Trade Malice: a personal narrative; and the Wandering Heir: a matter of fact romance

Front matter

THE WANDEBING HEIB TRADE MALICE: A PERSONAL NARRATIVE; AND THE WANDERING HEIR: A MATTER OF FACT ROMANCE. BY CHARLES READE. AU rights reserved. LONDON: SAMUEL FRENCH, 89, STRAND. 1875. LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 6TAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. fl Imitate THESE TWO NARRATIVES TO MT FRIEND, M. E. BRADDON, AS A SLI«HT MARK OF RESPECT FOR HER PRIVATE VIRTUES AND PUBLIC TALENTS. Just published, price One Shilling. A HERO, AND A MARTYR. A TRUE AND ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF THE HEROIC FEATS AND SAD CALAMITY OF JAMES LAMBEKT, A LIVING MAN. BY CHARLES READE. LONDON: SAMUEL FRENCH, 89, STRAND. IgSf Donatio9is to the Lambert Fund received by Messrs. Herries & Co., St. James's Street, and by Charles Reade, 2, Albert Terrace, Knighlsbridge. NO PLAYS EXCHANGED. INTERNATIONAL DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF PLAYS AND DRAMATIC WOBKS.

CONTENTS. AMATEUR DRAMAS. CHARADE DRAMAS. COMIC DRAMAS. COSTUMES, MALE. COSTUMES, FEMALE. COSTUME BOOKS. GUIDE BOOKS. HOME PLAYS FOR LADIES. KEAN'S EDITION. LACY'S EDITION. LACY'S HOME PLAYS. LORD LYTTON'S PLAYS. CUMBERLAND'S EDITION. DARKEY DRAMAS. MRS. JARLEY'S WAX WORKS. MUSIC TO. LOAN. DRAMAS FOR BOYS. DRAMATIC WORKS. ELOCUTION. MUSIC FOR SALE. PARLOUR PANTOMIMES. RECITERS AND SPEAKERS. SCARCE PLAYS. ENGLISH OPERAS. ENGRAVINGS. SENSATION DRAMAS. TEMPERANCE PLAYS. ETHIOPIAN DRAMAS. FAIRY PLAYS. VOCAL MUSIC OF SHAKE- FRENCH'S EDITION. SPEARE'S PLAYS. Copies of anything in this Catalogue sent Free of Postage in Great Britain on Receipt of Price. FOREIGN POSTAGE MUST BE ADDED. In ordering and remitting by Mail, always send Post Office Orders, if possible. LONDON: SAMUEL FEENCH, PUBLISHER, 89, STRAND.

Payment MUST accompany each Order. t$gp Catalogues Free on Application. FANCY DRESS COSTUME BOOKS. LACY'S COSTUMES, DRAMATIC AND HISTORICAL MALE AND FEMALE. Each in Thirty -four Parts of Six Plates each, beautifully coloured, 3s. per. Part ; or Is. plain. Complete in Two Vols., handsomely bound in red, £5 5s. each ; plain, 30s. " Lacy's invaluable Books on Costume give full particulars of every variety of Dramatic and Historical Costume from the period of the ancient Briton to the present day." — Court Journal. LONDON: SAMUEL FRENCH, PUBLISHER; 'f 89, STRAND. ' The Wandering Heir ' was first published and registered as a drama, 18th December, 1872, to binder dramatic pirates from stealing tbe subject in tbe theatres. A few days later it appeared, as a story, occupying the whole Christmas number of the Graphic.

Chapter I

One raw windy day, in the spring of 1726, there was a strange buzzing by the side of a public road in the very heart of old Ireland. It came from a great many boys, seated by the roadside, plying their books and slates, with here and there a neighbourly prod, followed by invectives, whispered — for the pedagogue was marching up and down the line with a keen eye, and an immensely long black ruler well known to the backs and limbs of the scholars, except three, or four, whose fathers asked him to dine on poultry, or butcher's meat, whenever those rarities were at the fire. The school-room stood opposite, and still belched through its one window the peat-smoke that had driven out the F HEIR. hive. There was a chimney ; but so con structed, that, on a windy day, the smoke pooh poohed it, and sought tbe sky by vents more congenial to the habits of the nation.

