If these thoughts chafed and angered me at first, at least they served

to animate and rouse my spirit. He who wants to rise in life must feel

the sharp spur of a wrong,--there is nothing like it to give vigor and

energy to his motions. When I came to this conclusion, I did not wait

long to put the feeling into action; and it was thus--But a new chapter

of my life deserves a new chapter of my history.

CHAPTER VII. A BOLD STROKE FOR AN OPENING IN THE WORLD

As regular as the day itself did I wait at the corner of Merrion Square,

at three o'clock, the arrival of Captain De Courcy, who came punctual

to the instant; indeed, the clatter of the pony's hoofs as he cantered

along always announced the striking of the Post-office clock. To

dismount, and fling me the bridle, with a short nod of the head in the

direction he wished me to walk the animal, was the extent of recognition

ever vouchsafed me; and as I never ventured upon even a word with

him, our intercourse was of the simplest possible kind. There was an

impassive quietude about his pale cold features that awed me. I never

saw him smile but once; it was when the mare seized me by the shoulder,

and tore with her teeth a great piece of my ragged coat away. Then,

indeed, he did vouchsafe to give a faint, listless smile, as he said to

his pampered nag, "Fie, fie! What a dirty feeder you are!"

Very little notice on his part, the merest act of recognition, a look, a

monosyllable, would have been enough to satisfy me,--anything, in short,

which might acknowledge that we were part of the same great chain, no

matter how many links might lie between us.

I do not wish it to be inferred that I had any distinct right to such

an acknowledgment, nor that any real advantage would have accrued to me

from obtaining it,--far from that; very little consideration might

have induced me to be contented with my station; and, if so, instead of

writing these notes in a boudoir with silk hangings, and--but this is

anticipating with a vengeance! And now to go back.

After three hours of a cold wait, on a rainy and dreary afternoon, the

only solace to my hunger being the imaginative one of reflecting on the

pleasure of those happy mortals who were sitting down to dinner in the

various houses along the Square, and fancying to myself the blessed

state of tranquillity it must impart to a man's nature to see a meal of

appetizing excellence, from which no call of business, no demand of any

kind could withdraw him. And what speculations did I indulge in as to

the genial pleasantry that must abound,--the happy wit, the joyous ease

of such gatherings when three or four carriages at a door would bespeak

the company at such a dinner-party!

At last, out came my captain, with a haste and flurry of manner quite

unusual. He did not, as was his constant custom, pass his hand along the

mare's neck to feel her coat, nor did he mutter a single word of coaxing

to her as he mounted. He flung himself with a jerk into the saddle, and,

rapping my knuckles sharply with the gold knob of his whip, pettishly

cried, "Let her go, sirrah!" and cantered away. I stood for some moments

motionless, my mind in that strange state when the first thought of

rebellion has entered, and the idea of reprisal has occurred. I was

about to go away, when the drawing-room window, straight above me, was

opened, and a lady stepped out upon the balcony. It was too dark to

discern either her features or her dress; but a certain instinct told me

it was Mrs. Mansergh. "Are you Captain De Courcy's boy?" said she, in a

sweet and subdued voice. I replied in the affirmative, and she went on:

"You know his quarters at the Royal Hospital? Well, go there at once,

as speedily as you can, and give him this note." She hesitated for a

second, as if uncertain what to say, and then added, "It is a note he

dropped from his pocket by accident."

"I'll do it, ma'am," said I, catching the letter and the half-crown,

which she had half inserted in the envelope to give it weight. "You

may trust me perfectly." Before the words were well uttered, she had

retired, the window was closed, the curtain drawn, and, except the

letter and the coin in my fingers, nothing remained to show that the

whole had not been a trick of my foolish brain.

My immediate impulse was to fulfil my mission; I even started off at

full speed to do so. But as I turned the corner of the Square, the glare

of a bright gas-lamp suggested the temptation of at least a look at

my despatches; and what was my astonishment to find that on this note,

which had been dropped by "accident" from the captain's pocket, the

superscription was scarcely dry,--in the very act of catching, I had

blotted the words! This, of course, was no affair of mine; but it

evinced deception,--and deception at certain moments becomes a dangerous

injury. There are times when the mind feels deceit to be an outrage. The

stormy passions of the fury-driven mob, reckless and headstrong, show

this; and the most terrible moment in all political convulsions is when

the people feel, or even suspect, that they have been tricked. My frame

of mind was exactly in that critical stage. A minute before, I was

ready to yield any obedience, tender any service; and now, of a

sudden,--without the slightest real cause, or from anything which could

in the remotest way affect me,--I had become a rebel. Let the reader

forgive the somewhat tedious analysis of a motive, since it comes from

one who has long studied the science of moral chemistry, and made most

of his experiments--as the rule directs--in "ignoble bodies."

My whole resolve was changed: I would not deliver the note. Not that I

had any precise idea wherefore, or that I had the least conception what

other course I should adopt; I was a true disciple of revolt: I rebelled

for very rebellion's sake.

Betty Cobbe's was more than usually brilliant on that evening. A

race, which was to come off at Kingstown the next day, had attracted a

numerous company, in the various walks of horse-boys, bill-carriers, and

pickpockets, all of whom hoped to find a ready harvest on the morrow.

The conversation was, therefore, entirely of a sporting character.

Anecdotes of the turf and the ring went round, and in the many curious

devices of roguery and fraud might be read the prevailing taste of

that select company. Combinations were also formed to raise the rate of

payment, and many ingenious suggestions thrown out about turning cattle

loose, slacking girths, stealing curb-chains, and so on, from that

antagonistic part of the public who preferred holding their horses

themselves than intrusting them to the profession.

The race itself, too, engrossed a great share of interest; and a certain

Fergusson was talked of with all the devotedness and affection of a dear

friend. Nor, as I afterwards learned, was the admiration a merely blind

one, as he was a most cunning adept in all the wily stratagems by which

such men correct the wilful ways of Fortune.

How my companions chuckled over stories of "rotten ditches" that were

left purposely to betray the unwary; swinging gates that would open at

the least touch, and inevitably catch the horse that attempted to clear,

if the hoof but grazed them; bog-holes, to swamp, and stone fences, to

smash,--had their share of approval; but a drain dug eight feet deep,

and that must certainly break the back of the horse, if not of the rider

also, who made a "mistake" over it, seemed the triumph which carried

away the suffrages of the whole assembly.

Now, although I had seen far more of real sport and horsemanship than

the others, these narratives were for the most part new to me; and I

listened with a high interest to every scheme and trick by which cunning

can overreach and outmanoeuvre simplicity. The admiration of adroit

knavery is the first step on the road to fraud; and he who laughs

heartily at a clever trick, seldom suspects how he is "booking himself"

for the same road. For my own part, neither were my principles so fixed,

nor my education so careful, that I did not conceive a very high respect

for the rogue, and a very contemptuous disdain for his victim.

Morning came, and a bright sunny one it was, with a keen frost and that

kind of sharp air that invigorates and braces both mind and body. The

crisp, clear outline of every tree and building seen against the deep

blue sky; the sparkling river, with its clean bed of bright gravel; and

the ruddy faces one meets,--are all of a nature to suggest pleasant and

cheerful thoughts. Even we--we, with our frail fragments and chapped

hands--felt it, and there was an alacrity of movement and a bounding

step, a gay laugh and a merry voice, everywhere. All set out for

Kingstown, in the neighborhood of which the race was to come off. I

alone remained behind, resisting every entreaty of my companions to join

them,--I cannot yet say why I did so. It was partly that long habit had

made my attendance upon "the Captain" a duty; partly, perhaps, that some

vague notion that the letter, of which I still kept possession, should

be delivered by me at last.

The town was quite empty on that day,--not a carriage, nor a horseman

to be seen. There were very few on foot, and the Square was deserted of

all, save its nursery population. I never felt a more tedious morning.

I had full time, as I loitered along all alone, to contrast my solitude

with the enjoyment my companions were at that same moment pursuing.

True to the instant, Captain De Courcy cantered up, his face a thought

graver and more stern than I had ever seen it before. As he dismounted,

my hand, in holding his stirrup, soiled the brilliant polish of his

lacquered boot; he perceived it, and rewarded my awkwardness with a

smart cut of his whip. A minute before I had made up my mind to give him

the note; now, torture itself would not have torn it from me.

I followed him with my eyes till he entered the house,--not over

distinctly, it is true, for they were somewhat blinded by tears that

would, in spite of me, come forth. The sensation was a most painful one;

and I am heartily glad to confess I have seldom experienced a recurrence

of it. Scarcely was the hall-door closed on him, when I remembered that

he would soon hear of the note, which I had failed to deliver, and that,

in all likelihood, a heavy punishment awaited me. My offence was a grave

one: what was to be done? Turn the mare loose and fly, or patiently

await my fate? Either were bad enough; the latter certainly the less

advisable of the two. A third course soon suggested itself, doubtless

inspired by that most mischief-working adage which says that one may be

"as well hanged for the sheep as the lamb."

I therefore voted for the "larger animal;" and to satisfy myself that

I was honest to my own convictions, I immediately proceeded to act upon

them. I led the mare quietly along to the angle of the Square, and then,

turning into the next street, I shortened the stirrups, mounted, and

rode off.

"Set a beggar on horseback--" says the proverb; and although the

consequence is only meant figuratively, I have a suspicion that it might

bear a literal reading. I rode away, at first, at a trot, and then,

striking into a brisk canter, I took the road to Kingstown, whither,

even yet, some horsemen were hastening.

Every stride of the bounding animal elevated my spirits and nerved my

courage. The foot-passengers, that plodded wearily along, I looked down

upon as inferior; with the horsemen on either side I felt a kind of

equality. How differently does one view life from the saddle and from

the ground! The road became more thronged as I advanced, thicker crowds

pressed eagerly forward, and numerous carriages obstructed the way. At

another moment, perhaps, I should have attracted attention; but stranger

sights were passing at every instant, and none troubled their heads

about the "ragged urchin on the thoroughbred."

The crowd at last became so dense that horsemen were fain to desert

the high road, and take short cuts wherever an open gate or an easily

crossed fence opened the way. Following a group of well-mounted

gentlemen, I cleared a low wall into a spacious grass field, over which

we cantered, and beyond this, by leaping an easy ditch, into another of

the same kind, till at length we saw the vast crowds that blackened a

hill in front, and, beneath them, could distinguish the fluttering

flags that marked the course, and the large floating standard of the

winning-post.

What a grand sight was that! For what is so imposing a spectacle as vast

myriads of people stirred by one interest, and animated by one absorbing

passion? Every one has nowadays seen something of the kind, therefore

I shall not linger to tell of the impression it made upon my youthful

senses. The first race had already come off; but the second, and the

great event of the day, was yet to take place.

It was a steeplechase by "gentlemen riders" over a very severe line of

country; several fences of most break-neck character having been added

to the natural difficulties of the ground.

Mounted on my splendid barb, I rode boldly forward till I reached the

field through which the first ditch ran,--a deep and wide trench, backed

by a low rail,--a very formidable leap, and requiring both stride and

strength to clear it.

"Some of 'em will tail off, when they sees that!" said an English groom,

with a knowing wink; and the words were only out when, at a "slapping

canter," the riders were seen coming down the gently sloping hill. Three

rode nearly abreast; then came a single horseman; and, after him, an

indiscriminate mass, whose bright and party-colored jackets glowed like

a rainbow.

I watched them with a breathless interest; as they came nearer they

widened the space between them, and each cast a rapid but stealthy

glance at his neighbor. One--he rode a powerful black horse--took the

lead, and, dashing at the leap, his horse rose too soon, and fell,

chested against the opposite bank, the rider under him; the next swerved

suddenly round and balked; the third did the same; so that the leading

horseman was now he who rode alone at first. Quickening his speed as he

came on, he seemed actually to fly; and when he did take the fence, it

was like the bound of a cannon-shot,--up, and over at once! Of the

rest, some two or three followed well; others pulled short up; while the

larger share, in various forms of accident and misfortune, might be seen

either struggling in the brook, or endeavoring to rescue their horses

from the danger of broken legs and backs.

