DUBLIN.
No sooner had I arrived in Dublin than my first care was to present myself
to Dr. Mooney, by whom I was received in the most cordial manner. In fact,
in my utter ignorance of such persons, I had imagined a college fellow to
be a character necessarily severe and unbending; and as the only two very
great people I had ever seen in my life were the Archbishop of Tuam and the
chief-baron when on circuit, I pictured to myself that a university
fellow was, in all probability, a cross between the two, and feared him
accordingly.
The doctor read over my uncle’s letter attentively, invited me to partake
of his breakfast, and then entered upon something like an account of the
life before me; for which Sir Harry Boyle had, however, in some degree
prepared me.
“Your uncle, I find, wishes you to live in college,--perhaps it is better,
too,--so that I must look out for chambers for you. Let me see: it will be
rather difficult, just now, to find them.” Here he fell for some moments
into a musing fit, and merely muttered a few broken sentences, as: “To be
sure, if other chambers could be had--but then--and after all, perhaps, as
he is young--besides, Frank will certainly be expelled before long, and
then he will have them all to himself. I say, O’Malley, I believe I must
quarter you for the present with a rather wild companion; but as your uncle
says you’re a prudent fellow,”--here he smiled very much, as if my uncle
had not said any such thing,--“why, you must only take the better care of
yourself until we can make some better arrangement. My pupil, Frank Webber,
is at this moment in want of a ‘chum,’ as the phrase is,--his last three
having only been domesticated with him for as many weeks; so that until we
find you a more quiet resting-place, you may take up your abode with him.”
During breakfast, the doctor proceeded to inform me that my destined
companion was a young man of excellent family and good fortune who, with
very considerable talents and acquirements, preferred a life of rackety and
careless dissipation to prospects of great success in public life, which
his connection and family might have secured for him. That he had been
originally entered at Oxford, which he was obliged to leave; then tried
Cambridge, from which he escaped expulsion by being rusticated,--that
is, having incurred a sentence of temporary banishment; and lastly, was
endeavoring, with what he himself believed to be a total reformation, to
stumble on to a degree in the “silent sister.”
“This is his third year,” said the doctor, “and he is only a freshman,
having lost every examination, with abilities enough to sweep the
university of its prizes. But come over now, and I’ll present you to him.”
I followed him down-stairs, across the court to an angle of the old square
where, up the first floor left, to use the college direction, stood the
name of Mr. Webber, a large No. 2 being conspicuously painted in the middle
of the door and not over it, as is usually the custom. As we reached the
spot, the observations of my companion were lost to me in the tremendous
noise and uproar that resounded from within. It seemed as if a number of
people were fighting pretty much as a banditti in a melodrama do, with
considerable more of confusion than requisite; a fiddle and a French horn
also lent their assistance to shouts and cries which, to say the best, were
not exactly the aids to study I expected in such a place.
Three times was the bell pulled with a vigor that threatened its downfall,
when at last, as the jingle of it rose above all other noises, suddenly
all became hushed and still; a momentary pause succeeded, and the door was
opened by a very respectable looking servant who, recognizing the doctor,
at once introduced us into the apartment where Mr. Webber was sitting.
In a large and very handsomely furnished room, where Brussels carpeting and
softly cushioned sofas contrasted strangely with the meagre and comfortless
chambers of the doctor, sat a young man at a small breakfast-table beside
the fire. He was attired in a silk dressing-gown and black velvet slippers,
and supported his forehead upon a hand of most lady-like whiteness, whose
fingers were absolutely covered with rings of great beauty and price. His
long silky brown hair fell in rich profusion upon the back of his neck and
over his arm, and the whole air and attitude was one which a painter might
have copied. So intent was he upon the volume before him that he never
raised his head at our approach, but continued to read aloud, totally
unaware of our presence.
“Dr. Mooney, sir,” said the servant.
_“Ton dapamey bominos, prosephe, crione Agamemnon”_ repeated the student,
in an ecstasy, and not paying the slightest attention to the announcement.
“Dr. Mooney, sir,” repeated the servant, in a louder tone, while the doctor
looked around on every side for an explanation of the late uproar, with a
face of the most puzzled astonishment.
_“Be dakiown para thina dolekoskion enkos”_ said Mr. Webber, finishing a
cup of coffee at a draught.
“Well, Webber, hard at work I see,” said the doctor.
“Ah, Doctor, I beg pardon! Have you been long here?” said the most soft and
insinuating voice, while the speaker passed his taper fingers across his
brow, as if to dissipate the traces of deep thought and study.
While the doctor presented me to my future companion, I could perceive, in
the restless and searching look he threw around, that the fracas he had so
lately heard was still an unexplained and _vexata questio_ in his mind.
“May I offer you a cup of coffee, Mr. O’Malley?” said the youth, with an
air of almost timid bashfulness. “The doctor, I know, breakfasts at a very
early hour.”
“I say, Webber,” said the doctor, who could no longer restrain his
curiosity, “what an awful row I heard here as I came up to the door. I
thought Bedlam was broke loose. What could it have been?”