The boys were mostly farmers' sons, in long freize coats, breeches loose at the knee, clouted shoes tied with strips of raw neat-skin, and slovenly caubeens ; but there was a sprinkling of broad-cloth, plain three-cornered hats, and shoe-buckles ; there were also five or six bare footed urchins, not the worst scholars there ; for this strange anomalous people, with many traits of the pure savage, had been leaders in mediæval literature, had founded the University of Paris, and had still a noble reverence for learning ; the humblest would struggle to pay a sharp boy's schooling, and so qualify him for business, perles for the priesthood itself, pin nacle of an Irish peasant's ambition. Aloof from this motley line stood a single, timid figure ; a boy with delicate skin, and exquisite golden hair ; his face pale, and anxious.

He wore a straight-cut coat, scarlet once, but now a rusty red, no hat, shoes with steel buckles — and holes. This decayed little gentleman peered anxiously round a corner of the building, and, as soon as ever the school broke up with horrid yells, ran and hid himself. Too late ; one quick young eye had seen him ; and, while the rest dispersed, — two or three galloping off on rough ponies, neck or nought, in a style to set their unfortunate mothers screaming to the Saints, — a little party of five, eager for diversion on the spot where they had suffered study, chased the golden-haired boy, with an appalling whoop. Fear gave him wings ; but numbers prevailed ; they caught him, and plagued him sore ; jibed him, poked him, pinched him, got him by the head and legs, and flogged a tree with him, and, in the exuberance of their gay hearts, pumped on his head till he gasped, and cried for mercy — in vain.

" That is foul play — five to one," said a cheerful voice — crick, crack, crick, crack, crack — and in a moment Master Matthews, one of the superior scholars, made all five heads ring with a light shillelah, but not a grain of malice ; only he was a promising young cudgel player, and must be diverted as well as the younger ones. The obstreperous mirth turned, with ludicrous swiftness, to yells of dismay. But the warlike spirit of the O'Tooles and F the O'Shausrhnessvs soon revived : battle was quickly arrayed with traditionary skill ; here a crescent of five, armed with stones, there Master Matthews, with a tree at his back, the lid of a slop-pail for shield, ancl a shillelah for sword, grinding his teeth, and looking dangerous, the fair-haired boy clasping his hands apart. Mr. Hoolaghan, and his servant man ran out staring.

" Och, ye disperadoes ! ye murtherin villins ; what is this at all ?" cried Mr." Hoolaghan. Then each side set to work to talk him over. " Master avick," whined the army, " he broke our heads, and kilt us with his murtherin shillelah, the maraudin' villin, intirely." ■ " Master dear, they were five to one, tormint ing the life out of this little boccawn. Why didn't ye catch up a flint and crack their skulls like nuts at Hallowe'en ?" " Och ! hear to the fungaleering ruffin ! " And five hands were lifted high in a moment, each armed with a pebble. Then the Pedagogue grew warm, and gave them what he called his " tall English." " The first that rises a hand I'll poolverize um. Lay down your bellicose weapons, ye insurrectionary thaves, or Norah shall perforate ye — bring the spit out, wench — and transfix ye to the primises, while I flagellate ye by dozens, till the blood pours down yer heels ; lay down yer sprig of homicide, and stand on it this minit, ye vaga bone, or I'll baste you with the kitchen poker, till your back is coorant jelly and your head is a mashed turnup."

Mrs. Malaprop observed in the next generation, that " there is nothing so conciliating to young people as a little severity," and so it proved even in this : the weapons were laid down ; and then Matthew Hoolaghan, changing at once to the most affectionate and dulcet tones, said, " Now, honeys, we'll discoorse the matter, not like the barbarian voolgar, that can only ratiocinate with a bludgeon, but like good Chrischins and rale Piripatetic philosophers that I have in sensed in polite larning, multiplication, aud all the humanities, glory be to God. Spake first, ye omadhaun, ye causa titirrima belly ; and re vale your crime." " Masther, sir," said the victim, " I never done no crime. They do be always torminting me. I never offinded them. Spake the truth now ; did iver I offind you ?" " Sowl, ye did then.

