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CHARLES O’MALLEY
The Irish Dragoon
BY CHARLES LEVER.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
[Illustration: THE SUNK FENCE]
TO THE
MOST NOBLE THE MARQUESS OF DOURO, M.P., D.C.L., ETC., ETC.
MY DEAR LORD,--
The imperfect attempt to picture forth some scenes of the most
brilliant period of my country’s history might naturally suggest their
dedication to the son of him who gave that era its glory. I feel,
however, in the weakness of the effort, the presumption of such a
thought, and would simply ask of you to accept these volumes as a
souvenir of many delightful hours passed long since in your society,
and a testimony of the deep pride with which I regard the honor of your
friendship.
Believe me, my dear Lord, with every respect and esteem,
Yours, most sincerely,
THE AUTHOR.
BRUSSELS, November, 1841.
A WORD OF EXPLANATION.
KIND PUBLIC,--
Having so lately taken my leave of the stage, in a farewell benefit, it is
but fitting that I should explain the circumstances which once more bring
me before you,--that I may not appear intrusive, where I have met with but
too much indulgence.
A blushing _debutante_--_entre nous_, the most impudent Irishman that ever
swaggered down Sackville Street--has requested me to present him to
your acquaintance. He has every ambition to be a favorite with you; but
says--God forgive him--he is too bashful for the foot-lights.
He has remarked---as, doubtless, many others have done--upon what very
slight grounds, and with what slender pretension, _my_ Confessions have
met with favor at the hands of the press and the public; and the idea has
occurred to him to indite his _own_. Had his determination ended here,
I should have nothing to object to; but unfortunately, he expects me to
become his editor, and in some sort responsible for the faults of his
production. I have wasted much eloquence and more breath in assuring him
that I was no tried favorite of the public, who dared take liberties
with them; that the small rag of reputation I enjoyed, was a very scanty
covering for my own nakedness; that the plank which swam with one, would
most inevitably sink with two; and lastly, that the indulgence so often
bestowed upon a first effort is as frequently converted into censure on the
older offender. My arguments have, however, totally failed, and he remains
obdurate and unmoved. Under these circumstances I have yielded; and as,
happily for me, the short and pithy direction to the river Thames, in the
Critic, “to keep between its banks,” has been imitated by my friend, I find
all that is required of me is to write my name upon the title and go in
peace. Such, he informs me, is modern editorship.
In conclusion, I would beg, that if the debt he now incurs at your hands
remain unpaid, you would kindly bear in mind that your remedy lies against
the drawer of the bill and not against its mere humble indorser,
HARRY LORREQUER
BRUSSELS, March, 1840.
PREFACE
The success of Harry Lorrequer was the reason for writing Charles O’Malley.
That I myself was in no wise prepared for the favor the public bestowed on
my first attempt is easily enough understood. The ease with which I strung
my stories together,--and in reality the Confessions of Harry Lorrequer are
little other than a note-book of absurd and laughable incidents,--led me
to believe that I could draw on this vein of composition without any limit
whatever. I felt, or thought I felt, an inexhaustible store of fun and
buoyancy within me, and I began to have a misty, half-confused impression
that Englishmen generally labored under a sad-colored temperament, took
depressing views of life, and were proportionately grateful to any one who
would rally them even passingly out of their despondency, and give them a
laugh without much trouble for going in search of it.
When I set to work to write Charles O’Malley I was, as I have ever been,
very low with fortune, and the success of a new venture was pretty much as
eventful to me as the turn of the right color at _rouge-et-noir_. At the
same time I had then an amount of spring in my temperament, and a power of
enjoying life which I can honestly say I never found surpassed. The world
had for me all the interest of an admirable comedy, in which the part
allotted myself, if not a high or a foreground one, was eminently suited
to my taste, and brought me, besides, sufficiently often on the stage to
enable me to follow all the fortunes of the piece. Brussels, where I was
then living, was adorned at the period by a most agreeable English society.
