MR. O'LEARY.
At the conclusion of my last chapter I was about to introduce to my
reader's acquaintance my friend Mr. O'Leary; and, as he is destined to
occupy some place in the history of these Confessions, I may, perhaps, be
permitted to do so at more length than his intrinsic merit at first sight
might appear to warrant.
Mr. O'Leary was, and I am induced to believe is, a particularly short,
fat, greasy-looking gentleman, with a head as free from phrenological
development as a billiard-ball, and a countenance which, in feature and
colour, nearly resembled the face of a cherub, carved in oak, as we see
them in old pulpits.
Short as is his stature, his limbs compose the least part of it. His
hands and feet, forming some compensation by their ample proportions,
with short, thick fins, vulgarly called a cobbler's thumb. His voice
varying in cadence from a deep barytone, to a high falsetto, maintains
throughout the distinctive characteristic of a Dublin accent and
pronunciation, and he talks of the "Veel of Ovoca, and a beef-steek,"
with some price of intonation. What part of the Island he came
originally from, or what may be his age, are questions I have the most
profound ignorance of; I have heard many anecdotes which would imply his
being what the French call "d'un age mur"--but his own observations are
generally limited to events occurring since the peace of "fifteen." To
his personal attractions, such as they are, he has never been solicitous
of contributing by the meretricious aids of dress. His coat, calculating
from its length of waist, and ample skirt, would fit Bumbo Green, while
his trowsers, being made of some cheap and shrinking material, have
gradually contracted their limits, and look now exactly like
knee-breeches, without the usual buttons at the bottom.
These, with the addition of a pair of green spectacles, the glass of one
being absent, and permitting the look-out of a sharp, grey eye, twinkling
with drollery and good humour, form the most palpable of his externals.
In point of character, they who best knew him represented him as the
best-tempered, best-hearted fellow breathing; ever ready to assist a
friend, and always postponing his own plans and his own views, when he
had any, to the wishes and intentions of others. Among the many odd
things about him, was a constant preference to travelling on foot, and a
great passion for living abroad, both of which tastes he gratified,
although his size might seem to offer obstacles to the one, and his total
ignorance of every continental language, would appear to preclude the
other; with a great liking for tobacco, which he smoked all day--a
fondness for whist and malt liquors--his antipathies were few; so that
except when called upon to shave more than once in the week, or wash his
hands twice on the same day, it was difficult to disconcert him. His
fortune was very ample; but although his mode of living was neither very
ostentatious nor costly, he contrived always to spend his income. Such
was the gentleman I now presented to my friends, who, I must confess,
appeared strangely puzzled by his manner and appearance. This feeling,
however, soon wore off; and before he had spent the morning in their
company, he had made more way in their good graces, and gone farther to
establish intimacy, than many a more accomplished person, with an
unexceptionable coat and accurate whisker might have effected in
a fortnight. What were his gifts in this way, I am, alas, most
deplorably ignorant of; it was not, heaven knows, that he possessed any
conversational talent--of successful flattery he knew as much as a negro
does of the national debt--and yet the "bon-hommie" of his character
seemed to tell at once; and I never knew him fail in any one instance to
establish an interest for himself before he had completed the ordinary
period of a visit.
I think it is Washington Irving who has so admirably depicted the
mortification of a dandy angler, who, with his beaver garnished with
brown hackles, his well-posed rod, polished gaff, and handsome
landing-net, with every thing befitting, spends his long summer day
whipping a trout stream without a rise or even a ripple to reward him,
while a ragged urchin, with a willow wand, and a bent pin, not ten yards
distant, is covering the greensward with myriads of speckled and scaly
backs, from one pound weight to four; so it is in every thing--"the race
is not to the swift;" the elements of success in life, whatever be the
object of pursuit, are very, very different from what we think them at
first sight, and so it was with Mr. O'Leary, and I have more than once
witnessed the triumph of his homely manner and blunt humour over the
more polished and well-bred taste of his competitors for favour; and
what might have been the limit to such success, heaven alone can tell,
if it were not that he laboured under a counter-balancing infirmity,
sufficient to have swamped a line-of-battle ship itself. It was simply
this--a most unfortunate propensity to talk of the wrong place, person,
or time, in any society he found himself; and this taste for the mal
apropos, extended so far, that no one ever ventured into company with
him as his friend, without trembling for the result; but even this, I
believe his only fault, resulted from the natural goodness of his
character and intentions; for, believing as he did, in his honest
simplicity, that the arbitrary distinctions of class and rank were held
as cheaply by others as himself, he felt small scruple at recounting to
a duchess a scene in a cabaret, and with as little hesitation would he,
if asked, have sung the "Cruiskeen lawn," or the "Jug of Punch," after
Lablanche had finished the "Al Idea," from Figaro. 'Mauvaise honte,' he
had none; indeed I am not sure that he had any kind of shame whatever,
except possibly when detected with a coat that bore any appearance of
newness, or if overpersuaded to wear gloves, which he ever considered as
a special effeminacy.
