XXII. Lucy at Summerfield Cottage
On his way to the inn, the stranger could not avoid admiring the excellent sense and prudence displayed by Lucy Gourlay, in the brief dialogue which we have already detailed to our readers. He felt clearly, that if he had followed up his natural impulse to ascertain the place of her retreat, he would have placed himself in the very position which, knowing her father as she did, she had so correctly anticipated. In the meantime, now that the difficulty in this respect, which she had apprehended, was over, his anxiety to know her present residence returned upon him with full force. Not that he thought it consistent with delicacy to intrude himself upon her presence, without first obtaining her permission to that effect. He was well and painfully aware that a lying report of their elopement had gone abroad, but as he did not then know that this calumny had been principally circulated by unfortunate Crackenfudge, who, however, was the dupe of Dandy Dulcimer, and consequently took the fact for granted.
Lucy, however, to whom we must now return, on arriving at the neat cottage already alluded to, occasioned no small surprise to its proprietor. The family, when the driver knocked, were all asleep, or at least had not arisen, and on the door being opened by a broad-faced, good-humored looking servant, who was desired to go to a lady in the chaise, the woman, after rubbing her eyes and yawning, looked about her as if she were in a dream, exclaiming, “Lord bless us! and divil a sowl o' them out o' the blankets yet!”
“You're nearly asleep,” said the driver; “but I'll hould a testher that a tight crapper Would soon brighten your eye. Come, come,” he added, as she yawned again, “shut your pittaty trap, and go to the young lady in the chaise.”
The woman settled her cap, which was awry, upon her head, by plucking it quickly over to the opposite side, and hastily tying the strings of her apron, so as to give herself something of a tidy look, she proceeded, barefooted, but in slippers, to the chaise.
“Will you have the kindness,” said Lucy, in a very sweet voice, “to say to Mrs. Norton that a young friend of hers wishes to see her.”
“And tell her to skip,” added Alley Mahon, “and not keep us here all the blessed mornin'.”
“Mrs. Norton!” exclaimed the woman; “I don't know any sich parson as that, Miss.”
“Why,” said Lucy, putting her head out of the chaise, and re-examining the cottage, “surely this is where my friend Mrs. Norton did live, certainly. She must have changed her residence, Alley. This is most unfortunate!--What are we to do? I know not where to go.”
“Whisht! Miss,” said Alley, “we'll put her through her catechiz again. Come here, my good woman; come forrid; don't be ashamed or afeard in the presence of ladies. Who does live here?”
“Mr. Mainwarin',” replied the servant, omitting the “Miss,” notwithstanding that Alley had put in her claim for it by using the plural number.
“This is distressing--most unfortunate!” exclaimed Lucy; “how long has this gentleman--Mr.--Mr.------”
“Mainwarin', Miss,” added the woman, respectfully.
“She's a stupid lookin' sthreel, at all events,” said Alley, half to herself and half to her mistress.
“Yes, Mainwaring,” continued Lucy; “how long has he been living here?”
“Troth, and that's more than I can tell you, Miss,” replied the woman; “I'm from the county Wexford myself, and isn't more than a month here.”
Whilst this little dialogue went on, or rather, we should say, after it was concluded, a tapping was heard at one of the windows, and a signal given with the finger for the servant to return to the house. She did so; but soon presented herself a second time at the chaise door with more agreeable intelligence.
“You're right, Miss,” said she; “the mistress desired me to ask you in; she seen you from the windy, and desired me to bring your things too; you're to come in, then, Miss, you, an' the sarvint that's along wid you.”
On entering, an intelligent, respectable-looking female, of lady-like manners, shook hands with and even kissed Lucy, who embraced her with much affection.
“My dear Mrs. Norton,” she said, “how much surprised you must feel at this abrupt and unseasonable visit.”
“How much delighted, you mean, my dear Miss Gourlay; and if I am surprised, I assure you the surprise is an agreeable one.”
“But,” said the innocent girl, “your servant told me that you did not live here, and I felt so much distressed!”
“Well,” replied Mrs. Norton, “she was right, in one sense: if Mrs. Norton that was does not live here, Mrs. Mainwaring that is certainly does--and feels both proud and flattered at the honor Miss Gourlay does her humble residence.”
“How is this?” said Lucy, smiling; “you have then--”
“Yes, indeed, I have changed my condition, as the phrase goes; but neither my heart nor my affections to you, Miss Gourlay. Pray sit down on this sofa. Your maid, I presume, Miss Gourlay?”
“Yes,” replied Lucy; “and a faithful creature has she proved to me, Mrs. Nor--” but I beg your pardon, my dear madam; how am I--oh, yes, Mrs. Mainwaring!”
“Nancy,” said the latter, “take this young woman with you, and make her comfortable. You seem exhausted. Miss Gourlay; shall I get some tea?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Nor--Mainwaring, no; we have had a hasty cup of tea in Dublin. But if it will not be troublesome, I should like to go to bed for a time.”
Mrs. Mainwaring flew out of the room, and called Nancy Gallaher. “Nancy, prepare a bed immediately for this lady; her maid, too, will probably require rest. Prepare a bed for both.”
She was half in and half out of the room as she spoke; then returning with a bunch of keys dangling from her finger, she glanced at Miss Gourlay with that slight but delicate and considerate curiosity which arises only from a friendly warmth of feeling--but said nothing.
“My dear Mrs. Mainwaring,” said Lucy, who understood her look, “I feel that I have acted very wrong. I have fled from my father's house, and I have taken refuge with you. I am at present confused and exhausted, but when I get some rest, I will give you an explanation. At present, it is sufficient to say that papa has taken my marriage with that odious Lord Dunroe so strongly into his head, that nothing short of my consent will satisfy him. I know he loves me, and thinks that rank and honor, because they gratify his ambition, will make me happy. I know that that ambition is not at all personal to himself, but indulged in and nurtured on my account, and for my advancement in life. How then can I blame him?”
“Well, my child, no more of that at present; you want rest.”
“Yes, Mrs. Mainwaring, I do; but I am very wretched and unhappy. Alas! you know not, my dear friend, the delight which I have always experienced in obeying papa in everything, with the exception of this hateful union; and now I feel something like remorse at having abandoned him.”
She then gave a brief account to her kind-hearted friend of her journey to Dublin by the “Fly,” in the first instance, suppressing one or two incidents; and of her second to Mrs. Mainwaring's, who, after hearing that she had not slept at all during the night, would permit no further conversation on that or any other subject, but hurried her to bed, she herself acting as her attendant. Having seen her comfortably settled, and carefully tucked her up with her own hands, she kissed the fair girl, exclaiming, “Sleep, my love; and may God bless and protect you from evil and unhappiness, as I feel certain He will, because you deserve it.”
She then left her to sepose, and in a few minutes Lucy was fast asleep.
Whilst this little dialogue between Lucy and Mrs. Mainwaring was proceeding in the parlor of Summerfield cottage, another was running parallel with it between the two servants in the kitchen.
“God bless me,” said Nancy Gallaher, addressing Alley, “you look shockin' bad afther so early a journey! I'll get you a cup o' tay, to put a bloom in your cheek.”
“Thank you, kindly, ma'am,” replied Alley, with a toss of her head which implied anything but gratitude for this allusion to her complexion: “a good sleep, ma'am, will bring back the bloom--and that's aisy done, ma'am, to any one who has youth on their side. The color will come and go then, but let a wrinkle alone for keepin' its ground.”
This was accompanied by a significant glance at Nancy's face, on which were legible some rather unequivocal traces of that description. Honest Nancy, however, although she saw the glance, and understood the insinuation, seemed to take no notice of either--the fact being that her whole spirit was seized with an indomitable curiosity, which, like a restless familiar, insisted on being gratified.
In the case of those who undertake journeys similar to that which Lucy had just accomplished, there may be noticed almost by every eye those evidences of haste, alarm, and anxiety, and even distress, which to a certain extent at least tell their own tale, and betray to the observer that all can scarcely be right. Now Nancy Gallaher saw this, and having drawn the established conclusion that there must in some way be a lover in the case, she sat down in form before the fortress of Alley Mahon's secret, with a firm determination to make herself mistress of it, if the feat were at all practicable. In Alley, however, she had an able general to compete with--a general who resolved, on the other hand, to make a sortie, as it were, and attack Nancy by a series of bold and unexpected manoeuvres.
Nancy, on her part, having felt her first error touching Alley's complexion, resolved instantly to repair it by the substitution of a compliment in its stead.
“Throth, an' it'll be many a day till there's a wrinkle in your face, avourneen--an' now that I look at you agin--a pretty an' a sweet face it is. 'Deed it's many a day since I seen two sich faces as yours and the other young lady's; but anyway, you had betther let me get you a comfortable cup o' tay--afther your long journey. Oh, then, but that beautiful creature has a sorrowful look, poor thing.”
These words were accompanied by a most insinuating glance of curiosity, mingled up with an air of strong benevolence, to show Alley that it proceeded only from the purest of good feeling. “Thank you,” replied Alley, “I will take a cup sure enough. What family have you here? if it's a fair question.”
“Sorra one but ourselves,” replied Nancy, without making her much the wiser.
“But, I mane,” proceeded Alley, “have you children? bekase if you have I hate them.”
“Neither chick nor child there will be under the roof wid you here,” responded Nancy, whilst putting the dry tea into a tin tea-pot that had seen service; “there's only the three of us--that is, myself, the misthress, and the masther--for I am not countin' a slip of a girl that comes in every day to do odd jobs, and some o' the rough work about the house.”
“Oh, I suppose,” said Alley, indifferently, “the childre's all married off?”
“There's only one,” replied Nancy; “and indeed you're right enough--she is married, and not long either--and, in truth, I don't envy her the husband, she got. Lord save and guard us! I know I wouldn't long keep my senses if I had him.”
“Why so?” asked Alley. “Has he two heads upon him?”
“Troth, no,” replied the other; “but he's what they call a mad docther, an' keeps a rheumatic asylum--that manes a place where they put mad people, to prevent them from doin' harm. They say it would make the hair stand on your head like nettles even to go into it. However, that's not what I'm thinkin' of, but that darlin' lookin' creature that's wid the misthress. The Lord keep sorrow and cross-fortune from her, poor thing--for she looks unhappy. Avillish! are you and she related? for, as I'm a sinner, there's a resemblance in your faces--and even in your figures--only you're something rounder and fuller than she is.”
“Isn't she lovely?” returned Alley, making the most of the compliment. “Sure, wasn't it in Dublin her health was drunk as the greatest toast in Ireland.” She then added after a pause, “The Lord knows I wouldn't--”
“Wouldn't what--avourneen?”
“I was just thinkin', that I wouldn't marry a mad docther, if there was ne'er another man in Ireland. A mad docther! Oh, beetha. Then will you let us know the name that's upon him?” she added in a most wheedling tone.
“His name is Scareman, my misthress tells me--he's related by the mother's side to the Moontides of Ballycrazy, in the barony of Quarther Clift--arrah, what's this your name is, avourneen?”
“Alley Mahon I was christened,” replied her new friend; “but,” she added, with an air of modest dignity that was inimitable in its way--“in regard of my place as maid of honor to Lady Lucy, I'm usually called Miss Mahon, or Miss Alley. My mistress, for her own sake, in ordher to keep up her consequence, you persave, doesn't like to hear me called anything else than either one or t'other of them.”
“And it's all right,” replied the other. “Well, as I was going to say, that Mrs. Mainwaring is breakin' her heart about this unforthunate marriage of her daughter to Scareman. It seems--but this is between ourselves--it seems, my dear, that he's a dark, hard-hearted scrub, that 'id go to hell or farther for a shillin', for a penny, ay, or for a farden. An' the servant that was here afore me--a clean, good-natured girl she was, in throth--an' got married to a blacksmith, at the cross-roads beyant--tould me that the scrames, an' yells, an' howlins, and roarins--the cursin' and blasphaymin'--an' the laughin', that she said was worse than all--an' the rattlin' of chains--the Lord save us--would make one think themselves more in hell than in any place upon this world. And it appears the villain takes delight in it, an' makes lashins of money by the trade.”
“The sorra give him good of it!” exclaimed Alley; “an' I can tell you, it's Lady Lucy--(divil may care, thought she--I'll make a lady of her at any rate--this ignorant creature doesn't know the differ) it's Lady Lucy, I say, that will be sorry to hear of this same marriage--for you must know--what's this your name is?”
“Nancy Gallaher, dear.”
“And were you ever married, Nancy?”
“If I wasn't the fau't was my own, ahagur! but I'll tell you more about that some day. No, then, I was not, thank God!”
“Thank God! Well, throth, it's a quare thing to thank God for that, at any rate.” This, of course, was parenthetical. “Well, my dear,” proceeded Alley, “you must know that Mrs. Scareman before her marriage--of course, she was then Miss Norton--acted in the kippacity of tutherer general to Lady Lucy, except durin' three months that she was ill, and had to go to England to thry the wathers.”
“What wathers?” asked Nancy. “Haven't we plenty o' wather, an' as good as they have, at home?”
“Not at all,” replied Alley, who sometimes, as the reader may have perceived, drew upon an imagination of no ordinary fertility; “in England they have spakin' birds, singin' trees, and goolden wather. So, as I was sayin', while she went to thry the goolden wather------”
“Troth, if ever I get poor health, I'll go there myself,” observed Nancy, with a gleam of natural humor in her clear blue eye.”
“Well, while she went to thry this goolden watlier, her mother, Mrs. Norton, came in her place as tutherer general, an' that's the way they became acquainted--Lady Lucy and her. But, my dear, I want to tell you a saicret.”
We are of opinion, that if Nancy's cap had been off at the moment, her two ears might have been observed to erect themselves on each side of her head with pure and unadulterated curiosity.
“Well, Miss Alley, what is it, ahagur?”
“Now, you won't breathe this to any human creature?”
“Is it me? Arrah! little you know the woman you're spakin' to. Divil a mortal could beat me at keepin' a saicret, at any rate; an' when you tell me this, maybe I'll let you know one or two that'll be worth hearin'.”
“Well,” continued Alley, “it's this--Never call my mistress Lady Lucy, because she doesn't like it.”
This was an apple from the shores of the Dead Sea. Nancy's face bore all the sudden traces of disappointment and mortification; and, from a principle of retaliation, she resolved to give her companion a morsel from the same fruit.
“Now, Nancy,” continued the former, “what's this you have to tell us?”
“But you swear not to breathe it to man, woman, or child, boy or girl, rich or poor, livin' or dead?”
“Sartainly I do.”
“Well, then, it's this. I understand that Docthor Scareman isn't likely to have a family. Now, ahagur, if you spake, I'm done, that's all.”
Having been then called away to make arrangements necessary to Lucy's. comfort, their dialogue was terminated before she could worm out of Alley the cause of her mistress's visit.
“She's a cunnin' ould hag,” said the latter, when the other had gone. “I see what she wants to get out o' me; but it's not for nothing Miss Lucy has trusted me, an' I'm not the girl to betray her secrets to them that has no right to know them.”
This, indeed, was true. Poor Alley Mahon, though a very neat and handsome girl, and of an appearance decidedly respectable, was nevertheless a good deal vulgar in her conversation. In lieu of this, however, notwithstanding a large stock of vanity, she was gifted with a strong attachment to her mistress, and had exhibited many trying proofs of truthfulness and secrecy under circumstances where most females in her condition of life would have given way. As a matter of course, she was obliged to receive her master's bribes, otherwise she would have been instantly dismissed, as one who presumed to favor Lucy's interest and oppose his own. Her fertility of fancy, however, joined to deep-rooted affection for his daughter, enabled her to return as a recompense for Sir Thomas's bribes, that description of one-sided truth which transfuses fiction into its own character and spirit, just as a drop or two of any coloring fluid will tinge a large portion of water with its own hue. Her replies, therefore, when sifted and examined, always bore in them a sufficient portion of truth to enable her, on the strong point of veracity on which she boldly stood, to bear herself out with triumph; owing, indeed, to a slight dash in her defence of the coloring we have described. Lucy felt that the agitation of mind, or rather, we should say, the agony of spirit which she had been of late forced to struggle with, had affected her health more than she could have anticipated. That and the unusual fatigue of a long journey in a night coach, eked out by a jolting drive to Wicklow at a time when she required refreshment and rest, told upon her constitution, although a naturally healthy one. For the next three or four days after her arrival at Summerfield Cottage, she experienced symptoms of slight fever, apparently nervous. Every attention that could be paid to her she received at the hands of Mrs. Mainwaring, and her own maid, who seldom was a moment from her bedside. Two or three times a day she was seized with fits of moping, during which she deplored her melancholy lot in life, feared she had offended her kind hostess by intruding, without either notice or announcement, upon the quiet harmony of her family, and begged her again and again to forgive her; adding, “That as soon as her recovery should be established, she would return to her father's house to die, she hoped, and join mamma; and this,” she said, “was her last and only consolation.”
Mrs. Mainwaring saw at once that her complaint was principally on the nerves, and lost no time in asking permission to call in medical advice. To this, Lucy, whose chief object was to remain unknown and in secrecy for the present, strongly objected; but by the mild and affectionate remonstrances of Mrs. Mainwaring, as well as at the earnest entreaties of Alley, she consented to allow a physician to be called in.
This step was not more judicious than necessary. The physician, on seeing her, at once pronounced the complaint a nervous fever, but hoped that it would soon yield to proper treatment. He prescribed, and saw her every second day for a week, after which she gave evident symptoms of improvement. Her constitution, as we have said, was good; and nature, in spite of an anxious mind and disagreeable reflections, bore her completely out of danger.
It was not until the first day of her appearance in the parlor subsequent to her illness, that she had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Mainwaring, of whom his wife spoke in terms of great tenderness and affection. She found him to be a gentlemanly person of great good sense and delicacy of feeling.
“I regret,” said he, after the usual introduction had taken place, “to have been deprived so long of knowing a young lady of whose goodness and many admirable qualities I have heard so much from the lips of Mrs. Mainwaring. It is true I knew her affectionate nature,” he added, with a look of more than kindness at his wife, “and I allowed something for high coloring in your case, Miss Gourlay, as well as in others, that I could name; but I now find, that with all her good-will, she sometimes fails to do justice to the original.”
“And, my dear John, did I not tell you so?” replied his wife, smiling; “but if you make other allusions, I am sure Miss Gourlay can bear me out.”
“She has more than borne you out, my dear,” he replied, purposely misunderstanding her. “She has more than borne you out; for, truth to tell, you have in Miss Gourlay's case fallen far short of what I see she is.”
“But, Mr. Mainwaring,” said Lucy, smiling in her turn, “it is certainly very strange that she can please neither of us. The outline she gave me of your character was quite shocking. She said you were--what's this you said of him, Mrs. Mainwaring--oh, it was very bad, sir. I think we must deprive her of all claim to the character of an artist. Do you know I was afraid to meet the original, in consequence of the gloomy colors in which she sketched what she intended, I suppose, should be the likeness.”
“Well, my dear Miss Gourlay,” observed Mrs. Mainwaring, “now that I have failed in doing justice to the portraits of two of my dearest friends, I think I will burn my palette and brushes, and give up portrait painting in future.”
Mr. Mainwaring now rose up to take his usual stroll, but turning to Lucy before he went, he said,
“At all events, my dear Miss Gourlay, what between her painting and the worth of the original, permit me to say that this house is your home just as long as you wish. Consider Mrs. Mainwaring and me as parents to you; willing, nay, most anxious, in every sense, to contribute to your comfort and happiness. We are not poor, Miss Gourlay; but, on the contrary, both independent and wealthy. You must, therefore, want for nothing. I am, for as long as may be necessary, your parent, as I said, and your banker; and if you will permit me the honor, I would wish to add, your friend. Good-by, my dear child, I am going to take my daily ramble; but I am sure you are in safe hands when I leave you in my dear Martha's. Good-by, my love.”
The amiable man took his golden-headed cane, and sauntered out to amuse himself among the fields, occasionally going into the town of Wicklow, taking a glance at the papers in the hotel, to which he generally added a glass of ale and a pipe.
It was not until he had left them that Lucy enjoyed an opportunity of pouring out, at full length, to her delicate-minded and faithful friend, the cause of her flight from home. This narrative, however, was an honorable proof of the considerate forbearance she evinced when, necessarily alluding to the character and conduct of her father. Were it not, in fact, that Mrs. Mainwaring had from personal opportunity been enabled to thoroughly understand the temper, feelings, and principles of the worthy baronet, she would have naturally concluded that Lucy was a disobedient girl, and her father a man who had committed no other error than that of miscalculating her happiness from motives of excessive affection.
Mrs. Mainwaring heard it all with a calm and matronly benignity that soothed poor Lucy; for it was for the first time she had ever disclosed the actual state of her feelings to any one, with the exception of her late mother.