I did not wait to watch them; my interest was in those who gallantly

led onward, and who now, some four in number, rode almost abreast. Among

these, my favorite was the sky-blue jacket who had led the way over the

dyke; and him did I follow with straining eyes and palpitating heart.

They were at this moment advancing towards a wall,--a high and strong

one, and I thought, in the slackened pace and more gathered-up stride, I

could read the caution a difficult leap enforced.

A brown jacket with white sleeves was the first to charge it; and after

a tremendous scramble, in which the wall, the horse, and the rider were

all tumbling together, he got over; but the animal went dead lame, and

the rider, dismounting, led him off the ground.

Next came blue-jacket; and just at the very rise his mare balked, and,

at the top of her speed, ran away along the side of the wall. A perfect

roar of angry disappointment arose from the multitude, for she was

the favorite of the country people, who were loudly indignant at this

mischance.

"The race is sold!" cried one.

"Beatagh"--this was the rider--"pulled her round himself! the mare never

was known to refuse a fence!"

"I say you're both wrong!" cried a third, whose excited manner showed

he was no indifferent spectator of the scene. "She never will take her

first wall fairly; after that she goes like a bird!"

"What a confounded nuisance to think that no one will lead her over the

fence! Is there not one here will show her the way?" said he, looking

around.

"There's the only fellow I see whose neck can afford it!" said another,

pointing to me. "He, evidently, was never born to be killed in a

steeplechase."

"Devilish well mounted he is, too!" remarked some one else.

"Hallo, my smart boy!" said he who before alluded to the mare as a

bolter, "try your nag over that wall yonder,--go boldly. Let her

have her head, and give her a sharp cut as she rises. Make way there,

gentlemen! Let the boy have fair play, and I 'll wager a five-pound note

he does it! You shall have half the stakes too, if you win!" added he.

These were the last words I heard; for the crowd, clearing in front,

opened for me to advance, and without a moment's hesitation of any kind,

I dashed my heels to the mare's flanks, and galloped forward. A loud

shout, and a perfect shower of whips on the mare's quarter from

the bystanders, put all question of pulling up beyond the reach of

possibility. In a minute more I was at the wall, and, ere I well knew,

over it. A few seconds after, the blue-jacket was beside me. "Well done,

my lad! You've earned twenty guineas if I win the race! Lead the way a

bit, and let your mare choose her ground when she leaps." This was all

he said; but such words of encouragement never fell on my ears before.

Before us were the others, now reduced to three in number, and evidently

holding their stride and watching each other, never for a moment

suspecting that the most feared competitor was fast creeping up behind

them. One fence separated us, and over this I led again, sitting my mare

with all the composure of an old steeplechaser. "Out of the way, now!"

cried my companion, "and let _me_ at them!" and he tore past me at a

tremendous pace, shouting out, as he went by the rest, "Come along, my

lads! I 'll show the way!"

And so he did! With all their efforts, and they were bold ones, they

never overtook him afterwards. His mare took each fence flying, and as

her speed was much greater than the others', she came in full half a

minute in advance. The others arrived all together, crest fallen and

disappointed, and, like all beaten men, receiving the most insulting

comments from the mob, who are somewhat keen critics on misfortune. I

came last, for I had dropped behind when I was ordered; but, unable

to extricate my mare from the crowd, was compelled to ride the whole

distance with the rest. If the losing horsemen were hooted and laughed

at, _my_ approach was a kind of triumphal entry. "There's the chap that

led over the wall! That little fellow rode the best of them all!" "See

that ragged boy on the small mare; he could beat the field this minute!"

"'T is fifty guineas in goold ye ought to have, my chap!" said

another,--a sentiment the unwashed on all sides seemed most heartily to

subscribe to.

"Be my soul, I 'd rather be lookin' at him than the gentlemen!" said a

very tattered individual, with a coat like a transparency. These, and

a hundred similar comments, fell like hail-drops around; and I believe

that in my momentary triumph I actually forgot all the dangers and

perils of my offence.

It is a great occasion for rejoicing among the men of rags and

wretchedness when a member of their own order has achieved anything

like fame. The assertion of their ability to enter the lists with "their

betters" is the very pleasantest of all flatteries. It is, so to say,

a kind of skirmish, before that great battle which, one day or other,

remains to be fought between the two classes which divide mankind,--

those who have, and those who have not.

I little suspected that I was, to use the cant so popular at present,

"the representative of a great principle" in my late success. I took all

the praises bestowed, most literally, to myself, and shook hands with

all the dirty and tattered mob, fully convinced that I was a very fine

fellow.

"Mister Beatagh wants to see the boy that led him over the ditch,"

shouted out a huge, wide-shouldered, red-faced ruffian, as he shoved the

crowd right and left to make way for the approach of the gentleman who

had just won the race.

"Stand up bowld, avic!" whispered one in my ear, "and don't be ashamed

to ax for your reward."

"Say ten guineas!" muttered another.

"No; but twenty!" growled out a third.

"And lashings of drink besides, for the present company!" suggested a

big-headed cripple about two feet high.

"Are you the lad that took the fence before me?" cried out a

smart-looking, red-whiskered young man, with a white surtout loosely

thrown over his riding costume.

"Yes, sir," I replied, half modestly and half assured.

"Who are you, my boy, and where do you come from?"

"He's one of Betty Cobbe's chickens!" shouted out an old savage-faced

beggar-man, who was terribly indignant at the great misdirection of

public sympathy; "and a nice clutch they are!"

"What is it to you, Dan, where the crayture gets his bread?" rejoined an

old newsvender, who, in all likelihood, had once been a parlor boarder

in the same seminary.

"Never mind _them_, but answer me, my lad!" said the gentleman. "If you

are willing to take service, and can find any one to recommend you--"

"Sure, we'll all go bail for him--to any amount!" shouted out the little

crippled fellow, from his "bowl;" and certainly a most joyous burst of

laughter ran through the crowd at the sentiment.

"Maybe ye think I'm not a householder," rejoined the fellow, with a grin

of assumed anger; "but have n't I my own sugar hogshead to live in, and

devil receave the lodger in the same premises!"

"I see there 's no chance of our being able to settle anything here,"

said the gentleman. "These good people think the matter more their own

than ours; so meet to-morrow, my lad, at Dycer's, at twelve o'clock, and

bring me anything that can speak for your character." As he said these

few words he brushed the crowd to one side with his whip, and forcing

his way, with the air of a man who would not be denied, left the place.

"And he 's laving the crayture without givin' him a farden!" cried one

of the mob, who suddenly saw all the glorious fabric of a carouse and a

drunken bout disappear like a mirage.

"Oh, the 'tarnal vagabond" shouted another, more indignantly; "to desart

the child that a-way,--and he that won the race for him!"

"Will yez see the little crayture wronged?" said another, who appeared

by his pretentious manner to be a practised street orator. "Will yez

lave the dissolute orphan--" he meant "desolate"--"to be chayted out

of his pater money? Are yez men at all? or are yez dirty slaves of the

bloody 'stokessy that's murderin' ould Ireland'?"

"We'll take charge of the orphan, and of you too, my smart fellow, if

you don't brush off pretty lively!" said a policeman, as, followed by

two others, he pushed through the crowd with that cool determination

that seems to be actually an instinct with them. Then, laying a strong

hand on my collar, he went on: "How did you come by that mare, my lad?"

"She belongs to Captain De Courcy, of the Royal Hospital," said I, doing

my utmost to seem calm and collected.

"We know that already; what we want to hear is, what brought you here

with her? It was n't Captain De Courcy's orders?"

"No, sir. I was told to hold her for him, and--and--"

"And so you rode off with her,--out with it, it saves time, my lad. Now,

let me ask you another question: Have you any notion of the crime you

have just committed? Do you know that it amounts to horse-stealing? And

do you know what the penalty is for that offence?"

"No, sir; I know neither one nor the other," said I, resolutely; "and,

if I did, it doesn't matter much. As well to live upon prison diet as to

starve in the streets!"

"He's a bad 'un; I told ye that!" remarked another of the policemen.

"Take him off, Grimes!" and so, amid a very general but subdued murmur

of pity and condolence from the crowd, I was dragged away on one side,

while the mare was led off on another.

It was a terrible tumble down, from being a hero to an embryo felon;

from being cheered by the populace, to being collared by a policeman!

As we went along towards Dublin on a jaunting-car, I was regaled by

interesting narratives of others who had begun life like myself, and

took an abrupt leave of it in a manner by no means too decorous. The

peculiarity of anecdote which pertains to each profession was strongly

marked in these officers of the law; and they appeared to have

studied the dark side of human nature with eyes the keenest and most

scrutinizing.

I wish I could even now forget the long and dreary hours of the night

that ensued, as I lay, with some fifty others, in the jail of the

station-house. The company was assuredly not select, nor their manners

at all improved by the near approach of punishment. It seemed as if all

the disguises of vice were thrown off at once, and that iniquity stood

forth in its own true and glaring livery. I do not believe that the

heart can ever experience a ruder shock than when an unfledged criminal

first hears himself welcomed into the "Masonry" of guilt. To be claimed

by such associates as a fellow-laborer, to be received as one of the

brethren into the guild of vice, is really an awful blow to one's

self-esteem and respect; to feel yourself inoculated with a disease

whose fatal marks are to stamp you like this one or that, sends a

shuddering terror through the heart, whose cold thrill is never, in a

life-long afterwards, thoroughly eradicated.

There should be a quarantine for suspected guilt, as for suspected

disease; and the mere doubt of rectitude should not expose any

unfortunate creature to the chances of a terrible contagion! I do not

affect by this to say that I was guiltless,--not in the least; but my

crime should scarcely have classified me with the associates by whom

I was surrounded. Nor was a night in such company the wisest mode of

restoring to the path of duty one who might possibly have only slightly

deviated from the straight line.

When morning came I was marched off, with a strong phalanx of other

misdoers, to the College Street office, where a magistrate presided

whose bitterest calumniators could never accuse of any undue leanings

towards mercy. By him I had the satisfaction of hearing a great variety

of small offences decided with a railroad rapidity, only interrupted now

and then by a whining lamentation over the "lenity of the legislature,"

that never awarded one tithe of the suitable penalty, and bewailing his

own inability to do more for the criminal than send him to prison for

two months with hard labor, and harder diet to sweeten it.

At last came my name; and as I heard it shouted aloud, it almost choked

me with a nervous fulness in the throat. I felt as though I was the

greatest criminal in the universe, and that the whole vast assemblage

had no other object or aim there than to see me arraigned for my

offence.

I was scarcely ordered to advance before I was desired to stand back

again, the prosecutor, Captain De Courcy, not being in court. While a

policeman was, therefore, despatched by the magistrate to request that

he would have the kindness to appear,--for the captain was an honorable

and an aide-de-camp, titles which the sitting justice knew well how to

respect,--other cases were called and disposed of. It was nigh three

o'clock when a great bustle in the outer court and a tremendous falling

back of the dense crowd, accompanied by an ostentatious display of

police zeal, heralded a group of officers, who, with jingling spurs and

banging sabretaches, made their way to the bench, and took their seats

beside the justice. Many were the courtesies interchanged between the

magistrate and the captain: one averring that the delay was not in

the slightest degree inconvenient; the other professing the greatest

deference for the rules of court; neither bestowing a thought upon him

most deeply concerned of all.

A very brief narrative, delivered by the captain with a most military

abruptness, detailed my offence; and, although not exaggerated in the

slightest degree, the occasional interruptions of the magistrate served

very considerably to magnify its guilt,--such as "Dear me! a favorite

mare; a pure Arab; a present from your noble father, Lord Littlemore;

infamous treatment; abominable case; abandoned young scoundrel!" and so

on; closing with the accustomed peroration of regret that, as hanging

was now done away with, he feared that the recorder could only award me

a transportation for life!

"Have you anything to say, sirrah?" said he at last, turning towards me;

"or would you rather reserve your observations for another time? as I

shall certainly commit you for trial at the commission."

"I have only to suggest," said I, with an air of most insolent

composure, "that you are probably mistaken in your law. The offence with

which I stand charged amounts, at most, to the minor one of breach of

trust."

"What! have we got a lawyer in the dock?" said the magistrate, reddening

with fear and anger together.