“Ah, you heard it too, sir,” said Mr. Webber, smiling most benignly.
“Hear it? To be sure I did. O’Malley and I could not hear ourselves talking
with the uproar.”
“Yes, indeed, it is very provoking; but then, what’s to be done? One can’t
complain, under the circumstances.”
“Why, what do you mean?” said Mooney, anxiously.
“Nothing, sir; nothing. I’d much rather you’d not ask me; for after all,
I’ll change my chambers.”
“But why? Explain this at once. I insist upon it.”
“Can I depend upon the discretion of your young friend?” said Mr. Webber,
gravely.
“Perfectly,” said the doctor, now wound up to the greatest anxiety to learn
a secret.
“And you’ll promise not to mention the thing except among your friends?”
“I do,” said the doctor.
“Well, then,” said he, in a low and confident whisper, “it’s the dean.”
“The dean!” said Mooney, with a start. “The dean! Why, how can it be the
dean?”
“Too true,” said Mr. Webber, making a sign of drinking,--“too true, Doctor.
And then, the moment he is so, he begins smashing the furniture. Never was
anything heard like it. As for me, as I am now become a reading man, I must
go elsewhere.”
Now, it so chanced that the worthy dean, who albeit a man of most
abstemious habits, possessed a nose which, in color and development, was a
most unfortunate witness to call to character, and as Mooney heard Webber
narrate circumstantially the frightful excesses of the great functionary, I
saw that something like conviction was stealing over him.
“You’ll, of course, never speak of this except to your most intimate
friends,” said Webber.
“Of course not,” said the doctor, as he shook his hand warmly, and prepared
to leave the room. “O’Malley, I leave you here,” said he; “Webber and you
can talk over your arrangements.”
Webber followed the doctor to the door, whispered something in his ear, to
which the other replied, “Very well, I will write; but if your father
sends the money, I must insist--” The rest was lost in protestations and
professions of the most fervent kind, amidst which the door was shut, and
Mr. Webber returned to the room.
Short as was the interspace from the door without to the room within, it
was still ample enough to effect a very thorough and remarkable change in
the whole external appearance of Mr. Frank Webber; for scarcely had the
oaken panel shut out the doctor, when he appeared no longer the shy, timid,
and silvery-toned gentleman of five minutes before, but dashing boldly
forward, he seized a key-bugle that lay hid beneath a sofa-cushion and blew
a tremendous blast.
[Illustration: FRANK WEBBER AT HIS STUDIES.]
“Come forth, ye demons of the lower world,” said he, drawing a cloth from
a large table, and discovering the figures of three young men coiled up
beneath. “Come forth, and fear not, most timorous freshmen that ye are,”
said he, unlocking a pantry, and liberating two others. “Gentlemen, let
me introduce to your acquaintance Mr. O’Malley. My chum, gentlemen. Mr.
O’Malley, that is Harry Nesbitt, who has been in college since the days of
old Perpendicular, and numbers more cautions than any man who ever had his
name on the books. Here is my particular friend, Cecil Cavendish, the only
man who could ever devil kidneys. Captain Power, Mr. O’Malley, a dashing
dragoon, as you see; aide-de-camp to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant,
and love-maker-general to Merrion Square West. These,” said he, pointing to
the late denizens of the pantry, “are jibs whose names are neither known to
the proctor nor the police-office; but with due regard to their education
and morals, we don’t despair.”
“By no means,” said Power; “but come, let us resume our game.” At these
words he took a folio atlas of maps from a small table, and displayed
beneath a pack of cards, dealt as if for whist. The two gentlemen to whom
I was introduced by name returned to their places; the unknown two put on
their boxing gloves, and all resumed the hilarity which Dr. Mooney’s advent
had so suddenly interrupted.
“Where’s Moore?” said Webber, as he once more seated himself at his
breakfast.
“Making a spatch-cock, sir,” said the servant.
At the same instant, a little, dapper, jovial-looking personage appeared
with the dish in question.
“Mr. O’Malley, Mr. Moore, the gentleman who, by repeated remonstrances to
the board, has succeeded in getting eatable food for the inhabitants of
this penitentiary, and has the honored reputation of reforming the commons
of college.”
“Anything to Godfrey O’Malley, may I ask, sir?” said Moore.
“His nephew,” I replied.
“Which of you winged the gentleman the other day for not passing the
decanter, or something of that sort?”
“If you mean the affair with Mr. Bodkin, it was I.”
“Glorious, that; begad, I thought you were one of us. I say, Power, it was
he pinked Bodkin.”
“Ah, indeed,” said Power, not turning his head from his game, “a pretty
shot, I heard,--two by honors,--and hit him fairly,--the odd trick.
Hammersley mentioned the thing to me.”
“Oh, is he in town?” said I.
“No; he sailed for Portsmouth yesterday. He is to join the llth--game. I
say, Webber, you’ve lost the rubber.”
“Double or quit, and a dinner at Dunleary,” said Webber. “We must show
O’Malley,--confound the Mister!--something of the place.”
“Agreed.”