“Now, my dear Miss Gourlay--”
“Call me Lucy, Mrs. Mainwaring,” said the affectionate girl, wiping her eyes, for we need not assure our readers that the recital of her sufferings, no matter how much softened down or modified, cost her many a bitter tear.
“I will indeed, my love, I will, Lucy,” she replied, kissing her cheek, “if it gratifies you. Why should I not? But you know the distance there is between us.”
“Oh, no, my dear Mrs. Mainwaring, no. What are the cold forms of the world but disguises and masks, under which the hardened and heartless put themselves in a position of false eminence over the humble and the good. The good are all equal over the earth, no matter what their relative situations may be; and on this account, not-withstanding my rank, I am scarcely worthy to sit at your feet.”
Mrs. Mainwaring, with a kind of affectionate enthusiasm, put her hand upon the beautiful girl's hand, and was about to speak; but she paused for more than half a minute, during which space her serene and benevolent face assumed an expression of profound thought and seriousness. At length she sighed rather deeply, and said,
“My dear Lucy, it is too bad that the happiness of such a girl as you should be wrecked; but, worst of all, that it should be wrecked upon a most unprincipled profligate. You know the humbleness of my birth; the daughter of a decent farmer, who felt it a duty to give his children the only boon, except his blessing, that he had to bestow upon them--a good education. Well, my dear child, I beg that you will not be disheartened, nor suffer your spirits to droop. You will look surprised when I tell you that I think it more than probable, if I am capable of judging your father's heart aright, that I shall be able by a short interview with him to change the whole current of his ambition, and to bring about such a revulsion of feeling against Lord Dunroe, as may prevent him from consenting to your union with that nobleman under any circumstances. Nay, not to stop here; but that I shall cause him to look upon the breaking up of this contemplated marriage as one of the greatest blessings that could befall his family.”
“Such an event might be possible,” replied Lucy, “were I not unfortunately satisfied that papa is already aware of Dunroe's loose habits of life, which he views only as the giddiness of a young and buoyant spirit that marriage would reform. He says Dunroe is only sowing his wild oats, as, with false indulgence, he is pleased to term it. Under these circumstances, then, I fear he would meet you with the same arguments, and as they satisfy himself so you will find him cling to the dangerous theory they establish.”
“But, Lucy, my dear child, you are quite mistaken in your estimate of the arguments which I should use, because you neither can know nor suspect their import. They apply not at all to Lord Dunroe's morals, I assure you. It is enough to say, at present, that I am not at liberty to disclose them; and, indeed, I never intended to do so; but as a knowledge of the secret I possess may not only promote your happiness, but relieve you from the persecution and misery you endure on this young nobleman's account, I think it becomes my duty to have an interview with your father on the subject.”
“Before you do so, my dear madam,” replied Lucy, “it is necessary that I should put you in possession of--of--” there was here a hesitation, and a blush, and a confusion of manner, that made Mrs. Mainwaring look at her with some attention.
“Take care, Lucy,” she said smiling; “a previous engagement, I'll warrant me. I see you blush.”
“But not for its object, Mrs. Mainwaring,” she replied. “However, you are right; and papa is aware of it.”
“I see, Lucy; and on that account he wishes to hurry on this hated marriage--?”
“I think so.”
“And what peculiar dislike has papa against the object of your choice?--are you aware?”
“The same he would entertain against any choice but his own--his great ambition. The toil and labor of all his thoughts, hopes, and calculations, is to see me a countess before he dies. I know not whether to consider this as affection moved by the ambition of life, or ambition stimulated by affection.”
“Ah, my dear Lucy, I fear very much that if your papa's heart were analyzed it would be found that he is more anxious to gratify his own ambition than to promote your happiness, and that, consequently, his interest in the matter altogether absorbs yours. But we need not discuss this now. You say he is aware of your attachment?”
“He is; I myself confessed it to him.”
“Is he aware of the name and condition in life of your lover?”
“Alas, no! Mrs. Mainwaring. He has seen him, but that is all. He expressed, however, a fierce and ungovernable curiosity to know who and what he is; but, unfortunately, my lover, as you call him, is so peculiarly circumstanced, that I could not disclose either the one or the other.”
“But, my dear Lucy, is not this secrecy, this clandestime conduct, on the part of your lover, wrong? Ought you, on the other hand, to entertain an attachment for any person who feels either afraid or ashamed to avow his name and rank? Pardon me, my love.”
Lucy rose up, and Mrs. Mainwaring felt somewhat alarmed at the length she had gone, especially on observing that the lovely girl's face and neck were overspread with a deep and burning blush.
“Pardon you, my dear madam! Is it for uttering sentiments worthy of the purest friendship and affection, and such only as I would expect to proceed from your lips? But it is necessary to state, in my own defence, that beloved mamma was aware of, and sanctioned our attachment. A mystery there is, unquestionably, about my lover; but it is one with which she was acquainted, for she told me so. It is not, however, upon this mystery or that mystery--but upon the truth, honor, delicacy, disinterestedness, of him to whom I have yielded my heart, that I speak. In true, pure, and exalted love, my dear Mrs. Mainwaring, there is an intuition of the heart which enables the soul to see into and comprehend its object, with a completeness of success as certain and effectual as the mission of an angel. When such love exists--and such only--all is soon known--the spirit is satisfied; and, except those lessons of happiness and delight that are before it, the heart, on that subject, has nothing more to learn. This, then, is my reply; and as for the mystery I speak of, every day is bringing us nearer and nearer to its disclosure, and the knowledge of his worth.”
Mrs. Mainwaring looked, on with wonder. Lucy's beauty seemed to brighten, as it were with a divine light, as she uttered these glowing words. In fact, she appeared to undergo a transfiguration from the mortal state to the angelic, and exemplified, in her own person--now radiant with the highest and holiest enthusiasm of love--all that divine purity, all that noble pride and heroic devotedness of heart, by which it is actuated and inspired. Her eyes, as she proceeded, filled with tears, and on concluding, she threw herself, weeping, into her friend's arms, exclaiming,
“Alas! my dear, dear Mrs. Mainwaring, I am not worthy of him.”
Mrs. Mainwaring kissed, and cherished, and soothed her, and in a short time she recovered herself, and resumed an aspect of her usual calm, dignified, yet graceful beauty.
“Alas!” thought her friend, as she looked on her with mingled compassion and admiration, “this love is either for happiness or death. I now see, after all, that there is much of the father's character stamped into her spirit, and that the same energy with which he pursues ambition actuates his daughter in love. Each will have its object, or die.”
“Well, my love,” she exclaimed aloud, “I am sorry we permitted our conversation to take such a turn, or to carry us so far. You are, I fear, not yet strong enough for anything calculated to affect or agitate you.”
“The introduction of it was necessary, my dear madam,” replied Lucy; “for I need not say that it was my object to mention the subject of our attachment to you before the close of our conversation.”
“Well, at all events,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, “we shall go and have a walk through the fields. The sun is bright and warm; the little burn below, and the thousand larks above, will give us their melody; and Cracton's park--our own little three-cornered paddock--will present us with one of the sweetest objects in the humble landscape--a green field almost white with daisies--pardon the little blunder, Lucy--thus constituting it a poem for the heart, written by the hand of nature herself.”
Lucy, who enjoyed natural scenery with the high enthusiasm that was peculiar to her character, was delighted at the proposal, and in a few minutes both the ladies sauntered out through the orchard, which was now white and fragrant with blossoms.
As they went along, Mrs. Mainwaring began to mention some particulars of her marriage; a circumstance to which, owing to Lucy's illness, she had not until then had an opportunity of adverting.
“The truth is, my dear Lucy,” she proceeded, “I am naturally averse to lead what is termed a solitary life in the world. I wish to have a friend on whom I can occasionally rest, as upon a support. You know that I kept a boarding-school in the metropolis for many years after my return from the Continent. That I was successful and saved some money are facts which, perhaps, you don't know. Loss of health, however, caused me to resign the establishment to Emily, your former governess; but, unfortunately, her health, like mine, gave way under the severity of its duties. She accordingly disposed of it, and accepted the important task of superintending the general course of your education, aided by all the necessary and usual masters. To this, as you are aware, she applied herself with an assiduity that was beyond her yet infirm state of health. She went to Cheltenham, where she recovered strength, and I undertook her duties until her return. I then sought out for some quiet, pretty, secluded spot, where I could, upon the fruits of my own industry, enjoy innocently and peacefully the decline of, I trust, a not unuseful life. Fortunately, I found our present abode, which I purchased, and which has been occasionally honored by your presence, as well as by that of your beloved mamma. Several years passed, and the widow was not unhappy; for my daughter, at my solicitation, gave up her profession as a governess, and came to reside with me. In the meantime, we happened to meet at the same party two individuals--gentlemen--who had subsequently the honor of carrying off the mother and daughter with flying colors. The one was Dr. Scareman, to whom Emily--my dear, unfortunate girl, had the misfortune to get married. He was a dark-faced, but handsome man--that is to say, he could bear a first glance or two, but was incapable of standing anything like a close scrutiny. He passed as a physician in good practice, but as the marriage was--what no marriage ought to be--a hasty one--we did not discover, until too late, that the practice he boasted of consisted principally in the management of a mad-house. He is, I am sorry to say, both cruel and penurious--at once a miser and a tyrant--and if his conduct to my child is not kinder and more generous, I shall feel it my duty to bring her home to myself, where, at all events, she can calculate upon peace and affection. The doctor saw that Emily was beautiful--knew that she had money--and accordingly hurried on the ceremony.
“Such is the history of poor Emily's marriage. Now for my own.
“Mr. Main waring was, like myself, a person who had been engaged in educating the young. For many years he had conducted, with great success, a boarding-school that soon became eminent for the number of brilliant and accomplished men whom it sent into society and the institutions of the country. Like me, he had saved money--like me he lost his health, and like me his destiny conducted him to this neighborhood. We met several times, and looked at each other with a good deal of curiosity; he anxious to know what kind of animal an old schoolmistress was, and I to ascertain with what tribe an old school-master should be classed. There was something odd, if not comical, in this scrutiny; and the best of it all was, that the more closely we inspected and investigated, the more accurately did we discover that we were counterparts--as exact as the two sides of a tally, or the teeth of a rat-trap--with pardon to dear Mr. Mainwaring for the nasty comparison, whatever may have put it into my head. He, in fact, was an old school-master and a widower; I an old school-mistress and a widow; he wanted a friend and companion, so did I. Each finding that the other led a solitary life, and only required that solace and agreeable society, which a kind and rational companion can most assuredly bestow, resolved to take the other, as the good old phrase goes, for better for worse; and accordingly here we are, thank God, with no care but that which proceeds from the unfortunate mistake which poor Emily made in her marriage. The spirit that cemented our hearts was friendship, not love; but the holiness of marriage has consecrated that friendship into affection, which the sweet intercourse of domestic life has softened into something still more agreeable and tender. My girl's marriage, my dear Lucy, is the only painful thought that throws its shadow across our happiness.”
“Poor Emily,” sighed Lucy, “how little did that calm, sweet-tempered, and patient girl deserve to meet such a husband. But perhaps he may yet improve. If gentleness and affection can soften a heart by time and perseverance, his may yet become human.”
Such was the simple history of this amiable couple, who, although enjoying as much happiness as is usually allotted to man and woman, were not, however, free from those characteristic traces that enabled their friends to recognize without much difficulty the previous habits of their lives.
“Mrs. Mainwaring,” said Lucy, “I must write to my father, I cannot bear to think of the anguish he will feel at my sudden and mysterious disappearance. It will set him distracted, perhaps cause illness.”
“Until now, my dear child, you know you had neither time, nor health, nor strength to do so; but I agree with you, and think without doubt you ought to make his mind as easy upon this point as possible. At the same time I do not see that it is necessary for you to give a clew to your present residence. Perhaps it would be better that I should see him before you think of returning; but of that we will speak in the course of the evening, or during to-morrow, when we shall have a little more time to consider the matter properly, and determine what may be the best steps to take.”
XXIII. A Lunch in Summerfield Cottage
The little spot they strolled in was beautiful, from the natural simplicity of the sweet but humble scenery around them. They traversed it in every direction; sat on the sunny side of grassy eminences, gathered wild flowers, threw pebbles into the little prattling stream that ran over its stony bed before them; listened to and talked of and enjoyed the music of the birds as they turned the very air and hedges into harmony. Lucy thought how happy she could be in such a calm and delightful retreat, with the society of the man she loved, far from the intrigue, and pride, and vanity, and ambition of life; and she could scarcely help shuddering when she reflected upon the track of criminal ambition and profligacy into which, for the sake of an empty and perhaps a painful title, her father wished to drag her.
This train of thought, however, was dissipated by the appearance of Mr. Mainwaring, who had returned from his stroll, and came out to seek for them, accompanied by a young officer of very elegant and gentlemanly appearance, whom he introduced as Captain Roberts, of the 33d, then quartered in Dublin.
As an apology for the fact of Mr. Mainwaring having introduced a stranger to Lucy, under circumstances where privacy was so desirable, it may be necessary to say here, that Mrs. Mainwaring, out of delicacy to Lucy, forbore to acquaint him even with a hint at the cause of her visit, so far as Lucy, on the morning of her arrival, had hastily and briefly communicated it to her. This she was resolved not to do without her express permission.
“Allow me, ladies, to present to you my friend, Captain Roberts, of the 33d--or, as another older friend of mine, his excellent father, terms it, the three times eleven--by the way, not a bad paraphrase, and worthy of a retired school-master like myself. It is turning the multiplication table into a vocabulary and making it perform military duty.”
After the usual formalities had been gone through, Mr. Mainwaring, who was in peculiarly excellent spirits, proceeded:
“Of course you know, every officer when introduced or travelling is a captain--CAPTAIN--a good travelling name!--Vide the play-books, passim. My young friend, however, is at the present--you remember as in pasenti, Edward--only an ensign, but, please God, old as some of us are, Mrs. M. to wit--ahem! we will live to shake hands with him as captain yet.”
“You mean, of course, my dear,” said his wife, “that I will live to do so; the youngest, as the proverb has it, lives longest. No man, Mr. Roberts, will more regret the improbability of verifying his own wishes than Mr. Mainwaring.”
“Ah, Martha! you're always too hard for me,” he replied, laughing. “But you must know that this young officer, of whom I feel so proud, is an old pupil of mine, and received his education at my feet. I consequently feel a more than usual interest in him. But come, we lose-time. It is now past two o'clock, and, if I don't mistake, there's a bit of cold ham and chicken to be had, and my walk has prepared me for lunch, as it usually does, and besides, Martha, there's an old friend of mine, his father, waiting for our return, to whom I must introduce you both, ladies, as a sample of the fine old soldier, who is a capital version of human nature.”
On reaching the cottage they found our worthy friend, old Sam Roberts, in the garden, throwing crumbs of bread to a busy little flock of sparrows, behind one of the back windows that opened into it. His honest but manly face was lit up with all the eager and boisterous enjoyment of a child whilst observing with simple delight the fierce and angry quarrels of the parents, as they fought on behalf of their young, for the good things so providentially cast in their way.
“Come, now,” said Sam, “I'm commissary-general for this day, and, for a miracle, an honest one--fight fair, you wretches--but I don't wonder at the spunk you show, for the rations, I can tell you, are better, poor things, than you are accustomed to. Hello, there! you, sir--you big fellow--you hulk of a cock--what business have you here? This is a quarrel among the ladies, sirrah, who are mothers, and it is for their young ones--on behalf of their children--they are showing fight; and you, sir, you overgrown glutton, are stuffing yourself, like many another 'foul bird' before you, with the public property. Shame, you little vulture! Don't you see they fly away when they have gotten' an allowance, and give it to their starving children? D---- your principle, sir, it's a bad one. You think the strongest ought to take most, do you? Bravo! Well done, my little woman. Go on, you have right and nature on your side--that's it, peck the glutton--he's a rascal--a public officer--a commissary-general that--lay on him--well done--never mind military discipline--he's none of your officer--he's a robber--a bandit--and neither a soldier nor a gentleman--by fife and drum, that's well done. But it's all nature--all the heart of man.”
“Well, old friend,” said he, “and so this is your good lady. How do you do, ma'am? By fife and drum, Mr. Mainwaring, but it's a good match. You were made for one another. And this young lady your daughter, ma'am? How do you do, Miss Mainwaring?”
“My dear Mr. Roberts,” said Mainwaring, “we are not so happy as to claim this young lady as a daughter. She is Miss Gourlay, daughter to Sir Thomas Gourlay, of Red Hall, now here upon a visit for the good of her health.”
“How do you do, Miss Gourlay? I am happy to say that I have seen a young lady that I have heard so much of--so much, I ought to say, that was good of.”
Lucy, as she replied, blushed deeply at this unintentional mention of her name, and Mrs. Mainwaring, signing to her husband, by putting her finger on her lips, hinted to him that he had done wrong.
Old Sam, however, on receiving this intelligence, looked occasionally, with a great deal of interest, from Lucy to the young officer, and again from the young officer to Lucy; and as he did it, he uttered a series of ejaculations to himself, which were for the most part inaudible to the rest. “Ha!--dear me!--God bless me!--very strange!--right, old Corbet--right for a thousand--nature will prove it--not a doubt of it--God bless me!--how very like they are!--perfect brother and sister!--bless me--it's extraordinary--not a doubt of it. Bravo, Ned!”
“Come, ladies,” said Mr. Mainwaring; “come, my friend, old Sam, as you like to be called, and you, Edward, come one, come all, till we try the cold ham and chicken. Miss Gou--ehem--come, Lucy, my dear, the short cut through the window; you see it open, and now, Martha, your hand; but there is old Sam's. Well done, Sam; your soldier's ever gallant. Help Miss--help the young lady up the steps, Edward. Good! he has anticipated me.”
In a few minutes they were enjoying their lunch, during which the conversation became very agreeable, and even animated. Young Roberts had nothing of the military puppy about him whatsoever. On the contrary, his deportment was modest, manly, and unassuming. Sensible of his father's humble, but yet respectable position, he neither attempted to swagger himself into importance by an affectation of superior breeding or contempt for his parent, nor did he manifest any of that sullen taciturnity which is frequently preserved, as a proof of superiority, or a mask for conscious ignorance and bad breeding; the fact being generally forgotten that it is an exponent of both.
“So, Edward, you like the army, then?” inquired Mr. Mainwaring.
“I do, sir,” replied young Roberts; “it's a noble profession.”
“Eight, Ned--a noble profession--that's the word,” said old Sam; “and so it is, my boy, and a brave and a generous one.”
Lucy Gourlay and the young soldier had occasionally glanced at each other; and it might have been observed, that whenever they did so, each seemed surprised, if not actually confused.
“Is it difficult, Edward,” asked Mainwaring, after they had taken wine together, “to purchase a commission at present?”
“It is not very easy to procure commissions just now,” replied the other; “but you know, Mr. Mainwaring, that I had the honor to be raised from the ranks.”
“Bravo, Ned!” exclaimed old Sam, slapping him him on the back; “I am glad to see that you take that honor in its true light. Thousands may have money to buy a commission, but give me the man that has merit to deserve it; especially, Ned, at so young an age as yours.”
“You must have distinguished yourself, sir,” observed Lucy, “otherwise it is quite unusual, I think, to witness the promotion from the ranks of so young a man.”
“I only endeavored to do my duty, madam,” replied Roberts, bowing modestly, whilst something like a blush came over his cheeks.
“Never mind him, Miss Gourlay,” exclaimed Sam--“never mind; he did distinguish himself, and on more than one occasion, too, and well deserved his promotion. When one of the British flags was seized upon and borne off, after the brave fellow whose duty it was to defend it with his life had done so, and was cut down by three French soldiers, our gentleman here, for all so modest as he looks, pursued them, fought single-handed against the three, rescued the flag, and, on his way back, met the general, who chanced to be a spectator of the exploit; when passing near him, bleeding, for he had been smartly wounded, the general rides over to him. 'Is the officer who bore that flag killed?' he asked. 'He is, general,' replied Ned.--'You have rescued it?'--'I have, sir.'--'What is your name?'--He told him.--'Have you received an education?'--'A good education, general'--'Very good,' proceeded the general. 'You have recovered the flag, you say?'--'I considered it my duty either to die or to do so, general,' replied Ned.--'Well said, soldier,' returned the general, 'and well done, too: as for the flag itself, you must only keep it for your pains. Your commission, young man, shall be made out. I will take charge of that myself.'--There, now, is the history of his promotion for you.”
“It is highly honorable to him in every sense,” observed Lucy. “But it was an awful risk of life for one man to pursue three.”
“A soldier, madam,” replied Roberts, bowing to her for the compliment, “in the moment of danger, or when the flag of his sovereign is likely to be sullied, should never remember that he has a life; or remember it only that it may be devoted to the glory of his country and the maintenance of her freedom.”
