THE DINNER.
It was with no peculiar pleasure that I dressed for our dinner party. Major
O’Shaughnessy, our host, was one of that class of my countrymen I cared
least for,--a riotous, good-natured, noisy, loud-swearing, punch-drinking
western; full of stories of impossible fox hunts, and unimaginable duels,
which all were acted either by himself or some member of his family. The
company consisted of the adjutant, Monsoon, Ferguson, Trevyllian, and some
eight or ten officers with whom I was acquainted. As is usual on such
occasions, the wine circulated freely, and amidst the din and clamor of
excited conversation, the fumes of Burgundy, and the vapor of cigar smoke,
we most of us became speedily mystified. As for me, my evil destiny would
have it that I was placed exactly opposite Trevyllian, with whom upon more
than one occasion I happened to differ in opinion, and the question was in
itself some trivial and unimportant one; yet the tone which he assumed, and
of which, I too could not divest myself in reply, boded anything rather
than an amicable feeling between us. The noise and turmoil about prevented
the others remarking the circumstance; but I could perceive in his manner
what I deemed a studied determination to promote a quarrel, while I felt
within myself a most unchristian-like desire to indulge his fancy.
“Worse fellows at passing the bottle than Trevyllian and O’Malley there I
have rarely sojourned with,” cried the major; “look if they haven’t got
eight decanters between them, and here we are in a state of African
thirst.”
“How can you expect him to think of thirst when such perfumed billets
as that come showering upon him?” said the adjutant, alluding to a
rose-colored epistle a servant had placed within my hands.
“Eight miles of a stone-wall country in fifteen minutes,--devil a lie in
it!” said O’Shaughnessy, striking the table with, his clinched fist; “show
me the man would deny it.”
“Why, my dear fellow--”
“Don’t be dearing me. Is it ‘no’ you’ll be saying me?”
“Listen, now; there’s O’Reilly, there--”
“Where is he?”
“He’s under the table.”
“Well, it’s the same thing. His mother had a fox--bad luck to you, don’t
scald me with the jug--his mother had a fox-cover in Shinrohan.”
When O’Shaughnessy had got thus far in his narrative, I had the opportunity
of opening my note, which merely contained the following words: “Come to
the ball at the Casino, and bring the Cadeau you promised.”
I had scarcely read this over once, when a roar of laughter at something
said attracted my attention. I looked up, and perceived Trevyllian’s eyes
bent upon me with the fierceness of a tiger; the veins in his forehead were
swollen and distorted, and the whole expression of his face betokened rage
and passion. Resolved no longer to submit to such evident determination to
insult, I was rising from my place at table, when, as if anticipating
my intention, he pushed back his chair and left the room. Fearful of
attracting attention by immediately following him, I affected to join in
the conversation around me, while my temples throbbed, and my hands tingled
with impatience to get away.
“Poor McManus,” said O’Shaughnessy, “rest his soul! he’d have puzzled the
bench of bishops for hard words. Upon my conscience, I believe he spent his
mornings looking for them in the Old Testament. Sure ye might have heard
what happened to him at Banagher, when he commanded the Kilkennys,--ye
never heard the story? Well, then, ye shall. Push the sherry along first,
though,--old Monsoon there always keeps it lingering beside his left arm.
“Well, when Peter was lieutenant-colonel of the Kilkennys,--who, I may
remark, _en passant_, as the French say, were the neediest-looking devils
in the whole service,--he never let them alone from morning till night,
drilling and pipe-claying and polishing them up. ‘Nothing will make
soldiers of you,’ said Peter, ‘but, by the rock of Cashel! I’ll keep you
as clean as a new musket!’ Now, poor Peter himself was not a very warlike
figure,--he measured five feet one in his tallest boots; but certainly if
Nature denied him length of stature, she compensated for it in another
way, by giving him a taste of the longest words in the language. An extra
syllable or so in a word was always a strong recommendation; and whenever
he could not find one to his mind, he’d take some quaint, outlandish one
that more than once led to very awkward results. Well, the regiment was one
day drawn up for parade in the town of Banagher, and as M’Manus came
down the lines he stopped opposite one of the men whose face, hands, and
accoutrements exhibited a most woeful contempt of his orders. The fellow
looked more like a turf-stack than a light-company man.
“‘Stand out, sir!’ cried M’Manus, in a boiling passion. ‘Sergeant O’Toole,
inspect this individual.’ Now, the sergeant was rather a favorite with Mac;
for he always pretended to understand his phraseology, and in consequence
was pronounced by the colonel a very superior man for his station in life.
‘Sergeant,’ said he, ‘we shall make an exemplary illustration of our system
here.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant, sorely puzzled at the meaning of what he
spoke.
“‘Bear him to the Shannon, and lave him there.’ This he said in a kind
of Coriolanus tone, with a toss of his head and a wave of his right
arm,--signs, whenever he made them, incontestibly showing that further
parley was out of the question, and that he had summed up and charged the
jury for good and all.
“‘_Lave_ him in the river?’ said O’Toole, his eyes starting from the
sockets, and his whole face working in strong anxiety; ‘is it _lave_ him in
the river yer honor means?’
“‘I have spoken,’ said the little man, bending an ominous frown upon the
sergeant, which, whatever construction he may have put upon his words,
there was no mistaking.
“‘Well, well, av it’s God’s will he’s drowned, it will not be on my head,’
says O’Toole, as he marched the fellow away between two rank and file.
“The parade was nearly over, when Mac happened to see the sergeant coming
up all splashed with water and looking quite tired.
“‘Have you obeyed my orders?’ said he.
“‘Yes, yer honor; and tough work we had of it, for he struggled hard.’
“‘And where is he now?’
“‘Oh, troth, he’s there safe. Divil a fear he’ll get out.’
“‘Where?’ said Mac.
“‘In the river, yer honor.’
“‘What have you done, you scoundrel?’
“‘Didn’t I do as you bid me?’ says he; ‘didn’t I throw him in and _lave_
[leave] him there?’
“And faith so they did; and if he wasn’t a good swimmer and got over to
Moystown, there’s little doubt but he’d have been drowned, and all because
Peter McManus could not express himself like a Christian.”
In the laughter which followed O’Shaughnessy’s story I took the opportunity
of making my escape from the party, and succeeded in gaining the street
unobserved. Though the note I had just read was not signed, I had no doubt
from whom it came; so I hastened at once to my quarters, to make search for
the lock of Ned Howard’s hair to which the senhora alluded. What was my
mortification, however, to discover that no such thing could be found
anywhere. I searched all my drawers; I tossed about my papers and letters;
I hunted every likely, every unlikely spot I could think of, but in
vain,--now cursing my carelessness for having lost it, now swearing most
solemnly to myself that I never could have received it. What was to be
done? It was already late; my only thought was how to replace it. If I only
knew the color, any other lock of hair would, doubtless, do just as well.
The chances were, as Howard was young and an Englishman, that his hair was
light; light-brown, probably, something like my own. Of course it was; why
didn’t that thought occur to me before? How stupid I was. So saying, I
seized a pair of scissors, and cut a long lock beside my temple; this in a
calm moment I might have hesitated about. “Yes,” thought I, “she’ll
never discover the cheat; and besides, I do feel,--I know not exactly
why,--rather gratified to think that I shall have left this _souvenir_
behind me, even though it call up other recollections than of me.” So
thinking, I wrapped my cloak about me and hastened towards the Casino.