Some leaders of the fashionable world of London had come there to refit and
recruit, both in body and estate. There were several pleasant and a great
number of pretty people among them; and so far as I could judge, the
fashionable dramas of Belgrave Square and its vicinity were being performed
in the Rue Royale and the Boulevard de Waterloo with very considerable
success. There were dinners, balls, déjeûners, and picnics in the Bois de
Cambre, excursions to Waterloo, and select little parties to Bois-fort,--a
charming little resort in the forest whose intense cockneyism became
perfectly inoffensive as being in a foreign land, and remote from the
invasion of home-bred vulgarity. I mention all these things to show the
adjuncts by which I was aided, and the rattle of gayety by which I was, as
it were, “accompanied,” when I next tried my voice.
The soldier element tinctured strongly our society, and I will say most
agreeably. Among those whom I remember best were several old Peninsulars.
Lord Combermere was of this number, and another of our set was an officer
who accompanied, if indeed he did not command, the first boat party who
crossed the Douro. It is needless to say how I cultivated a society so
full of all the storied details I was eager to obtain, and how generously
disposed were they to give me all the information I needed. On topography
especially were they valuable to me, and with such good result that I have
been more than once complimented on the accuracy of my descriptions of
places which I have never seen and whose features I have derived entirely
from the narratives of my friends.
When, therefore, my publishers asked me could I write a story in the
Lorrequer vein, in which active service and military adventure could figure
more prominently than mere civilian life, and where the achievements of a
British army might form the staple of the narrative,--when this question
was propounded me, I was ready to reply: Not one, but fifty. Do not mistake
me, and suppose that any overweening confidence in my literary powers would
have emboldened me to make this reply; my whole strength lay in the fact
that I could not recognize anything like literary effort in the matter. If
the world would only condescend to read that which I wrote precisely as I
was in the habit of talking, nothing could be easier than for me to occupy
them. Not alone was it very easy to me, but it was intensely interesting
and amusing to myself, to be so engaged.
The success of Harry Lorrequer had been freely wafted across the German
ocean, but even in its mildest accents it was very intoxicating incense to
me; and I set to work on my second book with a thrill of hope as regards
the world’s favor which--and it is no small thing to say it--I can yet
recall.
I can recall, too, and I am afraid more vividly still, some of the
difficulties of my task when I endeavored to form anything like an accurate
or precise idea of some campaigning incident or some passage of arms from
the narratives of two distinct and separate “eye-witnesses.” What mistrust
I conceived for all eye-witnesses from my own brief experience of their
testimonies! What an impulse did it lend me to study the nature and the
temperament of narrator, as indicative of the peculiar coloring he might
lend his narrative; and how it taught me to know the force of the French
epigram that has declared how it was entirely the alternating popularity of
Marshal Soult that decided whether he won or lost the battle of Toulouse.
While, however, I was sifting these evidences, and separating, as well as
I might, the wheat from the chaff, I was in a measure training myself for
what, without my then knowing it, was to become my career in life. This was
not therefore altogether without a certain degree of labor, but so light
and pleasant withal, so full of picturesque peeps at character and humorous
views of human nature, that it would be the very rankest ingratitude of me
if I did not own that I gained all my earlier experiences of the world in
very pleasant company,--highly enjoyable at the time, and with matter for
charming souvenirs long after.
That certain traits of my acquaintances found themselves embodied in some
of the characters of this story I do not to deny. The principal of natural
selection adapts itself to novels as to Nature, and it would have demanded
an effort above my strength to have disabused myself at the desk of all
the impressions of the dinner-table, and to have forgotten features which
interested or amused me.
One of the personages of my tale I drew, however, with very little aid from
fancy. I would go so far as to say that I took him from the life, if my
memory did not confront me with the lamentable inferiority of my picture to
the great original it was meant to portray.
With the exception of the quality of courage, I never met a man who
contained within himself so many of the traits of Falstaff as the
individual who furnished me with Major Monsoon. But the major--I must
call him so, though that rank was far beneath his own--was a man of
unquestionable bravery. His powers as a story-teller were to my thinking
unrivalled; the peculiar reflections on life which he would passingly
introduce, the wise apothegms, were after a morality essentially of his own
invention. Then he would indulge in the unsparing exhibition of himself in
situations such as other men would never have confessed to, all blended up
with a racy enjoyment of life, dashed occasionally with sorrow that our
tenure of it was short of patriarchal. All these, accompanied by a face
redolent of intense humor, and a voice whose modulations were managed with
the skill of a consummate artist,--all these, I say, were above me to
convey; nor indeed as I re-read any of the adventures in which he figures,
am I other than ashamed at the weakness of my drawing and the poverty of my
coloring.
