The Adventures of Doctor Brady ... Reprinted from Tinsleys' Magazine

Front matter

THE ADVENTURES OF DOCTOR BRADY. VOL. THE ADVENTURES OF DOCTOR BEADY. BV WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL, AUTHOR OF " LETTERS FROM THE CRIMEA," " MT MART IN INDIA," "MT DIART NORTH AND SOUTH," ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. H. EEPEINTED FH03I TINSLEYS' .MAGAZINE. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND, 1868. [All rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved^ SAVILI,, EDWABDS i^S^eftr, STEEET, tqtf^MB CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. PAGE I. HOW I BEGIN TO FIND I AM .MISTAKEN ... 1 II. TWO ESSAYS TO BEGIN LIFE 21 III. HOW I BECAME DR. BRADY 40 IV. LIFE IN COLLEGE 63 Y. A VISITOR AND A MYSTERY 79 VI. THE COLONEL'S REVELATIONS 90 VII. AN ORGIE AND ITS ENDING 102 VIII. A night's WORK Ill IX. THE DUEL 125 X. THE OUTLAW 14C XI. THE "DOCTOR'S" DEBUT 1G5 XII. COUNTRY QUARTERS 179 XIII. THE RANEE OF AURIFORE 190 XIV. WELCOME TO KILMOYLE 210 XV. THE CASTLE DINNER 2o2 XVI. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW 270 XVII. THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM DOCTOR BRADY.

Chapter I. How

1 BEGIN TO FIND I AU MISTAKEN. " And so you slept well ?" exclaimed Standish, as we sat at breakfast ; " I am glad to hear it ; and I kept you company; but I was half inclined to wake you up to punish your disobedience, when I saw you had taken my sofa, and did not go to bed as I ordered you. Look; just twelve o'clock ! We were both tired — Another slice of tongue ? No. Mrs. Chandler, you may clear away, and then go over and ask Mr. Chick to step across here. I'll smoke a pipe whilst you tell me your plans — if you like, that is — and we'll see if I can be of any use to you. I have nothing to do till five o'clock, when I must go to Hall, VOL. II. to add a dinner more to my legal qualifications for the outer bar. There is ' no house' to-night, and I vote we go to some place to spend the evening, when you get some clothes to appear in."

" There is a great difficulty about telling you my plans, Mr. Standish, because I have none." " Then we must form some. A man or a boy without a plan for the day or the year before him is like a ship without a rudder : it's odds if he ever reaches any port. He veers about on the ocean of life, goes down at last in a storm, or is lost on some rugged coast. Why did you come to London ? You must have come for some pur pose ?" " Why, the truth is, I got weary of Sweatenham. I was always in fights — the fellows laughed at me so. I did not like to weary my guardian with complaints, and I thought I would just bolt away and see if I could not do something for myself.." " Ah ! doing something for one's self. That is a fatal phrase when it means nothing — or nothing definite. Now look at me : I am as friendless a poor devil as ever lived.

My father was ruined when I was a child, and died soon after my mother who could not bear to witness his poverty. I was brought up at my grandfather's in Scotland. He was a kindly Scot enough ; but he hated my father. His own mother was Irish, but he never could quite forgive his daughter for marrying one of the country. When he died, we discovered he had, with all his Scottish caution, been living on the interest of a large sum he supposed to be invested securely ; whilst the rascally writer had been wast ing it in speculations, and merely paid him the imaginary dividends. There was I at seventeen dependent on a poor old lady with grand notions and habits, and three aunts who had done their best to spoil me. There was just enough for them to starve on in decency, and of course I had to look out for myself.

I was near enlisting ; but one morning I saw a fellow through the palings of the barrack outside the town where we lived getting a flogging. I thought with horror of a life spent with such men as I saw swarming about the lowest public-houses in the lowest streets of the city. I turned from the ■ army. Then I was too big to enter the navy even if I had had any one with interest to get me into the service. And the merchant sailors I saw did not give me the idea that they would be nice companions for life either. Am I boring you ?" 1—2 " Oh no, Mr. Standish, indeed you are not ! Pray go on." I was listening, indeed, with the greatest interest, for here I was face to face with a man who had something to tell by which I might shape my course. " Well, I was pretty well up in classics, mathe matics, and that sort of thing.