Masther, dear, look at um : he's got a Protestant face." " Oh, fie ! my father is a good Catholic ; isn't he then, sir ?" The Pedagogue took fright at this turn. " Och, murther ! murther !" he shrieked, " ye conthiairy divils, wonld ye import the apple o' discord, an' set my two parishes cracking skulls, and starving me ? Would ye conflagrate the Timple of the Muses with ojum Theologicum ? The first that divairges to controvarsial polimics in this Acadimy, I'll go to my brother the Priest, and have him exkimminicated alive. Face ! it is a likely face enough, I'm thinkin'." " It's the pursiest in the school, ony way," said Norah — the argument having now come within her scope — " and a dale the clanest." Whereupon, one of these ready imps reminded her it was the oftenest pumped on. Said another, " He shouldn't pretind to be a Lord's son then, the little glorigoteen."

" But I am a Lord's son," said the boy, stoutly. Then there was a roar of derision. But the boy persisted that he was Lord Altham's son, and half the county of Wexford belonged to his father. Both sides appealed to the THE WANDERING HEIB. 7 master; but he only said " Hum !" So Norah put in her word, and said the boy had been brought there by a great lord, in a coach and six ; and the lord had kissed him tenderly, and called him his darling Jemmy, in her sight and hearing. Mr. Hoolaghan admitted all that, but said, " If he was my Lord's real son, would my Lord leave his board, lodging, and schooling, unpaid, these fourteen months ?" " Divil a one of him !" replied an urchin, with the modest promptitude of his tribe. Jemmy was himself struck by this argument. " Alas, then," said he, " I fear he must be dead.

He was always good to me before. I was never away from him in all my life, till now. Norah, when we were at Kinna, I had a little horse, and boots, and rode with him a-hunting. I went to a day-school then, and mine was the only laced hat in the school. I brought it here." "Thrue for you, ma bouchal," said Norah, " and by the same token 'twas that thief o' the warld, Tim Doolan, that stripped it, and gave the lace to his cross-eyed wench, bloody end to the pair of 'em." " Oh ! master !" cried James all of a sudden, clasping his hands, " you that knows everything, tell me, is my father dead ? The only friend I have. Ochoon ! Ochoon !" " Nay, nay," said Hoolaghan, touched by this cry of despair, "Jemmy avick, if Lord Altham is your father, ye needn't cry, and wring your hands ; for he is alive, bad cess to him : my cousin seen him in Dublin a sennight ago, spinding money like wather, and divil a tin penny he paid me this fourteen months."

" Masther, sir," said Jemmy, firmly, " how far is it to Dublin, av ye plase ?" " A hundred miles and more." " Then I'll go to him there, sir. There was an ironical shout. " Give me one good male to start on, and I'll go ; for I'm a lost boy here ; and I'm ashamed to be in this place, an' him not paying for me, like the rest." Now this sudden resolution was quite agree able to Hoolaghan. Norah took the boy into the kitchen, to feed him for the journey. The cubs began to feel rather sorry ; for they were thoughtless, not bad-hearted ; they scraped to gether fourpence, for his journey. Norah gave him an old hat, and kisses, and a word of feminine advice. "Ma bouchal," said she, "wheniver you are in trouble, spake to the women ; they will be your best friends ; but keep clear of your own colour — not intirely — only brown women, and yellow women, is more prifirabler, by raison you are fair, like an angel herself."

The boys set him on his road a mile ; then stopped, and blessed him, and asked his for giveness, being, to tell the truth, now quaking in the shoes of superstition, lest he should put "the hard word," on them at parting, and him " a piece of an orphan," as the biggest remarked. But his nature was too gentle for that : he forgave them, and blessed them, and they all kissed him, and he kissed them, and they went their way, But Matthews would go another mile with him. At parting, he said, "'Tell me God's truth. Are ye that Lord's son?" " Indeed then I am, sir." " I wish I had known before. Let me look at thee well. I wonder whether I shall ever meet thee again, purty Jemmy." "Indeed and I hope so, sir; for you are all the friend I iver found in this place." " Jemmy, it seems hard, to make friends one afternoon, and then to part for ever," said the elder boy, philosophizing.