That I had a better claim to personify him than is always the lot of a
novelist; that I possessed, so to say, a vested interest in his life and
adventures,--I will relate a little incident in proof; and my accuracy, if
necessary, can be attested by another actor in the scene, who yet survives.
I was living a bachelor life at Brussels, my family being at Ostende
for the bathing, during the summer of 1840. The city was comparatively
empty,--all the so-called society being absent at the various spas or baths
of Germany. One member of the British legation, who remained at his post to
represent the mission, and myself, making common cause of our desolation
and ennui, spent much of our time together, and dined _tête-à-tête_ every
day.
It chanced that one evening, as we were hastening through the park on
our way to dinner, we espied the major--for as major I must speak of
him--lounging along with that half-careless, half-observant air we had both
of us remarked as indicating a desire to be somebody’s, anybody’s guest,
rather than surrender himself to the homeliness of domestic fare.
“There’s that confounded old Monsoon,” cried my diplomatic friend. “It’s
all up if he sees us, and I can’t endure him.”
Now, I must remark that my friend, though very far from insensible to the
humoristic side of the major’s character, was not always in the vein to
enjoy it; and when so indisposed he could invest the object of his dislike
with something little short of antipathy. “Promise me,” said he, as Monsoon
came towards us,--“promise me, you’ll not ask him to dinner.” Before I
could make any reply, the major was shaking a hand of either of us, and
rapturously expatiating over his good luck at meeting us. “Mrs. M.,” said
he, “has got a dreary party of old ladies to dine with her, and I have come
out here to find some pleasant fellow to join me, and take our mutton-chop
together.”
“We’re behind our time, Major,” said my friend, “sorry to leave you
so abruptly, but must push on. Eh, Lorrequer,” added he, to evoke
corroboration on my part.
“Harry says nothing of the kind,” replied Monsoon, “he says, or he’s going
to say, ‘Major, I have a nice bit of dinner waiting for me at home, enough
for two, will feed three, or if there be a short-coming, nothing easier
than to eke out the deficiency by another bottle of Moulton; come along
with us then, Monsoon, and we shall be all the merrier for your company.’”
Repeating his last words, “Come along, Monsoon,” etc., I passed my arm
within his, and away we went. For a moment my friend tried to get free and
leave me, but I held him fast and carried him along in spite of himself. He
was, however, so chagrined and provoked that till the moment we reached my
door he never uttered a word, nor paid the slightest attention to
Monsoon, who talked away in a vein that occasionally made gravity all but
impossible.
Our dinner proceeded drearily enough, the diplomatist’s stiffness never
relaxed for a moment, and my own awkwardness damped all my attempts at
conversation. Not so, however, Monsoon, he ate heartily, approved of
everything, and pronounced my wine to be exquisite. He gave us a perfect
discourse on sherry and Spanish wines in general, told us the secret of the
Amontillado flavor, and explained that process of browning by boiling down
wine which some are so fond of in England. At last, seeing perhaps that the
protection had little charm for us, with his accustomed tact, he diverged
into anecdote. “I was once fortunate enough,” said he, “to fall upon some
of that choice sherry from the St. Lucas Luentas which is always reserved
for royalty. It was a pale wine, delicious in the drinking, and leaving no
more flavor in the mouth than a faint dryness that seemed to say, another
glass. Shall I tell you how I came by it?” And scarcely pausing for reply,
he told the story of having robbed his own convoy, and stolen the wine he
was in charge of for safe conveyance.
I wish I could give any, even the weakest idea of how he narrated that
incident,--the struggle that he portrayed between duty and temptation, and
the apologetic tone of his voice in which he explained that the frame of
mind that succeeds to any yielding to seductive influences, is often, in
the main, more profitable to a man than is the vain-glorious sense of
having resisted a temptation. “Meekness is the mother of all the virtues,”
said he, “and there is no being meek without frailty.” The story, told as
he told it, was too much for the diplomatist’s gravity, he resisted all
signs of attention as long as he was able, and at last fairly roared out
with laughter.
