THE ORDEAL BY BATTLE.
The chronicles of the small-sword and pistol are pregnant with horrid
and absurd illustrations of certain great moral facts. Let them pass. A
duel, we all know, spirit of 'Punch and Judy'--a farce of murder.
Sterne's gallant father expired, or near it, with the point of a
small-sword sticking out two feet between his shoulders, all about a
goose-pie. I often wondered what the precise quarrel was. But these
tragedies smell all over of goose-pie. Why--oh, why--brave Captain
Sterne, as with saucy, flashing knife and fork you sported with the
outworks of that fated structure, was there no augur at thine elbow,
with a shake of his wintry beard, to warn thee that the birds of
fate--_thy_ fate--sat vigilant under that festive mask of crust? Beware,
it is Pandora's pie! Madman! hold thy hand! The knife's point that seems
to thee about to glide through that pasty is palpably levelled at thine
own windpipe! But this time Mephistopheles leaves the revellers to use
their own cutlery; and now the pie is opened; and now the birds begin to
sing! Come along, then to the Fifteen Acres, and let us see what will
come of it all.
That flanking demi-bastion of the Magazine, crenelled for musketry,
commands, with the aid of a couple of good field-glasses, an excellent
and secret view of the arena on which the redoubted O'Flaherty and the
grim Nutter were about to put their metal to the proof. General
Chattesworth, who happened to have an appointment, as he told his sister
at breakfast, in town about that hour, forgot it just as he reached the
Magazine, gave his bridle to the groom, and stumped into the fortress,
where he had a biscuit and a glass of sherry in the commandant's little
parlour, and forth the two cronies sallied mysteriously side by side;
the commandant, Colonel Bligh, being remarkably tall, slim, and
straight, with an austere, mulberry-coloured face; the general stout and
stumpy, and smiling plentifully, short of breath, and double chinned,
they got into the sanctum I have just mentioned.
I don't apologise to my readers, English-born and bred, for assuming
them to be acquainted with the chief features of the 'Phoenix Park,
near Dublin. Irish scenery is now as accessible as Welsh. Let them study
the old problem, not in blue books, but in the green and brown ones of
our fields and heaths, and mountains. If Ireland be no more than a great
capability and a beautiful landscape, faintly visible in the blue haze,
even from your own headlands, and separated by hardly four hours of
water, and a ten-shilling fare, from your jetties, it is your own shame,
not ours, if a nation of bold speculators and indefatigable tourists
leave it unexplored.
So I say, from this coigne of vantage, looking westward over the broad
green level toward the thin smoke that rose from Chapelizod chimneys,
lying so snugly in the lap of the hollow by the river, the famous
Fifteen Acres, where so many heroes have measured swords, and so many
bullies have bit the dust, was distinctly displayed in the near
foreground. You all know the artillery butt. Well, that was the centre
of a circular enclosure containing just fifteen acres, with broad
entrances eastward and westward.
The old fellows knew very well where to look.
Father Roach was quite accidentally there, reading his breviary when the
hostile parties came upon the ground--for except when an accident of
this sort occurred, or the troops were being drilled, it was a
sequestered spot enough--and he forthwith joined them, as usual, to
reconcile the dread debate.
Somehow, I think his arguments were not altogether judicious.
'I don't ask particulars, my dear--I abominate all that concerns a
quarrel; but Lieutenant O'Flaherty, jewel, supposin' the very
worst--supposin', just for argument, that he has horse-whipped you----.'
'An' who dar' suppose it?' glared O'Flaherty.
'Or, we'll take it that he spit in your face, honey. Well,' continued
his reverence, not choosing to hear the shocking ejaculations which this
hypothesis wrung from the lieutenant; 'what of that, my darlin'? Think
of the indignities, insults, and disgraces that the blessed Saint
Martellus suffered, without allowing, anything worse to cross his lips
than an Ave Mary or a smile in resignation.'