“That's well said, Edward,” observed Mr. Mainwaring; “very well expressed indeed. The clauses of that sentence all follow in a neat, consecutive order. It is, indeed, all well put together as if it were an exercise.”
Edward could not help smiling at this unconscious trait of the old school-master peeping out.
“That general is a fine old fellow,” said Sam, “and knew how to reward true courage. But you see, Mr. Mainwaring and ladies, it's all natural, all the heart of man.”
“There's Mr. Mitchell, our clergyman,” observed Mrs. Mainwaring, looking out of the window; “I wish he would come in. Shall I call him, dear?”
“Never mind now, my love,” replied her husband. “I like the man well enough; he is religious, they say, and charitable, but his early education unfortunately was neglected. His sermons never hang well together; he frequently omits the exordium, and often winds them up without the peroration at all. Then he mispronounces shockingly, and is full of false quantities. It was only on last Sunday that he laid the accent on i in Dalilah. Such a man's sermons, I am sorry to say, can do any educated man little good. Her's a note, my love, from Mrs. Fletcher. I met the servant coming over with it, and took it from him. She wishes to hear from you in an hour or two: it's a party, I think.”
He threw the note over to his wife, who, after apologizing to the company, opened, and began to read it.
Honest old Mainwaring was an excellent man, and did a great deal of good in a quiet way, considering his sphere of life. In attending to the sermon, however, when at church, he laid himself back in his pew, shut his eyes, put the end of his gold-headed cane to his lips, and set a criticising. If all the rhetorical rules were duly observed, the language clear, and the parts of the sermon well arranged, and if, besides, there was neither false accent, nor false quantity, nor any bad grammar, he pronounced it admirable, and praised the preacher to the skies. Anything short of this, however, he looked upon not only as a failure, but entertained strong doubts of the man's orthodoxy, as well as of the purity of his doctrine.
“Yes, my dear,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, after having glanced over the note, “you are right; it is a party; and we are both asked; but I wonder, above all things, that Miss Fletcher should never cross her t's; then the tails of her letters are so long that they go into the line below them, which looks so slovenly, and shows that her writing must have bean very much neglected. I also know another fair neighbor of ours who actually puts 'for' before the infinitive mood, and flourishes her large letters like copperplate capitals that are only fit to appear in a merchant's books.”
“But you know, my dear,” said her husband, “that she is a grocer's widow, and, it is said, used to keep his accounts.”
“That is very obvious, my dear; for, indeed, most of her invitations to tea are more like bills duly furnished than anything else. I remember one of them that ran to the following effect:
“'Mrs. Allspice presents compliments to Messrs. Mainwaring &, Co.--to wit, Miss Norton '--this was my daughter--' begs to be favored, per return of post, as to whether it will suit convenience for to come on next Tuesday evening, half-past seven, to take a cup of the best flavored souchong, 7s. 6d. per lb., and white lump, Jamaica, Is. per ditto, with a nice assortment of cakes, manufactured by ourselves. Punctuality to appointment expected.'”
“Well, for my part,” said Sam, “I must say it's the entertainment I'd look to both with her and the parson, and neither the language nor the writing. Mrs. Mainwaring, will you allow me to propose a toast ma'am? It's for a fine creature, in her way; a lily, a jewel.”
“With pleasure, Mr. Roberts,” said that lady, smiling, for she knew old Sam must always have his own way.
“Well, then, fill, fill, each of you. Come, Miss Gourlay, if only for the novelty of the thing; for I dare say you never drank a toast before. Ned, fill for her. You're an excellent woman, Mrs. Mainwaring: and he was a lucky old boy that got you to smooth down the close of his respectable and useful life--at least, it was once useful--but we can't be useful always--well, of his harmless life--ay, that is nearer the thing. Yes, Mrs. Mainwaring, by all accounts you are a most excellent and invaluable woman, and deserve all honor.”
Mrs. Mainwaring sat with a comely simper upon her good-natured face, looking down with a peculiar and modest appreciation of the forthcoming compliment to herself.
“Come now,” Sam went on, “to your legs. You all, I suppose, know who I mean. Stand, if you please, Miss Gourlay. Head well up, and shoulders a little more squared, Mainwaring. Here now, are you all ready?”
“All ready,” responded the gentlemen, highly amused.
“Well, then, here's my Beck's health! and long life to her! She's the pearl of wives, and deserves to live forever!”
A fit of good-humored laughter followed old Sam's toast, in which Mrs. Mainwaring not only came in for an ample share, but joined very heartily herself; that worthy lady taking it for granted that old Sam was about to propose the health of the hostess, sat still, while the rest rose; even Lucy stood up, with her usual grace and good-nature, and put the glass to her lips; and as it was the impression that the compliment was meant for Mrs. Mainwaring, the thing seemed very like what is vulgarly called a bite, upon the part of old Sam, who in the meantime, had no earthly conception of anything else than that they all thoroughly understood him, and were aware of the health he was about to give.
“What!” exclaimed Sam, on witnessing their mirth; “by fife and drum, I see nothing to laugh at in anything connected with my Beck. I always make it a point to drink the old girl's health when I'm from home; for I don't know how it happens, but I think I'm never half so fond of her as when we're separated.”
“But, Mr. Eoberts,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, laughing, “I assure you, from the compliments you paid me, I took it for granted that it was my health you were about to propose.”
“Ay, but the compliments I paid you, ma'am, were all in compliment to old Beck; but next to her, by fife and drum, you deserve a bumper. Come, Mainwaring, get to legs, and let us have her health. Attention, now; head well up, sir; shoulders square; eye on your wife.”
“It shall be done,” replied Mainwaring, entering into the spirit of the joke. “If it were ambrosia, she is worthy of a brimmer. Come, then, fill your glasses. Edward, attend to Miss Gourlay. Sam, help Mrs. Mainwaring. Here, then, my dear Martha; like two winter apples, time has only mellowed us. We have both run parallel courses in life; you, in instructing the softer and more yielding sex; I, the nobler and more manly.”
“Keep strictly to the toast, Matthew,” she replied, “or I shall rise to defend our sex. You yielded first, you know. Ha, ha, ha!”
“As the stronger yields to the weaker, from courtesy and compassion. However, to proceed. We have both conjugated amo before we ever saw each other, so that our recurrence to the good old verb seemed somewhat like a Saturday's repetition. As for doceo, we have been both engaged in enforcing it, and successfully, Martha”--here he shook his purse--“during the best portion of our lives; for which we have made some of the most brilliant members of society our debtors. Lego is now one of our principal enjoyments; sometimes under the shadow of a spreading tree in the orchard, during the serene effulgence of a summer's eve; or, what is still more comfortable, before the cheering blaze of the winter's fire, the blinds down, the shutters closed, the arm-chair beside the table--on that table an open book and a warm tumbler--and Martha, the best of wives--
“Attention, Mainwaring; my Beck's excepted.”
“Martha, the best of wives--old Sam's Beck always excepted--sitting at my side. As for audio, the truth is, I have been forced to experience the din and racket of that same verb during the greater portion of my life, in more senses than I am willing to describe. I did not imagine, in my bachelor days, that the fermenting tumult of the school-room could be surpassed by a single instrument; but, alas!--well, it matters not now; all I can say is, that I never saw her--heard I mean, for I am on audio--that the performance of that same single instrument did not furnish me with a painful praxis of the nine parts of speech all going together; for I do believe that nine tongues all at work could not have matched her. But peace be with her! she is silent at last, and cannot hear me now. I thought I myself possessed an extensive knowledge of the languages, but, alas I was nothing; as a linguist she was without a rival. However, I pass that over, and return to the subject of my toast. Now, my dear Martha, since heaven gifted me with you--”
“Attention, Mainwaring! Eyes up to the ceiling, sir, and thank God!”
Mainwaring did so; but for the life of him could not help throwing a little comic spirit into the action, adding in an undertone that he wished to be heard. “Ah, my dear Sam, how glad I am that you did not bid me go farther. However, to proceed--No, my dear Martha, ever since our most felicitous conjugation, I hardly know what the exemplary verb audio means. I could scarcely translate it. Ours is a truly grammatical union. Not the nominative case with verb--not the relative with the antecedent--not the adjective with the substantive--affords a more appropriate illustration of conjugal harmony, than does our matrimonial existence. Peace and quietness, however, are on your tongue--affection and charity in your heart--benevolence in your hand, which is seldom extended empty to the pool--and, altogether, you are worthy of the high honor to which,”--this he added with a bit of good-natured irony--“partly from motives of condescension, and partly, as I said, from motives of compassion, I have, in the fulness of a benevolent heart, exalted you.” The toast was then drank.
“Attention, ladies!” said Sam, who had been looking, as before, from the young officer to Lucy, and vice versa--“Mainwaring, attention! Look upon these two--upon Miss Gourlay, here, and upon Ned Roberts--and tell me if you don't think there's a strong likeness.”
The attention of the others was instantly directed to an examination of the parties in question, and most certainly they were struck with the extraordinary resemblance.
“It is very remarkable, indeed, Mr. Roberts,” observed their hostess, looking at them again; “and what confirms it is the fact, that I noticed the circumstance almost as soon as Mr. Roberts joined us. It is certainly very strange to find such a resemblance in persons not at all related.”
Lucy, on finding the eyes of her friends upon her, could not avoid blushing; nor was the young officer's complexion without a somewhat deeper tinge.
“Now,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, smiling, “the question is, which we are to consider complimented by this extraordinary likeness.”
“The gentleman, of course, Mrs. Mainwaring,” replied Sam.
“Unquestionably,” said Edward, bowing to Lucy; “I never felt so much flattered in my life before, nor ever can again, unless by a similar comparison with the same fair object.”
Another blush on the part of Lucy followed this delicate compliment, and old Sam exclaimed:
“Attention, Mainwaring! and you, ma'am,”--addressing Mrs. Mainwaring. “Now did you ever see brother and sister more like? eh!”
“Very seldom ever saw brother and sister so like,” replied Mainwaring. “Indeed, it is most extraordinary.”
“Wonderful! upon my word,” exclaimed his wife.
“Hum!--Well,” proceeded Sam, “it is, I believe, very odd--very--and may be not, either--may be not so odd. Ahem!--and yet, still--however, no matter, it's all natural; all the heart of man--eh! Mainwaring?”
“I suppose so, Mr. Roberts; I suppose so.”
After old Sam and his son had taken their departure, Lucy once more adverted to the duty as well as the necessity of acquainting her father with her safety, and thus relieving his mind of much anxiety and trouble. To this her friend at once consented. The baronet, in the meantime, felt considerably the worse for those dreadful conflicts which had swept down and annihilated all that ever had any tendency to humanity or goodness in his heart. He felt unwell--that is to say, he experienced none of those symptoms of illness which at once determine the nature of any specific malady. The sensation, however, was that of a strong man, who finds his frame, as it were, shaken--who is aware that something of a nameless apprehension connected with his health hangs over him, and whose mind is filled with a sense of gloomy depression and restlessness, for which he neither can account nor refer to any particular source of anxiety, although such in reality may exist. It appeared to be some terrible and gigantic hypochondriasis--some waking nightmare--coming over him like the shadow of his disappointed ambition, blighting his strength, and warning him, that when the heart is made the battle-field of the passions for too long a period, the physical powers will ultimately suffer, until the body becomes the victim of the spirit.
Yet, notwithstanding this feeling, Sir Thomas's mind was considerably relieved. Lucy had not eloped; but then, the rumor of her elopement had gone abroad. This, indeed, was bitter; but, on the other hand, time--circumstances--the reappearance of this most mysterious stranger--and most of all, Lucy's high character for all that was great and good, delicate and honorable, would ere long, set her right with the world. Nothing, he felt, however, would so quickly and decidedly effect this as her return to her father's roof; for this necessary step would at once give the lie to calumny.
In order, therefore, to ascertain, if possible, the place of her present concealment, he resolved to remove to his metropolitan residence, having taken it for granted that she had sought shelter there with some of her friends. Anxious, nervous, and gloomy, he ordered his carriage, and in due time arrived in Dublin.
Thither the stranger had preceded him. The latter, finding that Ballytrain could no longer be the scene of his operations, also sought the metropolis. Fenton had disappeared--Lucy was no longer there. His friend Birney was also in town, and as in town his business now lay, to town therefore he went.
In the meantime, we must turn a little to our friend Crackenfudge, who, after the rough handling he had received from the baronet, went home, if not a sadder and a wiser, at least a much sorer man. The unfortunate wretch was sadly basted. The furious baronet, knowing the creature he was, had pitched into him in awful style. He felt, however, when cooled down, that he had gone too far; and that, for the sake of Lucy, and in order to tie up the miserable wretch's babbling tongue, it was necessary that he should make some apology for such an unjustifiable outrage. He accordingly wrote him the following letter before he went to town:
“DEAR SIR,--The nature of the communication which, I am sure from kind feelings, you made to me the other day, had such an effect upon a temper naturally choleric, that I fear I have been guilty of some violence toward you. I am, unfortunately, subject to paroxysms of this sort, and while under their influence feel utterly unconscious of what I do or say. In your case, will you be good enough to let me know--whether I treated you kindly or otherwise; for the fact is, the paroxysm I speak of assumes an affectionate character as well as a violent one. Of what I did or said on the occasion in question I have no earthly recollection. In the meantime, I have the satisfaction to assure you that Miss Gourlay has not eloped, but is residing with a friend, in the metropolis. I have seen the gentleman to whom you alluded, and am satisfied that their journey to town was purely accidental. He knows not even where she is; but I do, and am quite easy on the subject. Have the kindness to mention this to all your friends, and to contradict the report of her elopement wherever and whenever you hear it.
“Truly yours,
“Thomas Gourlay.
“Periwinkle Crackenfudge, Esq.
“P. S.--In the meantime, will you oblige me by sending up to my address in town a list of your claims for a seat on the magisterial bench. Let it be as clear and well worded as you can make it, and as authentic. You may color a little, I suppose, but let the groundwork be truth--if you can; if not truth--then that which comes as near it as possible. Truth, you know, is always better than a lie, unless where a lie happens to be better than truth.
“T. G.”
To this characteristic epistle our bedrubbed friend sent the following reply:
“My dear Sir Thomas,--A' would give more than all mention to be gifted with your want of memory respecting what occurred the other day. Never man had such a memory of that dreadful transaction as a' have; from head to heel a'm all memory; from heel to head a'm all memory--up and down --round--about--across--here and there, and everywhere--a'm all memory; but in one particular place, Sir Thomas--ah! there's where a' suffer--however, it doesn't make no matter; a' only say that you taught me the luxury of an easy chair and a. soft cushion ever since, Sir Thomas.
“Your letter, Sir Thomas, has given me great comfort, and has made me rejoice, although it is with groans a' do it, at the whole transaction. If you succeed in getting me the magistracy, Sir Thomas, it will be the most blessed and delightful basting that ever a lucky man got. If a' succeed in being turned into a bony fidy live magistrate, to be called 'your worship,' and am to have the right of fining and flogging and committing the people, as a' wish and hope to do, then all say that the hand of Providence was in it, as well as your foot, Sir Thomas. Now, that you have explained the circumstance, a' feel very much honored by the drubbing a' got, Sir Thomas; and, indeed, a' don't doubt, after all, but it was meant in kindness, as you say, Sir Thomas; and a'm sure besides, Sir Thomas, that it's not every one you'd condescend to drub, and that the man you would drub, Sir Thomas, must be a person of some consequence. A' will send you up my claims as a magistrate some of these days--that is, as soon as a' can get some long-headed fellow to make them out for me.
“And have the honor to be, my dear Sir Thomas, your much obliged and favored humble servant.
“Periwinkle Crackenfudge.
“Sir Thomas Gourlay, Bart.”
XXIV. An Irish Watchhouse in the time of the “Charlies.”
Another subject which vexed the baronet not a little was the loss of his money and pistols by the robbery; but what he still felt more bitterly, was the failure of the authorities to trace or arrest the robber. The vengeance which he felt against that individual lay like a black venomous snake coiled round his heart. The loss of the money and the fire-arms he might overlook, but the man, who, in a few moments, taught him to know himself as he was--who dangled him, as it were, over the very precipice of hell--with all his iniquities upon his head, the man who made him feel the crimes of a whole life condensed into one fearful moment, and showed them to him darkened into horror by the black lightning of perdition; such a man, we say, he could never forgive. It was in vain that large rewards were subscribed and offered, it was in vain that every effort was made to discover the culprit. Not only was there no trace of him got, but other robberies had been committed by a celebrated highwayman of the day, named Finnerty, whom neither bribe nor law could reach.
Our readers may remember, with reference to the robbery of the baronet, the fact of Trailcudgel's having met the stranger on his way to disclose all the circumstances to the priest, and that he did not proceed farther on that occasion, having understood that Father M'Mahon was from home. Poor Trailcudgel, who, as the reader is aware, was not a robber either from principle or habit, and who only resorted to it when driven by the agonizing instincts of nature, felt the guilt of his crime bitterly, and could enjoy rest neither night nor day, until he had done what he conceived to be his duty as a Christian, and which was all he or any man could do: that is, repent for his crime, and return the property to him from whom he had taken it. This he did, as it is usually done, through the medium of his pastor; and on the very day after the baronet's departure both the money and pistols were deposited in Father M'Mahon's hands.
In a few days afterwards the worthy priest, finding, on inquiry, that Sir Thomas had gone to Dublin, where, it was said, he determined to reside for some time, made up his mind to follow him, in order to restore him the property he had lost. This, however, was not the sole purpose of his visit to the metropolis. The letter he had given the stranger to Corbet, or Dunphy, had not, he was sorry to find, been productive of the object for which it had been written. Perhaps it was impossible that it could; but still the good priest, who was as shrewd in many things as he was benevolent and charitable in all, felt strongly impressed with a belief that this old man was not wholly ignorant, or rather unconnected with the disappearance of either one or the other of the lost children. Be this, however, as it may, he prepared to see the baronet for the purpose already mentioned.
He accordingly took his place--an inside one--in the redoubtable “Fly,” which, we may add, was the popular vehicle at the time, and wrapping himself up in a thick frieze cloak, or great coat, with standing collar that buttoned up across his face to the very eyes, and putting a shirt or two, and some other small matters, into a little bundle--tying, at the same time, a cotton kerchief over his hat and chin--he started on his visit to the metropolis, having very much the appearance of a determined character, whose dress and aspect were not, however, such as to disarm suspicion. He felt much more careful of the baronet's pocket-book than he did of his own, and contrived to place it in an inside pocket, which being rather small for it, he was obliged to rip a little in order to give it admittance. The case of pistols he slipped into the pockets of his jock, one in each, without ever having once examined them, or satisfied himself--simple man--as to whether they were loaded or not. His own pocket-book was carelessly placed in the right-hand pocket of the aforesaid jock, along with one of the pistols.
The night was agreeable, and nothing worth recording took place until they had come about five miles on the side of ------, when a loud voice ordered the coachman to stop.
“Stop the coach, sir!” said the voice, with a good deal of reckless and bitter expression in it; “stop the coach, or you are a dead man.”
Several pistols were instantly leveled at both coachman and guard, and the same voice, which was thin, distinct, and wiry, proceeded--“Keep all steady now, boys, and shoot the first that attempts to move. I will see what's to be had inside.”
He went immediately to the door of the “Fly,” and opening it, held up a dark lantern, which, whilst it clearly showed him the dress, countenances, and condition of the passengers, thoroughly concealed his own.
The priest happened to be next him, and was consequently the first person on whom this rather cool demand was made.
“Come, sir,” said the highwayman, “fork out, if you please; and be quick about it, if you're wise.”
“Give a body time, if you plaise,” responded the priest, who at that moment had about him all the marks and tokens of a farmer, or, at least, of a man who wished to pass for one. “I think,” he added, “if you knew who you had, you'd not only pass me by, but the very coach I'm travelin' in. Don't be unaisy, man alive,” he proceeded; “have patience--for patience, as everybody knows, is a virtue--do, then, have patience, or, maybe--oh! ay!--here it is--here is what you want--the very thing, I'll be bound--and you must have it, too.” And the poor man, in the hurry and alarm of the moment, pulled out one of the baronet's pistols.
The robber whipped away the lantern, and instantly disappeared. “By the tarn, boys,” said he, “it's Finnerty himself, disguised like a farmer. But he's mid to travel in a public coach, and the beaks on the lookout for him. Hello! all's right, coachman; drive on, we won't disturb you this night, at all events. Gee hup!--off you go; and off we go--with empty pockets.”
It happened that this language, which the robber did not intend to have reached the ears of the passengers, was heard nevertheless, and from this moment until they changed horses at ------ there was a dead silence in the coach.