As soon as I myself recovered from the effects of his drollery, I said,
“Major, I have a proposition to make you. Let me tell the story in print,
and I’ll give you five naps.”
“Are you serious, Harry?” asked he. “Is this on honor?”
“On honor, assuredly,” I replied.
“Let me have the money down, on the nail, and I’ll give you leave to have
me and my whole life, every adventure that ever befell me, ay, and if you
like, every moral reflection that my experiences have suggested.”
“Done!” cried I, “I agree.”
“Not so fast,” cried the diplomatist, “we must make a protocol of this; the
high contracting parties must know what they give and what they receive,
I’ll draw out the treaty.”
He did so at full length on a sheet of that solemn blue-tinted paper, so
dedicated to despatch purposes; he duly set fourth the concession and the
consideration. We each signed the document; he witnessed and sealed it; and
Monsoon pocketed my five napoleons, filling a bumper to any success the
bargain might bring me, and of which I have never had reason to express
deep disappointment.
This document, along with my university degree, my commission in a militia
regiment, and a vast amount of letters very interesting to me, was seized
by the Austrian authorities on the way from Como to Florence, in the August
of 1847, being deemed part of a treasonable correspondence,--probably
purposely allegorical in form,--and never restored to me. I fairly own that
I’d give all the rest willingly to repossess myself of the Monsoon treaty,
not a little for the sake of that quaint old autograph, faintly shaken by
the quiet laugh with which he wrote it.
That I did not entirely fail in giving my major some faint resemblance
to the great original from whom I copied him, I may mention that he was
speedily recognized in print by the Marquis of Londonderry, the well-known
Sir Charles Stuart of the Peninsular campaign. “I know that fellow well,”
said he, “he once sent me a challenge, and I had to make him a very humble
apology. The occasion was this: I had been out with a single aide-de-camp
to make a reconnaissance in front of Victor’s division; and to avoid
attracting any notice, we covered over our uniform with two common gray
overcoats which reached to the feet, and effectually concealed our rank as
officers. Scarcely, however, had we topped a hill which commanded the view
of the French, than a shower of shells flew over and around us. Amazed to
think how we could have been so quickly noticed, I looked around me, and
discovered, quite close in my rear, your friend Monsoon with what he called
his staff,--a popinjay set of rascals dressed out in green and gold, and
with more plumes and feathers than the general staff ever boasted. Carried
away by momentary passion at the failure of my reconnaissance, I burst out
with some insolent allusion to the harlequin assembly which had drawn the
French fire upon us. Monsoon saluted me respectfully, and retired without a
word; but I had scarcely reached my quarters when a ‘friend’ of his waited
on me with a message, a very categorical message it was, too, ‘it must be a
meeting or an ample apology.’ I made the apology, a most full one, for the
major was right, and I had not a fraction of reason to sustain me in my
conduct, and we have been the best of friends ever since.”
I myself had heard the incident before this from Monsoon, but told among
other adventures whose exact veracity I was rather disposed to question,
and did not therefore accord it all the faith that was its due; and I admit
that the accidental corroboration of this one event very often served to
puzzle me afterwards, when I listened to stories in which the major seemed
a second Munchausen, but might, like in this of the duel, have been among
the truest and most matter-of-fact of historians. May the reader be not
less embarrassed than myself, is my sincere, if not very courteous, prayer.
I have no doubt myself, that often in recounting some strange incident,--a
personal experience it always was,--he was himself more amused by the
credulity of the hearers, and the amount of interest he could excite in
them, than were they by the story. He possessed the true narrative gusto,
and there was a marvellous instinct in the way in which he would vary a
tale to suit the tastes of an audience; while his moralizings were almost
certain to take the tone of a humoristic quiz on the company.
Though fully aware that I was availing myself of the contract that
delivered him into my hands, and dining with me two or three days a week,
he never lapsed into any allusion to his appearance in print; and the story
had been already some weeks published before he asked me to lend him “that
last thing--he forgot the name of it--I was writing.”
