Kitabı oku: «Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XIV

DUBLIN

No sooner had I arrived in Dublin than my first care was to present myself to Dr. Mooney, by whom I was received in the most cordial manner. In fact, in my utter ignorance of such persons, I had imagined a college fellow to be a character necessarily severe and unbending; and as the only two very great people I had ever seen in my life were the Archbishop of Tuam and the chief-baron when on circuit, I pictured to myself that a university fellow was, in all probability, a cross between the two, and feared him accordingly.

The doctor read over my uncle’s letter attentively, invited me to partake of his breakfast, and then entered upon something like an account of the life before me; for which Sir Harry Boyle had, however, in some degree prepared me.

“Your uncle, I find, wishes you to live in college, – perhaps it is better, too, – so that I must look out for chambers for you. Let me see: it will be rather difficult, just now, to find them.” Here he fell for some moments into a musing fit, and merely muttered a few broken sentences, as: “To be sure, if other chambers could be had – but then – and after all, perhaps, as he is young – besides, Frank will certainly be expelled before long, and then he will have them all to himself. I say, O’Malley, I believe I must quarter you for the present with a rather wild companion; but as your uncle says you’re a prudent fellow,” – here he smiled very much, as if my uncle had not said any such thing, – “why, you must only take the better care of yourself until we can make some better arrangement. My pupil, Frank Webber, is at this moment in want of a ‘chum,’ as the phrase is, – his last three having only been domesticated with him for as many weeks; so that until we find you a more quiet resting-place, you may take up your abode with him.”

During breakfast, the doctor proceeded to inform me that my destined companion was a young man of excellent family and good fortune who, with very considerable talents and acquirements, preferred a life of rackety and careless dissipation to prospects of great success in public life, which his connection and family might have secured for him. That he had been originally entered at Oxford, which he was obliged to leave; then tried Cambridge, from which he escaped expulsion by being rusticated, – that is, having incurred a sentence of temporary banishment; and lastly, was endeavoring, with what he himself believed to be a total reformation, to stumble on to a degree in the “silent sister.”

“This is his third year,” said the doctor, “and he is only a freshman, having lost every examination, with abilities enough to sweep the university of its prizes. But come over now, and I’ll present you to him.”

I followed him down-stairs, across the court to an angle of the old square where, up the first floor left, to use the college direction, stood the name of Mr. Webber, a large No. 2 being conspicuously painted in the middle of the door and not over it, as is usually the custom. As we reached the spot, the observations of my companion were lost to me in the tremendous noise and uproar that resounded from within. It seemed as if a number of people were fighting pretty much as a banditti in a melodrama do, with considerable more of confusion than requisite; a fiddle and a French horn also lent their assistance to shouts and cries which, to say the best, were not exactly the aids to study I expected in such a place.

Three times was the bell pulled with a vigor that threatened its downfall, when at last, as the jingle of it rose above all other noises, suddenly all became hushed and still; a momentary pause succeeded, and the door was opened by a very respectable looking servant who, recognizing the doctor, at once introduced us into the apartment where Mr. Webber was sitting.

In a large and very handsomely furnished room, where Brussels carpeting and softly cushioned sofas contrasted strangely with the meagre and comfortless chambers of the doctor, sat a young man at a small breakfast-table beside the fire. He was attired in a silk dressing-gown and black velvet slippers, and supported his forehead upon a hand of most lady-like whiteness, whose fingers were absolutely covered with rings of great beauty and price. His long silky brown hair fell in rich profusion upon the back of his neck and over his arm, and the whole air and attitude was one which a painter might have copied. So intent was he upon the volume before him that he never raised his head at our approach, but continued to read aloud, totally unaware of our presence.

“Dr. Mooney, sir,” said the servant.

“Ton dapamey bominos, prosephe, crione Agamemnon” repeated the student, in an ecstasy, and not paying the slightest attention to the announcement.

“Dr. Mooney, sir,” repeated the servant, in a louder tone, while the doctor looked around on every side for an explanation of the late uproar, with a face of the most puzzled astonishment.

“Be dakiown para thina dolekoskion enkos” said Mr. Webber, finishing a cup of coffee at a draught.

“Well, Webber, hard at work I see,” said the doctor.

