Kitabı oku: «Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)», sayfa 6

“Gentlemen,” continued Jer Palmer, “lend me your cravats. (An immense jug of hot punch was smoking on the hearth ready made for the proposed dinner.) I know well enough what to do,” said the lieutenant: “my father’s own neck was broken two years ago, coming home drunk one night from Ballyspellen Spa, at the widow Maher’s house-warming: his horse tumbled over at the Seven Sisters; but Dr. Jacob soon brought him to again. – I recollect now all about it. Here, gentlemen, stir, give me your cravats; you have no handkerchiefs I suppose.”

They all obeyed the lieutenant, who immediately plunged the cravats into the hot punch, and lapped one of them round the dead man’s neck, then another over that, and another still, and kept dropping the hot punch on them, whereat the blood flowed freely. He then, putting his knees to the dead man’s shoulder, gave his head two or three no very gentle lugs, accompanying them in the manner of a view holloa, with “Ough! Hurra! Hurra! By J – s he’s alive and kicking! Oh! you murdering thief of a pothecary, get off, or I’ll cut your throat!”

The poor apothecary stood motionless at the window; for Palmer (whom, in his paroxysm, he durst not go near) was between him and the door; but he wished himself a hundred miles off. The lieutenant then put a spoonful of the punch into Sam Doxy’s mouth, and down it went, to the surprise of the turnpike-board. In a short time a glassful was patiently received the same way. A groan and a heavy sigh now proved the fallibility of Pothecary Knaggs; and the lieutenant’s superior treatment was extolled by the whole board. The dead man at length opened one eye, then the other; in about half an hour he could speak; and in the course of an hour more the broken-necked Doxy was able to sit up. They then got some mulled wine and spices for him, and he was quite recovered, with the exception of a pain in his head and neck; but he could bear no motion, so they fixed him in an upright position in an arm-chair, and Palmer remained with him to perfect his miraculous cure. We dined in another room.

Mr. Flood and myself called on Doxy next day, and brought him and Lieutenant Palmer home to Roundwood; and poor Dr. Knaggs’ wanting to cut off the head of Mr. Sam Doxy of the Derrys became a standing jest, with a hundred embellishments, till both have been forgotten. I know not if Knaggs is living. Sam Doxy was at last choked by the drumstick of a turkey sticking in his throat whilst he was picking it.

TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD

The Irish on the continent – Slow travelling of remittances – Inconveniences thereof – Sir John Burke, of Glinsk – Reasonable points of curiosity – Prompt satisfaction —Messieurs des Créanciers– Sir John’s health declines – Given over by the faculty generally – Doctor T – ’s perseverance – Its success – A game at cross purposes – Custodiums in Ireland – New mode of liquidating a debt – Galway gore – Receipt for ennobling the bourgeois of Paris – Sir John Burke’s marriage and visit to Rome – His return – Lady Burke – Glinsk Castle.

It has been generally observed, that our fellow-subjects who sojourn long on the continent often lose many of their national traits, and imbibe those of other countries. The Irish, however, present an exception to this rule. I have scarce ever met a thorough-paced Irishman whose oddities totally deserted him; the humorous idiom of his language, and the rich flavour of his dialect, are intrinsic, and adhere as steadily to his tongue as fancy does to his brain, and eccentricity to his actions.

An Irishman is toujours an Irishman, and wheresoever he “puts up” seldom fails to find one inveterate enemy – “himself.” This observation is not confined to the lower or middle classes of Hibernians, but occasionally includes the superior orders. Like the swine, when the demon got into them, Irishmen on the continent keep frisking, pirouetting, galloping, and puffing away, till they lose their footing; and there is scarcely a more entertaining spectacle than that afforded by the schemes, devices, and humours of a true son of Erin, under these circumstances.

I was greatly amused by an incident which took place at Paris some time since; – it possesses as much of the Irish flavour as any bagatelle anecdote I recollect to have met with; and as the parties are above the medium class, well known, all alive, and still on the same pavé in perfect harmony, the thing is rendered more entertaining.