"I have enjoyed some opportunities of legal study, your worship," said

I, "and am happy to state that my opinion in the present instance will

not discredit the assertion. The case stands thus: I am employed by the

Honorable Captain De Courcy to perform a particular duty, which is of

the distinct nature of a trust; that trust, whose importance I do not

seek to extenuate in the slightest, I fail in. I will not plead the

strong temptation of a race and a great spectacle. I will not allege, as

perhaps I might, the example of my companions, then revelling in all the

pleasures of the day. I will simply say that no one fact can be adduced

to favor the suspicion of a meditated robbery; and that my conduct, so

palpably open and public, rejects the least assumption of the kind, and

at the utmost can establish nothing beyond what I am willing to plead

guilty to,--a breach of trust."

"Listen to the Attorney-General! By the hokey, it's himself they 've in

the dock!" said one.

"That's the chap can give them chapter and varse!" cried another.

"Silence there! Keep silence in the court!" said the justice, now really

warm with passion. "I'd have you to know, sirrah," said he, addressing

me, "that your pettifogging shrewdness is anything but favorable to you

in the unfortunate position in which you stand. I shall commit you

for trial, and would advise you--it is the only piece of advice I

'll trouble you with--to charge some more skilful advocate with your

defence, and not intrust it to the knavish flippancy of conceit and

chicanery."

"I mean to have counsel, your worship," said I, resolutely; for my blood

was up, and I would have argued with the twelve judges. "I mean to

have one of the first and most eminent at the bar for my defence. Mr.

Mansergh, of Merrion Square, will not refuse my brief when he sees the

fee I can offer him."

A regular roar of laughter filled the court; the impudence of my speech,

and my thus introducing the name of one of the very first men at the

bar, as likely to concern himself for such a miserable case and object,

was too much for any gravity; and when the magistrate turned to comment

upon my unparalleled assurance and impertinence to Captain De Courcy, he

discovered that the honorable captain had left his place.

Such was the fact! The dashing aide-de-camp was at that moment standing

in earnest converse with myself beside the dock.

"May I speak with this boy in another room, your worship?" said he,

addressing the court.

"Certainly, Captain De Courcy! Sergeant Biles, show Captain De Courcy

into my robing-room."

The honorable captain did not regain his composure immediately on

finding himself alone with me; on the contrary, his agitation was such

that he made two or three efforts before he could utter the few words

with which he first addressed me.

"What did you mean by saying that Mr. Mansergh would defend you? and

what was the fee you alluded to?" were the words.

"Just what I said, sir," said I, with the steady assurance a confidence

of victory gives. "I thought it was better to have able counsel; and as

I know I have the means of recompensing him, the opportunity was lucky."

"You don't pretend that you could afford to engage one like him, my

lad?" said he, affecting, but very poorly, an air of easy composure.

"What could you give him?"

"A note, sir; and although it never issued from the Bank, one not

without value!"

The captain became deadly pale; he made one step towards the door, and

in a low voice of ill-restrained anger said, "I'll have you searched,

sirrah! If anything belonging to me is found upon you--"

"No fear, sir," said I, composedly; "I have taken precautions against

that; the note is safe!"

He threw himself upon a chair, and stared at me steadily for some

minutes without a word. There we were, each scanning the other, and

inwardly calculating how to win the game we were playing.

"Well," said he, at last; "what are your terms? You see I give in."

"And so best," said I; "it saves time. I ask very little from your

honor,--nothing more, in fact, than to have this charge dismissed. I

don't mean to wear rags all my life, and consort with vagabonds, and

so I dislike to have it said hereafter that I was ever arraigned or

committed for an offence like this. You must tell the justice that

it was some blunder or mistake of your orders to me; some accidental

circumstance or other,--I don't much care what, or how; nor will he,

if the explanation comes from _you!_ This done, I 'll place the note in

your hand within half an hour, and we need never see much more of each

other."

"But who is to secure me that you keep your promise?"

"You must trust to me," said I, carelessly; "I have no bail to give."

"Why not return now, with the policeman, for the note, before I speak to

the justice?"

"Then who is to go bail for _you?_" said I, smiling.

"You are a cool fellow, by Jove!" cried he, at the steady impudence

which I maintained in the discussion.

"I had need be," replied I, in a voice very different from the feigned

hardihood of my assumed part. "The boy who has neither a home nor

a friend in the world has little else to rely on, save the cold

recklessness of what may befall him!"

I saw a curl of contempt upon the captain's lip at the energy of this

speech; for now, when, for the first time between us, a single genuine

sentiment broke from me, he deemed it "cant."

"Well!" cried he, "as you wish; I'll speak to the justice, and you shall

be free."

He left the room as he spoke, but in a few moments reentered it, saying,

"All is right! You are discharged! Now for _your_ share of the bargain."

"Where will your honor be in half an hour?"

"At the Club, Foster Place."

"Then I 'll be there with the note," said I.

He nodded, and walked out. I watched him as he went; but he neither

spoke to a policeman, nor did he turn his head round to see what became

of me. There was something in this that actually awed me. It was a trait

so unlike anything I had ever seen in others that I at once perceived it

was "the gentleman's" spirit, enabling him to feel confidence even in a

poor ragged street wanderer as I was. The lesson was not lost on me. My

life has been mainly an imitative one, and I have more than once seen

the inestimable value of "trusting."

No sooner was I at large than I speeded to Betty's, and was back

again long before the half-hour expired. I had to wait till near five,

however, before he appeared; so sure was he of my keeping my word that

he never troubled himself about me. "Ha!" said he, as he saw me, "long

here?"

"Yes, sir, about an hour;" and I handed him the note as I spoke.

He thrust it carelessly into his sabretache, and, pulling out a crown

piece, chucked it towards me, saying, "Good-bye, friend; if they don't

hang you, you 'll make some noise in the world yet."

"I mean it, sir," said I, with a familiar nod; and so, genteelly

touching my cap in salute, I walked away.

CHAPTER VIII. A QUIET CHOP AT 'KILLEEN'S' AND A GLANCE AT A NEW

CHARACTER

I looked very wistfully at my broad crown piece as it lay with its

honest platter face in the palm of my hand, and felt, by the stirring

sensations it excited within me, some inklings of his feelings who

possesses hundreds of thousands of them. Then there arose in my mind the

grave question how it was to be spent; and such a strange connection is

there between what economists call supply and demand, that, in place

of being, as I esteemed myself a few minutes back, "passing rich," I at

once perceived that I was exceeding poor, since to effect any important

change in my condition, five shillings was a most inadequate sum. It

would not buy me more than a pair of shoes; and what use in repairing

the foundation of the edifice, when the roof was in ruin?--not to speak

of my other garments, to get into which, each morning, by the same

apertures as before, was a feat that might have puzzled a harlequin.

I next bethought me of giving an entertainment to my brethren at

Betty's; but, after all, they had shown little sympathy with me in my

late misfortune, and seemed rather pleased to be rid of a dangerous

professional rival. This, and a lurking desire to leave the fraternity,

decided me against this plan.

Then came the thought of entertaining myself, giving myself a species

of congratulatory dinner on my escape; and, in fact, commemorating the

event by anticipating the most fashionable mode now in use.

I canvassed the notion with all the skill and fairness I could summon,

starting the various objections against it, and answering them with what

seemed to myself a most judicial impartiality.

"Who does a man usually entertain," said I, "but his intimate friends?"

Those whose agreeability is pleasing to him, or whose acquaintance is

valuable from their station and influence. Now, with whom had I such

an unrestrained and cordial intercourse as myself? Whose society never

wearied, whose companionship always interested me? My own! And who, of

all the persons I had ever met with, conceived a sincere and heartfelt

desire for my welfare, preferring it to all others? "Con Cregan, it is

you," said I, enthusiastically. "In you my confidence is complete. I

believe you incapable of ever forgetting me. Come, then, and let us

pledge our friendship over a flowing bowl."

Where, too, was the next doubt? With a crown to spend, I was not going

to descend to some subterranean den among coalheavers, newsvenders,

and umbrella-hawkers. But how was I to gain access to a better-class

ordinary,--that was the difficulty,--who would admit the street-runner,

in his rags, into even a brief intimacy with his silver forks and

spoons? And it was precisely to an entertainment on such a scale as a

good tavern could supply that I aspired. It was to test my own feelings

under a new stimulant,--just as I have often since seen grave people

experiment upon themselves with laughing-gas and magnetism and the fumes

of ether.

"It may be too much for you, Con," said I, as I went along; "there's no

knowing what effect it may have on your nerves.

"Remember that your system is not attuned to such variations. Your

vagaries may prove extravagant, and the too sudden elevation may disturb

your naturally correct judgment." Against these doubts I pleaded the

necessity of not being ungrateful to myself, not refusing a very proper

acknowledgment of my own skill and astuteness; and, lastly, I suggested

a glancing kind of hope that, like those famed heroes who dated their

great fortune to having gone to sleep beneath the shadow of some charmed

tree, or near the ripple of a magic fountain, that I, too, should arise

from this banquet with some brilliant view of life, and see the path to

success, bright and clear before me, through the hazy mists of fancy.

As I reasoned thus, I passed various ordinaries, stopping with a kind

of instinct at each, to gaze at the luscious rounds of beef so daintily

tricked out with sprigs of parsley; the appetizing cold sirloins, so

beautifully stratified with fat and lean; with hams that might tempt

a rabbi; not to speak of certain provocative little paragraphs about

"Ox-tail and Gravy ready at all hours." "Queer world it is," said I;

"and there are passing at every instant, by tens and twenties, men

and women and children, famishing and hungry, who see all these things

separated from them by a pane of window-glass; and yet they only gather

their rags more closely together, clench their thin lips tighter, and

move on. Not that alone; but here am I, with means to buy what I want,

and yet I must not venture to cross that threshold, as though my rags

should be an insult to their broadcloth." "Move on, youngster," quoth a

policeman at this moment, and thus put an end to my soliloquy.

Wearied with rambling, and almost despairing of myself, I was about

to cross Carlisle Bridge, when the blazing effulgence of a great

ruby-colored lamplight attracted my attention, over which, in bright

letters, ran the words, "Killeen's Tavern and Chop House," and beneath:

"Steak, potatoes, and a pint of stout, one shilling and fourpence."

Armed with a bold thought, I turned and approached the house.

Two or three waiters, in white aprons, were standing at the door, and

showed little inclination to make way for me as I advanced.

"Well," cried one, "who are you? Nobody sent for you."

"Tramp, my smart fellow," said the other; "this an't your shop."

"Is n't this Killeen's?" said I, stoutly.

"Just so," said the first, a little surprised at my coolness.

"Well, then, a young gentleman from the college sent me to order dinner

for him at once, and pay for it at the same time."

"What will he have?"

"Soup, and a steak, with a pint of port," said I; just the kind of

dinner I had often heard the old half-pay officers talking of at the

door of the Club in Foster Place.

"What hour did he say?"

"This instant. He's coming down; and as he starts by the mail at seven,

he told me to have it on the table when he came."

"All right; four-and-six," said the waiter, holding out his hand for the

money.

I gave him my crown piece; and as he fumbled for the sixpence I

insinuated myself quietly into the hall.

"There's your change, boy," said the waiter; "you need n't stop."

"Will you be so good, sir," said I, "to write 'paid' on a slip of paper

for me, just to show the gentleman?"

"Of course," said he, taken possibly by the flattering civility of my

address; and he stepped into the bar, and soon reappeared with a small

scrap of paper, with these words: "Dinner and a pint of port, 4s.

6d.--paid."

"I'm to wait for him here, sir," said I, most obsequiously.

"Very well, so you can," replied he, passing on to the coffee-room.

I peeped through the glass door, and saw that in one of the little

boxes into which the place was divided, a table was just spread, and a

soup-tureen and a decanter placed on it. "This," thought I, "is for

me;" for all the other boxes were already occupied, and a great buzz of

voices and clashing of plates and knives going on together.

"Serve the steak, sir," said I, stepping into the room and addressing

the head-waiter, who, with a curse to me to "get out of that," passed

on to order the dish; while I, with an adroit flank movement, dived into

the box, and, imitating some of the company, spread my napkin like a

breastplate across me. By a great piece of fortune the stall was the

darkest in the room, so that when seated in a corner, with an open

newspaper before me, I could, for a time at least, hope to escape

detection.