On that occasion one gentleman left it, and he had scarcely been half a minute gone when a person, very much in the garb and bearing of a modern detective, put in his head, and instantly withdrew it, exclaiming,
“Curse me, it's a hit--he's inside as snug as a rat in a trap. Up with you on top of the coach, and we'll pin him when we reach town. 'Gad, this is a windfall, for the reward is a heavy one.--If we could now manage the baronet's business, we were made men.”
He then returned into the coach, and took his seat right opposite the priest, in order the better to watch his motions, and keep him completely under his eye.
“Dangerous traveling by night, sir,” said he, addressing the priest, anxious to draw his man into conversation.
“By night or by day, the roads are not very safe at the present time,” replied his reverence.
“The danger's principally by night, though,” observed the other. “This Finnerty is playing the devil, they say; and is hard to be nabbed by all accounts.”
The observation was received by several hums, and hems, and has, and very significant ejaculations, whilst a fat, wealthy-looking fellow, who sat beside the peace-officer--for such he was--in attempting to warn him of Finnerty's presence, by pressing on his foot, unfortunately pressed upon that of the priest in mistake, who naturally interpreted the hems and has aforesaid to apply to the new-corner instead of himself. This cannot be matter of surprise, inasmuch as the priest had his ears so completely muffled up with the collar of his jock and a thick cotton kerchief, that he heard not the allusions which the robber had made outside the coach, when he mistook him for Finnerty. He consequently peered very keenly at the last speaker, who to tell the truth, had probably in his villanous features ten times more the character and visage of a highwayman and cutthroat than the redoubtable Finnerty himself.
“It's a wonder,” said the priest, “that the unfortunate man has not been taken.”
“Hum!” exclaimed the officer; “unfortunate man. My good fellow, that's very mild talk when speaking of a robber. Don't you know that all robbers deserve the gallows, eh?”
“I know no such thing,” replied the priest. “Many a man has lived by robbing, in his day, that now lives by catching them; and many a poor fellow, as honest as e'er an individual in this coach--”
“That's very shocking language,” observed a thin, prim, red-nosed lady, with a vinegar aspect, who sat erect, and apparently fearless, in the corner of the coach--“very shocking language, indeed. Why, my good man, should you form any such wile kimparison?”
“Never mind, ma'am; never mind,” said the officer, whose name was Darby; “let him proceed; from what he is about to say, I sha'n't be surprised if he justifies robbery--not a bit--but will be a good deal, if he don't. Go on, my good fellow.”
“Well,” proceeded the priest, “I was going to say, that many a poor wretch, as honest as e'er an individual, man or woman--”
Here there was, on the part of the lady, an indignant toss of the head, and a glance of supreme scorn leveled at the poor priest; whilst Darby, like a man who had generously undertaken the management of the whole discussion, said, with an air of conscious ability, if not something more, “nevermind him, ma'am; give him tether.”
“As honest,” persisted the priest, “as e'er an individual, man or woman, in this coach--and maybe, if the truth were known, a good deal honester than some of them.”
“Good,” observed the officer; “I agree with you in that--right enough there.”
The vinegar lady, now apprehensive that her new ally had scandalously abandoned her interests, here dropped her eyes, and crossed her hands upon her breast, as if she had completely withdrawn herself from the conversation.
“I finds,” said she to herself, in a contemptuous soliloquy, “as how there ain't no gentleman in this here wehicle.”
“Just pay attention, ma'am,” said the officer--“just pay attention, that's all.”
This, however, seemed to have no effect--at least the lady remained in the same attitude, and made no reply.
“Suppose now,” proceeded the priest, “that an unfortunate father, in times of scarcity and famine, should sit in his miserable cabin, and see about him six or seven of his family, some dying of fever, and others dying from want of food; and suppose that he was driven to despair by reflecting that unless he forced it from the rich who would not out of their abundance prevent his children from starving, he can procure them relief in no other way, and they must die in the agonies of hunger before his face. Suppose this, and that some wealthy man, without sympathy for his fellow-creatures, regardless of the cries of the poor-heartless, ambitious, and oppressive; and suppose besides that it was this very heartless and oppressive man of wealth who, by his pride and tyranny, and unchristian vengeance, drove that poor man and his wretched family to the state I have painted them for you, in that cold and dreary hovel; suppose all this, I say, and that that wretched poor man, his heart bursting, and his brain whirling, stimulated by affection, goaded by hunger and indescribable misery; suppose, I say, that in the madness of despair he sallies out, and happens to meet the very individual who brought him and his to such a dreadful state--do you think that he ought to let him pass--”
“I see,” interrupted the officer, “without bleeding him; I knew you would come to that--go along.”
“That he ought to let that wealthy oppressor pass, and allow the wife of his bosom and his gasping little ones to perish, whilst he knows that taking that assistance from him by violence which he ought to give freely would save them to society and him? Mark me, I'm not justifying robbery. Every general rule has its exception; and I'm only supposing a case where the act of robbery may be more entitled to compassion than to punishment--but, as I said, I'm not defending it.”
“Ain't you, faith?” replied the officer; “it looks devilish like it, though. Don't you think so, ma'am?”
“I never listens to no nonsense like that ere,” replied the lady. “All I say is, that a gentleman as I've the honor of being acquainted with, 'as been robbed the other night of a pocket-book stuffed with banknotes, and a case of Hirish pistols that he kept to shoot robbers, and sich other wulgar wretches as is to be found nowhere but in Hireland.”
“Stuffed!” exclaimed the priest, disdainfully; “as much stuffed, ma'am, as you are.”
The officer's very veins tingled with delight on hearing the admission which was involved in the simple priest's exclamation. He kept it, however, to himself, on account of the large reward that lay in the background.
“I stuffed!” exclaimed the indignant lady, whose thin face had for a considerable time been visible, for it was long past dawn; “I defy you, sir,” she replied, “you large, nasty, Hirish farmer, as feeds upon nothing but taters. I stuffed!--no lady--you nasty farmer--goes without padding, which is well known to any man as is a gentleman. But stuffed! I defy you, nasty Paddy; I was never stuffed. Those as stuff use 'oss 'air; now I never uses 'oss 'air.”
“If you weren't stuffed, then,” replied the priest, who took a natural disrelish to her affectation of pride and haughtiness, knowing her as he now did--“many a better woman was. If you weren't, ma'am, it wasn't your own fault. Sir Thomas Gourlay's English cook need never be at a loss for plenty to stuff herself with.”
This was an extinguisher. The heaven of her complexion was instantly concealed by a thick cloud in the shape of a veil. She laid herself back in the corner of the carriage, and maintained the silence of a vanquished woman during the remainder of the journey.
On arriving in town the passengers, as is usual, betook themselves to their respective destinations. Father M'Mahon, with his small bundle under his arm, was about to go to the Brazen Head Tavern, when he found himself tapped on the shoulder by our friend Darby, who now held a pistol in his hand, and said:
“There are eight of us, Mr. Finnerty, and it is useless to shy Abraham. You're bagged at last, so come off quietly to the office.”
“I don't understand you,” replied the priest, who certainly felt surprised at seeing himself surrounded by so many constables, for it was impossible any longer to mistake them. “What do you mean, my friend? or who do you suppose me to be?”
The constable gave him a knowing wink, adding with as knowing an air--“It's no go here, my lad--safe's the word. Tramp for the office, or we'll clap on the wrist-buttons. We know you're a shy cock, Mr. Finnerty, and rather modest, too--that's the cut. Simpson, keep the right arm fast, and, you, Gamble, the left, whilst we bring up the rear. In the meantime, before he proceeds a step, I, as senior, will take the liberty to--just--see--what--is--here,” whilst, suiting the word to the action, he first drew a pistol from the left pocket, and immediately after another from the right, and--shades of Freney and O'Hanlon!--the redoubtable pocket-book of Sir Thomas Gourlay, each and all marked not only with his crest, but his name and title at full length.
The priest was not at a moment's loss how to act. Perceiving their mistake as to his identity, and feeling the force of appearances against him, he desired to be conducted at once to the office. There he knew he could think more calmly upon the steps necessary to his liberation than he could in a crowd which was enlarging every moment, on its being understood that Finnerty, the celebrated highwayman, had been at length taken. Not that the crowd gave expression to any feeling or ebullition that was at all unfriendly to him. So far from that, it gathered round him with strong expressions of sympathy and compassion for his unhappy fate. Many were the anecdotes reported to each other by the spectators of his humanity--his charity--his benevolence to the poor; and, above all, of his intrepidity and courage; for it may be observed here--and we leave moralists, metaphysicians, and political economists to draw whatever inferences they please from the fact--but fact it is--that in no instance is any man who has violated the law taken up publicly, on Irish ground, whether in town or country, that the people do not uniformly express the warmest sympathy for him, and a strong manifestation of enmity against his captors. Whether this may be interpreted favorably or otherwise of our countrymen, we shall not undertake to determine. As Sir Roger de Coverly said, perhaps much might be advanced on both sides.
On entering the watch-house, the heart of the humane priest was painfully oppressed at the scenes of uproar, confusion, debauchery, and shameless profligacy, of which he saw either the present exhibition or the unquestionable evidences. There was the lost and hardened female, uttering the wild screams of intoxication, or pouring forth from her dark, filthy place of confinement torrents of polluted mirth; the juvenile pickpocket, ripe in all the ribald wit and traditional slang of his profession; the ruffian burglar, with strong animal frame, dark eyebrows, low forehead, and face full of coarseness and brutality; the open robber, reckless and jocular, indifferent to consequences, and holding his life only in trust for the hangman, or for some determined opponent who may treat him to cold lead instead of pure gold; the sneaking thief, cool and cowardly, ready-witted at the extricating falsehood--for it is well known that the thief and liar are convertible terms--his eye feeble, cunning, and circumspective, and his whole appearance redolent of duplicity and fraud; the receiver of stolen goods, affecting much honest simplicity; the good creature, whether man or woman, apparently in great distress, and wondering that industrious and unsuspecting people, struggling to bring up their families in honesty and decency, should be imposed upon and taken in by people that one couldn't think of suspecting. There, too, was the servant out of place, who first a forger of discharges, next became a thief, and heroically adventuring to the dignity of a burglar for which he had neither skill nor daring, was made prisoner in the act; and there he sits, half drunk, in that corner, repenting his failure instead of his crime, forgetting his cowardice, and making moral resolutions with himself, that, should he escape now, he will execute the next burglary in a safe and virtuous state of sobriety. But we need not proceed: there was the idle and drunken mechanic, or, perhaps, the wife, whose Saturday night visits to the tap-room in order to fetch him home, or to rescue the wages of his industry from the publican, had at length corrupted herself.
Two other characters were there which we cannot overlook, both of whom had passed through the world with a strong but holy scorn for the errors and failings of their fellow-creatures. One of them was a man of gross, carnal-looking features, trained, as it seemed to the uninitiated, into a severe and sanctified expression by the sheer force of religion. His face was full of godly intolerance against everything at variance with the one thing needful, whatever that was, and against all who did not, like himself, travel on fearlessly and zealously Zionward. He did not feel himself justified in the use of common and profane language; and, consequently, his vocabulary was taken principally from the Bible, which he called “the Lord's word.” Sunday was not Sunday with him, but “the Lord's day;” and he never went to church in his life, but always to “service.” Like most of his class, however, he seemed to be influenced by that extraordinary anomaly which characterizes the saints--that is to say, as great a reverence for the name of the devil as for that of God himself; for in his whole life and conversation he was never known to pronounce it as we have written it. Satan--the enemy--the destroyer, were the names he applied to him: and this, we presume, lest the world might suspect that there subsisted any private familiarity between them. His great ruling principle, however, originated in what he termed a godless system of religious liberality; in other words, he attributed all the calamities and scourges of the land to the influence of Popery. and its toleration by the powers that be. He was a big-boned, coarse man, with black, greasy hair, cut short; projecting cheek-bones, that argued great cruelty; dull, but lascivious eyes; and an upper lip like a dropsical sausage. We forget now the locality in which he had committed the offence that had caused him to be brought there. But it does not much matter; it is enough to say that he was caught, about three o'clock, perambulating the streets, considerably the worse for liquor, and not in the best society. Even as it was, and in the very face of those who had detected him so circumstanced, he was railing against the ungodliness of our “rulers,” the degeneracy of human nature, and the awful scourges that the existence of Popery was bringing on the land.
As it happened, however, this worthy representative of his class was not without a counterpart among the moral inmates of the watch-house. Another man, who was known among his friends as a Catholic voteen, or devotee, happened to have been brought to the game establishment, much in the same circumstances, and for some similar offence. When compared together, it was really curious to observe the extraordinary resemblance which these two men bore to each other. Each was dressed in sober clothes, for your puritan of every creed must, like his progenitors the Pharisees of old, have some peculiarity in his dress that will gain him credit for religion. Their features were marked by the same dark, sullen shade which betokens intolerance. The devotee was thinner, and not so large a man as the other; but he made up in the cunning energy which glistened from his eyes for the want of physical strength, as compared with the Protestant saint; not at all that he was deficient in it per se, for though a smaller man, he was better built and more compact than his brother. Indeed, so nearly identical was the expression of their features--the sensual Milesian mouth, and naturally amorous temperament, hypocrisized into formality, and darkened into bitterness by bigotry --that on discovering each other in the watch-house, neither could for his life determine whether the man before him belonged to idolatrous Rome on the one hand, or the arch heresy on the other.
There they stood, exact counterparts, each a thousand times more anxious to damn the other than to save himself. They were not long, however, in discovering each other, and in a moment the jargon of controversy rang loud and high amidst the uproar and confusion of the place. The Protestant saint attributed all the iniquity by which the land, he said, was overflowed, and the judgments under which it was righteously suffering, to the guilt of our rulers, who forgot God, and connived at Popery.
The Popish saint, on the other hand, asserted that so long as a fat and oppressive heresy was permitted to trample upon the people, the country could never prosper. The other one said, that idolatry--Popish idolatry--was the cause of all; and that it was the scourge by which “the Lord” was inflicting judicial punishment upon the country at large. If it were not for that he would not be in such a sink of iniquity at that moment. Popish idolatry it was that brought him there; and the abominations of the Romish harlot were desolating the land.
The other replied, that perhaps she was the only harlot of the kind he would run away from; and maintained, that until all heresy was abolished, and rooted out of the country, the curse of God would sit upon them, as the corrupt law church does now in the shape of an overgrown nightmare. What brought him, who was ready to die for his persecuted church, here? He could tell the heretic;--it was Protestant ascendancy, and he could prove it;--yes, Protestant ascendancy, and nothing else, was it that brought him to that house, its representative, in which he now stood. He maintained that it resembled a watch-house; was it not full of wickedness, noise, and blasphemy; and were there any two creeds; in it that agreed together, and did not fight like devils?
How much longer this fiery discussion might have proceeded it is difficult to say. The constable of the night, finding that the two hypocritical vagabonds were a nuisance to the whole place, had them handcuffed together, and both placed in the black hole to finish their argument.
In short, there was around the good man--vice, with all her discordant sounds and hideous aspects, clanging in his ear the multitudinous din that arose from the loud and noisy tumult of her brutal, drunken, and debauched votaries.
The priest, who respected his cloth and character, did not lay aside his jock, nor expose himself to the coarse jests and ruffianly insolence with which the vagabond minions of justice were in those days accustomed to treat their prisoners. He inquired if he could get a person to carry a message from him to a man named Corbet, living at 25 Constitution Hill; adding, that he would compensate him fairly. On this, one of those idle loungers or orderlies about such places offered himself at once, and said he would bring any message he wished, provided he forked out in the first instance.
“Go, then,” said the priest, handing him a piece of silver, “to No. 25 Constitution Hill, where a man named Corbet--what am I saying--Dunphy, lives, and tell him to come to me immediately.”
“Ha!” said Darby, laying his finger along; his nose, as he spoke to one of his associates, “I smell an alias there. Good; first Corbet and then Dunphy. What do you call that? That chap is one of the connection. Take the message, Skipton; mark him well, and let him be here, if possible, before we bring the prisoner to Sir Thomas Gourlay's.”
The fellow winked in reply, and approaching the priest, asked,
“What message have you to send, Mr. Finnerty?”
“Tell him--but stay; oblige me with a slip of paper and a pen, I will write it down.”
“Yes, that's better,” said Darby. “Nothing like black and white, you know,” he added, aside to Skipton.
Father M'Mahon then wrote down his office only; simply saying, “The parish priest of Ballytrain wishes to see Anthony Dunphy as soon as he can come to him.”
This description of himself excited roars of laughter throughout the office; nor could the good-natured priest himself help smiling at the ludicrous contrast between his real character and that which had been affixed upon him.
“Confound me,” said Darby, “but that's the best alias I have heard this many a day. It's as good as Tom Green's that was hanged, and who always stuck to his name, no matter how often he changed it. At one time it was Ivy, at another Laurel, at another Yew, and so on, poor fellow, until he swung.” Skipton, the messenger, took the slip of paper with high glee, and proceeded on his embassy to Constitution Hill.
He had scarcely been gone, when a tumult reached their ears from outside, in which one voice was heard considerably louder and deeper than the rest; and almost immediately afterwards an old acquaintance of the reader's, to wit, the worthy student, Ambrose Gray, in a very respectable state of intoxication, made his appearance, charged with drunkenness, riot, and a blushing reluctance to pay his tavern reckoning. Mr. Gray was dragged in at very little expense of ceremony, it must be confessed, but with some prospective damage to his tailor, his clothes having received considerable abrasions in the scuffle, as well as his complexion, which was beautifully variegated with tints of black, blue, and yellow.
“Well, Mr. Gray,” said Darby, “back once more I see? Why, you couldn't live without us, I think. What's this now?”
“A deficiency of assets, most potent,” replied Gray, with a hiccough--“unable to meet a rascally tavern reckoning;” and as Mr. Gray spoke he thrust his tongue into his cheek, intimating by this significant act his high respect for Mr. Darby.
“You had better remember, sir, that you are addressing the senior officer here,” said the latter, highly offended.
“Most potent, grave, and reverend senior, I don't forget it; nor that the grand senior can become a most gentlemanly ruffian whenever he chooses. No, senior, I respect your ruffianship, and your ruffianship ought to respect me; for well you wot that many a time before now I've greased that absorbing palm of yours.”
“Ah,” replied Darby, “the hemp is grown for you, and the rope is purchased that will soon be greased for your last tug. Why didn't you pay your bill, I say?”
“I told you before, most potent, that that fact originated in a deficiency of assets.”
“I rather think, Mr. Gray,” said Darby, “that it originated in a very different kind of deficiency--a deficiency of inclination, my buck.”
“In both, most reverend senior, and I act on scriptural principles; for what does Job say? 'Base is the slave that patient pays.'”
“Well, my good fellow, if you don't pay, you'll be apt to receive, some fine day, that's all,” and here he made a motion with his arm, as if he were administering the cat-o'-nine-tails; “however, this is not my business. Here comes Mrs. Mulroony to make her charge. I accordingly shove you over to Ned Nightcap, the officer for the night.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Gray, “I see, most potent, you have operated before. Kow-de-dow-de-dow, my boy. There was a professional touch in that jerk that couldn't be mistaken: that quiver at the wrist was beautiful, and the position of the arm a perfect triangle. It must have been quite a pleasure to have suffered from such a scientific hand as yours. How do you do again, Mrs. Mulroony? Mrs. Mulroony, I hope you did not come without some refreshment. And you'll withdraw the charge, for the sake of futurity, Mrs. Mulroony.”
“If you do, Mrs. Mulroony,” said Darby, “I'm afraid you'll have to look to futurity for payment. I mean to that part of it commonly called 'to-morrow comenever.'--Make your charge, ma'am.”
Here a pale-faced, sinister-looking old fellow, in a red woollen nightcap, with baggy protuberances hanging under his red bleared eyes, now came to a little half door, inside of which stood his office for receiving all charges against the various delinquents that the Charlies, or watchmen of the period, had conducted to him.
“Here,” said he, in a hoarse, hollow voice, “what's this--what's this? Another charge against you, Mr. Gray? Garvy,” said he, addressing a watchman, “tell them vagabones that if they don't keep, quiet I'll put them in irons.”
This threat was received with a chorus of derision by those to whom it was addressed, and the noise was increased so furiously, that it resembled the clamor of Babel.
“Here, Garvy,” said honest Ned, “tickle some of them a bit. Touch up that bullet-headed house-breaker that's drunk--Sam Stancheon, they call him--lave a nate impression of the big kay on his head; he'll undherstand it, you know; and there's Molly Brady, or Emily Howard, as she calls herself, give her a clink on the noddle to stop her jinteelity. Blast her pedigree; nothing will serve her but she must be a lady on our hands. Tell her I'll not lave a copper ring or a glass brooch on her body if she's not quiet.”