“Ah, Doctor, I beg pardon! Have you been long here?” said the most soft and insinuating voice, while the speaker passed his taper fingers across his brow, as if to dissipate the traces of deep thought and study.

While the doctor presented me to my future companion, I could perceive, in the restless and searching look he threw around, that the fracas he had so lately heard was still an unexplained and vexata questio in his mind.

“May I offer you a cup of coffee, Mr. O’Malley?” said the youth, with an air of almost timid bashfulness. “The doctor, I know, breakfasts at a very early hour.”

“I say, Webber,” said the doctor, who could no longer restrain his curiosity, “what an awful row I heard here as I came up to the door. I thought Bedlam was broke loose. What could it have been?”

“Ah, you heard it too, sir,” said Mr. Webber, smiling most benignly.

“Hear it? To be sure I did. O’Malley and I could not hear ourselves talking with the uproar.”

“Yes, indeed, it is very provoking; but then, what’s to be done? One can’t complain, under the circumstances.”

“Why, what do you mean?” said Mooney, anxiously.

“Nothing, sir; nothing. I’d much rather you’d not ask me; for after all, I’ll change my chambers.”

“But why? Explain this at once. I insist upon it.”

“Can I depend upon the discretion of your young friend?” said Mr. Webber, gravely.

“Perfectly,” said the doctor, now wound up to the greatest anxiety to learn a secret.

“And you’ll promise not to mention the thing except among your friends?”

“I do,” said the doctor.

“Well, then,” said he, in a low and confident whisper, “it’s the dean.”

“The dean!” said Mooney, with a start. “The dean! Why, how can it be the dean?”

“Too true,” said Mr. Webber, making a sign of drinking, – “too true, Doctor. And then, the moment he is so, he begins smashing the furniture. Never was anything heard like it. As for me, as I am now become a reading man, I must go elsewhere.”

Now, it so chanced that the worthy dean, who albeit a man of most abstemious habits, possessed a nose which, in color and development, was a most unfortunate witness to call to character, and as Mooney heard Webber narrate circumstantially the frightful excesses of the great functionary, I saw that something like conviction was stealing over him.

“You’ll, of course, never speak of this except to your most intimate friends,” said Webber.

“Of course not,” said the doctor, as he shook his hand warmly, and prepared to leave the room. “O’Malley, I leave you here,” said he; “Webber and you can talk over your arrangements.”

Webber followed the doctor to the door, whispered something in his ear, to which the other replied, “Very well, I will write; but if your father sends the money, I must insist – ” The rest was lost in protestations and professions of the most fervent kind, amidst which the door was shut, and Mr. Webber returned to the room.

Short as was the interspace from the door without to the room within, it was still ample enough to effect a very thorough and remarkable change in the whole external appearance of Mr. Frank Webber; for scarcely had the oaken panel shut out the doctor, when he appeared no longer the shy, timid, and silvery-toned gentleman of five minutes before, but dashing boldly forward, he seized a key-bugle that lay hid beneath a sofa-cushion and blew a tremendous blast.

“Come forth, ye demons of the lower world,” said he, drawing a cloth from a large table, and discovering the figures of three young men coiled up beneath. “Come forth, and fear not, most timorous freshmen that ye are,” said he, unlocking a pantry, and liberating two others. “Gentlemen, let me introduce to your acquaintance Mr. O’Malley. My chum, gentlemen. Mr. O’Malley, that is Harry Nesbitt, who has been in college since the days of old Perpendicular, and numbers more cautions than any man who ever had his name on the books. Here is my particular friend, Cecil Cavendish, the only man who could ever devil kidneys. Captain Power, Mr. O’Malley, a dashing dragoon, as you see; aide-de-camp to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and love-maker-general to Merrion Square West. These,” said he, pointing to the late denizens of the pantry, “are jibs whose names are neither known to the proctor nor the police-office; but with due regard to their education and morals, we don’t despair.”

“By no means,” said Power; “but come, let us resume our game.” At these words he took a folio atlas of maps from a small table, and displayed beneath a pack of cards, dealt as if for whist. The two gentlemen to whom I was introduced by name returned to their places; the unknown two put on their boxing gloves, and all resumed the hilarity which Dr. Mooney’s advent had so suddenly interrupted.

“Where’s Moore?” said Webber, as he once more seated himself at his breakfast.