"Anything else, sir?" cried a waiter, as he uncovered the soup, and

deposited the dish of smoking beef-steak.

"Nothing," responded I, with a voice of most imposing sternness, and

manfully holding up the newspaper between us.

The first three or four mouthfuls I ate with a faint heart; the fear

of discovery, exposure, and expulsion almost choked me. A glass of

port rallied, a second one cheered, and a third emboldened me, and I

proceeded to my steak in a spirit of true ease and enjoyment. The

port was most insidious; place it wherever I would on the table, it

invariably stole over beside me, and, in spite of me, as it were, the

decanter would stand at my elbow. I suppose it must be in reality a very

gentlemanlike tipple; the tone of sturdy self-reliance, the vigorous air

of command, the sense of absolutism it inspires, smack of Toryism;

and as I sipped, I felt myself rising above the low prejudices I once

indulged in against rank and wealth, and insensibly comprehending the

beauty of that system which divides and classifies mankind.

The very air of the place, the loud, overbearing talk, the haughty

summons to the waiter, the imperious demand for this or that requisite

of the table, all conspired to impress me with the pleasant sensation

imparted to him who possesses money. Among the various things called

for on every side, I remarked that mustard seemed in the very highest

request. Every one ate of it; none seemed to have enough of it. There

was a perpetual cry, "Mustard! I say, waiter, bring me the mustard;"

while one very choleric old gentleman, in a drab surtout and a red

nose, absolutely seemed bursting with indignation as he said, "You don't

expect me to eat a steak without mustard, sir?"--a rebuke at which the

waiter grew actually purple.

Now, this was the very thing I had myself been doing,--actually eating

"a steak without mustard!" What a mistake, and for one who believed

himself to be in every respect conforming to the choicest usages of high

life! What was to be done? The steak had disappeared; no matter, it was

never too late to learn, and so I cried out, "Waiter, the mustard here!"

in a voice that almost electrified the whole room.

I had scarcely concealed myself beneath my curtain,--"The Times,"--when

the mustard was set down before me, with a humble apology for

forgetfulness. I waited till he withdrew, and then helping myself to the

unknown delicacy, proceeded to eat it, as the phrase is, "neat." In my

eagerness, I swallowed two or three mouthfuls before I felt its effects;

and then a sensation of burning and choking seized upon me. My tongue

seemed to swell to thrice its size; my eyes felt as if they would

drop out of my head; while a tingling sensation, like "frying," in my

nostrils, almost drove me mad; so that after three or four seconds of

silent agony, during which I experienced about ten years of torture,

unable to endure more, I screamed out that "I was poisoned," and, with

wide-open mouth and staring eyes, ran down the coffee-room.

Never was seen such an uproar! Had an animal from a wild-beast menagerie

appeared among the company, the consternation could scarce be greater;

and in the mingled laughter and execrations might be traced the

different moods of those who resented my intrusion. "Who is this fellow?

How did he get in? What brought him here? What's the matter with him?"

poured in on all sides,--difficulties the head-waiter thought it better

to deal with by a speedy expulsion than by any lengthened explanation.

"Get a policeman, Bob!" said he to the next in command; and the order

was given loud enough to be heard by me.

"What the devil threw him amongst us?" said a testy-looking man in green

spectacles.

"I came to dine, sir," said I; "to have my steak and my pint of wine, as

I hoped, in comfort, and as one might have it in a respectable tavern."

A jolly burst of laughter stopped me, and I was obliged to wait for its

subsidence to continue.

"Well, sir! I paid for my dinner--"

"Is that true, Sam?" said a shrewd-looking man to the waiter.

"Quite true, sir! he paid four-and-sixpence, saying that the dinner was

for a College gentleman."

"I have been in College," said I, coolly; "but no matter, the thing

is simple enough: I am here in a house of public entertainment, the

proprietors of which have accepted my money for a specific purpose;

and putting aside the question whether they can refuse admission to any

well-conducted individual (see Barnes _versus_ MacTivell, in the 8th

volume Term Reports; and Hobbes against Blinkerton, Soaker, and others,

in the Appendix), I contend that my presence here is founded upon

contract."

Another and still louder roar of mirth again stopped me, and before I

could resume, the company had gathered round me, in evident delight at

my legal knowledge; and in particular, he of the spectacles, who was a

well-known attorney of the Court of Conscience.

"That fellow's a gem!" said he. "Hang me if he's not equal to Bleatem!

Sam, take care what you do; he 's the chap to have his action against

you! I say, my man, come and sit down here, and let us have a little

chat together."

"Most willingly, sir," responded I. "Waiter, bring my wine over to this

table." This was the signal for another shout, of which I did not deign

to take the slightest notice.

"I'll wager a hundred oysters," exclaimed one of the party, among whom I

now seated myself, "that I have seen him before! Tell me, my lad,

didn't you ride over the course yesterday, and cut out the work for Mr.

Beatagh?"

I bowed an assent. "Who the devil is he?" cried two or three together;

and my appearance and manner did not check the audible expression of

this sentiment.

"A few words will suffice, gentlemen," said I, "on that head. My father

was an estated gentleman, of small, but unincumbered fortune, which he

lost by an unfortunate speculation; he accordingly went abroad--"

"To Norfolk Island!" suggested one, with a wink.

"Exactly," responded I, "a Colonial appointment; leaving me, like

Norval, not exactly on the Grampian Hills, but in a worse place, in the

middle of the bog of Allen; my sole dependence being in certain legal

studies I had once made, and a natural taste for getting forward

in life; which, with a most enthusiastic appreciation of good

company,"--here I bowed politely all round,--"are, I flatter myself, my

chief characteristics."

After a little, but most good-humored, quizzing about my present

occupation and future prospects, they, with far more politeness than

might be expected, turned the conversation upon other matters,

and kindly permitted me to throw in from time to time my

observations,--remarks which I could see, from their novelty, at least,

seemed often to surprise them.

At length the hour of separating arrived, and I arose to bid the company

good-night, which I performed with a very fair imitation of that quiet

ease I had often studied in the young guardsmen about town.

"What do you bet that he has neither home to shelter him, nor bed to

sleep on, this night?" whispered one to his neighbor.

"What are you writing there, Cox?" said another, to the keen-eyed man,

who was pencilling something on a card.

"There, that's my address, my boy,--12, Stafford Street: Jeremiah Cox.

Come to me about ten to-morrow."

Another, while he was speaking, made an effort to slip a half-crown into

my hand,--a measure I felt it becoming to decline with a prompt, but

courteous, refusal. Indeed, I had so identified myself with the part I

was performing that I flung down my only sixpence on the table for the

waiter, and, with a last salutation to the honorable company, walked

out. I have a perfect memory of every circumstance of the evening, and

I recollect that my swaggering exit was as free from any semblance of

concern or care as though a carriage waited for me outside to convey me

to a luxurious home!

It has often been a fancy of mine through life to pass the entire of a

summer night out of door; to wander either through the moonlit roads

of some picturesque country, or in the still more solitary streets of

a great city. I have always felt on these occasions as though one were

"stealing a march" upon the sleeping world,--gaining so many more hours

of thought and reflection, which the busy conflict of life renders so

often difficult.

The hours of the night seem to typify so many stages of existence,--only

reversing the natural order of age, and making the period of deep

reflection precede the era of sanguine hope; for if the solemn closing

in of the darkness suggests musing, so do the rosy tints and fresh air

of breaking day inspire the warm hopefulness of youth. If "the daylight

sinking" invites the secret communing of the heart, "the dawning of

morn" glows with energetic purpose and bold endeavor.

To come back to myself. I left the tavern without a thought whither I

should turn my steps. It was a calm night, with a starry sky and a mild,

genial air, so that to pass the hours until morning without shelter was

no great privation. One only resolve I had formed,--never to go back to

Betty's. I felt that I had sojourned over long in such companionship; it

was now time some other, and more upward, path should open before me.

Following the course of the Liffey, I soon reached the quay called the

North Wall, and at last arrived at the bluff extremity which looks out

upon the opening of the river into the Bay of Dublin. The great expanse

was in deep shadow, but so calm the sea that the two lighthouses were

reflected in long columns of light in the tranquil water. The only sound

audible was the low, monotonous plash of the sea against the wall, or

the grating noise of a chain cable, as the vessel it held surged slowly

with the tide. The sounds had something plaintive in them, that soon

imparted a tone of sadness to my mind; but it was a melancholy not

unpleasing; and I sat down upon a rude block of stone, weaving strange

fancies of myself and my future.

As I sat thus, my ear, grown more acute by habit, detected the light

clank of a chain, and something like a low thumping sound in the water

beneath me; and on peering down, I discovered the form of a small boat,

fastened to a ring in the wall, and which from time to time grated

against the strong masonry. There it lay, with a pair of light oars

run under the thwarts, and its helm flapping to and fro, inert and

purposeless, like myself! So at least I fancied it; and soon began

conceiving a strange parallel between it and me. I was suddenly startled

from these musings by the sound of feet rapidly approaching.

I listened, and could hear a man coming towards me at full speed. I sat

down beneath the shadow of the wall, and he passed me unnoticed, and

then, springing up on the parapet, he gave a loud, shrill whistle,

waiting a few seconds as if for the reply. He was silent, and then

repeated it; but still in vain,--no answer came. "Blast them!" muttered

he, "the scoundrels will not show a light!" A third time did he whistle;

but though the sounds might be heard a mile off, neither sight nor sound

ever responded to them. "And that rascal, too, to have left the boat at

such a moment!" Just as he uttered these words, he sprang down from

the wall, and caught sight of me, as I lay, affecting sleep, coiled up

beneath it.

With a rude kick of his foot on my side he aroused me, saying, "D--n the

fellow! is this a time for sleeping? I told you to keep a sharp look-out

for me here! What! who are you?" cried he, as I stood upright before

him.

"A poor boy, sir, that has no roof to shelter him," said I, plaintively.

He bent his head and listened; and then, with a horrible curse,

exclaimed, "Here they are! here they come! Can you pull an oar, my lad?"

"I can sir," answered I.

"Well, jump down into the punt there, and row her round the point to

the stairs. Be quick! down with you! I have cut my hand, and cannot help

you. There, that 's it, my lad! catch the ring; swing yourself a little

more to the right; her gunwale is just beneath your foot; all right now!

well done! Be alive now! give way, give way!" And thus encouraging me,

he walked along the parapet above me, and in a few minutes stood fast,

calling out, but in a lower and more cautious voice, "There! close in,

now a strong pull--that 's it!" and then, hastily descending a narrow

flight of steps, he sprang into the boat, and seated himself in the

stern. "Hush! be still!" cried he; "do not stir! they'll never see us

under the shadow of the wall!"

As he spoke, two dark figures mounted the wall, straight above our

heads, and stood for some seconds as it were peering into the distance.

"I 'll swear I saw him take this way," cried one, in a deep low voice.

"If he were the Devil himself, he could not escape us here," said the

other, with an accent of vindictive passion.

"And he is the Devil," said the former speaker.

"Pooh, nonsense, man! any fellow who can win at dice, or has a steady

finger with a pistol, is a marvel for you. Curses on him! he has given

us the slip somehow."

"I'd not wonder, Harry, if he has taken the water; he swims like a

duck!"

"He could not have sprung from a height like that without a plash, and

we were close enough upon his heels to hear it; flash off some powder in

a piece of paper: it is dark as pitch here."

While the men above were preparing their light, I heard a slight stir

in the stern of the boat. I turned my head, and saw my companion coolly

fitting a cap on his pistol; he was doing it with difficulty, as he was

obliged to hold the pistol between his knees, while he adjusted the cap

with his left hand; the right hand he carried in the breast of his coat.

Nothing could be more calm and collected than his every movement, up to

the instant when, having cocked the weapon, he lay back in the boat, so

as to have a full stare at the two dark figures above us.

