THE THEATRE--THE RUFFIAN--THE ASSAULT, AND THE RENCONTRE.
Major O'Leary had hardly dismounted in the quadrangle of the "Cock and
Anchor," when O'Connor rode slowly into the inn-yard.
"How are you, my dear fellow?" exclaimed the man of scarlet and gold;
"I was just asking where you were. Come down off that beast, I want to
have a word in your ear--a bit of news--some fun. Descend, I say,
descend."
O'Connor accordingly dismounted.
"Now then--a hearty shake--so. I have great news, and only a minute to
tell it. Jack, run like a shot, and get me a chair. Here, Tim, take a
napkin and an oyster-knife, and do not leave a bit of mud, or the sign
of it, upon my back: take a general survey of the coat and breeches,
and a particular review of the wig. And, Jem, do you give my boots a
harum-scarum shot of a superficial scrub, and touch up the hat--gently,
do you mind--and take care of the lace. So while the fellows are
finishing my toilet, I may as well tell you my morsel of news. Do you
know who is to be at the playhouse to-night?"
O'Connor expressed his ignorance.
"Well, then, I'll tell you, and make what use you like of it," resumed
the major. "Miss Mary Ashwoode! There's for you. Take my advice, get
into a decent coat and breeches, and run down to the theatre--it is not
five minutes' walk from this; you'll easily find us, and I'll take care
to make room for you. Why, you do not seem half pleased: what more can
you wish for, unless you expect the girl to put up for the evening at
the "Cock and Anchor"? Rouse yourself. If you feel modest, there is
nothing like a pint or two of Madeira: don't try brandy--it's the
father and mother of all sorts of indiscretions. Now, mind, you have
the hint; it is an opportunity you ought to improve. By the powers, if
I was in your place--but no matter. You may not have an opportunity of
seeing her again these six months; and unless I'm completely mistaken,
you are as much in love with the girl as I am with--several that shall
be nameless. Heigho! next after Burgundy, and the cock-pit, and the
fox-hounds, and two or three more frailties of the kind, there is
nothing in the world I prefer to flirtation, without much minding
whether I'm the principal or the second in the affair. But here comes
the vehicle."
Accordingly, without waiting to say any more, the major took his seat
in the chair, and was borne by the lusty chairmen, at a swinging pace,
through the narrow streets, and, without let or accident, safely
deposited within the principal entrance of the theatre.
The theatre of Smock Alley (or, as it was then called, Orange Street)
was not quite what theatres are nowadays. It was a large building of
the kind, as theatres were then rated, and contained three galleries,
one above the other, supported by heavy wooden caryatides, and richly
gilded and painted. The curtain, instead of rising and falling, opened,
according to the old fashion, in the middle, and was drawn sideways
apart, disclosing no triumphs of illusive colouring and perspective,
but a succession of plain tapestry-covered screens, which, from early
habit, the audience accommodatingly accepted for town or country, dry
land or sea, or, in short, for any locality whatsoever, according to
the manager's good will and pleasure. This docility and good faith on
the part of the audience were, perhaps, the more praiseworthy, inasmuch
as a very considerable number of the aristocratic spectators actually
sate in long lines down either side of the stage--a circumstance
involving, by the continuous presence of the same perukes, and the same
embroidered waistcoats, the same set of countenances, and the same set
of legs, in every variety of clime and situation through which the
wayward invention of the playwright hurried his action, a very severe
additional tax upon the imaginative faculties of the audience. But
perhaps the most striking peculiarities of the place were exhibited in
the grim persons of two _bonâ fide_ sentries, in genuine cocked hats
and scarlet coats, with their enormous muskets shouldered, and the
ball-cartridges dangling in ostentatious rows from their bandoleers,
planted at the front, and facing the audience, one at each side of the
stage--a vivid evidence of the stern vicissitudes and insecurity of the
times. For the rest, the audience of those days, in the brilliant
colours, and glittering lace, and profuse ornament, which the gorgeous
fashion of the time allowed, presented a spectacle of rich and dazzling
magnificence, such as no modern assembly of the kind can even faintly
approach.