“Making a spatch-cock, sir,” said the servant.

At the same instant, a little, dapper, jovial-looking personage appeared with the dish in question.

“Mr. O’Malley, Mr. Moore, the gentleman who, by repeated remonstrances to the board, has succeeded in getting eatable food for the inhabitants of this penitentiary, and has the honored reputation of reforming the commons of college.”

“Anything to Godfrey O’Malley, may I ask, sir?” said Moore.

“His nephew,” I replied.

“Which of you winged the gentleman the other day for not passing the decanter, or something of that sort?”

“If you mean the affair with Mr. Bodkin, it was I.”

“Glorious, that; begad, I thought you were one of us. I say, Power, it was he pinked Bodkin.”

“Ah, indeed,” said Power, not turning his head from his game, “a pretty shot, I heard, – two by honors, – and hit him fairly, – the odd trick. Hammersley mentioned the thing to me.”

“Oh, is he in town?” said I.

“No; he sailed for Portsmouth yesterday. He is to join the llth – game. I say, Webber, you’ve lost the rubber.”

“Double or quit, and a dinner at Dunleary,” said Webber. “We must show O’Malley, – confound the Mister! – something of the place.”

“Agreed.”

The whist was resumed; the boxers, now refreshed by a leg of the spatch-cock, returned to their gloves; Mr. Moore took up his violin; Mr. Webber his French horn; and I was left the only unemployed man in the company.

“I say, Power, you’d better bring the drag over here for us; we can all go down together.”

“I must inform you,” said Cavendish, “that, thanks to your philanthropic efforts of last night, the passage from Grafton Street to Stephen’s Green is impracticable.” A tremendous roar of laughter followed this announcement; and though at the time the cause was unknown to me, I may as well mention it here, as I subsequently learned it from my companions.

Among the many peculiar tastes which distinguished Mr. Francis Webber was an extraordinary fancy for street-begging. He had, over and over, won large sums upon his success in that difficult walk; and so perfect were his disguises, – both of dress, voice, and manner, – that he actually at one time succeeded in obtaining charity from his very opponent in the wager. He wrote ballads with the greatest facility, and sang them with infinite pathos and humor; and the old woman at the corner of College Green was certain of an audience when the severity of the night would leave all other minstrelsy deserted. As these feats of jonglerie usually terminated in a row, it was a most amusing part of the transaction to see the singer’s part taken by the mob against the college men, who, growing impatient to carry him off to supper somewhere, would invariably be obliged to have a fight for the booty.

Now it chanced that a few evenings before, Mr. Webber was returning with a pocket well lined with copper from a musical reunion he had held at the corner of York Street, when the idea struck him to stop at the end of Grafton Street, where a huge stone grating at that time exhibited – perhaps it exhibits still – the descent to one of the great main sewers of the city.

The light was shining brightly from a pastrycook’s shop, and showed the large bars of stone between which the muddy water was rushing rapidly down and plashing in the torrent that ran boisterously several feet beneath.

To stop in the street of any crowded city is, under any circumstances, an invitation to others to do likewise which is rarely unaccepted; but when in addition to this you stand fixedly in one spot and regard with stern intensity any object near you, the chances are ten to one that you have several companions in your curiosity before a minute expires.

Now, Webber, who had at first stood still without any peculiar thought in view, no sooner perceived that he was joined by others than the idea of making something out of it immediately occurred to him.

“What is it, agra?” inquired an old woman, very much in his own style of dress, pulling at the hood of his cloak. “And can’t you see for yourself, darling?” replied he, sharply, as he knelt down and looked most intensely at the sewer.

“Are ye long there, avick?” inquired he of an imaginary individual below, and then waiting as if for a reply, said,

“Two hours! Blessed Virgin, he’s two hours in the drain!”

By this time the crowd had reached entirely across the street, and the crushing and squeezing to get near the important spot was awful.

“Where did he come from?” “Who is he?” “How did he get there?” were questions on every side; and various surmises were afloat till Webber, rising from his knees, said, in a mysterious whisper, to those nearest him, “He’s made his escape to-night out o’ Newgate by the big drain, and lost his way; he was looking for the Liffey, and took the wrong turn.”