The watchman named Garvy took the heavy keys, and big with the deputed authority, swept, like the destroying angel upon a small scale, through the tumultuous crew that were assembled in this villanous pandemonium, thrashing the unfortunate vagabonds on the naked head, or otherwise, as the case might be, without regard to age, sex, or condition, leaving bumps, welts, cuts, oaths, curses, and execrations, ad infinitum, behind him. Owing to this distribution of official justice a partial calm was restored, and the charge of Mrs. Mulroony was opened in form.
“Well, Mrs. Mulroony, what charge is this you have against Misther Gray?”
“Because,” replied Ambrose, “I wasn't in possession of assets to pay her own. Had I met her most iniquitous charge at home, honest Ned, I should have escaped the minor one here. You know of old, Ned, how she lost her conscience one night, about ten years ago; and the poor woman, although she put it in the 'Hue and Cry,' by way of novelty, never got it since. None of the officers of justice knew of such a commodity; ergo, Ned, I suffer.”
Here Mr. Ambrose winked at Ned, and touched his breeches pocket significantly, as much as to say, “the bribe is where you know.”
Ned, however, was strictly impartial, and declined, with most commendable virtue, to recognize the signal, until he saw whether Mrs. Mulroony did not understand “generosity” as well as Mr. Gray.
“Misther Gray, I'll thank you to button your lip, if you plaise. It's all very right, I suppose; but in the manetime let daicent Mrs. Mulroony tell her own story. How is it, ma'am?”
“Faith, plain enough,” she replied; “he came in about half past five o'clock, with three or four skips from college--”
“Scamps, Mrs. Mulroony. Be just, be correct, ma'am. We were all gentlemen scamps, Ned, from college. Everybody knows that a college scamp is a respectable character, especially if he be a divinity student, a class whom we are proud to place at our head. You are now corrected, Mrs. Mulroony--proceed.”
“Well; he tould me to get a dinner for five; but first asked to see what he called 'the bill of hair.'”
“In your hands it is anything but a bill of rights, Mrs. Mulroony.”
“I tould him not to trouble himself; that my dinner was as good as another's, which I thought might satisfy him; but instead o' that, he had the assurance to ask me if I could give them hair soup. I knew very well what the skip was at.”
“Scamp, ma'am, and you will oblige me.”
“For if grief for poor Andy (weeping), that suffered mainly for what he was as innocent of as the unborn child--if grief, an' every one knows it makes the hair to fall; an' afther all it's only a bit of a front I'm wearin';--ah, you villain, it was an ill-hearted cut, that.”
“It wasn't a cut did it, Mrs. Mulroony; it fell off naturally, and by instalments--or rather it was a cut, and that was what made you feel it; that youthful old gentleman, Time, gave it a touch with a certain scythe he carries. No such croppy as old Time, Mrs. Mulroony.” On concluding, he winked again at old Ned, and touched his pocket as before.
“Mr. Amby, be quiet,” said Ned, rather complacently though, “an' let daicent Mrs. Mulroony go on.”
“'Well, then,' says he, 'if you haven't, 'hair-soup,' which was as much as to say--makin' his own fun before the strangers--that I ought to boil my very wig to plaise him--my front, I mane, 'maybe,' says he, 'you have oxtail.' Well, flesh and blood could hardly bear that, and I said it was a scandal for him to treat an industrious, un-projected widow in such a way; 'if you want a dinner, Mr. Gray,' says I, 'I can give you and your friends a jacketful of honest corned beef and greens.' Well, my dear--”
At this insinuating expression of tenderness, old Ned, aware, for the first time, that she was a widow, and kept that most convenient of establishments, an eating-house, cocked his nightcap, with great spirit and significance, and with an attempt at a leer, which, from the force of habit, made him look upon her rather as the criminal than the accuser, he said--“It was scandalous, Mrs. Mulroony; and it is a sad thing to be unprotected, ma'am; it's a pity, too, to see sich a woman as you are without somebody to take care of her, and especially one that id undherstand swindlin'. But what happened next, ma'am?”
“Why, my dear--indeed, I owe you many thanks for your kindness--you see, my dear,”--the nightcap here seemed to move and erect itself instinctively--“this fellow turns round, and says to the other four skips--'Gentlemen,' says he, 'could you conde--condescend,' I think it was--yes--'could you condescend to dine upon corned beef and greens? They said, not unless it would oblige him; and then he said it wasn't to oblige him, but to sarve the house he did it. So, to make a long story short, they filled themselves with my victuals, drank seven tumblers of punch each, kept playin' cards the whole night, and then fell a fightin'--smashed glass, delft, and everything; and when it was mornin', slipped out, one by one, till I caught my skip here, the last of them--”
“Scamp, Mrs. Roony; a gentleman scamp, known to every one as a most respectable character on town.”
“When I caught him going off without payment, he fairly laughed in my face, and offered to toss me.”
“Oh, the villain!” said Ned; “I only wish I had been there, Mrs. Mulroony, and you wouldn't have wanted what I am sorry to see you do want--a protector. The villain, to go to toss such a woman--to go to take such scandalous liberties! Go on, ma'am--go on, my dear Mrs. Mulroony.”
“Well, my dear, he offered, as I said, to toss me for it--double or quits--and when I wouldn't stand that, he asked me if I would allow him to kiss it in, at so many kisses a-day; but I told him that coin wouldn't pass wid me.”
“He's a swindler, ma'am; no doubt of it, and you'll never be safe till you have some one to protect you that understands swindlin' and imposition. Well, ma'am--well, my dear ma'am, what next?”
“Why, he then attempted to escape; but as I happened to have a stout ladle in my hand, I thought a good basting wouldn't do him any harm, and while I was layin' on him two sailors came in, and they took him out of my hands.”
“Out of the frying-pan into the fire, you ought to say, Mrs. Mulroony.”
“So he and they fought, and smashed another lot of glass, and then I set out and charged him on the watch. Oh, murdher sheery--to think the way my beautiful beef and greens went!”
Here Mr. Ambrose, approaching Mrs. Mulroony, whispered--“My dear Mrs. Mulroony, remember one word--futurity; heir apparent--heir direct; so be moderate, and a short time will place you in easy circumstances. The event that's coming will be a stunner.”
“What's that he's sayin' to you, my dear Mrs. Mulroony?” asked Ned; “don't listen to him, he'll only soohdher and palaver you. I'll take your charge, and lock him up.”
“Darby,” said Mr. Gray, now approaching that worthy, “a single word with you--we understand one another--I intended to bribe old Ned, the villain; but you shall have it.”
“Very good, it's a bargain,” replied the virtuous Darby; “fork out.”
“Here, then, is ten shillings, and bring me out of it.”
Darby privately pocketed the money, and moving toward Ned, whispered to him--“Don't take the charge for a few minutes. I'll fleece them both. Amby has given me half-a-crown; another from her, and then, half and half between us. Mrs. Mulroony, a word with you. Listen--do you wish to succeed in this business?”
“To be sure I do; why not?”
“Well, then, if you do, slip me five shillings, or you're dished, like one of your own-dinners, and that Amby Gray will slice you to pieces. Ned's his friend at heart, I tell you.”
“Well, but you'll see me rightified?”
“Hand the money, ma'am; do you know who you're speaking to? The senior of the office.”
On receiving the money, the honest senior whispers to the honest officer of the night--“A crown from both, that is, half from each; and now act as you like; but if you take the widow's charge, we'll have a free plate, at all events, whenever we call to see her, you know.”
Honest Ned, feeling indignant that he was not himself the direct recipient of the bribes, and also anxious to win favor in the widow's eyes, took the charge against Mr. Gray, who was very soon locked up, with the “miscellanies,” in the black hole, until bail could be procured.
On finding that matters had gone against him, Gray, who, although unaffected in speech, was yet rather tipsy, assumed a look of singular importance, as if to console himself for the degradation he was about to undergo; he composed his face into an expression that gave a ludicrous travesty of dignity.
“Well,” said he, with a solemn swagger, nodding his head from side to side as he spoke, in order to impress what he uttered with a more mysterious emphasis--“you are all acting in ignorance, quite so; little you know who the person is that's before you; but it doesn't signify--I am somebody, at all events.”
“A gentleman in disguise,” said a voice from the black hole. “You'll find some of your friends here.”
“You are right, my good fellow--you are perfectly right;” said Ambrose, nodding with drunken gravity, as before; “high blood runs in my veins, and time will soon tell that; I shall stand and be returned for the town of Ballytrain, as soon as there comes a dissolution; I'm bent on that.”
“Bravo! hurra! a very proper member you'll make for it,” from the black hole.
“And I shall have the Augean stables of these corrupt offices swept of their filth. Ned, the scoundrel, shall be sent to the right about; Mr. Darby, for his honesty, shall have each wrist embraced by a namesake.”
Here he was shoved by Garvy, the watchman, head foremost into the black hole, after having received an impulse from behind, kindly intended to facilitate his ingress, which, notwithstanding his drunken ambition, the boast of his high blood, and mighty promises, was made with extraordinary want of dignity.
Although we have described this scene nearly in consecutive order, without the breaks and interruptions which took place whilst it proceeded, yet the reader should imagine to himself the outrage, the yelling, the clamor, the by-battles, and scurrilous contests in the lowest description of blackguardism with which it was garnished; thus causing it to occupy at least four times the period we have ascribed to it. The simple-minded priest, who could never have dreamt of such an exhibition, scarcely knew whether he was asleep or awake, and sometimes asked himself whether it was not some terrible phantasm by which he was startled and oppressed. The horrible impress of naked and hardened villany--the light and mirthful delirium of crime--the wanton manifestations of vice, in all its shapes, and the unblushing front of debauchery and profligacy--constituted, when brought together in one hideous group, a sight which made his heart groan for human nature on the one hand, and the corruption of human law on the other.
“The contamination of vice here,” said he to himself, “is so concentrated and deadly, that innocence or virtue could not long resist its influence. Alas! alas!”
Old Dunphy now made his appearance; but he had scarcely time to shake hands with the priest, when he heard himself addressed from between the bars of Gray's limbo, with the words,
“I say, old Corbet, or Dunphy, or whatever the devil they call you; here's a relation of yours by the mother's side only, you old dog--mark that; here I am, Ambrose Gray, a gentleman in disguise, as you well know; and I want you to bail me out.”
“An' a respectable way you ax it,” said Dunphy, putting on his spectacles, and looking at him through the bars.
“Respect! What, to a beggarly old huckster and kidnapper! Why, you penurious slicer of musty bacon--you iniquitous dealer in light weights--what respect are you entitled to from me? You know who I am--and you must bail me. Otherwise never expect, when the time comes, that I shall recognize you as a base relative, or suffer you to show your ferret face in my presence.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the old man, bitterly; “the blood is in you.”
“Eight, my old potatomonger; as true as gospel, and a great deal truer. The blood is in me.”
“Ay,” replied the other, “the blood of the oppressor--the blood of the villain--the blood of the unjust tyrant is in you, and nothing else. If you had his power, you'd be what he is, and maybe, worse, if the thing was possible. Now, listen; I'll make the words you just said to me the bitterest and blackest to yourself that you ever spoke. That's the last information I have for you; and as I know that you're just where you ought to be, among the companions you are fit for, there I leave you.”
He then turned toward the priest, and left Gray to get bail where he might.
When Skipton, the messenger, who returned with Dunphy, or Corbet, as we shall in future call him, entered the watch-house, he drew Darby aside, and held some private conversation with him, of which it was evident that Corbet was the subject, from the significant glances which each turned upon him from time to time.
In the meantime, the old man, recognizing the priest rather by his voice than his appearance, lost no time in acquainting the officers of justice that they were completely mistaken in the individual. The latter had briefly mentioned to him the circumstance and cause of his arrest.
“I want you,” said the priest, “to go to Sir Thomas Gourlay directly, and tell him that I have his money and pistols quite safe, and that I was on my way up to town with them, when this unpleasant mistake took place.”
“I will, your reverence,” said he, “without loss of time. I see,” he added, addressing Darby and the others, “that you have made a mistake here.”
“What mistake, my good man?” asked Darby.
“Why, simply, that instead of a robber, you have been sharp enough to take up a most respectable Catholic clergyman from Ballytrain.”
“What,” said Darby, “a Popish priest! Curse me, but that's as good, if not better, than the other thing. No Papist is allowed, under the penalty of a felony, to carry arms, and here is a Popish priest travelling with pistols. The other thing, Skipton, was only for the magistrates, but this is a government affair.”
“He may be Finnerty, after all,” replied Skipton, aside; “this old fellow is no authority as to his identity, as you may guess from what I told you.”
“At all events,” replied Darby, “we shall soon know which he is--priest or robber; but I hope, for our own sakes, he'll prove a priest on our hands. At any rate the magistrates are now in the office, and it's full time to bring his reverence up.”
Corbet, in the meantime, had gone to Sir Thomas Gourlay's with his reverence's message, and in a few minutes afterwards the prisoner, strongly guarded, was conducted to the police office.
XXV. The Police Office
--Sir Spigot Sputter and Mr. Coke--An Unfortunate Translator--Decision in “a Law Case.”
It is not our intention to detail the history of occurrences that are calculated to fill the mind with sorrow, not unmingled with disgust, or to describe scenes that must necessarily lower our estimate of both man and woman. On the bench sat two magistrates, of whom we may say that, from ignorance of law, want of temper, and impenetrable stupidity, the whole circle of commercial or professional life could not produce a pair more, signally unqualified for the important offices they occupied. One of them, named Sputter, Sir Spigot Sputter, was an old man, with a red face and perpetual grin, whose white hair was cropped close; but in compensation for this he wore powder and a queue, so that his head, except in vivacity of motion, might not inappropriately be compared to an overgrown tadpole struggling to get free from his shoulders, and escape to the nearest marsh. He also wore a false eye, which gave him a perennial blink that was sadly at variance with magisterial dignity. Indeed the consequences of it were sometimes ludicrous enough. When, for instance, one of those syrens who perambulate our fashionable streets after the sun has gone down, happened to be brought up to answer some charge that came under his jurisdiction, Sir Spigot's custom always was to put his glass to the safe eye, and peer at her in the dock; which act, when taken in connection with the grin and the droop of the glass eye, seemed to the spectators as if he and she understood each other, and that the wink in question was a kind of telegraphic dispatch sent to let her know that she had a friend on the bench. Sir Spigot was deaf, too, a felicitous circumstance, which gave him peculiar facility in the decision of his cases.
The name of his brother on the bench was Coke, who acted in the capacity of what is termed a law magistrate. It is enough, however, to say, that he was a thin man, with a long, dull face, a dull eye, a dull tongue, a dull ear, and a dull brain. His talents for ambiguity were surprising, and it always required a hint from the senior of the office, Darby, to enable him to understand his own decisions. This, however, was not without some beneficial consequences to the individuals before him; as it often happened, that when he seemed to have committed some hardened offender, after the infliction of a long, laborious, obscure harangue, he has immediately ordered him to be discharged. And, on the contrary, when some innocent individual heard with delight the sentence of the court apparently, in his favor, judge of what he must have felt on finding himself sent off to Newgate, Kilmainham, or the Penitentiary. In this instance, however, the advantage to the public was nearly equal; for if the guilty escaped in one case, so did the innocent in another. Here now is where Darby became useful; for Darby, who was well acquainted with his style, and with his meaning, when he had any, always interpreted his decisions to him, and told him in a whisper, or on a slip of paper, whether he had convicted the prisoner, or not.
We shall detail one case which occurred this morning. It happened that an amiable and distinguished literary gentleman, an LL.D., and a barrister, had lost from his library a book on which he placed great value, and he found this book on a stall not very far from the office. On seeing the volume he naturally claimed it, and the woman who had received it from the thief, who was a servant, refused to give it up, unless the money she had paid for it were returned to her. Neither would the wretch disclose the name of the thief, but snapped her fingers in Dr. A----'s face, saying she defied him, and that he could only bring her before Mr. Coke, who, she knew very well, would see justice done her. She lived by buying books, she said, and by selling books; and as he lived by writing books, she thought it wasn't handsome of him to insult the profession by bringing such a blackguard charge against them in her name.
He summoned her, however, and the case was one of the first called on the morning in question. The receiver of the stolen book came forward, with much assurance, as defendant, and modest Dr. A---- as plaintiff; when Sir Spigot, putting his glass to his eye, and looking from the one to the other with his wink and grin as usual, said to Darby:
“What is this man here for?”
“It's a law case, your worship,” replied the senior officer.
Coke, who sat solemn and silent, looked at the doctor, and said:
“Well, sir, what is your case? Please to state it.”
The case, being a very plain and brief one, was soon stated, the woman's reply was then heard, after which Mr. Coke looked graver than before, and proceeded somewhat to the following effect:
“This is a case of deep interest to that important portion of the bibiliopolist profession who vend their wares on stalls.”
“Thank your worship,” said the woman, with a courtesy.
“This most respectable body of persons, the booksellers--[another courtesy from the woman]--are divided into several classes; first, those who sell books in large and splendid shops; next, those who sell them in shops of less pretension; thirdly, those who sell them on stalls in thoroughfares, and at the corners of streets; fourthly, those who carry them in baskets, and who pass from place to place, and combine with the book-selling business that of flying stationer; and fifthly, those who do not sell them at all, but only read them; and as those who read, unless they steal or borrow, must purchase, I accordingly class them as booksellers indirectly, inasmuch as if they don't sell books themselves, they cause others to do so. For this reason it is evident that every man living, and woman too, capable of reading a book, is a bookseller; so that society at large is nothing but one great bookselling firm.
“Having thus established the immense extent and importance of the business, I now proceed to the consideration of the case before us. To steal a book is not in every case an offence against the law of libel, nor against the law of arson, nor against the law of insurrection, nor against the law of primogeniture; in fact, it is only against the law of theft--it offends only one law--and is innocent with respect to all the others. A person stealing a book could not be indicted under the statute of limitations, for instance; except, indeed, in so far as he may be supposed to limit the property of the person from whom he stole it. But on this point the opinion of the learned Folderol would go pretty far, were it not for the opinion of another great man, which I shall presently quote. Folderol lays it down as a fixed principle in an able treatise upon the law of weathercocks, that if property be stolen from an individual, without the aggregate of that property suffering reduction or diminution, he is not robbed, and the crime of theft has not been committed. The other authority that I alluded to, is that of his great and equally celebrated opponent, Tolderol, who lays it down on the other hand, that when a thief, in the act of stealing, leaves more behind him than he found there at first, so that the man stolen from becomes richer by the act of theft than he had been before it, the crime then becomes dupleis delicti, or one of harum-scarum, according to Doodle, and the thief deserves transportation or the gallows. And the reason is obvious: if the property of the person stolen from, under the latter category, were to be examined, and that a larger portion of it was found there than properly had belonged to him before the theft, he might be suspected of theft himself, and in this case a double conviction of the parties would ensue; that is, of him who did not take what he ought, and of him who had more than he was entitled to. This opinion, which is remarkable for its perspicuity and soundness, is to be found in the one hundred and second folio of Logerhedius, tome six hundred, page 9768.
“There is another case bearing strongly upon the present one, in 'Snifter and Snivell's Reports,' vol. 86, page 1480, in which an old woman, who was too poor to purchase a Bible, stole one, and was prosecuted for the theft. The counsel for the prosecution and the defence were both equally eminent and able. Counsellor Sleek was for the prosecution and Rant for the defence. Sleek, who was himself a religious barrister, insisted that the locus delicti aggravated the offence, inasmuch as she had stolen the Bible out of a church; but Rant maintained that the locus delicti was a prima facie evidence of her innocence, inasmuch as she only complied with a precept of religion, which enjoins all sinners to seek such assistance toward their spiritual welfare as the church can afford them.
“Sleek argued that the principle of theft must have been innate and strong, when the respect due to that sacred edifice was insufficient to restrain her from such an act--an act which constituted sacrilege of a very aggravated kind.
“Rant replied, that the motive and not the act constituted the crime. There was prima facie proof that she stole it for pious purposes--to wit, that she might learn therefrom a correct principle for the conduct of her life. It was not proved that the woman had sold the book, or pledged it, or in any-other way disposed of it for her corporal or temporal benefit; the inference, therefore, was, that the motive, in the first place, justified the act, which was in se a pious one; and, besides, had the woman been a thief, she would have stolen the plate and linen belonging to the altar; but she did not, therefore there existed on her part no consciousness nor intention of wrong.
“Sleek rejoined, that if the woman had felt any necessity for religious advice and instruction, she would have gone to the minister, whose duty it was to give it.
“Rant replied, that upon Sleek's own principles, if the minister had properly discharged his duty, the woman would have been under no necessity for taking the Bible at all; and that, consequently, in a strict spirit of justice, the theft, if theft it could be called, was not the theft of the old woman, but that of the minister himself, who had failed to give her proper instructions. It was the duty of the minister to have gone to the old woman, and not that of the old woman to have gone to the minister; but, perhaps, had the woman been young and handsome, the minister might have administered consolation.
