Kitabı oku: «Jack Hinton: The Guardsman», sayfa 17

CHAPTER XXII. A MOONLIGHT CANTER

I was not quite satisfied with the good priest for his having cut me, no matter what his reasons. I was not overmuch pleased with the tone of the whole meeting itself, and certainly I was very little satisfied with the part I had myself taken therein; for as cooler judgment succeeded to hot excitement, I perceived in what a mesh of difficulties I had involved myself, and how a momentary flush of passionate indignation had carried me away beyond the bounds of reason and sense, to undertake what but half an hour previously I should have shrunk from with shame, and the very thought of which now filled me with apprehension and dread – not indeed as to the consequences to myself, physically considered, for most willingly would I have compounded for a fractured limb, or even two, to escape the ridicule I was almost certain of incurring. This it was which I could not bear, and my amore propre recoiled from the thought of being a laughing-stock to the underbred and ill-born horde that would assemble to witness me.

When I arrived at the inn poor Joe was there awaiting me; he had been down to see the horse, which for precaution’s sake was kept at a mill a little distance from the town, and of whose heart and condition he spoke in glowing terms.

‘Och! he is a raal beauty – a little thick in fat about the crest, but they say he always trains fleshy, and his legs are as clean as a whistle. Sorra bit, but it will give Mr. Ulick as much as he can do to ride him to-morrow. I know by the way he turns his eyes round to you in the stable he’s in the devil’s temper.’

‘But it is not Mr. Burke, Joe – I am going to ride him.’

‘You are going to do it! You! Oh! by the powers! Mr. Ulick wasn’t far out when he said the master was as mad as the man. “Tell me your company,” says the old proverb; and you see there it is. What comes of it? If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas; and that’s the fruits of travelling with a fool.’

I was in no temper for badinage at the moment, and replied to the poor fellow in a somewhat harsher tone than I should have used; and as he left the room without speaking, I felt ashamed and angry with myself for thus banishing the only one that seemed to feel an interest in my fortunes.

I sat down to my dinner discontented and unhappy. But a few hours previous, and I awoke high in heart and hope; and now without any adverse stroke of fortune, without any of those casualties of fate which come on us unlooked for and unthought of, but simply by the un-guided exercise of a passionate temperament, I found myself surrounded by embarrassments and environed by difficulties, without one friend to counsel or advise me.

Yes – I could not conceal it from myself – my determination to ride the steeplechase was the mere outbreak of passion. The taunting insolence of Burke had stung me to adopt a course which I had neither previously considered, nor, if suggested by another, could ever have consented to. True, I was what could be called a good horseman. In the two seasons I had spent in Leicestershire, on a visit to a relative, I had acquitted myself with credit and character; but a light weight splendidly mounted on a trained hunter, over his accustomed country, has no parallel with the same individual upon a horse he has never crossed, over a country he has never seen. These and a hundred similar considerations came rushing on me now when it was too late. However, the thing was done, and there being no possible way of undoing it, there was but one road, the straightforward, to follow in the case. Alas! half of our philosophy in difficulties consists in shutting our eyes firmly against consequences, and, tête baissée, rushing headlong at the future. Though few may be found willing to admit that the bull in the china-shop is the model of their prudence, I freely own it was mine, and that I made up my mind to ride the horse with the unspeakable name as long as he would permit me to ride him, at everything, over everything, or through everything before me. This conclusion at length come to, I began to feel more easy in my mind. Like the felon that feels there is no chance of a reprieve, I could look my fate more steadily in the face.

I had no great appetite for my dinner, but I sat over an excellent bottle of port, sipping and sipping, each glass I swallowed lending a rose tint to the future. The second bottle had just been placed on the table before me, when O’Gradys groom came in to receive his instructions. He had heard nothing of my resolution to ride, and certainly looked aghast when I announced it to him. By this time, however, I had combated my own fears, and I was not going to permit his to terrify me. Affecting the easy nonchalance of that excellent type Mr. Ulick Burke, I thrust my hands into my coat-pockets, and standing with my back to the fire, began questioning him about the horse. Confound it! there’s no man so hard to humbug as an Irishman, but if he be a groom, I pronounce the thing impossible. The fellow saw through me in a moment; and as he sipped the glass of wine I had filled out for him, he approached me confidentially, while he said in a low tone —

‘Did you say you ‘d ride him?’

‘Yes, to be sure I did.’