'Ordher the priest off the ground, Sorr,' said O'Flaherty, lividly, to
little Puddock, who was too busy with Mr. Mahony to hear him; and Roach
had already transferred his pious offices to Nutter, who speedily
flushed up and became, to all appearances, in his own way just as angry
as O'Flaherty.
'Lieutenant O'Flaherty, a word in your ear,' once more droned the mellow
voice of Father Roach; 'you're a young man, my dear, and here's
Lieutenant Puddock by your side, a young man too; I'm as ould, my
honeys, as the two of you put together, an' I advise you, for your
good--don't shed human blood--don't even draw your swords--don't, my
darlins; don't be led or said by them army-gentlemen, that's always
standin' up for fightin' because the leedies admire fightin' men.
They'll call you cowards, polthroons, curs, sneaks, turn-tails--let
them!'
'There's no standin' this any longer, Puddock,' said O'Flaherty,
incensed indescribably by the odious names which his reverence was
hypothetically accumulating; 'if you want to see the fightin', Father
Roach----.'
'Apage, Sathanas!' murmured his reverence, pettishly, raising his plump,
blue chin, and dropping his eyelids with a shake of the head, and waving
the back of his fat, red hand gently towards the speaker.
'In that case, stay here, an' look your full, an' welcome, only don't
make a noise; behave like a Christian, an' hould your tongue; but if you
really hate fightin', as you say----'
Having reached this point in his address, but intending a good deal
more, O'Flaherty suddenly stopped short, drew himself into a stooping
posture, with a flush and a strange distortion, and his eyes fastened
upon Father Roach with an unearthly glare for nearly two minutes, and
seized Puddock upon the upper part of his arm with so awful a grip, in
his great bony hand, that the gallant little gentleman piped out in a
flurry of anguish--
'O--O--O'Flaherty, Thir--_let_ go my arm, Thir.'
O'Flaherty drew a long breath, uttered a short, deep groan, and wiping
the moisture from his red forehead, and resuming a perpendicular
position, was evidently trying to recover the lost thread of his
discourse.
'There'th dethidedly thomething the matter with you, Thir,' said
Puddock, anxiously, _sotto voce_, while he worked his injured arm's a
little at the shoulder.
'You may say that,' said O'Flaherty, very dismally, and, perhaps, a
little bitterly.
'And--and--and--you don't mean to thay--why--eh?' asked Puddock,
uneasily.
'I tell you what, Puddock--there's no use in purtendin'--the poison's
working--_that's_ what's the matter,' returned poor O'Flaherty, in what
romance writers call 'a hissing whisper.'
'Good--merthiful--graciouth--Thir!' ejaculated poor little Puddock, in a
panic, and gazing up into the brawny fireworker's face with a pallid
fascination; indeed they both looked unpleasantly unlike the popular
conception of heroes on the eve of battle.
'But--but it can't be--you forget Dr. Sturk and--oh, dear!--the
antidote. It--I thay--it can't _be_, Thir,' said Puddock, rapidly.
'It's no use, now; but I shirked two or three spoonfuls, and I left some
more in the bottom,' said the gigantic O'Flaherty, with a gloomy
sheepishness.
Puddock made an ejaculation--the only violent one recorded of him--and
turning his back briskly upon his principal, actually walked several
steps away, as if he intended to cut the whole concern. But such a
measure was really not to be thought of.
'O'Flaherty--Lieutenant--I won't reproach you,' began Puddock.
'_Reproach_ me! an' who _poisoned_ me, my tight little fellow?' retorted
the fireworker, savagely.
Puddock could only look at him, and then said, quite meekly--
'Well, and my dear Thir, what on earth had we better do?'
'Do,' said O'Flaherty, 'why isn't it completely Hobson's choice with us?
What can we do but go through with it?'