Such, in a few words, was the gentleman I now presented to my friends,
and how far he insinuated himself into their good graces, let the fact
tell, that on my return to the breakfast-room, after about an hour's
absence, I heard him detailing the particulars of a route they were to
take by his advice, and also learned that he had been offered and had
accepted a seat in their carriage to Paris.
"Then I'll do myself the pleasure of joining your party, Mrs. Bingham,"
said he. "Bingham, I think, madam, is your name."
"Yes, Sir."
"Any relation, may I ask, of a most dear friend of mine, of the same
name, from Currynaslattery, in the county Wexford?"
"I am really not aware," said Mrs. Bingham. "My husband's family are, I
believe, many of them from that county."
"Ah, what a pleasant fellow was Tom!" said Mr. O'Leary musingly,
and with that peculiar tone which made me tremble, for I knew well
that a reminiscence was coming. "A pleasant fellow indeed."
"Is he alive, sir, now?"
"I believe so, ma'am; but I hear the climate does not agree with him."
"Ah, then, he's abroad! In Italy probably?"
"No, ma'am, in Botany Bay. His brother, they say, might have saved him,
but he left poor Tom to his fate, for he was just then paying court to a
Miss Crow, I think, with a large fortune. Oh, Lord, what have I said,
it's always the luck of me!" The latter exclamation was the result of a
heavy saugh upon the floor, Mrs. Bingham having fallen in a faint--she
being the identical lady alluded to, and her husband the brother of
pleasant Tom Bingham.
To hurl Mr. O'Leary out of the room by one hand, and ring the bell with
the other, was the work of a moment; and with proper care, and in due
time, Mrs. Bingham was brought to herself, when most fortunately, she
entirely forgot the cause of her sudden indisposition; and, of course,
neither her daughter nor myself suffered any clue to escape us which
might lead to its discovery.
When we were once more upon the road, to efface if it might be necessary
any unpleasant recurrence to the late scene, I proceeded to give Mrs.
Bingham an account of my adventure at Chantraine, in which, of course, I
endeavoured to render my friend O'Leary all the honours of being laughed
at in preference to myself, laying little stress upon my masquerading in
the jack-boots.
"You are quite right," said O'Leary, joining in the hearty laugh against
him, "quite right, I was always a very heavy sleeper--indeed if I wasn't
I wouldn't be here now, travelling about en garcon, free as air;" here he
heaved a sigh, which from its incongruity with his jovial look and happy
expression, threw us all into renewed laughter.
"But why, Mr. O'Leary--what can your sleepiness have to do with such
tender recollections, for such, I am sure, that sigh bespeaks them?"
"Ah! ma'am, it may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, if it were
not for that unfortunate tendency, I should now be the happy possessor of
a most accomplished and amiable lady, and eight hundred per annum three
and a half per cent. stock."
"You overslept yourself on the wedding-day, I suppose."