‘You did! well, well! there’s no helping it, since you said it. There’s only one thing to be done’ – he looked cautiously about the room, lest any one should overhear him. ‘There’s but one thing I know of – let him throw you at the first leap. Mind me now, just leave it to himself; hell give you no trouble in life; and all you have to do is to choose the soft side. It’s not your fault after that, you know, for I needn’t tell you he won’t be caught before night.’

I could not help laughing at this new receipt for riding a steeplechase, although I confess it did not raise my courage regarding the task before me.

‘But what does he do?’ said I – ‘this infernal beast; what trick has he?’

‘It isn’t one, but a hundred that he has. First of all, it isn’t so easy to get on his back, for he is as handy with his hind foot as a fiddler; and if you are not mighty quick in mounting, he ‘ll strike you down with it. Then, when you are up, maybe he won’t move at all, but stand with his forelegs out, his head down, and his eyes turned back just like a picture, hitting his flanks between times with his long tail You may coax him, pet him, and pat him – ‘faith, you might as well be tickling a milestone; for it’s laughing at you he ‘ll be all the time. Maybe at last you ‘ll get tired, and touch him with the spur. Hurroo! begorra, you ‘ll get it then!’

‘Why – what happens then?’

‘What happens, is it? Maybe it’s your neck is broke, or your thigh, or your collar-bone at least. He ‘ll give you a straight plunge up in the air, about ten feet high, throw his head forward till he either pulls the reins out of your hands or lifts you out of the saddle, and at the same moment he’ll give you a blow with his hind-quarters in the small of the back. Och, murther!’ said he, placing both hands upon his loins, and writhing as he spoke, ‘it’ll be six weeks to-morrow since he made one of them buck-leaps with me, and I never walked straight since. But that is not all.’

‘Come, come,’ said I impatiently, ‘this is all nonsense; he only wants a man with a little pluck to bully him out of all this.’

As I said these valorous words I own that to my own heart I didn’t exactly correspond to the person I described; but as the bottle of port was now finished, I set forth with my companion to pay my first visit to this redoubted animal.

The mill where the stable lay was about a mile from the town; but the night was a fine moonlight one, with not an air of wind stirring, and the walk delightful When we reached the little stream that turned the mill, over which a plank was thrown as a bridge, we perceived that a country lad was walking a pair of saddle-horses backwards and forwards near the spot. The suspicion of some trickery, some tampering with the horse, at once crossed me; and I hinted as much to the groom.

‘No, no,’ said he, laughing, ‘make your mind easy about that. Mr. Ulick Burke knows the horse well, and he’ll leave it all to himself.’

The allusion was a pleasant one; but I said nothing, and walked on.

Having procured a lantern at the mill, the groom preceded me to the little outhouse, which acted as stable. He opened the door cautiously, and peeped in.

‘He’s lying down,’ said he to me in a whisper, and at the same moment taking the candle from the lantern, he held it up to permit my obtaining a better view. ‘Don’t be afeard,’ continued he, ‘he ‘ll not stir now, the thief of the earth! When once he’s down that way, he lies as peaceable as a lamb.’

As well as I could observe him, he was a magnificent horse – a little too heavy perhaps about the crest and forehand, but then so strong behind, such powerful muscle about the haunches, that his balance was well preserved. As I stood contemplating him in silence, I felt the breath of some one behind me. I turned suddenly around; it was Father Tom Loftus himself. There was the worthy priest, mopping his forehead with a huge pocket-handkerchief and blowing like a rhinoceros.

‘Ugh!’ said he at length, ‘I have been running up and down the roads this half-hour after you, and there’s not a puff left in me.’

‘Ah, father! I hoped to have seen you at the inn.’ ‘Whisht! I darn’t. I thought I’d do it better my own way; but, see now, we’ve no time to lose. I knew as well as yourself you never intended to ride this race. No matter; don’t say a word, but listen to me. I know the horse better than any one in these parts; and it isn’t impossible, if you can keep the saddle over the first two or three fences, that you may win. I say, if you can – for ‘faith it’s not in a “swing-swong” you’ll be! But, come now, the course was marked out this evening. Burke was over it before dinner; and, with a blessing, we will be before supper. I’ve got a couple of hacks here that’ll take us over every bit of it; and perhaps it is not too much to say you might have a worse guide.’

‘‘Faith, your reverence,’ chimed in the groom, ‘he’d find it hard to have a better.’

Thanking the kind priest for his good-natured solicitude, I followed him out upon the road, where the two horses were waiting us.

‘There, now,’ said he, ‘get up; the stirrups are about your length. He looks a little low in flesh, but you’ll not complain of him when he’s under you.’