The fact is, I may as well mention, lest the sensitive reader should be
concerned for the gallant O'Flaherty, that the poison had very little to
do with it, and the antidote a great deal. In fact, it was a reckless
compound conceived in a cynical and angry spirit by Sturk, and as the
fireworker afterwards declared, while expressing in excited language his
wonder how Puddock (for he never suspected Sturk's elixir) had contrived
to compound such a poison--'The torture was such, my dear Madam, as
fairly thranslated me into the purlieus of the other world.'
Nutter had already put off his coat and waistcoat, and appeared in a
neat little black lutestring vest, with sleeves to it, which the elder
officers of the R.I.A. remembered well in by-gone fencing matches.
'Tis a most _miserable_ situation,' said Puddock, in extreme distress.
'Never mind,' groaned O'Flaherty, grimly taking off his coat; 'you'll
have _two_ corpses to carry home with you; don't you show the laste
taste iv unaisiness, an' I'll not disgrace you, _if_ I'm spared to see
it out.'
And now preliminaries were quite adjusted; and Nutter, light and wiry, a
good swordsman, though not young, stepped out with his vicious weapon in
hand, and his eyes looking white and stony out of his dark face. A word
or two to his armour-bearer, and a rapid gesture, right and left, and
that magnificent squire spoke low to two or three of the surrounding
officers, who forthwith bestirred themselves to keep back the crowd, and
as it were to keep the ring unbroken. O'Flaherty took his sword, got his
hand well into the hilt, poised the blade, shook himself up as it were,
and made a feint or two and a parry in the air, and so began to advance,
like Goliath, towards little Nutter.
'Now, Puddock, back him up--encourage your man,' said Devereux, who took
a perverse pleasure in joking; 'tell him to flay the lump, splat him,
divide him, and cut him in two pieces----.
It was a custom of the corps to quiz Puddock about his cookery; but
Puddock, I suppose, did not hear his last night's 'receipt' quoted, and
he kept his eye upon his man, who had now got nearly within fencing
distance of his adversary. But at this critical moment, O'Flaherty, much
to Puddock's disgust, suddenly stopped, and got into the old stooping
posture, making an appalling grimace in what looked like an endeavour to
swallow, not only his under lip, but his chin also. Uttering a
quivering, groan, he continued to stoop nearer to the earth, on which he
finally actually sat down and hugged his knees close to his chest,
holding his breath all the time till he was perfectly purple, and
rocking himself this way and that.
The whole procedure was a mystery to everybody except the guilty
Puddock, who changed colour, and in manifest perturbation, skipped to
his side.
'Bleth me--bleth me--my dear O'Flaherty, he'th very ill--where ith the
pain?'
'Is it "farced pain," Puddock, or "gammon pain?"' asked Devereux, with
much concern.
Puddock's plump panic-stricken little face, and staring eye-balls, were
approached close to the writhing features of his redoubted principal--as
I think I have seen honest Sancho Panza's, in one of Tony Johannot's
sketches, to that of the prostrate Knight of the Rueful Countenance.
'I wish to Heaven I had thwallowed it myself--it'th dreadful--what ith
to be--are you eathier--I _think_ you're eathier.'
I don't think O'Flaherty heard him. He only hugged his knees tighter,
and slowly turned up his face, wrung into ten thousand horrid puckers,
to the sky, till his chin stood as high as his forehead, with his teeth
and eyes shut, and he uttered a sound like a half-stifled screech; and,
indeed, looked very black and horrible.
Some of the spectators, rear-rank men, having but an imperfect view of
the transaction, thought that O'Flaherty had been hideously run through
the body by his solemn opponent, and swelled the general chorus of
counsel and ejaculation, by all together advising cobwebs, brown-paper
plugs, clergymen, brandy, and the like; but as none of these comforts
were at hand, and nobody stirred, O'Flaherty was left to the resources
of Nature.
Puddock threw his cocked hat upon the ground and stamped in a momentary
frenzy.