Jemmy's heart was swelling already ; and, at this, the lonely boy began to cry piteously. Then Matthews blubbered right out ; and so they cried together, and kissed one another many times, and James Annesley began his wanderings. He walked on till dusk, and saw a small farm : he -went by Norah's advice ; made up straight to the farmer's wife, and asked her leave to slee}} on the premises. She looked at him full before she answered ; gave him some potatoes and buttermilk, and let him sleep in a little barn. He walked on the next day, and fared much the same ; but, by the third day, he got footsore, and could only limp along ; but he persevered : he sometimes got a lift in a cart, and sometimes, when a farmer's wife, or daughter, on horseback, overtook him, he would appeal to her, especially if she was dark ; and, true it was, the dark women, of whom were plenty in Ireland, would generally take him up and give him a ride before, or behind, as might be most convenient.

Still creeping on, he got into a county where the people had faces unlike those he had left behind, and both men and women wore long frieze cloaks, and the women linen head-dresses, and sometimes a handkerchief over that : and he limped into a village where was a sort of fair ; but he had no money left to spend, and he sat down on the shaft of a cart, disconsolate, and, seeing others so merry, began to weep with fatigue, hunger, and sorrow. By-and-by a man saw him, and asked him what ailed him : and he told his sad case. " Nay, then, sir," said the man, "you must come to The O'Brien." He took him to a little old man, exceedingly shabby, on a little white horse ; he doffed his caubeen, and said, '* An it plase your honour's worship, this is a gintleman's son in throuble ; he's hunting his own father — glory be to God."

"Who is your father, friend?" asked The O'Brien. " An please your worship, he is my Lord Altham." The O'Brien made a wry face. " That is not Oirish," said he. " Some mushroom Lord ; may be one of William's men." " Nay, Sir : he is a good Catholic. ' Glory be to Hiven.' " By this time there was a bit of a crowd collected, to hear : but the dialogue was inter rupted by a simple fellow, who had lost his wife ; he burst in wildly, crying, u Arrah, people, people, did ye see Mary Sullivan, a tall woman, a tall yellow woman, not very yellow intirely, with a white pipe in her cheek?" They roared at him; but he just rushed on, repeating that strange formula. The fair rang with it. But the little old scarecrow, descended from Ireland's Kings, smiled, superior, and took Jemmy home on his saddle bow.

Caubeens were lifted in the village, wherever this decayed noble passed. He told the boy the whole county belonged to him and his ancestors, and he should sup and sleep where he liked. Finally, he showed him a large mansion, and a cabin, not far apart ; let him know that these houses were his ; only various families had lived in the mansion for the last few centuries. " Now, sir," said he, " will you slape in my large house, where other people live this five hundred years, by my lave, or in my small house where I live — at present — for my convaynience ?" Says Jemmy, "Sir, the small house, if it please you ; by reason I desire your company, as well as your house." The mighty scarecrow was pleased with this answer, and took him to his mud cabin. He sent his one servant, a bare-legged girl, to demand a rasher from a neighbouring farmer.

No doubt she said The O'Brien had company ; for eggs and perch were sent directly, as well as a large piece of bacon. The two personages supped together, and slept on a heap of straw. In the morning, one peasant brought butter milk, and another trout, and another oatmeal, and another a vehicle, the body of which was a square box, suspended on a trap : and The O'Brien's guest was taken five miles on his road, and his blessing sought by his conductor, a simple peasant, who discoursed on the grandeur of The O'Brien, and boasted that neither he nor his race had ever done a hand's turn of work — and would never be allowed to — in the country. James limped out of that county into another, and met with no adventure, till he came to Dunnyshallan, and was turned into a dice-box. The young men of the village had cut a gigantic backgammon board on the green, very neat : it occupied the sixth part of an acre ; and they had black and white flag-stones to play with.

Their dice-box was always a boy ; and, catching sight of James, one sang out, " Hurrooh ! here's a strange gossoon. We'll have luck all round." * So James was seated on high, with his back to the players, and ordered, on pain of death, to sing out sixes, fours, quatre-ace, and all the combinations ad libitum. He complied, to avoid worse ; and then it was he learned the literature of curses; in which this one small island was so fertile and ingenious, that all the blasphemy in the rest of Europe was poor and monotonous by comparison. The infinite maledictions would doubtless have instructed and amused him, had they been levelled at another ; but, being fired at him whenever he called a number that did not suit the player, and uttered with every appearance of fury, they frightened him, and he began to tremble and snivel.