Of Frank Webber I have said, in a former notice, that he was one of my
earliest friends, my chum in college, and in the very chambers where I have
located Charles O’Malley, in Old Trinity. He was a man of the highest order
of abilities, and with a memory that never forgot, but ruined and run to
seed by the idleness that came of a discursive, uncertain temperament.
Capable of anything, he spent his youth in follies and eccentricities;
every one of which, however, gave indications of a mind inexhaustible in
resources, and abounding in devices and contrivances that none other but
himself would have thought of. Poor fellow, he died young; and perhaps it
is better it should have been so. Had he lived to a later day, he would
most probably have been found a foremost leader of Fenianism; and from
what I knew of him, I can say he would have been a more dangerous enemy to
English rule than any of those dealers in the petty larceny of rebellion we
have lately seen among us.
I have said that of Mickey Free I had not one but one thousand types.
Indeed, I am not quite sure that in my last visit to Dublin, I did not
chance on a living specimen of the “Free” family, much readier in repartée,
quicker with an apropos, and droller in illustration than my own Mickey.
This fellow was “boots” at a great hotel in Sackville Street; and I owe him
more amusement and some heartier laughs than it has been always my fortune
to enjoy in a party of wits. His criticisms on my sketches of Irish
character were about the shrewdest and the best I ever listened to; and
that I am not bribed to this by any flattery, I may remark that they were
more often severe than complimentary, and that he hit every blunder of
image, every mistake in figure, of my peasant characters, with an acuteness
and correctness which made me very grateful to know that his daily
occupations were limited to blacking boots, and not polishing off authors.
I believe I have now done with my confessions, except I should like to own
that this story was the means of according me a more heartfelt glow of
satisfaction, a more gratifying sense of pride, than anything I ever have
or ever shall write, and in this wise. My brother, at that time the rector
of an Irish parish, once forwarded to me a letter from a lady unknown to
him, but who had heard he was the brother of “Harry Lorrequer,” and who
addressed him not knowing where a letter might be directed to myself. The
letter was the grateful expression of a mother, who said, “I am the
widow of a field officer, and with an only son, for whom I obtained a
presentation to Woolwich; but seeing in my boy’s nature certain traits of
nervousness and timidity which induced me to hesitate on embarking him in
the career of a soldier, I became very unhappy and uncertain which course
to decide on.
“While in this state of uncertainty, I chanced to make him a birthday
present of ‘Charles O’Malley,’ the reading of which seemed to act like a
charm on his whole character, inspiring him with a passion for movement and
adventure, and spiriting him to an eager desire for a military life. Seeing
that this was no passing enthusiasm, but a decided and determined bent,
I accepted the cadetship for him; and his career has been not alone
distinguished as a student, but one which has marked him out for an almost
hare-brained courage, and for a dash and heroism that give high promise for
his future.
“Thank your brother for me,” wrote she, “a mother’s thanks for the welfare
of an only son; and say how I wish that my best wishes for him and his
could recompense him for what I owe him.”
I humbly hope that it may not be imputed to me as unpardonable vanity,--the
recording of this incident. It gave me an intense pleasure when I heard it;
and now, as I look back on it, it invests this story for myself with an
interest which nothing else that I have written can afford me.
I have now but to repeat what I have declared in former editions, my
sincere gratitude for the favor the public still continues to bestow
on me,--a favor which probably associates the memory of this book with
whatever I have since done successfully, and compels me to remember that
to the popularity of “Charles O’Malley” I am indebted for a great share of
that kindliness in criticism, and that geniality in judgment, which--for
more than a quarter of a century--my countrymen have graciously bestowed on
their faithful friend and servant,
CHARLES LEVER.