'He'th _dying_--Devereux--Cluffe--he'th--I _tell_ you, he'th dying;' and
he was on the point of declaring himself O'Flaherty's murderer, and
surrendering himself as such into the hands of anybody who would accept
the custody of his person, when the recollection of his official
position as poor O'Flaherty's second flashed upon him, and collecting
with a grand effort, his wits and his graces--
'It'th totally impothible, gentlemen,' he said, with his most
ceremonious bow; 'conthidering the awful condition of my
printhipal--I--I have reathon to fear--in fact I know--Dr. Thturk has
theen him--that he'th under the action of _poithon_--and it'th quite
impractithable, gentlemen, that thith affair of honour can protheed at
prethent;' and Puddock drew himself up peremptorily, and replaced his
hat, which somebody had slipped into his hand, upon his round powdered
head.
Mr. Mahony, though a magnificent gentleman, was, perhaps, a little
stupid, and he mistook Puddock's agitation, and thought he was in a
passion, and disposed to be offensive. He, therefore, with a marked and
stern sort of elegance, replied--
'_Pison_, Sir, is a remarkably strong alpathet; it's language, Sir,
which, if a gentleman uses at all, he's bound in justice, in shivalry,
and in dacency to a generous adversary, to define with precision. Mr.
Nutter is too well known to the best o'society, moving in a circle as he
does, to require the panegyric of humble me. They drank together last
night, they differed in opinion, that's true, but fourteen clear hours
has expired, and pison being mentioned----'
'Why, body o' me! Sir,' lisped Puddock, in fierce horror; 'can you
imagine for one moment, Sir, that I or any man living could suppose for
an instant, that my respected friend, Mr. Nutter, to whom (a low bow to
Nutter, returned by that gentleman) I have now the misfortune to be
opposed, is capable--capable, Sir, of poisoning any living being--man,
woman, or child; and to put an end, Sir, at once to all misapprehension
upon this point, it was I--_I_, Sir--myself--who poisoned him,
altogether accidentally, of course, by a valuable, but mismanaged
receipt, this morning, Sir--you--you _see_, Mr. Nutter!'
Nutter, balked of his gentlemanlike satisfaction, stared with a
horrified but somewhat foolish countenance from Puddock to O'Flaherty.
'And now, Thir,' pursued Puddock, addressing himself to Mr. Mahony, 'if
Mr. Nutter desires to postpone the combat, I consent; if not, I offer
mythelf to maintain it inthead of my printhipal.'
And so he made another low bow, and stood bareheaded, hat in hand, with
his right hand on his sword hilt.
'Upon my honour, Captain Puddock, it's precisely what I was going to
propose myself, Sir,' said Mahony, with great alacrity; 'as the only way
left us of getting honourably out of the great embarrassment in which we
are placed by the premature _death_-struggles of your friend; for
nothing, Mr. Puddock, but being _bonâ fide in articulo mortis_, can
palliate his conduct.'
'My dear Puddock,' whispered Devereux, in his ear, 'surely you would not
kill Nutter to oblige two such brutes as these?' indicating by a glance
Nutter's splendid second and the magnanimous O'Flaherty, who was still
sitting speechless upon the ground.
'Captain Puddock,' pursued that mirror of courtesy, Mr. Patrick Mahony,
of Muckafubble, who, by-the-bye, persisted in giving him his captaincy,
may I enquire who's _your_ friend upon this unexpected turn of affairs?'
'There's no need, Sir,' said Nutter, dryly and stoutly, 'I would not
hurt a hair of your head, Lieutenant Puddock.'
'Do you hear him?' panted O'Flaherty, for the first time articulate, and
stung by the unfortunate phrase--it seemed fated that Nutter should not
open his lips without making some allusion to human hair: 'do you _hear_
him, Puddock? Mr. Nutter--(he spoke with great difficulty, and in
jerks)--Sir--Mr. Nutter--you shall--ugh--you shall render a strict
accow-ow-oh-im-m-m!'
The sound was smothered under his compressed lips, his face wrung itself
again crimson with a hideous squeeze, and Puddock thought the moment of
his dissolution was come, and almost wished it over.