An Irish baronet of very ancient family (an honour which he never suffered any person to be ignorant of after twenty minutes’ conversation), proprietor of a large Galway territory, garnished with the usual dilapidated chateau, brogueless tenantry, managing attorneys, and mis-managing agents, having sufficiently squeezed his estate to get (as he terms) the juice out of it, determined to serve a few campaigns about St. James’ Street, &c., and try if he could retrench at the several club-houses and “hells” to be met with amidst what is called “high life” in our economical metropolis.

After having enacted with éclat all the parts in the various scenes usually performed on that great theatre, he at length found, that the place was not much cheaper than sweet Glinsk, or any old principality of his own dear country. He therefore resolved to change the scene for a more diverting and cheerful one; and by way of a finish, came over to Paris, where any species of ruin may be completed with a taste, ease, and despatch unknown in our boorish country.

The baronet brought over three or four thousand pounds in his fob, just (as he told me) to try, by way of comparison, how long that quantity of the dross would last in Paris⁹– on which point his curiosity was promptly satisfied: – “Frascati” and the “Salon des Etrangers,” by a due application of spotted bones, coloured pasteboard, and painted whirligigs, under the superintendence of the Marquis de Livere, informed him at the termination of a short novitiate, that nearly the last of his “Empereurs” had been securely vested in the custody of the said Marquis de Livere.

Though this seemed, primâ facie, rather inconvenient, yet the baronet’s dashing establishment did not immediately suffer diminution, until his valet’s repeated answer, pas chez lui, began to alarm the crew of grooms, goddesses, led captains, &c.

Misfortune (and he began to fancy this was very like one) seldom delays long to fill up the place of ready money when that quits a gentleman’s service: and it now seemed disposed to attach itself to the baronet in another way. Madam Pandora’s box appeared to fly open, and a host of bodily ills beset Sir John, who, having but indifferent nerves, was quite thrown on his back.

Such was the hapless situation of Sir John Burke, while exercising his portion of the virtue of patience, in waiting for remittances– a period of suspense particularly disagreeable to travellers abroad – every post-day being pretty certain to carry off the appetite; which circumstance, to be sure, may be sometimes considered convenient enough.

Families from the interior of Hibernia are peculiarly subject to that suspense; and where their Irish agent happens to be an old confidential solicitor, or a very dear friend, or a near relation of the family, the attack is frequently acute. An instance, indeed, occurred lately, wherein the miscarriage of an Irish letter actually caused the very same accident to a new-married lady!

The baronet, however, bore up well; and being extremely good-humoured, the surliest créanciers in Paris could not find in their hearts for some time to be angry with him; and so, most unreasonably left him to be angry with himself, which is a thousand times more tormenting to a man, because sans intermission.

At length, some of his most pressing friends, who a short time before had considered it their highest honour to enjoy the pratique of Monsieur le Chevalier, began to show symptoms of losing temper; – as smoke generally forebodes the generation of fire, something like a blaze seemed likely to burst forth; and as the baronet most emphatically said to me – “The d – d duns, like a flock of jack snipes, were eternally thrusting their long bills into me, as if I was a piece of bog!”

Complaisance and smooth words very rarely fail to conciliate a Frenchman; and, after all, the baronet never experienced more civil or kinder friends in Paris than some of these very snipes who stuck their long bills into him. But “remittances” from the county of Galway have been, time immemorial, celebrated for the extreme slowness of their movements; and though in general very light, they travel more deliberately than a broad-wheel waggon. Hence, Sir John Burke’s “corporal ills” were both perpetuated and heightened by his mental uneasiness.

Doctors were called in, in hopes that one or other of them might by chance hit upon a remedy; and Sir John submitted to their prescriptions (to use his own words), like a lamb going to the slaughter. – “I knew very well,” said he, “that one banker could do me more good by a single dose, than all the doctors in Paris put together; – but as my friends Messrs. * * * * * had declined to administer any more metallic prescriptions, I really feared that my catastrophe was not very distant.”

And, indeed, the doctors, neither jointly nor severally agreeing as to the nature of his symptoms, nor to the necessary mode of treatment, after several consultations respecting the weather and the war (as customary), gave Sir John’s case up as desperate: and having showed the palms of their hands without any favourable result, shook their heads, made each three low and lingering bows, and left the baronet to settle affairs himself with Madam Pandora as well as he could.