"Now thin, ye vagabone, give me a good number, or may St. Anthony's sow trample out your intrails." "Oh! oh! oh! Sixes." " Sixes ! ye conthrary villin ! Is it sixes I'm asking ? The divil go a buck-hunting with ye up and down (the hunting ground was distinctly specified). "Oh! oh! oh!" " Never heed the bally-ragging ruffin. Cry for me now, honey." " Oh ! I'm afraid. Deuce-ace." " Och, ye're a broth of a boy. May ye live till the skirts of your coat knock your brains out ! Now cry for Barney." " Oh ! I am afraid to spake. The Virgin be good to me. Deuce-ace." " Och, ye thafe o' the world. May you die with a caper in your heel, and give the crows a puddin'." And so on till dark, when a losing player threatened to murther the dice : a winner objected : the two quarreled : shillelahs crossed ; a ring was made ; and there was much subtle play, and the whistling cudgels parried, or met with a clash, and bent over each other ; till at last Jemmy's friend parried an excessive blow, and, rising nimbly, delivered such a crasher on the other's skull, that it literally shot him to the ground like a bullet, and he rolled over, by the impetus, after he landed.

Then Jemmy screamed with dismay ; but the more experienced laughed at his notion of what the true old Irish skull would bear, and the victor took him home to supper, and bed, i.e., stirabout and straw. He came to a fall in a river, eight feet high, and saw salmon glittering prismatic in the sun, like rainbows, as they leaped ; but they struck the descending column a foot too low, struggled in it a moment, then came down as stupid as tin fish : and here he saw a sight he might have travelled creation and never seen elsewhere — a corpse-like man lying flat in a coffin, and towed gingerly up to the fall by his bare-armed wife straddling on a rock ; the man caught the salmon on the ground, one after the other, by the belly, with a cart rope and three barbed hooks that would have landed a whale. 'Twas his own coffin ordered by bis uneasy wife, with true Hibernian judgment, the moment he was expected to die.

But the salmon came up from the sea, and began to leap like mad. Pat put off dying directly, and took to poaching. We are creatures of habit, and salmon-slaughtering was his custom at that time of year, not dying. The woman being dark — partly with dirt — James asked her for a fish supper. She boiled him half a salmon, and threw the rest to the pig; but she told James that in the big towns there were fools who would give 4s. a hundred-weight for the trash. Within fifteen miles of the capital he witnessed two abductions, one real, one sham ; both commonish customs. The imitation was the lineal descendant of the real, and the men halloed and galloped so much alike in both pageants, and the two brides screamed so much alike, that he never knew for certain which was the pseudo-Sabine, which the real, — and never will.

His feet were bleeding ; his clothes only just hung together ; his little heart was faint ; when at last he mounted a hill, and looked down on Dublin, which, by its buildings, its size, and its blue-slated roofs, far transcended all that he had ever imagined of a mortal city. The town did not then overflow into pretty villas. Mud cabins prevailed up to the city gates, and from them this weary, wondering child plunged into streets and mansions. At the very first street he stopped, and asked a decent man where Lord Altham lived. The decent nfen met this question by another : " How was he to know ? " The same answer was returned in the next street, and the next; and this poor little mite of humanity wandered up and down in vain. Then a great G and new fear fell on him : this Dublin was not a town like Ross ; it was another world ; a world of stone and slate, and hard hearts, not like the simple country folk.

He might as well grope for his father in all Ireland as in this wilderness of labyrinths of stone. Snubbed, sneered at, rejected on all sides, he cried his sick heart and his hungry stomach to sleep in a church porch ; and so he passed his first night in the capital. Day after day the same, till at last he found a dark woman, a gentleman's cook, who listened to his tale, and gave him some broken victuals. She was an Englishwoman ; her name was Martha. One day Jemmy came for his dinner, as usual, but was disappointed. Kathleen, the kitchen-maid, informed him, with a marked elevation of the nose, that Madam had gone out for the day, and locked up the safe, like a mane, miserly Sassenach as she was, bad cess to her ancl all her dhirty breed; but she'd be back again by five. Hungry Ulemmy attended faith fully at five, in spite of the rain, and great was his surprise and awe when two chairmen brouo-ht up a chair, and there emerged from it — a duchess?