'Don't try to speak--pray, Sir, don't--there--there, now,' urged
Puddock, distractedly; but the injunction was unnecessary.
'Mr. Nutter,' said his second sulkily, 'I don't see anything to satisfy
your outraged honour in the curious spectacle of that gentleman sitting
on the ground making faces; we came here not to trifle, but, as I
conceive, to dispatch business, Sir.'
'To dispatch that unfortunate gentleman, you mean, and that seems pretty
well done to your hand,' said little Dr. Toole, bustling up from the
coach where his instruments, lint, and plasters were deposited. 'What's
it all, eh?--oh, Dr. _Sturk's_ been with him, eh? Oh, ho, ho, ho!' and
he laughed sarcastically, in an undertone, and shrugged, as he stooped
down and took O'Flaherty's pulse in his fingers and thumb.
'I tell you what, Mr. a--a--a--Sir,' said Nutter, with a very dangerous
look; 'I have had the honour of knowing Lieutenant Puddock since August,
1756; I won't hurt him, for I like and respect him; but, if fight I
must, I'll fight _you_, Sir!'
'Since August, 1756?' repeated Mr. Mahony, with prompt surprise. 'Pooh!
why didn't you mention that before? Why, Sir, he's an old friend, and
you _could_ not pleasantly ask him to volunteer to bare his waypon
against the boosom of his friend. No, Sir, shivalry is the handmaid of
Christian charity, and honour walks hand in hand with the human heart!'
With this noble sentiment he bowed and shook Nutter's cold, hard hand,
and then Puddock's plump little white paw.
You are not to suppose that Pat Mahoney, of Muckafubble, was a poltroon;
on the contrary, he had fought several shocking duels, and displayed a
remarkable amount of savagery and coolness; but having made a character,
he was satisfied therewith. They may talk of fighting for the fun of it,
liking it, delighting in it; don't believe a word of it. We all hate it,
and the hero is only he who hates it least.'
'Ugh, I can't stand it any longer; take me out of this, some of you,'
said O'Flaherty, wiping the damp from his red face. 'I don't think
there's ten minutes' life in me.'
'_De profundis conclamavi_,' murmured fat father Roach; 'lean upon me,
Sir.'
'And me,' said little Toole.
'For the benefit of your poor soul, my honey, just say you forgive Mr.
Nutter before you leave the field,' said the priest quite sincerely.
'Anything at all, Father Roach,' replied the sufferer; 'only don't
bother me.'
'You forgive him then, aroon?' said the priest.
'Och, bother! forgive him, to be sure I do. _That's_ supposin', mind, I
don't recover; but if I _do_----.'
'Och, pacible, pacible, my son,' said Father Roach, patting his arm, and
soothing him with his voice. It was the phrase he used to address to his
nag, Brian O'Lynn, when Brian had too much oats, and was disagreeably
playful. 'Nansinse, now, can't you be pacible--pacible my son--there
now, pacible, pacible.'
Upon his two supporters, and followed by his little second, this
towering sufferer was helped, and tumbled into the coach, into which
Puddock, Toole, and the priest, who was curious to see O'Flaherty's last
moments, all followed; and they drove at a wild canter--for the coachman
was 'hearty'--over the green grass, and toward Chapelizod, though Toole
broke the check-string without producing any effect, down the hill,
quite frightfully, and were all within an ace of being capsized. But
ultimately they reached, in various states of mind, but safely enough,
O'Flaherty's lodgings.
Here the gigantic invalid, who had suffered another paroxysm on the way,
was slowly assisted to the ground by his awestruck and curious friends,
and entered the house with a groan, and roared for Judy Carroll with a
curse, and invoked Jerome, the _cokang modate_, with horrible
vociferation. And as among the hushed exhortations of the good priest,
Toole and Puddock, he mounted the stairs, he took occasion over the
banister, in stentorian tones, to proclaim to the household his own
awful situation, and the imminent approach of the moment of his
dissolution.