The next moment we were both in the saddle. Taking a narrow path that led off from the highroad, we entered a large tilled field; keeping along the headlands of which, we came to a low stone wall, through a gap of which we passed, and came out upon an extensive piece, of grassland, that gently sloped away from where we were standing to a little stream at its base, an arm of that which supplied the mill.

‘Here, now,’ said the priest, ‘a little to the left yonder is the start. You come down this hill; you take the water there, and you keep along by Freney’s house, where you see the trees there. There’s only a small stone wall and a clay ditch between this and that; afterwards you turn off to the right. But, come now, are you ready? We’ll explore a bit.’

As he spoke, the good priest, putting spurs to his hackney, dashed on before me, and motioning me to follow, cantered down the slope. Taking the little mill-stream at a fly, he turned in his saddle to watch my performance.

‘Neat! mighty neat!’ cried he, encouraging me. ‘Keep your hand a little low. The next is a wall – ’

Scarcely had he spoke when we both came together at a stone-fence, about three feet high. This time I was a little in advance, as my horse was fresher, and took it first.

‘Oh, the devil a better!’ said Father Tom. ‘Burke himself couldn’t beat that! Here, now: keep this way out of the deep ground, and rush him at the double ditch there.’

Resolved on securing his good opinion, I gripped my saddle firmly with my knees, and rode at the fence. Over we went in capital style; but lighting on the top of a rotten ditch, the ground gave way, and my horse’s hind legs slipped backwards into the gripe. Being at full stretch, the poor animal had no power to recover himself, so that, disengaging his forelegs, I pulled him down into the hollow, and then with a vigorous dash of the spur and a bold lift carried him clean over it into the field.

‘Look, now!’ said the priest; ‘that pleases me better than all you did before. Presence of mind – that’s the real gift for a horseman when he’s in a scrape; but, mind me, it was your own fault, for here’s the way to take the fence.’ So saying, he made a slight semicircle in the field, and then, as he headed his horse towards the leap, rushed him at it furiously, and came over like the bound of a stag.

‘Now,’ said Father Tom, pointing with his whip as he spoke, ‘we have a beautiful bit of galloping-ground before us; and if you ever reach this far, and I don’t see why you shouldn’t, here’s where you ought to make play. Listen to me now,’ said he, dropping his voice: ‘Tom Molloy s mare isn’t thoroughbred, though they think she is. She has got a bad drop in her. Now, the horse is all right, clean bred, sire and dam, by reason he ‘ll be able to go through the dirt when the mare can’t; so that all you ‘ve to do, if, as I said before, you get this far, is to keep straight down to the two thorn-bushes – there, you see them yonder. Burke won’t be able to take that line, but must keep upon the headlands, and go all round yonder; look, now, you see the difference – so that before he can get over that wide ditch you’ll be across it, and making for the stone wall After that, by the powers, if you don’t win, I, can’t help you!’

‘Where does the course turn after, father?’ said I.

‘Oh! a beautiful line of flat country, intersprinkled with walls, ditches, and maybe a hedge or two; but all fair, and only one rasping fence – the last of all. After that, you have a clean gallop of about a quarter of a mile, over as nice a sod as ever you cantered.’

‘And that last fence, what is it like?’

‘‘Faith, it is a rasper! It’s a wide gully, where there was a boreen once, and they say it is every inch of sixteen feet – that’ll make it close upon twenty when you clear the clay on both sides. The grey horse, I’m told, has a way of jumping in and jumping out of these narrow roads; but take my advice, and go it in a fly. And now, Captain, what between the running, and the riding, and the talking altogether, I am as dry as a limekiln; so what do you say if we turn back to town, and have a bit of supper together? There’s a kind of a cousin of mine, one Bob Mahon, a Major in the Roscommon, and he has got a grouse-pie, and something hot to dilute it with, waiting for us.’

‘Nothing will give me more pleasure, father; and there’s only one thing more – indeed I had nearly forgotten it altogether – ‘’

‘What’s that?’ said the priest, with surprise.

‘Not having any intention to ride, I left town without any racing equipment; breeches and boots I have, but as to a cap and a jacket – ’

‘I ‘ve provided for both,’ said Father Tom. ‘You saw the little man with a white head that sat at the head of the table – Tom Dillon of Mount Brown; you know him?’

‘I am not acquainted with him.’

‘Well, he knows you; that’s all the same. His son, that’s just gone to Gibraltar with his regiment, was about your size, and he had a new cap and jacket made for this very race, and of course they are lying there and doing nothing. So I sent over a little gossoon with a note, and I don’t doubt but they are all at the inn this moment.’

