards him, directing a letter.
“Ah, Goggins!” said the writer, “you're come back in the nick of time. I
have finished now, and you may take the letter to Mister Durfy.”
“You may give it to him yourself, sir,” replied Goggins, “for here he
is.”
“Indeed!” said the writer, turning round.
“What!” exclaimed Tom Durfy, in surprise; “James Reddy!”
“Even so,” said James, with a sentimental air:
“'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'
Literature is a bad trade, my dear Tom!--'tis an ungrateful world--men
of the highest aspirations may lie in gaol for all the world cares;
not that you come within the pale of the worthless ones; this is
good-natured of you to come and see a friend in trouble. You deserve, my
dear Tom, that you should have been uppermost in my thoughts; for here
is a note I have just written to you, enclosing a copy of verses to you
on your marriage--in short, it is an epithalamium.”
“That's what I told you, sir,” said Goggins to Tom.
“May the divil burn you and your epithalamium!” said Tom Durfy, stamping
round the little room.
James Reddy stared in wonder, and Goggins roared, laughing.
“A pretty compliment you've paid me, Mister Reddy, this fine morning,”
said Tom; “you tell a bailiff where I live, that you may send your
infernal verses to me, and you get me arrested.”
“Oh, murder!” exclaimed James. “I'm very sorry, my dear Tom; but, at the
same time, 't is a capital incident! How it would work up in a farce!”
“How funny it is!” said Tom in a rage, eyeing James as if he could have
eaten him. “Bad luck to all poetry and poetasters! By the 'tarnal war,
I wish every poet, from Homer down, was put into a mortar and pounded to
death!”
James poured forth expressions of sorrow for the mischance; and
extremely ludicrous it was to see one man making apologies for trying
to pay his friend a compliment; his friend swearing at him for his
civility, and the bailiff grinning at them both.
In this triangular dilemma we will leave them for the present.