At last, the fuse was ready, and, being lighted, it was held for a few

seconds in the hand, and then thrown into the air. The red and lurid

glare flashed full upon two savage-looking faces, straight above our

heads, and for an instant showed their figures with all the distinctness

of noonday. I saw them both, as if by a common impulse, lean over the

parapet and peer down into the dark water below, and I could have almost

sworn that we were discovered; my companion evidently thought so too,

for he raised his pistol steadily, and took a long and careful aim. What

a moment was that for me, expecting at every instant to hear the report,

and then the heavy fall of the dead man into the water! My throat was

full to bursting. The bit of burning paper of the fuse had fallen on my

companion's pistol-hand; but though it must have scorched him, he never

stirred, nor even brushed it off. I thought that by its faint flicker,

also, we might have been seen. But no, it was plain they had not

perceived us; and it was with a delight I cannot describe that I saw

one and then the other descend from the wall, while I heard the words,

"There's the second time above five hundred pounds has slipped from us.

D--n the fellow! but if I hang for him, I'll do it yet!"

"Well, you've spoiled his hand for hazard for a while, anyhow, Harry!"

said the other. "I think you must have taken his fingers clean off!"

"The knife was like a razor," replied the other, with a laugh; "but he

struck it out of my hand with a blow above the wrist; and, I can tell

you, I 'd as soon get the kick of a horse as a short stroke of the same

closed fist."

They continued to converse as they moved away, but their words only

reached me in broken, unconnected sentences. From all I could glean,

however, I was in company with one of enormous personal strength and

a most reckless intrepidity. At last, all was still; not a sound to be

heard on any side; and my companion, leaning forward, said, "Come, my

lad, pull me out a short distance into the offing; we shall soon see a

light to guide us!"

In calm, still water I could row well. I had been boat-boy to the priest

at all his autumn fishing excursions on the Westmeath lakes, so that I

acquitted myself creditably, urged on, I am free to confess, by a very

profound fear of the large figure who loomed so mysteriously in the

stern. For a time we proceeded in deep silence, when at last he said,

"What vessel do you belong to, boy?"

"I was never at sea, sir," replied I.

"Not a sailor! How comes it, then, you can row so well?"

"I learned to row in fresh water, sir."

"What are you? How came you to be here to-night?"

"By merest chance, sir. I had no money to pay for a bed. I have neither

home nor friends. I have lived, by holding horses, and running errands,

in the streets."

"Picking pockets occasionally, I suppose, too, when regular business was

dull!"

"Never!" said I, indignantly.

"Don't be shocked, my fine fellow," said he, jeeringly; "better men than

ever you 'll be have done a little that way. I have made some lighter

this evening myself, for the matter of that!"

This confession, if very frank, was not very reassuring; and so I made

no answer, but rowed away with all my might.

"Well!" said he, after a pause, "luck has befriended me twice to-night;

and sending you to sleep under that wall was not the worst turn of the

two. Ship your oars there, boy, and let us see if you are as handy a

surgeon as you are a sailor! Try and bind up these wounded fingers of

mine, for they begin to smart with the cold night air."

"Wait an instant," cried he; "we are safe now, so you may light this

lantern;" and he took from his pocket a small and most elegantly

fashioned lantern, which he immediately lighted.

I own it was with a most intense curiosity I waited for the light to

scan the features of my singular companion; nor was my satisfaction

inconsiderable when, instead of the terrific-looking fellow--half bravo,

half pirate--I expected, I perceived before me a man of apparently

thirty-one or two, with large but handsome features and gentlemanly

appearance. He had an immense beard and moustache, which united at

either side of the mouth; but this, ferocious enough to one unaccustomed

to it, could not take off the quiet regularity and good-humor of his

manly features. He wore a large-brimmed slouched felt hat that shaded

his brows, and he seemed to be dressed with some care, beneath the rough

exterior of a common pilot-coat,--at least, he wore silk stockings and

shoes, as if in evening-dress. These particulars I had time to

note, while he unwound from his crippled hand the strips of a silk

handkerchief which, stiffened and clotted with blood, bespoke a deep and

severe wound.

If the operation were often painful even to torture, he never winced, or

permitted the slightest expression of suffering to escape him. At last

the undressing was completed, and a fearful gash appeared, separating

the four fingers almost entirely from the hand. The keenness of the cut

showed that the weapon must have been, as the fellow averred, sharp as

a razor. Perhaps the copious loss of blood had exhausted the vessels,

or the tension of the bandage had closed them; for there was little

bleeding, and I soon succeeded, with the aid of his cravat, in making a

tolerable dressing of the wound, and by filling up the palm of the hand

as I had once seen done by a country surgeon in a somewhat similar case.

The pain was relieved by the gentle support afforded.

"Why, you are a most accomplished vagrant!" said he, laughing, as he

watched the artistic steps of my proceeding. "What's your name?--I mean,

what do you go by at present? for of course a fellow like you has a

score of aliases."

"I have had only one name up to this," said I,--"Con Cregan."

"Con Cregan! sharp and shrewd enough it sounds too!" said he. "And what

line of life do you mean to follow, Master Con? for I suspect you have

not been without some speculations on the subject."

"I have thought of various things, sir; but how is a poor boy like me to

get a chance? I feel as if I could pick up a little of most trades; but

I have no money, nor any friends."

"Money--friends!" exclaimed he, with a burst of bitterness quite unlike

his previous careless humor. "Well, my good fellow, I had both one and

the other,--more than most people are supposed to have of either; and

what have they brought me to?" He held up his maimed and blood-clotted

hand as he spoke this with a withering scorn in every accent.

"No, my boy; trust one who knows something of life,--the lighter you

start, the easier your journey! He that sets his heart on it, can always

make money; and friends, as they are called by courtesy, are still more

easily acquired."

This was the first time I had ever heard any one speak of the game of

life as such; and I cannot say what intense pleasure the theme afforded

me. I am certain I never stopped to consider whether his views were

right or not, whether the shrewd results of a keen observer, or the

prejudices of a disappointed man. It was the subject, the matter

discussed, delighted me.

My companion appeared to feel that he had a willing listener, and went

freely on, canvassing the various roads to success, and with a certain

air of confidence in all he said that to me seemed quite oracular.

"What a fellow am I," said he at last, "to discourse in this strain to

a street urchin whose highest ambition is to outrun his ragged

competitors, and be first 'in,' for the sixpence of some cantering

cornet! Pull ahead, lad, there's the light at last; and hang me if

they're not two miles out."

The contemptuous tone of the last few words effectually repressed

any desire I might have had for further colloquy; and I rowed away in

silence, putting forth all my strength and skill, so that the light

skiff darted rapidly and steadily through the water.

CHAPTER IX. SIR DUDLEY BROUGHTON

Steadily, and with all the vigor I could command, I pulled towards

the light. My companion sat quietly watching the stars, and apparently

following out some chain of thought to himself; at last he said, "There,

boy, breathe a bit; there's no need to blow yourself; we 're all safe

long since; the 'Firefly' is right ahead of us, and not far off either.

Have you never heard of the yacht?"

"Never, sir."

"Nor of its owner, Sir Dudley Broughton?"

"No, sir, I never heard the name."

"Well, come," cried he, laughing, "that is consolatory. I 'm not half so

great a reprobate as I thought myself! I did not believe till now that

there was an urchin of your stamp living who could not have furnished at

least some anecdotes for a memoir of me! Well, my lad, yonder, where you

see the blue light at the peak, is the 'Firefly,' and here, where I sit,

is Sir Dudley Broughton. Ten minutes more will put us alongside, so, if

you're not tired, pull away."

"No, Sir Dudley," said I, for I was well versed in the popular tact of

catching up a name quickly, "I am able to row twice as far."

"And now, Master Con," said he, "we are going to part. Are you too young

a disciple of your craft for a glass of grog; or are you a follower of

that new-fangled notion of pale-faced politicians, who like bad coffee

and reason better than whiskey and fun?"

"I'll take nothing to drink, Sir Dudley," said I. "I have dined and

drunk well to-day, and I'll not venture further."

"As you please; only I say you 're wrong not to victual the ship

whenever you stand in-shore. No matter; put your hand into this vest

pocket,--you 'll find some shillings there: take them, whatever they be.

You'll row the boat back with one of my people; and all I have to say

is, if you do speak of me, as no doubt you will and must, don't say

anything about these smashed fingers; I suppose they'll get right one of

these days, and I 'd rather there was no gossip about them."

"I 'll never speak of it--I--"

"There, now, that's enough; no swearing, or I know you'll break your

promise. Back water a little; pull the starboard oar,--so; here we are

alongside."

Sir Dudley had scarce done speaking when a hoarse voice from the yacht

challenged us. This was replied to by a terrific volley of imprecations

on the stupidity of not sooner showing the light, amid which Sir Dudley

ascended the side and stood upon the deck. "Where's Halkett?" cried

he, imperiously. "Here, sir," replied a short, thickset man, with a

sailor-like shuffle in his walk. "Send one of the men back with the

gig, and land that boy. Tell the fellow, too, he's not to fetch Waters

aboard, if he meets him: the scoundrel went off and left me to my fate

this evening; and it might have been no pleasant one, if I had not found

that lad yonder."

"We have all Sam Waters' kit on board, Sir Dudley," said Halkett; "shall

we send it ashore?"

"No. Tell him I'll leave it at Demerara for him; and he may catch the

yellow fever in looking after it," said he, laughing.

While listening to this short dialogue I had contrived to approach a

light which gleamed from the cabin window, and then took the opportunity

to count over my wealth, amounting, as I supposed, to some seven or

eight shillings. Guess my surprise to see that the pieces were all

bright yellow gold,--eight shining sovereigns!

I had but that instant made the discovery, when the sailor who was to

put me on shore jumped into the boat and seated himself.

"Wait one instant," cried I. "Sir Dudley--Sir Dudley Broughton!"

"Well, what's the matter?" said he, leaning over the side.

"This money you gave me--"

"Not enough, of course! I ought to have known that," said he,

scornfully. "Give the whelp a couple of half-crowns, Halkett, and send

him adrift."

"You 're wrong, sir," cried I, with passionate eagerness; "they are gold

pieces,--sovereigns."

"The devil they are!" cried he, laughing; "the better luck yours. Why

did n't you hold your tongue about it?"

"You bid me take some shillings, sir," answered I.

"How d--d honest you must be! Do you hear that, Halkett? The fellow had

scruples about taking his prize-money! Never mind, boy, I must pay for

my blunder,--you may keep them now."

"I have pride, too," cried I; "and hang me if I touch them."

He stared at me, without speaking, for a few minutes, and then said, in

a low, flat voice, "Come on deck, lad." I obeyed; and he took a lighted

lantern from the binnacle, and held it up close to my face, and then

moved it so that he made a careful examination of my whole figure.

"I 'd give a crown to know who was your father," said he, dryly.

"Con Cregan, of Kilbeggan, sir."

"Oh, of course, I know all that. Come, now, what say you to try a bit of

life afloat? Will you stay here?"

"Will you take me, sir?" cried I, in ecstasy.

"Halkett, rig him out," said he, shortly. "Nip the anchor with the ebb,

and keep your course down channel." With this he descended the cabin

stairs and disappeared, while I, at a signal from Halkett, stepped down

the ladder into the steerage. In the mean while it will not be deemed

digressionary if I devote a few words to the singular character into

whose society I was now thrown, inasmuch as to convey any candid

narrative of my own career I must speak of those who, without

influencing the main current of my life, yet certainly gave some impulse

and direction to its first meanderings.

Sir Dudley Broughton was the only son of a wealthy baronet, who,

not from affection or overkindness, but out of downright indolent

indifference, permitted him, first as an Eton boy, and afterwards as

a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, to indulge in every dissipation

that suited his fancy. An unlimited indulgence, a free command of

whatever money he asked for, added to a temper constitutionally

headstrong and impetuous, soon developed what might have been expected

from the combination. He led a life of wild insubordination at school,

and was expelled from Oxford. With faculties above rather than beneath

mediocrity, and a certain aptitude for acquiring the knowledge most in

request in society, he had the reputation of being one who, if he had

not unhappily so addicted himself to dissipation, would have made a

favorable figure in the world. After trying in vain to interest himself

in the pursuits of a country life, of which the sporting was the

only thing he found attractive, he joined a well-known light cavalry

regiment, celebrated for numbering among its officers more fast men than

any other corps in the service. His father, dying about the same

time, left him in possession of a large fortune, which, with all his

extravagance, was but slightly encumbered. This fact, coupled with his

well-known reputation, made him popular with his brother officers, most

of whom, having run through nearly all they possessed, saw with pleasure

a new Croesus arrive in the regiment. Such a man as Broughton was just

wanted. One had a charger to get off; another wanted a purchaser for

his four-in-hand drag. The senior captain was skilful at billiards; and

every one played "lansquenet" and hazard.