The major had hardly made his way to the box where his party were
seated, when his attention was caught by an object which had for him
all but irresistible attractions: this was the buxom person of Mistress
Jannet Rumble, a plump, good-looking, young widow of five-and-forty,
with a jolly smile, a hearty laugh, and a killing acquaintance with the
language of the eyes. These perfections--for of course her jointure,
which, by the way, was very considerable, could have had nothing to do
with it--were too much for Major O'Leary. He met the widow
accidentally, made a few careless inquiries about her finances, and
fell over head and ears in love with her upon the shortest possible
notice. Our friend had, therefore, hardly caught a glimpse of her, when
Miss Copland, beside whom he was seated, observed that he became
unusually meditative, and at length, after two or three attempts to
enter again into conversation--all resulting in total and incoherent
failure, the major made some blundering excuse, took his departure, and
in a moment had planted himself beside the fascinating Mistress
Rumble--where we shall allow him the protection of a generous
concealment, and suffer him to read the lady's eyes, and insinuate his
soft nonsense, without intruding for a moment upon the sanctity of
lovers' mutual confidences.
Emily Copland having watched and enjoyed the manoeuvres of her military
friend till she was fairly tired of the amusement, and having in vain
sought to engage Henry Ashwoode, who was unusually moody and absent, in
conversation, at length, as a last desperate resource, turned her
attention to what was passing upon the stage.
While all this was going forward, young Ashwoode was a good deal
disconcerted at observing among the crowd in the pit a personage with
whom, in the vicious haunts which he frequented, he had made a sort of
ambiguous acquaintance. The man was a bulky, broad-shouldered,
ill-looking fellow, with a large, vulgar, red face, and a coarse,
sensual mouth, whose blue, swollen lips indicated habitual
intemperance, and the nauseous ugliness of which was further enhanced
by the loss of two front teeth, probably by some violent agency, as was
testified by a deep scar across the mouth; the eyes of the man carried
that uncertain expression, half of shame and half of defiance, which
belongs to the coward, bully, and ruffian. The blackness of
habitually-indulged and ferocious passion was upon his countenance; and
the revolting character of the face was the more unequivocally marked
by a sort of smile, or rather sneer, which had in it neither
intellectuality nor gladness--an odious libel on the human smile, with
nothing but brute insolence and scorn, and a sardonic glee in its
baleful light--a smile from which every human sympathy recoiled abashed
and affrighted. Let not the reader imagine that the man and the
character are but the dreams of fiction; the wretch, whose outward
seeming we have imperfectly sketched, lived and moved in the scenes
where we have fixed our narrative--there grew rich--there rioted in the
indulgence of every passion which hell can inspire or to which wealth
can pander--there ministered to his insatiate avarice, by the
destruction and beggary of thousands of the young and thoughtless--and
there at length, in the fulness of his time, died--in the midst of
splendour and infamy: with malignant and triumphant perseverance having
persisted to his latest hour in the prosecution of his Satanic mission;
luring the unwary into the toils of crime and inextricable madness, and
thence into the pit of temporal and eternal ruin. This man, Nicholas
Blarden, Esquire, was the proprietor of one of those places where
fortunes are squandered, time sunk, habits, temper, character, morals,
all, corrupted, blasted, destroyed--one of those places which are set
apart as the especial temples of avarice, in which, year after year,
are for ever recurring the same perennial scenes of mad excess, of
calculating, merciless fraud, of bleak, brain-stricken despair--places
to which has been assigned, in a spirit of fearful truth, the
appellative of "hell."
The man whom we have mentioned, it had never been young Ashwoode's
misfortune to meet, except in those scenes where his acquaintance was
useful, without being actually discreditable; for it was the fellow's
habit, with the instinctive caution which marks such gentlemen, to
court public observation as little as possible, and to skulk
systematically from the eye of popular scrutiny--seldom embarrassing
his aristocratic acquaintances by claiming the privilege of recognition
at unseasonable times; and confining himself, for the most part,
exclusively to his own coterie. Independently of his unpleasant natural
peculiarities there were other circumstances which tended to make him a
conspicuous object in the crowd--the fellow was extravagantly
over-dressed, and had planted himself in a standing posture upon a
bench, and from this elevated position was, with steady effrontery,
gazing into the box in which young Ashwoode's party were seated,
exchanging whispers and horse-laughs with three or four men who looked
scarcely less villainous than himself, and, as soon became apparent,
directing his marked and exclusive attention to Miss Ashwoode, who was
too deeply absorbed in her own sorrowful reflections to heed what was
passing around her. The young man felt his choler mount, as he beheld
the insolent conduct of the fellow--he saw, however, that Blarden was
evidently not perfectly sober, and hesitated what course he should
take. Strongly as he was tempted to spring at once into the pit, and
put an end to the impertinence by caning the fellow within an inch of
his life, he yet felt that a disreputable conflict of the kind had
better be avoided, and could not well be justified except as a last
resource; he, therefore, made up his mind to bear it as long as human
endurance could.