No; but a fair imitation thereof; Mrs. Martha, with her income on her back, and two little black patches on her cheeks. She smiled at his adoration, paid the chairmen loftily, who retired with expressions of adula tion, and sly satirical looks at each other, and she took James by the hand, and led him to her sanctum. " Sir," said she, instead of " child," or " my dear," as heretofore, " I have been visiting my friends ; and, from one to another, I have found ye my Lord Altham ; as luck would have it, a countrywoman of mine, one Elizabeth Grainger, she lives in the house : but she tells me she shall give her notice."—" Oh Madam ! dear good Madam !" began Jemmy — "Nay, Sir," said she, "but you must hear me out. I'm afeard you will not be so welcome as you ought to be. You are a sensible little gentleman as e'er I saw ; so I'll e'en tell you the truth ; Mrs. Betty did let me know my Lord is in ill hands ; this dame Gregory and her daughter have got him ; the old woman goes about her own house like a servant ; but Miss. site is mistress, and games with the quality, and spends money like dirt : they are betrothed to each other, and his wife lying sick in the town, on her way back to England.

Poor soul, she G rues the day she ever saw this hole of a country, I'll go bail. They look for her to die — for their convenience. Well, if I was her, I'd spite 'em ; I'd play the woman, and outlive the brute and the hussy both, saving your presence." " Oh Madam, an' if it please you, where does my father live ?" " 'Tis in Frapper Lane, the corner house. What, will you be going, and no supper ? Nay then, God speed you. Give me a kiss, sweetheart. So. Your breath is honey. Sir," said she, curtseying to him, all of a sudden, " I do wish you well. When you come into your estate, Sir, prithee remember Martha Knatchbull, that took your part when fortune frowned." u Ay, that I will, good, kind lady," said James, still overpowered by her glorious costume ; and so he shuffled off, limping fast, and, in the hunger of his longing heart, forgot his hungry belly for a time.

To give the reader some idea of the house he was going to, I will sketch the domestic per formances from nine a.m. on the previous evening. Lord Altham and friends had a drinking bout, at the end of which he was assisted to bed, and his friends sent home in ■11 chairs. But the ladies did not drink ; they gamed their lives away. Mistress Anne Gre gory received Lady Dace and Mistress Car michael, and other ladies gloriously dressed, and, at first starting, most polite and ceremonious ; they drank tea, and soon warmed into scandal — each accusing some other lady of her own especial vice — till at last they got upon politics. Inflamed by this topic, they soon boiled over : voices rose over voices ; not a single tongue was mute a moment ; and such was the Babel, that, at last, the fat, lazy lap-dog wriggled himself erect, and looked furiously at the disturbers of his peace.

Then a Neptune arose to still the raging voices ; in other words, Mrs. Betty set out the card tables. Down they sat, and soon their eyes were gleaming, and their flesh trembling with excitement. Mistress Anne Gregory held bad cards ; she had to pawn ring after ring — for these ladies, being well acquainted with each other, never played on parole — and she kept bemoaning her bad luck. " Betty, I knew how 'twould be. The parson called to-day — This odious chair, why will you stick me in it ? Stand further, girl. I always lose when you look on." Mrs. Betty tossed her head, aud went behind another lady. Miss Gregory still lost, and had to pawn her snuff box to Lady Dace. She consoled herself by an insinuation. " My lady, you touched your wedding ring ; that was a sign to your partner here." " Nay, Madam, 'twas but a sign my finger itched.

But, if you go to that, you spoke a word began with H. Then she knew you had the king of hearts." " That is like Miss here," said another matron ; " she rubs her chair when she hath Matadore in hand." " Set a thief to catch a thief, Madam," was Miss's ingenious and polished reply. " Hey-dey !" cries one. " Here's Spadillo got a mark on the back ; a child might know it in the dark. Mistress Pigot, I wish you'd be pleased to pare your nails." In short, they said things to each other all night, the slightest of which, among men, would have filled the Phœnix Park next morning with drawn swords j but it went for little here ; they were all cheats, and knew it, and knew the others knew it ; and didn't care. It was four o'clock before they broke up, huddled on their cloaks and hoods, and their chairs took them home with cold feet and aching heads.