Besides various schemes against his purse, the colonel had a still

more serious one against his person. He had a daughter, a handsome,

fashionable-looking girl, with all the manners of society, and a great

deal of that tact only to be acquired in the very best foreign

society. That she was no longer in the fresh bloom of youth, nor with a

reputation quite spotless, were matters well known in the regiment; but

as she was still eminently handsome, and "the Count Radchoffsky" had

been recalled by the emperor from the embassy of which he was secretary,

Lydia Delmar was likely, in the opinions of keen-judging parties,

to make a good hit with "some young fellow who did n't know town."

Broughton was exactly the man Colonel Delmar wanted,--good family, a

fine fortune, and the very temper a clever woman usually contrives to

rule with absolute sway.

There would be, unfortunately, no novelty in recording the steps by

which such a man is ruined. He did everything that men do who are bent

upon testing Fortune to the utmost. He lent large sums to his "friends;"

he lost larger ones to them. When he did win, none ever paid him, except

by a good-humored jest upon his credit at Coutts's. "What the devil do

you want with money, Sir Dudley?" was an appeal he could never reply to.

He ran horses at Ascot, and got "squeezed;" he played at "Crocky's," and

fared no better; but he was the favorite of the corps. "We could never

get on without Dudley," was a common remark; and it satisfied him that,

with all his extravagance, he had made an investment in the hearts at

least of his comrades. A few months longer of this "fast" career would,

in all likelihood, have ruined him. He broke his leg by a fall in a

steeplechase, and was thus driven, by sheer necessity, to lay up, and

keep quiet for a season. Now came Colonel Delmar's opportunity; the

moment the news reached Coventry, he set off with his daughter to

Leamington. With the steeplechasing, hazard-playing, betting, drinking,

yachting, driving Sir Dudley, there was no chance of even time for their

plans; but with a sick man on the sofa, bored by his inactivity, hipped

for want of his usual resources, the game was open. The Colonel's visit,

too, had such an air of true kindness!

Broughton had left quarters without leave; but instead of reprimands,

arrests, and Heaven knows what besides, there was Colonel Delmar, the

fine old fellow, shaking his finger in mock rebuke, and saying, "Ah,

Dudley, my boy, I came down to give you a rare scolding; but this sad

business has saved you!" And Lydia also, against whom he had ever felt a

dislike,--that prejudice your boisterous and noisy kind of men ever feel

to clever women, whose sarcasms they know themselves exposed to,--why,

she was gentle good-nature and easy sisterlike kindness itself! She did

not, as the phrase goes, "nurse him," but she seldom left the room where

he lay. She read aloud, selecting with a marvellous instinct the very

kind of books he fancied,--novels, tales of every-day life, things of

whose truthfulness he could form some judgment; and sketches wherein the

author's views were about on a level with his own. She would sit at the

window, too, and amuse him with descriptions of the people passing in

the street; such smart shrewd pictures were they of watering-place folks

and habits, Dudley never tired of them! She was unsurpassed for the

style with which she could dress up an anecdote or a bit of gossip; and

if it verged upon the free, her French education taught her the

nice perception of the narrow line that separates "libertinage" from

indelicacy.

So far from feeling impatient at his confinement to a sofa, therefore,

Broughton affected distrust in his renovated limb for a full fortnight

after the doctor had pronounced him cured. At last he was able to drive

out, and soon afterwards to take exercise on horseback, Lydia Delmar and

her father occasionally accompanying him.

People will talk at Leamington, as they do at other places; and so

the gossips said that the rich--for he was still so reputed in the

world--the "rich" Sir Dudley Broughton was going to marry Miss Delmar.

Gossip is half-brother to that all-powerful director called "Public

Opinion;" so that when Sir Dudley heard, some half-dozen times every

day, what it was reputed he would do, he began to feel that he ought to

do it.

Accordingly, they were married; the world--at least the Leamington

section of that large body--criticising the match precisely as it struck

the interests and prejudices of the class they belonged to.

Fathers and mothers agreed in thinking that Colonel Delmar was a shrewd

old soldier, and had made an "excellent hit." Young ladies pronounced

Liddy--for a girl who had been out eight years--decidedly lucky.

Lounging men at club doors looked knowingly at each other as they joked

together in half sentences, "No affair of mine; but I did not think

Broughton would have been caught so easily." "Yes, by Jove!" cried

another, with a jockey-like style of dress, "he 'd not have made so

great a mistake on the 'Oaks' as to run an aged nag for a two-year old!"

"I wonder he never heard of that Russian fellow!" said a third.

"Oh, yes!" sighed out a dandy, with an affected drawl; "poor dear Liddy

did indeed catch a 'Tartar '!"

Remarks such as these were the pleasant sallies the event provoked;

but so it is in higher and greater things in life! At the launch of a

line-of-battle ship, the veriest vagrant in Tags fancies he can predict

for her defeat and shipwreck!

The Broughtons were now the great people of the London season, at least

to a certain "fast" set, who loved dinners at the Clarendon, high play,

and other concomitant pleasures. _Her_ equipages were the most perfect;

_her_ diamonds the most splendid; while _his_ dinners were as much

reputed by one class, as _her_ toilet by another.

Loans at ruinous interest; sales of property for a tithe of its value;

bills renewed at a rate that would have swamped Rothschild; purchases

made at prices proportionate to the risk of non-payment; reckless

waste everywhere; robbing solicitors, cheating tradesmen, and dishonest

servants! But why swell the list, or take trouble to show how the ruin

came? If one bad leak will cause a shipwreck, how is the craft to mount

the waves with every plank riven asunder?

If among the patriarchs who lend at usury, Broughton's credit was

beginning to ebb, in the clubs at the West End, in the betting-ring,

at Crockford's, and at Tattersall's, he was in all the splendor of his

former fame. Anderson would trust him with half his stable. Howell and

James would send him the epergne they had designed for a czar. And so

he lived. With rocks and breakers ahead, he only "carried on" the faster

and the freer.

Not that he knew, indeed, the extent, or anything approaching the

extent, to which his fortune was wrecked. All that he could surmise on

the subject was founded on the increased difficulty he found in raising

money,--a circumstance his pliant solicitor invariably explained by

that happy phrase, the "tightness of the money market." This completely

satisfied Sir Dudley, who, far from attributing it to his own almost

exhausted resources, laid all the blame upon some trickery of foreign

statesmen, some confounded disturbance in Ireland, something that the

Foreign Secretary had done, or would not do; and that thus the money

folk would not trust a guinea out of their fingers. In fact, it was

quite clear that to political intrigue and cabinet scheming all Sir

Dudley's difficulties might fairly be traced!

It was just at this time that the Count Radchoffsky arrived once more in

London in charge of a special mission, no longer the mere secretary of

embassy, driving about in his quiet cab, but an envoy extraordinary,

with cordons and crosses innumerable. He was exactly the kind of man

for Broughton's "set," so that he soon made his acquaintance, and was

presented by him to Lady Broughton as a most agreeable fellow, and

something very distinguished in his own country.

She received him admirably: remembered to have met him, she thought,

at Lord Edenbury's but he corrected her by saying it was at the Duke

of Clifton's,--a difference of testimony at which Broughton laughed

heartily, saying, in his usual rough way, "Well, it is pretty clear you

didn't make much impression on each other."

The Russian noble was a stranger to the turf. In the details of

arranging the approaching race, in apportioning the weights and ages

and distances, Broughton passed his whole mornings for a month, sorely

puzzled at times by the apathy of his Northern friend, who actually

never obtruded an opinion, or expressed a wish for information on the

subject.

Sir Dudley's book was a very heavy one too. What "he stood to win" was a

profound secret; but knowing men said that if he lost, it would be such

a "squeeze" as had not been known at Newmarket since the Duke of York's

day.

Such an event, however, seemed not to enter into his own calculations;

and so confident was he of success that he could not help sharing his

good fortune with his friend Radchoffsky, and giving him something in

his own book. The count professed himself everlastingly grateful, but

confessed that he knew nothing of racing matters, and that, above all,

his Majesty the Emperor would be excessively annoyed if a representative

of his in any way interfered with the race; in fact, the honor of the

Czar would be tarnished by such a proceeding. Against such reasonings

there could be no opposition; and Broughton only took to himself all the

benefits he had destined for his friend.

At last the eventful day came; and although Sir Dudley had arranged that

Lady Broughton should accompany him to the course, she was taken with

some kind of nervous attack that prevented her leaving her bed. Her

husband was provoked at this ill-timed illness, for he was still vain

of her appearance in public; but knowing that he could do nothing for

hysterics, he sent for Doctor Barham, and then with all speed he started

for the race.

Among the friends who were to go along with him, the count had promised

to make one; but despatches--that admirable excuse of diplomatists, from

the great secretary to the humblest unpaid attaché--despatches had

just arrived; and if he could manage to get through his business early

enough, "he'd certainly follow."

Scarcely had Sir Dudley reached the ground when a carriage drove up to

the stand, and a gentleman descended in all haste. It was Mr. Taperton,

his solicitor,--his trusty man of loans and discounts for many a day,

"Eh, Tappy!" cried Broughton, "come to sport a fifty on the filly?"

"Walk a little this way, Sir Dudley," said he, gravely; and his voice

soon convinced the hearer that something serious was in the wind.

"What's the matter, man? You look as if Cardinal was dead lame."

"Sir Dudley, you must start from this at once. Holdsworth has taken

proceedings on the bills; Lord Corthern has foreclosed; the whole body

of the creditors are up; and you 'll be arrested before you leave the

field!"

If the threat had conveyed the ignominious penalty of felony, Broughton

could not have looked more indignant. "Arrested! You don't mean that we

cannot raise enough to pay these rascals?"

"Your outstanding bills are above twenty thousand, sir."

"And if they be; do you tell me that with my estate--"

"My dear Sir Dudley, how much of it is unencumbered? What single

portion, save the few hundreds a year of Lady Broughton's jointure, is

not sunk under mortgage? But this is no time for discussion; get into

the chaise with me; we 'll reach London in time for the mail; to-morrow

you can be in Boulogne, and then we shall have time at least for an

arrangement."

"The race is just coming off! how can I leave? I'm a steward; besides,

I have a tremendous book. Do you know how many thousands I stand to win

here?"

"To lose, you mean," said the solicitor. "You 're sold!" The words

were whispered so low as to be almost inaudible; but Broughton actually

staggered as he heard them.

"Sold! how? what? Impossible, man! Who could sell me?"

"Only one man, perhaps, but he has done it! Is it true you have backed

Calliope?"

"Yes!" said he, staring wildly.

"She was found hamstrung this morning in the stable, then," said

Taperton; "if you want to hear further particulars, you must ask your

friend the Count Radchoffsky!"

"The scoundrel! the black-hearted villain! I see it all!" cried

Broughton. "Come, Taperton, let us start! I'll go with you; by Jove, you

have found a way to make me eager for the road!"

The lawyer read in the bloodshot eye and flushed face the passion for

vengeance that was boiling within him, but he never spoke as they moved

on and entered the carriage.

It was full three hours before the expected time of his return, when the

chaise in which they travelled drew up at the Clarendon, and Broughton,

half wild with rage, dashed upstairs to the suite of splendid rooms he

occupied.

"Oh, dear, Sir Dudley," cried the maid, as she saw him hastening along

the corridor, "oh, I 'm sure, sir, how you 'll alarm my lady if she sees

you so flurried!"

"Stand out of the way, woman!" said he, roughly, endeavoring to push

her to one side, for she had actually placed herself between him and the

door of the drawing-room.

"Surely, sir, you'll not terrify my lady! Surely, Sir Dudley--"

Despite her cries, for they had now become such, Broughton pushed her

rudely from the spot, and entered the room.