Whatever hopes he entertained of escaping a collision with this man
were, however, destined to be disappointed. Nicky Blarden (as his
friends endearingly called him), to the great comfort of that part of
the audience in his immediate neighbourhood, at length descended from
his elevated stand, but not to conceal himself among the less obtrusive
spectators. With an insolent swagger the fellow shouldered his way
among the crowd towards the box where the object of his gaze was
seated; and, having planted himself directly beneath it, he stared
impudently up at young Ashwoode, exclaiming at the same time,--
"I say, Ashwoode, how does the world wag with you?--why ain't you
rattling the bones this evening? d----n me, you may as well be off, and
let me take care of the dimber mot up there?"
"Do you speak to _me_, sir?" inquired young Ashwoode, turning almost
livid with passion, and speaking in that subdued tone, and with that
constrained coolness, which precedes some ungovernable outburst of
fury.
"Why, ---- me, how great we've got all at once--I say, you don't know
me--Eh! don't you?" exclaimed the fellow, with vulgar scorn, at the
same time rather roughly poking Ashwoode's hand with the hilt of his
sword.
"I shall show you, sir, when your drunken folly has passed away, by
very sore proofs, that I _do_ know you," replied the young man,
clutching his cane with such a grip as threatened to force his fingers
into it--"be assured, sir, I shall know you, and you me, as long as you
have the power to remember."
"Whieu, d---- it, don't frighten us," said the fellow, looking round
for the approbation of his companions. "I say, d----n it, don't
frighten the people--come, come, no gammon. I say, Ashwoode, you must
introduce me, or present me, or whatever's the word, to your sister up
there--I say you _must_."
"Quit this part of the house this instant, sir, or nothing shall
prevent me flogging you until I leave not a whole bone in your
body--this warning is the last--profit by it," rejoined Ashwoode, in a
low tone of bitter rage.
"Oh, ho! it's there you are--is it?" rejoined the fellow, with a wink
at his comrades, "so you're going to beat the people--why, d----n it,
you're enough to make a horse laugh. I say I want to know your sister,
or your miss, or whatever she is, with the black hair up there, and if
you won't introduce me, d----n it, I must only introduce myself."
So saying, the fellow made a spring and caught the ledge of the front
of the box, with the intention of vaulting into the place. Lord Aspenly
and the young ladies had arisen in some alarm.
"My lord," said young Ashwoode, "have the goodness to conduct the
ladies to the lobby--I will join you in a moment."
This direction was promptly obeyed, and at the same moment the young
man caught the fellow, already half into the box, by the neckcloth,
dragged his body across the wooden parapet, and while he struggled
helplessly to disengage himself--half strangled, and without the power
to get either up or down--with his heavy cane, the young
gentleman--every nerve, sinew, and muscle being strung to tenfold power
by fury--inflicted upon his back and ribs a castigation so prolonged
and tremendous, that before it had ended, the scoundrel was perfectly
insensible, in which state Henry Ashwoode flung him down again into the
pit, amid the obstreperous acclamations of all parts of the house--an
uproar of applause in which the spectators in the pit joined with such
hearty enthusiasm, that at length, touched with a kindred heroism, they
turned upon the associates of the fallen champion, and fairly kicked
and cuffed them out of the house.
This feat accomplished, the young gentleman went down the stairs to the
street-entrance, and, after considerable delay, succeeded, with the
assistance of the footman who had attended him into the house, in
finding out their carriage, and having it brought to the door--not
judging it expedient that the ladies should return to their places,
where they would, of course, be exposed to the gazing curiosity of the
multitude. He found the party in the lobby quite recovered from
whatever was unpleasant in the excitement of the scene, the more
violent part of which they had not witnessed. Lord Aspenly and Emily
Copland were laughing over the adventure; and Mary, flashed and
agitated, was looking better than she had before upon that night.
Taking his cousin under his own protection, and consigning his sister
to that of Lord Aspenly, young Ashwoode led the way to the carriage. As
they passed slowly along the lobby, the quick eye of Mary Ashwoode
discerned a form, at sight of which her heart swelled and throbbed as
though it would burst--the colour fled from her cheeks, and she felt
for a moment on the point of swooning; the pride of her sex, however,
sustained her; the tingling blood again mounted warmly to her cheeks,
her eye brightened, and she listened, with more apparent interest than
perhaps she ever did before, to Lord Aspenly's remarks--the form was
O'Connor's. As she passed him, she returned his salute with a slight
and haughty bow, and saw, and felt the stern, cold, proud expression
which marked his pale and handsome features. In another moment she was
seated in the carriage; the doors were closed, crack went the whip, and
clatter go the iron hoofs on the pavement--but before they had
traversed a hundred yards on their homeward way, poor Mary Ashwoode
sunk back in her place, and fainted away.