“I find that Sleek here made a long speech about religion, which he charged Rant with insulting; he regretted that a false humanity had repealed some of those stringent but wholesome laws that had been enacted for the preservation of holy things, and was truly sorry that this sacrilegious old wretch could not be brought to the stake. He did not envy his learned, friend the sneering contempt for religion that ran through his whole argument.
“Rant bowed and smiled, and replied that, in his opinion, the only stake the poor woman ought to be brought to was a beefsteak; for he always wished to see the law administered with mercy.
“Sleek was not surprised at hearing such a carnal argument brought to the defence of such a crime, and concluded by pressing for the severest punishment the law could inflict against this most iniquitous criminal, who--and he dared even Rant himself to deny the fact--came before that court as an old offender; he therefore pressed for a conviction against a person who had acted so flagrantly contra bonos mores.
“Rant said, she could not or ought not to be convicted. This Bible was not individual property; it was that of a parish that contained better than eighteen thousand inhabitants. Now, if any individual were to establish his right of property in the Bible, and she herself was a proprietress as well as any of them, the amount would be far beneath any current coin of the realm, consequently there existed no legal symbol of property for the value of which a conviction could be had.
“As I perceive, however,” added Mr. Coke, “that the abstract of the arguments in this important case runs to about five hundred pages, I shall therefore recapitulate Judge Nodwell's charge, which has been considered a very brilliant specimen of legal acumen and judicial eloquence.
“'This, gentlemen of the jury,' said his lordship,' is a case of apparently some difficulty, and I cannot help admiring the singular talent and high principles displayed by the learned counsel on both sides, who so ably argued it. Of one thing I am certain, that no consciousness of religious ignorance, no privation of religious knowledge, could ever induce my learned friend Sleek to commit such a theft. Rather than do so, I am sure he would be conscientious enough to pass through the world without any religion at all. As it is, we all know that he is a great light in that respect--'
“'He would be a burning light, too, my lord,' observed Rant.
“No; his reverence for the Bible is too great, too sincere to profane it by such vulgar perusal as it may have received at the hands of that destitute old woman, who probably thumbed it day and night, without regard either to dog-ears or binding, or a consideration of how she was treating the property of the parish. The fact, however, gentlemen, seems to be, that the old woman either altogether forgot the institutions of society, or resolved society itself in her own mind into first principles. Now, gentlemen, we cannot go behind first principles, neither can we go behind the old woman. We must keep her before us, but it is not necessary to keep the Bible so. It has been found, indeed, that she did not sell, pledge, bestow, or otherwise make the book subservient to her temporal or corporal wants, as Mr. Rant very ingeniously argued. Neither did she take it to place in her library--for she had no library; nor for ostentation in her hall--for she had no hall, as my pious friend Counsellor Sleek has. But, gentlemen, even if this old woman by reading the Bible learned to repent, and felt conversion of heart, you are not to infer that the act which brought her to grace and repentance may not have been a hardened violation of the law. Beware of this error, gentlemen. The old woman by stealing this Bible may have repented her of her sins, it is true; but it is your business, gentlemen, to make her repent of the law also. The law is as great a source of repentance as the Bible any day, and, I am proud to say, has caused more human tears to be shed, and bitterer ones, too, than the Word of God ever did. Even although justified in the sight of heaven, it does not follow that this woman is to escape here. It is the act, and not the heart, that the law deals with. The purity of her motives, her repentance, are nothing to the law; but the law is everything to the person in whom they operate; because, although the heart may be innocent, the individual person must be punished. A penitent heart, or a consciousness of the pardon of God, are not fit considerations for a jury-box. You are, therefore, to exclude the motive, and to take nothing into consideration but the act; for it is only that by which the law has been violated.
“'But is there no such thing as mercy, my lord?' asked a juror.
“In the administration of the law there is such a fiction--a beautiful negation, indeed--but we know that Justice always holds the first place, and when she is satisfied, then we call in Mercy. Such, at least, is the wholesome practice and constitutional spirit of British law. I have now, gentlemen, rendered you every assistance in my power. If you think this old woman guilty, you will find accordingly; if not, you will give her the benefit of any doubt in her favor which you may entertain.
“The woman,” continued Coke, “was convicted, and here follows the sentence of the judge.
“Martha Dotinghed--you have been convicted by the verdict of twelve as intelligent and respectable gentlemen as I ever saw in a jury-box; convicted, I am sorry to say, very properly, of a most heinous crime, that of attempting to work out your salvation in an improper manner--to wit, by making illegally free with the Word of God.
“'In troth, my lord,' replied the culprit, 'the Word of God is become so scarce nowadays, that unless one steals it, they have but a poor chance of coming by it honestly, or hearing it at all'.”
“You have been convicted, I say, notwithstanding a most able defence by your counsel, who omitted no argument that could prove available for your acquittal; and I am sorry to hear from your own lips, that you are in no degree penitent for the crime you have committed. You say, the Word of God is scarce nowadays--but that fact, unhappy woman, only aggravates your guilt--for in proportion to the scarcity of the Word of God, so is its value increased--and we all know that the greater the value of that which is stolen, the deeper, in the eye of the law, is the crime of the thief. Had you not given utterance to those impenitent expressions, the court would have been anxious to deal mercifully with you. As it is, I tell you to prepare for the heaviest punishment it can inflict, which is, that you be compelled to read some one of the Commentaries upon the Book you have stolen, once, at least, before you die, should you live so long, and may God have mercy on you!
“Here the prisoner fell into strong hysterics, and was taken away in a state of insensibility from the dock.
“Now,” proceeded Coke, closing the ponderous tome, “I read this case from a feeling that it bears very strongly upon that before us. Saponificus, the learned and animated civilian, in his reply to the celebrated treatise of 'Rigramarolius de Libris priggatis,' commonly called his Essay on Stolen Books, asserts that there never yet was a book printed but was more or less stolen; and society, he argues, in no shape, in none of its classes--neither in the prison, lockup, blackhole, or penitentiary--presents us with such a set of impenitents and irreclaimable thieves as those who write books. Theft is their profession, and gets them the dishonest bread by which they live. These may always read the eighth commandment by leaving the negative out, and then take it in an injunctive sense. Such persons, in prosecuting another for stealing a book, cannot come into court with clean hands. Felons in literature, therefore, appear here with a very bad grace in prosecuting others for the very crime which they themselves are in the habit of committing.”
“But, your worship,” said Dr. A----, “this charge against authors cannot apply to me; the book in question is a translation.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Coke, “only a translation! But even so, has it notes or comments?”
“It has, your worship; but they--”
“And, sir, could you declare solemnly, that there is nothing stolen in the notes and comments, or introduction, if there is any?”
The doctor, “Ehem! hem!”
“But in the meantime,” proceeded Coke, “here have I gone to the trouble of giving such a profound decision upon a mere translation! Who is the translator?”
“I am myself, your worship; and in this case I am both plaintiff and translator.”
“That, however,” said Coke, shaking his head solemnly, “makes the case against you still worse.”
“But, your worship, there is no case against me. I have already told you that I am plaintiff and translator; and, with great respect, I don't think you have yet given any decision whatever.”
“I have decided, sir,” replied Coke, “and taken the case I read for you as a precedent.”
“But in that case, your worship, the woman was convicted.”
“And so she is in this, sir,” replied Coke. “Officer, put Biddy Corcoran forward. Biddy Corcoran, you are an old woman, which, indeed, is evident from the nature of your offence, and have been convicted of the egregious folly of purchasing a translation, which this gentleman says was compiled or got up by himself. This is conduct which the court cannot overlook, inasmuch as if it were persisted in, we might, God help us, become inundated with translations. I am against translations--I have ever been against them, and I shall ever be against them. They are immoral in themselves, and render the same injury to literature that persons of loose morals do to society. In general, they are nothing short of a sacrilegious profanation of the dead, and I would almost as soon see the ghost of a departed friend as the translation of a defunct author, for they bear the same relation. The regular translator, in fact, is nothing less than a literary ghoul, who lives upon the mangled carcasses of the departed--a mere sack-'em-up, who disinters the dead, and sells their remains for money. You, sir, might have been better and more honestly employed than in wasting your time upon a translation. These are works that no men or class of men, except bishops, chandlers, and pastrycooks, ought to have anything to do with; and as you, I presume, are not a bishop, nor a chandler, nor a pastrycook, I recommend you to spare your countrymen in future. Biddy Corcoran, as the court is determined to punish you severely, the penalty against you is, that you be compelled to read the translation in question once a week for the next three months. I had intended to send you to the treadmill for the same space of time: but, on looking more closely into the nature of your offence, I felt it my duty to visit you with a much severer punishment.”
“That, your worship,” replied the translator, “is no punishment at all; instead of that, it will be a pleasure to read my translation, and as you have pronounced her to be guilty, it goes in the very teeth of your decision.”
“What--what--what kind of language is this, sir?” exclaimed Sir Spigot Sputter! “This is disrespect to the court, sir. In the teeth of his decision! His worship's decision, sir, has no teeth.”
“Indeed, on second thoughts, I think not, sir,” replied, the indignant wit and translator; “it is indeed a very toothless decision, and exceedingly appropriate in passing sentence upon an old woman in the same state.”
“Eh--eh,” said Sir Spigot, “which old woman? who do you mean, sir? Yourself or the culprit? Eh? eh?”
“Your worship forgets that there are four of us,” replied the translator.
“Well, sir! well, sir! But as to the culprit--that old woman there--having no teeth, that is not her fault,” replied Sir Spigot; “if she hasn't teeth, she has gum enough--eh! eh! you must admit that, sir.”
“You all appear to have gum enough,” replied the wit, “and nothing but gum, only it is gum arabic to me, I know.”
“You have treated this court with disrespect, sir,” said Coke, very solemnly; “but the court will uphold its dignity. In the meantime you are fined half-a-crown.”
“But, your worship,” whispered Darby, “this is the celebrated Dr. A----, a very eminent man.”
“I have just heard, sir,” proceeded Coke, “from the senior officer of the court, that you are a very eminent man; it may be so, and I am very sorry for it. I have never heard your name, however, nor a syllable of your literary reputation, before; but as it seems you are an eminent man, I take it for granted that it must be in a private and confidential way among your particular friends. I will fine you, however, another half-crown for the eminence.”
“Well, gentlemen,” replied the doctor, “I have heard of many 'wise saws and modern instances,' but--”
“What do you mean, sir?” said Sir Spigot. “Another insult! You asserted, sir, already, that Mr. Coke's decision had teeth--”
“But I admitted my error,” replied the other.
“And now you mean to insinuate, I suppose, that his worship's saws are handsaws. You are fined another half-crown, sir, for the handsaw.”
“And another,” said Coke, “for the gum arabic.”
The doctor fearing that the fines would increase thick and threefold, forthwith paid them all, and retired indignantly from the court.
And thus was the author of certainly one of the most beautiful translations in any language, at least in his own opinion, treated by these two worthy administrators of the law. (* A fact.)
XXVI. The Priest Returns Sir Thomas's Money and Pistols
--A Bit of Controversy--A New Light Begins to Appear.
Very fortunately for the priest he was not subjected to an examination before these worthies. Sir Thomas Gourlay, having heard of his arrest and the cause of it, sent a note with his compliments, to request that he might be conducted directly to his residence, together with his pocket-book and pistols, assuring them, at the same time, that their officers had committed a gross mistake as to his person.
This was quite sufficient, and ere the lapse of twenty minutes Father M'Mahon, accompanied by Skipton and another officer, found himself at the baronet's hall-door. On entering the hall, Sir Thomas himself was in the act of passing from the breakfast parlor to his study above stairs, leaning upon the arm of Gibson, the footman, looking at the same time pale, nervous, and unsteady upon his limbs. The moment Skipton saw him, he started, and exclaimed, as if to himself, but loud enough for the priest to hear him:
“'Gad! I've seen him before, once upon a time; and well I remember the face, for it is not one to be forgotten.”
The baronet, on looking round, saw the priest, and desired him to follow them to his study.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas,” said the officer, “we now place his reverence safely in your hands; here, too, is your pocket-book and pistols.”
“Hand them to him, sir,” replied the baronet, nodding toward the priest; “and that is enough.”
“But, Sir Thomas--”
“What is it, sir? Have you not done your duty?”
“I hope so, sir; but if it would not be troublesome, sir, perhaps you would give us a receipt; an acknowledgment, sir.”
“For what?”
“For the priest's body, sir, in the first place, and then for the pocket-book and pistols.”
“If I were a little stronger,” replied the baronet, in an angry voice, “I would write the receipt upon your own body with a strong horsewhip; begone, you impudent scoundrel!”
Skipton turned upon him a bitter and vindictive look, and replied, “Oh, very well, sir--come, Tom, you are witness that I did my duty.”
Sir Thomas on entering the study threw himself listlessly on a sofa, and desired Gibson to retire.
“Take a seat, sir,” said he, addressing Father M'Mahon. “I am far from well, and must rest a little before I speak to you; I know not what is the matter with me, but I feel all out of sorts.”
He then drew a long breath, and laid his head upon his hand, as if to recover more clearly the powers of his mind and intellect. His eyes, full of thought not unmingled with anxiety, were fixed upon the carpet, and he seemed for a time wrapped in deep and painful abstraction. At length he raised himself up, and drawing his breath apparently with more freedom began the conversation.
“Well, sir,” said he, in a tone that implied more of authority and haughtiness than of courtesy or gentlemanly feeling; “it seems the property of which I have been robbed has come into your possession.”
“It is true, sir; and allow me to place it in your own hands exactly as I got it. I took the precaution to seal the pocket-book the moment it was returned to me, and although it was for a short time in possession of the officers of justice, yet it is untouched, and the seal I placed on it unbroken.”
The baronet's hand, as he took the pocket-book, trembled with an agitation which he could not repress, although he did everything in his power to subdue it: his eye glittered with animation, or rather with delight, as he broke the seal.
“It was very prudently and correctly done of you, sir, to seal up the pocket-book; very well done, indeed: and I am much obliged to you so far, although we must have some conversation upon the matter immediately--”
“I only did what, as a Catholic clergyman, Sir Thomas, and an honest man, I conceived to be my duty.”
“What--what--what's this?” exclaimed the baronet, his eye blazing with rage and disappointment. “In the name of hell's fire, sir, what is this? My money is not all here! There is a note, sir, a one pound note wanting; a peculiar note, sir; a marked note; for I always put a marked note among my money, to provide against the contingency of such a robbery as I sustained. Pray, sir, what has become of that note? I say, priest, the whole pocket-book ten times multiplied, was not worth a fig compared with the value I placed upon that note.”
“How much did you lose, Sir Thomas?” asked the priest calmly.
“I lost sixty-nine pounds, sir.”
“Well, then,” continued the other, “would it not be well to see whether that sum is in the pocket-book. You have not yet reckoned the money.”
“The note I speak of was in a separate compartment; in a different fold of the book; apart from the rest.”
“But perhaps it has got among them? Had you not better try, sir?”
“True,” replied the other; and with eager and trembling hands he examined them note by note; but not finding that for which he sought, he stamped with rage, and dashing the pocket-book, notes and all, against the floor, he ground his teeth, and approaching the priest with the white froth of passion rising to his lips, exclaimed, “Hark you, priest, if you do not produce the missing note, I shall make you bitterly repent it! You know where it is, sir! You could understand from the note itself--” He paused, however, for he felt at once that he might be treading dangerous ground in entering into particulars. “I say, sir,” he proceeded, with a look of menace and fury, “if you refuse to produce the note I speak of, or to procure it for me, I shall let you know to your cost what the power of British law can effect.”
The priest rose up with dignity, his cheek heightened with that slight tinge, which a sense of unmerited insult and a consciousness of his own integrity render natural to man--so long as he is a man.
“Sir Thomas Gourlay,” he proceeded, “upon your conduct and want of gentlemanly temper since I have entered this apartment it is not my intention to make any comment; but I need not tell you that the minister of God is received in Christian society with the respect due to his sacred office.”
“Minister of the devil, sir,” thundered the baronet; “do you think that I shall be influenced by this slavish cant? Where is the note I speak of? If you do not produce it, I shall consider you an accomplice after the fact, and will hold you responsible as such. Remember, you are but a Popish priest.”
“That is a fact, sir, which I shall always recollect with an humble sense of my own unworthiness; but so long as I discharge its duties conscientiously and truly, I shall also recollect it with honor. Of the note you allude to in such unbecoming words, I know nothing; and as to your threats, I value them not.”
“If you know nothing of the note, sir, you do certainly of the robber.”
“I do, Sir Thomas; I know who the man is that robbed you.”
“Well, sir,” replied the other, triumphantly, “I am glad you have acknowledged so much. I shall force you to produce him. At least I shall take care that the law will make you do so.”
“Sir Thomas Gourlay, I beg you to understand that there is a law beyond and above your law--the law of God--the law of Christian duty; and that you shall never force me to transgress. The man who robbed you in a moment of despair and madness, repented him of the crime; and the knowledge of that crime, and its consequent repentance were disclosed to me in one of the most holy ordinances of our religion.”
“Is it one of the privileges of your religion to throw its veil over the commission of crime? If so, the sooner your religion is extirpated out of the land the better for society.”
“No, sir, our religion does not throw its veil over the criminal, but over the penitent. We leave the laws of the land to their own resources, and aid them when we can; but in the case before us, and in all similar cases, we are the administrators of the laws of God to those who are truly penitent, and to none others. The test of repentance consists in reformation of life, and in making restitution to those who have been injured. The knowledge of this comes to us in administering the sacred ordinance of penance in the tribunal of confession; and sooner than violate this solemn compact between the mercy of God and a penitent heart, we would willingly lay down our lives. It is the most sacred of all trusts.”
“Such an ordinance, sir, is a bounty and provocative to crime.”
“It is a bounty and provocative to repentance, sir; and society has gained much and lost nothing by its operation. Remember, sir, that those who do not repent, never come to us to avow their crimes, in which case we are ignorant both of the crime and criminal. Here there is neither repentance, on the one hand, nor restitution, on the other, and society, of course, loses everything and gains nothing. In the other case, the person sustaining the injury gains that which he had lost, and society a penitent and reformed member. If, then, this sacred refuge for the penitent--not for the criminal, remember--had no existence, those restitutions of property which take place in thousands of cases, could never be made.”
“Still, sir, you shield the criminal from his just punishment.”
“No, sir; we never shield the criminal from his just punishment. God has promised mercy to him who repents, and we merely administer it without any reference to the operation of the law. It often happens, Sir Thomas Gourlay, that a person who has repented and made restitution, is taken hold of by the law and punished. This ordinance, therefore, does not stand between the law and its victim; it only deals between him and his God, leaving him, like any other offender, to the law he has violated.”
“I am no theologian, sir; but without any reference to your priestly cant, I simply say, that the man who is cognizant of another's crime against the law, either of God or man, and who will shield him from justice, is particeps criminis, and I don't care a fig what your obsolete sacerdotal dogmas may assert to the contrary. You say you know the man who unjustly deprived me of my property; if then, acknowledging this, you refuse to deliver him up to justice, I hold you guilty of his crime. Suppose he had taken my life, as he was near doing, how, pray, would you have made restitution? Bring me to life again, I suppose, by a miracle. Away, sir, with this cant, which is only fit for the barbarity of the dark ages, when your church was a mass of crime, cruelty, and ignorance; and when a cunning and rapacious priesthood usurped an authority over both soul and body, ay, and property too, that oppressed and degraded human nature.”
“I will reason no longer with you, sir,” replied the priest; “because you talk in ignorance of the subject we are discussing--but having now discharged an important duty, I will take my leave.”
“You may of me,” replied the other; “but you will not so readily shift yourself out of the law.”
“Any charge, sir, which either law or Justice may bring against me, I shall be ready to meet; and I now, for your information, beg to let you know that the law you threaten me with affords its protection to me and the class to which I belong, in the discharge of this most sacred and important trust. Your threats, Sir Thomas, consequently, I disregard.”
“The more shame for it if it does,” replied the baronet; “but, hark you, sir, I do not wish, after all, that you and I should part on unfriendly terms. You refuse to give up the robber?”
“I would give up my life sooner.”
“But could you not procure me the missing note?”
“Of the missing note, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I know nothing. I consequently neither can nor will make any promise to restore it.”
“You may tell the robber from me,” pursued the baronet, “that I will give him the full amount of his burglary, provided he restores me that note. The other sixty-nine pounds shall be his on that condition, and no questions asked.”
“I have already told you, sir, that it was under the seal of confession the knowledge of the crime came to me. Out of that seal I cannot revert to the subject without betraying my trust; for, if he acknowledged his guilt to me under any other circumstances, it would become my duty to hand him over to the law.”