One of these medical gentlemen, however, – a fair, square, straightforward, skilful nosologist, – could not bring himself so easily to give up the baronet: he returned; and by dint of medicamenta, phlebotomy, blistering, leeching, cupping, smothering in vapour, &c. &c. (the pains of the patient’s mind, meanwhile, being overcome by the pains of his body) the doctor at last got him thorough the thing (as they say in Ireland). He was not, however, quite free from the danger of a relapse; and an unlucky flask extraordinary of “Epernay sec” (taken to celebrate his recovery) set Sir John’s solids and fluids again fermenting, knocked down his convalescence, which Dr. T – had so indefatigably re-established, and introduced a certain inflammatory gentleman called fever.

The clergy were now summoned, and attended with an extra quantity of oil and water to lighten and prepare the baronet’s soul for speedy transportation; some souls, they said, and I believe truly, being much easier put into dying order than others. The skill of Doctor T – , however, once more preserved his patient for further adventures, and both physician and baronet agreed that, as the priests had done his body none, and his soul no perceptible service, and as holy men were of course above all lust of lucre, there was no necessity for cashing them; so that the contemplated fees for masses should in strict justice be transferred to prescriptions. A few more plenteous bleedings were therefore substituted for extreme unction: with the aid of a sound natural constitution, Sir John once more found himself on his legs; and having but little flesh, and no fat, his shanks had not much difficulty in carrying his body moderate distances.

At the last bleeding, the incident occurred to which the foregoing is but matter of induction. The blood which the doctor had just extracted from the baronet was about twenty ounces of genuine ruby Galway gore, discharged unadulterated from the veins of a high-crested, aboriginal Irishman. It lay proudly basking and coagulating before the sun in china basins, at the chamber-window. Sir John seeming still rather weak, the physician determined to bring all his skill into a focus, discover the latent source of indisposition, and if possible at once root it out of the baronet’s constitution, thereby gaining the double advantage of increasing professional fame and the amount of his fees. Now, at precisely the same point of time, the baronet was inventing an apology for not paying the doctor.

After musing some time, as every physician in the world does, whether he is thinking of the patient or not, Doctor T – said, “Pray, let me see your tongue, Sir John.”

“My tongue!” exclaimed the baronet, “ah! you might be greatly disappointed by that organ; there’s no depending on tongues now-a-days, doctor!”

“Yet the tongue is very symptomatic, I can assure you, Sir John,” pursued the doctor gravely.

“Possibly, in your part of the world,” replied the baronet. “But I do assure you, we place very little reliance on tongues in my country.”

“You know best,” said the doctor coolly: “then, pray let me feel your pulse, Sir John,” looking steadfastly on his stop-watch, counting the seconds and the throbs of the Milesian artery. “Heyday! why, your pulse is not only irregular, but intermits!”

“I wish my remittances did not,” remarked Sir John, mournfully, and thinking he had got an excellent opportunity of apologising to the doctor.

The latter, however, had no idea of any roundabout apologies (never having been in Ireland), and resumed: “your remittances! ah, ah, Sir John! But seriously, your pulse is all astray; pray, do you feel a pain any where?”

“Why, doctor,” said Sir John, (sticking in like manner to his point,) “whenever I put my hand into my breeches-pocket, I feel a confounded twitch, which gives me very considerable uneasiness, I assure you.”

“Hah!” said the doctor, conceiving he had now discovered some new symptom about the femoral artery – “are you sure there’s nothing in your pocket that hurts you, Sir John? – Perhaps some – ”

“O no, doctor,” said the baronet rather impatiently; “there’s nothing at all in my pocket, Doctor T – .”

“Then the twitch may be rather serious,” and the doctor looked knowing, although he was still at fault concerning the éclaircissement. “It is a singular symptom. Do you feel your head at all heavy, Sir John – a sensation of weight?”

“Not at all,” replied the other: – “my head is (except my purse) the lightest thing I possess at present.”

The disciple of Galen still supposed Sir John was jesting as to his purse, inasmuch as the plum-coloured vis-a-vis, with arms, crests, and mantlings to match – with groom, geldings, and the baronet’s white Arabian, still remained at the Hotel de Wagram, Rue de la Paix.