"You shall hear, ma'am, the story is a very short one: It is now about
eight years ago, I was rambling through the south of France, and had just
reached Lyons, where the confounded pavement, that sticks up like pears,
with the point upwards, had compelled me to rest some days and recruit;
for this purpose I installed myself in the pension of Madame Gourgead,
Rue de Petits Carmes, a quiet house--where we dined at twelve, ten in
number, upon about two pounds of stewed beef, with garlic and carrots
--a light soup, being the water which accompanied the same to render it
tender in stewing--some preserved cherries, and an omelette, with a pint
bottle of Beaune, 6me qualite, I believe--a species of pyroligneous wine
made from the vine stalks, but pleasant in summer with your salad; then
we played dominos in the evening, or whist for sous points, leading
altogether a very quiet and virtuous existence, or as Madame herself
expressed it, 'une vie tout-a-fait patriarchale;' of this I cannot myself
affirm how far she was right in supposing the patriarchs did exactly like
us. But to proceed, in the same establishment there lived a widow whose
late husband had been a wine merchant at Dijon--he had also, I suppose
from residing in that country, been imitating the patriarchs, for he died
one day. Well, the lady was delayed at Lyons for some law business, and
thus it came about, that her husband's testament and the sharp paving
stones in the streets determined we should be acquainted. I cannot
express to you the delight of my fair countrywoman at finding that a
person who spoke English had arrived at the 'pension'--a feeling I myself
somewhat participated in; for to say truth, I was not at that time a very
great proficient in French. We soon became intimate, in less time
probably than it could otherwise have happened, for from the ignorance of
all the others of one word of English, I was enabled during dinner to say
many soft and tender things, which one does not usually venture on in
company.
"I recounted my travels, and told various adventures of my wanderings,
till at last, from being merely amused, I found that my fair friend began
to be interested in my narratives; and frequently when passing the
bouillon to her, I have seen a tear in the corner of her eye: in a word,
'she loved me for the dangers I had passed,' as Othello says. Well,
laugh away if you like, but it's truth I am telling you." At this part
of Mr. O'Leary's story we all found it impossible to withstand the
ludicrous mock heroic of his face and tone, and laughed loud and long.
When we at length became silent he resumed--"Before three weeks had
passed over, I had proposed and was accepted, just your own way, Mr.
Lorrequer, taking the ball at the hop, the very same way you did at
Cheltenham, the time the lady jilted you, and ran off with your friend
Mr. Waller; I read it all in the news, though I was then in Norway
fishing." Here there was another interruption by a laugh, not, however,
at Mr. O'Leary's expense. I gave him a most menacing look, while he
continued--"the settlements were soon drawn up, and consisted, like all
great diplomatic documents, of a series of 'gains and compensations;'
thus, she was not to taste any thing stronger than kirsch wasser, or
Nantz brandy; and I limited myself to a pound of short-cut weekly, and so
on: but to proceed, the lady being a good Catholic, insisted upon being
married by a priest of her own persuasion, before the performance of the
ceremony at the British embassy in Paris; to this I could offer no
objection, and we were accordingly united in the holy bonds the same
morning, after signing the law papers."
"Then, Mr. O'Leary, you are really a married man."
"That's the very point I'm coming to, ma'am; for I've consulted all the
jurists upon the subject, and they never can agree. But you shall hear.
I despatched a polite note to Bishop Luscombe, and made every arrangement
for the approaching ceremony, took a quartier in the Rue Helder, near the
Estaminet, and looked forward with anxiety for the day which was to make
my happy; for our marriage in Lyons was only a kind of betrothal. Now,
my fair friend had but one difficulty remaining, poor dear soul--I
refrain from mentioning her name for delicacy sake; but poor dear Mrs.
Ram could not bear the notion of our going up to Paris in the same
conveyance, for long as she had lived abroad, she had avoided every thing
French, even the language, so she proposed that I should go in the early
'Diligence,' which starts at four-o'clock in the morning, while she took
her departure at nine; thus I should be some hours sooner in Paris, and
ready to receive her on her arriving; besides sparing her bashfulness all
reproach of our travelling together. It was no use my telling her that
I always travelled on foot, and hated a 'Diligence;' she coolly replied
that at our time of life we could not spare the time necessary for a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for so she supposed the journey from Lyons to
Paris to be; so fearing lest any doubt might be thrown upon the ardour of
my attachment, I yielded at once, remembering at the moment what my poor
friend Tom Bing--Oh Lord, I'm at it again!"
"Sir, I did not hear."
"Nothing, ma'am, I was just going to observe, that ladies of a certain
time of life, and widows especially, like a lover that seems a little
ardent or so, all the better." Here Mrs. Bingham blushed, her daughter
bridled, and I nearly suffocated with shame and suppressed laughter.
"After a most tender farewell of my bride or wife, I don't know which,
I retired for the night with a mind vacillating between my hopes of
happiness and my fears for the result of a journey so foreign to all my
habits of travelling, and in which I could not but tremble at the many
casualties my habitual laziness and dislike to any hours but of my own
choosing might involve me in.