The whist was resumed; the boxers, now refreshed by a leg of the
spatch-cock, returned to their gloves; Mr. Moore took up his violin; Mr.
Webber his French horn; and I was left the only unemployed man in the
company.
“I say, Power, you’d better bring the drag over here for us; we can all go
down together.”
“I must inform you,” said Cavendish, “that, thanks to your philanthropic
efforts of last night, the passage from Grafton Street to Stephen’s
Green is impracticable.” A tremendous roar of laughter followed this
announcement; and though at the time the cause was unknown to me, I may as
well mention it here, as I subsequently learned it from my companions.
Among the many peculiar tastes which distinguished Mr. Francis Webber was
an extraordinary fancy for street-begging. He had, over and over, won large
sums upon his success in that difficult walk; and so perfect were his
disguises,--both of dress, voice, and manner,--that he actually at one time
succeeded in obtaining charity from his very opponent in the wager. He
wrote ballads with the greatest facility, and sang them with infinite
pathos and humor; and the old woman at the corner of College Green was
certain of an audience when the severity of the night would leave all other
minstrelsy deserted. As these feats of _jonglerie_ usually terminated in a
row, it was a most amusing part of the transaction to see the singer’s part
taken by the mob against the college men, who, growing impatient to carry
him off to supper somewhere, would invariably be obliged to have a fight
for the booty.
Now it chanced that a few evenings before, Mr. Webber was returning with a
pocket well lined with copper from a musical _reunion_ he had held at the
corner of York Street, when the idea struck him to stop at the end of
Grafton Street, where a huge stone grating at that time exhibited--perhaps
it exhibits still--the descent to one of the great main sewers of the city.
The light was shining brightly from a pastrycook’s shop, and showed the
large bars of stone between which the muddy water was rushing rapidly down
and plashing in the torrent that ran boisterously several feet beneath.
To stop in the street of any crowded city is, under any circumstances, an
invitation to others to do likewise which is rarely unaccepted; but when
in addition to this you stand fixedly in one spot and regard with stern
intensity any object near you, the chances are ten to one that you have
several companions in your curiosity before a minute expires.
Now, Webber, who had at first stood still without any peculiar thought in
view, no sooner perceived that he was joined by others than the idea of
making something out of it immediately occurred to him.
“What is it, agra?” inquired an old woman, very much in his own style of
dress, pulling at the hood of his cloak. “And can’t you see for yourself,
darling?” replied he, sharply, as he knelt down and looked most intensely
at the sewer.
“Are ye long there, avick?” inquired he of an imaginary individual below,
and then waiting as if for a reply, said,
“Two hours! Blessed Virgin, he’s two hours in the drain!”
By this time the crowd had reached entirely across the street, and the
crushing and squeezing to get near the important spot was awful.
“Where did he come from?” “Who is he?” “How did he get there?” were
questions on every side; and various surmises were afloat till Webber,
rising from his knees, said, in a mysterious whisper, to those nearest him,
“He’s made his escape to-night out o’ Newgate by the big drain, and lost
his way; he was looking for the Liffey, and took the wrong turn.”
To an Irish mob what appeal could equal this? A culprit at any time has
his claim upon their sympathy; but let him be caught in the very act of
cheating the authorities and evading the law, and his popularity knows
no bounds. Webber knew this well, and as the mob thickened around him
sustained an imaginary conversation that Savage Landor might have envied,
imparting now and then such hints concerning the runaway as raised their
interest to the highest pitch, and fifty different versions were related on
all sides,--of the crime he was guilty of, the sentence that was passed on
him, and the day he was to suffer.
“Do you see the light, dear?” said Webber, as some ingeniously benevolent
individual had lowered down a candle with a string,--“do ye see the light?
Oh, he’s fainted, the creature!” A cry of horror burst forth from the crowd
at these words, followed by a universal shout of, “Break open the street.”
Pickaxes, shovels, spades, and crowbars seemed absolutely the walking
accompaniments of the crowd, so suddenly did they appear upon the field of
action; and the work of exhumation was begun with a vigor that speedily
covered nearly half of the street with mud and paving-stones. Parties
relieved each other at the task, and ere half an hour a hole capable
of containing a mail-coach was yawning in one of the most frequented
thoroughfares of Dublin. Meanwhile, as no appearance of the culprit could
be had, dreadful conjectures as to his fate began to gain ground. By this
time the authorities had received intimation of what was going forward, and
attempted to disperse the crowd; but Webber, who still continued to conduct
the prosecution, called on them to resist the police and save the poor
creature. And now began a most terrific fray: the stones, forming a ready
weapon, were hurled at the unprepared constables, who on their side fought
manfully, but against superior numbers; so that at last it was only by the
aid of a military force the mob could be dispersed, and a riot which had
assumed a very serious character got under. Meanwhile Webber had reached
his chambers, changed his costume, and was relating over a supper-table the
narrative of his philanthropy to a very admiring circle of his friends.
Such was my chum, Frank Webber; and as this was the first anecdote I had
heard of him, I relate it here that my readers may be in possession of the
grounds upon which my opinion of that celebrated character was founded,
while yet our acquaintance was in its infancy.