Great was his astonishment to find Lady Broughton, whom he had left

so ill, not only up, but dressed as if for the promenade; her face

was flushed, and her eye restless and feverish; and her whole manner

exhibited the highest degree of excitement.

Broughton threw down his hat upon the table, and then, returning to the

door, locked and bolted it.

"Good Heavens, Dudley!" exclaimed she, in a voice of terror, "what has

happened?"

"Everything!" said he; "utter ruin! The whole crew of creditors are in

full chase after me, and in a few hours we shall be stripped of all we

possess."

She drew a long full breath as she listened; and had her husband been in

a mood to mark it, he might have seen how lightly his terrible tidings

affected her.

"I must fly! Taperton--he's in the carriage below--says France, at least

for some weeks, till we can make some compromise or other; but I have

one debt that must be acquitted before I leave."

There was a terrible significance in the words, and she was sick to the

heart as she asked, "What, and to whom?"

"Radchoffsky!" cried he, savagely; "that scoundrel whom I trusted like a

brother!"

Lady Broughton fell back, and for a moment her motionless limbs and

pallid features seemed like fainting; but with a tremendous effort

rallying herself, she said, "Go on!"

"He betrayed me,--told every circumstance of my book! And the mare I had

backed for more than thirty thousand is dying this instant; so that I am

not only ruined, but dishonored!"

She sat with wide staring eyes and half-open lips while he spoke, nor

did she seem, in the fearful confusion of her fear, to understand fully

all he said.

"Have I not spoken plainly?" said he, angrily. "Don't you comprehend

me when I say that to-morrow I shall be branded as a defaulter at the

settling? But enough of this. Tell Millar to get a portmanteau ready

for me. I 'll start this evening; the interval is short enough for all

I have to do." As he spoke, he hastened to his bedroom, and, providing

himself with a case containing his duelling-pistols, he hurried

downstairs, ordering the postilion to drive to the Russian Embassy.

The carriage was scarce driven from the door when Lady Broughton,

taking a key from her pocket, opened a small door which led from

the drawing-room into her dressing-room, from which the count walked

forth,--his calm features unruffled and easy as though no emotion had

ever stirred them.

"You heard what Broughton said?" whispered she, in an accent of

faltering agitation.

"Oui, _parbleu_, every word of it!" replied he, laughing gently. "The

people of the house might almost have heard him."

"And is it true?" asked she, while a cold sickness crept over her, and

her mouth was shaken convulsively.

"I believe so," said he, calmly.

"Oh, Alexis, do not say so!" cried she, in an agony of grief; "or, least

of all, in such a voice as that."

He shrugged his shoulders; and then, after a moment's pause, said, "I

confess myself quite unprepared for this show of affection, madame--"

"Not so, Alexis. It is for _you_ I am concerned; for your honor as a

gentleman; for your fair fame among men--"

"Pardon, madame, if I interrupt you; but the defence of my honor must be

left to myself--"

"If I had but thought this of you--"

"It is never too late for repentance, madame. I should be sorry to think

I could deceive you."

"Oh, it is too late, far too late!" cried she, bursting into tears.

"Let us go! I must never see him again! I would not live over that last

half-hour again to save me from a death of torture!"

"Allow me, then," said he, taking her shawl and draping it on her

shoulders. "The carriage is ready;" and with these words, spoken with

perfect calm, he presented his arm and led her from the room.

To return to Sir Dudley. On arriving at the Russian Embassy, he could

learn nothing of the whereabouts of him he sought; a young secretary,

however, with whom he had some intimacy, drawing him to one side,

whispered, "Wait here a moment; I have a strange revelation to make

you,--but in confidence, remember, for it must not get abroad." The

story was this: Count Radchoffsky had been, on his recall from the

Embassy, detected in some Polish intrigue, and ordered to absent himself

from the capital and preserve a life of strict retirement, under police

"surveillance;" from this, he had managed to escape and reach England,

with forged credentials of Envoy Extraordinary; the mission being an

invention of his own, to gain currency in the world and obtain for him

loans of large sums from various houses in the "City." "As he knows,"

continued Broughton's informant, "from his former experience, the day of

our courier's expected arrival, he has up to this lived fearlessly and

openly; but the despatch having reached us through the French cabinet

sooner than he expected, his plot is revealed. The great difficulty is

to avoid all publicity; for we must have no magisterial interference, no

newspaper or police notoriety; all must be done quietly, and he must be

shipped off to Russia without a rumor of the affair getting abroad."

Broughton heard all this with the dogged satisfaction of a man who

did not well know whether to be pleased or otherwise that an object of

personal vengeance had been withdrawn from him.

But not accustomed to dwell long on any subject where the main interest

of his own line of action was wanting, he drove home to his hotel

to hasten the preparations for his departure. On his arrival at the

Clarendon, a certain bustle and movement in the hall and on the stairs

attracted his attention, and before he could inquire the cause, a half

whisper, "There he is; that's Sir Dudley!" made him turn round; the same

instant a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a man said, "I arrest

you, Sir Dudley Broughton, at the suit of Messrs. Worrit and Sneare,

Lombard Street."

"Be calm; don't make any resistance," whispered Taperton in his ear;

"come upstairs." They passed on, and entered the drawing-room, where

everything appeared in disorder. As for Broughton, he was bewildered

and stupefied by all he had gone through, and sat in a chair staring

vacantly at the groups around him, evidently unable, through the haze

of his disordered faculties, to see clearly how, and in what, he was

interested in the affair.

"Where's my lady?" whispered Taperton to the valet, who stood almost as

spell-bound as his master.

"Gone, sir; she's gone," said the man, in a faint voice.

"Gone where, scoundrel?" said Sir Dudley, jumping up and seizing him by

the throat with both hands, while he roared out the words with a savage

vehemence that startled all the room.

"Gone away, Sir Dudley," said the half-choking man; "I saw her drive off

in a chaise and pair with Count Radchoffsky."

Broughton let go his hold, and fell heavily upon his face to the ground.

A surgeon was called in, who at once perceived that the attack was one

of apoplexy. For that night and part of the next day his recovery

was almost hopeless; for, though repeatedly bled, he gave no signs of

returning animation, but lay heaving, at intervals, long, heavy sighs,

and respiring with an effort that seemed to shake the strong frame in

convulsions.

Youth and bold remedies, however, favored him, and on the third morning

he awoke, weak and weary, like one who had just reached convalescence

after a long and terrible fever. His features, his gestures, his very

voice, were all altered; there was a debility about him--mental and

physical--that seemed like premature decay; and they who knew the bold,

high-spirited man of a few days before could never have recognized him

in the simple-looking, vacant, and purposeless invalid who sat there, to

all seeming, neither noticing nor caring what happened around him. It is

true, indeed, few essayed the comparison. Of those who visited him,

the greater number were creditors curious to speculate on his recovery;

there were a couple of reporters, too, for gossiping newspapers desirous

of coining a paragraph to amuse the town; but no friends,--not a man of

those who dined, and drank, and drove, and played with him. In fact his

fate was soon forgotten even in the very circles of which he had been

the centre; nor did his name ever meet mention, save in some stale

report of a bankruptcy examination, or a meeting of creditors to arrange

for the liquidation of his debts.

The wasteful, heedless extravagance of his mode of living was urged even

to vindictiveness by his creditors, so that for three years he remained

a prisoner in the Fleet; and it was only when they saw he had no feeling

of either shame or regret at his imprisonment that an arrangement was

at last agreed to, and he was liberated,--set free to mix in a world in

which he had not one tie to bind, or one interest to attach him!

From that hour forth none ever knew how far his memory retained the

circumstances of his past life; he never certainly mentioned them to

any of those with whom he formed companionship, nor did he renew

acquaintance with one among his former friends. By great exertions on

the part of his lawyers, almost a thousand a year was secured to him

from the wreck of his great fortune,--the proceeds of a small estate

that had belonged to his mother.

On this income he lived some time in total seclusion, when, to the

astonishment of all, he was again seen about town, in company with men

of the most equivocal character,--noted gamblers at hells, "Legs of

Newmarket," and others to whom report attributed bolder and more

daring feats of iniquity. While it was a debated point among certain

fashionables of the clubs how far he was to be recognized by them, he

saved them all the difficulty, by passing his most intimate friends

without a bow or the slightest sign of recognition. A stern, repulsive

frown never left his features; and he whose frank, light-hearted

buoyancy had been a proverb, was grave and silent, rarely admitting

anything like an intimacy, and avoiding whatever could be called a

friendship.

After a while he was missed from his accustomed haunts, and it was said

that he had purchased a yacht and amused himself by sea excursions.

Then there came a rumor of his being in the Carlist insurrection in

Spain,--some said with a high command; and afterwards he was seen in

a French voltigeur regiment serving in Africa. From all these varied

accidents of life he came back to London, frequenting, as before, the

same play resorts, and betting sums whose amount often trenched upon the

limits of the bank. If, in his early life, he was a constant loser, now

he invariably won; and he was actually the terror of hell-keepers, whose

superstitious fears of certain "lucky ones" are a well-known portion of

their creed.

As for himself, he seemed to take a kind of fiendish sport in following

up this new turn of fortune. It was like a Nemesis on those who had

worked his ruin. One man in particular, a well-known Jew money-lender

of great wealth, he pursued with all the vindictive perseverance of

revenge. He tracked him from London to Brighton, to Cheltenham, to

Leamington, to Newmarket, to Goodwood; he followed him to Paris, to

Brussels; wherever in any city the man opened a table for play, there

was Broughton sure to be found.

At last, by way of eluding all pursuit, the Jew went over to Ireland,--a

country where of all others fewest resources for his traffic presented

themselves; and here again, despite change of name and every precaution

of secrecy, Broughton traced him out; and, on the night when I first met

him, he was on his return from a hell on the Quays where he had broken

the bank and arisen a winner of above two thousand pounds.

The peculiar circumstances of that night's adventure are easily told.

He was followed from the play table by two men, witnesses of his good

fortune, who saw that he carried the entire sum on his person; and from

his manner,--a feint I found he often assumed,--they believed him to be

drunk. A row was accordingly organized at the closing of the play, the

lights were extinguished, and a terrible scene of tumult and outrage

ensued, whose sole object was to rob Broughton of his winnings.

After a desperate struggle, in which he received the wound I have

mentioned, he escaped by leaping from a window into the street,--a

feat too daring for his assailants to imitate. The remainder is already

known; and I have only again to ask my reader's indulgent pardon for

this long episode, without which, however, I felt I could not have asked

his companionship on board the "Firefly."

CHAPTER X. THE VOYAGE OUT

The crew of the "Firefly" consisted of twelve persons, natives of almost

as many countries. Indeed, to see them all muster on deck, it was like a

little congress of European rascality,--such a set of hang-dog, sullen,

reckless wretches were they; Halkett, the Englishman, being the only

one whose features were not a criminal indictment, and he, with his

nose split by the slash of a cutlass, was himself no beauty. The most

atrocious of all, however, was a Moorish boy, about thirteen years of

age, called El Jarasch (the fiend), and whose diabolical ugliness did

not belie the family name. His functions on board were to feed and take

care of two young lion whelps which Sir Dudley had brought with him from

an excursion in the interior of Africa. Whether from his blood or the

nature of his occupation, I know not, but I certainly could trace in his

features all the terrible traits of the creatures he tended. The

wide, distended nostrils, the bleared and bloodshot eyes, the large,

full-lipped mouth, drawn back by the strong muscles at its angles, and

the great swollen vessels of the forehead, were developed in him, as

in the wild beasts. He imitated the animals, too, in all his gestures,

which were sudden and abrupt; the very way he ate, tearing his food and

rending it in fragments, like a prey, shewed the type he followed.

His dress was handsome, almost gorgeous; a white tunic of thin muslin

reached to the knees, over which he wore a scarlet cloth jacket,

open, and without sleeves: this was curiously slashed and laced, by a

wonderful tissue of gold thread so delicately traceried as to bear the

most minute examination; a belt of burnished gold, like a succession of

clasps, supported a small scimitar, whose scabbard of ivory and gold was

of exquisite workmanship, the top of the handle being formed by a single

emerald of purest color; his legs were bare, save at the ankles, where

two rings of massive gold encircled them; on his feet he wore a kind of

embroidered slippers, curiously studded with precious stones. A white

turban of muslin, delicately sprigged with gold, covered his head,

looped in front by another large emerald, which glared and sparkled like

an eye in the centre of his forehead.