“Ha! ha! Sir John,” cried he, “I am glad to see you in such spirits.”

Nothing, however, either as to the malady or the fees being fully explained, it at length flashed across the doctor’s comprehension that the baronet might possibly be in downright earnest as to his remittances. Such a thought must, under the circumstances, have a most disheartening effect on the contour of any medical man in Europe. On the first blush of this fatal suspicion the doctor’s features began to droop – his eyebrows descended, and a sort of in utrumque paratus look, that many of my readers must have borne when expecting a money letter, but not quite sure it may not be an apology, overspread his countenance, while his nasal muscles puckering up (as in the tic douloureux), seemed to quaver between a smile and a sardonic grin.

Sir John could scarcely contain himself at the doctor’s ludicrous embarrassment. “By Jove,” said he, “I am serious!”

“Serious! as to what, Sir John?” stammered the physician, getting out of conceit both with his patient and himself.

“The fact,” said Sir John, “is this: your long and indefatigable attention merits all my confidence, and you shall have it.”

“Confidence!” exclaimed the doctor, bowing, “you do me honour; but – ”

“Yes, doctor, I now tell you (confidentially) that certain papers and matters called in Ireland custodiums,¹⁰ have bothered both me and my brother Joseph, notwithstanding all his exertions for me as agent, receiver, remitter, attorney, banker, auditor, and arranger-general; which said custodiums have given up all my lands, in spite of Joe, to the king, as trustee for a set of horse-jockies, Jews, mortgagees, gamblers, solicitors, and annuity-boys – who have been tearing me to pieces for twenty years past without my having the slightest suspicion of their misdemeanors; and now, doctor, they have finally, by divers law fictions, got his majesty to patronise them.”

“But, sir! sir!” interrupted the doctor.

“I assure you, however,” continued Sir John, placidly, “that my brother Joe (whose Christian name – between you and me, doctor – ought to have been Ulick, after Ulick the Milesian, if my mother had done him common justice at his christening) is a long-headed fellow, and will promptly bring those infernal custodium impostors into proper order.”

“But, sir, sir!” repeated the doctor.

“One fellow,” pursued the baronet, “hearing that Joe intended to call him out for laying on his papers, has stopped all law proceedings already, and made a proper apology. The very name of Burke of Glinsk, doctor, is as sounding as Waterloo, in the county of Galway.”

“Pardon me, Sir John,” said Doctor T – , “but what can all this have to do with – ”

“Never mind,” again interrupted the baronet, catching hold of one of the doctor’s coat-buttons,¹¹ “never mind; I give you my word, Joe is a steady, good, clever fellow, and looks two ways at every thing before he does it – I don’t allude to the cast in his eye: a horse with a wall-eye, you know, doctor, is the very lad for hard work! – ha! ha! ha!”

The doctor could stand this no longer, and said, “I know nothing about wall-eyed horses, Sir John.” – Indeed, being now hopeless, he made the second of the three bows he had determined to depart with; but he found his button still in custody between Sir John’s fingers, and was necessitated to suspend his exit, or leave it behind him.

“A plan has occurred to me, doctor,” said the baronet, thoughtfully, “which may not only liquidate my just and honourable debt to you for attendance and operations, but must, if you are as skilful as I think you are, eventually realise you a pretty fortune.”

This in a moment changed the countenance of the doctor, as a smouldering fire, when it gets a blast of the bellows, instantly blazes up and begins to generate its hydrogen. “And pray, sir,” asked the impatient physician, “what plan may this be? what new bank are you thinking of?”

“’Tis no bank,” said Sir John; “its a much better thing than any bank, for the more you draw, the richer you’ll be.”

The doctor’s eyelids opened wide; his eyebrows became elevated, and he drew his ear close to the proposer, that he might not lose a single word of so precious an exposé.

“You know,” said Sir John, “though you are a Sarnion (Guernsey-man) by birth, you must know, as all the world knows, that the name of the Burkes or O’Bourkes (Irlandois), and their castle of Glinsk, have been established and celebrated in Ireland some dozen centuries.”