TRIESTE, 1872.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. DALY’S CLUB-HOUSE
II. THE ESCAPE
III. MR. BLAKE
IV. THE HUNT
V. THE DRAWING-ROOM
VI. THE DINNER
VII. THE FLIGHT FROM GURT-NA-MORRA
VIII. THE DUEL
IX. THE RETURN
X. THE ELECTION
XI. AN ADVENTURE
XII. MICKEY FREE
XIII. THE JOURNEY
XIV. DUBLIN
XV. CAPTAIN POWER
XVI. THE VICE-PROVOST
XVII. TRINITY COLLEGE.--A LECTURE
XVIII. THE INVITATION.--THE WAGER
XIX. THE BALL
XX. THE LAST NIGHT IN TRINITY
XXI. THE PHOENIX PARK
XXII. THE ROAD
XXIII. CORK
XXIV. THE ADJUTANT’S DINNER
XXV. THE ENTANGLEMENT
XXVI. THE PREPARATION
XXVII. THE SUPPER
XXVIII. THE VOYAGE
XXIX. THE ADJUTANT’S STORY.--LIFE IN DERBY
XXX. FRED POWER’S ADVENTURE IN PHILIPSTOWN
XXXI. THE VOYAGE CONTINUED
XXXII. MR. SPARKS’S STORY
XXXIII. THE SKIPPER
XXXIV. THE LAND
XXXV. MAJOR MONSOON
XXXVI. THE LANDING
XXXVII. LISBON
XXXVIII. THE RUA NUOVA
XXXIX. THE VILLA
XL. THE DINNER
XLI. THE ROUTE
XLII. THE FAREWELL
XLIII. THE MARCH
XLIV. THE BIVOUAC
XLV. THE DOURO
XLVI. THE MORNING
XLVII. THE REVIEW
XLVIII. THE QUARREL
XLIX. THE ROUTE CONTINUED
L. THE WATCH-FIRE
LI. THE MARCH
LII. THE PAGE
LIII. ALVAS
LIV. THE SUPPER
LV. THE LEGION
LVI. THE DEPARTURE
LVII. CUESTA
LVIII. THE LETTER
LXIX. MAJOR O’SHAUGHNESSY
LX. PRELIMINARIES
LXI. ALL RIGHT
LXII. THE DUEL
LXIII. NEWS FROM GALWAY
LXIV. AN ADVENTURE WITH SIR ARTHUR
LXV. TALAVERA
LXVI. NIGHT AFTER TALAVERA
LXVII. THE OUTPOST
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ IN VOL. I
Etchings
THE SUNK FENCE
THE RESCUE
CHARLES POPS THE QUESTION
THE SKIRMISH
Illustrations in the Text
MR. BLAKE’S DRESSING-ROOM
THE ELECTION
MR. CROW WELL PLUCKED
FRANK WEBBER AT HIS STUDIES
MISS JUDY MACAN
THE ADJUTANT’S AFTER-DINNER RIDE
THE RIVAL FLUNKIES
MAJOR MONSOON AND DONNA MARIA
THE SALUTATION
A TOUCH AT LEAP-FROG WITH NAPOLEON
MAJOR MONSOON TRYING TO CHARGE
MR. FREE’S SONG
THE COAT OF MAIL
CHARLES O’MALLEY.
THE IRISH DRAGOON.
CHAPTER I.
DALY’S CLUB-HOUSE.
The rain was dashing in torrents against the window-panes, and the wind
sweeping in heavy and fitful gusts along the dreary and deserted streets,
as a party of three persons sat over their wine, in that stately old pile
which once formed the resort of the Irish Members, in College Green,
Dublin, and went by the name of Daly’s Club-House. The clatter of falling
tiles and chimney-pots, the jarring of the window-frames, and howling of
the storm without seemed little to affect the spirits of those within as
they drew closer to a blazing fire before which stood a small table covered
with the remains of a dessert, and an abundant supply of bottles, whose
characteristic length of neck indicated the rarest wines of France and
Germany; while the portly magnum of claret--the wine _par excellence_ of
every Irish gentleman of the day--passed rapidly from hand to hand, the
conversation did not languish, and many a deep and hearty laugh followed
the stories which every now and then were told, as some reminiscence of
early days was recalled, or some trait of a former companion remembered.
