The Falcon family, or, Young Ireland

Preface

Music to the ear of authorship is the call for " a new edition." The puhlic voice, that '•' deep and dreadful organ-pipe," has its silver tones; and this is one of the most silvery. For the demand in the present instance, the author is probably not a little indebted to the originals of his green men, who have so obligingly exerted themselves of late to realise his romance, and convince the world that they are quite as verdant as they were painted. It now appears that he understood Young Ireland earlier than Old Ireland did. " It is a wise father," to reverse the proverb, " that knows his own son." However, as Old Ireland is at length satisfied that the Tigernachs and Verdaunts were naughty boys from the beginning, who not only spoke pikes but proposed to use them, the triumphant representative of the elder party will now perhaps readily acknowledge, that what he rashly stigmatised as a " malignant libel on the people of Ireland," deserved to be described in very different terms. Fortunately for our Celtic youth, these are not the days when men are hanged for nonsense,

IV PREFACE.

either in prose or rhyme ; but there are minor penalties, known to the law, from which it is pleasing to think they have been saved, by a vigorous though tardy correction with the Liberator's moral shillelagh.

The cruelty consisted in suffering the lad to play his mischievous pranks so long. A tap of the cudgel long ago would have been equally effective, and far more merciful.

As to the fate of the beaten party, it would be hazardous to predict it, while such numerous paths are open to active absurdity and enterprising indiscretion. But it is to be hoped that there will be some Celtic Cincinnatus, at least, amongst them, who will retire from the Dictatorship of the Nation to some model farm in Tipperary or Limerick, there, waiting for greener days, to cultivate saffron, and plough by the tail.

OK,

YOUNG IRELAND.

CHAPTEE I.

" Most of the hawks and owls are averse to the trouble of constructing nests for themselves. Thus the brown falcons take possession of the old nests of magpies or squirrels, to which, so far as we can learn, they never add any fresh materials, nor take any pains to repair damages or render them tidy."

Rennie on Bird-Architecture.

THE FALCONS ON THE WING— CONSTEENATION OP MAEYLEBONE — A THREATENING LETTEE — THE EED EOYEE AND THE GIPSY — VISITATION OF THE BEV. DE. HOBAET — THE FBEEMAXS SUEBEN- DEE AT DISCRETION— SPUNGES AND THEIE COEEELATIVES — L'SE OF THE METALS IN THE ECONOMY OF HUMAN LIFE.

Towards the middle of the month of May, not three years since, a lively sensation was produced in a circle of respectable families mostly resident in Marylebone, by the sudden arrival in town of a family of the high-flying name of Falcon.

The sensation, upon the whole, was decidedly alarming. The Puddicomes, of "Wimpole-street quaked ; the Jenkinsons, of Portland-place, were fluttered ; a family of Duckworths retreated to Norwood; and the Bompases, of

2 THE EALCOK FAMILY ;

Bryanstone-square, were divided between burning their house and starting upon a continental tour.

Yet it was neither upon the Puddicomes, the Bompases, the Duckworths, or the Jenkinsons, that the Falcons first stooped. The house of a Mr. Freeman, in Harley-street, was the primary object of attack, and the Freemans had no ground for complaining of want of notice, as the following letter, received a few days before by Mrs. Freeman, from Mrs. Falcon, will satisfactorily show :

" Broomfield, Stony-Stratford, May 25. " Mx deab Mes. Freeman, " We are all charmed to hear you are going to Plymouth next week ; the country will do you and dear Mr. Freeman so much good. I hope and trust he will benefit by the change of air and the salt water. Lady Charlotte Nostrum makes it a ride to go to Plymouth for three months after every course of the London doctors, and it infallibly sets her up, and enables her to go through it all over again the next season. Just think of our misery, obliged to go to town just when other people are thinking of leaving it, and when town is beginning to be downright odious. The Sympletones will never forgive us for running away from them so soon, but Mr. Falcon has business in London which requires his immediate presence, so we must submit to our hard fate. The Shycocks are looking out for a small house for us somewhere near St. John's "Wood, or the Bayswater-road ; but if you should hear of anything (quite perfect) that would suit us elsewhere — in the cottage-style, you know, with just one coach-house, or without one (we have no horses just

OB, YOtfff G IEELAjm.

now) — pray do let us know before you leave town. I am perfectly ashamed to put you to this trouble, dear Mrs. [Freeman, but you are always goodness itself to us, and I know you will excuse,

" Tours, with a thousand loves,

" GrEOBGINA FaLCOST.