‘By Jove, father!’ said I, ‘you are a real friend, and a most thoughtful one, too.’

‘Maybe I’ll do better than that for you,’ said he, with a sly wink of his eye, that somehow suggested to my mind that he knew more of and took a deeper interest in me than I had reason to believe.

CHAPTER XXIII. MAJOR MAHON AND HIS QUARTERS

The Major’s quarters were fixed in one of the best houses in the town, in the comfortable back-parlour of which was now displayed a little table laid for three persons. A devilled lobster, the grouse-pie already mentioned, some fried ham, and crisped potatoes were the viands; but each was admirable in its kind, and with the assistance of an excellent bowl of hot punch and the friendly welcome of the host, left nothing to be desired.

Major Bob Mahon was a short, thickset little man, with round blue eyes, a turned-up nose, and a full under lip, which he had a habit of protruding with an air of no mean pretension; a short crop of curly black hair covered a head as round as a billiard-ball. These traits, with a certain peculiar smack of his mouth, by which he occasionally testified the approval of his own eloquence, were the most remarkable things about him. His great ambition was to be thought a military man; but somehow his pretensions in this respect smacked much more of the militia than the line. Indeed, he possessed a kind of adroit way of asserting the superiority of the former to the latter, averring that they who fought pro arts et focis– the Major was fond of Latin – stood on far higher ground than the travelled mercenaries who only warred for pay. This peculiarity, and an absurd attachment to practical jokes, the result of which had frequently through life involved him in lawsuits, damages, compensations, and even duels, formed the great staple of his character – of all which the good priest informed me most fully on our way to the house.

‘Captain Hinton, I believe,’ said the Major, as he held out his hand in welcome.

‘Mr. Hinton,’ said I, bowing.

‘Ay, yes; Father Tom, there, doesn’t know much about these matters. What regiment, pray?’

‘The Grenadier Guards.’

‘Oh, a very good corps – mighty respectable corps; not that, between ourselves, I think overmuch of the regulars; between you and me, I never knew foreign travel do good to man or beast. What do they bring back with them, I’d like to know? – French cookery and Italian licentiousness. No, no; give me the native troops! You were a boy at the time, but maybe you have heard how they behaved in the west, when Hoche landed. Egad! if it wasn’t for the militia the country was sacked. I commanded a company of the Roscommon at the time. I remember well we laid siege to a windmill, held by a desperate fellow, the miller – a resolute character, Mr. Hinton; he had two guns in the place with him.’

‘I wish to the Lord he had shot you with one of them, and we ‘d have been spared this long story!’ said the priest.

‘I opened a parallel – ’

‘Maybe you ‘d open the pie?’ said the priest, as he drew his chair, and sat down to the table. ‘Perhaps you forget, Bob, we have had a sharp ride of it this evening?’

‘Upon my conscience, so I did,’ replied the Major good-humouredly. ‘So let us have a bit of supper now, Mr. Hinton, and I’ll finish my story by-and-by.’

‘The Heavens forbid!’ piously ejaculated the priest, as he helped himself to a very considerable portion of the lobster.

‘Is this a fast, Father Loftus?’ said I slyly.

‘No, my son, but we’ll make it one. That reminds me of what happened to me going up in the boat. It was a Friday, and the dinner, as you may suppose, was not over-good; but there was a beautiful cut of fried salmon just before me – about a pound and a half, maybe two pounds; this I slipped quietly on my plate, observing to the company, in this way, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a fast day with me” – when a big fellow, with red whiskers, stooped across the table, cut my bit of fish in two halves, calling out as he carried off one, “Bad scran to ye! d’ye think nobody has a soul to be saved but yourself?”’

‘Ah, they’re a pious people, are the Irish!’ said the Major solemnly, ‘and you’ll remark that when you see more of them. And now, Captain, how do you like us here?’

‘Exceedingly,’ said I, with warmth. ‘I have had every reason to be greatly pleased with Ireland.’

‘That’s right! and I’m glad of it! though, to be sure, you have not seen us in our holiday garb. Ah, if you were here before the Union; if you saw Dublin as I remember it – and Tom there remembers it – “that was a pleasant place.” It was not trusting to balls and parties, to dinners and routs, but to all kinds of fun and devilment besides. All the members of Parliament used to be skylarking about the city, playing tricks on one another, and humbugging the Castle people. And, to be sure, the Castle was not the grave, stupid place it is now – they were convivial, jovial fellows – ’

‘Come, come, Major,’ interrupted I; ‘you are really unjust – the present court is not the heavy – ’

‘Sure, I know what it is well enough. Hasn’t the duke all the privy council and the bishops as often to dinner as the garrison and the bar? Isn’t he obliged to go to his own apartment when they want to make a night of it, and sing a good chorus? Don’t tell me! Sure, even as late as Lord Westmorland’s time it was another thing – pleasant and happy times they were, and the country will never be the same till we have them back again!’