I got a situation as a tutor in a family. You stare? It was pleasant enough ; but, Linfortunately, one fine day little Miss Well, there's no use in mentioning names — came home from her finishing-school : a sentimental, foolish young person, with soft eyes, and long ringlets, and a silly smile. 'Gad ! how that girl persecuted me with her blushes ! And her drooping eyelids ! And her sighs ! And her little ambuscades — running out of one room or the other as I was on the landing or on the stairs ! To make my story short, I had to leave a comfortable sort of house and nice people, for the little goose wanted to run away with me — Just imagine, she sixteen and I a year older ! — vowed she would die if I didn't. But she's married and has two chddren now. She cut me dead at the opera the other night as I was unconsciously staring up from the pit into her box.

Well, I got a place in a school " " As a master, Mr. Standish ?" " Yes, to be sure " I thought of Mr. Cuffe, poor Mons. Le Bœuf, Snell, and all the other helpless sufferers who were bulbed, plotted against, and evil entreated day and night by the crafty little conspirators, on whom they took mean vengeance when fortune favoured them. " Wasn't it a miserable life, sir?" " It was not quite the most enjoyable existence in the world, but I made up my mind to do my duty, with God's help. I resolved from the very first to go to the bar, for I had an instinct which told me there were the makings of a lawyer here (he touched his bold open brow with his finger). Hang me if the head-master's daughter didn't take to worry me ! She used to bother me with bouquets and idiotic verses ; and Mrs. Syntax aided and abetted her.

Among my father's devices for playing the deuce with himself was the famous one of establishing a claim to a dormant title — an Irish peerage, Standish of Turvey. My grandfather used to get furious at the notion. ' An' if ye geet it, what the de'il wad ye do wi' it ? To be a peer without ony policies is bad enoo' ; but to be an Airish laird without a saxpence ! The man's a dreevelin' luuatick !' I had a whole lot of papers of my father's, and old law books with the Turvey coronet on them, and Lord knows what else which he had inherited. So Missie got it into her head that I was a young lord in disguise, dying for love of her, though too modest to avow it. I was fairly obliged to fly again. It's too ridiculous, isn't it ? You think I'm a vain fellow telling you all this ! Eh ? Well, then, I came to London ; I gave lessons in everything I knew, and took lessons in shorthand and all sorts of things I thought would be of use to me.

I toiled night and day — I wrote in magazines — till I scraped up money enough to enter my name at the Temple. I shall be called this year please God, and I have an engagement as reporter on The Hercules, which gives me bread and butter, and enables me to dis pense with ' grinding' or tutoring. All this time I was helping the poor old women. They are living in a small village in France for economy sake; and they send me over wonderful nightcaps and slippers and smoking-caps, which I have to pay tremendous freights upon, so that I could fit out a college. There's my case. There is only one drawback to it. I am horribly in love ; and my folly will culminate in the gigantic delicious mistake I am going to make, as soon as I am called, of marrying the sweetest, loveliest girl who never had a penny.

But I do not despair even then. Well, what do you think of that ?" There was a frankness about the young man which was irresistible. I was about to open my lips and my heart to him, when the mysterious person styled " Mrs. Chandler," who looked bke a bundle of old clothes on a crooked stick covered by a bonnet, announced "Dr. Chick." A shabby young man, with a very strong smell of tobacco radiating from him even through the fumes of Standish's pipe, presented himself, and listened to the explanation of my case with immense gravity. Dr. Chick first examined my hand and my knee, and dressed the cuts and abrasions which were healing fast. Then he put his hands on his knees, and looking intently into my face, inquired, "And what are you going to ask? What's your figure ?" " I don't understand you, sir." " What do you expect ?

I can prove a good deal of injury if your governor is obliged to go into court. If I was you, I wouldn't stir out till it tame to trial. I could swear you kept your room. And who knows — with proper treatment there might be erysipelas ! Oh dear me, such damages as you may have ! Quite a lucky young fellow, 'pon my word ! Ah ! I never light on such chances, though I go in excursion trains at Easter and Whitsun, to the seaside and back, and take six hours of the briny, for half-a-crown, as if the most of them that go hadn't more appetite than they knew what to do with." Dr. Chick took his departure after a whispered interview with my host. " Well," quoth Standish, with his pipe still in full power — " well ? And so you were going to tell me " I told him all I could bear to tell ; my grand father's death, poverty at home, my troubles and contentions at school and at college, my longing to see the world and retrieve our fortunes.

"And suppose, now, we find out Sir Richard Desmond for you, what will you get him to do ?" he asked, rather severely, when I had finished my story. " You have run off from your college because you couldn't stand a little chaff, and you have evaded a man who was kind to you in order to seek out one who doesn't care for you. Besides, instead of being so discontented, you ought to be one of the happiest fellows in the world. You have friends ; you have enough to prevent your starving ; you need not depend on any one — at least you can get a profession — do anything you please — And you go and sell your clothes and run off from college and distress that worthy Mt. Bates ! He will be hunting you all over London ; no doubt he came up by the next train, and will go to Sir Richard Desmond's if Maws has not given him my address."