To an Irish mob what appeal could equal this? A culprit at any time has his claim upon their sympathy; but let him be caught in the very act of cheating the authorities and evading the law, and his popularity knows no bounds. Webber knew this well, and as the mob thickened around him sustained an imaginary conversation that Savage Landor might have envied, imparting now and then such hints concerning the runaway as raised their interest to the highest pitch, and fifty different versions were related on all sides, – of the crime he was guilty of, the sentence that was passed on him, and the day he was to suffer.

“Do you see the light, dear?” said Webber, as some ingeniously benevolent individual had lowered down a candle with a string, – “do ye see the light? Oh, he’s fainted, the creature!” A cry of horror burst forth from the crowd at these words, followed by a universal shout of, “Break open the street.”

Pickaxes, shovels, spades, and crowbars seemed absolutely the walking accompaniments of the crowd, so suddenly did they appear upon the field of action; and the work of exhumation was begun with a vigor that speedily covered nearly half of the street with mud and paving-stones. Parties relieved each other at the task, and ere half an hour a hole capable of containing a mail-coach was yawning in one of the most frequented thoroughfares of Dublin. Meanwhile, as no appearance of the culprit could be had, dreadful conjectures as to his fate began to gain ground. By this time the authorities had received intimation of what was going forward, and attempted to disperse the crowd; but Webber, who still continued to conduct the prosecution, called on them to resist the police and save the poor creature. And now began a most terrific fray: the stones, forming a ready weapon, were hurled at the unprepared constables, who on their side fought manfully, but against superior numbers; so that at last it was only by the aid of a military force the mob could be dispersed, and a riot which had assumed a very serious character got under. Meanwhile Webber had reached his chambers, changed his costume, and was relating over a supper-table the narrative of his philanthropy to a very admiring circle of his friends.

Such was my chum, Frank Webber; and as this was the first anecdote I had heard of him, I relate it here that my readers may be in possession of the grounds upon which my opinion of that celebrated character was founded, while yet our acquaintance was in its infancy.

CHAPTER XV

CAPTAIN POWER

Within a few weeks after my arrival in town I had become a matriculated student of the university, and the possessor of chambers within its walls in conjunction with the sage and prudent gentleman I have introduced to my readers in the last chapter. Had my intentions on entering college been of the most studious and regular kind, the companion into whose society I was then immediately thrown would have quickly dissipated them. He voted morning chapels a bore, Greek lectures a humbug, examinations a farce, and pronounced the statute-book, with its attendant train of fines and punishment, an “unclean thing.” With all my country habits and predilections fresh upon me, that I was an easily-won disciple to his code need not be wondered at; and indeed ere many days had passed over, my thorough indifference to all college rules and regulations had given me a high place in the esteem of Webber and his friends. As for myself, I was most agreeably surprised to find that what I had looked forward to as a very melancholy banishment, was likely to prove a most agreeable sojourn. Under Webber’s directions there was no hour of the day that hung heavily upon our hands. We rose about eleven and breakfasted, after which succeeded fencing, sparring, billiards, or tennis in the park; about three, got on horseback, and either cantered in the Phoenix or about the squares till visiting time; after which, made our calls, and then dressed for dinner, which we never thought of taking at commons, but had it from Morrison’s, – we both being reported sick in the dean’s list, and thereby exempt from the routine fare of the fellows’ table. In the evening our occupations became still more pressing; there were balls, suppers, whist parties, rows at the theatre, shindies in the street, devilled drumsticks at Hayes’s, select oyster parties at the Carlingford, – in fact, every known method of remaining up all night, and appearing both pale and penitent the following morning.

Webber had a large acquaintance in Dublin, and soon made me known to them all. Among others, the officers of the – th Light Dragoons, in which regiment Power was captain, were his particular friends; and we had frequent invitations to dine at their mess. There it was first that military life presented itself to me in its most attractive possible form, and heightened the passion I had already so strongly conceived for the army. Power, above all others, took my fancy. He was a gay, dashing-looking, handsome fellow of about eight-and-twenty, who had already seen some service, having joined while his regiment was in Portugal; was in heart and soul a soldier; and had that species of pride and enthusiasm in all that regarded a military career that forms no small part of the charm in the character of a young officer.

I sat near him the second day we dined at the mess, and was much pleased at many slight attentions in his manner towards me.

