Dionysius Hogan was a celebrated character in Dublin during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century. The Irish capital has always
cherished curious characters, for pretty much the same reason that
caused badgers to be preserved; any man, or, for that matter, any woman,
who was only eccentric enough, could depend on the patronage of the
people of Dublin. Dionysius Hogan afforded his fellow-citizens many a
laugh on account of his numerous eccentricities. He was a man of about
fifty years of age, but his great anxiety was to appear thirty years
younger; and he fancied he accomplished this aim by wearing in 1783 the
costume of 1750, only in an exaggerated form. His chief hallucination
was that several of the best known ladies in society were in love with
him, and that it was necessary for him to be very careful lest he
should compromise himself by a correspondence with some of those who had
husbands.
[Illustration: 0186]
It need scarcely be said that this idea of his was not greatly
discouraged by the undergraduates of Trinity College. It was not their
fault if he did not receive every week a letter from some distinguished
lady begging the favor of an interview with him. Upon many occasions the
communications, which purported to come from married ladies, took the
form of verses. These he exhibited with great pride, and only after
extorting promises of profound secrecy, to his student friends.
It was immaterial that Dionysius found almost every week that he had
been the victim of practical jokes; his belief in his own powers of
captivating womankind was superior to every rebuff that he encountered.
He exhibited his dapper little figure, crowned with the wig of a
macaroni, to the promenaders in all the chief thoroughfares daily,
and every evening he had some fresh story to tell of how he had been
exerting himself to avoid an assignation that was being urged on him by
a lady of quality sojourning not a hundred miles from the Castle.
The scheme which Mr. Blake had suggested to his fellow-students in
the Smock Alley tavern found a willing agent for its realisation in
Dionysius Hogan. Mrs. Siddons, her beauty and her powers, were, of
course, the talk of the town during her first visit to Dublin. It only
needed Jimmy Blake to drop a few dark hints in the hearing of Dionysius
on the subject of a rumor that was current, to the effect that a certain
well-known gentleman in Dublin had attracted the attention of the great
actress, to make Dionysius believe that he had made a conquest of the
Siddons.
For the remainder of the evening he took to dropping dark hints to this
effect, and before he had slept that night there was no doubt on his
mind that Sarah Sid-dons was another lady who had succumbed to his
attractive exterior. To be sure, he had heard it said that she was as
hard as marble; but then she had not seen him until she had come to
Dublin. All women, he believed, had their weak moments, and there was no
article of his creed more strongly impressed upon him than that the weak
moment of many women was when they saw him for the first time.
When, on descending from his bedroom to his little sitting-room in his
humble lodgings--for Mr. Hogan's income did not exceed eighty pounds a
year--a letter was put into his hand bearing the signature “S. S.,” and
when he found that above these initials there was a passionate avowal
of affection and a strong appeal to him to be merciful as he was strong,
and to pay the writer a visit at her lodgings before the hour of one,
“when Mr. S. returns from the theatre, where he goes every forenoon,”
poor Dionysius felt that the time had at last come for him to cast
discretion to the winds. The beauty of Mrs. Siddons had had a powerful
effect upon his susceptible heart when she had first come before his
eyes on the stage of the Smock Alley theatre.
[Illustration: 0192]
On that night he believed that she had kept her eyes fixed upon him
while repeating some of the beautiful soliloquies in “Isabella.” The
artful suggestions of Jimmy Blake had had their effect upon him, and now
he held in his hand a letter that left him no room to doubt--even if he
had been inclined that way--the accuracy of the tale that his poor heart
had originally told him.
He dressed himself with his accustomed care, and, having deluged his
cambric with civet--it had been the favourite scent of thirty years
before--he indulged in the unusual luxury of a chair to convey him to
the lodgings of the great actress; for he felt that it might seriously
jeopardise his prospects to appear in the presence of the lady with
soiled shoes.
The house where Mrs. Siddons lodged was not an imposing one. She had
arrived in Dublin from Holyhead at two o'clock in the morning, and
she was compelled to walk about the streets in a downpour of rain for
several hours before she could prevail upon any one to take her in.
It is scarcely surprising that she conceived a strong and enduring
prejudice against Dublin and its inhabitants.
On enquiring in a whisper and with a confidential smirk for Mrs.
Siddons, he learned from the maid servant that the lady was in her room,
and that Mr. Siddons had not returned from his morning visit to the
theatre. The servant stated, however, that Mrs. Siddons had given the
strictest orders to admit no one into her presence.
“Ah, discreet as one might have expected,” murmured Dionysius. “She does
not mean to run the chance of disappointing me. Which is her parlour,
child?”
“It's the first front, yer honour,” said the girl; “but, Lord save yer
honour, she'd murther me if I let ye go up. Oh, it's joking ye are.”