One of the party, however, was apparently engrossed by other thoughts than
those of the mirth and merriment around; for in the midst of all he would
turn suddenly from the others, and devote himself to a number of scattered
sheets of paper, upon which he had written some lines, but whose crossed
and blotted sentences attested how little success had waited upon
his literary labors. This individual was a short, plethoric-looking,
white-haired man of about fifty, with a deep, round voice, and a chuckling,
smothering laugh, which, whenever he indulged not only shook his own ample
person, but generally created a petty earthquake on every side of him. For
the present, I shall not stop to particularize him more closely; but when I
add that the person in question was a well-known member of the Irish House
of Commons, whose acute understanding and practical good sense were veiled
under an affected and well-dissembled habit of blundering that did far
more for his party than the most violent and pointed attacks of his more
accurate associates, some of my readers may anticipate me in pronouncing
him to be Sir Harry Boyle. Upon his left sat a figure the most unlike him
possible. He was a tall, thin, bony man, with a bolt-upright air and a most
saturnine expression; his eyes were covered by a deep green shade, which
fell far over his face, but failed to conceal a blue scar that crossing his
cheek ended in the angle of his mouth, and imparted to that feature, when
he spoke, an apparently abortive attempt to extend towards his eyebrow; his
upper lip was covered with a grizzly and ill-trimmed mustache, which added
much to the ferocity of his look, while a thin and pointed beard on his
chin gave an apparent length to the whole face that completed its rueful
character. His dress was a single-breasted, tightly buttoned frock, in one
button-hole of which a yellow ribbon was fastened, the decoration of a
foreign service, which conferred upon its wearer the title of count; and
though Billy Considine, as he was familiarly called by his friends, was
a thorough Irishman in all his feelings and affections, yet he had no
objection to the designation he had gained in the Austrian army. The Count
was certainly no beauty, but somehow, very few men of his day had a fancy
for telling him so. A deadlier hand and a steadier eye never covered his
man in the Phoenix; and though he never had a seat in the House, he was
always regarded as one of the government party, who more than once had
damped the ardor of an opposition member by the very significant threat
of “setting Billy at him.” The third figure of the group was a large,
powerfully built, and handsome man, older than either of the others, but
not betraying in his voice or carriage any touch of time. He was attired in
the green coat and buff vest which formed the livery of the club; and in
his tall, ample forehead, clear, well-set eye, and still handsome mouth,
bore evidence that no great flattery was necessary at the time which called
Godfrey O’Malley the handsomest man in Ireland.
“Upon my conscience,” said Sir Harry, throwing down his pen with an air of
ill-temper, “I can make nothing of it! I have got into such an infernal
habit of making bulls, that I can’t write sense when I want it!”
“Come, come,” said O’Malley, “try again, my dear fellow. If you can’t
succeed, I’m sure Billy and I have no chance.”
“What have you written? Let us see,” said Considine, drawing the paper
towards him, and holding it to the light. “Why, what the devil is all this?
You have made him ‘drop down dead after dinner of a lingering illness
brought on by the debate of yesterday.’”
“Oh, impossible!”
“Well, read it yourself; there it is. And, as if to make the thing less
credible, you talk of his ‘Bill for the Better Recovery of Small Debts.’
I’m sure, O’Malley, your last moments were not employed in that manner.”
“Come, now,” said Sir Harry, “I’ll set all to rights with a postscript.
‘Any one who questions the above statement is politely requested to call on
Mr. Considine, 16 Kildare Street, who will feel happy to afford him every
satisfaction upon Mr. O’Malley’s decease, or upon miscellaneous matters.”
“Worse and worse,” said O’Malley. “Killing another man will never persuade
the world that I’m dead.”
“But we’ll wake you, and have a glorious funeral.”
“And if any man doubt the statement, I’ll call him out,” said the Count.
“Or, better still,” said Sir Harry, “O’Malley has his action at law for
defamation.”
“I see I’ll never get down to Galway at this rate,” said O’Malley; “and as
the new election takes place on Tuesday week, time presses. There are more
writs flying after me this instant than for all the government boroughs.”
“And there will be fewer returns, I fear,” said Sir Harry.
“Who is the chief creditor?” asked the Count.
“Old Stapleton, the attorney in Fleet Street, has most of the mortgages.”
“Nothing to be done with him in this way?” said Considine, balancing the
corkscrew like a hair trigger.
“No chance of it.”