" You do not understand me, Mr. Standish. It is because Mr. Bates is so kind I do not like troubling him. Sir Richard will not be at all put out by anything I do. Still, you are right ; I ought not to do anything to distress Mr. Bates. I will not either." Standish took down a " Court Guide." " { Desmond, Æneas, Colonel, Clarges-street, 10, Oriental Club.' Indian, I suppose. ' Desmond, John, Jermyn-street ; Desmond, Ralph, Albany, White's ; Desmond, Sir Richard, Bart. ; Miss Desmond, 207, Grosvenor-street.' There he is. I never knew there were so many Desmonds in London ; no one ever knows till one looks. We can call there. And we can send to Langley Station. And you must write there as well as to Dublin. I think you should send a few lines to old Moody at Sweatenham, whom you admit to have been a just sort of fellow.

Ay, and I would make it up by a letter to all the fellows you've quarrelled with, whom you don't think ill of. Write before we go out, and meantime I'll just see if I can't rig you out a little decently, for it wont do for you to make your bow to London society in that costume." He went out with a pleasant smile. I sat clown and tried to write, but my thoughts wandered far away. Standish told me I ought to be happy ! He did not know — how could he ? — what my heart yearned for. Far away in that little French village there were fond souls, who loved him tenderly, and whose prayers were for ever shielding him. Who cared for me? Mr. Bates was not of my kith and kin. He was very kind, but I could not love him. No ! Beyond the seas in that distant land Standish was back with a great bale borne by a porter.

" Here is all the outfitter's people could think of. Are your letters ready ? We can finish them afterwards. Now let us try on your toggery. Shirts ! We'll take half a dozen of them. That jacket is marvellous. Bravo ! They must have been made for you — hat, boots, and all. We'll get the old things done up. And now we'll go forth in all our glory and astonish London." London rather astonished me. If a straw as it is whirled along in a mill-race could reflect on its situation it probably would not feel much con cern. Why should it? What matter where it is going, at what speed, or with what companions ? What could it ever hope to be, mill-wheel or not, but a straw ? But man philosophizes about himself and his fellows as they are swept down in the flood. He wonders where all these people come from, and where and how they live, and where they are going in such a hurry, as he is borne in the struggling mass, which is such a subject of curiosity to each of its infinite atoms.

" Sir Richard Desmond is not in London," said the porter. " We expect him back to-morrow night, but Miss Desmond is in and her niece." " Has a gentleman named Bates been calling here lately, may I ask ?" " Bates?- — Mr. Bates, of Dublin ? Yes, here is a card he left early this morning." (He took one from a card-plate and read, " Mr. Bates, 23, Dominick Street.") " He's stopping at Fenton's. He saw the ladies and went away in a great hurry — is inquiring after a youngster who ran away from school — Master Brady — a ward of Sir Richard's. Perhaps you know something of him ?" I felt my cheeks reddening. All the time I was wondering, " What will Mary Butler say when she hears I have run off from school ?" I would have given anything to have had a chance of telling her my own tale. " If Mr. Bates calls again, pray show him this card.

Now we'll go to Fenton's." Mr. Bates had breakfasted, " gone out early." He had not been in since, and had left no message, except that he was going away that evening. We drove off to the Temple. Inside the letter box was a card of Mr. Bates' s, and below his address there was a pencilled inquiry, " Have you seen Mr. Brady ?" I was led about in a reverie from place to place by Standish, who sent off notes and left messages indefatigably, but my guardian was not to be found. Standish proposed to take me to an early dinner at a literary club of which he was a member, called " The Addison," and despatched a messenger to Fenton's with an invitation for Mr. Bates. " You will meet some strange fellows I dare say. But Mr. Bates, if he be the man I take him, would like the chance of meeting men most of whom have more brains than money."

The club met in a long, narrow, ill-lighted room, up a corkscrew staircase ; the walls were covered with panels, each of which belonged to a member, who followed his taste and fancy in the subject and decorations. Some were filled by screens covered with scraps; others contained portraits or land scapes ; others coats of arms and bits of diablerie, well or ill drawn and coloured. Amongst these panels one riveted my eye — it was a light sketchy oil painting of a woman in a gorgeous Oriental dress, seated in a divan, with a long pipe in her mouth, lazily puffing out a little nebula of smoke, and surrounded by fruits in vases, and piles of shawls, and gold and silver vessels. "Do you think it good?" asked Standish. "That's Joliffe's panel. He's a Yankee painter — a very good fellow ; but he pulls the bow like a Parthian."