Being somewhat curious to ascertain in what particular our degeneracy consisted – for in my ignorance of better, I had hitherto supposed the present regime about as gay a thing as need be – I gradually led the Major on to talk of those happier days when Ireland kept all its fun for home consumption, and never exported even its surplus produce.

‘It was better in every respect,’ responded the Major. ‘Hadn’t we all the patronage amongst us? There’s Jonah, there – Harrington, I mean; well, he and I could make anything, from a tide-waiter to a master in Chancery. It’s little trouble small debts gave us then; a pipe of sherry never cost me more than a storekeeper in the ordnance, and I kept my horses at livery for three years with a washwoman to Kilmainham Hospital And as for fun – look at the Castle now! Don’t I remember the times when we used to rob the coaches coming from the drawing-rooms; and pretty girls they were inside of them.’

‘For shame, for shame!’ cried Father Tom, with a sly look in the corner of his eye that by no means bespoke a suitable degree of horror at such unwarrantable proceedings.

‘Well, if it was a shame it was no sin,’ responded the Major; ‘for we never took anything more costly than kisses. Ah, dear me! them was the times! And, to be sure, every now and then we got a pull-up from the Lady lieutenant, and were obliged to behave ourselves for a week or two together. One thing she never could endure was a habit we had of leaving the Castle before they themselves left the ball-room. I’m not going to defend it – it was not very polite, I confess; but somehow or other there was always something going on we couldn’t afford to lose – maybe a supper at the barrack, or a snug party at Daly’s, or a bit of fun elsewhere. Her Excellency, however, got angry about it, and we got a quiet hint to reform our manners. This, I need not tell you, was a hopeless course; so we hit on an expedient that answered to the full as well. It was by our names being called out, as the carriages drove up, that our delinquency became known. So Matt Fortescue suggested that we should adopt some feigned nomenclature, which would totally defy every attempt at discovery; the idea was excellent, and we traded on it for many a day with complete success. One night, however, from some cause or other, the carriages were late in arriving, and we were all obliged to accompany the court into the supper-room. Angry enough we were; but still there was no help for it; and so, “smiling through tears,” as the poet says, in we went. Scarcely, however, had we taken our places when a servant called out something from the head of the stairs; another re-echoed it at the ante-chamber, and a third at the supper-room shouted out, “Oliver Cromwell’s carriage stops the way!” The roar of laughter the announcement caused shook the very room; but it had scarcely subsided when there was another call for “Brian Boru’s coach,” quickly followed by “Guy Fawkes” and “Paddy O’Rafferty’s jingle,” which latter personage was no other than the Dean of Cork. I need not tell you that we kept our secret, and joined in the universal opinion of the whole room, “that the household was shamefully disguised in drink”; and indeed there was no end to the mistakes that night, for every now and then some character in heathen or modern history would turn up among the announcements; and as the laughter burst forth, the servants would grow ashamed for a while, and refuse to call any carriage where the style and title was a little out of the common. Ah, Mr. Hinton, if you had lived in those days! Well, well, no matter – here’s a glass to their memory, anyway. It is the first time you ‘ve been in these parts, and I suppose you haven’t seen much of the country?’

‘Very little indeed,’ replied I; ‘and even that much only by moonlight.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Father Tom, half pensively, ‘that many of your countrymen take little else than a “dark view” of us.’

‘See now,’ said the Major, slapping his hand on the table with energy, ‘the English know as much about Pat as Pat knows of purgatory – no offence to you, Mr. Hinton. I could tell you a story of a circumstance that once happened to myself.’

No, no, Bob,’ said the priest; ‘it is bad taste to tell a story en petit comité. I’ll leave it to the Captain.’

‘If I am to be the judge,’ said I laughingly, ‘I decide for the story.’

‘Let’s have it, then,’ said the priest. ‘Come, Bob, a fresh brew, and begin your tale.’

‘You are a sensual creature, Father Tom,’ said the Major, ‘and prefer drink to intellectual discussion; not but that you may have both here at the same time. But in honour of my friend beside me, I’ll not bear malice, but give you the story; and let me tell you, it is not every day in the week a man hears a tale with a moral to it, particularly down in this part of the country.’