“Hush,” whispered Dionysius, his finger on his lips. “Not so loud, I
pray. She is waiting for me.”
“Holy Biddy! waiting for yer?” cried the maid. “Now do n't be afther
getting a poor colleen into throuble, sir. I'm telling ye that it's
killed entirely I'd be if I let ye go up.”
“Do n't be a fool, girl,” said Dionysius, still speaking in a whisper.
“I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that Mrs. Siddons is
awaiting me. Zounds! why do I waste time talking to a menial? Out of my
way, girl.”
He pushed past the servant, leaving her somewhat awe-stricken at his
grand manner and his finery, and when she recovered and made a grab for
his coat tails, he was too quick for her. He plucked them out of her
reach, and she perceived that he had got such a start of her that
pursuit would be useless. In a few moments he was standing before the
door of the room on the first floor that faced the street.
His heart was fluttering so that he had scarcely courage to tap upon the
panel. He had tapped a second time before that grand contralto, that
few persons could hear without emotion, bade him enter. He turned the
handle, and stood facing Mrs. Siddons.
[Illustration: 0197]
She was sitting in a gracefully majestic attitude by the side of a small
table on which a desk was placed. Mrs. Siddons never unbent for a moment
in private life.
She assumed majestic attitudes in the presence of the lodging-house
servant, and spoke in a tragic contralto to the linen-draper's
apprentice. She turned her lovely eyes upon Dionysius Hogan as he stood
smirking and bowing at the door. There was a vista of tragedy in the
delivery of the two words--
“Well, sir?”
It took him some moments to recover from the effect the words produced
upon him. He cleared his throat--it was somewhat husky--and with an
artificial smirk he piped out:
“Madam--ah, my charmer, I have rushed to clasp my goddess to my bosom!
Ah, fair creature, who could resist your appeal?”
He advanced in the mincing gait of the Macaronis. She sprang to her
feet. She pointed an eloquent forefinger at a spot on the floor directly
in front of him.
“Wretch,” she cried, “advance a step at your peril!” Her eyes were
flashing, and her lips were apart.
His mincing ceased abruptly; and only the ghost of a smirk remained upon
his patched and painted face. It was in a very fluty falsetto that he
said:
“Ah, I see my charmer wants to be wooed. But why should Amanda reproach
her Strephon for but obeying her behests? Wherefore so coy, dear nymph?
Let these loving arms--”
“Madman--wretch--”
“Nay, chide me not, dear one. 'T is but the ardour of my passion that
bids me clasp thee, the fairest of Hebe's train. We shall fly together
to some retreat--far from the distractions--”
“Oh, the man is mad--mad!” cried the lady, retreating a step or two as
he advanced.
“Only mad with the ardour of my passion,” whispered Dionysius.
“Oh, heaven! that I should live to hear such words spoken in my
presence!” cried Mrs. Siddons, with her hands clasped in passionate
appeal to a smiling portrait of the landlady's husband that hung over
the fireplace. Then she turned upon Dionysius and looked at him.
Her eyes blazed. Their fire consumed the unfortunate man on whom they
rested. He felt himself shrivelled up and become crisp as an autumn
leaf. He certainly trembled like one, as a terrible voice, but no louder
than a whisper, sounded in his ears: “Are you a human being or the
monster of a dream, that you dare to speak such words in my hearing?
What wretch are you that fancies that Sarah Siddons may be addressed
by such as you, and in language that is an insult to a pure wife and
mother. I am Sarah Siddons, sir! I am a wife who holds her husband's
honour dearer than life itself--I am a mother who will never cause a
blush of shame to mantle the brow of one of her children. Wretch,
insulter, why are mine eyes not basilisks, with death in their glance
to such as you?”
Down went Dionysius on his knees before that terrible figure that
stretched out wild quivering hands above his head. Such gestures as hers
would have fitted the stage of Drury Lane.
In the lodging-house parlour they were overwhelming.
“For God's sake, spare me, spare me!” he faltered, with his hands
clasped and his head bent before that fury.
“Why should I spare such a wretch--why should I not trample such a worm
into the dust?”
She took a frantic step toward him. With a short cry of abject terror he
fell along the floor, and gasped. It seemed to him that she had trampled
the life out of his body.
She stood above him with a heaving bosom beneath her folded arms.
There was a long pause before he heard the door open. A weight seemed
lifted off him. He found that he could breathe. In a few moments he
ventured to raise his head. He saw a beautiful figure sitting at the
desk writing. Even in the scratching of her pen along the paper there
was a tone of tragedy.