" It is very like some one I know — that is," I stammered, " a picture of some one I have seen. Pray ask who it is." " Joliffe, my young friend wants to know who your Eastern beauty is. He is much struck by a resemblance to some one he fancies he knows. It has just been put up, I was telling him." " Ah ! she was something like, I can tell you, my Mahometan Princess. That is only a copy of my picture made for a great Indian friend of mine, for which he gave me a lakh of rupees. It's like, though it has not the fire of the original. Poor Mohtee !" " Is the lady dead, then, sir ?" " Not that I know of. But the Nawab was an awful jealous wretch, and he'd just as soon have chopped her up as look at her. Led her a horrid life at times, though she really governed the place for him." " And who was she, may I ask ?"

" A Circassian, I think. But there's no saying. After the Nawab saw her smiling at me, I only was let take peeps just to complete my sketch for the picture." "And where did you see her, sir, and how long ago ?" " Why, in the Nawab's palace, at Pergunnah pore, to be sure, last year — no ; it's two years ago now nearly." " You are absolutely eating nothing !" said Standish, as we sat at dinner. " You've lost your heart to that great fat singing girl, whom Joliffe gave a few rupees to for a sitting, and has dressed up with all those splendours out of the resources of his imagination." I suppose there were witty men at table, certainly there was much laughter; but I was busy staring and wondering at the likeness in the panel in the corner of the room, though there seemed to glare out from it a mocking, cruel, stony glance, in answer to my eager gaze.

One member of the club — a small weak man, whose head was so set on his rounded shoulders that it was, as it were, thrust out at you, at times fascinated me by the glitter of his eye and his weird features. It was a singular face ; the thick hair, pushed back from the forehead, fell in a manelike shock behind his ears ; his eyebrows, shaggy and full, were set over the eyes as clouds overlie the lightning, and when he spoke they were lifted somewhat, and the eyelid rose ; then the features gleamed on you, filled with a kind of radiance; the pupils were literally charged with fire ; the thin, curved, flexible lips opened ; the shaft, quick and dazzling as the electric flash itself, was launched — the thunder followed, and the face slept again. A waiter brought in a letter for Standish,. who opened it, and handed me a note from Mr. Bates.

" Fenton's, 7 p.m. "My dear Terence, — I must leave town to see Sir Richard Desmond at once, on urgent business. I enclose you some money till I return in a day or two, when we will decide what is best to be done, as you don't like Sweatenham. Why didn't you tell me ? I am very glad you escaped, and acted so well in that dreadful smash. Mr. Standish will, perhaps, be kind enough to get you lodgings, and I have ordered clothes, &c, to be sent to you. Should you need anything, go to Messrs. Protheroe and Clark, of 15, Bedford Place, and ask to see Mr. Clark, who knows all about you. Not a moment to spare. I have been after you all day, and am overwhelmed in business ; but I must say I do not think you acted well in leaving college without a warning word before hand to " Your affectionate guardian, " J. Bates."

"And so I'm to take care of you?" said Standish. " Mr. Bates is good enough to say Mr. Maws spoke of me in the highest terms. It looks like briefs to come in the Great North and South Junction Company. Let me see. What do you say if we go to the opera ? It must be the gallery, though, for you have no dress clothes." I was glad to escape from the Evil Eye. There was a great press of vehicles as we passed out of a narrow street, and our cab grated alongside a carriage in which sat an old lady with a peevish face, overlapping a companion in her swell ing drapery. " Mind where you are driving to, cabman," shouted the coachman. " Mind yerself, cauliflowerwig, and keep your own side," roared the cabman. There was a slight collision, our cab cannoned off the massive wheel of the family coach, and as the old lady turned I perceived it was Miss Desmond, in greater state than usual, and that she had been eclipsing none other than Mary Butler.

The coachman whipped his horses, and in another moment pulled ahead into a line of carriages, whilst our driver was brought to and engaged in a brisk dialogue with a number-taking policeman. "What a beautiful face!" exclaimed Standish. " Did you see her ?" VOL. II. " Yes, indeed I did. I know her, too. That was Miss Butler, Sir Richard Desmond's niece." " She is exquisite. How calm she was, keeping that old parrot beside her, who was chattering and fluttering all her feathers, in order. They are going to the opera, I suppose." We mounted up and up, and at length came to a region high above the amber glories of the boxes, fresh in their new silks and satins, just as the curtain was opening on the first scene of the opera of a new composer — one Giuseppe Verdi. Far down below me, after my eyes had become accustomed to the glare, I saw Mary Butler seated, half concealed by the curtains of her box, with her eyes fixed on the stage.