“I have heard the name, sir,” said the doctor, rather peevishly.

“Be assured ’tis the very first cognomen in Ireland,” said Sir John.

“Possibly,” said the doctor.

“Nay, positively,” rejoined the baronet: “far more ancient than the O’Neils, O’Briens, O’Flahertys, who indeed are comparatively moderns. We were native princes and kings several centuries before even the term Anno Domini was used.”

“I will not dispute it, sir.”

“Nay, I can prove it. I had six and twenty quarters on my shield without a blot upon either – save by one marriage with a d – d Bodkin out of the twelve tribes of Galway, about a hundred and eighty years ago. We never got over that!”

“For Heaven’s sake, sir,” said Doctor T – , “do come to the point.”

“Pardon me,” said Sir John, “I am on the point itself.”

“As how?” inquired the other.

“Come here,” said Sir John, “and I will soon satisfy you on that head:” and as he spoke he led him to the window, where three china cups full of the baronet’s gore lay in regular order. “See! that’s the genuine crimson stuff for you, doctor! eighteen ounces at least of it; the richest in Europe! and as to colour – what’s carmine to it?”

The doctor was bewildered; but so passive, he stood quite motionless.

“Now,” continued Sir John, “we are bringing the matter to the point. You can guarantee this gore to be genuine Glinsk blood: it gushed beautifully after your lancet, doctor, eh! didn’t it?”

“What of that, sir?” said Doctor T – : “really, Sir John, I can stay no longer.”

“You have much ordinary professional practice,” said the baronet – “I mean exclusive of your noble patients in Rue Rivoli, &c. – visits, for instance, to the Boulevard St. Martin, St. Antoine, Place de Bastile, De Bourse, &c., which you know are principally peopled by brokers with aspiring families; rich négocians, with ambitious daughters, &c., who, if they were to give five hundred thousand francs, can’t get into one fashionable soirée for want of a touch of gentility – not even within smell of sweet little Berry’s¹² under nursery-maids. Now,” said Sir John, pausing a moment, “we’re at the point.”

“So much the better,” said the man of medicine.

“I understand that there is a member of the faculty in Paris, who undertakes the transfusion of blood with miraculous success, and has not only demonstrated its practicability, but insists that it may by improvement be rendered sufficiently operative to harmonise and amalgamate the different qualities of different species of animals. I am told he does not yet despair of seeing, by transfusion of blood, horses becoming the best mousers, cats setting partridges, and the vulgarest fellows upon earth metamorphosed into gentlemen.”

“Pshaw! pshaw!” exclaimed Doctor T – .

“Now, I perceive no reason,” resumed Sir John, “why any man should perform such an operation better than yourself: and if you advertise in the Petit Avis that you have a quantity of genuine Glinsk O’Bourke gore always at command, to transfuse into persons who wish to acquire the gentilities and the feelings of noblesse, without pain or patent, my blood, fresh from the veins, would bring you at least a Nap a spoonful: and in particular proportions, would so refine and purify the vulgar puddle of the bourgeois, that they might soon be regarded (in conjunction with their money) as high at least as the half-starved quatrième nobility, who hobble down to their sugar and water at soirées in the fauxbourg St. Germain, and go to bed in the dark to save candle-light.”

The doctor felt hurt beyond all endurance: he blushed up to his very whiskers, sealed his lips hermetically – by a sardonic smile only disclosing one of his dog-teeth, and endeavoured to depart: but the button was still fast between Sir John’s fingers, who begged of his victim not to spare his veins, saying, “that he would with pleasure stand as much phlebotomy as would make a fortune for any reasonable practitioner.”

This was decisive: the doctor could stand it no longer; so snatching up the toilet scissors, he cut the button clean off his new surtout, and vanished without waiting ceremoniously to make the third bow, as had always previously been his custom.

However, the baronet, when Joe (who should have been Ulick) afterward sent him over some of the dross, made full metallic compensation to the doctor, – and within this last month I met them walking together in great harmony.

This incident, which I had known and noted long before, was then repeated by Sir John in the doctor’s presence; and it affords the very strongest proof what a truly valuable liquid genuine Irish gore is considered by the chiefs of County Galway.