" P.S. How are your dear sweet girls ? — should we not succeed in getting a house, would it be too unreasonable to beg of you, if perfectly convenient, to allow Mr. Falcon and me {nobody else), to sleep a night or two in Harley-street, until we suit ourselves ? Any hole or corner would answer us. But if it would put you to the slightest trouble it would make us all perfectly wretched. Eemember to inquire at Plymouth for Dr. Pinch : he performs miracles by just throwing a grain of some wonderful powder into the sea, just before his patients bathe ; he calls it pathetic mesmerism, or something like that.

" To Mrs. Freeman, Harley-street, London."

The lady to whom this familiar and elegant epistle was addressed, was not at all deficient in simplicity; but, nevertheless, she comprehended its drift the instant she read it. She knew that Mrs. Falcon had no more intention of taking a house in town than Queen Pomare had, and understood the request in the postscript as a distinct announcement, on the part of the Falcon family, of their resolution to quarter themselves in Harley-street, rentfree, for the summer months.

"I suppose we must submit, my dear?" said Mrs. Freeman to her husband, looking, as she spoke, the very picture of abused good-nature.

b2

" I suppose so," said Mr. Freeman, with the half peevish, half indifferent air of a poco-curante invalid. " I'll certainly try Dr. Pinch."

" But it is provoking, just now, when everything is laid up ; the carpets off, the curtains down ; no servants — no coals."

" So much the better," said Mr. Freeman.

" As there will be only Mr. and Mrs. Falcon, I suppose I need not lock up the bronzes and alabasters ?" said the lady.

"No necessity," said the gentleman. "I wish I had heard of Dr. Pinch before."

" They must be very poor, my dear," resumed Mrs. Freeman, beginning to think more of the inconveniences the Falcons would be subjected to, than of those to which their visitation would occasion herself.

Mr. Freeman shook his head, took an infinitesimal pill, medicine enough for an infinitesimal disorder -, and made no answer but an infinitesimal grunt.

" Have they anything at all, my dear ?"

" Falcon has generally some little agency, or temporary employment."

" To be sure," said Mrs. Freeman, "they must live for almost nothing."

Mr. Freeman took a second homoeopathic pill, gave a second homoeopathic grunt, and said, " They save houserent, servants' wages, poor's -rates, assessed taxes. People always do by living in other people's houses. But it was thoughtful of Mrs. Falcon to mention Dr. Pinch.*'

At this point of the conjugal dialogue Mrs. Freeman's brother, Dick Chatworth, a spruce, chirping, middle-aged bachelor, smartly dressed, with a profusion of jewellery, dropped in, and laughed heartily when he heard of the threatened invasion of the Falcons.

" Tou know the Falcons, Dick ?" said his sister.

" Know them ! to be sure I do — by reputation. Everybody knows them, and most people to their cost ; they call Falcon the ' Red Hover,' and the lady goes by the name of 'The Gipsy.' "

" She's a brunette," said Mr. Freeman.

" She has all the gipsy peculiarities : the brown complexion, the vagrant habits, and the loose morality : she's Egyptian all over ; a handsome strolling beggar ; and she speaks such delicious French ! But have you answered her letter, Elizabeth ? — take care what you do !"

" Why, we can't refuse, Dick, they are such friends of the Bompases."

" Friends of the Bompases ! — the Bompases have the greatest horror of them. All I say is, take care Mrs. Falcon is not in a certain interesting situation!"

" Good Heaven ! is it possible she wants to be confined here?"

" She managed to be confined at the Rev. Dr. Hobart's, in Dover-street, a few years ago, to my own knowledge ; so look sharp, Elizabeth — take a friend's advice."

" I should have to pay for the straw," said Mr. Freeman.

" Poor Hobart paid the doctor, and 'faith, I believe, he also paid for the cradle. Besides, he was forced to stay at the ' Blenheim,' in Bond-street, for two months — I used to dine with him there."

"Well — if ever!" exclaimed Mrs. Freeman, with uplifted hands.