"I had scarcely lain down in bed, ere these thoughts took such possession
of me, that sleep for once in my life was out of the question; and then
the misery of getting up at four in the morning--putting on your clothes
by the flickering light of the porter's candle--getting your boots on the
wrong feet, and all that kind of annoyance--I am sure I fretted myself
into the feeling of a downright martyr before an hour was over. Well at
least, thought I, one thing is well done,--I have been quite right in
coming to sleep here at the Messagerie Hotel, where the diligence starts
from, or the chances are ten to one that I never should wake till the
time was past. Now, however, they are sure to call me; so I may sleep
tranquilly till then. Meanwhile I had forgotten to pack my trunk--my
papers, &c. laying all about the room in a state of considerable
confusion. I rose at once with all the despatch I could muster; this
took a long time to effect, and it was nearly two o'clock ere I finished,
and sat down to smoke a solitary pipe,--the last, as I supposed it might
be my lot to enjoy for heaven knows how long, Mrs. R. having expressed,
rather late in our intimacy I confess, strong opinions against tobacco
within doors.
"When I had finished my little sac of the 'weed,' the clock struck three,
and I started to think how little time I was destined to have in bed.
In bed! why, said I, there is no use thinking of it now, for I shall
scarcely have lain down ere I shall be obliged to get up again. So
thinking, I set about dressing myself for the road; and by the time I had
enveloped myself in a pair of long Hungarian gaiters, and a kurtcha of
sheep's wool, with a brown bear-skin outside, with a Welsh wig, and a
pair of large dark glass goggles to defend the eyes from the snow, I was
not only perfectly impervious to all effects of the weather, but so
thoroughly defended from any influence of sight or sound, that a volcano
might be hissing and thundering within ten yards of me, without
attracting my slightest attention. Now, I thought, instead of remaining
here, I'll just step down to the coach, and get snugly in the diligence,
and having secured the corner of the coupe, resign myself to sleep with
the certainty of not being left behind, and, probably, too, be some miles
on my journey before awaking.
"I accordingly went down stairs, and to my surprise found, even at that
early hour, that many of the garcons of the house were stirring and
bustling about, getting all the luggage up in the huge wooden leviathan
that was to convey us on our road. There they stood, like bees around a
hive, clustering and buzzing, and all so engaged that with difficulty
could I get an answer to my question of, What diligence it was? 'La
diligence pour Paris, Monsieur.'
"'Ah, all right then,' said I; so watching an opportunity to do so
unobserved, for I supposed they might have laughed at me, I stepped
quietly into the coupe; and amid the creaking of cordage, and the
thumping of feet on the roof, fell as sound asleep as ever I did in my
life--these sounds coming to my muffled ears, soft as the echoes on the
Rhine. When it was that I awoke I cannot say; but as I rubbed my eyes
and yawned after a most refreshing sleep, I perceived that it was still
quite dark all around, and that the diligence was standing before the
door of some inn and not moving. Ah, thought I, this is the first stage;
how naturally one always wakes at the change of horses,--a kind of
instinct implanted by Providence, I suppose, to direct us to a little
refreshment on the road. With these pious feelings I let down the glass,
and called out to the garcon for a glass of brandy and a cigar. While he
was bringing them, I had time to look about, and perceived, to my very
great delight, that I had the whole coupe to myself. 'Are there any
passengers coming in here?' said I, as the waiter came forward with my
petit verre. 'I should think not, sir,' said the fellow with a leer.
'Then I shall have the whole coupe to myself?' said I. 'Monsieur need
have no fear of being disturbed; I can safely assure him that he will
have no one there for the next twenty-four hours.' This was really
pleasant intelligence; so I chucked him a ten sous piece, and closing up
the window as the morning was cold, once more lay back to sleep with a
success that has never failed me. It was to a bright blue cloudless sky,
and the sharp clear air of a fine day in winter, that I at length opened
my eyes. I pulled out my watch, and discovered it was exactly two
o'clock; I next lowered the glass and looked about me, and very much to
my surprise discovered that the diligence was not moving, but standing
very peaceably in a very crowded congregation of other similar and
dissimilar conveyances, all of which seemed, I thought, to labour under
some physical ailment, some wanting a box, others a body, &c., &c. and in
fact suggesting the idea of an infirmary for old and disabled carriages
of either sex, mails and others. 'Oh, I have it,' cried I, 'we are
arrived at Mt. Geran, and they are all at dinner, and from my being alone
in the coupe, they have forgotten to call me.' I immediately opened the
door and stepped out into the innyard, crowded with conducteurs, grooms,
and ostlers, who, I thought, looked rather surprised at seeing me emerge
from the diligence.