“May be,” said Sir Harry, “he might come to terms if I were to call and
say, ‘You are anxious to close accounts, as your death has just taken
place.’ You know what I mean.”
“I fear so should he, were you to say so. No, no, Boyle, just try a plain,
straightforward paragraph about my death; we’ll have it in Falkner’s paper
to-morrow. On Friday the funeral can take place, and, with the blessing
o’ God, I’ll come to life on Saturday at Athlone, in time to canvass the
market.”
“I think it wouldn’t be bad if your ghost were to appear to old Timins the
tanner, in Naas, on your way down. You know he arrested you once before.”
“I prefer a night’s sleep,” said O’Malley. “But come, finish the squib for
the paper.”
“Stay a little,” said Sir Harry, musing; “it just strikes me that if ever
the matter gets out I may be in some confounded scrape. Who knows if it is
not a breach of privilege to report the death of a member? And to tell you
truth, I dread the Sergeant and the Speaker’s warrant with a very lively
fear.”
“Why, when did you make his acquaintance?” said the Count.
“Is it possible you never heard of Boyle’s committal?” said O’Malley. “You
surely must have been abroad at the time. But it’s not too late to tell it
yet.”
“Well, it’s about two years since old Townsend brought in his Enlistment
Bill, and the whole country was scoured for all our voters, who were
scattered here and there, never anticipating another call of the House, and
supposing that the session was just over. Among others, up came our friend
Harry, here, and the night he arrived they made him a ‘Monk of the Screw,’
and very soon made him forget his senatorial dignities. On the evening
after his reaching town, the bill was brought in, and at two in the morning
the division took place,--a vote was of too much consequence not to look
after it closely,--and a Castle messenger was in waiting in Exchequer
Street, who, when the debate was closing, put Harry, with three others,
into a coach, and brought them down to the House. Unfortunately, however,
they mistook their friends, voted against the bill, and amidst the loudest
cheering of the opposition, the government party were defeated. The rage of
the ministers knew no bounds, and looks of defiance and even threats were
exchanged between the ministers and the deserters. Amidst all this poor
Harry fell fast asleep and dreamed that he was once more in Exchequer
Street, presiding among the monks, and mixing another tumbler. At length he
awoke and looked about him. The clerk was just at the instant reading out,
in his usual routine manner, a clause of the new bill, and the remainder
of the House was in dead silence. Harry looked again around on every side,
wondering where was the hot water, and what had become of the whiskey
bottle, and above all, why the company were so extremely dull and ungenial.
At length, with a half-shake, he roused up a little, and giving a look
of unequivocal contempt on every side, called out, ‘Upon my soul, you’re
pleasant companions; but I’ll give you a chant to enliven you!’ So saying,
he cleared his throat with a couple of short coughs, and struck up, with
the voice of a Stentor, the following verse of a popular ballad:--
‘And they nibbled away, both night and day,
Like mice in a round of Glo’ster;
Great rogues they were all, both great and small,
From Flood to Leslie Foster.
Great rogues all.
Chorus, boys!’ If he was not joined by the voices of his friends in the
song, it was probably because such a roar of laughing never was heard since
the walls were roofed over. The whole House rose in a mass, and my friend
Harry was hurried over the benches by the sergeant-at-arms, and left for
three weeks in Newgate to practise his melody.”
“All true,” said Sir Harry; “and worse luck to them for not liking music.
But come, now, will this do? ‘It is our melancholy duty to announce the
death of Godfrey O’Malley, Esq., late member for the county of Galway,
which took place on Friday evening, at Daly’s Club-House. This esteemed
gentleman’s family--one of the oldest in Ireland, and among whom it was
hereditary not to have any children--’”
Here a burst of laughter from Considine and O’Malley interrupted the
reader, who with the greatest difficulty could be persuaded that he was
again bulling it.
“The devil fly away with it,” said he; “I’ll never succeed.”
“Never mind,” said O’Malley, “the first part will do admirably; and let us
now turn our attention to other matters.”
A fresh magnum was called for, and over its inspiring contents all the
details of the funeral were planned; and as the clock struck four the party
separated for the _night_, well satisfied with the result of their labors.