" How did Hobart stand it ?" inquired Mr. Freeman,

" Wonderfully. At the same time he did not quite like it — a bachelor and a clergyman, you know — people made remarks when they saw the outward and visible signs of an accouchement at his house ; but what he thought worst of was being obliged to stand godfather to the gipsy's brat, and present the nurse with a guinea. To be sure, Mrs. Falcon was very grateful : the child was christened Hobart!"

People like the Hobarts and Freemans are as necessary to people like the Falcons as argosies are to corsairs, or caravans to Arabian banditti. Tour easy, good-natured people are the correlatives of spunges and land-pirates. Good temper, generosity, and facility of disposition, are frequently expensive accomplishments ; and no man ought to start in life with them, any more than to set up his coach, without a careful examination of the state of his finances.

31 rs. Freeman could not bring herself to disoblige friends of the Bompase-s ; — however, she made inquiries about Mrs. Falcon's times and seasons of gestation, and the result being satisfactory, she returned her a complaisant answer, to the effect that a room or two in Harley-street would be at her service for a fortnight; but she regretted that she could not offer such poor accommodation for a longer time, as there were repairs to be done, and carpenters and painters to be employed during the summer. Mrs. Freeman, too, had her postscript ; but it was merely to recommend to Mrs. Falcon's particular care a valuable and beautiful alabaster Diana in one of the drawing-rooms. The next day the Freemans

OB, YOOTTG IRELAND. 7

left town for Plymouth, leaving their house in the custody of two trusty domestics, to whom Dick Chatworth gave a shrewd hint not to divulge the name of the family coalfactor, and to be equally mysterious as to that of the baker and butcher.

" Success to the daring," he said to himself, as he left his sister's house, after giving these prudent directions. " There is no getting on in this world without gold in the pocket, iron in the hand, silver on the tongue, or brass on the forehead ; — Mrs. Falcon has got the silver and the brass, at all events."

CHAPTEE II.

" Sure in some countries Ladies are privy-councillors and more, Are they not, think ye ? There the land is doubtless Most politicly govern'd ; where the women Are crown'd wives and sceptre-bearing mothers, Such states are flourishing."

MRS. FALCON'S VERACITY — THE ARRIVAL — PORTRAIT OF THE GIPSY — A WOMAN "WITHOUT A MASTER — OTHER FAMILY PICTURES — ATTRACTIONS OF THE FALCONS — HOW ME. FALCON WON HIS WAY — HOW MRS. FALCON CARRIED HER POINTS — HOW LUCY IMPROVED HER MIND, AND HOW EMILY LOST EDEN.

" Mr. Falcon and myself— nobody else," those were the words of Mrs. Falcon's pregnant postscript. Oh, fie ! Mrs. Falcon, you knew very well that your storming party was to include your two pretty daughters, Emily and Lucy; with that eight-year-old imp of yours, wicked Willy in his Scottish costume ; fie, Mrs. Falcon, where did you leave your veracity, where did you pick up your morals ?

O THE FAXCOH FAMILY ;

At a late hour in the evening, but before dark, a coach drove up to Mr. Freeman's house, and there was no extravagant eagerness on the part of the servants to open the door, for the knocker was appealed to thrice, and thrice did the bell ring, before there was any reply to the besiegers' summons.

"While Mr. Falcon (little assisted by the domestics) was engaged in extracting numerous parcels from the pockets and other receptacles of the coach, Mrs. Falcon stood on the flags, superintending the transportation of her goods and chattels ; and the imperious tone in which she gave her minute directions as well as the petulant way in which she occasionally flung aside her luxuriant black hair, which travelling had thrown into disorder, showed clearly that there was at least one Woman in the world who acknowledged no Master.

" I don't see my cul-de-sac — oh, it's under the cushion where I was sitting ; there, just under your hand."

" Sac-de-nuit, mamma," said one of the girls very quietly, as she stepped out of the carriage.

" Count the hampers, Mr. Falcon," continued the mother, not seeming to attend to the correction of her French ; " there ought to be three ; one, two, the other is on the top ; all right. Where are the rabbits ?"

" In papa's boots, ma," answered wicked Willy, already alluded to.

" I ordered you, sirrah, this morning, to see them put

in the boot of the carriage, not in your papa's boots. Do

take off your hat, Mr. Falcon, you can't put your head

far enough into the boot with your hat on."