There is not a baronet in the United Kingdom who (with the very essence of good-humour) has afforded a greater opportunity for notes and anecdotes than Sir John Burke of Glinsk Castle and tilt-yard; – and no person ever will, or ever can, relate them so well as himself.

Sir John Burke is married to the sister of Mr. Ball, the present proprietor of Oatlands, commonly called the Golden Ball. I witnessed the courtship; negotiated with the brother; read over the skeleton of the marriage settlement, and was present at the departure of the baronet and his new lady for Rome, to kiss the pope’s toe. I also had the pleasure of hailing them on their return, as le Marquis and la Marquise de Bourke of the Holy Roman Empire. Sir John had the promise of a principality from the papal see when he should be prepared to pay his holiness the regulation price for it. At all events, he came back highly freighted with a papal bull, a nobleman’s patent, holy relics, mock cameos, real lava, wax tapers, Roman paving-stones, &c. &c.; and after having been overset into the Po, and making the fortune of his courier, he returned in a few months to Paris, to ascertain what fortune his wife had; – a circumstance which his anxiety to be married and kiss the pope’s toe had not given him sufficient time to investigate before. He found it very large, and calculated to bear a good deal of cutting and hacking ere it should quit his service – with no great probability of his ever coaxing it back again. Sir John’s good temper, however, settles that matter with great facility by quoting Dean Swift’s admirable eulogium upon poverty: – “Money’s the devil, and God keeps it from us,” said the dean. If this be orthodox, there will be more gentlemen’s souls saved in Ireland than in any other part of his Britannic Majesty’s dominions.

Previous to Sir John’s marriage, Miss Ball understood, or rather had formed a conception, that Glinsk Castle was placed in one of the most cultivated, beautiful, and romantic districts of romantic Ireland, in which happy island she had never been, and I dare say never will be. Burke, who seldom says any thing without laughing heartily at his own remark, was questioned by her pretty closely as to the beauty of the demesne, and the architecture of the castle. “Now, Sir John,” said she, “have you much dressed grounds upon the demesne of Glinsk?”

“Dressed, my love!” repeated Sir John, “why, my whole estate has been nearly dressed up these seven years past.”

“That’s very uncommon,” said Miss Ball; “there must have been a great expenditure on it.”

“Oh, very great,” replied the baronet, “very great.”

“The castle,” said her future ladyship, “is, I suppose, in good order?”

“It ought to be,” answered Sir John; “for (searching his pockets) I got a bill from my brother Joe of, I think, two hundred pounds, only for nails, iron cramps, and holdfasts – for a single winter.”

The queries of Miss Ball innocently proceeded, and, I think, the replies were among the pleasantest and most adroit I ever heard. The lady seemed quite delighted, and nearly expressed a wish to go down to the castle as soon as possible. “As Sir John’s rents may not come in instantly,” said she, “I have, I fancy, a few thousand pounds in the bank just now, and that may take us down and new-furnish, at least, a wing of the castle!”

This took poor Sir John dreadfully aback. Glinsk was, he told me, actually in a tumbling state. Not a gravel walk within twenty miles of it: and as to timber, “How the devil,” said he, “could I support both my trees and my establishment at the same time? – Now,” he pursued, “Barrington, my good friend, do just tell her what I told you about my aunt Margaret’s ghost, that looks out of the castle window on every anniversary of her own death and birth-day, and on other periodical occasions. She’ll be so frightened (for, thank God! she’s afraid of ghosts), that she’ll no more think of going to Glinsk than to America.”

“Tell her yourself, Sir John,” said I: – “nobody understands a romance better; and I’m sure, if this be not a meritorious, it is certainly an innocent one.”

In fine, he got his groom to tell her maid all about the ghost: the maid told the mistress, with frightful exaggerations: Sir John, when appealed to, spoke mysteriously of the matter; and the purchase of Glinsk Castle could not have induced Miss Ball to put her foot in it afterwards. She is a particularly mild and gentlewomanly lady, and, I fancy, would scarcely have survived a visit to Glinsk, even if the ghost of Madam Margaret had not prevented her making the experiment.