"'You did not know I was there,' said I, with a knowing wink at one of
them as I passed.
"'Assurement non,' said the fellow with a laugh, that was the signal for
all the others to join in it. 'Is the table d'hote over?' said I,
regardless of the mirth around me. 'Monsieur is just in time,' said the
waiter, who happened to pass with a soup-tureen in his hand. 'Have the
goodness to step this way.' I had barely time to remark the close
resemblance of the waiter to the fellow who presented me with my brandy
and cigar in the morning, when he ushered me into a large room with about
forty persons sitting at a long table, evidently waiting with impatience
for the 'Potage' to begin their dinner. Whether it was they enjoyed the
joke of having neglected to call me, or that they were laughing at my
travelling costume, I cannot say, but the moment I came in, I could
perceive a general titter run through the assembly. 'Not too late, after
all, gentlemen,' said I, marching gravely up the table.
"'Monsieur is in excellent time,' said the host, making room for me
beside his chair. Notwithstanding the incumbrance of my weighty
habiliments, I proceeded to do ample justice to the viands before me,
apologizing laughingly to the host, by pleading a traveller's appetite.
"'Then you have perhaps come far this morning,' said a gentleman
opposite.
"'Yes,' said I, 'I have been on the road since four o'clock.'
"'And how are the roads?' said another. 'Very bad,' said I, 'the first
few stages from Lyons, afterwards much better.' This was said at a
venture, as I began to be ashamed of being always asleep before my
fellow-travellers. They did not seem, however, to understand me
perfectly; and one old fellow putting down his spectacles from his
forehead, leaned over and said: 'And where, may I ask, has Monsieur come
from this morning?'
"'From Lyons,' said I, with the proud air of a man who has done a stout
feat, and is not ashamed of the exploit.
"'From Lyons!' said one. 'From Lyons!' cried another. 'From Lyons!'
repeated a third.
"'Yes,' said I; 'what the devil is so strange in it; travelling is so
quick now-a-days, one thinks nothing of twenty leagues before dinner.'
"The infernal shout of laughing that followed my explanation is still in
my ears; from one end of the table to the other there was one continued
ha, ha, ha--from the greasy host to the little hunchbacked waiter, they
were all grinning away.
"'And how did Monsieur travel?' said the old gentleman, who seemed to
carry on the prosecution against me.
"'By the diligence, the "Aigle noir,"' said I, giving the name with some
pride, that I was not altogether ignorant of the conveyance.
"'The you should certainly not complain of the roads,' said the host
chuckling; 'for the only journey that diligence has made this day has
been from the street-door to the inn-yard; for as they found when the
luggage was nearly packed that the axle was almost broken through, they
wheeled it round to the court, and prepared another for the travellers.'
"'And where am I now?' said I.
"'In Lyons,' said twenty voices, half choked with laughter at my
question.
"I was thunderstruck at the news at first; but as I proceeded with my
dinner, I joined in the mirth of the party, which certainly was not
diminished on my telling them the object of my intended journey.
"'I think, young man,' said the old fellow with the spectacles, 'that you
should take the occurrence as a warning of Providence that marriage will
not suit you.' I began to be of the same opinion;--but then there was
the jointure. To be sure, I was to give up tobacco; and perhaps I should
not be as free to ramble about as when en garcon. So taking all things
into consideration, I ordered in another bottle of burgundy, to drink
Mrs. Ram's health--got my passport vised for Barege--and set out for the
Pyrenees the same evening."
"And have you never heard any thing more of the lady?" said Mrs. Bingham.
"Oh, yes. She was faithful to the last; for I found out when at Rome
last winter that she had offered a reward for me in the newspapers, and
indeed had commenced a regular pursuit of me through the whole continent.
And to tell the real fact, I should not now fancy turning my steps
towards Paris, if I had not very tolerable information that she is in
full cry after me through the Wengen Alps, I having contrived a paragraph
in Galignani, to seduce her thither, and where, with the blessing of
Providence, if the snow set in early, she must pass the winter."