Nobody who heard or saw Mrs. Falcon, as she stood thus issuing her orders to everybody round her, could doubt for a moment that she was commander-in-chief of the squadron. She was a woman in the August of her days; brisk and blooming, with black hair and brown complexion, her nose slightly aquiline, her lips small and compressed ; her eyes dark, piercing, bold, practical ; her features in general regular and massive, with a free and daring expression, which had a charm of its own for those who like what the French call une leaute insolente. She was above the midddle height, and looked even taller than she actually was, in consequence of her remarkably stately and commanding carriage, a point to which, perhaps, she paid the more attention, as it was the only carriage she could call her own. All the developments of her person were on a large scale ; she wanted no milliner's assistance to help her to bustle through the world ; and notwithstanding the intelligence which Mrs. Freeman received upon a certain delicate question, there were manifest indications about the bouncing gipsy, of a nature to alarm her friends and acquaintance, particularly the Rev. Mr. Hobart.

Falcon was alarming too, after a fashion of his own. He looked alarmingly hungry ! Probably it was in the larders of Marylebone that Ms arrival was most dreaded. Imagine a famished, but tame wolf, and it will give some notion of the expression of his sharp, ravenous, but mild and subdued physiognomy. He was very tall and meagre ; his nose was red and hooked ; his eyes twinkling and intelligent ; his forehead high, narrow, receding, bald, garnished on each side with an upright tuft of reddish hair ; for, in obedience to his wife's mandate, he had taken off his hat, which certainly enabled him to poke his head more conveniently into the various nooks and pouches where any property of ,the family might possibly be latent. As to the girls, they were both very pretty, and pretty girls are often alarming personages. Otherwise, why any place in the world should have been thrown into consternation by either Emily or Lucy Falcon, seemed difficult to understand. To be sure, Lucy was a miniature of her mother, a piratical beauty, like Haidee, which may account, in some degree, for the feeling in her case ; but the other girl was of a different order altogether. She seemed, at least, beside her sister, one of those

" Maidens never bold, Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion Blush'd at herself."

Perhaps she had some other qualities (hereafter to be disclosed), in common with the daughter of Brabantio, but it is only necessary to add here that she was a charming blonde, of eighteen or nineteen, with deep blue eyes, dark hair, and a figure slighter than her sister's, but exquisitely formed.

The truth, indeed, was, and it is only fair to state it at once — that while collectively this 1 vagrant family were regarded with apprehension, sometimes amounting to terror, there was no member of it (except the juniors of the masculine gender, who had yet to learn the politics of their tribe) who was not popular in some quarter or another ; who had not a party, or at least, a faction, in his or in her interest, wherever the mother Falcon ordered their flight.

Mr. Falcon was an immense favourite with little

OB, YOUNG IBEI/AND. 11

England; he was the school-boy's architect and shipbuilder, and Master of the Ordnance to the British Nursery ; incomparable at making cannon with quills, mortars of trotter bones, armadas of old corks, and armies out of visiting-tickets. Then, for children who were sager than to play with anything but the toys of philosophy, he could suffocate canaries in exhausted receivers, develop electric sparks from the bristling backs of reluctant kittens, exhibit the laws of refraction with a slopbasin and a teaspoon, and seduce needles out of workboxes with a magnet of amazing virtue, which he always carried in his waistcoat pocket. In a word, he was the darling of the darlings ; secured the nurseries first, and there planted the artillery with which he often carried the dining-room ; which was, of course, the main point.

Mrs. Falcon had the usual success that follows the steps of a fine and a clever woman, where she had not the sharpness or the jealousy of her own sex to cope with. Wherever male influence was ascendant, the gipsy was seldom repulsed, and often received with hearty welcome. "What man, who had either the eye of a Eubens or norid beautv, or the taste of a Borrow for Zingaree adventure, could contemplate either her person or her character without admiration ? In houses where petticoat government was established, she had a more difficult card to play ; and she relied, of course, upon her intellectual resources and diplomatic abilities altogether. Lucy, the brown girl, was playful and sprightly, with an agreeable knack of attracting the attention of governesses and masters, wherever she went ; by which she not only improved herself, but often gratified the truant young ladies of her acquaintance, who preferred battledore and shuttlecock to counterpoint, or Mrs. Gore's novels to the German grammar.

Emily Falcon had the largest party of all ; indeed, she was everywhere received with open arms, except in houses where loveliness and merit are positive grounds of exclusion ; for in this world as well as in the next, are joyless mansions, not made to he lit by beauty or inhabited by worth.