This was his gala costume; but his every-day one resembled it in

everything, save the actual value of the material. Such was El Jarasch,

who was to be my companion and my messmate,--a fact which seemed to

afford small satisfaction to either of us.

Nothing could less resemble his splendor than the simplicity of my

costume. Halkett, when ordered to "rig me out," not knowing what precise

place I was to occupy on board, proceeded to dress me from the kit of

the sailor we had left behind in Dublin; and although, by rolling up the

sleeves of my jacket, and performing the same office for the legs of my

trousers, my hands and feet could be rendered available to me, no such

ready method could prevent the clothes bagging around me in every absurd

superfluity, and making me appear more like a stunted monster than a

human being. Beside my splendidly costumed companion I made, indeed, but

a sorry figure, nor was it long dubious that he himself thought so; the

look of savage contempt he first bestowed on me, and then the gaze of

ineffable pleasure he accorded to himself afterwards, having a wide

interval between them. Neither did it improve my condition, in his

eyes, that I could lay claim to no distinct duty on board. While I was

ruminating on this fact, the morning after I joined the yacht, we

were standing under easy sail, with a bright sky and a calm sea, the

southeastern coast of Ireland on our lee; the heaving swell of the blue

water, the fluttering bunting from gaff and peak, the joyous

bounding motion, were all new and inspiriting sensations, and I was

congratulating myself on the change a few hours had wrought in my

fortune, when Halkett came to tell me that Sir Dudley wanted to speak

with me in his cabin. He was lounging on a little sofa when I entered,

in a loose kind of dressing-gown, and before him stood the materials

of his yet untasted breakfast. The first effect of my appearance was

a burst of laughter; and although there is nothing I have ever loved

better to hear than a hearty laugh, his was not of a kind to inspire

any very pleasant or mirthful sensations. It was a short, husky, barking

noise, with derision and mockery in every cadence of it.

"What the devil have we here? Why, boy, you'd disgrace a stone lighter

at Sheerness. Who rigged you in that fashion?"

"Mr. Halkett, sir."

"Halkett, if you please; I know no 'misters' among my crew. Well, this

must be looked to; but Halkett might have known better than to send you

here in such a guise."

I made no answer; and, apparently, for some minutes, he forgot all about

me, and busied himself in a large chart which covered the table. At last

he looked up; and then, after a second or two spent in recalling me to

his recollection, said, "Oh, you 're the lad I took up last night; very

true. I wanted to speak with you. What can you do, besides what I have

seen; for I trust surgery is an art we shall seldom find use for,--can

you cook?"

I was ashamed to say that I could boil potatoes and fry rashers, which

were all my culinary gifts, and so I replied that "I could not."

"Have you never been in any service, or any kind of employment?"

"Never, sir."

"Always a vagabond?"

"Always, sir."

"Well, certes, I have the luck of it!" said he, with one of his low

laughs. "It is, perhaps, all the better. Come, my boy, it does not seem

quite clear to me what we can make of you; we have no time, nor, indeed,

any patience, for making sailors of striplings,--we always prefer the

ready-made article; but you must pick up what you can, keep your watches

when on board, and when we go ashore anywhere, you shall be my scout;

therefore don't throw away your old rags, but be ready to resume them

when wanted,--you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

"So far! Now, the next thing is,--and it is right you should know

it,--though I keep a yacht for my pleasure and amusement, I sometimes

indulge myself in a little smuggling,--which is also a pleasure and

amusement; and, therefore, my people are liable, if detected, to be

sentenced to a smart term of imprisonment,--not that this has yet

happened to any of them, but it may, you know; so it is only fair to

warn you."

"I 'll take my chance with the rest, sir."

"Well said, boy! There are other little ventures, too, I sometimes make;

but you 'd not understand them, so we need not refer to them. Now, as

to the third point,--discipline. So long as you are on board, I expect

obedience in everything; that you agree with your messmates, and never

tell a lie. On shore, you may cut each other's throats to your heart's

content. Remember, then; the lesson is easy enough: if you quarrel with

your comrades, I 'll flog you; if you ever deceive me by an untruth,

I'll blow your brains out!" The voice in which he spoke these last few

words grew harsher and louder, and at the end it became almost a shout

of angry denunciation.

"For your private governance, I may say, you'll find it wise to be

good friends with Halkett, and, if you can, with Jarasch. Go now; I 've

nothing more to say."

I was about to retire, when he called me back.

"Stay! you've said nothing to me, nor have I to you, about your wages."

"I want none, sir. It is enough for me if I am provided in all money

could buy for me."

"No deceit, sir! No trickery with _me!_" cried he, fiercely, and he

glared savagely at me.

"It is not deceit, nor trick either," said I, boldly; "but I see, sir,

it is not likely you 'll ever trust one whom you saw in the humble

condition you found me. Land me, then, at the first port you put in to.

Leave me to follow out my fortune my own way."

"What if I take you at your word," said he, "and leave you among the red

Moors, on the coast of Barbary?"

I hung my head in shame and dismay.

"Ay, or dropped you with the Tongo chiefs, who'd grill you for

breakfast?"

"But we are nigh England now, sir."

"We shall not long be so," cried he, joyfully. "If this breeze last,

you 'll see Cape Clear by sunrise, and not look on it again at sunset.

There, away with you! Tell Halkett I desire that you should be mustered

with the rest of the fellows, learn the use of a cutlass, and to load a

pistol without blowing your fingers off."

He motioned me now to leave, and I withdrew, if I must own it, only

partially pleased with my new servitude. One word here to explain my

conduct, which perhaps in the eyes of some, may appear inconsistent or

improbable. It may be deemed strange and incomprehensible why I, poor,

friendless, and low-born, should have been indifferent, even to the

refusal of all wages. The fact is this: I had set out upon my "life

pilgrimage" with a most firm conviction that one day or other, sooner or

later, I should be a "gentleman;" that I should mix on terms of equality

with the best and the highest, not a trace or a clew to my former

condition being in any respect discoverable. Now, with this one

paramount object before me, all my endeavors were gradually to conform,

so far as might be, all my modes of thought and action to that sphere

wherein yet I should move; to learn, one by one, the usages of gentle

blood, so that, when my hour came I should step into my position ready

suited to all its requirements and equal to all its demands. If this

explanation does not make clear the reasons of my generosity, and my

other motives of honorable conduct, I am sorry for it, for I have none

other to offer.

I have said that I retired from my interview with Sir Dudley not at all

satisfied with the result. Indeed, as I pondered over it, I could

not help feeling that gentlemen must dislike any traits of high and

honorable motives in persons of my own station, as though they were

assuming the air of their betters. What could rags have in common with

generous impulses; how could poverty and hunger ever consort with high

sentiments or noble aspirations? They forgive us, thought I, when we

mimic their dress and pantomime their demeanor, because we only make

_ourselves_ ridiculous by the imitation; but when we would assume the

features that regulate their own social intercourse, they hate us, as

though we sullied with our impure touch the virtues of a higher class of

beings.

The more I thought over this subject, the more strongly was I satisfied

that I was correct in my judgment; and, sooth to say, the less did I

respect that condition in life which could deem any man too poor to be

high-minded.

Sir Dudley's anticipations were all correct. The following evening at

sunset the great headlands of the south of Ireland were seen, at first

clear, and at last like hazy fogbanks; while our light vessel scudded

along, her prow pointing to where the sun had just set behind the

horizon; and then did I learn that we were bound for North America.

Our voyage for some weeks was undistinguished by any feature of unusual

character. The weather was uniformly fine; steady breezes from the

northeast, with a clear sky and a calm sea, followed us as we went, so

that, in the pleasant monotony of our lives, one day exactly resembled

another. It will, therefore, suffice if, in a few words, I tell how

the hours were passed. Sir Dudley came on deck after breakfast, when I

spread out a large white bear's skin for him to lie upon; reclined

on which, and with a huge meerschaum of great beauty in his hand,

he smoked, and watched the lions at play. These gambols were always

amusing, and never failed to assemble all the crew to witness them.

Jarasch, dressed in a light woollen tunic, with legs, arms, and neck

bare, led them forth by a chain; and, after presenting them to Sir

Dudley, from whose hands they usually received a small piece of sugar,

they were then set at liberty,--a privilege they soon availed themselves

of, setting off at full speed around the deck, sometimes one in pursuit

of the other, sometimes by different ways, crossing and recrossing each

other; now with a bold spring, now with cat-like stealthiness, creeping

slowly past. The exercise, far from fatiguing, seemed only to excite

them more and more, since all this time they were in search of the

food which Jarasch, with a cunning all his own, knew how, each day, to

conceal in some new fashion. Baffled and irritated by delay, the eyes

grew red and lustrous, the tails stiffened, and were either carried

high over the back or extended straight backwards; they contracted their

necks too, till the muscles were gathered up in thick massive folds, and

then their great heads seemed actually fastened on the fore part of the

trunk. When their rage had been sufficiently whetted by delay, Jarasch

would bring forth the mess in a large "grog tub," covered with a massive

lid, on which seating himself, and armed with a short stout bludgeon, he

used to keep the beasts at bay. This, which was the most exciting part

of the spectacle, presented every possible variety of combat. Sometimes

he could hold them in check for nigh half-an-hour, sometimes the

struggle would scarce last five minutes. Now, he would, by a successful

stroke, so intimidate one of his assailants that he could devote all his

energies against the other. Now, by a simultaneous attack, the savage

creatures would spring upon and overthrow him, and then, with all the

semblance of ungovernable passion, they would drag him some distance

along the deck, mouthing him with frothy lips, and striking him about

the head with their huge paws, from which they would not desist till

some of the sailors, uncovering the mess, would tempt them off by the

savor of the food. Although, in general, these games passed off with

little other damage than a torn tunic or a bruise more or less severe,

at others Jarasch would be so sorely mauled as to be carried off

insensible; nor would he again be seen for the remainder of the day.

That the combat was not quite devoid of peril was clear, by the fact

that several of the sailors were always armed, some with staves, others

with cutlasses, since, in the event of a bite, and blood flowing,

nothing but immediate and prompt aid could save the boy from being

devoured. This he knew well, and the exercises were always discontinued

whenever the slightest cut, or even a scratch, existed in any part

of his person. Each day seemed to heighten the excitement of these

exhibitions; for, as Jarasch became more skilful in his defence, so did

the whelps in the mode of attack; besides that, their growth advanced

with incredible rapidity, and soon threatened to make the amusement no

longer practicable. This display over, Sir Dudley played at chess with

Halkett, while I, seated behind him, read aloud some book,--usually

one of voyages and travels. In the afternoon he went below, and studied

works in some foreign language of which he appeared most eager to

acquire a knowledge, and I was then ordered to copy out into a book

various extracts of different routes in all parts of the world:

sometimes, the mode of crossing a Syrian desert; now the shortest and

safest way through the wild regions on the shores of the Adriatic. At

one time the theme would be the steppes of Tartary or the snowy plains

of the Ukraine; at another, the dangerous passes of the Cordilleras or

the hunting-grounds of the Mandaus. What delightful hours were these to

me; how full of the very highest interest! The wildest adventures were

here united with narratives of real events and people, presenting human

life in aspects the strangest and most varied. How different from my old

clerkship with my father, with the interminable string of bastard and

broken law Latin! I believe that in all my after-life, fortunate as it

has been in so many respects, I have never passed hours more happy than

these were.

In recompense for my secretarial functions, I was free of the middle

watch; so that, instead of turning into my berth at sundown to snatch

some sleep before midnight, I could lounge about at will,--sometimes

dropping into the steerage to listen to some seaman's "yarn" of storm

and shipwreck, but far oftener, book in hand, taking a lesson in French

from the old cook, for which I paid him in being "aide-de-cuisine;" or,

with more hardy industry, assisting our fat German mate to polish up

his Regensburg pistols, by which I made some progress in that tongue of

harsh and mysterious gutturals.