“Curse upon all priests!” said the other indignantly; “they are all the same; a crew of cunning scoundrels, who attempt to subjugate the ignorant and the credulous to their sway; a pack of spiritual swindlers, who get possession of the consciences of the people through pious fraud, and then make slavish instruments of them for their own selfish purposes. In the meantime I shall keep my eye upon you, Mr. M'Mahon, and, believe me, if I can get a hole in your coat I shall make a rent of it.”
“It is a poor privilege, sir, that of insulting the defenceless. You know I am doubly so--defenceless from age, defenceless in virtue of my sacred profession; but if I am defenceless against your insults, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I am not against your threats, which I despise and defy. The integrity of my life is beyond your power, the serenity of my conscience beyond your vengeance. You are not of my flock, but if you were, I would say, Sir Thomas, I fear you are a bold, bad man, and have much to repent of in connection with your past and present life--much reparation to make to your fellow-creatures. Yes; I would say, Sir Thomas Gourlay, the deep tempest of strong passions within you has shaken your powerful frame until it totters to its fall. I would say, beware; repent while it is time, and be not unprepared for the last great event. That event, Sir Thomas, is not far distant, if I read aright the foreshadowing of death and dissolution that is evident in your countenance and frame. I speak these words in, I trust, a charitable and forgiving spirit. May they sink into your heart, and work it to a sense of Christian feeling and duty!
“This I would say were you mine--this I do say, knowing that you are not; for my charity goes beyond my church, and embraces my enemy as well as my friend;” and as he spoke he prepared co go.
“You may go, sir,” replied the baronet, with a sneer of contempt, “only you have mistaken your man. I am no subject for your craft--not to be deceived by your hypocrisy--and laugh to scorn your ominous but impotent croaking. Only before you go, remember the conditions I have offered the scoundrel who robbed me; and if the theological intricacies of your crooked creed will permit you, try and get him to accept them. It will be better for him, and better for you too. Do this, and you may cease to look upon Sir Thomas Gourlay as an enemy.”
The priest bowed, and without returning any reply left the apartment and took his immediate departure.
Sir Thomas, after he had gone, went to the glass and surveyed himself steadily. The words of the priest were uttered with much solemnity and earnestness; but withal in such a tone of kind regret and good feeling, that their import and impressiveness were much heightened by this very fact.
“There is certainly a change upon me, and not one for the better,” he said to himself; “but at the same time the priest, cunning as he is, has been taken in by appearances. I am just sufficiently changed in my looks to justify and give verisimilitude to the game I am playing. When Lucy hears of my illness, which must be a serious one, nothing on earth will keep her from me; and if I cannot gain any trace to her residence, a short paragraph in the papers, intimating and regretting the dangerous state of my health, will most probably reach her, and have the desired effect. If she were once back, I know that, under the circumstances of my illness, and the impression that it has been occasioned by her refusal to marry Dunroe, she will yield; especially as I shall put the sole chances of my recovery upon her compliance. Yet why is it that I urge her to an act which will probably make her unhappy during life? But it will not. She is not the fool her mother was; and yet I am not certain that her mother was a fool either. We did not agree; we could not. She always refused to coincide with me almost in everything; and when I wished to teach Lucy the useful lessons of worldly policy, out came her silly maxims of conscience, religion, and such stuff. But yet religious people are the best. I have always found it so. That wretched priest, for instance, would give up his life sooner than violate what he calls--that is, what he thinks--his duty. There must be some fiction, however, to regulate the multitude; and that fiction must be formed by, and founded on, the necessities of society. That, unquestionably, is the origin of all law and all religion. Only religion uses the stronger and the wiser argument, by threatening us with another world. Well done, religion! You acted upon a fixed principle of nature. The force of the enemy we see not may be magnified and exaggerated; the enemy we see not we fear, especially when described in the most terrible colors by men who are paid for their misrepresentations, although these same impostors have never seen the enemy they speak of themselves. But the enemy we see we can understand and grapple with; ergo, the influence of religion over law; ergo, the influence of the priest, who deals in the imaginary and ideal, over the legislator and the magistrate, who deal only in the tangible and real. Yes, this indeed, is the principle. How we do fear a ghost! What a shiver, what a horror runs through the frame when we think we see one; and how different is this from our terror of a living enemy. Away, then, with this imposture, I will none of it. Yet hold: what was that I saw looking into the window of the carriage that contained my brother's son? What was it? Why a form created by my own fears. That credulous nurse, old mother Corbet, stuffed me so completely with superstition when I was young and cowardly, that I cannot, in many instances, shake myself free from it yet. Even the words of that priest alarmed me for a moment. This, however, is merely the weakness of human nature--the effect of unreal phantasms that influence the reason while we are awake, just as that of dreams does the imagination while we are asleep. Away, then, ye idle brood! I will none of you.”
He then sat himself down on the sofa, and rang for Gibson, but still the train of thought pursued him.
“As to Lucy, I think it is still possible to force her into the position for which I destined her--quite possible. She reasons like a girl, of course, as I told her. She reasons like a girl who looks upon that silly nonsense called love as the great business of life; and acts accordingly. Little she thinks, however, that love--her love--his love--both their loves--will never meet twelve months after what is termed the honey-moon. No, they will part north and south. And yet the honey-moon has her sharp ends, as well as every other moon. When love passes away, she will find that the great business of life is, to make as many as she can feel that she is above them in the estimation of the world; to impress herself upon her equals, until they shall be forced to acknowledge her superiority. And although this may be sometimes done by intellect and principle, yet, in the society in which she must move, it is always done by rank, by high position, and by pride, that jealous vindictive pride which is based upon the hatred of our kind, and at once smiles and scorns. What would I be if I were not a baronet? Sir Thomas Gourlay passes where Mr. Gourlay would be spurned. This is the game of life, and we shall play it with the right weapons. Many a cringing scoundrel bows to the baronet who despises the man; and for this reason it is that I have always made myself to be felt to some purpose, and so shall Lucy, if I should die for it. I hate society, because I know that society hates me; and for that reason I shall so far exalt her, that she will have the base compound at her feet, and I shall teach her to scorn and trample upon it. If I thought there were happiness in any particular rank of life, I would not press her; but I know there is not, and for that reason she loses nothing, and gains the privilege--the power--of extorting homage from the proud, the insolent, and the worthless. This is the triumph she shall and must enjoy.”
Gibson then entered, and the baronet, on hearing his foot, threw himself into a languid and invalid attitude.
“Gibson,” said he, “I am very unwell; I apprehend a serious attack of illness.”
“I trust not, sir.”
“If any person should call, I am ill, observe, and not in a condition to see them.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Unless you should suspect, or ascertain, that it is some person on behalf of Miss Gourlay; and even then, mark, I am very ill indeed, and you do not think me able to speak to any one; but will come in and see.”
“Yes, sir; certainly sir.”
“There, then, that will do.”
The priest, on leaving the baronet's residence, was turning his steps toward the hotel in which the stranger had put up, when his messenger to Constitution Hill approaching put his hand to his hat, and respectfully saluted him.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “and I am sorry, now that I know who you are, for the trouble you got into.”
“Thank you, my friend,” said the priest; “I felt it wouldn't signify, knowing in my conscience that I was no robber. In the meantime, I got one glimpse of your metropolitan life, as they call it, and the Lord knows I never wish to get another. Troth, I was once or twice so confounded with the noise and racket, that I thought I had got into purgatory by mistake.”
“Tut, sir, that's nothing,” replied Skipton; “we were very calm and peaceable this morning; but with respect to that baronet, he's a niggardly fellow. Only think of him, never once offering us the slightest compensation for bringing him home his property! There's not another man in Ireland would send us off empty-handed as he did. The thing's always usual on recovering property.”
“Speak for yourself, in the singular number, if you plaise; you don't imagine that I wanted compensation.”
“No, sir, certainly not; but I'm just thinking,” he added, after curiously examining Father M'Mahon's face for some time, “that you and I met before somewhere.”
“Is that the memory you have?” said the priest, “when you ought to recollect that we met this morning, much against my will, I must say.”
“I don't mean that,” said the man; “but I think I saw you once in a lunatic asylum.”
“Me, in a lunatic asylum?” exclaimed the good priest, somewhat indignantly. “The thing's a bounce, my good man, before you go farther. The little sense I've had has been sufficient, thank goodness, to keep me free from such establishments.”
“I don't mean that, sir,” replied the other, smiling, “but if I don't mistake, you once brought a clergyman of our persuasion to the lunatic asylum in ------.”
“Ay, indeed,” returned the priest; “poor Quin. His was a case of monomania; he imagined himself a gridiron, on which all heretics were to be roasted. That young man was one of the finest scholars in the three kingdoms. But how do you remember that?”
“Why for good reasons; because I was a servant in the establishment at the time. Well,” he added, pausing, “it is curious enough that I should have seen this very morning three persons I saw in that asylum.”
“If I had been much longer in that watch-house,” replied the other, “I'm not quite certain but I'd soon be qualified to pay a permanent visit to some of them. Who were the three persons you saw there, in the mane time?”
“That messenger of yours was one of them, and that niggardly baronet was the other; yourself, as I said, making the third.”
The priest looked at him seriously; “you mane Corbet,” said he, “or Dunphy as he is called?”
“I do. He and the baron brought a slip of a boy there; and, upon my conscience, I think there was bad work between them. At all events, poor Mr. Quin and he were inseparable. The lad promised that he would allow himself to be roasted, the very first man, upon the reverend gridiron;--and! for that reason Quin took him into hand; and gave him an excellent education.”
“And no one,” replied the priest, “was better qualified to do it. But what bad work do you suspect between Corbet and the baronet?”
“Why, I have my suspicions,” replied the man. “It's not a month since I heard that the son of that very baronet's brother, who was heir to the estate and titles, disappeared, and has never been heard of since. Now, all the water in the sea wouldn't wash the pair of them clear of what I suspect, which is--that both had a hand in removing that boy. The baronet was a young man at the time, but he has a face that no one could ever forget. As for Corbet, I remember him well, as why shouldn't I? he came there often. I'll take my oath it would be a charity to bring the affair to light.”
“Do you think the boy is there still?” asked the priest, suppressing all appearance of the interest which he felt.
“No,” replied the other, “he escaped about two or three years ago; but, poor lad, when it was discovered that he led too easy a life, and had got educated, his treatment was changed; a straight waistcoat was put on him, and he was placed in solitary confinement. At first he was no more mad than I am; but he did get occasionally mad afterwards. I know he attempted suicide, and nearly cut his throat with a piece of glass one day that his hands got loose while they were changing his linen. Old Rivet died, and the establishment was purchased by Tickleback, who, to my own knowledge, had him regularly scourged.”
“And how did he escape, do you know?” inquired the priest.
“I could tell you that, too, maybe,” replied Skipton; “but I think, sir, I have told you enough for the present. If that young man is living, I would swear that he ought to stand in Sir Thomas Gourlay's shoes. And now do you think, sir,” he inquired, coming at last to the real object of his communication, “that if his right could be made clear, any one who'd help him to his own mightn't expect to be made comfortable for life?”
“I don't think there's a doubt about it,” replied the priest. “The property is large, and he could well afford to be both generous and grateful.”
“I know,” returned the man, “that he is both one and the other, if he had it in his power.”
“Well,” said the priest, seriously; “mark my words--this may be the most fortunate day you ever saw. In the mane time, keep a close mouth. The friends of that identical boy are on the search for him this moment. They had given him up for dead; but it is not long since they discovered that he was living. I will see you again on this subject.”
“I am now a constable,” said the man, “attached to the office you were in to-day, and I can be heard of any time.”
“Very well,” replied the priest, “you shall hear either from me or from some person interested in the recovery of the boy that's lost.”
XXVII. Lucy calls upon Lady Gourlay, where she meets her Lover
Sir Thomas, who shams Illness, is too sharp for Mrs. Mainwaring, who visits Him--Affecting interview between Lucy and Lady Gourlay
Lucy Gourlay, anxious to relieve her father's mind as much as it was in her power to do, wrote to him the day after the visit of Ensign Roberts and old Sam to Summerfield Cottage. Her letter was affectionate, and even tender, and not written without many tears, as was evident by the blots and blisters which they produced upon the paper. She fully corroborated the stranger's explanation to her father; for although ignorant at the time that an interview had taken place between them, she felt it to be her duty toward all parties to prevent, as far as her testimony could go, the possibility of any misunderstanding upon the subject. This letter was posted in Dublin, from an apprehension lest the local post-office might furnish a clew to her present abode. The truth was, she feared that if her father could trace her out, he would claim her at once, and force her home by outrage and violence. In this, however, she was mistaken; he had fallen upon quite a different and far more successful plan for that purpose. He knew his daughter well, and felt that if ever she might be forced to depart from those strong convictions of the unhappiness that must result from a union between baseness and honor, it must be by an assumption of tenderness and affection toward her, as well as by a show of submission, and a concession of his own will to hers. This was calculating at once upon her affection and generosity. He had formed this plan before her letter reached him, and on perusing it, he felt still more determined to make this treacherous experiment upon her very virtues--thus most unscrupulously causing them to lay the groundwork of her own permanent misery.
In the meantime, Mrs. Mainwaring, having much confidence in the effect which a knowledge of her disclosure must, as she calculated, necessarily produce on the ambitious baronet, resolved to lose no time in seeing him. On the evening before she went, however, the following brief conversation took place between her and Lucy:
“My dear Lucy,” said she, “a thought has just struck me. Your situation, excepting always your residence with us, is one of both pain and difficulty. I am not a woman who has ever been much disposed to rely on my own judgment in matters of importance.”
“But there, my dear Mrs. Mainwaring, you do yourself injustice.”
“No, my dear child.”
“But what is your thought?” asked Lucy, who felt some unaccountable apprehension at what her friend was about to say.
“You tell me that neither you nor your aunt, Lady Gourlay, have ever met.”
“Never, indeed,” replied Lucy; “nor do I think we should know each other if we did.”
“Then suppose you were, without either favor or ceremony, to call upon her--to present yourself to her in virtue of your relationship--in virtue of her high character and admirable principles--in virtue of the painful position in which you are placed--to claim the benefit of her experience and wisdom, and ask her to advise you as she would a daughter.”
Lucy's eyes glistened with delight, and, stooping down, she imprinted a kiss upon the forehead of her considerate and kind friend.
“Thank you, my dear Mrs. Mainwaring,” she exclaimed: “a thousand thanks for that admirable suggestion. Many a time has my heart yearned to know that extraordinary woman, of whose virtues the world talks so much, and whose great and trusting spirit even sorrow and calamity cannot prostrate. Yes, I will follow your advice; I will call upon her; for, even setting aside all selfish considerations, I should wish to know her for her own worth.”
“Very well, then; I am going in to see your father to-morrow--had you not better come with me? I shall leave you at her house, and can call for you after my interview with him shall have been concluded. I shall order a chaise from the hotel to be with us in the morning, so that you may run little or no risk of being seen or known.”
“That will be delightful,” replied Lucy; “for I am sure Lady Gourlay will be a kind and affectionate friend to me. In seeking her acquaintance--may I hope, her friendship--I am not conscious of violating any command or duty. Ever since I recollect, it was a well-known fact, that the families, that is to say, my father and uncle, never met, nor visited--mamma knew, of course, that to keep up an intimacy, under such circumstances, would occasion much domestic disquietude. This is all I know about it; but I never remember having heard any injunction not to visit.”
“No,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring; “such an injunction would resemble that of a man who should desire his child not to forget to rise next morning, or, to be sure to breathe through his lungs. I can very well understand why such a prohibition was never given in that case. Well, then, we shall start pretty early in the morning, please God; but remember that you must give me a full detail of your reception and interview.”
The next day, about the hour of two o'clock, a chaise drew up at the residence of Lady Gourlay, and on the hall-door being opened, a steady, respectable-looking old footman made his appearance at the chaise door, and, in reply to their inquiries, stated, “that her ladyship had been out for some time, but was then expected every moment.”
“What is to be done?” said Lucy, in some perplexity; “or how am I to bestow myself if she does not return soon?”
“We expect her ladyship every moment, madam,” replied the man; “and if you will have the goodness to allow me to conduct you to the drawing-room, you will not have to wait long--I may assure you of that.”
“You had better go in, my dear,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, “and I shall call for you in about an hour, or, perhaps, a little better.”
It was so arranged, and Lucy went in accordingly.
We must now follow Mrs. Mainwaring, who, on inquiring if she could see Sir Thomas Gourlay, was informed by Gibson, who had got his cue, that he was not in a condition to see any one at present.
“My business is somewhat important,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, with a good deal of confidence in the truth of what she said.
Gibson, however, approached her, and, with the air of a man who was in possession of the secrets of the family, said, “Perhaps, ma'am, you come on behalf of Miss Gourlay?”
“Whatever my business may be,” she replied, indignantly, “be it important or otherwise, I never communicate it through the medium of a servant; I mean you no offence,” she proceeded; “but as I have already stated that it is of importance, I trust that will be sufficient for the present.”
“Excuse me, ma'am,” replied Gibson, “I only put the question by Sir Thomas's express orders. His state of health is such, that unless upon that subject he can see no one. I will go to him, however, and mention what you have said. He is very ill, however, exceedingly ill, and I fear will not be able to see you; but I shall try.”
Sir Thomas was seated upon a sofa reading some book or other, when Gibson reappeared.
“Well, Gibson, who is this?”
“A lady, sir; and she says she wishes to see you on very important business.”
“Hum!--do you think it anything connected with Miss Gourlay?”
“I put the question to her, sir,” replied the other, “and she bridled a good deal--I should myself suppose it is.”
“Well, then, throw me over my dressing-gown and nightcap; here, pull it up behind, you blockhead;--there now--how do I look?”
“Why, ahem, a little too much in health, Sir Thomas, if it could be avoided.”
“But, you stupid rascal, isn't that a sign of fever? and isn't my complaint fulness about the head--a tendency of blood there? That will do now; yes, the plethoric complexion to a shade; and, by the way, it is no joke either. Send her up now.”
When Mrs. Mainwaring entered, the worthy invalid was lying incumbent upon the sofa, his head raised high upon pillows, with his dressing-gown and night-cap on, and his arms stretched along by his sides, as if he were enduring great pain.
“Oh, Mrs. Norton,” said he, after she had courtesied, “how do you do?”
“I am sorry to see you ill, Sir Thomas,” she replied, “I hope there is nothing serious the matter.”
“I wish I myself could hope so, Mrs. Norton.”
“Excuse me, Sir Thomas, I am no longer Mrs. Norton; Mrs. Mainwaring, at your service.”
“Ah, indeed! Then you have changed your condition, as they say. Well, I hope it is for the better, Mrs. Mainwaring; I wish you all joy and happiness!”
“Thank you, Sir Thomas, it is for the better; I am very happily married.”
“I am glad to hear it--I am very glad to hear it; that is to say, if I can be glad at anything. I feel very ill, Mrs. Mainwaring, very ill, indeed; and this blunt, plain-spoken doctor of mine gives me but little comfort. Not that I care much about any doctor's opinion--it is what I feel myself that troubles me. You are not aware, perhaps, that my daughter has abandoned me--deserted me--and left me solitary--sick--ill; without care--without attendance--without consolation;--and all because I wished to make her happy.”
“This, Sir Thomas,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, avoiding a direct reply as to her knowledge of Lucy's movements, “is, I presume, with reference to her marriage with Lord Dunroe.”
“Oh yes; young women will not, now-a-days, allow a parent to form any opinion as to what constitutes their happiness; but I cannot be angry with Lucy now; indeed, I am not. I only regret her absence from my sick bed, as I may term it; for, indeed, it is in bed I ought to be.”
“Sir Thomas, I, came to speak with you very seriously, upon the subject of her union with that young nobleman.”
“Ah, but I am not in a condition, Mrs. Mainwaring, to enter upon such a topic at present. The doctor has forbidden me to speak upon any subject that might excite me. You must excuse me, then, madam; I really cannot enter upon it. I never thought T loved Lucy so much;--I only want my child to be with me. She and I are all that I are left together now; but she has deserted me at the last moment, for I fear I am near it.”
“But, Sir Thomas, if you would only hear me for a few minutes, I could satisfy you that--”
“But I cannot hear you, Mrs. Mainwaring; I cannot hear you; I am not in a state to do so; I feel feverish, and exceedingly ill.”
“Five minutes would do, Sir Thomas.”
“Five minutes! five centuries of torture! I must ring the bell, Mrs. Mainwaring, if you attempt to force this subject on me. I should be sorry to treat you rudely, but you must see at once that I am quite unable to talk of anything calculated to disturb me. I have a tendency of blood to the head--I am also nervous and irritable. Put it off, my dear madam. I trust you shall have another and a better opportunity. Do ring, and desire Lucy to come to me.”
Mrs. Mainwaring really became alarmed at the situation of the baronet, and felt, from this request to have his daughter sent to him, which looked like delirium, that he was not in a state to enter upon or hear anything that might disappoint or disturb him. She consequently rose to take her leave, which she did after having expressed her sincere regret at his indisposition, as she termed it.