He crawled backward upon his hands and knees, with his eyes furtively
fixed upon that figure at the desk. If, when he had looked up he had
found her standing with an arm outstretched tin the direction of the
door, he felt that he would have been able to rise to his feet and leave
her presence; but Mrs. Siddons' dramatic instinct caused her to produce
a deeper impression upon him by simply treating him as if he were dead
at her feet--as if she had, indeed, trampled the life out of his body.
He crept away slowly and painfully backward, until he was actually in
the lobby. Then by a great effort he sprang to his feet, rushed headlong
down the stairs, picked himself up in the hall, and fled wildly through
the door, that chanced to be open, into the street. He overthrew a
chairman in his wild flight, and as he turned the corner he went with a
rush into the arms of a young man, who, with a few others by his side,
was sauntering along.
[Illustration: 0205]
“Zounds, sir! what do you mean by this mode of progression?” cried the
young man, holding him fast.
Dionysius grasped him limply, looking at him with wild, staring eyes.
“For God's sake, Mr. Blake, save me from her--do n't let her get hold of
me, for the love of all the saints.”
“What do you mean, you fool?” said Jimmy Blake. “Who is anxious to get
hold of you?”
But no answer was returned by poor Dionysius. He lay with his head over
Blake's shoulder, his arms swaying limply like two pendulums.
“By the powers, he has gone off in a swoon,” said young Blenerhassett.
“Let us carry him to the nearest tavern.”
In less than half an hour Dionysius had recovered consciousness; but
it required a longer space of time, and the administration of a
considerable quantity of whisky, to enable him to tell all his story. He
produced the letter signed “S. S.” which he had received in the morning,
and explained that he had paid the visit to Mrs. Siddons only with a
view of reasoning her out of her infatuation, which, he said with a
shadowy simper, he could not encourage.
“I had hardly obtained access to her when she turned upon me in a fury,”
said he. “Ah, boys, those eyes of hers!--I feel them still upon me. They
made me feel like a poor wretch that's marched out in front of a platoon
to be shot before breakfast. And her voice! well, it sounded like the
voice of the officer giving the word of command to the platoon to fire.
When I lay ready to expire at her feet, every word that she spoke had
the effect of a bayonet prod upon my poor body. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! I'll
leave it to yourself, Mr. Blake: was it generous of her to stab me with
cold steel after I was riddled with red-hot bullets?”
“I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hogan,” replied Blake, “that I can't take a
lenient view of your conduct. We all know what you are, sir. You seek
to ingraft the gallantries of the reign of his late Majesty upon the
present highly moral age. Mrs. Siddons, sir, is a true wife and mother,
besides being a most estimable actress, and you deserved the rebuff from
the effects of which you are now suffering. Sir, we leave you to the
gnawings of that remorse which I trust you feel acutely.”
Mr. Blake, with his friends, left the tavern room as Dionysius was
beginning to whimper.
In the street a roar of laughter burst from the students.
“Mother o' Moses!” cried Moriarty. “'T is a golden guinea I'd give to
have been present when the Siddons turned upon the poor devil.”
“Then I 'll give you a chance of being present at a better scene than
that,” said Blake.
“What do you mean, Jimmy?” asked Moriarty.
“I mean to bring you with me to pay a visit to Mrs. Siddons this very
minute.”
“'T is joking you are, Jimmy?”
“Oh, the devil a joke, ma bouchai! Man alive, can't you see that the fun
is only beginning? We'll go to her in a body and make it out that she
has insulted a friend of ours by attributing false motives to him, and
that her husband must come out to the Park in the morning.”
“That's carrying a joke a bit too far,” said Mr. Blenerhassett. “I'll
not join in with you there.”
“Nobody axed ye, sir,” said Blake. “There are three of us here without
you, and that's enough for our purpose.”
“If Mr. Siddons kicks you into the street, or if Sally treats you as she
did that poor devil in the tavern,'t is served right that you'll be,”
said Blenerhassett, walking off.
“We'll have a scene with Sarah Siddons for our trouble, at any rate,”
laughed Blake.
The three young men who remained when the more scrupulous youth had
departed, went together to Mrs. Siddons' lodgings. They understood more
than Dionysius did about the art of obtaining admittance when only a
portress stood in the way--a squeeze, a kiss, and a crown combined to
make the maid take a lenient view of the consequences of permitting them
to go up the stairs.
When, after politely rapping at the door of the parlour, the three
entered the room, they found the great actress in precisely the same
attitude she had assumed for her last visitor. The dignity of her
posture was not without its effect upon the young men. They were not
quite so self-confident as they had been outside the door. Each of them
looked at the other, so to speak; but somehow none of the three appeared
to be fluent. They stood bowing politely, keeping close to the door.
“Who are these persons?” said Mrs. Siddons, as if uttering her thoughts.
“Am I in a civilised country or not?”