“I called on you to-day, Mr. O’Malley,” said he, “in company with a friend who is most anxious to see you.”

“Indeed,” said I, “I did not hear of it.”

“We left no cards, either of us, as we were determined to make you out on another day; my companion has most urgent reasons for seeing you. I see you are puzzled,” said he; “and although I promised to keep his secret, I must blab. It was Sir George Dashwood was with me; he told us of your most romantic adventure in the west, – and faith there is no doubt you saved the lady’s life.”

“Was she worth the trouble of it?” said the old major, whose conjugal experiences imparted a very crusty tone to the question.

“I think,” said I, “I need only tell her name to convince you of it.”

“Here’s a bumper to her,” said Power, filling his glass; “and every true man will follow my example.”

When the hip-hipping which followed the toast was over, I found myself enjoying no small share of the attention of the party as the deliverer of Lucy Dashwood.

“Sir George is cudgelling his brain to show his gratitude to you,” said Power.

“What a pity, for the sake of his peace of mind, that you’re not in the army,” said another; “it’s so easy to show a man a delicate regard by a quick promotion.”

“A devil of a pity for his own sake, too,” said Power, again; “they’re going to make a lawyer of as strapping a fellow as ever carried a sabretasche.”

“A lawyer!” cried out half a dozen together, pretty much with the same tone and emphasis as though he had said a twopenny postman; “the devil they are.”

“Cut the service at once; you’ll get no promotion in it,” said the colonel; “a fellow with a black eye like you would look much better at the head of a squadron than of a string of witnesses. Trust me, you’d shine more in conducting a picket than a prosecution.”

“But if I can’t?” said I.

“Then take my plan,” said Power, “and make it cut you.”

“Yours?” said two or three in a breath, – “yours?”

“Ay, mine; did you never know that I was bred to the bar? Come, come, if it was only for O’Malley’s use and benefit, as we say in the parchments, I must tell you the story.”

The claret was pushed briskly round, chairs drawn up to fill any vacant spaces, and Power began his story.

“As I am not over long-winded, don’t be scared at my beginning my history somewhat far back. I began life that most unlucky of all earthly contrivances for supplying casualties in case anything may befall the heir of the house, – a species of domestic jury-mast, only lugged out in a gale of wind, – a younger son. My brother Tom, a thick-skulled, pudding-headed dog, that had no taste for anything save his dinner, took it into his wise head one morning that he would go into the army, and although I had been originally destined for a soldier, no sooner was his choice made than all regard for my taste and inclination was forgotten; and as the family interest was only enough for one, it was decided that I should be put in what is called a ‘learned profession,’ and let push my fortune. ‘Take your choice, Dick,’ said my father, with a most benign smile, – ‘take your choice, boy: will you be a lawyer, a parson, or a doctor?’

“Had he said, ‘Will you be put in the stocks, the pillory, or publicly whipped?’ I could not have looked more blank than at the question.

“As a decent Protestant, he should have grudged me to the Church; as a philanthropist, he might have scrupled at making me a physician; but as he had lost deeply by law-suits, there looked something very like a lurking malice in sending me to the bar. Now, so far, I concurred with him; for having no gift for enduring either sermons or senna, I thought I’d make a bad administrator of either, and as I was ever regarded in the family as rather of a shrewd and quick turn, with a very natural taste for roguery, I began to believe he was right, and that Nature intended me for the circuit.

“From the hour my vocation was pronounced, it had been happy for the family that they could have got rid of me. A certain ambition to rise in my profession laid hold on me, and I meditated all day and night how I was to get on. Every trick, every subtle invention to cheat the enemy that I could read of, I treasured up carefully, being fully impressed with the notion that roguery meant law, and equity was only another name for odd and even.

“My days were spent haranguing special juries of housemaids and laundresses, cross-examining the cook, charging the under-butler, and passing sentence of death upon the pantry boy, who, I may add, was invariably hanged when the court rose.

“If the mutton were overdone, or the turkey burned, I drew up an indictment against old Margaret, and against the kitchen-maid as accomplice, and the family hungered while I harangued; and, in fact, into such disrepute did I bring the legal profession, by the score of annoyance of which I made it the vehicle, that my father got a kind of holy horror of law courts, judges, and crown solicitors, and absented himself from the assizes the same year, for which, being a high sheriff, he paid a penalty of five hundred pounds.