You may imagine what were the sensations of a raw Irish lad who is taken to the opera for the first time. I was in a trance, in which the senses were lapt in thrilling pleasure, unbroken save by the hateful fall of the curtain and the buzz of the people talking between the acts, and in some mysterious way Mary Butler was mingled with my •delight. What would I have cared for the opera had she not been there ? Suddenly she had vanished — the box was empty. " I saw the parrot peck at her and carry her off just now," observed Standish. " I could almost hear her sigh through my glass as she turned from the stage. The parrot was in great agitation, and your fair friend's colour changed as she spoke to her. She left her bouquet behind her. They went off in the deuce of a hurry." I was glad when it was over.

We were in a whirlpool of people at the foot of the box-staircase — flowing drapery, diamonds, pearls, white cravats, black coats. A knot of men were con versing together in the midst of the crowd. " What do you think of the opera, Mr. Skewer ?" asked Standish of one of them. " Opera ! — call that an opera ? Did you ever hear such screech-owl noises in your life ?" " Ruin any singer in the world ; no voice could stand it," screamed Mr. Kettle. " A mere trick of melody here and there — no music in it," growled Mr. Rizzio. " Choruses all in unison." " And so that's damned," quoth Mr. Standish, as we got out into the arcade. "These men are the great critics on whose fiat the doom of com posers depends — for the time, at all events." " I thought it very beautiful. What have you got there, Mr. Standish ?" 2—2 ADVENTURES OF DOCTOR BRADY.

" But you mustn't think so. It can't be anything if Skewer, Kettle, Rizzio, and the rest say it's not. That ? — oh, that's the bouquet the young lady left. I tipped a fellow to get it for me. Here it is, if you like it. And now we'll get some supper and go home to the Temple." I was almost afraid he was going back to " The Addison." I dreaded those staring eyes ; but Standish selected a quiet tavern, and as I crept upstairs after him to our elevated residence I took the opportunity of giving two or three kisses to the paper and leaves and flowers of the bouquet, which were only seen by the feeble gaslight on the landing.

Chapter II. Two Essays To Begin Life

Early next day I was at Grosvenor Street. The footman did not know exactly what had occurred ; but there was bad news from Sir Richard abroad. He had met with an accident, or something of the kind. Miss Desmond and Miss Butler had started by the first train for the Con tinent. Standish was out when the cab deposited me in Temple-lane. He had left a note to say he would return in the evening, and that meantime he had told Wilkins, the Head-Porter, whom I was to in quire for, to have a trusty man to go about with me and see the sights. I did not care for sights. It is wonderful how young people are bored to death about sights by persons who ought to know better. It is only when one has got accustomed to the greatest sight of all — the world itself, and the creatures in it — he begins to bestow a thought on the details.

Still I went about as I was told, at the tail of the crowds led by gabbling vergers. I felt how the most sacred shrines could be rendered common-place — how "The Abbey" would cease to command vene ration, and St. Paul's be turned into a showman's booth. Three days passed in London, and I saw all my sights. I sat in one of my old musings. It was evident Mr. Bates did not know what to do with me, and yet he was my best friend. Maurice Prendergast was a friend, perhaps, but he knew nothing of the world. Major Turnbull? — I could not tell where he was to be found. Jack Window ? I had searched for him in vain in the " Court Directory." Would it not be a good thing to decide before Mr. Bates returned ? I seized my hat and flew down stairs in an instant. When I swung about in the current of Fleet street, all the plans I had revolved in the Temple were resolved into one.

" I want you to drive me to where they recruit for the army, cabman !" The man looked at me. " You don't want it for yourself, is it ? A young geu'elmau like you must have done something before he'd go for a sojer." The cabman stopped at the corner of a narrow street, not far from which rose the towers of West minster. There were men dressed in different uniforms, with canes in their hands, cockades and streamers in their shakoes — sharp-eyed, eager looking fellows, with stripes on their arms, and ribands and medals on their breasts, loitering about the pavement at this corner. I had seen the recruiting party at Kilmoyle, when they took off young Dempsey, and Mat our pantry boy, and I knew well who the men with the gay ribands were. " Here's a job for you, sergeant !" said the cab man to the nearest ; " I brought him, and I hope you'll remember the bringing money."