“Madam,” said Blake, finding his voice, at last, when a slur was cast
upon his country. “Madam, Ireland was the home of civilisation when the
inhabitants of England were prowling the woods naked, except for a coat
of paint.”
Mrs. Siddons sprang to her feet.
“Sir,” she cried, “you are indelicate as well as impertinent. You have
no right to intrude upon me without warning.”
“The urgency of our mission is our excuse, madam,” said Blake. “The fact
is, madam, to come to the point, the gentleman who visited you just now
is our friend.”
“Your friend, sir, is a scoundrel. He grossly insulted me,” said Mrs.
Siddons.
“Ah,'t is sorry I am to find you do n't yet understand the impulses of a
warmhearted nation, madam,” said Blake, shaking his head. “The gentleman
came to compliment you on your acting, and yet you drove him from
your door like a hound. That, according to our warmhearted Irish ways,
constitutes an offence that must be washed out in blood--ay, blood,
madam.”
“What can be your meaning, sir?”
“I only mean, madam, that your husband, whom we all honour on account of
the genius--we do n't deny it--the genius and virtue of his wife, will
have to meet the most expert swordsman in Ireland in the Phonix Park
in the morning, and that Sarah Siddons will be a widow before breakfast
time.”
There was a pause before there came a cry of anguish more pitiful than
any expression of emotion that the three youths had ever heard.
“My husband!” were the words that sounded like a sob in their ears.
Mrs. Siddons had averted her head. Her face was buried in her hands.
The wink in which Jimmy Blake indulged as he gave Moriarty a nudge was
anything but natural.
“Why was I ever tempted to come to this country?” cried the lady wildly.
“Madam, we humbly sympathise with you, and with the country,” said
Blake. He would not allow any reflection to be cast on his country.
She took a few steps toward the three young men, and faced them with
clasped hands. She looked into the three faces in turn, with passionate
intreaty in her eyes. “Have you no pity?” she faltered.
“Yes,” said Blake, “that we have; we do pity you heartily, madam.”
“Are you willing to take part in this act of murder--murder?” cried Mrs.
Siddons, in a low voice that caused the flesh of at least two of her
audience to creep. “Are you blind? Can 't you see the world pointing at
you as I point at you, and call you murderers?” She stood before them
with her eyes half closed, her right hand pointing to each of them in
turn as she prolonged the word, suggesting a thousand voices whispering
“murderers!” There was a long pause, during which the spell-bound
youths, their jaws fallen, stared at that terrible figure--the awful
form of the Muse of Tragedy. Drops of perspiration stood on the forehead
of young Moriarty. Blake himself gave a gasp. “Have you no compassion?”
Mrs. Sid-dons continued, but in another tone--a tone of such pathos as
no human being could hear unmoved. Clasping her hands, she cried: “My
poor husband! What harm has he done? Is he to be dragged from these
arms--these arms that have cherished him with all the devotion that a
too-loving wife can offer? Is he to be dragged away from this true heart
to be butchered? Sirs, we have children--tender little blossoms. Oh,
cannot you hear their cries? Listen, listen--the wailing of the babes
over the mangled body of their father.”
Surely the sound of children's sobbing went around the room.
One of the young men dropped into a chair and burst into tears.
Blake's lips were quivering, as the streaming eyes of the woman were
turned upon him.
“For heaven's sake, madam!” he faltered--“for heaven's sake--oh, my God!
what have we done?--what have we done? Worse than Herod! the innocent
children!--I hear them--I hear them! Oh, God forgive us! God forgive us
for this cruel joke.”
He broke down utterly. The room now was certainly filled with wild
sobbing and the sound of convulsive weeping.
[Illustration: 0217]
For several minutes the three emotional Irishmen sat weeping. They were
in the power of the woman, who, at the confession of Blake, had become
perfectly self-possessed in a moment. She stood watching them, a
scornful smile upon her lips. She knew that the magic which she had at
her command could enchain them so long as she wished. She was merciful,
however.
“If you consider your jest sufficiently successful, gentlemen,” said
she, “perhaps you will oblige me by withdrawing. I have letters to
write.”
The spell that she had cast around them was withdrawn.
Blake sprang to his feet and drew his handkerchief across his eyes.
“Mrs. Siddons--madam,” said he, “we have behaved like fools--nay, worse,
like scoundrels. We are not bold enough to ask your pardon, madam; but
believe me, we feel deeply humiliated. You may forgive us, but we shall
never forgive ourselves. Madam, you are the greatest actress in the
world, and you may expect the finest benefit ever given to an actress in
this city.”
But in spite of the fact that Mrs. Siddons' benefit the following night
was all that Mr. Blake predicted it would be, she wrote some very hard
words about Dublin to her friend, Mr. Whately, of Bath.