“I wish it was only indisposition, Mrs. Mainwaring, I wish it was. Present my respects to your husband, and I wish you and him all happiness;” and so with another courtesy, Mrs. Mainwaring took her leave.
After she had gone, Gibson once more attended the bell.
“Well, Gibson,” said his master, sitting up and flinging his nightcap aside, “did you see that old grindress? Zounds and the devil, what are women? The old mantrap has got married at these years! Thank heaven, my grandmother is dead, or God knows what the devil might put into her old noddle.”
“Women are very strange cattle, certainly, sir,” replied Gibson, with a smirk, “and not age itself will keep them from a husband.”
“Lucy--Miss Gourlay, I mean--is with her; I am certain of it. The girl was always very much attached to her, and I know the sly old devil has been sent to negotiate with me, but I declined. I knew better than to involve myself in a controversy with an old she prig who deals in nothing but maxims, and morals, and points of duty. I consequently sent her off in double quick time, as they say. Get me some burgundy and water. I really am not well. There is something wrong, Gibson, whatever it is; but I think it's nothing but anxiety. Gibson, listen. I have never been turned from my purpose yet, and I never shall. Miss Gourlay must be Countess of Cullamore, or it is a struggle for life and death between her and me; either of us shall die, or I shall have my way. Get me the burgundy and water,” and Gibson, with his sleek bow, went to attend his orders.
Mrs. Mainwaring having some purchases to make and some visits to pay, and feeling that her unexpectedly brief visit to Sir Thomas had allowed her time for both, did not immediately return to call upon Lucy, fearing that she might only disturb the interview between her and Lady Gourlay.
Lucy, as the servant said, was shown up to the drawing-room, where she amused herself as well as she could, by examining some fine paintings, among which was one of her late uncle. The features of this she studied with considerable attention, and could not help observing that, although they resembled collectively those of her father, the deformity of the one eye only excepted, yet the general result was strikingly different. All that was harsh, and coarse, and repulsive in the countenance of her father, was here softened down into an expression of gentleness, firmness, and singular candor, whilst, at the same time, the family likeness could not for a moment be questioned or mistaken.
Whilst thus occupied, a foot was heard, as if entering the drawing-room, and naturally turning round, she beheld the stranger before her. The surprise of each was mutual, for the meeting was perfectly unexpected by either. A deep blush overspread Lucy's exquisite features, which almost in a moment gave way to a paleness that added a new and equally delightful phase to her beauty.
“Good heavens, my dear Lucy,” exclaimed the stranger, “do I find you here! I had heard that the families were estranged; but on that very account I feel the more deeply delighted at your presence under Lady Gourlay's roof. This happiness comes to me with a double sense of enjoyment, from the fact of its being unexpected.”
The alternations of red and white still continued as Lucy replied, her sparkling eye chastened down by the veil of modesty as she spoke: “I am under Lady Gourlay's roof for the first time in my life. Indeed, I have come here to make an experiment, if I may use the expression, upon the goodness of her heart. The amiable lady with whom I now reside suggested to me to do so, a suggestion which I embraced with delight. I have been here only a few minutes, and await her ladyship's return, which they tell me may be expected immediately.”
“It would indeed be unfortunate,” replied the stranger, “that two individuals so nearly connected by family, and what is more, the possession of similar virtues, should not be known to each other.”
This compliment brought a deeper tinge of color to Lucy's cheek, who simply replied, “I have often wished most sincerely for the pleasure--the honor, I should say--of her acquaintance; but unfortunately the ill-feeling that has subsisted between the families, or rather between a portion of them, has hitherto prevented it. If I were now under my father's roof a visit here were out of the question; but you know, Charles, I cannot, and I ought not, to inherit his resentments.”
“True, my dear Lucy, and I am glad to see you here for many, many reasons. No, your father's resentments would perish for want of nurture in a heart like yours. But, Lucy, there is a subject in which I trust we both feel a dearer and a deeper interest than that of family feud. I am aware of this hateful union which your father wishes to bring about between you and this Lord Dunroe. I have been long aware of it, as you know; but need I say that I place every reliance, all honorable confidence, in your truth and attachment?”
He had approached, and gently taking her hand in his as he spoke, he uttered these words in a tone so full at once of tenderness and that sympathy to which he knew her sufferings on this point had entitled her, that Lucy was considerably affected, although she restrained her emotions as well as she could.
“If it were not so,” she replied, in a voice whose melody was made more touchingly beautiful by the slight tremor which she endeavored to repress, “if it were not so, Charles, I would not now be a fugitive. from my father's roof.”
The stranger's eye sparkled with the rapturous enthusiasm of love, as the gentle girl, all blushes, gave expression to an assurance so gratifying, so delicious to his heart.
“Dearest Lucy,” said he, “I fear I am unworthy of you. Oh, could you but know how those words of yours have made my heart tremble with an excess of transport which language fails to express, you would also know that the affection with which I love you is as tender, as pure, as unselfish, as ever warmed the heart of man. And yet, as I said, I fear it is unworthy of you. I know your father's character, his determination, the fierce force of his will, and the energy with which he pursues every object on which he sets his heart or ambition. I say I know all this, and I sometimes fear the consequences. What can the will of only one pure, gentle, and delicate heart avail against the united powers of ambition, authority, persuasion, force, determination, perhaps violence? What, I repeat, can a gentle heart like yours ultimately avail against such a host of difficulties? And it is for this reason that I say I am unworthy of you, for I fear--and you know that perfect love casteth out all fear.”
“My dear Charles, if love were without fear it would lose half its tenderness. An eternal sunshine, would soon sicken the world. But as for your apprehensions of my solitary heart failing against such difficulties as it must encounter, you seem to omit one slight element in calculating your terrors, and that simple element is a host in itself.”
“Which is?”
“Love for you, dear Charles. I know you may probably feel that this avowal ought to be expressed with more hesitation, veiled over by the hypocrisy of language, disguised by the hackneyed forms of mere sentiment, uttered like the assertions of a coquette, and degraded by that tampering with truth which makes the heart lie unto itself. Oh, yes!--perhaps, Charles, you may think that because I fail to express what I feel in that spirit of ambiguity which a love not confident in the truth, purity, and rectitude of its own principles must always borrow--that because my heart fails to approach yours by the usual circuitous route with which ordinary hearts do approach--yes, you may imagine for all these reasons that my affection is not--but--” and here she checked herself--“why,” she added, with dignity, whilst her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled, “why should I apologize for the avowal of a love of which I am not ashamed, and which has its strongest defence in the worth and honor of its object?”
Tears of enthusiasm rushed down her cheeks as she spoke, and her lover could only say, “Dearest Lucy, most beloved of my heart, your language, your sentiments, your feelings--so pure, so noble, so far above those commonplaces of your sex, only cause me to shrink almost into nothing when I compare or contrast myself with you. Let, however, one principle guide us--the confidence that our love is mutual and cannot be disturbed. I am for the present placed in circumstances that are exceedingly painful. In point of fact, I am wrapped in obscurity and shadow, and there exists, besides, a possibility that I may not become, in point of fortune, such a man as you might possibly wish to look upon as your husband.”
“If you are now suffering your fine mind, Charles, to become unconsciously warped by the common prejudices of life, I beseech you to reflect upon the heart to which you address yourself. Society presents not a single prejudice which in any degree aids or supports virtue, and truth, and honor, that I do not cherish, and wish you to cherish; but if you imagine that you will become less dear to me because you may fail to acquire some of the artificial dignities or honors of life, then it is clear that you know not how to estimate the spirit and character of Lucy Grourlay.”
“I know you will be severely tried, my dear Lucy.”
“Know me aright, Charles. I have been severely tried. Many a girl, I am sorry to say, would forget Dunroe's profligacy in his rank. Many a girl, in contemplating the man, could see nothing but the coronet; for ambition--the poorest, the vainest, and the most worthless of all kinds of ambition--that of rank, title, the right of precedence--is unfortunately cultivated as a virtue in the world of fashion, and as such it is felt. Be it so, Charles; let me remain unfashionable and vulgar. Perish the title if not accompanied by worth; fling the gaudy coronet aside if it covers not the brow of probity and honor. Retain those, dear Charles--retain worth, probity, and honor--and you retain a heart that looks upon them as the only titles that confer true rank and true dignity.”
The stranger gave her a long gaze of admiration, and exclaimed, deeply affected,
“Alas, my Lucy, you are, I fear, unfit for the world. Your spirit is too pure, too noble for common life. Like some priceless gem, it sparkles with the brilliancy of too many virtues for the ordinary mass of mankind to appreciate.”
“No such thing, Charles: you quite overrate me; but God forbid that the possession of virtue and good dispositions should ever become a disqualification for this world. It is not so; but even if it were, provided I shine in the estimation of my own little world, by which I mean the affection of him to whom I shall unite my fate, then I am satisfied: his love and his approbation shall constitute my coronet and my honor.”
The stranger was absolutely lost in admiration and love, for he felt that the force of truth and sincerity had imparted an eloquence and an energy to her language that were perfectly fascinating and irresistible.
“My dear life,” said he, “the music of your words, clothing, as it does, the divine principles they utter, must surely resemble the melody of heaven's own voices. For my part, I feel relaxed in such a delicious rapture as I have never either felt or dreamt of before--entranced, as it were, in a sense of your wonderful beauty and goodness. But, dearest Lucy, allow me to ask on what terms are you with your father? Have you heard from him? Have you written to him? Is he aware of your present residence?”
“No,” she replied; “he is not aware of my present residence, but I have written to him. I wished to set his mind at rest as well as I could, and to diminish his anxiety as far as in me lay. Heaven knows,” she added, bursting into tears, “that this unnatural estrangement between father and daughter is most distressing. I am anxious to be with papa, to render him, in every sense, all the duties of a child, provided only he will not persist in building up the superstructure of rank upon my own unhappiness. Have you seen him?” she inquired, drying her eyes, a task in which she was tenderly assisted by the stranger.
“I saw him,” he replied, “for a short time;” but the terms in which he explained the nature of the interview between himself and the baronet were not such as could afford her a distinct impression of all that took place, simply because he wished to spare her the infliction of unnecessary pain.
“And now, Lucy,” he added, “I feel it necessary to claim a large portion of your approbation.”
She looked at him with a smile, but awaited his explanation.
“You will scarcely credit me when I assure you that I have had a clew to your place of residence, or concealment, or whatever it is to be termed, since the first morning of your arrival there, and yet I disturbed you not, either by letter or visit. Thus you may perceive how sacred your lightest wish is to me.”
“And do you imagine that I am insensible to this delicate generosity?” she asked--“oh, no; indeed, I fully appreciate it; but now, Charles, will you permit me to ask how, or when, or where you have been acquainted with my aunt Gourlay, for I was not aware that you had known each other?”
“This, my dear Lucy,” he replied, smiling, “you shall have cleared up along with all my other mysteries. Like every riddle, although it may seem difficult now, it will be plain enough when told.”
“It matters not, dear Charles; I have every confidence in your truth and honor, and that is sufficient.”
He then informed her briefly, that he should be under the necessity of going to France for a short space, upon business of the deepest importance to himself.
“My stay, however,” he added, “will not be a very long one; and I trust, that after my return, I shall be in a position to speak out my love. Indeed, I am anxious for this, dear Lucy, for I know how strong the love of truth and candor is in your great and generous heart. And yet, for the sake of one good and amiable individual, or rather, I should say, of two, the object of my journey to France will not be accomplished without the deepest pain to myself. It is, I may say here, to spare the feelings of the two individuals in question, that I have preserved the strict incognito which I thought necessary since my arrival in this country.”
“Farewell until then, my dear Charles; and in whatever object you may be engaged, let me beg that you will not inflict a wanton or unnecessary wound upon a good or amiable heart; but I know you will not--it is not in your nature.”
“I trust not,” he added, as he took his leave. “I cannot wait longer for lady Gourlay; but before I go, I will write a short note for her in the library, which will, for the present, answer the same purpose as seeing her. Farewell, then, dearest and best of girls!--farewell, and be as happy as you can; would that I could say, as I wish you, until we meet again.”
And thus they separated.
The scene that had just taken place rendered every effort at composure necessary on the part of Lucy, before the return of Lady Gourlay. This lady, strange as it may seem, she had yet never seen or met, and she now began to reflect upon the nature of the visit she had made her, as well as of the reception she might get. If it were possible that her father had made away with her child on the one hand, could it be possible, on the other, that Lady Gourlay would withhold her resentment from the daughter of the man who had made her childless? But, no; her generous heart could not for a moment admit the former possibility. She reasoned not from what she had felt at his hands, but as a daughter, who, because she abhorred the crime imputed to him, could not suppose him capable of committing it. His ambition was all for herself. Neither, she felt, would Lady Gourlay, even allowing for the full extent of her suspicions, confound the innocent daughter with the offending parent. Then her reputation for meekness, benevolence, patience, charity, and all those virtues which, without effort, so strongly impress themselves upon the general spirit of social life, spoke with a thousand tongues on her behalf. Yes, she was glad she came; she felt the spirit of a virtuous relationship strongly in her heart; and in that heart she thanked the amiable Mrs. Mainwaring for the advice she had given her.
A gentle and diffident tap at the door interrupted the course of her reflections; and the next moment, a lady, grave, but elegant in appearance, entered. She courtesied with peculiar grace, and an air of the sweetest benignity, to Lucy, who returned it with one in which humility, reverence, and dignity, were equally blended. Neither, indeed, could for a single moment doubt that an accomplished and educated gentlewoman stood before her. Lucy, however, felt that it was her duty to speak first, and account for a visit so unexpected.
“I know not,” she said, “as yet, how to measure the apology which I ought to make to Lady Gourlay for my presence here. My heart tells me that I have the honor of addressing that lady.”
“I am, indeed, madam, that unhappy woman.”
Lucy approached her, and said, “Do not reject me, madam; pardon me--love me--pity me;--I am Lucy Gourlay.”
Lady Gourlay opened her arms, exclaiming, as she did it, in a voice of the deepest emotion, “My dear niece--my child--my daughter if you will;” and they wept long and affectionately on each other's bosoms.
“You are the only living individual,” said Lucy, after some time, “whom I could ask to pity me; but I am not ashamed to solicit your sympathy. Dear, dear aunt, I am very unhappy. But this, I fear, is wrong; for why should I add my sorrows to the weight of misery which you yourself have been compelled to bear? I fear it is selfish and ungenerous to do so.”
“No, my child; whatever the weight of grief or misery which we are forced, perhaps, for wise purposes, to bear, it is ordained, for purposes equally wise and beneficent, that every act of sympathy with another's sorrow lessens our own. Dear Lucy, let me, if you can, or will be permitted to do so, be a loving mother to you, and stand to my heart in relation to the child I have lost; or think that your own dear mother still survives in me.”
This kindness and affection fairly overcame Lucy, who sat down on a sofa, and wept bitterly. Lady Gourlay herself was deeply affected for some minutes, but, at length, resuming composure, she sat beside Lucy, and, taking her hand, said: “I can understand, my dear child, the nature of your grief; but be comforted. Your heart, which was burdened, will soon become lighter, and better spirits will return; so, I trust, will better times. It is not from the transient and unsteady, and too often painful, incidents of life, that we should attempt to draw consolation, but from a fixed and firm confidence in the unchangeable purposes of God.”
“I wish, dear Lady Gourlay--dear aunt--”
“Yes, that is better, my love.”
“I wish I had known you before; of late I have been alone--with none to advise or guide me; for, she, whose affectionate heart, whose tender look, and whose gentle monition, were ever with me--she--alas, my dear aunt, how few know what the bitterness is--when forced to struggle against strong but misguided wills, whether of our own or others'; to feel that we are without a mother--that that gentle voice is silent forever; that that well in the desert of life--a mother's heart--is forever closed to us; that that protecting angel of our steps is departed from us--never, never to return.”
As she uttered these words in deep grief, it might have been observed, that Lady Gourlay shed some quiet but apparently bitter tears. It is impossible for us to enter into the heart, or its reflections; but it is not, we think, unreasonable to suppose that while Lucy dwelt so feelingly upon the loss of her mother, the other may have been thinking upon that of her child.
“My dear girl,” she exclaimed, “let the affectionate compact which I have just proposed be ratified between us. My heart, at all events, has already ratified it. I shall be as a mother to you, and you shall be to me as a daughter.”
“I know not, my dear aunt,” replied Lucy, “whether to consider you more affectionate than generous. How few of our sex, after--after--that is, considering the enmities--in fact, how a relative, placed as you unhappily are, would take me to her heart as you have done.”
“Perhaps, my child, I were incapable of it, if that heart had never been touched and softened by affliction. As it is, Lucy, let me say to you, as one who probably knows the world better, do not look, as most young persons like you do, upon the trials you are at present forced to suffer, as if they were the sharpest and heaviest in the world. Time, my love, and perhaps other trials of a still severer character, may one day teach you to think that your grief and impatience were out of proportion to what you then underwent. May He who afflicts his people for their good, prevent that this ever should be so in your case; but, even if it should, remember that God loveth whom he chasteneth. And above all things, my dear child, never, never, never despair in his providence. Dry your eyes, my love,” she added, with a smile of affection and encouragement, that Lucy felt to be contagious by its cheering influence upon her; “dry your tears, and turn round to the light until I contemplate more clearly and distinctly that beauty of which I have heard so much.”
Lucy obeyed her with all the simplicity of a child, and turned round so as to place herself in the position required by the aunt; but whilst she did so, need we say that the blushes followed each other beautifully and fast over her timid but sparkling countenance?
“I do not wonder, my dear girl, that public rumor has borne its ample testimony to your beauty. I have never seen either it or your figure surpassed; but it is here, my dear,” she added, placing her hand upon her heart, “where the jewel that gives value to so fair a casket lies.”
“How happy I am, my dear aunt,” replied Lucy, anxious to change the subject, since I know you. The very consciousness of it is a consolation.”
“And I trust, Lucy, we shall all yet be happy. When the dispensations ripen, then comes the harvest of the blessings.”
The old footman now entered, saying: “Here is a note, my lady,” and he presented one, “which the gentleman desired me to deliver on your ladyship's return.”
Lady Gourlay took the note, saying: “Will you excuse me, my dear niece?--this, I believe, is on a subject that is not merely near to, but in the innermost recesses of my heart.”
Lucy now took that opportunity on her part of contemplating the features of her aunt; but, as we have already described them elsewhere, it is unnecessary to do so here. She was, however, much struck with their chaste but melancholy beauty; for it cannot be disputed, that sorrow and affliction, while they impair the complexion of the most lovely, very frequently communicate to it a charm so deep and touching, that in point of fact, the heart that suffers within is taught to speak in the mournful, grave, and tender expression, which they leave behind them as their traces. As Lucy surveyed her aunt's features, which had been moulded by calamity into an expression of settled sorrow--an expression which no cheerfulness could remove, however it might diminish it, she was surprised to observe at first a singular degree of sweetness appear; next a mild serenity; and lastly, she saw that that serenity gradually kindled into a radiance that might, in the hands of a painter, have expressed the joy of the Virgin Mother on finding her lost Son in the Temple. This, however, was again succeeded by a paleness, that for a moment alarmed Lucy, but which was soon lost in a gush of joyful tears. On looking at her niece, who did not presume to make any inquiry as to the cause of this extraordinary emotion, Lady Gourlay saw that her eyes at least were seeking, by the wonder they expressed, for the cause of it.
“May the name,” she exclaimed, “of the just and merciful God be praised forever! Here, my darling, is a note, in which I am informed upon the best authority, that my child--my boy, is yet alive--and was seen but very recently. Dear God of all goodness, is my weak and worn heart capable of bearing this returning tide of happiness!”
Nature, however, gave way; and after several struggles and throbbings, she sank into insensibility. To ring for assistance, to apply all kinds of restoratives; and to tend her until she revived, and afterwards, were offices which Lucy discharged with equal promptitude and tenderness.
On recovering, she took the hand of the latter in hers, and said, with a smile full of gratitude, joy, and sweetness, “Our first thanks are always due to God, and to him my heart offers them up; but, oh, how feebly! Thanks to you, also, Lucy, for your kindness; and many thanks for your goodness in giving me the pleasure of knowing you. I trust that we shall both see and enjoy better and happier days. Your visit has been propitious to me, and brought, if I may so say, an unexpected dawn of happiness to the widowed mother's heart.”
Lucy was about to reply, when the old footman came to say that the lady who had accompanied her was waiting below in the chaise. She accordingly bade her farewell, only for a time she said, and after a tender embrace, she went down to Mrs. Mainwaring who respectfully declined on that occasion to be presented to Lady Gourlay, in consequence of the number of purchases she had yet to make, and the time it would occupy to make them.