“The next day I was sent off in disgrace to Dublin to begin my career in college, and eat the usual quartos and folios of beef and mutton which qualify a man for the woolsack.

“Years rolled over, in which, after an ineffectual effort to get through college, the only examination I ever got being a jubilee for the king’s birthday, I was at length called to the Irish bar, and saluted by my friends as Counsellor Power. The whole thing was so like a joke to me that it kept me in laughter for three terms; and in fact it was the best thing could happen me, for I had nothing else to do. The hall of the Four Courts was a very pleasant lounge; plenty of agreeable fellows that never earned sixpence or were likely to do so. Then the circuits were so many country excursions, that supplied fun of one kind or other, but no profit. As for me, I was what was called a good junior. I knew how to look after the waiters, to inspect the decanting of the wine and the airing of the claret, and was always attentive to the father of the circuit, – the crossest old villain that ever was a king’s counsel. These eminent qualities, and my being able to sing a song in honor of our own bar, were recommendations enough to make me a favorite, and I was one.

“Now, the reputation I obtained was pleasant enough at first, but I began to wonder that I never got a brief. Somehow, if it rained civil bills or declarations, devil a one would fall upon my head; and it seemed as if the only object I had in life was to accompany the circuit, a kind of deputy-assistant commissary-general, never expected to come into action. To be sure, I was not alone in misfortune; there were several promising youths, who cut great figures in Trinity, in the same predicament, the only difference being, that they attributed to jealousy what I suspected was forgetfulness, for I don’t think a single attorney in Dublin knew one of us.

“Two years passed over, and then I walked the hall with a bag filled with newspapers to look like briefs, and was regularly called by two or three criers from one court to the other. It never took. Even when I used to seduce a country friend to visit the courts, and get him into an animated conversation in a corner between two pillars, devil a one would believe him to be a client, and I was fairly nonplussed.

“‘How is a man ever to distinguish himself in such a walk as this?’ was my eternal question to myself every morning, as I put on my wig. ‘My face is as well known here as Lord Manners’s.’ Every one says, ‘How are you, Dick?’ ‘How goes it, Power?’ But except Holmes, that said one morning as he passed me, ‘Eh, always busy?’ no one alludes to the possibility of my having anything to do.

“‘If I could only get a footing,’ thought I, ‘Lord, how I’d astonish them! As the song says: —

 
“Perhaps a recruit
Might chance to shoo
Great General Buonaparté.”
 

So,’ said I to myself, ‘I’ll make these halls ring for it some day or other, if the occasion ever present itself.’ But, faith, it seemed as if some cunning solicitor overheard me and told his associates, for they avoided me like a leprosy. The home circuit I had adopted for some time past, for the very palpable reason that being near town it was least costly, and it had all the advantages of any other for me in getting me nothing to do. Well, one morning we were in Philipstown; I was lying awake in bed, thinking how long it would be before I’d sum up resolution to cut the bar, where certainly my prospects were not the most cheering, when some one tapped gently at my door.

“‘Come in,’ said I.

“The waiter opened gently, and held out his hand with a large roll of paper tied round with a piece of red tape.

“‘Counsellor,’ said he, ‘handsel.’

“‘What do you mean?’ said I, jumping out of bed. ‘What is it, you villain?’

“‘A brief.’

“‘A brief. So I see; but it’s for Counsellor Kinshella, below stairs.’ That was the first name written on it.

“‘Bethershin,’ said he, ‘Mr. M’Grath bid me give it to you carefully.’

“By this time I had opened the envelope and read my own name at full length as junior counsel in the important case of Monaghan v. M’Shean, to be tried in the Record Court at Ballinasloe. ‘That will do,’ said I, flinging it on the bed with a careless air, as if it were a very every-day matter with me.

“‘But Counsellor, darlin’, give us a thrifle to dhrink your health with your first cause, and the Lord send you plenty of them!’

“‘My first,’ said I, with a smile of most ineffable compassion at his simplicity; ‘I’m worn out with them. Do you know, Peter, I was thinking seriously of leaving the bar, when you came into the room? Upon my conscience, it’s in earnest I am.’

“Peter believed me, I think, for I saw him give a very peculiar look as he pocketed his half-crown and left the room.